A minor incident, yet a characteristic one, may here be mentioned. The power which in 1808 had prohibited the counterfeit presentment on the stage of Charles Edward, could not obstruct those of George III. and all his family, in 1824, at the ‘Coburg.’ This house, being in Surrey, was beyond the jurisdiction of the Lord Chamberlain’s office. The drama, acted in defiance of him and of good taste, was called ‘George the Third, the Father of his People.’ The defunct king (acted by Bengough, who singularly resembled him), and the deceased Queen Charlotte, with her inseparable snuff-box, next delighted the Transpontines with their gracious presence; but tenfold more delight and amusement were caused by the presence of all the living members of the royal family. In noticing this singular piece, the ‘Morning Chronicle’ gave a Jacobite (or perhaps a Jacobin) flavour to its criticism. The title, it argued, was disrespectful to George IV. It is always the king on the throne who is the Father of his People. George III., therefore, should have been styled the Grandfather of his People! Again, in the drama, the latter is called ‘the best of kings,’ a designation which is the right of the king in possession; therefore, said the ‘Chronicle,’ George III. was ‘the second best,’ or the author might have called him ‘the best but one.’
THE BODY OF JAMES THE SECOND.
It is a singular coincidence that the same year in which four Jacobite peerages were relieved from attainder, the remains of James II. were discovered at St. Germain. The body was for many years ‘deposited’ in the chapel of the English Benedictines, Paris—body, minus heart, brains, and bowels, entombed in various places, to which places English Jacobites used to resort as to holy shrines. The leaders of civilisation, at the outbreak of the Revolution, smashed the urns containing brains, &c., and scattered the contents. The body at the Benedictines was treated with similar indignity; but, in a mutilated form, it was privately interred at St. Germain. No mark was set on the place, and it was forgotten, but was discovered this year in the course of rebuilding a part of the church. Information of this discovery was sent to London by our ambassador, to whom orders were sent from Downing Street to see the remains re-interred with every religious ceremony that could manifest respect.
CEREMONY AT ST. GERMAIN.
On the 7th of September, the Paris papers announced that a solemn mass would be celebrated on the 9th, and invited the attendance of all British subjects on this solemn occasion. Now, this invitation of the Paris authorities to British subjects to attend the funeral service in honour of the re-depositing of what remained of the body of James II., puzzled rather than excited the London journals. Writers therein protested against this service, if thereby the legitimate right of the Stuarts was recognised, or confession was made that service for the dead could get a soul in or out of purgatory. Sly hits were made against Lord Eldon, the keeper of the king’s conscience, for ordering such a mass at a period when he was in the habit of toasting the Protestant ascendency. Many persons—the most of them, it is to be hoped, moved by praiseworthy sympathies—went from London to be present at the ceremony. It was solemn and dignified. Distinguished persons, bearing familiar names of the old Jacobite times, were present. Marshal Macdonald and the Duke of Fitz-James were amongst them. By a curious coincidence, the British ambassador in France was then a Stuart—Sir Charles Stuart, afterwards Lord Stuart de Rothesay. He placed a royal diadem of gold beneath a black crape veil, on the coffin, and this graceful act of homage was in appropriate harmony with the restoration, as far as it could be effected, of the descendants of those who had suffered in the Jacobite cause, to the long forfeited titles of their ancestors.
SOMETHING NEW.
It really now seemed as if the curtain had fallen on the great Jacobite drama, and that it would not be possible to cause it to rise again for an additional act or for a farce succeeding to the tragic drama. In the year 1826, indeed, there was a little graceful episode, namely, the restoration of the titles of Ogilvie, Lord Ogilvie and Earl of Airly; of Dalzell, Lord Dalzell and Earl of Carnwath; and of Sutherland, Lord Duffus. But, not only while these acts of grace were being enacted, but for many years before and many years afterwards, a course of action was being taken which was intended to revive the whole question, and to put on the stage the old Jacobite play, with alterations, improvements, new actors, and an entirely new dénouement. London did not become aware of this till about the year 1847. In Scotland, however, there had long been expectancy raised of ‘something new,’ which will appear in Jacobite incidents under Queen Victoria.
