The Last Queen of England

by Steve Robinson

  When they saw Jean it seemed that everyone wanted to hug her at once. Tayte just stood back and waited for the excitement to fizzle out. He didn’t know what he expected a bunch of history academics to look like - geeky nerds with bottle-bottom glasses and pale complexions perhaps - but this group seemed far from it. As soon as they let Jean go again she gave the introductions.

  There was Evie, a tall girl in skinny jeans with long dark hair and Morello cherry lips whom Tayte found intimidating. Next to her was Megan, a girl-next-door type in a blue print dress and boots, and beside her, close beside her like maybe they had a thing going, was a man called Dave. He wore a pinstripe suit jacket over jeans and beneath the jacket was a retro black and acid-yellow, smiley-face T-shirt. The centre of attention was called Ralph.

  “And this is JT,” Jean said, turning to him. “He’s a genealogist. American.”

  Ralph fetched more stools and Tayte was given a glass into which Dave poured a honeyed liquid called Old Speckled Hen from a half-full pitcher. Tayte didn’t want to be a prude and refuse, but given that someone was trying to kill them he didn’t plan on drinking much either. Jean had the same.

  “American, eh?” Ralph said. “Not too much history there.”

  Tayte gave him a guarded smile. “Not as a nation perhaps, but that’s not really what it’s about, is it?”

  Ralph looked around at his friends, smiling with amusement. “Really? I thought it was?”

  Tayte shook his head and pointed to the words on Ralph’s T-shirt. “It says right there that history is the study of the human past.” He took a small sip from his glass. “Correct me if I’m wrong, Ralph, but given that the ancestors of around 80 million non-native Americans settled in the States from the UK, I’d say that in broad terms, give or take a couple hundred years, much of our history is pretty similar to yours.”

  The reaction that followed was complete silence. Everyone around the table, apart from Jean who just smiled at Tayte, looked at each other with frozen expressions. Then they all burst out laughing.

  “Touché,” Ralph said. “Actually, what’s written here on my T-shirt is exactly what history’s about. Particularly the ‘knowledge acquired by investigation’ part.”

  Dave leant in. “Don’t forget that history is written by the victors.”

  “That’s right,” Ralph said. “So we prefer to take history a little more literally.”

  “We like to do our own investigation,” Evie said. “Gather the facts and form our own opinions.”

  Ralph underlined the word, ‘investigation’. “That’s the thing. Learning history shouldn’t just be about reading a textbook and adopting someone else’s view without questioning it. That’s not investigation.”

  “And when you do re-examine things,” Dave said. “You can come up with some hard to ignore theories about how things might really have happened.”

  “Our views can be a little controversial,” Evie said, looking at Jean.

  “The history books can’t be challenged,” Ralph said. “That’s the message coming in loud and clear over Radio Historia. If enough people read something and believe it to be true, it is true. They don’t question it.”

  “But you do?” Tayte said. He was beginning to see why Jean called them her best-kept secret.

  “That’s right,” Ralph said. He turned to Jean. “And I’m guessing that as we’ve not seen you in a while, you’re here now for a fresh take on something that’s not on the curriculum?”

  Jean arched her eyebrows. “A possible royal conspiracy,” she said, getting everyone’s attention.

  “What, like Jack the Ripper?” Dave said. “That sort of thing?”

  “It concerns Queen Anne.”

  “Great Period,” Evie said. “The emergence of the two-party system. The Act of Union.”

  “Defining times,” Dave said.

  Tayte got his notebook and pencil ready. “And we’re also interested in the Royal Society.”

  At hearing that Ralph pinned his shoulders back, stuck out his chest, and in a serious voice that sounded like a bad Winston Churchill speech, he said, “We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances.”

  It made him laugh even if no one else did. “Sir Isaac freakin’ Newton?” he added, looking around for support.

  Evie looked sympathetic. “Occam’s Razor,” she said to Tayte.

  “Like Sherlock Holmes?” Tayte said. “Eliminate the improbable and whatever remains, et cetera?”

