Hopes from Prussia—The Murrays of Elibank—Imprisonment of Alexander Murray—Recommended to Charles—The Elibank plot—Prussia and the Earl Marischal—His early history—Ambassador of Frederick at Versailles—His odd household—Voltaire—The Duke of Newcastle’s resentment—Charles’s view of Frederick’s policy—His alleged avarice—Lady Montagu—His money-box—Goring and the Earl Marischal—Secret meetings—The lace shop—Albemarle’s information—Charles at Ghent—Hanbury Williams’s mares’ nests—Charles and ‘La Grandemain’—She and Goring refuse to take his orders—Appearance of Miss Walkinshaw—Her history—Remonstrances of Goring—‘Commissions for the worst of men’—‘The little man’—Lady Primrose—Death of Mademoiselle Luci—November 10, date of postponed Elibank plot—Danger of dismissing an agent.
We have seen that Charles’s hopes, in July 1751, were turned towards Prussia and Sweden. To these Courts he had sent Goring in June. Meanwhile a new and strange prospect was opening to him in England. On the right bank of Tweed, just above Ashiesteil, is the ruined shell of the old tower of Elibank, the home of the Murrays. A famous lady of that family was Muckle Mou’d Meg, whom young Harden, when caught while driving Elibank’s kye, preferred to the gallows as a bride. In 1751 the owner of the tower on Tweed was Lord Elibank; to all appearance a douce, learned Scots laird, the friend of David Hume, and a customer for the wines of Montesquieu’s vineyards at La Brède. He had a younger brother, Alexander Murray, and the politics of the pair, says Horace Walpole, were of the sort which at once kept the party alive, and made it incapable of succeeding. Their measures were so taken that they did not go out in the Forty-five, yet could have proved their loyalty had Charles reached St. James’s in triumph. Walpole calls Lord Elibank ‘a very prating, impertinent Jacobite.’ [125] As for the younger brother, Alexander Murray, Sir Walter Scott writes, in his introduction to ‘Redgauntlet,’ ‘a young Scotchman of rank is said to have stooped so low as to plot the surprisal of St. James’s Palace and the assassination of the Royal family.’
This was the Elibank plot, which we shall elucidate later.
In the spring and summer of 1751, Alexander Murray had lain in Newgate, on a charge of brawling at the Westminster election. He was kept in durance because he would not beg the pardon of the House on his knees: he only kneeled to God, he said. He was released by the sheriffs at the close of the session, and was escorted by the populace to Lord Elibank’s house in Henrietta Street. He then crossed to France, and, in July 1751, ‘Dixon’ (Dr. King?) thus reports of him to Charles:
‘My lady [Lady Montagu or Lady Primrose?] says that M. [Murray] is most zealously attached to you, and that he is upon all occasions ready to obey your commands, and to meet you when and where you please . . . He assures my lady that he can raise five hundred men for your service in and about Westminster.’
These men were to be used in a plot for seizing the Royal family in London. This scheme went on simmering, blended with intrigues for Prussian and Swedish help, and, finally, with a plan for a simultaneous rising in the Highlands. And this combination was the last effort of Jacobitism before the general abandonment of Charles by his party.
The hopes, as regarded Prussia, were centred in Frederick’s friend, the brother of Marshal Keith, the Earl Marischal. The Earl was by this time an old man. At Queen Anne’s death he had held a command in the Guards, and if he had frankly backed Atterbury when the bishop proposed to proclaim King James, the history of England might have been altered, and the Duke of Argyll’s regiment, at Kensington, would have had to fight for the Crown. [126] The Earl missed his chance. He fought at Shirramuir (1715), and he with his brother, later Marshal Keith, was in the unlucky Glensheil expedition from Spain (1719). That endeavour failed, leaving hardly a trace, save the ghost of a foreign colonel which haunts the roadside of Glensheil. From that date the Earl was a cheery, contented, philosophic exile, with no high opinion of kings. Spain was often his abode, where he found, as he said, ‘his old friend, the sun.’ In 1744 he declined to accompany the Prince, in a herring-boat, to Scotland. In the Forty-five he did not cross the Channel, but, as we have seen, endeavoured to wring men and money from d’Argenson. In 1747 the Earl, then at Treviso, declined to be Charles’s minister on the score of ‘broken health.’ [127a] Charles, as we saw, vainly asked the Earl for a meeting at Venice in 1749. Indeed, Charles got nothing from his adherent but a mother-of-pearl snuff-box, with the portrait of the old gentleman. [127b] The Earl dwelt, not always on the best terms, with his brother, Marshal Keith, at Berlin, and was treated as a real friend, for a marvel, by Frederick.
On July 20 the Earl had seen Goring at Berlin, and wrote to Charles. Nothing, he said, could be done by Swedish aid. If Sweden moved, Russia would attack her, nor could Frederick, in his turn, assail Russia, for Russia and the Empress Maria Theresa would have him between two fires. [127c] Frederick now (August 1751) took a step decidedly unfriendly as regarded his uncle of England. He sent the Earl Marischal as his ambassador to the Court of Versailles. This was precisely as if the United States were to send a banished Fenian as their Minister to Paris. The Earl was proscribed for treason in England, and, as we shall see, his house in Paris became the centre of truly Fenian intrigues. On these the worthy Earl was wont to give the opinion of an impartial friend. All this was known to the English Government, as we shall show, through Pickle, and the knowledge must have strained the relations between George II. and ‘our Nephew,’ as Horace Walpole calls Frederick of Prussia.
The Earl’s household, when he left Potzdam in August 1751 for Paris, is thus described by Voltaire: ‘You will see a very pretty little Turkess, whom he carries with him: they took her at the siege of Oczakow, and made a present of her to our Scot, who seems to have no great need of her. She is an excellent Mussalwoman: her master allows her perfect freedom of conscience. He has also a sort of Tartar Valet de chambre [Stepan was his name], who has the honour to be a Pagan.’ [128a] On October 29, Voltaire writes that he has had a letter from the Earl in Paris. ‘He tells me that his Turk girl, whom he took to the play to see Mahomet [Voltaire’s drama] was much scandalised.’
Voltaire was to receive less agreeable news from the friend of Frederick. ‘Some big Prussian will box your ears,’ said the Earl Marischal, after Voltaire’s famous quarrel with his Royal pupil.