Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 5.djvu/279

 PRINCE CHARLES STUART 187 the death of Charles I., Charles Edward passed away from earth. His daughter did not long survive him ; she was killed hy a fall from her horse. Henry now took the title of Henry IX. "by grace of God, not by the will of men." He died in 1 806 ; the French had stripped him of all his property, even the famous Sobieski rubies were gone, and he was in receipt of a pension from the English Government. In 1819 George IV. erected a monument by Can ova, in St. Peters at Rome, to "James III., son of James II., King of Great Britain, to Charles Edward, and Henry, his sons, the last of the Royal Stuart line. Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord." Sir Walter Scott visited this alone of Roman sights, in 1832, just before he came home to die. Had Charles fallen at Culloden, history could find no blot on his name, no stain on the white rose. Surviving, as he did, a broken-hearted exile, with no home, no chance of a career, " eating his own heart, shunning the paths of men," as Homer says of Bellerophon, he fell a victim to the habit which has ever the same wretched results, which turns a hero to a coward, a gentleman to a brute. Yet, in his one year of brilliance he won immortal love. Scott had seen strong men, the prince's ancient comrades, weep at the mention of his name. No man, in any age, ever inspired such a large, such a gallant, such a tender and melan- choly body of song. Even now as one hears the notes of " Will ye no come back again, Better lo'ed ye canna be," sung by the lads of a Scotch village, one feels that Charles Stuart did not wholly fail ; the song outlives the dynasty, and relics of Prince Charlie are fondly cher- ished, while no man cares a halfpenny for his Hanoverian rivals. The best life of Prince Charles is that by Mr. Ewald (London, 1875). Mr. Ewald alone has used the State Papers at the Record Office. Lord Stanhope's and Mr. Chambers's " Histories of the Forty-five " are also excellent ; as are "Jacobite Memoirs," selected from Bishop Forbes's MS. " Lyon in Mourning." These works, with the contemporary tracts, and some MSS., with Lord Stan- hope's " Decline of the Last Stuarts," and the Stuart Papers at Windsor, as given in Browne's " History of the Highland Clans," have been consulted in compiling this study of Prince Charles.