Book the Fourth

A Flicker from the Embers

A fire, that is kindled, begins with smoke and hissing, while it lays hold on the faggots; bursts into a roaring blaze, with raging tongues of flame, devouring all in reach, spangled with sparks that die; settles into the steady genial glare, the brilliant light, that men call fire: burns away to slowly-expiring ashes; save where smouldering embers flicker, and nurse the glow,—

While St. Francisco de Borja was his contemporary in the Spanish Branch, Don Pietro Borgia, (the great-grandson of that Don Pietrogorio Borgia who was the Trusty familiar of Duke Cesare de Valentinois della Romagna and Viceroy of the Abruzzi,) was living in Velletri on the frontier of the Regno, the little Volscian city where his family had been settled since Don Niccolo Borgia was its Regent in 1417. He married Madonna Filomena—gentildonna molto pia, is the sweet breath of her, which Archbishop Bonaventura Theuli has preserved for us,^[115]—and had three children:

(α)

The youngest son, Don Polidoro Borgia, died in his youth, the year before St Francisco de Borgia died General of Jesuits in Rome. His epitaph, in the porch of Santa Maria del Trivito at Velletri, is as follows D . O . M . Polidoro Bor- -giae inveni vir- -tutibus et morib. ornat- 337iss. Filumena mater Hector I.V.D. et Horat- ius Borgia fr. B.P . vix . A . XXII ob . a . M.D . LXXJ Die XII OCTOB.^[116]

(β)

The second son, Don Orazio Borgia, became commander of a squadron of Pontifical Cavalry; and fell gloriously fighting in the Crusade of Hungary 1597.^[117]

(γ)

The eldest son, Don Ettore di Pietro Borgia, married Madonna Porzia Landi, who bore him two sons:—The younger, Don Alessandro Borgia became Dean of the cathedral chapter of his native city. The elder, Don Camillo Borgia, became Governor of Velletri, married the Noble Madonna Constantia Gallinella, and died in 1645. His epitaph,^[118] in the chapel of the Visitation of the Παρθενομητηρ (the patron-saint of the Veliternian Borgia) in the cathedral of San Clemente at Velletri, is as follows D. T. V. Camillo Borgiae Nobili Veliterno Hectoris I.C. et D. Portiae Landae Filio non minus celebri Avorum toga et armis insignium Claritudine illustri In Patriae regimine Consuli Judici et Rectori Vigilantissimo Vitae candore morum suavitate Ubiq. claro omnibus charo Anno aet. suae LV et men. IV extincto Die XXVI. Sept. a partu Virginis M. DC. XLV Alexander I.V.D. et huius cathed. Canonicorum decanus frater 338Hector I.V.D. ex Nobili Constantia Gallinella filius Extremum amoris Monumentum Mœstiss . posuere^[119]

Don Camillo Borgia left three sons,

(α)

The youngest, Don Giampaolo Borgia, was a canon of Velletri:

(β)

The second, Don Ettore Borgia, was a celebrated Jurisprudent, who held governorships of pontifical cities, and was auditor-general and familiar of Prince Savelli, the Hereditary Marshal of the Holy Roman Church:

(γ)

The eldest, the Noble Don Clemente Erminio Borgia, Roman Patrician, and Governor of Velletri, who married Madonna Cecilia Carboni, by whom he had seven children at the least.

Five of these children of Don Clemente Erminio Borgia have been traced.

They were

(α)

Madonna Angela Caterina Borgia, who became a nun in a convent of Santa Lucia in Silice at Rome, and who died In The Odour Of Sanctity:

(β)

Don Fabrizio Borgia, born 1689, studied ten years with his uncle Canon Giampaolo Borgia, became Bishop of Ferentino in 1729, and died in 1754:

(γ)

Don Cesare Borgia, was a Knight-Commander of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem of Malta in 1703:^[120] 339

(δ)

Don Alessandro Borgia, born 1682, studied with his brother Don Fabrizio under their uncle Canon Giampaolo; won the laurel wreath of the Archgymnasium of Sapienza at Rome; in 1706, was attached to the Secret Nunciature of Monsignor Bussi at Cologne;^[121] in 1716, became Bishop of Nocera, and in 1723, Prince-Archbishop of Fermo. [In Museum Mazzuchelliana (Tom. II. Tab. CXCIV, p. 382–3) there is an engraving of a medal of this prince-archbishop, which was struck to commemorate the consecration by him of his nephew, (the son of one of his sisters whose name remains to be discovered,) Don Pierpaolo Leonardi, as Prince-Bishop of Ascoli. The obverse of the medal shews three bishops sitting and one kneeling, with the legend A. Borgia Archiep. et Princeps Fermanus P. Paulum Leonardum Ep. et Prin. Asculan. inungit. The reverse shews the θεοτόκος in Assumption blessing two churches, with the legend Utriusque ecclesiae Patrona Firmi et Asculi A.D. M.D.CCLV.] Prince-Archbishop Alessandro Borgia died in 1764.

(ε)

the heir Don Stefano Camillo Borgia, of the Supreme Magistracy, who married Madonna Maddalena Gagliardi, and had issue, (α) Cavaliere Giampaolo Borgia, general in the Pontifical Army; (β) The Noble Don Stefano Borgia, in whom the embers of the House of Borgia flickered a hundred years ago.

Don Stefano Borgia was born at Velletri on the third of December 1731. His early education was conducted in that little Volscian city where his House had been established 340certainly since 1417, and probably since the Document of Donation of the Lord Lucius P.P. III, 1181–1185. (Ricchi.) Later, he went to his uncle the Prince-Archbishop Alessandro Borgia of Fermo, with whom he lived, and under whom he studied, till the latter’s death in 1756. The nature of this education can be judged from Don Stefano’s after-life in which he cut so noble a figure as ecclesiastic, diplomatist, ruler, scholar, archæologist, man of letters, and Christian gentleman.

