Bonnie Prince Charlie: Charles Edward Stuart (Pimlico) (8 page)

There was another factor that gave James pause. The person pushing hardest in France for Charles Edward’s education was none other than the erstwhile Jacobite and turncoat Viscount Bolingbroke, in whom James had no confidence at all.
⁹⁹
All in all, given the worries about his son’s religion, the security risks in Switzerland, and the fact that the French were pressing for a Swiss domicile for the prince yet washed their hands of any consequences, James could see no advantages in the idea. His son would be a virtual prisoner even in a Catholic canton, surrounded by so many Protestant neighbours. Most of all, he suspected the motives of the Bolingbroke faction in promoting the idea.
¹⁰⁰

Then there was the personality of his son to be taken into account: ‘The Prince is now in a critical age, he is mighty lively, and though he has a quick apprehension, yet he is a good deal thoughtless, so that it would be more dangerous to expose him to certain dangers and temptations than most children of his age.’
¹⁰¹
James decisively rejected the idea of Switzerland and held out for Paris (though this was clearly a forlorn hope).

The statement above by James to his agent O’Brien in Paris was the fullest utterence yet of his reservations about his son. The truth was that Charles Edward’s educational progress had proceeded anything but smoothly. James’s letters to Clementina are full of
strictures
on his eldest son’s unsatisfactory behaviour.
¹⁰²
His resistance to all forms of discipline, especially of the intellectual kind, was becoming more pronounced. A progress report from Dunbar in January 1733 is typical:

The Prince grows tall, strong and is, I believe, the most beautiful figure this day in the world, but to be ingenuous with you, it is impossible to get him to apply to any study as he ought to or indeed in any tolerable degree, by which means the Latin goes ill on, but he speaks both French and Italian easily.
¹⁰³

One ray of hope was his liking for design, for which he had a decided talent.
¹⁰⁴
Dunbar encouraged him in this, hoping it would lead him on to geometry and other mathematical subjects.
¹⁰⁵
But tension between Charles Edward and authority soon surfaced again. Since the Prince could not strike at the obvious target (his father), he struck at Dunbar, James’s instrument of discipline. In September 1733 a furious row erupted over the prince’s studies. Dunbar attempted to chastise him. Charles Edward lost his temper and kicked Dunbar. He followed this up with a threat to kill his governor if he laid a hand on him.
¹⁰⁶

James’s retribution was swift. The prince was locked in his room and kept there the best part of a week until he purged his contempt. What particularly troubled James was that his son had sworn revenge against Dunbar and refused to relent in his resolve for several days. Yet there are clear signs that James was already preparing to accept the inevitable with his truculent elder son. He was not temperamentally the sort of father who favoured beating his son – and childbeating was already going out of fashion in pedagogic circles anyway. He faced the problem with resignation. Two months after the fracas with Dunbar, he allowed his son for the first time to make the ride from Albano to Rome without him.
¹⁰⁷

That Charles Edward was a confused and rebellious boy as he entered adolescence cannot be doubted. What general account can be given of his relations within the troubled Stuart family? There can be no questioning the closeness of his relationship with his mother. It was Clementina’s policy to stay away from Albano and James as much as was consistent with keeping up appearances, yet when she heard that her beloved Carluccio had a bad cold, she sped out there to comfort him (October 1732).
¹⁰⁸

Concomitant with this intensity between mother and son was a widening chasm between husband and wife. Even the normally humane James was finding Clementina’s permanent ill-health hard
to
bear. In September 1731 she complained of violent headaches. James did not put off his trip to Albano on that account, but set off without her, taking the two children.
¹⁰⁹
The queen’s status as a chronic invalid was now a fact of life in the Stuart household. Charles Edward could do no other than look on anguishedly as his mother wasted away. Clementina refused to change her ascetic way of life and spurned all medical advice. No amount of pleading could move her.
¹¹⁰
By June 1734 dietary deficiencies had brought her to the brink of total collapse, ‘being scarce able to walk at all with the humour of the scurvy, and I am sorry to say I see little human hope of a perfect recovery, since her stomach will not bear strong remedies and that she will not do all she can and is requisite in her case’.
¹¹¹

