Bonnie Prince Charlie: Charles Edward Stuart (Pimlico)

by McLynn, Frank

  Spain and England had been getting ever closer to warfare in the 1730s over British contraband commerce with the closed trading area of Spanish America, and Spanish use of its guardacostas to intercept British smugglers. In 1739 this tension broke out into open warfare, the ‘War of Jenkins’s Ear’. In the early stages of the conflict, in the Caribbean, the Spanish held their own. They lost Portobello to Admiral Vernon, but when Vernon attacked Cartagena they beat him off with heavy losses. It made sense, then, for the Jacobites to co-ordinate their plots with Spain.

  The most obvious way to do this was to send Charles Edward to Madrid. But at this juncture James, who had been pressing hard the year before for such an invitation, became circumspect. The ghost of the failure of the 1719 rising, engineered by Spain, haunted James.11 It was quite clear that any Spanish enterprise would have to be directed against Scotland. But what James really wanted was a foreign invasion of England. This could come only from France. Moreover, James was not even certain that Spain was in earnest over a Scottish expedition: might they not simply be intending to use Charles Edward as a scarecrow? And the Pope was far from convinced that the Spanish would press hard enough for a Catholic restoration in England.12

  This papal angle soon became crucial in more ways than one. Clement XII had promised a large sum of money to back the proposed Hispano-Jacobite scheme, but before the financial details could be ratified he fell dangerously ill. It was thought best to wait and see whether the Pontiff would pull through and, if not, who would succeed him, before committing Charles Edward to Spain.13

  The winter weather of 1739–40 was singularly harsh. Not only did it carry off the ailing Pope, but it meant there was no question of the prince’s leaving for Spain before the spring. When spring came, James took one of his rare firm decisions. His elder son’s going to Spain was no longer even discussed. There were three main reasons for the decision. The first was the negative reports James was receiving from his representatives Ormonde and Marischal in Madrid. The count of Montemar ordered the two Jacobite emissaries to leave Madrid for the coast of Galicia, where they (and later the prince) would join an expedition to Scotland. Neither Ormonde nor Marischal believed the Spanish were sincere and asked for further assurances. Montemar became angry and tried to browbeat the Jacobites – precisely the wrong tactics with proud and obstinate men like Ormonde and Marischal.

  A series of acrimonious meetings took place, at the end of which Marischal reported to James that the court at Madrid was patently insincere.14 The last thing Elizabeth Farnese wanted was a military stroke that would bring a quick end to the war with England. Moreover, the openness with which Charles Edward’s advent was talked about in Spain meant that the military project must be bogus. The Spanish were so contemptuous of the Jacobites and so cavalier in their tacit admission that they were merely using the Stuarts that they could not even tell a consistent story. While the line being fed to Ormonde and Marischal concerned an expedition from Galician ports to Scotland, the rumours being put about by Spain in France were to do with a descent on Ireland from Cadiz, using the prince.15

  The second factor that gave James pause was the uncertainty over the new Pope. The conclave that eventually produced Benedict XIV was one of the longest in the history of the papacy. Clement XII died in February 1740 and his successor was not chosen until August.16 Until he was sure he did not have another Benedict XIII to deal with, James did not want to take any momentous decisions.

  Third, anti-Spanish feeling engendered by the capture of Portobello was running so strongly in 1740 that the time did not seem propitious to James to launch a rising with Spanish help. The widespread hatred for Spain in England meant that a Spanish bid to restore the Stuarts at this juncture would be counterproductive.17 It would be all too easy for Whig propaganda to convert the social discontent that in a time of peace would work in favour of the Jacobites into anti-Stuart feeling by playing on this theme. Moreover, after the loss of Portobello the Spanish themselves laid aside all ideas about invading the British Isles. They remained on the defensive, building up their strength for a counterattack in the Americas, It was clear that there had been no co-ordination between Spain and France; as James clearly saw, the trouble was that France could restore him without Spain but not vice versa.18

  The emphasis therefore shifted back to France. There was no more talk of the prince’s going to Madrid. It was now Paris that was the favoured destination.19 The obvious problem here was that, whereas Spain and England were in a state of declared war, France was still carrying on overt hostilities against England under a guise of neutrality. Such a pretence would be impossible to maintain if France made an open invitation to Charles Edward.

