Charles Wogan

Charles Wogan (c.1685–1754) was an Irish Jacobite soldier and agent, also known as the Chevalier Wogan.

Early life Wogan was brought up in County Kildare, but the family details are unclear. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography states that he was the eldest son of Patrick Wogan and his first wife, Mary Dempsey, and grandson of Nicholas Wogan of Rathcoffey Castle; while the Dictionary of Irish Biography states that he was the second son of William Wogan and his wife Anne Gaydon. Cruickshanks and Erskine-Hill comment on two "Nicholas Wogans (one the eldest son of Wogan of Rathcoffee and the other his cousin, the brother of Sir Charles Wogan ...)".

Jacobite soldier At the time of the 1715 Jacobite rebellion, Charles Wogan, and his younger brother Nicholas Wogan (1700–1770), were involved with a rising in Northern England in support of James Stuart, the Stuart claimant to the thrones of Great Britain and Ireland.

In the following April the grand jury of Westminster found a true bill against Wogan, and his trial for high treason was appointed to take place in Westminster Hall on 5 May 1716. At midnight on the eve of the trial Wogan took part in the successful escape from Newgate prison planned by William Mackintosh of Borlum. He was one of the seven (out of the fifteen) who made good their escape, and for whose recapture a reward of £500 was offered. Nicholas also escaped and returned to Ireland; he and Charles never met subsequently.

Adventurer in France He succeeded in getting to France, where he took service with James Stuart and, for a time, managed a clandestine operation in Lyon, France, for the secure transmission of Jacobite correspondence. In November 1717, Wogan was commissioned to tour the minor courts in Central Europe in search of a suitable bride for James Stuart. His efforts turned up a serious candidate in the form of Maria Clementina Sobieska, granddaughter of the famous John Sobieski. Clementina, on her way to join James Stuart at Bologna, was arrested by the order of the emperor (to whom the goodwill of the British government was of paramount importance) at Innsbruck, whence Wogan, with three kinsmen, Richard Gaydon, Captain Missett, Captain Luke O'Toole, Misset's pregnant wife, and her French maidservant released her in a romantic manner and escaped through the Alps to Bologna (27 April-3 May 1719). For this exploit the pope, Clement XI, conferred upon Wogan the title of Roman senator (13 June 1719). James rewarded Wogan with a baronetcy.

In the Spanish service Wogan then took service as a colonel in the Spanish army. His failure to obtain any recognition for his service during the siege of Oran led to his decision to retire from active service in 1735. In 1744 he was made corregidor (civil governor) of the San Clemente district of La Mancha, Spain.

The following year Wogan received a letter from Charles Edward Stuart, the Young Pretender, seeking Wogan's assistance for the Prince's projected invasion of Scotland (the 1745 Jacobite rising). Wogan went to the Spanish Court where he obtained financial and material support. He was promoted to the rank of brigadier-general and commanded a contingent of Irish officers in the Spanish service who were sent to France to take ship for Scotland in order to join the Prince. In 1746 the Chevalier Wogan was with Henry, Cardinal Duke of York at Dunkirk, in the hope of being able to join Charles Edward.

The collapse of the rising meant that Wogan never arrived in Scotland. He was recalled to Spain where he resumed his post of corregidor at San Clemente.

Last years and death Wogan stepped down from the position of corregidor of San Clemente a few years after his return to Spain in 1746 and was posted to the staff of the garrison of Barcelona in 1750. He died there in 1754.

Correspondence In 1732 Wogan sent to Jonathan Swift a parcel of his writings with a view to their publication. Swift wrote him in return a letter deploring that he did not see his way to get Wogan published: "Dublin booksellers", he says, "have not the least notion of paying for copy." On 27 February 1733 Wogan despatched to Swift, in his capacity as the "mentor and champion of the Irish nation," a long collection of grievances and a cask of Spanish wine, which Swift acknowledged in another letter.

In correspondence with Swift, Wogan claimed an early friendship with Alexander Pope, born in 1688. In detail, they were living in Windsor Forest; Wogan, as he stated, helped Pope dress fashionably, and took him to Will's Coffee House.