County Kildare native Charles Wogan pulled up the collar of his coat against the wind-blown sleet and snow and paced nervously back and forth on what is now Maria-Theresien-Street in Innsbruck, Austria. The city clocks had announced the new day, April 28, 1719, a few minutes ago. As he stared at the door of the Palais Trapp across the street, Wogan was beginning to wonder if it was a date he was going to remember fondly, ruefully, or perhaps not live to remember at all.

(Right: The Schwarzer Adler (Black Eagle) Inn.)

Finally, the door opened, and two figures emerged, hoods drawn over their heads. Wogan’s heart thumped in his chest as the first person approached him. He smiled as he saw that, as he hoped, it was not Jeanneton, the young servant whom he had watched enter that door earlier in the night. It was the Princess Maria Clementina Sobieska, the woman he had traveled to Innsbruck to rescue. She lifted her head and smiled back at him, “Hello, Papa Warner,” an affectionate nickname she had for him.

Behind her was her servant, Konski, carrying a small bundle that included her crown jewels. Left behind in the Princess’s room, snuggled under the covers, was Jeanneton, prepared to pose as the princess. The plan called for her to stay in bed, covers pulled up high, feigning sickness to maintain the ruse as long as possible. There wasn’t a second to waste as they headed to the Schwarzer Adler (Black Eagle) Inn, where the rest of Wogan’s rescue party waited to start the race to the Italian border.

In Eighteenth-century Europe, the armed forces of numerous kingdoms were filled with exiles from the suppressed nation of Ireland. One of the most famous was Charles Wogan. He was born in Rathcoffey, County Kildare, the son of William Wogan and Anne Gaydon. Early stories usually gave his year of birth as 1698, but more recent scholarship has placed it closer to 1685.

The family had fought against the Cromwellian invasion and with James II, the Stuart, against William of Orange. So it was no surprise that Charles would also support James III's claim to the English throne.

(Left: The Stuart surrender at Preston.)

Little is known of his early life, but Charles and his younger brother, Nickolas, joined the failed Rising of James Edward Stuart in 1715. Following the defeat at the Battle of Preston, Charles was taken prisoner and held at Newgate Prison. His trial for high treason was scheduled to begin on April 27, 1716, with his execution certain to follow shortly. The night before, however, he and fourteen of his comrades broke out of the prison. A reward of £500 was offered for his recapture.  About half the escapees were recaptured, and Wogan was said to have had several narrow escapes, but he managed to make his way to France in June.

(Below: The regimental flag of Dillon's regiment.)

Wogan immediately joined his cousin Arthur Dillon’s Regiment of the Irish Brigade but was likely already in service to James III. In 1718, he moved on to Rome. He then began traveling around Europe looking for a princess bride for James who would enhance the Stuarts’ power and prestige in Europe.

The princess he chose was seventeen-year-old Maria Clementina Sobieska, born in 1701 in Oława, Poland. The Princess was the granddaughter of King John III of Poland, who was famous for defeating the Ottoman Turks at the Battle of Vienna in 1683. For this victory, he was considered the deliverer of Christendom. Because Poland did not have a hereditary monarchy at the time, her father had not followed him on the throne, but the family was still a part of the royalty of Poland and Maria Clementina herself was very wealthy, having inherited a huge tract of land from her grandfather.  She was described as "happy in all the charms, both of mind and body, her sex can boast of," having "the agreeableness of seventeen and the solidity of thirty." It was said that she could speak Polish, High Dutch, French, Italian, and English, all of which she spoke so well you could not distinguish which of these languages was the most familiar to her.

Word of the betrothal soon reached England and came to the attention of King George I, the Hanoverian King sitting on the throne that James Stuart believed was rightfully his. While King George may not have thought James posed too great a threat after the recent failed rising, he was ready to actively oppose anything that helped keep the Stuart threat alive.

George knew the princess and her party would have to pass through the Holy Roman Empire in Central Europe to reach James in Rome. He sent envoys to its ruler, his ally, Emperor Charles VI, and asked him to arrest the princess and prevent her “blessed union” with James. As the party moved across what is now Austria in September 1718, the princess and her mother were taken into custody and imprisoned at Palais Trapp in Innsbruck, with General Hester as the head of her jailers.

