Pickle the Spy; Or, the Incognito of Prince Charles. Lang Andrew
have played a trick on Choteck; he spends much on spies, and, to prove that he is well served, he has taken it into his head that young Edouard, really at Venice, is at Berlin. He has been very busy over this, and no doubt has informed his Court.’
On July 7, 1749, Frederick, in a letter to his minister at Moscow, said that only dense ignorance could credit the Berlin legend. 64
These documents certainly demonstrate that the Prince fluttered the Courts, and that the Jacobite belief in English schemes to kidnap or murder him was not a mere mythical delusion. Only an opportunity was wanted. He had spared the Duke of Cumberland’s life, even after the horrors of Culloden. But Hanbury Williams knows a Pole who will waylay him; Hyndford wants to carry him off to Siberia. It was not once only, on the other hand, but twice at least, that Charles protected the Butcher, Cumberland. In 1746 he saved his enemy from Lochgarry’s open attempt. In 1747 (May 4), a certain Father Myles Macdonnell wrote from St. Germain to James in Rome. He dwells on the jealousies among the Jacobites, and particularly denounces Kelly, then a trusted intimate of Charles. Kelly, he says, is a drunkard, and worse! It was probably he who raised ‘a scruple’ against a scheme relating to ‘Cumberland’s hateful person.’ ‘Honest warrantable people from London’ came to Paris and offered ‘without either fee or reward’ to do the business. What was the ‘business,’ what measures were to be taken against ‘Cumberland’s hateful person’? Father Myles Macdonnell, writing to James, a Catholic priest to a Catholic King, does not speak of assassination. He talks of ‘the scruple raised against securing Cumberland’s person.’ ‘I suspect Parson Kelly of making a scruple of an action the most meritorious that could possibly be committed,’ writes Father Myles. 65 The talk of kidnapping, in such cases as those of Cumberland and Prince Charles – men of spirit and armed – is a mere blind. Murder is meant! Father Myles’s letter proves that (unknown to James in Rome) there was a London conspiracy to kill the Butcher, but Prince Charles again rejected the proposal. He was less ungenerous than Hyndford and Hanbury Williams. The amusing thing is that the English Government knew, quite as well as Father Macdonnell or James, all about the conspiracy to slay the Duke of Cumberland. Here is the information, which reached Mann through Rome. 66
‘.. The family at Rome.. was informed, by one who arrived there last October from London, that there are twelve persons, whose names I could not learn, but none of distinction, that are formed in a club or society, and meet at the Nag’s Head in East Street, Holborn. They have bound themselves under most solemn oaths that this winter they will post themselves in different parts of the City of London mostly frequented by His Royal Highness, the Duke of Cumberland, in his night visits [to whom?], and are resolved to lay violent hands on his royal person. The parole among the different parties in their respective posts is The Bloody Butcher. They are all resolute fellows, who first declared at their entering in this conspiracy to despise death or torture. This motive is worthy of your care, so I am certain you’ll make proper use of it.
If Charles afterwards attempted to repay in kind the attentions of his royal cousins, or of their ministers, this can hardly be reckoned inhuman. If he was fluttering the Courts, they – Prussia, Russia, France, Poland – were leading him the life of a tracked beast. They were determined to drive him into the Papal domains; even in Venice he was harried by spies. 67 On May 30, to retrace our steps, Mann, from Florence, reports that Charles has arrived at the Papal Nuncio’s in Venice, attended by one servant in the livery of the Duke of Modena. Walton adds that he has not a penny (June 6). Walton (July 11) writes from Florence that the Prince is reported from Venice to have paid assiduous court to the second daughter of the Duke of Modena, a needy potentate, but that he suddenly disappeared.’ 68 On Sept. 5, 1749, Walton says he is in France. On Sept. 26, Walton writes that he is offering his sword to the Czarina, who declines. He is at Lübeck, or (Oct. 3) at Avignon. On Oct. 20, Mann writes that, from Lübeck, Charles has asked the Imperial ambassador at Paris to implore the Kaiser to give him an asylum in his States. On Oct. 31, Mann only knows that the Pope and James ‘reciprocally ask each other news about’ the Prince. On Jan. 23, 1750, poor Mann is ‘quite at a loss.’ James receives letters from the Prince, but never with date of place, otherwise Mann would have been better informed. Walton hears that James believes Charles to be imprisoned in a French fortress. From Paris, Jan. 17, 1750, Albemarle wrote that he heard the Prince was in Berlin. The Prince later told Pickle that he had been in Berlin more than once, and, as we shall see, Frederick amused him with hopes of assistance. Kelly has left Charles’s followers in distress at Avignon. Kelly, in fact, received his congé; he was distrusted by the Earl Marischal, and Carte, the historian. On Jan. 28, Albemarle hears that Charles has been in Paris ‘under the habit of a Capuchine Fryar,’ and this was a disguise of his, according to Pickle.
