Bonnie Prince Charlie: Charles Edward Stuart (Pimlico)

by McLynn, Frank

  Still in fear of the Inquisition, James kept his son close to him at all times, taking him for carefully supervised excursions around Rome.90 Charles Edward spent a wretched Christmas and fifth birthday. James made it clear he had no intention of bending to the papal will (or his wife’s). He went out of his way to defy them by promoting Dunbar to be Knight of the Thistle to mark the prince’s birthday91 (ironically in view of future events, another recipient was the Earl Marischal) and by sending the prince to Albano with Dunbar for the spring villegiatura.92

  By now pressure was being applied on James from another source. The fanatically Catholic Philip V and his termagant wife Elizabeth Farnese began to turn the screws on James, genuinely alarmed by the possibility that the prince might be brought up a Protestant.93 Elizabeth Farnese went so far as to describe his behaviour towards Clementina as detestable, and warned that he should expect no financial or political aid from Spain.94 So vehement was Spanish support for Clementina that it soon became a genuine obstacle to a marital rapprochement, since there seemed no way James could back down without a disastrous loss of face.95 The good offices of the duke of Ormonde and the Earl Marischal (both Protestant and both in Spain) were enlisted to persuade Philip V that a Protestant governor was mere window-dressing to appease the Jacobites’ English constituency; there was no question of the prince’s not being brought up as a Catholic. One possible way out seemed the replacement of Dunbar by Ormonde, who was acceptable in Madrid, but James refused this suggestion, on the ground that Ormonde was too valuable where he was.96 He was, however, induced by the intense Spanish pressure to allow Clementina to see her children. There was a tearful reunion between mother and two sons in April 1726, but Clementina went back on her promise to James by excluding Sheridan and Dunbar from her rooms in the convent and bringing in Mrs Sheldon to see them.97 She asked for a second visit in July, but James turned this down on the grounds of her unsatisfactory behaviour the first time. He asked for a Bible oath that if he sent the two princes to the convent again, they would not be introduced to Mrs Sheldon.

  Clementina held out for two months, then agreed to James’s terms. The visit was just about to take place when Mrs Sheldon made her play. Flinging herself at the queen’s feet, Sheldon begged her tearfully not to betray her in this way.98 Clementina was unable to deal either with the tears or the iron will of her favourite, and the visit was cancelled. To reinforce the point that she had no intention of surrendering, Clementina had Charles Edward’s portrait painted so that it could be put upon the wall of her apartments in the convent.99

  By mid-1726 James was friendless. A four-hour conference with Alberoni in April did not produce the hoped-for breakthrough. The Spanish cardinal’s hold over Clementina was as strong as ever.100 Even James’s previous allies the Jesuits had turned against him; the Father-General now shared the Pope’s religious concerns.101 James was faced with a 50 per cent cut in his papal pension. Rather than come to heel, James decided to quit Rome and move to some more congenial spot. He thought first of Venice, but was swiftly turned down.102 Eventually he hit on the idea of Bologna.

  Even so, there was a price to be paid. Before the Pope would allow Charles Edward to continue under Dunbar’s tutelage in a papal state, he wanted to be assured that the child was being brought up as a Catholic. At an audience on 16 September 1726 the Pope made Charles Edward recite several pages of catechism and then put several questions to him on Catholic doctrine.103 Satisfied with the prince’s answers, the Pope and James agreed on the polite fiction that the departure of the Stuart court for Bologna was simply an extended villegiatura. Dunbar’s name was not mentioned.

