Island of the Swans

Copyright © 1988, 2010 by Ciji Ware

Cover and internal design © 2010 by Sourcebooks, Inc.

Cover design by Dawn Pope

Cover photo © Bridgeman Art Library/Corbis

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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks, Inc.

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

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Originally published in 1989 by Bantam Books.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Ware, Ciji.

Island of the swans / Ciji Ware.

p. cm.

1. Gordon, Jane Gordon, Duchess of, 1748-1812—Fiction. 2. Triangles (Interpersonal relations)—Fiction. 3. Nobility—Scotland—Fiction. 4. Scotland—Social life and customs—18th century—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3573.A7435I85 2010

813’.54—dc22

2009040362

Printed and bound in the United States of America.
VP  10  9  8  7  6  5  4  3  2  1

For
Anthony Pattison Cook,
who always takes the high road

Contents

Author’s Note

Family Tree

Part 1

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Part 2

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-One

Twenty-Two

Part 3

Twenty-Three

Twenty-Four

Twenty-Five

Twenty-Six

Twenty-Seven

Twenty-Eight

Twenty-Nine

Thirty

Part 4

Thirty-One

Thirty-Two

Thirty-Three

Thirty-Four

Acknowledgments

Postscript 2010

Reading Group Guide

About the Author

Author’s Note

T
WENTY YEARS HAVE PASSED SINCE THE DEBUT OF THIS, MY FIRST
novel, and to this day, a full-length biography of the life of Jane Maxwell, on which the novel
Island of the Swans
is based, has never been produced by any serious scholar. This fact says more about the selection process employed by modern academics than it does about this fascinating eighteenth-century Scottish “Woman of Fashion” whom fate decreed would be beloved by two men—and would become a confidante of kings. I am delighted beyond expression that Sourcebooks Landmark is bringing out this beautiful new edition, and I hope that readers unacquainted with this tumultuous tale will find it as compelling to read as it was for me to write two decades ago.

Most of what we do know about Jane Maxwell comes from passing references made by some of her contemporaries, including the Prince of Wales, Sir Walter Scott, Robert Burns, William Pitt (the Younger), Henry Dundas, Horace Walpole, Henry Erskine, Nathanial Wraxall, Dr. Samuel Johnson, and Sir Joshua Reynolds. Enticing clues to Jane’s story are found in newspaper and magazine accounts of her day that chronicle the events of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, a glittering period of great cultural and political ferment. Records of the behind-the-scenes maneuvering during the tumultuous times of Scottish involvement in the American Revolution, the Prince of Wales’s Debt Crisis, and the five-month Madness Crisis of George III in 1787-1788, describe events in which Jane Maxwell figured prominently. Also related to the story are the packets of letters, documents, and family papers stored in the National Library of Scotland, the Edinburgh City Library, and King’s College Library in Aberdeen, among other archives.

The Huntington Library in San Marino, California, possesses a small number of letters relating directly to Jane and members of her family, as well as an enormous treasure trove of books, manuscripts, maps, and ephemera concerning Scotland, England, and America during the period this story takes place: 1760 to 1797.

My goal has been to combine the facts that are known from the written record about Jane Maxwell, with intelligent supposition about what is
not
known. This biographical novel spins a tale about love and the vagaries of fortune that shaped the life of a woman of great achievement in an age that, in many surprising ways, set the stage for our own.

Although great effort has been invested in weaving accurate research into the novel concerning the linkages between the Gordon and Fraser clans, Jane Maxwell, and the period in which she lived, several minor chronological shifts and time condensations were made for dramatic purposes within this work of fiction. None, I trust, distorts the overall sense of the story as I have been able to unravel it.

Many of the wits and writers of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries castigated Jane Maxwell for the unusual role she played in the social and political events of her day; others worshipped her. I choose to let the reader decide the truth.

Ciji Ware
Sausalito, California

The Gordons boldly did advance
The Frasers fought with sword and lance

—Anonymous