Pickle the Spy; Or, the Incognito of Prince Charles

‘I asked Count Brühl whether, in the present divided and factious state of the nobility of Poland, His Polish Majesty would like to have a young adventurer (who can fish in no waters that are not troubled, and who, by his mother, is allied to a family that once sat upon the Polish throne) to go into that country where it would be natural for him to endeavour to encourage factions, nourish divisions, and foment confederations to the utmost of his power, and might not the evil-minded and indisposed Poles be glad to have such a tool in their hands, which at some time or other they might make use of to answer their own ends? To this Count Brühl answered in such terms as I could wish, and I must do him the justice to say that he showed the best disposition to serve His Majesty in the affair in question; but I am yet of opinion that, whatever is done effectually in this case, must be done by the Court of Petersburg, and I would humbly advise that, as soon as it is known for certain that the Pretender’s son is in Poland, His Majesty should order his minister at the Court of Petersburg to take such steps as His Majesty’s great wisdom shall judge most likely to make the Czarina act with a proper vigour upon this occasion.

‘Your Grace knows that the republic of Poland is at present divided into two great factions, the one which is in the interest of Russia, to which the friends of the House of Austria attach themselves; the other is in the interest of France and Prussia. As I thought it most likely, if the Pretender’s son went into Poland, he would seek protection from the French party, I have desired and requested the French ambassador that he would write to the French resident at Warsaw, and to others of his friends in Poland, that he might be informed of the truth of the Pretender’s arrival, and the place that he was at in Poland, as soon as possible, and that when he was acquainted with it he would let me know what came to his knowledge, all which he has sincerely promised me to do, and I do not doubt but he will keep his word… It is publicly said that the Pretender’s son’s journey to Poland is with a design to marry a princess of the House of Radzivil.

‘As soon as I hear anything certain about the Pretender’s son being in Poland, I will most humbly offer to your Grace the method that I think will be necessary for His Majesty to pursue with respect to the King and republic of Poland, in case His Majesty should think fit not to suffer the Pretender’s son to remain in that country.

‘C. Hanbury Williams.’

On May 12, Williams believes that Charles is not in Poland. On May 18, he guesses (wrongly) that the Prince is in Paris. On May 25, he fancies – ‘plainly perceives’ – that the French ambassador at Dresden believes in the Polish theory. On June 9, Brühl tells Williams (correctly) that Charles is in Venice. On June 11, Hanbury Williams proposes to have a harmless priest seized and robbed, and to kidnap Prince Charles! I give this example of British diplomatic energy and chivalrous behaviour.

From Sir Charles Hanbury Williams‘Dresden: June 11, N.S. 1749.

‘.. Count Brühl has communicated to me the letters which he received by the last post from the Saxon resident at Venice, who says that the Pretender’s son had been at Venice for some days; that he has received two expresses from his father at Rome since his being there; but that nobody knew how long he intended to stay there.. Mons. Brühl further informs me that he hears from Poland that the Prince of Radzivil, who is Great General of Lithuania, has a strong desire to marry his daughter to the Pretender’s son. The young lady is between eleven and twelve years old, very plain, and can be no great fortune, for she has two brothers; but yet Mons. Brühl is of opinion that there is some negotiation on foot for this marriage, which is managed by an Italian priest who is a titular bishop, whose name is Lascarisk (sic), and who lives in and governs the Prince Radzivil’s family. This priest is soon to set out for Italy, under pretence of going to Rome for the Jubilee year, but Mons. Brühl verily thinks that he is charged with a secret commission for negotiating the above-mentioned marriage. If His Majesty thinks it worth while to have this priest watched, I will answer for having early intelligence of the time he intends beginning his journey, and then it would be no difficult matter to have him stopped, and his papers taken from him, as he goes through the Austrian territories into Italy. The more I think of it the more I am persuaded that the Pretender’s son will not go into Poland for many reasons, especially for one, which is that for a small sum of money I will undertake to find a Pole who will engage to seize upon his person in any part of Poland, and carry him to any port in the north that His Majesty shall appoint. I have had offers of this sort already made me, to which your Grace may be sure I gave no answer, except thanking the persons for the zeal they showed for the King, my master, but I am convinced that the thing is very practicable.

