Pickle the Spy; Or, the Incognito of Prince Charles Part 10

To M. Stouf.

'June 6, 1752.

'It is not surprising that I should not care to have one in my Family that pretends to give me Laws in everything I do, you know how you already threatened to quit me If I did not do your will and pleasure.

What is pa.s.sed I shall forget, provided you continue to do yr. Duty, so that there is nothing to be altered as to what was settled. Do not go to Lisle, but stay at Coutray for my farther orders. As to ye little man [an agent of Charles] he need never expect to see me unless he executes ye Orders I gave him. I send you 50 Louisdors so that you may give ye Frenchman what is necessary.

'The little man' is, probably, Beson, who was also recalcitrant.

Goring replies in the following very interesting letter. He considered his errand unworthy of a man of honour.

From Stouf.

'I did not apprehend the money you sent by Dormer was for me, but thought, as you write in yours, to furnish the little man for the journey to Cambray, and that very reasonably, for with what he had of me he could not do it. On his refusing to go I sent it back. He says he has done what lays in his power, as Sullivan's letter testifies, that his desires to serve you were sincere, for which you abused him in a severe manner. Believe me, Sir, such commissions are for the worst of men, and such you will find enough for money, but they will likewise betray you for more. Virtue deserves reward and you treat it ill, I can only lament this unfortunate affair, which if possible to prevent, I would give my life with pleasure.

'You say nothing is to be altered in regard to the plan. Pray Sir reflect on Lady P. [Primrose] who will expect the little man. {139} He was introduced to her, and told her name. What frights will she and all friends be in, when they know you sent him away, for fear he should come over [to England] and betray them! I a.s.sure you all honest men will act as we have done, and should you propose to all who will enter into yr. service to do such work, they will rather lose their service than consent. Do you believe Sir that Lrd.

Marischal, Mr. Campbell, G. Kelly, and others would consent to do it?

Why should you think me less virtuous? My family is as ancient, my honour as entire. . . . I from my heart am sorry you do not taste these reasons, and must submit to my bad fortune . . for as to my going to Courtray n.o.body will know it, and if any accident should happen to you by the young lady's means [Miss Walkinshaw], I shall be detested and become the horrour of Mankind, but if you are determined to have her, let Mr. Sullivan bring her to you here, or any where himself. The little man will carry your letter to him, as he has done it already I suppose he wont refuse you.

'You sent a message for the pistols yourself, and as you had not given him the watch, he sent it, lest he should be accused of a design to keep it. We have no other Messages to send, since you have forbid us coming near you . . . for G.o.d's sake Sir let me have an audience of you; I can say more than I can write.'

Thus, from the beginning, Charles's friends foreboded danger in his liaison. Miss Walkinshaw had a sister, 'good Mrs. Catherine Walkinshaw, the Princess dowager's bed-chamber woman.' Lady Louisa Stuart knew her, and described to Scott 'the portly figure with her long lace ruffles, her gold snuff-box, and her double chin.' {141} The English Jacobites believed that Clementina was sent as a spy on Charles, communicating with her sister in London. In fact, Pickle was the spy, but Charles's refusal to desert his mistress broke up the party, and sealed his ruin. So much Goring had antic.i.p.ated. The 'Lady P.' referred to as 'in a fright' is Lady Primrose. An English note of May 1752 represents 'Miss Fines' as about to go to France, where 'Lady P.' or 'Lady P. R.' actually arrived in June. The Prince answered Goring thus:

The Prince to Stouf in reply.

'I hereby order you to go to Lisle there to see a Certain person in case she has something new to say, and Let her know that Everything is to be as agreed on, except that, on reflection, I think it much better not to send ye French man over, for that will avoid any writing, and Macnamara can be sent, to whom one can say by word of mouth many things further. As I told you already nothing is to be chenged, on your Side, and you are to be anywhere in my Neiborod for to be ready when wanted. . . . Make many kinde Compliments from me to her and all her dear family.

