The Valet's Tragedy, and Other Studies Part 21

So far, the betting as to whether de la Cloche and the Naples pretender were the same man or not is at evens. Each hypothesis is beset by difficulties. It is highly improbable that the unworldly and enthusiastic Jesuit novice threw up, at its very crisis, a mission which might lead his king, his father, and the British Empire back into the one Fold. De la Cloche, forfeiting his chances of an earthly crown, was on the point of gaining a heavenly one. It seems to the last degree unlikely that he would lose this and leave the Jesuits to whom he had devoted himself, and the quiet life of study and religion, for the worldly life which he disliked, and for that life on a humble capital of a few hundred pounds, and some jewels, presents, perhaps from the two Queens, his grandmother and stepmother. De la Cloche knew that Charles, if the novice clung to religion, had promised to procure for him, if he desired it, a cardinal's hat; while if, with Charles's approval, he left religion, he might be a prince, perhaps a king. He had thus every imaginable motive for behaving with decorum--in religion or out of it.

Yet, if he is the Naples pretender, he suddenly left the Jesuits without Charles's knowledge and approval, but by a freakish escapade, like 'The Start' of Charles himself as a lad, when he ran away from Argyll and the Covenanters. And he did this before he ever saw Teresa Corona. He reminds one of the Huguenot pastor in London, whom an acquaintance met on the Turf. 'I not preacher now, I gay dog,' explained the holy man.

All this is, undeniably, of a high improbability. But on the other side, de la Cloche was freakish and unsettled. He had but lately (1667) asked for and accepted a pension to be paid while he remained an Anglican, then he was suddenly received into the Roman Church, and started off, probably on foot, with his tiny 'swag' of three s.h.i.+rts and three collars, to walk to Rome and become a Jesuit. He may have deserted the Jesuits as suddenly and recklessly as he had joined them. It is not impossible. He may have received the 800 pounds for travelling expenses from Oliva; not much of it was left by March 1669--only about 150 pounds. On the theory that the man at Naples was an impostor, it is odd that he should only have spoken French, that he was charged with no swindles, that he made a very poor marriage in place of aiming at a rich union; that he had, somehow, learned de la Cloche's secret; and that, possessing a fatal secret, invaluable to a swindler and blackmailer, he was merely disgraced and set free. Louis XIV. would, at least, have held him a masked captive for the rest of his life. But he was liberated, and, after a brief excursion, returned to Naples, where he died, maintaining that he was a prince.

Thus, on either view, 'prince or cheat,' we are met by things almost impossible.

We now take up the Naples man's adventure as narrated by Kent. He writes:

Kent to Jo: Williamson

Rome: August 31, 1669.

That certaine fellow or what hee was, who pretended to bee his Ma'ties naturall sonn at Naples is dead and haueing made his will they write mee from thence wee shall with the next Poast know the truth of his quality.

September 7, 1669.

That certaine Person at Naples who in his Lyfe tyme would needes bee his Ma'ties naturall Sonne is dead in the same confidence and Princely humour, for haueing Left his Lady Teresa Corona, an ordinary person, 7 months gone with Child, hee made his Testament, and hath Left his most Xtian Ma'tie (whom he called Cousin) executor of it.

Hee had been absent from Naples some tyme pretending to haue made a journey into France to visit his Mother, Dona Maria Stuarta of His Ma'tie Royall Family, which neernes and greatnes of Blood was the cause, Saies hee, that his Ma'tie would never acknowledge him for his Sonn, his mother Dona Maria Stuarta was, it seemes, dead before hee came into France. In his will hee desires the present King of England Carlo 2nd to allow His Prince Hans in Kelder eighty thousand Ducketts, which is his Mother's Estate, he Leaues Likewise to his Child and Mother Teresa 291 thousand Ducketts which hee calls Legacies. Hee was buried in the Church of St. Fran'co Di Paolo out of the Porta Capuana (for hee dyed of this Religion). He left 400 pounds for a Lapide to have his name and quality engrauen vpon it for hee called himself Don Jacopo Stuarto, and this is the end of that Princely Cheate or whatever hee was.

The newsletter of September 7 merely mentions the death and the will.

On this occasion Kent had private intelligence from a correspondent in Naples. Copies of the will, in English and in Italian, were forwarded to England, where both copies remain.

'This will,' Lord Acton remarked, 'is fatal to the case for the Prince.'

