Bonnie Prince Charlie: Charles Edward Stuart (Pimlico) (103 page)

16 ‘A hint to the wise’: typical Whig ‘black propaganda’

17 ‘A race from Preston Pans to Berwick’: the beginning of the legend of ‘Johnny Cope’, immortalised by Burns

18 ‘The Balance’: the prince is shown as the enemy of Magna Carta and the creature of popery

19 ‘Culloden’: Jacobite prisoners posed as morier’s models

1
Claude Nordmann, ‘Louis XIV and the Jacobites’, Ragnild Hatton, ed.,
Louis XIV and Europe
(Ohio, 1976) pp.82–111.

2
For two good assessments of Jacobitism in the reign of Queen Anne see Edward Gregg,
Queen Anne
(1980) and D. Szechi,
Jacobitism and Tory Politics 1710–14
(Edinburgh, 1984).

3
For the 1715 Jacobite rising see A. and H. Tayler,
1715: The Story of the Rising
(1936); J. Baines,
The Jacobite Rising of 1715
(1970).

4
For the moving Jacobite court see Marchesa Nobili Vitelleschi,
A Court in Exile
, 2 vols (1902).

5
There is no completely satisfactory life of James, the ‘Old Pretender’. Martin Haile,
James Francis Edward. The Old Chevalier
(1907) and Andrew Lang and A. Shield,
The King over the Water
(1907) are dated but still useful. Peggy Miller’s
James
(1972) is perceptive and insightful but cursory.

6
HMC Stuart I, pp.484–507.

7
HMC Stuart IV, pp.457–8,468,516.

8
HMC Stuart V, pp.234–5.

9
For John Sobieski see Gabriel-François Coyer,
History of John Sobieski. King of Poland
(1762).

10
HMC Stuart VI, p.95.

11
For full details see Peggy Miller,
A Wife for the Pretender
(1965).

12
See in addition to Miller, op. cit., the details in Add. MSS (Gualterio) 20,313.

13
For the 1719 rising see W. K. Dickson, ed.,
The Jacobite Attempt of 1719
(Edinburgh, 1895).

14
Sir John T. Gilbert,
Narratives of the Detention, Liberation and Marriage of Maria Clementina Sobieska styled Queen of Great Britain and Ireland by Sir Charles Wogan and others
(Dublin, 1894), pp.104–5.

1
R A Stuart 50/30.

2
R A Stuart 50/43.

3
R A Stuart 50/58.

4
Cardinals invited to the confinement were Albani, Astalli, Acquaviva, Barberini, Gualterio, Imperiali, Ottaboni, Pamfilio, Paulani and Saurapanti. R A Stuart 50/138.

5
R A Stuart 51/22.

6
Cf. James to Ormonde on 19 December 1720: ‘She is extreme big and will not, I believe, pass this month’ (R A Stuart 50/84).

7
R A Stuart 50/131.

8
R A Stuart 51/23.

9
Add. MSS 30,090.

10
Vatican Library, Borgia MSS 565 ff.50–1.

11
R A Stuart 51/2–16 contains the letters. The first ruler to be informed that the new prince’s name was Charles Edward was the duke of Lorraine (R A Stuart 51/10).

12
To the duke of Ormonde (11 January 1721) he remarked: ‘The Queen … has had the most favourable lying-in that ever woman had’ (R A Stuart 51/38).

13
Lovers of dramatic irony will savour the reply from Earl Marischal Keith (Madrid, 21 January 1721) – later Charles Edward’s most bitter enemy – referring to a ‘time of universal joy to all your faithful subjects’ (R A Stuart 51/37).

14
R A Stuart 52/2, 15.

15
R A Stuart 52/37.

16
This point was made explicit in a letter from Paris by the Jacobite George Lansdowne to James (R A Stuart 50/100).

17
For the impact of the South Sea Bubble and Jacobite reactions to it cf. R A Stuart 51/53, 76, 80; 52/53, 76, 91, 137.

18
R A Stuart 52/27, 33, 79.

19
Jean Héroard,
Journal sur l’enfance et la jeunesse de Louis XIII
(Paris, 1868) is the classic source for the childhood of princes in this era. For a recent popular survey of the topic from William the Conqueror to the House of Windsor see Charles Carlton,
Royal Childhoods
(1986).

20
Héroard has to be used with care as an inferential source: ‘The observations Héroard made cannot be uncritically generalised even to princely or aristocratic milieus of the time,’ Elizabeth Mirth Marvick, ‘Nature versus Nurture’ in Erik de Mause,
The History of Childhood
(1976), p.262.

21
T. G. H. Drake, ‘The Wet Nurse in the Eighteenth Century’,
Bulletin of the History of Medicine
8 (1940), pp.934–48.

22
De Mause,
History of Childhood
, op. cit., pp.265,268.

23
R A Stuart 51/38.

24
R A Stuart 52/88, 118.

25
R A Stuart 63/168.

26
‘Almost one half of the human species perish in infancy by improper management or neglect’, William Buchan,
Domestic Medicine
(Philadelphia, 1809), p.8.

27
‘My son is in a very good way, we have got a good, quiet nurse, and all is well looked after now’ (R A Stuart 52/125). Cf. James’s plaudits for Francesca Battaglia in a glowing reference in 1726 (R A Stuart 97/107).

28
W. B. Blaikie,
Origins of the Forty-Five
(Edinburgh, 1916), p.445.

29
Cf. Philippe Ariès,
L’Enfant et la vie familiale sous l’Ancien Régime
(Paris, 1960).

30
See Locke’s ‘Some Thoughts concerning Education’ (1693).

31
For the practice of cold bathing see Rousseau,
Emile
(Pléïade edition, Paris, 1969), pp.277–8;
Letters and Works of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
(1861), I, p.209. For its universal acceptance see John Floyer,
The History of Cold Bathing
(1732); Bishop Fleetwood,
Six Useful Discourses on the Relative Duties of Parents and Children
(1749); Anon,
The Common Errors in the Education of Children and their Consequences
(1744).

32
R A Stuart 54/18.

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.