Henry went on to say that as a gesture of good will he was prepared to make over the papal pension of 10,000 Roman crowns (which James would have left to his cardinal son) to Charles.7 In euphoric mood Henry wrote a very warm letter to his brother. But he had jumped the gun.8 The prince was still not ready to abandon his stubborn stance as incommunicado. Lady Webb rebuked him for inconsistency. She pointed out that he already corresponded on business with Gordon. Surely an exception should be made for the Cardinal Duke?9
The prince professed his attachment to his brother, but still did not write to him.10 Commendably, Henry then made another direct approach (September 1765).11 He followed with a small masterpiece of diplomacy. Having heard that Charles in pique had abjured his own abjuration when the prize of the English crown seemed finally beyond his grasp, he praised him for returning to the faith of his ancestors. He added that he quite understood the prince’s distaste about returning to Rome; he suggested instead some small town in the papal states.12
At last, on 3 October 1765, the prince broke his silence and wrote to his brother.13 Lady Webb was triumphant: ‘no words can express the joy with which I received the honour of Your Royal Highness’s of the 3rd.’14
Yet the truth was that it was circumstance rather than sentiment that produced the letter to the Cardinal Duke. At the eleventh hour the prince suddenly saw the political abyss that yawned at his feet. At the very last moment he realised that there was a real possibility that he might not be recognised as de jure king of England when his father died. Only Henry could help him now. But to appreciate the dimensions of the problem Charles Edward faced on the de jure succession, we must return for a moment to the reign of Benedict XIV, the Vatican’s philosopher-king.
Benedict XIV had steered a difficult course in his relations with the Stuarts. Although in the excitement of the ’45 he had momentarily allowed himself to hope and believe in a Stuart restoration, the basic tenor of Benedict’s policies was to conciliate the British.15 At the same time, he had a very high personal regard for both James and Henry, as evinced in the 1747 elevation to the cardinalate.
These good relations continued throughout the 1750s, until Benedict’s death.16 The Pope was particularly impressed with the fact that Henry had proved a happy choice as cardinal.17 In the well-known rift in 1752 between James and Henry over the cardinal’s close (possibly homosexual) relationship with the Abbé Lercari, Benedict acted as mediator and peace-maker.18
The curious thing is that in their official correspondence with the Pope, neither James nor Henry ever mentioned Charles Edward. The contrast between this official reticence and their domestic carping was clear, for in 1751 Henry complained bitterly of his brother’s treatment of him.19 Yet Benedict was statesmanlike enough to see the possibly disastrous consequences of an open rift between king and prince, especially if James made good his frequently intimated threat to cut Charles Edward out of his will, or at least out of the revenue from pensions and benefices.20 Since the Pope was shrewd enough to realise that one of the causes of hostility between James and Charles was the king’s obvious preference for Henry, he did his best to pour oil on troubled waters and to steer James away from over-reaction to his elder son’s silences that the king might later regret.21
But Benedict did not need the doubts and reservations expressed by the prince’s father and brother to make him disillusioned with Charles Edward. He achieved that condition unaided. In 1752 he raised with James the subject of the rumours then circulating that the prince had turned Protestant. When James promptly changed the subject, Benedict became convinced there was some foundation in the rumours.22 Nor did he forget the disastrous months while the prince was at Avignon. In 1754, when the prince was in Paris seeking a permanent domicile, Benedict was informed that Charles Edward again considered Avignon an attractive prospect, especially since France would not oppose his settling there, unlike in 1749. The mere thought of a repeat of January 1749 filled Benedict with horror.
The thought of the prince’s possible return to Rome was no more palatable. He would introduce ‘libertinage’ and ‘civil war’ into the Stuart household. If Avignon was preferable to that, there was still the virtual certainty that Charles Edward would once again treat the vice-legate as his servant and the enclave as his fief.23 By now Benedict was contemptuous of the prince. In his heart he was already (1753) convinced that the prince was a lost cause and would never succeed in his designs.24 Even so, this intellectual conviction was balanced by an emotional wish for Charles Edward’s success, both because of Benedict’s fondness for James and Henry and for the sake of the English Catholics. What the Pope dreaded most was that James would die suddenly and leave him the agonising choice of whether to recognise Charles Edward as king.25 In such a decision, sentiment and ideology would pull one way, political expediency the other. Benedict prayed that such a choice would be left to his successor.
