Bonnie Prince Charlie: Charles Edward Stuart (Pimlico)

by McLynn, Frank

  Perhaps the reason Henry, a much lesser personality than the prince, attracted so many favourable opinions was simply that as a boy he was better-looking. The word used by so many travellers to Rome in the 1730s to describe James’s second son was ‘merry’. His features were more regular than Charles Edward’s and his demeanour more smiling. His portraits show him to have been a very pretty child with wide, sparkling hazel eyes. He was shorter and more delicately built than his brother, But like so many pretty children, he turned out plain as an adult. The sunny disposition vanished to be replaced by a kind of dour narcissism. Charles Edward always retained his fair, reddish colouring but Henry in middle age looked dark and swarthy.

  Henry is a key figure in the understanding of Charles Edward’s psychological development, and to some extent represents ‘the road not taken’. This is a complex skein to unravel, but, simplifying, we may say that the Henry solution – the way in which a given genetic inheritance interacted with the unique experience of the Stuart family context – was that of submission and internalisation. The later emergence of the ‘Cardinal-King’ as a homosexual personality reflects the disaster of his childhood.

  Charles Edward’s experience, and therefore his solution, was different. His precious first five years with his mother were enough to give him a predominantly heterosexual personality. But the ensuing years of trauma and her early death left him with a reservoir of unconscious guilt. This in turn produced the cluster of psychological near-relations of guilt which undoubtedly informed the prince’s later behaviour: depression, rage, paranoia.56 The lack of a satisfactory family life left Charles a dreadful legacy. Ever afterwards he evinced clear signs of an unstable ego, a self in danger of fragmentation, an uncertain identity, and a general sensitivity and vulnerability.57

  Another aspect of such a personality is compulsive secretiveness. The refusal to expose oneself totally for the inspection of others bespeaks an excessive vulnerability, a refusal to run the risk of being hurt. Secretive Charles Edward certainly was, as we shall see later. At this stage in his career, the tendency manifested itself in a secret correspondence carried on with the English Jacobites – a correspondence that came to light only when James sorted through his son’s effects two years later.58

  From 1742, the one clearly discernible strand in Charles Edward’s personality was the total lack of any mechanism for dealing with authority, and hence a fatally blurred distinction between his own will and reality. In February of that year cardinals Tencin and Acquaviva found James seriously despondent over Charles Edward’s inability to take direction and over the possible consequences of the prince’s overdeveloped willpower.59 But James could scarcely escape responsibility for the way his son had turned out. Repressive in the areas where he should have been indulgent, weak where he should have been strong, manifestly preferring Henry to Charles, James elicited in the prince a deep contempt, whose dimensions were to be seen only later when father and son were geographically separate.

  Most significantly of all, James had never acted the true role of parent, so as to enable the prince to reach adulthood. He had never shown him that authority could have a caring, healing and therapeutic aspect. The consequence was not only that the prince had to look for a replacement father, but whenever he found suitable ‘father-figures’ (like Lord George Murray or the Earl Marischal), he was forced to quarrel with them all in turn (i.e. to ‘kill’ them symbolically) in order to reach maturity. Such was the prince on the eve of his great adventures.

  6

  ‘Father’s Sorrow, father’s joy’

  (1743–4)

  THE YEAR 1743 brought a dramatic upsurge in Jacobite fortunes. The death of Fleury in January at the age of 90 removed the principal barrier to outright French support for the House of Stuart. At first Jacobite hopes seemed dashed once again when Louis XV announced that henceforth he would be his own Prime Minister; the expectation in the Palazzo Muti had been that Tencin would succeed Fleury. But Louis’s own inclinations and the tide of events in the war, especially in Germany, soon led him to contemplate seriously a descent on England.

  A decisive prod in this direction was Sempill’s memoir to the French court in spring 1743, in the name of the leading English Jacobites, asking for a French invasion to restore the Stuarts.1 This was a highly significant development. At last the French seemed to be hearing about conditions in England from the horse’s mouth. This was a very different matter from the formulaic and predictable assurances that England was ripe for revolution, delivered periodically to Versailles by James.

  Much encouraged by this new Jacobite bearing, Louis XV sent his master of horse James Butler on a fact-finding mission to England – the pretext was buying horses for the royal stables. Butler spent August and September 1743 in England. He returned to Versailles in October with a glowing report on the strength of Jacobitism in the British Isles. That was good enough for the French king. He now had both motive and opportunity for an invasion.