If not fatal, it is a great obstacle to the cause of the Naples man. He claims as his mother, Donna Maria Stewart, 'of the family of the Barons of San Marzo.' If Marzo means 'March,' the Earl of March was a t.i.tle in the Lennox family. The only Mary Stewart in that family known to Douglas's 'Peerage' was younger than James de la Cloche, and died, the wife of the Earl of Arran, in 1667, at the age of eighteen. She may have had some outlying cousin Mary, but nothing is known of such a possible mother of de la Cloche. Again, the testator begs Charles II. to give his unborn child 'the ordinary princ.i.p.ality either of Wales or Monmouth, or other province customary to be given to the natural sons of the Crown;'

to the value of 100,000 scudi!

Could de la Cloche be so ignorant as to suppose that a royal b.a.s.t.a.r.d might be created Prince of Wales? He certainly knew, from Charles's letter, that his younger brother was already Duke of Monmouth. His legacies are of princely munificence, but--he is to be buried at the expense of his father-in-law.

By way of security for his legacies, the testator 'a.s.signs and gives his lands, called the Marquisate of Juvignis, worth 300,000 scudi.'

Mr. Brady writes: 'Juvignis is probably a mistake for Aubigny, the dukedom which belonged to the Dukes of Richmond and Lennox by the older creation.' But a dukedom is not a marquisate, nor could de la Cloche hold Aubigny, of which the last holder was Ludovick Stewart, who died, a cardinal, in November 1665. The lands then reverted to the French Crown. Moreover, there are two places called Juvigny, or Juvignis, in north-eastern France (Orne and Manche). Conceivably one or other of these belonged to the house of Rohan, and James Stuart's posthumous son, one of whose names is 'Roano,' claimed a t.i.tle from Juvigny or Juvignis, among other absurd pretensions. 'Henri de Rohan' was only the travelling name of de la Cloche in 1668, though it is conceivable that he was brought up by the de Rohan family, friendly to Charles II.

The whole will is incompatible with all that de la Cloche must have known. Being in Italian it cannot have been intelligible to him, and may conceivably be the work of an ignorant Neapolitan attorney, while de la Cloche, as a dying man, may have signed without understanding much of what he signed. The folly of the Corona family may thus (it is a mere suggestion) be responsible for this absurd testament. Armanni, however, represents the man as sane, and very devout, till his death.

A posthumous child, a son, was born and lived a scrambling life, now 'recognised' abroad, now in prison and poverty, till we lose him about 1750.*

*A. F. Steuart, Engl. Hist. Review, July 1903, 'The Neapolitan Stuarts.' Maziere Brady, ut supra.

Among his sham t.i.tles are Dux Roani and 'de Roano,' clearly referring, as Mr. Steuart notices, to de la Cloche's travelling name of Henri de Rohan. The Neapolitan pretender, therefore, knew the secret of that incognito, and so of de la Cloche's mission to England in 1668. That, possessing this secret, he was set free, is a most unaccountable circ.u.mstance. Charles had written to Oliva that his life hung on absolute secrecy, yet the owner of the secret is left at liberty.

Our first sources leave us in these perplexities. They are not disentangled by the 'Lettere' of Vincenzo Armanni (1674). I have been unable, as has been said, to see this book. In the summary by Mr. Brady we read that (1668-1669) Prince James Stuart, with a French Knight of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, came to Naples for his health.

This must have been in December 1668 or January 1669; by March 1669 the pretender had been 'for some months' in Naples. The Frenchman went by way of Malta to England, recommending Prince James to a confessor at Naples, who was a parish priest. This priest was Armanni's informant.

He advised the Prince to lodge with Corona, and here James proposed to Teresa. She at first held aloof, and the priest discountenanced the affair. The Prince ceased to be devout, but later chose another confessor. Both priests knew, in confession, the secret of his birth: the Prince says so in his will, and leaves them great legacies. So far Armanni's version is corroborated.

Mr. Brady goes on, citing Armanni: 'At last he chose another spiritual director, to whom he revealed not only his pa.s.sion for Teresa Corona, but also the secret of his birth, showing to him the letters written by the Queen of Sweden and the Father General of the Jesuits.' Was the latter doc.u.ment Oliva's note from Leghorn of October 14, 1668? That did not contain a word about de la Cloche's birth: he is merely styled 'the French gentleman.' Again, the letter of the Queen of Sweden is now in the Jesuit archives; how could it be in the possession of the pretender at Naples? Was it taken from him in prison, and returned to Oliva?

