Pickle the Spy; Or, the Incognito of Prince Charles

On July 10, 1751, after a tremendous quarrel with Madame de Talmond, Charles wrote out his political reflections. France must apologise to him before he can enter into any measures with her Court. ‘I have nothing at heart but the interest of my country, and I am always ready to sacrifice everything for it, Life and rest, but the least reflection as to ye point of honour I can never pass over. There is nobody whatsoever I respect more as ye K. of Prussia; not as a K. but as I believe him to be a clever man. Has he intention to serve me? Proofs must be given, and ye only one convincive is his agreeing to a Marriage with his sister, and acknowledging me at Berlin for what I am.’ He adds that he will not be a tool, ‘like my ansisters.’

Such were Charles’s lonely musings, such the hopeless dreams of an exile. He had now entered on his attempt to secure Prussian aid, and on a fresh chapter of extraordinary political and personal intrigues.

CHAPTER VI

INTRIGUES, POLITICAL AND AMATORY. DEATH OF MADEMOISELLE LUCI, 1752

Hopes from Prussia – The Murrays of Elibank – Imprisonment of Alexander Murray – Recommended to Charles – The Elibank plot – Prussia and the Earl Marischal – His early history – Ambassador of Frederick at Versailles – His odd household – Voltaire – The Duke of Newcastle’s resentment – Charles’s view of Frederick’s policy – His alleged avarice – Lady Montagu – His money-box – Goring and the Earl Marischal – Secret meetings – The lace shop – Albemarle’s information – Charles at Ghent – Hanbury Williams’s mares’ nests – Charles and ‘La Grandemain’ – She and Goring refuse to take his orders – Appearance of Miss Walkinshaw – Her history – Remonstrances of Goring – ‘Commissions for the worst of men’ – ‘The little man’ – Lady Primrose – Death of Mademoiselle Luci – November 10, date of postponed Elibank plot – Danger of dismissing an agent.

We have seen that Charles’s hopes, in July 1751, were turned towards Prussia and Sweden. To these Courts he had sent Goring in June. Meanwhile a new and strange prospect was opening to him in England. On the right bank of Tweed, just above Ashiesteil, is the ruined shell of the old tower of Elibank, the home of the Murrays. A famous lady of that family was Muckle Mou’d Meg, whom young Harden, when caught while driving Elibank’s kye, preferred to the gallows as a bride. In 1751 the owner of the tower on Tweed was Lord Elibank; to all appearance a douce, learned Scots laird, the friend of David Hume, and a customer for the wines of Montesquieu’s vineyards at La Brède. He had a younger brother, Alexander Murray, and the politics of the pair, says Horace Walpole, were of the sort which at once kept the party alive, and made it incapable of succeeding. Their measures were so taken that they did not go out in the Forty-five, yet could have proved their loyalty had Charles reached St. James’s in triumph. Walpole calls Lord Elibank ‘a very prating, impertinent Jacobite.’ [96 - Letters, ii. 116.] As for the younger brother, Alexander Murray, Sir Walter Scott writes, in his introduction to ‘Redgauntlet,’ ‘a young Scotchman of rank is said to have stooped so low as to plot the surprisal of St. James’s Palace and the assassination of the Royal family.’

This was the Elibank plot, which we shall elucidate later.

In the spring and summer of 1751, Alexander Murray had lain in Newgate, on a charge of brawling at the Westminster election. He was kept in durance because he would not beg the pardon of the House on his knees: he only kneeled to God, he said. He was released by the sheriffs at the close of the session, and was escorted by the populace to Lord Elibank’s house in Henrietta Street. He then crossed to France, and, in July 1751, ‘Dixon’ (Dr. King?) thus reports of him to Charles:

‘My lady [Lady Montagu or Lady Primrose?] says that M. [Murray] is most zealously attached to you, and that he is upon all occasions ready to obey your commands, and to meet you when and where you please.. He assures my lady that he can raise five hundred men for your service in and about Westminster.’

These men were to be used in a plot for seizing the Royal family in London. This scheme went on simmering, blended with intrigues for Prussian and Swedish help, and, finally, with a plan for a simultaneous rising in the Highlands. And this combination was the last effort of Jacobitism before the general abandonment of Charles by his party.

