Bonnie Prince Charlie: Charles Edward Stuart (Pimlico)

by McLynn, Frank

  33 R A Stuart 59/11.

  34 R A Stuart 53/28; 56/64; 57/93. Louis XIII in the early seventeenth century was twenty-five months at full weaning, but most recorded eighteenth-century cases hovered around the 4–6 months mark (De Mause, op. cit., p.36).

  35 R A Stuart 53/44.

  36 State Papers, Italian States 14 f.38.

  37 R A Stuart 54/18.

  38 R A Stuart 64/93.

  39 R A Stuart 60/57. This is undoubtedly the source of the typical Walton hyperbole of 5 January 1723 (SP Italian States 14 f.219) when he reports that Charles Edward’s legs are so bandy that it is doubtful he will ever be able to walk.

  40 R A Stuart 60/82.

  41 R A Stuart 61/142.

  42 R A Stuart 64/148. Walton described this as a fever caused because his teeth were starting to come through (SP Italian States 14 f.214).

  43 R A Stuart 66/148. His remarks to Sir Peter Redmond in June were even more fulsome: ‘I wish you could see our little friend, for I am sure he would be to your liking, being in all respects as I could wish’ (R A Stuart 67/83).

  44 R A Stuart 67/146.

  45 R A Stuart 71/74.

  46 R A Stuart 74/84.

  47 SP Italian States 14 f.23.

  48 R A Stuart 76/32.

  49 For Ramsay see G. D. Henderson, Chevalier Ramsay (1952); A. Cherel, Un Aventurier religieux au XVIII siècle, André-Michel Ramsay (Paris, 1926); E. Brault, Le Mystère du chevalier Ramsay (Paris, 1973); P. Chevallier, La première profanation du Temple maçonnique (Paris, 1968) and Les Ducs sous l’Acacia (Paris, 1964).

  50 Edward Gregg, ‘The Jacobite Career of the Earl of Mar’ in Eveline Cruickshanks, ed. Ideology and Conspiracy. Aspects of Jacobitism 1688–1759 (Edinburgh, 1982).

  51 R A Stuart 84/4, 12, 23.

  52 As the work of Freud shows, nothing is more difficult to disentangle than fact and fantasy in the area of infantile seduction. But Bernis’s testimony, whether reality or fantasy, is worth quoting to illustrate the real fears entertained by aristocratic parents on this issue: ‘Nothing is too dangerous for morals and perhaps for health as to leave children too long under the care of chambermaids, or even of young ladies brought up in the chateaux. I will add that the best among them are not always the least dangerous. They dare with a child that which they would be ashamed to risk with a young man’ (Bernis, Mémoires, ed. F. Masson (Paris, 1878) I, p.9).

  53 R A Stuart 53/84. James was quite certain the queen was with child: ‘As yet we do not speak of her big belly, although it is already visible’ (12 May 1721, R A Stuart 53/98. Cf. also S P Italian States 14 ff.83,506).

  54 S P Italian States 14 f.205.

  55 R A Stuart 61/45.

  56 While the royal couple were at Lucca in 1722, overall responsibility for Charles Edward seems to have devolved on the Abbé (later Cardinal) Tencin, who visited the young prince on a regular basis two or three times a week. S P Italian States 14 ff.89,124.

  57 R A Stuart 53/98, 160.

  58 R A Stuart 57/118.

  59 R A Stuart 64/58.

  60 Philippe Ariès, L’Enfant et la vie familiale, op. cit., pp.134–42.

  61 S P Italian States 15 ff.194,206.

  62 Ibid., ff.314,339,378–80,392.

  63 R A Stuart 87/65.

  64 R A Stuart 91/63.

  65 Such an elementary insight was beyond the denizens of the Palazzo Muti. Hence the bland reportage at the time of Henry’s birth: ‘The Prince is very fond of his brother’ (James to Ormonde, 10 March 1725, R A Stuart 80/140).