At the age of nineteen years, he had written a learned little treatise on the monument of the Lord John P.P. XVI; and a Short History of the ancient city of Tadino in Umbria, with an exact account of the latest researches among its ruins, two octavo volumes published in Rome 1750–1: so that when he arrived in the Eternal City after his uncle’s death, he found himself appreciated not only for his illustrious name, but also for the crescent ability of which he had given evidence. Three years later, in 1759, he was named Governor of the city and duchy of Benevento, the pontifical fief formerly occupied by another Borgia, the murdered Duke of Gandia. Here he wrote his Historical Memorials of the Pontifical City of Benevento from the Eighth to the Eighteenth Century, in three quarto volumes published in Rome 1763–9. In 1764 he was secretary to the Sacred Congregation On Indulgences. In 1765, at the age of thirty-four years, his hands were anointed and he received the order of priesthood. In 1770 he was named Secretary a secretis to the Sacred Congregation of the Propagation of the Faith, (v. title-page of his De Cruce.)

His career was now well-begun; and he had time to pursue his favourite occupations of letters and archæology. Writing under his initials S. B., he published in 1773 his discovery of a Venetian Kalendar of the Eleventh Century from a vellum MS., and a Koptic and Latin Fragment of the Acts of St. Koluthus. In 1774, he published an edition of the Lord Pius P.P. II’s (Enea Silvio) work, Against the Turks. In 1775 the Signor Abbate Stefano Borgia addressed to the Etruscan Academies of Cortona and Florence, a duodecimo Philological Dissertation on an antique gem-intaglio, “la pregiabile vetusta agata—la bella 341e rara gemma—Gemma Borgiana—”; which the celebrated and learned antiquary Martinello, in a letter to Padre Ignazio della Croce a sandalled Augustinian, calls most scholarly and precious. In 1776 he produced a work in quarto on the Shrine of St. Peter in the Vatican Basilica. In 1779, he published a folio on the curious Cross of the Vatican which is venerated on Good Friday, with the Syriac Rite of Salutation of the Cross, all most learnedly set forth and illustrated with notes and commentaries.

He did not forget his House, or his native city of Velletri: for he established there the Borgia Museum of Antiquities, which chiefly was famous for the Mexican Codex of his presentation, lately found worthy to be produced in facsimile in Rome with a splendour and importance unapproachable by English publishers.

In 1780, he brought out his quarto on the Ancient Cross of Velletri, “a cross-full of reliques conserved in the cathedral with much decency.” (Theuli II. 158.) It is a curious and luscious work, which relates the history of the Cross, a fine gold piece encrusted with large single pearls (unionibus) and other gems, from the middle of the Thirteenth Century, when it was given to the Veliternian Cathedral of St. Clement by the Lord Alexander P.P. IV, who, before His election was known as the Lord Rainaldo de’ Conti di Segni,^[122] Cardinal-Bishop of Ostia and Velletri.^[123] The year 1788, saw the issue of a new quarto from his gifted pen, being a Short History of the Temporal Dominion of the Apostolic See in the Two Sicilies; which went into a second edition the following year.

But at this point, the year of the French Revolution, the fortunes of the Abbate Stefano Borgia took a signal turn opening limitless possibilities. The Lord Pius P.P. VI named him Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of San Clemente, in the Consistory of the thirtieth of March 1789; and promoted him from the secretariate of Propaganda to the Prefectures of the Sacred Congregation of Index and of the Pontifical Gregorian University of Rome.

342The cardinalitial scarlet is the proper setting for this noble personage. The Most Eminent Lord Stefano Cardinal Borgia becomes at once a type of the huge and sumptuous princes of the church, to whom letters and the fine arts lend their glamour. “Quest’ Amplissimo Porporato,” as his friend and biographer the sandalled Carmelite Fra Pietro Paolino da San Bartolomeo calls him, had the two marks whereby the perfect gentleman and scholar universally may be known. He had a pretty taste for letters, a habit of acquiring rare books and manuscripts; and was himself a writer of extreme distinction. He had also a passion for collecting beautiful and singular things, especially engraved gems. The magic of carven precious stones enchanted him, as camei and intaglii ever have enchanted men of delicate and powerful mental mould. The times in which he lived were not convenient for the cultivation of these exquisite tastes: but it is in no case desirable that they should be cultivated. They lead nowhere, neither to heaven, nor to hell. Essentially they have no relation to the work of life, or death; and it is not well that they should usurp attention—for there are greater things. But the possession of these tastes is an imperative necessity to him who would do those greater things; for they bring, as nought else brings, the habit of discrimination, of selection, of appreciation; they refine and temper and grace the steel with which the greater deeds of life, and death, are done: and, so, their only end is served; while he who has them in the nature of him, not laboriously acquired but congenitally possessed, is the better man, the more capable man, the more enduring, skilful, potent, and triumphant man, and, correlatively, the happier man. Cardinal Stefano Borgia, then, having this gentle generous love for books and precious stones, most naturally became one of the most distinguished ecclesiastics of his age.

