Chapter 11

'A MAN UNDONE.'

1754

Jacobite hopes--Blighted by the conduct of Charles--His seclusion--His health is affected--His fierce impatience--Miss Walkinshaw--Letter from young Edgar--The Prince easily tracked--Fears of his English correspondents--Remonstrances of Goring--The English demand Miss Walkinshaw's dismissal--Danger of discarding Dumont--Goring fears the Bastille--Cruelty of dismissing Catholic servants--Charles's lack of generosity--Has relieved no poor adherents--Will offend both Protestants and Catholics--Opinion of a Protestant--Toleration desired--Goring asks leave to resign--Charles's answer--Goring's advice--Charles's reply--Needs money--Proceedings of Pickle--In London--Called to France--To see the Earl Marischal--Charles detected at Liege--Verbally dismisses Goring--Pickle's letter to England--'Best metal buttons'--Goring to the Prince--The Prince's reply--Last letter from Goring--His ill-treatment--His danger in Paris--His death in Prussia--The Earl Marischal abandons the Prince--His distress--'The poison.'

The year 1754 saw the practical ruin of Charles, and the destruction of the Jacobite party in England. The death of Henry Pelham, in March, the General Election which followed, the various discontents of the time, and a recrudescence of Jacobite sentiment, gave them hopes, only to be blighted. Charles no longer, as before, reports, 'My health is perfect.' The Prince's habits had become intolerable to his friends. The 'spleen,' as he calls it, had marked him for its own. His vigorous body needed air and exercise; unable to obtain these, it is probable that he sought the refuge of despair. Years earlier he had told Mademoiselle Luci that the Princesse de Talmond 'would not let him leave the house.' Now he scarcely ventured to take a walk. His mistress was obviously on ill terms with his most faithful adherents; the loyal Goring abandoned his ungrateful service; the Earl Marischal bade him farewell; his English partisans withdrew their support and their supplies. The end had come.

The following chapter is written with regret. Readers of Dickens remember the prolonged degradation of the young hero of 'Bleak house,' through hope deferred and the delays of a Chancery suit. Similar causes contributed to the final wreck of Charles. The thought of a Restoration was his Chancery suit. A letter of November 1753, written by the Prince in French, is a mere hysterical outcry of impatience. 'I suffocate!' he exclaims, as if in a fever of unrest. He had indulged in hopes from France, from Spain, from Prussia, from a Highland rising, from a London conspiracy. Every hope had deceived him, every Prince had betrayed him, and now he proved false to himself, to his original nature, and to his friends. The venerable Lord Pitsligo, writing during the Scotch campaign of 1745, said: 'I had occasion to discover the Prince's humanity, I ought to say tenderness: this is giving myself no great airs, for he shows the