  Yet the outbreak of general European war in 1740 did bring one advantage to the prince. The new Pope was friendly to the Stuarts. Fleury was under great pressure to declare war on England. A new Jacobite era seemed to be taking shape. Mindful that his son’s political experience had been limited so far, to say the least, James finally made Charles Edward a full member of his council and had him present at all meetings.20

  By now the prince’s thoughts were concentrating strongly on Scotland. He wrote to the clans in September 1740, pledging that he would soon put into execution a project for their deliverance from the Hanoverian yoke.21 It can thus be seen that his choice of Scotland as a launching pad for a rising in 1745 was no mere spur-of-the moment affair. Indeed the volume of traffic between Rome and Scotland at this time convinced Horace Mann, the English agent in Florence, that a descent on the northern kingdom, possibly to coincide with Charles Edward’s majority, would not be long delayed.22

  It was already an open secret that France would bring the prince to Versailles as soon as war was declared on England.23 But when would that be? Some further means had to be found to turn the screws on Fleury. James was at this time in close touch with Cardinal Tencin, French representative in Rome. Unfortunately, James always overrated both the influence and ability of this prelate. Tencin was basically a nonentity who had risen to a position near the top of the French hierarchy through his sister’s influence. The real talent in the Tencin family was Claudine Alexandrine (1681–1749). By this time she was well past the peak of her influence, but in her day, as notable beauty and novelist, she had dazzled France. Her lovers had included Louis XV’s regent the duc d’Orleans and his partner in the sordid French politics of 1715–23 Cardinal Dubois. She had even served time in the Bastille, when one of the legion of her lovers shot himself in her house (1726).24 Tencin had been elevated to the purple on James’s nomination and was already being tipped as a future successor to Fleury as de facto Prime Minister. On his advice James began to look around for suitable marriage partners for the prince, to increase his credibility in French eyes and make an alliance with the Stuarts seem politically more desirable.

  The first candidate proposed, in August 1740, was his cousin the Princesse de Bouillon. Such a match would have given Charles Edward a secure base in Poland, but would have taken him rather far from the main cockpit of political action.25 More promising was the Princesse de Conti, then aged fourteen and in a convent, but said to be charming in both mind and body.26 There were obvious advantages in a marriage with a Bourbon princess. O’Brien was willing to press Fleury for the match, against the competing claims of the duc de Chartres, but James decided that since it was still realistic to hope for a Stuart restoration, he could aim higher.27 At the moment his sights were set on a princess of Spain or France.

  At the beginning of 1741 Tencin suggested to James that the Princess of Massa, said recently to have broken off her engagement to the Prince of Modena, would be a suitable partner for his son. This princess was extremely wealthy and the marriage would give the Stuarts a territorial base on which they could, if necessary, live and drill their own army. Moreover, the match would have important political sponsors. The grand duke of Tuscany was fearful that the duke of Modena had plans to build a road between his duchy and Massa and install interna
l customs barriers in competition with those of Tuscany. The failure of the Massa/Modena dynastic alliance would effectively scotch this plan. Finally, he, Tencin, was prepared to guarantee that Spain and France would make over Corsica to the prince as a wedding present.28

  While James dithered over this proposal, the duke of Modena, alerted to the danger of a Stuart competitor, dropped the previous conditions he had set for marriage to the Princess of Massa and pressed ahead rapidly with the union.29 Despairing of a successful outcome there, Tencin suggested the duchess of Turin, a millionairess; but James’s appetite for minor Italian principalities and duchies had never been keen.30

  Throughout 1742 and early 1743 James took exhaustive soundings to determine whether there was any possibility of a marriage with one of Louis XV’s young daughters.31 The project had the backing of Stanislas of Lorraine (ex-king of Poland and Louis XV’s father-in-law) and of the Jesuits. A favourite idea was that the French king’s second daughter could become queen of an independent Scotland.32 The death of Fleury in January 1743 raised James’s hopes, but it soon became clear that, whatever France’s future plans for the Stuart prince were, they did not include such a dynastic union. Before any further marriage projects could be set on foot the prince had left Rome for good.

