An Ancient Strife

by Michael Phillips

  “He wouldn’t understand them, anyway,” laughed Morey with derision.

  “That was his father who spoke no English,” said Lyle.

  “That’s right,” added Spean. “George II claims to be a thorough Englishman.” The sarcasm in his tone, though subtle, was not lost on any of those present.

  “He is still a Hanoverian and a German,” insisted Morey, “whatever else he is.”

  Now John Campbell approached and joined the discussion. But his presence did nothing to moderate Morey’s remarks. If anything, Argyll’s appearance further inflamed Morey’s whiskey-soaked tongue.

  “Are you saying a Stuart should be on the throne instead of His Majesty?” asked Campbell.

  “You can hardly deny that King George is a German and we are not,” interjected Lyle in hopes of keeping his friend Morey out of further trouble. “We should be ruled by one of our own kind.”

  “As I said earlier,” added Tullibardglass, “we are one land now, not separate countries. And we are ruled by one King.”

  “Perhaps the nation is not as unified as the Act of Union dictates,” suggested the earl of Cliffrose. “You cannot deny that there are legitimate disputes, Murdoch . . . the rightful monarchy among them.”

  “Here, here!” chimed in Morey, lifting his glass again. “To the King over the water!”

  Spean, Lyle, MacDonnell, and a few others began to lift their glasses in response.

  “We’ll have no such toasts in my home, Morey,” warned Tullibardglass sternly. “We have our King, and he’s no Stuart.”

  “Come, Gordon,” said Argyll with condescending tone, turning toward the earl, “the Fifteen is done with and past, the Pretender living out his years in Rome. And the Hanoverians are proving able monarchs. You and your Jacobite friends must eventually join the modern times. This is the eighteenth century.”

  “Some in the north find the tax increase on salt and malt excessive, Campbell,” suggested Lyle.

  “The King is within his rights,” rejoined Argyll. “There have always been taxes. But the smuggling that has become epidemic in the cities of the north—outlaws treated as heroes, excise men as public enemies . . . the rioting—I tell you it must stop. Otherwise the King will be forced to crack down.”

  “As his predecessor from Orange did at Glencoe?” shot back Gordon.

  The strong words pierced the atmosphere of discussion like an icy dagger and clearly annoyed the evening’s host. A brief silence followed.

  “He will do what he must to maintain the union,” said Argyll after a moment. The threat in his tone was unmistakable.

  “And with the help of men like you and Forbes, I’m sure he will succeed admirably,” spat Morey. “I should have known better than to come to a den of English sympathy like this. I don’t know what kind of Scot you think you are, Tullibardglass.—Gordon, Lyle, Spean, MacDonnell, MacLeod . . . good evening. To the rest I say, good riddance!”

  He turned and strode angrily toward the door.

  The beginning of a waltz put a fortunate end to the tense situation. A few wives approached. Kendrick looked about for Aileana, then, spotting her talking with a small group of women, excused himself and made his way across the room toward them.

  Seventeen

  Would you like to dance?” Culodina heard a familiar, though deeper, voice than she remembered say behind her. She turned.

  “Sandy!” she exclaimed. “I thought you were—”

  She paused, embarrassed for what she had been about to say.

  “With Samantha Forbes?” he grinned. “I was, but—”

  He stopped and pulled her to one side. As he did he bent down close to her ear.

  “I escaped when she wasn’t looking!” he whispered.

  Culodina snickered, though her heart fluttered at the feel of Sandy’s warm breath in her hair and against her ear.

  “I’ve been looking for you,” he went on as he led her onto the floor, then slowly put his right arm around her waist and took her hand with his left. They began dancing to the music of the waltz. “But I couldn’t get away,” he went on. “Besides,” he added with a carefree grin, “you’ve had people clustered around you all evening. This is the first time I’ve seen you alone.”

  “No, it’s not. I’ve been free all the time.”

  “What do you mean?” said Sandy with a mischievous smile. “Everyone is talking about you. You’re the belle of the ball.”

