An Island Story - H. E. Marshall (best books to read in your 20s .TXT) 📗
- Author: H. E. Marshall
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At last Charles and his army were ready and marched into England. But although no one resisted him, although he took several towns without a blow being struck, hardly any of the English joined him. The Highlanders grew weary of marching through strange country, and home-sick for their mountains, and many of them deserted and went home. By the time Charles reached Derby, the leaders were so disheartened that they persuaded him to turn back to Scotland. Yet the people in London were awaiting his coming in terror, and King George was ready to run away.
It is difficult to guess what might have happened had the Prince gone on. But he did not. He turned again towards Scotland, and began the long, sad march homeward.
The wearied army reached Glasgow at last, having marched six hundred miles through snow and rain and wintry weather in less than two months.
Charles now decided to take Stirling Castle. He met the King’s army at Falkirk and defeated them, but after that, instead of trying to take Stirling, as he had intended, he listened to the advice of some of the Highland chiefs and marched northward.
As Charles had defeated two generals, King George now sent his own son, the Duke of Cumberland, to command his army. At Culloden, near Inverness, the last Jacobite battle was fought. The royal army was much larger than the Jacobite one, and although the Highlanders fought with all their usual fierce courage, they were utterly defeated. Charles would have been glad to die with his brave followers, but two of his officers seized the bridle of his horse and forced him against his will to leave the field. The battle was turned into a terrible slaughter, for the Duke of Cumberland behaved so cruelly to the beaten rebels that ever after he was called the Butcher.
The Stuart cause was lost, and Bonnie Prince Charlie was a hunted man. The King offered �30,000 to any one who would take him prisoner. But although the money would have made many a poor Highlander richer than he had ever imagined it possible for any one to be, not one of them tried to earn it. Instead they hid their Prince, fed him, clothed him, and worked for him. At last, after months of hardships and adventures, he escaped to France.
Many people helped Prince Charles, but it was a beautiful lady, called Flora Macdonald, who perhaps helped him most. She served him when he was most miserable and in greatest danger. The whole country round was filled with soldiers searching for him. He scarcely dared to leave his hiding-place, and was almost dying of hunger. No house was safe for him, and he had to hide among the rocks of the seashore, shivering with cold and drenched with rain.
With great difficulty and danger to herself, Flora Macdonald reached the place where the Prince was hiding, bringing with her a dress for him to wear. The Prince put it on, and together they went to the house of a friend, where Flora asked if she and her maid “Betty” might stay that night. This friend was very fond of Flora, and very glad to see her. She was a Jacobite, and when she was told who “Betty” was she made ready her best room for the Prince. A little girl belonging to the house came into the hall while Betty was standing there, and ran away frightened at the great tall woman, but no one suspected who she was.
Disguised as Flora Macdonald’s maid, Prince Charlie traveled for many days, escaping dangers in a wonderful way. For the Prince made a very funny-looking woman. He took great strides, and managed his skirts so badly that, in spite of the danger, his friends could not help laughing. “They do call your Highness a Pretender,” said one. “All I can say is that you are the worst of your trade the world has ever seen.”
When there was no need for Flora to go further with the Prince, they took a sad farewell of each other. “I hope, madam,” said he, bending over her hand and kissing it, “we shall yet meet at St. James’s.” By that he meant that he still hoped to be King some day, and welcome her in his palace of St. James’s in London. Then he stepped into the boat which was waiting for him, and Flora sat sadly by the shore, watching it as it sailed farther and farther away.
“Far over yon hills of the heather so green,
And down by the corrie that sings to the sea,
The bonnie young Flora sat sighing her lane,
The dew on her plaid and the tear in her e’e.
She looked at a boat which the breezes had swung,
Away on the wave like a bird on the main;
And aye as it lessened, she sighed and she sang,
Farewell to the lad I shall ne’er see again;
Farewell to my hero, the gallant and young,
Farewell to the lad I shall ne’er see again.
“The target is torn from the arm of the just
The helmet is cleft on the brow of the brave,
The claymore for ever in darkness must rust,
But red is the sword of the stranger and slave;
The hoof of the horse and the foot of the proud
Have trod o’er the plumes in the bonnet of blue.
Why slept the red bolt in the heart of the cloud
When tyranny revell’d in blood of the true?
Farewell, my young hero, the gallant and good!
The crown of thy fathers is torn from thy brow.”