'Burn this after reading.'

Charles also wrote to 'Lady P. R.' in a conciliatory manner. Goring met 'the Lady' at Lens: she was indignant at the dismissal of 'the little Frenchman,' merely because he was no Englishman. 'It would be unjust to refuse that name to one who had served you so faithfully.'

Goring was still (June 18) 'at Madame La Grandemain's.' 'The Lady'

in this correspondence may be Miss Walkinshaw or may be Lady Primrose, probably the latter. Indeed, it is by no means absolutely certain that the errand which Goring considered so dishonourable was connected with Miss Walkinshaw alone. The Elibank plot must have been maturing, though no light is thrown on it by the papers of the summer of 1752. Did Goring regard that plot as 'wicked,' or did he object to escorting Miss Walkinshaw?

There were clearly two difficulties. One concerned Miss Walkinshaw, the other, Lady Primrose. She, as a Jacobite conspirator, had been used to seeing 'the little man,' a Frenchman, whom Charles threatens to dismiss. If dismissed, he would be dangerous. Charles's hatred and distrust of the French now extended to 'the little man.' It is barely conceivable that Miss Walkinshaw had left England under Lady Primrose's escort, of course under the pretext of going to join her chapter of canonesses in the Low Countries. If she announced, when once in France, her desire to go to Charles as his mistress, Lady Primrose's position would be most painful, and Goring might well decline to convoy Miss Walkinshaw. But the political and the amatory plot are here inextricably entangled. As to the wickedness of the Elibank plot, if Goring hesitated over that, Forsyth, in his 'Letters from Italy,' tells a curious tale accepted by Lord Stanhope.

Charles, on some occasion, went to England in disguise, and was introduced into a room full of conspirators. They proposed some such night attack on the palace as Murray's, but Charles declined to be concerned in it, unless the personal safety of George II. and his family was guaranteed. Charles certainly always did discountenance schemes of a.s.sa.s.sination; we shall see a later example. But, if Pickle does not lie, in a letter to be cited later, Lord Elibank, a most reputable man, saw no moral harm in his family plot. Was Goring more sensitive? All this must be left to the judgment of the reader.

In October 1752 a very sad event occurred. 'Madame La Grandemain'

had to announce the death of her 'sister:' the Prince, in a note to a pseudonymous correspondent, expresses his concern for 'poor Mademoiselle Luci.' And so this girl, with her girlish mystery and romance, pa.s.ses into the darkness from which she had scarcely emerged, carrying our regrets, for indeed she is the most sympathetic, of the women who, in these melancholy years, helped or hindered Prince Charles. 'As long as I have a Bit of Bred,' Charles writes to an unknown adherent, 'you know that I am always ready to shere it with a friend.' In this generous light we may fancy that Mademoiselle Luci regarded the homeless exile whom Goring was obliged to reprove in such uncourtly strains.

Madame La Grandemain, writing on November 5, 1752, expresses her inconsolable sorrow for her 'sister's' death, and says that she has made arrangements, as regards the Prince's affairs, in case of her own decease. The Prince, on November 10, 1752, sends his condolences, and this date is well worth remembering. For, according to Young Glengarry, in a letter to James cited later, November 10 was either the day appointed for the bursting of the Elibank plot, or was the day on which the date of the explosion was settled. As to that plot, the papers of Prince Charles contain no information. Doc.u.ments so compromising, if they ever existed, have been destroyed. {144}

CHAPTER VII--YOUNG GLENGARRY

Pickle the spy--Not James Mohr Macgregor or Drummond--Pickle was the young chief of Glengarry--Proofs of this--His family history--His part in the Forty-five--Misfortunes of his family--In the Tower of London--Letters to James III.--No cheque!--Barren honours--In London in 1749--His poverty--Mrs. Murray of Broughton's watch--Steals from the Loch Arkaig h.o.a.rd--Charges by him against Archy Cameron--Is accused of forgery--Cameron of Torcastle--Glengarry sees James III.

in Rome--Was he sold to c.u.mberland?--Anonymous charges against Glengarry--A friend of Murray of Broughton--His spelling in evidence against him--Mrs. Cameron's accusation against Young Glengarry--Henry Pelham and Campbell of Lochnell--Pickle gives his real name and address--Note on Glengarry family--Highlanders among the Turks.

