by Jon King
“Yes, so you said. But there is no Scottish Monarchy, not anymore. There is no Scottish Monarchy and there is no House of Stewart.”
“So where does that leave Prince Michael?”
This time the silence was acid. “We remain unconcerned with this person unless he makes a direct and formal challenge for the British Throne.”
Or words to that effect. JB gave up.
●
Some moments later we’d finished our lunch and the waiter had just cleared the table and disappeared back to the kitchen with our used plates and crockery stacked cockily on his shirtsleeve. I brought the conversation round to the primary reason we were here.
“We were told you might be able to shed some light on Princess Diana’s death,” I put to Michael.
“Go on.”
“We think she was murdered and we’re investigating possible motives.”
“Then investigate her blood, her lineage.”
I glanced over at JB, then back at Prince Michael. “That’s what the Doctor said.”
“The Doctor?”
“He was one of the two sources we spoke to who suggested we speak to you. The other one was—”
“Yes, I know who the other one was. He told me what happened and I can only apologize.”
“So who is he?”
“Let us just say he’s a particularly fervent supporter of the Stewart claim to the Throne. He is not alone.” Before we could question him further, Michael added: “You mentioned the Doctor?”
I nodded. “He said he’d worked for a government department that dealt with what he referred to as the counter-monarchy problem.”
“I know of this department,” Michael said. “I’ve been on the wrong end of its bully-boy tactics too many times. But I’m afraid I have no idea who this Doctor is, not unless you have a name..?”
I gave a single shake of my head.
“Well if he truly worked where he said he worked then he would have been very aware of the Stewart claim, not only through me, but also through Diana. That’s probably why he sent you to me.”
“The Stewart claim through Diana? Can you elaborate?”
“Diana was very much of the Stewart heritage; she carried the Stewart gene, the blood. It’s all to do with the blood. There are those who want the bloodline restored to what they see as its rightful place. I am certain they would have had Diana in their sights as someone who could have helped them achieve their aim.”
“Really? It sounds like you’re implying Diana could have been persuaded to make a claim for the Throne if she’d lived—”
“Well…”
“—It’s something the Doctor also alluded to, or at least that she was in a position to head up some kind of counter-monarchy setup within the Royal Household.”
“Oh, I think she was already doing that. But to make a claim for the Throne? No, I don’t think so. I don’t think that’s what your man was alluding to.”
“What then?”
“More likely that some or other group was planning such a move and they saw Diana as their perfect figurehead—not only because of her Stewart blood, but also her popularity. She had the British public eating out of her hand. Couple that with her royal heritage and you start to see why the Doctor and his department might have considered her a threat.”
I was gobsmacked by this statement. “Some or other group?” I said. “But what kind of group would contemplate making a claim for the Throne? In this day and age the very idea seems absurd, and completely unrealistic.”
“Perhaps.”
“So who? What group would dare conspire to challenge for the Throne?”
“One that supports the bloodline, is the simple answer. Or perhaps I should say one that supports the restoration of the bloodline to the thrones of Europe, and that includes England. Of course, I don’t mean that they would attempt some sort of military coup or anything of that nature. The days of William of Orange marching on London with his army and ousting the incumbent monarch are long gone. And thank goodness for that!” He laughed out loud again. Then: “I’m talking more of hijacking the system, infiltrating the Royal Household and manipulating events from the inside, in much the same way as the bloodline was overthrown in the first place. In much the same way as the Carolingians usurped the Merovingians, and later the Hanover-Windsors usurped the Stuarts—more by political manoeuvring than military might. And for this Diana was the perfect candidate. You must remember that Diana was more royal than many people think, in many respects even more so than Prince Charles. Her lineage can be traced directly back to King James I of Great Britain and beyond, to the great Merovingian kings, Clovis and Dagobert. And that means she was of messianic stock; at least those who support the restoration believe this to be the case.”
Messianic stock?