  “I am not!” laughed Culodina, feeling red rising from her neck into her cheeks. “It’s you all the girls are whispering about.”

  Sandy roared, attracting more than a few glances from the other dancers.

  “Culodina, now it’s you who are talking nonsense!” he said, continuing to laugh.

  “Why else do you think Samantha nabbed you the instant you walked in? She wanted to make sure everyone was looking at her.”

  “Well, now they’re looking at me,” said Sandy, “because finally I am dancing with the prettiest girl here.”

  Culodina glanced away, glad for the quick spin Sandy had just effected. She didn’t think she could bear his eyes right now.

  Not all love springs instantly into the human heart. The blossoms of some flowers are slow to reveal themselves and grow invisibly through years of tender nurturing. The youth and the maiden had known each other all their lives. But now suddenly the friendship of their youth began to take the affections of each in directions neither had expected.

  The remainder of the dance, and the several that followed, were quiet. Hardly a word passed their lips, though books unwritten passed between their eyes and hearts.

  Across the hall, Culodina’s father took note and watched the two with concern upon his face plainly evident. The girl was growing up more rapidly than he realized.

  Already irritated at Aberfeldy’s unseemly display and at Sandy’s father, as he supposed, for assisting the drunken Morey in making him appear the fool in front of Forbes and Argyll—whose favor the evening had been intended to curry—he grew more and more annoyed as he watched. He would put a stop to what he feared was developing before his eyes on the dance floor. Now that his former friend’s sympathies were out in the open, he could not allow a closer approach between the son and his own daughter. Such an alliance could damage his chances of improving his standing in the eyes of—

  “Your daughter seems to be a hit with the son of our Jacobite friend,” remarked Campbell, as if he had been reading Sorley’s mind.

  The viscount turned quickly from his reverie to see Argyll at his side.

  “Forbes tells me his daughter is outside venting her wrath at this very moment,” Campbell added.

  “I will put a stop to it,” said Tullibardglass.

  “That would be advisable. It would not be seemly for the King to hear that your daughter is on friendly terms with one so openly scornful of both King and union.”

  “It will be seen to, my lord Argyll.”

  Campbell turned and eyed the evening’s host significantly.

  “I must say, Tullibardglass,” he said after a long moment, “whatever the ultimate outcome concerning the dispute over his estate, I hoped you would have been more successful in turning Cliffrose from his folly by now.”

  Sorley winced at Argyll’s reproof. “To do so is my highest ambition, my lord Argyll,” he said.

  “It would certainly assist toward a favorable ruling by the King in the matter of the Cliffrose property,” rejoined Campbell.

  As they danced, over her shoulder Sandy saw Culodina’s father in close counsel with Argyll. From the occasional glance in their direction, he knew they were talking about him.

  He did not like the look in either man’s eyes.

  Eighteen

  A week later Sandy Gordon called at Tullibardglass Hall.

  “Hello, Swayn,” he said to the manservant who answered his knock. “I am here to see Lady Culodina.”

  He was shown into the drawing room and left alone.

  The next v
oice he heard was that of Culodina’s father.

  “So, young Gordon,” he said coolly as he entered, “what brings you to Tullibardglass again so soon? Misplace something at the ball, did you?”

  “I hoped to pay my respects to your daughter, sir.”

  “Your . . . respects? Hmm, I see. Well then, I shall certainly see she is informed that you are here.”

  Sorley nodded stiffly and left.

  It was several minutes before Culodina appeared. Her eyes were red, and Sandy saw instantly that something was wrong.

  “Would you like to go for a ride, Culodina?” he said cheerfully. “It is a wonderful day out, and—”

  “Thank you, Sandy,” she replied, keeping her eyes to the floor. “I am afraid I will be unable to.”

  “A walk, then . . . in the garden perhaps.”

  “I am sorry. I am really very, very busy. You must excuse me.”

  She turned and half ran from the room.

