A.D. 1748 TO PRESENT TIME.
BRITISH SOVEREIGNS:--
George II., 1727-1760. George III., 1760-1820.
George IV., 1820-1830. William IV., 1830-1837.
Victoria, 1837--
Departure of Prince Charles from Avignon incognito--Visits
London--Proposed marriage with a Princess of
Hesse-Darmstadt--Charles’s reported change of religion--Arrest
and execution of Doctor Cameron--Negotiations between Charles
and his Jacobite friends in England--Result--Negotiations
resumed, and finally broken off--Death of the Chevalier--Marriage
of Charles--His death--Character--Death of Cardinal
York--Descendants of the Stuarts--“Charles Edward and John
Sobieski Stuart.”
The city of Avignon, in Provence, which Charles selected for his
place of abode, did not at this time form a part of the French
dominions, but belonged to the pope. On the death of George I. the
Chevalier de St. George had taken up his residence in this city,
that he might the better be enabled to correspond with his friends
in England; but he was soon obliged to retire across the Alps, in
consequence, it is understood, of an application from the British
government to the court of Rome. To expel the Stuarts from the
French territories, whilst, by a sort of geographical subtlety, they
were allowed to reside almost in the heart of France, was certainly
an absurdity; and had Charles remained for any length of time at
Avignon, it is probable that, as in the case of his father, he
would soon have been forced to look out for another asylum; but, to
the astonishment of all Europe, he left Avignon incognito, after a
residence of about two months, and went whither nobody could tell.
Attended only by Colonel Goring, and one or two unliveried servants,
Charles left Avignon in a travelling chaise, and proceeded on the
road to Lyons. The prince and Goring passed for French officers, who,
on the conclusion of the peace, had obtained leave to visit their
friends--Charles taking the name of the Count D’Espoir.[1340] What
his motives were for taking this step have not been ascertained;
but it is probable that one of his objects was an interview with
the Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt, with whose daughter, the Princess
Charlotte Louisa, he contemplated a matrimonial alliance.
After passing through Lyons, Charles hired another chaise, and
proceeded to Strasbourg. From Strasbourg it is supposed that Charles
went to Paris, as it is quite certain that, in the month of May, he
visited that capital.
Of Charles’s wanderings, during the several years that he continued
to roam on the continent, no satisfactory account has yet appeared;
but recent researches have thrown some light on this obscure part
of his history. It has been long known that during this period he
visited Germany, spent some time privately in Paris, but resided
chiefly in the dominions of his friend the Duc de Bouillon, where,
surrounded by the wide and solitary forest of Ardennes, his
active spirit sought, in the dangerous chase of wolves and bears,
some compensation for the military enterprise from which he was
excluded.[1341] Secretary Edgar, who corresponded frequently with
“the dear wild man,” as he jocularly styled Charles, considered the
prince’s incognito as one of the most extraordinary circumstances
that had ever occurred, so great was the secrecy with which it was
for several years preserved.
After his departure from Paris, the first trace that can be
discovered of him is in September 1750, when he visited London.[1342]
His object in coming over appears to have been to establish a
regular correspondence with his friends in England, to ascertain the
probability of a rising in his favour, and to fix with them upon a
proper place for landing arms, &c. Before his departure he applied
to his father for a renewal of his powers as regent, which James
reluctantly granted.[1343] If he found matters in a favourable train,
he intended to issue a declaration in which he was to offer to refer
the funds to a free parliament; and to encourage the army to join
him, he was to show the nullity of the oaths they had taken to the
“Elector.”[1344] Charles arrived in London in the month of September,
and went immediately to the house of Lady Primrose. Her ladyship
sent a note to Dr. King, a zealous Jacobite, desiring to see him
immediately. On the doctor’s entering the house, Lady Primrose led
him into her dressing-room, and presented him to the prince. Dr. King
was surprised at seeing him, and still more astonished when informed
of the motives which had induced him to hazard a journey to England
at such a juncture. According to Dr. King, whose statement is fully
supported by documents among the _Stuart Papers_, the impatience of
the prince’s friends who were in exile had formed a scheme which
was impracticable; but although it had been as feasible as they had
represented it to him, yet no preparation had been made to carry it
into execution. Charles was soon convinced that he had been deceived,
and after a stay in London of only five days, returned to the
continent.[1345]
As Charles studiously concealed from his father all his designs and
movements, the latter was entirely ignorant of his contemplated
marriage with the daughter of the Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt. The
Chevalier had suggested, in 1747, a marriage with one of the Duke
of Modena’s daughters, from which family his mother had sprung; but
Charles appears not to have relished the proposed match. He now urged
upon him the necessity of marrying, so as to secure the succession
of the family; for he could not think the prince so selfish as to
consider himself only in all he did and suffered.
