the hot summer months. As Vice-Chancellor the Cardinal
Duke likewise enjoyed the special privilege of coining
public money in his own name during a vacancy of the
Papal throne ; consequently on the death of Clement XIII
in 1769 he issued silver pieces from the Papal mint, having
his own coat-of-arms on one side and on the other the
legend Sede Vacante, with the date; again in 1774, prior
to Pius Vl's election, similar coins, or tokens, were struck.
About the date of his second Conclave (1769) the
Cardinal Duke was fortunate enough to secure an invalu-
able secretary and a most faithful friend in the person of
a certain young priest belonging to a noble family of
Perugia, Don Angelo Cesarini, who in course of time
became a canon of the Cathedral and Rector of the
Seminary at Frascati. So deep was the Cardinal Duke's
sense of his obligations to Cesarini, who subsequently
shared his master's exile and poverty, that a few years
before the end of his life he induced the Pope to consecrate
his secretary titular Bishop of Milevi ; whereupon he
himself granted Cesarini an annuity of 600 crowns " with
HENRY STUART, CARDINAL DUKE OF YORK AND BISHOP OF FRASCATI
CAREER IN THE CHURCH 65
which to uphold the episcopal dignity in a befitting
style." 1
Of the income that the Cardinal Duke enjoyed it is
not easy to form an exact estimate, for besides his
bishopric and offices in the Roman States and his two
abbeys in France, he possessed certain prebends and
benefices in Spain and Mexico ; whilst under his father's
will he had inherited a considerable private fortune. Sir
William Hamilton, British envoy at Naples, in a despatch
written to Lord Shelburne, on May 12th, 1767, remarks
that " the Cardinal's ecclesiastical benefices in the Roman
States and in France are said to amount to £18,000 a
year " ; and Sir William adds (in a spirit of fairness which
is always absent from Sir Horace Mann's accounts of
Henry Stuart) that " he does much good with them, being
extremely generous. Besides the £3000 he allows the
[Young] Pretender he is supposed to give at least £2000
more in private donations to support poor families in
Rome." 2
This statement appears tolerably correct, so that, if
we take into consideration his private means and the
revenue accruing from Spanish sources, we may venture
to state that the Cardinal Duke's total income must have
reached £30,000 sterling a year, or thereabouts, though
one writer puts it as high as £40,000. Until the disastrous
days of the French Revolution, therefore, the Cardinal
Duke may be looked upon as one of the weathiest
Churchmen in Italy.
1 Stuart Papers. 2 A. C. Ewald, Life of Charles Stuart.
CHAPTER IV
BISHOP OF FRASCATI. 1761-1803
" Prende la Verga pastorale; cammina
Ad incontrar l'Amato Gregge eletto ;
Scorri il Prato, la Valle, e la Collina ;
Di pieta, di fortezza, armati il petto. "
ON July 13th, 1 76 1, as we have already shown, the
Cardinal Duke of York had been appointed by
Pope Clement XIII to the important diocese of Frascati
(La Chiesa Tuscolana), which forms one of the six
" suburban " sees of the city of Rome ; the remaining five
being Ostia (with Velletri), Porto (with Silva Candida),
Sabina, Palestrina and Albano, the bishops of which hold
of necessity the rank of cardinal, and serve as suffragans
in a special sense under the Pope in his capacity of
Metropolitan.
This intention of the second son of James Stuart to
associate himself with the active life of the Italian
episcopate was naturally considered a step of decided
importance, which at the time caused much comment and
not a little surprise in Roman society. But the young
English Cardinal was perfectly satisfied with the choice
he had deliberately made fourteen years before, the life
of a Roman citizen and priest, so that now, with the full
66
BISHOP OF FRASCATI 67
approval of his father, he entered with zest upon the
duties of his new office. Amongst the many eulogies and
poems that were showered upon him on this occasion
mention ought to be made here of the beautiful sonnet,
by a long-forgotten writer, 1 in which the spirit of the
saintly Clementina Stuart is supposed to address and
advise her younger and favourite son, and which concludes
with the Graceful conceit : —
t>'
"Quant' alme salverai col tuo consiglio,
Io tanti bad ti daro nel cielo."
(So many souls as thou wilt save on earth,
So many kisses shall I grant in Heaven.)
Three days later, on the evening of July 16th, after
the fierce heat of the long summer's day had spent itself,
the newly-consecrated bishop made his state entry into
the little city on the slopes of the Alban Hills, which
was destined to be the future scene of that " saving of
souls " that the long-dead Stuart Queen was declared
so ardently to desire. As the Cardinal Duke approached
Frascati, after driving across the wide, shadeless Roman
Campagna, he was met, while still some miles from his
destination, by a troop of cuirassiers sent ahead as a
guard of honour to escort his coach up the steep ascent.
On entering the gates of the town, he found all the
poorer inhabitants of the neighbourhood collected to-
gether to give their bishop a hearty welcome, and on
reaching the Palazzo Carpegna, which serves as the
municipal hall, he received an address from the magi-
strates of the city. At the episcopal palace of La Rocca,
so called from its commanding site, he perceived the
1 Don Filippo Gattinara, of Frascati.
68 HENRY STUART CARDINAL YORK
Canons of the Cathedral and the whole of his clergy
drawn up in full gala dress, and on the tiptoe of
expectation to do homage to their new pastor. All
persons in every class of society expressed themselves
as delighted with the affability, the splendour and the
royal appearance of their bishop. On the following
day, which was a Sunday, the streets of Frascati were
decorated with long festoons of laurel and ilex leaves
entwined with ribbands ; every window displayed its
festal draperies, varying from the rich brocades and
velvets of the wealthier citizens to the bright-coloured
quilts of the poor ; the cathedral-church itself was en-
tirely draped in crimson damask, and decked with
innumerable cut-glass chandeliers, according to the
Italian custom on great Church festivals; the narrow
streets and the great piazza were crowded with peasants
from the hill districts, all wearing the wonderfully
picturesque dresses and jewellery which are familiar
to us from the drawings of Roman artists of the last
century but are now rapidly disappearing. The
ceremony of enthronement was gorgeous and impressive,
and it was followed by universal rejoicings and feasting.
The fountain in the Piazza Maggiore was made to flow
red wine ; bread and meat were lavishly distributed
to the crowds ; the clergy and leading citizens were
splendidly entertained in the palace ; bands of music
played, and numberless country-dances were performed ;
and finally, when darkness at last fell on this merry
scene, there was a fine display of fireworks and coloured
lights, whilst all the hillsides twinkled with the in-
numerable bonfires that each distant village kindled in
honour of the auspicious event.
BISHOP OF FRASCATI 6g
Frascati, which henceforward became the Cardinal
Duke's chief residence for the remainder of his long
life, is one of the many charming little cities that nestle
in the beautiful ring of historic hills surrounding the
Roman Campagna. Standing nearly a thousand feet
above sea level, its air is pure and fresh in summer,
whilst the higher mountain ranges screen it from the bitter
winds that sweep down from the snow-covered Apennines
in winter and early spring. The present town, which
is of late medieval origin, is said to have obtained its
pleasant-sounding name from the frascati, or temporary
huts erected by the houseless inhabitants of the ancient
city of Tusculum on its final destruction by the Emperor
Henry vi, towards the close of the twelfth century. It
is a picturesque, rambling little place, but possesses little
or nothing of sufficient interest to detain the traveller,
for its cathedral-church, which witnessed the enthusiastic
entry of the Cardinal Duke of York on this warm July
evening in 1761, is a commonplace rococo structure
built some two hundred years ago, and beyond this
there is little else to inspect except the old twelfth-
century church of SS. Sebastian and Roch (that was
formerly the cathedral, and is still known as " II Duomo
Vecchio") and a fine Renaissance fountain erected in
1480 by the French Cardinal d'Estouteville. At the
time of Henry Stuart's consecration to the see, the
episcopal palace of La Rocca — the present appearance
of which is greatly due to the alterations made by him —
was a large brick medieval castle with battlements,
that had for centuries served as a stronghold of the
Imperial party until its final capture by the Romans
under Tope Celestine III in 1191. But though of
70 HENRY STUART CARDINAL YORK
comparatively recent origin for an Italian city, Frascati
is excessively rich in classical associations, and its
ecclesiastical name of Chiesa Tuscolana always serves
to recall the famous old Roman settlement that it has
supplanted. For ruined Tusculum, with its undying
memories of Cicero and Pliny, of Plutarch and Strabo,
and of many another noble Roman, both of Republican
and Imperial times, stands a little above the modern
Frascati, which is itself said by archaeologists to occupy
the site of the sumptuous villa and gardens of the
epicure Lucullus. Around the town the richly wooded
slopes are dotted with some of the most beautiful
garden-encircled villas — Aldobrandini, Mondragone,
Torlonia and the like — that the wealthy Roman nobles
of the Leonine age, or the papal families of the decadent
seventeenth century could contrive to erect ; for Frascati,
in this one respect at least, has always managed to
maintain the ancient reputation of its classical fore-
runner, Tusculum, as an enviable and safe retreat
from the oppressive heat and the dreaded fevers of the
Roman summer. And yet Frascati is so little distant
from the Capital that the great dome of St. Peter's
looms large against its western horizon ; indeed, no
other of the many hill cities that overlook the Campagna
combines at once such healthiness of air and so many
natural beauties with such nearness to Rome itself.
