James Stuart

“ James Stuart, emerging from the school of Buchanan and the atmosphere of Calvinism in which he had been bred, now reigned in those more sunny and liberal regions where Elizabeth so long had ruled. Finding himself at once, after years of theological study, face to face with a foreign commonwealth and a momentous epoch, in which politics were so commingled with divinity as to offer daily the most puzzling problems, the royal pedant hugged himself at beholding so conspicuous a field for his talents. ”

“ You are lying to me, sir,” she continued in a firmer tone. “There were brave men, experienced soldiers, with James. Would he be so base as to desert those who risked their lives and fortunes for him?” I shrugged my shoulders carelessly.
“Do not deceive yourself, madam,” I made answer. “Carry your mind back to the past. Hast James Stuart ever shown any consideration for others when his own worthless life was in danger? The man who could steal away from his palace by night, without striking one blow for his crown and kingdom, would care little what fate befell those who had supported him. ”

“ The Lord James Stuart seeing her so bent on extremities, and knowing by his secret intelligences, that strong powers were ready to start forward at a moment's warning, both in the West, and in Fife, Angus and Merns, entreated her to listen to more moderate councils than those of revenge and resentment, and rather to think of pacification than of punishment. But she was fiery with passion, and a blinded instrument in the hands of Providence to work out the deliverance of the land, even by the crooked policy that her papistical counsellors hurried her into. ”

“ And yet in that imaginary name and title there may perhaps be found a key to the mystery of the birth of the young James Stuart. For though the Neapolitan adventurer was an impostor, he enjoyed good sources of information, and possessed, though imperfectly, the secrets of King Charles's son. He knew that he was born at Jersey, and that his birth had been recognised by his father, and he had secured some of his papers and some of his property. All the wealth he showed at Naples did not come from that source, for the young novice was not so rich, and the impostor must have robbed other people. ”

“ Another James Stuart (1741–1815) , general, frequently confounded with the preceding, was the third son of John Stuart of Blairhall in Perthshire, by his wife Anne, daughter of Francis, earl of Murray, and was born at Blairhall on 2 March 1741. He was educated at the schools of Culross and Dunfermline. ”

“ James Stuart, the "Old Pretender," was now elderly and had always been apathetic, but his son Charles Edward Stuart was a young prince of a very different character. Reckless, adventurous, and light-hearted, he was the very man to lead a desperate venture. The French gathered an army of 15,000 men at Dunkirk, and promised to put it at his disposal if he would invade Scotland. But a storm scattered the transports, and the troops were ultimately drawn off to the war in Flanders. ”

“ If James Stuart could easily obey his father by departing from Rome before the arrival of Queen Christina, it was certainly more difficult for him to conform to the frequently contradictory injunctions concerning the route to be taken and the precautions to be guarded against which had been successively transmitted to him. Everything which was rational and practicable the young man respected. He set sail from Leghorn about the middle of October, a fact which we learn from a brief letter of Father Oliva to the King of England. ”

“ James Stuart deserted his post as ruler of these realms because he found himself assailed by difficulties which the most ordinary ability ought to have overcome. William assumed the same position in the face of difficulties which only the highest qualities of kingcraft and statesmanship could have enabled him to successfully grapple with. In a word, James possessed no ideal that qualified him to be a king, much less an Empire-Maker. William did possess such an ideal, and that is the only reason why he became King of England, vice James Stuart, absconded. ”

“ This point is in favour of the identity of James Stuart with de la Cloche. The Viceroy had, however, already written to London, and waited for a reply. ‘Immediately on arrival of the answer from London, the Prince was set at liberty and left Naples. It may be supposed he went to England. After a few months he returned to Naples with an assignment of 50,000 scudi,’ and died of fever.
Nothing is said by Armanni of the imprisonment among the low scum of the Vicaria: nothing of the intended whipping, nothing of the visit by James Stuart to France. The 50,000 scudi have a mythical ring. ”

