1847-1880.
The story of Prince Charles Edward Stuart, the "bonnie Prince Charlie"
of song, is too well known to need recapitulation here. That he died
in 1788, without leaving any legitimate offspring, is a fact equally
well known; as also that his brother Henry Stuart, Cardinal York, who
died in 1807, was the last of his ill-fated race. Notwithstanding the
incontrovertible nature of these circumstances, attempts have been made
within the last thirty or forty years to prove that Prince Charles did
leave a legitimate son, the child of his wife the Princess Louisa; and
that two brothers, who until quite recently were residing in London
under the pseudonyms of "Counts d'Albanie," were the children of this
unknown royal prince, and therefore grandchildren of "Charles the
Third."
This myth was first publicly propagated in a work entitled "Tales of
the Century; or, Sketches of the Romance of History between the years
1746 and 1846," published in 1847, and purporting to be by "John
Sobieski and Charles Edward Stuart." Some suggestive hints, it is
true, had been thrown out as early as 1822, in a volume of poems by one
of these brothers; but that book was published as by "John Hay Allen,"
and no definite assumption of royal lineage would appear to have been
made until the Edinburgh publication of 1847. According to the legend
detailed in the three sections into which the work was divided, in 1831
an ancient medical man, of extreme Jacobite views, finding himself
dying, confided to a young Highland gentleman, who was visiting him in
London, the long-hoarded secret that the Gaels "have yet a king." The
young Scotchman is naturally inquisitive as to the meaning of this
mysterious communication, and has his curiosity gratified by a recital
of the following romantic story by Dr. Beaton.
According to that deceased gentleman, he chanced to be making a tour in
Italy, in 1773, and as he was walking along the road from Parma to
Florence, he was startled by the passing of a carriage with scarlet
outriders. On glancing into the conveyance he was still more startled
by beholding the not-to-be-forgotten countenance of his beloved "Prince
Charlie," seated by a lady's side. On the evening of the same day,
whilst meditating on what he had seen, he was accosted by a man of
military appearance, and asked whether he was Dr. Beaton, the Scotch
physician. On replying in the affirmative, he was informed that his
immediate attendance was required in a case of urgency, and all his
questions as to the nature of the patient's malady were disposed of in
a very unceremonious manner. His reluctance to be blindfolded before
entering a carriage that was in waiting was overcome by the intimation
that it was on behalf of him whom both recognised as their royal chief,
that is to say, Prince Charles.
After the usual style of such mystic tales, Dr. Beaton was taken to a
secluded palace, and after being led through the usual corridors and
apartments of such abodes, had his mask removed, and was permitted to
inspect the magnificent chamber into which he had been inducted. His
conductor did not allow much time for investigation, but rang a silver
bell, and his summons being responded to by a little page in scarlet,
he was enabled to inform the doctor, after a short conversation in
German with the boy, that the _accouchement_ of the lady he had been
called in to attend, owing to the absence of her own regular medical
attendant, was over, and apparently "without more than exhaustion."
The news communicated through so uncustomary a channel was followed by
the request that he would render such services as were necessary. He
was taken into a gorgeous bedroom, where a lady who spoke English led
him towards the bed, wherein he beheld the face of the lady he had seen
in the carriage with Prince Charles, whilst by the bedside was a woman
holding the newly-born babe wrapped in a mantle. The patient was in a
somewhat critical condition, so Dr. Beaton hastily turned to a
writing-table near at hand to write a prescription for her, and in so
doing beheld among the trinkets on the table a miniature of Prince
Charles, attired in the very uniform the doctor had seen him in at
Culloden. The lady who had spoken English approached the table as if
looking for something, and when Beaton looked again, the portrait had
been turned on its face. Having performed his duties, the doctor was
persuaded to take an oath on a crucifix, "never to speak of what he had
seen, heard, or thought on that night, unless it should be in the
service of his king--King Charles;" he was, also, desired to leave
Tuscany that night, and then conducted from the dwelling in the same
needlessly mysterious manner as he had been taken to it.
