without acquainting you with it. And now I beg that on the
consideration of the health of an old friend, you will give me
allowance or furlo to go to the waters of Bourbon, and to continue
there so long as I may have occasion for them during the two seasons
this year; and I promise to you I shall do nothing in any way, the
time of my being there, but as you would have me; so that this
allowance can be of no prejudice to the service. If you cannot give
me the furlo yourself, I imagine your Colonel will not refuse it, if
you will be so good as to ask it for me.
"But because the first season of the waters is going fast away, I
should be glad you could do it without waiting to hear from your
Colonel about it, who, I should think, will not take it amiss when
you acquaint him with your having ventured to do so. Do not, I beg
of you, think there is any fetch in this, or anything but what I
have told you, which, upon honour, is nothing but truth, and all the
truth.
"I hope there will be no occasion of your mentioning your having had
this trouble from me to any, unless it be to your Colonel and one or
two about him, and the person, it is like, you must speak to where
you are. There is one with me, an old school acquaintance of yours
too, Mr. Stuart of Invernethy, whom you have seen dance very merrily
over a sword; and if the allowance is granted me, I hope it will not
be refused to him, for whom I promise as I do for myself.
"When I have done with the waters, I hope there will be no objection
to my returning to Italy again, if I have a mind; but I judged it
fit to mention this to you.
"The person who delivers you this, will get conveyed to me what you
will be so good to write."
Whilst he was thus in treaty with his former friend, Lord Mar was
stopped on his way to St. Prix, near Geneva, by the orders of the
Hanoverian Minister: his papers were seized and sealed up; and among
them, a copy of that which was written to Lord Stair as Captain Brown.
Lord Mar, who had borne an assumed name, disclosed his real rank, and
wrote to Lord Stair for assistance,--again urging permission to go to
the waters of Bourbon, or, if not allowed to go into France, the liberty
to return to Italy, "where," he said, "I may end my days in quiet; and
those, probably, will not be many in that climate." Whilst awaiting the
reply of Lord Stair, the Earl was treated with respect by the
authorities of Geneva; and "had only to wish that he had a little more
liberty for taking air and exercise." He expected that Lord Stair's
answer could not arrive in less than a fortnight: in the meantime, he
adds, "I shall be obliged, on account of my health, to ask the
Government here a little more tether."[158]
His indulgent friend, Lord Stair, was, meantime, urging his cause by
every means in his power. "I wish Lord Mar," he wrote to the English
Ministry, "was at liberty upon his parole to the town of Geneva, or he
had permission to go to the waters of Bourbon. I should be glad to know
what pension you would allow him till he be restored?"
Lady Mar was now in Rome, whither she had followed her husband soon
after his leaving Scotland. Her jointure, it appears, was stopped by
the Commissioners, and she was unable, without that supply, to travel
from Rome to Geneva. She was, probably, aware of Lord Mar's intention to
leave the Chevalier's service, for the Earl had written a long letter,
explanatory of his situation and intentions, to her father the Duke of
Kingston. "I have offered him for Lady Mar's journey," says Lord Stair,
"credit upon me for a thousand pounds." Yet notwithstanding this
liberality, Lord Mar now began to be extremely uneasy at Geneva, and to
fear that the Government meant "merely to expose him." In vain, for some
time, did Stair plead for him, with Secretary Craggs and Lord Stanhope.
They were evidently, from Lord Stair's replies to their objections,
afraid to have any dealings with him. "As to Lord Mar," writes Stair,
"the things that shock you, shock me; but our business is to break the
Pretender's party by detaching him from it, which we shall effectually
do by letting him live in quiet at Geneva or elsewhere, and by giving
him a pension. Whatever his Lordship's intentions may be, it is very
certain, in a few months, that the Jacobites will pull his throat
out,--you know them well enough not to doubt of it. The Pretender," he
adds, "looks upon Mar as lost, and has had no manner of confidence in
him ever since Lady Mar came into Italy. They looked upon her as a spy,
and that she had corrupted her husband. This, you may depend on it, is
true." Little more than a week afterwards, Lord Stair informed his
friends that "Lord Mar was _outré_ at the usage he had met with. He says
our Ministers may be great and able men, but that they are not skilful
at making proselytes, or keeping friends when they have them. I am
pretty much of his mind."
