of the nation rose against the King, and in December of the same year, after the landing of William of Orange, the Queen fled from England to France, taking with her her infant son. She was followed a week or two later by the King. The royal fugitives were received with every mark of honour by Louis the Fourteenth, the magnificent palace of St. Germains was placed at their disposal, and a handsome pension was given them wherewith to maintain a numerous court. Prince James grew up surrounded by Jesuit priests and fugitive Jacobites. The influences of St. Germains were bigoted and reactionary, and a profound melancholy brooded over all, an atmosphere more likely to produce a seminarist than a man of action. Otherwise, unlike George the First, James received an English education; he could speak and read English fluently, and he was taught to love the land of his birth, and to believe himself the heir to its throne by right divine. William the Third made overtures to the old King to adopt the Prince and educate him in England, but as this involved not only the recognition of the usurper, but also that the Prince should be brought up in the faith of the Church of England, William’s offer was contemptuously refused. If Prince James had become a member of the Church of England (and many attempts were made to win him over on the part of those attached to his cause), he would have succeeded to the throne of England almost without protest, and the Hanoverian family would never have stood in his way. But the old King flatly refused to listen to such a thing, and after his father’s death, when James had come to man’s estate, he, to his honour, refused to forsake his religion even to gain the crown of England, being of a contrary opinion to the Protestant Henry of Navarre, who was easily converted to Roman Catholicism, holding that “Paris was well worth a mass”. Prince James had certain natural advantages in his favour. He was every inch a Stuart, he was tall and well made, with graceful, dignified manners, and his face wore the expression of haunting Stuart melancholy with which Vandyck has made us familiar. But for a certain vacuity of countenance, and a lack of fire and animation, he would have been counted handsome. But his character was colourless, he lacked ambition and determination; he had no initiative, and not feeling enthusiasm himself, he could not inspire it in others. He was something of a fatalist, and early made up his mind that misfortune was his portion. Much of this was due to temperament, but training was responsible for more.