(Left: The arrest of the Princess Clementina 1718. From Cassell's Illustrated History of England published c.1890.)

For the moment, James III’s plan was thwarted. Once again, James turned to his faithful Irishman, Charles Wogan, to solve his problem. There was little time to attempt such a complicated rescue before winter set in, blocking the optimal escape route from Innsbruck to the south, through the Alps. And before they could consider the operation, Wogan would have to obtain the permission of Clementina’s family in Ohlau, north of Hamburg, in what is now Germany. He obtained this permission with some difficulty. Wogan began planning the rescue for April 1719. They bribed a nun to get word to Clementina of the coming rescue.

This attempt would be very dangerous for Wogan, who, if captured during the rescue and returned to England, still faced probable execution. Next, he needed to recruit a team to help him. He naturally turned to the men of Dillon’s Regiment, then stationed near Strasbourg, France. Major Richard Gaydon, Wogan’s uncle, Captain Lucius O’Toole, Captain John Misset, his wife, Lady Eleanor, and her maid, Jeanneton, all agreed to join in the adventure. They believed Lady Eleanor would be important as a lady of breeding to be a companion to a princess used to having “ladies-in-waiting” around her entire life. There was one complication. Lady Eleanor was four months pregnant. Wogan did not reveal the entire truth of the plan to Jeanneton yet.

(Right: Francesco Bertosi’s painting, ‘Princess Maria Clementina Sobieska, 1701–1735. Wife of Prince James Francis Edward Stuart’, 1719. National Galleries of Scotland.)

To help cover their tracks, Wogan acquired a fake passport from Pope Clement XI. Major Gaydon, the oldest of the party, would now be the ‘Count de Cernes’ and the rest of them members of his party. They also bought a coach there that they hoped would be “able to withstand the shock of so great a journey,” along with “spare tackle of all sorts in case of accidents.”

As they departed Strasburg, the governor of the city told them, ‘Adieu mes enfants, you are not crossing the Rhine for nothing, and you seem to be engaging in an attempt to make a hole in the moon. May God guide you, for I know you are men who will conquer or die’.

George I and his allies had not been idle during these months. They pressured Clementina and her family to annul the marriage agreement with James, but she refused. George then offered to pay a £100,000 bribe to the Prince of Baden if he could steal her away from James. The Prince traveled to Innsbruck in the spring to meet with her at Palais Trapp (left). She would refuse him as well, but his presence would complicate Wogan’s plan.

Wogan’s plan was to attempt to free the princess on April 27, and they did manage to arrive in Innsbruck in time to do that, and were joined there by Michel Vezzosi, a valet of James Stuart. However, they found that Prince Baden and his mother were in town, and he was visiting the Princess every day, attempting to win her over.

The group settled into the Black Eagle Inn, in the southern part of the city, and began surveying the city to plan the breakout. As they began discussing the plan, the entire enterprise was nearly over before it got started. The Misset’s servant, Jeanneton, had not been told the true identity of the lady they intended to spirit out of captivity, fearing she might be overwhelmed by the magnitude of what they were doing. She was told it was merely a lady Captain O’Toole wished to marry, against the wishes of her father.

(Below: Charles Wogan)

But what nearly derailed the plan was something far less significant. Poet George Herbert, in a 1640 collection of aphorisms, had included a famous one that started, “For want of a nail the shoe is lost, for want of a shoe the horse is lost,” and it was a shoe that nearly undid this escapade. Jeanneton was a very tall lady and loved to wear high heels to accentuate her height. When told he had to wear flats because the lady whose place she was taking was much shorter than her, she at first refused. One can only imagine how hard it was for Wogan to control his temper as he imagined all his work and planning going up in smoke over a pair of shoes. Eventually, it was the tears of Lady Eleanor and the pleading of O’Toole, and perhaps the young woman’s own romantic nature, that convinced her to wear the flat shoes.

