Andrew Lang - Pickle the Spy; Or, the Incognito of Prince Charles

Goring and Harrington were to meet the bearer at Belfort, but Harrington seems to have been mystified, and to have failed in effecting a junction. The poor gentleman, we learn, from letters of Stafford and Sheridan, Charles’s retainers at Avignon, could scarcely raise money to leave that town. Sir James Harrington was next to meet Charles at Venice. He was to carry a letter for Charles to a Venetian banker. ‘Nota bene, that same banquier, though he will deliver to me your letter, knows nothing about me, nor who I am… Change your name, and, in fine, keep as private as possible, till I tell you what is to be done.’ Harrington failed, and lay for months in pawn at Venice, pouring out his griefs in letters to Goring. He was a lachrymose conspirator.

These weary affairs are complicated by mysterious letters to ladies: for example to Mademoiselle Lalasse, ‘Je vous prie, Mademoiselle, de rendre justice à mon inviolable attachement.’ (May 3). He gives her examples of his natural and of his disguised handwriting; probably she helped him in forwarding his correspondence. Charles’s chief anxiety was to secure the Lord Marischal. Bulkeley and the official English Jacobites kept insisting that he should have a man with him who was trusted by the party. Kelly was distrusted, though Bulkeley defends him, and was cashiered in autumn. Charles’s friends also kept urging that he must ‘appear in public,’ but where? Bulkeley suggested Bologna. The Earl Marischal, later (July 5), was for Fribourg. No place was really both convenient and possible. On May 17 Charles wrote from Venice to the Earl Marischal, ‘I am just arrived, but will not be able for some days, to know what reception to meet with.’ He fears he ‘may be chased from hence,’ and his fears were justified. On the same day (May 17) he wrote to Edgar in Rome, ‘Venice, next to France, is the best for my interest, and the only one in Italy.’

Venice ejected the Prince. On May 26 he wrote to his father:

‘Sir, – I received last night from ye Nuntio a definitive answer about my project, which is quite contrary to my expectation; as I have nothing further to do here, and would not run the least risk of being found out, I depart this very evening, having left a direction to the said Nuntio how to forward my letters for me.’ On the same day he wrote to Chioseul de Stainville, the minister at Versailles of the Empress, ‘Could an anonymous exiled Prince be received by the Kaiser and the Queen of Hungary? He would remain incognito.’

On June 3 Charles wrote to James, without address or news, and to Bulkeley. ‘Now my friend must skulk to the perfect dishonour and glory of his worthy relations, until he finds a reception fitting at home or abroad.’ On the back of the draft he writes:

‘What can a bird do that has not found a right nest? He must flit from bough to bough — ainsi use les Irondel .’

Probably Charles, after a visit, perhaps, to Ferrara, returned to Paris and his Princess. We find a draft thus conceived and spelled:

‘Goring to come here immediately, he to know nothing but that I am just arrived. I am not to go to Paris, but at the end of the month, as sooner no answer can be had, moreover perhaps obliged to wait another, which would oblige me to remain to long in P.’ He also (June 3) wrote to Montesquieu, from whom (I think) there is an unsigned friendly letter. He sent compliments to the Duchesse d’Aiguillon, a lady much attached to Montesquieu. An unsigned English letter (June 5) advised him to appear publicly. People are coming to inquire into reports about his character, ‘after which it is possible some proposals may be made to you.’ The writer will say more when ‘in a safer place.’

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Edition of 1832, i. p. x.

History of England from the Peace of Utrecht to the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle . London, 1838, iii. 279.

An authentic account of the conduct of the Young Chevalier , p. 7. Third edition, 1749.

London, 1879.

Letters from Italy by an Englishwoman , ii. 198. London 1776. Cited by Lord Stanhope, iii. 556. Horace Mann to the Duke of Newcastle. State Papers. Tuscany. Jan. ½½, 174¾. In Ewald, i. 87. Both authorities speak of blue eyes.

A false Charles appeared in Selkirkshire in 1745. See Mr. Craig Brown’s History of Ettrick Forest . The French, in 1759, meant to send a false Charles to Ireland with Thurot. Another appeared at Civita Vecchia about 1752. The tradition of Roderick Mackenzie, who died under English bullets, crying ‘You have slain your Prince,’ is familiar. We shall meet other pseudo-Charles’s.

Ewald, i. 41.

Documentos Ineditos . Madrid. 1889. Vol. xciii. 18.

Voyages de Montesquieu . Bordeaux, 1894. p. 250.

Letters of De Brosses , as translated by Lord Stanhope, iii. 72.

See authorities in Ewald, i. 48–50.

Ewald, ii. 30. Scott’s Journal, i. 114.

Dennistoun’s Life of Strange , i. 63, and an Abbotsford manuscript.

Stuart Papers, in the Queen’s Library. Also the Lockhart Papers mention the wounding of the horse.

Life and Correspondence of David Hume . Hill Burton, ii. 464–466.

Jacobite Memoirs . Lord Elcho’s MS. Journal. Ewald, i. 77.

State Papers Domestic. 1745. No. 79.

Genuine Memoirs of John Murray of Broughton . La Spedizione di Carlo Stuart .

Treasury Papers. 1745. No. 214. First published by Mr. Ewald, i. 215.

Jacobite Memoirs , p. 32.

Chambers Rebellion of 1745, i. 71. The authority is ‘Tradition.’

I have read parts of Forbes’s manuscript in the Advocates’ Library, but difficulties were made when I wished to study it for this book.

D’Argenson’s Mémoires .

This gentleman died at Carlisle in 1745, according to Bishop Forbes. Jacobite Memoirs , p. 4.

Stuart MSS. in Windsor Castle.

Stuart Papers. Browne’s History of the Highland Clans , iii. 481.