against him, the one under Marshal Wade, whom he had evaded by entering England from the west, and the other under the duke of Cumberland, who had returned from the Continent. London was not to be supposed helpless in such an emergency ; Manchester, Glasgow, and Dumfries, rid of his presence, had risen against him, and Charles paused. There was division among his advisers and desertion among his men, and on the 6th of December he commenced his retreat.
Closely pursued by Cumberland, he marched across the border, and at last stopped to lay siege to Stirling. At Falkirk, on the 17th of January 1746, he defeated General Hawley, who had marched from Edinburgh to intercept his retreat. A fortnight later, however, Charles raised the siege of Stirling, and after a weary though successful march, rested his troops at Inverness. Having taken Forts George and Augustus, and had varying success against the supporters of the Government in the north, he at last pre pared to face the duke of Cumberland, who had passed the early spring at Aberdeen. On the 8th of April the duke inarched thence to meet Charles, whose little army, ex hausted with a futile night march, half-starving, and broken by desertion, he engaged at Culloden on 16th April 1746. The decisive and cruel defeat sealed the fate of Charles Edward and the house of Stuart.
Charles fled. Accompanied by the faithful Ned Burke, and a few other followers, he gained the western coast. Hunted hither and thither, the prince wandered on foot or cruised restlessly in open boats among the many islands of the west. The barren Benbecula sheltered him fora month. In lack of food, unsightly in appearance, having a strange contentment under his misfortunes, and already betraying his weakness for liquor, Charles, upon whose head a price of 30,000 had a year before been set, was relentlessly pursued by the spies of the Government. Disguised in women s clothes, and aided by a passport obtained by the devoted Flora MacDonald, he passed through Skye, and parted from his conductress at Portree. Shortly afterwards he was again on the mainland, and in the end of July he took refuge with the " Seven men of Glenmoriston," a body of outlawed Jacobite freebooters, with whom for a time he was safe. Having joined Lochie] and Cluny Macpherson, he at last heard that two French ships were in waiting for him at the place of his first arrival in Scotland Lochnahuagh.
He embarked with speed, and sailed for France. Ere long he was again intriguing in Paris, and even in Madrid. So far as political assistance went his efforts were in vain ; and he plunged eagerly into the gaieties of Parisian society, of which he was the hero for some years.
The enmity of the English Government to Charles Edward made peace with France an impossibility, so long as she continued to harbour the young prince. A condition of the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, concluded in October 1748, was that every member of the house of Stuart should be expelled the French dominions. Charles had forestalled the proclamation of the treaty by an indignant protest against its injustice, and a declaration that he would not be bound by its provisions. But his indignation and persistent refusal to comply with the request that he should voluntarily leave France had to be met at last with force ; he was apprehended, imprisoned for a week at Yincennes, and on the 17th December conducted to the French border. He lingered at Avignon ; but the French, com pelled to hard measures by the English, refused to be satisfied ; and the Pope, under threat of a bombardment of Civita Vecchia, advised the prince to withdraw. Charles simply and quietly disappeared ; and for years Europe watched for him in vain. It is now established, almost with certainty, that he returned to the neighbourhood of Paris ; and it is supposed that his residence was known to the French ministers, who, however, firmly proclaimed their ignorance. In 1750, ia 1752, and again, it is thought, in 1754, he was even in London, hatching futile plots and risking his safety for his hopeless cause.
During the next ten years of his life Charles Edward had become a confirmed profligate. His illicit connection with a Miss Walkenshaw, whom he had first met at Bannockburn House while conducting the siege of Stirling, his imperious fretful temper, his drunken habits and debauched life, could no longer be concealed. He wandered over Europe in disguise, alienating the friends and crushing the hopes of his party; and in 1766, on the death of his father, he was treated even by the Pope with contempt, and his title as heir to the British throne was openly repudiated by the great powers.
It was in 1772 that France, still intriguing against England, arranged that Louise, Princess of Stolberg, should marry the besotted prince (now passing under the title of Count Albany) who twelve years before had so cruelly maltreated his paramour that she had left him for ever. Six years afterwards, however, the countess had to take refuge in a convent. Her husband s conduct was brutal, and her own life was in danger at his hands. Her sus pected attachment to Alfieri the poet and the persistent complaints of the prince at last brought about a formal separation, and Charles Edward, lonely, ill, and evidently near death, remained at Florence. In remorse he wrote for his daughter, the child of Miss Walkenshaw, and she remained with him, under the name of duchess of Albany, during the last two years of his life. He died at Borne on the 31st of January 1788, and was buried in the Grotte Vaticane of St Peters.
See Earl Stanhope's The Forty-Five, Chambers s History of the Rebellion 0/1745-6, Burton s History of Scotland, Hayward s Essay, 1 !, (vol. ii. ), Ewald s Life and Times of Charles Stuart, The Autobiography of Flora Macdonald, &c.
CHARLES EMMANUEL I., The Great (1562-1630),
duke of Savoy, succeeded his father Philibert Emmanuel in
1580. After having fought in alliance with Spain, France,
and Germany, he laid claim to the throne of France on the
death of Henry III. He became involved in war with
Henry IV. and also with the Swiss, and was defeated at
St Joire in 1589. But the peace to which his defeat com
pelled him was soon broken, and he joined the Catholic
league. He gained several successes, and obtained posses
sion of Saluzzo, for tthiuh he had fought both with Henry
III. and Henry IV. He next attacked Geneva, but without
success ; and his alliance with France against Spain was
equally unfortunate, for Henry IV. dying, the regent
made peace with Spain, and Charles was compelled to follow
her example. After this he conquered Montferrat, which,
however, he was unable to retain; and in 1619 he laid
claim to the imperial crown without success. New leagues
against Spain and against the Genoese followed. But
finally the French conquered Savoy and part of Piedmont,
and Charles died overwhelmed with misfortune.
