This is a write-up of Letters and Journals of Mrs Calderwood of Polton, from England, Holland, and the Low Countries, 1756. I've been wanting to read the writings of women involved in the '45 (oh, for Margaret Ogilvy's diary *sigh*), and this is so far the closest I could get. Mrs Margaret Calderwood, née Steuart, is the brother of the James Steuart who wrote manifestos for Charles Edward, and who also wrote a respected work of economics, An Inquiry into the Principles of Political Economy. He was in exile on the continent after the war, and his sister was travelling to visit him. It has an excellent 19th century introduction detailing their family connections.
More about these: their father, grandfather, and great-grandfather are ALSO named James Steuart/Stewart, and were more or less Whigs. They were all moderate and sometimes vacillating and of one of them it is said that he 'failed to give entire satisfaction to either side'. Of the grandfather, a family story is told that during the threatened Jacobite invasion of 1708, a kinsman urged him to flee to England since he had had a hand in drawing up a manifesto for William of Orange back in 1688. And he allegedly replied, 'Ay, ay, my dear, that is true, and I must draw this man's [James III] too.' Hee. Writing manifestos for invading princes apparently ran in the family. Our diarist was the grandniece of Janet Dalrymple, the 'Bride of Lammermuir'. Her sister Agnes married the Earl of Buchan and also studied mathematics with Professor MacLaurin, of MacLaurin expansion fame. I love that! James Steuart's wife was Frances Wemyss, the sister of Lord Elcho who was out in the '45.
Mrs Calderwood reminds me of my mother: she is opinionated, seems to enjoy talking to strangers, and is the person in the marriage who does all the arranging and managing. In Brussels, she hears that it is impossible to find and rent a well-furnished apartment, and then takes great satisfaction in telling us of the places she looks at before finally finding an apartment that fits her needs, and how she makes sure to find good furniture at reasonable prices. Meanwhile, her husband rests in bed at the hotel with a cold. Later in life, she manages their estate and writes a manual on estate management, while he...I have no idea what he does. The introduction calls him 'indolent' but also notes that he was good at languages.
She assures us that her brother was not actually a Jacobite, oh no, it is dreadfully unjust that he is not allowed to return home. I take this with a grain of salt, because of course she would say that while she was petitioning in his favour. It's unclear what her own opinions are. At one point she meets a committed Jacobite on their travels: 'He is a great Jacobite, and he dares not speak out, and the Pretender is in such distress, that in short he is miserable. I tell him I wish I may never have the toothack till I be troubled about the publick. At the same time, I can speak as much Jacobitism as he pleases, and he is very fond of me, because I tell him fine stories about the Highlanders and the Pretender in the time of the rebellion, and all the ill prats [gossip] of the Duke of Cumberland. I tell him to come to Scotland, and he will get as many Jacobites as he can set his face to; and he laughs and is so merry, and then comes a deep sigh.'
She writes with fascination of the different customs of different countries, and about Catholicism. The 19th century editor apparently removed some passages because they were too vitriolic towards that religion--but OTOH she arranges to have her sons go to a Jesuit school while they live there, as long as they don't have to attend mass etc. She also comments on dress: '...this country, where everybody, from their want of stays, goes two-fold.' Because their boobs hang down?? Also this: 'The Dutch stays contribute greatly to their vulgar look ; they run in like a sand-glass below, and stand out round like the same above ; they set their shoulders up to their ears, and bring them forward as the landward lasses do when they hold up their head.'
At one point they meet young Towneley, the son of Francis Towneley who was executed after the '45 (whose head, btw, was stolen back from the Tower by his relatives and kept in a bank vault until 1945, when it was buried). Here is her opinion on him: 'Mr. Townly is very bashful and grave, and has no liking to anything in particular, and I think seems to be one of little good or ill. His mother told Mr. Nidham that, when he was young, instead of play with his brothers, he used to sit by her and cut paper, or any such thing as that. I have often observed that the mind and body of folks are mismarrowed, and some men should have been women, and he, I think, is one.'
This book also gave me the experience of looking up a word in the OED, and seeing the very phrase in the book as the first OED quote! Here is the phrase: 'Here I saw the largest midden cock I think ever I saw, which I coveted, if I could have known what to do with him.' Very suggestive, but I don't think she meant it that way...
In 1758 James Steuart moved to Venice because of his gout, where he made friends with Mary Wortley Montagu. Here is from the 19th century afterword: 'James Steuart used to say of her that when she was in spirits he experienced more enjoyment from her conversation than he could derive from the most interesting book that ever was written. The climate of Venice was found not quite suitable for the invalid, so they took a house at Padua, and a pathetic leave of Lady Mary. Their astonishment was great when they discovered, on their settling themselves there, that Lady Mary was also installed in a house at Padua in their near neighbourhood, where she continued her kind ministrations.'
***
Here is the bit about Fritz incognito:
In this inn the King of Prussia lodged, in his travels through Holland incog; he was three days in Amsterdam, and nobody knew him. He had but one gentleman with him. He bought a great many flutes and other musicall instruments, and when the landlord said to his servant, 'I think your master is very fond of musick,' 'O yes,' says the servant,' he is cheif musician to the King of Poland.'
He travelled in the track-scoot, and there was a gentleman's sons and their governour ; he turned very fond of the governour, and they discoursed about the memoirs of the house of Brandenburgh, and the governour gave his opinion of it and found some faults, which the king defended. He, after he left Holland, let this man know who he was, and he has gone to pay him a visit. Severall of his own officers saw him, and did not know him, nor did his own embassador at the Hague. He had his hair covered with a wigg, and a coat all buttoned up about him. When he was going away from Amsterdam, he bid the landlord get him a coach; the landlord said he would get a waggon or a phaeton, for nobody travelled in coaches. When the waggon came to the door, he said: 'That is a bad thing to travell in; are there no better to be had?'
'The best people that comes to my house,' says the landlord, 'travells in it ; I have hired the same machine for German counts, ay, for English lords, and they never found fault with it, and I think it may serve you very well.' So the king stept into it. ' Now,' says the landlord, ' you sit like a king, I think.' He took some cold meat with him, and asked for a napkin to wipe his hand. 'No,' says the landlord, 'take just a sheet of paper, that will serve the purpose as well.'
Very soon after he was gone, it came out that he was the King of Prussia, and there was such comparing of notes, what he had said, and what he had done. The landlord sent him a present of some cains, to which he returned him a very pretty peice of silver-plate for the midle of a table, with casters, etc., very finely wrought but very slight. This present is keept in a fine carved box, which the landlord sets down on a table, and there he flourishes for a compleat hour in French, so fast and with so many demonstrations, that it is entertaining even to those who do not understand a word of it.
***
Some further bits about Prussia:
We had here lately two deserters from the King of Prussia ; the one was a Scots tallior, the other a London tradesman. The Scots folks have an excellent nose to smell out their countryfolks, and they came to this house. The tallior was a tall, clever-like fellow, and stood so upright, and held out his toes and up his head so well, that I asked him if he had been at the dancing school ? ' Truly, madam,' said he, ' I was never at the dancing school, but a good rung laid alongst my shoulders when I held down my head, made me soon learn to hold it up.'
The English lad looked very humble, and regarded the other as much his superior in wisdom and good behaviour, so the tallior was spokesman. He told us he had gone to London, to work at his trade, and a gentleman offered him ; if he would go over a trip to Holland as his servant; to which he consented, and, instead of Holland, he carried him to Hamburgh, and gave him over to the Prussian officers recruiting there. He had served these two years, and was so lucky as to come off safe from the battle ; eight days after which, he, with a party of fifty men, and a serjeant, were sent out a foraging, and all but the serjeant deserted. They were of all different nations, and had been trepanned in that way. These two had come together, without a farthing in their pockets ; but they did not go pennyless from this, for the Scots gave for their countryman, the English for theirs, the folks here because they had deserted from the King of Prussia ; and they were introduced to the Prince, who gave them each a ducat, which is the premium given by the Empress to every Prussian deserter.
The politicks here is, that the King of Prussia has accused the Empress of designs to destroy him and the protestant religion, that she had made an alliance for that purpose with France, and that he, upon that handel, which he himself contrived, had done what he has done, as he accused the King of Poland of being in the plot ; all which they say is false, and that he behaved very cruelly to the Saxons. And many a story of that kind is firmly beleived, one of which I shall mention, to give you a swatch of the rest : viz. that he killed the whole cats in Saxony, and made the Saxons buy mousetraps of him at an extravagant price. If they were good mouse-traps I should not grudge him double the common price for them, for we are like to be devoured with mice, and can neither get a cat nor a trap worth a farthing. They tell me that it is not a common complaint here, for there are but very few mice in the town : I tell them that the mice must be protestant, by their being so plenty in Saxony and in this house, where they know there are no fast days.
