The Pretender's Lady

by Alan Gold

  Bowing before he embraced his father, the twenty-four-year-old Duke of Cumberland, still sweating from his frantic rush by horse from Dover on the English coast, quaffed a cup of wine and said, “Has the Pretender advanced over the border? What’s happened to the coward General Cope? Has he shot himself yet? If not, give me a pistol, and I’ll do it. Have the damned Jacobite Catholics in England roused themselves? What’s the state of preparedness in the northern cities? Has the Pretender joined up yet with any French troops? What’s the role of Louis and the damnable Frenchies in all of this? What are our generals doing to marshal their forces? Where are they deployed? Eh?”

  The questions erupted one after the other, but nobody held the answers. All the king continued to say was “England is saved. My son, my real son, has returned.”

  Less than an hour later, Prime Minister Pelham, having been informed of the Duke of Cumberland’s arrival in London, rushed to St. James’s to greet the commander in chief of the English army. For the first time in weeks, he was utterly delighted with some good news. Now that the young man had returned, the morale of England would rise, and some backbone would return to the British army.

  “Your Royal Highness,” said Pelham, shaking the young man’s hand. “I’m truly pleased to see you. We’re sorely in need of your military skills. Have you had a chance to decide on how the war against the invaders will proceed?”

  “I’ve ordered the Black Watch to return from the South Coast to meet me in the Midlands so that we can assemble other forces and march north against Prince Charles. I’ll not let him march too far south or it’ll be a devil of a job to drive him back over the border with Scotland to where he had the audacity to land.”

  Shocked, Pelham said, “But the Black Watch is needed to protect our south against the prospect of an assault by the French. After all, it’s the French who have been encouraging this Jacobite uprising. You must realize, sir, that their intention is for our armies to be divided and so distracted that the king of France can prepare for an invasion of our land.”

  “It’s a risk I have to take, Mr. Pelham,” said the duke. “The Black Watch is a powerful group of fighting men and will put the fear of the Protestant Almighty into hearts of the Popish Scotsmen assembled against us. And it’ll send their damnable English Catholic supporters into a blue funk to return to their houses and hide under their beds. If the French do attack us in the South, we shall have to marshal our forces to deal with it in another way. I can’t have my best troops sitting and looking southwards over the sea when we’re under assault by waves of Scots from the north. It’s one of the risks of war, Mr. Pelham.”

  The prime minister nodded, hoping that the risk wouldn’t end in disaster. It would be hard enough quelling the growing sentiment for a rebellion against the Hanoverians in England and fighting the advancing Scots; but if England was attacked in the south by the French, then heaven help the hindmost.

  LONDON, A STREET JUST OFF PALL MALL

  OCTOBER 5, 1745

  It began as a tune hummed by the occasional hawker as he strode from door to door carrying a huge wicker basket of his knives or kitchen linen or lettuce and cabbage on his back. It was soon picked up and sung by barrow boys as they pushed their carts laden with vegetables or meat or fish in the early morning along the rutted tracks and between the horse- and cattle-dung, which was ever-present on central London streets.

  Soon governesses and maids who worked for the families of wealth and means in fashionable villages like Chelsea and the Borough of Kensington along the banks of the Thames were teaching both the tune and the words to the children in their charge.

  The way in which it began to spread through all levels of English society gave the playwright, lawyer, and wit, Mr. Henry Fielding, an idea for a journal that would rouse the patriotic spirit of the nation, damn the Catholic Jacobites, and at the same time show just how serious was the threat from Prince Charles Stuart. It also encouraged him to begin sketches for a bawdy book that he might name after the central character, Tom Jones.