It was, doubtless, as Lord Stair declared, the full determination of
Lord Mar at that time to leave the Chevalier's interests. "The
Pretender, I know," said Stair, "wrote him the kindest letter imaginable
since his [the Pretender's] return into Italy from Spain, with the
warmest invitations to return to his post."
The letters which Lord Stair had received, in the course of this
negotiation, from Lord Mar, were instantly sent to Hanover. They were in
some instances written in his own hand, but without signature, and in
the third person. In the first which he wrote to Lord Stair, Mar
announced that he had quitted the service of James, and was desirous of
making peace with King George upon the promise of a pardon, and the
restoration of his estates.
"You are to consider," says Lord Stair, writing to the Secretary of
State at home concerning this proposal, "whether it will be worth the
while to receive him. In my humble opinion the taking him on will be the
greatest blow that can be given to the Pretender's interest, and the
greatest discredit to it. And it may be made of use to show to the world
that nobody but a Papist can hope to continue in favour with the
Pretender. I wish," adds the Ambassador, "you may think as I do. I own
all his faults and misfortunes cannot make me forget the long and
intimate friendship and familiarity that has been between him and me."
It is consoling to find any politician acting upon such good
old-fashioned maxims, the result of honest feeling.
Lady Mar having now joined her husband, Lord Mar resolved to make his
escape from Geneva. Lord Stair advised him against it; but adds, in his
letters to his friends at home, "I could hardly imagine that a man of
his temper, and in his circumstances, will refuse his liberty when he
sees he has nothing but ill usage and neglect to expect from us."[159]
Thus ended this negotiation, the main conditions of which were, provided
Lord Mar kept himself free from any plots against the Government, an
offer of the family estate to his son; and, in the interim, till an act
of Parliament could be obtained to that effect, a pension of two
thousand pounds sterling, over and above one thousand five hundred
pounds paid of jointure to his wife and daughter.[160]
It was the fortune of Lord Mar on this, as on many other occasions, to
reap the ignominy of having accepted this pension, without ever
receiving the profits of his debasement.
During the absence of Lord Mar at Geneva, his Countess, who remained in
Rome, received the following letters from the Chevalier and his
Princess, Maria Clementina: these epistles show how desirous the
Chevalier still was to retain Lord Mar in his interests.[161]
"Montefiascony, Sept. 9, 1719.
"The Duke of Mar's late misfortunes and my own situation for some
months past, hath occasioned my being much in the dark as to his
present circumstances, which touche me too nearly not to desire you
will inform me particularly of them. The last letter I had from him
was in the begining of May, from Genua, in which he mentioned to me
his ill state of health, and something of your comeing to meet him
at Bourbon waters; but the season for them now advanceing, or rather
passeing, I reckon that whether he had gone thither or not, he will
soon be here on ye receipt of the note I sent you t'other day for
him, and by consequence that what measures he may have taken with
you about your meeting him will be altered on sight of that. I
thought it necessary to inform you of these particulars to prevent
any thoughts you might have of a journey so expensive and now
useless: for as to his liberty, I make no doubt but that it will
immediately follow the certainty of my return to this country. I
should think it not prudent to write any politicks to him now, not
knowing what fate my letters might meet with; but there is no secret
in your sayeing all that is kind from me to him. If you cannot
exagerate as to my impatience to see him, after all our mutual
misfortunes and adventures, and I am sure he will be glad to know
and see me more happy in a wife than I can be otherwayes, in most
respects.
"I hope soon to have the satisfaction of seeing you at Rome, when I
believe I shall soon convince you that if you and your lord have in
the world many false friends, I am and ever shall be a true one to
you both.
JAMES R."
LETTER FROM THE PRINCESS CLEMENTINA TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR.
"Montefiasconi, 23rd. Sept.
[162]"Je vien de recevoire, votre chère letre par Mr. Clepen, et vous
sui bien obligé, de l'attention que vous avé eu, de mervoyer dutée,
lequell ne sauroit que étre bon venant de vous; vous me marquez
avoire de la peine á ecrire le fransoi, mai votre esprit vous,
laprendera bientot. Le Roi me charge de vous faire, se compliment et
soy et aussi persuadez, de l'estime que j'auray toujour pour votre
merite.