We can therefore hardly wonder at the constant devo-
tion to this spot, at once so beautiful and so convenient,
that the Cardinal Duke always evinced, for, from the
time of his father's death until his own, he very rarely,
and even then most unwillingly, quitted the Tusculum
that he loved almost as passionately as did Cicero.
BISHOP OF FRASCATI 71
Although his presence was frequently required in Rome,
either at his own official palace or at the Court, he made
light of the intervening fourteen miles between Frascati
and the Capital, which he traversed to and fro at terrific
speed with six horses. Living thus in this lovely and
sheltered retreat, amidst groves and gardens, surrounded
by hosts of friends who praised or flattered, and idolised
by an adoring if pauperised flock, he passed some forty
peaceful years in pious meditation, in vast and varied
charity, and in princely entertainment.
The whole story of the Cardinal Duke's existence
at Frascati, and the many incidents connected with it,
are fully recounted by Don Alessandro Atti, a former
Vicar-General of Frascati, in a very rare little work,
privately printed in Rome some forty years ago, 1 in
which almost every detail of his official career has been
carefully noted and compared with entries in the Papal
archives. A less concise account is to be found in the
curious and somewhat fulsome " Oration " of Don Marco
Mastrofini, 2 a professor of philosophy and a former
pupil at the Seminary of Frascati, who was specially
chosen to recite the funeral sermon in the Cathedral.
From both these interesting little works it is intended
to quote freely in this chapter, since they throw much
light on a side of the Cardinal Duke's character which
has hitherto been much neglected by English historians.
" The diocese of Frascati was full, when I first knew
it " (in the early part of the last century), writes Cardinal
1 llCardinalc Diuadi York . . . Cenni Slorici,dal Professore D. Alessandro
Alii. Roma, 1 868.
- Orazione per la iVorle di Errico Cardinale, denomittato Duca di York.
Roma, 1807.
72 HENRY STUART CARDINAL YORK
Wiseman, "of recollections of the Cardinal Duke, all
demonstrative of his singular goodness and simplicity
of character, ... for whatever else may have been wanting
for his title, to a royal heart he was no pretender. His
charities were without bounds ; poverty and distress were
unknown in his see." 1 It is therefore all the more re-
grettable that the first English Archbishop of Westminster
did not set himself to collect and transcribe some of those
stones and memories of the last of the Stuarts to which
he alludes, since many of them have by this time been
forgotten, as old people who remembered the Cardinal
Duke either personally or by hearsay have gradually
died off. Of recent years the Marchesa Vitelleschi, in her
valuable and agreeably written account of the social life
of the exiled royal House on the Continent, has brought
together a few slight anecdotes, chiefly gleaned from oral
tradition, of the splendid state once maintained in the old
palace of La Rocca by the great " Cardinale degli Organi,"
as Henry Stuart was usually termed by the illiterate
peasants of the Alban Hills, who failed to grasp the name
of the famous northern city that gave birth to the first
Christian Emperor of Rome. 2 But it is chiefly the dry
pages of Atti and the florid periods of Mastrofini that
afford us the best material for a full and credible descrip-
tion of his lengthy episcopate with its various episodes.
From these two writers it is evident that the life led
by Henry Stuart at Frascati was that of any great
Italian ecclesiastic of the eighteenth century, who was at
once virtuous, wealthy and open-handed. "A descendant
of the ancient race of the kings of England, he united all
1 Henry, Cardinal Wiseman, Recollections of the Four Last Popes.
2 Vitelleschi, A Court in Exile.
BISHOP OF FRASCATI 73
the generous ideas of a beneficent ruler with the zeal of
a holy pastor. His was not the mere light of a shining
planet, but of a sun that warms and illumines." l Thus,
from the moment of his nomination to Frascati, he
began to evince the liveliest concern in the moral and
material welfare of the flock newly entrusted to him.