Clementina probably left Charles Edward with a confusing legacy. On the one hand, their early years together gave him the core of inner strength he always retained. On the other hand, the many and prolonged absences from her side after the age of five may well have led to feelings of despair and moods of aggression that seemed at times likely to overwhelm him. In extreme cases a child in such circumstances may increasingly withdraw its contact from the outside world. Yet it is clear that the prince progressively reached out towards it. The relationship with his mother was clearly an ambiguous one, at once debilitating and strengthening.

There remained the prince’s younger brother Henry. Here a twofold consideration obtained. Henry was his father’s favourite, and had the usual problems of relating to a brother five years older. Moreover, he bade fair to outshine Charles Edward intellectually. An incident in January 1733 highlights the tension between the brothers. Dunbar had long noted what he described as the prince’s tendency to ‘bear hard’ on Henry. On one occasion Charles took his brother to task for spending all his time drawing coats of arms and heraldic insignia, alleging that this would impair any ability he had for creative design. Like a whiplash Henry retorted in French: ‘As long as it does not impair my ability to draw a sword for my father, I don’t care if I’m never a designer.’ The general consensus was that Henry could always think faster on his feet than his brother.
¹¹²

Such was the tight, oppressive world of the thirteen-year-old prince when Fate gave him the opportunity to appear in public on a larger stage.

(1734–7)

THE YEAR 1734
began promisingly for the Stuarts. With the outbreak of the War of Polish Succession and the possibility that France might mount an expedition for the Jacobites, it seemed that the exiled dynasty night be emerging from the diplomatic desert it had been in since 1726, James appeared to have more money at his disposal and to be taken more seriously by the Powers.
¹
Charles Edward himself was crossing the invisible divide between childhood and adolescence.

The dawning of a new period in the prince’s life seemed underlined by two pointers. On his thirteenth birthday a magnificent feast was prepared for him at the Palazzo Corsini. Several English lords paid public homage to him here; some even kissed hands.
²
And in February 1734 Charles Edward went through the last of his childhood illnesses; the cutting of his last teeth gave his face a badly swollen appearance.
³
As if sensing that the prince was on the threshold of a new and decisive period in his life, James commissioned the singing of a Mass at SS Apostoli every 31 January in perpetuity in honour of his eldest son.
⁴

The war between Spain and Austria – part of the general Polish Succession imbroglio – was creeping closer to the territory of the papal states. James was keen for his son to see something of the Spanish troops, and procured permission for them to view a body of
carabineros
on the march.
⁵
But this was only the start of his ambitions. His heart was now set on sending Charles Edward to Paris. In the existing tension between France and England, it was felt that the British could not hope to stay neutral much longer. James had waived his previous fears that the French might be merely using the Jacobites.
⁶
He felt confident enough in the prince’s physical stamina to subject him to the full meatless rigours of a Lenten fast.
⁷

The arrival of the duke of Liria in Rome at the end of March changed the king’s plans. Liria had been appointed (together with counts Montemar and Charny) to a tripartite command of the Spanish armies in Italy, whose aim was the conquest of the kingdom of Naples. But since Liria commanded the second division of the army, in which the Infanta Don Carlos was serving, in effect and by common consent Liria was the presiding genius of the Spanish army. Immediately on arrival in Rome Liria suggested that James should apply to the court at Madrid for permission for Charles Edward to serve with him.
⁸
Liria had not forgotten the young prince who had so impressed him at the age of six and a half. Nothing he saw in Rome made him alter his high opinion of Charles Edward.

