Eliza Haywood's Henry Goring Identified

The subject of Eliza Haywood's "Jacobite literary fabrication," A Letter from H---- G----g, Esq; One of the Gentlemen of the Bed-chamber to the Young Chevalier (1749), is Charles Edward Stuart (1720–88), son of James Francis Edward Stuart (1688–1766), son of James II (ruled 1685–88), who was overthrown as King of England because of his Catholicism in the “Glorious Revolution” of 1688.

In my Bibliography of Eliza Haywood (2004), I opened my entry on this 64-page pamphlet almost exactly as stated above. Although I filled in the dashes ("H[enry] G[orin]g") whenever I used the full title of the pamphlet, and titled my entry (actually, entries) for it A Letter from Henry Goring, and cross-referenced both "'G—g, H—' (i.e. Goring, Henry)" and "Goring, Henry" to my entries for "A Letter from H[enry] G[orin]g (Ab.66, Da.9)," I nowhere say anything whatsoever about the putative author of Haywood's Letter.

The reason for this silence is because I was unable—up until (*looks at watch*) today(!)—to identify the Goring concerned. It occurred to me this morning that I might now—with the amount of material online, and AI-powered searches now able to sift almost all of this material—make more progress than I did using the resources at my disposal in the pre-internet era. I was right. Although Google’s Gemini struggled, ChatGPT bought home the gold.

Henry Goring (1707–1755)

It seems that the Gorings were an old Catholic-leaning Sussex family. According to The Westminster School archive (**), Henry Goring was born 11 April 1707, the son of Sir Henry Goring, 4th Baronet (1679–1731; Wikipedia entry here) and Elizabeth Mathew. The archive identifies him specifically as the Henry Goring who became a Gentleman of the Bedchamber to the Young Pretender.

Henry’s elder brother, Charles Mathew Goring, inherited the baronetcy to become Sir Charles Mathew Goring, 5th Baronet (1706–1769; details here).

Henry pursued a military career on the Continent. He appears to have joined Charles Edward's circle in the 1730s, being with the Prince in Italy around 1737. He subsequently served in the Austrian army, and this military background was probably one reason he was useful to Charles. Later, Goring became one of the Prince's most trusted personal attendants and accompanied him during his clandestine wanderings after the collapse of the 1745 enterprise.

Haywood’s pamphlet pretends to be a genuine account of Goring accompanying Charles from Avignon through Germany and elsewhere. By 1752–54, Charles's private life and increasingly erratic behaviour were causing serious alarm among his remaining supporters. One particularly damaging episode involved Charles’s mistress Clementina Walkinshaw (1720–1802) (below).

Charles sent Goring to Dunkirk to bring Clementina to him. Goring apparently regarded her very unfavourably and bitterly complained that Charles was treating him as little more than a pimp! Although there is no entry for “our” Henry Goring on Wikipedia, an account of this incident does appear under the entry for Clementina (here).

The never-failing Andrew Lang offers an historical account of Goring, partly based on genuine contemporary reports from a government spy—"Pickle" (the traitor Alastair MacDonnell, ca. 1725–1761)—as being the Prince's loyal servant who eventually abandoned his service. (See, Pickle the Spy: Or, The Incognito of Prince Charles (1897) and the sequel The Companions of Pickle (1898).) Goring was concerned about Charles's mistress, his treatment of loyal adherents, his increasing suspiciousness, his financial difficulties, and what Goring regarded as his ingratitude and political irresponsibility.

Charles effectively dismissed Goring at Liège in May 1754. Goring then went to Berlin, where he entered Prussian service. According to Lang, in Pickle the Spy, he "went to Berlin, and presently died in Prussian service" (here) and in The Companions of Pickle, "The Earl [George Keith, 10th Earl Marischal] left Paris in the end of June (carrying with him to Berlin poor Henry Goring, who was near death)" (here).

What happened next is unclear. The Westminster School archive (based on a 1928 publication) claims that—although Lang represents Goring as being near death in 1754—he went on to become a General in the Prussian Army and that, in 1755, he married a Susan, daughter of Prince Stanever, Transylvania.

I suspect this last claim is an error, and possibly a confusion of Goring with Earl Marischal, who joined the Prussian Army, became a close confidant of Frederick the Great, and served as the Prussian ambassador to Spain, France and Great Britain. Unfortunately, I have been unable to find anything definitive regarding this since the evidence points in all directions.

* * * * *

A Prince Stanever is mentioned in an early nineteenth-century historical and genealogical work. In James Dallaway's A History of the Western Division of the County of Sussex, Vol. 2, Pt 2 (1830), 133, on the Goring family tree, Dallaway notes (as seen, at right, above) that "Henry, a general in the Prussian service" married "Susan, dau[ghter]. of … [sic, elipsis] Stanever, a prince of Transylvania, living in London in 1781" (here).

From 1711, Transylvania was under the direct rule of the Austrian Habsburgs, meaning that a title of Prince of Transylvania only might apply to a Habsburg prince in 1755 (when Susan and Henry are supposed to have married), or 1781 (when the prince was supposedly in London), but there were no Habsburg princes of this name. Likewise, none of the pre-1711 princes of Transylvanian have this name.

The only Prince named in the London newspapers between 1745 and 1781 in relation to Transylvania is Prince Sulkowski, seemingly a member of the Sułkowski family of Poland (see here), who was campaigning on the boarder of Transylvania, and is an unlikely candidate for a "Prince Stanever."

In a strange hallucination (I think!) ChatGPT claims that "Prince Stanever of Transylvania" appears as a character name in a 1755 Westminster School Archive theatrical play, but I am unable to find any such play.

It did occur to me that, since Earl Marischal really did join the Prussian Army and achieve some seniority, there might be some confusion of Goring with the Earl, but Earl Marischal did not marry (it seems), and I find nothing to link him to either a Susan or a Prince Stanever of Transylvania.

(**) the Westminster School archive is based on material concerning Goring, including his marriage to Susan etc., that was first printed in The Record of Old Westminsters: A Biographical List of All Those who are Known to Have Been Educated at Westminster School from the Earliest Times to 1927, vol. 1 (1928), 386 (here).