‘I had this day the honour to dine with the King of Poland, and, as I sat next to him at table, he told me that he was very glad to hear that the Pretender’s son was at length found to be at Venice, for that he would much rather have him there than in Poland; to which I answered that I was very glad, upon His Polish Majesty’s account, that the Pretender’s son had not thought fit to come into any of His Majesty’s territories, since I believed the visit would be far from being agreeable. To which the King of Poland replied that it would be a very disagreeable visit to him, and after that expressed himself in the handsomest manner imaginable with respect to His Majesty, and the regard he had for his Sacred person and Royal House; and I am convinced if the Pretender’s son had gone into Poland, His Polish Majesty and his minister would have done everything in their power to have drove him out of that kingdom as soon as possible.

‘C. Hanbury Williams.

‘P.S. – Since my writing this letter, Count Brühl tells me that the news of the Pretender’s son’s being at Venice is confirmed by letters from his best correspondent at Rome, but both accounts agree in the Pretender’s son’s being at Venice incognito, and that he appears in no public place, so that very few people know of his being there… C. H. W.’

In 1751, Hanbury Williams renewed his proposal about waylaying Lascaris.

Charles, as we shall see, was for a short time at Venice in May 1749. Meanwhile the game of hide and seek through Europe went on as merrily as ever. Lord Hyndford, so well known to readers of Mr. Carlyle’s ‘Frederick,’ now opens in full cry from Moscow, but really on a hopelessly wrong scent. As illustrating Hyndford’s opinion of Frederick, who had invested him with the Order of the Thistle, we quote this worthy diplomatist:

Lord Hyndford to the Duke of Newcastle. 63‘Moscow: June 19, 1749.

‘.. I must acquaint your Grace of what I have learnt, through a private canal, from the last relation of Mr. Gross, the Russian minister at Berlin, although I dare say it is no news to your Grace. Mr. Gross writes that, some days before the date of his letter, the Pretender’s eldest son arrived at Potsdam, and had been very well received by the King of Prussia, General Keith, and his brother, the late Earl Marshal; and all the other English, Scotch, and Irish Jacobites in the Prussian service were to wait upon him. This does not at all surprise me; but Mons. Valony, the French minister, went likewise to make his compliments at a country house, hired on purpose for this young vagabond. This is all that I know as yet of this affair in general, for the Chancellor has not thought proper as yet to inform me of the particulars. However, this public, incontestable proof of the little friendship and regard the King of Prussia has for His Majesty and His Royal Family, and for the whole British nation, will, I hope, open the eyes of the people who are blind to that Prince’s monstrous faults, if any such are still left amongst us, and I doubt not but it will save His Majesty the trouble of sending Sir C. Hanbury Williams or any other minister to that perfidious Court.

‘Hyndford.’

This was all a mare’s nest; but Hyndford is for kidnapping the Prince. He writes:

‘Moscow: June 26, 1749.

‘My Lord, – Since the 19th inst., which was the date of my last letter to your Grace, I have been with the Chancellor, who made his excuses that he had not sooner communicated to me the intelligence which Mr. Gross, the Russian minister at Berlin, had sent him concerning the Pretender’s eldest son. The Chancellor confirmed all that I wrote to your Grace on the 19th upon that subject, and he told me that he had received a second letter from Mr. Gross, wherein that minister says that the Young Pretender had left the country house where he was, in the neighbourhood of Berlin, and had entirely disappeared, without its being hitherto possible for him, Mr. Gross, or Count Choteck, the Austrian minister, to find out the route he has taken, although it is generally believed that he is gone into Poland; and that now the King of Prussia and his ministers deny that ever the Pretender’s son was there, and take it mightily amiss of anybody that pretends to affirm it. I am sorry that the Russian troops are not now in Poland, for otherwise I believe it would have been an easy matter to prevail upon this Court to catch this young knight errant and to send him to Siberia, where he would not have been any more heard of; and if the Court of Dresden will enter heartily into such a scheme, it will not be impossible yet to apprehend him, and as it is very probable that the King of Prussia has sent him into Poland to make a party and breed confusion, it appears to be King Augustus’s interest to secure him.

‘Hyndford.’

Many months later, on Feb. 2, 1749–1750, Lord Hyndford, writing from Hanover, retracted. The rumour of Charles’s presence at Berlin, he found, was started by Count de Choteck, the Austrian ambassador. In fact, Choteck used to meet a fair lady secretly in a garden near Berlin, and near the house of Field-Marshal Keith and his brother, Lord Marischal. Hard by was an inn, where a stranger lodged, a rich and handsome youth, whom Choteck, meeting, took for Prince Charles. He was really a young Polish gentleman, into whose reasons for retirement we need not examine.