  It was always unlikely that the French court would entertain a marriage proposal from the Stuarts, since they could not even make up their minds to invite Charles Edward to campaign with their armies. After the Spanish venue for the prince had been dropped, three tiresome years passed in sustained lobbying by the Stuarts at Versailles, answered by equally assiduous French stalling.33 There were frequent rumours that Charles had left Rome for France, which were as frequently denied.34

  These rumours reached a crescendo on Tencin’s recall from Rome in the spring of 1742.35 It was feared that Tencin’s departure could be used to mask the sudden disappearance of the prince.36 There was no foundation in any of these rumours. In fact so dejected was James by the French court’s repeated prevarications that he even toyed with sending his son to serve with Frederick of Prussia.37

  Yet if there was nothing but disappointment for the Stuarts from the French as the War of Austrian Succession pursued its tortuous course, Charles Edward personally could congratulate himself on two counts. In the first place, the new Pope Benedict XIV seemed as impressed by him as his predecessor.38 This was not simple continuity of policy. Benedict (Prospero Lambertini) was the outstanding Pope of the eighteenth century. His erudition, wit and humanity easily qualified him for the title of philosopher-king.39 To win such a man’s approbation was not easy. Anyone who has ever doubted the charisma of Charles Edward Stuart should ponder the impression he made on such a Pope. There can be no doubting the Pontiff’s genuine warmth towards the prince. The frequency of their meetings alone is a salient pointer.40 Indeed, on many significant indices Benedict showed himself even more committed to Charles than Clement had been. On his twentieth birthday the prince was given a present of 4,000 scudi in gold coins.41 In June 1742, when the Stuarts went for their villegiatura at Albano, the Pope sent them an armed guard as a sign of his esteem, and on the 18th of that month came out to the Palazzo Savelli to visit them.42 Benedict was also deeply involved throughout 1743 in the protracted negotiations to try to get Charles Edward to Paris.43

  The other development was the prince’s central and ever increasing role in the Jacobite movement, especially after he had passed his majority. Once Charles had been given a seat on James’s council, he routinely read dispatches from foreign agents and ministers, even the highly confidential ones, as from Fleury. Whenever James held private meetings with important contacts (such as Tencin’s nephew Bailli de Tencin), Charles Edward would be summoned immediately afterwards and given a summary of the meeting. It was customary for father and son to visit the Pope together. In the early days Charles Edward would depart from the meeting early, leaving James in private conclave with the Pontiff. Yet by early 1743 he was not only remaining the full hour with his father, but was actually staying on longer while James retired early.44

  On 30 December 1741 Charles Edward attained his majority. He celebrated by giving a grand ball for the nobility of Rome.45 James received the compliments of the pro-Jacobite cardinals. Although the prince was still a virtual prisoner in Italy and lacked a wider arena in which to exercise his talents, the year 1742 saw him very much as he would appear in Scotland three years later. What general picture can we provide of the prince as he stood at the threshold of his high adventure?

  That he already possessed all the physical attributes of the warrior has already been demonstrated. A crack shot and superb horseman, his one deficiency was a lack of real military experience. For all the enthusiasm over his behaviour at Gaeta, it remained the case that he had seen just six hours’ active service, and not even in the front line at that.

  Intellectually, too, the prince had not kept pace with his achievements as marksman and hunter. His early life demonstrates an impatience and lack of concern with academic learning.46 This is not to say that he was unintelligent (it is in any case an elementary error to confuse ‘intelligent’ with ‘intellectual’ or even vice versa), but simply that at this stage in his life the importance of reflective study had not been borne in upon him.47 James emphasised its importance; therefore, in Charles Edward’s eyes, it must be suspect.