  “Precisely,” Evie said. “Although if that rule took its own advice, the only version we’d need would be to keep it simple.”

  Tayte smiled and sipped his drink.

  “Of course, they were all Freemasons,” Ralph said. “Well, maybe not all of them but most of them. It wasn’t called the Invisible College for nothing.”

  “Why was it?” Tayte asked.

  “Because it existed beyond physical boundaries,” Ralph said. “When the Royal Society began, science was still regarded as heresy in many parts of the world. The Spanish Inquisition was still going on. Masonic lodges were used as conduits to circulate matters of science around the world. I’ve got a whole heap of Masonic material about how they influenced history if you’re interested.”

  “Please don’t get him started,” Evie said.

  Jean struck the table a few times with her glass like it was a gavel. “Queen Anne,” she stated, loudly, cutting back into the pack and refocusing the discussion. “Shut up and listen up. I want to run a theory by you.”

  Politician Trenton McAlister lived in an unassuming townhouse in St John’s Wood in the City of Westminster. His seven-thirty p.m. appointment was with a journalist called John Webber, whose influence in the media world, combined with his strong anti-monarchist views, was precisely why McAlister had chosen him. McAlister’s busy schedule had prevented the meeting from taking place sooner and they were at his home because it was the only place he could guarantee complete privacy.

  “Are you a whisky drinker, John?” McAlister asked.

  He turned back from the drinks cabinet to the tall, mousy-haired younger man who by now was comfortably ensconced in one of a pair of antique winged chairs. He wore chinos and a tweed sports jacket that McAlister assumed from appearances went everywhere with him like a second skin.

  “On occasion,” Webber said. “With water.”

  McAlister poured two fingers of twenty-year-old Talisker into a heavyweight crystal tumbler. Into another he poured an equal measure of cheap blended Scotch, thinking that it made no sense to waste a fine single malt on someone he knew would not appreciate it. He returned with the drinks and sat down at a low table facing the sitting room’s darkening bay window.

  “Thank you,” Webber said as he took the proffered glass from his host. “No Mrs McAlister this evening?”

  “She’s indoor wall climbing,” McAlister said, settling back. “I usually go myself on a Monday but that wall will still be there next week. What I have to tell you on the other hand can’t wait a moment longer.”

  “Your message suggested the tide was about to turn?”

  McAlister sipped his whisky and smiled. “I hope so, John. I do hope so.”

  He reached across the table and lifted up an archive copy of the London Evening Standard. It was dated Tuesday, August 17th, 2010 and it was open on page twenty-five. It carried an image of the Australian Prime Minister and another of Queen Elizabeth II. McAlister handed the newspaper to Webber.

  “The caption says it all, John. Wouldn’t you say?”

  Webber read it aloud. “Queen must be our last monarch.”

  “Our sentiments precisely, eh?”

  Webber nodded. “I remember the article well,” he said, handing the paper back.

  “Of course you do, John. But it’s never been more poignant and I for one have no intention of waiting if I can help it.” McAlister shifted around to face Webber more fully. “I invited you here toni
ght to tell you that I’m about to alter the constitutional face of Britain, irrevocably.”

  Webber’s eyes widened.

  “We may very well be on the brink of the biggest political story this country has seen since Oliver Cromwell,” McAlister continued. “As far as statistics are concerned, various Mori polls tell us that somewhere between twenty and forty percent of voters would choose to abolish the monarchy tomorrow. That’s around 10 million supporters, John.”

  “And I count myself among them,” Webber said. “I’d sooner see Buckingham Palace as a permanent tourist attraction. The French economy does very well out of the palace of Versailles.”

  “I’m sure it does,” McAlister said. “But public support needs to be higher and with your help I believe it soon will be.”

  “How so?” Webber asked.

  “Let’s just say for now that I have something up my sleeve. You’ll see soon enough. A new era is upon us and I want you to be a part of it - from the beginning. And I’m offering you exclusive access to the harbinger of that era. This is our time, John.” McAlister paused and leant towards the Journalist. “Can I count on you?”

