Pickle the Spy; Or, the Incognito of Prince Charles
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Title: Pickle the Spy; Or, the Incognito of Prince Charles
Author: Andrew Lang
Release date: November 1, 2004 [eBook #6807]
Most recently updated: December 29, 2014
Language: English
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Credits: Transcribed from the 1897 Longmans, Green, and Co. edition by David Price
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PICKLE THE SPY; OR, THE INCOGNITO OF PRINCE CHARLES ***
Transcribed from the 1897 Longmans, Green, and Co. edition by David
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[Picture: Pickle the Spy]
PICKLE THE SPY
or
The Incognito of Prince Charles
* * * * *
BY
ANDREW LANG
* * * * *
‘I knew the Master: on many secret steps of his career
I have an authentic memoir in my hand.’
THE MASTER OF BALLANTRAE
* * * * *
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
LONDON, NEW YORK, AND BOMBAY
1897
All rights reserved
PREFACE
THIS woful History began in my study of the Pelham Papers in the
Additional Manuscripts of the British Museum. These include the letters
of Pickle the Spy and of JAMES MOHR MACGREGOR. Transcripts of them were
sent by me to Mr. ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON, for use in a novel, which he
did not live to finish. The character of Pickle, indeed, like that of
the Master of Ballantrae, is alluring to writers of historical romance.
Resisting the temptation to use Pickle as the villain of fiction, I have
tried to tell his story with fidelity. The secret, so long kept, of
Prince Charles’s incognito, is divulged no less by his own correspondence
in the Stuart MSS. than by the letters of Pickle.
For Her Majesty’s gracious permission to read the Stuart Papers in the
library of Windsor Castle, and to engrave a miniature of Prince Charles
in the Royal collection, I have respectfully to express my sincerest
gratitude.
To Mr. HOLMES, Her Majesty’s librarian, I owe much kind and valuable aid.
The Pickle Papers, and many despatches in the State Papers, were examined
and copied for me by Miss E. A. IBBS.
In studying the Stuart Papers, I owe much to the aid of Miss VIOLET
SIMPSON, who has also assisted me by verifying references from many
sources.
It would not be easy to mention the numerous correspondents who have
helped me, but it were ungrateful to omit acknowledgment of the kindness
of Mr. HORATIO F. BROWN and of Mr. GEORGE T. OMOND.
I have to thank Mr. ALEXANDER PELHAM TROTTER for permission to cite the
MS. Letter Book of the exiled Chevalier’s secretary, ANDREW LUMISDEN, in
Mr. TROTTER’S possession.
Miss MACPHERSON of Cluny kindly gave me a copy of a privately printed
Memorial of her celebrated ancestor, and, by CLUNY’S kind permission, I
have been allowed to see some letters from his charter chest.
Apparently, the more important secret papers have perished in the years
of turmoil and exile.
This opportunity may be taken for disclaiming any belief in the
imputations against CLUNY conjecturally hazarded by ‘NEWTON,’ or KENNEDY,
in the following pages. The Chief’s destitution in France, after a long
period of suffering in Scotland, refutes these suspicions, bred in an
atmosphere of jealousy and distrust. Among the relics of the family are
none of the objects which CHARLES, in 1766–1767, found it difficult to
obtain from CLUNY’S representatives for lack of a proper messenger.
To Sir ARTHUR HALKETT, Bart., of Pitfirrane, I am obliged for a view of
BALHALDIE’S correspondence with his agent in Scotland.
The Directors of the French Foreign Office Archives courteously permitted
Monsieur LÉON PAJOT to examine, and copy for me, some of the documents in
their charge. These, it will be seen, add but little to our information
during the years 1749–1766.
I have remarked, in the proper place, that Mr. MURRAY ROSE has already
printed some of Pickle’s letters in a newspaper. As Mr. MURRAY ROSE
assigned them to JAMES MOHR MACGREGOR, I await with interest his
arguments in favour of this opinion in his promised volume of Essays.
The ornament on the cover of this work is a copy of that with which the
volumes of Prince CHARLES’S own library were impressed. I owe the stamp
to the kindness of Miss WARRENDER of Bruntsfield.
Among printed books, the most serviceable have been Mr. EWALD’S work on
Prince Charles, Lord STANHOPE’S History, and Dr. BROWNE’S ‘History of the
Highlands and Clans.’ Had Mr. EWALD explored the Stuart Papers and the
Memoirs of d’Argenson, Grimm, de Luynes, Barbier, and the Letters of
Madame du Deffand (edited by M. DE LESCURE), with the ‘Political
Correspondence of Frederick the Great,’ little would have been left for
gleaners in his track.
I must not forget to thank Mr. and Mrs. BARTELS for researches in old
magazines and journals. Mr. BARTELS also examined for me the printed
correspondence of Frederick the Great. To the kindness of J. A. ERSKINE
CUNNINGHAM, Esq., of Balgownie I owe permission to photograph the
portrait of Young Glengarry in his possession.
If I might make a suggestion to historical students of leisure, it is
this. The Life of the Old Chevalier (James III.) has never been written,
and is well worth writing. My own studies, alas! prove that Prince
Charles’s character was incapable of enduring misfortune. His father,
less brilliant and less popular, was a very different man, and, I think,
has everything to gain from an unprejudiced examination of his career.
He has certainly nothing to lose.
Since this work was in type the whole of Bishop Forbes’s MS., _The Lyon
in Mourning_, has been printed for an Historical Society in Scotland. I
was unable to consult the MS. for this book, but it contains, I now find,
no addition to the facts here set forth.
_November_ 5, 1896.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY TO PICKLE
PAGE
Subject of this book—The last rally of Jacobitism hitherto 1
obscure—Nature of the new materials—Information from spies,
unpublished Stuart Papers, &c.—The chief spy—Probably known
to Sir Walter Scott—‘Redgauntlet’ cited—‘Pickle the
Spy’—His position and services—The hidden gold of Loch
Arkaig—Consequent treacheries—Character of Pickle—Pickle’s
nephew—Pickle’s portrait—Pickle detected and denounced—To
no purpose—Historical summary—Incognito of Prince
Charles—Plan of this work
CHAPTER II
CHARLES EDWARD STUART
Prince Charles—Contradictions in his character—Extremes of 11
bad and good—Evolution of character—The Prince’s personal
advantages—Common mistake as to the colour of his eyes—His
portraits from youth to age—Descriptions of Charles by the
Duc de Liria; the President de Brosses; Gray; Charles’s
courage—The siege of Gaeta—Story of Lord Elcho—The real
facts—The Prince’s horse shot at Culloden—Foolish fables of
David Hume confuted—Charles’s literary tastes—His
clemency—His honourable conduct—Contrast with
Cumberland—His graciousness—His faults—Charge of
avarice—Love of wine—Religious levity—James on Charles’s
faults—An unpleasant discovery—Influence of Murray of
Broughton—Rapid decline of character after 1746—Temper,
wine, and women—Deep distrust of James’s Court—Rupture with
James—Divisions among Jacobites—King’s men and Prince’s
men—Marischal, Kelly, Lismore, Clancarty—Anecdote of
Clancarty and Braddock—Clancarty and
d’Argenson—Balhaldie—Lally Tollendal—The Duke of York—His
secret flight from Paris—‘Insigne Fourberie’—Anxiety of
Charles—The fatal cardinal’s hat—Madame de
Pompadour—Charles rejects her advances—His love
affairs—Madame de Talmond—Voltaire’s verses on her—Her
scepticism in Religion—Her husband—Correspondence with
Montesquieu—The Duchesse d’Aiguillon—Peace of
Aix-la-Chapelle—Charles refuses to retire to Fribourg—The
gold plate—Scenes with Madame de Talmond—Bulkeley’s
interference—Arrest of Charles—The compasses—Charles goes
to Avignon—His desperate condition—His policy—Based on a
scheme of D’Argenson—He leaves Avignon—He is lost to sight
and hearing
CHAPTER III
THE PRINCE IN FAIRYLAND
FEBRUARY 1749—SEPTEMBER 1750. I.—WHAT THE WORLD SAID
Europe after Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle—A vast gambling 44
establishment—Charles excluded—Possible chance in
Poland—Supposed to have gone thither—‘Henry Goring’s
Letter’—Romantic adventures attributed to Charles—Obvious
blunders—Talk of a marriage—Count Brühl’s opinion—Proposal
to kidnap Charles—To rob a priest—The King of Poland’s
ideas—Lord Hyndford on Frederick the Great—Lord Hyndford’s
mare’s nest—Charles at Berlin—‘Send him to Siberia’—The
theory contradicted—Mischievous glee of Frederick—Charles
discountenances plots to kill Cumberland—Father Myles
Macdonnell to James—London conspiracy—Reported from
Rome—The Bloody Butcher Club—Guesses of Sir Horace
Mann—Charles and a strike—Charles reported to be very
ill—Really on the point of visiting England—September 1750
CHAPTER IV
THE PRINCE IN FAIRYLAND. II.—WHAT ACTUALLY OCCURRED
Charles mystifies Europe—Montesquieu knows his 67
secret—Sources of information—The Stuart
manuscripts—Charles’s letters from Avignon—A proposal of
marriage—Kennedy and the hidden treasure—Where to look for
Charles—_Cherchez la femme_!—Hidden in Lorraine—Plans for
entering Paris—Letter to Mrs. Drummond—To the Earl
Marischal—Starts for Venice—At Strasbourg—Unhappy
Harrington—Letter to James—Leaves Venice—‘A bird without a
nest’—Goes to Paris—The Prince’s secret revealed—The
convent of St. Joseph—Curious letter as Cartouche—Madame de
Routh—Cartouche again—Goring sent to England—A
cypher—Portrait of Madame de Talmond—Portrait of Madame
d’Aiguillon—Intellectual society—Mademoiselle Luci—‘Dener
Bash’—The secret hoard—Results of Goring’s English
mission—Timidity of English Jacobites—Supply of
money—Charles a _bibliophile_—‘My big muff’—A patron of
art—Quarrels with Madame de Talmond—Arms for a
rising—Newton on Cluny—Kindness to Monsieur Le Coq—Madame
de Talmond weary of Charles—Letters to her—Charles reads
Fielding’s novels—Determines to go to England—Large order
of arms—Reproached by James—Intagli of James—_En route_ for
London—September 1750
CHAPTER V
THE PRINCE IN LONDON; AND AFTER.—MADEMOISELLE LUCI (SEPTEMBER
1750–JULY 1751)
The Prince goes to London—Futility of this tour—English 102
Jacobites described by Æneas Macdonald—No chance but in
Tearlach—Credentials to Madame de Talmond—Notes of visit to
London—Doings in London—Gratifying conversion—Gems and
medals—Report by Hanbury Williams—Hume’s legend—Report by a
spy—_Billets_ to Madame de
Talmond—Quarrel—Disappearance—‘The old aunt’—Letters to
Mademoiselle Luci—Charles in Germany—Happy thought of
Hanbury Williams—Marshal Keith’s mistress—Failure of this
plan—The English ‘have a clue’—Books for the
Prince—Mademoiselle Luci as a critic—Jealousy of Madame de
Talmond—Her letter to Mademoiselle Luci—The young lady
replies—Her bad health—Charles’s reflections—Frederick ‘a
clever man’—A new adventure
CHAPTER VI
INTRIGUES, POLITICAL AND AMATORY.—DEATH OF MADEMOISELLE LUCI, 1752
Hopes from Prussia—The Murrays of Elibank—Imprisonment of 124
Alexander Murray—Recommended to Charles—The Elibank
plot—Prussia and the Earl Marischal—His early
history—Ambassador of Frederick at Versailles—His odd
household—Voltaire—The Duke of Newcastle’s
resentment—Charles’s view of Frederick’s policy—His alleged
avarice—Lady Montagu—His money-box—Goring and the Earl
Marischal—Secret meetings—The lace shop—Albemarle’s
information—Charles at Ghent—Hanbury Williams’s mares’
nests—Charles and ‘La Grandemain’—She and Goring refuse to
take his orders—Appearance of Miss Walkinshaw—Her
history—Remonstrances of Goring—‘Commissions for the worst
of men’—‘The little man’—Lady Primrose—Death of
Mademoiselle Luci—November 10, date of postponed Elibank
plot—Danger of dismissing an agent
CHAPTER VII
YOUNG GLENGARRY
Pickle the spy—_Not_ James Mohr Macgregor or 145
Drummond—Pickle was the young chief of Glengarry—Proofs of
this—His family history—His part in the
Forty-five—Misfortunes of his family—In the Tower of
London—Letters to James III.—No cheque!—Barren honours—In
London in 1749—His poverty—Mrs. Murray of Broughton’s
watch—Steals from the Loch Arkaig hoard—Charges by him
against Archy Cameron—Is accused of forgery—Cameron of
Torcastle—Glengarry sees James III. in Rome—Was he sold to
Cumberland?—Anonymous charges against Glengarry—A friend of
Murray of Broughton—His spelling in evidence against
him—Mrs. Cameron’s accusation against Young Glengarry—Henry
Pelham and Campbell of Lochnell—Pickle gives his real name
and address—Note on Glengarry family—Highlanders among the
Turks
CHAPTER VIII
PICKLE AND THE ELIBANK PLOT
The Elibank plot—George II. to be kidnapped—Murray and 169
Young Glengarry—As Pickle, Glengarry betrays the plot—His
revelations—Pickle and Lord Elibank—Pickle meets
Charles—Charles has been in Berlin—Glengarry writes to
James’s secretary—Regrets failure of plot—Speaks of his
illness—Laments for Archy Cameron—Hanbury Williams seeks
Charles in Silesia—Pickle’s ‘fit of sickness’—His dealings
with the Earl Marischal—Meets the Prince at the masked
ball—‘A little piqued’—Marischal criticises the plot to
kidnap George II.—‘A night attack’—Other schemes—Charles’s
poverty—‘The prophet’s clothes’—Mr. Carlyle on Frederick
the Great—Alleges his innocence of Jacobite
intrigues—Contradicts statesmen—Mr. Carlyle in
error—Correspondence of Frederick with Earl Marischal—The
Earl’s account of English plotters—Frederick’s
advice—Encouragement underhand—Arrest of Archy Cameron—His
early history—Plea for clemency—Cameron is hanged—His
testimony to Charles’s virtues—His forgiveness of his
enemies—Samuel Cameron the spy—His fate—Young Edgar on the
hidden treasure—The last of the treasure—A _salmo ferox_
CHAPTER IX
DE PROFUNDIS
Charles fears for his own safety—Earl Marischal’s 207
advice—Letter from Goring—Charles’s danger—Charles at
Coblentz—His changes of abode—Information from
Pickle—Charles as a friar—Pickle sends to England
Lochgarry’s memorial—Scottish advice to Charles—List of
loyal clans—Pickle on Frederick—On English adherents—‘They
drink very hard’—Pickle declines to admit arms—Frederick
receives Jemmy Dawkins—His threats against
England—Albemarle on Dawkins—Dawkins an
archæologist—Explores Palmyra—Charles at feud with Miss
Walkinshaw—Goring’s illness—A mark to be put on Charles’s
daughter—Charles’s _objets d’art_—Sells his pistols
CHAPTER X
JAMES MOHR MACGREGOR
Another spy—Rob Roy’s son, James Mohr Macgregor—A spy in 230
1745—At Prestonpans and Culloden—Escape from Edinburgh
Castle—Billy Marshall—Visit to Ireland—Balhaldie reports
James’s discovery of Irish Macgregors—Their loyalty—James
Mohr and Lord Albemarle—James Mohr offers to sell
himself—And to betray Alan Breck—His sense of honour—His
long-winded report on Irish conspiracy—Balhaldie—Mrs.
Macfarlane who shot the Captain—Her romance—Pitfirrane
Papers—Balhaldie’s snuff-boxes—James Mohr’s
confessions—Balhaldie and Charles—Irish invasion—Arms in
Moidart—Arms at the house of Tough—Pickle to play the spy
in Ireland—Accompanied by a ‘Court Trusty’—Letter from
Pickle—Alan Breck spoils James Mohr—Takes his
snuff-boxes—Death of James Mohr—Yet another spy—His wild
information—Confirmation of Charles’s visit to Ireland
CHAPTER XI
‘A MAN UNDONE.’—1754
Jacobite hopes—Blighted by the conduct of Charles—His 252
seclusion—His health is affected—His fierce impatience—Miss
Walkinshaw—Letter from young Edgar—The Prince easily
tracked—Fears of his English correspondents—Remonstrances
of Goring—The English demand Miss Walkinshaw’s
dismissal—Danger of discarding Dumont—Goring fears the
Bastille—Cruelty of dismissing Catholic servants—Charles’s
lack of generosity—Has relieved no poor adherents—Will
offend both Protestants and Catholics—Opinion of a
Protestant—Toleration desired—Goring asks leave to
resign—Charles’s answer—Goring’s advice—Charles’s
reply—Needs money—Proceedings of Pickle—In London—Called to
France—To see the Earl Marischal—Charles detected at
Liège—Verbally dismisses Goring—Pickle’s letter to
England—‘Best metal buttons’—Goring to the Prince—The
Prince’s reply—Last letter from Goring—His
ill-treatment—His danger in Paris—His death in Prussia—The
Earl Marischal abandons the Prince—His distress—‘The
poison’
CHAPTER XII
PICKLE AS A HIGHLAND CHIEF.—1754–1757
Progress of Pickle—Charles’s last resource—Cluny called to 276
Paris—The Loch Arkaig hoard—History of Cluny—Breaks his
oath to King George—Jacobite theory of such oaths—Anecdote
of Cluny in hiding—Charles gives Pickle a gold snuff-box—‘A
northern —’—Asks for a pension—Death of Old
Glengarry—Pickle becomes chief—The curse of
Lochgarry—Pickle writes from Edinburgh—His report—Wants
money—Letter from a ‘Court Trusty’—Pickle’s pride—Refused a
fowling-piece—English account of Pickle—His arrogance and
extortion—Charles’s hopes from France—Macallester the
spy—The Prince’s false nose—Pickle still unpaid—His
candour—Charles and the Duc de Richelieu—A Scottish
deputation—James Dawkins publicly abandons the
Prince—Dawkins’s character—The Earl Marischal denounces
Charles—He will not listen to Cluny—Dismisses his
servants—Sir Horace Mann’s account of them—‘The boy that is
lost’—English rumours—Charles declines to lead attack on
Minorca—Information from Macallester—Lord Clancarty’s
attacks on the Prince—On Lochgarry—Macallester acts as a
prison spy—Jesuit conspiracy against Charles
CHAPTER XIII
THE LAST HOPE—1759
Charles asks Louis for money—Idea of employing him in 300
1757—Letter from Frederick—Chances in 1759—French
friends—Murray and ‘the Pills’—Charles at Bouillon—Madame
de Pompadour—Charles on Lord George Murray—The night march
to Nairn—Manifestoes—Charles will only land in
England—Murray wishes to repudiate the National
Debt—Choiseul’s promises—Andrew Lumisden—The Marshal’s old
boots—Clancarty—Internal feuds of Jacobites—Scotch and
Irish quarrels—The five of diamonds—Lord Elibank’s
views—The expedition starting—Routed in Quiberon Bay—New
hopes—Charles will not land in Scotland or Ireland—‘False
subjects’—Pickle waits on events—His last letter—His ardent
Patriotism—Still in touch with the Prince—Offers to sell a
regiment of Macdonalds—Spy or colonel?—Signs his real
name—‘Alexander Macdonnell of Glengarry’—Death of
Pickle—His services recognised
CHAPTER XIV
CONCLUSION
Conclusion—Charles in 1762—Flight of Miss 316
Walkinshaw—Charles quarrels with France—Remonstrance from
Murray—Death of King James—Charles returns to Rome—His
charm—His disappointments—Lochgarry enters the Portuguese
service—Charles declines to recognise Miss
Walkinshaw—Report of his secret marriage to Miss
Walkinshaw—Denied by the lady—Charles breaks with
Lumisden—Bishop Forbes—Charles’s marriage—The Duchess of
Albany—‘All ends in song’—The Princesse de Talmond—The end
_Erratum_
Page 3, line 2, _for_ George III. _read_ George II.
LIST OF PLATES
PICKLE THE SPY _Frontispiece_
THE PRINCE OF WALES, 1735 To _face p._ 18
PRINCE CHARLES ABOUT 1734 38
_From a miniature at Strathtyrum_. (_By
permission of Messrs. Charles Scribners’ Sons_.)
PRINCE CHARLES IN 1750 98
_From a miniature in Her Majesty’s Collection at
Windsor Castle_.
MISS WALKINSHAW 140
_From a miniature in the possession of Mrs.
Wedderburn Ogilvie_, _of Rannagulzion_. (_By
permission of Messrs. Charles Scribners’ Sons_.)
THE KING, 1780 (?) 320
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY TO PICKLE
Subject of this book—The last rally of Jacobitism hitherto obscure—Nature
of the new materials—Information from spies, unpublished Stuart Papers,
&c.—The chief spy—Probably known to Sir Walter Scott—‘Redgauntlet’
cited—‘Pickle the Spy’—His position and services—The hidden gold of Loch
Arkaig—Consequent treacheries—Character of Pickle—Pickle’s
nephew—Pickle’s portrait—Pickle detected and denounced—To no
purpose—Historical summary—Incognito of Prince Charles—Plan of this work.
THE latest rally of Jacobitism, with its last romance, so faded and so
tarnished, has hitherto remained obscure. The facts on which ‘Waverley’
is based are familiar to all the world: those on which ‘Redgauntlet’
rests were but imperfectly known even to Sir Walter Scott. The story of
the Forty-five is the tale of Highland loyalty: the story of 1750–1763 is
the record of Highland treachery, or rather of the treachery of some
Highlanders. That story, now for the first time to be told, is founded
on documents never hither to published, or never previously pieced
together. The Additional Manuscripts of the British Museum, with relics
of the government of Henry Pelham and his brother, the Duke of Newcastle,
have yielded their secrets, and given the information of the spies. The
Stuart Papers at Windsor (partly published in Browne’s ‘History of the
Highland Clans’ and by Lord Stanhope, but mainly virginal of type) fill
up the interstices in the Pelham Papers like pieces in a mosaic, and
reveal the general design. The letters of British ambassadors at Paris,
Dresden, Berlin, Hanover, Leipzig, Florence, St. Petersburg, lend colour
and coherence. The political correspondence of Frederick the Great
contributes to the effect. A trifle of information comes from the French
Foreign Office Archives; French printed ‘Mémoires’ and letters, neglected
by previous English writers on the subject, offer some valuable, indeed
essential, hints, and illustrate Charles’s relations with the wits and
beauties of the reign of Louis XV. By combining information from these
and other sources in print, manuscript, and tradition, we reach various
results. We can now follow and understand the changes in the singular
and wretched development of the character of Prince Charles Edward
Stuart. We get a curious view of the manners, and a lurid light on the
diplomacy of the middle of the eighteenth century. We go behind the
scenes of many conspiracies. Above all, we encounter an extraordinary
personage, the great, highborn Highland chief who sold himself as a spy
to the English Government.