  A moment later Swayn appeared. “I was instructed to see you to the door, sir,” he said. Sandy did not argue, but followed the silent manservant outside and to his horse, whose reins the Tullibardglass groom held in his hands in the middle of the entry. Baillidh had clearly been advised that the visit would not be long enough to require oats, water, or other provision for the animal.

  Bewildered, Sandy mounted and began the ride back to Cliffrose.

  Ten days later, a tearful Culodina Sorley sat silently beside her father the viscount in a luxuriously appointed coach pulled by four black Holsteiners imported from King George II’s breeding farms at Celle. The animals were Murdoch Sorley’s pride. All Culodina knew or cared about was that they were bearing her away from her home and from the land of her birth.

  That same afternoon, Sandy Gordon called again at Tullibardglass. Sufficient time had passed, he judged, for the situation, whatever it was, to have cooled. He was determined this time to speak with Culodina.

  Again the door was opened by Swayn.

  “Good afternoon, Swayn,” said Sandy. “I have come again to see Lady Culodina.”

  “I am sorry, sir. She departed this morning with her father.”

  “Departed . . . bound where?”

  “For my lord’s estate in England, sir.”

  “England!”

  “That is correct, sir.”

  “Why?”

  “My lord did not confide his plans to me, sir. I did overhear talk that my lady Culodina is to be a lady’s companion near Carlisle.”

  “For how long?”

  “The carriage was loaded full of boxes. I was not told when to expect her again at Tullibardglass.”

  Stunned, Sandy Gordon turned and began a long, slow ride home, revolving many things in his mind.

  Nineteen

  Despite a generally improving economic outlook, there were those Scots who continued to despise the House of Hanover. King George II’s German wife, Caroline, did nothing to ease these resentments when in 1736, acting as regent while her husband was in Germany, she passed a vituperative series of measures against the City of Edinburgh for hanging a condemned English officer her husband had pardoned. The measure was called the Bill of Pains and Penalties, and though in the end, through the duke of Argyll’s pleading, most of its extreme penalties were not enforced, it inflamed Scottish resentments anew.

  In 1739 England went to war with Spain, and in 1740 against France. Soon most of continental Europe was involved in the widening conflict, and by 1742 most of the British army was engaged on the mainland. The crown demanded ever higher taxes to fund its activities abroad. Talk began to circulate of a new Jacobite rising. With England’s army committed elsewhere, there could be no more perfect time. And now the support of powerful allies, particularly France, was likely.

  Indeed, as a result of the war, France was poised to invade England in 1744. If a Stuart rebellion could be mounted simultaneously, a new personality was now on the scene to lead it—none other than James Edward’s magnetic, energetic, courageous son, Charles Edward, now representing a third Stuart generation since the ouster of his grandfather in 1688.

  Living in Rome with his father, Prince Charles Edward had been raised in the belief that the Stuart cause was right and just and that it was only a matter of time before his family’s house would fight to regain the throne that had been wrested from it now more than fifty years before. His years on the Continent, where many of the royal houses of Europe still regarded his father as rightful King in exile, had strengthened this view as he grew into adulthood.

  Now, with France at war with England, that time seemed nearly at hand.

  When news of the planned French invasion reached him, Prince Charles left Rome for France, determined that it now fell to him to take up his father’s cause.

  Meanwhile, Gordon had seen none of the family nor heard from Culodina Sorley in eleven years. Numerous letters had gone out from Cliffrose to the Sorley estate near Carlisle. But silence had been the sole reply.

  Other communications, however, had proved more successful, though the letters between Paris and the Highlands had to be guarded with vigilance. Should the Stuart prince’s plans become known, danger for everyone could result.

  Word began to circulate that the son of the King over the water was planning to sail from France in the wake of a French invasion of England, to mount a rebellion and seize the Scottish throne on behalf of its rightful royal family. Furious messages flew back and forth in the north as the clans of the Highlands began to line up on one side or another.

  Tensions mounted between England and Scotland, and again the Jacobite flame burned bright.