In 1791, he published as a supplement to his Short History, a learned quarto in Defence of the Temporal Dominion of the Apostolic See in the Two Sicilies. To this, he added, in 1793, a treatise on two Koptic saints, Koluthus and Panesnice, whose original Acts were in his possession. But it chiefly was as cardinal of the Curia, as 343Protector of Religious, as Ruler and Governour, as Proprefect of Propaganda (to which he was appointed in 1798,) that he manifested his ability and sterling worth. When the armies of Revolutionary France invaded Italy, engaging in those extravagant monstrosities of turpitude which habitually disgrace the French toward the close of every century, His Eminence allowed nothing of war or tumult to disturb the serene and strenuous performance of his multifarious offices. In those horrid times, when another or lesser man would have been paralysed, he retired with superb dignity from Rome to Padua, whence he continued to administer and govern not his own estates only, but all the foreign dioceses and missions throughout the world which were subject to Propaganda. And it was here in Padua that he quietly found time to do a beautiful and noble deed, by which alone, had he done nothing else, he would have prepared for himself a more illustrious name.

At this time, the College of Cardinals contained a certain August Personage, an Englishman of paramount importance.

When, in the Revolution of 1688, King James II Stewart had been driven from his kingdom of England by the Prince of Orange, His Majesty took refuge in France. His son Prince James, vulgarly called the Old Pretender, unsuccessfully warred for his rights in 1715; and, on the death of his father, assumed in exile his birthright with the style, James III D.G. of Great Britain France and Ireland King F.D. King James III had two sons,—observe the admirable insouciant carriage of head on their medals as boys. The elder, Prince Charles Edward, as Prince of Wales, vulgarly called the Young Pretender, advanced his father’s claim to the crown of England by force of arms in 1745. The result was the Massacre of Culloden Moor. The younger, Prince Henry Benedict, the Duke of York, was a priest. Hunted from France by Hanoverian diplomacy, King James III found refuge in Rome, where, at length, he died; the Prince of Wales succeeding him as King Charles III. Prince Henry Benedict meanwhile rose in ecclesiastical rank through the Cardinal-Bishopric of Ostia 344and Velletri (Cardinal Borgia’s city), to the Cardinal-Bishopric of Tusculum and the Vicechancellorship of the Holy Roman Church. His medal, by Filippo Cropanesi, dated 1766, shows his royal Stewart profile, still with the admirable high carriage of head, and the legend

Henricus M.D. Ep. Tusc. Card. Dux. Ebor S.R.E.V. Canc.

In 1788, his brother, King Charles III, died at Rome; and was buried with his father in the crypt of the Vatican Basilica. As he left no legitimate heirs, his rights in the Majesty of England devolved upon Cardinal Henry Benedict Stewart, who was known as His Royal Highness the Cardinal-Duke of York. This Personage combined with transcendent beauty and truly royal demeanour, rare and solid virtue and the extreme of good sense. Nothing could have been more perfectly kingly than his easy and ready realization of his situation. He was aware, as well of his hereditary rights, as of the fact that his subjects, having settled down under an usurping dynasty, had disowned and would disown his claims on their allegiance. He had seen war in his path. He had no insatiable craving for a crown. He arrived at a decision absolutely luminously wise. That the rights of his dynasty should suffer no diminution, by renunciation on his part, he made a technical assertion of his sovereignty, proclaiming his accession in such a way that the usurpation of his throne by the Elector of Hanover, (vulgarly called George III) should be undisturbed, except by England’s Will. He caused a medal to be struck, bearing on the obverse His Majesty’s effigy in a cardinal’s habit with zucchetto and the pectoral-cross of his episcopate,—the kingly head is drooping now—; with the legend

Henry the Ninth, of Great Britain France and Ireland King, Defender of the Faith, Cardinal-Bishop of Tusculum.

The reverse shows a design of Faith, at whose feet are the cardinalitial hat and kingly crown, and who turns from the Lion to the Cross; with the legend

Not by the desires of men but by the Will of God.

345At the same time was struck a touch-piece, for distribution among the few loyal English who had not bowed the knee to Hanoverian Baal, and for curing those afflicted with struma or kings evil; an occult power which died with this last Stewart. The obverse bears a design of a frigate with the legend

Henry the Ninth, of Great Britain France and Ireland, King by the Grace of God, Defender of the Faith, Cardinal-Bishop of Tusculum.

The reverse shows St. Michael Archangel overcoming the Dragon, with the legend

To God Alone be Glory.

And that was all,—an enduring record, carven in perennial bronze, that the King’s Majesty had come to the inheritance of his ancestors. He believed in his Divine Right, the right implied in his existence, his existence by the Sanction of Him by Whom kings do reign; and he simply affirmed his Right, waiting for his people to recognize him as their lawful sovereign, to do their part as he had done his. Could anything be more superbly, more contemptuously kingly than this distinction of the parts of sovereign and subject? Cardinal King Henry IX was happy in his lot, for he had a goodly heritage,—in the Holy Roman Church. Had His Majesty desired, the Supreme Pontiff could have released him from his ecclesiastical estate and obligations by a stroke of the pontifical pen, to enable him to prosecute his indubitable right. But he did not so desire. He had chosen the better part—peace—and the happiness of the subjects who were his, but who never would own him as their liege lord and sovereign. No more splendid and disinterested example of self-sacrifice exists in human history than the spectacle of this King of England who scorned to seek to compel unwilling homage. It was indeed the act of a king.

After the technical assumption of sovereignty, His Majesty made no further claim.^[124] He did not hesitate to 346use his regal style on monuments which he erected in his Sub-Urban Diocese, or in similar places: but he was content to be called the Cardinal-Duke of York, as before, though all the world knew him as he really was, and invariably accorded the respect due to him as a prince of the church. There was, however, one notorious exception. The chivalrous nation of France, which formerly had revenged itself on the Lord Alexander P.P. VI by attacking Madonna Giovanna de’ Catanei and Madonna Giulia Orsini nata Farnese, was just as ready now to strike at the old and helpless; and it is to the shameful atrocities of France that England owes the noble action of a Borgia in regard to the last of the Royal House of Stewart.

