Oddly enough, we find Waters sealing, with this very intaglio of the Prince, a letter to Edgar, in 1750. It is a capital likeness.
Wise after the event, Hanbury Williams wrote from Berlin (October 13, 1750) that Charles was in England, ‘in the heart of the kingdom, in the county of Stafford.’ By October 20, Williams knows that the Prince is in Suffolk. All this is probably a mere echo of Charles’s actual visit to London, reverberated from the French Embassy at Berlin, and arriving at Hanbury Williams, he says, through an Irishman, who knew a lacquey of the French Ambassador’s. In English official circles no more than this was known. Troops were concentrated near Stafford after Charles had returned to Lorraine. Hume told Sir John Pringle a story of how Charles was in London in 1753, how George II. told the fact to Lord Holdernesse, and how the King expressed his good-humoured indifference. But Lord Holdernesse contradicted the tale, as we have already observed. If Hume meant 1750 by 1733 he was certainly wrong. George was then in Hanover. In 1753 I have no proof that Charles was in London, though Young Glengarry told James that the Prince was ‘on the coast’ in November 1752. If Charles did come to London in 1753, and if George knew it, the information came through Pickle to Henry Pelham, as will appear later. Hume gave the Earl Marischal as his original authority. The Earl was likely to be better informed about events of 1752–1753 than about those of September 1750.
After Charles’s departure from London, the English Government received information from Paris (October 5, 1750) to the following effect:
‘Paris: October 5, 1750.
‘It is supposed that the Pretender’s Son keeps at Montl’hery, six leagues from Paris, at Mr. Lumisden’s, or at Villeneuve St. Georges, at a small distance from Town, at Lord Nairn’s; Sometimes at Sens, with Col. Steward and Mr. Ferguson; when at Paris, at Madme. la Princesse de Talmont’s, or the Scotch Seminary; nobody travels with him but Mr. Goring, and a Biscayan recommended to him by Marshal Saxe: the young Pretender is disguised in an Abbé’s dress, with a black patch upon his eye, and his eyebrows black’d.
‘An Officer of Ogilvie’s Regimt. in this Service listed lately. An Irish Priest, who belonged to the Parish Church of S. Eustache at Paris, has left his Living, reckoned worth 80l. St. a year, and is very lately gone to London to be Chaplain to the Sardinian Minister: he has carried with him a quantity of coloured Glass Seals with the Pretender’s Son’s Effigy, as also small heads made of silver gilt about this bigness [example] to be set in rings, as also points for watch cases, with the same head, and this motto round “Look, Love, and follow.”’ [110]
On October 30, Walton wrote that James was much troubled by a letter from Charles, doubtless containing the news of his English failure; perhaps notifying his desertion of the Catholic faith. On January 15, 1751, Walton writes that James has confided to the Pope that Charles is at Boulogne-sur-Mer, which he very possibly was. On January 9 and 22, Horace Mann reports, on the information of Cardinal Albani, that James and the Duke of York are ill with grief. ‘Something extraordinary has happened to the Pretender’s eldest son.’ He had turned Protestant, that was all. But Cardinal Albani withdraws his statement, and thinks that nothing unusual has really occurred. In fact, Charles, as we shall see, had absolutely vanished for three months.
Charles returned to France in September 1750, and renewed his amantium irae with Madame de Talmond. Among the Stuart Papers of 1750 are a number of tiny billets, easily concealed, and doubtless passed to the lady furtively. ‘Si vous ne voulez, Reine de Maroc, pas cet faire, quelle plaisir mourir de chagrin et de desespoire!’
‘Aiez de la Bonté et de confience pour celui qui vous aime et vous adore passionément.’
To some English person:
‘Ask the Channoine where you can by hocks [buy hooks!] and lines for fishing, and by a few hocks and foure lines.’ [111]
The Princess writes: