Many people are no less fascinated by Charles II., that very different type, with his gaiety, his good-fellowship, and his easy-going ways.  It is not surprising that his people, most of whom never saw him, were very fond of him, and did not know that he was selfish, a loose liver, and almost a vassal of the king of France.

So it is not strange that the Stuarts, with all their arts and graces, were very hard to displace.  James II., with the aid of the French, fought hard before the British troops in Ireland broke the backs of both his armies and sent him into exile.  Again in 1715—­an episode perpetuated in Thackeray’s dramatic story of Henry Esmond —­came the son of James to take advantage of the vacancy caused by the death of Queen Anne.  But it is perhaps to this claimant’s son, the last of the militant Stuarts, that more chivalrous feeling has been given than to any other.

To his followers he was the Young Chevalier, the true Prince of Wales; to his enemies, the Whigs and the Hanoverians, he was “the Pretender.”  One of the most romantic chapters of history is the one which tells of that last brilliant dash which he made upon the coast of Scotland, landing with but a few attendants and rejecting the support of a French army.

“It is not with foreigners,” he said, “but with my own loyal subjects, that I wish to regain the kingdom for my father.”

It was a daring deed, and the spectacular side of it has been often commemorated, especially in Sir Walter Scott’s Waverley.  There we see the gallant prince moving through a sort of military panorama.  Most of the British troops were absent in Flanders, and the few regiments that could be mustered to meet him were appalled by the ferocity and reckless courage of the Highlanders, who leaped down like wildcats from their hills and flung themselves with dirk and sword upon the British cannon.

We see Sir John Cope retiring at Falkirk, and the astonishing victory of Prestonpans, where disciplined British troops fled in dismay through the morning mist, leaving artillery and supplies behind them.  It is Scott again who shows us the prince, master of Edinburgh for a time, while the white rose of Stuart royalty held once more the ancient keep above the Scottish capital.  Then we see the Chevalier pressing southward into England, where he hoped to raise an English army to support his own.  But his Highlanders cared nothing for England, and the English—­even the Catholic gentry—­would not rise to support his cause.

Personally, he had every gift that could win allegiance.  Handsome, high-tempered, and brave, he could also control his fiery spirit and listen to advice, however unpalatable it might be.

The time was favorable.  The British troops had been defeated on the Continent by Marshal Saxe, of whom I have already written, and by Marshal d’Estrees.  George II. was a king whom few respected.  He could scarcely speak anything but German.  He grossly ill-treated his wife.  It is said that on one occasion, in a fit of temper, he actually kicked the prime minister.  Not many felt any personal loyalty to him, and he spent most of his time away from England in his other domain of Hanover.