  66 S P Italian States 15 f.339.

  67 R A Stuart 86/70.

  68 R A Stuart 86/138; S P Italian States 15 f.438.

  69 S P Italian States 15 f.451.

  70 R A Stuart 87/65.

  71 R A Stuart 87/64.

  72 Historical Manuscripts Commission 10, I, p.161.

  73 R A Stuart 87/64.

  74 H M C 10, vi, p.217.

  75 S P Italian States 15 f.490.

  76 R A Stuart 89/32.

  77 R A Stuart 87/81.

  78 S P Italian States 14 f.257.

  79 Add. MSS (Gualterio) 20,304 f.13; 20,322 f.136.

  80 R A Stuart 89/58.

  81 S P Italian States 15 f.497.

  82 R A Stuart 87/154.

  83 R A Stuart 80/117.

  84 R A Stuart 89/20.

  85 In a letter to Clementina on 27 June 1726. R A Stuart 95/18.

  86 For these cf. S P Italian States 14 f.318; 15 f.16.

  87 S P Italian States 15 f.520.

  88 Add. MSS 21, 896 f.11.

  89 S P Italian States 15 f.504.

  90 Such as to the Academy of Architecture, Painting and Sculpture on the Capitoline Hill on 11 December 1725 (S P Italian States 15 f.515).

  91 R A Stuart 88/136.

  92 S P Italian States 16 ff.71,73.

  93 R A Stuart 92/82,84; 93/5.

  94 S P Italian States 16, f.34.

  95 R A Stuart 97/23.

  96 R A Stuart 91/63.

  97 S P Italian States 16 f.65; R A Stuart 95/60.

  98 R A Stuart 97/23.

  99 S P Italian States 16 f.104.

  100 R A Stuart 90/137; 91/21; S P Italian States 16 f.57.

  101 R A Stuart 89/32.

  102 S P Italian States 15 f.518; 16 f.65.

  103 S P Italian States 16 f.145.

  104 R A Stuart 95/130.

  105 R A Stuart 91/63.

  106 R A Stuart 98/74.

  107 R A Stuart 97/106,127; 98/16.

  108 S P Italian States 16 f.154.

  109 R A Stuart 98/18,66,74.

  110 R A Stuart 98/101.

  CHAPTER TWO

  1 Helen Catherine Stewart, ‘The Exiled Stewarts in Italy’, Miscellany of the Scottish Historical Society, VII, 2nd series (35), Edinburgh, 1941, p.76.

  2 R A Stuart 98/153.

  3 R A Stuart 98/18.

  4 S P Italian States 15 f.137.

  5 R A Stuart 95/103.

  6 See Aeneas MacDonald’s testimony. R. Forbes, ed., The Lyon in Mourning, 3 vols (Edinburgh, 1896), I, p.384.

  7 S P Italian States 15 f.422.

  8 R A Stuart 108/14–17.

  9 R A Stuart 105/29.

  10 See Liria’s diary in Documentos ineditos para la historia de España 93 (Madrid, 1889), pp.13–17.

  11 S P Italian States 16 ff.237,241,251.

  12 ‘He could ride and fire a gun. He was so good a shot that I have seen him kill birds on the roof with a crossbow and split a rolling ball with a bolt ten times in succession … I have never seen a more perfect prince in all my life.’ Documentos ineditos, op. cit., p.18.

  13 R A Stuart 107/88,119.

  14 R A Stuart 107/118; 109/15; S P Italian States 16 f.281.

  15 R A Stuart 108/54.

  16 R A Stuart 108/54; 109/109.

  17 R A Stuart 108/162; 109/32; 110/3,70,83.

  18 Add. MSS 32,752 f.80.

  19 S P Italian States 16 f.325.

  20 R A Stuart 111/71.

  21 R A Stuart 111/19.

  22 S P Italian States 16 f.325.

  23 R A Stuart 113/30.

  24 Add. MSS 20,661 f.120. A similar anodyne greeting in January 1729 is at f.122.

  25 R A Stuart 114/116.

  26 Unbound letter in RA, Windsor Castle. James replied that his son’s letters were a great source of comfort to him in his tribulation at Rome.

