many have perished under the teeth of time, and in one case, of rats,
while others are not accessible to the writer. Nevertheless, it is
hoped that this work elucidates much which has long been veiled in
the motives, conduct, and secret movements of Charles during the
years between 1749 and the death, in 1766, of his father, the Old
Chevalier. Charles then emerged from a retirement of seventeen
years; the European game of Hide and Seek was over, and it is not
proposed to study the Prince in the days of his manifest decline, and
among the disgraces of his miserable marriage. His 'incognito' is
our topic; the period of 'deep and isolated enterprise' which puzzled
every Foreign Office in Europe, and practically only ended, as far as
hope was concerned, with the break-up of the Jacobite party in 1754-
1756, or rather with Hawke's defeat of Conflans in 1759.

Ours is a strange and melancholy tale of desperate loyalties, and of
a treason almost unparalleled for secrecy and persistence. We have
to do with the back-stairs of diplomacy, with spies and traitors,
with cloak and sword, with blabbing servants, and inquisitive
ambassadors, with disguise and discovery, with friends more staunch
than steel, or weaker than water, with petty jealousies, with the
relentless persecution of a brave man, and with the consequent ruin
of a gallant life.

To understand the psychological problem, the degradation of a
promising personality, it is necessary to glance rapidly at what we
know of Charles before his Scottish expedition.

To begin at the beginning, in physical qualities the Prince was
dowered by a kind fairy. He was firmly though slimly built, of the
best stature for strength and health. 'He had a body made for war,'