His existence was suspected by Scott, if not clearly known and
understood.
In his introduction to ‘Redgauntlet,’ {3} Sir Walter Scott says that the
ministers of George III. ‘thought it proper to leave Dr. Cameron’s new
schemes in concealment (1753), lest by divulging them they had indicated
the channel of communication which, it is now well known, they possessed
to all the plots of Charles Edward.’ To ‘indicate’ that secret ‘channel
of communication’ between the Government of the Pelhams and the Jacobite
conspirators of 1749–1760 is one purpose of this book. Tradition has
vaguely bequeathed to us the name of ‘Pickle the Spy,’ the foremost of
many traitors. Who Pickle was, and what he did, a whole romance of
prosperous treachery, is now to be revealed and illustrated from various
sources. Pickle was not only able to keep the Duke of Newcastle and
George II. well informed as to the inmost plots, if not the most hidden
movements of Prince Charles, but he could either paralyse a serious, or
promote a premature, rising in the Highlands, as seemed best to his
English employers. We shall find Pickle, in company with that devoted
Jacobite, Lochgarry, travelling through the Highlands, exciting hopes,
consulting the chiefs, unburying a hidden treasure, and encouraging the
clans to rush once more on English bayonets.
Romance, in a way, is stereotyped, and it is characteristic that the last
romance of the Stuarts should be interwoven with a secret treasure. This
mass of French gold, buried after Culloden at Loch Arkaig, in one of the
most remote recesses of the Highlands, was, to the Jacobites, what the
dwarf Andvari’s hoard was to the Niflungs, a curse and a cause of
discord. We shall see that rivalry for its possession produced
contending charges of disloyalty, forgery, and theft among certain of the
Highland chiefs, and these may have helped to promote the spirit of
treachery in Pickle the Spy. It is probable, though not certain, that he
had acted as the agent of Cumberland before he was sold to Henry Pelham,
and he was certainly communicating the results of his inquiries in one
sense to George II., and, in another sense, to the exiled James III. in
Rome. He was betraying his own cousins, and traducing his friends.
Pickle is plainly no common spy or ‘paltry vidette,’ as he words it.
Possibly Sir Walter Scott knew who Pickle was: in him Scott, if he had
chosen, would have found a character very like Barry Lyndon (but worse),
very unlike any personage in the Waverley Novels, and somewhat akin to
the Master of Ballantrae. The cool, good-humoured, smiling, unscrupulous
villain of high rank and noble lineage; the scoundrel happily unconscious
of his own unspeakable infamy, proud and sensitive upon the point of
honour; the picturesque hypocrite in religion, is a being whom we do not
meet in Sir Walter’s romances. In Pickle he had such a character ready
made to his hand, but, in the time of Scott, it would have been
dangerous, as it is still disagreeable, to unveil this old mystery of
iniquity. A friend of Sir Walter’s, a man very ready with the pistol,
the last, as was commonly said, of the Highland chiefs, was of the name
and blood of Pickle, and would have taken up Pickle’s feud. Sir Walter
was not to be moved by pistols, but not even for the sake of a good story
would he hurt the sensibilities of a friend, or tarnish the justly
celebrated loyalty of the Highlands.
Now the friend of Scott, the representative of Pickle in Scott’s
generation, was a Highlander, and Pickle was not only a traitor, a
profligate, an oppressor of his tenantry, and a liar, but (according to
Jacobite gossip which reached ‘King James’) a forger of the King’s name!
Moreover he was, in all probability, one fountain of that reproach, true
or false, which still clings to the name of the brave and gentle
Archibald Cameron, the brother of Lochiel, whom Pickle brought to the
gallows. If we add that, when last we hear of Pickle, he is probably
engaged in a double treason, and certainly meditates selling a regiment
of his clan, like Hessians, to the Hanoverian Government, it will be
plain that his was no story for Scott to tell.
Pickle had, at least, the attraction of being eminently handsome. No
statelier gentleman than Pickle, as his faded portrait shows him in full
Highland costume, ever trod a measure at Holyrood. Tall, athletic, with
a frank and pleasing face, Pickle could never be taken for a traitor and
a spy. He seemed the fitting lord of that castellated palace of his
race, which, beautiful and majestic in decay, mirrors itself in Loch
Oich. Again, the man was brave; for he moved freely in France, England,
and Scotland, well knowing that the _skian_ was sharpened for his throat
if he were detected. And the most extraordinary fact in an extraordinary
story is that Pickle _was_ detected, and denounced to the King over the
water by Mrs. Archibald Cameron, the widow of his victim. Yet the breach
between James and his little Court, on one side, and Prince Charles on
the other, was then so absolute that the Prince was dining with the spy,
chatting with him at the opera-ball, and presenting him with a gold
snuff-box, at about the very time when Pickle’s treachery was known in
Rome. Afterwards, the knowledge of his infamy came too late, if it came
at all. The great scheme had failed; Cameron had fallen, and Frederick
of Prussia, ceasing to encourage Jacobitism, had become the ally of
England.
These things sound like the inventions of the romancer, but they rest on
unimpeachable evidence, printed and manuscript, and chiefly on Pickle’s
own letters to his King, to his Prince, and to his English employers—we
cannot say ‘pay-masters,’ for _Pickle was never paid_! He obtained,
indeed, singular advantages, but he seldom or never could wring ready
money from the Duke of Newcastle.
To understand Pickle’s career, the reluctant reader must endure a certain
amount of actual history in minute details of date and place. Every one
is acquainted with the brilliant hour of Prince Charles: his landing in
Moidart accompanied by only seven men, his march on Edinburgh, his
success at Prestonpans, the race to Derby, the retreat to Scotland, the
gleam of victory at Falkirk, the ruin of Culloden, the long months of
wanderings and distress, the return to France in 1746. Then came two
years of baffled intrigues; next, the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle insisted
on the Prince’s expulsion from France; last, he declined to withdraw. On
December 10, 1748, he was arrested at the opera, was lodged in the prison
of Vincennes, was released, and made his way to the Pope’s city of
Avignon, arriving there in the last days of December 1748. On February
28, 1749, he rode out of Avignon, and disappeared for many months from
the ken of history. For nearly eighteen years he preserved his
incognito, vaguely heard of here and there in England, France, Germany,
Flanders, but always involved in mystery. On that mystery, impenetrable
to his father, Pickle threw light enough for the purposes of the English
Government, but not during the darkest hours of Charles’s incognito.
‘Le Prince Edouard,’ says Barbier in his journal for February 1750, ‘fait
l’admiration et la curiosité de l’Europe.’ This work, alas! is not
likely to add to the admiration entertained for the unfortunate
adventurer, but any surviving curiosity as to the Prince’s secret may be
assuaged. In the days of 1749–1750, before Pickle’s revelations begin,
the drafts of the Prince’s memoranda, notes, and angry love-letters,
preserved in Her Majesty’s Library, enable us to follow his movements.
On much that is obscurely indicated in scarcely decipherable scrawls,
light is thrown by the French memoirs of that age. The names of Madame
de Talmond, Madame d’Aiguillon, and the celebrated Montesquieu, are
beacons in the general twilight. The memoirs also explain, what was
previously inexplicable, the motives of Charles in choosing a life ‘in a
hole of a rock,’ as he said after the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle (1748).
It is necessary, however, to study the internal feuds of the Jacobites at
this period, and these are illuminated by the Stuart Papers, the letters
of James and his ministers.
The plan of our narrative, therefore, will be arranged in the following
manner. First, we sketch the character of Prince Charles in boyhood,
during his Scottish expedition, and as it developed in cruelly thwarting
circumstances between 1746 and 1749. In illustrating his character the
hostile parties within the Jacobite camp must be described and defined.
From February 1749 to September 1750 (when he visited London), we must
try to pierce the darkness that has been more than Egyptian. We can, at
least, display the total ignorance of Courts and diplomatists as to
Charles’s movements before Pickle came to their assistance, and we
discover a secret which they ought to have known.
After the date 1752 we give, as far as possible, the personal history of
Pickle before he sold himself, and we unveil his motives for his villany.
Then we display Pickle in action, we select from his letters, we show him
deep in the Scottish, English, and continental intrigues. He spoils the
Elibank Plot, he reveals the hostile policy of Frederick the Great, he
leads on to the arrest of Archibald Cameron, he sows disunion, he
traduces and betrays. He finally recovers his lands, robs his tenants,
dabbles (probably) in the French scheme of invasion (1759), offers
further information, tries to sell a regiment of his clan, and dies
unexposed in 1761.
Minor spies are tracked here and there, as Rob Roy’s son, James Mohr
Macgregor, Samuel Cameron, and Oliver Macallester. English machinations
against the Prince’s life and liberty are unveiled. His utter decadence
is illustrated, and we leave him weary, dishonoured, and abandoned.
‘A sair, sair altered man
_Prince Charlie_ cam’ hame’
to Rome; and the refusal there of even a titular kingship.
The whole book aims chiefly at satisfying the passion of curiosity.
However unimportant a secret may be, it is pleasant to know what all
Europe was once vainly anxious to discover. In the revelation of
manners, too, and in tracing the relations of famous wits and beauties
with a person then so celebrated as Prince Charles, there is a certain
amount of entertainment which may excuse some labour of research. Our
history is of next to no political value, but it revives as in a magic
mirror somewhat dim, certain scenes of actual human life. Now and again
the mist breaks, and real passionate faces, gestures of living men and
women, are beheld in the clear-obscure. We see Lochgarry throw his dirk
after his son, and pronounce his curse. We mark Pickle furtively
scribbling after midnight in French inns. We note Charles hiding in the
alcove of a lady’s chamber in a convent. We admire the ‘rich anger’ of
his Polish mistress, and the sullen rage of Lord Hyndford, baffled by
‘the perfidious Court’ of Frederick the Great. The old histories emerge
into light, like the writing in sympathetic ink on the secret despatches
of King James.
CHAPTER II
CHARLES EDWARD STUART
Prince Charles—Contradictions in his character—Extremes of bad and
good—Evolution of character—The Prince’s personal advantages—Common
mistake as to the colour of his eyes—His portraits from youth to
age—Descriptions of Charles by the Duc de Liria; the President de
Brosses; Gray; Charles’s courage—The siege of Gaeta—Story of Lord
Elcho—The real facts—The Prince’s horse shot at Culloden—Foolish fables
of David Hume confuted—Charles’s literary tastes—His clemency—His
honourable conduct—Contrast with Cumberland—His graciousness—His
faults—Charge of avarice—Love of wine—Religious levity—James on Charles’s
faults—An unpleasant discovery—Influence of Murray of Broughton—Rapid
decline of character after 1746—Temper, wine, and women—Deep distrust of
James’s Court—Rupture with James—Divisions among Jacobites—King’s men and
Prince’s men—Marischal, Kelly, Lismore, Clancarty—Anecdote of Clancarty
and Braddock—Clancarty and d’Argenson—Balhaldie—Lally Tollendal—The Duke
of York—His secret flight from Paris—‘Insigne Fourberie’—Anxiety of
Charles—The fatal cardinal’s hat—Madame de Pompadour—Charles rejects her
advances—His love affairs—Madame de Talmond—Voltaire’s verses on her—Her
scepticism in religion—Her husband—Correspondence with Montesquieu—The
Duchesse d’Aiguillon—Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle—Charles refuses to retire
to Fribourg—The gold plate—Scenes with Madame de Talmond—Bulkeley’s
interference—Arrest of Charles—The compasses—Charles goes to Avignon—His
desperate condition—His policy—Based on a scheme of d’Argenson—He leaves
Avignon—He is lost to sight and hearing.
‘CHARLES EDWARD STUART,’ says Lord Stanhope, ‘is one of those characters
that cannot be portrayed at a single sketch, but have so greatly altered
as to require a new delineation at different periods.’ {12a} Now he
‘glitters all over like the star which they tell you appeared at his
nativity,’ and which still shines beside him, _Micat inter omnes_, on a
medal struck in his boyhood. {12b} Anon he is sunk in besotted vice, a
cruel lover, a solitary tippler, a broken man. We study the period of
transition.
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 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,’ writes Lord
Elcho, who hated him. The gift of beauty (in his case peculiarly fatal,
as will be seen) had not been denied to him. His brow was high and
broad, his nose shapely, his eyes of a rich dark brown, his hair of a
chestnut hue, golden at the tips. Though his eyes are described as blue,
both in 1744 by Sir Horace Mann, and in later life (1770) by an English
lady in Rome, though Lord Stanhope and Mr. Stevenson agree in this error,
brown was really their colour. {15a} Charles inherited the dark eyes of
his father, ‘the Black Bird,’ and of Mary Stuart. This is manifest from
all the original portraits and miniatures, including that given by the
Prince to his secretary, Murray of Broughton, now in my collection. In
boyhood Charles’s face had a merry, mutinous, rather reckless expression,
as portraits prove. Hundreds of faces like his may be seen at the public
schools; indeed, Charles had many ‘doubles,’ who sometimes traded on the
resemblance, sometimes, wittingly or unwittingly, misled the spies that
constantly pursued him. {15b} His adherents fondly declared that his
natural air of distinction, his princely bearing, were too marked to be
concealed in any travesty. Yet no man has, in disguises of his person,
been more successful. We may grant ‘the grand air’ to Charles, but we
must admit that he could successfully dissemble it.
About 1743, when a number of miniatures of the Prince were done in Italy
for presentation to adherents, Charles’s boyish mirth, as seen in these
works of art, has become somewhat petulant, if not arrogant, but he is
still ‘a lad with the bloom of a lass.’ A shade of aspiring melancholy
marks a portrait done in France, just before the expedition to Scotland.
Le Toque’s fine portrait of the Prince in armour (1748) shows a manly and
martial but rather sinister countenance. A plaster bust, done from a
life mask, if not from Le Moine’s bust in marble (1750), was thought the
best likeness by Dr. King. This bust was openly sold in Red Lion Square,
and, when Charles visited Dr. King in September 1750, the Doctor’s
servant observed the resemblance. I have never seen a copy of this bust,
and the medal struck in 1750, an intaglio of the same date, and a very
rare profile in the collection of the Duke of Atholl, give a similar idea
of the Prince as he was at thirty. A distinguished artist, who outlined
Charles’s profile and applied it to another of Her present Majesty in
youth, tells me that they are almost exact counterparts.
Next we come to the angry eyes and swollen features of Ozias Humphreys’s
miniature, in the Duke of Atholl’s collection, and in his sketch
published in the ‘Lockhart Papers’ (1776), and, finally, to the fallen
weary old face designed by Gavin Hamilton. Charles’s younger brother,
Henry, Duke of York, was a prettier boy, but it is curious to mark the
prematurely priestly and ‘Italianate’ expression of the Duke in youth,
while Charles still seems a merry lad. Of Charles in boyhood many
anecdotes are told. At the age of two or three he is said to have been
taken to see the Pope in his garden, and to have refused the usual marks
of reverence. Walton, the English agent in Florence, reports an outbreak
of ferocious temper in 1733. {17a} Though based on gossip, the story
seems to forebode the later excesses of anger. Earlier, in 1727, the Duc
de Liria, a son of Marshal Berwick, draws a pretty picture of the child
when about seven years old:—
‘The King of England did not wish me to leave before May 4, and I was
only too happy to remain at his feet, not merely on account of the
love and respect I have borne him all my life, but also because I was
never weary of watching the Princes, his sons. The Prince of Wales
was now six and a half, and, besides his great beauty, was remarkable
for dexterity, grace, and almost supernatural cleverness. Not only
could he read fluently, but he knew the doctrines of the Christian
faith as well as the master who had taught him. He could ride; could
fire a gun; and, more surprising still, I have seen him take a
crossbow and kill birds on the roof, and split a rolling ball with a
shaft, ten times in succession. He speaks English, French, and
Italian perfectly, and altogether he is the most ideal Prince I have
ever met in the course of my life.
‘The Duke of York, His Majesty’s second son, is two years old, and a
prodigy of beauty and strength.’ {17b}
Gray, certainly no Jacobite, when at Rome with Horace Walpole speaks very
kindly of the two gay young Princes. He sneers at their melancholy
father, of whom Montesquieu writes, ‘_ce Prince a une bonne physiononie
et noble_. _Il paroit triste_, _pieux_.’ {18a} Young Charles was
neither pious nor melancholy.
Of Charles at the age of twenty, the President de Brosses (the author of
‘Les Dieux Fétiches’) speaks as an unconcerned observer. ‘I hear from
those who know them both thoroughly that the eldest has far higher worth,
and is much more beloved by his friends; that he has a kind heart and a
high courage; that he feels warmly for his family’s misfortunes, and that
if some day he does not retrieve them, it will not be for want of
intrepidity.’ {18b}
Charles’s gallantry when under fire as a mere boy, at the siege of Gaeta
(1734), was, indeed, greatly admired and generally extolled. {18c} His
courage has been much more foolishly denied by his enemies than too
eagerly applauded by friends who had seen him tried by every species of
danger.
[Picture: The Prince of Wales, 1735]
Aspersions have been thrown on Charles’s personal bravery; it may be
worth while to comment on them. The story of Lord Elcho’s reproaching
the Prince for not heading a charge of the second line at Culloden, has
unluckily been circulated by Sir Walter Scott. On February 9, 1826,
Scott met Sir James Stuart Denham, whose father was out in the
Forty-five, and whose uncle was the Lord Elcho of that date. Lord Elcho
wrote memoirs, still unpublished, but used by Mr. Ewald in his ‘Life of
the Prince.’ Elcho is a hostile witness: for twenty years he vainly
dunned Charles for a debt of 1,500_l._ According to Sir James Stuart
Denham, Elcho asked Charles to lead a final charge at Culloden, retrieve
the battle, or die sword in hand. The Prince rode off the field, Elcho
calling him ‘a damned, cowardly Italian—.’
No such passage occurs in Elcho’s diary. He says that, after the flight,
he found Charles, in the belief that he had been betrayed, anxious only
for his Irish officers, and determined to go to France, not to join the
clans at Ruthven. Elcho most justly censured and resolved ‘never to have
anything more to do with him,’ a broken vow! {19a} As a matter of fact,
Sir Robert Strange saw Charles vainly trying to rally the Highlanders,
and Sir Stuart Thriepland of Fingask gives the same evidence. {19b}
In his seclusion during 1750, Charles wrote a little memoir, still
unpublished, about his Highland wanderings. In this he says that he was
‘led off the field by those about him,’ when the clans broke at Culloden.
‘The Prince then changed his horse, his own having been wounded by a
musket-ball in the shoulder.’ {20a}
The second-hand chatter of Hume, in his letter to Sir John Pringle
(February 13, 1773), is unworthy of serious attention.
Helvetius told Hume that his house at Paris had sheltered the Prince in
the years following his expulsion from France, in 1748. He called
Charles ‘the most unworthy of mortals, insomuch that I have been assured,
when he went down to Nantz to embark on his expedition to Scotland, he
took fright and refused to go on board; and his attendants, thinking the
matter gone too far, and that they would be affronted for his cowardice,
carried him in the night time into the ship, _pieds et mains liés_.’
The sceptical Hume accepts this absurd statement without even asking, or
at least without giving, the name of Helvetius’s informant. The
adventurer who insisted on going forward when, at his first landing in
Scotland, even Sir Thomas Sheridan, with all the chiefs present, advised
retreat, cannot conceivably have been the poltroon of Hume’s myth. Even
Hume’s correspondent, Sir John Pringle, was manifestly staggered by the
anecdote, and tells Hume that another of his fables is denied by the very
witness to whom Hume appealed. {20b} Hume had cited Lord Holdernesse for
the story that Charles’s presence in London in 1753 (1750 seems to be
meant) was known at the time to George II. Lord Holdernesse declared
that there was nothing in the tale given by Hume on his authority! That
Charles did not join the rallied clans at Ruthven after Culloden was the
result of various misleading circumstances, not of cowardice. Even after
1746 he constantly carried his life in his hand, not only in expeditions
to England (and probably to Scotland and Ireland), but in peril from the
daggers of assassins, as will later be shown.
High-spirited and daring, Charles was also hardy. In Italy he practised
walking without stockings, to inure his feet to long marches: he was
devoted to boar-hunting, shooting, and golf. {21a} He had no touch of
Italian effeminacy, otherwise he could never have survived his Highland
distresses. In travelling he was swift, and incapable of fatigue. ‘He
has,’ said early observer, ‘_the habit of keeping a secret_.’ Many
secrets, indeed, he kept so well that history is still baffled by them,
as diplomatists were perplexed between 1749 and 1766. {21b}
We may discount Murray of Broughton’s eulogies Charles’s Greek, Latin,
and Hebrew, and his knowledge of history and philosophy, though backed by
the Jesuit Cordara. {21c} Charles’s education had been interrupted by
quarrels between his parents about Catholic or Protestant tutors. His
cousin and governor, Sir Thomas Sheridan (a descendant of James II.),
certainly did not teach him to spell; his style in French and English is
often obscure, and, when it is clear, we know not whether he was not
inspired by some more literary adviser. In matters of taste he was fond
of music and archæology, and greatly addicted to books. De Brosses,
however, considered him ‘less cultivated than Princes should be at his
age,’ and d’Argenson says that his knowledge was scanty and that he had
little conversation. A few of his books, the morocco tooled with the
Prince of Wales’s feathers, remain, but not enough to tell us much about
his literary tastes. On these, however, we shall give ample information.