The hopes, as regarded Prussia, were centred in Frederick’s friend, the brother of Marshal Keith, the Earl Marischal. The Earl was by this time an old man. At Queen Anne’s death he had held a command in the Guards, and if he had frankly backed Atterbury when the bishop proposed to proclaim King James, the history of England might have been altered, and the Duke of Argyll’s regiment, at Kensington, would have had to fight for the Crown. [97 - Spence’s Anecdotes, p. 168.] The Earl missed his chance. He fought at Shirramuir (1715), and he with his brother, later Marshal Keith, was in the unlucky Glensheil expedition from Spain (1719). That endeavour failed, leaving hardly a trace, save the ghost of a foreign colonel which haunts the roadside of Glensheil. From that date the Earl was a cheery, contented, philosophic exile, with no high opinion of kings. Spain was often his abode, where he found, as he said, ‘his old friend, the sun.’ In 1744 he declined to accompany the Prince, in a herring-boat, to Scotland. In the Forty-five he did not cross the Channel, but, as we have seen, endeavoured to wring men and money from d’Argenson. In 1747 the Earl, then at Treviso, declined to be Charles’s minister on the score of ‘broken health.’ [98 - Browne, iv. 17.] Charles, as we saw, vainly asked the Earl for a meeting at Venice in 1749. Indeed, Charles got nothing from his adherent but a mother-of-pearl snuff-box, with the portrait of the old gentleman. [99 - Stuart Papers.] The Earl dwelt, not always on the best terms, with his brother, Marshal Keith, at Berlin, and was treated as a real friend, for a marvel, by Frederick.

On July 20 the Earl had seen Goring at Berlin, and wrote to Charles. Nothing, he said, could be done by Swedish aid. If Sweden moved, Russia would attack her, nor could Frederick, in his turn, assail Russia, for Russia and the Empress Maria Theresa would have him between two fires. [100 - Ibid.] Frederick now (August 1751) took a step decidedly unfriendly as regarded his uncle of England. He sent the Earl Marischal as his ambassador to the Court of Versailles. This was precisely as if the United States were to send a banished Fenian as their Minister to Paris. The Earl was proscribed for treason in England, and, as we shall see, his house in Paris became the centre of truly Fenian intrigues. On these the worthy Earl was wont to give the opinion of an impartial friend. All this was known to the English Government, as we shall show, through Pickle, and the knowledge must have strained the relations between George II. and ‘our Nephew,’ as Horace Walpole calls Frederick of Prussia.

The Earl’s household, when he left Potzdam in August 1751 for Paris, is thus described by Voltaire: ‘You will see a very pretty little Turkess, whom he carries with him: they took her at the siege of Oczakow, and made a present of her to our Scot, who seems to have no great need of her. She is an excellent Mussalwoman: her master allows her perfect freedom of conscience. He has also a sort of Tartar Valet de chambre [Stepan was his name], who has the honour to be a Pagan.’ [101 - Potzdam, August 24, 1751. Œuvres, xxxviii. 307. Edition of 1880.] On October 29, Voltaire writes that he has had a letter from the Earl in Paris. ‘He tells me that his Turk girl, whom he took to the play to see Mahomet [Voltaire’s drama] was much scandalised.’

Voltaire was to receive less agreeable news from the friend of Frederick. ‘Some big Prussian will box your ears,’ said the Earl Marischal, after Voltaire’s famous quarrel with his Royal pupil.

The appointment of an attainted rebel to be Ambassador at Versailles naturally offended England. The Duke of Newcastle wrote to Lord Hardwicke: [102 - Newcastle to Lord Chancellor, September 6, 1751. Life of Lord Hardwicke, ii. 404.]

‘One may easily see the views with which the King of Prussia has taken this offensive step: first, for the sake of doing an impertinence to the King; then to deter us from going on with our negotiations in the Empire, for the election of a King of the Romans, and to encourage the Jacobite party, that we may apprehend disturbances from them, if a rupture should ensue in consequence of the measures we are taking abroad.’ He therefore proposes a subsidy to Russia, to overawe Frederick.

