(1776-1826.)
[Sidenote: _A PLEBISCITE FOR THE STUARTS._]
[Illustration: Drop-A] very fair instance of Jacobite sentiment in
London, in the year 1777, presents itself in a record by Boswell, in
his ‘Life of Dr. Johnson.’ The doctor, in argument with the Whig Dr.
Taylor, insisted that the popular inclination was still for the Stuart
family, against that of Brunswick, and that if England were fairly
polled, the present king would be sent away to-night, and his adherents
hanged to-morrow!’ Taylor demurred, and Johnson gave this as the ‘state
of the country.’――‘The people, knowing it to be agreed on all hands,
that this king has not the hereditary right to the crown, and there
being no hope that he who has it can be restored, have grown cold and
indifferent upon the subject of loyalty and have no warm attachment
to any king. They would not, therefore, risk anything to restore the
exiled family. They would not give twenty shillings a piece to bring
it about; but if a mere vote could do it, there would be twenty to
one; at least, there would be a very great majority of voices for it.
But, Sir, you are to consider that all those who consider that a king
has a right to his crown, as a man has to his estate, which is the
just opinion, would be for restoring the king who certainly has the
hereditary right, could he be trusted with it; in which there would be
no danger now, when laws and everything else are so much advanced, and
every king will govern by the laws.’ It was in the same year, 1777,
that Johnson called the design of the young Chevalier to gain a crown
for his father ‘a noble attempt;’ and Boswell expressed his wish that
‘we could have an authentic history of it.’ More than a generation
had passed away since the attempt had failed, but Johnson thought the
history might be written: ‘If you were not an idle dog, you might write
it by collecting from everybody what they can tell, and putting down
your authorities.’ It was shortly after that, hearing of a Mr. Eld, as
being a Whig, in Staffordshire, Johnson remarked, ‘There are rascals in
all counties.’ It was then he made his celebrated assertion that ‘the
first Whig was the Devil;’ but this Jacobite definition was provoked by
Eld’s coarse description of a Tory as ‘a creature generated between a
nonjuring parson and one’s grandmother.’ Lord Marchmont thought Johnson
had distinguished himself by being the first man who had brought ‘Whig’
and ‘Tory’ into a dictionary.
‘Nonjuring parsons’ still existed; but the hierarchy was all but
extinguished.
[Sidenote: _THE LAST OF THE NONJURING BISHOPS._]
In the last week of November 1779, reverential groups were assembled
in Theobald’s Road, to witness the passing to the grave of the
last nonjuring bishop of the _regular_ succession――Bishop Gordon.
There was no demonstration but of respect. Yet there must have been
some Jacobites of the old leaven among the spectators; though many
Nonjurors were not Jacobites at all. To this record may be added here
the fact that in St. Giles’s churchyard, Shrewsbury, lie the remains
of another nonjuring bishop, William Cartwright, who is commonly
called ‘the Apothecary,’ because, like other bishops of the sturdy
little community, he practised medicine. Cartwright (who came of the
‘Separatists,’ a division which started about 1734, with one bishop)
always dressed in prelatic violet cloth. Hoadley once surprised a party
at Shrewsbury by saying, ‘William Cartwright is as good a bishop as I
am.’ Cartwright hardly thought so himself, for in 1799, in which year
he died, he was reconciled to the established church, at the Abbey
in Shrewsbury, by a clergyman who in his old age revealed the fact
to a writer who made it public in 1874, in the ‘Dictionary of Sects,
Heresies, and Schools of Thought,’ edited by the Rev. John Henry Blunt.
No reason is given why the alleged fact was made a mystery of for so
long a period.
The very last of _all_ the nonjuring bishops, one of the irregular
succession, died in Ireland in 1805, namely, Boothe. He was irregularly
consecrated by Garnet, who had been consecrated by Cartwright, who had
been consecrated by Deacon. Nonjuring congregations, in London and
elsewhere,――they generally met in private houses,――diminished and
dissolved. Here and there, a family or an individual might be met with
who would use no Prayer Books but those published before the Revolution
of 1688. Probably, the last Nonjuror (if not the last Jacobite) in
England died in the Charter House, London, in 1875――the late Mr. James
Yeowell, for many years the worthy and well-known sub-editor of ‘Notes
and Queries.’ To him, the true church was that of Ken, and his true
sovereign was to be looked for in the line of Stuart; but Mr. Yeowell
acknowledged the force of circumstances, and was as honest a subject of
Queen Victoria as that royal lady could desire to possess.
[Sidenote: _THE JACOBITE MUSE._]
The Jacobite and Nonjuring pulpits were unoccupied and silent, but the
Muses manifested vitality. The tenacity, and one might almost say,
the audacity of Jacobite loyalty was well illustrated in 1779 by the
publication of a collection of songs, under the title of ‘The True
Loyalist, or Chevalier’s Favourite.’ In one of the ballads both Flora
Macdonald and Charles Edward are alluded to:――
Over yon hills and yon lofty mountain,
Where the trees are clad with snow;
And down by yon murm’ring crystal fountain,
Where the silver streams do flow;
There fair Flora sat, complaining
For the absence of our King,
Crying, ‘Charlie, lovely Charlie!
When shall we two meet again?’
At this period, the unhappy Charles Edward was neither lovely nor
loveable. His ballad poet, above, has paraphrased, or parodied, a
popular song, ‘Over Hills and high Mountains,’――but so ill, with
excess or lack of feet, indifferently, as to serve the measure with
the arbitrary despotism with which the Stuarts themselves would have
visited Church and Constitution.
[Sidenote: _JACOBITE JOHNSON._]
It will be remembered that when Jacobite Johnson was pensioned, the
English language did not suffice to give expression to his feelings.