In Paris, after Culloden, he bought Macchiavelli’s works, probably in
search of practical hints on state-craft. In spite of a proclamation by
Charles, which Montesquieu applauded, he certainly had no claim to a seat
in the French Academy, which Montesquieu playfully offered to secure for
him.
In brief, Charles was a spirited, eager boy, very capable of patience,
intensely secretive, and, as he showed in 1745–1746, endowed with a
really extraordinary clemency, and in one regard, where his enemies were
concerned, with a sense of honour most unusual in his generation. His
care for the wounded, after Prestonpans, is acknowledged by the timid and
Whiggish Home, in his ‘History of the Rebellion,’ and is very warmly and
gracefully expressed in a letter to his father, written at Holyrood.’
{23a} He could not be induced to punish miscreants who attempted his
life and snapped pistols in his face. He could hardly be compelled to
retort to the English offer of 30,000_l._ for his head by issuing a
similar proclamation about ‘the Elector.’ ‘I smiled and created it’ (the
proclamation of a reward of 30,000_l._ for his head) ‘with the disdain it
deserved, upon which they’ (the Highlanders) ‘flew into a violent rage,
and insisted upon my doing the same by him.’ This occurs in a letter
from Charles to James, September 10, 1745, dated from Perth. A copy is
found among Bishop Forbes’s papers. Here Charles deplores the cruelties
practised under Charles II. and James II., and the consequent
estrangement of the Duke of Argyll. {23b}
In brief, the contest between Charles and Cumberland was that of a
civilised and chivalrous commander against a foe as treacherous and cruel
as a Huron or an Iroquois. On this point there is no possibility of
doubt. The English Government offered a vast reward for Charles, dead or
alive. The soldiers were told significantly, by Cumberland, that he did
not want prisoners. On the continent assassins lurked for the Prince,
and ambassadors urged the use of personal violence. Meanwhile the Prince
absolutely forbade even a legitimate armed attack directed mainly against
his enemy, then red-handed from the murder of the wounded.
With this loyalty to his foes, with this clemency to enemies in his
power, Charles certainly combined a royal grace, and could do handsome
things handsomely. Thus, in 1745, some of the tenants of Oliphant of
Gask would not don the white cockade at his command. He therefore ‘laid
an arrest or inhibition on their corn-fields.’ Charles, finding the
grain hanging dead-ripe, as he marched through Perthshire, inquired the
cause, and when he had learned it, broke the ‘taboo’ by cutting some ears
with his sword, or by gathering them and giving them to his horse, saving
that the farmers might now, by his authority, follow his example and
break the inhibition. {24a}
Making every allowance for an enthusiasm of loyalty on the part of the
narrators in Bishop Forbes’s MS. ‘Lyon in Mourning’ (partly published by
Robert Chambers in ‘Jacobite Memoirs’ {24b}), it is certain that the
courage, endurance, and gay content of the Prince in his Highland
wanderings deserve the high praise given by Smollett. Thus, in many ways
we see the elements of a distinguished and attractive character in
Charles. His enemies, like the renegade Dr. King, of St. Mary’s Hall
(ob. 1763), in his posthumous ‘Anecdotes,’ accused the Prince of avarice.
He would borrow money from a lady, says King, while he had plenty of his
own; he neglected those who had ruined themselves for his sake. Henry
Goring accused the Prince of shabbiness to his face, but assuredly he who
insisted on laying down money on the rocks of a deserted fishers’ islet
to pay for some dry fish eaten there by himself and his companions—he who
gave liberally to gentle and simple out of the treasure buried near Loch
Arkaig, who refused a French pension for himself, and asked favours only
for his friends—afforded singular proofs of Dr. King’s charge of selfish
greed. The fault grew on him later. After breaking with the French
Court in 1748, Charles had little or nothing of his own to give away.
His Sobieski jewels he had pawned for the expenses of the war, having no
heart to wear them, he said, ‘on this side of the water.’ He was often
in actual need, though we may not accept d’Argenson’s story of how he was
once seen selling his pistols to a gun-maker. {25a} If ever he was a
miser, that vice fixed itself upon him in his utter moral ruin.
Were there, then, no signs in his early life of the faults which grew so
rapidly when hope was lost? There were such signs. As early as 1742,
James had observed in Charles a slight inclination to wine and gaiety,
and believed that his companions, especially Francis Strickland, {25b}
were setting him against his younger brother, the Duke of York, who had
neither the health nor the disposition to be a roysterer. {26a}
Again, on February 3, 1747, James recurs, in a long letter, to what
passed in 1742, ‘because that is the foundation, and I may say the key,
of all that has followed.’ Now in 1742 Murray of Broughton paid his
first visit to Rome, and was fascinated by Charles. This unhappy man,
afterwards the Judas of the cause, was unscrupulous in private life in
matters of which it is needless to speak more fully. He was, or gave
himself the air of being, a very stout Protestant. James employed him,
but probably liked him little. It is to be gathered, from James’s letter
of February 3, 1747, that he suspected Charles of listening to advice,
probably from Murray, about his changing his religion. ‘You cannot
forget how you were prevailed upon to speak to your brother’ (the devout
Duke of York) ‘on very nice and delicate subjects, and that without
saying the least thing to me, though we lived in the same house . . . You
were then much younger than you are now, and therefore could be more
easily led by specious arguments and pretences. . . . It will, to be
sure, have been represented to you that our religion is a great prejudice
to our interest, but that it may in some measure be remedied by a certain
free way of thinking and acting.’ {26b}
In 1749 James made a disagreeable discovery, which he communicated to
Lord Lismore. A _cassette_, or coffer, belonging to Charles, had,
apparently, been left in Paris, and, after many adventures on the road,
was brought to Rome by the French ambassador. James opened it, and found
that it contained letters ‘from myself and the Queen.’ But it also
offered proof that the Prince had carried on a secret correspondence with
England, long before he left Rome in 1744. Probably his adherents wished
James to resign in his favour. {27a}
As to religion, Dr. King admits that Charles was no bigot, and d’Argenson
contrasted his disengaged way of treating theology with the exaggerated
devoutness of the Duke of York. Even during the march into England, Lord
Elcho told an inquirer that the Prince’s religion ‘was still to seek.’
Assuredly he would never make shipwreck on the Stuart fidelity to
Catholicism. All this was deeply distressing to the pious James, and all
this dated from 1742, that is, from the time of Murray of Broughton’s
visit to Rome. Indifference to religious strictness was, even then,
accompanied by a love of wine, in some slight degree. Already, too, a
little rift in the friendship of the princely brothers was apparent;
there were secrets between them which Henry must have communicated to
James.
As for the fatal vice of drink, it is hinted at on April 15, 1747, by an
anonymous Paris correspondent of Lord Dunbar’s. Charles had about him
‘an Irish cordelier,’ one Kelly, whom he employed as a secretary. Kelly
is accused of talking contemptuously about James. ‘It were to be wished
that His Royal Highness would forbid that friar his apartment, because he
passes for a notorious drunkard . . . and His Royal Highness’s character,
in point of sobriety, has been a little blemished on this friar’s
account.’ {28a}
The cold, hunger, and fatigue of the Highland distresses had, no doubt,
often prompted recourse to the national dram of whiskey, and Charles
would put a bottle of brandy to his lips ‘without ceremony,’ says Bishop
Forbes. The Prince on one occasion is said to have drunk the champion
‘bowlsman’ of the Islands under the table. {28b}
What had been a jovial feast became a custom, a consolation, and a curse,
while there is reason, as has been seen, to suppose that Charles, quite
early in life, showed promise of intemperance. In happier circumstances
these early tastes might never have been developed into a positive
disease. James himself, in youth, had not been a pattern of strict
sobriety, but later middle age found him almost ascetic.
We have sketched a character endowed with many fine qualities, and
capable of winning devoted affection. We now examine the rapid decline
of a nature originally noble.
Returned from Scotland in 1746, Prince Charles brought with him a head
full of indigested romance, a heart rich in chimerical expectations. He
now prided himself on being a plain hardy mountaineer. He took a line of
his own; he concealed his measures from the spy-ridden Court of his
father in Rome; he quarrelled with his brother, the Duke of York, when
the Duke accepted a cardinal’s hat. He broke violently with the French
king, who would not aid him. He sulked at Avignon. He sought Spanish
help, which was refused. He again became the centre of fashion and of
disaffection in Paris. Ladies travelled from England merely to see him
in his box at the theatre. Princesses and duchesses ‘pulled caps for
him.’ Naturally cold (as his enemies averred) where women were
concerned, he was now beleaguered, besieged, taken by storm by the fair.
He kept up the habit of drinking which had been noted in him even before
his expedition to Scotland. He allowed his old boyish scepticism
(caused by a mixed Protestant and Catholic education) to take the form of
studied religious indifference. After defying and being expelled by
Louis XV., he adopted (what has never, perhaps, been observed) the wild
advice of d’Argenson (‘La Bête,’ and Louis’s ex-minister of foreign
affairs), he betook himself to a life of darkling adventures, to a hidden
and homeless exile. In many of his journeys he found Pickle in his path,
and Pickle finally made his labours vain. The real source of all this
imbroglio, in addition to an exasperated daring and a strangely secretive
temperament, was a deep, well-grounded mistrust of the people employed by
his father, the old ‘King over the water.’ Whatever James knew was known
in London by next mail. Charles was aware of this, and was not aware
that his own actions were almost as successfully spied upon and reported.
He therefore concealed his plans and movements from James, and even—till
Pickle came on the scene—from Europe and from England. The result of his
reticence was an irremediable rupture between ‘the King and the Prince of
Wales—over the water,’ an incurable split in the Jacobite camp.
The general outline here sketched must now be filled up in detail. The
_origo mali_ was the divisions among the Jacobites. Ever since 1715
these had existed and multiplied. Mar was thought to be a traitor.
Atterbury, in exile, suspected O’Brien (Lord Lismore). The Earl
Marischal and Kelly {30a} were set against James’s ministers, Lord
Sempil, Lord Lismore, and Balhaldie, the exiled chief of the Macgregors.
Lord Dunbar (Murray, brother of Lord Mansfield) was in James’s disgrace
at Avignon. Sempil, Balhaldie, Lismore were ‘the King’s party,’ opposed
to Marischal, Kelly, Sheridan, Lally Tollendal, ‘the Prince’s party.’
Each sect inveighed against the other in unmeasured terms of reproach.
This division widened when Charles was in France, just before the
expedition to Scotland.
One of James’s agents in Paris, Lord Sempil, writes to him on July 5,
1745, with warnings against the Prince’s counsellors, especially Sir
Thomas Sheridan (Charles’s governor, and left-handed cousin) and Kelly.
They, with Lally Tollendal and others, arranged the descent on Scotland
without the knowledge of James or Sempil, whom Charles and his party
bitterly distrusted, as they also distrusted Lord Lismore (O’Brien),
James’s other agent. While the Prince was in Scotland (1745–1746), even
before Prestonpans, the Jacobite affairs in France were perplexed by the
action of Lismore, Sempil, and Balhaldie, acting for James, while the old
Earl Marischal (who had been in the rising of 1715, and the Glenshiel
affair of 1719) acted for the Prince. With the Earl Marischal was, for
some time, Lord Clancarty, of whom Sempil speaks as ‘a very brave and
worthy man.’ {31a} On the other hand, Oliver Macallester, the spy,
describes Clancarty, with whom he lived, as a slovenly, drunken,
blaspheming rogue, one of whose eyes General Braddock had knocked out
with a bottle in a tavern brawl! Clancarty gave himself forth as a
representative of the English Jacobites, but d’Argenson, in his
‘Mémoires,’ says he could produce no names of men of rank in the party
except his own. D’Argenson was pestered by women, priests, and ragged
Irish adventurers. In September 1745, the Earl Marischal and Clancarty
visited d’Argenson, then foreign minister of Louis XV. in the King’s camp
in Flanders. They asked for aid, and the scene, as described by the spy
Macallester, on Clancarty’s information, was curious. D’Argenson taunted
the Lord Marischal with not being at Charles’s side in Scotland. To the
slovenly Clancarty he said, ‘Sir, your wig is ill-combed. Would you like
to see my perruquier? He manages wigs very well.’ Clancarty, who wore
‘an ordinary black tie-wig,’ jumped up, saying in English, ‘Damn the
fellow! He is making his diversion of us.’ {32a} The Lord Marischal was
already on bad personal terms with Charles. Clancarty was a ruffian,
d’Argenson was the adviser who suggested Charles’s hidden and fugitive
life after 1748. The singular behaviour of the Earl Marischal in
1751–1754 will afterwards be illustrated by the letters of Pickle, who
drew much of his information from the unsuspicious old ambassador of
Frederick the Great to the Court of Versailles. It is plain that the
Duke of Ormonde was right when he said that ‘too many people are meddling
in your Majesty’s affairs with the French Court at this juncture’
(November 15, 1745). The Duke of York, Charles’s brother, was on the
seaboard of France in autumn 1745. At Arras he met the gallant Chevalier
Wogan, who had rescued his mother from prison at Innspruck. {32b}
Clancarty, Lord Marischal, and Lally Tollendal were pressing for a French
expedition to start in aid of Charles. Sempil, Balhaldie, Lismore, were
intriguing and interfering. Voltaire wrote a proclamation for Charles to
issue. An expedition was arranged, troops and ships were gathered at
Boulogne. Swedes were to join from Gothenburg. On Christmas Eve, 1745,
nothing was ready, and the secret leaked out. A million was sent to
Scotland; the money arrived too late; we shall hear more of it. {33a}
The Duke of York, though he fought well at Antwerp, was kneeling in every
shrine, and was in church when the news of Culloden was brought to him.
This information he gave, in the present century, to one of the Stair
family. {33b} The rivalries and enmities went on increasing and
multiplying into cross-divisions after Charles made his escape to France
in August 1746. He was filled with distrust of his father’s advisers;
his own were disliked by James. The correspondence of Horace Mann, and
of Walton, an English agent in Florence, shows that England received all
intelligence sent to James from Paris, and knew all that passed in
James’s cabinet in Rome. {33c} The Abbé Grant was suspected of being the
spy.
Among so many worse than doubtful friends, Charles, after 1746, took his
own course; even his father knew little or nothing of his movements.
Between his departure from Avignon (February 1749) and the accession of
Pickle to the Hanoverian side (Autumn 1749 or 1750), Charles baffled
every Foreign Office in Europe. Indeed, Pickle was of little service
till 1751 or 1752. Curious light on Charles’s character, and on the
entangled quarrels of the Jacobites, is cast by d’Argenson’s ‘Mémoires.’
In Spring, 1747, the Duke of York disappeared from Paris, almost as
cleverly as Charles himself could have done. D’Argenson thus describes
his manœuvre. ‘He fled from Paris with circumstances of distinguished
treachery’ (_insigne fourberie_) towards his brother, the Prince. He
invited Charles to supper; his house was brilliantly lighted up; all his
servants were in readiness; but _he_ had made his escape by five o’clock
in the afternoon, aided by Cardinal Tencin. His Governor, the Chevalier
Graeme, was not in the secret. The Prince waited for him till midnight,
and was in a mortal anxiety. He believed that the English attempts to
kidnap or assassinate himself had been directed against his brother. At
last, after three days, he received a letter from the Duke of York,
‘explaining his fatal design’ to accept a cardinal’s hat. ‘Prince
Charles is determined never to return to Rome, _but rather to take refuge
in some hole in a rock_.’
Charles, in fact, saw that, if he was to succeed in England, he could not
have too little connection with Rome. D’Argenson describes his brother
Henry as ‘Italian, superstitious, a rogue, avaricious, fond of ease, and
jealous of the Prince.’ Cardinal Tencin, he says, and Lord and Lady
Lismore, have been bribed by England to wheedle Henry into the
cardinalate, ‘which England desires more than anything in the world.’
Charles expressed the same opinion in an epigram. Lady Lismore, for a
short time believed to be the mistress of Louis XV., was deeply
suspected. Whatever may be the truth of these charges, M. de Puysieux,
an enemy of Charles, succeeded at the Foreign Office to d’Argenson, who
had a queer sentimental liking for the Prince. Cardinal Tencin was
insulted, and was hostile; the Lismores were absolutely estranged, if not
treacherous; there was a quarrel between James and Henry in Rome, and
Charles, in Paris. {35a} Such was the state of affairs at the end of
1747, while Pickle was still a prisoner in the Tower of London, engaged,
he tells us, in acts of charity towards his fellow-captives!
Meanwhile Charles’s private conduct demands a moment’s attention. Madame
de Pompadour was all powerful at Court. {35b} This was, therefore, a
favourable moment for Charles, in a chivalrous affection for the injured
French Queen (his dead mother’s kinswoman), to insult the reigning
favourite. Madame de Pompadour sent him _billets_ on that thick smooth
vellum paper of hers, sealed with the arms of France. The Prince tossed
them into the fire and made no answer; it is Pickle who gives us this
information. Maria Theresa later stooped to call Madame de Pompadour her
cousin. Charles was prouder or less politic; afterwards he stooped like
Maria Theresa.
For his part, says d’Argenson, the Prince ‘now amused himself with love
affairs. Madame de Guémené almost ravished him by force; they have
quarrelled, after a ridiculous scene; he is living now with the Princesse
de Talmond. He is full of fury, and wishes in everything to imitate
Charles XII. of Sweden and stand a siege in his house like Charles XII.
at Bender.’ This was in anticipation of arrest, after the Treaty of
Aix-la-Chapelle, in which his expulsion from France was one of the
conditions. This Princesse de Talmond, as we shall see, was the unworthy
Flora Macdonald of Charles in his later wanderings, his protectress, and,
unlike Flora, his mistress. She was not young; Madame d’Aiguillon calls
her _vieille femme_ in a curious play, ‘La Prison du Prince Charles
Edouard Stuart,’ written by d’Argenson in imitation of Shakespeare. {36a}
The Princesse, _née_ Marie Jablonowski, a cousin of the Queen of France
and of Charles, married Anne Charles Prince de Talmond, of the great
house of La Trimouille, in 1730. She must have been nearly forty in
1749, and some ten years older than her lover.
We shall later, when Charles is concealed by the Princesse de Talmond,
present the reader with her ‘portrait’ by the mordant pen of Madame du
Deffand. Here Voltaire’s rhymed portrait may be cited:
Les dieux, en la donnant naissance
Aux lieux par la Saxe envahis,
Lui donnèrent pour récompense
Le goût qu’on ne trouve qu’en France,
Et l’esprit de tous les pays.
The Princesse, who frequented the _Philosophes_, appears to have
encouraged Charles in free thinking and ostentatious indifference in
religion.
‘He is a handsome Prince, and I should love him as much as my wife
does,’ says poor M. de Talmond, in d’Argenson’s play, ‘but why is he
not saintly, and ruled by the Congrégation de Saint Ignace, like his
father? It is Madame de Talmond who preaches to him independence and
incredulity. She is bringing the curse of God upon me. How old will
she be before the conversion for which I pray daily to Saint François
Xavier?’
Such was Madame de Talmond, an old mistress of a young man, flighty,
philosophical, and sharp of tongue.
On July 18, 1748, Charles communicated to Louis XV. his protest against
the article of the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle which drove him out of every
secular state in Europe. Louis broke a solemn treaty by assenting to
this article. Charles published his protest and sent it to Montesquieu.
He complained that Montesquieu had not given him the new edition of his
book on the Romans. ‘La confiance devroit être mieux établi entre les
auteurs: j’espère que ma façon de penser pour vous m’attirera la
continuation de votre bonne volonté pour moi.’ {37a} Montesquieu praised
Charles’s ‘simplicity, nobility, and eloquence’: ‘comme vous le dites
très bien, vous estes un auteur.’ ‘Were you not so great a Prince, the
Duchesse de Guillon’ (d’Aiguillon) ‘and I would secure you a place in the
Academy.’
The Duchesse d’Aiguillon, who later watched by Montesquieu’s death-bed,
was a friend of Charles. She and Madame de Talmond literally ‘pull caps’
for him in d’Argenson’s play. But she was in favour of his going to
Fribourg with a pension after the Peace: Madame de Talmond encouraged
resistance. Louis’s minister, M. de Cousteille, applied to Fribourg for
an asylum for Charles on June 24, 1748. On September 8, Burnaby wrote,
for England, a long remonstrance to the ‘Laudable States of Fribourg,’
calling Charles ‘this young Italian!’ The States, in five lines, rebuked
Burnaby’s impertinence, as ‘unconfined in its expressions and so
unsuitable to a Sovereign State that we did not judge it proper to answer
it.’ {38a}
[Picture: Prince Charles, about 1734. From a miniature at Strathtyrum]
To Fribourg Charles would not go. He braved the French Court in every
way. He even insisted on a goldsmith’s preferring his order for a great
service of plate to the King’s, and, having obtained the plate, he
feasted the Princesse de Talmond, his friend and cousin, the Duc de
Bouillon, and a crowd of other distinguished people. {38b} In his
demeanour Charles resolutely affronted the French Ministers. There were
terrible scenes with Madame de Talmond, especially when Charles was
forbidden the house by her husband. Charles was led away from her closed
door by Bulkeley, the brother-in-law of Marshal Berwick, and a friend of
Montesquieu’s. {39a} Thus the violence which afterwards interrupted and
ended Charles’s _liaison_ with Madame de Talmond had already declared
itself. One day, according to d’Argenson, the lady said, ‘You want to
give _me_ the second volume in your romance of compromising Madame de
Montbazon [his cousin] with your two pistol-shots.’ No more is known of
this adventure. But Charles was popular both in Court and town: his
resistance to expulsion was applauded. De Gèvres was sent by the King to
entreat Charles to leave France; ‘he received de Gèvres gallantly, his
hand on his sword-hilt.’ D’Argenson saw him at the opera on December 3,
1748, ‘fort gai et fort beau, admiré de tout le public.’
