James, Leopold had no choice but to receive him. His letters and despatches make this perfectly clear. There is a good deal of talk about the Pretender's "estimable qualities," how the Duke and Duchess admire him, how happy they are that he has not gone to Aix-la-Chapelle. And no doubt the two managed to be for a time excellent friends. But every now and then, through all this polite buncombe, out comes the frank admission that all is done "to please the king." And we know how promptly and unhesitatingly Leopold's hospitality was withdrawn, once French pressure ceased, in 1716. To ourselves, by receiving an exiled Pretender into his neutral realm, as we have received many such, Leopold never dreamt that he was giving cause for legitimate umbrage. No one could be more surprised than he seems to have been when our Parliament took up the matter as a grievance. And, to be fair, he never appears to have afforded to James the slightest encouragement for a forcible assertion of his claims. His counsel was all the other way. It was the French, it was the Pretender's own followers at home, it was Roman Cardinal Gualterio, who countenanced, and occasionally urged, warlike measures. Cardinal Gualterio, more in particular, prodded the Catholic prince very vigorously, in the interest of his Church, arguing that "_il falloit hazarder quelque chose et meme affronter le sort, ce qui ne se fait pas sans risque_." Leopold, on the other hand, was all dissuasion. He wanted James to keep _near_ England, in order to be handy in the event of his being recalled--which he seems to have thought a likely contingency. When James began to talk of armaments and invasions, Leopold dwelt upon the difficulties, the all-but-hopelessness of such a move. When, in June, 1714, shortly before Queen Anne's death, James wrote from Plombières, that he _must_ go into England, since he learnt that his rival, the Electoral Prince of Hanover, had gone there, Leopold, who was admirably informed from Hanover, through his brother, the Elector-Archbishop of Trèves, sent a message back post-haste with the trustworthy tidings that George was neither gone nor going. The reasons which led George's father to forbid his visit read a little strange at the present day. In the first place, there was that Hanoverian economy--which, it is true, was ostensibly disclaimed. In the second, the Prince was not to be received in England as heir-presumptive--so that he would not really better his chances by going. Moreover, the Elector, "_connoissant l'humeur brusque et fort emportée de son fils, apprehendoit beaucoup qu'il ne se rendit odieux aux anglais_." Lastly, and mainly, he was afraid of dropping between two stools, if he were to stake his son's chances too decidedly on the English succession. It was quite on the cards, he thought, that "_par un effet des resolutions que l'inconstance de la nation y a rendues si ordinaire_," the British nation would _chasser_ its next sovereign as it