The doctor obeyed his injunctions to the letter, and at once departed
from the neighbourhood. A few days later he arrived at a certain
seaport, and one night, soon after his arrival, he was strolling along
the beach when his attention was attracted by an English-looking vessel
anchored off the coast. Upon inquiry this proved to be the _Albina_,
an English frigate, commanded by Commodore O'Haleran. Whilst he was
watching the vessel he beheld a small close carriage, accompanied by a
horseman, whom he recognized as his guide on the night he was conducted
to the residence of Prince Charles. His curiosity aroused by this
singular coincidence, he stopped to watch what happened, and beheld a
lady, bearing a babe in her arms, descend from the mysterious vehicle.
This lady and her infantile charge were then conveyed on board the
frigate, and no sooner had they got on board than the vessel hoisted
sail and slowly disappeared. The babe, it is implied, was the
legitimate son and heir of Prince Charles, thus mysteriously smuggled
off in order to preserve it from the machinations of the English
government.
Many years are supposed to have elapsed, and the boy born at St.
Rosalie, in 1773, is next introduced as a grown man bearing the name of
Captain O'Haleran, and supposed to be the son of the admiral formerly
introduced as the commodore of that name. This individual creates no
slight sensation in the Highlands by his supposed resemblance to the
unforgotten Prince Charlie, whose eagle eye and Stuart features he is
said to have; one ancient chieftain, indeed, of somewhat clouded mind,
when he beholds the mysterious stranger, who is known by the cognomen
of the "Red Eagle," addresses him as "Prince Charles," and reminds his
Royal Highness that their last meeting was at the fatal fight of
Culloden. Moreover, to make the reader understand the personage's rank
beyond all question, his French attendant styles him "Monseigneur," and
"Son Altesse Royal." In the final section of this fiction, the "Red
Eagle" makes a misalliance by marrying an untitled English lady, and
becomes the father, it is natural to infer, of the two individuals
whose names figure on the title-page of _Tales of the Century_.
The reader must not imagine that this marvellous romance was intended
to be regarded as myth; every effort was made to persuade the public
into accepting it as fact, and as fact several persons in Great Britain
and abroad have accepted it. But in the _Quarterly Review_ for June
1847, the whole story was thoroughly analysed and ruthlessly demolished
by some one conversant with all the bearings of the whole case. He
undeniably proved that the implied son of Prince Charles was no other
than Thomas, younger son of Admiral Allen, and himself an officer in
the Navy, who married, in 1792, Catherine Manning, a clergyman's
daughter; that in his will Admiral Allen termed him his son, and that
the sons of this Thomas Allen, the _soi disant_ "John Sobieski and
Charles Edward Stuart," had respectively published a volume of poems,
and had taken a wife in their proper names of Allen, thus completely
ignoring their pretended royal ancestry.
Even had not direct testimony been forthcoming, the circumstantial
evidence against the allegation that Prince Charles had left a
legitimate child is so strong that no amount of "Romance of History"
could upset it. In his latter days, when separated from his wife, the
Princess Louisa, Prince Charles sent for his illegitimate daughter by
Miss Walkinshaw; created her Duchess of Albany, made her mistress of
his household, and left her by will almost everything that he
possessed, including such family jewels and plate as were still in his
possession. Not only did he omit to make any provision for, or the
slightest bequest to, his supposed son and heir, but, what is still
less comprehensible, neither did the Princess Louisa, the child's
mother, ever appear to make any inquiry after it; nor when she died in
1824, when this pretended son must have been fifty years of age, did
she give any sign that she was aware of his existence; nor did he, this
son, come forward at any period of time to prove his birth and assert
his parentage. After the death of Prince Charles, who, from the time
of his father's decease, had borne the title of King of England, his
brother, clearly ignorant of the existence of a nearer claimant to the
distinction, also assumed the royal title, and caused himself to be
addressed as a sovereign, and styled "Henry the Ninth, King of Great
Britain and Ireland."
Many other proofs could be furnished of the utterly baseless nature of
the claims of these pretenders to royalty, but it is needless; should
any one desire to peruse a fuller exposition of this romance he may be
referred to the number of the _Quarterly Review_ already alluded to.
"John Sobieski Stuart," the elder of these claimants, died in February
1872, leaving no issue; but the younger brother, the pretended "Charles
Edward Stuart," who is alleged to have received the cross of the Legion
d' Honneur from the hands of the first Napoleon for bravery on the
field of Waterloo, died on Christmas Eve, 1880, leaving several
grown-up children, all of whom, it is believed, have assumed the
pseudonym of "Stuart" and sham title of "d'Albany."
Hazell, Watson, and Viney, Printers, London and Aylesbury.