JAMES (JAMES FRANCIS EDWARD STUART) (1688-1766), prince of Wales, known to the Jacobites as James III. and to the Hanoverian party as the Old Pretender, the son and heir of James II. of England, was born in St James's Palace, London, on the 10th of June 1688. The scandalous story that he was a supposititious child, started and spread abroad by interested politicians at the time of his birth, has been completely disproved, and most contemporary writers allude to his striking family likeness to the Royal Stuarts. Shortly before the flight of the king to Sheerness, the infant prince together with his mother was sent to France, and afterwards he continued to reside with his father at the court of St Germain. On the death of his father, on the 16th of September 1701, he was immediately proclaimed king by Louis XIV. of France, but a fantastic attempt to perform a similar ceremony in London so roused the anger of the populace that the mock pursuivants barely escaped with their lives. A bill of attainder against him received the royal assent a few days before the death of William III. in 1702, and the Princess Anne, half-sister of the Pretender, succeeded William on the throne. An influential party still, however, continued to adhere to the Jacobite cause; but an expedition from Dunkirk planned in favour of James in the spring of 1708 failed of success, although the French ships under the comte de Fourbin, with James himself on board, reached the Firth of Forth in safety. At the Peace of Utrecht James withdrew from French territory to Bar-le-Duc in Lorraine. A rebellion in the Highlands of Scotland was inaugurated in September 1715 by the raising of the standard on the braes of Mar, and by the solemn proclamation of James Stuart, "the chevalier of St George," in the midst of the assembled clans, but its progress was arrested in November by the indecisive battle of Sheriffmuir and by the surrender at Preston. Unaware of the gloomy nature of his prospects, the chevalier landed in December 1715 at Peterhead, and advanced as far south as Scone, accompanied by a small force under the earl of Mar; but on learning of the approach of the duke of Argyll, he retreated to Montrose, where the Highlanders dispersed to the mountains, and he embarked again for France. A Spanish expedition sent out in his behalf in 1719, under the direction of Alberoni, was scattered by a tempest, only two frigates reaching the appointed rendezvous in the island of Lewis.