It has been said that Cardinal Stefano Borgia was at Padua in the autumn of 1799 while the regicidal armies of the French Consulate were earning infamy by ravaging the pontifical states. From Padua His Eminence indited a private letter, dated the fourteenth of September 1799, addressed to an English baronet, one Sir John Coxe Hippisley, at Grosvenor Street, London, which will tell a tale. The Cardinal wrote as follows, in beautiful Italian with the incorrect spelling of a gentleman born:

“The friendship with which you honoured me in Rome encourages me to lay before you a case worthy of your most mature reflection: which is, that, among the other cardinals who have taken refuge in Padua, here is also the Cardinal-Duke; and it is greatly afflicting to me to see so great a Personage, the last descendant of his Royal House, reduced to such distressed circumstances, having been barbarously stripped by the French of all his property” (dai Francesi barbaramente spogliato di tutto;) “and, if they deprived him not of life also, it was through the mercy of the Almighty, Who protected him in his flight both by sea and land, the miseries of which, nevertheless, greatly injured his health, at the advanced age of seventy-five; and produced a very grievous sore in one of his legs.

“Those who are well-informed of this most worthy Cardinal’s affairs, have assured me that, since his flight, having left behind him his rich and magnificent valuables, which were all sacked and plundered both at Rome and Frascati, he has been supported by the silver plate which he had taken with him, and of which he began to dispose at Messina; and, I understand, that in order to supply his wants during a few months in Venice, he has sold all that remained.

347“Of the jewels^[125] that he possessed, very few remain, as the most valuable had been sacrificed in the well-known contributions (forced levies would be a juster word than the gentle Cardinal’s meek contributions) “to the French our destructive plunderers; and, with respect to his income, having suffered the loss of forty-eight thousand Roman crowns annually by the French Revolution, the remainder was lost also by the fall of Rome; namely, the yearly sum of ten thousand crowns assigned to him by the Apostolic Chamber, and also his particular funds in the Roman Bank.

“The only income which he has left is that of his benefices in Spain,^[126] which amount to fourteen thousand crowns: but this, as it is only payable in paper at present, is greatly reduced by the disadvantage of exchange; and even that has remained unpaid for more than a year, owing, perhaps, to the interrupted communication with that kingdom.

“But here it is necessary that I should add that the Cardinal is heavily burdened with the annual sum of four thousand crowns for the dowry of the Countess of Albany his sister-in-law; three thousand crowns for the mother^[127] of his deceased niece; and fifteen hundred for divers annuities of his father and brother: nor has he credit to supply the means of acquitting these obligations.

“This picture, nevertheless, which I present to your friendship, may well excite the compassion of every one who will reflect upon the high birth, the elevated dignity, and the advanced age of the Personage whose situation I now sketch in the plain language of truth, without resorting to the aid of eloquence. I will only entreat you to communicate it to those distinguished persons who have influence with your government; persuaded as I am that English Magnanimity^[128] (la Magnanimitá Inglese) will not suffer an Illustrious Personage of the same nation to perish in misery.

“But here I pause, not wishing to offend your national delicacy, which delights to act from its own generous disposition, rather than from the impulse and urgency of others.^[129]

“We have here (Padua) not only the Cardinal-Duke, but other cardinals, namely, the two Doria, Caprara, and Livizzani; and perhaps very soon they will all be here, as it is probable that the Conclave will be held 348in this place; for it has pleased God to deliver from all His labours the so eminently unfortunate Lord Pius P.P. VI, Who cherished for you the most tender affection, and Who was pleased when He was in the Carthusian convent (Certosa) at Florence to invest me with the charge of the Proprefecture of the Congregation of the Propagation of the Faith.

“My paper fails me, but I shall never fail of being

“Your true friend and servitor (servitore)

“Stefano, Cardinal Borgia.”

That letter was written in September 1799. It is not clear by what route Cardinal Borgia’s courier carried it to England, nor how long was occupied by the journey. It manifestly is probable that the frightful disorders in France closed the short road through that country; and the short road in time of peace was not traversed in less than three weeks. An English lady^[130] who married Don Lorenzo Sforza-Cesarini Duca di Segni, etc., (they were the grand-parents of the present Duke Lorenzo,) made the journey with post-horses in the autumn of 1837; and described it in detail to the present writer a few years ago, incidentally mentioning that, between London and Rome, it was necessary to pass in and out of the Pontifical States no less than five times, with the usual custom-house inconveniences. What then would the journey have been in 1799, when France, internally distracted, was inimical to all and sundry, especially to England and England’s friends! Further the journey from Vienna to Venice occupied a fortnight, as may be seen from the dates of succeeding letters on a later page. These considerations are necessary to explain the fact that three months elapsed before Cardinal Borgia was able to acknowledge Sir John Coxe 349Hippisley’s reply; for, during those three months, the journey—the long journey—had to be made twice over by the courier, going and returning; which would leave little time for action between.

It is curious to think that these events occurred only a hundred years ago; and that this intimate view of the private and secret history of the last royal Stewart, and the last illustrious Borgia, should have been suffered to remain obscure. Had there been any disgraceful element in the transaction, concealment could be understood: but contrariwise, the very greatest credit is reflected upon all concerned, on Borgia, on Stewart, on Englishmen, and—to give the devil his due—on the Elector of Hanover, vulgarly called George III. The indiscretions, the human weaknesses of the earlier Borgia are the things by which they are remembered:

“The evil, that men do, lives after them;

The good is oft interred with their bones.”

Here, then, is a good deed of a Borgia, which incontinently shall be translated from its inadequate sepulchre, ostended for the veneration of the faithful, and enshrined anew more worthily. Upon receiving Cardinal Borgia’s enchanting letter, Sir John Coxe Hippisley sent to his Eminence a draft for £500, begging him to offer this to the August Personage, “for the exigencies of the moment”; and promising to air the matter in a proper quarter.

The meticulous precautions which invariably are taken to secure the freedom of the Conclave for the election of a Pope, already have been described here. On the death of the Lord Pius P.P. VI alluded to in Cardinal Borgia’s letter, when Rome was in the hands of the French and all Italy distracted by foreign occupation, the Sacred College made its way by slow degrees and amid infinite peril to Venice, where it assembled in the convent on the Island of San Giorgio, and enclosed itself in Conclave with all formality. This means, among other things, that no cardinals were allowed to receive or to send out letters, unless these were subjected to a rigorous examination by the 350Cardinal-Censors; the object of which is to prevent the voting from being influenced by secular and external Powers or considerations.

On the fourth of January 1800, the said Cardinal-Censors on the Island of San Giorgio permitted the egress of a letter from Cardinal Borgia to Sir John Coxe Hippisley, acknowledging the receipt of the £500, speaking of the gratitude and satisfaction of the August Personage at knowing what was being done on his behalf. “I find myself shut up here in Conclave for the election of a new pontiff, (says Cardinal Borgia,) with thirty-four cardinals, who, when they heard of the English generosity to their Illustrious Colleague,”^[131]—and he describes the many kindly complimentary and genuinely admiring sentiments which these Italian Cardinals, in common with Italians of all epochs and of all ranks, (excepting cardinals of the Nineteenth Century)^[132] always felt and feel for England and the English. The letter is subscribed in the politely respectful third person,

“Suo servitore cordialissinio ed Amico

“S. Card. Borgia.”

On the twenty-sixth of February 1800 a second letter was allowed to pass out of the Conclave from Cardinal Borgia to Sir John; a short note, in fact, which said that an English gentleman^[133] had just been permitted to enter the Conclave, being the bearer of “a very polite letter from Lord Minto” to the August Personage. This “very polite letter” is given in its original form, as well for its own sake, as for an example of the French of English diplomacy a hundred years ago. It is addressed to the Cardinal-Duke of York.

“De Vienna, 9 Feb. 1800.

“Monseigneur,

J’ai reçu les Ordres de Sa Majesté le Roi de la Grande Bretagne de faire remettre à Votre Eminence la somme de deux mille livres Sterling, et d’assurer V.E. qu’en acceptant cette marque de l’interêt et de l’estime de S.M. elle lui fera un sensible plaisir. Il 351“m’est en même terns ordonné de faire part à V.E. des intentions de SM. de lui transmettre une pareille somme de £2000 Sterling au mois de Juillet si les circonstances demeuraient telles que V.E. continuât à la desirer.

“J’ai donc l’honneure de la prevenir que la somme de £2000 Stg. est déposée à la maison de Messieurs Coutts et Cie., Banquiers à Londres à la disposition de Votre Eminence. En executant les Ordres du Roi mon Maitre, V.E. me rendra la justice de croire que je suis infiniment sensible à l’honneur d’être l’organe des sentiments nobles et touchants, qui ont dicté a S.M. la démarche dont elle a daigné me charger, et qui lui ont été inspirés d’un coté par ses propres vertus, et de l’autre tant par les qualités éminentes de la Personne Auguste, qui en est l’object, que par son désir de reparer partout où il est possible, les desastres dans lesquels de fleau Universel de nos jours a paru vouloir entrainer par préférence tout ce qui est le plus digne de Vénération et de Respect.

“Je prie V.E. d’agreer les assurances de mes hommages respectueux et de la Vénération profonde avec laquelle

“J’ai l’honneur d’être

“De Votre Eminence

“Le très humble et très obeissant Serviteur

“Minto

“Env. Ex. et Min. Plen. de S.M.B.

“à la Cour de Vienne.”

Stripped of polite verbiage this letter conveyed to Cardinal King Henry IX the offer of an annuity of £4000 for so long as he might please to need it. It is ungracious to say with some Scots that, after all, the Elector of Hanover only offered to the Majesty of England a calf of his own cow. The situation was fraught with difficulty. The essentials and the accidentals of his birth combined to make Cardinal Henry Benedict Stewart the only rightful King of England. He could not help that; any more than any man can help being the son of his father and mother, born in lawful wedlock; and King-ship, being of Divine origin, can only be conferred or transferred or confirmed by the Divinity acting through His Earthly Vicegerent, the Roman Pontiff. With these principles to guide him, and the circumstances being as they were, Cardinal Henry grandly decided to be king only in name. His mere existence, however, made the tenure of the occupant of the English Throne to some extent uncertain: for an alien dynasty can never feel entirely comfortable while any of the dispossessed remain. The old order had changed, and 352had given place to new: but the New could not know that the Old would accept—would condescend to accept—help in its private necessity. It was a most delicate position. On the other hand, it was out of the question that the King’s Majesty should make known to Englishmen his desperate plight, for Cardinal Henry was every inch a King. But the good heart and clever pen of Cardinal Stefano Borgia solved that difficulty, by invoking on grounds of private friendship the intervention of Sir John Coxe Hippisley.

