The Patriot (22 page)

"Ha!" William said. "This sounds more hopeful. I had forgotten the Buccleuch dukedom."

"Is all this so important?" Mary wondered. "Since the throne is now a united one. My great-grandsire, James the Sixth, became first King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, in which both thrones are included. If the
English
ask you to be king, William - as they are doing even now - is that not sufficient?"

"Sufficient in law perhaps, my dear. But I am concerned over the wishes and feelings of the Scots. I need the support of Scotland in this endeavour - or at least not its enmity. The Highlands are largely Catholic still, we know. I do not want a Highland army marching to support your father. We know what happened to Argyll."

"Argyll was a Campbell!" Mary Stewart said shortly.

"You see - the Scottish concern with blood and clans!"

Burnet intervened again. "Your Highnesses - Scot as I am, I believe that you should leave the Scottish situation meantime. Concentrate on England. Once you are King in England, sir, the Scottish problem will be less difficult. From all that I have heard, the Scots are in no position to mount an invasion of England in support of King James. He is scarcely beloved, even in the Highlands. I say invade England with your Protestant army, under cover of your great fleet. And when you sit on the throne at Westminster, I think that you need not fear Scottish opposition."

"So say I," Mary nodded.

"Would that it were so simple! There is so much to be considered first. My States-General are suspicious, even hostile. They see me, as King of Eng
land, forgetting my own
Netherlands. Of leaving the Low Countries open to Louis of France's ambitions. I have to carry my people with me - if for no other reason than to ensure the aid of my army and fleet. I tell them that if, with England, I lead a great confederation of Protestant states, then the Netherlands are the more secure. And I will never desert my Dutch people. But . . ."

"Promise them gold, English gold, and they will come round!" his wife advised. "Also trading rights in the English colonies. Your Dutch will listen to that talk!"

"Then there is Louis. He cannot but know of this projected invasion. His spies are everywhere. James is his cousin, his pensioner and fellow-Catholic. He will seek not only to warn him but possibly also to support him in arms. This is partly what concerns my States-General. The fear that the French will descend upon the Netherlands whilst I am engaged in England."

"The victory over the Turks, Highness, may help in this," Andrew suggested. "The Emperor, as I see it, is Louis's chief rival and preoccupation. Now, with this Hungarian war all but over, the Imperial armies will be freed from that entanglement. Which means that King Louis will be watching the East again, rather than the North. The Brandenburgers talked much of turning on France. Until he sees how the Emperor will move, with Turkish defeat, Louis will I think hold his hand . . ."

"So, as I say, the sooner you move to England the better," Mary asserted.

"I will not move before all is in readiness - both here and in England. That could be fatal. As Monmouth found out. We cannot do anything before June, anyway. That could be all-important."

Andrew looked from one to the other. At an audience one did not cross-question royalty. But his raised brows were eloquent.

"June, Mr. Fletcher," William repeated. "We have sure word that James's Queen, his second wife, Mary of Modena, is with child. Due in June. If the child should be a son, and lives, then all is changed. My wife ceases to be heir to the throne. A male heir would alter all."

There was silence again.

"It is suggested, Highness, that this pregnancy is
...
suppositious," Burnet said.

"Suggested by those who would wish it so, my friend. Or those who would have me to act precipitately.
My
information is otherwise."

The Princess looked sour.

"So we must wait," her husband went on. "But waiting, we need not be inactive. God knows, there is much to do. And you, Mr. Fletcher, will, I hope, be prepared to aid us. You have had recent and active experience of warfare. Distinguished yourself, all say. Although I will have some thousands of my own troops, I trust, to support me if and when I move, for good reason much of the army must be English and Scottish volunteers, few of them with knowledge of soldiering. So such as yourself will be invaluable." He raised his hand, smiling, as though to forestall any objection. "Even if you refuse to accompany any expedition, for your own reasons, I think that you cannot refuse to help train these good folk who presently all but swamp my small country? I shall need every able officer I can find."

Andrew could only bow.

"Keep us informed, my friend, of anything you hear as to the Scots situation. And your thoughts thereon. We shall be grateful."

"Thank you for your attendance, Mr. Fletcher," the Princess said. The audience was at an end.

11

If the feeling of having been through all this before had been strong eight months before, when Andrew had first returned to Holland, it was still more so now. For once again he paced the deck of a ship anchored off Texel, impatiently waiting after long delay. Again he was in tw
o minds about being involved at
all. And again he had very little in common with most of his companions.

But there were differences, admittedly. For one thing, this was a powerful ship-of-war on which he stood. And the nearby reaches of the Zuider Zee contained, not a couple of lighters in addition, but a great fleet of vessels, warships and transports, marshalled in long rows. Moreover, this was late October not June, so that the wild weather which had held them up for ten days was at least not so unseasonable, however frustrating.

William of Orange's ambitious project, over which that prince was little more enthusiastic than was Andrew Fletcher, had been postponed well beyond the provisional June date, despite continuing and ever more urgent appeals from England. The information about the Queen's pregnancy had proved correct, but the term of delivery was wrong. Mary of Modena had indeed produced a child, a son, but not until the beginning of October. So now there was a Prince of Wales and the dynastic situation had become considerably more tense. But despite William's first notion that the arrival of a male heir to the throne would much retard his own chances, it seemed that the reverse actually applied. At least, the pleas for swift action had become ever more pressing, from England, with the contention that the longer the child, named James again, lived the more difficult it would become to unseat the father. Also, the birth had more or less coincided with the trial and surprising acquittal of the seven bishops and this had touched off such an upsurge of popular rejoicing, and resentment against the monarch, that King James had to seek security in the midst of the army of Catholic Irish troops brought over and assembled at Hounslow. There, in a panic, he issued a unilateral declaration of indulgence for Catholics and Protestants both, without parliamentary authority and contrary to law. But this was too late and rejected on all hands. Prominent Protestants were united in their advice to William that now was the time to strike; conditions would never be more favourable - and failure to act might well mean a spontaneous civil war breaking out in England. Seven of the most influential, the Earls of Devonshire, Shrewsbury and Danby, the
Lords
Delamere and Lumley, the suspended Bishop of London and Admiral Russell, had sent imploring messages to The Hague. And the Prince had been persuaded.

So Dutch and foreign troops were hastily mustered at Nimeguen and a fleet assembled in the Zuider Zee, under the command of Marshal Schomberg and Generals Bentinck, Dykevelt, Keppel, Van Hulst and Herbert, with a number of exiled leaders - of which Andrew Fletcher found himself * almost inevitably one. The amassing of the force had gone well, better than might have been expected at short notice, for the Dutch were efficient enough. But there had been a hitch, when Lord Sunderland, one of James's intimates - who presumably considered that he ought to butter both sides of his bread - sent secret word to William that the King had an undertaking from Louis of France, in that should William move, a French army would be sent to invade Holland and take the city of Maes-tricht, to deter the Dutch from sailing. So the Prince had detached half of his Netherlands force to go to save Maestricht, which left him with some 14,000 men for the venture, 8,500 of them Hollanders.

Ten days of squalls and unfavourable winds had followed and William had delayed his own embarkation, at his States-General's request. But now, after a change in the wind at last from south-west to due east, orders had come to sail. The fleet would reassemble at Hellevoetsluis on one of the arms of the Maas estuary, some ninety miles southwards, where the Prince would join it and from which a dash across the mouth of the Channel might be made with some hope of avoiding the English navy.

Moving such an armada into sailing formation, the warships encircling the transports like sheep-dogs, took time. The hope was that James's fleet would be loth to tangle with the renowned Dutch shipping, or too disaffected for its commanders to risk anything such. Admiral Russell had indicated that this might well be so. At any rate no sign of opposition had shown itself by the time that the windy October dusk enshrouded the great concourse of vessels as it moved, breeze half-astern, down towards the Channel.

Andrew appeared to be th
e only Scot aboard the flagship
so far, and kept pretty much to himself, turning in early.

Sailing at the speed of the slowest, daylight found them only off the old Rhine-mouth, some fifty miles down the flat, featureless coast. There was still no report of English naval presence which cheered all save the few fire-eaters. The wind swinging slightly into the north, they were able to make better time, but the shipmasters shook their heads gravely, fearing that this change of direction would go too far.

By mid-day the wide mouth of the Haringvliet arm of the Maas estuary was opening to port and they turned in, almost due eastwards now, the win
d unfavourable again. Hellevoet
sluis port was some way up and reasonably near to Rotterdam. Here William and his close entourage came aboard, and Andrew was glad to be joined by his friends Gilbert Burnet and Sir Patrick Home, along with other Scots.

A curious atmosphere prevailed on the flagship, with none of the false confidence of the Monmouth venture, little feeling indeed of high endeavour, but no desperation either, rather a sort of inevitable commitment and a dogged determination, suitably Dutch. William himself was no enthusiast, but he was very much in command, a strong, stern man who knew what he was doing and would do it without fail, for he had a streak of ruthlessness.

Nevertheless the doing of it was again delayed. The wind and weather altered again, south-westerly gales and driving rain, and so continued. Indeed on the 26th October there was a really violent storm, where even in the comparatively sheltered Maas estuary the ships were in grave danger of being driven aground and wrecked, and the state of the men crowded aboard became dire, with morale plummeting and assertions, even amongst the leadership, that fate was against them and that every day lost sank their chances further. Andrew for one did not see it that way. He argued that the weather would equally keep the English fleet storm-bound; that James and his advisers would not look for invasion in such conditions; that Louis would be unlikely to move his armies either, and that seasick men would quickly recover once their feet touched dry land. In his opinion, if they set off the moment sailing conditions were at all possible, however uncomfortable, even

148 dangerous, they would be presented with a wonderful chance to avoid a sea-battle and the possible massacre of transports and gain an almost unopposed landing, with the French behind them immobilised. William was inclined to agree with this assessment, although many of his lieutenants were now urging that the entire project be put off until the spring - this group led by one Wildman, an English expatriate politician, eloquent but consistently overestimating English strengths and Dutch weaknesses. But the Dutchmen were uneasy too, fearing that the estuary would freeze over and trap the shipping, as so often it did in early winter.

On 1st November the wind abated somewhat, although even in the Haringvliet the seas remained daunting. William gave the command to reassemble - for the fleet was now scattered over a wide area. It took until the evening tide before all could be marshalled in some sort of order, and at last they set sail for England - many declaring that they were heading for certain death, not by land but at sea.

Andrew felt strangely detached, as though it all had very little to do with him.
His
thoughts, hopes, ambitions, like his heart, lay five hundred miles to the north.

It certainly made an appalling passage. The gale and seas prevented them from tacking northwards as intended. The fleet could not be kept together. Visibility was very poor and signals could not be transmitted. Even the great ships-of-war suffered direly; what it must have been like on the overladen transports and horse-ships beggared the imagination. Then, next morning, the wind strengthening rather than sinking, it swung into due east, and under almost bare masts they blew rather than sailed before it, spread over endless miles of tossing, grey-white sea. Some vessels had to tow others, their rudders smashed. How many might be lost nowise could be ascertained.