He was obliged to borrow a word from France: he was _pénétré_ with
his Majesty’s goodness. In 1783,――weighing Stuart against Brunswick,
Johnson borrowed a word from the same foreign source, to disparage the
House of Hanover. It must be confessed that Dr. Johnson’s Jacobitism
had become a ‘sentiment,’ in 1783. He could then indignantly denounce
the factious opposition to Government, and yet account for it on
Jacobite principles. He imputed it to the Revolution. One night, at
Mrs. Thrale’s house in Argyle Street, where the conversation turned
on this subject, ‘Sir,’ said he, in a low voice, having come nearer
to me, while his old prejudices seemed to be fermenting in his mind,
‘the Hanoverian family is _isolée_ here. They have no friends. Now, the
Stuarts had friends who stuck by them so late as 1745. When the right
of the king is not reverenced, there will not be reverence for those
appointed by the king.’
[Sidenote: _BOSWELL, ON ALLEGIANCE._]
In June of the following year, 1784, Johnson made a remark which very
reasonably struck Boswell ‘a good deal.’――‘I never,’ said Johnson,
‘knew a Nonjuror who could reason.’ On which observation and on the
position of the Nonjurors and their Jacobite allegiance, generally,
Boswell makes this comment:――‘Surely, he did not mean to deny that
faculty to many of their writers,――to Hickes, Brett, and other
eminent divines of that persuasion, and did not recollect that the
seven Bishops, so justly celebrated for their magnanimous resistance
to arbitrary power, were yet Nonjurors to the new Government. The
nonjuring clergy of Scotland, indeed, who, excepting a few, have
lately, by a sudden stroke, cut off all ties of allegiance to the House
of Stuart, and resolved to pray for our present lawful Sovereign by
name, may be thought to have confirmed this remark; as it may be said
that the divine, indefeasible, hereditary right which they professed to
believe, if ever true, must be equally true still. Many of my readers
will be surprised when I mention that Johnson assured me he had never
in his life been in a nonjuring meeting-house.’――Johnson’s disrespect
for the reasoning powers of the Nonjurors was still less intense
than his detestation of the Whigs. Of some eminent man of the party,
he allowed the ability, but he added, ‘Sir, he is a cursed Whig, a
_bottomless_ Whig, as they all are now.’
Walpole was satisfied that the Stuart race was effete, and that the
family was incapable of exciting the smallest sensation in England. He
could not, however, pass over an incident in ‘the other family.’
In allusion to the Prince of Wales and the Roman Catholic widow (of
two husbands) whom he married,――Mrs. Fitzherbert, he says: 1786, ‘We
have other guess matter to talk of in a higher and more flourishing
race; and yet were rumour;――aye, much more than rumour, every voice
in England――to be credited, the matter, somehow or other, reaches
from London to Rome.’ Happily, no new ‘Pretender’ arose from this
extraordinary union.
[Sidenote: _A JACOBITE ACTRESS._]
In this year, in the month of July, the comedy of ‘The Provoked
Husband’ was played at the Haymarket, ‘Lady Townley, by a Lady, her
1st appearance in London.’ The lady and the incident had some interest
for those who held Jacobite principles. They knew she was the daughter
of an old Scotch Jacobite, Watson, whose participation in the ’45
had perilled his life, ruined his fortune, and caused him to fly his
country. He died in Jamaica. His widow returned to Europe, and brought
up the family, creditably. In course of time; Miss Watson married a
paper-manufacturer, or vendor, named Brooks. His early death compelled
her to go on the stage; her success, fair in the metropolis, was more
brilliant in Dublin, Edinburgh, and other important cities, especially
where Jacobite sympathy was alive. It is curious that in Boswell’s
account of the tour to the Hebrides with Johnson, under the date,
September 7th, 1773, when they were at Sir Alexander Macdonald’s, at
the farm of Corrichattachin, in Skye, among the things which he found
in the house was ‘a mezzotinto of Mrs. Brooks, the actress, by some
strange chance in Skye.’ The portrait, in 1773, was not that of an
actress; nor was the lady then Mrs. Brooks; but that was her name, and
such was her profession when Boswell published his Life of Dr. Johnson,
in 1791; at which time, however, he was not aware of her Jacobite
descent. Some persons, unpleasantly advanced in years, recollect old
Mrs. Brooks’s powerful delineation of Meg Murdockson, in T. Dibdin’s
‘Heart of Mid Lothian,’ about the year 1820, at the Surrey Theatre, and
they suggest that she was the old Jacobite’s daughter.
[Sidenote: _BURNS’S ‘DREAM.’_]
In the year in which the Jacobite’s daughter made her first appearance
in London, as ‘Lady Townley,’ Burns wrote the verses which he called ‘A
Dream,’ with this epigraph:――
Thoughts, words, and deeds the Statute blames with reason,
But surely Dreams were ne’er indicted Treason.
The poet then dreams of being at St. James’s on the king’s birthday,
and addressing George III. in place of the Laureate. The feeling
expressed was no doubt one that had come to be universal,――namely, of
respect for a monarch and his family, about whom, however, the poet
could see nothing of that divinity which was supposed of old to hedge
such supreme folk. But Burns recognised a constitutional king, from
whom he turned, to attack his responsible ministers:――
Far be’t frae me that I aspire
To blame your legislation,
Or say ye wisdom want, or fire,
To rule this mighty nation.
But, faith! I muckle doubt, my Sire,
Ye’ve trusted ’Ministration
To chaps who, in a barn or byre,
Wad better fill’d their station
Than courts, yon day.
[Sidenote: _BURNS ON THE STUARTS._]
In the following year, Burns still more satisfactorily illustrated
the general feeling as being one of loyalty to the accomplished fact
in the person of the king at St. James’s, but with no diminution of
respect for the royal race that had lost the inheritance of majesty.
This the Scottish bard expressed in the ‘Poetical Address’ to Mr. W.
Tytler. He lamented indeed that the name of Stuart was now ‘despised
and neglected,’ but, he adds:――
My fathers that name have revered on a throne;
My fathers have fallen to right it.
Those fathers would spurn their degenerate son,
That name should he scoffingly slight it.
