Descriptions of his character vary between the noble encomium written
in prison by Archibald Cameron, the last man who died for the
Stuarts, and the virulent censures of Lord Elcho and Dr. King.
Veterans known to Sir Walter Scott wept at the mention of the
Prince's name; yet, as early as the tenth year after Prestonpans, his
most devoted adherent, Henry Goring, left him in an angry despair.
Nevertheless, the character so variously estimated, so tenderly
loved, so loathed, so despised, was one character; modified, swiftly
or slowly, as its natural elements developed or decayed under the
various influences of struggle, of success, of long endurance, of
hope deferred, and of bitter disappointment. The gay, kind, brave,
loyal, and clement Prince Charlie became the fierce, shabby, battered
exile, homeless, and all but friendless. The change, of course, was
not instantaneous, but gradual; it was not the result of one, but of
many causes. Even out of his final degradation, Charles occasionally
speaks with his real voice: his inborn goodness of heart, remarked
before his earliest adventures, utters its protest against the self
he has become; just as, on the other hand, long ere he set his foot
on Scottish soil, his father had noted his fatal inclination to wine
and revel.

The processes in this change of character, the events, the
temptations, the trials under which Charles became an altered man,
have been very slightly studied, and, indeed, have been very
obscurely known. Even Mr. Ewald, the author of the most elaborate
biography of the Prince, {13} neglected some important French printed
sources, while manuscript documents, here for the first time
published, were not at his command. The present essay is itself
unavoidably incomplete, for of family papers bearing on the subject