coquet, tolerably handsome, but withal prodigiously vain
and arrogant." A suggestion, also mooted at this time
by the leaders of the Jacobite Court, that her newborn
child should be sent away as soon as possible to be
educated at Madrid, further excited Clementina's anger,
so that, as a concession to her maternal feelings, the
Spanish scheme, which from a political standpoint carried
much to recommend it, was definitely abandoned. Yet
before the year had expired, so tense had grown the
friction between the Stuart King and Queen, that in a fit
of mingled jealousy and depression Clementina at last
withdrew to a neighbouring Ursuline convent, nor did she
return to her husband and children until February 1728,
on the voluntary retirement of Lord Inverness from Rome.
Sincerely charitable and deeply, austerely pious,
Clementina failed to obtain any great amount of influence
over her two sons, although she spent much time in
thwarting the projects of her husband, who wished to
give the young Princes a more liberal education than
their narrow-minded mother approved. To please the
Queen's fancy and to quiet her perpetual fears of
unorthodox teaching, the erudite Chevalier Andrew
6 HENRY STUART CARDINAL YORK
Ramsay — the intimate friend of the great Fenelon and
the author of that once popular schoolroom classic, " The
Travels of Cyrus " — had been dismissed from his post of
tutor, and the vacant place given to an Irish Roman
Catholic, Sir Thomas Sheridan, and the Abbe Legouz, of
the University of Paris. That the former was incapable
of teaching his native tongue is sufficiently proved by his
elder pupil's strangely ill-written and ill-spelt letters in
after-life ; yet Henry, owing to his more studious nature,
somehow contrived to obtain a very fair knowledge of
the English language, which he always wrote with ease
and clearness, though not without many eccentricities of
grammar and spelling. That the future Cardinal was
more painstaking at his lessons than Prince Charles can
be inferred from a passage in a letter written by Field-
Marshal Keith to his brother, Lord Marischal, in
November 1731 : —
" The little Duke is much on his good behaviour. He
has ordered a journal of his actions to be kept and given
me, that you may know how well he behaves. I never
saw any child comparable to him. His brother has
already got the better of his Governors, which makes him
a little unruly." 1
But of Henry's childhood we possess few details,
though as an infant he seems to have enjoyed more
robust health than Charles, for his cousin, the young
Spanish Duke of Liria, describes him at the age of two
as "a prodigy of beauty and strength." He was still
only in his tenth year when (on January iSth, 1735) he
lost his mother, who, already reduced almost to a skeleton
1 Life of Cardinal York.
CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 7
by secret ill-health and religious exercises, had lately
appeared to those around her " like one whose eager soul,
biting for anger at the clog of her body, desired to fret
a passage through it." 1 Clementina's intense spirituality
and neglect of all mundane interests, qualities that were
certainly out of place in one who was at once a queen, a
wife and a mother of children, had long rendered her unfit
to dwell in a practical, unkind world. Though for the last
seven years of her existence she had dwelt under her
husband's roof, the pair had in reality lived wholly apart, for
the Stuart King was ever absorbed in his endless political
schemes, whilst his Consort, suffering equally in mind
and body, had grown to care for nothing except her
good works in Rome, nor did she pay any attention to
her sons' up-bringing, save at such times as her sus-
picious nature led her to detect the dreaded Protestant
influence of the Princes' governor, James Murray, titular
Earl of Dunbar.
The public funeral accorded to the late Queen
Clementina constituted one of the most striking displays
of royal honours to the exiled Stuarts in Rome. The
embalmed body of the dead Queen, clothed in the habit
of a Dominican nun, was first borne by a number of
Irish Dominican Fathers to the neighbouring Church of
the Holy Apostles, where it was laid upon a magnificent
catafalque in the centre of the choir, which for the
occasion had been hung with sombre silver-fringed
draperies and illuminated by hundreds of wax candles.
As in the case of a deceased pope or temporal sovereign,
the Papal Guards patiently watched beside the corpse
with drawn swords for three whole days, during which
1 Thomas Fuller.
8 HENRY STUART CARDINAL YORK
time fine ladies and gentlemen of every nationality to be
found in Rome, and hundreds of priests, monks and nuns
attended the lying-in-state to pay a last visit of respect or
curiosity. On Sunday, January 23rd, the final arrange-
ments for burial in St. Peter's having been completed,
Clementina's ladies-in-waiting removed the religious dress
from their mistress in order to vest the body in robes of
purple velvet lined with ermine, after which they laid a
royal crown on her head and placed orb and sceptre in
the lifeless hands. At noon no fewer than thirty-two
Cardinals in their flowing mourning-robes of violet took
part in the solemn Office of the Dead, that preceded the
great public procession wherein nearly all Rome took
part. During its passage through the wide squares and
tortuous lanes leading from the Church of the Holy
Apostles across the bridge of Sant' Angelo to St. Peter's,
the royal bier was closely attended by members of the
Stuart household, by the students of the English, Scotch
and Irish Colleges, and by a detachment of cuirassiers,
who kept the many thousands of spectators at a respect-
ful distance. All the Confraternities in Rome, carrying
torches and wearing their uncouth but picturesque habits,
and all the Pope's servants in their splendid liveries
followed, whilst in the rear of the long train appeared
ten magnificent mourning - coaches, containing James
Stuart, Prince Charles, Prince Henry and the chief persons
of the Jacobite Court. Hundreds of English visitors
then in Rome watched with deep interest the stately
ceremonial and the long winding fantastic stream of
mourners, nor did many of them fail to attend the final
scene in St. Peter's itself. On reaching the Vatican
Basilica, which by express order of the reigning Pope,
CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 9
Clement XII (Corsini), had been draped with black velvet
and adorned with the regal escutcheons of England,
Scotland, Ireland and Poland, the gloomy De Profundis
was recited, and then the body of the Stuart Queen was
reverently stripped by Dominican nuns of its robes of
purple and ermine and was once more habited in the
religious dress, preparatory to its being placed in a coffin
and removed to the crypt below. 1
It was commonly reported that formal application
would some day be made to obtain the Beatification of
the late Queen on account of her severe piety and
extensive works of charity, particularly as her confessor,
the noted Father Leonard, of Port Maurice (afterwards
beatified and canonised), had latterly superintended her
many benevolent schemes amongst the destitute and
sinful of Rome. But no such plea seems ever to have
been formally advanced, although the reputed sanctity of
John Sobieski's granddaughter evidently came to be
regarded as efficacious in her native Poland, for there is
included amongst the Stuart Papers a curious account of
a Polish nobleman's child being healed of " a putrid fever"
through her direct intervention. As this official statement
of a miracle, alleged to have been performed by Henry
Stuart's mother, is of some historical interest, part of the
original Latin document, which is dated June 30th, 1781,
forty-six years after the Queen's death, is here quoted : —
" I, Ferdinand Sturm, noble of Hirschfeld and a
Doctor of Medicine, once in the year 1771 commended
myself to the Venerable Maria Clementina, Queen of
1 Parentalia Maria-Clementina, Magna Britania etc, Regina. Roma,
1735-
io HENRY STUART CARDINAL YORK
Great Britain, and in the merits of her name I petitioned
God Almighty to restore my son's health. I prayed from
the inmost depth of my heart, making vows that I
promised to fulfil till my life's end in honour of This
Advocate. Then I returned to the sick-room, where I
found my son lying in his mother's arms and suffering
from an attack of bleeding at the nostrils, whereby he was
relieved of more than two pounds of blood within the
space of an hour and a half. Joyfully the child cried out
to me, ' Dear Father, at last I am well again ! ' Then
voluntarily rising from his bed he was from that very
moment restored to his original state of health. — And
many other boons of Almighty God have I since obtained
by means of this powerful Patroness." *
But although Clementina has never been enrolled
amongst the saints of the Roman Calendar, yet the
Eternal City still holds recollections of her self-denying
life, for many a convent and pious institution received
her bounty. In the northern aisle of St. Peter's can be
seen her costly monument, a marble sarcophagus with
flowing drapery and with a mournful cherub holding aloft
her medallion portrait in garish mosaic, which Bracchi
erected for Pope Benedict XIV in the somewhat theatrical
taste of the period ; and on one of the columns also of the
Church of the Holy Apostles exists another memorial,
beneath which in after years her melancholy and repentant
husband used to remain kneeling for hours. In this
latter Clementina's heart rests enclosed in a marble urn
of verde antico, above which two cherubs offer a regal
crown and a heart of the purest white to the Almighty
1 Stuart Papers.
CI.KMKNTINA STUART
CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH n
and His angels; whilst below is inscribed on a slab of
porphyry a Latin couplet, which may freely be translated —
" Here lie the ashes of a Royal Heart
That Heavenly Love did burn to nothingness."
Clementina's early death, though openly deplored by
her husband and children, undoubtedly tended to heal
many existing disputes and to soothe the jarring elements
of the Jacobite Court ; on the other hand, her uncertain
temper and her constant habit of untimely meddling were
quickly forgotten, whilst only the ascetic piety of the
unhappy Queen was left behind as a fragrant and
cherished memory.
After a period of mourning the Stuart King and his
children again began to appear in public, and many are
the impressions of the exiled family that have been
transmitted to us by some of the numerous British
travellers who were now thronging Italy. For the Rome
of the Clements and the Benedicts, who for nearly half a
century openly espoused the cause of James Stuart and
granted him every means for the up-keep of a royal
Court, was undoubtedly the most cosmopolitan city of
eighteenth-century Europe. Its galleries of paintings and
sculpture, its famous ruins of antiquity, its richly decorated
churches and its vast palaces formed of themselves
sufficient excuse to make a visit to Rome the cynosure
of every educated person of whatsoever creed or race ;
whilst in addition to its intellectual and artistic attractions,
the Capital of the Popes was at this time justly celebrated
for its music, both sacred and secular. Moreover, its
broad, airy squares, the exquisite gardens of its villas, its
fine modern quarters and its unfailing supply of pure
12 HENRY STUART CARDINAL YORK
water — so rare a boon in an Italian city — combined to
render Rome not only the most beautiful, but also the
most healthy capital in Europe. As a peaceful spot, far
removed from the incessant warfare of the age, there was
nothing to deter the northern stranger from paying a
lengthy visit to a place where he found himself equally
secure from the possible outbreak of hostilities and from
the dreaded interference of the Inquisition. We have
small cause to wonder therefore that the English, a race
always prone to travel, should have frequented the
Eternal City in great numbers, nor that, in consequence,
the Royal Stuarts, the guests of Rome itself, should have
thus been brought into close and frequent contact with
Britons of the upper classes in a place so remote from
their ancient kingdom. And though it was held high
treason for any British subject to speak to the Pretender
himself, the same penalty did not apply to a chance
introduction in some public place to the two lads, so that
Charles and Henry were not unfrequently followed, stared
at, and even questioned by inquisitive English people.
As his two sons increased in years James began to
initiate them into all the intricacies of his perpetual
schemes and intrigues, both boys expressing the greatest
eagerness to recover their grandfather's lost crown. As
early as the siege of Gaeta in the year preceding Queen
Clementina's death, which Charles Stuart had attended
under the guidance of his cousin, the Duke of Liria, John
Walton was reluctantly forced to admit the attributes of
personal courage and efficiency at least in James' elder
son. Of Henry's powers it was as yet too early to predict,
but as time wore on he gave promise of growing up fully
as energetic as his elder brother. Both boys were highly
CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 13
popular in Roman society, although the little Duke of
York, owing to his pretty bright face and engaging
manners, was usually held the favourite by the lazy,
frivolous Italians, to whom Charles' inordinate love of
sport and adventure did not appeal so strongly. But
preference for Henry was by no means confined to the
Romans, for more than one English traveller affected to
recognise superior talents in the junior of the two Stuart