On December 10, 1748, Charles was arrested at the door of the opera
house, bound hand and foot, searched, and dragged to Vincennes. The
deplorable scene is too familiar for repetition. One point has escaped
notice. Charles (according to d’Argenson) had told de Gèvres that he
would die by his own hand, if arrested. Two pistols were found on him;
he had always carried them since his Scottish expedition. But a _pair of
compasses_ was also found. Now it was with a pair of compasses that his
friend, Lally Tollendal, long afterwards attempted to commit suicide in
prison. The pistols were carried in fear of assassination, but what does
a man want with a pair of compasses at the opera? {40a}
After some days of detention at Vincennes, Charles was released, was
conducted out of French territory, and made his way to Avignon, where he
resided during January and February 1749. He had gained the sympathy of
the mob, both in Paris and in London. Some of the French Court,
including the Dauphin, were eager in his cause. Songs and poems were
written against Louis XV, D’Argenson, as we know, being out of office,
composed a play on Charles’s martyrdom. So much contempt for Louis was
excited, that a nail was knocked into the coffin of French royalty. The
King, at the dictation of England, had arrested, bound, imprisoned, and
expelled his kinsman, his guest, and (by the Treaty of Fontainebleau) his
ally.
Applause and pity from the fickle and forgetful the Prince had won, but
his condition was now desperate. Refusing to accept a pension from
France, he was poor; his jewels he had pawned for the Scottish
expedition. He had disobeyed his father’s commands and mortally offended
Louis by refusing to leave France. His adherents in Paris (as their
letters to Rome prove) were in despair. His party, as has been shown,
was broken up into hostile camps. Lochiel was dead. Lord George Murray
had been insulted and estranged. The Earl Marischal had declined
Charles’s invitation to manage his affairs (1747). Elcho was a
persistent and infuriated dun. Clancarty was reviling Charles, James,
Louis, England, and the world at large. Madame de Pompadour, Cardinal
Tencin, and de Puysieux were all hostile. The English Jacobites, though
loyal, were timid. Europe was hermetically sealed against the Prince.
Refuge in Fribourg, where the English threatened the town, Charles had
refused. Not a single shelter was open to him, for England’s policy was
to drive him into the dominions of the Pope, where he would be distant
and despised. Of advisers he had only such attached friends as Henry
Goring, Bulkeley, Harrington, or such distrusted boon companions as
Kelly—against whom the English Jacobites set all wheels in motion.
Charles’s refuge at Avignon even was menaced by English threats directed
at the Pope. The Prince tried to amuse himself; he went to dances, he
introduced boxing matches, {41a} just as years before he had brought golf
into Italy. But his position was untenable, and he disappeared.
From the gossip of d’Argenson we have learned that Charles was no longer
the same man as the gallant leader of the race to Derby, or the gay and
resourceful young Ascanius who won the hearts of the Highlanders by his
cheerful courage and contented endurance. He was now embittered by
defeat; by suspicions of treachery which the Irish about him kindled and
fanned, by the broken promises of Louis XV., by the indifference of
Spain. He had become ‘a wild man,’ as his father’s secretary, Edgar,
calls him—‘Our dear wild man.’ He spelled the name ‘L’ome sauvage.’ He
was, in brief, a desperate, a soured, and a homeless outcast. His chief
French friends were ladies—Madame de Vassé, Madame de Talmond, and
others. Montesquieu, living in their society, and sending wine from his
estate to the Jacobite Lord Elibank; rejoicing, too, in an Irish Jacobite
housekeeper, ‘Mlle. Betti,’ was well disposed, like Voltaire, in an
indifferent well-bred way. Most of these people were, later, protecting
and patronising the Prince when concealed from the view of Europe, but
theirs was a vague and futile alliance. Charles and his case were
desperate.
In this mood, and in this situation at Avignon, he carried into practice
the counsel which d’Argenson had elaborated in a written memoir. ‘I gave
them’ (Charles and Henry) ‘the best possible advice,’ says La Bête. ‘My
“Mémoire” I entrusted to O’Brien at Antwerp. Therein I suggested that
the two princes should never return to Italy, _but that for some years
they should lead a hidden and wandering life between France and Spain_.
Charles might be given a pension and the vicariat of Navarre. This
should only be allowed to slip out by degrees, while England would grow
accustomed to the notion that they were _not_ in Rome, and would be
reduced to mere doubts as to their place of residence. Now they would be
in Spain, now in France, finally in some town of Navarre, where their
authority would, by slow degrees, be admitted. Peace once firmly
established, it would not be broken over this question. They would be in
a Huguenot country, and able to pass suddenly into Great Britain.’ {43}
This was d’Argenson’s advice before Henry fled Rome to be made a
cardinal, and before the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, closing Europe
against Charles, was concluded. The object of d’Argenson is plain; he
wished to keep Charles out of the Pope’s domains, as England wanted to
drive the Prince into the centre of ‘Popery.’ If he resided in Rome,
Protestant England would always suspect Charles; moreover, he would be
remote from the scene of action. To the Pope’s domains, therefore,
Charles would not go. But the scheme of skulking in France, Spain, and
Navarre had ceased to be possible. He, therefore, adopted ‘the fugitive
and hidden life’ recommended by d’Argenson; he secretly withdrew from
Avignon, and for many months his places of residence were unknown.
‘Charles,’ says Voltaire, ‘hid himself from the whole world.’ We propose
to reveal his hiding-places.
CHAPTER III
THE PRINCE IN FAIRYLAND
FEBRUARY 1749-SEPTEMBER 1750—I. WHAT THE WORLD SAID
Europe after Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle—A vast gambling
establishment—Charles excluded—Possible chance in Poland—Supposed to have
gone thither—‘Henry Goring’s letter’—Romantic adventures attributed to
Charles—Obvious blunders—Talk of a marriage—Count Brühl’s
opinion—Proposal to kidnap Charles—To rob a priest—The King of Poland’s
ideas—Lord Hyndford on Frederick the Great—Lord Hyndford’s mare’s
nest—Charles at Berlin—‘Send him to Siberia’—The theory
contradicted—Mischievous glee of Frederick—Charles discountenances plots
to kill Cumberland—Father Myles Macdonnell to James—London
conspiracy—Reported from Rome—The Bloody Butcher Club—Guesses of Sir
Horace Mann—Charles and a strike—Charles reported to be very ill—Really
on the point of visiting England—September 1750.
EUROPE, after the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, was like a vast political
gambling establishment. Nothing, or nothing but the expulsion of Prince
Charles from every secular State, had been actually settled. Nobody was
really satisfied with the Peace. The populace, in France as in England,
was discontented. Princes were merely resting and looking round for new
combinations of forces. The various Courts, from St. Petersburg to
Dresden, from London to Vienna, were so many tables where the great game
of national _faro_ was being played, over the heads of the people, by
kings, queens, abbés, soldiers, diplomatists, and pretty women. Projects
of new alliances were shuffled and cut, like the actual cards which were
seldom out of the hands of the players, when Casanova or Barry Lyndon
held the bank, and challenged all comers. It was the age of adventurers,
from the mendacious Casanova to the mysterious Saint-Germain, from the
Chevalier d’Eon to Charles Edward Stuart. That royal player was warned
off the turf, as it were, ruled out of the game. Where among all these
attractive tables was one on which Prince Charles, in 1749, might put
down his slender stake, his name, his sword, the lives of a few thousand
Highlanders, the fortunes of some faithful gentlemen? Who would accept
Charles’s empty alliance, which promised little but a royal title and a
desperate venture? The Prince had wildly offered his hand to the
Czarina; he was to offer that hand, vainly stretched after a flying
crown, to a Princess of Prussia, and probably to a lady of Poland.
At this moment the Polish crown was worn by Augustus of Saxony, who was
reckoned ‘a bad life.’ The Polish throne, the Polish alliance, had been,
after various unlucky adventures since the days of Henri III. and the Duc
d’Alençon, practically abandoned by France. But Louis XV. was beginning
to contemplate that extraordinary intrigue in which Conti aimed at the
crown of Poland, and the Comte de Broglie was employed (1752) to
undermine and counteract the schemes of Louis’s official representatives.
{46a} As a Sobieski by his mother’s side, the son of the exiled James
(who himself had years before been asked to stand as a candidate for the
kingdom of Poland), Charles was expected by politicians to make for
Warsaw when he fled from Avignon. It is said, on the authority of a
Polish manuscript, ‘communicated by Baron de Rondeau,’ that there was a
conspiracy in Poland to unseat Augustus III. and give the crown to Prince
Charles. {46b} In 1719, Charles’s maternal grandfather had declined a
Russian proposal to make a dash for the crown, so the chivalrous Wogan
narrates. In 1747 (June 6), Chambrier had reported to Frederick the
Great that Cardinal Tencin was opposed to the ambition of the Saxon
family, which desired to make the elective crown of Poland hereditary in
its house. The Cardinal said that, in his opinion, there was a Prince
who would figure well in Poland, _le jeune Edouard_ (Prince Charles), who
had just made himself known, and in whom there was the stuff of a man.
{46c} But Frederick the Great declined to interfere in Polish matters,
and Tencin was only trying to get rid of Charles without a rupture. In
May 1748, Frederick refused to see Graeme, a Jacobite who was sent to
demand a refuge for the Prince in Prussia. {46d} Without Frederick and
without Sweden, Charles in 1749 could do nothing serious in Poland.
The distracted politics of Poland, however, naturally drew the attention
of Europe to that country when Charles, on February 28, vanished out of
Avignon ‘into fairyland,’ like Frederick after Molwitz. Every Court in
Europe was vainly searched for ‘the boy that cannot be found.’ The
newsletters naturally sent him to Poland, so did Jacobite myth.
The purpose of this chapter is to record the guesses made by diplomatists
at Charles’s movements, and the expedients by which they vainly
endeavoured to discover him. We shall next lift, as far as possible, the
veil which has concealed for a century and a half adventures in
themselves unimportant enough. In spite of disappointments and dark
hours of desertion, Charles, who was much of a boy, probably enjoyed the
mystery which he now successfully created. If he could not startle
Europe by a brilliant appearance on any stage, he could keep it talking
and guessing by a disappearance. He obviously relished secrecy,
pass-words, disguises, the ‘properties’ of the conspirator, in the spirit
of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. He came of an evasive race. His
grandfather, as Duke of York, had fled from England disguised as a girl.
His father had worn many disguises in many adventures. _He_ had been
‘Betty Burke.’
Though it is certain that, in March 1749 (the only month when he almost
evades us), Charles could not have visited Berlin, Livadia, Stockholm,
the reader may care to be reminded of a contemporary Jacobite romance in
which he is made to do all these things. A glance should be cast on the
pamphlet called ‘A Letter from H. G—g, Esq.’ (London, 1750). The editor
announces that the letter has been left in his lodgings by a mistake; it
has not been claimed, as the person for whom it was meant has gone
abroad, and so the editor feels free to gratify ‘the curiosity of the
town.’ The piece, in truth, is a Jacobite tract, meant to keep up the
spirits of the faithful, and it is probable that the author really had
some information, though he is often either mistaken, or fables by way of
a ‘blind.’ About February 11, says the scribe (nominally Henry Goring,
Charles’s equerry, an ex-officer of the Queen of Hungary), a mysterious
stranger, the ‘Chevalier de la Luze,’ came to Avignon, and was received
by the Prince ‘with extraordinary marks of distinction.’ ‘He understood
not one word of English,’ which destroys, if true, the theory that the
Earl Marischal, or Marshal Keith, is intended. French and Italian he
spoke well, but with a foreign accent. Kelly ventured to question the
Prince about the stranger, but was rebuffed. One day, probably February
24, the stranger received despatches, and vanished as he had come. The
Prince gave a supper (d’Argenson’s ‘ball’), and, when his guests had
retired, summoned Goring into his study. He told Goring that ‘there were
spies about him’ (the Earl Marischal, we know, distrusted Kelly); he
rallied him on a love-affair, and said that Goring only should be his
confidant. Next morning, very early, they two started for Lyons,
disguised as French officers. As far as Lyons, indeed, the French police
actually traced them. {49a} But, according to the pamphlet, they did not
stop in Lyons; they rested at a small town two leagues further on, whence
the Prince sent dispatches to Kelly at Avignon. Engaging a new valet,
Charles pushed to Strasbourg, where he again met La Luze, now described
as ‘a person whose extraordinary talents had gained him the confidence
one of the wisest Princes in Europe,’ obviously pointing to Frederick of
Prussia, the master of Marshal Keith, and the friend and host of his
brother, the Earl Marischal. At Strasbourg, Charles rescued a pretty
young lady from a fire; she lost her heart at once to the ‘Comte
d’Espoir’ (his travelling title), but the Prince behaved like Scipio, not
to mention a patriarch famous for his continence. ‘I am no stoic,’ said
His Royal Highness to La Luze, ‘but I have always been taught that
pleasures, how pardonable soever in themselves, become highly criminal
when indulged to the prejudice of another,’ adding many other noble and
unimpeachable sentiments.
After a romantic adventure with English or Scottish assassins, in which
His Royal Highness shot a few of them, the travellers arrived at Leipzig.
La Luze now assumed his real name, and carried Charles, by cross roads,
to ‘a certain Court,’ where he spent ten days with much satisfaction. He
stayed at the house of La Luze (Berlin and the Earl Marischal appear to
be hinted at, but the Marischal told Pickle that he had never seen
Charles at Berlin), secret business was done, and then, through
territories friendly or hostile, ‘a certain port’ was reached. They
sailed (from Dantzig?), were driven into a hostile port (Riga?), escaped
and made another port (Stockholm?) where they met Lochgarry, ‘whom the
Prince thought had been one of those that fell at Culloden.’
This is nonsense. Lochgarry had been with Charles after Culloden, and
had proposed to waylay Cumberland, which the Prince forbade. Murray of
Broughton, in his examination, and Bishop Forbes agree on this point, and
James, we know, sent, by Edgar, a message to Lochgarry on Christmas Eve,
1748. {50a} Charles, therefore, knew excellently well that Lochgarry did
_not_ die at Culloden. After royal, but very secret entertainment ‘in
this kingdom’ (Sweden?), Charles went into Lithuania, where old friends
of his maternal ancestors, the Sobieskis, welcomed him. He resumed a
gaiety which he had lost ever since his arrest at the opera in Paris, and
had ‘an interview with a most illustrious and firm friend to his person
and interest.’ Though his marriage, says the pamphleteer, had been much
talked of, ‘he has always declined making any applications of that nature
himself. It was his fixed determination to beget no royal beggars.’
D’Argenson reports Charles’s remark that he will never marry till the
Restoration, and, no doubt, he was occasionally this mood, among others.
{51a} The pamphleteer vows that the Prince ‘loves and is loved,’ but
will not marry ‘till his affairs take a more favourable turn.’ The lady
is ‘of consummate beauty, yet is that beauty the least of her
perfections.’
The pamphlet concludes with vague enigmatic hopes and promises, and
certainly leaves its readers little wiser than they were before. In the
opinion of the Messrs. ‘Sobieski Stuart’ (who called themselves his
grandsons), Charles really did visit Sweden, and his jewel, as Grand
Master of the Grand Masonic Lodge of Stockholm, is still preserved there.
{51b} The castle where he resided in Lithuania, it is said, is that of
Radzivil. {51c} The affectionate and beautiful lady is the Princess
Radzivil, to whom the newspapers were busy marrying Charles at this time.
The authors of ‘Tales of the Century,’ relying on some vague Polish
traditions, think that a party was being made to raise the Prince to the
Polish crown. In fact, there is not a word of truth in ‘Henry Goring’s
letter.’
We now study the perplexities of Courts and diplomatists. Pickle was not
yet at hand with accurate intelligence, and, even after he began to be
employed, the English Government left their agents abroad to send in
baffled surmises. From Paris, on March 8, Colonel Joseph Yorke (whom
d’Argenson calls by many ill names) wrote, ‘I am told for certain that he
[the Prince] is now returned to Avignon.’ {52a} Mann, in Florence, hears
(March 7) that the Prince has sent a Mr. Lockhart to James to ask for
money, but that was really done on December 31, 1748. {52b} On March 11,
Yorke learned from Puysieux that the Prince had been recognised by
postboys as he drove through Lyons towards Metz; probably, Puysieux
thought, on ‘an affair of gallantry.’ Others, says Yorke, ‘have sent him
to Poland or Sweden,’ which, even in 1746, had been getting ready troops
to assist Charles in Scotland. {52c} On March 20, Yorke hints that
Charles may be in or near Paris, as he probably was. Berlin was
suggested as his destination by Horace Mann (April 4). Again, he has
been seen in disguise, walking into a gate of Paris (April 11). {52d} On
April 14, Walton, from Florence, writes that James has had news of his
son, is much excited, and is sending Fitzmorris to join him. The Pope
knows and is sure to blab. {52e} On May 3, Yorke mentions a rumour,
often revived, that the Prince is dead. On May 9, the Jacobites in Paris
show a letter from Oxford inviting Charles to the opening of the
Radcliffe, ‘where they assure him of better reception than the University
has had at Court lately.’ {53a} Mann (May 2) mentions the Radzivil
marriage, arranged, in a self-denying way, by the Princesse de Talmond.
On May 17, Yorke hears from Puysieux that the French ambassador in Saxony
avers that Charles is in Poland, and that Sir Charles Williams has
remonstrated with Count Brühl. On May 1, 1749, Sir Charles Hanbury
Williams wrote from Leipzig to the Duke of Newcastle. He suspects that
Charles is one of several persons who have just passed through Leipzig on
the way to Poland; Count Brühl is ‘almost certain’ of it. {53b} On May 5
(when Charles was really in or near Venice), Hanbury Williams sends a
copy of his remonstrance with Brühl.
‘I asked Count Brühl whether, in the present divided and factious
state of the nobility of Poland, His Polish Majesty would like to
have a young adventurer (who can fish in no waters that are not
troubled, and who, by his mother, is allied to a family that once sat
upon the Polish throne) to go into that country where it would be
natural for him to endeavour to encourage factions, nourish
divisions, and foment confederations to the utmost of his power, and
might not the evil-minded and indisposed Poles be glad to have such a
tool in their hands, which at some time or other they might make use
of to answer their own ends? To this Count Brühl answered in such
terms as I could wish, and I must do him the justice to say that he
showed the best disposition to serve His Majesty in the affair in
question; but I am yet of opinion that, whatever is done effectually
in this case, must be done by the Court of Petersburg, and I would
humbly advise that, as soon as it is known for certain that the
Pretender’s son is in Poland, His Majesty should order his minister
at the Court of Petersburg to take such steps as His Majesty’s great
wisdom shall judge most likely to make the Czarina act with a proper
vigour upon this occasion.
‘Your Grace knows that the republic of Poland is at present divided
into two great factions, the one which is in the interest of Russia,
to which the friends of the House of Austria attach themselves; the
other is in the interest of France and Prussia. As I thought it most
likely, if the Pretender’s son went into Poland, he would seek
protection from the French party, I have desired and requested the
French ambassador that he would write to the French resident at
Warsaw, and to others of his friends in Poland, that he might be
informed of the truth of the Pretender’s arrival, and the place that
he was at in Poland, as soon as possible, and that when he was
acquainted with it he would let me know what came to his knowledge,
all which he has sincerely promised me to do, and I do not doubt but
he will keep his word. . . . It is publicly said that the
Pretender’s son’s journey to Poland is with a design to marry a
princess of the House of Radzivil.
‘As soon as I hear anything certain about the Pretender’s son being
in Poland, I will most humbly offer to your Grace the method that I
think will be necessary for His Majesty to pursue with respect to the
King and republic of Poland, in case His Majesty should think fit not
to suffer the Pretender’s son to remain in that country.
‘C. HANBURY WILLIAMS.’
On May 12, Williams believes that Charles is _not_ in Poland. On May 18,
he guesses (wrongly) that the Prince is in Paris. On May 25, he
fancies—‘plainly perceives’—that the French ambassador at Dresden
believes in the Polish theory. On June 9, Brühl tells Williams
(correctly) that Charles is in Venice. On June 11, Hanbury Williams
proposes to have a harmless priest seized and robbed, and to kidnap
Prince Charles! I give this example of British diplomatic energy and
chivalrous behaviour.
_From Sir Charles Hanbury Williams_.
‘Dresden: June 11, N.S. 1749.
‘ . . . Count Brühl has communicated to me the letters which he
received by the last post from the Saxon resident at Venice, who says
that the Pretender’s son had been at Venice for some days; that he
has received two expresses from his father at Rome since his being
there; but that nobody knew how long he intended to stay there. . .
Mons. Brühl further informs me that he hears from Poland that the
Prince of Radzivil, who is Great General of Lithuania, has a strong
desire to marry his daughter to the Pretender’s son. The young lady
is between eleven and twelve years old, very plain, and can be no
great fortune, for she has two brothers; but yet Mons. Brühl is of
opinion that there is some negotiation on foot for this marriage,
which is managed by an Italian priest who is a titular bishop, whose
name is Lascarisk (sic), and who lives in and governs the Prince
Radzivil’s family. This priest is soon to set out for Italy, under
pretence of going to Rome for the Jubilee year, but Mons. Brühl
verily thinks that he is charged with a secret commission for
negotiating the above-mentioned marriage. If His Majesty thinks it
worth while to have this priest watched, I will answer for having
early intelligence of the time he intends beginning his journey, and
then it would be no difficult matter to have him stopped, and his
papers taken from him, as he goes through the Austrian territories
into Italy. The more I think of it the more I am persuaded that the
Pretender’s son will not go into Poland for many reasons, especially
for one, which is that for a small sum of money I will undertake to
find a Pole who will engage to seize upon his person in any part of
Poland, and carry him to any port in the north that His Majesty shall
appoint. I have had offers of this sort already made me, to which
your Grace may be sure I gave no answer, except thanking the persons
for the zeal they showed for the King, my master, but I am convinced
that the thing is very practicable.
‘I had this day the honour to dine with the King of Poland, and, as I
sat next to him at table, he told me that he was very glad to hear
that the Pretender’s son was at length found to be at Venice, for
that he would much rather have him there than in Poland; to which I
answered that I was very glad, upon His Polish Majesty’s account,
that the Pretender’s son had not thought fit to come into any of His
Majesty’s territories, since I believed the visit would be far from
being agreeable. To which the King of Poland replied that it would
be a very disagreeable visit to him, and after that expressed himself
in the handsomest manner imaginable with respect to His Majesty, and
the regard he had for his Sacred person and Royal House; and I am
convinced if the Pretender’s son had gone into Poland, His Polish
Majesty and his minister would have done everything in their power to
have drove him out of that kingdom as soon as possible.
