The Pretender's Lady

by Alan Gold

  Early in their escape, on the first day after his defeat at Culloden Moor, the prince and his followers, ten worthies who still supported his failed mission, stole horses from a laird’s stables and rode pêle-mêle across land for mile after mile, northwest, always northwest; yet a day or two later, after they’d rested and thought themselves free, one of the party would shout in despondence that he had spotted the dread uniform of a scouting party from one of the Duke of Cumberland’s regiments, and again the chase would be on. It was then that they decided to free the horses and travel less conspicuously by foot. Less conspicuous perhaps but a thousand times more arduous and exhausting.

  He had spent his entire life, all twenty-six years of it, being told that he was an émigré from his rightful throne of England and Scotland; but now, for the first time, he wasn’t just an exile and a refugee from his birthright, but a fugitive from his enemy. For the first time in his life, he was a hunted, rather than a haunted man. And he hated the experience.

  They hadn’t eaten since mid-morning the previous day and it was already approaching twilight. They were cold and starving and feeling the effects of weakness. Their packs, full of guns and ammunition rather than food, weighed them down, and so despondent were they that two of the party had already suggested that they attempt to negotiate a surrender rather than continue with the deprivation they were suffering. The idea was quickly squashed, not by the prince, but by Alistair Macdonald who had fought beside him on the battlefield. He’d reminded his companions that the only surrender the Duke of Cumberland would allow was the surrender of each man’s arms, arms followed by legs, followed by his guts, and then followed by his head.

  But more than the rest, Prince Charles Edward Stuart was aware that the price of £30,000 on his head for his capture, dead or alive, was a fortune that no crofter could resist, and so every man they met and who smiled was a potential assassin and confederate of Hanover.

  They came to the ridge of a hill, sweating, filthy, and in utter exhaustion. On the top of the hill, the group threw down their packs and fell in heaps of tartan and sweat, panting like dogs in heat, clawing the air for relief. Although they were starving, their flasks were always full of good clean Scottish mountain water that flowed generously down the braes and into the numerous rivers and streams that lined the land. For a time, the water they guzzled filled their bellies, though soon they knew it would only sharpen their hunger.

  Resting on his elbow, the prince noticed one of the strongest lads in the group, Strachan Macleod, standing and looking through his spy glass at the distant hills both from where they’d come, and where they were going. The young man looked down at the prince and said, “No sign of the bastards, Your Highness. I think this time we might very well have outrun them.”

  Alistair Macdonald, lying on his back to control the fierce aches in his legs, laughed and said, “No chance, man. Just because you can’t see them, it doesn’t mean they’re not there. They’ll always be there until we get the Bonnie Prince out of Scotland and back to France where he’ll be safe and then the damned duke will return to London and turn his back on us and remember that his real enemies are the French and the Spaniards.”

  “Maybe so,” said Strachan, turning a half circle and looking ahead to where they were going, “but there’s a group of crofter’s huts in the valley below. And there’s light in their windows and smoke rising from their chimneys.”

  “And with a king’s ransom on the prince’s head, we can’t afford to risk alerting anybody to his presence,” said the Macdonald.

  “Then I shall stay here, and you men go and beg for food and shelter. It’s wrong that you are all suffering because of me,” said the prince, his voice harsh in the early evening air from the exhaustion of the day.

  “Go boil your head, Charlie,” said the Macdonald. Good-natured impertinence had become a way of salvation in the hardships they were all suffering. “If a group of men wearing different tartans descend on an isolated farm, do you not think the owners might suspect that we’re escapees from Culloden Moor? Of course, the news might not have reached these parts yet, so they could just take us for thieves and robbers and cutthroats, which would be less profitable than the ransom, but far more terrifying. No, lads, we cannot go down into the valley and beg.”

  “Then we’re doomed to starve,” said another.

  “Not if one of us goes and spies out the feelings of the farmer. He surely couldn’t be frightened of just one man, could he?” asked the prince.

