Finally, on 22 March, the objections of the Stolberg matriarch were assuaged and the proxy marriage ceremony took place. Ryan and a M. de Betargh signed as proxies in the presence of the two Fitzjameses.66 At long last, on Friday 27 March at 6 p.m., the proxy bride and her escort left the French capital. At the last minute one Mlle Power had been found to act as Louise’s companion.67
The itinerary to Italy had been specified by Charles Edward with meticulous accuracy: Brussels, the Tyrol, Trentano, Bologna, Ancona, Macerata to Viterbo, where the marriage would be solemnised.68 At some stage these arrangements were altered. It seems likely that Marefoschi, in compensation for the disappointment with the Pope that he saw looming, offered to marry the couple in Macerata, his own fief.69
But the prince’s cup of frustration was not yet full. Ryan’s party made slow progress after Strasbourg, mainly because the German roadmasters would allow only four-wheeled carriages on their highways.70 The roads were in any case execrable. It took Ryan and his party until 6 April to get as far as Innsbruck.71
By the 11th they were in Bologna. Here the Stolberg family sent on a request that the marriage be solemnised on the day that the couple first met.72 Macerata more than ever looked like the perfect venue.
Edmund Ryan’s role in the entire affair is significant. The selection of an Irishman was a deliberate harking back to the bold Chevalier Wogan who accompanied the prince’s mother, also from Innsbruck. Charles Edward might have thought the mimesis less appealing if he had reflected that Clementina Sobieska took no more than six years to seek refuge from his father in a convent, just as Clementina the less (Walkinshaw) did from him. It would have been stretching credibility too far at this stage if someone had suggested that a further flight and a further convent might lie ahead.
On 13 April the prince left Rome for Macerata.73 On arrival there, he was informed that the Pope had granted him a dispensation to marry Louise and had allowed a nuptial benediction. He rode down to Loreto to meet his bride, then accompanied her back to Macerata. Louise was tired after being nineteen hours in the coach on Wednesday the 15th, but, two hours after reaching Macerata, she went through with the ceremony. At 2 p.m. on Good Friday, 17 April 1772, Cardinal Marefoschi solemnised the marriage in the private chapel of the palace of the Compagnoni Marefoschi.74 Both bride and groom were sartorially resplendent; the prince wore a yellow-metalled sword specially for the occasion. The couple then spent their honeymoon in the Palazzo. Caryll’s preparation of the bridal suite had been every bit as thorough as his arrangements in the chapel; Louise even had her own French-speaking maid.75
There is no doubt that the prince’s first impressions of his bride were extremely favourable. On seeing her, he increased her pin money to 15,000 livres a year, 5,000 more than specified in the contract.76 And that night he composed for her one of his couplets of doggerel:
This crown is due to you by me
And none shall love you more than me.77
The prince’s reception in Macerata had echoes of that in Avignon nearly twenty-five years before. ‘Viva Il Re!’, the crowds shouted. The governor of Macerata danced attendance on the newly-weds. An assembly of the local nobility in honour of the royal couple did not end until three in the morning. On Easter Sunday there was further lavish entertainment before Charles and his queen set out for Rome with eighteen post horses.78
The prince’s wedding created a minor sensation in Europe, showing that he was still newsworthy. By the time of the solemnisation at Macerata, the news of the proxy marriage in Paris had already caused a ripple of excitement to run through Europe.79 Frederick the Great saw the union as a significant development in the deepening Anglo-French hostility. It was quite clear to him that French desire to prolong the life of the Stuart scarecrow meant that a day of reckoning was not far off, when France would attempt to undo the 1763 Treaty of Paris.80
Yet those in the know realised how insignificant the match was in political terms. It was a matter of weeks rather than months before Charles Edward realised that neither of his hopes from the marriage was going to materialise. France intended to renege on its pension commitment; the Papacy would still not recognise him as Charles III.