‘C. HANBURY WILLIAMS.
‘P.S.—Since my writing this letter, Count Brühl tells me that the
news of the Pretender’s son’s being at Venice is confirmed by letters
from his best correspondent at Rome, but both accounts agree in the
Pretender’s son’s being at Venice incognito, and that he appears in
no public place, so that very few people know of his being there. . . .
C. H. W.’
In 1751, Hanbury Williams renewed his proposal about waylaying Lascaris.
Charles, as we shall see, was for a short time at Venice in May 1749.
Meanwhile the game of hide and seek through Europe went on as merrily as
ever. Lord Hyndford, so well known to readers of Mr. Carlyle’s
‘Frederick,’ now opens in full cry from Moscow, but really on a
hopelessly wrong scent. As illustrating Hyndford’s opinion of Frederick,
who had invested him with the Order of the Thistle, we quote this worthy
diplomatist:
_Lord Hyndford to the Duke of Newcastle_. {58a}
‘Moscow: June 19, 1749.
‘ . . . I must acquaint your Grace of what I have learnt, through a
private canal, from the last relation of Mr. Gross, the Russian
minister at Berlin, although I dare say it is no news to your Grace.
Mr. Gross writes that, some days before the date of his letter, the
Pretender’s eldest son arrived at Potsdam, and had been very well
received by the King of Prussia, General Keith, and his brother, the
late Earl Marshal; and all the other English, Scotch, and Irish
Jacobites in the Prussian service were to wait upon him. This does
not at all surprise me; but Mons. Valony, the French minister, went
likewise to make his compliments at a country house, hired on purpose
for this young vagabond. This is all that I know as yet of this
affair in general, for the Chancellor has not thought proper as yet
to inform me of the particulars. However, this public, incontestable
proof of the little friendship and regard the King of Prussia has for
His Majesty and His Royal Family, and for the whole British nation,
will, I hope, open the eyes of the people who are blind to that
Prince’s monstrous faults, if any such are still left amongst us, and
I doubt not but it will save His Majesty the trouble of sending Sir
C. Hanbury Williams or any other minister to that perfidious Court.
‘HYNDFORD.’
This was all a mare’s nest; but Hyndford is for kidnapping the Prince.
He writes:
‘Moscow: June 26, 1749.
‘My Lord,—Since the 19th inst., which was the date of my last letter
to your Grace, I have been with the Chancellor, who made his excuses
that he had not sooner communicated to me the intelligence which Mr.
Gross, the Russian minister at Berlin, had sent him concerning the
Pretender’s eldest son. The Chancellor confirmed all that I wrote to
your Grace on the 19th upon that subject, and he told me that he had
received a second letter from Mr. Gross, wherein that minister says
that the Young Pretender had left the country house where he was, in
the neighbourhood of Berlin, and had entirely disappeared, without
its being hitherto possible for him, Mr. Gross, or Count Choteck, the
Austrian minister, to find out the route he has taken, although it is
generally believed that he is gone into Poland; and that now the King
of Prussia and his ministers deny that ever the Pretender’s son was
there, and take it mightily amiss of anybody that pretends to affirm
it. I am sorry that the Russian troops are not now in Poland, for
otherwise I believe it would have been an easy matter to prevail upon
this Court to catch this young knight errant and to send him to
Siberia, where he would not have been any more heard of; and if the
Court of Dresden will enter heartily into such a scheme, it will not
be impossible yet to apprehend him, and as it is very probable that
the King of Prussia has sent him into Poland to make a party and
breed confusion, it appears to be King Augustus’s interest to secure
him.
‘HYNDFORD.’
Many months later, on Feb. 2, 1749–1750, Lord Hyndford, writing from
Hanover, retracted. The rumour of Charles’s presence at Berlin, he
found, was started by Count de Choteck, the Austrian ambassador. In
fact, Choteck used to meet a fair lady secretly in a garden near Berlin,
and near the house of Field-Marshal Keith and his brother, Lord
Marischal. Hard by was an inn, where a stranger lodged, a rich and
handsome youth, whom Choteck, meeting, took for Prince Charles. He was
really a young Polish gentleman, into whose reasons for retirement we
need not examine.
Frederick, in his mischievous way, wrote about all this from Potsdam, on
June 24, 1749:
‘We have played a trick on Choteck; he spends much on spies, and, to
prove that he is well served, he has taken it into his head that
young Edouard, really at Venice, is at Berlin. He has been very busy
over this, and no doubt has informed his Court.’
On July 7, 1749, Frederick, in a letter to his minister at Moscow, said
that only dense ignorance could credit the Berlin legend. {61}
These documents certainly demonstrate that the Prince fluttered the
Courts, and that the Jacobite belief in English schemes to kidnap or
murder him was not a mere mythical delusion. Only an opportunity was
wanted. He had spared the Duke of Cumberland’s life, even after the
horrors of Culloden. But Hanbury Williams knows a Pole who will waylay
him; Hyndford wants to carry him off to Siberia. It was not once only,
on the other hand, but twice at least, that Charles protected the
Butcher, Cumberland. In 1746 he saved his enemy from Lochgarry’s open
attempt. In 1747 (May 4), a certain Father Myles Macdonnell wrote from
St. Germain to James in Rome. He dwells on the jealousies among the
Jacobites, and particularly denounces Kelly, then a trusted intimate of
Charles. Kelly, he says, is a drunkard, and worse! It was probably he
who raised ‘a scruple’ against a scheme relating to ‘Cumberland’s hateful
person.’ ‘Honest warrantable people from London’ came to Paris and
offered ‘without either fee or reward’ to do the business. What was the
‘business,’ what measures were to be taken against ‘Cumberland’s hateful
person’? Father Myles Macdonnell, writing to James, a Catholic priest to
a Catholic King, does not speak of _assassination_. He talks of ‘the
scruple raised against securing Cumberland’s person.’ ‘I suspect Parson
Kelly of making a scruple of an action the most meritorious that could
possibly be committed,’ writes Father Myles. {62a} The talk of
kidnapping, in such cases as those of Cumberland and Prince Charles—men
of spirit and armed—is a mere blind. Murder is meant! Father Myles’s
letter proves that (unknown to James in Rome) there was a London
conspiracy to kill the Butcher, but Prince Charles again rejected the
proposal. He was less ungenerous than Hyndford and Hanbury Williams.
The amusing thing is that the English Government knew, quite as well as
Father Macdonnell or James, all about the conspiracy to slay the Duke of
Cumberland. Here is the information, which reached Mann through Rome.
{62b}
_From Mr. Thomas Chamberlayne to Sir H. Mann_.
‘Capranica: November 18, 1747.
‘ . . . The family at Rome . . . was informed, by one who arrived
there last October from London, that there are twelve persons, whose
names I could not learn, but none of distinction, that are formed in
a club or society, and meet at the Nag’s Head in East Street,
Holborn. They have bound themselves under most solemn oaths that
this winter they will post themselves in different parts of the City
of London mostly frequented by His Royal Highness, the Duke of
Cumberland, in his night visits [to whom?], and are resolved to lay
violent hands on his royal person. The parole among the different
parties in their respective posts is The Bloody Butcher. They are
all resolute fellows, who first declared at their entering in this
conspiracy to despise death or torture. This motive is worthy of
your care, so I am certain you’ll make proper use of it . . .
‘THOMAS CHAMBERLAYNE.’
If Charles afterwards attempted to repay in kind the attentions of his
royal cousins, or of their ministers, this can hardly be reckoned
inhuman. If he was fluttering the Courts, they—Prussia, Russia, France,
Poland—were leading him the life of a tracked beast. They were
determined to drive him into the Papal domains; even in Venice he was
harried by spies. {63} On May 30, to retrace our steps, Mann, from
Florence, reports that Charles has arrived at the Papal Nuncio’s in
Venice, attended by one servant in the livery of the Duke of Modena.
Walton adds that he has not a penny (June 6). Walton (July 11) writes
from Florence that the Prince is reported from Venice to have paid
assiduous court to the second daughter of the Duke of Modena, a needy
potentate, but that he suddenly disappeared.’ {64} On Sept. 5, 1749,
Walton says he is in France. On Sept. 26, Walton writes that he is
offering his sword to the Czarina, who declines. He is at Lübeck, or
(Oct. 3) at Avignon. On Oct. 20, Mann writes that, from Lübeck, Charles
has asked the Imperial ambassador at Paris to implore the Kaiser to give
him an asylum in his States. On Oct. 31, Mann only knows that the Pope
and James ‘reciprocally ask each other news about’ the Prince. On Jan.
23, 1750, poor Mann is ‘quite at a loss.’ James receives letters from
the Prince, but never with date of place, otherwise Mann would have been
better informed. Walton hears that James believes Charles to be
imprisoned in a French fortress. From Paris, Jan. 17, 1750, Albemarle
wrote that he heard the Prince was in Berlin. The Prince later told
Pickle that he had been in Berlin more than once, and, as we shall see,
Frederick amused him with hopes of assistance. Kelly has left Charles’s
followers in distress at Avignon. Kelly, in fact, received his _congé_;
he was distrusted by the Earl Marischal, and Carte, the historian. On
Jan. 28, Albemarle hears that Charles has been in Paris ‘under the habit
of a Capuchine Fryar,’ and this _was_ a disguise of his, according to
Pickle.
Meanwhile the French Government kept protesting their total ignorance.
On April 3, 1750, Walton announces that James has had a long letter from
Charles containing his plans and those of his adherents, for which he
demands the Royal approval. James has sent a long letter to Charles by
the courier of the Duc de Nivernais, the French ambassador in Rome. By
the middle of June, James is reported by Walton to be full of hope, and
to have heard excellent news. But these expectations were partly founded
on a real scheme of Charles, partly on a strike of colliers at Newcastle.
A mob orator there proclaimed the Prince, and the Jacobites in Rome
thought that His Royal Highness was heading the strike! {65a} In July,
the same illusions were entertained. On August 12, Albemarle, from
Paris, reports the Prince to be dangerously ill, probably not far from
the French capital. He was really preparing to embark for England.
Albemarle, by way of trap, circulated in the English press a forged
news-letter from Nancy in Lorraine, dated August 24, 1750. It announced
Charles’s death of pneumonia, in hopes of drawing forth a Jacobite
denial. This stratagem failed. On August 4, James, though piqued by
being kept in the dark, sent Charles a fresh commission of regency. {65b}
Of the Prince’s English expedition of September 1750, the Government of
George II. knew nothing. Pickle was in Rome at the moment, not with
Charles; what Pickle knew the English ministers knew, but there is a
difficulty in dating his letters before 1752, and I am not aware that any
despatches of his from Rome are extant.
We have now brought the history to a point (September 1750) where the
Prince, for a moment, emerges from fairyland, and where we are not left
to the perplexing conjectures of diplomatists in Paris, Dresden,
Florence, Hanover, and St. Petersburg. In September 1750, Charles
certainly visited London. There is a point of light. We now give an
account of his actual movements in 1749–1750.
CHAPTER IV
THE PRINCE IN FAIRYLAND. II.—WHAT ACTUALLY OCCURRED
Charles mystifies Europe—Montesquieu knows his secret—Sources of
information—The Stuart manuscripts—Charles’s letters from Avignon—A
proposal of marriage—Kennedy and the hidden treasure—Where to look for
Charles—_Cherchez la femme_!—Hidden in Lorraine—Plans for entering
Paris—Letter to Mrs. Drummond—To the Earl Marischal—Starts for Venice—At
Strasbourg—Unhappy Harrington—Letter to James—Leaves Venice ‘A bird
without a nest’—Goes to Paris—The Prince’s secret revealed—The convent of
St. Joseph—Curious letter as Cartouche—Madame de Routh—Cartouche
again—Goring sent to England—A cypher—Portrait of Madame de
Talmond—Portrait of Madame d’Aiguillon—Intellectual society—Mademoiselle
Luci—‘Dener Bash’—The secret hoard—Results of Goring’s English
mission—Timidity of English Jacobites—Supply of money—Charles a
_bibliophile_—‘My big muff’—A patron of art—Quarrels with Madame de
Talmond—Arms for a rising—Newton on Cluny—Kindness to Monsieur Le
Coq—Madame de Talmond weary of Charles—Letters to her—Charles reads
Fielding’s novels—Determines to go to England—Large order of
arms—Reproached by James—Intagli of James—_En route_ for London—September
1750.
THE reader has had an opportunity of observing the success of Charles in
mystifying Europe. Diplomatists, ambassadors, and wits would have been
surprised, indeed, had they known that one of the most famous men of the
age possessed the secret for which they were seeking. The author of
‘L’Esprit des Lois’ could have enlightened them, for Charles’s mystery
was no mystery to Montesquieu, who was friendly with Scottish and English
Jacobites. The French Ministers, truly or falsely, always professed
entire ignorance. They promised to arrest the Prince wherever he might
be found on French soil, and transport him to sea by Civita Vecchia. {68}
It will be shown later that, at least in the autumn of 1749, this
ignorance was probably feigned.
What is really known of the movements of the Prince in 1749? Curiously
enough, Mr. Ewald does not seem to have consulted the ‘Stuart Papers’ at
Windsor, while the extracts in Browne’s ‘History of the Highland Clans’
are meagre. To these papers then we turn for information. The most
useful portions are _not_ Charles’s letters to James. These are brief
and scanty. Thus he writes from Avignon (January 15, 1749), ‘We are
enjoying here the finest weather ever was seen.’ He always remarks that
his health ‘is perfect.’ He orders patterns for his servants’ liveries
and a button, blue and yellow, still remains in a letter from Edgar! The
button outlasts the dynasty. Our intelligence must be extracted from
ill-spelled, closely scrawled, and much erased sheets of brown paper, on
which Charles has scribbled drafts for letters to his household, to
Waters, his banker in Paris, to adherents in Paris or London, and to
ladies. The notes are almost, and in places are quite, illegible. The
Prince practised a disguised hand, and used pseudonyms instead of names.
Many letters have been written in sympathetic ink, and then exposed to
fire or the action of acids. However, something can be made out, but not
why he concealed his movements even from his banker, even from his
household, Oxburgh, Kelly, Harrington, and Graeme. It is certain that he
started, with a marriage in his eye, from Avignon on February 28, 1749,
accompanied by Henry Goring, of the Austrian service. There had already
been a correspondence, vaguely hinted at by James’s secretary, Edgar,
between Charles and the Duke and a Princess of Hesse-Darmstadt. On
February 24, 1749, Charles drafted, at Avignon, a proposal for the hand
of the Duke’s daughter. He also drafted (undated) a request to the King
of Poland for leave to bring his wife, the Princess of Hesse-Darmstadt,
into Polish territory. {69} We may imagine His Polish Majesty’s answer.
Of course, the marriage did not take place.
Charles had other secrets. On February 3, 1749, he wrote to Waters about
the care to be taken with certain letters. These were a correspondence
with ‘Thomas Newton,’ (Major Kennedy), at Mr. Alexander Macarty’s, in
Gray’s Inn, London. Newton was in relations with Cluny Macpherson,
through a friend in Northumberland. Cluny, skulking on his Highland
estates, was transmitting or was desired to transmit a part of the
treasure of 40,000 _louis d’or_, buried soon after Culloden at the head
of Loch Arkaig. {70a} Of this fatal treasure we shall hear much. A
percentage of the coin was found to be false money, a very characteristic
circumstance. Moreover, Cluny seems to have held out hopes, always
deferred, of a rising in the Highlands. Charles had to be ready in
secrecy, to put himself at the head of this movement. There was also to
be an English movement, which was frowned on by official Jacobitism. On
February 3, 1749, Charles writes from Avignon to ‘Thomas Newton’
(Kennedy) about the money sent south by Cluny. He repeated his remarks
on March 6, giving no place of residence. But probably he was
approaching Paris, dangerous as such a visit was, for in a note of March
6 to Waters, he says that he will ‘soon call for letters.’ {70b} His
_noms de guerre_ at this time were ‘Williams’ and ‘Benn’; later he chose
‘John Douglas.’ He was also Smith, Mildmay, Burton, and so forth.
There should have been no difficulty in discovering Charles. Modern
police, in search of a person who is ‘wanted,’ spy on his mistress. Now
the Princesse de Talmond, when out of favour at Versailles, went to
certain lands in Lorraine, near her exiled king, Stanislas. In Lorraine,
therefore, at Lunéville, the Court of the ex-king of Poland, or at
Commercy, Bar-le-Duc, or wherever the Princesse de Talmond might be,
Charles was sure to be heard of by an intelligent spy, if permitted to
enter the country. Consequently, we are not surprised to find Charles
drafting on April 3, at Lunéville (where he resided at the house of one
Mittie, physician of the ex-king of Poland), a ‘Project for My arrival in
Paris. Mr. Benn [himself] must go straight to Dijon, and his companion,
Mr. Smith [Goring], to Paris. Mr. Smith will need a chaise, which he
must buy at Lunéville. Next he will take up the servant of C. P. [Prince
Charles] at Ligny, but on leaving that place Mr. Smith must ride on
horseback, and the chaise can go there as if for his return to Paris; the
person in it seeming to profit by this opportunity. Mr. Benn [the
Prince] must remain for some days, as if he wanted to buy a trunk, and
will give his own as if in friendship to Mr. Smith; all this seeming mere
chance work. Next, Mr. Smith will go his way and his friend will go his,
after waiting a few days, and on arriving at Dijon must write to nobody,
except the letter to W— [Waters]. The Chevalier Graeme, whom he must see
(and to whom he may mention having been at Dijon on the Prince’s
business, without naming his companion, but as if alone), knows nothing,
and Graeme must be left in the dark as if he (Mr. Smith) [Goring] were in
the same case, and were waiting new orders in total ignorance, not having
seen me for a long time.’ {71}
There follow a few private addresses in Paris; and the name, to be
remarked, of ‘Mademoiselle Ferrand.’
All this is very puzzling; we only make out that, by some confusion of
the personalities of ‘Benn’ (the Prince) and ‘Mr. Smith’ (Goring),
Charles hoped to enter Paris undetected. Yet he _was_ seen ‘entering a
gate of Paris in disguise.’ Doubtless he had lady allies, but a certain
Mademoiselle Ferrand, to whom he wrote, he seems not to have known
personally. We shall find that she was later of use to him, and indeed
his most valuable friend and ally.
Next, we find this letter of April 10 to Madame Henrietta Drummond,
doubtless of the family of Macgregor, called Drummond, of Balhaldie.
Charles appears to have had enough of Paris, and is going to Venice. He
is anxious to meet the Earl Marischal.
‘April 10, 1749.
‘I have been very impatient to be able to give you nuse of me as I am
fully persuaded of yr Friendship, and concern for everything that
regards me; I send you here enclosed a Letter for Ld Marishal, be
pleased to enclose it, and forward it without loss of time; the
Bearer (he is neither known by you or me), is charged to receive at
any time what Letters you want to send me, and you may be shure of
their arriving safe. Iff Lord Marishal agrees with my Desier when
you give his Packet to yr Bearer, you must put over it _en
Dilligence_, iff otherwise, direct by my Name as I sign it here. I
flatter myself of the Continuation of your Friendship, as I hope you
will never doubt of mine which shall be constant. I remain yr moste
obedient humble Servant
‘JOHN DOUGLAS.
‘P.S.—Tell ye Bearer when to comback for the answer of ye enclosed or
any other Letters you want to send me.
‘P.S. to Lord Marischal.—Whatever party you take, be pleased to keep
my writing secret, and address to me at Venise to the Sig. Ignazio
Testori to Mr. de Villelongue under cover to a Banquier of that town,
and it will come safe to me.
‘To Md. Henrietta Drummond.’
Charles, on April 20, wrote another letter to the Lord Marischal,
imploring for an interview, at some place to be fixed. But the old Lord
was not likely to go from Berlin to Venice, whither Charles was
hastening.
It is perfectly plain that, leaving Avignon on February 28, Charles was
making for Paris on March 6 by a circuitous route through Lorraine (where
he doubtless met Madame de Talmond), and a double back on Burgundy. What
he did or desired in Paris we do not know. He is said to have visited
Lally Tollendal, and he must have seen Waters, his banker. By April 10
he is starting for Venice, where he had, as a boy, been royally received.
But, in 1744, the Republic of Venice had resumed relations with England,
interrupted by Charles’s too kind reception in 1737. The whole romance,
therefore, of Henry Goring’s letter, and all the voyages to Stockholm,
Berlin, Lithuania, and so forth, are visions. Charles probably saw some
friends in Paris, was tolerated in Lorraine (where his father was
protected before 1715), and he vainly looked for a home in any secular
State of Europe. This was all, or nearly all, that occurred between
March and May 1749. Europe was fluttered, secret service money was
poured out like water, diplomatists caballed and scribbled despatches,
all for very little. The best place to have hunted for Charles was
really at Lunéville, near the gay Court of his kinsman, the Duke
Stanislas Leczinski, the father of the Queen of France. There Charles’s
sometime admirer, Voltaire, was a welcome guest; thither too (as we saw)
went his elderly cousin, people said his mistress, the Princesse de
Talmond. But the English diplomatists appear to have neglected
Lunéville. D’Argenson was better informed.
On April 26 Charles was at Strasbourg. Here, D’Argenson says, he was
seen, and warned to go, by an _écuyer_ of the late Cardinal Rohan. Hence
he wrote again to the Earl Marischal at Berlin. From this note it is
plain that he had sent Goring (‘Mr. Smith’) to the Earl; Goring, indeed,
had carried his letters of April 10–20. He again proposes a meeting with
the Earl Marischal at Venice. He will ‘answer for the expenses,’ and
apologises for ‘such a long and fatiguing journey.’ He wrote to Waters,
‘You may let Mr. Newton know that whenever he has thoroly finished his
Business, Mr. Williams [the Prince] will make him very wellcum in all his
Cuntrihouses.’
The ‘business’ of ‘Mr. Newton’ was to collect remittances from Cluny.
On April 30, the Prince, as ‘Mr. Williams,’ expresses ‘his surprise and
impatience for the delay of the horses [money] and other goods promised
by Mr. Newton.’
On May 3, Charles wrote, without address, to Goring, ‘I go strete to
Venice, and would willingly avoid your Garrison Towns, as much as
possible: _id est_, of France. I believe to compass that by goin by
Ruffach to Pfirt: there to wate for me. The Chese [chaise] you may
either leve it in consine to your post-master of Belfort, or, what is
still better, to give it to the bearer.’
Goring and Harrington were to meet the bearer at Belfort, but Harrington
seems to have been mystified, and to have failed in effecting a junction.
The poor gentleman, we learn, from letters of Stafford and Sheridan,
Charles’s retainers at Avignon, could scarcely raise money to leave that
town. Sir James Harrington was next to meet Charles at Venice. He was
to carry a letter for Charles to a Venetian banker. ‘Nota bene, that
same banquier, though he will deliver to me your letter, knows nothing
about me, nor who I am. . . . Change your name, and, in fine, keep as
private as possible, till I tell you what is to be done.’ Harrington
failed, and lay for months in pawn at Venice, pouring out his griefs in
letters to Goring. He was a lachrymose conspirator.
These weary affairs are complicated by mysterious letters to ladies: for
example to Mademoiselle Lalasse, ‘Je vous prie, Mademoiselle, de rendre
justice à mon inviolable attachement . . .’ (May 3). He gives her
examples of his natural and of his disguised handwriting; probably she
helped him in forwarding his correspondence. Charles’s chief anxiety was
to secure the Lord Marischal. Bulkeley and the official English
Jacobites kept insisting that he should have a man with him who was
trusted by the party. Kelly was distrusted, though Bulkeley defends him,
and was cashiered in autumn. Charles’s friends also kept urging that he
must ‘appear in public,’ but where? Bulkeley suggested Bologna. The
Earl Marischal, later (July 5), was for Fribourg. No place was really
both convenient and possible. On May 17 Charles wrote from Venice to the
Earl Marischal, ‘I am just arrived, but will not be able for some days,
to know what reception to meet with.’ He fears he ‘may be chased from
hence,’ and his fears were justified. On the same day (May 17) he wrote
to Edgar in Rome, ‘Venice, next to France, is the best for my interest,
and the only one in Italy.’
Venice ejected the Prince. On May 26 he wrote to his father:
‘Sir,—I received last night from ye Nuntio a definitive answer about
my project, which is quite contrary to my expectation; as I have
nothing further to do here, and would not run the least risk of being
found out, I depart this very evening, having left a direction to the
said Nuntio how to forward my letters for me.’ On the same day he
wrote to Chioseul de Stainville, the minister at Versailles of the
Empress, ‘Could an anonymous exiled Prince be received by the Kaiser
and the Queen of Hungary? He would remain incognito.’
On June 3 Charles wrote to James, without address or news, and to
Bulkeley. ‘Now my friend must skulk to the perfect dishonour and glory
of his worthy relations, until he finds a reception fitting at home or
abroad.’ On the back of the draft he writes:
‘What can a bird do that has not found a right nest? He must flit
from bough to bough—_ainsi use les Irondel_.’
Probably Charles, after a visit, perhaps, to Ferrara, returned to Paris
and his Princess. We find a draft thus conceived and spelled:
‘ARRENGEMENT.
‘Goring to come here immediately, he to know nothing but that I am
just arrived. I am not to go to Paris, but at the end of the month,
as sooner no answer can be had, moreover perhaps obliged to wait
another, which would oblige me to remain to long in P.’ He also
(June 3) wrote to Montesquieu, from whom (I think) there is an
unsigned friendly letter. He sent compliments to the Duchesse
d’Aiguillon, a lady much attached to Montesquieu. An unsigned
English letter (June 5) advised him to appear publicly. People are
coming to inquire into reports about his character, ‘after which it
is possible some proposals may be made to you.’ The writer will say
more when ‘in a safer place.’
Newton (Kennedy), meanwhile, had been imprisoned and examined in London,
but had been released, and was at Paris. He bought for the Prince ‘a
fine case of double barrill pistols, made by Barber,’ and much admired
‘on this side.’ Charles expresses gratitude for the gift. Newton had
been examined by the Duke of Newcastle about the 40,000 _louis d’or_
buried at Loch Arkaig in 1740, but had given no information. On June 26
Charles again asks Bulkeley, ‘What _can_ a bird do that has found no
right nest?’
On June 30 the Prince was probably in Paris, whither we have seen that he
meant to go. He had ‘found a right nest,’ and a very curious nest he had
found. The secret of the Prince’s retreat became known, many years
later, to Grimm, the Paris correspondent of Catherine the Great.
Charles’s biographers have overlooked or distrusted Grimm’s gossip, but
it is confirmed by Charles’s accidentally writing two real names, in
place of pseudonyms, in his correspondence. The history of his ‘nest’
was this. After her reign as favourite of Louis XIV., Madame de
Montespan founded a convent of St. Joseph, in the Rue St. Dominique, in
the Faubourg St. Germain. Attached to the convent were rooms in which
ladies of rank might make a retreat, or practically occupy chambers. {79}
About this convent and its inmates, Grimm writes as follows:
‘The unfortunate Prince Charles, after leaving the Bastille [really
Vincennes] lay hidden for three years in Paris, in the rooms of
Madame de Vassé, who then resided with her friend, the celebrated
Mademoiselle Ferrand, at the convent of St. Joseph. To Mademoiselle
de Ferrand the Abbé Condillac owed the ingenious idea of the statue,
which he has developed so well in his treatise on “The Sensations.”
The Princesse de Talmond, with whom Prince Charles was always much in
love, inhabited the same house. All day he was shut up in a little
_garderobe_ of Madame de Vassé’s, whence, by a secret staircase, he
made his way at night to the chambers of the Princesse. In the
evening he lurked behind an alcove in the rooms of Mademoiselle
Ferrand. Thus, unseen and unknown, he enjoyed every day the
conversation of the most distinguished society, and heard much good
and much evil spoken of himself.
‘The existence of the Prince in this retreat, and the profound
mystery which so long hid him from the knowledge of the world, by a
secret which three women shared, and in a house where the flower of
the city and the Court used to meet, seems almost miraculous. M. de
Choiseul, who heard the story several years after the departure of
the Prince, could not believe it. When Minister of Foreign Affairs
he wrote to Madame de Vassé and asked her for the particulars of the
adventure. She told him all, and did not conceal the fact that she
had been obliged to get rid of the Prince, because of the too lively
scenes between him and Madame de Talmond. They began in tender
effusions, and often ended in a quarrel, or even in blows. This fact
we learn from an intimate friend of Madame de Vassé.’ {80}
There is exaggeration here. The Prince was not living a life ‘fugitive
and cloistered’ for three whole unbroken years. But the convent of St.
Joseph was one of his hiding-places from 1749 to 1752. Of Madame de
Vassé I have been unable to learn much: a lady of that name was presented
at Court in 1745, and the Duc de Luynes describes her as ‘conveniently
handsome.’ She is always alluded to as ‘La Grandemain’ in Charles’s
correspondence, but once he lets her real name slip out in a memorandum.
Mademoiselle Ferrand’s father is apparently described by d’Hozier as
‘Ferrand, Ecuyer, Sieur des Marres et de Ronville en Normandie.’ Many of
Charles’s letters are addressed to ‘Mademoiselle Luci,’ _sister_ of ‘La
Grandemain.’ Now Madame de Vassé seems, from a passage in the Duc de
Luynes’s ‘Mémoires,’ to have been the only daughter of her father, M. de
Pezé. But once, Charles, writing to ‘Mademoiselle Luci,’ addresses the
letter to ‘Mademoiselle La Marre,’ for ‘Marres.’ Now, as _Marres_ was an
estate of the Ferrands, this address seems to identify ‘Mademoiselle
Luci’ with Mademoiselle Ferrand, the intimate friend, not really the
sister, of Madame de Vassé. Mademoiselle Ferrand, as Grimm shows, had a
taste for philosophy. We shall remark the same taste in the Prince’s
friend, ‘Mademoiselle Luci.’
Thus the secret which puzzled Europe is revealed. The Prince, sought
vainly in Poland, Prussia, Italy, Silesia, and Staffordshire, was really
lurking in a fashionable Parisian convent. Better had he been ‘where the
wind blows over seven glens, and seven Bens, and seven mountain moors,’
like the Prince in the Gaelic fairy stories.
We return to details. On June 30, 1749, the Prince, still homeless,
writes a curious letter to Mademoiselle Ferrand:
‘The confidence, Mademoiselle, which I propose to place in you may
seem singular, as I have not the good fortune to know you. The
Comtesse de Routh, however, will be less surprised.’ This lady was
the wife of an Irishman commanding a regiment in the French service,
one of those stationed on the frontier of Flanders. ‘You
[Mademoiselle Ferrand], who have made a _Relation de Cartouche_ [the
famous robber], may consent to be the depositary of my letter. I
pray you to give this letter to the Comtesse de Routh, and to receive
from her all the packets addressed to Monsieur Douglas.’ He then
requests Madame de Routh not to let the Waterses know that she is the
intermediary.
The reason for all this secrecy is obvious. D’Argenson (not the _Bête_,
but his brother) had threatened Waters with the loss of his head if he
would not tell where the Prince was concealed {82}. The banker did not
want to know the dangerous fact, and was able to deny his knowledge with
a clear conscience.
On July 23 Charles again wrote to Mademoiselle Ferrand: ‘It is very bold
of Cartouche to write once more, without knowing whether you wish to be
concerned with him, but people of our profession are usually impudent,
indeed we must be, if we are to earn our bread. . . . I pray you to have
some confidence in this handwriting, and to believe that Cartouche,
though he be Cartouche, is a true friend. As for his smuggling business,
even if it does not succeed as he hopes, he will be none the less
grateful to all who carry his flag, as he will be certain that, if he
fails, it is because success is impossible.’ {83}
This letter was likely to please a romantic girl, as we may suppose
Mademoiselle Ferrand to have been, despite her philosophy.
Stafford and Sheridan now kept writing pitiful appeals for money from
Avignon. Charles answers (July 31, 1749):
‘I wish I were in a situation at present to relive them I estime, in
an exotick cuntry that desiers nothing else but to exercise their
arbitrary power in distressing all honest men, even them that [are]
most allies to their own Soverain.’
Charles, in fact, was himself very poor: when money came in, either from
English adherents or from the Loch Arkaig hoard, he sent large
remittances to Avignon.
Money did come in, partly, no doubt, from English adherents. We find the
following orders from the Prince to Colonel Goring.
_From the Prince to Goring_.
‘Ye 31st July, 1749.
‘I gave you Lately a proof of my Confidence, by our parting together
from Avignion, so that you will not be surprized of a New Instance.
You are to repair on Receipt of this to London, there to Let know to
such friends as you can see, my situation, and Resolutions; all
tending to nothing else but the good and relieve of our Poor Country
which ever was, and shall be my only thoughts. Take Care of yr.Self,
do not think to be on a detachement, but only a simple Minister that
is to comback with a distinct account from them parts, and remain
assured of my Constant friendship and esteem.
‘C. P. R. For GORING.
‘P.S.—Cypher.
‘I. S h a l. C o n q u e r.
‘3 w k y p t d b q x m f.
‘My name shall be John Douglas.
‘Jean Noé D’Orville & fils. A Frankfort sur Maine, a Banquier of
that Town.’
The Prince may have been at Frankfort, but, as a rule, he was hiding in
Lorraine when not in Paris or near it, and, as we have seen, was under
the protection of various French and fashionable Flora Macdonalds. Of
these ladies, ‘Madame de Beauregard’ and the Princesse de Talmond are
apparently the same person. With them, or her (she also appears as _la
tante_ and _la vieille_), Charles’s relations were stormy. He wearied
her, he broke with her, he scolded her, and returned to her again.
Another protectress, Madame d’Aiguillon, was the mistress of the
household most frequented by Montesquieu, _le filosophe_, as Charles
calls him. Madame du Deffand has left to us portraits of both the
Princesse de Talmond and Madame d’Aiguillon.
‘Madame de Talmond has beauty and wit and vivacity; that turn for
pleasantry which is our national inheritance seems natural to her. . . .
But her wit deals only with pleasant frivolities; her ideas are
the children of her memory rather than of her imagination. French in
everything else, she is original in her vanity. Ours is more
sociable, inspires the desire to please, and suggests the means.
Hers is truly Sarmatian, artless and indolent; she cannot bring
herself to flatter those whose admiration she covets. . . . She
thinks herself perfect, says so, and expects to be believed. At this
price alone does she yield a semblance of friendship: semblance, I
say, for her affections are concentrated on herself . . . She is as
jealous as she is vain, and so capricious as to make her at once the
most unhappy and the most absurd of women. She never knows what she
wants, what she fears, whom she loves, or whom she hates. There is
no nature in her expression: with her chin in the air she poses
eternally as tender or disdainful, absent or haughty; all is
affectation. . . . She is feared and hated by all who live in her
society. Yet she has truth, courage, and honesty, and is such a
mixture of good and evil that no steadfast opinion about her can be
entertained. She pleases, she provokes: we love, hate, seek, and
avoid her. It is as if she communicated to others the eccentricity
of her own caprice.’
Where a character like hers met a nature like the Prince’s, peace and
quiet were clearly out of the question.
Madame du Deffand is not more favourable to another friend of Charles,
Madame d’Aiguillon. This lady gave a supper every Saturday night, where
neither her husband, the lover of the Princesse de Conti, nor her son,
later the successor of Choiseul as Minister of Louis XV., was expected to
appear. ‘The most brilliant men, French or foreign, were her guests,
attracted by her abundant, active, impetuous, and original intellect, by
her elevated conversation, and her kindness of manner.’ {86} She was,
according to Gustavus III., ‘the living gazette of the Court, the town,
the provinces, and the academy.’ Voltaire wrote to her rhymed epistles.
Says Madame du Deffand, ‘Her mouth is fallen in, her nose crooked, her
glance wild and bold, and in spite of all this she is beautiful. The
brilliance of her complexion atones for the irregularity of her features.
Her waist is thick, her bust and arms are enormous. yet she has not a
heavy air: her energy gives her ease of movement. Her wit is like her
face, brilliant and out of drawing. Profusion, activity, impetuosity are
her ruling qualities . . . She is like a play which is all _spectacle_,
all machines and decorations, applauded by the pit and hissed by the
boxes. . . . ’
Montesquieu was hardly a spectator in the pit, yet he habitually lived at
Madame d’Aiguillon’s; ‘she is original,’ he said, and she, with Madame
Dupré de Saint-Maur, watched by the death-bed of the philosopher. {87}
In unravelling the hidden allusions of Charles’s correspondence, I at
first recognised Madame d’Aiguillon in Charles’s friend ‘La Grandemain.’
The name seemed a suitable _sobriquet_, for a lady with _gros bras_, like
Madame d’Aiguillon, might have large hands. The friendship of ‘La
Grandemain’ with the _philosophe_, Montesquieu, also pointed to Madame
d’Aiguillon. But Charles, at a later date, makes a memorandum that he
has deposited his strong box, with money, at the rooms of La Comtesse de
Vassé, in the Rue Saint Dominique, Faubourg St. Germain. That box,
again, as he notes, was restored by ‘La Grandemain.’ This fact, with
Grimm’s anecdote, identifies ‘La Grandemain,’ not with Madame
d’Aiguillon, but with Madame de Vassé, ‘the Comtesse,’ as Goring calls
her, though Grimm makes her a Marquise. If Montesquieu’s private papers
and letters in MS. had been published in full, we should probably know
more of this matter. His relations with Bulkeley were old and most
intimate. Before he died he confessed to Father Routh, an Irish Jesuit,
whom Voltaire denounces in ‘Candide.’ This Routh must have been
connected with Colonel Routh, an Irish Jacobite in French service,
husband of Charles’s friend, ‘la Comtesse de Routh.’ Montesquieu
himself, though he knew, as we shall show, the Prince’s secret, was no
conspirator. Unluckily, as we learn from M. Vian’s life of the
philosopher, his successors have been very chary of publishing details of
his private existence. It is, of course, conceivable that Helvetius, who
told Hume that his house had sheltered Charles, is the _philosophe_
mentioned by Mademoiselle Luci and Madame de Vassé. But Charles’s proved
relations with Montesquieu, and Montesquieu’s known habit of frequenting
the society of his lady neighbours in the convent of St. Joseph, also his
intimacy with Charles’s friend Bulkeley, who attended his death-bed, all
seem rather to point to the author of ‘L’Esprit des Lois.’ The
_philosophes_, for a moment, seem to have expected to find in Prince
Charlie the ‘philosopher-king’ of Plato’s dream!
The Prince’s distinguished friends unluckily did not succeed in inspiring
him with common sense.
On August 16 he defends the conduct of _cette home_, _ou tête de fer_
(himself), and he writes a few aphorisms, _Maximes d’un l’ome sauvage_!
He aimed at resembling Charles XII., called ‘Dener Bash’ by the Turks,
for his obstinacy, a nickname also given by Lord Marischal to the Prince.
Like Balen, he was termed ‘The Wild,’ ‘by knights whom kings and courts
can tame.’ He writes to the younger Waters,
_To Waters_, _Junior_.
‘Ye 21st August, 1749.
‘I receive yrs. of ye 8th. Current with yr two as mentioned and I
heve send their Answers for Avignon, plese to Enclose in it a Credit
for fifteen thousand Livers, to Relive my family there, at the
disposal of Stafford and Sheridan. I am sorry to be obliged oftener
to draw upon you, than to remit, and cannot help Reflection on this
occasion, on the Misery of that poor Popish Town, and all their
Inhabitants not being worth four hundred Louidors. Mr. B. [Bulkeley]
Mistakes as to my taking amis anything of him, on the contrary I am
charmed to heve the opinion of everybody, particularly them Like him,
as I am shure say nothing but what they think: but as I am so much
imbibed in ye English air, where My only Concerns are, I cannot help
sometimes differing with ye inhabitants of forain Climats.
‘I remain all yours.
‘15,000 ff. Credit for Stafford and Sheridan at Avignon.’
‘Newton’ kept writing, meanwhile, that Cluny can do nothing till winter,
‘on account of the sheilings,’ the summer habitations of the pastoral
Highlanders. There may have been sheilings near the hiding-places of the
Loch Arkaig treasure. On September 30 we find Charles professing his
_inébranlable amitié_ for Madame de Talmond. He bids his courier stop at
Lunéville, as she may be at the Court of Stanislas there.
The results of Goring’s mission to England may be gleaned from a cypher
letter of ‘Malloch’ (Balhaldie) to James. Balhaldie had been in London;
he found the party staunch, ‘but frighted out of their wits.’ The usual
names of the official Jacobites are given—Barrymore, Sir William Watkyns
Wynne, and Beaufort. But they are all alarmed ‘by Lord Traquair’s silly
indiscretion in blabbing to Murray of Broughton of their concerns,
wherein he could be of no use.’ They had summoned Balhaldie, and
complained of the influence of Kelly, an adviser bequeathed to Charles by
his old tutor, Sir Thomas Sheridan, now dead. ‘They saw well that the
Insurrection Sir James Harrington was negotiating, to be begun at
Litchfield Election and Races, in September ’47, was incouraged, and when
that failed, the Insurrection attempted by Lally’s influence on one
Wilson, a smuggler in Sussex, which could serve no end save the
extinction of the unhappy men concerned in them; therefore they had taken
pains to prevent any. They lamented the last steps the Prince had taken
here as scarcely reparable.’
Goring had now been with them, and they had insisted on the Prince’s
procuring a reconciliation with the French Court. ‘Goring’s only
business was to say that the Prince had parted with Kelly, Lally, Sir
James Graeme, and Oxburgh, and the whole, and to assure friends in
England that he would never more see any one of them.’ Charles was,
therefore, provided by his English friends with 15,000_l._, and the
King’s timid party of men with much to lose won a temporary triumph. He
sent 21,000 livres to his Avignon household, adding, ‘I received yours
with a list of my bookes: I find sumne missing of them. Particularly Fra
Paulo [Sarpi] and Boccaccio, which are both rare. If you find any let me
know it.’
Charles was more of a bibliophile than might be guessed from his
orthography.
On November 22, 1749, Charles, from Lunéville, wrote a long letter to a
lady, speaking of himself in the third person. All approaches to Avignon
are guarded, to prevent his return thither. ‘Despite the Guards, they
assure me that he is in France, and not far from the capital. The
Lieutenant of Police has been heard to say, by a person who informed me,
that he knew for certain the Prince had come in secret to Paris, and had
been at the house of Monsieur Lally. The King winks at all this, but it
is said that M. de Puysieux and the Mistress (Madame de Pompadour) are as
ill disposed as ever. I know from a good source that 15,000_l._ has been
sent to the Prince from England, on condition of his dismissing his
household.’ {91}
The spelling of this letter is correct, and possibly the Prince did not
write it, but copied it out. That Louis XV. winked at his movements is
probable enough; secretive as he was, the King may have known what he
concealed even from his Minister, de Puysieux.
On December 19, the Prince, who cannot have been far from Paris, sent
Goring thither ‘to get my big Muff and portfeul.’ I do not know which
lady he addressed, on December 10, as ‘l’Adorable,’ ‘avec toute la
tendresse possible.’ On November 28, ‘R. Jackson’ writes from England.
He saw Dr. King (of St. Mary Hall, Oxford), who had been at Lichfield
races, ‘and had a list of the 275 gentlemen who were there.’ This Mr.
Jackson was going to Jamaica, to Henry Dawkins, brother of Jemmy Dawkins,
a rich and scholarly planter who played a great part, later, in Jacobite
affairs.
In 1750, February found Charles still without a reply to his letter of
May 26, in which he made an anonymous appeal for shelter in Imperial
territories. Orders to Goring, who had been sent to Lally, bid him ‘take
care not to get benighted in the woods and dangerous places.’ A good
deal is said about a marble bust of the Prince at which Lemoine is
working, the original, probably, of the plaster busts sold in autumn in
Red Lion Square. ‘Newton’ (January 28) thinks Cluny wilfully dilatory
about sending the Loch Arkaig treasure, and Æneas Macdonald, the banker,
one of the Seven Men of Moidart, accuses ‘Newton’ (Kennedy) of losing
800_1._ of the money at Newmarket races! In fact, Young Glengarry and
Archibald Cameron had been helping themselves freely to the treasure at
this very time, whence came endless trouble and recriminations, as we
shall see. {92}
On January 25 the Prince was embroiled with Madame de Talmond. He
writes, obviously in answer to remonstrances:
‘Nous nous prometons de suivre en tout les volontés et les
arrangemens de notre fidèle amie et alliée, L. P. D. T.; nous retirer
aux heures qu’il lui conviendra a la ditte P, soit de jour, soit de
nuit, soit de ses états, en foy de quoi nous signons. C.’