"CLEMENTINE R.
"J'ambrase de tous mon coeure la charman petite, J'espere dan peu de
le pouvoire faire personnellement, et a vous de même. Nous nous
porton très bien; l'aire d'icy est foie bonne."
A subsequent letter is addressed "A ma cousine La Duchesse de Mar"--and
subscribed "votre affectionée cousine, Clementine;" yet notwithstanding
these professions of confidence and affection, the seeds of distrust
were, it seems, soon sown between James and the Earl and Countess of
Mar. At first the suggestions to their disadvantage were repelled,
"There has been enough pains," writes James, "taken from Rome within
these few days to do you ill offices with me, but I can assure you with
truth they have made no impression upon me, nor will they produce any
other effect than to make me, if possible, kinder to you. But when I see
you I shall say more on this head, for 'tis fitt you should know your
false from your true friends; _and among the last you shall ever find
me_.[163]
"JAMES R."
An order, dated the ninth of October, 1719, that all such boxes "as are
in the Duchesse of Mar's custody should be first naled by her, and then
delivered with their keyes to Sir William Ellis," written in the
Chevalier's own hand, shews either that Lady Mar was on the eve of her
departure from Italy, or that a breach of confidence had taken
place.[164]
Lord Mar, with impaired health, and writhing under the rejection of his
offers, returned to Italy. There, had he adhered to a resolution which
he had formed, of not interfering in public affairs, he might still have
closed his days in tranquillity.
Notwithstanding the apparent continuance of the Chevalier's regard, he
never forgot the treaty between Lord Stair and the Earl of Mar. The
whole of this intrigue, discreditable as it was, has been reprobated by
all who have touched upon this portion of Lord Mar's history. His
accepting the loan of a thousand pounds from Stair, an old friend, for
the purpose of ensuring Lady Mar's journey, has been censured, I think,
with too great severity. But, although it be desirable to set to rights
matters of fact, yet, it is always unsatisfactory to begin the defence
of a bad cause. There is no evidence to show that Lord Mar ever received
a pension: he was not thought worth conciliating; but that circumstance,
in this case, and after a display of his willingness to receive all that
could be granted, assists very little in his vindication, and rather
adds to the degradation of one whom no party could trust.
Soon after Lord Mar's return to Rome, the seeds of disunion between
James and his young and high-spirited wife began to disturb the minds of
all who were really well wishers to the Stuarts.
Maria Clementina, reported by Horace Walpole to have been "lively,
insinuating, agreeable, and enterprising," had encountered, soon after
her marriage with James, the too frequent fate of many who were
sacrificed to royal marriages. She had quickly perceived that her
influence was inferior to that of the Prince's favourites: she was
shortly made aware of his infidelities: she became jealous, without
affection; and her disappointment in her consort was that of a proud,
resentful woman, to whom submission to circumstances was a lesson too
galling to be learned.
The Prince, after the fashion of his forefathers, was governed by
favourites: like Charles the First, he had his Buckingham and his
Strafford; and his miniature Court was rent with factions. But the
Chevalier had neither the purity of Charles the First, nor the charm of
character which gilded over the vices of Charles the Second. His
household was an epitome of the worst passions; and his melancholy
aspect, his want of dignity and spirit, his bigotry and even his
unpopular virtue of economy, cast a gloom over that turbulent region. It
was bitterly, but perhaps truly said of him, "that he had all the
superstition of a capuchin, but none of the religion of a Prince."[165]
Like most of his immediate family, his character deteriorated as he grew
older. He did not rise under the pressure of adversity; and his timid,
irresolute nature was crushed by the effects of his cruel situation.
Colonel John Hay, of Cromlix, the brother of the Earl of Mar's first
wife, and of George, seventh Earl of Kinnoul, succeeded in obtaining
mastery over his subdued nature. The lady of Colonel Hay, Margery, the
third daughter of Viscount Stormont, was said, also, to have possessed
her own share of influence over the mind of the Chevalier. Of the real
existence of any criminal attachment between the Prince and Mrs. Hay,
there is, however, considerable doubt; and it has been generally
regarded as one of those amours raised for a purpose, during the
continuance of a fierce contention for power.
