Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton

by Anonymous

"For some moments I thought I had seen the last of the little bark, which seemed to venture, like an enchanted skiff, into that world of black waters. But suddenly I caught a glimpse of the narrow boat, and the dark figures of the men, gliding across the bright stream of moonlight upon the tide; an instant after a faint gleam blinked on the white mantle of the lady and the sparkle of the oars, but it died away by degrees, and neither sound nor sight returned again.

"For more than a quarter of an hour the tall black figure of the cavalier continued fixed upon the same spot and in the same attitude; but suddenly the broad gigantic shadow of the frigate swung round in the moonshine, her sails filled to the breeze, and, dimly brightening in the light, she bore off slow and still and stately towards the west."

So much for the birth. Doctor Beaton, at least, says that Louisa de Stolberg, the lawful wife of the young pretender, gave birth to a child at St Rosalie in 1773, and that it was carried away three days afterwards in the British frigate "Albina," by Commodore O'Haleran.

In the next story, called "The Red Eagle," another stage is reached. The Highland chief who went to visit Dr. Beaton in Westminster has passed his youth, and, in middle age, is astounded by some neighbourly gossip concerning a mysterious personage who has taken up his quarters in an adjacent mansion. This unknown individual is described as wearing the red tartan, and as having that peculiar look of the eye "which was never in the head of man nor bird but the eagle and Prince Charlie." His name also is given as Captain O'Haleran, so that there can be no difficulty in tracing his history back to the time when the commodore and the mysterious infant sailed from the Mediterranean port toward the west. Moreover, it seems that he is the reputed son of an admiral who lays claim to a Scottish peerage, who had married a southern heiress against the wishes of his relatives, and had assumed her name; and that his French valet is in the habit of paying him great deference, and occasionally styles him "Monseigneur" and "Altesse Royal." As if this hint were not sufficient, it is incidentally mentioned that a very aged Highland chief, who is almost in his dotage, no sooner set eyes upon the "Red Eagle" than he addressed him as Prince Charlie, and told his royal highness that the last time he saw him was on the morning of Culloden.

In the third and last of the tales—"The Wolf's Den"—the "Red Eagle" reappears, and is married to an English lady named Catherine Bruce. His pretensions to royalty are even more plainly acknowledged than before; and in the course of the story the Chevalier Græme, chamberlain to the Countess d'Albanie, addresses him as "My Prince." The inference is obvious. The Highland hero with the wonderful eyes was the child of the pretender; he espoused an English lady, and the names on the title-page of the book which tells this marvellous history lead us to believe that the marriage was fruitful, and that "John Sobieski Stuart" and "Charles Edward Stuart" were the offspring of the union, and as such inherited whatever family pretensions might exist to the sovereignty of the British empire.

This very pretty story might have passed with the public as a mere romance, and, possibly, the two names on the title-page might have been regarded as mere noms de plume, if vague reports had not previously been circulated which made it apparent that the motive of the so-called Stuarts was to deceive the public rather than to amuse them.