Finally, around 11:30 pm, Wogan and Jeanneton headed out into the howling storm. As Wogan listened to Jeanneton’s constant complaints about the muddy streets, her horrible shoes, and her threadbare coat, he scanned the street near Palais Trapp and saw Prince Clementina’s servant, Monsieur de Chateaudoux, waiting. He could hopefully guide Jeanneton up to the Princess’ room, depending on what guards might be on duty. Now the storm worked in their favor. The guards had abandoned their posts to huddle around the fire in a pub across the street.  

Chateaudoux was able to easily lead Jeanneton up to the Princess’ room and make the exchange of servant for Princess. Clementina was dressed in the nondescript jacket that Jeanneton had worn. Jeanneton would remain in the Princess’ bed, feigning illness as Clementina had been doing for several days, for however long she could maintain the ruse. Time was of the essence now, but Mother and daughter then embraced so tightly Chateaudoux had trouble prying them apart as he urged Clementina down the stairs and out to Wogan.

Wogan, Clementina, and Konski got back to the Black Eagle about 1:30 am and the group rushed to get on the road south to Bologna. The Princess took the time to thank “my brave rescuers” and pleaded with God to be “our guide from now on.” It was perhaps not a good omen with that regard when they realized several miles down the road toward Brenner Pass that they had forgotten the package containing Clementina’s crown jewels at the Inn. Konski, terrified of being connected to this long shot rescue, had dropped the bag and run off. O’Toole was sent racing back to retrieve them.

(Left: Brenner Pass, a 19th-century painting by Ferdinand Runk.)

Misset had been sent ahead to the Pass to scout for any trouble and prepare the way. Graydon and Wogan rode in the coach with the women, with Vezzosi preceding them. Luckily, the Crown Jewels had not been touched, and O’Toole returned with them. Whether he was tempted to continue on north with the jewels and live the rest of his life as a very rich man, he never said.

Now the race was on: into the pitch-black night, with a late winter storm howling, they rode up into the Alps. It was about 248 miles (400 kms) to Bologna and about 160 miles (257 kms) to the border of the Papal State, at which point, perhaps, they would be safe. The Brenner Pass is the border between modern Austria and Italy, but Italy would not exist for nearly a century and a half.

(Right: The crazy quilt of small "countries" in Northern Italy in the 18th century.)

Going faster than was safe on a stormy, dark night, on a narrow mountain road, danger lurked around every corner. O’Toole, on horseback behind the coach, was shaken once during the night when the coach driver had to swerve to avoid a cart. As O’Toole watched in horror, the wheels nearly went off the edge, but were bounced back onto the road by a tree stump.

They soon realized they had another obstacle in reaching Bologna. Ahead of them on the same road were Prince Baden and his party, who left Innsbruck hours ahead of them. Not only was their large retinue buying up many of the fresh horses on the route, but there was also the danger of catching them if the rescue group went too fast. The Prince or one of his party might recognize the Princess and raise an alarm.

Having to slow down put them in more danger that word of the escape of the Princess would be sent out from Innsbruck in time to catch them on the road. O’Toole and Misset dropped back to attempt to intercept any courier sent out to alert the authorities to the south to spread news of the escape. And, indeed, back in Innsbruck, the deception had been discovered, and couriers sent out.

(Below: Tjrento by 15th-century artist Albrecht Dürer,)

O’Toole and Misset soon spotted a young man whom they thought a likely candidate entering an inn and followed him in. Cozying up to him inside, they spiked his drink, and shortly, the unconscious lad’s head was on the table. Searching his satchel, they relieved him of a vital message directing the governor of Trentino to be on the lookout for the fugitive princess.

Meanwhile, Wogan’s group reached the town of Trento as the Baden group left. There were many others in town who were also familiar with the Princess, requiring her to remain in hiding in the coach. They were finally able to get a couple of farm horses to help continue on to Roveredo. Between Trento and Roveredo the road was along a high precipice over the Aidge River. The pregnant Lady Eleanor had been serving as a lady-in-waiting, helping keep Clementina calm throughout the trip, but, apparently, terribly fearful of heights, she became very agitated. The Princess, fearful for the life of the baby, now came to the aid of Eleanor, soothing her frazzled nerves.  

They were nearly out of the Holy Roman Empire when suddenly they saw a troop of dragoons approaching. There was no possible way for them to attempt to escape with the broken-down mounts. All they could do was keep looking straight ahead and pass by, hoping the dragoons were not searching for them. Their luck held as they passed the group without a second look.