Clementina had also her favourites; and a certain Mrs. Sheldon, who had
had the charge of Prince Charles Edward, had acquired her confidence.
This choice was peculiarly infelicitous.
Mrs. Sheldon was reported to be about as unworthy a favourite as the
unhappy Princess could have selected. According to Colonel Hay, she was
the mistress of General Dillon, one of the most ardent adherents of the
Stuarts, and the spy of the Earl of Mar.[166] For four or five years,
nevertheless, after Prince Charles's birth, she continued to be his
governess, and to sway the feelings of his mother, in the same manner as
confidants and dependants usually direct the angry passions of their
mistresses into the most dangerous channels.
During the height of Colonel Hay's favour, the confidence of the
Chevalier in Lord Mar visibly declined, as appears in the following
letter to one of his adherents in Scotland.
"I have always been unwilling to mention Marr, but I find myself
indispensably engaged at present to let my Scots friends know that I
have withdrawn my confidence entirely from him, as I shall be obliged to
doe from all who may be any ways influenced by him. This conduct is
founded on the most urgent, strongest, and most urging necessity, in
which my regard to my faithfull subjects and servants have the greatest
share.
"What is here said of Marr, is not with a view of its being made
publick, there being no occasion for that, since, many years ago, he put
himself under such engagements, that he could not serve me in a publick
capacity, neither has he been publickly employed by me."
To this it was answered, by the confidential friend to whom the remarks
were addressed, "It is some time agoe since your friends here had doubts
of the Earl of Marr; and thence it was that I was directed to mention
him in the manner I did in my last two letters, it being matter of no
small moment to us to know in whom wee might confide thorowly, and of
whom beware,--especially when a person of his figure was the
object."[167]
Affairs were in this state; the Chevalier distrustful of Lord Mar, and
devoted to his rival, Colonel Hay; the Princess heading an opposite
faction, nominally commanded by Mrs. Sheldon, but secretly instigated by
Lord Mar; when, in 1722, the conspiracy of Atterbury was discovered by
the British Government.
The Earl of Mar was at that time in Paris, and Lord Carteret who was at
the head of affairs in England, remembering the Earl's former
negotiations with Lord Stair, dispatched a gentleman to Mar, with
instructions to sound that nobleman as to his knowledge of the plot.
Lord Mar happening to be in Colonel Dillon's company when the messenger
reached Paris, and soon divining after one interview the nature of the
embassy, it was agreed between him and Dillon that they would do James's
cause a service by leading the British Government off the right scent.
They therefore drew up, in conjunction, an answer to Lord Carteret. What
was the nature of that reply,[168] does not appear; but its result was
such as to cast upon Lord Mar a degree of odium far greater than that
which he had incurred in Lord Stair's business. He was accused by
Atterbury with having, on that occasion, written such a letter as had
been the cause of his banishment; with having betrayed the secrets of
the Chevalier St. George to the British Government; and of several other
charges of "base and treacherous practises, discovered by the Bishop of
Rochester, that the like had scarce been heard of, and seem'd to be what
no man, endued with common sense, or the least drop of noble blood,
could perpetrate; and that the King's friends were at a loss in not
knowing what credit to give to such reports, tho' they apprehended the
worst, from the directions he had lately given of having no
correspondence with Mar or his adherents, from whom he had withdrawn all
confidence."
Shortly after this declaration the Chevalier declared Colonel Hay to be
his Secretary, and created the favourite Earl of Inverness; between whom
and the Earl of Mar an antipathy, which had now become open hostility,
prevailed. "The Duke of Mar," wrote the Earl of Inverness to Lockhart,
"has declared himself my mortal enemy, only because I spoke truth to
him, and could not, in my conscience, enter into his measures nor
approve his conduct, tho' I always shunned saying any thing to his
disadvantage, but to the King alone, from whom I thought I was obliged
to conceal nothing."[169]
With respect to the treachery towards Atterbury, the justification of
Lord Mar rests upon the testimony of Colonel Dillon, and other persons
who saw the Earl's letter to Carteret. It is also certain that James
accorded his approval to Mar's conduct in that affair. No positive
intention of mischief can be made out against Mar; but his habit of
rarely acting a straightforward part, his insatiable love of
interference, and his mistaking cunning for policy, brought upon him the
mournful indignation of the exiled Atterbury, and fixed upon him a grave
imputation which it were almost impossible to wipe away.