In November 1752, if not earlier, a new fountain of information becomes open to us, namely, the communications made by Pickle the spy to the English Government. His undated letters to his employers are not always easily attributed to a given month or year, but there can be mo mistake in a.s.signing his first DATED letter to November 2, 1752. {145}

The spy called Pickle was a descendant of Somerled and the Lords of the Isles. In her roll-call of the clans, Flora MacIvor summons the Macdonalds:

'O sprung from the kings who in Islay held state, Proud chiefs of GLENGARRY, Clanra.n.a.ld, and Sleat, Combine like three streams from one mountain of snow, And resistless in union rush down on the foe!'

Pickle was the heir to the chieftains.h.i.+p of GLENGARRY; he was ALASTAIR RUADH MACDONNELL (or Mackdonnell, as he often writes it), son of John Macdonnell, twelfth of Glengarry. Pickle himself, till his father's death in 1754, is always spoken of as 'Young Glengarry.'

We shall trace the steps by which Young Glengarry, the high-born chief of the most important Catholic Jacobite clan, became PICKLE, the treacherous correspondent of the English Government. On first reading his letters in the Additional MSS. of the British Museum, I conceived Pickle to be a traitorous servant in the household of some exiled Jacobite. I then found him a.s.serting his rank as eldest son of the chief of a great clan; and I thought he must be personating his master, for I could not believe in such villainy as the treason of a Highland chief. Next, I met allusions to the death of his father, and the date (September 1, 1754) corresponded with that of the decease of Old Glengarry. Presently I observed the suspicions entertained about Young Glengarry, and the denunciation of him in 1754 by Mrs. Cameron, the widow of the last Jacobite martyr, Archibald Cameron. I also perceived that Pickle and Young Glengarry both invariably spell 'who' as 'how.' Next, in Pickle's last extant epistle to the English Government (1760), he directs his letters to be sent to 'Alexander Macdonnell, Glengarry, Fort William.' Finally, I compared Pickle's handwriting, where he gives the name 'Alexander Macdonnell,' with examples of Young Glengarry's signature in legal doc.u.ments in the library of Edinburgh University. The writing, in my opinion, was the same in both sets of papers. Thus this hideous charge of treachery is not brought heedlessly against a gentleman of ancient, loyal, and honourable family. Young Glengarry died unarmed, at home, on December 23, 1761, leaving directions that his political papers should be burned, and the present representatives of a distinguished House are not the lineal descendants of a traitor.

The grandfather of Alastair Ruadh Macdonnell (alias Pickle, alias Roderick Random--he was fond of Dr. Smollett's new novels--alias Alexander Jeanson, that is, Alastair, son of Ian), was Alastair Dubh, Black Alister, 'who, with his ponderous two-handed sword, mowed down two men at every stroke' at Killiecrankie, and also fought at s.h.i.+rramuir. At Killiecrankie he lost his brother, and his son Donald Gorm (Donald of the Blue Eyes), who is said to have slain eighteen of the enemy. At s.h.i.+rramuir, when Clanra.n.a.ld fell, Glengarry tossed his bonnet in the air, crying in Gaelic, 'Revenge! Revenge! Revenge to- day, and mourning to-morrow.' He then led a charge, and drove the regular British troops in rout. He received a warrant of a peerage from the King over the water.

This hero seems a strange ancestor for a spy and a traitor, like Pickle. Yet we may trace an element of 'heredity.' About 1735 a member of the Balhaldie family, chief of Clan Alpin or Macgregor, wrote the Memoirs of the great Lochiel, published in 1842 for the Abbotsford Club. Balhaldie draws rather in Clarendon's manner a portrait of the Alastair Macdonnell of 1689 and of 1715. Among other things he writes:

'Most of his actions might well admitt of a double construction, and what he appeared generally to be was seldome what he really was. . .

