The English throne passed to the House of Stuart in 1603, and, after a lapse of six-and-fifty years, England had a sovereign with sons and daughters, the first since the death of Henry VIII. at the beginning of 1547.  There was little opportunity for family dissensions in the days of most of the Stuarts, as either political troubles of the most serious nature absorbed the attention of kings and princes, or the reigning monarchs had no legitimate children.  The open quarrel between Charles I. and the Parliament began before his eldest son had completed his eleventh year; and after that quarrel had increased to war, and it was evident that the sword alone could decide the issue, the King parted with his son forever.  They had no opportunity to become rivals, and to fall out.  There is so much that can be said against Charles I. with truth, that it is pleasing—­as are most novelties—­to be able to mention something to his credit.  Instead of being jealous of his son, or desiring to keep him in ignorance of affairs, he early determined to train him to business.  According to Clarendon, he said that he wished to “unboy him.”  Therefore he conferred high military offices upon him before he had completed his fifteenth year; and sent him to the West of England, to be the nominal head of the Western Association.  Charles II. had no legitimate children, and so he could not have any quarrels with a Prince of Wales.  He was fond of his numerous bastards, and, like an affectionate royal father, provided handsomely for them at the public-expense.  What more could a father do, situated as that father was, and always in want of his people’s money?  Some of them were not his sons,—­Monmouth, the best beloved of them all, being the son of Robert Sidney, a brother of the renowned Algernon, a fact that partially excuses the harsh conduct of James II. toward his nominal nephew.  James II. had no legitimate son until the last year of his reign; but his two eldest daughters treated him far worse than any sovereign of the Hanoverian line was ever used by a son.  They were most respectable women, and their deficiency in piety has worked well for the world; but it must ever be repugnant to humanity to regard the conduct of Mary and Anne with respect.  No wonder that people called Mary the modern Tullia.  Mary II. died young, and childless; and Queen Anne, though a most prolific wife, and but fifty-one at her death, survived all her children.  Anne believed that her children’s deaths were sent in punishment of her unfilial conduct; and she would have restored her nephew, the Pretender, to the British throne, but that the Jacobites were the silliest political creatures that ever triumphed in the how-not-to-do-it business, and could not even hold their mouths open for the rich and ripened fruit to drop into them.