HENRY STUART, CARDINAL OF YORK.*
THE life of the member of the Stuart family whose accept- ance of a Cardinal's bat at the time when his brother Charles returned broken from Culloden sealed finally the fate of the exiled Court is, from a sentimental point of view, the pleasantest of the histories of that family. Miss Shield has given a painstaking and adequate account of that strangely calm and gentle existence which, in striking contrast to those involved with it, rounded off the tale of Stuart tribulation, and by references to many little-known authorities, mostly Italian, has succeeded in casting some new light both upon " Henry IX." and upon the general history of the Court of "James III," The ground covered by this volume was for the most part carefully explored quite recently ; but Miss Shield informs us that the present book was written some con- siderable time ago, before her collaboration with Mr. Andrew Lang in The King over the Water. To this work Mr. Lang con- tributes a short but eloquent introduction, in which he ably traces the ill-luck which dogged the destiny of the Stuarts from the beginning of their rule till the end of their hopes Of returning to power; but in a footnote he disclaims all other responsibility save that of a general interest. Any doubts as to Miss Shield's enthusiasm as an apologist of the Stuarts are dispelled by such a passage as the following :—" In these so-called tolerant days it may seem an astonishing injustice that princes, worthy men, who inherited their royal right through long lines of ancestors, should have been bereft of their inheritance because their
chosen religion was not the religion of their people Was it that England might be free, and great, and good, that we must see `right for ever on the scaffold, wrong for ever on the throne ' P" Fortunately the injustice of his case did not rankle so bitterly in the heart of the Cardinal as to prevent him accepting from the "Hanoverian usurper" a pension which enabled him to live in comfort, and with no lose of dignity, to the end of his days.
There is much that is pleasant reading in Miss Shield's account of the last Royal Stuart as patron of the arts, of music, and of architecture, and as the prop and mainstay of the exiled family ; and it serves as a pleasant offset to the inevitable descriptions of the constant plots against the Hanoverian dynasty, and bickerings between "James III." and ,his "Queen," which formed the main excitements of the * Henry Stuart, Cardinal of York. By A. Shield. London Longman" and Co. [125. Id. net.]
Stuart entourage. The book contains an interesting appendix on the subsequent history of the Stuarts, and a few excellently reproduced portraits by why of illustration.
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