The Pretender's Lady

by Alan Gold

  They walked further up the jetty, and under the suspicious glances of the troopers, Alan whispered to her, “Flora darling, cling to my arm and stare into my eyes, as though you were devoted to me. Make them think that we’re just a young couple in love.”

  She smiled and whispered back, “Darling, you’re now my fiancé, which means that as far as anybody is concerned, we are just a young couple in love.”

  At the end of the jetty was a horse and trap with the driver ready to transport any who needed to reach a particular part of the Island. He recognized Flora, though he didn’t know Alan.

  “It’s Mistress Macdonald, daughter of old Annie Macdonald, isn’t it?” he shouted to her.

  “It is indeed, David, and it’s good to see you,” she said. “And enough of the ‘old Annie.’ My mother is ten years younger than you, and I wouldn’t call you old.”

  He burst out laughing and got down from his trap in order to help them in while the troopers listened keenly.

  “And who’s the bonnie lad with you? Is he your lover?” asked David.

  “Lover and soon to be husband.”

  Because he was dressed like an Islander in a Macdonald tartan, and because it was obvious that he was not a bewigged and powdered Italian Prince, the troopers paid them no further attention, and Alan and Flora walked across the road and climbed up into the trap to be driven from the southeastern harbor of the island to her family home in the baile of Milton.

  As the engaged couple stepped off the trap and paid David for his trouble, her brother Angus came out of the croft and looked at Flora as though she had just descended from heaven. She knew that her visit was both unannounced and unexpected, but from the look on his face, it seemed as though he’d been struck in the private parts by a club.

  “But how in God’s name did you get here so quickly? The boat only left for Skye this morning. How did you know?”

  “Know?” she asked.

  “To come here?”

  She looked at him as though he was crazy. “What are you talking about Angus?”

  “You’re here because I sent for Hugh to come urgently.”

  “You sent for father?”

  Angus nodded.

  “In God’s name, why?”

  But before he answered, Angus looked at Alan Macdonald and his brow creased. “Who is this gentleman?”

  Flora introduced her fiancé, and the two men shook hands. Angus hugged and kissed his sister, and invited the two into his small but comfortable home. Elizabeth had already come to the doorway when she heard the sound of voices, and she hugged her sister-in-law, curtsied when introduced to Alan, and invited them inside for ale and griddlecakes.

  The conversation was kept deliberately light, ranging from wedding plans to the prospect of the traditional tour of the mainland they would take after the wedding, to where and when the young couple had first met, but both Flora and Angus were keen to expand on the earlier part of their exchange. The unspoken glances that ranged between brother and sister told Angus not to discuss that which was most pressing on his mind, but after they’d eaten and drunk, he suggested that Flora accompany him outside to meet the children on their return from the local schoolhouse.

  When they were finally alone and barely out of the croft’s pathway, Flora said urgently, “Now what on earth were you talking about when we first arrived? You’ve sent for father? Why?”

  Angus said softly, “I thought you’d come because you’d received the message I sent for Hugh to come here over the sea from Skye?”

  “What message?” she asked. “What’s so urgent?”

  “The island is full of English troopers . . .”

  “I know. All Scotland’s full of the damnable English. When we landed, we saw a party of them. What’s afoot?”

  Although they were completely alone and out of anybody’s earshot, he still whispered, “The prince is here.”

  Flora looked at Angus in shock. “Here? On Uist?”

  Her brother nodded. She felt her face flush with excitement and her heartbeat as though she was a young, lovesick girl. Her reaction embarrassed her.

  “If he’s caught,” said Angus, “it’ll be a disaster. The English are murdering Scotsmen on the mainland, and now General Campbell has come over to search the Island for him. If they find him here, they’ll believe that we’re party to harboring him, which will give them an excuse to murder every man, woman and child on Uist. It’ll be a slaughter just as it is in the Highlands yonder.”

  “But why have you sent for father? You must know that he’s in charge of the Skye Militia. He’s sworn an oath to find and capture the prince. Other than you, I’m the only one in the family who believes in the Jacobite cause.”

  Angus shook his head. “Hugh puts the lives of Scotsmen above his duty to London. I’ve asked him to come here so that he can help me get the prince off Uist before the English find him.”

  “I must meet him,” Flora insisted.

  Angus laughed. “He’s in hiding on the western coast. Word has it that he arrived three evenings ago in the belief that the English wouldn’t look for him on Uist. But I think he’s been betrayed by someone on the mainland, because early yesterday morning, a regiment of English troopers arrived, and now they’re scouring the Island.”

  “Where is he?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. I’ve been told that if I want to get word to him, I’m to go to a cliff-top and light a damp fire. The smoke will indicate that those loyal to him want to meet him. Then he’ll find us. That’s all I know, and all I can tell you.”

  They walked on in silence until Angus, somewhat diffidently, asked, “What will your fiancé’s reaction be if he learns the news? I couldn’t mention it inside the house until I was sure.”

