The Pretender's Lady

by Alan Gold

  Suddenly, she was alone on an English ship with a captain surrounded by four midshipmen, all looking at her as though she was some exotic beast from an African jungle.

  “Well, Mistress Macdonald. What’s to do, eh? You’ve been a very naughty girl, from what I’m told.”

  “Captain, I’m nearly three months gone in my pregnancy and I’m very tired from a long march. I’ve had neither food nor drink of anything worth mentioning. I wonder, in the name of common decency, whether I might sit down and rest.”

  The ship’s captain looked at her belly and frowned. “Dear God, ma’am, did the officer of the guard not know of your delicacy?”

  “He did. And it was of no concern to him.”

  The captain turned to an elderly midshipman and said, “Escort the prisoner to a cabin below and make her comfortable. Get the galley to provide her with good food and ale. Get to it, man.”

  Flora made herself as comfortable as possible and was grateful for the food and drink. It had refreshed her, but her legs still ached. Carrying a bairn in her belly caused her legs to swell up at the slightest thing, and a long forced walk had made them ache and throb unbearably.

  There was a knock on the door. The captain walked in and said, “Ma’am, my name is Captain Squires. You are aboard the HMS Furnace, and we are charged with taking you to Dunstaffnage Castle in Oban. It’s a short journey and we leave on the evening tide. Our route will take us due south and we’ll pass between Ardnamurchan and the Isle of Coll before shifting course westwards to round the Isle of Mull and then into the Firth of Lorn, where I’ll hand you over to the Governor of Oban who will escort you to Dunstaffnage. We’ll arrive by mid-morning Thursday, God willing.”

  “But why am I arrested, Captain Squires? I have been told nothing and I am in a delicate condition and greatly afraid for my safety and that of my baby.”

  He shouldn’t discuss it with her, but she was so young and attractive and in her condition, bearing in mind that she’d soon be examined by an English tribunal, he couldn’t see the harm in telling her what the indictment sheet said. “They say that you’ve aided and abetted the escape of the Pretender, Charles Stuart. Two fishermen from Skye apparently overheard talk that you had guided the traitor prince and helped him evade capture. He has now left Skye on a French cutter and escaped punishment, much to the consternation of His Royal Highness, the Duke of Cumberland. Anybody who assisted the traitor in evading capture and punishment is treated as a traitor him . . . or herself. That’s all I can tell you, Mistress Macdonald. That’s all I know.”

  And it was all that Flora needed to know. For from this moment onward, she knew that her life was forfeit to the whim of the Butcher of Cumberland, and judging by the way in which he was murdering Scots men and women, her neck would soon be stretched to breaking point.

  She burst into tears and buried her head in her hands. Suddenly she felt horribly nauseous. But this time, it wasn’t morning sickness.

  DUNSTAFFNAGE CASTLE NEAR OBAN, NORTH WEST SCOTLAND

  SEPTEMBER 17, 1746

  “You, ma’am, have aided and abetted the escape of the rascal Charles, a man who murdered hundreds of English and Scotsmen, a man who waged unprovoked and unpremeditated war against us. You, ma’am, have acted in a traitorous fashion to King George and the English crown. You, Mistress Macdonald, will be taken to the Tower of London to await your trial, and once found guilty as you undoubtedly will be, then you will be hanged, drawn, and quartered. Is that clear to you, Mistress Macdonald?”

  Her hands were tied roughly behind her back and the harsh wooden chair was causing her backside to become numb. She had been listening to General Campbell threaten and demand incessantly for the past two days, letting up only to allow her to eat and sleep and attend to her ablutions in her filthy cell. But all she’d ever said to him and the officers who relieved him to ask her precisely the same questions, was that she had never met Prince Charles, that her father and fiancé were loyal members of the militia of Skye who supported the king of England, and that the two fishermen who had implicated her had made a mistake.