Still, in pray’rs for King George, I must heartily join
The Queen and the rest of the gentry:
Be they wise, be they foolish, is nothing of mine;
Their title’s avow’d by my country.
But why of that epocha make such a fuss,
That gave us the Hanover stem?
If bringing them over was lucky for us,
I’m sure ’twas as lucky for them.
But loyalty truce! we’re on dangerous ground,
Who knows how the fashions may alter?
The doctrine to-day, that is loyalty sound,
To-morrow may bring us a halter.
This sort of reserve was practised by many Jacobites, in London,
as well as in Scotland. There was no knowing what might happen. In
1770, the French minister, De Choiseul, was strongly disposed to help
Charles Edward to be crowned at Westminster, but that prince was so
helplessly drunk when he arrived at the minister’s house in Paris that
he was at once sent back. But the hapless adventurer never lost all
hope of finding himself in the Hall or the Abbey. In 1779, Wraxall
says that Charles Edward exhibited to the world a very humiliating
spectacle. Mrs. Piozzi, on the margin of her copy, wrote――‘Still more
so at Florence, in 1786. Count Alfieri had taken away his consort, and
he was under the dominion and care of a natural daughter who wore the
Garter and was called Duchess of Albany. She checked him when he drank
too much or when he talked too much. Though one evening, he called Mr.
Greathead up to him, and said in good English, and in a loud though
cracked voice: “I will speak to my own subjects in my own way, Sir;
aye! and I will soon speak to you, Sir, in Westminster Hall!”’
[Sidenote: _THE COUNT OF ALBANY._]
While the Count of Albany was thus dreamily looking towards London, and
the Scottish poet was playfully hesitating in his allegiance, there was
a Jacobite whose neck was once very near the noose of the halter, but
who now was a man whom the Hanoverian king delighted to honour.
There is no more perfect illustration of the now utter nothingness of
Jacobitism than may be found in an incident which took place at St.
James’s this year, namely, the knighting of a man who had fought at
Culloden and forged notes in the service of Charles Edward, whom he
looked upon as his king, and which king was still existing in Italy.
That man was the celebrated engraver, Robert Strange.
[Sidenote: _ROBERT STRANGE._]
Strange was an Orcadean lad, who was early destined to study law, but
who, hating the study, entered on board a man-of-war, out of intense
love of the sea, and grew sick of it in half a year. He turned to
what he hated, and seated himself on a high stool in the law office
of his brother David, in Edinburgh. But there the real natural bent
of his genius declared itself, and he was discovered, after drawing
drafts of deeds, leases and covenants, drawing portraits, buildings,
and landscapes, on the back of them. David was a sensible man: he
straightway articled his brother Robin to Cooper, the celebrated
engraver, for six years. Robin served his time with credit to himself.
The world of art still profits by Robin’s assiduity. He was out of his
time, and twenty-three years of age when, in 1744, bonnie Isabella
Lumisden’s beauty made prisoner of his soul. ‘No man may be lover
of mine,’ said Isabella, ‘who is not ready to fight for my prince.’
Strange, forthwith, became Isabella’s slave and Charles Edward’s
soldier. Isabella’s father, also her better known brother, Andrew
Lumisden, and herself, were uncompromising Jacobites. Robin became as
_ultra_ as any of them. His first contribution to the cause was an
engraved likeness of Charles Edward. His second was his plate of a
promissory note, for the paper currency by which the Jacobite army was
to pay its way, the note to be duly cashed after the Restoration of the
Stuart dynasty! Robin became the prince’s ‘moneyer,’ and a gentleman
of his Life Guards. Strange went through it all, from the first fray
to the overthrow at Culloden. He escaped from the field, played a
terrible game of hide-and-seek for his life, and at last reached
Edinburgh. His old master Cooper is quoted by Robin’s biographer,
Dennistoun, as his authority for saying that, ‘when hotly pressed,
Strange dashed into the room where his lady (Isabella Lumisden),
whose zeal had enlisted him in the fatal cause, sat singing at her
needlework, and, failing other means of concealment, was indebted
for safety to her prompt invention. As she quietly raised her hooped
gown, the affianced lover quickly disappeared beneath its ample
contour; where, thanks to her cool demeanour and unfaltering notes, he
lay undetected while the rude and baffled soldiery vainly ransacked
the house.’ Strange escaped, but he returned to Edinburgh, where he
privately engraved portraits of the chiefs in both factions, and drew
designs for fans, which were sold in London as well as in Edinburgh.
[Sidenote: _STRANGE’S ADVENTURES._]
There is a mystery as to how such a double offender as Strange――rebel
soldier and fabricator of fictitious bank-notes――was allowed to live
unmolested in Edinburgh. He himself, though now never ‘wanted,’ in
a police sense, grew uneasy. He married Isabella Lumisden in 1747,
and for some years he was better known to the Jacobite colony at
Rouen,――and in other cities――than he was at home. Mrs. Strange devoted
her children to the Jacobite cause. In the cap of her first-born, a
daughter, she fastened a couple of white roses; and she wrote of her
second, Mary Bruce:――‘I have taken great care of her education. For
instance: whenever she hears the word _whig_ mentioned, she grins and
makes faces that would frighten a bear; but when I name the Prince, she
kisses me and looks at her picture; and greets you well for sending
the pretty gumflower. I intend she shall wear it _at the coronation_.’
The Jacobite lady hoped to see _that_, and to let her windows at great
profit when James III. should pass by there to Holyrood.
[Sidenote: _STRANGE IN LONDON._]
Strange led a somewhat wandering life, but always for great purposes
of art, while his family remained in Scotland. He was even in London,
all Jacobite and unpardoned as he was, in the year of the accession of
George III.; in which year Walpole wrote to Mann, at Florence:――‘I am
going to give a letter for you to Strange, the engraver, who is going
to visit Italy. He is a first-rate artist, and by far our best. Pray
countenance him, though you may not approve his politics. I believe
Albano’ (the residence of the Chevalier de St. George) ‘is his Loretto.’