Frederick, in his mischievous way, wrote about all this from Potsdam, on June 24, 1749:

‘We have played a trick on Choteck; he spends much on spies, and, to prove that he is well served, he has taken it into his head that young Edouard, really at Venice, is at Berlin. He has been very busy over this, and no doubt has informed his Court.’

On July 7, 1749, Frederick, in a letter to his minister at Moscow, said that only dense ignorance could credit the Berlin legend. 64

These documents certainly demonstrate that the Prince fluttered the Courts, and that the Jacobite belief in English schemes to kidnap or murder him was not a mere mythical delusion. Only an opportunity was wanted. He had spared the Duke of Cumberland’s life, even after the horrors of Culloden. But Hanbury Williams knows a Pole who will waylay him; Hyndford wants to carry him off to Siberia. It was not once only, on the other hand, but twice at least, that Charles protected the Butcher, Cumberland. In 1746 he saved his enemy from Lochgarry’s open attempt. In 1747 (May 4), a certain Father Myles Macdonnell wrote from St. Germain to James in Rome. He dwells on the jealousies among the Jacobites, and particularly denounces Kelly, then a trusted intimate of Charles. Kelly, he says, is a drunkard, and worse! It was probably he who raised ‘a scruple’ against a scheme relating to ‘Cumberland’s hateful person.’ ‘Honest warrantable people from London’ came to Paris and offered ‘without either fee or reward’ to do the business. What was the ‘business,’ what measures were to be taken against ‘Cumberland’s hateful person’? Father Myles Macdonnell, writing to James, a Catholic priest to a Catholic King, does not speak of assassination. He talks of ‘the scruple raised against securing Cumberland’s person.’ ‘I suspect Parson Kelly of making a scruple of an action the most meritorious that could possibly be committed,’ writes Father Myles. 65 The talk of kidnapping, in such cases as those of Cumberland and Prince Charles – men of spirit and armed – is a mere blind. Murder is meant! Father Myles’s letter proves that (unknown to James in Rome) there was a London conspiracy to kill the Butcher, but Prince Charles again rejected the proposal. He was less ungenerous than Hyndford and Hanbury Williams. The amusing thing is that the English Government knew, quite as well as Father Macdonnell or James, all about the conspiracy to slay the Duke of Cumberland. Here is the information, which reached Mann through Rome. 66

From Mr. Thomas Chamberlayne to Sir H. Mann‘Capranica: November 18, 1747.

‘.. The family at Rome.. was informed, by one who arrived there last October from London, that there are twelve persons, whose names I could not learn, but none of distinction, that are formed in a club or society, and meet at the Nag’s Head in East Street, Holborn. They have bound themselves under most solemn oaths that this winter they will post themselves in different parts of the City of London mostly frequented by His Royal Highness, the Duke of Cumberland, in his night visits [to whom?], and are resolved to lay violent hands on his royal person. The parole among the different parties in their respective posts is The Bloody Butcher. They are all resolute fellows, who first declared at their entering in this conspiracy to despise death or torture. This motive is worthy of your care, so I am certain you’ll make proper use of it.

‘Thomas Chamberlayne.’

If Charles afterwards attempted to repay in kind the attentions of his royal cousins, or of their ministers, this can hardly be reckoned inhuman. If he was fluttering the Courts, they – Prussia, Russia, France, Poland – were leading him the life of a tracked beast. They were determined to drive him into the Papal domains; even in Venice he was harried by spies. 67 On May 30, to retrace our steps, Mann, from Florence, reports that Charles has arrived at the Papal Nuncio’s in Venice, attended by one servant in the livery of the Duke of Modena. Walton adds that he has not a penny (June 6). Walton (July 11) writes from Florence that the Prince is reported from Venice to have paid assiduous court to the second daughter of the Duke of Modena, a needy potentate, but that he suddenly disappeared.’ 68 On Sept. 5, 1749, Walton says he is in France. On Sept. 26, Walton writes that he is offering his sword to the Czarina, who declines. He is at Lübeck, or (Oct. 3) at Avignon. On Oct. 20, Mann writes that, from Lübeck, Charles has asked the Imperial ambassador at Paris to implore the Kaiser to give him an asylum in his States. On Oct. 31, Mann only knows that the Pope and James ‘reciprocally ask each other news about’ the Prince. On Jan. 23, 1750, poor Mann is ‘quite at a loss.’ James receives letters from the Prince, but never with date of place, otherwise Mann would have been better informed. Walton hears that James believes Charles to be imprisoned in a French fortress. From Paris, Jan. 17, 1750, Albemarle wrote that he heard the Prince was in Berlin. The Prince later told Pickle that he had been in Berlin more than once, and, as we shall see, Frederick amused him with hopes of assistance. Kelly has left Charles’s followers in distress at Avignon. Kelly, in fact, received his congé; he was distrusted by the Earl Marischal, and Carte, the historian. On Jan. 28, Albemarle hears that Charles has been in Paris ‘under the habit of a Capuchine Fryar,’ and this was a disguise of his, according to Pickle.