(Below: Anton Raphael Mengs’s painting of
James Francis Edward Stuart, James III, circa 1740s.) 

No sooner had they breathed a sigh of relief over that than a new crisis hit. Short of the town of Alla, they hit an obstacle in the dark and snapped an axle. An attempted repair failed, and they proceeded on foot to Alla, no doubt imagining the Emperor's dragoons descending on them at any minute. Vezzosi stayed behind hoping to get the axle repaired.

In the early morning hours of April 30, they arrived in Alla, now only ten miles from the town of Peri, over the southern border of the Empire. Here, they were able to obtain a small cart which Wogan described as “a most wretched conveyance,” for the Princess and Eleanor, with Wogan and Gaydon leading it on foot. They were so close to their goal, but their little group was now widely separated and progress excruciatingly slow.

In spite of the crude cart bouncing over this rough road, the princess was so drained by their exhausting trek that she put her head down on the bottom of the cart and fell asleep. Soon, however, they reached the part of the road that was bordered by high white walls, which signified they had left the Holy Roman Empire and reached the Venetian States. Shortly after that, they entered the town of Peri. “In this grotesque fashion,” wrote Wogan later, “the granddaughter of the king of Poland, cousin of the emperor and of the queen of Spain, arrived in Peri.”

The bells were ringing as they entered the town, not in welcome for the princess, but because it was Sunday morning, the 30^th. Later in the day, Wogan welcomed Vezzosi, O’Toole, and Misset back into their joyous group, along with the repaired coach. It gave them all “a feeling of pure and perfect joy the likes of which is hardly ever felt in life,” said Wogan.

They continued on to Verona before nightfall to put a bit more space between them and the border, and there, finally, they all enjoyed a good night’s sleep. They continued on and reached true safety in Bologna.

Unfortunately, James was now in Spain, where he was, as all Stuarts continued to be for three generations, plotting to regain the throne of England. In spite of his absence, completing the marriage was vital, lest the English find some new way to stop the marriage while they waited for his return. So she married James Stuart III on May 9^th by proxy. On September 1st, they had a more formal "Solemnization" event (left) at Montefiascone, after James returned from Spain. 

Back in Innsbruck, at some point General Hester had discovered the ruse. Clementina had left a letter behind for General Hester absolving her mother of any involvement in the plan to free her. Clementina’s mother pretended that Jeanneton was one of her servants to remove suspicion that she was connected to the rescue group. Jeanneton got a happy ending some time later in Rome as the maid of the Duchess of Parma.  

(Below: Monument to Queen Clementina in St. Peter's Basilica.)

Sadly for the “Princess Bride,” made Queen of England in exile after marrying James III, she did not enjoy a storybook life with her king. Any visions she had of her husband sitting on the English throne, or one of her sons doing so, would remain in her dreams. She would give birth to two sons with James. The first was Charles Edward Stuart, famously known to history as “Bonnie Prince Charlie,” in 1720, and Henry Benedict Stuart in 1725. However, the couple proved incompatible. “Their tempers are so very different that though in the greatest trifles they are never of the same opinion, the one won’t yield an inch to the other,” one person close to them observed.

They were estranged much of the time after the birth of Henry until her very premature death, possibly of tuberculosis, at age 32 in 1735. She was buried in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, one of only three women buried there, where a monument commemorates her. No doubt those few hectic, exhilarating days on the run with her Irish rescuers were something she often reminisced about in those last 16 years of her life.

For Charles Wogan, the aftermath of the rescue was more positive. The story of the rescue spread far and wide over Europe, with his role as the leader prominently mentioned. He became one of the most famous men on the continent. In a 1722 pamphlet, Wogan was described as “A gentleman of Ireland who has distinguished his zeal and capacity on several occasions.”

Pope Clement XI commissioned a medal to be struck celebrating the dramatic escape of Princess Clementina. The Pope also bestowed the title of Senator of Rome on each of the four Irishmen and James Stuart conferred knighthoods on all four.