Pardon this degression, and my speaking of cats and kings in the same page ; but when kings turn mice-catchers, it must diminish their dignity.
***
There are some further bits about Prussian politics, I can share them if you want.
Letters and Journals of Mrs Calderwood
More about these: their father, grandfather, and great-grandfather are ALSO named James Steuart/Stewart, and were more or less Whigs. They were all moderate and sometimes vacillating and of one of them it is said that he 'failed to give entire satisfaction to either side'. Of the grandfather, a family story is told that during the threatened Jacobite invasion of 1708, a kinsman urged him to flee to England since he had had a hand in drawing up a manifesto for William of Orange back in 1688. And he allegedly replied, 'Ay, ay, my dear, that is true, and I must draw this man's [James III] too.' Hee. Writing manifestos for invading princes apparently ran in the family. Our diarist was the grandniece of Janet Dalrymple, the 'Bride of Lammermuir'. Her sister Agnes married the Earl of Buchan and also studied mathematics with Professor MacLaurin, of MacLaurin expansion fame. I love that! James Steuart's wife was Frances Wemyss, the sister of Lord Elcho who was out in the '45.
Mrs Calderwood reminds me of my mother: she is opinionated, seems to enjoy talking to strangers, and is the person in the marriage who does all the arranging and managing. In Brussels, she hears that it is impossible to find and rent a well-furnished apartment, and then takes great satisfaction in telling us of the places she looks at before finally finding an apartment that fits her needs, and how she makes sure to find good furniture at reasonable prices. Meanwhile, her husband rests in bed at the hotel with a cold. Later in life, she manages their estate and writes a manual on estate management, while he...I have no idea what he does. The introduction calls him 'indolent' but also notes that he was good at languages.
She assures us that her brother was not actually a Jacobite, oh no, it is dreadfully unjust that he is not allowed to return home. I take this with a grain of salt, because of course she would say that while she was petitioning in his favour. It's unclear what her own opinions are. At one point she meets a committed Jacobite on their travels: 'He is a great Jacobite, and he dares not speak out, and the Pretender is in such distress, that in short he is miserable. I tell him I wish I may never have the toothack till I be troubled about the publick. At the same time, I can speak as much Jacobitism as he pleases, and he is very fond of me, because I tell him fine stories about the Highlanders and the Pretender in the time of the rebellion, and all the ill prats [gossip] of the Duke of Cumberland. I tell him to come to Scotland, and he will get as many Jacobites as he can set his face to; and he laughs and is so merry, and then comes a deep sigh.'
She writes with fascination of the different customs of different countries, and about Catholicism. The 19th century editor apparently removed some passages because they were too vitriolic towards that religion--but OTOH she arranges to have her sons go to a Jesuit school while they live there, as long as they don't have to attend mass etc. She also comments on dress: '...this country, where everybody, from their want of stays, goes two-fold.' Because their boobs hang down?? Also this: 'The Dutch stays contribute greatly to their vulgar look ; they run in like a sand-glass below, and stand out round like the same above ; they set their shoulders up to their ears, and bring them forward as the landward lasses do when they hold up their head.'
At one point they meet young Towneley, the son of Francis Towneley who was executed after the '45 (whose head, btw, was stolen back from the Tower by his relatives and kept in a bank vault until 1945, when it was buried). Here is her opinion on him: 'Mr. Townly is very bashful and grave, and has no liking to anything in particular, and I think seems to be one of little good or ill. His mother told Mr. Nidham that, when he was young, instead of play with his brothers, he used to sit by her and cut paper, or any such thing as that. I have often observed that the mind and body of folks are mismarrowed, and some men should have been
women, and he, I think, is one.'
This book also gave me the experience of looking up a word in the OED, and seeing the very phrase in the book as the first OED quote! Here is the phrase: 'Here I saw the largest midden cock I think ever I saw, which I coveted, if I could have known what to do with him.' Very suggestive, but I don't think she meant it that way...
In 1758 James Steuart moved to Venice because of his gout, where he made friends with Mary Wortley Montagu. Here is from the 19th century afterword: 'James Steuart used to say of her that when she was in spirits he experienced more enjoyment from her conversation than he could derive from the most interesting book that ever was written. The climate of Venice was found not quite suitable for the invalid, so they took a house at Padua, and a pathetic leave of Lady Mary. Their astonishment was great when they discovered, on their settling themselves there, that Lady Mary was also installed in a house at Padua in their near neighbourhood, where she continued her kind ministrations.'