Though he could not but feel disappointed at the result of his
journey to England, Charles did not despond, and he now resolved to
sound the dispositions of the courts of Berlin and Stockholm. As Lord
Marischal had resided about three years in Berlin, and was, through
the interest of Field-marshal Keith, his brother, on the best footing
with his Prussian majesty, it occurred to Charles that, by availing
himself of the services of that nobleman, whom he looked upon as
“an honest man,” Frederick might be induced to espouse his cause.
Accordingly he despatched Colonel Goring to Berlin, in June 1751,
with a letter to Lord Marischal. After consulting with his lordship,
Goring was directed to proceed to Sweden.[1346] Of this mission
nothing farther is known. An interview which took place between Lord
Marischal and Goring, and another probably with the prince himself at
Paris, in September following, are involved in the same obscurity.
About this time Charles received notice that one Grosert, collector
of the customs at Alloa, had left Scotland with an intention to
assassinate him. This information was brought to France by Robertson
of Blairfetty, who had been in Scotland. Grosert is said to have been
married to a German woman, the daughter of the milliner of George
I.[1347]
No trace can be discovered of Charles’s wanderings, after his
return from London, till the 5th of April 1752, when he was seen by
a gentleman of the name of Mackintosh at Campvere, in the island
of Middleburg, where he remained four days.[1348] He is said to
have revisited London in the course of the following year, and to
have formally renounced the Catholic religion in a chapel in Gray’s
Inn Lane under his own name of Charles Edward Stuart; but for this
statement there appears to be no sufficient authority.[1349] Dr.
King, who corresponded with Charles for several years, makes no
allusion to this visit, nor is there the least trace of it to be
found among the _Stuart Papers_. The story of a third visit, on
occasion of the coronation of George III., at which Charles is said
to have attended, rests on the authority of a letter of David Hume,
written in 1773. As to his reported change of religion, a rumour was
generally prevalent in 1752--a year before the date of his alleged
apostacy at London--that Charles had become a Protestant; but its
accuracy was doubted of by some of his friends.[1350] It is certain,
however, that Charles was not disposed to imitate the self-denial
of his father and grandfather, who preferred their faith to a
crown.[1351]
In consequence of the state of comparative security which the British
government enjoyed after the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, it became less
vigilant than before in watching the motions of the exiled adherents
of the house of Stuart. Some of them accordingly ventured, from time
to time, to revisit their native country and friends. Amongst others,
Dr. Cameron came over in 1749 to recover part of a large sum of money
which had been left by Charles in charge of Macpherson of Cluny when
he quitted Scotland. He made a second journey to Britain in 1753,
for what particular purpose is not certainly known, although it is
supposed his visit had some connection with a scheme for another
rising, then under the consideration of the Jacobites, but which
luckily was nipped in the bud. Having been apprehended in Scotland,
he was carried to London, confined to the Tower, and his identity
being proved in the court of king’s bench by several witnesses, he
received sentence of death, and was barbarously executed at Tyburn.
He conducted himself with manly fortitude and decorum, and his
fate was generally pitied.[1352] Some of the best wishers to the
Government thought the sacrifice of this unfortunate gentleman a most
unnecessary and wanton act at such a juncture, and at such a distance
of time from the period of his attainder.[1353] It is said that King
George himself, as he reluctantly signed the warrant for Cameron’s
execution, exclaimed, “Surely there has been too much blood spilt
upon this account already!”