It was the papal issue that impinged first on the prince’s consciousness. Charles had never relaxed his pressure on the Vatican. He informed Marefoschi that he was bringing a queen back to Rome and the said queen would be mortified not to find a papal guard on duty at the gate of their palazzo.81 But Clement XIV dealt with the prince’s overtures by ignoring them. The only conciliatory step he took was to suggest to the duke of Gloucester that it might be politic for him to avoid ‘Charles III’s’ triumphal entry. Gloucester took the hint and left Rome two days before Charles Edward’s return on 22 April.82 Clement had already secured the concessions he wanted from the English. One early result was that in 1774 George III proclaimed religious toleration for Catholics in Canada.83
On the prince’s arrival in Rome, he decided to push matters to a conclusion. He called to see the Cardinal Secretary of State and announced the new era of king Charles III and his queen; this key event, he claimed, merited an immediate papal audience. The Secretary of State passed on the message. The Pope replied pointedly that he was glad to hear of the arrival of ‘Baron Renfrew and his wife’ and hoped soon to grant them an interview; this could not be in the near future, however, because of pressure of work.84
When he read the Pope’s letter, the prince was thunderstruck. Reeling with shock, he ordered Caryll to return it to Marefoschi with the message that Charles declined to receive it. He then dashed off an angry letter to Marefoschi, full of the old 1766 arguments about scandalising European Catholics and truckling to the Elector of Hanover.85
There was no mistaking the Pope’s negative intentions. For the third time, a determined bid to secure papal recognition for ‘Charles III’ had failed. The other prong of Charles Edward’s strategy was also a lamentable failure. Despite their promises, the French made no further payments of the agreed pension.86 At a political level, then, the marriage with Louise of Stolberg was already manifestly a failure, within months of the solemnisation at Macerata. What of the marriage at a personal level?
Here we have to deal with the difficult problem of Louise’s personality and motivation. The swiftness of her acceptance of Ryan’s proposals argues for an unsentimental woman of uncertain prospects with an eye to the main chance.87 The alacrity with which she accepted the prince’s offer was doubtless quickened by the consideration that her younger sister Karoline Auguste (the second daughter) had already married, at the age of sixteen, the marquis of Jamaica (later, in 1785, 4th duke of Berwick). There is no doubt that Louise found it a severe disappointment not, after all, to be received in Rome as queen of England. In her mind, this removed much of the point of the marriage.88 Since Charles Edward’s expedient reasons for marrying her had also come to nothing, the couple were thrown back on their own resources to make the match work. With an age gap of thirty-one years to bridge, this would have been a tall order for any relationship.
What do we know about Louise at this time? Contemporary descriptions agree in finding her physically attractive without in any sense being beautiful. The marquis de Fitzjames spoke of her medium height and pleasant face.89 Ryan drew attention to her good figure, pretty face and good teeth.90 The duke of Fitzjames found her on the big side and a little thin, yet well-made with a good neck, outstanding skin, vermilion-red lips, beautiful teeth and a pleasant face.91 The fourth of Charles Edward’s quartet of negotiators (Caryll) agreed about the remarkably fine teeth, the good complexion and trim figure, and added some more closely-observed details: her eyes were dark, her hair a fine light-brown and her nose well shaped.92 All this was confirmed by her admirer Bonstetten three years later. He spoke of her deep blue eyes, retroussé nose and sensible expression that was at once sparkling and guileful.93
The inner woman is more elusive. Her formal convent education – which she claimed left her knowing nothi
ng except how to pray – had given her a strong distaste for organised religion.94 She was drawn to free-thinking and Voltairean modes of thought. This should have provided some common ground with Charles Edward. There is considerable dramatic irony here. Her uncomplimentary remarks about convents would have chimed in well with his detestation of such places following the Clementina Walkinshaw dêbâcle. Yet it was a nunnery that was to play a key role in severing the links between the prince and Louise.
Something of Louise’s personality and character will emerge later. In the first nine months of their married life, Charles Edward found little to complain about. He confessed himself more than happy with the charms of his young wife.95 His problem in 1772 was not marital but financial.