***
Here is the bit about Fritz incognito:
In this inn the King of Prussia lodged, in his travels through Holland incog; he was three days in Amsterdam, and nobody knew him. He had but one gentleman with him. He bought a great many flutes and other musicall instruments, and when the landlord said to his servant, 'I think your master is very fond of musick,' 'O yes,' says the servant,' he is cheif musician to the King of Poland.'
He travelled in the track-scoot, and there was a gentleman's sons and their governour ; he turned very fond of the governour, and they discoursed about the memoirs of the house of Brandenburgh, and the governour gave his opinion of it and found some faults, which the king defended. He, after he left Holland, let this man know who he was, and he has gone to pay him a visit. Severall of his own officers saw him, and did not know him, nor did his own embassador at the Hague. He had his hair covered with a wigg, and a coat all buttoned up about him. When he was going away from Amsterdam, he bid the landlord get him a coach; the landlord said he would get a waggon or a phaeton, for nobody travelled in coaches. When the waggon came to the door, he said: 'That is a bad thing to travell in; are there no better to be had?'
'The best people that comes to my house,' says the landlord, 'travells in it ; I have hired the same machine for German counts, ay, for English lords, and they never found fault with it, and I think it may serve you very well.' So the king stept into it. ' Now,' says the landlord, ' you sit like a king, I think.' He took some cold meat with him, and asked for a napkin to wipe his hand. 'No,' says the landlord, 'take just a sheet of paper, that will serve the purpose as well.'
Very soon after he was gone, it came out that he was the King of Prussia, and there was such comparing of notes, what he had said, and what he had done. The landlord sent him a present of some cains, to which he returned him a very pretty peice of silver-plate for the midle of a table, with casters, etc., very finely wrought but very slight. This present is keept in a fine carved box, which the landlord sets down on a table, and there he flourishes for a compleat hour in French, so fast and with so many demonstrations, that it is entertaining even to those who do not understand a word of it.
***
Some further bits about Prussia:
We had here lately two deserters from the King of Prussia ; the one was a Scots tallior, the other a London tradesman. The Scots folks have an excellent nose to smell out their countryfolks, and they came to this house. The tallior was a tall, clever-like fellow, and stood so upright, and held out his toes and up his head so well, that I asked him if he had been at the dancing school ? ' Truly, madam,' said he, ' I was never at the dancing school, but a good rung laid alongst my shoulders when I held down my head, made me soon learn to hold it up.'
The English lad looked very humble, and regarded the other as much his superior in wisdom and good behaviour, so the tallior was spokesman. He told us he had gone to London, to work at his trade, and a gentleman offered him ; if he would go over a trip to Holland as his servant; to which he consented, and, instead of Holland, he carried him to Hamburgh, and gave him over to the Prussian officers recruiting there. He had served these two years, and was so lucky as to come off safe from the battle ; eight days after which, he, with a party of fifty men, and a serjeant, were sent out a foraging, and all but the serjeant deserted. They were of all different nations, and had been trepanned in that way. These two had come together, without a farthing in their pockets ; but they did not go pennyless from this, for the Scots gave for their countryman, the English for theirs, the folks here because they had deserted from the King of Prussia ; and they were introduced to the Prince, who gave them each a ducat, which is the premium given by the Empress to every Prussian deserter.
The politicks here is, that the King of Prussia has accused the Empress of designs to destroy him and the protestant religion, that she had made an alliance for that purpose with France, and that he, upon that handel, which he himself contrived, had done what he has done, as he accused the King of Poland of being in the plot ; all which they say is false, and that he behaved very cruelly to the Saxons. And many a story of that kind is firmly beleived, one of which I shall mention, to give you a swatch of the rest : viz. that he killed the whole cats in Saxony, and made the Saxons buy mousetraps of him at an extravagant price. If they were good mouse-traps I should not grudge him double the common price for them, for we are like to be devoured with mice, and can neither get a cat nor a trap worth a farthing. They tell me that it is not a common complaint here, for there are but very few mice in the town : I tell them that the mice must be protestant, by their being so plenty in Saxony and in this house, where they know there are no fast days.
Pardon this degression, and my speaking of cats and kings in the same page ; but when kings turn mice-catchers, it must diminish their dignity.
***
There are some further bits about Prussian politics, I can share them if you want.