“Pooh! pooh!” said the good-natured Sovereign, “since I have found him out, leave me alone to deal with him.” “And what,” said the Minister, “is your Majesty’s purpose in so serious a case?” “To leave the young man to himself,” said George III., “and when he tires, he will go back again.” The truth of this story does not depend on that of the lifting of the gauntlet, and while the latter could be but an idle bravado, the former expresses George III.’s goodness of heart and soundness of policy.’ [Sidenote: _A DISQUALIFICATION._] Altogether it is very clear that dates, persons, and places have been inextricably mixed up in the Jacobite legends of the Chevalier’s visit to London. At the same time there seems to be but one opinion among all writers, without exception, who have dealt with this subject hitherto, namely, that the alleged visit of 1750 actually occurred. Perhaps the best evidence is furnished in the ‘Diary of a Lady of Quality’ (Mrs. Wynne). The writer’s grandson states that his grandmother had frequently told him that she had had, from Lady Primrose herself, full particulars of the visit of Charles Edward to London in 1750. A few questions, however, might easily break down even this assertion. After all, the decision must be left to the reader’s judgment. Although no overt act answered the Champion’s challenge in Westminster Hall, the right of George III. to succeed to the crown was vigorously denied in very High Church coteries. Soon after the king’s birth, in 1738, he was baptised by Secker, Bishop of Oxford. Now, Secker was born and bred a dissenter, and did not enter the Church till after he had been a medical student, and had run a not too exemplary career. How could an unbaptised bishop validly baptise a prince, heir to the crown of England? If the king was an unbaptised, or as good as unbaptised king, he was neither lawful King of England nor temporal head of England’s Church! This was the only form in which the Champion’s gage was picked up. It did not amount to much. Nevertheless, an old inheritor of Nonjuring principles occasionally may be found questioning the right of George III. to succeed, on the score of his being unbaptised, or of being (still worse) baptised by an ex-dissenter, who himself had never been sanctified by the rite according to the Church of England! ◆[Sidenote: _THE PROTESTANTISM OF CHARLES EDWARD._]◆ As to the story of the alleged Protestantism of Charles Edward, it never had more foundation than his own ignoble assurances to members of the Church of England whom he happened to encounter. In this sense he often ‘_declared_’ himself; but, never in a church, at Liége or in Switzerland, or in London, at St. Martin’s, St. James’s, or St. Mary’s le Strand. There is no record of any such solemn circumstance connected with any such exalted personage in any of those places or edifices. Such a fact as his conversion would have been utter ruin to him. The very report that the fact existed caused many of his