The Patriot

by Nigel Tranter

  "Is all this so important?" Mary wondered. "Since the throne is now a united one. My great-grandsire, James the Sixth, became first King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, in which both thrones are included. If the English ask you to be king, William - as they are doing even now - is that not sufficient?"

  "Sufficient in law perhaps, my dear. But I am concerned over the wishes and feelings of the Scots. I need the support of Scotland in this endeavour - or at least not its enmity. The Highlands are largely Catholic still, we know. I do not want a Highland army marching to support your father. We know what happened to Argyll."

  "Argyll was a Campbell!" Mary Stewart said shortly.

  "You see - the Scottish concern with blood and clans!"

  Burnet intervened again. "Your Highnesses - Scot as I am, I believe that you should leave the Scottish situation meantime. Concentrate on England. Once you are King in England, sir, the Scottish problem will be less difficult. From all that I have heard, the Scots are in no position to mount an invasion of England in support of King James. He is scarcely beloved, even in the Highlands. I say invade England with your Protestant army, under cover of your great fleet. And when you sit on the throne at Westminster, I think that you need not fear Scottish opposition."

  "So say I," Mary nodded.

  "Would that it were so simple! There is so much to be considered first. My States-General are suspicious, even hostile. They see me, as King of England, forgetting my own Netherlands. Of leaving the Low Countries open to Louis of France's ambitions. I have to carry my people with me - if for no other reason than to ensure the aid of my army and fleet. I tell them that if, with England, I lead a great confederation of Protestant states, then the Netherlands are the more secure. And I will never desert my Dutch people. But . . ."

  "Promise them gold, English gold, and they will come round!" his wife advised. "Also trading rights in the English colonies. Your Dutch will listen to that talk!"

  "Then there is Louis. He cannot but know of this projected invasion. His spies are everywhere. James is his cousin, his pensioner and fellow-Catholic. He will seek not only to warn him but possibly also to support him in arms. This is partly what concerns my States-General. The fear that the French will descend upon the Netherlands whilst I am engaged in England."

  "The victory over the Turks, Highness, may help in this," Andrew suggested. "The Emperor, as I see it, is Louis's chief rival and preoccupation. Now, with this Hungarian war all but over, the Imperial armies will be freed from that entanglement. Which means that King Louis will be watching the East again, rather than the North. The Brandenburgers talked much of turning on France. Until he sees how the Emperor will move, with Turkish defeat, Louis will I think hold his hand . . ."

  "So, as I say, the sooner you move to England the better," Mary asserted.

  "I will not move before all is in readiness - both here and in England. That could be fatal. As Monmouth found out. We cannot do anything before June, anyway. That could be all-important."

  Andrew looked from one to the other. At an audience one did not cross-question royalty. But his raised brows were eloquent.

  "June, Mr. Fletcher," William repeated. "We have sure word that James's Queen, his second wife, Mary of Modena, is with child. Due in June. If the child should be a son, and lives, then all is changed. My wife ceases to be heir to the throne. A male heir would alter all."

  There was silence again.

  "It is suggested, Highness, that this pregnancy is ... suppositious," Burnet said.

  "Suggested by those who would wish it so, my friend. Or those who would have me to act precipitately. My information is otherwise."

  The Princess looked sour.

  "So we must wait," her husband went on. "But waiting, we need not be inactive. God knows, there is much to do. And you, Mr. Fletcher, will, I hope, be prepared to aid us. You have had recent and active experience of warfare. Distinguished yourself, all say. Although I will have some thousands of my own troops, I trust, to support me if and when I move, for good reason much of the army must be English and Scottish volunteers, few of them with knowledge of soldiering. So such as yourself will be invaluable." He raised his hand, smiling, as though to forestall any objection. "Even if you refuse to accompany any expedition, for your own reasons, I think that you cannot refuse to help train these good folk who presently all but swamp my small country? I shall need every able officer I can find."

  Andrew could only bow.

  "Keep us informed, my friend, of anything you hear as to the Scots situation. And your thoughts thereon. We shall be grateful."

  "Thank you for your attendance, Mr. Fletcher," the Princess said. The audience was at an end.

  11

  If the feeling of having been through all this before had been strong eight months before, when Andrew had first returned to Holland, it was still more so now. For once again he paced the deck of a ship anchored off Texel, impatiently waiting after long delay. Again he was in two minds about being involved at all. And again he had very little in common with most of his companions.

  But there were differences, admittedly. For one thing, this was a powerful ship-of-war on which he stood. And the nearby reaches of the Zuider Zee contained, not a couple of lighters in addition, but a great fleet of vessels, warships and transports, marshalled in long rows. Moreover, this was late October not June, so that the wild weather which had held them up for ten days was at least not so unseasonable, however frustrating.

  William of Orange's ambitious project, over which that prince was little more enthusiastic than was Andrew Fletcher, had been postponed well beyond the provisional June date, despite continuing and ever more urgent appeals from England. The information about the Queen's pregnancy had proved correct, but the term of delivery was wrong. Mary of Modena had indeed produced a child, a son, but not until the beginning of October. So now there was a Prince of Wales and the dynastic situation had become considerably more tense. But despite William's first notion that the arrival of a male heir to the throne would much retard his own chances, it seemed that the reverse actually applied. At least, the pleas for swift action had become ever more pressing, from England, with the contention that the longer the child, named James again, lived the more difficult it would become to unseat the father. Also, the birth had more or less coincided with the trial and surprising acquittal of the seven bishops and this had touched off such an upsurge of popular rejoicing, and resentment against the monarch, that King James had to seek security in the midst of the army of Catholic Irish troops brought over and assembled at Hounslow. There, in a panic, he issued a unilateral declaration of indulgence for Catholics and Protestants both, without parliamentary authority and contrary to law. But this was too late and rejected on all hands. Prominent Protestants were united in their advice to William that now was the time to strike; conditions would never be more favourable - and failure to act might well mean a spontaneous civil war breaking out in England. Seven of the most influential, the Earls of Devonshire, Shrewsbury and Danby, the Lords Delamere and Lumley, the suspended Bishop of London and Admiral Russell, had sent imploring messages to The Hague. And the Prince had been persuaded.

  So Dutch and foreign troops were hastily mustered at Nimeguen and a fleet assembled in the Zuider Zee, under the command of Marshal Schomberg and Generals Bentinck, Dykevelt, Keppel, Van Hulst and Herbert, with a number of exiled leaders - of which Andrew Fletcher found himself * almost inevitably one. The amassing of the force had gone well, better than might have been expected at short notice, for the Dutch were efficient enough. But there had been a hitch, when Lord Sunderland, one of James's intimates - who presumably considered that he ought to butter both sides of his bread - sent secret word to William that the King had an undertaking from Louis of France, in that should William move, a French army would be sent to invade Holland and take the city of Maes-tricht, to deter the Dutch from sailing. So the Prince had detached half of his Netherlands force to go to save Maestricht, which left h
im with some 14,000 men for the venture, 8,500 of them Hollanders.

  Ten days of squalls and unfavourable winds had followed and William had delayed his own embarkation, at his States-General's request. But now, after a change in the wind at last from south-west to due east, orders had come to sail. The fleet would reassemble at Hellevoetsluis on one of the arms of the Maas estuary, some ninety miles southwards, where the Prince would join it and from which a dash across the mouth of the Channel might be made with some hope of avoiding the English navy.

  Moving such an armada into sailing formation, the warships encircling the transports like sheep-dogs, took time. The hope was that James's fleet would be loth to tangle with the renowned Dutch shipping, or too disaffected for its commanders to risk anything such. Admiral Russell had indicated that this might well be so. At any rate no sign of opposition had shown itself by the time that the windy October dusk enshrouded the great concourse of vessels as it moved, breeze half-astern, down towards the Channel.

  Andrew appeared to be the only Scot aboard the flagship so far, and kept pretty much to himself, turning in early.

  Sailing at the speed of the slowest, daylight found them only off the old Rhine-mouth, some fifty miles down the flat, featureless coast. There was still no report of English naval presence which cheered all save the few fire-eaters. The wind swinging slightly into the north, they were able to make better time, but the shipmasters shook their heads gravely, fearing that this change of direction would go too far.

  By mid-day the wide mouth of the Haringvliet arm of the Maas estuary was opening to port and they turned in, almost due eastwards now, the wind unfavourable again. Hellevoetsluis port was some way up and reasonably near to Rotterdam. Here William and his close entourage came aboard, and Andrew was glad to be joined by his friends Gilbert Burnet and Sir Patrick Home, along with other Scots.

  A curious atmosphere prevailed on the flagship, with none of the false confidence of the Monmouth venture, little feeling indeed of high endeavour, but no desperation either, rather a sort of inevitable commitment and a dogged determination, suitably Dutch. William himself was no enthusiast, but he was very much in command, a strong, stern man who knew what he was doing and would do it without fail, for he had a streak of ruthlessness.

  Nevertheless the doing of it was again delayed. The wind and weather altered again, south-westerly gales and driving rain, and so continued. Indeed on the 26th October there was a really violent storm, where even in the comparatively sheltered Maas estuary the ships were in grave danger of being driven aground and wrecked, and the state of the men crowded aboard became dire, with morale plummeting and assertions, even amongst the leadership, that fate was against them and that every day lost sank their chances further. Andrew for one did not see it that way. He argued that the weather would equally keep the English fleet storm-bound; that James and his advisers would not look for invasion in such conditions; that Louis would be unlikely to move his armies either, and that seasick men would quickly recover once their feet touched dry land. In his opinion, if they set off the moment sailing conditions were at all possible, however uncomfortable, even

  148 dangerous, they would be presented with a wonderful chance to avoid a sea-battle and the possible massacre of transports and gain an almost unopposed landing, with the French behind them immobilised. William was inclined to agree with this assessment, although many of his lieutenants were now urging that the entire project be put off until the spring - this group led by one Wildman, an English expatriate politician, eloquent but consistently overestimating English strengths and Dutch weaknesses. But the Dutchmen were uneasy too, fearing that the estuary would freeze over and trap the shipping, as so often it did in early winter.

  On 1st November the wind abated somewhat, although even in the Haringvliet the seas remained daunting. William gave the command to reassemble - for the fleet was now scattered over a wide area. It took until the evening tide before all could be marshalled in some sort of order, and at last they set sail for England - many declaring that they were heading for certain death, not by land but at sea.

  Andrew felt strangely detached, as though it all had very little to do with him. His thoughts, hopes, ambitions, like his heart, lay five hundred miles to the north.

  It certainly made an appalling passage. The gale and seas prevented them from tacking northwards as intended. The fleet could not be kept together. Visibility was very poor and signals could not be transmitted. Even the great ships-of-war suffered direly; what it must have been like on the overladen transports and horse-ships beggared the imagination. Then, next morning, the wind strengthening rather than sinking, it swung into due east, and under almost bare masts they blew rather than sailed before it, spread over endless miles of tossing, grey-white sea. Some vessels had to tow others, their rudders smashed. How many might be lost nowise could be ascertained.

  It was on the third day out before the leading ships passed into the Channel proper, between Dover and Calais and into very slightly more protected waters. There was no sign of the English fleet - no doubt this easterly storm would keep it bottled up in the Thames. By dark they were as far west as the Isle of Wight. That night a council was held in the large low-decked poop-cabin of the flagship, all the leadership crowding in. Andrew did not feel himself to be in that category, but William sent for Burnet, Home and himself.

  Decision now had to be taken. Where to land, and when. Whether couriers should be put ashore, if possible, to send warning to certain powerful supporters, the Earl of Bath in especial, who was now governing the West Country and a hidden adherent. And so on. There was much debate. It was agreed that the landings should be in the West, not only in that the hatred of James was strongest there, the more so since Judge Jeffreys' savageries, but because it would take longer for the King's mainly Irish army to reach them from Hounslow and so give time for Protestant supporters to rally and, very important, for a sufficiency of horses to be commandeered adequately to mount the invasion force. In this discussion Andrew's first-hand experience in Monmouth's problems and mistakes were invaluable. William declared that he would like the actual landing to be the next day, 4th November. As it happened, this was both that Prince's birthday and his wedding anniversary. A strict Calvinist, he did not believe that it might bring him luck; but he did think that the fact might encourage his troops. The exiles there, however, pointed out that the following day, 5th November, meant a great deal to the English people, whom it was even more important to encourage to rise in action. This was the anniversary of that other Protestant deliverance, of James the First and Sixth from the Catholic Gunpowder Plot of Guido Fawkes of eighty-three years ago, and it was still celebrated throughout the land. What date could be more apt?

  That was accepted, and Torbay was decided upon as the best place for the main landing. It had to be as sheltered as possible from the east wind and yet large and open enough to accommodate the whole fleet and, at the same time, not guarded by forts and, especially, with a beach available where the horses could be disembarked. Torbay, tucked in behind Hope's Nose, had all these attributes. Some advised Plymouth, some thirty miles further west, where Lord Bath was based. But that of course was a fortified port with a garrison, and Bath's predilections might not be shared by his whole command.

  Better the main landing at Torbay, with perhaps secondary assaults at Dartmouth and Brixham, round Berry Head.

  Such planning was all very well, but carrying it out in present conditions was less easy. All next day they tacked about in the Channel, fretting, those who were not sea-sick impatient, cursing the delay, conditions and the weather, even the competence of the high command. Shipmasters were at their wits' end to hold a fleet of almost five hundred assorted craft approximately together. At night this proved to be quite impossible and dawn of the 5th November found most of the ships far to the west, indeed almost off Plymouth. There was despair in many quarters, even Gilbert Burnet declaring that it seemed predestined that they should never set foot
on English soil - but praying heartily nevertheless.

  Whether as a consequence or not, however, the wind changed into south-by-west in mid-morning, to shouts of thanksgiving. And in some four hours, with this behind them, the bulk of the fleet was again approaching Torbay.

  The new wind, to be sure, blew straight into that wide bay, with Hope's Nose now offering no protection; but Berry Head at the southern end served as an alternative breakwater and the landing was fixed for Brixham on its north side.

  So at last the anchor-chains rattled down all round that horn of the bay between Brixham and Goodrington, William and his entourage stepping on to English ground at Brixham harbour itself.

  "So, Dr. Burnet?" he asked, almost jovial for that grave man. "What do you think of the doctrine of predestination now?"

  "I think only of the providence of God, sir- and thank Him, as ought we all."

  "Well said, my friend. Let all heed it. But now - to work."

  It was only twenty miles to Exeter, where William planned to base himself meantime, but it took them three days to get there. Not because they had to fight their way; no opposition showed itself. But the landing of so many men, and especially of horses and artillery, in stormy weather, even on comparatively sheltered beaches, was a protracted business indeed. And in fact the

  151 weather deteriorated once again, the wind swinging back into the west and strengthening, which did not help - although they learned afterwards that it had almost certainly aided them greatly, for the English fleet had won out of the Thames and into the Channel, in strength, and could have disrupted the landings. Instead, this new gale from the south-west drove it to take cover, and it got no nearer Torbay than the sheltered waters of Portsmouth.

  During this waiting period William looked for the Earl of Bath to declare openly for him and to give a useful lead to all the South-West. But although other locally-based notables, such as the Earl of Abington and the Lords Colchester and Wharton came forward, there was no word from the Governor at Plymouth. They were thankful, therefore, that they had not relied on the man and made their landing at Plymouth as some had advocated.