The Pretender's Lady

by Alan Gold

  “Please, Highness, sit down and take coffee with me. Are you still exhausted from your battles in Scotland? I’m told that you came so close to conquering the whole of England. Why did you turn back?”

  “In a war, ma’am, supply lines are as important as are front lines. My army had a surfeit of courage, but a deficit of arms, ammunition, artillery, and manpower. We were within thirty leagues of entering London, but there were powerful and well-armed military forces to our right, left, and front, and I would not countenance the slaughter of my many supporters. Sometime, ma’am, retreat and regrouping takes more courage than advance and attack.”

  She smiled and immediately began to enjoy the company of the young man who sat opposite her. He cut a dashing figure and no doubt would win the hearts of many young ladies in the court.

  “And are these the end of your adventures in England and Scotland, sir?” she asked.

  “My quest for the return of my family’s rightful throne will never end. While ever I have strength and purpose, I will continue to oppose the Hanoverians and propound the Stuart cause.”

  He sipped his coffee and looked closely at her. She was indeed very beautiful. Her voluminous white wig and white painted face were like a sculpture and her eyes were an intense green that seemed to seek out and comprehend the very heart and soul of a man.

  But sitting in her presence in the confectionary court and perfumed atmosphere of Versailles caused his mind to fly back a thousand miles to the north of Scotland to a crofter’s hut, to a woman whose beauty didn’t come from powder and rouge and wigs.

  He looked at Madame de Pompadour and realized that there was an absolute artificiality about her compared with Flora Macdonald. Flora had the skin and eyes and face and freshness of a mountain stream, whereas the marquise seemed more like one of the delicately constructed pastries to which the court’s chefs devoted so much time and energy but in the end were little but air and sweetness with almost no substance, quickly consumed and just as quickly forgotten.

  When he’d finished his coffee, Madame de Pompadour said discretely, “And what of the Scotland to which you returned. Was there much which you found beautiful?”

  “The lochs, the hillsides, the valleys are all very beautiful. But it’s the people who I found most appealing. They aren’t the sort of people you find in the cities and towns of France. They are wild and rugged as they must be to survive the inclement weather which afflicts the north of the country. But there is an openness and an honesty, a friendship and an intelligence which makes one feel welcomed. They say what they mean, and they mean what they say,” he told her.

  “And the ladies? Tell me about the ladies?”

  He smiled. “The ladies suffer from the rigors of the landscape and the privations of life in the Highlands. There are castles and manor houses, but most of the populace lives in crofts which are usually of wood and straw, although sometimes they are constructed of a mud they call peat. There is neither time nor money to spare for the ladies to adorn themselves with fine clothes or perfumes or jewelry. Every day is spent in tending to the needs of the family, in feeding and clothing them, and in helping the man of the house in farming and with the livestock.”

  “But how is that different from the rustic men and women of France?”

  The prince laughed. “And how much does Your Ladyship know of the rustic men and women of France?”

  She burst out laughing. “My family are financiers in Paris. The closest I have been to the rural parts of our nation is along the road from Paris to Versailles. But more than the economy of Scotland, Your Highness, I was particularly interested in any young ladies who might have taken your attention. Were there any?”

  “One. A charming and gentle and sweet lady, who is as brave as she is beautiful. But with the very greatest of respect, my lady, her name is a secret which will remain with me.”

  “Ah. Then you’re in love.”

  “Men born of my station in life can’t afford the luxury of love. Only one as lucky as yourself can sanction that state of being.”

  “But even creatures as fortunate as me, to be friends with a king of France, must accept the status which that brings. You have been away from France for a year, sir, and so you cannot have heard the cruel things the peasants are saying about me. Have you heard of the poissonnades which have been written about me?”

  “Fish stew? I don’t understand.”

  “It is a ridiculous game of words, played against me because my family name is Poisson. These poisonous posters and pamphlets appear all around Paris. And now they’ve begun to appear in provincial towns as well.”