  She smiled. “He’s not a Jacobite, but Alan is a loyal Scotsman and hates the Butcher Duke for what he’s doing on the mainland. He’ll never countenance such a thing happening on Skye or Uist. He’ll raise a sword in defiance of the English when he understands what it is that you’ve just told me. I know him well enough to be certain of that.”

  THE HEADQUARTERS OF THE DUKE OF CUMBERLAND FORT WILLIAM, SCOTLAND

  JUNE 15, 1746

  It had stood for more than half a century, withstanding the wild Highlands weather, the hatred by the indigenous Scots who surrounded it, and most lately an assault by the Pretender who had failed to breach its thick stone walls. Now it was at the epicenter of the battle to destroy the last vestiges of Scottish manhood. It had become the headquarters of the hunt for the man who would be king of England and Scotland and who, if reports were to be believed, was hiding like a terrified and beaten cur in the thistles and thickets of Scotland. In a land with so many caves and rocky inlets, of lochs and hideaways, of thick forests and Catholic bolt-holes, it was no wonder that the scoundrel had so far managed to evade capture, always a step ahead of the duke’s troopers.

  But for the first time in three months, it was likely that General Campbell had him well and truly cornered. He’d made the fatal mistake of leaving the mainland for one of the islands, and that meant it was a simple task of building a cordon around the coast of naval vessels to interdict every ship and boat that sailed to and from the place, land a battalion of troops on the island, and march north to south until the rat had been driven from his nest. Then he’d be tethered, hauled in irons to London, given a fair trial for the treasonous cur he was, and hanged, drawn and quartered.

  The Duke of Cumberland couldn’t restrain a grin when he thought of the suitability of the penalty he had in mind for the traitor. Hanging, drawing and quartering had been introduced by Edward Longshanks in 1283 in punishment for the rebellion of the Welsh and two decades later he’d order the punishment used against the traitorous Scotsman William Wallace, another who had pretensions above his station; now King Edward’s successor, albeit separated by nearly five centuries, was about to use it against another traitor to England.

  An irritating high-pitched voice, like an ann
oying fly, drew the Duke of Cumberland back to the present. He was sitting in the cramped offices of the commander of the Fort, a certain Major Edward Dalziel, an affable if rather stupid and sycophantic young man, unsuited to any position of military command, yet who was here in control of the fort because his father had purchased the commission for a very high price and was probably telling his London friends about his son’s sparkling career in the defense of England.

  “Mr. Dalziel,” said the duke, “kindly tell me why you think that the prince is no longer in Scotland, but is in France.”

  “Well, sir, Your Royal Highness, I mean, really, he is a prince after all, and a prince can hardly be expected to live like a vagabond and a footpad and a highwayman for all these months. He has some pride, after all, doesn’t he, Your Highness. What say! Where are his servants, his retinue, his privy, and those facilities which all Princes require? No, sir, I don’t think that any Prince could remain in such inhospitable circumstances for so long. Which is why I think that many months ago, in the dead of night, the king of France sent a ship which picked him up and now he’s in Paris, licking his wounds from the thrashing you gave him at Culloden Moor. That’s what I think, sir.”

  “And your evidence?”

  The young man hesitated, smelling a trap. “Well, I mean, he is a prince after all, ain’t he.”

  The Duke of Cumberland remained silent, wondering how long he should continue to be polite to such an idiot when he should be in the field leading his men from the front.

  “Major, I too am a Prince. My father is a king. And if I’d lost a battle and was being chased by an enemy, I’d be jolly certain that I’d avoid capture, even if it meant sleeping on the bare earth with brambles for my pillow. You see, Major, the French king could not have sent a ship to spirit the Pretender away, because my navy has had these waters under scrutiny for a year now, ever since we had word of the prince’s intentions, and there have been no sightings of any French, or Spanish ship sent to transport him to safety. And I might remind you that the prince has been sighted many times in the past few weeks, most recently on the roads approaching the Islands of the Outer Hebrides, which is where General Campbell is currently lifting every rock and searching every cranny for him. So thank you for your unsolicited advice, but I suggest that you return to your duties, and let me attend to mine,” said the duke.

  Unaware that he’d been reprimanded, the young major saluted, and before he left, said, “It was a pleasure to have tried to assist Your Highness. I shall write and tell my father of the conversation. He’ll be most impressed that I’ve been discussing such important matters with one of your standing.”

  As the young man closed the door and left the duke alone, Cumberland determined that as the commander in chief of England’s fighting forces and as the son of the king, he must do something more to improve the lack of professionalism of the army. He’d done much training of those men under his command, but other commanders simply thrust rifles and muskets into enlisted men’s hands and told them to go forth into battle. No! Something must be done to raise the standard of the fighting man if England was to gain preeminence in Europe.

  The navy was different, for there were some very able and experienced officers commanding England’s fleet and because ships were at sea for so long, with barely anything for the men to do other than repair equipment and swab decks, training on board was ongoing. But the army was the home and plaything of far too many men like the idiotic Major who were the second or third sons of the aristocracy of England and whose purchased commissions equipped them neither to command nor to fight. Men like the major were hampering England’s ability both to defend itself, and to field a proper fighting force in France or wherever they were needed.

  Before Culloden, he had taken personal command of the artillery and dragoons, and had trained and drilled them to a peak of performance, working out new and efficient methods of using bayonets and of rapid rifle fire and much more. A few years ago, a Royal Military Academy had been established at the Royal Artillery Depot in Woolwich in London with the intention of training good Officers of Artillery and Perfect Engineers, but nobody had yet emerged from the Academy capable of going into the field. And until such time as they were available to him, the duke would have to put up with rich, feckless, and useless nincompoops like the major.

  He was disturbed by a knock on the door.

  “Enter,” he commanded.

  A dispatch rider opened the door diffidently, saluted, and gave the duke a vellum pouch sealed with the wax stamp of General Campbell. He waited for the man to leave before he opened it and withdrew its contents. He read the dispatch from General Campbell quickly, noting that it had been written earlier that morning. When he’d finished, he swore an oath. So the prince was still at large, despite the northwestern fringes of the Island of Uist having been searched thoroughly. The general pointed out, and begged the duke to understand, that the Island’s coast was a mass of caves and inlets and the sea’s waves made it utterly impossible for his soldiers to search every possible hiding place of the Pretender, especially if he were in the hands of friendly locals who knew the ins and outs of the Island.

  However, General Campbell assured the duke that he was continuing the search and would not desist until the traitor was captured and presented to him for arraignment. In the meantime, the general wrote, he hoped that the duke was pleased with the fact that he’d given stark warning to the citizenry of the island of the dangers of hiding the fugitive by parading two men from one of the northern villages before all of the inhabitants, and hanging them in the Common, just to make an example of them.

  The duke smiled and nodded, especially when the general wrote and told him that the effect was immediate and salutary, and he believed that a few more hangings might just turn the balance of the population’s favor against the prince.

  THE TOWN (BAILE) OF MILTON THE ISLAND OF SOUTH UIST IN THE OUTER HEBRIDES

  JUNE 20, 1746

  Hugh Macdonald, his stepson Angus, Alan Macdonald, and three other men from different villages in South Uist, along with Flora Macdonald who had insisted she would not be left behind, waited and waited in the high moorland, a grassy duneland that was dominated by the shadow of the mighty Beinn Mhor, whose peak was hidden in the cloud of a coming rainstorm. They had been waiting since an hour after sunrise and would wait, carefully concealed from English and treasonous Scottish eyes, until nightfall. There was nervousness among the party, for news had been given to them the previous day of the hanging of two innocent men in a northern village. It was a warning, which they had taken to heart.

  The previous day, white smoke from a fire lit on a western sea-wall cliff face had alerted the prince and his party to the need for a meeting. A certain Alistair Macdonald had emerged from the woods late in the morning to where the fire had been lit, and after determining the honesty of those who sought the meeting, agreed to bring the prince to a high plateau on the eastern foothills of mighty Beinn Mhor the following day.

  Waiting for the prince’s party, the six men had hidden themselves in the duneland to keep from the prying eyes of both General Campbell’s ever-present troopers and of islanders who wanted the prince gone so they could return to the safety of their previous existence. For her part, Flora could barely restrain herself. Hugh had at first refused to take her with, telling her that it was no place for a woman. Alan Macdonald, skeptical at first of helping the Jacobite, but then convinced by Hugh that the prince had to be returned to France to prevent any further bloodshed like the execution of the two islanders, agreed that Flora must stay at home and endanger neither herself nor the party.

  It was only Angus who argued on her part, saying that she was the only loyal supporter of the Jacobite cause, and as such she was more entitled to be there than any of them. And so the others had agreed to her accompanying them, provided she remain in the background and didn’t make her opinions known. Furious at the overbearing treatment she was delivered, Flora nonetheless bit h
er tongue and agreed to their terms just in order to accompany them.

  Hidden in the tall bracken, and cut off from the sight of the road by stands of trees, the party spied every approach to where they were lying in anticipation of the prince’s arrival. It was the middle of the day before Angus whispered, “There’s movement out of the northwest. Coming across the field. I can’t see for certain, but whoever it is doesn’t wear trooper’s uniforms.”

  Everybody remained lying in the heather and bracken until Angus confirmed that it was a party of five men. “It could be the prince,” he said. “They’re not standing, but crouching over the moorland and being very cautious in the way they’re walking here.”

  It took a further half an hour for the two parties to finally come together. When they did, they viewed each other from a distance with caution, standing apart and simply staring. Neither wanted to admit their identity for fear of treachery until Flora Macdonald, hidden from view, pushed past her fiancé and walked boldly forward to the front line. She stood, legs firmly apart, facing the newcomers and said simply, “My name is Flora Macdonald. Which one of you worthies is the Prince of the Stuarts?”

  Beaming a smile, the Pretender also stepped forward, knowing that no traitors would bring a woman to a betrayal. He held out his hand and said gently, “My dear Miss Macdonald, I have the honor of introducing myself to you. I am the man you seek. My name is Charles Edward Louis John Casimir Sylvester Maria, Prince of the Stuarts. I say this to prove I’m not an imposter, for no actor could possibly remember such a name.”