Great military vistas opened up. Liria intended to besiege the cities of Gaeta and Capua, then, the conquest of the Neapolitan territories completed, to cross with the army to Sicily.
⁹
Nevertheless, Liria cautioned James not to send the prince to the army until he had obtained Philip V’s formal permission.
¹⁰

James’s euphoria ebbed somewhat at this. He knew of old the tortuous protocol at the Spanish court and considered the prospect of a speedy reply unlikely.
¹¹
Liria departed for Naples, intending to lay siege to Gaeta first.
¹²
Having taken this decision, he then realised that the operation might well be concluded by the time the permission came through from Madrid. Stressing that ‘this siege will be well worth seeing’, he fired off an express to James advising him to anticipate the expected favourable response from Spain.
¹³
James, a stickler for protocol, insisted on waiting for the matter to be cleared through the usual channels.
¹⁴
Contingency plans were laid. James and his son went to an audience with the Pope, where they were given 4,000 scudi as campaign expenses. Charles Edward went into serious training, galloping his horses daily in the Villa Barberini.
¹⁵

By 21 July James had given up all hope of getting the authorisation in time for it to be any use to his son. No sooner had he confided these thoughts to his favourite Inverness than,
mirabile dictu
, the permission arrived from Madrid.
¹⁶
The stage was now set for Charles Edward’s first appearance in the world at large.

Careful preparations were made for displaying the prince to the world. Long conferences were held with cardinals Rivera and Corsini; with the pretender to the Moroccan throne, also bound for Gaeta; and especially with the French ambassador the duc de St Aignan.
¹⁷
The Pope, who had long had a soft spot for Charles Edward, was especially pleased with the turn of events. He granted his young favourite a plenary indulgence and an ample sum of money to cover
his
expenses. Clementina asked all the nuns in Rome to pray for her son’s success.
¹⁸

On 27 July the prince set out for Albano with a retinue of ten followers in five post-chaises. Headed by Dunbar, the party included a surgeon and a confessor. James joined them at Albano on the 29th. After a lavish dinner, the prince and party started south for Gaeta with the king’s blessing.
¹⁹

Charles Edward’s entourage proceeded slowly through Velletri and Mola, partly out of consideration for the sudden appearance of a sore toe that prevented the prince’s putting his shoes on.
²⁰
It was four days before they came close enough to Gaeta for Liria to go out and meet them. The prince was now in perfect health. Immediately he gave signs of the special charisma that was to serve him so well in later life. Liria took him to see the Infanta, always styled by the campaigning Spanish ‘the king of Naples’. At the Infanta’s palace all the honours due to a Prince of Wales were laid on but Charles, officially incognito, displayed good sense by asking the court chamberlain count Estemar to dispense with these.
²¹

When the Infanta arrived, the prince paid him a compliment with all the panache of a veteran courtier. In the ‘king’s’ rooms Charles Edward chatted with him with extrovert ease. This was not as easy as it sounded. Don Carlos was a notorious cold fish.
²²

Next morning Liria’s co-commander the count of Montemar took the prince aside and reiterated that the Spanish court was willing to treat him publicly as the Prince of Wales if that was his pleasure. Again Charles Edward asked merely for the treatment due a distinguished incognito.

On Wednesday 4 August (together with Dunbar and Sheridan) he dined with the Infanta. Already the prince’s grace, wit and charm were making their mark. ‘
Il est vif,il est charmant
’ was the comment of the normally dour Don Carlos. He invited the prince to dine with him every day. Dunbar cunningly took aside the royal physician Buonnoni to learn things about the ‘king’ that Charles Edward might introduce into the conversation to his advantage.

In the afternoon Liria conveyed Charles Edward to a house overlooking Gaeta bay, which was used by Don Carlos as a safe vantage point for viewing the siegeworks. The Infanta did not accompany them so as not to inhibit the prince. Since the siege of Gaeta was expected to be a protracted affair, the plan was that the prince would be taken down around 11 a.m. the next morning to inspect the Spanish batteries, at a time when the defenders usually did not fire on their oppressors because of the noonday heat.

Then they returned to the prince’s own quarters. This was a house belonging to Cardinal Cibo that enjoyed a full prospect of Gaeta. From here the prince could see every shot or cannonball that was exchanged between the two sides.