My head was beginning to reel—part with bewilderment, part with disbelief. The Doctor had made some pretty wild claims himself, claims similar to those being made here, now, by Michael. He too had referred to the bloodline as messianic; he’d said that it dated back centuries – as far as records go and beyond – and that it ruled the Western world today. He’d also said that the Stuart kings had descended from this bloodline and that this was why they’d been persecuted and ridiculed by history. Of course, the messianic hypothesis was not a new one; that the bloodline in question stretched back via the Merovingian kings of Dark Ages Europe to the ancient kings of Judah and even that it included the historical Jesus was an idea that had permeated popular culture in recent times. It was a sentiment echoed in the works of Donovan Joyce and Barbara Thiering, I knew; others too, not least Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln, international bestselling authors of The Holy Blood And The Holy Grail. But even so, these were all hypothetical works based on the authors’ own research and their interpretations of what that research had exhumed. They were tantalizing but unproven theories. What JB and I were encountering here, on the other hand, was real—real and extraordinary. It involved real characters with extraordinary claims. I was scarcely able to wrap my head around it all.
“There’s an inference in what you say that brings to mind the Knights Templar and the Priory of Sion,” I felt I had to put to Michael. And it was true. The bloodline that Michael – and the Doctor – had referred to was what others had coined the bloodline of Jesus and Mary Magdalene, which, they said, had passed down to the present day via the Merovingian kings of Dark Ages Europe and later the Stuart kings of 17th-century Britain. It was the Priory of Sion and its military arm, the Knights Templar, so the story claimed, that had been formed at some point towards the end of the 11th century to protect the secret of that bloodline and its messianic heirs. According to Pierre Plantard, the French draughtsman who in 1956 revealed the Priory’s existence, the bloodline was still extant today, something both the Doctor and now Michael seemed to have affirmed in their own way. But I was aware of the story; I’d read about it, I’d followed it, and I knew that more recently Plantard’s claim about the Priory of Sion had been shot to pieces by journalists and scholars alike. “I thought all that had been exposed as a hoax,” I said.
Surprisingly, Michael was in agreement. “Yes, and a good thing, too,” he said with some meaning. “I never did believe the Priory of Sion was anything other than a clever deception on Plantard’s part. But that doesn’t mean the bloodline is a hoax as well. Not at all. The bloodline is very real, and has been the focus of a constant power game that has lasted centuries. Certainly the neo-Templar groups who support the bloodline today do so because they believe in its authenticity and its right to one day be restored to power. The problem is these groups include some rather radical factions who would give anything to wrest the British Throne back from its current incumbents, the Windsors. I would suggest it was one of these factions who saw Diana as the potential figurehead for their ambitions.” He again leaned across the table, napkin in hand and pinched tight to the corner of his mouth, in a manner that told us he was about to say somethin
g he’d rather no one else heard. “Through various channels they have even approached me,” he wanted us to know, his voice scarcely more than a breath. “But my only interest is in restoring the Scottish Throne. Nothing more.”
He sat back and deposited his napkin on his empty plate.
“Would you like to see the dessert menu?” the waiter said, suddenly there at our table. The slightly tanned young man with striking green eyes and perfect teeth seemed to have appeared from nowhere, taking all three of us by surprise. I wondered if he’d heard any of what Prince Michael had just said.
“Just a coffee for me, please,” I said. “Black.”
“Yes, I’ll have a coffee as well,” Prince Michael said. “But with milk.”
JB echoed him. “I’ll have mine with milk, too.”
“Three coffees, one black,” the waiter confirmed, then turned and disappeared towards the kitchen.