. Though he was ingaged in every attempt that was made for the Restoration of King James and his family, yet he managed matters so that he lossed nothing in the event. . . . The concerts and ingagements he entered into with his neighbours . . . he observed only in so far as suited with his own particular interest, but still he had the address to make them bear the blame, while he carried the profits and honour. To conclude, he was brave, loyal, and wonderfully sagacious and long-sighted; and was possessed of a great many s.h.i.+neing qualities, blended with a few vices, which, like patches on a beautifull face, seemed to give the greater eclat to his character.'

Pickle, it will be discovered, inherited the ancestral 'vices.'

'What he appeared generally to be was seldome what he really was.'

His portrait, {149a} in Highland dress, displays a handsome, fair, athletic young chief, with a haughty expression. Behind him stands a dark, dubious-looking retainer, like an evil genius.

Alastair Dubh Macdonnell died in 1724, and was succeeded by his son John, twelfth of Glengarry. This John had, by two wives, four sons, of whom the eldest, Alastair Ruadh, was Pickle. Alastair held a captain's commission in the Scots brigade in the French service. In March 1744, he and the Earl Marischal were at Gravelines, meaning to sail with the futile French expedition from Dunkirk. In June 1745, Glengarry went to France with a letter from the Scotch Jacobites, bidding Charles NOT to come without adequate French support. Old Glengarry, in January 1745, had 'disponed' his lands to Alastair his son, for weighty reasons to him known. {149b} Such deeds were common in the Highlands, especially before a rising.

From this point the movements of Young Glengarry become rather difficult to trace. If we could believe the information received from Rob Roy's son, James Mohr Macgregor, by Craigie, the Lord Advocate, Young Glengarry came over to Scotland in La Doutelle, when Charles landed in Moidart in July 1745. {150a} This was not true.

Old Glengarry, with Lord George Murray, waited on Cope at Crieff in August, when Cope marched north. Cope writes, 'I saw Glengarry the father at Crieff with the Duke of Athol; 'tis said that none of his followers are yet out, tho' there is some doubt of his youngest son; the eldest, as Glengarry told me, is in France.' {150b} On September 14, Forbes of Culloden congratulated Old Glengarry on his return home, and regretted that so many of his clan were out under Lochgarry, a kinsman. {150c} Old Glengarry had written to Forbes 'lamenting the folly of his friends.' He, like Lovat, was really 'sitting on the fence.' His clan was out; his second son AEneas led it at Falkirk. Alastair was in France. At the close of 1745, Alastair, conveying a detachment of the Royal Scots, in French service, and a piquet of the Irish brigade to Scotland, was captured on the seas and imprisoned in the Tower of London. {150d} In January 1746 we find him writing from the Tower to Waters, the banker in Paris, asking for money. Almost at this very time Young Glengarry's younger brother, AEneas, who led the clan, was accidentally shot in the streets of Falkirk by a Macdonald of Clanra.n.a.ld's regiment. The poor Macdonald was executed, and the Glengarry leader, by Charles's desire, was buried in the grave of Wallace's companion, Sir John the Graeme, as the only worthy resting-place. Many Macdonalds deserted.

{151a}

After Culloden (April 1746), an extraordinary event took place in the Glengarry family. Colonel Warren, who, in October 1746, carried off Charles safely to France, arrested, in Scotland, Macdonell of Barrisdale, on charges of treason to King James. {151b} Barrisdale had been taken by the English, but was almost instantly released after Culloden. One charge against him, on the Jacobite side, was that he had made several gentlemen of Glengarry's clan believe that their chief meant to deliver them up to the English. Thereon 'information was laid' (by the gentlemen?) against Old Glengarry.

Old Glengarry's letters in favour of the Prince were discovered; he was seized, and was only released from Edinburgh Castle in October 1749.