  “In these parts, Highness, one man traveling alone isn’t a curiosity; it’s a threat. No, I say that two men go down and talk to the farmer. Two is the right number because it means companionship. Then if the farmer is hostile, we’ll know to stay away.”

  Whether or not it was a good plan, everybody was too exhausted to argue, and so Alistair Macdonald roused himself and took another man and disappeared down into the valley, singing a traditional Scottish Highlands song at the top of their voices as they went in order to warn the farmer long in advance of their arrival and to show him and his family that they weren’t creeping up on him with ill-intent in the middle of the night.

  The prince and his men lay low in the heather and watched anxiously from the top of the hill as their two companions ran and walked down to where the farmer’s buildings were situated. There were five buildings altogether, spread out over the valley floor. They were beside a stream at the western most end of a long, narrow, and beautiful loch into which the stream flowed. The buildings were made of wood, although the farmer’s house was larger than usual and made of stone; its thatched roof had recently been repaired. Cattle grazed the hillside and a dozen or so deer were penned up in an enclosure.

  And the prince waited and waited as the light waned and his hopes fell. They’d been inside the house for the better part of half an hour and there was no sign that any movement was taking place. The prince and his men waited in silence, their breath baited in anticipation of a warm bed and maybe some food.

  And then the door of the house was flung open, and Alistair Macdonald strode out as though he was the owner himself. He stood there enveloped in the light, scratching his belly, and laughed. The tall Highlander cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted into the hills, “Come down lads. We’re among loyal friends here. There’s food and drink and a fire to sleep beside. Come down immediately.”

  An hour later, the prince and his companions were crowded into the home of the farmer and owner of the valley and hills in Altnaharra in the northernmost reaches of Scotland. Much further north and they’d come to the end of the country with only the Orkney Islands to stop them from falling over the edge of the world. The home belonged to David Mackay, a spare and tall man in his mid-forties with an honest and windblown face, who had farmed the land like his father and grandfather before him, all of his life. A Catholic, a Jacobite, and a man who detested being ruled from London, he welcomed the prince with respect and sympathy for his losses.

  Ingrid Mackay, red-faced from the unexpected heat in the room and the sudden additional cooking, and pregnant with their seventh child, served the ravenous men griddle and oatmeal cakes along with recently brewed ale and thick slices from a haunch of venison that had been curing in the smoke house for the past three weeks. Still hungry, they ate some salmon that David had caught the previous day and that he had intended to smoke as a celebration for the birth of his next child. But there would be plenty more fish in the river.

  After an hour of ribaldry, laughter, and relief, when the food and ale and wine had been drunk and for the first time in well over a week the prince and his party felt both comfortable and relaxed, David Mackay asked simply, “How long do you think the ravages will continue, sir?”

  The prince took the pipe out of his mouth and looked at the innocent Scotsman. “Ravages?”

  “The duke’s ravages.”

  The prince shook his head. His team of supporters, clustered around the fire on chairs and on the floor, looked at the f
armer.

  “Since your loss on the battlefield south of Inverness, the duke’s army has been marauding through all of Scotland. Stories are being told of massacres of innocents. People say that the English soldiers are killing anybody they see on the roads. Men, women, and children. They’re dragging people out of their beds, out of their houses and killing them if they suspect they’ve been supporting your campaign. Have you not heard?”

  The prince felt his body slacken in shock. He looked around and saw the mask of horror on his companion’s faces. He shook his head again.

  “They say tell that hundreds and hundreds of Scotsmen have been murdered in revenge for your assault on London. It’s said that the rivers and lochs of Scotland are running red with the blood of its people. And you’ve heard nothing of this?”

  Softly, the prince said, “We’ve been on the road. We’ve been escaping the . . .” But he couldn’t finish his words. Instead, he looked again at his companions who were equally speechless, and muttered, “Dear God Almighty, what have I done?”

