Bonnie Prince Charlie: A Biography (43 page)

CHAPTER 23

1. Frank McLynn,
The Jacobites
(London, 1985), p. 190. availed himself of the skills of James's physician. Dr. James Murray, to treat him for a venereal disease. Ibid., 71.

3. Henry appears to have had a somewhat bovine placidity, which led Pope Benedict XIV to make the oft-quoted remark that "if all the Stuarts were as boring as the Cardinal," he did not wonder the English had driven them out."
Stuart Papers
, p. 164.

4.
Extracts from Despatches
, p. 27.

5. Ibid., 21-22.

6. According to Mann's reports, James had stopped making payments to Waters for Charles's use at some unspecified time, probably in the 1760s. He did, however, give Charles the money he had been holding in the public funds in Paris—an amount which Mann estimated to be between four and five hundred thousand French livres. Apparently Charles ran through this within a fairly short time, for in 1766 he was reported to be so hard up that he had to cease buying the English newspapers.

In 1761 Mann reported that Charles had to some extent paved his way for a return to Rome whenever James died, adding that he did not expect him to live there permanently, "as he has so great an aversion to his brother."
Extracts from Despatches
, p. 20. As for Charles's alcoholism, Mann passed on the observation of one of his informants that Charles was "drunk as soon as he rises" and was always "senselessly so at night, when his servants carried him to bed." If this was true even half the time, it clearly indicates a serious condition.

7.
Extracts from Despatches
, pp. 31, 34. The rectors were eventually readmitted.

8. Ibid., 36.

CHAPTER 24

1.
Extracts from Despatches
, pp. 37—39.

2. Ibid., 39.

3. As to Charles's general physical state, it is worth noting that in 1769, three years before his marriage to Louise of Stolberg, the Jacobite Bishop Robert Gordon wrote that he was "jolly and plump, though not to excess, being still agile and fit for undergoing toil." Lees-Milne, pp. 98-99.

4. Lees-Milne, p. 107.

5.
Extracts from Despatches
, pp. 49—51.

6. Ibid., 53-54.

7. Ibid., 56.

8.
Walpole Letters
, VI, 109.

9.
Extracts from Despatches
, p. 57.

10. Ibid., 58.

CHAPTER 25

1.
Extracts from Despatches
, pp. 83-86. The claim that Charlotte had several illegitimate children before she went to live with her father lacks foundation.

2. Cited in
Ewald
, p. 414.

3. Berry, p. 80.