This rebellion is called “The Forty-five” because it took place in 1745 A.D.
THEY TOOK A SAD FAREWELL OF EACH OTHER
Prince Charlie reached France safely, but the rest of his life was sad. He was a broken ruined man, and he lived a wanderer in many lands. At last, he died in Rome, on 30th January 1788 A.D., the anniversary of the day on which Charles I. had been beheaded.
In St. Peter’s at Rome there is a monument, placed there, it is said, by King George IV., upon which are the names, in Latin, of James III., Charles III., and Henry IX., kings of England. They were kings who never ruled, and are known in history as the Old Pretender, the Younger Pretender, and Henry, Cardinal of York, brother of the Young Pretender.
GEORGE II.—THE STORY OF THE BLACK HOLE OF CALCUTTA
BESIDES the civil was, Britain had other wars to fight. France, England’s old enemy was still the enemy of Britain. Once again there was war between them, and this time the fighting was not in France, nor in England, nor on the seas, but in far-off lands.
Long ago in the days of Elizabeth, you remember that Englishmen sailed over the seas to the newly-discovered country of America, and made their home there. You remember how Raleigh claimed Virginia for England, and how later the stern Puritans sailed away in the Mayflower, and founded a new Plymouth and a New England over the sea. Little by little these colonies (as such new countries which are peopled by an old country are called) grew. Towns sprang up, harbors were built, and the colonies became a rich and powerful part of Great Britain.
In another country, called India, Britain had also possessions, and trade with India had become of great importance, and was carried on chiefly by a company called the East India Company.
But France, too had colonies in India and in America, and the French and the British became so jealous of each other that war broke out in both countries. The French were much stronger in India at this time than the British, and they made up their minds to drive the British away altogether. They might have succeeded too, but for the cleverness of a young man called Robert Clive. He was a clerk in the East India Company’s office, and not a particularly good clerk either, because the work he had to do was not all the kind of work for which he was fitted.
When war broke out Robert Clive gave up being a clerk and became a soldier, and he soon showed that he was a clever one. Some of the native Indians fought for the French and some for the British. But Clive and his sepoys, as the native soldiers were called, won, and the French governor was obliged to leave the country.
A few years later, one of the native princes who had fought for the French, attacked the British who were living in Calcutta. He killed many of them, destroyed their houses and factories, and those who were left alive he shut up in a horrible prison called the Black Hole.
There were one hundred and forty-six prisoners, and the Black Hole was so small that there was hardly room in it for them to stand. The windows were so tiny that hardly any air could come through them. When the prisoners were told that they were all to go into this dreadful place they could not believe it. They thought at first that the Prince meant it as a jest. But they soon found our that it was no jest, but horrible, sinful earnest. In spite of their cries and entreaties, they were all driven in and the door fastened.
It was a hot summer night. What little air came through the tiny windows was soon poisoned by being breathed over and over again. People fainted, went mad, died. The cruel Indians held torches to the windows and, looking in, laughed at the terrible sufferings of the poor prisoners, who cried for mercy as they beat upon the door trying vainly in their agony to break it down. In the morning only twenty-three came out from the dreadful Hole alive.
When Clive heard of this horrible deed, he marched against the native Prince, and utterly defeated him in a battle called Plassey. He drove him from his throne, and placed another Prince, who was friendly to the British, upon it; he drove the French from their fortress there, and ever since then the power of Britain has grown and grown in India, until to-day our King, the King of Great Britain and Ireland, is also the Emperor of India.
GEORGE II.—THE STORY OF HOW CANADA WAS WON
WHILE these things were happening in India, the French and British were fighting in America also.
The French colonies there were called Canada and Louisiana. Canada lay north of the British colonies, beyond the St. Lawrence river. Louisiana lay west of the British colonies, beyond the Mississippi river. If you look at the map, you will see that in this way the British colonies were quite shut in by the sea and by the French on all sides.
This did not please the British. They wanted to be able to enlarge their colonies and to stretch out to the west, to the great forests and unknown land beyond Louisiana. The French, on the other hand, hoped to drive the British away from America altogether, and they built forts along the rivers and lakes to keep them as far as possible from the west. There were many quarrels, which grew more and more bitter, till at last war broke out.
At first the British were not successful. But just as Walpole had been a great peace minister, so William Pitt, who was now in power, was a great war minister. He was quick to see what needed to be done, and just as
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