At Paris, Yorke remonstrated. Hardwicke writes on September 10, 1751:

‘I am glad Joe ventured to say what he did to M. Puysieux,’ but ‘Joe’ spoke to no purpose.

James was pleased by the Earl Marischal’s promotion and presence in Paris. Charles, at first, was aggrieved. He wrote:

‘L. M. coming to Paris is a piece of French politics, on the one side to bully the people of England; on the other hand to hinder our friends from doing the thing by themselves, bambouseling them with hopes… They mean to sell us as usual… The Doctor [Dr. King] is to be informed that Goring saw Lord Marischal, but nothing to be got from him.’

The Prince mentions his ‘distress for money,’ and sends compliments to Dawkins, ‘Jemmy Dawkins,’ of whom we shall hear plenty. He sends ‘a watch for the lady’ (Lady Montagu?).

I venture a guess at Lady Montagu, because Dr. King tells, as a proof of Charles’s avarice, that he took money from a lady in Paris when he had plenty of his own. [103 - Anecdotes.]

Now, on September 15, 1751, Charles sent to Dormer a receipt for ‘One Thousand pounds, which he paid me by orders for account of the Right Honourable Vicecountess of Montagu,’ signed ‘C. P. R.’ [104 - Stuart Papers. Lady Montagu was Barbara, third daughter of Sir John Webbe of Hathorp, county Gloucester. In July 1720 she married Anthony Brown, sixth Viscount Montagu.] Again, on quitting Paris on December 1, 1751, he left, in a coffer, ‘2,250 Louidors, besides what there is in a little bag above, amounting to about 130 guines, and od Zequins or ducats.’ These, with ‘a big box of books,’ were locked up in the house of the Comtesse de Vassé, Rue St. Dominique, Faubourg de St. Germain, in which street Montesquieu lived. The deposit was restored later to Charles by ‘Madame La Grandemain,’ ‘sister’ of Mademoiselle Luci. In truth, Charles, for a Prince with an ambition to conquer England, was extremely poor, and a loyal lady did not throw away her guineas, as Dr. King states, on a merely avaricious adventurer. Charles (August 25, 1751) was in correspondence with ‘Daniel Macnamara, Esq., at the Grecian Coffee-house, Temple, London,’ who later plays a fatal part in the Prince’s career.

This is a private interlude: we return to practical politics.

No sooner was the Earl Marischal in Paris than Charles made advances to the old adherent of his family. He sent Goring post-haste to the French capital. Goring, who already knew the Earl, writes (September 20, 1731): ‘My instructions are not to let myself be seen by anybody whatever but your Lordship.’ The Earl answers on the same day: ‘If you yourself know any safe way for both of us, tell it me. There was a garden belonging to a Mousquetaire, famous for fruit, by Pique-price, beyond it some way. I could go there as out of curiosity to see the garden, and meet you to-morrow towards five o’clock; but if you know a better place, let me know it. Remember, I must go with the footmen, and remain in coach as usual, so that the garden is best, because I can say, if it came possibly to be known, that it was by chance I met you.’

‘An ambassador,’ as Sir Henry Wotton remarked, ‘is an honest man sent to lie abroad for his country,’ an observation taken very ill by Gentle King Jamie. [105 - Walton’s Life of Wotton.]

Goring replied that the garden was too public. The night would be the surest time. Goring could wear livery, or dress as an Abbé. The Tuileries, when ‘literally dark,’ might serve. On September 23, the Earl answers, ‘One of my servants knows you since Vienna.’ Goring, as we know, had been in the Austrian service. ‘I will go to the Tuileries when it begins to grow dark, if it does not rain, for it would seem too od that I had choose to walk in rain, and my footman would suspect, and perhaps spye. I shall walk along the step or terrace before the house in the garden.’ [106 - Browne, iv. 89–90.]

So difficult is it for an ambassador to dabble in treasonable intrigue, especially when old, and when the weather is wet. Let us suppose that Goring and the Earl met. Goring’s business was to ask if the Earl ‘has leave to disclose the secret that was not in his power to do, last time you saw him. I am ready to come myself, and meet him where he pleases.’