  Dunbar proved singularly useless as the prince’s governor. His attentions were largely elsewhere, brooding on the threats to his position in the Stuart household and the rival claims for the king’s affection of the absent Inverness and Marischal. That left only Sheridan, and his mode was shameless pampering. One result of this defective education was that Charles Edward was always an indifferent letter-writer in the formal sense.48 His true mental qualities emerge more clearly in his own jottings and aide-mémoires. As we shall see, this inability, except on rare occasions, to communicate his sharper insights to others, is an important clue to his psychological make-up.

  Too much should not be made, however, of the prince’s notoriously bad spelling. Charles’s quasi-italic impersonal handwriting doubtless offended nineteenth-century sensibilities more than it does those of the twentieth, where legibility is prized above ‘character’. As for his eccentric orthography, one does not need to bring in the late twentieth-century diagnosis of ‘dyslexia’ to appreciate that poor spelling, though an irritant, need not necessarily be the final consideration when it comes to assessing a person’s intelligence. Frederick the Great and Napoleon were also affected by this literary deficiency.

  Against these defects can be set the prince’s rare personal qualities. There is so much direct and indirect evidence of his charisma and ability to charm when he so chose that it is pointless to deny that he possessed personal magnetism of a rare order. This is an elusive and indefinable quality, all the harder to pin down since none of the extant portraits of the prince as a young man show him as conventionally handsome, either by eighteenth-century standards or our own. His features were somewhat spoiled by a sloping forehead and a long chin with a button point; the fact that the nape of his neck was bull-like did not recommend his looks to contemporary taste either. Like most of the Stuarts (Mary Queen of Scots is a well-known example) Charles Edward was well above average height. He was about five feet eleven inches tall, was long-faced, high-nosed, possessed the distinctive sensual Stuart lips, and had a ruddy complexion, large, melancholy rolling brown eyes and reddish hair. A description of the prince by Murray of Broughton in 1742 is useful as it makes exactly the point that it was not Charles’s individual features that made the physical impact but rather the whole personality:

  Tall, above the common stature; his limbs are cast in the most exact mould; his complexion has in it somewhat of uncommon delicacy. All his features are perfectly regular and well-turned; and his eyes the finest I ever saw. But which shines most in him and renders him, without exception, the most surprisingly handsome person of the age, is the dignity that accompanies e
very gesture. There is indeed such an unspeakable majesty diffused through his whole mien, and such as it is impossible to have any idea of without seeing; and strikes those that have with such an awe as will not suffer them to look on him for any time, unless he emboldens them to it by his excessive affability.49

  In view of his later difficulties with women, it is worth noting that there is little sign of an ‘objective’ problem here. The problem lay in the prince’s mind. All evidence, now and later, suggests that women were deeply attracted to him and that he reciprocated, at least superficially.50

  A comparison with his brother Henry is instructive. Opinions were divided among contemporaries as to which prince was the more impressive. The consensus was that although Henry was superior in cunning and took to academic pursuits more easily, Charles Edward was actually the more intelligent of the two.51 An observer in 1742 summed it up well: Charles Edward, he claimed, had a quicker mind than Henry but Henry, conscious of this, bridged the gap by hard work. Although both were well-bred and good-natured, Charles Edward had the edge in intuitive knowledge and understanding of the world, was considerate and reasonable in conversation and never spoke without thinking.52 Moreover, all but zealot observers contrasted favourably the prince’s lukewarmness about religion with Henry’s increasing religious mania, already very evident by 1742.53 It was also clear that Henry tried to emulate his brother and tried his hand at anything at which Charles was successful. This extended even to the game of trucco in terra, of which they both became devotees.54

  Another contrast, written in November of the same year, comes from secretary Edgar:

  He [the prince] fatigues at that diversion [hunting] so much that nobody here can keep up with him, even a servant or two that are clever fellows have more than enough to do it, and if he were where we wish him, I doubt if I could find many that would not tire with the constant fatigue and exercise he takes. His brother takes a great deal of exercise also. Sometimes he goes out a’shooting, but has not such a delight in it as the Prince and sometimes he takes the air on horseback. At night, after a day’s strong fatigue, the Prince sits down and diverts himself at music for an hour or two as if he had not been abroad, and plays his part upon the bass viol very well, for he loves and understands music to a great degree. His brother does not understand it as well but he sings, when he pleases, much better.55