The Forty-Five (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1851. Excerpt: ... it was ill assorted. Charles treated his young wife with very little kindness. He appears, in fact, to have contracted a disparaging opinion of her sex in general; and I have found, in a paper of his writing about that period, "As for men, I have studied them closely; and were I to "live till fourscore, I could scarcely know them better "than now: but as for women, I have thought it useless, "they being so much more wicked and impenetrable." Ungenerous and ungrateful words Surely, as he wrote them, the image of Flora Macdonald should have risen in his heart and restrained his hand The Count and Countess of Albany (such was the title they bore) lived together during several years at Florence, a harsh husband and a faithless wife; until at length, in 1780, weary of constraint, she eloped with her lover Alfieri. Thus left alone in his old age, Charles called to his house his daughter by Miss Walkinshaw, and created her Duchess of Albany, through the last exercise of an expiring prerogative. She was born about 1760, and survived her father only one year. Another consolation of his dotage was a silly regard, and a frequent reference to the prophecies of Nostradamus, several of which I have found among his papers. Still clinging to a visionary hope of his restoration, he used to keep under his bed a strong box with 12,000 sequins, ready for the ex-pences of his journey to England, whenever he might suddenly be called thither. I In 1785, Charles returned to Kome with his daughter. His health had long been declining, and his life more than once despaired of; but in January, 1788, he was seized with a paralytic stroke, which deprived him of the use of one half of the body, and he expired on the 30th of the same month. J His funeral 1 Stuart Papers, Orig. in Fr...