The Pretender's Lady

by Alan Gold

  She burst out laughing. “Mr. Franklin . . . that was a lifetime ago. Surely, a man such as you lives in the present and not the past. Yes, I was the Flora Macdonald who helped him escape. But so did numerous other Scotsmen and women throughout the Highlands who suffered grievously for the aid they gave him because of the Butcher of Cumberland’s desire to punish us for supporting the Jacobite cause.”

  “A damnable man indeed, now thankfully gone to his maker where he will have to atone for his crimes. And as to my past, ma’am, it is your present, for you are renown throughout Europe and America for your bravery. You are the stuff of legend, ma’am.”

  She stopped plucking the turkey and looked at him in amazement. She burst out laughing. “Legend? Me? I think you have me confused with someone else.”

  “Not at all, ma’am. The uprising of 1745 is celebrated in Scotland, in England, and in France as a grand and glorious moment in history. It symbolizes an event in which a young man deprived of his inheritance by German usurpers, tried to reclaim it. A glorious defeat is more admired than an inglorious victory. The name of the young Bonnie Prince Charlie is more revered than ever will be the Duke of Cumberland’s. A pity that the aging King Charlie does great dishonor to his former self. And you, Flora Macdonald, are very much a part of the legend which is accreting to that event and that moment in history.”

  She shook her head in wonder. “I’m a simple farmer’s wife, Mr. Franklin. But I’m being rude, sitting here and plucking our dinner while you’re stuck on top of a horse. Please, sir, dismount and enter our home and take refreshment. Ruth, Esther, take Mr. Franklin’s horse and give it hay and water, and then give it a good rub down with straw. This way, sir.”

  They entered the house, and Franklin looked in admiration at the neat and tidy cottage. It had all the charm he would have expected from a Highland woman who was determined to make a home for herself and her family in a distant and strange land. On the shelf above the fireplace was a sprig of heather encased in glass; on the table was a length of Macdonald tartan; on the floor were ceremonial swords and shields, waiting for the inside of the home to be finished so they could be erected. And in pride of place was a bookcase with dozens of books inside.

  “You’re a reader, Mistress Macdonald,” said Franklin.

  “Of course. And my son Jamie is an avid reader as well.”

  “A house is not a home unless it contains food and fire for the mind as well as the body,” he said. “Feed the mind, ma’am, and the body will find more nourishment than it can possibly absorb.”

  She poured him a glass of ale, and he drank it thirstily. They sat at the table, the door closed against the ears of her children.

  “Tell me, Mr. Franklin. What news do you hear of the Prince Charles Edward Stuart? You alluded earlier to his condition, but that’s the first I’ve heard of him in half a lifetime. I ask because we became good friends in adversity, and since that time with him on Skye, I haven’t heard hide nor hair of his whereabouts. You move in far more elevated circles than do I. What have you heard of his fortunes?”

  “Not good, ma’am. Not good at all. He returned to England twice after the disaster in forty-six, and he was rebuffed by those he wished to lead. It has completely broken his spirit. What once was a colt is now a shambling dray horse. I knew him when he was a young lad in his early twenties. I met with him in Italy, and he was a tall, slim, elegant, lovely boy. Clever and brave. But the Charles Edward today, the man who calls himself Rightful King, is a lumbering and ungainly wreck of a man—a married man who drinks himself into a nightly stupor and who is reputed to raise his fists to his wife. No, Mistress Macdonald, the reports of him are very discouraging,” Franklin told her.

  He was surprised by her sudden sad demeanor and wondered if there was more to their relationship than a mere friendship under adversity. His interest was spiked even further when she asked, “And do you have any idea whether the prince has any children? Any heirs to whom he’ll be passing on his title?”

  He looked at her in deepened curiosity. Softly, he said, “As far as I know, ma’am, he has one illegitimate daughter, but no male heirs.”

  “And his flag and Coat of Arms, Mr. Franklin. Is there anything special to it?” she asked.

