On July 2, Charles, in cypher, asked James for a renewal of his commission as Regent. Goring, or Newton, was apparently sent at least as far as Avignon with this despatch. He travelled as Monsieur Fritz, a German, with complicated precautions of secrecy. James sent the warrant to be Regent on parchment—it is in the Queen’s Library—but he added that Charles was ‘a continual heartbreak,’ and warned his son not to expect ‘friendship and favours from people, while you do all that is necessary to disgust them.’ He ‘could not in decency’ see Charles’s envoy (August 4). On the following day Edgar wrote in a more friendly style, for this excellent man was of an amazing loyalty.
From James Edgar.
‘August 5, 1750: Rome.
‘Your Royal Highness does me the greatest pleasure in mentioning the desire you have to have the King’s head in an intaglio. There is nobody can serve you as well in that respect as I, so I send you by the bearers two, one on a stone like a ruby, but it is a fine Granata, and H.M.’s hair and the first letters of his name are on the inside of it. The other head is on an emerald, a big one, but not of a fine colour; it is only set in lead, so you may either set it in a ring, a seal, or a locket, as you please: they are both cut by Costanzia, and very well done.’
These intagli would be interesting relics for collectors of such flotsam and jetsam of a ruined dynasty. On August 25, Charles answered Edgar. He is ‘sorry that His Majesty is prevented against the most dutiful of sons.’ He sends thanks for the engraved stones and the powers of Regency. This might well have been James’s last news of Charles, for he was on his way to London, a perilous expedition. [101]
CHAPTER V
THE PRINCE IN LONDON; AND AFTER.—MADEMOISELLE LUCI
(SEPTEMBER 1750–JULY 1751)
The Prince goes to London—Futility of this tour—English Jacobites described by Æneas Macdonald—No chance but in Tearlach—Credentials to Madame de Talmond—Notes of visit to London—Doings in London—Gratifying conversion—Gems and medals—Report by Hanbury Williams—Hume’s legend—Report by a spy—Billets to Madame de Talmond—Quarrel—Disappearance—‘The old aunt’—Letters to Mademoiselle Luci—Charles in Germany—Happy thought of Hanbury Williams—Marshal Keith’s mistress—Failure of this plan—The English ‘have a clue’—Books for the Prince—Mademoiselle Luci as a critic—Jealousy of Madame de Talmond—Her letter to Mademoiselle Luci—The young lady replies—Her bad health—Charles’s reflections—Frederick ‘a clever man’—A new adventure.
The Prince went to London in the middle of September 1750; and why did he run such a terrible risk? Though he had ordered great quantities of arms in June, no real preparations had been made for a rising. His Highlanders—Glengarry, Lochgarry, Archy Cameron, Clanranald—did not know where he was. Scotland was not warned. As for England, we learn the condition of the Jacobite party there from a letter by Æneas Macdonald, the banker, to Sir Hector Maclean—Sir Hector whom, in his examination, he had spoken of as ‘too fond of the bottle.’ [103] Æneas now wrote from Boulogne, in September 1750. He makes it clear that peace, luxury, and constitutionalism had eaten the very heart out of the grandsons of the cavaliers. There was grumbling enough at debt, taxes, a Hanoverian King who at this very hour was in Hanover. Welsh and Cheshire squires and London aldermen drank Jacobite toasts in private. ‘But,’ says Æneas, ‘there are not in England three persons of distinction of the same sentiments as to the method of restoring the Royal family, some being for one way, some for another.’ They have neither heart nor money for an armed assertion of their ideas. In 1745, Sir William Watkins Wynne (who stayed at home in Wales) had not 200l. by him in ready money, and money cannot be raised on lands at such moments. Yet this very man was believed to have spent 120,000l. in contested elections. ‘It is very probable that six times as much money has been thrown away upon these elections’—he means in the country generally—‘as would have restored the King.’ Æneas knew another gentleman who had wasted 40,000l. in these constitutional diversions. ‘The present scheme,’ he goes on, ‘is equally weak.’ The English Jacobites were to seem to side with Frederick, the Prince of Wales, in opposition, and force him, when crowned, ‘to call a free Parliament.’ That Parliament would proclaim a glorious Restoration. In fact, the English Jacobites were devoured by luxury, pacific habits, and a desire to save their estates by pursuing ‘constitutional methods.’ These, as we shall see, Charles despised. If a foreign force cannot be landed (if landed it would scarcely be opposed), then ‘there is no method so good as an attempt such as Terloch [Tearlach] made: if there be arms and money: men, I am sure, he will find enough. . . . One thing you may take for granted, that Terloch’s appearance again would be worth 5,000 men, and that without him every attempt will be vain and fruitless.’ Æneas, in his examination, talked to a different tune, as the poor timid banker, distrusted and insulted by ferocious chieftains.
‘Terloch’ was only too eager to ‘show himself again’; money and arms he seems to have procured (d’Argenson says 4,000,000 francs!), but why go over secretly to London, where he had no fighting partisans? There are no traces of a serious organised plan, and the Prince probably crossed the water, partly to see how matters really stood, partly from restlessness and the weariness of a tedious solitude in hiding, broken only by daily quarrels and reconciliations with the Princesse de Talmond and other ladies.
We find a curious draft of his written on the eve of starting.
‘Credentials given ye 1st. Sept, 1750. to ye P. T.’ (Princesse de Talmond).
‘Je me flate que S.M.T.C. [Sa Majesté Très Chrétien] voudra bien avoire tout foi et credi à Madame La P. de T., ma chere Cousine, come si s’etoit mois-meme; particulierement en l’assurant de nouveau come quois j’ai ses veritable interest plus a cour que ses Ministres, etant toujours avec une attachemen veritable et sincere pour sa sacre persone. C. P. R.’ (Charles, Prince Regent).
Again,