  27 R A Stuart 115/110; S P Italian States 16 f.372.

  28 R A Stuart 116/81.

  29 R A Stuart 116/8.

  30 R A Stuart 116/14.

  31 R A Stuart 117/38,64.

  32 R A Stuart 117/83,88.

  33 R A Stuart 117/128.

  34 R A Stuart 119/11. News of the miscarriage was kept secret. Walton remarked in December 1728 that according to his reckoning Clementina must now be twelve months pregnant! (S P Italian States 16 f.476.)

  35 S P Italian States 16 f.467; R A Stuart 121/25,86.

  36 R A Stuart 120/100.

  37 R A Stuart
120/91. Stafford was given the same terms as Sheridan: board, lodging and one hundred livres a month (R A Stuart 120/102).

  38 R A Stuart 120/103.

  39 R A Stuart 120/143.

  40 At a salary of 2,500 livres a year (R A Stuart 121/35).

  41 R A Stuart 122/127,142; 124/18; 122/126.

  42 R A Stuart 124/24.

  43 R A Stuart 122/27.

  44 R A Stuart 124/18.

  45 R A Stuart 124/119.

  46 R A Stuart 124/156.

  47 R A Stuart 125/17.

  48 R A Stuart 125/31,75.

  49 R A Stuart 125/102.

  50 H. Tayler, The Stuart Papers at Windsor (1939), p.83; cf. Charles Edward to James, 12 April 1729: ‘I am mighty glad to hear that you are so well and that I shall soon have the happiness to see you. I shall endeavour to be good, that you may always be pleased with me. My brother is grown well again, and my cough is almost gone’ (R A Stuart 126/152).

  51 R A Stuart 125/35.

  52 R A Stuart 126/1; 126/25.

  53 R A Stuart 126/137.

  54 R A Stuart 127/84.

  55 Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Principi 226 f.6 (1 May 1729).

  56 Anyone interested in the minutiae of Charles Edward’s early life could build up a detailed, almost day-by-day picture from the comprehensive (and even over-comprehensive) reports filed in the State Papers, Tuscany. There are more than 600 folios for the period 1730–3 alone (S P Tuscany 32).

  57 R. Shackleton, Montesquieu (Oxford, 1961), p.105; cf. also J. G. Keysler, Travels through Germany, Bohemia, Hungary, Switzerland, Italy and Lorraine (1756–7), II, p.46.

  58 S P Tuscany 32 ff.55,122,303. A report from Dunbar in January 1733 is typical: ‘Their highnesses were last Sunday at a noble ball given by Count Bolognetti and the appearance they made so charmed everybody that nothing has been talked of in Rome ever since. The truth is, that I never in my life saw anything comparable to the beauty and grace with which the Prince appeared that evening, and there were some English Whigs who could not conceal their emotion on that occasion’ (R A Stuart 158/104).

  59 S P Tuscany 32 ff.303,345,389.

  60 R A Stuart 127/107,109,112,128.

  61 R A Stuart 127/155. Whether through backwardness in reading or because of the illegibility of Clementina’s hand is not entirely clear. Certainly Clementina’s handwriting is singularly dreadful.

  62 R A Stuart 128/95.

  63 R A Stuart 129/12.

  64 S P Italian States 16 f.548.

  65 R A Stuart 130/48; 131/144,152.

  66 R A Stuart 132/11.

  67 R A Stuart 131/7–8; 133/86.

  68 S P Italian States 16 ff.537,571–2.

  69 R A Stuart 131/143.

  70 R A Stuart 131/95. There is a very revealing juxtaposition of the way of life of father and son in a letter from James to Clementina in May 1730: ‘Carluccio is just going to kill a buck in the Park of Marino, and I am going to Benediction where I shall not fail to pray for you’ (R A Stuart 136/155).