  Full-scale planning for the project was set in train in November. Louis XV demonstrated his seriousness by writing to Philip V of Spain in his own hand to put him in the picture.2

  What was James’s position in all this? It has to be remembered that at the beginning of 1743 all talk of Charles Edward’s departure still concerned possible service in the French army in Flanders or Germany. At this stage the Jacobites’ best hope was that the prince would take part in an invasion of Hanover.3 But as 1743 wore on, and whispers began to be heard in Rome that the French were contemplating some bold stroke against England, James’s eagerness to send his elder son to France gave way to circumspection and indecisiveness. Always determined that Charles Edward should not be in France simply as a French dupe or to act as a ‘scarecrow’ against the English, James now raised a further query with Tencin (since 1742 a minister of state on Louis XV’s great council of state): if a serious French project was on foot, would not the prince’s presence in France alert the English and put them on their guard?4

  James faced two major problems. First how serious were the French and what role in their schemes did they envisage for the prince? Second, assuming he could be reassured on French sincerity, there was the mechanical or physical problem of how Charles Edward got from Rome to Paris. The stumbling block here was the great Mediterranean plague, which was cutting a swathe through the Latin countries in 1743. As a result of its ravages, a cordon sanitaire had been thrown around the papal states. A strict quarantine was in force. There were alarming rumours that the virus had reached as far as Reggio in Calabria. Even communication with the outside world by letter was difficult. Rome in 1743 was to a large extent cut off from the rest of civilisation.5

  A letter from James to Lord Sempill in September 1743 succinctly shows James’s state of mind:

  I never solicited the prince’s coming into France in this juncture, for though I have long wished that he should be out of this country, and that he might have leave to make a campaign, yet I feared any motion of his at the present would give an alarm to the English government, who ought to be kept asleep and without suspicion till all be ready to attack them in good earnest. But if with all that the French should be really serious to have him in France, I think it would be wrong not to comply with their desire, whatever may be their view in it. Though should his removal from hence and his presence in France be never so necessary, I don’t see how I could send him thither at this time with tolerable prudence and precaution for his safety unless the French themselves can fall on some method for that effect, since the quarantine by land makes all passages impracticable for him by that way, and that the English fleet render it extreme hazardous by sea.6

  There was some easing of the situation by September, when it was found that the plague seemed to have been halted in its tracks in Calabria, but the basic problem remained.7 James received conflicting advice on the proposed journey. Tencin recommended travel in small Maltese boats. Jacobites like O’Brien, on the other hand, argued that only in extreme e
mergency should the prince’s person be hazarded at sea; the most he risked on land was arrest.8 James at this juncture inclined to sending his son on a roundabout route via Switzerland.9 It is clear that James would only have released his son for the journey to Paris after a pressing invitation from the French court. One of the puzzles surrounding the years 1743–4 has always been that, after the failure of the 1744 invasion attempt, Louis XV tried to lay the blame for the débâcle on Charles Edward’s sudden appearance at Versailles in February 1744, at the most critical moment of the enterprise.10

  The French had to balance security considerations against the desirability of quickening the Jacobite fifth column in England. The English Jacobites had promised to meet any French invading force landing in Essex with their own raw levies, provided Charles Edward arrived with the king’s manifesto and the powers of regency. Only thus could the French descent be presented to the English people as an attempt at Stuart restoration rather than an invasion proper. On the other hand, since France intended to invade England without warning and without a declaration of war, the mere presence of the Stuart prince on French soil would alert the English to what was afoot.11 How to square this circle was one of the principal subjects of discussion in Versailles in the second half of 1743.

  A further complication affecting the investigation into who invited Charles Edward to France is that the discussions in the council of state on this topic were held on a hypothetical or contingency basis only. Louis XV, for whom duplicity was almost a conditioned reflex, did not confide the true details of the 1743–4 invasion project to all his ministers of state.12 Foreign Minister Amelot and Navy Minister Maurepas were closely involved in the day-to-day planning, but Finance Minister Orry, Minister of War comte d’Argenson and Minister without Portfolio duc de Noailles were informed of the project only at the last minute. Even the pro-Jacobite Tencin, the last of the six ministers of state, was held at arm’s length.

  The exclusion of the royal favourite Noailles is particularly surprising, but Louis XV knew he would be opposed to a pro-Jacobite venture and did not wish to hear views differing from his own. The issue of whether to invite Charles Edward to France was largely discussed by the ministers in a vacuum, as if it related merely to military service on the Continent.

  But by the time Butler returned from England with his mission successfully accomplished, the devious Louis XV had hit on a solution to the Charles Edward conundrum. The trick was to acquire the Jacobite manifestoes and declarations to the people of England without having Charles Edward in tow. By a sleight of hand Louis could contrive it so that the prince arrived in Paris only after the expedition’s commander-designate, the comte de Saxe, had captured London. Charles Edward would then cross the Channel to ratify the French conquest. In this way the forces of the Jacobite fifth column would be successfully energised. while full secrecy was maintained right up to French landfall.

  Accordingly Louis summoned Balhaldy and requested him to go to Rome on a confidential mission. His instructions were to travel to the Eternal City via Switzerland, bearing a letter of invitation for the prince addressed to James. Balhaldy made ready to depart. Eight days later he was informed that there would be no letter. Although his mission to Rome was still on, he was to discourage Charles Edward from setting out for Paris until the invasion was launched. Smelling a rat, Balhaldy asked for some form of written assurance for James.13 He was told this would be forthcoming and ordered to hold himself in readiness for a sudden departure.

