Bonnie Prince Charlie: A Biography Read Online Free PDF Page A

and less and less like a suitable king for Protestant England.
    James was unable to be there to meet Clementina when she entered Rome in May of 1719, but a huge concourse of people turned out to cheer her and to watch her cavalcade pass. The liveried soldiers of the papal guard, the grand coaches of the Roman nobles and the cardinals, horsemen and mounted servants all formed a spontaneous procession to escort the Polish princess to the convent of Ursuline nuns in the Via Vittoria where she was to stay until James was able to join her. Cardinals Aquaviva and Gualtieri took her to the convent door and announced that "Mme. de St. Georges" had arrived, and the sisters took her inside. Clementina was no sooner across the threshold of the convent than she caught sight of a chapel dedicated to the Madonna of Loreto. At once she went in and "threw herself on her knees to worship the Holy Mary," causing the nuns to smile and nod to one another and remark how devout she was. 1
    The next day the pope sent an envoy to the convent to welcome Clementina—who brought with him a hundred baskets of sweets for her to distribute—and soon all the principal figures in the city were sending her messages of welcome and paying calls on her. The charming sixteen-year-old princess who had come such a long way to become the bride of the unfortunate James Stuart became the darling of fashionable Roman society. The Ursuline sisters had to keep the convent doors open until midnight each night to accommodate her visitors, and she was talked of in every street and at every social gathering.
    What absorbed Clementina's attention, however, was not her hordes of visitors but Rome's churches and the brilliant pageantry of worship in the papal city. With her entourage she went to Santa Maria Maggiore to adore the relics there, which included, so the devout believed, Christ's cradle. She went to St. Peter's and immediately took off her shoes and stockings so that she could walk around the church as a barefoot pilgrim—until her father confessor dissuaded her from this and made her put them on again. She prayed in dozens of churches, sometimes spending all day and evening in her tireless peregrinations and forgetting to eat until past midnight. On the feast of Corpus Christi she watched the candlelit procession of two thousand wind past her window, the children singing motets, the patriarchs, bishops and cardinals in their variety of precious vestments, the pope in his triple crown and miter. At the climax of the ceremony she knelt and wept, moved by the glory and majesty of it all, her devotion heartfelt and, so those who witnessed it said, quite indescribable.
    Pope Clement was gratified by his goddaughter's piety, and impressed too with her quick mind and understanding. When she visited him at the Quirinal Palace, she "surprised him with her intelligence, which he considered superior to that of her sex in general, and remarkable owing to her extreme youth." 2 He encouraged her to seek audiences as often as she liked, and insisted on treating her as a queen despite her preference for the modest title Mme. de St. Georges.
    The fervor quickened in her by the wonders of Rome's churches, the excitement of being the center of attention so intoxicated Clementina that she seemed not to mind the absence of her future husband. The weeks passed and she attended more great festivals, her friendship with the Ursulines deepening. The convent was becoming home to her; the comfortable, well furnished rooms suited her perfectly while allowing her to indulge her religious passions to the full. The sisters called her "Mother Superior" at her request, treating her with as much fondness as deference. She gave a banquet at the convent to celebrate James's birthday in June, and another in July to celebrate her own, dining with the sisters and seated under a royal canopy. No doubt Clementina had seen portraits or miniatures of James, but all she really knew of him was that he was