In Italy, Jacobite Strange not only triumphantly pursued his career
as an engraver, but proved himself a far more profitable agent in
purchasing foreign pictures for English connoisseurs at home, than
Hanoverian Dalton. In 1765, he was applying to Lord Bute, as a loyal
subject, to be allowed to live without fear of molestation in London.
After the death of the old Chevalier, this liberty was granted to
whomsoever cared to apply for it. Strange and his family then settled
in fashionable Castle Street, Leicester Square. The Whigs in the
Society of Artists raised obstacles to his being elected a member;
but ultimately the Jacobite disappeared in the glory of the artist.
The somewhat ignoble scattering of the old Chevalier’s servants caused
Andrew Lumisden, his under-secretary of state, to look anxiously
towards the English metropolis. His sister was anxious he should take
leave with all becomingness. She wrote to him from, now dingy, Castle
Street:――‘I entreat the person whom I never saw’ (Cardinal York)
‘but, even for his father and family’s sake, I ever loved, to, if
possible, patch up things so as, in the eyes of the world, you may bid
a respectful farewell. I could walk barefoot to kneel for this favour.’
[Sidenote: _NEW HOPES._]
Andrew Lumisden, however, was not among the Jacobites who would venture
to London on mere word of mouth permission. His sister encouraged him
in this hesitation. In a letter from Castle Street, 1773, she alludes
to the subject, and also to the new hopes that fluttered the bosoms
of her Jacobite friends, and which were raised on the marriage, in
the preceding year, of Charles Edward with the Princess Louise of
Stolberg:――‘I have not yet heard of your letter of liberty. Col.
Masterton says it is lying in Lord North’s office, and he is sure you
will be safe to come here. But I say we must have better security
than that. Whatever I learn, you shall know without loss of time....
When will you write me of a pregnancy? On that I depend. It is my
last stake.... As my good Lady Clackmannan says: “O, my dear, send me
something to raise my spirits in these bad times!” Remember me to
the good Principle Gordon, and all our honest’ (that is, Jacobite)
‘friends.’
[Sidenote: _STRANGE AT ST. JAMES’S._]
Five years more elapsed before the ultra-Jacobite Andrew Lumisden was
seen traversing Leicester Fields, a free man, in safety. He owed his
freedom, it is said, to the zeal and judgment shown by him in executing
a commission (entrusted to him by Lord Hillsborough) to purchase for
George III. some rare books at a great sale in Paris. Strange himself
had become a great master of his art, the glory of the English school
of engravers. There was still some distance kept between Robin and
the Court of St, James’s. He had declined to engrave a portrait
of George II., and also one of George III., by Ramsay. His reason
was not ill-founded, namely, that no engraving could be creditably
executed where the original painting was very defective. Be this as it
may, the old Jacobite effected a reconciliation by engraving West’s
picture of the apotheosis of the young princes――Octavius and Alfred.
Strange’s untameable Jacobite wife, who had never spoken of George
III. but as ‘Elector of Hanover’ or ‘Duke of Brunswick,’ now awarded
him and his queen their full title, in a letter addressed to her son
Robert, in January, 1787, written in Strange’s new London residence,
‘the Golden Head, Henrietta Street, Covent Garden,’ and containing an
account of the honours heaped on her husband, in recognition of his
last labours. ‘Your dear father has been employed in engraving a most
beautiful picture painted by Mr. West, which he liked so much that
he was desirous to make a print from it. ◆[Sidenote: _THE JACOBITE
KNIGHTED._]◆ The picture was painted for his Majesty; it represented
two of the royal children who died. The composition is an angel in
the clouds, the first child sitting by the angel; and the other, a
most sweet youth, looking up. There are two cherubs in the top, and
a view of Windsor at the bottom. This piece was lately finished, and
Friday, the 5th currt., was appointed for your father’s presenting some
proofs of it to his Majesty. He went with them to the Queen’s house
and had a most gracious reception. His Majesty was very much pleased.
After saying many most flattering things, he said, “Mr. Strange, I
have another favour to ask of you.” Your father was attentive, and his
Majesty――“It is that you attend the levee on Wednesday or Friday, that
I may confer on you the honour of knighthood.” His Majesty left the
room, but, coming quickly back, said, “I am going immediately to St.
James’s; if you’ll follow me I’ll do it now; the sooner the better.”
So, calling one of the pages, gave him orders to conduct Mr. Strange to
St. James’s, where, kneeling down, he rose up SIR ROBERT STRANGE! This
honour to our family is, I hope, a very good omen. I hope it will be
a spur to our children, and show them to what virtue and industry may
bring them. My dear Bob, I hope you will equally share in our virtues
as you do in our honours: honours and virtue ought never to part. Few
families have ever had a more sure or creditable foundation than ours.
May laurels flourish on all your brows!’
[Sidenote: _SIR ROBERT AND LADY STRANGE._]
It is a custom to speak in the present day of law and justice being
a mere farce, and of a rogue having a better chance than his victim,
before a full bench of judges splitting hairs and disagreeing in the
interpretation and application of the law. But the ‘handy dandy’ of
law and justice was as confusing in the London of the Jacobite times.
Cameron, young Matthews the printer, the thoughtless youths who were
‘captains’ in the Manchester regiment, were harmless in what they
did, compared with Strange, the young Chevalier’s life-guardsman, and
forger of flash notes; but they were hanged and Robin was knighted!
Of course, Strange was not knighted for his Jacobite doings, but for
his distinction as an artist. One may at least be sorry that the other
Jacobites were strangled at Tyburn and on Kennington Common.
Sir Robert was grateful. In future royal dedications the ex-Jacobite
spoke of the king’s mother as ‘that august princess.’ George, the
king, was ‘the auspicious patron of art.’ Sir Robert ‘presumed to
flatter himself’ that he might ‘humbly lay his work at his Majesty’s
feet;’ that ‘millions prayed for him,’――the ‘Arbiter of Taste and the
beloved Father of his people.’ And ‘the king over the Water’ was still
(though scarcely) alive. Robin survived Charles Edward, and died in
1791. His widow lived till 1806. With full recognition of the ‘happy
establishment,’ Lady Strange never doubted the superior rights of the
Stuarts, and was angry and outspoken when such rights were, in any
sense, questioned. At one of her gatherings in Henrietta Street, one
of her guests happened to refer to Charles Edward as the ‘Pretender.’
