244 LAST OF THE STUARTS. * 



nate race; George IV had a monument erected there to their 

 memory, which, though the work of Canova, is hardly 

 worthy of so great an artist. 



ESTHER. 



The Stuart family must ever claim our strongest interest, 

 for, I believe, there exists not, in the record of history, a par- 

 allel instance of such an unvaried series of misfortune in one 

 family. 



MRS. F. 



Justly observed, Esther; the greatness acquired by their 

 ancestor* when he married the heiress of Scotland, was 

 indeed a fatal gift to his race, who became, for three centuries, 

 the sport of fortune. Of those w r ho ascended the throne, all 

 passed a stormy life many met with a violent death. 



Robert III, second king of the Stuart family, died of grief. 



James I was assassinated. 



James II was killed at the siege of Roxburgh. 



James III died in battle against his subjects. 



James IV was killed at the battle of Flodden Field. 



James V died of grief. 



Mary Stuart perished on the scaffold, but her son James I 

 passed his life in comparative tranquillity. 



Charles I was beheaded. 



Charles II was for years, an exile. 



James II was compelled to abdicate, and his decendants were 

 excluded for ever, from a throne which had been the source 

 of an uninterrupted series of calamities to their house. 



ESTHER. 



And then there is the unfortunate Arabella Stuart, first 

 cousin to James I, whose history from her birth to her death 

 seems to be composed of projects of marriage. The factious 



* Walter, the fourth of that name, married Mary, daughter of 

 Robert, King of Scotland, and had a son, who became king in 1370, 

 under the name of Robert II. 