Down to 1754 Charles kept up a regular communication with his friends
in England, several of whom visited him personally, and though they
saw many reprehensible things in his conduct, yet they were willing
to make every allowance for the peculiarities of his situation. There
was one circumstance, however, which they could not overlook. When
in Scotland, Charles had a mistress named Clementina Walkinshaw,
who, by all accounts, possessed no great attractions, bodily or
mental. Some years after he was sent out of France he sent for this
woman, who managed to become acquainted with all his plans, and was
trusted with his most secret correspondence. As Miss Walkinshaw had
a sister who acted as housekeeper to Frederick, Prince of Wales, at
Leicester house, all the persons of distinction in England attached
to Charles grew alarmed, being apprehensive that this paramour had
been placed in his family by the English ministers. They, therefore,
despatched a gentleman, named M’Namara, to Paris, where Charles then
was, with instructions to insist upon Miss Walkinshaw’s removal
for a certain time from his presence. Mr. M’Namara, who was a man
of excellent understanding, urged the most powerful reasons, and
used all the arts of persuasion to induce him to comply, but to no
purpose. M’Namara then informed him that an immediate interruption
of all correspondence with his most powerful friends in England, and
the ruin of his interest, would be the certain consequence of his
refusal; but Charles was inflexible. M’Namara staid some days in
Paris beyond the time prescribed, in hopes of ultimately prevailing;
but all his entreaties and remonstrances were ineffectual. At
parting, M’Namara could not help exclaiming, with great indignation,
“What has your family done, Sir, thus to draw down the vengeance
of Heaven on every branch of it, through so many ages?” During his
conferences with M’Namara, the prince declared that he had no violent
passion, or, indeed, any particular regard for Miss Walkinshaw, and
that he could see her removed from him without any concern; but that
he would not receive directions for the regulation of his private
conduct from any man alive. When M’Namara returned to London and
reported Charles’s answer to the gentlemen who had sent him to Paris,
many of whom were persons of the first rank, and all of them men
of fortune and distinction, they were amazed and confounded, and
resolved at once to break with him.[1354]
Lord Marischal was then residing at Paris as ambassador from the
king of Prussia to the court of Versailles, and was apprised by
M’Namara of everything that passed between him and the prince. Had
M’Namara’s mission been successful, his lordship, whose services
Charles was anxious to obtain, meant, on the expiration of his
embassy, to have entered Charles’s household; but disgusted with the
conduct of the prince, who even had the ingratitude to threaten to
publish the names of his English friends, he declined to take any
farther interest in his affairs, and embracing the mediation of the
king of Prussia, reconciled himself to the British government.[1355]
When, in the following year, a war with France seemed inevitable,
some of his French friends petitioned the French court to take
advantage of this favourable opportunity to make one more attempt
to restore the Stuarts. Charles himself came to France, and appears
to have made exertions in his own behalf, but the time was consumed
in fruitless negotiations, and Charles returned to Italy and the
retirement of private life. It seems to be with this attempt that
a document contained among the _Stuart Papers_ is connected. This
document purports to be notes of a statement made by a deputation,
sent over to Prince Charles, at a conference with him, drawn up at
his own desire; it is dated August 15, 1755. If this document is
authentic, and there seems to be no reason to believe otherwise, the
deputies must have lectured the prince on his conduct most fearlessly
and outspokenly, and in a manner to which princes are mostly
strangers.
It is not known what reception the deputation met with, or how this
message was received by him; but, at his desire, the address was
committed to writing, and sent to him. Charles returned an indignant
answer, informing his “friends” that reason might, and he hoped
should, always prevail with him, but his own heart deceived him if
threats or promises ever would. He despised, he said, the malice of
those who aspersed his character, and considered it below his dignity
to treat them in the terms they deserved. He told them he had long
desired a churchman from his friends to attend him, but that his
expectations had been hitherto disappointed.[1356]
Though Charles at first affected not to feel the indignity offered
to him by the French government, yet it is certain that it left upon
him an indelible impression, soured his disposition, and tended to
confirm into a habit the propensity to tippling which he contracted
during his long and exhausting wanderings in the Highlands. Indeed,
his mind, which never was of the strongest or noblest type, appears
to have been quite unhinged. During his long incognito he scarcely
ever corresponded with his afflicted father,--a silence which he said
was not owing either to neglect or want of duty, but because his
situation was such that he could do nothing but vent “imprecations
against the fatality of being born in such a detestable age.”[1357]
Led away by his passions, and reckless of the feelings or wishes of
others, he would suffer no control; and so infatuated did he become,
that in resisting the admonitions of his friends, he thought he was
pursuing a course honourable to himself, and dutiful towards the
“honest man,”--his father;[1358] but James was not to be misled by
such false notions, and hinted, that though he was happy to find
Charles in such sentiments, yet it was possible that what he might
think for the best might be otherwise. “Do you,” he asks the prince,
“rightly understand the extensive sense of honour and duty from which
you say you will never go astray? If you can,” he continues, “keep
up to that rule, you will then be really an honest man, which is the
new name you give me, and with which I am much pleased, since it
is a title I value more than all those which vanity can desire, or
flattery invent. It is a title we are all obliged to pretend to, and
which we may all, without vanity, think we deserve, and unless we
deserve it, we, in reality, can neither be happy in the next world,
nor even in this, because peace and tranquillity of mind is only the
share of honest men. The best wish I can therefore make you, is that
you may yourself long deserve and enjoy that title it would be the
most effectual means of drawing down God’s blessing upon you.”[1359]
[Illustration: Prince Charles Edward Stuart.
