Pickle the Spy; Or, the Incognito of Prince Charles

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Lang Andrew. Pickle the Spy; Or, the Incognito of Prince Charles

PREFACE

CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY TO PICKLE

CHAPTER II. CHARLES EDWARD STUART

CHAPTER III. THE PRINCE IN FAIRYLAND FEBRUARY 1749-SEPTEMBER 1750 – I. WHAT THE WORLD SAID

CHAPTER IV. THE PRINCE IN FAIRYLAND. II. – WHAT ACTUALLY OCCURRED

CHAPTER V. THE PRINCE IN LONDON; AND AFTER. – MADEMOISELLE LUCI (SEPTEMBER 1750–JULY 1751)

CHAPTER VI. INTRIGUES, POLITICAL AND AMATORY. DEATH OF MADEMOISELLE LUCI, 1752

CHAPTER VII. YOUNG GLENGARRY

NOTE. The Family of Glengarry

CHAPTER VIII. PICKLE AND THE ELIBANK PLOT

CHAPTER IX. DE PROFUNDIS

CHAPTER X. JAMES MOHR MACGREGOR

CHAPTER XI ‘A MAN UNDONE.’ 1754

CHAPTER XII. PICKLE AS A HIGHLAND CHIEF. 1755–1757

CHAPTER XIII. THE LAST HOPE. 1759

CHAPTER XIV. CONCLUSION

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This woful History began in my study of the Pelham Papers in the Additional Manuscripts of the British Museum. These include the letters of Pickle the Spy and of James Mohr Macgregor. Transcripts of them were sent by me to Mr. Robert Louis Stevenson, for use in a novel, which he did not live to finish. The character of Pickle, indeed, like that of the Master of Ballantrae, is alluring to writers of historical romance. Resisting the temptation to use Pickle as the villain of fiction, I have tried to tell his story with fidelity. The secret, so long kept, of Prince Charles’s incognito, is divulged no less by his own correspondence in the Stuart MSS. than by the letters of Pickle.

For Her Majesty’s gracious permission to read the Stuart Papers in the library of Windsor Castle, and to engrave a miniature of Prince Charles in the Royal collection, I have respectfully to express my sincerest gratitude.

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In 1749 James made a disagreeable discovery, which he communicated to Lord Lismore. A cassette, or coffer, belonging to Charles, had, apparently, been left in Paris, and, after many adventures on the road, was brought to Rome by the French ambassador. James opened it, and found that it contained letters ‘from myself and the Queen.’ But it also offered proof that the Prince had carried on a secret correspondence with England, long before he left Rome in 1744. Probably his adherents wished James to resign in his favour. 27

As to religion, Dr. King admits that Charles was no bigot, and d’Argenson contrasted his disengaged way of treating theology with the exaggerated devoutness of the Duke of York. Even during the march into England, Lord Elcho told an inquirer that the Prince’s religion ‘was still to seek.’ Assuredly he would never make shipwreck on the Stuart fidelity to Catholicism. All this was deeply distressing to the pious James, and all this dated from 1742, that is, from the time of Murray of Broughton’s visit to Rome. Indifference to religious strictness was, even then, accompanied by a love of wine, in some slight degree. Already, too, a little rift in the friendship of the princely brothers was apparent; there were secrets between them which Henry must have communicated to James.

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