Here then, in 1746, were Old Glengarry in prison, Young Glengarry in the Tower, and Lucas lying in the grave of Sir John the Graeme.

Though only nineteen, AEneas was married, and left issue. The family was now in desperate straits, and already a SOUGH of treason to the cause was abroad. Young Glengarry says that he lay in the Tower for twenty-two months; he was released in July 1747. The Rev. James Leslie, writing to defend himself against a charge of treachery (Paris, May 27, 1752), quotes a letter, undated, from Glengarry.

'One needs not be a wizard to see that mentioning you was only a feint, and the whole was aimed at me.' {152a} If this, like Leslie's letter, was written in 1752, Glengarry was then not unsuspected. We shall now see how he turned his coat.

On January 22, 1748, he writes to James from Paris, protesting loyalty. But 'since I arrived here, after my tedious confinement in the Tower in London, I have not mett with any suitable encouragement.' Glengarry, even as Pickle, constantly complains that his services are not recognised. Both sides were ungrateful! In the list of gratuities to the Scotch from France, Glengarry l'Aine gets 1,800 livres; Young Glengarry is not mentioned. {152b} From Amiens, September 20, 1748, Young Glengarry again wrote to James. He means 'to wait any opportunity of going safely to Britain' on his private affairs. These journeys were usually notified by the exiles; their mutual suspicions had to be guarded against. In December, Young Glengarry hoped to succeed to the Colonelcy in the Scoto-French regiment of Albany, vacated by the death of the Gentle Lochiel.

Archibald Cameron had also applied for it, as loc.u.m tenens of his nephew, Lochiel's son, a boy of sixteen. James replied, through Edgar, that he was unable to interfere and a.s.sist Glengarry, as he had recommended young Lochiel. What follows explains, perhaps, the circ.u.mstance that changed Young Glengarry into Pickle.

'His Majesty is sorry to find you so low in your circ.u.mstances, and reduced to such straits at present as you mention, and he is the more sorry that his own situation, as to money matters, never being so bad as it now is, he is not in a condition to relieve you, as he would incline. But His Majesty being at the same time desirous to do what depends on him for your satisfaction, he, upon your request, sends you here enclosed a duplicate of your grandfather's warrant to be a Peer. You will see that it is signed by H. M. and I can a.s.sure you it is an exact duplicate copie out of the book of entrys of such like papers.' {153a}

It is easy to conceive the feelings and to imagine the florid eloquence of Young Glengarry, when he expected a cheque and got a duplicate copy of a warrant (though he had asked for it) to be a Peer--over the water! As he was not without a sense of humour, the absurdity of the Stuart cause must now have become vividly present to his fancy. He must starve or 'conform,' that is, take tests and swallow oaths. But it was not necessary that he should sell himself.

Many loyal gentlemen were in his position of poverty, but perhaps only James Mohr Macgregor and Samuel Cameron vended themselves as Glengarry presently did.

Glengarry loitered in Paris. On June 9, 1749, he wrote to the Cardinal Duke of York. He explained that, while he was in the Tower, the Court of France had sent him 'unlimited credit' as a Highland chief. He understood that he was intended to supply the wants of the poor prisoners, 'Several of whom, had it not been our timely a.s.sistance [Sir Hector Maclean was with him] had starved.' Sir Hector tells the same tale. From Sir James Graeme, Glengarry learned that the Duke of York had procured for him this a.s.sistance. But now the French War Office demanded repayment of the advance, and detained four years of his pay in the French service. He 'can't receive his ordinary supply from home, his father being in prison, and his lands entirely destroyed.' To James's agent, Lismore, he tells the same story, and adds, 'I shall be obliged to leave this country, if not relieved.' {154} Later, in 1749, we learn from Leslie that he accompanied Glengarry to London, where Glengarry 'did not intend to appear publicly,' but 'to have the advice of some counsellors about an act of the Privy Council against his returning to Great Britain.'