There was a three-way tangle involved here. First, there was a running dispute with France about the promised but unpaid pension.96 Then there was a veritable mare’s nest over Dunbar’s will, especially the salt revenues which he had enjoyed in usufruct but which passed to the prince on his death in accordance with James’s will.97 Finally, there was confusion over the French revenues from the Hôtel de Ville, a confusion compounded by the death of John Waters.98 As for the Sobieski money from the ‘Fund of Ohlau’, that remained as distant a prospect as ever.99
It was as well that the prince had Louise for company, for apart from her in 1772 there was only Albano, the Argentina theatre, and wine to distract his attentions from ‘malice domestic’ (the Vatican) and ‘foreign levy’ (the French).100
The year 1773 brought an echo of the past. News of the marriage summoned Clementina Walkinshaw and the prince’s daughter to Rome in hopes of a more favourable financial settlement. The two women had not completely vanished from Charles’s ken. In August 1764 Clementina wrote with a progress report on Charlotte: she was tall, devout and good at music. Charlotte wrote her first letter to her father at this time.101 Further letters followed in 1768. The burden of the correspondence was always the same: a plea for Charlotte’s recognition.102 This was backed by long screeds from Clementina herself.103
In October 1769 the two women wrote again, Clementina to explain her daughter’s grave illness, an incipient form of the cancer of the liver that was eventually to kill her at the age of thirty-five.104 The prince’s answer to all these letters was the same: silence.
When news of Charles Edward’s marriage reached the convent at Meaux where the two women resided, their different reactions were significant. Clementina recoiled with shock.105 Charlotte redoubled her efforts. She showed every sign of having inherited her father’s indomitable will, hammering away at the inalienable right owed to her by natural justice, whether she was deemed illegitimate or not.106
Lord Caryll took her side. He advised her that he could probably secure her a place in the ‘king’s’ household, provided she broke with her mother. The greatest calamity of all would be if Clementina Walkinshaw were to show her face in Italy.107 Charlotte now showed herself to be her father’s daughter in more ways than one. After repudiating Caryll’s advice to wait patiently for a more favourable moment, since her father was ill, Charlotte stepped up the pressure at the end of 1772, writing both to her father and to Cardinal York.108 She also lobbied the French court intensely, painting a piteous picture of the plight she and her mother found themselves in.109 When neither of these letters produced a response, she decided on a frontal attack. In May 1773 she and her mother travelled to Rome to press their claims. This was extraordinarily self-destructive behaviour.
The unwelcome duo arrived at a moment of maximum embarrassment for Charles Edward. By addressing themselves to the Vatican, Charlotte and her mother seemed to be increasing the possibility of further humiliation for the prince from Clement XIV. Caryll acted swiftly. Clementina Walkinshaw was ordered to leave Rome. At first, doubtless encouraged by Charlotte, she dug in her heels and refused to go.110
The Cardinal Secretary of State then issued a sombre warning of the possible consequences.111 The unfortunate women were forced to retrace their steps: Genoa–Antibes–Aix–Avignon–Lyons, following almost the exact route taken by their oppressor in January 1744.112 The sole concession Charlotte wrested from this ill-advised raid on Rome was permission to move convents, from Meaux to Paris.113 It was to be another ten years before this indomitable young woman achieved her ends. But, like her father, she preferred constant action, even if it were self-destructive, to defeatist inertia. For the rest of the prince’s marriage his natural daughter continued to be a thorn in his side.
The prince’s attitude to his only daughter is at first sight bizarre. How could he act so coldly and callously to one whose loss had precipitated a nervous breakdown in 1760? The clue lies in his treatment of Louise de Montbazon a quarter of a century earlier. The prince habitually reacted to loss, especially loss for which he felt in some degree responsible, by pretending that there had been no loss. In other words, he dealt with guilt by a show of coldness that shocked and disturbed those (and in the eighteenth century that meant everybody) who could not fathom the deep unconscious springs of his actions.
