Thus ended the rising of 1715, and putting aside sentiment (and it must be admitted that sentiment was all on the side of James), it probably ended for the best. From the personal point of view England would have gained little by a change of King. James was a more attractive personality than George, but he had his failings and his vices too. His mistresses would have been French instead of German, and more beautiful, but little less rapacious. His advisers, instead of being hungry Hanoverians, would have been French and Italian Jesuits, quite as objectionable, and far more dangerous. From the national point of view, the cause of civil and religious liberty would have sustained a severe check. But when all this is admitted, the fact remains that James was the heir of our ancient kings. It is impossible to withhold sympathy from those who, so long as he and his sons lived, refused allegiance to the House of Hanover, or to the many more whose sentiments, though they acquiesced in the established order of things, were expressed in the epigram of John Byrom:-- God bless the King, God bless our faith’s Defender, God bless--no harm in blessing--the Pretender; But who Pretender is, and who is King, God bless us all! that’s quite another thing. By the death of James’s younger son Henry Benedict, Cardinal York, at Rome, in 1807, these dynastic disputes came to an end. By the accession of Queen Victoria, in 1837, the reigning dynasty gained a lustre before denied it, and became consecrated in the hearts and affection of the English people. And this holds equally good of his present gracious Majesty, King Edward the Seventh, who is a lineal descendant of King James the First, and has inherited many of the generous and lovable characteristics of the Stuarts. FOOTNOTES TO BOOK II, CHAPTER IV: [61] _Mémoires de Berwick_, vol. ii. [62] Sir Walter Scott’s note to Sinclair’s MS. [63] True account of the proceedings at Perth, by “A Rebel,” 1716. [64] True account of the proceedings at Perth, by “A Rebel,” 1716. [65] The original letter is printed in Chambers’s History. CHAPTER V. AFTER THE RISING. 1716.