CHARLES Edward Louis Philip Casimir (1720–1788), commonly called the Young Pretender, eldest son of the Chevalier de St. George, or, as his adherents styled him, James III, and of the Princess Clementine, a daughter of Prince James Sobieski, was born at Rome on 31 Dec. 1720. Owing to the differences between the chevalier and his wife the education of the lad was desultory. Jesuit priests were exchanged for protestant tutors, and when these were dismissed Jacobite soldiers took up the work of instruction, until the mind of the young prince became rather hazy. Yet Charles was not deficient in ordinary acquirements, and spoke French and Italian well at an early age; he had a taste for music and the fine arts, and his conversation exhibited marked intelligence. Charles served with much credit at the siege of Gaeta (1734) under the Duke of Liria. 'I wish to God,' writes Liria to his brother, the Duke of Fitz-James, 'that some of the greatest sticklers in England against the family of the Stuarts had been eye-witnesses of this prince's resolution during that siege, and I am firmly persuaded that they would soon change their way of thinking.' As he grew up the hopes of the Jacobites became more and more centred in the prince. The Old Pretender by his miserable conduct to his wife had completely alienated his adherents. The birth of Charles and the favourable impression made by his courage, dignity, and intelligence restored the waning energies of the Jacobites. The year 1740 saw England supporting the cause of Maria Theresa and at variance with France. The Jacobites, through their English and Scotch committees, proceeded to put the machinery of conspiracy into motion. Scotland, it was said, could raise twenty thousand men. English Jacobite leaders predicted that Charles had only to appear to make all England embrace his cause. France also was lavish in her offers of assistance. On the faith of these promises the young prince resolved to head an expedition. 'I go, sire,' said he to his father, 'in search of three crowns, which I doubt not but to have the honour and happiness of laying at your majesty's feet. If I fail in the attempt, your next sight of me shall be in my coffin.' The departure of Charles from Rome was secret, but the English government was at once informed of the fact. As the prince passed through Florence, Sir Horace Mann drew his portrait and sent it to the Duke of Newcastle: 'The young man is above the middle height and very thin, he wears a light bag wig; his face is rather long, the complexion clear, but borders on paleness; the forehead very broad, the eyes fairly large—blue but without sparkle; the mouth large, with the lips slightly curled, and the chin more sharp than rounded.' On the arrival of the prince in France war had not as yet broken out between England and France, but the remonstrances of the English cabinet led to a speedy rupture. It soon became evident to Charles that the zeal of France on his behalf was by no means commensurate with her promises of aid. The Dunkirk expedition, which had set out for the invasion of England with seven thousand troops on board under Marshal Saxe, had to beat a retreat before the vigilance of the English channel fleet, while, a storm springing up, the expedition only succeeded in regaining the French coast at a severe loss. This disaster damped French enthusiasm, and the prince was informed that at present further assistance could not be expected from Versailles. Charles vowed that he would cross over to Scotland and raise his standard, even 'if he took only a single footman with him.' All his adherents, excepting the Duke of
Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 10.djvu/116
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Charles
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Charles
of the court and household of the king. Mrs. Jameson's Memoirs of the Beauties of the Court of Charles II (2 vols. 1830) derive interest from Lely's portraits; but P. Cunningham's Story of Nell Gwyn is the compilation of a genuine antiquary. A large number of pamphlets, &c. concerning the events of the reign are collected in Somers Tracts, vols. vii. and viii. (1812, see especially vol. vii. for the popish plot agitation); the State Tracts in the collection here cited as S.T.C. (1693) date especially from 1671 to 1681, and are intended to justify the policy of a league aganst France. Of older historical works treating of the reign of Charles II those of Oldmixon, Echard, Kennet, Hume, and Macpherson are still quoted; nor ought the opening chapter of Fox's unfinished History of James II to be forgotten, even by the side of Lord Macaulay's more elaborate introduction to a far grander fragment. Together with Hallam the chapter in Gnest's Englisches Verwaltungsrecht, vol. i.(2nd ed. Berlin, 1867) deserves study. Guizot's Monck (tr. with notes by Stuart Wortley, 1838) and W. D. Christie's Life of Sbaftesbury (2 vols. 1871) are monographs of high merit. The best account of the foreign policy of England under Charles II is to be found in one of the most masterly portions of Ranke's Englische Geschichte (tr. 1875). The same side of the subject is treated in vols. i. and ii. of Onno Klopp's Fall des Hauses Stuart (Vienna, 1876). Vol. ii. of B. Vanghan's Memorials of the House of Stuart, 2 vols. 1831, bears largely on the religious troubles of the times. Masson's Life of Milton, vol. vi. best summarises the literary as well as the political condition of England in the earlier part of the reign; and no student of any aspect of it will fail to turn to Scott's edition of Dryden, recently re-edited by Mr. Saintsbury.]
