it was fortunate for England that he had been so long divested of power.[213] CHAPTER XII. Death of the Pretender.--Intrigues against the Ministry.--Debates on the Stamp Act, and the Petition from America.--First Speech of Mr. Edmund Burke.--Character of his Oratory.--Mr. William Burke. On the first day of the year died at Albano that sport of fortune, the Chevalier de St. George, better known by the appellation of the Old Pretender. He had not only outlived his hopes, but almost all those who had given him any hopes. His party was dwindled to scarce any but Catholics; and though he left two sons, his line was verging to extinction. The second son was actually a Cardinal; the elder, sunk in drunkenness, despair, and neglect at Bouillon.[214] His father’s death seemed a little to reanimate him: but that revival was but waking to new mortification. The Court of France did not even put on mourning for the father; and when Prince Charles determined to set out for Rome, the Pope despatched a courier to prevent him. The Roman nobility were not fond of being preceded even by a phantom of royalty; and both they and the College of Cardinals were apprehensive of the sottishness and rashness of the young man. The Pope dreaded the resentment of England, and feared an order to prohibit English travellers from visiting Rome; a mighty source of wealth to that city. And he,[215] who had so obstinately protected the Jesuits against the threats of France and Spain, and who at last sacrificed part of his dominions[216] to his zeal for the Order, had the timidity to renounce the most meritorious martyr of the Church, rather than expose himself to the very uncertain vengeance of a heretic Court. The Young Pretender persisted in his journey: the Pope as pertinaciously refused to acknowledge him for King of England; yet with the additional absurdity of continuing to style him Prince of Wales--though he could not be the latter without becoming the former. To such complete humiliation was reduced that ever unfortunate house of Stuart, now at last denied that empty sound of royalty by that Church and Court for which they had sacrificed three kingdoms! Pathetically might the Prince have exclaimed, “Hic pietatis honos! sic nos in sceptra reponis!” The Cardinal of York ceded to his brother the annuity he received from the Pope, whose only bounty, whose only grace was restricted to the allowance of that exchange. About the same time died Frederick the Fifth, King of Denmark, in the forty-second year of his age:[217] a good prince and beloved, and void of any capital fault but that northern vice drunkenness. If we may believe the history of that kingdom, no nation has been blessed with so many humane sovereigns. It is more remarkable that they have not grown worse since they became absolute.