Clementina Walkinshaw

Clementina Walkinshaw
Clementina Walkinshaw, c. 1760.
Born	1720
Died	1802 (aged 81–82) Switzerland
Known for	Mistress of Bonnie Prince Charlie
Title	Countess of Alberstrof
Children	Charlotte Stuart

Clementina Maria Sophia Walkinshaw (1720 – November 1802) was the mistress of Bonnie Prince Charlie.

Clementina was the youngest of the ten daughters of John Walkinshaw of Barrowhill (1671–1731) and his wife Katherine Paterson. The Walkinshaws owned the lands of Barrowfield and Camlachie, and her father had become a wealthy Glasgow merchant (founding the textile village of Calton). However, he was also an Episcopalian and a Jacobite who had fought for the Prince's father in the rising of 1715, been captured at the Battle of Sheriffmuir, before escaping from Stirling Castle and fleeing to Europe. In 1717, he had been pardoned by the British Government and returned to Glasgow, where his youngest daughter was born probably at Camlachie. However, Clementina was largely educated on the Continent, and later converted to Roman Catholicism. In 1746, she was living at the home of her uncle Sir Hugh Paterson at Bannockburn, near Stirling. The Prince came to Sir Hugh's home in early January 1746 where he first met Clementina, and he returned later that month to be nursed by her from what appears to have been a cold. Given that she was living under her uncle's protection, it is not thought the two were lovers at this time.

After the defeat of the Prince's rebellion at Culloden in April 1746, Charles fled Scotland for France. In the following years, he had a scandalous affair with his 22-year-old first cousin Louise de Montbazon (who was married to his close friend, and whom he deserted when she became pregnant) and then with the Princess of Talmont, who was in her 40s. In 1752, he heard that Clementina was at Dunkirk and in some financial difficulties, so he sent 50 louis d'or to help her and then dispatched Sir Henry Goring to entreat her to come to Ghent and live with him as his mistress. Goring, who described Clementina as a "bad woman", complained of being used as "no better than a pimp", and shortly after left Charles' employ. However, by November 1752, Clementina was living with Charles, and was to remain as his mistress for the following eight years. The couple moved to Liège where Charlotte, their only child, was born on 29 October 1753 and baptised into the Roman Catholic faith at the church of Sainte Marie-des-Fonts.