fter Culloden, he
says--"I am grieved that our master should think that my silence was
either neglect or want of duty; but, in reality, my situation is such
that I have nothing to say but imprecations against the fatality of
being born in such a detestable age." An unhappy and uncongenial
marriage tended still more to embitter his existence; and if at last he
yielded to frailties, which inevitably insure degradation, it must be
remembered that his lot had been one to which few men have ever been
exposed, and the magnitude of his sufferings may fairly be admitted as
some palliation for his weakness.
To the last, his heart was with Scotland. The following anecdote was
related by his brother, Cardinal York, to Bishop Walker, the late
Primus of the Episcopal Church of Scotland:--"Mr. Greathead, a personal
friend of Mr. Fox, succeeded, when at Rome in 1782 or 1783, in obtaining
an interview with Charles Edward; and, being alone with him for some
time, studiously led the conversation to his enterprise in Scotland, and
to the occurrences which succeeded the failure of that attempt. The
Prince manifested some reluctance to enter upon these topics, appearing
at the same time to undergo so much mental suffering, that his guest
regretted the freedom he had used in calling up the remembrance of his
misfortunes. At length, however, the Prince seemed to shake off the load
which oppressed him; his eye brightened, his face assumed unwonted
animation, and he entered upon the narrative of his Scottish campaigns
with a distinct but somewhat vehement energy of manner--recounted his
marches, his battles, his victories, his retreats, and his
defeats--detailed his hairbreadth escapes in the Western Isles, the
inviolable and devoted attachment of his Highland friends, and at length
proceeded to allude to the terrible penalties with which the chiefs
among them had been visited. But here the tide of emotion rose too high
to allow him to go on--his voice faltered, his eyes became fixed, and he
fell convulsed on the floor. The noise brought into his room his
daughter, the Duchess of Albany, who happened to be in an adjoining
apartment. 'Sir,' she exclaimed, 'what is this? You have been speaking
to my father about Scotland and the Highlanders! No one dares to
mention those subjects in his presence.'"
He died on the 30th of January, 1788, in the arms of the Master of
Nairn. The monument erected to him, his father, and brother, in St.
Peter's, by
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