I am well acquainted with the medal described by Mr. Nightingale, and
can confirm his statement of the difficulties which numismatists have
experienced in attempting to explain the circumstances alluded to by
the lobster which is the badge of "the order of the pretended Prince of
Wales," and upon which, on the other side of the medal, Father Petre is
represented as riding with the young prince in his arms. Upon other
medals also the Jesuit appears carrying the prince, who is decorated, or
amusing himself, with a windmill. There is likewise a medal on which a
Jesuit is represented concealed within a closet or alter, and raising
or pushing up through the top the young prince to the view of the
people, while Truth is opening the door and exposing the imposition.
Similar representations of the Jesuit's interference occur upon
caricatures and satirical prints executed in Holland. Upon one,
entitled, "Arlequin sur l'Hippogryphe, a la croisade Lojoliste," the
lobster, on which the Jesuit is mounted, carries a book in each claw;
the young prince's head is decorated with a windmill. All these intimate
the influence of Father Petre upon the proceedings of James II, and of
the Jesuits in general in the imposition, as was by many supposed, of
the pretended prince. The imputation upon the legitimacy of the young
child was occasioned in a great degree, and almost justified, by the
pilgrimages and superstitious fooleries of his grandmother, increased by
his mother's choosing St. Francis Xavier as one of her ecclesiastical
patrons, and with her family attributing the birth of the prince to his
miraculous interference. This may have provoked the opposers of popery
to take every means of satirising the Jesuits; and the following
circumstances related in the _Life of Xavier_ probably suggested the
idea of making the lobster one of the symbols of the superstitions and
impositions of the Jesuits, and a means of discrediting the birth of the
prince by ridiculing the community by whose impositions they asserted
the fraud to have been contrived and executed.
The account is given by a Portuguese, called Fausto Rodriguez, who was a
witness of the fact, has deposed it upon oath, and whose juridical
testimony is in the process of the Saint's canonization.
"'We were at sea,' says Rodriguez, 'Father Francis, John Raposo, and
myself, when there arose a tempest which alarmed all the mariners.
Then the Father drew from his bosom a little crucifix, which he
always carried about him, and leaning over deck, intended to have
dipt it into the sea; but the crucifix dropt out of his hand, and
was carried off by the waves. This loss very sensibly afflicted him,
and he concealed not his sorrow from us. The next morning we landed
on the Island of Baranura; from the time when the crucifix was lost,
to that of our landing, it was near twenty-four hours, during which
we were in perpetual danger. Being on shore, Father Francis and I
walked along by the sea-side, towards the town of Tamalo, and had
already walked about 500 paces, when both of us beheld, arising out
of the sea, a crab fish, which carried betwixt his claws the same
crucifix raised on high. I saw the crab fish come directly to the
Father, by whose side I was, and stopped before him. The Father,
falling on his knees, took his crucifix, after which the crab-fish
returned into the sea. But the Father still continuing in the same
humble posture, hugging and kissing the crucifix, was half an hour
praying with his hands across his breast, and myself joining with
him in thanksgiving to God for so evident a miracle; after which we
arose and continued on our way.' Thus you have the relation of
Rodriguez."--Dryden's _Life of St. Francis Xavier_, book iii.