THE LAST JACOBITES. In vol. x. p. 507., R. C. C. writes as follows: In a recent number of Household Words (No. 241. Nov. 4, 1854) is an article on the last of the Stuarts, the Cardinal York. It concludes as follows: "The Cardinal Duke, down to the very day of his death, although in the receipt of a munificent pension from England, was in communication with several noblemen who still indulged the hope of placing him upon the throne of Great Britain. Among the Cardinal's papers were discovered letters from active partisans both in Ireland and Scotland; but the English government wisely took no notice of these awkward revelations. Had they done so, many men of high rank and great influence would have been brought to a severe account." Who (if the parts of the quotation which I have marked in italics are correct) were the "noblemen," the "men of high rank and great influence," who continued to cherish hopes of a Stuart restoration down to 1807, the year of Cardinal York's death? I doubt whether any Jacobites were left in Scotland in 1807, except a few decrepit old men, the remnant of those who had been "out in '45," and these could not be described as men of great influence. It seems strange, too, that so exemplary a person as Cardinal York, when he bequeathed his papers to his kinsman and benefactor George III., should not have taken some precautions to have all those destroyed which compromised any of his adherents who were then living as British subjects. These queries produced the following replies : Valentine Lord Cloncurry was a nobleman who was on very intimate terms with Cardinal York. Whether he was one who “indulged the hope of placing him upon the throne of Great Britain" or not, I cannot say. But it looks suspicious, when we bear in mind that as a young man he joined, heart and soul, the anti-government party, was a United Irishman, became a member of the Executivedirectory of the United Irish Society, wrote a pamphlet, and becoming an object of government suspicion, was ar rested in 1798, and examined several times before the privy council. A twelve-month later the government again arrested him, and kept him in the Tower for two years. In his autobiography, amongst some sketches of his visits to France and Italy, he thus speaks of the last of the Stuarts: "Amongst the prominent members of Roman society in those days was the last of the Stuarts, Cardinal York, with whom I became somewhat of a favourite, probably by virtue of addressing him as Majesty,' and thus going a step farther than the Duke of Sussex, who was on familiar terms with him, and always applied to him the style of Royal Highness. . . . Upon the occasion of my visit to Frascati, I presented the cardinal with a telescope, which he seemed to fancy, and received from him in return the large medal struck in honour of his accession to his unsubstantial throne. Upon one side of this medal was the royal bust, with the cardinal's hat, and the words Henricus nonus Dei gratia rex;' and upon the other the arms of England, with the motto on the exergue, Haud desideriis hominum, sed voluntate Dei.""-Personal Recollections of the Life and Times, &c., of Lord Cloncurry: Dublin, McGlashan. CEYREP.-(Vol. xi. p. 53.) In spite of Valentine Lord Cloncurry, with his obnoxious pamphlet, his connexion with the "United Irishmen," and his friendship for the Cardinal de York, I cannot help believing that your correspondent R. C. C. is correct in the view he takes of the Jacobites as they existed in 1807. I could have wished the accomplished writer in Household Words to have given us his authorities. As he has not done so, a few remarks from me may not be deemed intrusive. In Mr. R. Chambers' History of the Rebellion of 1745-6, we find the Cardinal de York described as "a mild, inoffensive man." We know that when in 1747 he was made Cardinal, the exiled Jacobites regarded his advancement as the final destruction of their hopes. Many of them did not scruple to "declare it of much worse consequence to them than even the battle of Culloden." (Mahon's History of England, vol. iii. p. 349.) From this time the Cardinal devoted himself to church affairs. On his brother's death, in 1788, the only steps he took towards declaring his title 66 to the English throne, was to have a declaration read publicly, which had been prepared in 1784, when Charles was thought to be dying; and a medal struck, with the inscription, "Hen. ix. Ang. Rex," with the addition Dei Gratia, sed non voluntate hominum." Surely the latter part of this inscription must have sounded as a satire to his ears, and to those of the adherents of his house who still remained. Both Lord Mahon and Mr. Chambers consider the Jacobite party as crushed by the battle of Culloden. The executions on Tower Hill, and the wholesale butchery on Kennington Common, destroyed the strength of the friends of Charles, although Jacobitism existed as a sentiment much later. "But it became identified with the weakness of old age." It was a thing of the past. Tory rectors and country gentlemen were still wont to toast Prince Charles, just as their fathers had toasted the Chevalier St. George. They were vehement in their abuse of the House of Hanover, and in their admiration of the House of Stuart. But we obtain a fair estimate of the value of their good wishes in the case of Dr. Johnson. He confessed to Boswell that "the pleasure of cursing the House of Hanover and drinking King James's health was amply overbalanced by 300. a year." It appears to me that the writer in Household Words has confounded the lingering sentiment of 1788 (the date of Charles's death) with the active partisanship of 1745. Until he can prove his case against the "exemplary Cardinal," we must consider his statements as overstrained. J. VIRTUE WYNEN.-(Vol. xi. p. 169.) |