  Whatever the psychological toll on the young prince of this sustained rift in the royal household, to outward appearances he was still doing well. He had learned to ride, was considered a natural horseman, and deeply impressed those who saw him. ‘The eldest is the most surprising boy in every respect that ever was seen,’ reported James Edgar the royal secretary. ‘He now behaves and talks like a man.’104

  The ‘hell-fire’ duke of Wharton, newly arrived in Rome and soon to depart for Spain on a mission for James, concurred:

  The Prince of Wales is one of the finest children I ever saw and daily gives remarkable instances of wit and vivacity uncommon to his age. The beauty of his person and his genteel behaviour make him the idol of the people here.105

  Yet the prolonged absence of the prince’s mother must have bitten deep. So far from there being any signs of reconciliation between James and Clementina, the queen’s acquiescence in the departure of her sons for Bologna seems to have hardened James’s attitude.106 The failure of a final face-to-face plea to her to return did not help matters.107 If there were any doubts left, James proceeded to back himself into a cul-de-sac by raising the widely unpopular Hays to the peerage. They were now the titular Lord and Lady Inverness.

  On 30 September 1726 the journey to Bologna commenced. Charles Edward and Henry departed from Rome with Dunbar and Lady Inverness. They spent the first night at Civita Castellana, then went on to Loreto,108 proceeding more slowly than their father, who went on ahead post-haste. In Bologna he awaited the arrival of the princes, who took three weeks, in slow, leisurely stages, to complete the journey.109 It was already cold when Charles Edward arrived in Bologna on 21 October 1726.110

  2

  Bologna and Rome

  (1726–33)

  A FEW DAYS after the prince’s arrival in Bologna, James put him on public view at a ball. Wearing a scarlet coat, the young Charles Edward, not yet six, danced with a young lady dressed in blue, while his father looked on indulgently from a throne surrounded by his courtiers.1 Now at last aware of the possible effect on his son of a long separation from his mother, punctuated by the brief, lachrymose meeting, James exhorted Sheridan and Dunbar to divert Charles by all possible means. His love of horses was encouraged. He was already an accomplished rider (‘as well as if he had fifteen years of age’) and had a large stable, in which his favourite was a little grey colt.2

  All who saw the prince spoke of his manly bearing and behaviour,3 but this was the credit side of a nature that was already revealing wilfulness and obstinacy. As long ago as June 1724 the prince had shown that he had a mind of his own. When James and Clementina were received then by the new Pope Benedict XIII and ceremonially kissed his feet, the young Charles Edward could not be induced either by threats or cajolery to follow suit.4 At this stage in his development it was probably a mistake, in retrospect, to indulge him, but James’s humanitarian instincts must nevertheless be applauded.

  Because of the continuing question-mark over Dunbar’s future, the day-to-day education of the prince was largely left to Sheridan, the under-governor. His idea of pedagogy was the inculcation of a series of pious and devotional maxims, and the learning of the catechism by rote.5 But Charles Edward relished his tutor’s indulgence. In many ways Sheridan became his true father but he was a father without tears – it was all spoiling and pampering, no discipline and authority. Yet for good or ill a strong bond was forged. Charles Edward ever afterwards entertained strong filial feelings for Sheridan.6

  Much of the prince’s training at this time was of the outdoor or physical kind, especially in the use of weapons. In marked contrast to his brother at the same age, Charles was always the aspiring warrior. Just before the marital break-up, in August 1725, when James and his family were in procession in the Piazza Navona, Charles Edward could have been seen, carried on a dais, from which he would ‘shoot’ at onlookers with his crossbow,7 This was the shape of things to come. In Bologna he was taught accurate shooting with the crossbow and other weapons and proved to have a remarkably good eye. He soon settled into a vigorous masculine routine; only Lady Nithsdale as governess provided the feminine touch.8 A report from the royal secretary James Edgar in March 1727 conveniently sums up his progress:

  The Prince improves daily in body and mind to the admiration and joy of everybody. As to his studies, he reads English now cur
rently (sic) and has begun to learn to write. He speaks English perfectly well, and the French and Italian very little worse. He has a stable of little horses and every day almost diverts him by riding. Chevalier Geraldin is his riding master. He is most alert in all his exercises, such as shooting, the tennis, shuttlecock, and a gentleman in town has prepared a caccia of pigeons and hares to be shot by him this afternoon. You would be surprised to see him dance, nobody does it better, and he bore his part at the balls in the carnival as if he were already a man.9