  When Kendrick Gordon left Cliffrose with his son in August of 1744, even Aileana was not told that from Aberdeen they planned to sail for the mainland with a small contingent of Scots bound for France. When they returned a month later, both Kendrick and Sandy had met the young prince and were more confident than ever that success only awaited the right moment.

  Twenty

  NOVEMBER 1744

  The clattering, bouncing sound of a large passenger coach echoed faintly along the enclosing high slopes of the Boar of Badenoch. Four wood-and-metal wheels crunched unevenly along the narrow pitted road as the weekly coach between Perth and Inverness rumbled through the Pass of Drumochter east of Glen Garry.

  The rumbling of sixteen shod hooves, the snorting from fleshy lips and noses, the occasional shout and crack of whip, and the creaking of wood and straining of leather harnesses and reins gave loud and unmistakable evidence of the vehicle’s approach—though along this deserted section of the road, no one seemed likely to hear.

  Then suddenly a horseman appeared halfway up the slope. He sat astride a spotted gray in the midst of a thick stand of pine. As the sound came closer, at last he urged his mount forward. Within seconds he was galloping down at great speed on a bearing to intercept the carriage. A moment later appeared behind him three riders, well armed with long swords. They had come as out of nowhere and now rode down the hill out of the Dalnacardoch Forest behind their leader.

  The coachman glanced up warily. The front rider displayed too noble a bearing as he lifted a hand, thought the coachman, for a thief. But one could never be certain. He reined in his team of four, hoping he was right.

  Pounding hooves and slowing wheels, whinnies and stretching leather, rearing and stomping and a few shouts mingled with the dust of the road as riders, horses, and coach gradually ground to a noisy halt. The horses continued to stomp, shuffle, and snort uneasily.

  More slowly now, the horseman eased his mount at a walk toward the scene.

  “Gien ye intend any harm,” called out the coachman, “either to the coach or my passengers, be assured that the King’s—”

  “No harm will come to any of you,” interrupted the deep voice of the leader of the four riders. “We are expecting something. I must ask that you hand over your mail pouch.”

  “Ye can wait till it reaches Dalwhinnie like the muckle rest.”

>   “I am sorry, I cannot wait. If it has not been confiscated already, it will be there. We are expecting a communication from France.”

  “Wha are ye, then?” asked the coachman.

  “A friend of ancient Caledonia, and one loyal to her rightful King.”

  “Jacobites!” exclaimed the coachman.

  “Say only friends of Caledonia.”

  “But is a new rising aboot—”

  “Keep your tongue, man!” barked the rider.

  “Ay, sir! Here be the mail!” he added, tossing the leather bag toward him.

  Inside the coach, a young woman sat with pounding heart.

  She had recognized the voice. Not in eleven years had her imagination allowed her to envision that this day would come. Now as she neared her home for the first time since her father had sent her away, suddenly she heard the voice she had longed for all that time.

  She could hardly dare bring her face to the window.

  He sounded so old, so commanding. Perhaps it was not he at all! Or if it was, perhaps he had changed.

  A thousand what ifs overwhelmed her brain.

  What if he didn’t know her . . . or didn’t want to see her? What if he despised her for what she had done? What if he was married? What if he hated her because of her father?

  She had not heard a word from him all that time. Perhaps he no longer even remembered.

  The rider tossed the mail pouch back to the driver.

  “Did ye find what ye were luikin’ for, lad?”

  “Ay, we did! And I thank you . . . for all Scotland!”

  “Can ye tell me noo?”

  “I can’t say a word, driver. There are ears everywhere. Just keep your claymore at the ready if you love freedom!”

  He spun his horse around and dug his heels into the great beast’s flanks. Already his three companions were galloping back up the slope into Dalnacardoch.

  At the carriage windows, the pounding in the heart of one of the three passengers had risen to thunder within her breast.

  She had summoned courage to look out. But her mouth was too dry to speak.

  He was starting to ride away!