He had begun to bore the capricious lady.
Important intrigues were in the air. The Prince resembled ‘paper-sparing
Pope’ in his use of scraps of writing material. One piece bears notes
both of February and June 1750. On February 16 Charles wrote to Mr.
Dormer, an English Jacobite:
‘I order you to go to Anvers, and there to execute my instructions
without delay.’
Goring carried the letter. Then comes a despatch of June, which will be
given under date.
Concerning the fatal hoard of Loch Arkaig, ‘Newton’ writes thus:—
_Tho. Newton to_ —
‘March 18, 1750.
‘You have on the other side the melancholy confirmation of what I
apprehended. Dr. Cameron is no doubt the person here mentioned that
carryd away the horses [money], for he is lately gone to Rome, as is
also young Glengery, those and several others of them, have been very
flush of money, so that it seems they took care of themselves. C.
[Cluny] in my opinion is more to be blamed than any of them, for if
he had a mind to act the honest part he certainly could have given up
the whole long since. They will no doubt represent me not in the
most advantageous light at Rome, for attempting to carry out of their
country what they had to support them. I hope they will one day or
other be obliged to give an acct. of this money, if so, least they
shd. attempt to Impose upon you, you’l find my receipts to C. will
exactly answer what I had already the honour of giving you an acct.
of.’
Again ‘Newton’ writes:
(_Tho. Newton_—_From G. Waters’s Letter_.)
‘April 27, 1750.
‘I am honored with yours of the 6th. Inst. and nothing could equal my
surprize at the reception of the Letter I sent you. I did not expect
C [Cluny] was capable of betraying the confidence you had in him, and
he is the more culpable, as I frequently put it in his power to
acquit himself of his duty without reproach of any side. Only
Cameron is returned from Rome greatly pleased with the reception he
met there. I have not seen him, but he has bragged of this to many
people here since his return. I never owned to any man alive to have
been employed in that affair.’
In spite of Newton, it is not to be credited that Cluny, lurking in many
perils on Ben Alder, was unfaithful about the treasure.
Meanwhile, Young Glengarry (whose history we give later), Archibald
Cameron (Lochiel’s brother), Sir Hector Maclean, and other Jacobites,
were in Rome, probably to explain their conduct about the Loch Arkaig
treasure to James. He knew nothing about the matter, and what he said
will find its proper place when we come to investigate the history of
Young Glengarry. The Prince at this time corresponded a good deal with
‘Mademoiselle Luci,’ that fair philosophical recluse who did little
commissions for him in Paris. On April 4 he wants a list of the books he
left in Paris, and shows a kind heart.
‘Pray take care of the young surgeon, M. Le Coq, and see that he wants
for nothing. As the lad gets no money from his relations, he may be in
need.’ Charles, on March 28, writes thus to ‘Madame de Beauregard,’
which appears to be an alias of Madame de Talmond:
_The Prince_.
March 28, 1750.
‘A Md. Bauregor. Je vois avec Chagrin que vous vous tourmentes et
mois aussi bien innutillement, et en tout sans [sens]. Ou vous
voules me servire, ou vous ne Le voules pas; ou vous voules me
protege, ou non; Il n’y a acune autre alternative en raison qui puis
etre. Si vous voules me servire il ne faut pas me soutenire toujours
que Blan [blanc] est noire, dans Les Chose Les plus palpable: et
jamais Avouer que vous aves tort meme quant vous Le santes. Si vous
ne voules pas me servire, il est inutile que je vous parle de ce qui
me regarde: si vous voules me protege, il ne faut pas me rendre La
Vie plus malheureuse qu’il n’est. Si vous voules m’abandoner il faut
me Le dire en bon Francois ou Latin. Visus solum’ [sic].
Madame de Talmond sheltered the Prince both in Lorraine and in Paris.
They were, unluckily, born to make each other’s lives ‘insupportable.’
Charles wrote this letter, probably to Madame d’Aiguillon, from Paris:
May 12, 1750.
‘La Multitude d’affaire de toute Espèce dont j’ai été plus que
surchargé, Madame, depuis plus de quatre Mois, Chose que votre
Chancelier a du vous attester, ne m’ avois permis de vous rappeller
Le souvenir de vos Bontés pour Moi; qualque Long qu’ait ete Le
Silance que j’ai gardé sur Le Desir que j’ai d’en mériter La
Continuation j’espère qu’il ne m’en aura rien fait perdre: j’ose meme
presumer Encore asses pour me flater qu’une Longue absence que je
projette par raison et par une necessite absolue, ne m’efacera pas
totalement de votre souvenir; Daigne Le Conserver, Madame a quelquun
qui n’en est pas indigne et qui cherchera toujours a Le meriter par
son tendre et respectueux attachement—a Paris Le 12 May, 1750.’
A quaint light is thrown on the Prince’s private affairs (May 12) by
Waters’s note of his inability to get a packet of Scottish tartan, sent
by Archibald Cameron, out of the hands of the Custom House. It was
confiscated as ‘of British manufacture.’ Again, on May 18, Charles wrote
to Mademoiselle Luci, in Paris. She is requested ‘de faire avoire une
ouvrage de Mr. Fildings, (auteur de Tom Jones) qui s’apel _Joseph
Andrews_, dans sa langue naturelle, et la traduction aussi.’ He also
wants ‘Tom Jones’ in French, and we may infer that he is teaching to some
fair pupil the language of Fielding. He asks, too, for a razor-case with
four razors, a shaving mirror, and a strong pocket-book with a lock. His
famous ‘chese de post’ (post-chaise) is to be painted and repaired.
Business of a graver kind is in view. ‘Newton’ (April 24) is to get
ready to accompany the Prince on a long journey, really to England, it
seems. Newton asked for a delay, on account of family affairs. He was
only to be known to the bearer as ‘Mr. Newton,’ of course not his real
name.
On May 28, Charles makes a mote about a mysterious lady, really Madame de
Talmond.
_Project_.
‘If ye lady abandons me at the last moment, to give her the letter
here following for ye F. K. [French King], and even ye original, if
she thinks it necessary, but with ye greatest secrecy; apearing to
them already in our confidence that I will quit the country, if she
does not return to me immediately.’
Drafts of letters to the French King, in connection with Madame de
Talmond—to be delivered, apparently, if Charles died in England—will be
given later. To England he was now bent on making his way. ‘Ye Prince
is determined to go over at any rate,’ he wrote on a draft of May 3,
1750. {97} ‘The person who makes the proposal of coming over assures
that he will expose nobody but himself, supposing the worst.’ Sir
Charles Goring is to send a ship for his brother, Henry Goring, to
Antwerp, early in August. ‘To visit Mr. P. of D. [unknown] . . . and to
agree where the arms &c. may be most conveniently landed, the grand
affair of L. [London?] to be attempted at the same time.’ There are
notes on ‘referring the Funds to a free Parliament,’ ‘The Tory landed
interest wished to repudiate the National Debt,’ ‘To acquaint particular
persons that the K. [King] will R—’ (resign), which James had no
intention of doing.
In preparation for the insurrection Charles, under extreme secrecy,
deposited 186,000 _livres_ (‘livers!’) with Waters. He also ordered
little silver counters with his effigy, as the English Government came to
know, for distribution, and he commanded a miniature of himself, by Le
Brun, ‘with all the Orders.’ This miniature may have been a parting gift
to Madame de Talmond, or one of the other protecting ladies, ‘adorable’
or quarrelsome. It is constantly spoken of in the correspondence.
[Picture: Prince Charles in 1750. From a miniature in Her Majesty’s
Collection at Windsor Castle]
The real business in hand is revealed in the following directions for
Goring. The Prince certainly makes a large order on Dormer, and it is
not probable, though (from the later revelations of James Mohr Macgregor)
it is possible, that the weapons demanded were actually procured.
June 8.
_Letter and Directions for Goring_.—‘Mr. Dutton will go directly to
Anvers and there wait Mr. Barton’s arrival and asoon as you have
received his Directions you’l set out to join me, in the mean time
you will concert with Dormer the properest means of procuring _the
things_ [‘arms,’ erased] I now order him, in the strictest secrecy,
likewise how I could be concealed in case I came to him, and the
safest way of travelling to that country?’
* * * * *
_For Mr. Dormer_. _Same Date_. _Anvers_.
‘As you have already offered me by ye Bearer, Mr. Goring, to furnish
me what Arms necessary for my service I hereby desire you to get me
with all ye expedition possible Twenty Thousand Guns, Baionets,
Ammunition proportioned, with four thousand sords and Pistols for
horces [cavalry] in one ship which is to be ye first, and in ye
second six thousand Guns without Baionets but sufficient Amunition
and Six thouzand Brode sords; as Mr. Goring has my further Directions
to you on them Affaires Leaves me nothing farther to add at present.’
On June 11, Charles remonstrated with Madame de Talmond: if she is tired
of him, he will go to ‘le Lorain.’ ‘Enfin, si vous voulez ma vie, il
faut changer de tout.’ On June 27, Newton repeated his expressions of
suspicion about Cluny, and spoke of ‘disputes and broils’ among the
Scotch as to the seizure of the Loch Arkaig money.
On July 2, Charles, in cypher, asked James for a renewal of his
commission as Regent. Goring, or Newton, was apparently sent at least as
far as Avignon with this despatch. He travelled as Monsieur Fritz, a
German, with complicated precautions of secrecy. James sent the warrant
to be Regent on parchment—it is in the Queen’s Library—but he added that
Charles was ‘a continual heartbreak,’ and warned his son not to expect
‘friendship and favours from people, while you do all that is necessary
to disgust them.’ He ‘could not in decency’ see Charles’s envoy (August
4). On the following day Edgar wrote in a more friendly style, for this
excellent man was of an amazing loyalty.
_From James Edgar_.
‘August 5, 1750: Rome.
‘Your Royal Highness does me the greatest pleasure in mentioning the
desire you have to have the King’s head in an intaglio. There is
nobody can serve you as well in that respect as I, so I send you by
the bearers two, one on a stone like a ruby, but it is a fine
_Granata_, and H.M.’s hair and the first letters of his name are on
the inside of it. The other head is on an emerald, a big one, but
not of a fine colour; it is only set in lead, so you may either set
it in a ring, a seal, or a locket, as you please: they are both cut
by Costanzia, and very well done.’
These intagli would be interesting relics for collectors of such flotsam
and jetsam of a ruined dynasty. On August 25, Charles answered Edgar.
He is ‘sorry that His Majesty is prevented against the most dutiful of
sons.’ He sends thanks for the engraved stones and the powers of
Regency. This might well have been James’s last news of Charles, for he
was on his way to London, a perilous expedition. {101}
CHAPTER V
THE PRINCE IN LONDON; AND AFTER.—MADEMOISELLE LUCI
(SEPTEMBER 1750–JULY 1751)
The Prince goes to London—Futility of this tour—English Jacobites
described by Æneas Macdonald—No chance but in Tearlach—Credentials to
Madame de Talmond—Notes of visit to London—Doings in London—Gratifying
conversion—Gems and medals—Report by Hanbury Williams—Hume’s
legend—Report by a spy—_Billets_ to Madame de
Talmond—Quarrel—Disappearance—‘The old aunt’—Letters to Mademoiselle
Luci—Charles in Germany—Happy thought of Hanbury Williams—Marshal Keith’s
mistress—Failure of this plan—The English ‘have a clue’—Books for the
Prince—Mademoiselle Luci as a critic—Jealousy of Madame de Talmond—Her
letter to Mademoiselle Luci—The young lady replies—Her bad
health—Charles’s reflections—Frederick ‘a clever man’—A new adventure.
THE Prince went to London in the middle of September 1750; and why did he
run such a terrible risk? Though he had ordered great quantities of arms
in June, no real preparations had been made for a rising. His
Highlanders—Glengarry, Lochgarry, Archy Cameron, Clanranald—did not know
where he was. Scotland was not warned. As for England, we learn the
condition of the Jacobite party there from a letter by Æneas Macdonald,
the banker, to Sir Hector Maclean—Sir Hector whom, in his examination, he
had spoken of as ‘too fond of the bottle.’ {103} Æneas now wrote from
Boulogne, in September 1750. He makes it clear that peace, luxury, and
constitutionalism had eaten the very heart out of the grandsons of the
cavaliers. There was grumbling enough at debt, taxes, a Hanoverian King
who at this very hour was in Hanover. Welsh and Cheshire squires and
London aldermen drank Jacobite toasts in private. ‘But,’ says Æneas,
‘there are not in England three persons of distinction of the same
sentiments as to the method of restoring the Royal family, some being for
one way, some for another.’ They have neither heart nor money for an
armed assertion of their ideas. In 1745, Sir William Watkins Wynne (who
stayed at home in Wales) had not 200_l._ by him in ready money, and money
cannot be raised on lands at such moments. Yet this very man was
believed to have spent 120,000_l._ in contested elections. ‘It is very
probable that six times as much money has been thrown away upon these
elections’—he means in the country generally—‘as would have restored the
King.’ Æneas knew another gentleman who had wasted 40,000_l._ in these
constitutional diversions. ‘The present scheme,’ he goes on, ‘is equally
weak.’ The English Jacobites were to seem to side with Frederick, the
Prince of Wales, in opposition, and force him, when crowned, ‘to call a
free Parliament.’ That Parliament would proclaim a glorious Restoration.
In fact, the English Jacobites were devoured by luxury, pacific habits,
and a desire to save their estates by pursuing ‘constitutional methods.’
These, as we shall see, Charles despised. If a foreign force cannot be
landed (if landed it would scarcely be opposed), then ‘there is no method
so good as an attempt such as _Terloch_ [Tearlach] made: if there be arms
and money: men, I am sure, he will find enough. . . . One thing you may
take for granted, that Terloch’s appearance again would be worth 5,000
men, and that without him every attempt will be vain and fruitless.’
Æneas, in his examination, talked to a different tune, as the poor timid
banker, distrusted and insulted by ferocious chieftains.
‘Terloch’ was only too eager to ‘show himself again’; money and arms he
seems to have procured (d’Argenson says 4,000,000 francs!), but why go
over secretly to London, where he had no fighting partisans? There are
no traces of a serious organised plan, and the Prince probably crossed
the water, partly to see how matters really stood, partly from
restlessness and the weariness of a tedious solitude in hiding, broken
only by daily quarrels and reconciliations with the Princesse de Talmond
and other ladies.
We find a curious draft of his written on the eve of starting.
‘Credentials given ye 1st. Sept, 1750. _to ye P. T._’ (Princesse de
Talmond).
‘Je me flate que S.M.T.C. [Sa Majesté Très Chrétien] voudra bien
avoire tout foi et credi à Madame La P. de T., ma chere Cousine, come
si s’etoit mois-meme; particulierement en l’assurant de nouveau come
quois j’ai ses veritable interest plus a cour que ses Ministres,
etant toujours avec une attachemen veritable et sincere pour sa sacre
persone. C. P. R.’ (Charles, Prince Regent).
Again,
_A Mr. Le Duc de Richelieu_.
‘Je comte sur votre Amitié, Monsieur, je vous prie d’être persuade de
la mienne et de ma reconnaissance.
‘All these are deponed, not to be given till farther orders.’
What use the Princesse de Talmond was to make of these documents, on what
occasion, is not at all obvious. That the Prince actually went to
London, we know from a memorandum in his own hand. ‘My full powers and
commission of Regency renewed, when I went to England in 1750, and
nothing to be said at Rome, for every thing there is known, and my
brother, who has got no confidence of my Father, has always acted, as far
as his power, against my interest.’ {105}
Of Charles’s doings in London, no record survives in the Stuart Papers of
1750. We merely find this jotting:
‘Parted ye 2d. Sep. Arrived to A. [Antwerp] ye 6th. Parted from
thence ye 12th. Sept. E. [England] ye 14th, and at L. [London] ye
16th. Parted from L. ye 22d. and arrived at P. ye 24th. From P.
parted ye 28th. Arrived here ye 30th Sept. If she [Madame de
Talmond, probably] does not come, and ye M. [messenger] agreed on to
send back for ye Letters and Procuration [to] ye house here of P. C.
and her being either a tretor or a hour, to chuse which, [then] not
to send to P. even after her coming unless absolute necessity order,
requiring it then at her dor.’
On the back of the paper is:
‘The letter to Godie [Gaudie?] retarded a post; ye Lady’s being
arrived, or her retard to be little, if she is true stille.’
Then follow some jottings, apparently of the lady’s movements. ‘N.S.
[New style] ye 16th. Sept. Either ill counselled or she has made a
confidence. M. Lorain’s being here [the Duke of Lorraine, ex-King of
Poland, probably, a friend of Madame de Talmond] ye 12th. Sept. To go ye
same day with ye King, speaking to W. [Waters?] ye last day, Madame A.
here this last six weeks.’
These scrawls appear to indicate some communication between Madame de
Talmond, the Duke of Lorraine, and Louis XV. {106}
In London Charles did little but espouse the Anglican religion. Dr.
King, in his ‘Anecdotes,’ tells how the Prince took the refreshment of
tea with him, and how his servant detected a resemblance to the busts
sold in Red Lion Square. He also appeared at a party at Lady Primrose’s,
much to her alarm. {107} He prowled about the Tower with Colonel Brett,
and thought a gate might be damaged by a petard. His friends, including
Beaufort and Westmoreland, held a meeting in Pall Mall, to no purpose.
The tour had no results, except in the harmless region of the fine arts.
A medal was struck, by Charles’s orders, and we have the following
information for collectors of Jacobite trinkets. The English Government,
never dreaming that the Prince was in Pall Mall, was well informed about
cheap treasonable jewellery.
‘Paris: August 31, 1750.
‘The Artist who makes the seals with the head of the Pretender’s
eldest Son, is called le Sieur Malapert, his direction is hereunder,
he sells them at 3 Livres apiece, but by the Dozen he takes less.
‘It is one Tate, who got the engraving made on metal, from which the
Artist takes the impression on his Composition in imitation of fine
Stones of all colours. This Tate was a Jeweller at Edinborough,
where he went into the Rebellion and having made his escape, has
since settled here, but has left his wife and Family at Edinborough.
He is put upon the list of the French King’s Bounty for eight hundred
Livres yearly, the same as is allowed to those that had a Captain’s
Commission in the Pretender’s Service and are fled hither. It is
Sullivan and Ferguson who employ Tate to get the 1,500 Seals done, he
being a man that does still Jeweller’s business and follows it. The
Artist has actually done four dozen of seals, which are disposed of,
having but half a dozen left. He expects daily an order for the said
quantity more—As there are no Letters or Inscription about it, the
Artist may always pretend that it is only a fancy head, though it is
in reality very like the Pretender’s Eldest Son.’ {108}
Oddly enough, we find Waters sealing, with this very intaglio of the
Prince, a letter to Edgar, in 1750. It is a capital likeness.
Wise after the event, Hanbury Williams wrote from Berlin (October 13,
1750) that Charles was in England, ‘in the heart of the kingdom, in the
county of Stafford.’ By October 20, Williams knows that the Prince is in
Suffolk. All this is probably a mere echo of Charles’s actual visit to
London, reverberated from the French Embassy at Berlin, and arriving at
Hanbury Williams, he says, through an Irishman, who knew a lacquey of the
French Ambassador’s. In English official circles no more than this was
known. Troops were concentrated near Stafford after Charles had returned
to Lorraine. Hume told Sir John Pringle a story of how Charles was in
London in 1753, how George II. told the fact to Lord Holdernesse, and how
the King expressed his good-humoured indifference. But Lord Holdernesse
contradicted the tale, as we have already observed. If Hume meant 1750
by 1733 he was certainly wrong. George was then in Hanover. In 1753 I
have no proof that Charles was in London, though Young Glengarry told
James that the Prince was ‘on the coast’ in November 1752. If Charles
did come to London in 1753, and if George knew it, the information came
through Pickle to Henry Pelham, as will appear later. Hume gave the Earl
Marischal as his original authority. The Earl was likely to be better
informed about events of 1752–1753 than about those of September 1750.
After Charles’s departure from London, the English Government received
information from Paris (October 5, 1750) to the following effect:
‘Paris: October 5, 1750.
‘It is supposed that the Pretender’s Son keeps at Montl’hery, six
leagues from Paris, at Mr. Lumisden’s, or at Villeneuve St. Georges,
at a small distance from Town, at Lord Nairn’s; Sometimes at Sens,
with Col. Steward and Mr. Ferguson; when at Paris, at Madme. la
Princesse de Talmont’s, or the Scotch Seminary; nobody travels with
him but Mr. Goring, and a Biscayan recommended to him by _Marshal
Saxe_: the young Pretender is disguised in an Abbé’s dress, with a
black patch upon his eye, and his eyebrows black’d.
‘An Officer of Ogilvie’s Regimt. in this Service listed lately. An
Irish Priest, who belonged to the Parish Church of S. Eustache at
Paris, has left his Living, reckoned worth 80_l._ St. a year, and is
very lately gone to London to be Chaplain to the Sardinian Minister:
he has carried with him a quantity of coloured Glass Seals with the
Pretender’s Son’s Effigy, as also small heads made of silver gilt
about this bigness [example] to be set in rings, as also points for
watch cases, with the same head, and this motto round “Look, Love,
and follow.”’ {110}
On October 30, Walton wrote that James was much troubled by a letter from
Charles, doubtless containing the news of his English failure; perhaps
notifying his desertion of the Catholic faith. On January 15, 1751,
Walton writes that James has confided to the Pope that Charles is at
Boulogne-sur-Mer, which he very possibly was. On January 9 and 22,
Horace Mann reports, on the information of Cardinal Albani, that James
and the Duke of York are ill with grief. ‘Something extraordinary has
happened to the Pretender’s eldest son.’ He had turned Protestant, that
was all. But Cardinal Albani withdraws his statement, and thinks that
nothing unusual has really occurred. In fact, Charles, as we shall see,
had absolutely vanished for three months.
