FAMOUS MEN

Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 June 1939, Page 6

FAMOUS MEN

MANY FANTASTIC STORIES. It is strange that there should be so many fantastic stories, entirely without foundation, still solemnly believed, about the careers of famous men. Alfred never burned the cakes. Watt did not invent the steam engine while watching the family kettle; Newton did not think of gravity because he was hit on the head with an apple. Many people believe that James Edward Stewart, better known as the Old Pretender, was not the child of James II and Queen Mary, but was smuggled into St. James's Palace in a warming pan. This is pure fiction. On his father’s death in exile, James, then a lad of thirteen, was proclaimed King James 111 at the court of St. Germains. In 1706 he made his first attempt to regain the English crown, but was prevented from landing in Scotland. He served with the French army in the War of the Spanish Succession. During the Jacobite rebellion of 1715 he joined his supporters in Scotland, but when he arrived, his cause was already lost, and his heavy, unattractive personality did nothing to revive it.

James afterwards retired to Rome where he led a dissolute life. In 1719 another invasion was planned on his behalf, but he showed little interest, and he was content to leave the conduct of 1745 Jacobite rebellion entirely to his son, Charles Edward, the Young Pretender. James died at Rome on June 10, 1766, and George 111, descendant of his greatest enemies, caused a memorial to be erected over his grave.