The method of relief, when relief was seen to be required, was a task for the wits of diplomacy. When the English choose to change their sovereign dynasties, they at least should secure their nation against the disgrace of seeing, perishing in indigence, one who truly could say My grandfather formerly wore the Crown, touched for the king’s evil on the steps of St. Winifred’s Well, and reigned as King in England. The spectacle of the blind beggar of Constantinople, crying “Date obolum Belisario” is shameful enough for one continent, and can be spared the disgrace of repetition. A pension on the Civil List would have met the needs of the case: but it would have had many disadvantages. It would necessitate publicity; it would have been most disagreeable to the gentle pride of the August Personage whose life and character commanded nothing but respect.

At the present day, one is accustomed to hear members of a certain class of Scot, desirous of shining at least in a reflected light, boasting that their forbears were “out in the ’15” or “out in the ’45.” One does not so often hear an Englishman congratulating himself on his descent from heroes who endured confiscation, attainder, in the self-same cause—but in 1688. The English resist aggression at the outset; they are used to, are glad to, make sacrifices for, not bargains of, their sovereigns; and, needing no reflected light, they are not good boasters. There is no doubt that a great deal of Scots flesh was given in 1715 and in 1745 for the House of Stewart. There is no doubt that some Scots gold was offered on the same account. But one has not heard that the loyal Scots—loyal, as they say, to the 353Stewarts,—ever attempted to minister to the necessities of their liege Lord, the Cardinal King Henry the Ninth. Ethics, derived from Master John Knox, whose iconoclastic ardour stopped at the “saxpence” and made it the idolatrous object of supreme worship of dulia and hyperdulia and latria, no doubt mitigated the sentiment of loyalty in regard to a king who happened to be a prelatical papist. A national fund, a fund raised by the adherents of the Stewarts, to provide a yearly income for their exiled sovereign, would have been graceful and acceptable. It is the duty of a people to maintain its monarch; and it is not beneath the dignity of monarchy to accept such maintenance offered in loyalty. Peter’s Pence is nothing but a fund of yearly offerings instituted by King Ælfred the Great of England for the maintenance of the Sovereign Pontiff. In the case of Cardinal King Henry the Ninth, however, no such guaranteed annuity was forthcoming from the nation of which no inconsiderable part admitted his right to rule. Loyalty to the Stewarts—practical living loyalty—was confined to individuals, few in number; and it became necessary to seek another method of solving the difficulty.

Private munificence, towards the King de jure, on the part of—let it be said, for Cardinal Henry himself said it, and none had more right to decide than he—on the part of the King de facto, King George the Third, the official representative of the English nation, was the only possible method, which was likely to be agreeable or acceptable. Therefore, an annuity of £4000 was offered, not from the Civil List, not from the Nation, but from the Privy Purse, from King George to Cardinal Henry—from one English Gentleman to another. The delicate tact and straightforwardness with which the Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of His Britannic Majesty at the Court of Vienna made the offer; the complimentary terms of his letter to the “August Personage;” his guarded denunciation of the French robbers of the Cardinal as “the Universal Plague of our time which seems to design the destruction of all that is most worthy of Veneration and Respect;” his proffered homage;—all these qualities egregiously deserved 354Cardinal Stefano Borgia’s epithet “very polite,” and made the proposal one which honourably and gratefully could be accepted. At least the Cardinal-Duke of York was pleased to think so, as the two letters following here will shew. It may be observed that they are written in incoherent and peculiar English. Let it be remembered that they were written by a very old gentleman, under circumstance of extreme agitation; in a language of appalling difficulty which, though his native tongue, was altogether strange to him; for he had not lived in England, and, in his life-long exile, he used nothing but Latin with his clergy or Italian with his friends.

He wrote from the Conclave on the Island of San Giorgio on the twenty-sixth of February 1800; and the letters are sealed with the Royal Arms of England and France surmounted with the Cardinalitial Hat instead of the Crown.

(I. To Lord Minto.)

“With the arrival of Mr. Oakley who has been this morning with Me, I have received by his discourse, and much more by your letters, so many Tokens of your regard, singular consideration, and attention for My Person, that oblige Me to abandon all sort of ceremony, and to begin abruptly to assure you My dear lord, that your letters have been most acceptable to Me in all shapes and regards. I did not in the least doubt of the noble way of thinking of your generous and beneficent Sovereign; but I did not expect to see in writing so many and so obliging expressions that well calculated by the Persons who receive them and understand their force, impressed in their minds a lively sense of tenderness and gratitude which, I own to you, obliges me more than the generosity spontaneously imparted.

“I am in reality at a loss to express in writing all the sentiments of My Heart, and for that reason leave it entirely to the interest you take in all that regards My Person to make known in an energetical and convenient manner all I fain would say to express My thankfulness which may easily be by you comprehended after having perused the contents of this letter.

“I am much obliged to you to have indicated to Me the way I may write unto Coutts the Court Banker, and shall follow your friendly insinuations. In the meantime I am very desirous that you should be convinced of My sentiments of sincere esteem and friendship with which My dear lord with all My heart I embrace you.

“Henry Cardinal.”

355(II. To Sir John Coxe Hippisley.)

“Your letters fully convince me of the cordial interest you take in all that regards My Person, and am happy to acknowledge that principally I owe to your friendly efforts, and to them of your friends, the succour generously granted to relieve the extreme necessities into which I have been driven by the present dismal circumstances. I cannot sufficiently express how sensible I am to your good heart: and write these few lines in the first place to contest to you these My most sincere and grateful sentiments and then to inform you by means of Mr. Oakley an English Gentⁿ arrived here last week, I have received a letter from Lord Minto from Vienna, advising Me that he had orders from his Court to remit to Me the sum of £2000 Sterling, and that in the month of July I may again draw, if I desire it, for another equal sum. The letter is written in so extremely obliging and genteel a manner, and with expressions of singular regard and consideration for Me, that, I assure you, excited in Me most particular and lively sentiments, not only of satisfaction for the delicacy with which the affair has been managed, but also of gratitude for the generosity with which has been provided for my necessity.

