clergyman, to christen the first child he had by Mrs. W."[1] This is remarkable, inasmuch as he would not have been in exile, if King James had adhered to the Anglican Church. The Nonjurors also, from the commencement of the Revolution, were convinced, that Popery was the cause of the King's troubles. Accordingly we find them using means to procure at least a promise of support for the Church of England, in the event of his Restoration: and King James assures us, that it was proposed to four Roman Catholic English divines, in 1693, whether he might lawfully promise to support the Church of England. They replied that he could not promise to defend a religion, which he deemed to be erroneous; but that he might promise to protect the members of the Church of England, as by law established, in the free and full exercise of their religion.[2] Mr. Hallam admits, that Popery alone kept the Pretender from the throne. "It is almost certain, that, if either the claimant or his son had embraced the Protestant religion, and had also manifested any superior strength of mind, the German prejudices of the reigning family would have cost them the throne, as they did the people's affections."[3]
The First Pretender, the son of James II. who was born in 1688, died in 1765, after which Charles Edward, the Second Pretender, assumed the style and title of King of England. Charles Edward was born in 1720, so that he was twenty-five years of age when he entered Scotland in 1745. It is said that