  71 R A Stuart 134/103; 135/84.

  72 R A Stuart 138/45.

  73 R A Stuart 138/54,148.

  74 R A Stuart 137/83.

  75 R A Stuart 142/19,27.

  76 R A Stuart 144/105.

  77 R A Stuart 143/154; 144/145; 145/34.

  78 R A Stuart 138/163; 139/79; S P Tuscany 32 f.104.

  79 S P Tuscany 32 ff.134,142,167.

  80 R A Stuart 140/38,104.

  81 R A Stuart 140/88.

  82 S P Tuscany 32 ff.215,273,285.

  83 R A Stuart 145/73,78,119–20,129. On 26 May James wrote to Charles Edward that he and Edgar had been on a trip to Vesuvius, from which he would bring back ‘a number of stinking stones for you and Henry’ (R A Stuart 145/138).

  84 On 13 June 1731 she tells him it will be ‘hart’ (sic) for him to understand her English, but praises his correspondence with her. ‘Your letter has done me more pleasure being by your own composition than if it had been of another’ (R A Stuart 146/34).

  85 R A Stuart 146/141; 147/103.

  86 James to Clementina, 19 September 1731, R A Stuart 148/149.

  87 R A Stuart 148/149; 150/157.

  88 R A Stuart 151/67.

  89 R A Stuart 151/68.

  90 R A Stuart 151/124. The narrator concludes sententiously: ‘A moralist might hence observe that even the greatest people are born with just sentiments of natural liberty, which are never stifled in them by flattery.’

  91 R A Stuart 147/103.

  92 R A Stuart 92/3.

  93 S P Tuscany 32 f.399.

  94 S P Russia 10. f.152.

  95 R A Stuart 157/33.

  96 R A Stuart 157/155.

  97 R A Stuart 157/169.

  98 R A Stuart 157/190.

  99 Archives Etrangères, Correspondance Politique, Angleterre 376 ff.247–73; 377 ff.126–31; 380 ff.205–7. Cf. also Horace Walpole, Memoirs of the Reign of George II, 3 vols (1846), I, p.73.

  100 R A Stuart 158/138.

  101 R A Stuart 158/122.

  102 There is a good example in May 1732 (R A Stuart 153/18). Cf. also R A Stuart 155/165; 161/167.

  103 R A Stuart 158/104.

  104 R A Stuart 155/24; 156/163.

  105 R A Stuart 155/159. ‘He has made a progress in two months such as many don’t do in as many years who gain their bread by it.’

  106 S P Tuscany 32 f.577.

  107 S P Tuscany 32 f.488; R A Stuart 155/165.

  108 S P Tuscany 32 f.588.

  109 S P Tuscany 32 ff.265,267.

  110 R A Stuart 168/87,194.

  111 James to Inverness, 1 June 1734, R A Stuart 170/151.

  112 R A Stuart 158/104.

  CHAPTER THREE

  1 SP Tuscany 37 f.22.

  2 Ibid., f.24.

  3 R A Stuart 168/118,126,137,143.

  4 S P Tuscany 37 f.24.

  5 R A Stuart 168/32; 169/25,55.

  6 R A Stuart 169/41.

  7 R A Stuart 170/77. Charles Edward bounced back from his privations with his usual élan. Cf. James to Clementina, 20 May 1734: ‘Carluccio has won six crowns at buoco and is very full at present of swallow shooting’ (R A Stuart 170/97).

  8 R A Stuart 170/15.

  9 R A Stuart 170/92.

  10 R A Stuart 170/51.

  11 R A Stuart 170/159,179.

  12 S P Tuscany 37 f.52; R A Stuart 171/28.

  13 R A Stuart 171/33.

  14 R A Stuart 171/38.

  15 S P Tuscany 37 ff.105,119,127.

  16 R A Stuart 171/162–3.

  17 S P Tuscany 37 ff.137–8.

  18 R A Stuart 172/14; S P Tuscany 37 ff.141–3.

  19 R A Stuart 172/10. ‘I cannot, my dear child, let this day pass without sending my blessing with all the tenderness I am capable of.… You will, I hope, be one day both a great and a good man, which I pray God to make you’ (James to Charles Edward, 30 July 1734, R A Stuart 172/17).