This stirred the old lady’s Jacobite blood, and with a license not
uncommon to aged Scottish ladies of the time, in moments of excitement,
she thundered out, ‘_Pretender!_ and be damned to you! _Pretender_,
indeed!’――Flora Macdonald did not swear at such provocation, but it
once brought her fist in ringing acquaintance with the offender’s ears.
[Sidenote: _DEATH OF CHARLES EDWARD._]
In the year 1788 the poor prince, to designate whom as a ‘Pretender’
was so offensive to all Jacobites, died in Rome, on the night of a
terrible anniversary for the Stuart family, the 30th of January. In
all the London periodicals he was treated with courtesy, but his death
moved London society much less than that of ‘Athenian Stuart,’ whose
decease left a void in scientific and social companies. The funeral
ceremony is detailed in brief common-places. A very mild defender of
the prince, ‘Anglicanus,’ in the ‘Gentleman’s Magazine’ (Anno 1788,
p. 509), adds to the confusion touching Charles Edward’s religion, by
asserting that he was converted to Protestantism in Gray’s Inn Lane;
and proving the assertion by asking, ‘Did he not read the Church of
England prayers to his domestics when no clergyman was present?’
[Sidenote: _THE COUNTESS OF ALBANY, AT COURT._]
Soon after, London became an asylum to a fugitive ‘Queen.’ In 1791, the
French revolution drove the widow of Charles Edward to leave Paris and
seek a refuge in London. The Countess of Albany must have felt some
surprise at finding herself well received in St. James’s Palace by
the king and queen. She was there by force ‘of that tupsy-turvy-hood
which characterises the present age,’ as some wit remarked, at a supper
at Lady Mount-Edgcumbe’s. She was presented by the young Countess of
Aylesbury (of that Jacobite family) as Princess of Stolberg. Walpole’s
record is:――‘She was well-dressed and not at all embarrassed. The King
talked to her a good deal, but about her passage, the sea, and general
topics. The Queen in the same way, but less. Then she stood between the
Dukes of Gloucester and Clarence, and had a good deal of conversation
with the former, who perhaps may have met her in Italy. Not a word
between her and the Princesses, nor did I hear of the Prince; but
he was there, and probably spoke to her. The Queen looked at her
earnestly. To add to the singularity of the day, it is the Queen’s
birthday. Another odd accident, at the Opera, at the Pantheon, Mme.
d’Albany was carried into the King’s box, and sat there. It is not of
a piece with her going to Court, that she seals with the royal arms.’
Walpole thought that ‘curiosity’ partly brought her to London; and
that it was not very well bred to her late husband’s family, ‘nor very
sensible, but a new way of passing eldest.’ He had not then seen her,
and when he did, at the end of May, his report was: ‘She has not a ray
of royalty about her. She has good eyes and teeth, but, I think, can
have had no more beauty than remains, except youth. She is civil and
easy, but German and ordinary. Lady Aylesbury made a small assembly for
her on Monday, and my curiosity is satisfied.’
[Sidenote: _IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS._]
On the old Chevalier’s birthday, the 10th of June, Dr. Beilby Porteus,
Bishop of London, escorted Hannah More to the House of Lords, to hear
the king deliver the speech by which he prorogued Parliament. On that
once famous day for defiantly wearing a white rose and risking mortal
combat in consequence, the Countess of Albany ‘chose to go to see the
King in the House of Lords, with the crown on his head, proroguing the
Parliament.’ ‘What an odd rencontre!’ says Walpole, ‘was it philosophy
or insensibility?’ and he adds his belief, without stating the grounds
for it, ‘that her husband was in Westminster Hall at the Coronation.’
Hannah More was being ‘very well entertained’ with the speech; but the
thing that was most amusing, as she prettily described it, ‘was to see,
among the ladies, the Princess of Stolberg, Countess of Albany, wife of
the Pretender, sitting just at the foot of that throne which she might
once have expected to have mounted; and what diverted the party when I
put them in mind of it, was that it happened to be the 10th of June,
_the Pretender’s birthday_! I have the honour to be very much like her,
and this opinion was confirmed yesterday when we met again.’
It has been seen what Walpole and others thought of the Jacobites’
queen when she came to London. The lady kept a diary during her sojourn
here, from which may be collected her opinions of the English and
England of her day.
[Sidenote: _THE COUNTESS, ON ENGLISH SOCIETY._]
The widow of Charles Edward found England generally, and London in
particular, much duller than even she had expected. She saw crowds but
no society. People lived nine months in the country, and during the
three months in town they were never at home, but were running after
one another. They who were not confined half or all the year with gout,
went to bed at four, got up at midday, and began the morning at two in
the afternoon. There was no sun, but much smoke, heavy meals, and hard
drinking. The husbands were fond and ill-tempered; the wives good from
a sense of risk rather than disinclination for their being otherwise,
and they loved gaming and dissipation. There was a family life, but no
intimate social life; no taste nor capacity for art. The most striking
part of the judgment of the Countess of Albany refers to English laws
and constitution. ‘The only good,’ she says in her Diary, ‘which
England enjoys, and which is inappreciable, is political liberty....
If England had an oppressive government, this country together with
its people would be the last in the universe: bad climate, bad soil,
and consequently tasteless productions. It is only the excellence of
its government that makes it habitable.’ This judgment of England by
a Jacobite princess or queen, whose husband would have changed all
but the climate, is at least interesting. In England the Duchess of
Devonshire and many other ladies treated her as ‘queen.’ ‘The flattery’
(says the ‘Edinburgh Review,’ July, 1861, p. 170), ‘which the writers
probably regarded as polite _badinage_, was accepted as rightful homage
by the countess.’
