Bonnie Prince Charlie: Charles Edward Stuart (Pimlico)

by McLynn, Frank

  The prince, in short, had overplayed his hand. For the moment he revelled in the deception he had practised on James by keeping him completely in the dark about Choiseul. James learned merely in general terms from Lumisden that his son had gone to Paris to talk to the French ministers (Lumisden could supply no details).29 Partly in sorrow, partly in anger at the way his son had excluded him, James recalled Lumisden to Rome.30

  The prince sent a message with Lumisden that he would be in Rome in May to see his father, once his negotiations with the French were complete.31 Lumisden departed, still on good terms with the prince. He made his way back across Germany to Venice, then on to Rome via Ancona, Loreto and Macerata.32

  But the contents of the letter he handed James in the Palazzo Muti stunned the Stuart king. There was nothing about the French, nothing about Clementina Walkinshaw, nothing about any of the substantive points he had put to Charles. Instead, there were long outpourings about his enemies (Aeneas MacDonald and Cluny MacPherson figured prominently) together with a detailed, meticulous account of the sins of Lord George Murray, with no incident of his imagined treachery going unmarked.33 James had been eagerly awaiting Lumisden’s return to learn of his negotiations with Choiseul and to see signs of the rapprochement he so hoped for. He was utterly devastated by this reply.34 How utterly destroyed in spirit he was can be inferred from Lumisden’s pithy and laconic dispatch to Charles Edward: ‘when [the king] read your letter and heard the report he ordered me to make, it so disordered him that he finds himself unable to write to you at present.’35

  The prince had crushed James for the moment, but the victory gave him little satisfaction. He was already beginning to realise with anger and despair how completely Choiseul had outmanoeuvred him. As the summer wore on, it became more and more evident that the French were making their invasion plans without taking any account of the Jacobite factor. The prince had only himself to blame. His friends and agents had urged further meetings in Paris with Soubise and Madame de Pompadour, but Charles showed an infuriating reluctance to stir from Bouillon.36 His behaviour seemed particularly perverse in the light of past events. When the French expelled him from their dominions, he had seemingly not been able to resist the temptation to tread French soil illicitly. Now that they invited him to further talks, he refused to go. His perversity on this point recalled Elcho’s military strictures during the ’45.37

  The truth was that the prince was locked in a trap of his own making. He had staked his credibility on not being willing to go to Paris until all invasion preparations were final and complete. But now that the seriousness of French intentions could no longer be doubted, it came to look as though Choiseul had turned the tables on him in a quite masterly way. French demand for a manifesto in his name conjured unpleasant memories of 1744.38 Clearly Soubise and the other generals intended to land in England without him, while using the glamour of his name. He had cried wolf once too often. The penalty for obdurate refusal to believe in the seriousness of French intentions without overwhelming proof was that, when the evidence was clear to see, Charles Edward himself was to be excluded from the project.

  The prince has been much criticised for remaining meekly at Bouillon in 1759 while the French assembled their armada.39 But in his own terms he had no choice. To appear in Paris before everything was complete would involve a humiliating climb-down. France had already caused him too much pain for this to be feasible. Yet the consciousness that his own pride and honour were allowing Choiseul to make a fool of him activated the civil conflict within. Almost predictably, as the unbearable stress of his troubled relations with the French built to a crescendo, he fell badly ill.

  The cycle of ill-health began in May 1759 with a bad case of influenza, which kept him in bed and obliged Thibault to answer all his correspondence.40 This was followed by a peculiarly painful attack of piles.41 Finally, his fingers became so sore that he could scarcely move his hand.42 The overt cause of this organic breakdown was heavy drinking, but the drinking itself reached crisis proportions because of the stress of his duel with Choiseul.43 On 14 May he wrote gloomily to Murray of Elibank: ‘that cursed lawsuit gives both you and I [sic] more trouble than it is worth.’44

  The prince’s health had for some time been giving cause for concern. His devoted follower and admirer John Holker, now a successful industrialist in Rouen, met him during the February trip to Paris and recorded his impressions. He found Charles Edward much thinner than when he saw him last. ‘I am truly chagrined to death when I think of his situation and would give the world, had I it in my power, to see him in another way, as it won’t be possible for him to survive nor yet make old bones, was he to continue much longer.’45

  By a bitter irony, James chose this moment to re-enter the fray. While the prince lay sick at Bouillon, James, now recovered slightly from the shock of the Lumisden mission, chose to attack his son in his two most touchy areas: religion and Clementina.