  20 R A Stuart 172/47.

  21 Tayler, Stuart Papers at Windsor, op. cit., p.90.

  22 R A Stuart 172/51.

  23 Add. MSS 38,851 f.139.

  24 Stowe MSS 158 f.187.

  25 R A Stuart 172/55.

  26 R A Stuart 172/56.

  27 Stowe MSS 158 f.187.

  28 R A Stuart 172/56.

  29 R A Stuart 172/92.

  30 R A Stuart 172/86.

  31 R A Stuart 172/114.

  32 Add. MSS 38,851 f.139; Stowe MSS 158 f.187.

  33 Ibid.

  34 James’s letter to Charles Edward on 7 August, before he had heard from Dunbar, is instructive: ‘Have a particular care for your diet, for it would be a foolish and vexatious thing should you fall ill there by eating trash’ (R A Stuart 172/58).

  35 R A Stuart 172/149.

  36 Spain used the fiction of Charles Edward’s incognito to counter this (R A Stuart 172/128).

  37 R A Stuart 172/73.

  38 H M C 15, ii, p.236.

  39 S P Tuscany 37 f.165.

  40 R A Stuart 172/106,
129. Berwick went so far as to praise the prince’s education ‘which does Lord Dunbar and Sir Thomas no small honour’ (R A Stuart 172/88).

  41 R A Stuart 172/133–4.

  42 R A Stuart 172/166.

  43 For Bolingbroke’s last throw of these particular dice see R A Stuart 169/26. Nor could Charles’s cause have been helped in his father’s eyes by Bolingbroke’s encomium for the prince’s behaviour at Gaeta (R A Stuart 173/178).

  44 R A Stuart 171/46.

  45 S P Tuscany 37 f.142.

  46 ‘Your late indisposition will, I hope, contribute to make you more temperate in your diet’ (R A Stuart 173/22). Cf. also HMC 15, ii, p.237; Add. MSS 38,851 f.139.

  47 R A Stuart 172/149.

  48 S P Tuscany 37 f.164.

  49 Ibid., f.165.

  50 R A Stuart 173/166.

  51 HMC 10, vi, p.279.

  52 S P Tuscany 37 f.165.

  53 R A Stuart 173/68–9.

  54 R A Stuart 173/114; 174/13. ‘The Duke … promises yet more than the Prince’ (22 September 1734).

  55 ‘The Duke was a little too cunning for the Prince’ (R A Stuart 175/107).

  56 R A Stuart 174/128.

  57 R A Stuart 175/10.

  58 R A Stuart 176/2.

  59 R A Stuart 176/67.

  60 R A Stuart 176/22.

  61 R A Stuart 176/143,150.

  62 R A Stuart 177/1.

  63 R A Stuart 177/2.

  64 S P Tuscany 37 f.199.

  65 R A Stuart 177/10.

  66 R A Stuart 177/23.

  67 R A Stuart 177/24.

  68 R A Stuart 177/49.

  69 This is the area where, par excellence, the methodological limitations of trying to retrieve the past from documents alone become clear.

  70 The locus classicus is of course Freud’s essay, ‘Mourning and Melancholia’, SE 14, pp.239–58. The subject has recently been examined in great detail in the third volume of John Bowlby’s monumental Attachment and Loss: J. Bowlby, Loss, Sadness and Depression (1980).

  71 R A Stuart 179/18.

  72 Alastair Smart, The Life and Art of Allan Ramsay (1952), p.27.

  73 R A Stuart 181/142,149; 182/108,134.

  74 R A Stuart 186/82.

  75 R A Stuart 182/103.

  76 S P Tuscany 37 ff.269,273,304.

  77 R A Stuart 183/60,81; 185/188. ‘I believe he could fatigue already as much as most people here’ (James to Marischal, 23 January 1736, R A Stuart 185/91).

  78 S P Tuscany 37 ff.227,229,277. On his many canters in the Villas Barberini and Ludovici Charles Edward sustained frequent falls from his horse from which he emerged unscathed.

  79 R A Stuart 185/100; 187/2,38.