ROMANCE OF SCOTTISH HISTORY.

Otago Witness, Issue 3029, 3 April 1912, Page 83

ROMANCE OF SCOTTISH HISTORY.

THE SOBIESKI STUARTS. (by J. Cuxhbert Haduon'. ) There is a peculiar romance about the history of the ill-fated Stuarts, and about none of them so much as about " Bonnie Prince Charlie," the darling of the Jacobites, whose "cause'' ended so disastrously on Culloden Mocr more than a century and a-half ago. Romance seems, indeed, to have been almost the birthright of the Stuarts from first to last. And certainly there is nothing much more bewilderingly romantic—than the story of the so-called Sobieski Stuart " princes," who claimed to be the grandsons of bonnie Prince Charlie and his uncrowned queen. If the brothers had merely stated their claim it would hardly have been worth noticing now. But thousands of the Scot tish people believed in them, and even tho Lord Lovat of the day was so far convinced of their alleged descent that he built them a picturesque cottage in the heart of the very district which witnessed the final rout of the Jacobites in 1746. In the Edinburgh of the ninteeenth centry fifties and thereabout there were few better-known figures in its select society than the two tall, handsome men, attired in full Highland costume, with kilts of Royal Stuart tartan, who claimed direct descent from the leader of the '45. Miss Walkingshaw.— Before recounting their story, it is necessary to recall something of what may be termed Prince Charlie's domestic life. After Culloden, the dark-eyed Miss Walkingshaw, with whom he had fallen in love during the campaign in Scotland, followed him to the Continent. She lived with him for years, and she bore him a daughter. There was, of course, no marriage, though ardent Jacobites tiled to cover the scandal by saying that there had been some sort of private ceremony. This was a pure invention. In plain terms, Miss Walkingshaw was Charles's mistress. Later on, chiefly at the instigation of the Jacobites, who had not given up hope, and who earnestly desired an heir to the Crown, then being Worn by the usurping George—chiefly at ther instigation Charles married the Princess Louise of Stolberg in 1772, 26 years after Culloden. He was then 52 years of age. practically a physij cal and moral wreck, given up, as his | brother the Cardinal said, to the "nasty J bottle." Still, he had married mainly with the object of providing an heir; and, as it turned out, that object was defeated. The claim of the Sobieski Stuarts turns entirely upon this point. According to their story, a son was born to Charles and Louise during their residence at Siena. This child, they averred, was secretly sent out of the country by the arrangement of a Soots doctor who had been present at tho accouchement. It was entrusted to the care of a Captain (after wards Admiral) Allen, and by him I brought to England, named after himself, I and acknowledged as his son. This child, according to the story, grew up to be the father of the two brothers, the " magnificent Highlanders," who attracted all eves in the Edinburgh, streets of their day. The Two Aliens.— Admiral Allen was twice married, and had two sons. liv his will, dated Februarv, 1800, he bequeathed to the elder, Ca'pt. John Allen, of his Maj<te«ty's navy. £2200; to the younger, Thomas, also of the navy, £IOO. The disproportion has been explained by saying that Thomas Allen was the Royal Stuart, and therefore not entitled to the same financial consideration as Allen's own son. Thomas Allen himself, whatever were hi* grounds of belief, subsequently assumed the 'title of Count of Albany, the designation which Prince Charlie took in 1766 when he laid aside that of Prince of Wales. The " Count " married an Bnglish Church clergyman's daughter, and the result of the union, to repeat, was the two sons subsequently known as John Sobieski Stolberg Stuart, and Cnarles Edward Stuart. " Now, it is almost useless taking up space to prove that Charles Edward had

