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MARRIAGE TO PRINCESS STOLBERG.

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"has a melancholy, mortified appearance. Two gentlemen constantly attend him; they are of Irish extraction, "and Roman Catholics you may be sure.

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... At

"Princess Palestrina's he asked me if I understood the game of TARROCHI, which they were about to play at. "I answered in the negative; upon which, taking the pack in his hands, he desired to know if I had ever seen "such odd cards. I replied that they were very odd in"deed. He then displaying them said, here is every thing in the world to be found in these cards-the sun, moon, the stars; and here, says he (throwing me a card), is the Pope; here is the Devil; and, added he, "there is but one of the trio wanting, and you know who "that should be! I was so amazed, so astonished, though "he spoke this last in a laughing, good-humoured manner, "that I did not know which way to look; and as to a reply, I made none." *

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In his youth, Charles, as we have seen, had formed the resolution of marrying only a Protestant princess; however, he remained single during the greater part of his career, and when in 1754 he was urged by his father to take a wife, he replied, "The unworthy behaviour of "certain ministers, the 10th of December, 1748, has put "it out of my power to settle any where without honour or interest being at stake; and were it even possible "for me to find a place of abode, I think our family have "had sufferings enough, which will always hinder me to marry, so long as in misfortune, for that would only "conduce to increase misery, or subject any of the family "that should have the spirit of their father to be tied "neck and heel, rather than yield to a vile ministry." † Nevertheless in 1772, at the age of fifty-two, Charles espoused a Roman Catholic, and a girl of twenty, Princess Louisa of Stolberg. This union proved as unhappy as

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*Letters from Italy by an Englishwoman (Mrs. Miller), London, 1776, vol. ii. p. 198. This description of Charles's countenance well agrees with the portrait taken in 1776 by Ozias Humphry, of which an engraving is given in the Culloden Papers, p. 227.

Prince Charles to Mr. Edgar, March 24. 1754. Stuart Papers. Her mother, Princess Stolberg, survived till 1826. I was once introduced to her at Frankfort, and found her in extreme old age, still lively and agreeable. In is singular that a man born eighty-five years after the Chevalier should have seen his mother-in-law.

it was ill assorted. Charles treated his young wife with very little kindness. He appears, in fact, to have contracted a disparaging opinion of her sex in general; and I have found, in a paper of his writing about that period, "As for men, I have studied them closely; and were I to "live till fourscore, I could scarcely know them better "than now but as for women, I have thought it useless, they being so much more wicked and impenetrable."* Ungenerous and ungrateful words! Surely, as he wrote them, the image of Flora Macdonald should have risen in his heart and restrained his hand!

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The Count and Countess of Albany (such was the title they bore) lived together during several years at Florence, a harsh husband and a faithless wife; until at length, in 1780, weary of constraint, she eloped with her lover Alfieri. Thus left alone in his old age, Charles called to his house his daughter by Miss Walkinshaw, and created her Duchess of Albany, through the last exercise of an expiring prerogative. She was born about 1760, and survived her father only one year. Another consolation of his dotage was a silly regard, and a frequent reference to the prophecies of Nostradamus, several of which I have found among his papers. Still clinging to a visionary hope of his restoration, he used to keep under his bed a strong box with 12,000 sequins, ready for the expences of his journey to England, whenever he might suddenly be called thither. † In 1785, Charles returned to Rome with his daughter. His health had long been declining, and his life more than once despaired of; but in January, 1788, he was seized with a paralytic stroke, which deprived him of the use of one half of the body, and he expired on the 30th of the same month. His funeral

*Stuart Papers, Orig. in French.

† Despatch of Sir Horace Mann, November 30. 1779. MS.

The date publicly assigned was the 31st of January; but I have been informed that he really died on the 30th; and that his attendants, disliking the omen, as the anniversary of King Charles's execution, notwithstanding the difference of the Old and New Style, concealed his death during the night, and asserted that he had died at nine o'clock the next morning. This was told me by Cardinal Caccia Piatti, at Rome, who had heard it from some of the Prince's household.

