British shores, and two days later sighted France. When the captain found out at daybreak whom his passengers really were, he cried out, 'I shall be hanged on my return;' but nevertheless he would not betray the queen, and landed the little party safely at Calais. Louis XIV. acted a generous part. He responded to the touching letters in which Mary and James implored his aid and friendship, by inviting them to court, and treating them with as much. honour as if they had still been powerful monarchs, going himself to meet Mary as soon as she approached St. Germains. When Mary awoke the day after her arrival at that palace, she found near her bedside a casket containing a large sum of money, sent in a delicate manner to supply her with the means of defraying her pressing necessities.

James, before long, joined her at St. Germains; and the French monarch begged them to look on that palace as their own, till they could return to England.

Mary was then a young and very beautiful woman, and devotedly attached to her husband. When she appeared at Versailles, dressed in a long robe of stately black velvet, the French ladies envied her beauty and dignity; but she soon conciliated the hearts of all around her by the sweetness of her

manner.

Some months passed away at St. Germains before

James's Reproof of his Daughter.

9

James yielded to the invitations of those subjects who remained loyal to him, to return to Ireland, where his cause was still warmly espoused. Mary and William had disgusted many of their best friends by the indecent haste with which they had accepted the vacant throne.

Mary's ingratitude cut James and his queen to the heart; for dearly had they both loved her. The Princess Anne did not long hesitate before she too looked after her own interests by joining against her father; and the two princesses have been compared to Lear's elder daughters in their conduct at this time.

When Mary first came to the throne she sent to beg that Sancroft, who was then Archbishop of Canterbury, would 'give her his blessing.'

'Tell her,' said the fine old prelate, 'first to ask. her father's blessing; mine without his is useless.' But such a reproof would be lost on the cold heart of a princess who was unable to hide the childish. delight that she felt at being installed in Whitehall.

When her father heard that she was to be crowned, he wrote to tell her, 'that hitherto he had attributed her part in the revolution to obedience to her husband; but the act of being crowned was one in her own power, and that if she suffered her coronation to take place while he and the Prince of

Wales were alive, God's curse, as well as his, would rest on her.'

William was dumbfounded at such a well-merited reproof to unfilial conduct, and it came with the news that James had effected a landing in Ireland, just as they were dressing for their coronation; but not even such news daunted Mary, nor yet the silence and gloom with which the day passed away.

When her father took leave of the French king, who had lent him money for his expedition to Ireland, he said to James, when the latter was starting, 'Farewell. The best wish that I can offer to your Majesty is, that I may never see you again!' Unhappily James could not shake off the influence of the priests, and his cause suffered by such folly.

He left St. Germains on the 8th of March 1689, for Ireland; but the expedition failed, and he returned to France, landing at Brest the following July, having lost all chance of success at the battle of the Boyne. The hearts of many still, however, remained true to his fallen fortunes, not only in England and Ireland, but in Scotland, where the Highlanders clung with faithful tenacity to his memory.

Living up in remote districts in primitive style, and looking up to the chiefs of their clans as their only authority, the Highlanders only saw in James the father of the land,' and the son of that Charles I. for whom their sires had shed their best

A Treacherous Message.

I I

The

blood under the gallant and brave Montrose. Highlands of Scotland were the last portions of the British empire that remained faithful to the Stuarts, and the first to rise in the defence of James the Second's claims.

Three Scotch noblemen stood by the fallen king when all his courtiers and friends, as well as his own daughters, deserted him; they were the Duke of Gordon, Lord Balcarres, and the brave and dauntless Claverhouse of Dundee.

A few days before he left England, James found himself friendless and almost penniless at Whitehall.

It was at that moment that one of his gentlemenin-waiting entered, and told the king that Earl Colin of Balcarres and the Viscount Dundee 'would fain see his Majesty.' James received them warmly ; and it was while they were with him, to lay before his Majesty offers of assistance from Scotland, that the king received a treacherous message from his English generals, to which he replied by refusing their proffered assistance.

Seeing that his two Scottish generals looked surprised, James turned sadly to them, and said, 'The men who sent it were not sincere.'

He then invited Lord Balcarres and Dundee to walk with him in the Mall. While they were out, James suddenly asked his two faithful followers

'How comes it, that when all the world have

deserted

me, and gone over to the Prince of Orange, you two are here?'

'Sire,' replied Balcarres, 'we shall ever be faithful to so good a master as your Majesty, and desire to have nothing to say to the Prince of Orange.'

'I believe you,' said the king; 'but give me your hands on it, as men of honour.'

When he had shaken them by their hands, he told them his plan of escaping to France, and authorized Balcarres to manage his civil affairs, and Dundee to command his troops in Scotland. It was Dundee who attempted to rouse James from his dejection of spirits, when he accompanied him to Rochester, after William had landed at Torbay. But it was in vain that the 'gallant Grahams' rushed to battle under Dundee, supported by the 'gay Gordons' under their duke, who held Edinburgh Castle for James II. till the death of Claverhouse; their national 'slogans' or war-cries in vain summoned the Highlanders to 'fight for their king.' Dundee, who had urged James to come to Scotland from Ireland, declaring that 'the Highland chiefs were eager to see him, and would be transformed into warriors at the first wave of his banner on the mountain-tops,' failed to persuade James, who went back to France; and his faithful adherent fell mortally wounded in the proud moment of victory. Dundee had defeated William's