Benedict got his wish. The issue was still unsettled at his death in 1758. At the conclave to elect his successor, Cardinal York was already an important figure in the College of Cardinals.26 Even Charles Edward saw the importance of electing a successor favourable to Stuart interests.27 When Clement XIII was elected, after Cardinal Cavalchini, the front-runner, was blocked by the opposition of the French cardinals, the prince lost no time in sending him a message of congratulation.28 But he rather spoiled things by asking for his compliments to be made secretly. As James waspishly remarked (hinting at what he already knew), only a Protestant prince would make such a request.29
The Vatican factor increased in importance as James’s health faltered. Even Kelly could see that if the prince did not go to Rome before his father’s death, he would suffer gravely from the omission.30 If Charles were to appear at his bedside to receive James’s blessing and be reconciled to him in a tearful and emotional finale to the king’s life, it would be humanly and morally impossible for the Pope to refuse to recognise the prince as James’s heir, the future Charles III of the three kingdoms.31
It was the mark of a bad politician to attempt to ask for recognition as de jure monarch after James’s death. Charles Edward was no fool and at one level he realised this very well. Even if he had not been able to work out this obvious truth for himself, he was receiving precisely this advice from his friends. Murray of Elibank warned that if he went to Rome after James’s death, the Pope would not acknowledge him. ‘Not acknowledged by the Pope and deprived of your father’s succession, your situation will be worse than when in the Highlands after the battle of Culloden.’32 Lady Webb added that if he declared himself a Protestant, this would give the prince ‘a unique loophole’.33 As a half-hearted response to this, the prince in 1763 renewed his compliments to Clement XIII.34
The real problem was not the prince’s lack of perceptiveness on the papal recognition issue. The trouble lay elsewhere. The flight of Clementina had opened a Pandora’s box of self-destructive urges. As late as October 1765 Charles was planning to live in Paris after James’s demise.35 Such a course of action would have destroyed all chances of papal recognition. Yet after the Clementina affair the one thing the prince could never do was make obeisance to his father.
The opening up of the channel to Henry underlined the complexity of the situation. Clement XIII himself had suffered an attack of apoplexy in August 1765.36 The one thing no one had bargained for was that James might die just after a new Pope had been elected or, even worse, during the conclave itself. But while communication with Henry revealed the labyrinthine implications of the de jure succession, it also offered hope. Henry suggested a way in which the circle might be squared. The task was to have Charles Edward recognised as legitimate successor to James without insisting on a formal bending of the knee by son to father. The fact that James was barely conscious provided a possibility of cutting the Gordian knot.