“ To destroy the Protestant ascendancy, yet not to create a Catholic ascendancy in its place; to deprive the colonists of the power to exercise oppression, while leaving them the power necessary for self-defence, was, perhaps, a task beyond the range of human statesmanship. Still tact and moderation might have done much. But tact and moderation formed no part of the character of James Stuart. ”

“ The man who had placed himself at the head of the Reformers, and who, although young, had already given Hamilton and his party good cause to tremble at his increasing authority, was James Stuart, the eldest of Mary’s three illegitimate brothers,—and one who occupies a most important station in the history of his country. ”

“ He would have no such mischievous work in England. He despised Elizabeth's grand national policy which his narrow intellect could not comprehend. He could see that in fighting Spain and aiding Dutchmen and Huguenots she was strengthening the very spirit that sought to pull monarchy down. In spite of her faults, which were neither few nor small, the patriotism of that fearless woman was superior to any personal ambition. It was quite otherwise with James. He was by no means fearless, and he cared more for James Stuart than for either England or Scotland. ”

“ But a great many people in Scotland still wished to have a king of the old Scotch family of Stuart again; so they encouraged young James Stuart, that is the Pretender, whom they called King James, to come to Scotland, and promised they would collect men and money enough to make an army, and buy guns and everything fit for soldiers, and march into England, and make him king instead of George I. From this time all those who took the part of the Pretender against George were called Jacobites, from Jacobus, the Latin for the Pretender’s name, James. ”

“ The next family to bear this title was an illegitimate branch of the royal house of Stuart, James IV. creating his natural son, James Stuart (c. 1499–1544) , earl of Moray. James died without sons, and after the title had been borne for a short time by George Gordon, 4th earl of Huntly (c. 1514–1562) , who was killed at Corrichie in 1562, it wa.s bestowed in 1562 by Mary Queen of Scots upon her half-brother, an illegitimate son of James V. This was the famous regent, James Stuart, earl of Moray, or Murray (see below) , who was murdered in January 1570 ”

“ Henry Stuart likewise held sinecure benefices in France, Spain and Spanish America, so that he became one of the wealthiest churchmen of the period, his annual revenue being said to amount to £30,000 sterling. On the death of his father, James Stuart (whose affairs he had managed during the last five years of his life) , Henry made persistent attempts to induce Pope Clement XIII. to acknowledge his brother Charles as legitimate king of Great Britain, but his efforts were defeated, chiefly through the adverse influence of Cardinal Alessandro Albani, who was bitterly opposed to the Stuart cause. ”

“ James Stuart commenced his career of brilliant and honorable service, as ensign in the sixty-fourth regiment, in October, 1761; in 1764 he was promoted to a lieutenancy, and in 1768 he accompanied the regiment to North America, where he was advanced to captain of the grenadier company in 1770. He was stationed at Boston when hostilities commenced between Great Britain and the colonies in North America. ”

“ By the king he was sent to convey the son of the Duke of Lennox to Scotland, and landed at Leith with his charge on 13 Nov. (ib. iii. 749; Historie of James the Sext, p. 192) .
James Stuart, earl of Arran, who had been recently reconciled to the king, was now the reigning favourite. Gray, who had a previous acquaintance with Arran, became his special confidant. He was, however, too able in diplomacy to be the tool of any man, and his ability in intrigue was only equalled by his utter blindness to honourable obligations. ”

“ In the spring 1646, during his first residence in Jersey, Charles fell in love with a young lady of high rank, who became the mother of a child, who enjoyed the prerogative, denied to all the other natural children of the king, of bearing his father's name. He was called James Stuart, and was brought up in the Protestant religion on the Continent. ”