By the end of 1773 it was apparent that Charlotte was not the only young woman destined to give the prince trouble. Louise found the restrictions of life in Rome as ‘Baroness Renfrew’ instead of the expected ‘Queen of England’ peculiarly irksome; even the newspapers from northern Europe arrived late.114 For the first nine months of the marriage, by common consent, the prince behaved himself and kept off the bottle. Proudly he drove around Rome in an open carriage, showing off his young wife.115 But when it became increasingly obvious that for Louise conception was going to be, at the very least, a difficult matter – it later transpired she was barren – the prince resumed his full quota of Cyprus wine.116
Seeing the storm clouds gathering, Lord Caryll determined to leave the Palazzo Muti at the earliest possible moment. Louise increasingly turned to books for comfort, and to the company of handsome young travellers. She was already being indiscreet, but had not yet got to the point of outright infidelity. The prince trusted her. When information was laid before him that Louise was physically attracted to his lackey Bernardo Rotolo and had confessed the attraction, he dismissed the report as idle rumour.117 Provided his wife’s admirers did not actually try to cuckold him, and provided they made themselves agreeable to him, Charles was prepared to tolerate Louise’s flirtations. That she quickly became an accomplished coquette is clear from the soubriquet ‘Queen of Hearts’ very soon conferred on her by her suitors.118
Her first calf-love conquest was Thomas Coke, a young English Whig grandee on the Grand Tour. The culmination of this flirtation was a commission from the princess to the well-known portrait painter Pompeo Batoni to paint the youth and herself in the guise of Theseus and Ariadne on Naxos.119 Coke returned to England from his travels besotted with the ‘Queen of Hearts’; other young English travellers, too, returned glowing with her memory.120
But it was not Englishmen alone who were lured into Louise’s tender trap. The Swiss Charles-Victor Bonstetten, later a well-known belle-lettriste, carried on a literary flirtation with her for two years, though this was a little later, in the Florence period.121 Yet a remark made to Bonstetten by Louise early in 1775 shows the way her mind was working even during the dull days at the Palazzo Muti. She told him she approved of the basically polygamous instincts of men and felt the same principle should hold good for women: they should be allowed an intellectual companion by day and a carnal one by night.122
By early 1774, it seems unlikely that the prince was satisfying either the diurnal or nocturnal requirement. Even before the move to Florence, the danger signals were there for anyone who cared to read them. On the one hand, there was an angry, bibulous fifty-three-year-old, now disappointed even of the heir that would have perpetuated the Stuart line. Taken together with papal failure to recognise him as king, and French perfidy over the money, Louise’s inability to become pregnant seemed to reduce the marriage to new levels of meaninglessness. For her part, Louise had to a
ssuage her disappointed ambitions with physically unconsummated relationships with young men, and with incipient bibliophilia. Being Queen of Hearts was a poor substitute for the Queen of England she had hoped to be.123
The ‘contradictions’ in the marriage were already acute. Whether a change of locale could resolve them was doubtful. It was not long before the question marks against the marriage’s viability became underscorings of the certainty of its failure.
36
The Queen of Hearts
(1774–80)
AFTER A TWO-YEAR lacuna since his disappointed entry into Rome with his ‘queen’, Charles Edward suddenly found his hands full both with pressing domestic issues and matters of high politics.
The year 1774 came in like a lion. The first piece of drama was Louis XV’s sudden illness and death.1 This aroused hopes of new bearings in French policy. The focus of attention again switched to Versailles.
Immediately Charles Edward ordered Lord Caryll to write to the duc d’Orléans, in tandem with the prince’s formal condolences to the new king, twenty-year-old Louis XVI.2 Under the pretext of welcoming the new reign, Caryll’s letter protested at the non-payment of the pension promised by France on the occasion of the marriage with Louise of Stolberg. The prince’s intention was to lobby Louis XVI on a twin-track basis. Along with the existing negotiations between the tardy duc de Fitzjames and the duc d’Aiguillon, the prince designed his fresh overtures as the opening of a second front.3
Bonnie Prince Charlie: Charles Edward Stuart (Pimlico) Page 66