Charles returned to France in September 1750, and renewed his _amantium
irae_ with Madame de Talmond. Among the Stuart Papers of 1750 are a
number of tiny _billets_, easily concealed, and doubtless passed to the
lady furtively. ‘Si vous ne voulez, Reine de Maroc, pas cet faire,
quelle plaisir mourir de chagrin et de desespoire!’
‘Aiez de la Bonté et de confience pour celui qui vous aime et vous adore
passionément.’
To some English person:
‘Ask the Channoine where you can by hocks [buy hooks!] and lines for
fishing, and by a few hocks and foure lines.’ {111}
The Princess writes:
‘Je partirai dimanche comme j’ai promis au Roy de Pologne’
(Stanislas). ‘Je vous embrasse bien tendrement, si vous êtes tel que
vous devez être à mon égard.’ She is leaving for Commercy. On the
reverse the Prince has written, ‘Judi. Je comance a ouvrire mes yeux
a votre egar, Madame, vous ne voulez pas de mois, ce soire, malgre
votre promes, et ma malheureuse situation.’
The quarrels grew more frequent and more embittered. We have marked his
suspicious view of the lady’s movements. On September 26, 1750, she had
not returned, and he wrote to her in the following terms.
_The Prince_.
September 26, 1750.
‘Je pars, Madame, dans L’instant, en Sorte que vous feriez
reflection, et retourniez au plus vite, tout doit vous Engager, si
vous avez de l’amitié pour mois, Car je ne puis pas me dispenser de
vous repeter, Combien chaque jour de votre absence faira du tor a mes
affaier outre Le desire d’avoire une Coinpagnie si agréable dans une
si triste solitude, que ma malheureuse situation m’oblige
indispensablement de tenire. J’ai cessé [?] des Ordres positive a
Mlle. Luci, de ne me pas envoier La Moindre Chose meme une dilligence
come aussi de mon cote je n’en veres rien, jusqu’a ce que vous soiez
arrive.
‘Quant vous partires alors Mdll. Luci vous remettera tout ce quil
aura pour mois, vous rien de votre cote que votre personne.’
On the same paper Charles announces his intention of going instantly to
‘Le Lorain.’ There must have been a great quarrel with Madame de
Talmond, outwearied by the exigencies of a Prince doomed to a _triste
solitude_ after a week of London. On September 30 he announces to Waters
that there will be no news of him till January 15, 1751. For three
months he disappears beyond even his agent’s ken. On October 20 he
writes to Mademoiselle Luci, styling himself ‘Mademoiselle Chevalier,’
and calling Madame de Talmond ‘Madame Le Nord.’ The Princesse de Talmond
has left him, is threatening him, and may ruin him.
‘Le October 20, 1750.
‘A Mll. Luci: Mademoiselle Chevalier est tres affligee de voir le peu
d’egard que Madame Lenord a pour ses Interest. La Miene du 12 auroit
ete La derniere mais cette dame a ecrit une Letre en date du 18 a M.
Le Lorrain qui a choqué cette Demoiselle [himself], Et je puis dire
avec raison quelle agit come Le plus Grand de ses ennemis par son
retard, elle ajoute encor a cela des menaces si on La presse
d’avantage, et si l’on se plain de son indigne procedé. Md. Poulain
seroit deja partit, et partiroit si cette dame lui en donnoit Les
Moiens. Je ne puis trop vous faire connoitre Le Tort que Md. Lenord
fait a cette demoiselle en abandonant sa société et La risque qu’elle
fait courir a Md. de Lille qui par La pouroit faire banqueroute.
‘A Mdll. La Marre.
Chez M. Lecuyer tapisse [Tapissier].
Grande Rue Garonne, Faubourg
St. Germain à Paris.
‘Vous pouvez accuser La reception de cette Lettre par Le premier
Ordinaire a M. Le Vieux [Old Waters].
‘Adieu Mdll.
‘Je vous embrace de tout mon Cour.’
On November 7 Charles writes again to Mademoiselle Luci: the Princesse de
Talmond is here _la vieille tante_: now estranged and perhaps hostile.
Madame de la Bruère is probably the wife of M. de la Bruère, whom
Montesquieu speaks highly of when, in 1749, he was Chargé d’Affaires in
Rome. {113}
‘Le 7 Nov. 1750.
‘Mdlle. Luci,—Je suis fort Etone Mademoiselle qu’une fame de cette
Age qu’a notre Tante soi si deresonable. Elle se done tout La paine
immaginable pour agire contre Les interets de sa niece par son retard
du payment dont vous m’avez deja parlé.
‘Voici une lettre que je vous prie de cachete, et d’y mettre son
adress, et de l’envoier sur Le Champ a Madame de Labruière. Il est
inutile d’hors en avant que vous communiquier aucune Chose de ce qui
regard Mlle. Chevalier [himself], a Md. la Tante [Talmond] jusqu’a ce
que Elle pense otrement, car, il n’est que trop cler ques es procedes
sont separés et oposés à ce qui devroit etre son interet. Je vous
embrace de tout mon Coeur.’
These embraces are from the supposed Mademoiselle Chevalier. There is no
reason to suppose a tender passion between Charles and the girl who was
now his Minister of Affairs, Foreign and Domestic. But Madame de
Talmond, as we shall learn, became jealous of Mademoiselle Luci.
His deeper seclusion continues.
Madame de Talmond, in the following letter, is as before, _la tante_.
The ‘merchandise’ is letters for the Prince, which have reached
Mademoiselle Luci, and which she is to return to Waters, the banker.
‘Le 16 Nov. 1750.
‘A Mdll. Luci: Je vous ai écrit Mademoiselle, Le 7, avec une incluse
pour Md. de La Bruière, je vous prie de m’en accuser la reception à
l’adresse de M. Le Vieux [Old Waters], et de me donner des Nouvelles
de M. de Lisle [unknown]; pour se que regarde Les Marchandises de
modes que vous avez chez vous depuis que j’ai en Le plaisir de vous
voire et que cette Tante [Madame de Talmond] veut avoire l’indignité
d’en differer le paiement, il faut que vous les renvoiez au memes
Marchands de qui vous Les avez reçu et leur dire que vous craignez ne
pas avoir de longtems une occasion favorable pour Les débiter, ainsi
qu’en attendant vous aimez mieux quelles soieut dans leurs mains que
dans Les votres. Je vous embrasse de tout mon Coeur.’
By November 19, Charles is indignant even with Mademoiselle Luci, who has
rather tactlessly shown the letter of November 7 to Madame de Talmond,
_la tante_, _la vieille Femme_. Oh, the unworthy Prince!
Charles’s epistle follows:
19th Nov.
‘Je suis tres surprise, Mademoiselle, de votre Lettre du 15, par
Laquelle vous dites avoire montres a la tante une Lettre touchant les
Affaires de Mdlle. Chevalier, cependant la mienne du 7 dont vous
m’accuses La reception vous marquoit positivement Le contraire, Mr.
De Lisle ne voulant pas qu’on parlet a cette vieille Femme jesqu’a ce
qu’elle changeat de sentiment, et qu’elle paix la somme si necessaire
à son Commerce. Ne vous serriez vous pas trompée de l’adresse de
l’incluse pour la jeune Marchande de Mdlle. La bruière—Vous devez
peut ete La connoitre; si cela est, je vous prie de me le Marquer et
d’y remedier au plutot. Enfin Mademoiselle vous me faites tomber des
nues et les pauvrétés que vous me marquez sont a mépriser. Elles ne
peuvent venir que de cette tante, ce sont des couleurs qui ne peuvent
jaimais prendre.
‘Adieu Mdlle., n’attendez plus de mes nouvelles jusqu’a ce que le
paiement soit fait. Soiez Toujours assurée de ma sincere amitié.’
Charles’s whole career, alas! after 1748, was a set of quarrels with his
most faithful adherents. This break with his old mistress, Madame de
Talmond, is only one of a fatal series. With Mademoiselle Luci he never
broke: we shall see the reason for this constancy. His correspondence
now includes that of ‘John Dixon,’ of London, a false name for an
adherent who has much to say about ‘Mr. Best’ and ‘Mr. Sadler.’ The
Prince was apparently at or near Worms; his letters went by Mayence. On
December 30 he sends for ‘L’Esprit des Lois’ and ‘Les Amours de Mlle.
Fanfiche,’ and other books of diversified character. On Decemuber 31,
his birthday, he wrote to Waters, ‘the indisposition of those I employ
has occasioned this long silence.’ Mr. Dormer was his chief medium of
intelligence with England. ‘Commerce with Germany’ is mentioned;
efforts, probably, to interest Frederick the Great. On January 27, 1751,
Mademoiselle Luci is informed that _la tante_ has paid (probably returned
his letters), but with an ill grace. Cluny sends an account of the Loch
Arkaig money (only 12,981_l._ is left) and of the loyal clans.
Glengarry’s contingent is estimated at 3,000 men. In England, ‘Paxton’
(Sir W. W. Wynne) is dead. On February 28, 1751, Charles is somewhat
reconciled to his old mistress. ‘Je me flatte qu’en cette Nouvelle Année
vous vous corrigerez, en attendant je suis come je serois toujours, avec
toutte la tendresse et amitié possible, C. P.’
It is, of course, just possible that, from October 1750 to February 1751,
Charles was in Germany, trying to form relations with Frederick the
Great. Goring, under the name of ‘Stouf,’ was certainly working in
Germany. Sir Charles Hanbury Williams at Berlin wrote on February 6,
1751, to the Duke of Newcastle:
‘Hitherto my labours have been in vain. But I think I have at
present hit upon a method which may bring the whole to light. And I
will here take the liberty humbly to lay my thoughts and proposals
before Your Grace. Feldt Marshal Keith has long had a mistress who
is a Livonian, and who has always had an incredible ascendant over
the Feldt Marshal, for it was certainly upon her account that his
brother, the late Lord Marshal, quitted his house, and that they now
live separately. About a week ago (during Feldt Marshal Keith’s
present illness) the King of Prussia ordered that this woman should
be immediately sent out of his dominions. Upon which she quitted
Berlin, and is certainly gone directly to Riga, which is the place of
her birth. Now, as I am well persuaded that she was in all the Feldt
Marshal’s secrets, I would humbly submit it to Your Grace, whether it
might _not be proper for His Majesty_ to order his Ministers at the
Court of Petersburgh to make instance to the Empress of Russia, that
this woman might be obliged to come to Petersburgh, where, _if proper
measures were taken with her_, she may give much light into this, and
perhaps into other affairs. The reason why I would have her brought
to Petersburgh is, that if she is examined at Riga, that examination
would probably be committed to the care of Feldt Marshal Lasci, who
commands in Chief, and constantly resides there, and I am afraid,
would not take quite so much pains to examine into the bottom of an
affair of this nature, as I could wish . . .
‘C. HANBURY WILLIAMS.
It is not hard to interpret the words ‘proper measures’ as understood in
the land of the knout. The mistress of Field Marshal Keith could not be
got at; she had gone to Sweden, and this chivalrous proposal failed. The
woman was not tortured in Russia to discover a Prince who was in or near
Paris. {118}
At the very moment when Williams, from Berlin, was making his manly
suggestion, Lord Albemarle, from Paris (February 10, 1751), was reporting
to his Government that Charles had been in Berlin, and had been received
by Frederick ‘with great civility.’ The King, however, did not accede to
Charles’s demand for his sister’s hand. This report is probably
incorrect, for Charles’s notes to Mademoiselle Luci at this time indicate
no great absence from the French capital.
On February 17, 1751, the English Government, like the police, ‘fancied
they had a clue.’ The Duke of Bedford wrote to Lord Albemarle, ‘His
Majesty would have your Excellency inform M. Puysieux that you have it
now in your power to have the Young Pretender’s motions watched, in such
a manner as to be able to point out to him where he may be met with; and
that his Majesty doth therefore insist that, in conformity to the
treaties now subsisting between the two nations he be immediately obliged
to leave France. . . . He must be sent by sea, either into the
Ecclesiastical States, or to such other country at a distance from
France, as may render it impossible for him to return with the same
facility he did before.’ {119}
These hopes of Charles’s arrest were disappointed.
On March 4, young Waters heard of the Prince at the opera ball in Paris.
He sent the Prince a watch from the Abbess of English nuns at Pontoise.
Charles was always leaving his watches under his pillow. He certainly
was not far from Paris. He scolded Madame de Talmond for returning
thither (March 4), and sent to Mademoiselle Luci a commission for books,
such as ‘Attilie tragedie’ (‘Athalie’) and ‘Histoire de Miss Clarisse,
Lettres Anglaises ‘(Richardson’s ‘Clarissa’), and ‘La Chimie de Nicola’
(_sic_). Mademoiselle Luci, writing on March 5, tells how the Philosophe
(Montesquieu,), their friend, has heard a Monsieur Le Fort boast of
knowing the Prince’s hiding-place. ‘The Philosophe turned the
conversation.’ The Prince answers that Le Fort is _très galant homme_,
but a friend of _la tante_ (Madame de Talmond), who must have been
blabbing. He was in or near Paris, for he corresponded constantly with
Mademoiselle Luci. The young lady assures him that some new
philosophical books which he had ordered are worthless trash.
‘L’Histoire des Passions’ and ‘Le Spectacle de l’Homme’ are amateur
rubbish; ‘worse was never printed.’
The Prince now indulged in a new cypher. Walsh (his financial friend) is
Legrand, Kennedy is Newton (as before), Dormer at Antwerp (his
correspondent with England) is Mr. Blunt, ‘Gorge in England’ (Gorge!) is
Mr. White, and so on. Owing to the death of Frederick, Prince of Wales,
there was a good deal of correspondence with ‘Dixon’ and ‘Miss
Fines’—certainly Lady Primrose—while Dixon may be James Dawkins, or Dr.
King, of St. Mary’s Hall, Oxford. On May 16, Charles gave Goring
instructions as to ‘attempting the Court of Prussia, or any other except
France, after their unworthy proceedings.’ Goring did not set out till
June 21, 1751. From Berlin the poor man was to go to Sweden. In April,
Madame de Talmond was kind to Charles ‘si malheureux et par votre
position et par votre caractère.’ Mademoiselle Luci was extremely ill in
May and June, indeed till October; this led to a curious correspondence
in October between her and _la vieille tante_. Madame de Talmond was
jealous of Mademoiselle Luci, a girl whom one cannot help liking. Though
out of the due chronological course, the letters of these ladies may be
cited here.
_From Madame de Beauregard_ (_Madame de Talmond_) _to Mademoiselle
Luci_.
‘October 19, 1751.
‘The obstinacy of your taste for the country, Mademoiselle, in the
most abominable weather, is only equalled by the persistence of your
severity towards me. I have written to you from Paris, I have
written from Versailles, with equal success—not a word of answer!
Whether you want to imitate, or to pay court to our amie [the Prince]
I know not, but would gladly know, that I may yield everything with a
good grace, let it cost what it will. As a rule it would cost me
much, nay, all, to sacrifice your friendship. But I have nothing to
contest with old friends, who are more lovable than myself. On my
side I have only the knowledge and the feeling of your worth, which
require but discernment and justice. From such kinds of
accomplishments as these, you are dispensed. So serious a letter
might be tedious without being long, but it is saddened also by the
weary weight of my own spirits. Will you kindly give me news of your
health and of your return to town? I am sorry that Paris does not
interest me; I am going to Fontainebleau at the end of the week.’
Mademoiselle Luci replies with dignity.
‘October 22, 1751.
‘Madame,—A fever, and many other troubles, have prevented me from
answering the three letters with which you have honoured me. Permit
me to mingle a few complaints with my thanks! Were I capable of the
sentiments which you attribute to me, I could not deserve your
flattering esteem. Its expressions I should be compelled to regard
merely as an effort of extreme politeness on your side. Assuredly,
Madame, I am strongly attached to Madame your friend [the Prince];
for her I would suffer and do everything short of stooping to an act
of baseness. If, Madame, you have not found in me virtues which will
assure you of this, at least trust my faults! My character is not
supple. The one thing which makes my frankness endurable is, that it
renders me incapable of conduct for which I should have to blush.
Believe, then, Madame, that I can preserve my friendship for your
friend, without falling, as you suspect, into the baseness of paying
court to her [the Prince], in spite of the respect which I owe to
_you_.’
The letters of the ladies (in French) are copied by the Prince’s hand,
nor has he improved the orthography. I therefore translate these
epistles.
On July 10, 1751, after a tremendous quarrel with Madame de Talmond,
Charles wrote out his political reflections. France must apologise to
him before he can enter into any measures with her Court. ‘I have
nothing at heart but the interest of my country, and I am always ready to
sacrifice everything for it, Life and rest, but the least reflection as
to ye point of honour I can never pass over. There is nobody whatsoever
I respect more as ye K. of Prussia; not as a K. but as I believe him to
be a clever man. Has he intention to serve me? Proofs must be given,
and ye only one convincive is his agreeing to a Marriage with his sister,
and acknowledging me at Berlin for what I am.’ He adds that he will not
be a tool, ‘like my ansisters.’
Such were Charles’s lonely musings, such the hopeless dreams of an exile.
He had now entered on his attempt to secure Prussian aid, and on a fresh
chapter of extraordinary political and personal intrigues.
CHAPTER VI
INTRIGUES, POLITICAL AND AMATORY. DEATH OF MADEMOISELLE LUCI, 1752
Hopes from Prussia—The Murrays of Elibank—Imprisonment of Alexander
Murray—Recommended to Charles—The Elibank plot—Prussia and the Earl
Marischal—His early history—Ambassador of Frederick at Versailles—His odd
household—Voltaire—The Duke of Newcastle’s resentment—Charles’s view of
Frederick’s policy—His alleged avarice—Lady Montagu—His money-box—Goring
and the Earl Marischal—Secret meetings—The lace shop—Albemarle’s
information—Charles at Ghent—Hanbury Williams’s mares’ nests—Charles and
‘La Grandemain’—She and Goring refuse to take his orders—Appearance of
Miss Walkinshaw—Her history—Remonstrances of Goring—‘Commissions for the
worst of men’—‘The little man’—Lady Primrose—Death of Mademoiselle
Luci—November 10, date of postponed Elibank plot—Danger of dismissing an
agent.
WE have seen that Charles’s hopes, in July 1751, were turned towards
Prussia and Sweden. To these Courts he had sent Goring in June.
Meanwhile a new and strange prospect was opening to him in England. On
the right bank of Tweed, just above Ashiesteil, is the ruined shell of
the old tower of Elibank, the home of the Murrays. A famous lady of that
family was Muckle Mou’d Meg, whom young Harden, when caught while driving
Elibank’s kye, preferred to the gallows as a bride. In 1751 the owner of
the tower on Tweed was Lord Elibank; to all appearance a douce, learned
Scots laird, the friend of David Hume, and a customer for the wines of
Montesquieu’s vineyards at La Brède. He had a younger brother, Alexander
Murray, and the politics of the pair, says Horace Walpole, were of the
sort which at once kept the party alive, and made it incapable of
succeeding. Their measures were so taken that they did not go out in the
Forty-five, yet could have proved their loyalty had Charles reached St.
James’s in triumph. Walpole calls Lord Elibank ‘a very prating,
impertinent Jacobite.’ {125} As for the younger brother, Alexander
Murray, Sir Walter Scott writes, in his introduction to ‘Redgauntlet,’ ‘a
young Scotchman of rank is said to have stooped so low as to plot the
surprisal of St. James’s Palace and the assassination of the Royal
family.’
This was the Elibank plot, which we shall elucidate later.
In the spring and summer of 1751, Alexander Murray had lain in Newgate,
on a charge of brawling at the Westminster election. He was kept in
durance because he would not beg the pardon of the House on his knees: he
only kneeled to God, he said. He was released by the sheriffs at the
close of the session, and was escorted by the populace to Lord Elibank’s
house in Henrietta Street. He then crossed to France, and, in July 1751,
‘Dixon’ (Dr. King?) thus reports of him to Charles:
‘My lady [Lady Montagu or Lady Primrose?] says that M. [Murray] is
most zealously attached to you, and that he is upon all occasions
ready to obey your commands, and to meet you when and where you
please . . . He assures my lady that he can raise five hundred men
for your service in and about Westminster.’
These men were to be used in a plot for seizing the Royal family in
London. This scheme went on simmering, blended with intrigues for
Prussian and Swedish help, and, finally, with a plan for a simultaneous
rising in the Highlands. And this combination was the last effort of
Jacobitism before the general abandonment of Charles by his party.
The hopes, as regarded Prussia, were centred in Frederick’s friend, the
brother of Marshal Keith, the Earl Marischal. The Earl was by this time
an old man. At Queen Anne’s death he had held a command in the Guards,
and if he had frankly backed Atterbury when the bishop proposed to
proclaim King James, the history of England might have been altered, and
the Duke of Argyll’s regiment, at Kensington, would have had to fight for
the Crown. {126} The Earl missed his chance. He fought at Shirramuir
(1715), and he with his brother, later Marshal Keith, was in the unlucky
Glensheil expedition from Spain (1719). That endeavour failed, leaving
hardly a trace, save the ghost of a foreign colonel which haunts the
roadside of Glensheil. From that date the Earl was a cheery, contented,
philosophic exile, with no high opinion of kings. Spain was often his
abode, where he found, as he said, ‘his old friend, the sun.’ In 1744 he
declined to accompany the Prince, in a herring-boat, to Scotland. In the
Forty-five he did not cross the Channel, but, as we have seen,
endeavoured to wring men and money from d’Argenson. In 1747 the Earl,
then at Treviso, declined to be Charles’s minister on the score of
‘broken health.’ {127a} Charles, as we saw, vainly asked the Earl for a
meeting at Venice in 1749. Indeed, Charles got nothing from his adherent
but a mother-of-pearl snuff-box, with the portrait of the old gentleman.
{127b} The Earl dwelt, not always on the best terms, with his brother,
Marshal Keith, at Berlin, and was treated as a real friend, for a marvel,
by Frederick.
On July 20 the Earl had seen Goring at Berlin, and wrote to Charles.
Nothing, he said, could be done by Swedish aid. If Sweden moved, Russia
would attack her, nor could Freder
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