no child ; sen or daughter, by Louise ol Stolberg. If Louise- bad indeed borne hini a child and the parents wished to keep tho birth a secret, they must have found that impossible. In mid-die and lower class life such a secret might bo kept,, but the thing is out of the question, even with pesudo-royalty. Louise was always moving about freely, and if she had been enceinte the gossips would have proclaimed it. The Jacobites were looking eagerly for an heir. If an heir was in prospect, would the leaders not be informed of the fact? And when the <: event" came, how could it have bcon hidden? Nay, why should it have bean hidden? A Futile Argument.— The explanation of the Sobieski Stuarts was that a Stuart baby prince was in danger of assassination by emissaries of the Hanoverian family. This is too absurd. The Hanoverians feared nothing from the Jacobites by that time. Further, if Charles Edward had a Son, why did he ignore him in his will? Why should he have alienated from that son not only his Italian residence, but the Polish jewels which he had inherited from has mother and the ancient Crown jewels of England? Louise, again, the reputed mother, made no mention of any offspring in her death settlement, a circumstance which, if the offspring really existed, we can hardly attribute to even a mother of light nature and little virtue. And if Charles had, indeed, a son in the care of Admiral Allen, why did he not recall him when, in 1794, after his wife had left him, he begged his illegitimate daughter, Miss Wolkingshaw, to come and solaoe him ? The whole argument is futile. Both Charles and his " queen," separately and categorically, denied that they had had a child. When Louise had been a widow for many years Napoleon sent for her one day, when he was contemplating an invasion of England. She was shown into a large room in one of the palaces and left alone. Presently Napoleon entered, marched up to her, and bluntly inquired, " Madame, had you ever a child?" Louise answered, " No, sire," and he turned on his heel and strode out again. That Charles had no child except Charlotte Walkingshaw (Burus's " Bonnie Lass o* Albany) we may thus regard as beyond dispute. Strange Features. — Nevertheless, there aro some strange features connected with the story put forward by the Sobieski Stuart brothers which make it worth telling. Mr Andrew Lang, who seems to have met the "princes," says that their likeness to the Stuart family was most marked. Thi» likeness was,' he says, closest to James VIII (where it could not be affected) in a photograph of the younger brother taken after death. Patrick Eraser-Tytkr and Lady Eastlake both described one of the brothers as very like the portraits of Charles I. "They were men," says Mr Lang, "of many accomplishments, engaging manners, and royal bearing; poetical, good sportsmen, and excellent writers on natural history." Both behaved with "a certain mysterious pomp." One calls them "a stately pair, after a somewhat theatrical style." Robert Chambers, the Edinburgh publisher, celebrates them as "two magnificent Highlanders," who came to his house laden with sweetmeats, and drank porter out of old silver tankards, a feat which they repeated many years after with the same tankards in Mayfair. Somewhere, about 1847 they retired to Austria, but later on returned to London, and would be seen, with indications of dignified poverty, working earnestly in the British Museum Library. Towards the end they came down to lodgings in Pimlico, where pseudo-majesty would be heard calling for his boots from the upper floor. The father (that is to say, the alleged son of Prince Charlie), it may be added, died at a great age in a Clerkenwell lodg-ing-house in 1852. From a letter purporting to be his, and certainly to all appearance in his hand-writing, he gave, about 1829, some kind of countenance to some sort of lofty pretensions; and his sons have figured him, under the name of lolair LeaTg ("Red Eagle"), as a most romantic character in their once wellknown "Tales of a Century," now rather a scarce volume. The elder of the brothers, John, died in 1872; the other, Charles, in 1880, so that many people still living may easily remember them. Both were married, but only Charles left issue. Their remains rest beneath a Celtic cress at Eskdale, near which Lord Lovat had many years before built them a Gothic shooting lodge. Charles's four children are all dead; and one only, the second daughter, Louisa Sobieski", Anno, von Piatt, left issue; so that her son, Alfred Edward von Piatt, a lieutenant in tho Austrian army, is the present inheritor of the pretensions of the Sobieski Stuarts, whatever these may be worth. —A Queer, Tangled Story.— Such is the queer, tangled story. How aro we to account for the absurd contention on which it was founded? Mr Andrew Lang assumes that the idea would in time acquire the force of actual hallucination. This does not help us very much ; for it is difficult to account for a hysterical illusion a deux —a "collectivo hallucination," us one might say. Anyway, the brothers had a pathetic and an absolutely sincere belief in their connection with the fallen House of Stuart; and the fact that they went through life accepted by a vast number of people as the grandson of bonnio Prince Charlie seems a good enough reason for giving them onco more a place on the borders of the living land.