On October 10, Albemarle writes that Foley, a Jacobite, is much with the Earl Marischal. On October 30, Dr. Kincaid had not yet set out. But (December 1) Dr. Kincaid did start, and at Dover ‘was culled like a flower.’ On St. Andrew’s Day (November 30) there was a Jacobite meeting at St. Germains. Albemarle had a spy present, who was told by Sullivan, the Prince’s Irish friend, that Charles was expected at St. Germains by the New Year. The Earl Marischal would have kept St. Andrew’s Day with them, but had to go to Versailles. Later we learn that no papers were found on Dr. Kincaid. On January 5, 1752, Albemarle mentions traffickings with Ireland. On August 4, 1752, Mann learns from a spy of some consequence in Rome that the Prince is in Ireland. His household in Avignon is broken up—which, by accident, is true. ‘Something is in agitation’—valuable news!
The English Government, it is plain, was still in the dark. But matters were going ill for Charles. In February 1752, Waters, respectfully but firmly, declined to advance money. Charles dismissed in March all his French servants at Avignon, and sold the coach in which Sheridan and Strafford were wont to take the air. Madame de Talmond was still jealous of Mademoiselle Luci. Money came in by mere driblets. ‘Alexander’ provided 300l., and ‘Dixon,’ in England, twice sends a humble ten pounds. Charles transferred his quarters to the Netherlands, residing chiefly at Ghent, where he was known as the Chevalier William Johnson.
The English Government remained unenlightened. The Duke of Newcastle, on January 29, 1752, had ‘advice that the Pretender’s son is certainly in Silesia,’ and requests Sir Charles Hanbury Williams to make inquiries. [135]
On April 23, 1752, when Charles was establishing himself at Ghent, and trying to raise loans in every direction, the egregious Sir Charles hears that the Prince is in Lithuania, with the Radzivils. On April 27, Williams, at Leipzig, is convinced of this, and again proposes to waylay and seize the papers of a certain Bishop Lascaris, as he passes through Austrian territory on his way to Rome. In Lithuania the Prince might safely have been left. He could do the Elector of Hanover no harm anywhere, except by such Fenian enterprises as that which Pickle was presently to reveal. The anxious and always helpless curiosity of George II. and his agents about the Prince seems especially absurd, when they look in the ends of the earth for a man who is in the Netherlands.
At Ghent, May 1752, Charles to all appearances was much less busied with political conspiracies than with efforts to raise the wind. Dormer, at Antwerp, often protests against being drawn upon for money which he does not possess, and Charles treated a certain sum of 200l. as if it were the purse of Fortunatus, and inexhaustible. ‘Madame La Grandemain’ writes on May 5 that she cannot assist him, and le Philosophe (Montesquieu), she says, is out of town. On May 12 the Prince partly explains the cause of his need of money. He has taken, at Ghent, ‘a preti house, and room in it to lodge a friend,’ and he invites Dormer to be his guest. The house was near the Place de l’Empereur, in ‘La Rue des Varnsopele’ (?). He asks Dormer to send ‘two keces of Books:’ indeed, literature was his most respectable consolation. Old Waters had died, and young Waters was requested to be careful of Charles’s portrait by La Tour, of his ‘marble bousto’ by Lemoine, and of his ‘silver sheald.’ To Madame La Grandemain he writes in a peremptory style: ‘Malgré toute votre repugnance je vous ordonne d’éxecuter avec toutes les precautions possibles ce dont je vous ai chargé.’ What was this commission? It concerned ‘la demoiselle.’ ‘You must overcome your repugnance, and tell a certain person [Goring] that I cannot see him, and that, if he wishes to be in my good graces, he must show you the best and most efficacious and rapid means of arriving at the end for which I sent him to you. I hope that this letter will not find you in Paris.’
I have little doubt that the ‘repugnances’ of ‘Madame La Grandemain’ were concerned with the bringing of Miss Walkinshaw to the Prince. The person who is in danger of losing the Prince’s favour is clearly Goring, figuring under the name of ‘Stouf,’ and, at this moment, with ‘Madame La Grandemain’ in the country.
The facts about this Miss Walkinshaw, daughter of John Walkinshaw of Barowfield, have long been obscure. We can now offer her own account of her adventures, from the archives of the French Foreign Office. [137] In 1746 (according to a memoir presented to the French Court in 1774 by Miss Walkinshaw’s daughter, Charlotte) the Prince first met Clementina Walkinshaw at the house of her uncle, Sir Hugh Paterson, near Bannockburn. The lady was then aged twenty: she was named after Charles’s mother, and was a Catholic. The Prince conceived a passion for her, and obtained from her a promise to follow him ‘wherever providence might lead him, if he failed in his attempt.’ At a date not specified, her uncle, ‘General Graeme,’ obtained for her a nomination as chanoinesse in a chapitre noble of the Netherlands. But ‘Prince Charles was then incognito in the Low Countries, and a person in his confidence [Sullivan, tradition says] warmly urged Miss Walkinshaw to go and join him, as she had promised, pointing out that in the dreadful state of his affairs, nothing could better soothe his regrets than the presence of the lady whom he most loved. Moved by her passion and her promise given to a hero admired by all Europe, Miss Walkinshaw betook herself to Douay. The Prince, at Ghent, heard news so interesting to his heart, and bade her go to Paris, where he presently joined her. They renewed their promises and returned to Ghent, where she took his name [Johnson], was treated and regarded as his wife, later travelled with him in Germany, and afterwards was domiciled with him at Liege, where she bore a daughter, Charlotte, baptized on October 29, 1753.’ [138]
So runs the memoir presented to the French Court by the Prince’s daughter, Charlotte, in 1774. Though no date is assigned, Miss Walkinshaw certainly joined Charles in the summer of 1752. ‘Madame La Grandemain’ and Goring were very properly indisposed to aid in bringing the lady to Charles. The Prince this replies to the remonstrances of Goring (‘Stouf’).
To M. Stouf.
‘June 6, 1752.
‘It is not surprising that I should not care to have one in my Family that pretends to give me Laws in everything I do, you know how you already threatened to quit me If I did not do your will and pleasure. What is passed I shall forget, provided you continue to do yr. Duty, so that there is nothing to be altered as to what was settled. Do not go to Lisle, but stay at Coutray for my farther orders. As to ye little man [an agent of Charles] he need never expect to see me unless he executes ye Orders I gave him. I send you 50 Louisdors so that you may give ye Frenchman what is necessary.
‘The little man’ is, probably, Beson, who was also recalcitrant. Goring replies in the following very interesting letter. He considered his errand unworthy of a man of honour.