As far as Admiral Allen is concerned, it is not only unproven that he was a Tory or a Jacobite, but it is almost certainly shown that he was a Whig, and would have been a very unlikely person to be entrusted either with the secrets, or the heir, of Prince Charlie. Had Charles Edward been in a situation to confide so delicate a trust to any one, it is impossible to conceive that he would have selected any other than one of his staunchest adherents; yet John and Charles Hay Allen ask the public to believe that the charge was entrusted to one whose political relations seem to have been with the opposite party. They declare that the "Red Eagle" was aware of his real parentage prior to 1790; yet in the notice of Thomas Allen's marriage, which occurred two years later, he is expressly described as the son of Admiral Allen, and in the admiral's will he is distinctly mentioned as his son. As the reviewer, who has been quoted so freely, remarks: "What conceivable motive could induce the officer entrusted by Charles Edward with the care of the only hope of the House of Stuart to leave in his will, and that will, too, executed in the year of his death, a flat denial of the royal birth of his illustrious ward? The fact is utterly irreconcilable with the existence of such a secret, and appears absolutely conclusive. There was no occasion for the admiral stating in his will whose son Thomas Allen was. He might have left him £100 without any allusion to his parentage; but when he deliberately, and, as lawyers say, _in intuitu mortis_, assures us that this gentleman, the father of those who assume names so directly indicative of royal pretensions, was his own son, we are inclined to give him credit for a clearer knowledge of the truth than any now alive can possess."
Such is the story, and such is its refutation. It has had many believers and many critics. That it was advanced in earnest there can be no doubt, and the pretenders were well known in London circles. The elder of them, "John Sobieski Stuart," died in February 1872; but before his decease solemnly appointed his successor, and passed his supposed royal birthright to a younger member of the same family--a birthright which is worthless and vain.