Meanwhile the French Government kept protesting their total ignorance. On April 3, 1750, Walton announces that James has had a long letter from Charles containing his plans and those of his adherents, for which he demands the Royal approval. James has sent a long letter to Charles by the courier of the Duc de Nivernais, the French ambassador in Rome. By the middle of June, James is reported by Walton to be full of hope, and to have heard excellent news. But these expectations were partly founded on a real scheme of Charles, partly on a strike of colliers at Newcastle. A mob orator there proclaimed the Prince, and the Jacobites in Rome thought that His Royal Highness was heading the strike! 69 In July, the same illusions were entertained. On August 12, Albemarle, from Paris, reports the Prince to be dangerously ill, probably not far from the French capital. He was really preparing to embark for England. Albemarle, by way of trap, circulated in the English press a forged news-letter from Nancy in Lorraine, dated August 24, 1750. It announced Charles’s death of pneumonia, in hopes of drawing forth a Jacobite denial. This stratagem failed. On August 4, James, though piqued by being kept in the dark, sent Charles a fresh commission of regency. 70 Of the Prince’s English expedition of September 1750, the Government of George II. knew nothing. Pickle was in Rome at the moment, not with Charles; what Pickle knew the English ministers knew, but there is a difficulty in dating his letters before 1752, and I am not aware that any despatches of his from Rome are extant.

We have now brought the history to a point (September 1750) where the Prince, for a moment, emerges from fairyland, and where we are not left to the perplexing conjectures of diplomatists in Paris, Dresden, Florence, Hanover, and St. Petersburg. In September 1750, Charles certainly visited London. There is a point of light. We now give an account of his actual movements in 1749–1750.

CHAPTER IV

THE PRINCE IN FAIRYLAND. II. – WHAT ACTUALLY OCCURRED

Charles mystifies Europe – Montesquieu knows his secret – Sources of information – The Stuart manuscripts – Charles’s letters from Avignon – A proposal of marriage – Kennedy and the hidden treasure – Where to look for Charles —Cherchez la femme! – Hidden in Lorraine – Plans for entering Paris – Letter to Mrs. Drummond – To the Earl Marischal – Starts for Venice – At Strasbourg – Unhappy Harrington – Letter to James – Leaves Venice ‘A bird without a nest’ – Goes to Paris – The Prince’s secret revealed – The convent of St. Joseph – Curious letter as Cartouche – Madame de Routh – Cartouche again – Goring sent to England – A cypher – Portrait of Madame de Talmond – Portrait of Madame d’Aiguillon – Intellectual society – Mademoiselle Luci – ‘Dener Bash’ – The secret hoard – Results of Goring’s English mission – Timidity of English Jacobites – Supply of money – Charles a bibliophile– ‘My big muff’ – A patron of art – Quarrels with Madame de Talmond – Arms for a rising – Newton on Cluny – Kindness to Monsieur Le Coq – Madame de Talmond weary of Charles – Letters to her – Charles reads Fielding’s novels – Determines to go to England – Large order of arms – Reproached by James – Intagli of James —En route for London – September 1750.

The reader has had an opportunity of observing the success of Charles in mystifying Europe. Diplomatists, ambassadors, and wits would have been surprised, indeed, had they known that one of the most famous men of the age possessed the secret for which they were seeking. The author of ‘L’Esprit des Lois’ could have enlightened them, for Charles’s mystery was no mystery to Montesquieu, who was friendly with Scottish and English Jacobites. The French Ministers, truly or falsely, always professed entire ignorance. They promised to arrest the Prince wherever he might be found on French soil, and transport him to sea by Civita Vecchia. 71 It will be shown later that, at least in the autumn of 1749, this ignorance was probably feigned.