[Sidenote: _HANOVERIAN JACOBITES._]
Her sojourn in England was from April to August. Her design to visit
the scenes in Scotland which her late husband had rendered historical,
was obliged to be given up for lack of means; and she became, but not
till the death of the Cardinal of York, the recipient of an annuity
from George III. This king, like many of his family before him, and
like all after him, had a strong feeling of sympathy with the Stuarts.
Indeed, the recognised Jacobitism of the king, and of the royal family
in general, was the apology made by friends of the Stuart for holding
office under what they had once called ‘the usurping family.’ Hogg
(‘Jacobite Relics’) has recorded that a gentleman in a large company
once gibed Captain Stuart of Invernahoyle, for holding the king’s
commission while he was, at the same time, a professed Jacobite. ‘So I
well may,’ answered he, ‘in imitation of my master; the king himself is
a Jacobite.’ The gentleman shook his head, and remarked that the king
was impossible. ‘By G――!’ said Stuart, ‘but I tell you he is, and every
son that he has. There is not one of them who, if he had lived in my
brave father’s days, would not to a certainty have been hanged.’
The public learned, in 1793, how different the ‘family feeling’ had
been in the past generation. The ‘Monthly Review’ (in August of that
year), in a notice of the Memoirs of the Marshal Duke de Richelieu,
states that the temporary refuge offered to Charles Edward in Friburg,
after his expulsion from France, highly displeased the Court at St.
James’s. The British minister wrote in a very haughty style to the
magistrates of that State, complaining that it afforded an asylum
to an odious race proscribed by the laws of Great Britain. This was
answered by L’Avoyer with proper spirit. ‘This odious race,’ said he,
‘is not proscribed by our laws. Your letter is highly improper. You
forget that you are writing to a sovereign State; and I do not conceive
myself obliged to give you any further answer.’
[Sidenote: _JACOBITE BALLADS._]
In corroboration of the better feeling of the reigning family for that
of the Stuarts, Hogg chronicles an act of graceful homage to loyalty
to the Stuarts (on the part of the Prince Regent), which is graceful
if it be true. He was heard to express himself one day, before a dozen
gentlemen of both nations, with the greatest warmth, as follows: ‘I
have always regarded the attachment of the Scots to the Pretender――I
beg your pardon, gentlemen, to Prince Charles Stuart I mean――as a
lesson to me whom to trust in the hour of need!’
The feeling of regard for those who had been true to the Stuarts was,
no doubt, genuine. It was certainly shared by the regent’s brothers,
the Dukes of Clarence and Sussex. At a meeting of the ‘Highland Society
of London,’ when the Duke of Sussex was in the chair, a suggestion was
made to Colonel Stuart of Garth, that it was desirable to rescue from
oblivion the songs and ballads of the Jacobite period, by collecting
and printing them. Colonel Stuart readily adopted the suggestion, which
may be said to have been made by the royal family, in the person of one
of its members; and ultimately the task of collecting devolved on ‘the
Ettrick Shepherd.’ Hogg published a first volume in 1819, the second in
1822. Some of the songs were his own, after the old tunes and fashions.
The genuine Jacobite ballads excited much attention; old Jacobites
were amused rather than gratified by viewing Cumberland in Hell, and
younger people whose sympathies had first been awakened (in 1805)
by ‘Waverley,’ were subdued to a sentiment of love and pity for the
Stuart whose sufferings are detailed in song, and the loyalty of whose
adherents is so touchingly illustrated in ardent, sometimes ferociously
attuned, minstrelsy. The republication of these ‘Jacobite Relics,’ by
Mr. Gardner, of Paisley, in 1874, is a proof that the old interest has
not died out either in London or the kingdoms generally.
[Sidenote: ‘_HENRY THE NINTH._’]
Meanwhile, the French revolutionary wave reached Rome, and it ruined
‘Henry the Ninth, by the Grace of God, but not by the will of men, King
of Great Britain, France, and Ireland,’ as it did his sister-in-law,
the Countess of Albany. Cardinal York did not seek refuge in London:
he found one in Venice. In London, however, Sir John Cave Hippisley,
having been informed of the venerable Cardinal’s destitute condition,
submitted the lamentable case of this Prince of the Church to the
Ministry (February, 1800). Almost immediately, in the king’s name,
an offer by letter was made to him of a pension of 4,000_l._ a year.
‘The letter,’ wrote the Cardinal to Sir John, in Grosvenor Street,
‘is written in so extremely genteel and obliging a manner, and with
expressions of singular regard and consideration for me, that, I
assure you, excited in me most particular and lively sentiments, not
only of satisfaction for the delicacy with which the affair has been
managed, but also of gratitude for the generosity which has provided
for my necessity.’ The Cardinal adds a touching statement of his utter
destitution. Sir John was right in informing the still illustrious
prince that the king’s action had the sympathy of the whole British
nation, irrespective of creeds and parties. ‘Your gracious Sovereign’s
noble and spontaneous generosity,’ rejoins the Cardinal, ‘filled me
with the most lively sensations of tenderness and heartfelt gratitude.’
[Sidenote: _HOME’S HISTORY OF THE REBELLION._]
In 1802, Cadell and Davies, in the Strand, published the first
regular history of the rebellion of 1745, and the London critics
expressed their surprise that more than half a century had elapsed
before a trustworthy account of so serious an outbreak had been given
to the public. The key-note of Home’s book is in a paragraph which
was very distasteful to the Jacobites. There it was laid down that
the Revolution of 1688, which transferred the Crown ‘to the nearest
protestant heir, but more remote than several Roman Catholic families,
gave such an ascendant to popular principles as puts the nature of
the constitution beyond all controversy.’ The critics with Jacobite
tendencies were disappointed that Home cast no censure on the Duke of
Cumberland. They supposed this was owing to the book being dedicated
to the king. Jacobite disappointment found ample compensation in 1805,
when romance flung all its splendour round the young Chevalier, in the
novel by an anonymous author, ‘Waverley, or ’tis 60 years since.’