Meetings were difficult to arrange. We read, in the Prince’s hand:

To Lord M. from Goring

    ‘18th Oct. 1751.

‘Saying he had received an express from the Prince with orders to tell him [Lord M.] his place of residence, and making a suggestion of meeting at Waters’s House.

‘Answer made 18th. Oct. by Lord M.

‘You may go to look for Lace as a Hamborough Merchant. I go as recommended to a Lace Shop by Mr. Waters and shall be there as it grows dark, for a pretence of staying some time in the house you may also say you are recommended by Waters.

‘Mr Vignier Marchand de Doreure rue du Route, au Soleil D’or. Paris.’

(Overleaf.)

    ‘18th Oct 1751.

‘I shall be glad to see you when you can find a fit place, but to know where your friend is is necessary unfit. Would Waters’s house be a good place? Would Md Talmont’s, mine is not, neither can I go privately in a hackney coach, my own footman would dogg me, here Stepan knows you well since Vienna.’ (Stepan was the Tartar valet.)

It is clear that Charles was now near Paris, and that the Ambassador of Prussia was in communication with him. What did the English Government know of this from their regular agents?

On October 9, Albemarle wrote from Paris that Charles was believed to have visited the town. His ‘disguises make it very difficult’ to discover him. Albemarle gives orders to stop a Dr. Kincade at Dover, and seize his papers. He sends a list of traffickers between England and the Prince, including Lochgarry, ‘formerly in the King’s service, and very well known; is now in Scotland.’ ‘The Young Pretender has travelled through Spain and Italy in the habit of a Dominican Fryar. He is expected soon at Avignon. He was last at Berlin and Dantzich, and has nobody with him but Mr. Goring.’ This valuable information is marked ‘Secret!’ [107 - S. P. France, 455.]

On October 10, Albemarle writes that Foley, a Jacobite, is much with the Earl Marischal. On October 30, Dr. Kincaid had not yet set out. But (December 1) Dr. Kincaid did start, and at Dover ‘was culled like a flower.’ On St. Andrew’s Day (November 30) there was a Jacobite meeting at St. Germains. Albemarle had a spy present, who was told by Sullivan, the Prince’s Irish friend, that Charles was expected at St. Germains by the New Year. The Earl Marischal would have kept St. Andrew’s Day with them, but had to go to Versailles. Later we learn that no papers were found on Dr. Kincaid. On January 5, 1752, Albemarle mentions traffickings with Ireland. On August 4, 1752, Mann learns from a spy of some consequence in Rome that the Prince is in Ireland. His household in Avignon is broken up – which, by accident, is true. ‘Something is in agitation’ – valuable news!

The English Government, it is plain, was still in the dark. But matters were going ill for Charles. In February 1752, Waters, respectfully but firmly, declined to advance money. Charles dismissed in March all his French servants at Avignon, and sold the coach in which Sheridan and Strafford were wont to take the air. Madame de Talmond was still jealous of Mademoiselle Luci. Money came in by mere driblets. ‘Alexander’ provided 300l., and ‘Dixon,’ in England, twice sends a humble ten pounds. Charles transferred his quarters to the Netherlands, residing chiefly at Ghent, where he was known as the Chevalier William Johnson.

The English Government remained unenlightened. The Duke of Newcastle, on January 29, 1752, had ‘advice that the Pretender’s son is certainly in Silesia,’ and requests Sir Charles Hanbury Williams to make inquiries. [108 - S. P. Poland, No. 79.]

On April 23, 1752, when Charles was establishing himself at Ghent, and trying to raise loans in every direction, the egregious Sir Charles hears that the Prince is in Lithuania, with the Radzivils. On April 27, Williams, at Leipzig, is convinced of this, and again proposes to waylay and seize the papers of a certain Bishop Lascaris, as he passes through Austrian territory on his way to Rome. In Lithuania the Prince might safely have been left. He could do the Elector of Hanover no harm anywhere, except by such Fenian enterprises as that which Pickle was presently to reveal. The anxious and always helpless curiosity of George II. and his agents about the Prince seems especially absurd, when they look in the ends of the earth for a man who is in the Netherlands.