I peered back across the table at Prince Michael, who had momentarily removed his spectacles and was busy buffing them up with a spare napkin. My mind was still whirring with thoughts of the bloodline and some cloak-and-dagger attempt by a secret cabal of neo-Templars to restore it to the British Throne, using Diana to do it. Or Michael. Through various channels they have even approached me, he’d just said. Was this man for real? Was he even who he said he was? I churned this question over in my mind for what seemed a small eternity, back and forth, and then again, but never quite finding the answer. So I rephrased it: Would this man – anyone – have given twenty-five years of his life, struggling against the odds, with no realistic chance of ever achieving his goal, if he wasn’t who he said he was? Why? What would have been his motive? It seemed the bleakest prospect. He’d left everything, after all, I reminded myself – his family, his friends, his job – left it all in his native Belgium and had arrived penniless in Edinburgh in 1976 with the sole intention of pursuing his claim to a throne that no longer, in reality, existed: a throne and a monarchy that had been extinct for several hundred years. The actions of a madman? A self-deluded soul? Or a person of unrivalled conviction? I didn’t know. All I knew was, whatever anyone else thought of him, whatever anyone else believed about him – indeed, whatever the truth about the bloodline and the neo-Templars and Diana’s Stewart heritage – one thing was evident: Prince Michael James Alexander Stewart of Albany believed lock, stock and several smoking barrels that he was the senior male heir to the Royal House of Stewart. And as such, that he was the rightful heir to the defunct Throne of Scotland.
Who was I to argue the point?
“One last thing,” I said. JB had gone to the bathroom and I was seated at the table alone with Prince Michael. I sensed a vulnerability in him, one I felt sure might feel challenged by the question I was about to put to him. I felt I had to put it anyway. “If you are who you say you are,” I posed, “you too are a descendant of the bloodline. Which presumably means you’re descended from … Jesus?”
To my surprise, Michael took it in his stride. “Yes, I am asked this question a lot, and it’s a difficult one to answer because of the elevated status attributed to Jesus today. But I have to be honest with you and say yes. In fact it is common knowledge in our family, but you must remember that we don’t view Jesus as an incarnation of God, as so many people in the modern world seem to do. We see Jesus as an historical person, a ‘king who did not reign’, as the Jewish chronicler Josephus wrote about him.”
“And do you think Josephus was speaking literally?”
“Yes, of course. Jesus was of royal stock, of the bloodline, descended from King David. It says so clearly in the Gospels. He was the rightful heir to the Throne of Israel and Judah.”
“King of the Jews.”
“Precisely.”
“So why do you think he never reigned, as Josephus says?”
“Oh, that’s simple. Because the Romans installed a puppet monarchy on the Jewish Throne in the form of the Herods, in much the same way as the Anglo-Dutch bankers installed a puppet monarchy on the British Throne in the form of the Hanovers, who are now the Windsors. There’s no difference.”
I pondered this for a moment. Then: “The Doctor told us there’s a department within MI6 that holds genealogical documents proving that what you say is right, and that the reason these documents are kept under wraps is to suppress knowledge of the Stewarts and their claim to the Throne.”
“To suppress knowledge of the bloodline and its claim to the Throne. Look, I don’t wish to give you a history lesson but let us talk about Diana’s Stewart blood for a moment. The reason Diana was brought into the Windsor fold was first and foremost to reintroduce the Stewart strain into the Royal Family, something they have to do every few generations. It is not widely known, in fact it has been well and truly covered up and you certainly won’t have been taught this at school, but Queen Victoria was illegitimate. She was not the daughter of Edward, Duke of Kent as is recorded in your history books because Edward was barren, and as Edward was the only one of Victoria’s ‘parents’ to have even the slightest drop of Stewart blood in his veins, the Stewart strain became extinct in the Royal blood at that time. It remained so until today—until Charles married Diana, in fact. I repeat: the reason Diana was brought into the Windsor fold was first and foremost to reintroduce the Stewart strain into the Royal Family and by so doing deflect any legitimate Stewart claim. Do you see? It was a political marriage, I can assure you.”