  But Jones’ amorous adventures were secondary in his mind to the morale of London, which was suffering at the advance of the Young Pretender’s army of wild mountain Scotsmen. So frightened were Englishmen about marauding frenzied men in kilts wielding hideous swords and pikestaffs, that Fielding was determined to do something about it, while also restoring his faded reputation as a writer. A month after hearing his costermonger, Bert, mangling the words and singing a bastardized version of something that should have been in every Englishman’s heart, Fielding published the full text in the first edition of his new pamphlet, The True Patriot. Everybody who could read purchased the magazine, in which he had reprinted the words to “Rule Britannia” so that every true Englishman and woman would know what they were singing.

  And he was gratified to hear the barely literate Bert shouting “Rule Britannia,” “Britannia rules the waves,” “Britons never never never shall be slaves” to every customer and passer-by. And as Britons joined in, and the voice of the English rose loud above the melee of the streets, the Scottish army, about to be joined in battle by the Duke of Cumberland, suddenly didn’t seem quite as fierce.

  Chapter Three

  ARMADALE ON THE ISLAND OF SKYE IN THE OUTER HEBRIDES

  NOVEMBER 20, 1745

  Flora Macdonald could barely contain the excitement that threatened to overwhelm her. She felt blessed every time she received some news of the adventure and wore both a huge grin and a new skirt of calico, which had most recently entered Edinburgh from the city of Calicut in India. She’d made it to celebrate the prince’s victory just outside of Scotland’s capital and was skipping through her morning chores before going to be boon companion to Lady Margaret Macdonald. The previous evening, when she returned to her home in the late of the evening, far from being tired, her mind raced with the prospects of Charlie’s victories, and she couldn’t wait until she was with the Lady Margaret today to see if there was any later news.

  Being a good and dutiful daughter, she knew she couldn’t gloat in front of Hugh Macdonald, for he had grave responsibilities, and now that the prince was already over the border of England and was marching past Carlisle and Manchester and would soon be in London, Hugh’s problems were vastly exacerbated. He had gambled on the failure of the Scottish uprising against the hated Hanoverians, and he had lost. Thrilled as Flora was with the success of her prince, she was also nursing concerns that when King George and his detestable brood packed their bags and fled back to Hanover, the fury of the empowered Scots might be turned against those in the Highlands who had rejected Prince Charles and his father as their new monarchs.

  The Macphersons, the Camerons, the Stewarts of Appin, and the Robertsons had all come out strongly in support of Bonnie Prince Charlie. But the Macdonalds of both Sleat and Clanranald and the Macleods of Dunvegan had pitched their flags against him, and there was growing anger and bubbling hatred between the clans.

  So late that night, when she arrived home in the darkness and cold of the November day, she knew to expect a reception that was vastly different from the mood she felt in her heart. Every day recently, she’d returned home to find her mother Annie quietly preparing the stew and her stepfather brooding in the chair by the fire, smoking his pipe and complaining about the stupidity and incompetence of the English. And she wasn’t disappointed this night, even though she had received information that was bursting out of her breast.

  As she opened the door to the house, she was met by both the aroma of cooking and the growing gloom that was now part of her household since the prince’s success in the battle just outside Edinburgh eight weeks before.

  Hugh Macdonald looked up and acknowledged his daughter as she entered the house. She smiled at him, walked over to the fireplace, and kissed her mother’s cheek, glowing from the heat beneath the caldron in which the stew was bubbling. Beside the huge pot was a smaller one in which oatmeal was gently warming.

  Flora bent over and kissed he
r stepfather. “Have you heard any recent news?” she asked, knowing that he wouldn’t have heard of the latest success of the Jacobites. She asked out of respect for the man she so loved.

  Hugh shrugged. “You’d have a better chance of finding out what’s happening than I would, for riders go to Sir Alexander before me,” he said softly. “Have you heard anything today?”

  Flora told her parents, “We did have a rider from Fort William who conversed with Sir Alexander. I don’t know much of what was said, but he did tell Lady Margaret, and she told me a little. It appears that as of yesterday, or maybe the day before, the Highlanders were approaching Manchester and there was little to stop them marching on London.”

  Her father looked at her in amazement. “But they were only just now at Carlisle, just over the English border. The siege . . .”