“ I don't want you to have to hustle for money any sort of way; that's the truth. What I do want is—to keep you away from every other earthly beggar but myself!"
"O James Stuart, how absurd! That's not a brotherly attitude at all."
"The role of brother isn't always entirely satisfying," retorted Stuart under his breath. "You know well enough you've only to say the word and I——"
"Jimps dear"—Georgiana's voice was very gentle now—"remember we've left all that boy-and-girl sentimentalizing behind. ”

“ James Stuart had stronger qualities for good or evil than Thackeray seems to have found in him. Some of his contemporaries denied him the credit of man's ordinary courage; he has even been accused of positive cowardice; but there does not seem to be the slightest ground for such an accusation. Studied with the severest eye, his various enterprises, and the manner in which he bore himself throughout them, would seem to prove that he had courage enough for any undertaking. Princes seldom show any want of physical courage. ”

“ Soon after my grandfather had returned from the shire of Ayr, there was a weighty consultation held at the Earl his patron's lodging in Edinburgh, whereat, among others present, was that pious youth, afterwards the good Regent Murray. He was, by office and appointment, then the head and lord of the priory of St Andrews; but his soul cleaving to the Reformation and the Gospel, he laid down the use of that title, and about this time began to be called the Lord James Stuart. ”

“ James IV, wounded by two arrows and a blow from a halberd, fell amidst his nobles on the battlefield of Flodden. James V died of grief at the loss of his two sons, and of remorse for the execution of Hamilton. James VI, destined to unite on his head the two crowns of Scotland and England, son of a father who had been assassinated, led a melancholy and timorous existence, between the scaffold of his mother, Mary Stuart, and that of his son, Charles I. Charles II spent a portion of his life in exile. ”

“ The tenor of the will itself is fatal to it. The real James Stuart, who was sure of being able to obtain every just demand, would not have compromised the reasonable prospects of his family by the falsehoods and the extravagance of this document. ”

“ Alluding to the discovery, James says, (letter to Sempil, 23d January, 1744,) that it made “a great noise, as you may believe, here,” viz. at Rome.—Stuart Papers.
[796] About this time, if we may believe the accounts of the Stuart party, the spirit of Jacobitism was widely diffused in Scotland. “The violentest Whigs,” says Mr. John Stuart in a letter to Secretary Edgar from Boulogne, in February, 1744, “are become the most zealous Jacobites. ”

“ And it was resolved by that congregation that the principal personages then present should form themselves into a Council, to concert the requisite measures for the deliverance of their native [340] land; the immediate issue of which was, that a descent should be made by Argyle among his vassals, in order to draw together a sufficient host to enable them to wage war against the Usurper, for so they lawfully and rightly denominated James Stuart. ”

“ Such was the fate of the attempt, in 1708, to place James Stuart on the throne of his ancestors; and it will readily be believed that the ill-starred endeavour did not add to the probable success of any future enterprise. Scarcely had the accession of George the [Pg xxi] First, an event which a certain historian denominates "a surprising turn of Providence," taken place, than the removal of Lord Bolingbroke from office announced to the Tory party that they had lost their best friend at Court. Upon this intelligence reaching the Highlands, many of the Jacobites took up arms ”

“ Their worst effect was in changing the whole attitude of the nation towards the Crown. England had trusted the Tudors, it distrusted the Stuarts. The mood indeed both of king and people had grown to be a mood of jealousy, of suspicion, which, inevitable as it was, often did injustice to the purpose of both. King James looked on the squires and merchants of the House of Commons as his Stuart predecessors had looked on the Scotch baronage. ”

“ The word doppie is used by Charles (in Boero’s Italian translation) for the 800 coins which he asks Oliva to give to de la Cloche for travelling expenses. Were James Stuart’s 200 doppie the remains of the 800? Lord Acton exaggerates when he writes vaguely that Stuart possessed ‘heaps of pistoles.’ Two hundred doppie (about 150 or 160 pounds) are not ‘heaps.’ To return to the newsletter, the idea being current that the young man was a natural son of the King of England, he was provisionally confined in the castle of St. ”