  Franklin frowned. “Truly ma’am, I don’t know the answers to your questions, but your curiosity intrigues me.”

  She shrugged her shoulders and seemed to return to the present. But without giving any of her thoughts away, Flora suddenly asked him, “So why are you here, Mr. Franklin? I’ve only just arrived in this country, hoping to start a new life, and suddenly I find I’m visited by one of her most famous and important sons. I’d be grateful if you’d tell me the reason.”

  He took another mouthful of ale before he answered her. “Many years ago, Flora . . . I may call you Flora?”

  She nodded.

  “Many years ago, I was secretly in London on behalf of a number of the colonies, determining the way in which the Scots would react to the defeat of Prince Charles. I met with many people, especially Sir Francis Dashwood who founded the Hellfire Club. You may not have heard of it, but it is a coterie of freethinkers, and a place to meet influential lawyers and politicians without the scrutiny of the government or the civil authorities. It has a scurrilous and libertine exterior, but I joined because it enabled me to meet many in private whom I would not otherwise have been able to without drawing unnecessary attention to myself and my cause.

  “I was there in the summer of 1746, just weeks after the defeat of the prince at Culloden Moor. I was sent there as a result of rapine committed by the Duke of Cumberland in your Highlands. It occurred to me then that the treatment of the Scottish people mirrored the treatment which Americans might expect if we refuse to pay the Stamp Tax or any other tax which King George imposes upon us. We are unrepresented in their Parliament, yet they tax us. Is that fair, Flora?”

  He didn’t wait for an answer, but continued, “Although it was a quarter of a century ago, the seeds of our destruction were being sown by the imperiousness of the Duke of Cumberland and his father. The Hanoverians have a particularly Teutonic mind; they see no shades of light and dark; they’re humorless and cruel. And they’ll drain their people . . . all their people in whatever part of their empire . . . of lifeblood to ensure that their coffers are full and ripe.

  “But many people with whom I’m associated, Flora, believe that the American people will no longer accept the rapaciousness of the British Crown toward its colonies. They ask why they should work hard and accept the privations of life in America, when they are being bled dry by the Crown?” he said. “I am a man who would prefer a negotiated settlement, but my voice is tending toward a minority.”

  “But what has this to do with me, sir?” she asked.

  “When I told my colleagues in the North about your arrival in America, they begged me to seek you out. They want you to speak on behalf of the Scottish people in this nation of ours. You’re a symbol of Scottish bravery and resistance, my dear Flora. When the time comes, my colleagues want to know whether or not you and your husband will stand shoulder to shoulder with your American brethren and rally the many thousands of Scots in America to take up arms and throw off the shackles of British rule?”

  She looked at him dumbfounded. “Dear God in heaven, Mr. Franklin. I’ve just traveled three thousand miles to escape fighting the British. And now you want me to rouse the Scots here to form an army?”

  He smiled and nodded. “Not necessarily I, ma’am, but my colleagues. Will you rally the people of Scotland to fight on behalf of their new country?”

  “But I’m no fighter, Mr. Franklin, be it with a weapon, or with words. Even when I took Prince Charles over the sea from Uist to Skye, I never held a pistol or a dagger. I’m a simple woman, sir.”

  “But you have in your possession the most potent weapons on God’s earth, ma’am. Integrity! And this will shine through in your words. Your presence will rally an army of America’s Scots again
st the English, should there be a revolution. My colleagues want you to gather the clans, remind them of what the English did to the Scots in forty-six, and give them the courage to rise up and defend themselves against English muskets and rifles and swords. Will you do that for America, Flora? Will you rouse the large Scottish community in America to the side of the colonists?”

  Before she could answer, she heard footsteps on the wooden porch. The door burst open, and a young, tall, and handsome man with finely carved features walked in.

  He looked in surprise at his mother, sitting with a very voluminous gentleman, sipping ale. “Forgive me, mother, I didn’t know you had company.”

  Flora beamed a smile. “Mr. Franklin, may I introduce you to my eldest son, Jamie.”

  Franklin stood and shook hands with the young man, introducing himself and at the same time scrutinizing him intensely. He stared at his face as though it was a holy relic.

  “Father said to let you know that he’s just caught two large crayfish in the river, and he’s bringing them home. Anyway, I have to go back and help. It was nice meeting you, Mr. Franklin.”

  Before he left, Franklin asked, “Mr. Macdonald, tell me, sir, in what year were you born?”

  Jamie looked at his mother and frowned. “In 1747, sir. I’m twenty-five years old.”

  He smiled, and the young man left as quickly as he’d entered. Franklin sat down with a thump.

  “Do you know what déjà vu is, Flora?” he asked.

  She shook her head.

  “I’ve just been carried back neigh on thirty years to a time in Rome, when I was introduced to the Young Pretender to the thrones of England and Scotland. Your son, Jamie, Flora, is the very image of the young man I met all those years ago. He’s . . .”

  He stopped talking and stared at her. Her face was expressionless. They stared at each other for many moments, before Franklin said, “Does your husband know?”

  She nodded.

  “And he accepts the boy as his own?”

  Again, she nodded in silence.

  “You have a remarkable husband, Flora. Who else knows?”

  “Nobody. Only you.”

  “Not even the boy . . . the prince’s son?”

  “We’ve never told him. There’s no reason to,” she said softly.

  “And not even the father knows? Does Prince Charles not know he has a son?”

  “He hasn’t been in contact with me. As I said to you, sir, I haven’t heard a word from him since he left me on Skye.”

  Franklin nodded.

  “I’ve remained silent for the sake of my son. Alan, my husband, has been the most perfect of all fathers. It is nobody else’s business. Nobody’s, Mr. Franklin. Is that understood?”

  “And silent is precisely the way it will remain. I shall leave you now, Flora, but I shall be in contact with you by letter post concerning the other matter of which we spoke. I think in the future you and I will get to know each other well. Very well indeed.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  RICHMOND, VIRGINIA

  SEPTEMBER 10, 1774

  No matter how many speeches she gave, no matter how often she stood before an audience, her throat always dried up before ascending the stage, and her first few lines were delivered as though by a gray-haired drunken slattern. Her friend, Mr. Benjamin Franklin and her son Jamie, who had been delegated by his father to travel with his mother and protect her, knew the traumas she suffered, but nobody else in the audience had an inkling.

  Instead, they knew her by reputation and came out in their droves to see her. And for those who attended the meetings out of curiosity, there was always Benjamin Franklin, or some other man delegated by him, to introduce her and assure the audience of Scots that she was the very self-same Flora Macdonald who had been party to the attempted overthrow of George II, grandfather of their present King George III.

  She had not been to Richmond before. She had been to New York and Boston and Philadelphia and Charlottesville and many other large and small towns and hamlets, speaking sometimes to ten people, sometimes to three or four hundred. She tried to get home as often as she could, but Mr. Franklin allowed her very little rest, and so long as she had Jamie with her, she felt a connection to Alan and her children.

  Alan! How badly things were going for them now. Their years of happy marriage, their excitement at the prospect of a new life in America, had come to grief because of the difference in how they viewed their new land. Alan objected to Flora speaking against the British. For some reason, he and many other Scotsmen objected to the stance that the Americans were taking toward the Parliament of Great Britain.

  It was odd, for in Scotland and even on the way to America, Alan had been a vocal critic of England and everything that it was perpetrating against the Scots. But almost from the moment he’d set foot on American soil and started building up the homestead and the farmland, he’d changed and found fault in the attitude of the American colonists toward London. She had spoken to him about it at great length, but it seemed that Alan, like many other Scotsmen, saw the king of England as a father to his American people, and despite their acknowledgment of the rights of Americans, they did not want to fight against their father.

  Flora and Alan had argued about it, discussed it, even raised their voices by the riverside and away from the hearing of their children, but it was all to no avail. Just as she wanted to use the platform she’d been offered by Mr. Franklin to rouse the Scots to action against the English when the time came, so Alan became more and more convinced that he would join with other loyal Scotsmen and oppose the colonists if they tried to wrest America from the English. In exasperation, she demanded to know why he had suddenly changed his loyalties.

  He acknowledge the unfairness of the taxes the English were imposing on the colonists to pay off the huge debts incurred during the recent wars with the Spanish and French, but since he’d traveled to the New World, he told Flora that he felt a strong connection to the Old World and that America was not yet ready for self-government. He admitted that when he’d been in Great Britain, he’d detested it and only wanted to leave, but now that his feet were firmly planted in the New World, his eyes looked longingly toward the old and the life he’d known all his days. Flora had left him to travel around the Eastern Seaboard, hoping beyond hope that that one day soon he’d work out where he wanted to be, and more importantly, why.

  Today it was Richmond, Virginia’s turn to hear her. She waited in the wings of the hall as Mr. Barrie, Benjamin Franklin’s local representative, spent many minutes telling the large Richmond crowd of Scots about their good fortune in having Flora Macdonald speaking with them. She looked at the audience and tried to spot a familiar face. Sometimes, she recognized somebody from the old country, and then after her address, they would spend many minutes working out whether or not they’d met in Edinburgh or Inverness or somewhere else in the Highlands. When she met a former resident of Skye, they would spend hours talking about the hills and the valleys, the coastline, the people and the wild beauty that they always admitted missing fiercely.

  Suddenly she felt a hand on her shoulder. It was her wonderful Jamie, who whispered in his mother’s ear, “Almost time, Ma.”

  She nodded in thanks, and cleared her throat, listening to Mr. Barrie finishing his introduction with the words, “And will you give a warm and Scottish welcome to the heroine of forty-six, the woman who saved Bonnie Prince Charlie from the English at grave peril to her own life, Miss Flora Macdonald . . .”

  There was a huge cheer from the audience, as Flora walked up the steps onto the stage and stood in the center while men and women cheered her. She smiled and raised her hands for silence.

  “Mistress Macdonald, it’s a pleasure to meet you, ma’am,” he said. He was tall and young and handsome and rugged. “My name is Patrick Henry. I’m a lawyer and a would-be politician. Ben Franklin told me to come and hear you when you were speaking in Richmond. I have to say that you were inspirational. Understated, yet wi
th tremendous power and authority to your words.”

  She thanked him. “A lawyer. And interested in politics. You must be a very committed man.”

  “Committed to an America free of being a colony. Committed to an America not tied to the birth cord of England’s womb. Committed to an America which can take its place in the world alongside France and Scotland and even England in the family of independent nations. Yes, ma’am, I’m committed.”

  “Such imposing commitments will take much time and effort. And much bloodshed, Mr. Henry,” she said. “I left a nation two years ago which had slaughtered thousands of my countrymen and women for daring to stand up and demand freedom. God help Americans if there is a revolution because I’ve seen with my own eyes what standing up against Great Britain will do. The hills and valleys and streams of Scotland ran red with the blood of Highland martyrs. I’d hate to see this new and beautiful country stained in such a way by suffering the same fate.”

  He nodded and said, “If we cannot have liberty from England, then I’d rather chose death.”

  “Chose your own death, Mr. Henry, but how many will you carry with you into the grave?”

  “Are you against revolution?” he asked. “Ben Franklin told me that you were a strong supporter of our cause.”

  “I’m a strong supporter of independence from England. But I’m no supporter of the death and killing and slaughter of innocents. If revolution for the cause of freedom means the deaths of our loved ones, then I’d have to question the wisdom of such a revolution. But if the revolution can be accomplished by peaceful means, by negotiation and goodwill, then I’m all in favor of such a revolt against the English crown.”

  He laughed. “Surely your experience in Scotland would have taught you that England will never willingly give up what’s hers without the bloodiest of fights.”