The critical four-month struggle for papal recognition began on 3 October 1765 when Charles Edward at last broke his silence with a famous overture to the Pope, hard on the
heels of his first letter to Henry. After assuring the Pope of his veneration, the prince asked the Supreme Pontiff to procure for him the honours and titles his father had always enjoyed.37 Meanwhile the rapprochement between the two brothers continued with a very warm letter from Charles Edward on 28 October, in which, anticipating success, he looked forward to embracing the Cardinal Duke in Rome.38 The prince disregarded Henry’s cautious letter, in which he warned Charles Edward that it would not be possible for him (Henry) to see the Pope for a fortnight.39
The tissue of confusions that characterised the next few months was immediately observable. The Pope’s initial response was ambiguous. He promised to continue the pension of 12,000 crowns a year and to provide the Palazzo Muti as the Stuart residence, but said nothing about continuing to guarantee the marks of royalty, except that he would take his cue on this issue from the example of other sovereigns.40 Henry meanwhile enlisted the aid of Cardinal Francis (Gianfrancesco) Albani, Protector of Scotland, to promote his brother’s suit. Following an interview with Clement XIII, Albani was able to tell Henry that if Charles Edward came to Rome, the Pope would receive him with benevolence and paternal love.41 Again there was no overt commitment to recognise the prince as Charles III, but at this stage Henry was well content and thanked Albani for his efforts.42
Henry’s next move was to persuade Cardinal Albani to write to Charles Edward with these assurances and to invite him to Rome.43 Albani then returned to the attack inside the Vatican. He successfully lobbied Cardinal Rezzonico and the ambassador of Malta. At his next audience with the Pope, Henry brought letters of support for Charles from these two. Again the Pope temporised. He said that the question of recognising the Stuart prince as Charles III was so complex that he would have to refer it to a special congregation of cardinals. Albani pointed out that such a move would inevitably sour relations with Charles Edward. The Pope remained unmoved.44
The reality of the situation in Rome was that prospects for Charles Edward’s recognition as Charles III were nothing like so propitious as the prince himself assumed. Charles read Albani’s letters as a firm commitment from the Pope on this score. His mood was jaunty as he prepared to quit Bouillon.45
Even so, he received enough warnings from his followers that he was on shifting sands. Seeing the extent to which the Pope was stalling, Henry thought it necessary to brief his brother on the tricky political conjuncture. The crisis with the Jesuits made this a peculiarly bad time to approach the Vatican with a fresh political conundrum. That was why it was essential for the prince to arrive in Rome before James died. Clement’s hand would then be forced: he would either have to recognise the prince forthwith or expel him. Henry ended by stressing the importance of getting the support of France and Spain for the claim.46
Jacobites resident in France considered that getting the support of Versailles would be no easy matter. The prince’s past record did not predispose the French court in his favour. Choiseul, especially, was well known to be unflinchingly hostile to him.47 Lady Webb suggested that it might be better to try to win Spain over first, since the French view seemed to be that they would recognise the prince as king of England only when some other Catholic power had already done so.48 With this in mind, Charles Edward appointed the comte de Serrant, Walsh’s brother, as his minister in Spain and sent him off to Madrid with a personal appeal to Charles III for recognition.49
So far the prince had acted with unwonted dispatch for this period of his life. But he wasted valuable time winding up his affairs in Bouillon and Avignon. He was in no doubt about his reception in Rome. All boats were to be burned and all his effects transferred there. To Stafford in Avignon he sent the unsentimental message: ‘All the dogs to be disposed of, even the big one.’50
Yet, though he considered himself rushed and remained querulous that he had to proceed to Paris without visiting Lunéville,51 the prince’s preparations for the journey were stately and leisurely. An apartment had been prepared for his use in Paris, but it was 12 December 1765 before he arrived in the French capital.52 Then he wasted further time, securing immunity from baggage checks and a multiplicity of laissez-passer documents before he departed southwards.53 It was the last day of 1765, ironically the day before his father died, before he finally left Paris for Rome.54
Meanwhile in Rome events were moving too fast for him. On 1 January 1766, at 9.15 p.m., James finally gave up the ghost. Henry sent instructions through Andrew Lumisden that the prince should halt at the Albani palace at Urbino until he had secured recognition from the Pope.55 Then he learned that the Pope intended to come to a definite decision on Charles Edward in early January. In a hastily-scribbled postscript, he asked the prince not to stop at Urbino but to come straight on to Rome.56