Meanwhile the French Government kept protesting their total ignorance. On April 3, 1750, Walton announces that James has had a long letter from Charles containing his plans and those of his adherents, for which he demands the Royal approval. James has sent a long letter to Charles by the courier of the Duc de Nivernais, the French ambassador in Rome. By the middle of June, James is reported by Walton to be full of hope, and to have heard excellent news. But these expectations were partly founded on a real scheme of Charles, partly on a strike of colliers at Newcastle. A mob orator there proclaimed the Prince, and the Jacobites in Rome thought that His Royal Highness was heading the strike! 69 In July, the same illusions were entertained. On August 12, Albemarle, from Paris, reports the Prince to be dangerously ill, probably not far from the French capital. He was really preparing to embark for England. Albemarle, by way of trap, circulated in the English press a forged news-letter from Nancy in Lorraine, dated August 24, 1750. It announced Charles’s death of pneumonia, in hopes of drawing forth a Jacobite denial. This stratagem failed. On August 4, James, though piqued by being kept in the dark, sent Charles a fresh commission of regency. 70 Of the Prince’s English expedition of September 1750, the Government of George II. knew nothing. Pickle was in Rome at the moment, not with Charles; what Pickle knew the English ministers knew, but there is a difficulty in dating his letters before 1752, and I am not aware that any despatches of his from Rome are extant.
We have now brought the history to a point (September 1750) where the Prince, for a moment, emerges from fairyland, and where we are not left to the perplexing conjectures of diplomatists in Paris, Dresden, Florence, Hanover, and St. Petersburg. In September 1750, Charles certainly visited London. There is a point of light. We now give an account of his actual movements in 1749–1750.
CHAPTER IV
THE PRINCE IN FAIRYLAND. II. – WHAT ACTUALLY OCCURRED
Charles mystifies Europe – Montesquieu knows his secret – Sources of information – The Stuart manuscripts – Charles’s letters from Avignon – A proposal of marriage – Kennedy and the hidden treasure – Where to look for Charles —Cherchez la femme! – Hidden in Lorraine – Plans for entering Paris – Letter to Mrs. Drummond – To the Earl Marischal – Starts for Venice – At Strasbourg – Unhappy Harrington – Letter to James – Leaves Venice ‘A bird without a nest’ – Goes to Paris – The Prince’s secret revealed – The convent of St. Joseph – Curious letter as Cartouche – Madame de Routh – Cartouche again – Goring sent to England – A cypher – Portrait of Madame de Talmond – Portrait of Madame d’Aiguillon – Intellectual society – Mademoiselle Luci – ‘Dener Bash’ – The secret hoard – Results of Goring’s English mission – Timidity of English Jacobites – Supply of money – Charles a bibliophile– ‘My big muff’ – A patron of art – Quarrels with Madame de Talmond – Arms for a rising – Newton on Cluny – Kindness to Monsieur Le Coq – Madame de Talmond weary of Charles – Letters to her – Charles reads Fielding’s novels – Determines
Browne. Stuart Papers, iii. 502.
S. P. Tuscany. No. 54.
Hanbury Williams. From Dresden, July 2, 1749.
James had previously wished Charles to marry a Princess of Modena.
Mann, June 19, 1750.
Stuart Papers. Browne, ii. 73.