I remembered that the Doctor had spoken about what he’d termed political and masonic viticulture—the grafting of bloodlines from one vine to another, one family to the next in order to maintain possession of the bloodline. I’d asked him to be more specific: How can you possess a bloodline? I’d put to him. Marry into it, produce children, get rid of the mother, he’d replied. He’d added: Of course, this only creates a bastardized strain of the original bloodline, but it’s enough to fulfil the ambitions of those who possess it.
“A political marriage,” I heard myself say, echoing Michael’s words. “Diana was purposely selected to marry Charles in order to reintroduce the bloodline gene into the Royal Family. But she became too popular and the combination of her popularity and her Stewart heritage made her a threat. That’s what you’re saying, right?”
“Exactly. The Stewarts have always been a threat to them. We still are.”
“And you think she could have been murdered for this reason?”
“Absolutely, yes, especially when you consider she was planning to marry an Arab-Muslim and have his children. Would they have carried the gene, too? The whole thing just got out of hand.”
Just then, JB returned from the bathroom and it was time to wrap things up.
“Subjects leaving the building,” the woman in jeans and camel tweed jacket said into her mobile phone as she turned her back on the Duke of Wellington statue and headed off along Leith Street into the anonymity of Edinburgh’s suburbs.
“It was good to meet you, Michael,” I said. “Thank you for your time.”
“My pleasure.”
We’d just exited the hotel on Princes Street and were preparing to go our separate ways—Michael back across town to his apartment just off the Royal Circus, about half a mile away, and JB and I to the airport. Sending a furtive glance to the opposite side of the street, to where the Duke of Wellington was still attracting a handful of admirers, I noticed that the woman in jeans and camel tweed jacket I’d seen on our arrival was no longer there. Maybe I’d overreacted, I told myself. Maybe I’d let my paranoia get the better of me again. I gave my attention back to Michael.
“Thanks again. We’ll be in touch.”
“I look forward to hearing from you.” Then he said: “And be careful. They’ll be watching you now, even if they weren’t before!”
He laughed out loud, then turned and headed off along Princes Street and into St Andrew Street, leaving JB and I even more confused than we’d been before we met him.
CHAPTER 44
Over the following weeks and month
s I actually came to know Prince Michael quite well, and the confusion we’d felt following our Edinburgh lunch was, at least to some extent, allayed as both JB and I were able to hold more relaxed and in-depth conversations with him and gain a better understanding of where he was at and why the Doctor and our mystery kidnapper had wanted us to talk to him. By the time our book finally arrived some twelve months later – and almost two-and-half years late, I might add – Michael had visited my home and stayed overnight on several occasions, and it would even be true to say that he’d become a good family friend. Stuart Little, Katie had christened him, after the Hollywood movie of the time—a fitting soubriquet for the diminutive Prince of the Royal House of Stewart, it has to be said. For his part Michael was more than happy to give his time to our project, and even agreed to write a foreword for the book. Which he did. Perhaps it was the best part of fortune, then, that in the end the book did arrive late. At least we’d had time to properly prepare Michael’s interview and foreword for inclusion in the first edition.
And his involvement didn’t stop there, either. Michael also joined JB and I on a number of our book signings and media appearances, both on radio and TV, and was happy, too, to play his part at our speaking events, where he often opened the show with his edifying but entertaining preamble on Diana and her Stewart heritage. And its consequences. Indeed, as per the arrangements we’d made on the telephone barely forty-eight hours earlier, we were fully expecting him to be at this night’s conference as well, having once again planned for him to give the opening talk. But for reasons we had yet to discover, this night Michael wouldn’t be coming…
“Have you called him?” It was early evening. JB and I had just arrived at the conference centre and were heading across the car park towards the main entrance. The sign above the doors read: PRINCESS DIANA: THE EVIDENCE, A PRESENTATION BY JON KING. We pushed through the double doors and shouldered our way through the milling crowds in the foyer, past the stall where Jackie was selling copies of the book, and finally out through the fire exit on our way backstage to prepare for the talk.