The Treasure Hunt
Charles finally escaped Scotland in the French frigate L'Heureux, and arrived back in France in September 1746. However, the fate of the money is not as clear. Cluny is believed to have retained control of it, and during his long years as a fugitive was at the centre of various futile plots to finance another uprising. Indeed he remained in hiding in his Highland "cage" for the next eight years. Meanwhile, a cash-strapped Charles was constantly looking for his money, and at least some of it came to him later, paying for the minting of a campaign medal in the 1750s. However, it is said that all of the gold was never recovered. Charles, years later, accused Cluny of embezzlement. Whatever the case, the gold became a source of discord and grievance among the surviving Jacobites.
In 1753, Dr Archibald Cameron—Locheil's brother, who was acting as secretary to the Old Pretender—was sent back to Scotland to locate the treasure. However, whilst staying secretly at Brenachyle by Loch Katrine, he was betrayed (apparently by the notorious "Pickle", a Hanoverian spy) and arrested. He was charged under the Act of Attainder for his part in the 1745 uprising and sentenced to death, being drawn and then hanged on 7 June 1753, at Tyburn (the last Jacobite to be executed).
The trail then goes cold. However, the Stuarts' papers (now in the possession of Queen Elizabeth II) record a host of claims, counter-claims and accusations among the Highland Chiefs and Jacobites in exile, as to the fate of the monies. The historian Andrew Lang (who was one of the first people to research the papers since Walter Scott secured them for the Crown) recorded, in his book Pickle the Spy (1897), the sordid tale, and the involvement of both the Prince and his father in trying to locate the monies. The Stuart papers also include an account from around 1750, drawn up in Rome by Archibald Cameron, which indicates that Cluny had not or could not account for all of it.
According to Clan Cameron records, some French gold coins were found buried in nearby woods in the 1850s.
Read more about this topic: Loch Arkaig Treasure
Famous quotes containing the words treasure and/or hunt:
“Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”
—Bible: New Testament Jesus, in Matthew, 6:19-21.
“Would any but these boiled-brains of nineteen and two-and-twenty hunt this weather?”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)