His own extreme purity of life and conscientious love of
duty at once moved him to expect the same attributes
in his own clergy, and accordingly led him to summon
a Synod of his diocese to meet in the autumn of 1763.
During the time occupied by its sittings, the Cardinal
Duke rented the huge Villa Aldobrandini, the most
magnificent of the many famous villas that constitute the
chief charm of Frascati, in order to lodge and entertain
the whole body of his clergy at his own expense. At
this Synod numerous rules and recommendations were
laid down for the guidance or reform of such priests as
chanced to be lax in their morals or their pastoral labours,
and a few of the clergy were severely admonished by
their energetic young prelate, who not only set them an
excellent personal example, but also showed "a certain
emphasis or vehemence of paternal sternness, also a
desire for ancient discipline in recalling his clergy to
their proper sphere. It seemed as if he were revolving
in his mind the hard punishment of Eli for his indolence
in not correcting his sons when they were ministers of
the Sanctuary." 2 The voluminous records of this Synod,
carefully drawn up in Latin, and printed in Rome, fill a
large quarto volume of several hundred pages. 3
1 Mastrofini. a Ibid.
3 Constitutiones Synodales Ecclesice Tusctilana seu Synodus Tusculana a
celsitudine regia cmiitcntissima Henrici Episcopi Tusculani, etc. Roma, 1764-
74 HENRY STUART CARDINAL YORK
Undoubtedly from one point of view the daily life led
by the Cardinal Duke at Frascati was both simple and
deeply religious. He began the day by saying Mass in
his private oratory, rising with the sun in summer time,
and in winter long before it was light, before even the
peasants had left their homes to labour in the neighbour-
ing fields ; and not unfrequently he would go and pray
at some particular altar either in his cathedral or in one
of the churches of the town. After the early Mass and
the subsequent devotions, he would then retire to the
library of the Seminary, there to spend several hours in
study, reading copiously from the works of the Fathers,
especially of St. Augustin, his most esteemed author.
After this he would often stop to converse with the more
promising students of his Seminary, in whose course of
reading he took the keenest interest, one of his favourite
pupils being young Ercole Consalvi, afterwards a cardinal
and a Papal secretary of state, who owed the beginning of
his successful career entirely to the patronage and bounty
of the Cardinal Duke. Then followed the mid-day meal,
that was usually shared by many dependants in the palace
itself and by chance guests from Rome, after which he
drove out in his coach to visit some village or convent
in his diocese, recking nothing of long distances or of the
bad mountain roads. This daily departure for a drive
was always the signal for the many poor or idle of
Frascati and the surrounding district to collect at the
palace gates in order to appeal for alms, and to call
down blessings on their benefactor. And the beggars
who surrounded his splendid coach with vociferous
demands for money were certain to receive, for no request
was ever refused by this wealthy and generous prince of
BISHOr OF FRASCATI 75
the Church, who, if an anecdote given by Cardinal
Wiseman can be relied on, frequently gave a zecchino, or
sequin (a gold coin, of Venetian origin, worth about ten
shillings), when a carlino (a small silver piece of the
value of flvepence) would have been ample for the
purpose. But the treatment of the populace in the
declining days of Imperial Rome by the giving of panem
et circenses — free doles of bread, free bathing-houses, and
free gladiatorial exhibitions in the Coliseum — had been
largely followed by the later popes, who carried out the
principles, though they varied the programme, of the
ancient policy of the Emperors towards the masses by
indiscriminate charity, by encouraging universal merry-
making on the many holidays of the Church that always
tended to increase in number, and by gorgeous religious
ceremonies with chanting and instrumental music. And
this time-honoured but dangerous system, which the
popes pursued in Rome, the Cardinal Duke imitated on
a smaller scale in Frascati. But if he acted so as to
pauperise his diocese by wholesale largesse, he also took
great pains to improve its general conditions. Under his
auspices orphanages were founded ; schools were set up
and visited ; the existing Seminary (which we intend to
describe more fully) was endowed ; doctors from Rome
were summoned to attend the sick and feeble; whilst
medicine, food and clothing were freely dispensed to all
who needed. That Henry Stuart's love for " sua diletta
Frascati " was sincere and lasting is proved by his
pathetically eager determination to die in the little city,
with which he had ceased to hold any official connection ;
and it is also easy to understand how deep a devotion its
warm-hearted, if somewhat turbulent, inhabitants must
76 HENRY STUART CARDINAL YORK
have felt towards the magnificent prelate who had made
a permanent home amongst them, and had identified
himself so completely with their own lives and interests.