Then Henry sat down to compose a long memorandum to the Pope on the reasons why his brother should be recognised as king of England. He pointed out that five Popes had already recognised the Stuarts as de jure monarchs of England, Scotland and Ireland. Failure to recognise Charles Edward now would be to mock the memory of previous holders of the keys of St Peter. It would also be tantamount to denying that monarchs ruled by divine right.57
Henry accompanied his public memoir with a private letter to the Pope. The tone was mawkish. He expatiated on the bitterness of the blow of non-recognition to ‘two orphan princes’, a blow that would be delivered not by the enemies of the Church but by the Vicar of Christ himself. He ended with the somewhat injudicious quotation: ‘if it be possible, let this chalice pass from me.’58
The memoir and the letter were delivered to the Pope by Cardinal Gianfrancesco Albani. The Pope read them and said he would seek further advice from the conclave. He asked Henry to make no further use of the memorial in the meantime. On the evening of 3 January Clement received Henry in audience. Henry pressed hard, but could get no concession other than permission to circulate his memoir to members of the Sacred College.59 Dissatisfied with this response, Henry sent his paper to Cardinal Orsini, Minister of Naples; to Spanish Minister Asprus; and to the French ambassador the marquis d’Aubeterre.60
All three ministers obtained audience with Cardinal Secretary of State Torregiani and pressed Charles Edward’s case. At the same time Henry wrote to the kings of France, Spain and Naples with supporting letters from their envoys.61
The Pope was already annoyed with Henry for, as he saw it, going behind his back to the French and Spanish. But now Cardinal York made an even more disastrous blunder. Alarmed at the Pope’s foot-dragging, and afraid that the Pontiff might wriggle off the hook by claiming there was no clear constituency for recognising Charles Edward, Henry published the entire three-way correspondence between himself, the prince and Albani.62
This piece of consummate folly immediately alienated Albani. Justifiably, he protested that his efforts had been made in good faith and in confidence. Henry had no right to try to pre-empt the issue.63 Henry lost a valuable ally. Albani was so angry at Cardinal York’s faithlessness and duplicity that he was minded to denounce him publicly. His friends dissuaded him on the grounds that it was he himself who would look most foolish in such an exposure. Ominously, Albani proceeded instead to underline the distinction between a promise of welcome to the papal states – which he had made to Charles Edward – and the very different question of his recognition as king, which had never been promised.64
Henry had made powerful enemies. The Pope’s selection of cardinals for the conclave that would decide Charles Edward’s fate reflected this. The strongly pro-Stuart Cardinal Negroni was pointedly excluded.65 Included was the notorious Hanoverian spy Cardinal Alessandro Albani, whose presence on the payroll of British intelligence was an open secret.66 The other cardinals selected were either creatures of the Pope or dyed-in-the-wool supporters of the House of Austria. The full complement of the congregation held at the Quirinal on 14 January 1766 to decide whether or not to recognise Charles Edward as king was so weighted as to make the decision appear a foregone conclusion. Apart from Secretary of Sta
te Torregiani and Alessandro Albani, the others present were cardinals Rezzonico, Cavalchini, Ferroni, Antonelli, Castelli, Deprossi, Sorberoni and Stoppani.67
The conclave was immediately sworn to the secret of the Inquisition. Then Henry’s long memoir was read out. This was generally considered very weak in its argumentation.68 Once it had been read, the Pope proceeded to outline his objections to Henry’s theses. His basic premise was that the interests of Catholicism in general must take precedence over those of the House of Stuart. At the moment the Catholic religion was tolerated in England. Large numbers of Catholics were emigrating from England to north America, holding out the hope that the Americas might some day be solidly Catholic. All this would be in jeopardy if the English were provoked into abandoning their policy of leniency.69 Not only would Catholics be driven out of England, but English tolerance for Catholic missionaries in foreign lands, especially north America, would cease. Bringing the savages to God surely had to have a higher priority in the eyes of the Church than the interests of the House of Stuart.70 Besides, the Pope pointed out, it was chimerical to hope for the restoration of Catholicism in England through the return of the Stuarts. It was now two hundred years since Pius V had excommunicated Queen Elizabeth.71
Summing up, the Pope pointed to a number of reasons why it was folly for the Vatican to recognise the Stuart prince as Charles III. The interests of Catholicism, the continuity of good relations between the Vatican and England, even the trade of the papal states depended on not provoking the English into retaliatory measures over the Stuarts.
Bonnie Prince Charlie: Charles Edward Stuart (Pimlico) Page 62