From an Original Drawing by Ozias Humphrey, R.A. Taken at Florence
1776.]
After the estrangement of his friends, Charles appears to have given
up all thoughts of restoration, and resided chiefly at Avignon till
shortly before the death of his father, on December 31, 1766, when
he returned to Italy, fixing his abode at Florence. The Chevalier
had, for several years, been in a declining state of health, and, for
two years before his death, had been confined to his bed-chamber.
His remains were carried to the church of the parish where he had
resided, and were decorated with all the insignia of royalty. Over
the bed was this inscription:--“Jacobus Magnæ Britanniæ Rex, Anno
MDCCLXVI.” The body lay in state three days, during which none but
the Italian princes and British subjects were admitted into the
church. The corpse was then removed in procession to St Peter’s
church to be interred. By his will, the Chevalier left his real
estate, which yielded about forty thousand crowns per annum,
exclusive of pensions, to Prince Charles. He also left him a box of
jewels belonging to the crown of Poland, formerly pledged to the
Sobieski family, if not redeemed. The jewels belonging to his own
family he directed to be divided between Charles and Henry.
From the state of comparative seclusion in which the Chevalier passed
the most part of his life, his personal history is less known than
either that of his father, or his son, Charles Edward. His character,
to judge from his correspondence and the many acts of individual
kindness he showed towards his exiled adherents, was benevolent
and estimable. He seems to have been better acquainted with the
principles of the English constitution than any of his race, and
would, had he been called to empire, have very possibly eschewed the
dangerous rock of the prerogative on which his grandfather and father
split. His boast was not merely that he was an Englishman, but that,
to use an Italian phrase, there was not “a greater Englishman than
himself.”[1360]
After his father’s death, Prince Charles retired to Albano, near
Rome, where he appears to have lived in great seclusion till the
year 1772, when the court of Versailles, desirous for its own
selfish purposes to prevent the male line of the house of Stuart
from becoming extinct, negotiated a marriage between him and the
young princess Louisa Maximiliana Carolina of Stolberg-Gedern; and
the three Bourbon courts all concurring in the match, a suitable
allowance was settled by them on the prince and his wife. Charles,
who, in consequence of the refusal of the court of Rome to recognise
the titles which his father had assumed, had taken that of the Count
of Albany, which when a youth he had used on his travels through
Italy, took up his residence upon his marriage in the neighbourhood
of Florence, whither he was invited by the grand duke of Tuscany.
The marriage was unfortunate. Charles had lived too long single
to enjoy connubial happiness; and his mind, soured by misfortune
and degraded by dissipation, unfitted him for the discharge of the
domestic virtues.[1361] An English lady who saw Prince Charles at
Rome in 1770, describes him thus:--“The Pretender is naturally above
the middle size, but stoops excessively; he appears bloated and red
in the face, his countenance heavy and sleepy, which is attributed
to his having given in to excess of drinking, but when a young man
he must have been esteemed handsome. His complexion is of the fair
tint, his eyes blue, his hair light brown, and the contour of his
face a long oval; he is by no means thin, has a noble person and a
graceful manner. His dress was scarlet, laced with broad gold lace;
he wears the blue riband outside of his coat, from which depends a
cameo, antique, as large as the palm of my hand, and he wears the
same garter and motto as those of the noble St George in England.