  Mystified, the prince asked, “But I don’t understand. Why are the people against you?”

  “They call me daughter of a leech and a leech myself. It’s because I’m a commoner, not born of royal stock, and the people think I’m flaunting myself and that I’m arrogant, and they think that it’s immoral for the royal member to find its way into the body of somebody without royal blood.”

  The prince shook his head in amazement. “Ma’am. The woman I met in Scotland was the daughter of a simple farmer. Yet she was educated, charming, uncommonly attractive and above all moral and brave and God-fearing. She was worth a hundred times the value of any woman in the English court, yet through her birth she was tied to her simple home, her family, and the status to which she was born. A woman such as her will never see the inside of a great palace, yet a woman such as her, and dare I say yourself, would bring great benefits to those of us who are born to rule.”

  THE TOWER OF LONDON

  SEPTEMBER 27, 1746

  Having lived in a simple croft all her life, Flora Macdonald didn’t believe that she’d ever become used to the sheer opulence of her surroundings. She had to remind herself time and again that this was a prison and not a palace. Occasionally, in the stillness of the night, welling up from the bowels of the dungeons, she heard the excruciating screams and pleas of men and women being tortured. But whenever she looked around at the rugs, the sumptuous furniture, the kitchen and its banquet of food, and her bedroom with a bed and mattress thick enough to envelop a field of straw, she couldn’t help but believe that this was nothing but a dream in which she was a princess and that at any moment she’d awaken and find herself in the hideous reality of a normal prisoner.

  But she pinched herself, knocked her head against the hard stone wall, paced the floor, looked out of the windows at the rest of London, and despite her best efforts soon realized that she wasn’t asleep, this wasn’t a dream, but she was living the life of royalty.

  Absurd. Impossible. True.

  How had it happened? How was it possible that she had left Scotland as a despised prisoner of King George and was suddenly ensconced in one of his palaces like a guest of honor? The guards were of no earthly use. Every time she left her apartment and went for a walk in the corridors, or outside on the balustrades, they would smile and greet her in admiration and respect, calling her Madame and Your Grace. But when it came to answering her inquiries, they smiled, shrugged their shoulders, and told her that they didn’t know the answer.

  She asked to see the Governor of the Tower, and he was by her side within minutes. She invited him inside for ale and coffee and cakes, served by the maid she’d been given to look after her, and they chatted amiably about the weather and social events and what she simply must do in the entertainment gardens at Hyde Park and Vauxhall Gardens when she was released from her temporary custodial confinement. He inquired about how her pregnancy was progressing and whether she would like to see a physician. She told him that she had no money to pay for such an expense, and he laughed, telling her that her friend Frederick would ensure that she suffered no financial distress at all and would receive no accounting from a learned doctor.

  “But who is this Frederick that I’m supposed to know and in whose gratitude I find myself?” she asked.

  Again, he burst out laughing. “While I find your discretion admirable, ma’am, be ass
ured that I am a soul of discretion myself, and I have been very well rewarded by Mr. Leicester to ensure your convenience.”

  “Mr. Leicester?”

  “Yes,” the Governor said with a knowing wink, “Mr. Leicester.”

  “Who’s Mr. Leicester?”

  Again, the governor burst out laughing. “I didn’t realize that the Scots had such a ribald sense of humor. Anyway, I must be away, for I’ve been informed that Lord Milius wishes to visit you and will be here within the hour. Is there anything I can do for you, Mistress Macdonald, to facilitate your interview with his lordship?”

  The stunned look on her face told the Governor that she had everything she required. And the last thing she wanted was more laughter from the Governor of the Tower when she asked, “who’s Lord Milius?”

  He was attractive in an effeminate way, though his voice was deep and he enjoyed a good height and had strong shoulders. He’d bowed as he’d walked in and then strode across the room to shake her hand.