  “What do you want in return?” Webber asked, reaching for his notepad. “Funding?”

  McAlister laughed at the suggestion. “No,” he said. “Funds are not going to be a problem for us in our New Britain.” He locked eyes with Webber then, holding his attention as he said, “What I want in return is very simple. I want you.”

  “Me?”

  McAlister nodded. “Your media influence, John. An exclusive return so to speak - around the clock until the job is done. You’re to work on no other story or assignment. You’ll be in my pocket and I’ll be in yours. Can you commit to that?”

  Webber scoffed. “Are you kidding? For a chance like this I’d give you my soul if you asked for it.”

  McAlister laughed. “Good,” he said. “Although it need not come to that.” He reached across and shook Webber’s hand. “Welcome to the campaign, John,” he added, still smiling broadly. “Now let’s get started.”

  “Let me get this right,” Ralph said as he sat down for what Tayte supposed must have been the first time all evening. “Our very own Professor Summer has a royal conspiracy theory about Queen Anne.” His smile looked playful and somewhat disbelieving. “This I have to hear.”

  Tayte wanted to hear it, too. He had several thoughts running riot in his head but he couldn’t settle anything into a sound theory just yet.

  “Okay,” Jean said. “Here it is.” She sipped her drink and licked the froth from her lips. “My theory - unlikely as that may or may not be to some of you - is that the Hanoverian rise to power in 1714 was by no mere chance. I’m coming around to the idea that their succession to the throne of Great Britain was engineered.”

  “A non-hostile takeover?” Dave said.

  “Oh, I like it,” Ralph said. “So how does it feel?”

  “How does what feel?”

  “Finally going against all those text books? Being one of the gang?”

  Jean just shook her head and continued. “When the Act of Settlement was passed, it placed the Hanovers next in the line of succession should Queen Anne fail to provide an heir, which in 1700 after the death of her eleven year old son, William, Duke of Gloucester, it appeared likely that she would.”

  “Strong motive,” Dave said.

  Evie agreed. “So you think they made sure she died without issue?”

  “That’s the theory,” Jean said. “But it’s full of holes. Anne’s age and health were against her, as was her track record as far as her many terms of pregnancy are concerned. I can’t ignore the text books there.”

  Ralph grabbed the now empty pitcher from the table and held it out to a passing waitress for a refill. “But the Hanovers didn’t have to do anything by the time Anne came to the throne. There was no heir. They just had to wait until she died.”

  “I know,” Jean said. “That’s one of the holes. So maybe I’m wrong and the textbooks are right. It just seems a little too convenient to me.”

  Tayte could see where Jean was going. He told the group about the connection to the Royal Society Fellows and about their fields of research: how one seemed to be looking into the odds of so many failed pregnancies and how another was interested in the take-up of various drugs by the bloodstream. It was easy to suppose that these Fellows were thinking along the same lines as they now were, and the only thing that appeared to ruin the theory was that Anne’s pregnancies all failed before the Act of Settlement was passed.

  They all had to think about that. Then the only person there who hadn’t uttered a single word since the introductions, Megan, whom Tayte had supposed was just the quiet one of the group, spoke.

  “Don’t forget Occam’s Razor,” she said. “Eliminate the improbable. So it wasn’t the Hanovers.”

  Dave scratched at his temple, confusion furrowing his brow. “But they were the only ones with anything worthwhile to gain from the fall of the House of Stuart.”

  “Are you sure about that?” Megan said. “The failed pregnancies didn’t start with Anne, did they?”

  “No,” Jean said. “That’s right. It started with her sister, Mary. So the conspiracy - assuming for now that there was one - might have begun several years before the Act of Settlement was passed, when the Hanovers were still around fiftieth in the line of succession. As far as they were concerned at the time they had nothing to gain at all.”

  “So who did?” Tayte asked.

  Another pitcher of ale arrived and Ralph went the rounds with it. “Yeah, come on, Megan, you little tease. Who else stood to gain from the end of the Protestant House of Stuart?”