  The first letter, written 29 May, revealed that James had long known about his son’s switch to Protestantism. Given James’s devoutness, the contents were no surprise. James managed a skilful balancing of dignity and sorrowful reproach!

  Do not flatter yourself, my dear son, on this article there is no trimming, and you equally renounce your religion whether you conceal it, or embrace another.… I am far from dissuading you to seek a temporal kingdom … and it is manifestly for the good of our country that it should return under the dominion of our Family. But … what will avail to you all the kingdoms in the world … if you lose your soul. I am in agonies for you, my dear son, and you alone can free me from them.46

  In a second letter of the same date he brought up the subject of Clementina Walkinshaw, of whom the prince had said nothing to Lumisden. He made a most strenuous plea to Charles to get rid of her and offered his assistance in getting her into a convent in France.47

  The prince responded to both overtures with silence. His mind was on other, more important things. He looked on impotently as French invasion preparations took shape. There were to be three expeditions, one each to England, Scotland and Ireland. D’Aiguillon’s landing in Scotland would precede Soubise’s arrival on the south coast of England but was itself dependent on the escorting ability of Admiral Conflans’s Brest fleet. But when Conflans came out of Brest in November to pick up d’Aiguillon’s army at Quiberon, he was caught by Admiral Hawke and his fleet destroyed in one of the Royal Navy’s most memorable actions. All Choiseul’s invasion plans came to nothing, with or without the prince.

  James was very ill throughout the winter of 1759.48 As the spring of 1760 came and he recovered, it seemed to him that the abandonment of all French plans for invading Britain left his son free to come to Rome to see him. Accordingly, he issued the invitation.49 He was still unaware of the resentment he had caused in the prince, both by his blundering intervention on the issue of religion and Clementina and by his inept refusal to stand aside in 1759, to abdicate and give his son full powers to treat with the French. Charles Edward replied that the state of his ‘nerves’ made such a journey impossible.50 In truth, he was depressed and habitually drunk. At this point James revealed the depths of his unconscious resentment of his son. He made a decisive but self-destructive intervention in the affair of Clementina Walkinshaw.

  32

  ‘Endless Night’

  (1760–4)

  BY 1760 SUCH picayune rewards as life with the prince held for Clementina had long since ceased to compensate for the cycle of drunkenness, verbal abuse and physical beatings. So violent were the prince’s rages and so unpredictable and maniacal his behaviour during them that Clementina genuinely feared for her life – not so much that Charles would intentionally kill her as that he would be guilty of manslaughter in some moment of madness when he was beside himself.1 His drinking had reached new heights of excess.2 And the stress impelling him to almost permanent inebriation had found a new focus: once again he was visited by acute money worries.3

  Things were s
o bad on the financial front that even the most poignant begging letter had no chance of eliciting a contribution from the prince. Clementina’s feeling that she could not endure any more of life with Charles was brought to a head by one particular refusal of financial aid. In June a letter arrived from Boulogne from that selfsame John Walkinshaw who had taken in Lady Balmerino in 1746. He was now destitute and threw himself on the prince’s compassion.4 The prince could do nothing for him. This was the last straw for Clementina. She had long ago ceased to hope for anything for herself, but had kept going with the thought of at least being able to do something for her kin. Now this hope too proved illusory. How many more disappointments would there be? Would Charles turn on Charlotte next?