[Sidenote: _A JACOBITE DRAMA._]
The last male heir of the royal Stuart line was then living. The good
Cardinal York died in 1807 at Rome, when he was eighty-two years
of age. The announcement of his death in the London journals shows
sympathy and respect, without stint. It was well deserved, for he was a
blameless prince of a not irreproachable line.
After this last male heir of the line of Stuart had died, with
a dignity that characterised no other of his race, and with the
respectful sympathy of his adversaries, if he had any, it might be
supposed that all danger springing from such a line had ceased. The
last of the race had abandoned the empty title of king, and had
gracefully and without humiliation accepted a pension, gracefully
and delicately offered, from George III. The peril, however, was not
supposed to be over. While the last of the Stuarts was dying, Mr.
Charles Kemble was translating a French drama (originally German, by
Kotzebue), entitled ‘Edouard en Ecosse.’ On presenting it in 1808 to
the Lord Chamberlain and the Licenser, they did not see treason in
it, but much offence. The piece, in fact, represented the chances,
mischances, adventures, and escapes of Charles Edward after the
battle of Culloden. A licence to play a three-act drama, tending
to keep up interest in ‘the Pretender,’ was refused point blank.
Ultimately, it was granted under absurd conditions. ◆[Sidenote: _THE
DRAMA REVISED._]◆ Charles Kemble removed the scene to Sweden, and
called his drama ‘The Wanderer, or the Rights of Hospitality.’ Charles
Edward (played by Kemble) became Sigismond, Culloden figured as the
battle of Strangebro, and everything suffered silly change, except one
character, which was overlooked――Ramsay (Fawcett)――who throughout the
play talked in the broadest Scotch. When Sigismond’s perils culminated,
he melodramatically escaped them all, and those who had helped him were
proud of their aid, and not in much fear for having given it. More than
twenty years elapsed before the great official at St. James’s thought
that the original version might be acted without danger to the throne
of George IV. In November, 1829, it was produced at Covent Garden as
the ‘Royal Fugitive, or the Rights of Hospitality.’ Charles was played
by the ex-artillery officer, Prescott, whose stage name was Warde.
Diddear and Miss Tree acted the Duke and Duchess of Athol; Miss Cawse
represented Flora Macdonald; and the terrible Duke William was roared
through like a sucking dove by the milk-and-watery Horrebow. The drama
did not shake the ‘happy establishment.’ Of the performers in 1829,
one alone survives, the representative of the Duchess of Athol, Mrs.
Charles Kean.
[Sidenote: _SATIRICAL BALLAD._]
But, five years previous to abandoning the timidity which saw danger
in the stage dealing with a Stuart drama, a total change came over the
governing powers in London. George IV. and Alderman Curtis had appeared
in Edinburgh, in Highland garb, in 1822, and this led to an act of
grace in 1824. The king’s visit to Scotland, however, did arouse
a slumbering Jacobite bard, who gave vent to his rough humour in a
satire, copies of which reached London in the king’s absence, and the
flavour of which may be gathered from the following extracts:――
Sawney, naw the King’s come,
Sawney, naw the King’s come,
Down an’ kiss his gracious――hand,
Sawney, naw the King’s come.
In Holyrood House lodge him snug,
An’ blarnyfy his royal lug (_ear_)
Wi’ stuff wud gar a Frenchman ugg (_make sick_),
Sawney, &c.
Tell him he is great an’ gude,
An’ come o’ royal Scottish blude,
Down, like Paddy, lick his fud (_foot_)!
Sawney, &c.
Tell him he can do nae wrang,
That he’s mighty high an’ strang,
That you an’ yours to him belang,
Sawney, &c.
Swear he’s great, an’ chaste, an’ wise,
Praise his portly shape an’ size,
Rouse his whiskers to the skies,
Sawney, &c.
Make pious folk in gude black claith,
Extol, till they run short o’ breath,
The great Defender of the Faith,
Sawney, &c.
Make your peers o’ high degree,
Crouching low on bended knee,
Greet him wi’ a _Wha wants me?_
Sawney, &c.
Let his glorious kingship dine,
On gude sheepheads an’ haggis fine,
Gi’e him whiskey ’stead o’ wine,
Sawney, &c.
Show him a’ your buildings braw,
Your castle, college, brigs, an’ a’
Your jail an’ royal Forty-Twa (_an old institution_),
Sawney, &c.
An’ when he rides Auld Reckie through,
To bless you wi’ a kingly view,
Let him smell your ‘Gardy Loo’ (peculiar to the Old Town),
Sawney, &c.
[Sidenote: _REVERSAL OF ATTAINDERS._]
The successful royal visit to Scotland led to some happy results. On
Monday, May 24th, 1824, the Earl of Liverpool rose to inform the House
of Lords that he had the king’s command to present bills for restoring
the honours of several families which had been forfeited by attainder.
The royal visit to Scotland, the first which any king had made since
the Revolution, had led certain persons of undoubted loyalty to be
relieved from the effects of the attainder which, he would not dispute,
had been justly levelled against their disloyal ancestors. The king was
gracious, the Crown was discreet. Four peerages had been selected for
restoration, viz., the Earldom of Mar, in the person of John Erskine;
the Viscountship of Kenmure (John Gordon); the Earldom of Perth and
Viscountship of Strathallan to James Drummond; and the title of Lord
Nairn to William Nairn. It was also proposed to reverse the attainder
of Lord Stafford.
The Earl of Lauderdale warned the Government to be quite sure that
James Drummond had any claims, before they restored the above two
titles. The Earl of Radnor thought the proceeding a very extraordinary
one. Ultimately the Bill was read a first time.
[Sidenote: _DEBATE IN THE COMMONS._]
On June 4th, the Commons agreed to a proposition from the Lords that,
considering Mr. Erskine’s age and infirmity, the Bill to restore him to
the forfeited earldom should be proceeded with. Mr. Erskine was unable
to come up to London to take the indispensable preparatory oaths. He
found ready grace from an unanimous House.
