The Old Pretender In A Novel

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 189, 12 August 1939, Page 10 (Supplement)

The Old Pretender In A Novel

IN the June of I 688 Mary of Modena, the second wife of James 11. of England and VII. of Scotland, presented him with an heir. The name given to the little Prince of Wales was James Francis Edward. Six months later mother and child were hurriedly sent to France, and in a week or two James vacated the throne and joined them. In less than three years he passed away in the chateau of St. tierinain-en-Laye. It wns only six months before his son-in-law, William of Orange, also passed away, and but for the fear of the English people that, when he grew up, he ■ might repeat the follies of his father, the young Prince, child though he was, might now have been restored to the Throne as his undo had been some 40 years before. His mother, like his father, was an ardent Roman Catholic, nnd the prospect of another Roman Catholic occupying the Throne made his restoration impossible. It was the same fi'ii r that led in 1714 to the nation's clioico of (Jcorgo of Hanover. Even so, I licre were many who considered him Iho right ful heir, and but for the incompetence of the Earl of Mar, who was no soldier, and the lack of help from France, ho might in 1715 have succeeded. Thirty years later his son Chnrlea was equally unfortunate in his attempt to regain the Throne, and Culloden made any lingering hope in James' breast of ousting the Hanoverians futile, and he resigned himself to the inevitable.

The Old Pretender, as Tie is generally called, never inspired his followers with the enthusiasm that his son did. Nor has ho ever attracted the same attention. Yet ho was in every wuy a finer man— ftrave, amiable, refined, high-principled nnd dignified. He had neither the audacity nor the ndventurousness of Charles, but ho was free from his faults. All this is brought out in an extremely wellwritten book published 'by Herbert Jenkins. It bears the title: "Flourish for Coronation," and is the work of Nan K.

T.ock. Misn T.oi-k does not draw unduly on her imagination—just enough to give colour and atmosphere to the hook. She bases her story on letters written by .fames and by some of his intimate friends, as well as on other records and facts given by reliable historians. Among the things she makes clear is the falseness of the portrait Thackeray gives of him in "Esmond." Students of the [>eriod. and readers who are interested in the Stuarts, will find the book a useful adjunct to the story of James as told in books of history, and even those who may be prejudiced against his house will find it difficult, on reading it, to withhold their respect and sympathy from th<; exiled Prince.