Sir Robert was grateful. In future royal dedications the ex-Jacobite spoke of the king’s mother as ‘that august princess.’ George, the king, was ‘the auspicious patron of art.’ Sir Robert ‘presumed to flatter himself’ that he might ‘humbly lay his work at his Majesty’s feet;’ that ‘millions prayed for him,’――the ‘Arbiter of Taste and the beloved Father of his people.’ And ‘the king over the Water’ was still (though scarcely) alive. Robin survived Charles Edward, and died in 1791. His widow lived till 1806. With full recognition of the ‘happy establishment,’ Lady Strange never doubted the superior rights of the Stuarts, and was angry and outspoken when such rights were, in any sense, questioned. At one of her gatherings in Henrietta Street, one of her guests happened to refer to Charles Edward as the ‘Pretender.’ This stirred the old lady’s Jacobite blood, and with a license not uncommon to aged Scottish ladies of the time, in moments of excitement, she thundered out, ‘_Pretender!_ and be damned to you! _Pretender_, indeed!’――Flora Macdonald did not swear at such provocation, but it once brought her fist in ringing acquaintance with the offender’s ears. [Sidenote: _DEATH OF CHARLES EDWARD._] In the year 1788 the poor prince, to designate whom as a ‘Pretender’ was so offensive to all Jacobites, died in Rome, on the night of a terrible anniversary for the Stuart family, the 30th of January. In all the London periodicals he was treated with courtesy, but his death moved London society much less than that of ‘Athenian Stuart,’ whose decease left a void in scientific and social companies. The funeral ceremony is detailed in brief common-places. A very mild defender of the prince, ‘Anglicanus,’ in the ‘Gentleman’s Magazine’ (Anno 1788, p. 509), adds to the confusion touching Charles Edward’s religion, by asserting that he was converted to Protestantism in Gray’s Inn Lane; and proving the assertion by asking, ‘Did he not read the Church of England prayers to his domestics when no clergyman was present?’ [Sidenote: _THE COUNTESS OF ALBANY, AT COURT._]