Princes, both of whom were naturally objects of much
interest and speculation. Samuel Crisp — the " Daddy
Crisp" of Fanny Burney and her sisters — singles out
Henry for special praise after seeing all three members of
the family at a grand masked ball given at the Bolognetti
Palace in honour of the young Prince Frederick Leopold
of Saxony, son of King Augustus of Poland, in February
1739, a date at which the Jacobite Duke of York had
not attained his fourteenth year: —
..." Last day of the Carnival was the Marchesa
Bolognetti's Ball, which I will give you a small History
of, and so conclude this voluminous letter. The Apart-
ments were not so grand nor the Ball room so magnificent
as at Prince Colonna's, but still very fine ; but 'tis on
account of the Chevalier's Sons, who were out of Masque,
that I give you this further trouble. In order to avoid
all Dispute about Precedence, as I told you before,
they were both in Masquerade Habits of two young
Shepherds, very rich, white silk hats with Diamond
Loops and Buttons ; Bankes of White Ribbands at their
knees and shoes, their faces unmasked, notwithstanding
which they were to be considered only as masques, not
as Princes, and accordingly everybody called them Signor
14 HENRY STUART CARDINAL YORK
Maschera ; this was to avoid all Dispute with the Prince
of Poland. I think I may say with truth they are two
as fine youths as ever I saw ; particularly the youngest,
who has more Beauty and Dignity in him than even
one can form to oneself in Idea ; he danced miraculously,
as they say he does all his exercises; singing, so I am
told, most sweetly, and accompanies himself, and is, in
short, the admiration of Everybody; these Accomplish-
ments must come to him by the Mother, for I take the
Father to be a Poor, Mean, Cowardly Bigot, and nothing
more. Well, these two young Sparks sat on one side
of the room, and the Prince of Poland on the other;
they had never yet spoke to one another, but the
Marchioness Bolognetti (who is mighty fond of the
Pretender and his Family) was resolved to bring them
Acquainted this time, and the sight of the particulars
of all this, which I had very fully, pleased me very
much. The eldest, whom they give here the title of
Principe di Gallia, began the Ball with the prettiest
Woman I ever saw, called the Bonaventura (I desire
you'd toast her for my sake now and then, for she is
quite beyond compare the Queen of all Beauty), and
after him the younger. In about an hour, in came
the Chevalier himself, in a purple and silver domino
and masqued ; everybody made a great bustle to make
room for him when he came in, and after he had gone
up to the Marchioness and some other Ladies to make
his compliments, he came down to the end of the Room,
where all the English Gentlemen were together, most
of them unmasked, and stood among them. I believe
he did it on purpose; but nobody took any manner of
notice of him, though he talked English for half an hour
CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 15
together to one of his attendants ; I was the very next
to him, and he heard the English Gentlemen talking
together all round him. After some time the Master
of the Ceremonies of the Ball came and asked him by
the name of Sire if his Majesty had had a mind to see
the young Princes dance ; to which he answered he
should be very glad of it, and accordingly the eldest
began, and while he was dancing I was got somehow
or other within two or three yards of the Prince of
Poland without knowing what was going to be done ;
but when his minuet was ended the Marchioness
Bolognetti who sat next the Prince of Poland, called to
Signor Maschera to come and sit by her ; which accord-
ingly he did, and in sitting down made a bow to the
Prince of Poland, who returned it and spoke to him ;
