After the disastrous battle of Culloden, Charles Edward Stuart, or “The Young Pretender,” as he was commonly styled by his opponents, fled from the field, and after many hair-breadth escapes succeeded in reaching the Highlands, where he wandered to and fro for many weary months.  A reward of L30,000 was set upon his head, his enemies dogged his footsteps like bloodhounds, and often he was so hard pressed by the troops that he had to take refuge in caves and barns, and sometimes was compelled to avoid all shelter but that afforded him by the forests and brackens on the bleak hillsides.  But the people remained faithful to his cause, and, even when danger seemed most imminent, succeeded in baffling his pursuers, and ultimately in effecting his escape.  Accompanied by Cameron of Lochiel, and a few of his most faithful adherents, he managed to smuggle himself on board a little French privateer, and was at last landed in safety at a place called Roseau, near Morlaix, in France.  He was treated with great respect at the French court, until the King of France, by the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, disowned all rivals of the House of Hanover.  The prince protested against this treaty, and braved the French court.  He was accordingly ordered, in no very ceremonious terms, to leave the country, and betook himself to Italy, where he gave himself up to drunkenness, debauchery, and excesses of the lowest kind.  In 1772 he married the Princess Louisa Maximilian de Stolberg, by whom he had no children, and with whom he lived very unhappily.  He died from the effects of his own self-indulgence, and without male issue, in 1788.  His father, the Chevalier de St. George, had pre-deceased him in 1766, and his younger brother the Cardinal York, having been debarred from marriage, it was supposed that at the death of the cardinal the royal House of Stuart had passed away.

But, in 1847, a book appeared, entitled “Tales of the Century; or, Sketches of the Romance of History between the Years 1746 and 1846, by John Sobieski and Charles Edward Stuart,” and it immediately created a considerable stir in literary circles.  It was at once evident that the three stories which the work contained were not intended to be read as fictions, but as a contribution to the history of the period; or, in other words, the authors meant the public to understand that Prince Charles Edward Stuart left a legitimate son by his wife Louisa de Stolberg, and that they themselves were his descendants and representatives.

The first of these “Tales of the Century” is called “The Picture,” and introduces the reader to a young Highland gentleman, named Macdonnell, of Glendulochan, who is paying a first visit, in 1831, to an aged Jacobite doctor, then resident in Westminster.  This old adherent of the cause feels the near approach of death, and is oppressed by the possession of a secret which he feels must not die with him.  He had promised only to reveal it “in the service of his king;” and believing it for his service that it should live, he confides it to the young chief.  “I will reveal it to you,” he says, “that the last of the Gael may live to keep that mysterious hope—­They have yet a king.”