  “Okay,” Megan said. She paused and smiled as she added, “The Whigs.”

  “Politicians?” Ralph said.

  “Of course,” Jean said, as though the bigger picture had just fallen into place. “Anne favoured the royalist Tories. She sought to reduce the Whig majority because they wanted Parliament to run the country, giving less of that power to the monarchy.”

  “It was with a Whig majority,” Evie said, “that the Act of Settlement was passed.”

  “Yes, it would have been,” Jean said. “The text books would have us believe that the Act of Settlement was passed to ensure a Protestant line of succession after Mary’s death when it seemed unlikely that her husband, William III of Orange, would remarry, or that Anne, because of her stillborn pregnancies, would be able to produce an heir either.”

  “How did William III die?” Tayte asked.

  “A fatal riding accident,” Jean said.

  “One year after the Act of Settlement was passed,” Ralph added. “Now am I the only one here who thinks that’s a little too convenient?”

  Megan spoke then. “So another take on the situation is that the whole thing was a plot by the Whigs to gain control of the nation.”

  “Same great motive,” Dave said.

  Megan nodded. “They passed an Act to ensure that the Catholic Stuarts could make no further claim to the throne while making sure that the Protestant Stuart monarchy died out, paving the way for the Hanovers who favoured a Whig parliament. King George I hardly spoke a word of English. He was more than happy to leave the running of the country to the politicians. To the Whigs.”

  “Anne was addicted to laudanum,” Ralph said. “They called her Brandy Nan for obvious reasons. It would have been easy enough to get other drugs to her on a regular basis.”

  “So the Hanovers were probably nothing more than political pawns,” Jean said. She turned to Tayte. “Perhaps our five Fellows of the Royal Society were wise to what was going on.”

  Given everything he and Jean had learnt about them, Tayte thought they might well have come to believe in such a plot. Perhaps the Reverend Naismith’s suspicions had been aroused by what had amounted to an unlikely total of twenty failed pregnancies and infant deaths out of twenty-one attempts, first with Mary and then with Anne. And maybe Dr Hutton believed
that someone was drugging the royal sisters to keep them in a state of ill health, particularly to ensure that they were unable to bear healthy children. Then there was that fatal riding accident a year after the Act of Settlement was passed, taking no chances that William III would remarry and produce an eligible heir.

  But what about the eleven-year-old William? Tayte thought. One child appeared to have slipped through the net.

  “A lot rested on the young Duke of Gloucester, didn’t it?” he said. “He was the Protestant Stuarts’ last real chance for an heir, wasn’t he? Anyone know how he died?”

  “Physically, he was a weak boy,” Jean said. “Even as he grew up he had trouble climbing stairs without help.”

  Dave got out his iPhone. A minute later he was summarising information from a palm-sized webpage.

  “The young Duke reportedly wore himself out at his eleventh birthday party and retired early complaining of a headache, nausea and a sore throat.” He flicked at the screen, scrolling the text. “Next day the family doctor was sent for. He suspected smallpox so he bled him to lower the fever, but it came back with a vengeance later that evening. The leading physician of the time, a Dr Radcliffe, was then called for and he suspected scarlet fever, adding that whoever had prescribed the boy to be bled had destroyed him. William died five days after his birthday.”

  “I wonder if that family doctor supported the Whigs?” Tayte mused.

  “Hang on,” Dave said, flicking at his iPhone again. “There was an autopsy. It showed that William had an abnormal accumulation of fluid on the brain, although there was still some question as to whether the bleeding had fatally weakened him. A family doctor should have known what effect such a bleeding would have on the boy, don’t you think?”

  Tayte did. It seemed a rash choice of treatment for someone known to have been so weak that he had trouble climbing the stairs. He couldn’t be sure about anything, but the alternative suggestion that Jean and her friends had provided seemed to fit well enough. Perhaps more importantly, it gave him some insight into what the hanged Fellows of the Royal Society were really into. If they did have cause to believe in such a conspiracy then he wondered what they had sought to do about it.