The new confessor approved of the wedding which was certainly celebrated on February 19, 1669. Old Corona now began to show his money: his new son-in-law was suspected of being a false coiner, and was arrested by the Viceroy. 'The certificates and papers attesting the parentage of James Stuart were then produced....' How could this be--they were in the hands of the Jesuits at Rome. Had de la Cloche brought them to Naples, the Corona family would have clung to them, but they are in the Gesu at Rome to this day. The rest is much as we know it, save, what is important, that the Prince, from prison, 'wrote to the General of the Jesuits, beseeching him to interpose his good offices with the Viceroy, and to obtain permission for him to go to England via Leghorn' (as in 1688) 'and Ma.r.s.eilles.'

Armanni knew nothing, or says nothing, of de la Cloche's having been in the Jesuit novitiate. His informant, the priest, must have known that, but under seal of confession, so he would not tell Armanni. He did tell him that James Stuart wrote to the Jesuit general, asking his help in procuring leave to go to England. The General knew de la Cloche's hand, and would not be taken in by the impostor's. This point is in favour of the ident.i.ty of James Stuart with de la Cloche. The Viceroy had, however, already written to London, and waited for a reply. 'Immediately on arrival of the answer from London, the Prince was set at liberty and left Naples. It may be supposed he went to England. After a few months he returned to Naples with an a.s.signment of 50,000 scudi,' and died of fever.

Nothing is said by Armanni of the imprisonment among the low sc.u.m of the Vicaria: nothing of the intended whipping, nothing of the visit by James Stuart to France. The 50,000 scudi have a mythical ring. Why should James, if he had 50,000 scudi, be buried at the expense of his father-in-law, who also has to pay 50 ducats to the notary for drawing the will of this 'prince or cheate'? Probably the parish priest and ex-confessor of the prince was misinformed on some points. The Corona family would make out the best case they could for their royal kinsman.

Was the man of Naples 'prince or cheate'? Was he de la Cloche, or, as Lord Acton suggests, a servant who had robbed de la Cloche of money and papers?

Every hypothesis (we shall recapitulate them) which we can try as a key fails to fit the lock. Say that de la Cloche had confided his secret to a friend among the Jesuit novices; say that this young man either robbed de la Cloche, or, having money and jewels of his own, fled from the S. Andrea training college, and, when arrested, a.s.sumed the name and pretended to the rank of de la Cloche. This is not inconceivable, but it is odd that he had no language but French, and that, possessing secrets of capital importance, he was released from prison, and allowed to depart where he would, and return to Naples when he chose.

Say that a French servant of de la Cloche robbed and perhaps even murdered him. In that case he certainly would not have been released from prison. The man at Naples was regarded as a gentleman, but that is not so important in an age when the low scoundrel, Bedloe, could pa.s.s in Spain and elsewhere for an English peer.

But again, if the Naples man is a swindler, as already remarked, he behaves unlike one. A swindler would have tried to entrap a woman of property into a marriage--he might have seduced, but would not have married, the penniless Teresa Corona, giving what money he had to her father. When arrested, the man had not in money more than 160 pounds.

His maintenance, while in prison, was paid for by the Viceroy. No detaining charges, from other victims, appear to have been lodged against him. His will ordains that the doc.u.ment shall be destroyed by his confessor, if the secret of his birth therein contained is divulged before his death. The secret perhaps was only known--before his arrest--to his confessors; it came out when he was arrested by the Viceroy as a coiner of false money. Like de la Cloche, he was pious, though not much turns on that. If Armanni's information is correct, if, when taken, the man wrote to the General of the Jesuits--who knew de la Cloche's handwriting--we can scarcely escape the inference that he was de la Cloche.

On the other hand is the monstrous will. Unworldly as de la Cloche may have been, he can hardly have fancied that Wales was the appanage of a b.a.s.t.a.r.d of the Crown; and he certainly knew that 'the province of Monmouth' already gave a t.i.tle to his younger brother, the duke, born in 1649. Yet the testator claims Wales or Monmouth for his unborn child.

Again, de la Cloche may not have known who his mother was. But not only can no Mary, or Mary Henrietta, of the Lennox family be found, except the impossible Lady Mary who was younger than de la Cloche; but we observe no trace of the presence of any d'Aubigny, or even of any Stewart, male or female, at the court of the Prince of Wales in Jersey, in 1646.*

*See Hoskins, Charles II. in the Channel islands (Bentley, London, 1854).

The names of the suite are given by Dr. Hoskins from the journal (MS.) of Chevalier, a Jersey man, and from the Osborne papers. No Stewart or Stuart occurs, but, in a crowd of some 3,000 refugees, there MAY have been a young lady of the name. Lady Fanshaw, who was in Jersey, is silent. The will is absurd throughout, but whether it is all of the dying pretender's composition, whether it may not be a thing concocted by an agent of the Corona family, is another question.

It is a mere conjecture, suggested by more than one inquirer, as by Mr.

Steuart, that the words 'Signora D. Maria Stuardo della famiglia delli Baroni di S. Marzo,' refer to the Lennox family, which would naturally be spoken of as Lennox, or as d'Aubigny. About the marquisate of Juvigny (which cannot mean the dukedom of d'Aubigny) we have said enough. In short, the whole will is absurd, and it is all but inconceivable that the real de la Cloche could have been so ignorant as to compose it.

So the matter stands; one of two hypotheses must be correct--the Naples man was de la Cloche or he was not--yet either hypothesis is almost impossible.*

*I was at first inclined to suppose that the de la Cloche papers in the Gesu--the letters of Charles II. and the note of the Queen of Sweden--were forgeries, part of an impostor's apparatus, seized at Naples and sent to Oliva for inspection. But the letters--handwriting and royal seal apart--show too much knowledge of Charles's secret policy to have been feigned. We are not told that the certificates of de la Cloche's birth were taken from James Stuart in prison, and, even if he possessed them, as Armanni says he did, he may have stolen them, and they may have been restored by the Viceroy of Naples, as we said, to the Jesuits. As to whether Charles II. paid his promised subscription to the Jesuit building fund, Father Boero says: 'We possess a royal letter, proving that it was abundant' (Boero, Istoria etc., p. 56, note 1), but he does not print the letter; and Mr. Brady speaks now of extant doc.u.ments proving the donation, and now of 'a traditional belief that Charles was a benefactor of the Jesuit College.'

It may be added that, on December 27, 1668, Charles wrote to his sister, Henrietta, d.u.c.h.ess of Orleans: 'I a.s.sure you that n.o.body does, nor shall, know anything of it here' (of his intended conversion and secret dealings with France) 'but my selfe, and that one person more, till it be fitte to be publique...' 'That one person more' is not elsewhere referred to in Charles's known letters to his sister, unless he be 'he that came last, and delivered me your letter of the 9th December; he has given me a full account of what he was charged with, and I am very well pleased with what he tells me' (Whitehall, December 14, 1668).

This mysterious person, the one sharer of the King's secret, may be de la Cloche, if he could have left England by November 18, visited Rome, and returned to Paris by December 9. If so, de la Cloche may have fulfilled his mission. Did he return to Italy, and appear in Naples in January or February 1669? (See Madame, by Julia Cartwright, pp. 274, 275, London, 1894.)

IX. THE TRUTH ABOUT 'FISHER'S GHOST'

Everybody has heard about 'Fisher's Ghost.' It is one of the stock 'yarns' of the world, and reappears now and again in magazines, books like 'The Night Side of Nature,' newspapers, and general conversation.

As usually told, the story runs thus: One Fisher, an Australian settler of unknown date, dwelling not far from Sydney, disappeared. His overseer, like himself an ex-convict, gave out that Fisher had returned to England, leaving him as plenipotentiary. One evening a neighbour (one Farley), returning from market, saw Fisher sitting on the fence of his paddock, walked up to speak to him, and marked him leave the fence and retreat into the field, where he was lost to sight. The neighbour reported Fisher's return, and, as Fisher could nowhere be found, made a deposition before magistrates. A native tracker was taken to the fence where the pseudo Fisher sat, discovered 'white man's blood' on it, detected 'white man's fat' on the sc.u.m of a pool hard by, and, finally, found 'white man's body' buried in a brake. The overseer was tried, condemned, and hanged after confession.

Such is the yarn: occasionally the ghost of Fisher is said to have been viewed several times on the fence.

Now, if the yarn were true, it would be no proof of a ghost. The person sitting on the fence might be mistaken for Fisher by a confusion of ident.i.ty, or might be a mere subjective hallucination of a sort recognised even by official science as not uncommon. On the other hand, that such an illusion should perch exactly on the rail where 'white man's blood' was later found, would be a very remarkable coincidence.

Finally, the story of the appearance might be explained as an excuse for laying information against the overseer, already suspected on other grounds. But while this motive might act among a Celtic population, naturally credulous of ghosts, and honourably averse to a.s.sisting the law (as in Glenclunie in 1749), it is not a probable motive in an English Crown colony, as Sydney then was. Nor did the seer inform against anybody.