I have answered Lord Minto’s letter, and gave it saturday last to Mr. Oakley who was to send it by that evening’s post” (the ambassadorial courier) “to Vienna, and have written in a manner that I hope will be to his lordship’s satisfaction. I own to you that the succour granted to Me could not be more timely, for, without it, it would have been impossible for Me to subsist on account of the absolutely irreparable loss of all My income, the very funds being also destroyed; so that I would otherwise have been reduced during the short remainder of My life to languish in misery and indigence. I would not loose a moment’s time to apprize you of all this, and am very certain that your experimented good heart will find proper means to make known in an energical and proper manner, these sentiments of My grateful acknowledgment.

“Your best of friends,

“Henry Cardinal.”

Of the remaining history of H.R.H. The Cardinal-Duke of York it is not necessary to speak here. He died in 1807, and was honourably buried in the Vatican Basilica with his father and his brother, in a tomb which bears their names and styles, James III, Charles III, Henry IX, last of the Royal House of Stewart, three kings “who paid three crowns for a mass,” who sacrificed the crowns of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, rather than their religious convictions. May they rest in peace.^[134]

356The action of Cardinal Stefano Borgia which just has been described, was not the only evidence of nobility of soul that he exhibited during the long Conclave of 1799–1800. He did, or rather he did not do, another deed; the neglect of which suffices to win him high renown.

It already has been manifested here, that the tide of human ambition runs at its highest in the Conclave for the election of a Pope. At different periods of history, the papacy has been regarded as an appanage of the empire, or of the great Italian baronies, Crescenzi, Colonna, Orsini, Savelli, Medici. The House of Borgia, not without reason of a kind, desired to rank with these; and cardinals of that House complacently expected election. There already had been two Borgia Popes, the strenuous Lord Calixtus P.P. III. and the invincible Lord Alexander P.P. VI. The great-grandson of St. Francisco de Borja, Cardinal Don Gaspero, publicly hoped to be the third, and was disappointed. Now, in the last year of the Eighteenth Century, was enclosed in another Conclave another Borgia Cardinal, the noble Cardinal Stefano, and it confidently was expected that he would emerge therefrom not Stefano, but Peter, crowned with the Triregno, the pontifical diadem made of feathers of white peacocks encircled with three crowns of gold.

Humanly speaking his chance of election was not chance but certainty. He was admitted on all hands to be facile Princeps of the Sacred College. His learning, his dominant power, his simple piety, his universally sympathetic personality, assured him of an unanimous majority, 357had he chosen to enter the ranks of the cardinals-competitors, that is to say, of the cardinals who were eligible and also willing.

When a man is aware of his own ability to do certain legitimate and beneficent deeds, the world is wont to call him fool as well as knave when he neglects to seek the situation, the opportunity, for exercising his peculiar talent. In this matter, the world is not ill-advised. Then, if an ecclesiastic is convinced that, in a certain position of authority, he can do God-service, why should he be deterred from seeking that position by craven terror of the inevitable scowls, rhodomontades, and lampoons of envious incompetent venal mediocrity? The Lord Pius P.P. II was not afraid. He knew His own powers. He was convinced of the purity of His intentions; and, as Cardinal Enea Silvio Bartolomeo de’ Piccolhuomini, he met the schemes of Cardinal Guillaume d’Estoutville in the Conclave of 1458 with counter-schemes, and accomplished His Own elevation to the pontifical throne. There is another and more intimate example, nearer home, and no later than the last century: the example of a provost of a metropolitan cathedral chapter, who knew his power, who knew the lawfully designated successor of the archbishop to be unfitted for the responsibilities of office, who kept an agent at the Vatican to urge his candidature when the see was vacant, until the Lord Pius P.P. IX, declaring it to be un colpo-di-stato di Domeniddio, transformed the convert-provost into Westminster’s Archbishop. It cannot be alleged that Cardinal Henry Edward Manning became inglorious by giving practical evidence of his contempt for the ridiculous and wicked doctrine which is preached by vicious degenerates, that the Almighty intends much of His Good Work to be wasted. It cannot be alleged that Cardinal Manning was actuated by personal arrogance, or by desire for personal aggrandisement. His whole life of saint-like self-sacrifice, of intensest humility, of ascetic mortification, of ceaseless toil for the spiritual and temporal welfare of all men without distinction of creed, has proved the contrary. By the same token, on this score, there would have been no stain on the noble character of 358Cardinal Stefano Borgia had he desired to exert himself to compass his own election to the Throne of Peter.

But he did not so desire. Indeed, he shewed himself unwilling to be elected; and the Sacred College made choice of the next Most Eminent Lord, the Benedictine Cardinal Gregorio Luigi Barnabo Chiaramonte, whose accession was proclaimed under the name of the Lord Pius P.P. VII. So Christendom still lacks the third Borgia Pontiff,—a lack unlikely soon to be made good; seeing that, since Cardinal Stefano, no Borgia wears the scarlet hat; yet by no means irremediable, seeing that the House of Borgia is living, and not dead.

Little remains to be written of the last pre-eminent Borgia. On the death of Cardinal Gerdil, Cardinal Stefano was promoted from the Proprefecture to the Prefecture of Propaganda Fide.