For during his tenure of the bishopric the Cardinal Duke
had on several occasions successfully intervened on behalf
of his people in cases of unjust taxation and of local
riots. In particular, during the year 1779, after the ex-
cited mob had discomfited the Papal troops, it was the
Cardinal Duke who saved the town and district from the
consequences of the Pope's expressed vengeance; whilst
at the same time, by a direct personal appeal to Pius VI,
he rescued from an imminent and probably well-deserved
execution a native of Tivoli who had been the ringleader
on this occasion : " a circumstance," quaintly observes
Atti, " that more than ever bound his flock to its shepherd,
and the shepherd to his flock, ... for prince and people
were all one in mind and soul, a thing as enviable as
it is rare."
Beside this aspect of Henry Stuart as the pious
and energetic Bishop of Frascati, we must compare the
picture presented by him as the scion of a great royal
House, maintaining an immense establishment in the most
sumptuous style, for his wealth was of course enormous.
Whilst possessing in a marked degree his parents'
extreme piety and loyal attachment to their Church,
Henry Stuart had by no means inherited either his
mother's asceticism or his father's melancholy, so that
he was fully able to appreciate the many advantages
that his rank and riches brought him. Hospitable to
a fault, he delighted in expending his wealth upon
others, and in playing the patron to all who were willing
to apply to him for subsistence or for advancement.
BISHOP OF FRASCATI 77
He kept what was practically an open table in his house,
his meals were of the choicest, and were always served
with such display that they were considered to rival
the luxurious and extravagant banquets for which his
friend, the French Cardinal de Bernis, was famous or
notorious. The magnificence of his household can best
be realised by the fact that he kept five chaplains in
constant attendance, and that he " maintained grooms,
lacqueys and serving-men without number, all of pleasing
appearance and of commanding stature, as a great
Prince should." 1 His stables contained sixty horses
ready for immediate service, and large as the number
seems, it was hardly sufficient to meet the constant
demand for the use of the many splendid coaches that
were driven, often several times a day, backwards and
forwards between Frascati and the Capital, sometimes to
bring special dainties for a banquet, sometimes to bear
away the Cardinal Duke himself at a moment's notice
to some ceremony or reception in Rome, and often,
especially in later years when Henry Stuart had grown
old and infirm, to fetch invited guests out to Frascati
to amuse him. He always travelled at full speed, and
expressed himself as quite indifferent to his horses being
driven to death, provided only that his destination were
reached in the shortest possible time. Six horses invari-
ably drew his own carriage, which was also followed by
a reserve coach-and-four in case of an accident. Accord-
ing to the custom of the day, running footmen preceded
the Cardinal Duke's coach-and-six, and stories of the
fleetness of foot and the quaint cunning of one of these
lacqueys, known as " Gigi," or " il Moretto," still linger
1 Atli.
78 HENRY STUART CARDINAL YORK
in the recollections of the people of Frascati ; — how he
always contrived to outstrip the unfortunate horses, no
matter how furiously the driver plied his whip ; and
how on the occasion of a grand reception given by
Cardinal de Bernis to celebrate the birth of Louis xvi's
heir, the Moretto thrust a burning torch into the faces
of the Princess Rezzonico's steeds, in order to prevent
that great lady's chariot arriving at the entrance of the
Salviati Palace before his own master's, — a well-inten-
tioned trick that brought a furious letter next day from
the Princess to the Cardinal Duke, who was forced to
apologise for his favourite footman's misbehaviour.
All these tales of pride and splendour appear in
strange contrast with the simple daily life of prayer,
study, and good works on which his ecclesiastical bi-
ographers dwell with such insistence ; but they serve well
to exhibit the curious mixture of ostentation and humil-
ity, of true piety and worldliness, of which the Cardinal
Duke's complex character was evidently composed. We
should probably search throughout history in vain in
order to discover just such another example of untiring
pastoral zeal combined with so keen a delight in the
pomps and petty vanities of a decadent age. For Henry
Stuart was very far from being either a de Bernis or a
Charles Borromeo, yet he certainly possessed the senseless