Upon the whole, he has a melancholy, mortified appearance.”[1362]
Charles and the princess lived together uncomfortably till 1780,
Charles, it is said, often treating his youthful, beautiful,
accomplished, and gentle wife with the greatest brutality. In 1777
she became acquainted with the great Italian dramatist Alfieri, and
the two immediately conceived for each other a passionate, lasting,
and comparatively pure love; for while her husband lived there is
every reason to believe that she remained faithful to him. The
princess left Charles in 1780, and took up her residence with his
brother the cardinal at Rome, but shortly after removed from that to
Baden and ultimately to Paris, where Alfieri joined her, and they
separated no more. On her husband’s death, it is understood that she
was privately married to Alfieri, who died in 1803, she surviving
him upwards of twenty-one years. When Tuscany fell under the dominion
of Bonaparte, he ordered the princess, then living in Florence,
(she having incurred his displeasure), to repair to Paris. She was
afterwards allowed to return to Florence, where it is said she made
a left-handed marriage with a French historical painter, named
Francis Xavier Fabre, the friend of Alfieri, whom upon her death she
appointed her universal executor.
About 1785, Charles, who must have felt himself at this time a
lonely, homeless, disappointed old man, took to live with him his
daughter, Charlotte, by Miss Walkinshaw, who was born about 1760.
Little is known of this lady; she, however, appears to have been of
a gentle disposition, and we would fain hope that her presence and
companionship helped much to soften the misanthropy and soothe the
bitter spirit of the disappointed aspirant to the British throne.
Shortly after his daughter came to live with him, Charles removed to
Rome, where in January 1788 he was prostrated by paralysis, and after
an illness of three weeks died on the 31st. He was buried royally
in the church of his brother at Frascati, the body, however, being
afterwards removed to St Peter’s at Rome. Some time before his death,
he legitimatized his daughter, and as the last act of his shadowy
sovereignty, created her Duchess of Albany, leaving her the greater
part of his private property.[1363] Even down to the time of his
death, it would seem he had not entirely relinquished the hope of
one day sitting on the throne of his ancestors, for, according to
Lord Mahon, he used to keep under his bed a strong box with 12,000
sequins, ready for the expenses of his journey to England whenever he
might suddenly be called thither.[1364] His daughter, so far as is
known his sole descendant, survived him only one year.
Whilst Charles’s partisans have painted him in the most glowing
colours of admiration, as the paragon of all that is noble and
high-minded, others have represented him as a man devoid of any good
and generous feeling,--as despotic, revengeful, ungrateful, and
avaricious,--having, in short, all the vices without one of the
redeeming virtues of his race. Paradoxical as the assertion may be,
there is some truth in both delineations; but considerable abatements
must be made from the exaggerated eulogies of the one party, as
well as from the sweeping condemnation of the other. There were, in
fact, as has been well observed, two Charles Edwards. The hero of
1745 was a generous and high-minded youth, who, notwithstanding some
constitutional defects, merited a better destiny; but the Charles
Edward of a subsequent period was a degraded man, who, dispirited
by misfortune and soured by disappointment, lost all command over
himself, and became the sport of his passions. He retained, however,
to the close of his existence, a vivid recollection of his early
exploits, and frequently betrayed genuine emotion on hearing any
allusion to Scotland and the Highlanders.
[Illustration: Medal of Henry, Cardinal Duke of York.
From Original in Antiquarian Museum, Edinburgh.]
