The Jacobite glasses form by far the most important of English memorial glasses. They were used by the followers of the ill-fated House of Stuart, not only in their homes--where, indeed, their use might be dangerous--but in the clubs and secret societies which met to keep alive the Pretender’s memory, and to plot for his return. Great numbers were probably made, mostly, it is thought, at Newcastle, whence the manufacturers might, in case of need, speedily retire across the Border and seek concealment from the law among a sympathetic population. Unfortunately, few only remain, for when the toast had been duly honoured, it was a frequent custom to shatter the glass, that it might be used for no inferior purpose. A similar custom prevails still in certain military messes, the stem of the wine glass being snapped after the toast of the reigning monarch has been duly drunk. Some of the Jacobite glasses, however, were of superior quality and admirably inscribed and decorated. These, it is assumed, were carried from place to place by their owners, often in properly fitted cabinets. Each member of a Jacobite club probably brought his own glass, which was stored, with the others, between the meetings, in a secret receptacle; the possession of such a glass being, of course, treason. Thus it is that many have been preserved--frail memories of a lost cause and symbols of a loyalty as unparalleled as incomprehensible. At this distance of time it is difficult to understand the glamour that surrounded the Stuart cause and the wealth of loyalty that was lavished on objects so painfully unworthy. James I. was a foreigner to England and English sentiment, and with none of the qualities that win admiration or esteem. He was ungainly, garrulous, vain, pedantic, and, above all, cowardly in an age which placed physical courage as the first of human attributes. Even his not inconsiderable intellect failed to compensate for an utter lack of everything else which his time found worthy of admiration. Charles I. was a tyrant, narrow, mean, obstinate, and unscrupulous--a man without ability, a king without honour. His death is the one bright spot in a dreary and disastrous record, for “Nothing in his life Became him like the leaving of it.” Charles II., gay, witty, insouciant, reckless, had, it may be granted, certain qualities that take the common taste, but he was utterly profligate, entirely without principle. He sold England to France, betrayed Holland, robbed the State and the Navy, and starved his sailors to flatter his mistresses. James II. was cold, callous, cruel--a sycophant to the strong and a tyrant to the weak. He was a bigot, and unscrupulous in his bigotry. He was no less licentious than his brother though much more a hypocrite.