Note 486 — NEIL MACEACHAIN’S NARRATIVE OF THE WANDERINGS OF PRINCE CHARLES IN THE HEBRIDES

This power of drinking seems to have made a great impression. Baleshare told Bishop Forbes that the Prince ‘still had the better of us, and even of Boystill [Boysdale] himself, notwithstanding his being as able a boulman as any in Scotland.’ It is generally assumed that Prince Charles acquired his drinking habits as a result of his hardships in Scotland, yet his anxious father had detected symptoms of an over-fondness for wine even before he left Rome in 1744. In a letter to Colonel O’Bryen (Lord Lismore), his envoy at the French Court, in August 1745, the Old Chevalier writes: ‘La grande vivacité du Prince, son penchant pour toutes sortes de divertissements, et un peu trop de goût qu’il sembloit alors avoir pour le vin, leur ont faire croire faussement qu’ils avoient gagné quelque chose sur son esprit et il devint bientôt par là leur Héros.’ (Stuart Papers, Browne, Hist. of the High., iii. 445.)