  “A mistake, eh, Mistress Macdonald? A mistake? But this mistake was made by two sober gentlemen who observed you in a field with another person who walked like a man. These two loyal gentlemen then followed you and your so-called female companion to your home in Armadale on the southern part of Skye, where your female companion suddenly disappeared. Never to be seen again. And these two loyal gentlemen, alerted no doubt by the very considerable bounty on the head of the traitor prince, wondered whether this so-called lady might very well be a certain gentleman in disguise. Eh, Miss Macdonald. What do you have to say to that?” demanded General Campbell.

  “As I’ve told you, sir, a hundred times, that lady was my maid and seamstress, Betty Burke, who left my house after we returned safely, and took ship to Ireland where she lives. It’s no wonder that she walks in a mannish way, because she’s elderly and has lost her youthful agility. She’s also stricken with an arthritic leg which makes her ungainly. And she’s an ugly person as well. But she’s a marvelous seamstress and makes wonderful dresses. She will return to my service from her visit to Ireland in a month or so, when you can speak to her and examine her yourself. Why in God’s name don’t you believe me?”

  “And why,” he screamed, standing and tipping over his desk and the carafe of wine, “do you persist in your lies and falsehoods. Admit the truth, suffer a year or two in prison, and return to your home. Continue to lie and prevaricate, and I’ll have no alternative but to ship you to London and have you incarcerated in the Tower which, for a lady in your condition, is a fate worse than death itself.

  “What can I say, General Campbell, which will make you believe me?”

  But he didn’t answer. He stormed out of the room and barked an instruction. Having failed to break her spirit, he relished the thought of what the torturers in the Tower of London could do to her.

  He smiled when he saw her approaching, walking in the middle of two bodies of troopers, but the closer she came to him, the less pleased he was by the look of her. She was wan, exceedingly drawn and looked exhausted. Captain Squires immediately ordered her to be assisted up the gangplank and a barrel to be unlashed and moved to the foredeck to make a seat for her to rest.

  “Good God, Miss Macdonald. What did they do to you?”

  She sat and smiled at Captain Squires. Although she was on her way to the Tower of London, it would be a good many days before they reached the Thames and she hoped that the sea voyage would do her good. “They treated me as though I were a traitor, Captain, whereas all I am is a woman of the Highlands who is loyal to the king. A terrible mistake has been made, sir, and I am the victim of a great miscarriage of justice.”

  He shook his head in concern. “If you continue like this, ma’am, I fear that will not be the only miscarriage for which you’ll be the victim. For God’s sake, does nobody care that you’re a lady carrying a child? Has everybody gone mad in this action against the Prince Stuart? Have we lost our common decency?”

  He ordered Flora to be brought food and drink. “I shall have a cabin prepared for you, ma’am. I’m ordered by General Campbell to keep you in the brig under lock and key, but I’m the captain of this ship, and once we put to sea, not even a general can order me to do something with which I disagree. You will be given free range while you are on board, ma’am, provided I have your word as a lady that you’ll not attempt to escape.”

  She smiled. “If you think in my condition I can escape from a ship ten miles offshore, you have a greatly exaggerated opinion of my abilities, Captain Squires. No, sir, there will be no attempts by me. Indeed, when I get to the Tower and I’m put on trial, I shall appeal to the sense of fairness of the British judiciary and pray for a just hearing.”

  “God grant you that, ma’am. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a ship to prepare for the long haul south to the Thames. We’ll be rounding Land’s End and the English Channel in six days, as we have t
o call in at Liverpool and Bristol. Then it’s into the English Channel, round at Margate and into the Thames Estuary beyond the Isle of Sheppey. With a good morning tide, I’ll deliver you to the gates of the Tower of London and to the mercy of His Royal Highness, the Duke of Cumberland.”

  “Captain Squires. I wonder, sir, if I might impose upon your good nature. Since I was arrested and incarcerated in Dunstaffnage Castle, my family has heard nothing of my fate. There could be few things more vexing for a family than not knowing if their beloved is alive or dead. I have a fiancé and I’m bearing his child. Would it be possible, sir, for a message to be delivered to them, telling that I’m on my way to the Tower and that they mustn’t worry about me?”

  He looked at her and said loudly for everybody to hear, “Don’t be absurd, woman. Of course, I won’t deliver your message. You’re a traitor and a scoundrel.”

  Taken aback, she stared in incomprehension at the captain, who took something out of his pocket and accidentally dropped it on the deck. As he bent to pick it up, he whispered into her ear, “Forgive me, ma’am. There are tattletales everywhere these days. Write your message quickly before the high tide, and I’ll give it to a messenger before we sail. But know that it’s worth more than my life if I’m discovered.”

  She breathed a sigh of relief and avoided the captain’s eyes, knowing that smiling at him or offering him thanks would garner suspicion. A moment ago, nobody in the entire world knew of Flora’s fate or where she was being taken, other than her enemies.

  Since her sudden arrest, she had become a woman without a name, a prisoner without an identity, like one of the masses who lay in the wastes of the Highlands, dead from the Butcher’s sword and whose existence would disappear forever from the annals of mankind, remembered by nobody as though he had never existed.

  It was not the fate for which Flora believed she had been born. But it was the fate that she now accepted would be her death. Still, now at least, thanks to the kindness of an English sea captain, even though her life would pass unnoticed by everybody but her family, at least her mother and father, her brother and his family, and dearest Alan Macdonald, would know about her fate.

  LEICESTER HOUSE, LONDON

  SEPTEMBER 24, 1746

  Frederick, the Prince of Wales, heir to the thrones of King George II of England and Hanover, listened carefully to what was being said to him. He asked Lord Milius to repeat the narration again so that he could savor every word. He could barely resist smiling and clapping his hands. It was just too, too delicious.

  A pregnant Scottish woman had helped the young Prince Charles to escape and now she was being bundled into the dank and drear Tower of London to await her fate at the hands of his young, impetuous, and brutal brother, the Duke of Cumberland. The very thought of it delighted him so completely that his wife Augusta of Saxe-Gotha whispered to him “Liebchen, you’re shouting.”

  “And do we know any details about this young woman?” asked the Prince of Wales.

  “Only, sir, that she is a resident of Skye and an honorable young lady. She is said to be very handsome in that crude and rural Scottish Highlands sort of a way; you know what I mean, sir—windblown hair, ruddy cheeks, watery eyes, no perfume or cosmetics to defeat her natural body odors. Yet from accounts which my spies in your brother’s service have told me, she’s comely and strikingly good looking with a healthy glow from a sea voyage and her time sitting on the god-forsaken rocks of that outpost of civilization.

  “But her treatment following her arrest by General Campbell caused great consternation when the news reached the island of Skye, both because she is a woman of impeccable character, well beloved on the Island, who was summarily arrested on the advice of two scoundrels without recourse to her family or her fiancé just days before her wedding, and because she is carrying a child. Now the fury of the Islanders has spread well beyond Skye, and her case has become a cause of great importance in the rest of Scotland.

  “Your brother’s assaults against the people and your father’s demands for a Disarming Act and forbidding the Scots to wear their traditional tartans and plaids, has infuriated them; but this act of arresting a young woman and torturing her for helping the prince to escape has been the spark which has lit the tinder. The men and women of the Scottish towns cowered since their prince’s defeat and said little against your brother’s assault when he slaughtered the clans. But this assail against a young woman of impeccable character has made them furious. There are voices of important and educated people in Edinburgh and other cities such as Inverness, demanding that she be released immediately and returned to her family. It seems that for the Scots, imperiling the life of a proud Island woman is akin to threatening the continuation of the Scottish race.”

  The prince turned to Augusta and said, “As it will seem to the English, m’dear. And not just the Jacobites but to the rest of England as well. Oh, Augusta, this is marvelous news, my dearest. Arresting a pregnant woman. The Tower. Could anything be better? I must meet this woman. I must go to the Tower and pay her my respects.”

  Lord Milius looked at the prince as though he was deranged. “Go to the Tower? No, sir, you can’t and must not. Your father would view that as an act of treason.”

  “Precisely.”

  “But in his current frame of mind, he’d have you arrested. You know he’s trying to ship you off to Hanover and give England to the Duke of Cumberland. For God’s sake, Your Highness, don’t give the king the excuse he’s been seeking to get you out of England.”

  “Milius is correct, Liebchen. The insult to your father would be too great. Such open treason will not be something he can tolerate,” said Augusta. “For him to do so would be to abdicate his throne to you before he’s in his grave, wonderful as that might be.”

  “Why shouldn’t I cause him apoplexy? Look what he’s done to me,” said Frederick. “His damnable poodle Mr. Prime Minister Pelham has given important government jobs to all my friends and my supporters and now they’ve all left me. I’ve only got devoted Milius and a few other loyal supporters. Just wait until I’m the king. I’ll show my one-time friends what it means to remain steadfast. I’ll make them all Governors of tiny islands in the Great Southern Ocean. Oh Augusta, surely you can see that this woman, this . . .”

  “Flora Macdonald,” Lord Milius reminded him.

  “Flora from the Highlands can be a rallying point to stick a dagger in the king’s heart. Londoners are beginning to hate what’s happening in the Highlands. You just have to read it in the pamphlets and posters. They say that we’ve gone too far and that they don’t like the killings. They’re calling my damnable brother the Butcher. He was a hero when he won the battle at Culloden, but now he’s a butcher. The English have lost all sympathy for what William and my father are doing. They hear the wailing of widows and orphans all the way down here, and it’s making them feel mournful. But now that they’ve arrested this beautiful and pregnant Scottish girl . . .”

  “Flora Macdonald,” Milius repeated.

  “Flora Macdonald, we can make it a rallying point to attack my father. We can cite his brutality, his offense against his own people. We may even be able to use it to force his abdication. Tell people he’s gone mad. Get Parliament to appoint me as Prince Regent, as protector of the realm. Oh, there’s so much we can do now that Flora has come to town,” said Frederick.

  “But you must not go to the Tower,” insisted Milius.

  “No, you’re right. I see that now. But I can write a pamphlet and have it distributed in the coffee houses. I’ll sign it ‘Mr. Leicester’ so that everybody will know I’ve written it, and then, if the king accuses me, I’ll deny all knowledge. And I shall call an audience of all the members of Parliament in Leicester House, or maybe we should hold it in Carlton Gardens, and we’ll tell the Members of Parliament how concerned we are for England’s relationship with our Scottish citizens. That will put the cat amongst the pigeons.”

  Milius smiled and stood, bowing to the Prince of
Wales and to the Princess Augusta. But before he’d reached the door, the prince called out, “Wait, I want you to take a note to the Governor of the Tower. Deliver it personally. Tell him that it’s from the Prince of Wales and for his eyes only. Tell him to pass its contents on to nobody, especially Mr. Pelham or any of his government. Give him a big enough purse, and he’ll realize which way the wind is blowing. He can be trusted. Tell him that once I’m king, he can expect a high office.”

  The prince stood, walked over to his escritoire, and scribbled a letter that he handed to Lord Milius.

  It took Milius just fifteen minutes to travel by carriage from Leicester House to the gates of the Tower of London. As the carriage rattled over the cobblestones and through the portcullis, he looked up and shuddered at the fearsome towers. He wondered how many prisoners had tried to gaze out of those barred slits of windows, and what they thought as they were dragged away to be beheaded in the courtyard.

  The carriage came to a stop at the Eastern entry, and he was shown by a Yeoman Warder to the top of the tower where the Governor’s residence and offices were kept. Another Yeoman saluted and opened the door. The Governor looked up in surprise and stood when he saw who it was.

  “Good afternoon, my Lord Milius. This is an unexpected pleasure.”

  “And good afternoon to you, Mr. Governor. I have a private letter for you, the contents of which are for your eyes alone. Neither the substance of the letter nor my visit, are to be reported to the king or the prime minister, or anybody. And once you’ve read the contents of this letter, you’ll return it to me. Is that quite understood?”

  “Completely understood, m’Lord.”

  He handed the letter to the Governor, who broke the seal and read it quickly. “This is from . . .”