Another charge brought by Atterbury against Lord Mar, was his advising
James to barter his pretensions to the Crown for a pension. But this
accusation is refuted by the two letters, of which vouchers are given in
the Lockhart Papers, on which the allegation is founded. These letters
were written from Geneva to the Prince and to Colonel Dillon.[170]
Lastly, Lord Mar stood charged with a scheme, discovered to Atterbury
by Lord Inverness, for the restoration of the Stuarts, which, under
pretence of replacing them on the throne, would for ever have rendered
that restoration impracticable. From this allegation Lord Mar justified
himself by referring to the scheme itself, which he was declared to have
laid before the Regent of France with the intent to ruin James. Of this
scheme, the two main features were, first to re-establish the ancient
independence of Scotland and Ireland: secondly, that a certain number of
French troops should remain in England, and that five thousand Scots,
and as many Irish troops, should be sent to France and kept in pay by
the French King, for a certain number of years. There is certainly a
great deal of Mar's double policy, his being all things to all men, in
such a scheme. He declared, however, and proved that he acquainted James
with his plan in confidence, and that Colonel Hay sent a copy of it to
the Bishop of Rochester. Little as one can approve of Mar's conduct, it
is manifest that, by a deeply-laid intrigue, it was resolved for ever to
uproot him from the confidence of James.
But the public career of Lord Mar had now drawn to its ignoble close.
That he had his partisans, who repelled the charges against him by
counter allegations, Lord Inverness soon found; and he began to think
that "the less noise that was made about Mar," the better.[171]
During the year 1725, James further evinced his distrust of Lord Mar, by
dismissing Mr. Sheldon, his supposed spy, and placing Mr. James Murray,
a Protestant, as preceptor to the young Prince.
The retirement of the Princess Clementina into a convent, followed this
last step. The correspondence of the royal couple, their recriminations,
furnished, for some months, conversation for the continental courts, and
even for St. James's, until the dismissal of Colonel Hay and his wife
appeased the resolute daughter of the Sobieski, and produced an apparent
reconciliation.
From the close of this altercation, and after the disgrace of Colonel
Hay, the name of Lord Mar occurs no more in the history of the period.
He resided at Paris until 1729, when, falling into ill health, he
repaired to Aix la Chapelle, where he died in May 1732.
His wife survived him twenty-nine years, only to be the victim of mental
disease, and, as it has been said, of cruelty and neglect. She became
insane, and was placed under the charge of her sister, Lady Mary W.
Montague, who, it has been reported, from avarice, stinted her
unfortunate sister of even the common necessaries of life, and
appropriated the allowance to herself. But this statement has been
disproved.[172]
The latter years of Lord Mar were passed neither in idleness, nor wholly
in the intrigues of the Court at Albano. His amusement was to draw plans
and designs for the improvement of Scotland, which he had loved "not
wisely," but to which his warmest affections are said to have ever
recurred. In 1728 he composed a paper, in which he suggested building
bridges on the north and south sides of the city of Edinburgh: he
planned, also, the formation of a navigable canal between the Forth and
the Clyde. His beloved Alloa was sold by the Commissioners of the
forfeited estates to his brother, Lord Grange, who, in 1739, conveyed it
to Lord Erskine, his nephew. Lord Mar's children were enriched by the
gratitude of Gibbs, the architect, who bequeathed to the offspring of
his early patron the greatest part of his fortune.
The Earl of Mar was succeeded by his son, Thomas Lord Erskine, who was
deprived of the famed title of Mar by his father's attainder. Lord
Erskine was appointed by Government, Commissary of Stores at Gibraltar.
His marriage with Lady Charlotte Hope being without issue, the title was
restored to the descendant of Lord Grange, and consequently to the
children of the unfortunate Lady Grange, whose sufferings, from the
effects of party spirit, seem to belong more properly to the page of
romance, than to the graver details of history.