  This was the point at which the prince’s Mephistopheles played his evil hand. For some years now Kelly had oscillated in and out of favour. Now he saw a chance to avenge himself on his erstwhile master. He drafted a letter to James in Rome, as if from Clementina, telling him that she wished to leave the prince and would do so if only she could find a powerful protector.5 James wrote back by a secret channel, encouraging her to take the plunge.6

  Clementina had always given signs that she was not negligible when it came to willpower and assertiveness. Secretly she made preparations for her flight with Charlotte. On the night of 22 July 1760, while Charles was temporarily absent, she stole away from Bouillon with her child.7 She left behind a note for the prince, stating that her principal reason for leaving was fear of losing her life. ‘You have pushed me to the greatest extremity and that there is not one woman in the world that would have suffered so long as what I have done.’8 She later amplified the statement, claiming that the prince had daily taken out all his disappointments on her: ‘I was the victim of everything that disobliged you.’9

  When the prince learned what had happened, he flew into a near-apoplectic rage. He cared nothing for Clementina, but he adored the six-year-old Charlotte (‘Pouponne’ was his pet name for her) and was sincerely grief-stricken to find that his little consolation had been whisked away from him.

  Quickly the prince issued his orders. Since Clementina had fled, Charles was disposed to let her go. If she returned freely, he promised to forgive her. But at all costs Charlotte had to be returned to him. This was an unnegotiable demand.10 Since Clementina was thought to be heading for Paris, he alerted his contact there, Abbé John Gordon. The instructions to Gordon were written by Thibault; in his own hand the prince added the following: ‘I take this affair so much to heart that I was not able to write what is here above. Shall be in the greatest affliction until I get back the child, which was my only comfort in my misfortunes.’11

  Gordon intercepted Clementina as she got off the Paris coach. He found her lodgings and gave her a stern talking-to.12 He admonished her not to write to Choiseul and warned her in general of the consequences of her actions. He assured her there would be no problem about her entering a convent, but the child would have to be sent back to her father. Clementina promised to wait until Gordon received further instructions from the prince. Yet a more alert man than Gordon might have guessed what was in her mind when she asked him for money.

  Gordon claimed not to have any. He thought he had outwitted her. But when he returned to her lodgings next day, Clementina had flown.13 Patient enquiries threw up an address at the Hôtel St Louis in the rue des Grands Augustins. Gordon then addressed himself to Belle-Isle. After reading the prince’s strongly-worded remonstrance, Belle-Isle promised to put M. Cremilles, lieutenant of Paris police, on the job.14

  But before Cremilles could act, the prince’s recently reinstated valet John Stewart caught up with Clementina. The direct approach proved useless. Clementina would not listen to anything Stewart had to say. She claimed she would rather ‘make away with herself than go back, and cut the child to pieces rather than give it back’.15

  Stewart dogged her footsteps. At 10.30 p.m. on the evening of 30 July she went out with Charlotte. Stewart insisted on accompanying her. Clementina seemed not to mind. Then, at a prearranged spot, her coach stopped. Clementina got out and into another coach that was waiting. When Stewart tried to follow her, two professional bodyguards interposed themselves and told Stewart roughly to go about his business. Stewart tried to follow the coach but soon lost it in the maze of back-alleys.16

  Following Belle-Isle’s orders, for a few days the full resources of Cremilles’s police department were thrown into the search for Clementina.17 The ‘wanted’ posters contained Charles Edward’s unflattering description of his mistress and child: Clementina, aged forty, blonde, average height, complexion marked by red blemishes; Charlotte, aged seven, white blonde, big eyes, full and found face, slightly flat nose, well-built and strong for her age.18

  The days slipped by, the intensive search continued. Still there was no sign of the runaways.19 Charles Edward raged at the incompetence of his agent who had 1et them slip through his fingers.20 Though Belle-Isle was certain Clementina had left Paris, the prince, remembering his own experiences in 1749–50, was certain she was in hiding in some obscure convent in the capital.21 With the obsessive energy of monomania, the prince prepared detailed lists of the people who might be sheltering the fugitives. Mrs O’Brien, Madame de Mézières, O’Heguerty, Walsh, Warren, Holker, Lady Ogilvy, Waters, Mme Ramsay: the daily lengthening list soon bade fair to embrace the entire body of Jacobites in France.22 Nothing more clearly illustrates the prince’s paranoia than the way in which trusted friends were progressively added to the list of potential betrayers. The prince revealed that at bottom he trusted no one.