At Ghent, May 1752, Charles to all appearances was much less busied with political conspiracies than with efforts to raise the wind. Dormer, at Antwerp, often protests against being drawn upon for money which he does not possess, and Charles treated a certain sum of 200l. as if it were the purse of Fortunatus, and inexhaustible. ‘Madame La Grandemain’ writes on May 5 that she cannot assist him, and le Philosophe (Montesquieu), she says, is out of town. On May 12 the Prince partly explains the cause of his need of money. He has taken, at Ghent, ‘a preti house, and room in it to lodge a friend,’ and he invites Dormer to be his guest. The house was near the Place de l’Empereur, in ‘La Rue des Varnsopele’ (?). He asks Dormer to send ‘two keces of Books:’ indeed, literature was his most respectable consolation. Old Waters had died, and young Waters was requested to be careful of Charles’s portrait by La Tour, of his ‘marble bousto’ by Lemoine, and of his ‘silver sheald.’ To Madame La Grandemain he writes in a peremptory style: ‘Malgré toute votre repugnance je vous ordonne d’éxecuter avec toutes les precautions possibles ce dont je vous ai chargé.’ What was this commission? It concerned ‘la demoiselle.’ ‘You must overcome your repugnance, and tell a certain person [Goring] that I cannot see him, and that, if he wishes to be in my good graces, he must show you the best and most efficacious and rapid means of arriving at the end for which I sent him to you. I hope that this letter will not find you in Paris.’

I have little doubt that the ‘repugnances’ of ‘Madame La Grandemain’ were concerned with the bringing of Miss Walkinshaw to the Prince. The person who is in danger of losing the Prince’s favour is clearly Goring, figuring under the name of ‘Stouf,’ and, at this moment, with ‘Madame La Grandemain’ in the country.

The facts about this Miss Walkinshaw, daughter of John Walkinshaw of Barowfield, have long been obscure. We can now offer her own account of her adventures, from the archives of the French Foreign Office. [109 - Angleterre, 81, f. 94, 1774.] In 1746 (according to a memoir presented to the French Court in 1774 by Miss Walkinshaw’s daughter, Charlotte) the Prince first met Clementina Walkinshaw at the house of her uncle, Sir Hugh Paterson, near Bannockburn. The lady was then aged twenty: she was named after Charles’s mother, and was a Catholic. The Prince conceived a passion for her, and obtained from her a promise to follow him ‘wherever providence might lead him, if he failed in his attempt.’ At a date not specified, her uncle, ‘General Graeme,’ obtained for her a nomination as chanoinesse in a chapitre noble of the Netherlands. But ‘Prince Charles was then incognito in the Low Countries, and a person in his confidence [Sullivan, tradition says] warmly urged Miss Walkinshaw to go and join him, as she had promised, pointing out that in the dreadful state of his affairs, nothing could better soothe his regrets than the presence of the lady whom he most loved. Moved by her passion and her promise given to a hero admired by all Europe, Miss Walkinshaw betook herself to Douay. The Prince, at Ghent, heard news so interesting to his heart, and bade her go to Paris, where he presently joined her. They renewed their promises and returned to Ghent, where she took his name [Johnson], was treated and regarded as his wife, later travelled with him in Germany, and afterwards was domiciled with him at Liege, where she bore a daughter, Charlotte, baptized on October 29, 1753.’ [110 - Pichot, in his Vie de Charles Edouard, obviously cites this document, which is quoted from him by the Sobieski Stuarts in Tales of the Century. But Pichot does not name the source of his statements.]

So runs the memoir presented to the French Court by the Prince’s daughter, Charlotte, in 1774. Though no date is assigned, Miss Walkinshaw certainly joined Charles in the summer of 1752. ‘Madame La Grandemain’ and Goring were very properly indisposed to aid in bringing the lady to Charles. The Prince this replies to the remonstrances of Goring (‘Stouf’).

To M. Stouf

    ‘June 6, 1752.