  She smiled and said, “The siege is ended, father. The Aldermen and Council of Carlisle surrendered after only a few days. The prince is in control of the Castle and now his men are well south of the city. He’s left a small contingent there to ensure the city stays loyal to him, but now there’s nothing to stop him on the road between us and London. He’s going to win, father. We’re going to be free.”

  “You’re wrong, child,” said Hugh. “He may have won Prestonpans and Edinburgh and a few other poorly defended cities, but going to London is folly. I’ve heard that there were furious rows when his council told him as much when they’d just taken Edinburgh. They begged him not to go further. They said that he should remain and consolidate his victories and begin the defense of Scotland against the certainty of English retaliation. But he was so arrogant and certain that God was on his right-hand side that he ignored their advice and he’s marching into the jaws of hell itself, and taking good Scotsmen with him.”

  Flora began to interrupt, but Hugh continued, “The prime minister’s brother, the Duke of Newcastle, is in command of five thousand troops recently returned from Flanders. And King George’s son, the Duke of Cumberland controls that many and more who are even now marching north to meet the prince on the field of battle. Rumour has it that Prince Charles only commands six thousand men, and his commanders, especially General Lord George Murray, have begged him not to be so foolhardy as to try to take London. But he won’t listen even to a man of Murray’s skill, and onward he marches. His supply lines are stretched to breaking point, and there are no crofters in England who’ll supply him with victuals. He’ll have to battle for every mouthful of food and dram of whiskey. It’s madness.”

  But from the timbre of his voice, Flora knew that even though the information her father had was probably correct, his analysis didn’t take into account the certainty that the Catholics of England and Wales and probably Ireland would rise up in a biblical multitude and that thousands and tens of thousands of English Jacobites, who hated the Protestant king, would march to join him. Even if they had pitchforks and pitted themselves against English cavalry and artillery, the huge numbers of Jacobites who were oppressed by the Hanoverians would bring certain victory.

  “But what if he is victorious, father? What will happen to you? To us? How badly will it go for the Macdonalds when a Stuart’s arse sits on the throne in London knowing that we opposed him?”

  Hugh didn’t answer, but reached into the inglenook of the fire and knocked the tobacco from his pipe. He filled it slowly from his jar and lit it from a taper, looking at his anxious daughter and wife all the time. “One thing I promise to you both. Nothing will happen to this family while ever I’m the head of the household. I might have planted an English flag in my garden, but your sentiments are well known. If I have to spend some time in a Glasgow prison for making an error of judgment, then so be it. But the Macdonalds will rally around you and you will want for nothing.”

  It was the first time that Hugh had ever mentioned the prospect of prison. Would that it were the case, Flora wouldn’t have been so concerned for the fate of her family. But she knew just as well as her mother that Hugh, and probably they, would be viewed as a family of traitors, and traitors were hanged if they were lucky. If they weren’t so lucky, they’d also be drawn and quartered. Just like William Wallace. And it wasn’t a prospect she looked forward to.

  THE GEORGE INN, IRON GATE, DERBY

  DECEMBER 4, 1745

  He’d entered the town in the hope of finding those loyal to him. Yet the streets were empty, as though citizens were hiding from an invader rather than a liberator. It had been as Lord George Murray had predicted, yet he’d steadfastly refused to believe what was fast becoming obvious. Nobody, it seemed, had rallied to the call of his campaign. His flag had failed to inspire the Catholic residents of England. Nor had the French or the Welsh come to support him with men, arms, or money.

  Devastated, humiliated, he rode his horse along Iron Bridge Road until he reached the George Inn where he dismounted and entered, followed by his generals, clan leaders, and advisors.

  The innkeeper looked at the sudden arrivals in concern. He’d known that they were heading toward Derby but hoped that they’d continue on to Nottingham, a larger and more important city. But for some reason, they were here, and he was concerned that they might use arms against him. But nothing could have been further from the truth.