When Charles was ill in 1784, his brother the cardinal, supposing him
to be on his death-bed, drew up a paper maintaining his pretensions
to the British crown, which, he declared, were in no way prejudiced
or renounced by his retention of the incognito title, Cardinal Duke
of York. A copy of this document he sent to the pope, cardinals,
and various foreign ministers. When his brother the prince did die,
and Henry was left the last and sole representative of the royal
Stuart race, he caused a medal to be struck bearing the inscription,
“Henry IX., King of England, by the grace of God, but not by the
will of men.” This, however, was all the cardinal ever did to
maintain his right divine to the throne from which his grandfather
fled. He appears to have been perfectly contented with his life as
a Roman cardinal, to have been generous and gentle in disposition,
and to have performed his duties faithfully as a minister of the
Catholic Church, although in his own house he is said to have
insisted upon a strict observance of all the etiquette usual in the
residence of a reigning sovereign. He had many rich livings both in
Italy and France, but of most of these and of all his wealth and
treasures, literary, antiquarian, and curious, he was despoiled by
the emissaries of the French revolution in 1798, when he took refuge
in Venice infirm and destitute. His case was represented to his
successful relative George III., who immediately, and in as delicate
a manner as possible, generously settled on the cardinal a pension
for life of L.4000 a year. The cardinal returned to Rome in 1801, and
resided there till his death in 1807, aged 82 years. He was buried in
St Peter’s, beside his father and brother, “and a stately monument,
from the chisel of Canova, but at charge, as I believe, of the House
of Hanover, has since arisen to the memory of JAMES THE THIRD,
CHARLES THE THIRD, and HENRY THE NINTH, KINGS OF ENGLAND--names which
an Englishman can scarcely read without a smile or a sigh! Often at
the present day does the British traveller turn from the sunny height
of the Pincian or the carnival throngs of the Corso, to gaze in
thoughtful silence on that sad mockery of human greatness, and that
last record of ruined hopes!”[1365]
Henry of York, as we have said, was the last scion of the direct line
of the royal house of Stuart, although he was by no means the last
of the Stuarts, as the genealogy of nearly every royal and princely
house of Europe can testify. Much valuable information on this
point is contained in Mr. Townsend’s _Descendants of the Stuarts_,
where the reader will meet with many interesting and a few strange
and startling facts. The Stuart blood, it would seem, enriches the
veins of every Christian sovereign of Europe, and among the European
noble families will be found many princes who, by the now ignored
and we hope never to be revived, principle of divine hereditary
right, are nearer heirs to the British throne than the Prince of
Wales. The heir-of-line of the Stuarts is, we believe, Francis,
ex-Duke of Modena, the heiress presumptive being his niece, Maria
Theresa, wife of Prince Louis of Bavaria. Great Britain, however,
is as likely to assert her right to the allegiance of the United
States as is any of the many descendants of the Stuarts to endeavour
to establish a claim to the throne of England, to the prejudice of
the reigning family. The Lady who at present occupies the throne of
Britain, and in whose veins runs a large share of the ancient Stuart
blood, has won her way to the hearts of all classes of her subjects,
Highland and Lowland, by her true nobility of character, genuine
womanliness, and anxious interest in the welfare of her people, as
effectually as did the young Chevalier by his youthful thoughtless
daring, fascinating manners, and feigned enthusiasm for all that was
Highland. Still the ancient spirit is not dead, and probably never
will die, so long as Gaelic and Lowland Scotch is understood in the
land, and so long as there exists such a superabundance of Jacobite
songs unmatched for pathos and humour, and set to music which cannot
fail to touch the heart of the “canniest Scot” that ever tried to
overreach his neighbour. This sentimental Jacobitism, initiated
by Scott, appears to be getting stronger and stronger every year,
and pervades all classes of society from the “queen on the throne
to the meanest of her subjects;” it has, indeed, become now to a
certain extent fashionable, no doubt owing largely to the example
set by the greatest lady in the land, in her love and admiration
of the Highlands and Highlanders. Tartans, not very many years ago
proscribed and forbidden to be worn under severe penalties, and
regarded as barbarous and vulgar, have now become the rage, and are
as indispensable to every Scottish family, Highland or Lowland, as
its crest or its family ghost.
Before dismissing entirely the Stuart family, which latterly was
so intimately associated with the Highlands, it may not be out of
place to mention that only a few years ago, two young men made their
appearance in Scotland, holding themselves forth as legitimate
grandsons of Prince Charles. Their story, set forth in an inflated,
misty style, after the manner of romantic novelists, will be found in
a work published by them in 1847, entitled, _Tales of the Century,
or Sketches of the Romance of History between the years 1746 and
1846_. There can be no doubt that John Sobieski and Charles Edward
Stuart, the names by which these gentlemen made themselves known
to the public, have no connection whatever with the royal Stuarts:
it is certain that Prince Charles Edward Stuart left behind him
no legitimate offspring. The story told by them in the above
publication, however, was to the effect that their father, instead
of being a son of Admiral Allen, as was commonly supposed, was a
son of Prince Charles and the Princess Louisa, whose birth was kept
secret through fear of the Hanoverian family, and who was intrusted
to Admiral Allen, and passed off by him as his own son.[1366] It is
not at all improbable that they themselves believed their own story,
and were, strictly speaking, no impostors; at all events, they appear
to have met with considerable sympathy in the form of hospitality
and subscriptions to their publications, for besides the book above
mentioned and a volume of poems, they published a large and expensive
work, splendidly illustrated, entitled, _The Costume of the Clans_,
a copy of which was ordered at the time for her Majesty’s library.
To judge from the introduction to this last book, occupying about
the half of the work, written in a most painfully lofty style, and
having an amusing look of learning by being crammed full of small
type notes and enigmatical references, one would be almost inclined
to think that they were weak-minded enough to believe that it was
possible, even in the middle of the 19th century, in the reign of
Queen Victoria, to incite the loyal Highlanders to enact a second
’45.[1367]
John Sobieski Stuart generally resides in London, where he is to be
met with in good society under the title of “Count D’Albanie.”
FOOTNOTES:
[1340] “Letter from H---- G----, Esquire, one of the gentlemen of the
bed-chamber to the young Chevalier, and the only person of his own
retinue that attended him from Avignon, in his late journey through
Germany and elsewhere, &c., to a particular friend. London, 1750.”
[1341] Klose’s _Memoirs of Prince Charles_, vol. ii. p. 199.
[1342] Charles alludes to this visit in a note dated 1st July, 1754,
in his own hand-writing, among the _Stuart Papers_.
[1343] _Stuart Papers._
[1344] See a curious memorandum, dated 3d May, 1750, among the
_Stuart Papers_. From this document it is evident that Charles
thought that the French ministry were bribed by the British
government to withhold assistance from him.
[1345] King’s _Political and Literary Anecdotes_, p. 197:--“He came,”
says Dr. King, “one evening to my lodgings and drank tea with me.
My servant, after he was gone, said to me, ‘that he thought my new
visitor very like Prince Charles.’ ‘Why,’ said I, ‘have you ever seen
Prince Charles?’ ‘No, sir,’ replied the fellow, ‘but this gentleman,
whoever he may be, exactly resembles the busts which are sold in
Red Lion Street, and are said to be the busts of Prince Charles.’
The truth is, these busts were taken in plaster of Paris from his
face. I never heard him,” adds the doctor--who, however, cannot be
received as an altogether unbiassed reporter--“express any noble or
benevolent sentiment, the certain indications of a great soul and a
good heart; or discover any sorrow or compassion for the misfortunes
of so many worthy men who had suffered in his cause. But the most
odious part of his character was his love of money.... I have known
this gentleman with 2000 Louis d’ors in his strong-box pretend he
was in great distress, and borrow money from a lady in Paris who was
not in affluent circumstances. His most faithful servants, who had
closely attended him in all his difficulties, were ill rewarded. To
this spirit of avarice may be added his insolent manner of treating
his immediate dependants, very unbecoming a great prince, _and a sure
prognostic of what might be expected from him if ever he acquired the
sovereign power_.”
[1346] See the letter to Earl Marischal and the instructions to
Goring, both dated 21st June, 1751, among the _Stuart Papers_.
[1347] Letter from Sir James Harrington, dated 6th August, 1751,
among the _Stuart Papers_.
[1348] Letter, Mr. Donald Mackintosh to Secretary Edgar, dated from
Civita Vecchia, 6th February, 1754.--_Stuart Papers._
[1349] He is said on this occasion to have called without previous
notice on Lady Primrose, and to have walked into the room, where she
and others were playing cards, being announced by the servant under
another name. After he left it was remarked how like he was to the
prince’s portrait which hung in the very room into which he entered.
He is said on this occasion to have used so little precaution that
he went abroad undisguised in daylight, walking once through St.
James’s, and taking a turn in Pall Mall. This story looks very
like another version of his visit in 1750. See George Charles’s
_Transactions in Scotland_, vol. ii. p. 470.
[1350] See among the _Stuart Papers_ a letter from Secretary Edgar
to Mr. William Hay, 26th September, 1752, and that from Mr. Hay’s
letter to Edgar, October 1752. Charles seems to have been desirous
after this to have none but Protestants about him. He sent an order
to Avignon, in November 1753, to dismiss all his “Papist servants.”
He kept at this time a French mistress, and having quarrelled with
her, he discarded her because she was “a Papist too.” The following
note, also, in the prince’s hand, appears on the back of a letter of
Waters the banker, of 26th June, 1754:--“My being a Protestant I can
prove to be an advantage to the Papist, and my terrible situation
not to be incapable to attempt any plan either against my honour or
interest, seeing them that are so far from my country.” At this time
(June 1754) Charles was living in Paris incognito.
[1351] See his answer to the deputation that waited on him in the
year 1755:--
“As to his religion,” says Dr. King, “he is certainly free from
all bigotry and superstition, and would readily conform to the
religion of the country. With the Catholics he is a Catholic, with
the Protestants he is a Protestant; and to convince the latter of
his sincerity, he often carried an English Common Prayer-book in
his pocket, and sent to Gordon (whom I have mentioned before), a
non-juring clergyman, to christen the first child he had by his
mistress, Mrs. Walkinshaw.”
[1352] Klose’s _Memoirs of Prince Charles_, vol. ii. p. 208.
[1353] The French government settled a pension of 1200 livres per
annum upon his widow, and granted an annual allowance of 400 livres
to each of his two sons who were in its service, in addition to their
pay.
[1354] King’s Political and Literary Anecdotes, p. 264, _et seq._
[1355] Several letters between Charles and Lord Marischal will be
found among the _Stuart Papers_. The most interesting are one from
his lordship, without signature, 15th April 1754, another also
without signature, 18th May 1754, and Charles’s answer of the latter
date.
[1356] _Stuart Papers._
[1357] Letter to Edgar, 24th March 1754.
[1358] Letter,--Charles to Edgar, 12th March, 1755.
[1359] Letter to Charles, 14th April, 1755, among _Stuart Papers_.
[1360] Letter to Charles of 3d February, 1747.
[1361] Lord Mahon thinks that Charles had contracted a disparaging
opinion of the tender sex in general. Among the _Stuart Papers_ is
the following written by Charles about the time of his marriage:--“As
for men, I have studied them myself, and were I to live till
fourscore, I could scarcely know them better than now, but as for
women, I have thought it useless, they being so much more wicked and
impenetrable.” “Ungenerous and ungrateful words,” justly exclaims
Lord Mahon; “surely as he wrote them, the image of Flora Macdonald
should have risen in his heart and restrained his hand.”--Mahon’s
_England_, v. iii., p. 527.
[1362] Letters from Italy by an Englishwoman, London, 1776. Quoted by
Lord Mahon.
[1363] Klose’s _Memoirs_, v. ii., p. 241.
[1364] Mahon’s _England_, v. ii., p. 528.
[1365] Mahon’s _England_, v. iii. p. 529.
[1366] See the whole story set forth and conclusively refuted in the
_Quarterly Review_ for June 1847.
[1367] A gentleman of Jacobite sympathies, to whom this part of the
work has been submitted, appends the following note:--
“It is but justice, however, to these gentlemen to say, that they
have never made any loud or noisy assertion of their claims, leaving,
what they believe to be, the fact of their descent to be indicated,
rather than asserted in the work above mentioned. It is understood,
also, that they do not encourage much reference being made to those
claims, which they consider to amount only to the fact of their being
descended from Prince Charles, not to any ‘Divine Right’ to the
throne in virtue of that descent; that right having been forfeited,
they believe, by the fact of themselves and their ancestors having
been Roman Catholics--the nation having declared for a Protestant
succession. It looks also as if they depended on the strength of
truth, or what they believe to be truth, that they have never
answered the criticisms of the _Quarterly_ reviewer, whilst at the
same time it is understood that they maintain that they could answer
him, if they were so minded. They bore a high character during their
residence in the Highlands of Scotland, which character they still
retain. It is some time since the writer of this note has seen them,
but the resemblance which their features bore to the features of the
ancient Stuart race used to be remarked by all who knew them. This,
however, would not prove much. Even the _Quarterly_ reviewer does not
allege that they were _conscious_ or knowingly impostors.”