Pickle The Spy - The Incognito Of Prince Charles

Book excerpt: The book: This is the peculiar title of a book that is making something of a literary sensation. This brilliant study of the betrayal and extinction of Jacobitism has triumphantly solved a mystery which once baffled all Europe. History has so far sought in vain to follow the wanderings and intrigues of Prince Charles Edward, the Young Pretender, after his expulsion from France in the last days of 1748. "From this time forward," says Lord Stanhope, writing of the time when the Prince quitted Avignon early in 1749, "his proceedings during many years are wrapped in mystery; all his correspondence passed through the hands of Mr. Walters"-—according to Mr. Lang the name should be Waters—"his banker at Paris, even his warmest partisans were seldom made acquainted with his place of abode, and though he still continued to write to his father at intervals, his letters were never dated. Neither friends nor enemies at that time could obtain any certain information of his movements or designs. Now, however, it is known that he visited Venice and Germany, that he resided secretly for some time at Paris, that he undertook a mysterious journey to England in 1750, and perhaps another in 1752 or 1753; but his principal residence was in the territory of his friend the Dukede Bouillon, where, surrounded by the wide and lonely forest of Ardennes, his active spirit sought in the dangerous chase of boars and wolves an image of the warlike enterprise which was denied him. It was not till the death of his father in 1766 that he returned to Rome and became reconciled to his brother. But his character had darkened with his fortunes." By a patient study of documents still preserved in the British Museum, the Royal Library at Windsor, and elsewhere, and still for the most part unpublished, and by a laborious collation of these new materials with others more accessible, Mr. Lang has succeeded in amplifying, correcting, and supplementing, and in rendering both interesting and intelligible the very meagre information with which Lord Stanhope and other historians have been content. "By combining information," he says, "from these and other sources in print, manuscript, and tradition, we reach various results. We can now follow and understand the changes in the singular and wretched development of the character of Prince Charles Edward Stuart. We get a curious view of the manners and a lurid light on the diplomacy of the middle of the eighteenth century. Above all, we encounter an extraordinary personage, the great, highborn Highland chief who sold himself as a spy to the English Government. This book is annotated with a rare extensive biographical sketch of the author, Andrew Lang, written by Sir Edmund Gosse, CB, a contemporary poet and writer.