CHAPTER XL.

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]

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.

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.”