There seemed, indeed, to be little ground for believing this romantic story to be true, and when it was made public it was immediately rent to pieces. One shrewd critic, in particular, tore the veil aside, and in the pages of the Quarterly Review revealed the truth. He plainly showed the imposture, both by direct and collateral evidence, and traced the sham Stuarts through all the turnings of their tortuous lives. By him Commodore O'Haleran, who is said to have carried off the child, is shown to be Admiral Allen, who died in 1800, and who pretended to have certain claims to the earldom of Errol and the estates of the Hay family. This gentleman, it seems, had two sons, Captain John Allen and Lieutenant Thomas Allen, both of whom were officers in the navy. The younger of these, Thomas, was married on the 2d of October 1792 to Catherine Manning, the daughter of the Vicar of Godalming. In this gentleman, Lieutenant Thomas Allen, the reviewer declares the prototype of the mysterious "Red Eagle" may clearly be recognised; and he works his case out in this way:—The "Red Eagle" calls himself captain, and is seen in the story in connection with a man-of-war, and displaying remarkable powers of seamanship during a storm among the Hebrides; Thomas Allen was a lieutenant in the navy. The "Red Eagle" passed for the son of Admiral O'Haleran; Thomas Allen for the son of Admiral Carter Allen. The "Red Eagle" married Catherine Bruce, sometime after the summer of 1790; Thomas Allen married Catherine Manning in 1792. In the last of the three "Tales of the Century," Admiral O'Haleran and the mysterious guide of Dr. Beaton are represented as endeavouring to prevent the "Red Eagle" from injuring the prospects of his house by such a mesalliance as they considered his marriage with Catherine Bruce would be; and there is a scene in which the royal birth of the "Red Eagle" is spoken of without concealment, and in which the admiral begs his "foster son" not to destroy, by such a marriage, the last hope that was withering on his father's foreign tomb. In his will Admiral Allen bequeathed his whole fortune to his eldest son, and only left a legacy of £100 to Thomas; so that it may reasonably be inferred that his displeasure had been excited against his youngest born by some such event as an imprudent marriage. This Thomas Allen had two sons, of whom the elder published a volume of poems in 1822, to which he put his name as John Hay Allen, Esq.; while the marriage of the other is noted in Blackwood's Magazine for the same year, when he figures as "Charles Stuart, youngest son of Thomas Hay Allen, Esq." These are the gentlemen who, more than twenty years later, placed their names to the "Tales of the Century," and styled themselves John Sobieski Stuart and Charles Edward Stuart, thus seeking to persuade the world that they were the direct heirs of Prince Charlie.

There can be no doubt as to their motive; but is it probable, or even possible, that the occurrences which they describe with so much minuteness could ever have taken place? The imaginary Dr. Beaton's story as to the birth is altogether uncorroborated. What became of the attendants on the Princess Louisa, of the lady who was in the bedchamber, of the nurse who held the child in her arms, and of the little page who announced the advent of the royal heir to the mysterious guide? They knew the nature of the important event which is said to have taken place, yet they all died with sealed lips, nor, even "in the service of the king," revealed the fact that an heir had been born. The officers and crew of the frigate, also, must have gossiped about the commodore's midnight adventure, and the strange shipment of a lady and child off the Italian coast on a moonlight night; but not one of them ever gave a sign or betrayed the fact. Such secrecy is, to say the least, very unusual. Then, returning to Prince Charlie himself, it is indisputable that when his wife left him in disgust in 1780, he had no recourse to his imaginary son to cheer his old age, but turned instinctively to Charlotte Stuart, his illegitimate child, for sympathy. In July 1784 he executed a deed, with all the necessary forms, legitimating this person, and bestowing upon her the title of Albany, by which he had himself been known for fourteen years, with the rank of duchess. To legitimate his natural daughter, and give her the reversion of his own title, was very unlike the action of a pseudo-king who had a lawful son alive. In 1784, also, when the pretender executed his will, he left this same Duchess of Albany, of his own constitution, all that he possessed, with the exception of a small bequest to his brother the cardinal, and a few trifling legacies to his attendants. To the duchess he bequeathed his palace at Florence, with all its rich furniture, all his plate and jewels, including those brought into the family by his mother, the Princess Clementina Sobieski, and also such of the crown jewels of England as had been conveyed to the continent by James II. If the claimant to the British throne had had a son, would he have alienated from him not only his Italian residence and the Polish jewels which he inherited from his mother, but also the crown jewels of England, which had come into his possession as the descendant of a king, and which were, by the same right, the inalienable property of his legitimate son?

The Duchess of Albany very evidently knew nothing of the existence of her supposed half-brother. She survived her father Prince Charles Edward for two years. Before her decease she sent to the cardinal the whole of the crown jewels, and at her death she left him all her property, with the exception of an annuity to her mother, Miss Walkinshaw, who survived her for some time, and who was known in Jacobite circles as the Countess of Alberstroff.