THE FATE OF PRINCE JEM.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 9763, 26 June 1897, Page 3

THE FATE OF PRINCE JEM.

With Jem's arrival in Rome, any resemblance between him and our own Stuart Prince is brought to an end. For him were reserved no ignoble domestic bickerings, no runken and premature old age. Before Innocent the Eighth could derive as much profit as he had anticipated from his Turkish prisoner, he died somewhat unexpectedly, and Alexander Borgia reigned in his stead,

. . . Prince Jem remained at Rome, under the Pope's paternal care, until the beginning of the year 1495, when King Charles the Eighth besieged the city with" a large force, ans the Holy Father took refuge with his charge, in the castle of St. Angelo. When the French King dictated the terms of peace, one of the articles insisted upon the surrender ot the Turkish captive, and the Borgia Pope, seeing that he was about to lose a large annuity, determined to kill the goose with the golden eggs, and turned to his famous collection of family recipes. The poison administered to Jem seems to have workjed somewhat slowly. Authorities differ as to its precise nature, or by whom it was actually administered. Some say that his barber, a renegade Greek named Mustapha, was bribed to wound him with a poisoned razor. Others incline towards a white powder, mixed, instead of sugar, with his sherbet (with this same powder, according to popular tradition, Pope Alexander the Sixth was eventually poisoned himself, having accidentally partaken of a strong brew which he had concocted for ten of his cardinals), whilst—as in the case of the hero of Lepanto, destined in less than a century to strike the first decisive blow to Turkish maritime power—there.are some writers who have even hinted at poisoned boots. Be tin's how it may, the j Stov Prince had only just time to reach aples, whither he went in charge of the French King, and where he expired (February 24th, 1495), making a very pious ending, when in the thirty-sixth year of his age and the thirteenth of his captivity.

*An extract from " A Turkish * Youngr Pretender,'" by Lady Mary Moatgonicrie Currie. in the 2fimisenth Century.