"I don't know, indeed, Mother," replied Celia. "I expected him ere now. I know not what is keeping him. Surely he will be here before summer!" Edward Ingram was not at Ashcliffe before summer. The summer passed, and he did not come. The winter passed, and he did not come. Nay, the whole spring, and summer, and autumn, and winter of another year passed, and the third summer, of 1714, was fading into autumn--still Edward did not come. But when the dusk was gathering on the 5th of August in that year, a horseman galloped into Ashcliffe village with news which he was carrying post-haste to Tavistock and Launceston--news which blanched in my a cheek and set many a man looking to his aims--which called forth muffled peals from the church-towers, and draped pulpits and pews in mourning, and was received with sadness and alarm in well-nigh every English home. For the one thread was snapped on which England's peace had hung--the one barrier standing between England and anarchy was broken. The last Stuart whom the nation acknowledged lay dead in Kensington Palace. So long as Queen Anne lived, the embers of discord had been only smouldering. The Jacobites felt a half-satisfaction in the thought that the old line still held the sceptre; the Whigs rejoiced in their Whig and Protestant Queen. Not that the private political views of the Queen were very Whiggish ones. On the contrary, granted one thing--her own personal rule--she was at heart a Tory. For all the years of her reign she had been growing more and more a Tory. She would never have abdicated the sceptre; but very little indeed was wanted to make her say, when the cold grasp of the Angel of Death was laid upon her, "Let my brother succeed me." Such a speech would have given the Jacobites immense vantage-ground. For in 1714 the State was still the Sovereign, and "_La Royne le veut_" was sterling yet in England. This the partisans of the exiled family knew well; and to their very utmost, through their trusted agents, of whom Abigail Lady Masham was the chief, they strove to induce the Queen to utter such words. Her decease now was the signal for the division of the country into two sharply-defined parties. The Tories strove for King James, triennial Parliaments, removal of Popish disabilities, peace with France, free trade, and repeal of the union with Scotland. The Whigs battled as fiercely for King George, septennial Parliaments, Test and Corporation Acts, war with France, protection, and centralization.