  Now they were seated, and her maidservant had served them coffee and cakes from the kitchen. She sipped the coffee but still found it as bitter as her taste of it the previous year when she met Mr. David Hume and Mr. Adam Smith in the Coffee House in Edinburgh. This time, however, she was ready for its taste and tried not to wrinkle her nose.

  “It’s an honor and a privilege to meet with the illustrious Flora Macdonald,” he said, sitting opposite her and scrutinizing her movements. She remained silent and passive, waiting for him to open up.

  “I’m sure that you’re wondering what you might have done to merit such advantageous circumstances.”

  She nodded. “It did occur to me that if this is the way in which King George treats all his prisoners, there would be a lot more footpads and murderers on our streets trying desperately to get caught.”

  Milius burst out laughing. She was an amiable woman, far from attractive for she didn’t have the grace or the sophistication that he found desirable in a woman; but for all her rustic looks and dress, she was alert and striking and could, under some circumstances, be called pleasing.

  “So, Lord Milius, I assume that you are my protector, though for the life of me I can’t understand why. But I would prefer to know sooner rather than later precisely what service must I perform to show my gratitude for your generosity? I assume that you are this Frederick gentleman or this Mr. Leicester that the Governor continues to mention. You do realize that I am three months gone with child, don’t you.”

  He looked at her dumbfounded. “Service? You’re surely not talking about services of an intimate nature, are you?” Again, he laughed. “Mistress Macdonald, in London today, a woman’s body is the cheapest form of currency. The very last thing that interests me, or my particular friend, is service of that nature. No, ma’am, you are far more valuable to me and my friend as a pregnant heroine than for any seduction which your body might provide. More valuable than you could ever possibly imagine. Indeed, the weight of a crown could hang upon your shoulders.”

  She reeled in shock. How could he possibly know that the bairn inside her belly was the child of the Prince Stuart? Unless Alan had told somebody, or he’d been tortured and she couldn’t countenance that prospect. But she had to find out more, and so she calmed herself and continued with the interview.

  “The weight of a crown? Whatever could you mean?” she asked nervously.

  “That is something which I will tell you shortly. But in the meantime, be assured that whatever it is you want will be supplied to you. Our only regret, my friend and me, is that you have to survive such miserable surroundings. However, we’ve made an effort to make life as comfortable for you as these unfortunate circumstances allow.”

  “Are you able to tell me, then, exactly who you are, and who is your friend?”

  “You are in the protection of His Royal Highness, the Heir Apparent to the Throne of England and Scotland, Frederick, Prince of Wales. I am his friend, the Lord Milius.”

  “The Prince of Wales? The prince? The next king of England?”

  Now it was her turn to burst out laughing, for a terrible error had been made. “Forgive me, sir, but if the Prince of Wales knew who I was and of what I’ve been accused, he’d lock me in a dungeon himself and throw away the key.”

  Smiling, Milius said softly, “You are Flora Macdonald. You are the stepdaughter of Hugh, who is master of the English Militia on the Island of Skye. Your mother is Anne, whose first husband died when you were two years of age. You are engaged and are pregnant to a farmer of Skye named Alan Macdonald of your clan, and he, too, is a member of the Loyal English Militia.

  “Against your father’s and fiancé’s permission, you have recently guided Charles Edward, Prince of the House of Stuart, from the Island of Uist to the Island of Skye following which he was able to escape the clutches of the king’s second son, the Duke of Cumberland and is now in France where he is entertained by the king of France’s new mistress, Madame de Pompadour in an attempt to persuade the king to fund another expedition to England in order to recapture the Stuart family’s throne.”

  She sat back in her chair and realized that her mouth was open.

  Again smiling, he said gently, “So, Flora, is there anything I’ve omitted?”

  She shook her head.

  “More coffee? For a prison, it’s really very good,” he said and brought another cup over to her seat. She took it and drank it, not tasting its bitterness.