  “Landlord, my name is Prince Charles Edward Stuart. My colleagues and I require a private room, food, and drink so that we can discuss certain matters. Might we impose upon your hospitality?”

  Before the innkeeper could answer, the prince took out his purse and tossed two gold Louis onto the table, more than enough to pay for all the food and drink that the party could possibly consume. The landlord welcomed the prince and showed him upstairs to a large room that the town council occasionally used for its deliberations.

  Lord George Murray was about to follow the prince up the stairs and begin the planning of the next section of the campaign, when he felt his arm being held by his aide-de-camp, the Chevalier Johnstone. The chevalier nodded and indicated for his general to remain downstairs for a moment.

  When they were in private, the chevalier whispered in his ear, “General, you must make the prince see reason. To go on without support from the English Jacobites would be madness. It’ll result in our slaughter.”

  Lord Murray nodded. “I know, laddie, but he’s a headstrong young whelp and he stopped listening to my counsel long ago. If he trusted me, he wouldn’t have replaced me as commander in chief after we reached Carlisle.”

  “Because you tried to tell him the truth about the stupidity of marching further into England? But he reinstated you, sir. Surely you still have some influence.”

  The general smiled. “He reinstated me only because the Highland lads wouldn’t serve under a nincompoop like the Duke of Perth. Even Bonnie Charlie realized that if an army has no confidence in its leader, it won’t fight.”

  “But if we continue on to London . . .”

  The young man’s words were drowned out by the prince yelling from the upper floor of the Inn. “Lord George Murray, we’re waiting on you.”

  The war council was about to begin. When he entered the room, he saw that the ten most senior men of the Jacobite army had been gathered, as well as the prince’s political advisors. The mood was somber. Everybody had come to England expecting the Jacobite Catholics to rise up and greet the liberating army with plaudits and flowers and for the menfolk to down their tools, pick up weapons, and march shoulder-to-shoulder with their army. People had spoken of one hundred thousand, even two hundred thousand Englishmen, both Protestant and Catholic, rising up against the hated Hanoverians.

  Yet wherever they rode, the streets and laneways had been empty, and only curious children had come out to see what was happening; and most of these had been dragged back kicking and screeching into their homes.

  A few hundred Manchester men had accreted to the prince’s army while he marched south, but nothing like the thousands and tens of thousands who hid behind their window curtains as he rode past. All had assumed th
at the English disdain, bordering on contempt for the Hanoverians, would cause them to welcome a Stuart return; but it seemed as though the people of England were biding their time, waiting to see which army would be victorious, before they came out in their multitudes and supported the victor.

  As they had passed through Bolton, then Manchester, then along the old Roman road to Derby, the elation of the troops and the confidence of the commanders had ebbed like a tide. They had been given a welcome in Manchester, but it was half-hearted, and more out of fear than admiration. It was as though the guardian angel who had overseen their Scottish triumphs had suddenly withdrawn himself and disappeared when they crossed the English border.

  “Well, gentlemen,” said the prince, trying to sound a great deal more confident and authoritative than he currently felt, “I’ve called this council together because of the growing opposition amongst some of you to my decision to continue marching toward London. This place,” said the prince looking around the upper room of the Inn, “is not particularly conducive to important discussions, and soon we shall move down the road to Exeter House, which is being prepared for our stay tonight and which is more appropriate for our deliberations and the making of battle plans. But before we move on, let us refresh ourselves with English food, wine, and ale in this Inn and speak of the immediate needs of the army. So, gentlemen, your advice please. Let’s hear from the naysayers so that we can eliminate their thoughts and opinions and then go down to Exeter House to discuss our divine project. I beg you to remember that while we might be suffering temporary adversity, our triumphs have been ordained by God Almighty himself, and it is my intention to fulfil his command, which is to restore my father and my family to the throne of England.”

  He looked around, and as he had predicted, while his Scottish generals were downcast, his Irish political advisors were smiling fit to burst.