Later, the date of this last visit is given in a letter, addressed by Lord Albemarle, British ambassador in Paris, to Sir Thomas Robinson, namely, May 1754. The writer, in August, 1754, states that he had been ‘positively’ assured by a discontented Jacobite, that ‘no longer ago than about three months,’ Charles Edward had been in London, ‘in a great disguise as may be imagined;’ that the prince had received friendly notice, at Nottingham, that he was in danger of being seized, and that he immediately fled. As to the authority, Lord Albemarle writes:—‘The person from whom I have this, is as likely to have been informed of it as any of the party, and could have had no particular reason to have imposed such a story upon me, which could have served no purpose.’ The ambassador is mistaken. The purpose of such stories was to keep warm the hopes—fading hopes—of the Jacobites, and it was not the last story invented with that purpose in view.
AT THE CORONATION.
Lastly, there is the story of the prince’s presence at the coronation festival of George III., in 1761. According to some authorities, it was without any stirring incident. Others say, that very stirring matter indeed sprang from it, and that much confusion was the consequence.
Walpole, describing the illustrious people, state officers, and others at the coronation-banquet of George III., September 1761, pauses at sight of the son of the unhappy Lord Kilmarnock. ‘One there was ... the noblest figure I ever saw, the High Constable of Scotland, Lord Errol’ (he had succeeded to this title through his mother), ‘as one saw him in a place capable of containing him, one admired him. At the wedding, dressed in tissue, he looked like one of the Giants in Guildhall, new gilt. It added to the energy of his person—that one considered him acting so considerable a part in that very Hall, where, so few years ago, one saw his father, Lord Kilmarnock, condemned to the block.’ In 1746, Lord Errol, then Lord Boyd, had fought at Culloden, against his father.
AT THE BANQUET.
They who were still of that father’s way of thinking were for long afterwards comforted by a story that when the King’s Champion proclaimed George III. king, and challenged all who questioned the right of him so proclaimed, by throwing down his glove, a Champion of James III. boldly stept forward, took up the glove, and retired with it unmolested. The story, so to speak, got crystalised. It is still partially believed in. It may have arisen out of an incident chronicled in ‘Burke’s Peerage.’ It is there said that, officiating at the coronation as Constable of Scotland, Lord Errol, by accident, neglected to doff his cap when the king entered; but on his respectfully apologising for his negligence, his majesty entreated him to be covered, for he looked on his presence at the ceremony as a very particular honour.’ This wears an air of absurdity. However that may be, Scott has made use of the alleged challenge of the king’s right to his crown.
It occurs in ‘Redgauntlet,’ where Lilias swiftly passes through the covering lines of Jacobites, takes up the gauntlet, and leaves a pledge of battle in its stead. But contemporary accounts take no note of any such occurrence. Walpole, an eye-witness, merely records: ‘The Champion acted his part admirably, and dashed down his gauntlet with proud defiance. His associates, Lord Talbot, Lord Effingham, and the Duke of Bedford were woful. Lord Talbot [the Lord High Steward] piqued himself on backing his horse down the hall and not turning its rump towards the king; but he had taken such pains to address it to that duty, that it entered backwards; and, at his retreat, the spectators clapped, a terrible indecorum.’ This indecorous clapping, as the Champion (Dymoke) and his knights backed out of the hall may have been taken by those who were not aware of the cause as some party expression. GEORGE AND CHARLES EDWARD. Out of it the story of the Jacobite taker-up of the glove may have arisen. The story was told with a difference. A friend (who is anonymous) informed the Earl Marischal that he had recognised Charles Edward among the spectators at the coronation banquet, and had spoken to him. The prince is said to have replied: ‘I came only out of curiosity; and the person who is the object of all this magnificence is the one I envy the least.’ Scott, in a note to the incident in ‘Redgauntlet,’ remarks,—‘The story is probably one of the numerous fictions that were circulated to keep up the spirits of a sinking faction. The incident was, however, possible, if it could be supposed to be attended by any motive adequate to the risk.... George III., it is said, had a police of his own, whose agency was so efficient that the Sovereign was able to tell his Prime Minister, on one occasion, to his great surprize, that the Pretender was in London. The Prime Minister began immediately to talk of measures to be taken, warrants to be procured, messengers and guards to be got in readiness. “Pooh! pooh!” said the good-natured Sovereign, “since I have found him out, leave me alone to deal with him.” “And what,” said the Minister, “is your Majesty’s purpose in so serious a case?” “To leave the young man to himself,” said George III., “and when he tires, he will go back again.” The truth of this story does not depend on that of the lifting of the gauntlet, and while the latter could be but an idle bravado, the former expresses George III.’s goodness of heart and soundness of policy.’
A DISQUALIFICATION.
Altogether it is very clear that dates, persons, and places have been inextricably mixed up in the Jacobite legends of the Chevalier’s visit to London. At the same time there seems to be but one opinion among all writers, without exception, who have dealt with this subject hitherto, namely, that the alleged visit of 1750 actually occurred. Perhaps the best evidence is furnished in the ‘Diary of a Lady of Quality’ (Mrs. Wynne). The writer’s grandson states that his grandmother had frequently told him that she had had, from Lady Primrose herself, full particulars of the visit of Charles Edward to London in 1750. A few questions, however, might easily break down even this assertion. After all, the decision must be left to the reader’s judgment.
Although no overt act answered the Champion’s challenge in Westminster Hall, the right of George III. to succeed to the crown was vigorously denied in very High Church coteries. Soon after the king’s birth, in 1738, he was baptised by Secker, Bishop of Oxford. Now, Secker was born and bred a dissenter, and did not enter the Church till after he had been a medical student, and had run a not too exemplary career. How could an unbaptised bishop validly baptise a prince, heir to the crown of England? If the king was an unbaptised, or as good as unbaptised king, he was neither lawful King of England nor temporal head of England’s Church! This was the only form in which the Champion’s gage was picked up. It did not amount to much. Nevertheless, an old inheritor of Nonjuring principles occasionally may be found questioning the right of George III. to succeed, on the score of his being unbaptised, or of being (still worse) baptised by an ex-dissenter, who himself had never been sanctified by the rite according to the Church of England! THE PROTESTANTISM OF CHARLES EDWARD. As to the story of the alleged Protestantism of Charles Edward, it never had more foundation than his own ignoble assurances to members of the Church of England whom he happened to encounter. In this sense he often ‘declared’ himself; but, never in a church, at Liége or in Switzerland, or in London, at St. Martin’s, St. James’s, or St. Mary’s le Strand. There is no record of any such solemn circumstance connected with any such exalted personage in any of those places or edifices. Such a fact as his conversion would have been utter ruin to him. The very report that the fact existed caused many of his Irish friends to tighten their purse-strings. Rome, with full knowledge that he really had no ‘religion’ at all, was perfectly satisfied that his Catholicism was uncontaminated. When, after his father’s death in 1766, Charles Edward returned to Rome, no recantation, nor anything like it, was demanded of him.