When, ten days later, the Bills were read a second time in the Commons,
the restoration of the blood of Stafford (attainted in 1680) was
recognised as an act of justice; that of the Jacobite peers as one of
grace and favour. Captain Bruce expressed the pain he felt that while
this grace and favour cleared the taint in the blood of the lineal
descendants of those who had forfeited title and estates, such grace
was kept from descendants of collaterals; and but for this prohibition
he himself would now be Lord Burleigh. To which Lord Binning added the
remark that, by old Scottish law, the claims of a collateral branch
were not estreated by forfeiture.
Mr. Peel rejoined that there were only two courses――indiscriminate
reversal of all the attainders, or impartial selection. As to the
first, some of the lineal descendants did not desire restoration, on
considerations of property. Government, he said, had selected those
respecting whom no doubt existed with regard to the original patent;
and he spoke with reverence of the earldom of Mar, which existed prior
to any records of parliament.
The result was that king and parliament at Westminster, in this year
1824, restored the following forfeited titles:――Erskine, Lord Erskine,
Earl of Mar; Gordon, Lord Lochinvar and Viscount Kenmure; Nairn,
Lord Nairn; and Drummond, Lord Maderty, Drummond of Cromlix, and
Viscount Strathallan. The Viscount Strathallan restored this year was
a descendant of the viscount who was slain at Culloden, but who was
styled in the Whig London papers as ‘Mr. Drummond.’
[Sidenote: _A TRANSPONTINE PLAY._]
A minor incident, yet a characteristic one, may here be mentioned.
The power which in 1808 had prohibited the counterfeit presentment
on the stage of Charles Edward, could not obstruct those of George
III. and all his family, in 1824, at the ‘Coburg.’ This house, being
in Surrey, was beyond the jurisdiction of the Lord Chamberlain’s
office. The drama, acted in defiance of him and of good taste, was
called ‘George the Third, the Father of his People.’ The defunct king
(acted by Bengough, who singularly resembled him), and the deceased
Queen Charlotte, with her inseparable snuff-box, next delighted the
Transpontines with their gracious presence; but tenfold more delight
and amusement were caused by the presence of all the living members
of the royal family. In noticing this singular piece, the ‘Morning
Chronicle’ gave a Jacobite (or perhaps a Jacobin) flavour to its
criticism. The title, it argued, was disrespectful to George IV. It
is always the king on the throne who is the Father of his People.
George III., therefore, should have been styled the Grandfather of his
People! Again, in the drama, the latter is called ‘the best of kings,’
a designation which is the right of the king in possession; therefore,
said the ‘Chronicle,’ George III. was ‘the second best,’ or the author
might have called him ‘the best but one.’
[Sidenote: _THE BODY OF JAMES THE SECOND._]
It is a singular coincidence that the same year in which four Jacobite
peerages were relieved from attainder, the remains of James II. were
discovered at St. Germain. The body was for many years ‘deposited’ in
the chapel of the English Benedictines, Paris――body, _minus_ heart,
brains, and bowels, entombed in various places, to which places
English Jacobites used to resort as to holy shrines. The leaders of
civilisation, at the outbreak of the Revolution, smashed the urns
containing brains, &c., and scattered the contents. The body at the
Benedictines was treated with similar indignity; but, in a mutilated
form, it was privately interred at St. Germain. No mark was set on the
place, and it was forgotten, but was discovered this year in the course
of rebuilding a part of the church. Information of this discovery was
sent to London by our ambassador, to whom orders were sent from Downing
Street to see the remains re-interred with every religious ceremony
that could manifest respect.
[Sidenote: _CEREMONY AT ST. GERMAIN._]
On the 7th of September, the Paris papers announced that a solemn mass
would be celebrated on the 9th, and invited the attendance of all
British subjects on this solemn occasion. Now, this invitation of the
Paris authorities to British subjects to attend the funeral service
in honour of the re-depositing of what remained of the body of James
II., puzzled rather than excited the London journals. Writers therein
protested against this service, if thereby the legitimate right of
the Stuarts was recognised, or confession was made that service for
the dead could get a soul in or out of purgatory. Sly hits were made
against Lord Eldon, the keeper of the king’s conscience, for ordering
such a mass at a period when he was in the habit of toasting the
Protestant ascendency. Many persons――the most of them, it is to be
hoped, moved by praiseworthy sympathies――went from London to be present
at the ceremony. It was solemn and dignified. Distinguished persons,
bearing familiar names of the old Jacobite times, were present. Marshal
Macdonald and the Duke of Fitz-James were amongst them. By a curious
coincidence, the British ambassador in France was then a Stuart――Sir
Charles Stuart, afterwards Lord Stuart de Rothesay. He placed a royal
diadem of gold beneath a black crape veil, on the coffin, and this
graceful act of homage was in appropriate harmony with the restoration,
as far as it could be effected, of the descendants of those who had
suffered in the Jacobite cause, to the long forfeited titles of their
ancestors.
[Sidenote: _SOMETHING NEW._]
It really now seemed as if the curtain had fallen on the great Jacobite
drama, and that it would not be possible to cause it to rise again for
an additional act or for a farce succeeding to the tragic drama. In the
year 1826, indeed, there was a little graceful episode, namely, the
restoration of the titles of Ogilvie, Lord Ogilvie and Earl of Airly;
of Dalzell, Lord Dalzell and Earl of Carnwath; and of Sutherland, Lord
Duffus. But, not only while these acts of grace were being enacted, but
for many years before and many years afterwards, a course of action was
being taken which was intended to revive the whole question, and to put
on the stage the old Jacobite play, with alterations, improvements,
new actors, and an entirely new _dénouement_. London did not become
aware of this till about the year 1847. In Scotland, however, there had
long been expectancy raised of ‘something new,’ which will appear in
Jacobite incidents under Queen Victoria.
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