  Meanwhile 1727 seemed to herald some brightening of James’s fortunes. His half-brother Berwick’s son, the thirty-one-year-old duke of Liria, was appointed Spanish ambassador to Russia. A fervent Jacobite, Liria assured James he would do all in his power to induce the Czarina Catherine to throw Russian might behind the house of Stuart. The one obstacle in his path was the continuing estrangement between James and Clementina that so damaged Jacobite credibility. Liria proposed to call at Bologna on his way from Madrid to St Petersburg to see if he could patch things up. He arrived at Bologna at the beginning of May 1727.10

  James was by now softening in his attitude to Clementina. He at last appreciated the grave damage the rift had done to his own cause. He was willing to give Inverness an honourable discharge. Dunbar had promised to turn Catholic to please the queen. The only condition James still held out for was the dismissal of the detested Mrs Sheldon.11

  Liria asked permission to write to Clementina, exhorting her to return to her husband and family, arguing that no credible barrier to a reconciliation now remained. James agreed. Liria stayed in Bologna until 4 May, composing a carefully modulated appeal to Clementina. While he was in the papal state Liria struck up an immediate rapport with the young Charles Edward. Describing him as having a beautiful figure and almost supernatural cleverness, Liria was particularly impressed by the six-year-old’s intellectual potential.12 Charles Edward in turn responded well to this sensitive soldier-diplomat of a cousin. The seeds of his second successful relationship with an older male were sown.

  Liria had originally intended to present his letter in person to Clementina in Rome, but this proved unnecessary. Suddenly James received word that Clementina was returning to Bologna. James vowed to let bygones be bygones.13

  But 1727 had not exhausted its quota of surprises. Even as James digested the news of the queen’s return, dramatic tidings were received from England. George I had died suddenly. This was an opportunity James could not afford to miss. Sending his children into the country, he despatched an express to the Pope, giving him the overall responsibility for the prince’s education during his own absence. Then, at the end of June, he left Bologna for the north.14 He was to be away for six months.

  From being without a mother for nearly two years, Charles Edward now found himself fatherless while his mother returned. It is perhaps not without significance that at the precise moment of his mother’s arrival in Bologna, the young prince should have been taken ill.15

  We know little of Charles Edward’s relations with his mother during the second half of 1727. Clementina’s letters to the absent James about her children are curiously offhand and contrasted with the fussiness and overprotectiveness of James’s enquiries about them.16 It fell to Dunbar to reassure the absent king that Charles Edward still remembered him and continually asked about him, especially when the newspapers arrived.17

  Meanwhile James’s dash for the Channel coast had ended in failure. The French, at this time in alliance with England, refused to allow him to set foot on their territory and applied pressure to have him expelled from Lorraine. Disconsolately, James fell back on the relative sanctuary of the papal state of Avignon. Here he wrote to Clementina to come and join him, leaving the children in Bologna.18 To his fury she refused, alleging that she found it impossible to leave her children, but really because the French had threatened to arrest her if she tried to cross their territory en route to Avignon.19 There was another reason too. Clementina had still not dismissed Mrs Sheldon from her service. James made it clear that if the queen arrived in Avignon with that personage, he would take it upon himself to dismiss her formally in the presence of the papal vice-legate.20 But, such was the pressure being exerted on the Vatican by both England and France, it was already clear to James that he would have to return to Italy the following spring.21

  It was time for James to return anyway. His absence led to a serious breach of hospitality by the Bolognese. Meeting the young Charles Edward on horseback at the gates of the city on a narrow road, a local priest refused to move over to the side of the road even when he saw the Stuart colours displayed. This insult was a serious embarrassment to the legate of Bologna especially after James had entrusted Charles Edward to papal care. The offending priest was immediately imprisoned.22

  James returned to Bologna in January 1728, after tarrying for a few days sightseeing in Milan. The royal secretary Edgar, sent on ahead, found Charles Edward much changed (and to his mind greatly improved) after six months: ‘almost a man in his behaviour and carriage and at least two fingers taller than when I left him’.23 Yet, true to type, when his father arrived a few days later, his first instruction to his son concerned duty, not admiration: Charles was to write a letter of New Year’s greeting to Cardinal Gualterio.24