What is really known of the movements of the Prince in 1749? Curiously enough, Mr. Ewald does not seem to have consulted the ‘Stuart Papers’ at Windsor, while the extracts in Browne’s ‘History of the Highland Clans’ are meagre. To these papers then we turn for information. The most useful portions are not Charles’s letters to James. These are brief and scanty. Thus he writes from Avignon (January 15, 1749), ‘We are enjoying here the finest weather ever was seen.’ He always remarks that his health ‘is perfect.’ He orders patterns for his servants’ liveries and a button, blue and yellow, still remains in a letter from Edgar! The button outlasts the dynasty. Our intelligence must be extracted from ill-spelled, closely scrawled, and much erased sheets of brown paper, on which Charles has scribbled drafts for letters to his household, to Waters, his banker in Paris, to adherents in Paris or London, and to ladies. The notes are almost, and in places are quite, illegible. The Prince practised a disguised hand, and used pseudonyms instead of names. Many letters have been written in sympathetic ink, and then exposed to fire or the action of acids. However, something can be made out, but not why he concealed his movements even from his banker, even from his household, Oxburgh, Kelly, Harrington, and Graeme. It is certain that he started, with a marriage in his eye, from Avignon on February 28, 1749, accompanied by Henry Goring, of the Austrian service. There had already been a correspondence, vaguely hinted at by James’s secretary, Edgar, between Charles and the Duke and a Princess of Hesse-Darmstadt. On February 24, 1749, Charles drafted, at Avignon, a proposal for the hand of the Duke’s daughter. He also drafted (undated) a request to the King of Poland for leave to bring his wife, the Princess of Hesse-Darmstadt, into Polish territory. 72 We may imagine His Polish Majesty’s answer. Of course, the marriage did not take place.

Charles had other secrets. On February 3, 1749, he wrote to Waters about the care to be taken with certain letters. These were a correspondence with ‘Thomas Newton,’ (Major Kennedy), at Mr. Alexander Macarty’s, in Gray’s Inn, London. Newton was in relations with Cluny Macpherson, through a friend in Northumberland. Cluny, skulking on his Highland estates, was transmitting or was desired to transmit a part of the treasure of 40,000 louis d’or, buried soon after Culloden at the head of Loch Arkaig. 73 Of this fatal treasure we shall hear much. A percentage of the coin was found to be false money, a very characteristic circumstance. Moreover, Cluny seems to have held out hopes, always deferred, of a rising in the Highlands. Charles had to be ready in secrecy, to put himself at the head of this movement. There was also to be an English movement, which was frowned on by official Jacobitism. On February 3, 1749, Charles writes from Avignon to ‘Thomas Newton’ (Kennedy) about the money sent south by Cluny. He repeated his remarks on March 6, giving no place of residence. But probably he was approaching Paris, dangerous as such a visit was, for in a note of March 6 to Waters, he says that he will ‘soon call for letters.’ 74 His noms de guerre at this time were ‘Williams’ and ‘Benn’; later he chose ‘John Douglas.’ He was also Smith, Mildmay, Burton, and so forth.

There should have been no difficulty in discovering Charles. Modern police, in search of a person who is ‘wanted,’ spy on his mistress. Now the Princesse de Talmond, when out of favour at Versailles, went to certain lands in Lorraine, near her exiled king, Stanislas. In Lorraine, therefore, at Lunéville, the Court of the ex-king of Poland, or at Commercy, Bar-le-Duc, or wherever the Princesse de Talmond might be, Charles was sure to be heard of by an intelligent spy, if permitted to enter the country. Consequently, we are not surprised to find Charles drafting on April 3, at Lunéville (where he resided at the house of one Mittie, physician of the ex-king of Poland), a ‘Project for My arrival in Paris. Mr. Benn [himself] must go straight to Dijon, and his companion, Mr. Smith [Goring], to Paris. Mr. Smith will need a chaise, which he must buy at Lunéville. Next he will take up the servant of C. P. [Prince Charles] at Ligny, but on leaving that place Mr. Smith must ride on horseback, and the chaise can go there as if for his return to Paris; the person in it seeming to profit by this opportunity. Mr. Benn [the Prince] must remain for some days, as if he wanted to buy a trunk, and will give his own as if in friendship to Mr. Smith; all this seeming mere chance work. Next, Mr. Smith will go his way and his friend will go his, after waiting a few days, and on arriving at Dijon must write to nobody, except the letter to W – [Waters]. The Chevalier Graeme, whom he must see (and to whom he may mention having been at Dijon on the Prince’s business, without naming his companion, but as if alone), knows nothing, and Graeme must be left in the dark as if he (Mr. Smith) [Goring] were in the same case, and were waiting new orders in total ignorance, not having seen me for a long time.’ 75