In 1804, while attending the debile Lord Pius P.P. VII to Paris, (whither His Holiness had been summoned for the coronation as emperor of the Corsican upstart Consul Napoleon Buonaparte,) Cardinal Stefano Borgia died, at the age of seventy-three years, on the Festival of St. Clement the twenty-third of November, at Lyons, and was buried there in the cathedral. It is worth noting that he had been baptized in the cathedral of St. Clement at Velletri in December 1731; that he derived his cardinalitial Title from the church of St. Clement in Rome; and that on the Festival of St. Clement 1804, he died. His friend, Fra Pietro Paolino da San Bartolomeo, a sandalled Carmelite, wrote his biography. The celebrated Cancellieri composed his elegy, which has been republished by Bodoni. The Borgia Museum of Antiquities which he established in Velletri, and whose elaborate catalogue is the work of his uncle Don Filippaurelio Visconti, in chief part is in the Royal Museum of Naples; the College of Propaganda has the lesser part, and also his splendid library.

The House of Borgia continues to flourish in the descendants of Cardinal Stefano’s brother, the Cavaliere 359Giampaolo Borgia of Velletri, a general in the pontifical army; who married the representative of two of the most important houses of the Romagna, often mentioned in these pages as having been subdued by the splendid Duke Cesare (detto Borgia) di Valentinois della Romagna, in the campaigns of 1499 and 1501–2,—the Countess Alcmena^[135] Baglioni-Malatesta of Perugia. Eighteen children were the issue of this marriage. The names of five have been recovered at the date of writing, viz., the eldest, Cavaliere Camillo; Don Clemente; Don Alessandro; Don Cesare; and the youngest Don Francesco.

(α)

The Cavaliere Camillo Borgia, born 1777, was Adjutant-General and Field-Marshal under King Joachim Murat of Naples; Aulic-Counsellor and Chargé d’affaires of the King of Denmark in Rome; Knight of the Legion of Honour,^[136] and of the Order of the Two Sicilies.^[137] Distinguished in arms by his military talent, he was not less renowned in the kingdom of Letters. After his retirement from the army, he travelled much in Northern Africa to study Latin antiquities. At least one of his works has achieved fame—the Planisfero Borgiano. He married Mdlle. Adelaide Quaison, (who died in 1865); and he died in 1817, leaving issue

Don Ettore Borgia, born at Velletri in 1802, a Roman Patrician, Knight of Honour and Devotion of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem of Malta, Knight-Commander of the Order of St. Gregory the Great,^[138] Gonfalonier of Velletri, 360National Representative of Velletri in the Roman Parliament of 1848, and Provisional Governour of Velletri in 1871. He departed this life, in 1892, at Melazzo in Sicily, being of the age of ninety years; and his death without issue extinguished the Veliternian Branch of the House of Borgia.

(β)

Don Clemente Borgia of Rome, who married Donna Luisa Calderoni, and died in 1852, leaving issue, (α) Don Adriano, who died unmarried: (β) Don Tito, who died unmarried: (γ) Don Costantino, a prelate, (author of De Cathedra Romana Sancti Petri Principus Apostolorum Oratio, etc. a quarto published at Rome in 1845;) died unmarried in 1878: (δ) Don Augusto, a prelate, born 1820. His death, on the second of September 1900, without issue, extinguished the Roman Branch of the House of Borgia.

(γ)

Don Alessandro Borgia, born 1788, Balì of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem of Malta, died 1872.

(δ)

Don Cesare Borgia, was a Knight-Commander of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem of Malta; and followed the profession of a man of letters in Ferrara, (the city of which his kinswoman, Madonna Lucrezia, formerly had been the sovereign duchess,) until his death in 1861.

(Here should be inserted the names of thirteen children of the Cavaliere Giampaolo Borgia and his wife the Countess Alcmena Baglioni-Malatesta of Perugia, which, at present are not accessible. The eighteenth and youngest son of the said Cavaliere Giampaolo was,)

361(ε) The Noble Francesco Borgia, born 1794; Knight of Honour and Devotion, and Hereditary Commandant of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem of Malta; Knight of the Order of the Lily of France^[139]; Knight of the Order of the two Sicilies; Patrician of Rome: who married the Noble Luigia Ferrari di Cremona, Dowager-Countess Cassera (died 1855); and established the House of Borgia in Milan on his marriage with a Milanese lady in 1822. He died in 1861 leaving issue, (α) The Noble Alcmena, married to the Marquess Paolo Litta-Modignani of Milan: (β) The Noble Cesare Borgia, (the present Head of the Illustrious House of Borgia); Knight of Honour and Devotion and Hereditary Commandant of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem of Malta; Patrician of Rome, (which patriciate gives its holder the right to the title of Count;) born at Milan on the twenty-seventh of January 1830; married in 1856 Donna Clementina Tarantola (who died in 1884) and has issue, (α) Don Francesco Borgia, born in 1863; married in 1885 the Marchioness Eugenia Litta-Modignani di Menzago e Vinago, Patrician of Milan; and has issue, (α) Don Cesare Borgia, born 1886: (β) Don Alessandro Borgia, born 1898:

AD MULTOS ANNOS

362“A FIRE, THAT IS KINDLED, BEGINS WITH SMOKE AND HISSING, WHILE IT LAYS HOLD ON THE FAGGOTS; BURSTS INTO A ROARING BLAZE, WITH RAGING TONGUES OF FLAME, DEVOURING ALL IN REACH, SPANGLED WITH SPARKS THAT DIE; SETTLES INTO THE STEADY GENIAL GLARE, THE BRILLIANT LIGHT, THAT MEN CALL FIRE; BURNS AWAY TO SLOWLY-EXPIRING ASHES; SAVE WHERE SMOULDERING EMBERS FLICKER, AND NURSE THE GLOW, UNTIL PROPITIOUS BREEZES BLOW IT INTO LIFE AGAIN.”

363