EXTINCTION OF THE STUARTS.

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rites were performed by his brother the Cardinal, at Frascati*, but his coffin was afterwards removed to St. Peter's at Rome. Beneath that unrivalled dome lie mouldering the remains of what was once a brave and gallant heart; and a stately monument, from the chisel of Canova, but at the charge, as I believe, of the House of Hanover, has since arisen to the Memory of JAMES THE THIRD, CHARLES THE THIRD, AND HENRY THE NINTH, KINGS OF ENGLAND-names which an Englishman can scarcely read without a smile or a sigh! Often at the present day does the British traveller turn from the sunny height of the Pincian, or the carnival throngs of the Corso, to gaze in thoughtful silence on that sad mockery of human greatness, and that last record of ruined hopes! The tomb before him is of a race justly expelled; the magnificent temple that enshrines it is of a faith wisely reformed; yet who at such a moment would harshly remember the errors of either, and might not join in the prayer even of that erring Church for the departed exiles: REQUIESCANT IN PACE!

*Letter from Rome (Annual Register, vol. xxx. p. 255.).

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APPENDIX.

EXTRACTS FROM THE STUART PAPERS, NOW AT WINDSOR, AS COPIED BY PERMISSION OF HIS LATE MAJESTY WILLIAM THE FOURTH.

SIR,

PRINCE CHARLES TO HIS FATHER.

Navarre, June 12. 1745.

I BELIEVE your Majesty little expected a courier at this time, and much less from me; to tell you a thing that will be a great surprise to you. I have been, above six months ago, invited by our friends to go to Scotland, and to carry what money and arms I could conveniently get; this being, they are fully persuaded, the only way of restoring you to the Crown, and them to their liberties.

After such scandalous usage as I have received from the French Court, had I not given my word to do so, or got so many encouragements from time to time as I have had, I should have been obliged, in honour and for my own reputation, to have flung myself into the arms of my friends, and die with them, rather than live longer in such a miserable way here, or be obliged to return to Rome, which would be just giving up all hopes. I cannot but mention a parable here, which is; a horse that is to be sold, if spurred does not skip, or show some sign of life, nobody would care to have him even for nothing;

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just so my friends would care very little to have me, if, after such usage, which all the world is sensible of, I should not show that I have life in me. Your Majesty cannot disapprove a son's following the example of his father. You yourself did the like in the year '15; but the circumstances now are indeed very different, by being much more encouraging, there being a certainty of succeeding with the least help; the particulars of which would be too long to explain, and even impossible to convince you of by writing, which has been the reason that I have presumed to take upon me the managing all this, without even letting you suspect there was any such thing a brewing, for fear of my not being able to explain, and show you demonstratively how matters stood

which is not possible to be done by writing, or even without being upon the place and seeing things with your own eyes and had I failed to convince you, I was then afraid you might have thought what I had a mind to do, to be rash; and so have absolutely forbid my proceedings.

I have tried all possible means and stratagems to get access to the King of France, or his Minister, without the least effect, nor could I even get Littleton (Sir Thomas Sheridan) an audience, who I was sure would say neither more nor less than what I desired, and would faithfully report their answer. As for Wright (the Cardinal), he is not much trusted or well looked upon by Adam (the King of France), who is timorous, and has not resolution enough to displace him. Now I have been obliged to steal off, without letting the King of France so much as suspect it, for which I make a proper excuse in my letter to him; by saying it was a great mortification to me never to have been able to speak and open my heart to him; that this thing was of such a nature that it could not be communicated by any of the ministers or by writing, but to himself alone-in whom, after God Almighty, my resting lies, and that the least help would make my affair infallible. If I had let the French Court know this beforehand, it might have had all these bad effects: 1st, It is possible they might have stopped me, having a mind to keep measures with the Elector, and then, to cover it over, they would have made a merit of it

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