  THE PALACE OF ST. JAMES, LONDON

  APRIL 27, 1746

  “Everyone?”

  “Everyone!”

  “Even those who were loyal to your majesty?”

  “Of course not, Mr. Pelham. Only those Highlanders who dared to raise their hands against my royal person. Only them, and also those in the Lowlands who are sympathetic to their cause. They rose against me, Mr. Pelham. They must suffer the consequences.”

  “But Majesty, these are tens of thousands of Scotsmen. Your subjects. A whole nation. Surely you don’t intend . . .”

  “Did not the Israelites destroy the Philistines?”

  “The Philistine army perhaps, sir, but not the Philistine women and children. When the Romans conquered ancient Israel, they killed those who fought against them, but the rest of the population wasn’t killed. Their lives were spared.”

  “Perhaps,” said the king, “but the Romans expelled all of the population and left the ancient land barren and denuded of people. And that’s what I intend to do to Scotland. Those who fought in the Pretender’s army, who dared to raise a hand against me, their wives, and their children will be banished. Remember, Mr. Pelham, that the children of Israel were taken as slaves and spread throughout the entire Roman world. We won’t kill women and children, sir, just enslave them.”

  Pelham stared at the king open-mouthed. “I . . . but . . .”

  The king smiled. “My court composer, Herr Handel, is already working hard on an anthem to celebrate my victory. He’s calling it ‘See the Conquering Hero Come,’ and he’s basing it on some theme or other of the Bible. So you see, Mr. Pelham, that I’m not unfamiliar with the currents of history. Our defeat of the Scots will resound forever as our greatest glory.”

  “Glory, Sire, should be celebrated both in victory on the field of battle and in the magnanimity with which the defeated are used.”

  King George II shrugged, already bored with his prime minister’s ministrations. “I’m using these traitors very well, letting the women and children be saved and deported. Let them be sent to America, or moved from the Highlands of Scotland to the coast where they can pick up crabs and fish. But those men who are not executed as traitors will vacate their farms and the lords will be stripped of their titles and the clans will be disbanded and that will be an end of it. Scotland will never raise its hand against me and England again.”

  “But sir, following such a great and glorious victory, this surely isn’t the time for vengeance; now, when your Scottish subjects are at their lowest ebb, is the time to show nobility of spirit, to demonstrate to the world the greatness of a greater Britain . . .” said the prime minister, but he was silenced by the Duke of Cumberland who sprang up from his chair behind his father.

  The young man walked toward the front of the plinth. Since his return, he had become emboldened, and he spoke his mind much more freely on matters of governance and politics.

  “Magnanimity? Nobility of spirit? Come now, Mr. Pelham, what magnanimity or nobility would the Pretender have shown to my father or my family? What high-mindedness would this upstart Italian have exhibited to the citizens of London? There would have been a slaughter and butchery on an unprecedented scale. The streets of London would have run red with Protestant blood. Which is why we must now be firm and show our resolve and prove to the Scottish and Irish and Welsh people the folly of raising an army against England. The ringleaders will be put on trial. My men are at this moment scouring the landscape and arresting the clan leaders and traitors who supported the Pretender; they are being rounded up and caged and will be brought to trial for English justices to have their way with them. And I shall take great delight when they are executed, all of them.”

  “Trials, yes, Gentlemen,” said Pelham, “but slaughter of innocents . . . I beg you. These aren’t biblical times, Your Majesties. Women and children?”

  “You weren’t there, Mr. Pelham. You didn’t see the men I faced on Culloden Moor. They were wild and fearless and had the look of madman in their eyes. These were less men than animals. And even though they have been beaten, they are not yet bowed. So for our victory to be complete, Mr. Pelham, the Scottish Highlanders and their leaders must be broken. Their spirit must be destroyed. Their ability to govern themselves must be nullified forever. The rule of the Scottish lairds will be replaced henceforth and for all times by the rule of His Majesty King George and all his successors.”

  The prime minister was about to say something, but remained silent as the Duke of Cumberland continued, “And you, Mr. Pelham, will introduce forthwith into the Parliament a Disarming Act that will forbid the carrying and concealment of all arms and armaments. The broadsword and claymore will become illegal weapons. Further, the wearing of the Highland kilt, tartan, and plaid must henceforth be prohibited except if worn by a regiment in the service of the English Crown. I would further advise you, sir, that you should introduce an additional parliamentary act that will force all Scotsmen and women to take an oath of loyalty to His Majesty King George and to imprison those who refuse, to suppress Scotsmen meeting and gathering in numbers greater than five, and that any mention of the name Stuart shall be considered an act of treason against the Crown. As of this moment, the Celtic way of life is lost and gone forever. From now on, there is no more Scotland, only England.”

  Furious at the impertinence of the young man’s interference in the governance of realm, Pelham hissed, “And is there any other measure Your Highness would wish me to impose? Sow the Scottish soil with salt, perhaps? Erect a hundred foot high impenetrable barrier on top of Hadrian’s wall between England and Scotland?”

  King George answered softly, “My son is currently the hero of England, Mr. Pelham. He is cheered wherever he goes. You, on the other hand, are seen to have been effete, indifferent, and powerless in the face of the enemy. The people have no love for you, yet they have both love and respect for my son, the Duke of Cumberland. After all, it was he who saved us from the Pretender, not Parliament and certainly not you. He asks for little, other than the security of my people to sleep soundly in their beds, safe in the knowledge that no more harm will come to them from the Scots. What he asks is little enough. Do it, Mr. Pelham, or you might have to consider your own future very carefully.”

  Some of the ladies in the court tapped their fans on their hands in support of the king’s stand against the prime minister. But it evoked a surprising and brutal response from the king.

  “Who in this room dares to comment upon my conversation with my prime minister,” he shouted. The court abruptly became silent, ladies and gentlemen looking in shock as the king rose from his throne. Everybody dropped to their knees and bowed or curtsied in obeisance as the king stood before them.

  “Which one of you dares applaud when I remind the prime minister of his duty to the people? Nobody in my court will comment ever again on matters political. You, all of you . . .” he said, pointing to the entire room, “were the first
to scurry like sheep at the first sign of danger from the Pretender. Where were you when he was only a week’s journey from here? Eh? Where were you? You’d all run like frightened dogs cowering in your country homes, leaving me and my son the duke, to fight the enemy alone. I, your king, was left alone in this court to plan the strategy that would save this realm. Alone, my good lords and ladies. Not a one of you stood beside me.

  “And now you come back here when I and my son have faced down the Pretender’s army single handed, risking our own lives and those of our commanders and brave men who fought beside us, and you walk around the court as though nothing had happened.

  “Well let me tell you fine ladies and gentlemen of my court, that your king will not forget your cowardice. We will not forget this empty audience hall at the moment of our greatest peril, when I was all alone to determine the course of the coming battle. I will never forget the sight of my empty audience chamber when I and my son stood alone here to face the barbarians from Scotland.

  “So there will be no more applause or comments from any of you. Is that understood? You can all return to your homes and mansions as far as I’m concerned, and I’ll surround myself with honest and noble men and women who don’t desert their king at the first sign of trouble.”

  He sat down, his face flushed. Two of the ladies in the middle of the audience chamber fainted into the arms of their husbands. But the majority stared hard at the floor, too ashamed even to look each other in the eyes.

  ARMADALE ON THE ISLAND OF SKYE IN THE OUTER HEBRIDES

  MAY 5, 1746

  It was while she was stirring the caldron and adding oats and extra water to thin out the stew that the idea became a reality. As she stirred, her mind thought and thought but couldn’t come up with an adequate image. It was then she determined that she had to see in order to understand.