With his newfound fame, Wogan was commissioned a Colonel by King Philip V of Spain, an ally of the Stuarts. He went on to have a long and successful military and political career there.  In 1723, he led a force to the relief of the siege of the fortress of Santa Cruz by the Moors, earning a promotion to brigadier general. In 1744, he was appointed governor of La Mancha. Six years later, he was appointed to the governorship of Barcelona.

(Left: "Bonnie" Prince Charlie by John Pettie, 1834-93)

Wogan never lost his loyalty to the Stuart cause. When “Bonnie Prince Charlie” was planning his famous ’45 Rising, Wogan organized a group that was prepared to sail from Spain to support him. He fell ill, however, and was unable to lead it. After he recovered, he tried to convince Philip V to send the Irish regiments in Spanish service to aid the Bonnie Prince, but Philip, perhaps seeing the handwriting on the wall by then, refused. Wogan then traveled to France, banding together with some of his former Irish Brigade comrades there, hoping to find a way to aid in the cause, but shortly they got word of the disaster at Culloden.    

In his later years, Wogan had a correspondent relationship with the famous author Jonathan Swift, sending him some of his own prose, which Swift praised. Though he wrote to Swift anonymously at first, Swift eventually learned his identity.

Wogan passed away in Barcelona in 1754. He was survived by his wife Anne O’Driscoll. They had a son, James, in the late 1720s, but he had died before Charles. Wogan wrote an account of the rescue of the Princess in 1722, and others have written of it since, keeping his name alive in Irish nationalist circles. In 1954, a group commemorated Wogan in Co. Kildare with lectures and tours around many Wogan family sites.

Also in 1954, Hollywood made a little-known (for good reason) version of the rescue titled “The Iron Glove” (for no apparent reason). Though it starred Robert Stack as Charles Wogan, it was a low-budget movie that had little connection to the actual events beyond using some of the correct names.

In April 2019, the tercentenary of the rescue, a much larger celebration of Wogan and the rescue of the Princess was held at Europe House in Dublin. Irish President Michael Higgins attended the event, where numerous historians of the era spoke.

Wogan was one of many thousands of Catholic Irishmen known as  “The Wild Geese” who were forced to live out their lives away from their native land fighting for “every cause but our own,” as Emily Lawless would later write in her poem “Clare Coast.” They fought all over Europe, in India, and in North America.

(Left: The medal struck by Pope Clement XI commemorating the escape of Princess Clementina.)

Most lived out their lives in obscurity. Though little is known of Wogan by the general public today, for a short time the name Charles Wogan was recognized throughout Europe as the shining hero knight of the stirring rescue of a “Princess Bride.”

RELATED LINKS:

“Sir Charles Wogan: Jacobite, Soldier, Royal Agent & Man of Letters” by Richard K Maher

“The Irish to the Rescue: The Tercentenary of the Polish Princess Clementina’s Escape” by Richard Maher (Editor)

Tercentenary of the Polish Princess Clementina’s Escape

Sir Charles Wogan

Wikipedia Princess Clementina

"The Iron Glove" (full movie)

Meet Maria Clementina Sobieska, the defiant queen who pulled off a jailbreak to secure the Jacobite legacy

Narrative of detention, liberation and marriage of Maria Clementina Stuart

Who were the "Wild Geese?"

John Paul Jones and the Irish Marines

The Jacobites

House of Stuart

Battle of Preston (1715)

The Holy Roman Empire

(Below - Right: A monument in St Peter’s Basilica dedicated to the
royal Stuarts, James and his sons, Charles and Henry.)

History of the Irish Brigade in the Service of France

• Part 1: The Worst Place in the World
• Part 2: 'Who Stood the Victors Crowned"
• Part 3: 'Fighters in Every Clime'
• Part 4: Across the Deep Waves
• Part 5 of 5: Semper et Ubique Fidelis
• Sarsfield: 'Would It Were for Ireland'
• Remember Cremona: France's Irish Brigade Saves the King's Army
• The Irish Brigade's Heroic Stand for 'Bonnie Prince Charlie'
• Semper Et Ubique Fidelis: The Dillons and the Irish Brigade of France
• The Daughters of Count General Arthur Dillon
• The Irish Brigade's Stand for 'Bonnie Prince Charlie' Part 1 of 3: 'My King Has Landed'