Wogan’s poetry, however, was of quite a different kind, and had Gaydon looked at it a trifle more closely, he would have experienced some relief.  It was all about the sorrows and miseries of his unfortunate race and the cruel oppression of England.  England owed all its great men to Ireland and was currish enough never to acknowledge the debt.  Wogan always grew melancholy and grave-faced on that subject when he had the leisure to be idle.  He thought bitterly of the many Irish officers sent into exile and killed in the service of alien countries; his sense of injustice grew into a passionate sort of despair, and the despair tumbled out of him in sonorous Latin verse written in the Virgilian measure.  He wrote a deal of it during this month of waiting, and a long while afterwards sent an extract to Dr. Swift and received the great man’s compliments upon its felicity, as anyone may see for himself in the doctor’s correspondence.

How the month passed for James Stuart in Rome may be partly guessed from a letter which was brought to Wogan by Michael Vezozzi, the Chevalier’s body-servant.

The letter announced that King George of England had offered the Princess Clementina a dowry of L100,000 if she would marry the Prince of Baden, and that the Prince of Baden with a numerous following was already at Innspruck to prosecute his suit.

“I do not know but what her Highness,” he wrote, “will receive the best consolation for her sufferings on my account if she accepts so favourable a proposal, rather than run so many hazards as she must needs do as my wife.  For myself, I have been summoned most urgently into Spain and am travelling thither on the instant.”

Wogan could make neither head nor tail of the letter.  Why should the King go to Spain at the time when the Princess Clementina might be expected at Bologna?  It was plain that he did not expect Wogan would succeed.  He was disheartened.  Wogan came to the conclusion that there was the whole meaning of the letter.  He was, however, for other reasons glad to receive it.

“It is very well I have this letter,” said he, “for until it came I had no scrap of writing whatever to show either to her Highness or, what I take to be more important, to her Highness’s mother,” and he went back to his poetry.

Misset and his wife, on the other hand, drove forward to the town of Colmar, where they bought a travelling carriage and the necessaries for the journey.  Misset left his wife at Colmar, but returned every twenty-four hours himself.  They made the excuse that Misset had won a deal of money at play and was minded to lay it out in presents to his wife.  The stratagem had a wonderful success at Schlestadt, especially amongst the ladies, who could do nothing day and night but praise in their husbands’ hearing so excellent a mode of disposing of one’s winnings.

O’Toole spent his month in polishing his pistols and sharpening his sword.  It is true that he had to persuade Jenny to bear them company, but that was the work of an afternoon.  He told her the story of the rich Austrian heiress, promised her a hundred guineas and a damask gown, gave her a kiss, and the matter was settled.