  After a moment in which he allowed Flora to digest both his knowledge of her and the coffee he’d supplied to the prison, he said, “Of course, the question uppermost in your mind is ‘why is the heir to the throne of England protecting a rebel and a criminal and a traitorous Jacobite?’”

  Again, she nodded. She couldn’t participate in the conversation, because she had lost her power of speech.

  “The answer is simple, Flora. It’s all to do with the relationship between the king and the heir to the throne. You see, the Prince of Wales detests his father. He hates him and wishes him dead, and the same is true in reverse. Please don’t be shocked, for it’s a curse of the Hanoverians that the father hates the son with the same intensity as the son hates the father. George I hated the present king and vice versa, just as George II hates the future George III and vice versa. And no doubt Georges V and VI and if, God wills it, there’s a George VII, then all will each hate the other. Don’t ask me why, but that’s the way it is.

  “What you have to keep in mind during your adventure in London is that the king wants to replace his heir, my friend the Prince of Wales, as heir to the throne of England. He wants his younger son, the Duke of Cumberland, to be king of England and your protector, Frederick the heir presumptive, to sit on the throne of Hanover. But he is finding little support because of the law of primogeniture. Hence, he wants to find an excuse to send the prince away to Hanover in order for him to leave England and his sight forever.

  “The prince and the princess of Wales have established a rival court in Leicester House. This has infuriated the king, but the Prime Minister, Mr. Pelham, has used subtle and devious means to rob the prince of many of his supporters by offering them preferment in government positions. So the prince has to gain back public support to his side and against the king and his younger brother, the duke. Unfortunately, the duke is a hero following his defeat of the Prince Charles Edward in Scotland. But there is the beginning of a move in London against the duke, now that the news of the barbarity he’s exhibiting to the Scottish people is becoming known.

  “The arrest of Flora Macdonald, a heroine to the Scots, and especially a pregnant heroine, is a Godsend to the cause of the Prince of Wales. His Highness will ensure that you enjoy a constant stream of influential visitors to these rooms so that a groundswell will build against the duke and his father for keeping you in prison. You and your cause will become a talking point in London society, the only society in England which matters. This will cause severe problems for the government. And if your plans come t
o fruition, then your presence will rein in the ambitions of the duke, severely embarrass the king, and show that the Prince of Wales loves all of his people, especially the Scots, and not just those of England. There is a chance that the groundswell will be so great that it might force the king to abdicate in favor of his heir presumptive, my particular friend. This, my dear, is why you are carrying the weight of the Crown upon your shoulders.”

  Again, she stared at him, dumbstruck. “Me? But I’m not known. I’m nobody.”

  Lord Milius smiled in approval at her naivety. “My dear, with the prince’s connections to high society, London will soon be close to revolution and the declaring of a republic when it learns of the treatment by the royal household of a pregnant heroine. Once London rallies behind a young, pregnant and pretty Scottish lass, brutally treated by the Butcher Duke of Cumberland . . . why, there’s no telling to what lengths London will go.”

  She nodded. Her mind was still reeling with the extraordinary turn of events.

  “Does that answer all your questions?” asked Lord Milius. “The Prince of Wales’ preferment comes without cost to you, but you must act the part of the aggrieved heroine on his behalf. Of course, you must say nothing about the prince or his preferment, nor in any way imply that he instigated your cause. In time, he will speak on your behalf, but when he does, it will be to take up the cudgels of justice against his dastardly father and brother.

  “Now, m’dear, understand clearly what I am going to say to you. Refuse the Prince of Wales this simple service, and you will immediately become anonymous, buried in the pits of this prison’s dungeons, and almost certainly die a slow and agonizing death, along with your unborn child. But act the role of a pregnant heroine of Scotland, poorly done by the Butcher Duke, and you’ll spend your pregnancy and confinement in the lap of luxury, treated by the very best physicians and barber surgeons, meeting the most brilliant and intelligent members of London society, and promoting the cause of your beloved Scottish people. The choice is entirely yours.”