  On 23 November, at Fontainebleau, the day before he was due to depart, Balhaldy received the king’s instructions that he was to set out without a letter; the letter was deemed ‘inadvisable for security reasons’. At the final briefing session with Amelot, Balhaldy asked how he was supposed to convince James of French good faith without a letter from the king. Amelot assured him that this would be sent once the expedition had set sail. Balhaldy realised that Louis XV was manipulating him (he claimed that the king had learned artfulness and cunning from Fleury, ‘Old Papa Fréjus, as the king named him’), but felt it impolitic to insist on a letter.

  He tried one last time for some documentary evidence of French bona fides. Amelot produced a passport for the prince.14 At the conclusion of the interview Balhaldy asked Amelot for some specific date of departure he might mention to James. Amelot plucked the date of 12 January 1744 out of the air. In this one specific date lay the undoing of Louis XV’s carefully nurtured piece of arch-cunning.

  The dimensions of Louis XV’s subterfuge are now plain. He sent Balhaldy to Rome to get ‘legitimating’ material from James, informing him that there was a serious invasion project in hand, and that France would call Charles Edward to join in later. Louis thus hoped to get all he needed from James but still to keep the prince at Rome, relying on James’s characteristic trait of doing everything by the book. He had reckoned without two things: the prince’s stubborn determination to get out of Rome; and Amelot’s careless slip of the tongue.

  Balhaldy arrived in Rome on 19 December 1743 after a nightmarish journey through the snows of Switzerland.15 He found Charles Edward straining at the leash, with everything ready for a swift departure. James’s declarations for England and Scotland and his commission of regency for the prince had been printed.16 After shrugging off an attack of ’flu earlier in the year,17 Charles had brought himself back to a key pitch of physical fitness through hunting.18

  Balhaldy spent six days in Rome, until Christmas Day, reporting French thinking to James.19 He pointed out that the only specific task assigned to him by Louis XV was to bring back the manifestoes and declarations, but that there was a definite expedition afoot. James was puzzled. If the French king had wanted to send him a message, why a verbal one through Balhaldy? Why not through the established channels via Tencin and his nephew Bailli? James still did not have the measure of Louis XV’s duplicity. He did not realise that Tencin was not privy to the king’s secrets.20 Moreover, Machiavellianism of this kind in a brother monarch would not have been suspected by the ingenuous James.

  The Jacobite monarch’s every instinct told him to get a definite written commitment from the French king. He dashed off a letter to Louis, thanking him for Balhaldy’s message and telling him he had postponed Charles Edward’s departure until he got a clearer light from France.21 Here was another error. If James had written directly to Amelot, he might have received an express from the Foreign Minister, telling him on no account to send the prince. But this letter to Louis was never answered, either through the king’s indolence or because the missive got snarled up in French bureaucracy (either is plausible).22

  At this moment Charles Edward himself made a fateful entry into the negotiations. Now thoroughly frustrated after years of prevarication from France, he pressed Balhaldy hard for evidence that the French would welcome him on their territory. It is unclear what Balhaldy said. Somehow mention of a departure date of 12 January 1744 seeped out. That was enough for the prince. Brandishing this evidence, he plagued his father to let him go.

  James questioned Balhaldy further. It was obvious that this time there really was a French invasionary force poised to strike across the Channel; this was no feint. Balhaldy explained the strategy of a surprise attack: a bolt from the blue to redress the serious French reverses in Germany. Moreover, it was clear from the fact of Balhaldy’s mission alone that the French were convinced of the strength of the English Jacobite party and wanted Stuart support. And there was the clinching factor of the date mentioned by Amelot as a likely one for the prince’s departure. Suppressing his misgivings about the lack of a direct written invitation, James bowed to the combined arguments of Balhaldy and his son. He outlined his own objections, but left it to the prince to decide.23 There could be only one choice. It was settled that Charles Edward would indeed depart for France in early January. All that remained was to decide the itinerary.

  Here Balhaldy proved extremely helpful. The route he had just travelled, through Switzerland, was out, he told th
e king. So too was a wholly overland passage. Apart from the rains and snow, and the dreadful roads ruined by frost, all frontiers were being carefully guarded because of the plague. Every traveller was rigorously examined on who he was, where he was from and where he was going to. In Genoese territory a fifteen-day quarantine period was imposed on everyone, irrespective of rank. Moreover, the king of Genoa forbade embarcation on a felucca, effectively putting the Viareggio route out of the reckoning. And the coast road from Genoa to Antibes via Monaco was thronged and clustered with customs barriers and anti-plague quarantine posts. The sole plausible route was overland through Tuscany and Genoa and thence by sea to Antibes.24

  James agreed that travel through Lombardy – where his son might be examined before the governors of various towns and his identity discovered – was too perilous. There was not the same risk in Tuscany. The going would be tough, but he relied on his son’s stamina to see him through. The one thing neither James nor Balhaldy foresaw was the quarantine regulations in force at Antibes.25

  Balhaldy departed from Rome on Christmas Day. Travelling at great speed through Tuscany and northern Italy, he reached Paris on 3 January 1744.26 In Rome final preparations were pushed ahead for the prince’s momentous journey.