  But if James hoped for a reversion to normal family life on his return, he was deeply shocked at the change in Clementina. ‘Neurotic’ would be too mild a word to describe her behaviour; religious mania comes nearer the mark. This is how James described her:

  I proposed to her diverting herself in the Carnival, but she showed no inclination to it. She has taken no manner of amusement, not even taking the air, and when she is not at church or at table, is locked up in her room and sees no mortal but her maids and sons. She … fasts to that degree that I believe no married woman that pretends to have children ever did. I am very little with her. I let her do what she will.25

  To cap all, Clementina persisted in seeing Mrs Sheldon, whom she had set up in an establishment elsewhere in Bologna, and would not listen to James’s plea for the return of his own favourites the Invernesses, now banished to Avignon.

  What seems to have happened is that those who pleaded and cajoled with the queen to return to her wifely duty did their work too well. Taking her cue from her beloved St Francis de Sales, Clementina decided that marriage with James was a cross she had been called on to bear. Very well, the crucifixion would be complete. She would fast and mortify the flesh. It would seem that Clementina never really recovered from the depression following Henry’s birth. She was now in the grip of genuine mental illness. If ever the death instinct could be cited to explain human behaviour, it was surely the key to Clementina Sobieska from 1728 onwards.

  Faced with this alarming development, James freely confessed himself out of his depth. It is clear that he resumed normal marital relations with Clementina, but after less than two months he found the strain too much. In the vain hope that Clementina could be argued out of her state of mind, he went to Rome to enlist the help of friendly cardinals.

  The strain of living with a neurotic mother must have been considerable for an over-active child like Charles Edward. In May 1728, under Sheridan’s guidance, he wrote a well-known and very sad letter to his father in Rome, promising not to upset his mother by jumping near her.26

  On his return from Rome, James tried vainly on Clementina the arguments that had been rehearsed to him in Rome. Now there was a further complication. Clementina was pregnant again.27 Fearful of the effect of this both on his wife and his sons, James sent his children to the country for the rest of the summer and left Bologna himself.28 It was a wise decision. As expected, the pregnancy was a difficult one. The queen complained of excessive pain and became convinced that she was suffering from an ectopic foetus.29 Hearing this, James returned to Bologna and hired the city’s best physician to be in constant attendance.30

  By now under considerable stress himself, James decided to take his eldest s
on on a tour of northern Italy. They arrived in Parma on 10 June 1728, spent the 11th at Colorno and returned to Parma that evening for the opera, which the young prince greatly enjoyed.31 A few days later James sent Charles Edward out to Piacenza to pay a courtesy call on the veteran duchess of Parma, who was seriously ill.32 All in all, the trip was a success, and James expressed himself very pleased with his son’s behaviour.33

  But he returned to depressing news at Bologna. The queen claimed to have miscarried at the end of July, hardly surprising given her way of life.34 The stress of life with Clementina now began to tell on James. Always prone to psychosomatic illnesses at times of extreme tension, he lapsed into a serious illness in October.35

  The valetudinarian atmosphere in the Stuart court was contagious. In September Dunbar was given sick leave until spring 1729.36 John Paul Stafford, already confirmed as Henry’s governor, was given temporary charge of Charles Edward; the idea was that Stafford would get to know the younger prince while he tutored Charles.37 As if to prove the point that there was something ill-starred about the Jacobite household at Bologna, Stafford too immediately went down with fever.38 James, always one for taking the wrong decision at the wrong time, chose this moment to bring his two children back from the country.39 Apprehensive about the epidemic at his court, he did, however, arrange for an experienced physician to be in permanent attendance.40

  The perfervid atmosphere was not helped by an announcement that the queen was pregnant again. This time there was total confusion over dates.41 Then in January 1729 secretary Edgar made the following report to one of his correspondents: