This reticence had its effect elsewhere in official quarters, not unnaturally. Although common folk hailed the Prince of Orange as a Protestant saviour, their betters held back. When the invaders reached Exeter at length, it was to find the Bishop and Dean fled, the magistrates nowhere to be seen and even the lesser clergy and merchants wary. Saviours they might be, but their co-religionists had had all too vivid experience of King James's and his Lord Chancellor's behaviour towards rebels, so perhaps they were not to be blamed too hardly.
The period of waiting was not wasted. This time it was not a case of roughly training unarmed countrymen but of marshalling and disposing to best advantage an already trained army, some half of it veteran troops. Volunteers who did come in were welcomed and formed into units of a sort, to be sure; but these were used mostly to send, in parties, around the countryside to spread confidence in the venture and encourage others. Andrew Fletcher, like many another of the Prince's staff, took a group of these each day to collect the so necessary extra horses, of which literally thousands were required. William did not have the time for ordinary dealing and buying. The animals had to be commandeered, but he insisted that all should be paid for, even though at modest price. It was not a pleasant duty, but this was war, and it was better than bloodshed.
After a week of this they had sure word that James had arrived at Salisbury with his army. The trial of strength appeared to be at hand.
Two days later informants reported a large cavalry force under Lord Cornbury only some twenty miles away, in the Crewkerne area. Preparations were in hand to counter this move when another report, from what was considered to be a reliable source, brought the astonishing information that this Cornbury and a Colonel Langston were actually intending to change sides, and to bring over this entire cavalry command to the Prince.
This was the sort of stirring news the invaders required and longed for. William at once detached two regiments of horse, mainly English, to go forward to investigate and welcome the new adherents if the thing proved to be true. Andrew went along.
If he, for one, required any further demonstration of the follies, mistakes and sheer nonsense of much of war, he obtained it now. They got as far as the open valley of the Otter when, across the undulating country they perceived the ostensible enemy appearing out of woodland a couple of miles away. Spurring on to meet them, but prepared to change into battle formation at short notice, they observed first that Cornbury's force had halted in a long straggling line, presumably at sight of themselves; then, after an interval, that the force appeared to be breaking up in confusion. While they were still a mile apart, the bulk of the King's cavalry began to wheel around and dash off, back into the woods. Only its left wing, about a regiment strong, remained in position, waiting. Four times that number had bolted.
Mystified, the Prince's horse rode on, although very much on the look-out for trickery. But as they neared the stationary royal troops, an officer came out to meet them. Saluting, he shouted that he represented Colonel Langston, who craved permission to bring over his regiment into His Royal Highness Prince William's command.
So, amidst relief on both sides, cheers and back-slapping, they came together, in the process perhaps another hundred or so coming back out of the woodland from the bolted regimerits. It seemed that someone had started a rumour that they were being betrayed, that once they had yielded to the Prince of Orange, they would all be massacred by the heathen Dutchmen; and Lord Cornbury had fallen into a panic and ordered a hasty retiral. Langston had kept his head, fortunately.
If all this bemused such as Andrew Fletcher, at least it gave them the impression of poor quality troops and leadership on James's side.
In the days that followed, of a miserable wet and windy November, that impression was powerfully reinforced as more and more of the royal forces transferred themselves from Salisbury and Portsmouth to Exeter and the forward base William established at Axminster, in groups and companies and whole regiments, until it appeared as though James was left only with the hard core of his Irish Catholic troops. Ships, too, arrived in Torbay - although the royal fleet as such stayed where it was. It was an extraordinary situation that developed, in fact, a curious war of marking time, as with an hour-glass in which the sand dribbled steadily from one end to the other, which meant the winning and the losing, without a blow struck. No further forays were risked by the King; and the Prince was wisely content to wait.
Crisis-point was reached after two weeks of this. News kept coming in of notables and whole cities all over the country declaring for William, York and Newcastle amongst the first. London was said to be seething. The Earls of Devonshire and Danby had each mustered a sizeable force for the Prince and were marching south. Then the Duke of Grafton and the Lord Churchill arrived at Axminster from the royal camp, to kiss William's hand; Grafton was an illegitimate son of Charles the Second and Churchill was James's chief military adviser. And then the final blow - the Princess Anne, the King's second daughter, with Lady Churchill, fled from Whitehall north to Northampton, where she declared herself Protestant and denounced her father.
That was enough for James Stewart. He promptly sent an envoy to William proposing a conference to discuss terms, suggesting possibly that his son-in-law might act Regent, himself retaining only the title of King. He also sent to London for his wife and the infant prince to join him.
William agreed to meet him, making suggested terms which, as was later reported, James declared were better than he would have expected. Nevertheless, that strange man, having sent off his Queen and baby son in a frigate to France, seemed entirely to lose his head. For, instead of setting out to meet his son-in-law, he secretly deserted the rump of his army and fleet, hurrying off at three in the morning with one Sir Edward Hales, in disguise as his servant. Apparently not trusting any of his ships' captains, he boarded a small fishing-boat which Hales had hired, to make the hazardous crossing of the Channel, throwing the Great Seal of the United Kingdom into the river en route. However, they had not got far from the shore when local fishermen, who, imagining them to be escaping Catholic priests such as were now in flight all over England, apprehended them and, despite all protests, carried him back to their own part of the town. Here the King was recognised. Better that he should not have been perhaps, for crowds gathered to abuse and threaten him. Had not Sir Basil Dixwell been brought to his rescue, that might have been the end of James Stewart. Dixwell, however, continued to hold him secret captive.
Meanwhile the word spread that the King had abandoned his supporters and left the country. Now the flocking to William became a flood. Church-bells rang throughout the land as they had not done since Charles the Second's restoration. The Prince decided to move towards London.
But advisedly he and his entourage took their time. Not only was the country in a state of turmoil, but in these southern parts chaos developed. This was because James's last command to his general, the Earl of Feversham, was to disband the army forthwith. And it transpired that there was no money to pay the troops. So a horde of angry and resentful Irish were let loose, leaderless, and went rampaging, looting and raping far and wide. This produced inevitable reaction, with mobs gathering to protect and retaliate - and to attack all foreigners as precaution. Any soldiers were suspect and Dutchmen tended to be taken for Irishmen. Such fighting and casualties as this strange campaign produced occurred now.
William reached the town and castle of Windsor, on the Thames, before the news reached him as to his father-in-law's true position, that he was not fled to France after all but was held prisoner in the house of one Dixwell outside Portsmouth. Astonished, and against the advice of certain of his counsellers, the Prince thereupon sent one of his aides, Zuylestein, back south-westwards, to order the King's immediate release, with permission to go where he pleased, so long as it was not to London.
The slow advance towards the capital was resumed.
Surprise and indignation was general, therefore when, a few days later, the Prin
ce and his party learned, at Sion House only a few miles from the city, that James was in fact back in Whitehall and indeed had just held a Privy Council'. Not only that, but the news came via a royal courier who actually brought a summons for Prince William to appear before the unpredictable monarch and Council at St. James's Palace in two days' time.
For the first time Andrew Fletcher saw William of Orange really angry - and it was quite a fearsome sight. His wrath was as much against the Privy Council as against his father-in-law, for reported attending were men who had sent messages to The Hague imploring him to come and take the throne. He forthwith sent a high-powered group, led by the Marquis of Halifax, the Earl of Shrewsbury and the Lord Delamere, to Whitehall, to announce that he would indeed be at St. James's Palace in a couple of days but not for any meeting with King James - only with the Privy Council. And he would come to it with his full armed strength. James had forfeited all right to the crown and must retire out of London before then, to await his,William's decision as to his disposal. That was all.
And so they waited at Sion, not without tension. The Council would come to heel, no doubt; but how would the notoriously volatile London mob behave, in its hatred of foreigners - and undoubtedly William of Orange, although half a Stewart, would be esteemed a foreigner. The Londoners had brought havoc to great causes before this. There might have to be fighting yet.
Next noonday however, a joint deputation arrived from the Privy Council and the Lord Mayor and sheriffs. They declared that they awaited Prince William's command; that King James had retired to Rochester with only a small party and his chaplains; and that the citizens of London were everywhere proclaiming His Royal Highness as saviour. They were lighting bonfires and had dragged Lord Chancellor Jeffreys from his house and all but pulled him limb from limb.
It looked as though the thing was done, at last.
William paced the floor of the Whitehall Palace chamber, watched with varying degrees of concern, apprehension and wariness by about a dozen men, most more splendidly-dressed than the Prince himself, who was more plain soldier than lover of show and ostentation. These were all great ones, Dutch and English, save for two - Gilbert Burnet and Andrew Fletcher. Why the latter should have been summoned to this meeting he could not imagine. Burnet was different, for he was William's constant adviser as well as chaplain, and had already been offered the bishopric of Durham, the greatest in England after the archiepiscopal sees of Canterbury and York; he could well now rank amongst the great. But Andrew, since coming to London, was seldom in any close association with the Prince and had already applied for permission to leave and return to Scotland.
"The position is intolerable!" William declared, not for the first time. "And I will not tolerate it for much more long." Sometimes when he was upset, his normally excellent English suffered a little. "Unless you wish for me to return to the Netherlands. Where I am required. Not, as here, kept waiting like some, some lackey!"
Cries of protest and dismay rose from the English lords, against grunts of approval from the Dutchmen.
"Your Royal Highness - bear with us, of your clemency. And do not, in God's name, desert us!" the Duke of Ormond exclaimed. "The position is most difficult. Decisions cannot be taken lacking the proper authority. This is a kingdom not a, not an electorate. The King is the fount of all lawful authority and lawful appointments. King James has not abdicated and is still on English soil. However inconvenient this is. He only can order the recall of Parliament, for Parliament to take the decisions that are required."
"Your Oliver Cromwell got over that problem without great difficulty forty years ago, my lord!"
Throats were cleared at mention of that ominous name.
"For your own sake, Highness, all must be done in due order," the Earl of Nottingham said, almost reproachfully.
"But nothing is being done, sir - nothing!"
"Your Highness will not allow us to approach the King for his permission."
"I will not, Great God! To do that is to admit that he still reigns. And he does not. What of this Privy Council? If King James had died, been killed by that mob, what then?"
"Then, sir, the Lord Chamberlain would have had to call the Council together to appoint a Council of Regency until the heir to the throne was declared monarch." That was Shrewsbury.
"Why not now, then?"
"Highness, the Lord Chancellor is in the Tower awaiting trial for his grievous crimes. You would not seek Jeffreys' authority?"
"The heavens forbid! But you, my lords, are almost all members of the Privy Council, I think? Can you do nothing without that oaf Jeffreys? Can you not appoint a new Chancellor?"
"Only the King can do that, sir."
"Christ God grant me patience! We do things better in my country, I promise you!"
"Highness," Gilbert Burnet put in. "King James, at Portsmouth, sent you a courier with a letter proposing a meeting. He suggested that you should be Regent. That letter bears his royal signature, royal authority. If Your Highness would agree to be Regent, even if only for a short time, that signature and suggestion would suffice, I think. The problem would be solved."
"I shall not be Regent, Dr. Burnet. I have told you. A regent rules only for another; that other reigns. So the Regent is servant to the monarch. I will not play servant for any man."
There was silence save for William's pacing steps.
The Bishop of London spoke; he was an adviser of the Princess Anne's. "Your Royal Highness - if you sent for your wife to join you here, perhaps the King could be persuaded to abdicate in her favour. She, his eldest daughter. She would then become Queen with your royal self consort."
"No, my lord Bishop. No man can esteem a woman more than I do the Princess. But I am so made that I cannot think of holding anything by apron-strings. Nor can I think it reasonable to have any share in the government unless it be put in my own person, and that for the term of my life." That was slowly, heavily, said. "Moreover, to send for my wife from The Hague would take time. Am I, and my army and supporters, to wait here, on the whim of an ageing man who had thrown away his kingdom but clings to its crown?"
"You are saying, Highness, that you will be neither Regent nor Prince Consort?" Halifax put to him. "Does that mean that you wish to be King?"
"Yes."
"Yet, sir, it is your wife who is - or was - heir to the throne. Before this infant prince was born. Would you override her right?"
"I would not. My wife must be Queen. But I will not be a mere consort. We must be full King and Queen together. And the government mine."
"But . . . but is that possible, Highness?"
"If it is in Scotland - as I am assured." William glanced over at Andrew. "Then it can be here, my lords. King Charles created his son and his wife, the Countess of Buccleuch, Duke and Duchess of Buccleuch and Monmouth. Together, each and both, full duke and full duchess, neither consort. He did that here, from Whitehall. Do you question his right?"
The Englishmen eyed each other doubtfully. There were some murmurs about damned Scots and bastards.
The Prince waved a hand for silence. "You must see to it, my lords. And quickly. Send to James at Rochester and persuade him to abdicate. And to recall your Parliament as his last act as King. The Parliament and Council proclaim my wife and myself King and Queen. It is understood? Else I return to my own country and meddle no more in your affairs."
The finality of that had its effect on all. It also allowed an aide to come forward to deliver some message to William, who nodded.
"General the Lord Dundee honours us with his presence, gentlemen," he declared. "He is, I am assured, a friend of Mr. Fletcher's. So perhaps he is not so black as he is painted!"
Andrew looked nonplussed. He knew of no Lord Dundee. Presumably he came from the Scots army, which had marched south over the Border at James's command on the first news of William's landing, to support the English forces which never fought. Unopposed, it had got as far south as Watford and there halted when it learned that no o
ne else was going to draw sword for King James. Since when, in idleness, it had been making a considerable nuisance of itself to all concerned, nobody knowing quite what to do about it.
The aide came back. "Major-General the Lord Viscount of Dundee, Your Royal Highness," he announced. Behind him the handsome, debonair figure of John Graham of Claverhouse strode in, to bow and smile and wave a lace-edged handkerchief, very much at ease.
If Andrew was astonished, he was more so in a moment when Graham paced right up to William and was shaken warmly by the hand and even clasped to the princely bosom. Then he recollected the story that Graham had once fought in the Orange Guards and had saved the Prince's life at some battle.
The English notables looked highly disapproving.
"My lords," William told them, "when I said that this new viscount was a friend of Mr. Fletcher's, I could have added that he was a friend of my own also. In that, fourteen years ago, I owed my life to his braveness on the field of Seneff. He now commands the Scots force at Watford, and I have asked him to come here, under my safe-conduct, in order that the problem of the Scottish troops may be dealt with in friendship. But first may I congratulate the General on his new dignity? King James made many errors, I fear. But not, I say, when he made our friend viscount! Recently, I believe, my lord?"
"Less than a month ago, Highness," Graham agreed with his brilliant smile. "I swear that I am the newest-fledged nobleman of two realms!"
"Was that the price of you bringing your rabble over the Border?" the Duke of Grafton demanded, a rough diamond to be half-brother to the late mannerly Monmouth.
"My rabble, sir, was in duty bound to support the King of Scots. And still is. As to price, what did your mother pay for your dukedom?"
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