so there was a conversation begun between them, across
the Marchioness Bolognetti, who, seeing her scheme take
effect, got up and made them sit close together ; soon
afterwards the second son, il Duca di York, as they
stile him, had done his minuet, upon which immediately
the Lady that sat next the Prince of Poland on the
other side immediately got up and made room for him
in her place, on which the whole room fell a-clapping
and cried Bravo ! Bravo ! I never saw anything so genteel
as this young one's paying his court to the electorall
Prince; his looks, his gesture, all was the finest and
most expressive that can be imagined, and I was near
enough to hear now and then a Sentence ; they call'd
Cousins ; after some short space they both got up to
begin English Country Dances, which they have taught
all the Roman Ladies, who are much pleased with the
fashion. I was not a little surprised to hear my old
1 6 HENRY STUART CARDINAL YORK
friends Butter'd Peas and Willy Wilkie struck up in a
Roman Palace ; but here I must end for want of room,
else I could tell you a good deal more, though I fancy
you will think this is enough." x
A more distinguished Englishman than Crisp, who
likewise describes the Stuarts about this time, was
Thomas Gray, the poet, who in a letter to his mother
from Rome, dated April 2nd, 1740, remarks, "I have not
seen his majesty of Great Britain etc, though I have
the two boys in the gardens of the Villa Borghese, where
they go a-shooting almost every day ; it was at a
distance, indeed, for we did not choose to meet them,
as you may imagine. This letter (like all those the
English send or receive) will pass through the hands of
that family, before it comes to those it was intended
for . . ." Later in the same year the author of the
immortal Elegy had further opportunities of studying
"il Serenissimo Pretendente" and the Princes "at church,
at the Corso and other places ; but more particularly at
a great ball given by Count Patrizi at which he and
his two sons were present. They are good fine boys,
especially the younger, who has the more spirit of the
two, and both danced incessantly all night long. For
him, he is a thin, ill-made man, extremely tall and
awkward, of a most unpromising countenance, a good
deal resembling King James the Second, and has ex-
tremely the look and air of an idiot, particularly when
he laughs or prays : the first he does not often, the
latter continually." 2 But the fairest account of James
1 W. H. Hutton, Btirford Papers, 1905.
2 Poems and Letters of Thomas G?-ay.
CHARLES STUART AS A YOUTH
CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 17
Stuart, his sons and their home-life in the palace of
the Santi Apostoli is undoubtedly to be found in the
Italian letters of the President Charles de Brosses, who
was neither an enthusiastic Jacobite nor a carping Whig,
but simply an unprejudiced Frenchman : —
" The King of England is treated here with as much
respect as though he were a real reigning Sovereign. He
lives in the Piazza dei Santi Apostoli, in a large palace not
remarkable for beauty. The Pope's soldiers mount guard
there as at Monte Cavallo, and accompany him whenever
he goes out, which is not often the case. It is easy to
recognize him for a Stuart, of which family he has every
trait ; for he is tall and lean, and in face strongly re-
sembles the portraits we have in France of his father, King
James the Second. He is also very like Marshal Berwick,
his natural brother, except that the Marshal's face was sad
and severe, while that of the Pretender is sad and silly.
His household is rather numerous, its most distinguished
member being the Lord Dunbar, a Scotchman of spirit
and high reputation, to whom he has entrusted the up-
bringing of his sons, although he professes the Anglican
religion. The Pretender's dignity of manners is extra-
ordinary ; I never beheld any Prince preside over a
great assembly so well and so gracefully. Yet his life in
general is very retired, and he only comes for an hour to
take part in the entertainments he occasionally provides
to the ladies of Rome for the amusement of his sons.
He is pious in the extreme {devote a I'exces) ; and he
passes much of every morning in prayer at his wife's
Monument in the Church of the Santi Apostoli. Of his
talents my own lack of information forbids me to speak
1 8 HENRY STUART CARDINAL YORK
with certainty; they do not appear to me to be great,
but his conduct is reasonable and his behaviour dignified.
Although I often have the honour to see him, it is but for
a moment on his return from church, for he then retires
to his own chamber until dinner-time. He speaks seldom
at that meal, but always courteously and pleasantly, and
he withdraws from the room as soon as dinner is finished.
. . . When he sits down to dinner, his two sons, before
seating themselves, go to kneel before him for his blessing.
He usually speaks to them in English, but to the others
in Italian or French. The young princes have a small
supper in the evening at which the King never appears.
" Of his two sons, the elder is called the Prince of
Wales, the younger the Duke of York. Both have the
Stuart air, but the younger is still a child with a pretty
face. They are amiable, polite and gracious, but they
exhibit no signs of ability and both are less developed
in ideas than princes should be at their age. The younger
is the more popular of the two in Rome on account of
his handsome face and charming manners. Yet I gather
from those who know them intimately that the elder is
made of far better stuff and is more beloved by his own
suite ; that he is kind-hearted and courageous, and that
he feels his present position acutely ; and that if he does
not make a serious effort some day it will not be for lack
of initiative. Both princes are devoted to music and
understand it thoroughly. The elder plays the violoncello
very well, and the younger sings Italian songs with a clear
child's voice and in the best taste ; they give a concert
once a week ; it is the best music in Rome and I never
miss it. Yesterday I entered whilst they were performing
Corelli's famous work, the Notte di Natale, and I ex-
CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 19
pressed my regret at not having arrived in time to hear
the whole of it. When it was over and they were about
to pass to another piece, the Prince of Wales said, ' No,
wait ! let us begin over again, for I chanced to hear
Monsieur de Brosses say he would greatly like to listen
to the whole piece.' I gladly inscribe this little incident,
as it shows much attention and good-nature." 1
The shrewd and impartial comments of de Brosses
without doubt constitute the most authentic account we
possess of the Stuart King and his two sons, and they
present to us by no means an unpleasing picture of the
exiled family and of their daily existence in the Roman
palace. Other descriptions of the two Princes, both from
Jacobite and Hanoverian sources, are to be found in
tolerable abundance, and nearly all agree in ascribing an
attractive personality to Henry, who as a growing lad