  At last a shaft of light penetrated the turbid fog of his persecution mania. He remembered O’Sullivan. More and more the prince became convinced that Clementina had returned to her former lover.23 He sent out frenzied orders to track down the ageing Irishman. Yet, when caught up with, O’Sullivan had no more idea of Clementina’s whereabouts than anyone else. The best clue came from Madame Ramsay. It was now certain that Clementina was in a convent.24 But where?

  By now the search instituted by Belle-Isle and Cremilles had petered out.25 Charles Edward accused the French of not pulling their weight. How was it that the French were proving so incompetent at finding Clementina after the ruthless efficiency they had displayed towards him in 1748?26 As so often, there was substance in Charles Edward’s insensate accusations.

  Suddenly Gordon found that Cremilles and Belle-Isle were ‘out’ or ‘away’ whenever he called to pursue inquiries.27 The reason soon became clear. To the prince’s indescribable fury, James revealed that he had taken the runaways under his protection.28 This ended all French assistance for Charles Edward. They could not be seen to be supporting the son in defiance of the wishes of the father.29 Quite apart from anything else, the affair was another nail in the coffin of the prince’s reputation. Choiseul felt completely vindicated in his contempt.30

  James had already committed a signal act of betrayal in the prince’s eyes. But the king made things worse by writing to his son to try to justify his actions. His limp excuse that he had asked Clementina to get Charles’s permission before leaving was a threadbare palliative. Once again James evinced his genius for getting hold of the wrong end of the stick. In an attempt to justify his decision to have Charlotte educated in a convent, he gave as his reason ‘now that she is of an age incapable of being company to you or of giving you real comfort of any kind’.31

  The prince had long suspected that Clementina could not have remained hidden so long without collusion by the French authorities.32 He had always half-expected non-co-operation from Versailles. But he was deeply shocked to discover that this was the result of James’s blundering intervention. The conflation of France and his father as oppressive authority became absolute. Absolute too was the veto on further searches for Clementina. Charles could not act on his own, since Gordon and the other Jacobites, once they realised that Clementina was under James’s protection, declared that they could not serve two masters. In the hierarchy of co
mmands from king and prince, James’s will took precedence.33

  Clementina’s flight, followed by the disclosure that James had abetted it, precipitated the prince into total breakdown. He declared he would neither eat nor drink until the child was returned to him.34 Nor would he answer any letters addressed to him, no matter who the correspondent, until France made reparation for the gross insult offered him. There can be no question but that the psychological blow of Clementina’s desertion was comparable to other great traumata in his life: Derby, Henry’s becoming a cardinal, his arrest in 1748. But before the prince withdrew into himself and maintained an almost catatonic silence towards the outside world, he took a resolution. James’s treachery over Clementina had finished him for all time. Charles would never forgive his father.35

  The débâcle over Clementina brought into the open the mutual unconscious hatred between father and son. What else, other than some deep-seated urge to get even with his son for the various ways in which Charles had supplanted him, can explain James’s extraordinary meddling in his son’s private life? Clementina Sobieska’s over-protective instincts for her son had destroyed James’s marriage. What more fitting than that the second Clementina should likewise flee to a convent, thus visiting on the son the humiliation the father had suffered thirty-five years before? Charles’s jibes about his father’s inability to manage his own marriage – which was why, he alleged, the Jacobites had waited to see how Charles Edward would turn out – could be neutralised if the son was also seen to be a failure in personal relations.

  On the other hand, it is quite clear that James was prodded into this self-destructive act of unconscious revenge by the prince’s steadfast refusal to take any notice of his advice. It is plain that, consciously or unconsciously (probably the latter), the prince never had any serious intention of visiting his father in Rome. Any chance of James’s escaping the ‘punishment’ due to him for the ‘horrors’ of the prince’s childhood (whether we see these as real or merely self-assigned by Charles) was almost certainly lost in 1747–8, after James’s behaviour over Henry’s cardinalate and the prince’s expulsion from France. Neither the prince nor his father realised the strength of the bonds of unconscious hatred that linked them.