Bonnie Prince Charlie: A Biography Read Free Page B

morning, waiting for the outgoing tide. Her eminent passenger, wrapped in his own somber thoughts, submitted stoically to this final delay. He was cold and weary, more sick at heart over the harm he had brought to others than over his own profound disappointment. "It is crushing to me," he was to write shortly afterward, "who would have thought myself to some degree content if I were alone in my misfortune but the death and misfortunes of others of which I am the innocent cause pierces my heart."
     
    Chapter 2
    In his return to France James found himself in an extremely uncomfortable position. He had nowhere to go, he had very little money, indeed the only thing he had in abundance was the loyalty of the hungry followers who lived at his court and looked to him to support them.
    And now those followers were growing in numbers, as the leaders of the Scots who had rebelled made their way via the Orkneys to France to join their king in exile. By April of 1716 there were some five hundred of them, uprooted and restless, waiting in quarrelsome impatience for James to take the initiative and launch another invasion. James was himself responsible for bringing quite a few of these men across the Channel. He felt obligated to them and responsible for them, and sent ships to pick them up and transport them to France where, he assumed, he would be able to offer them his protection.
    France had after all been the exiled Stuarts' haven for decades. James had lived at St.-Germain-en-Laye most of his life; the opulent baroque palace with its hundreds of rooms, its elegant gardens and air of serene regality was still home to him. His father had died there, and was buried at the convent church of Chaillot. His mother still lived at St. Germain—where James went to see her shortly after his return from Scotland—and fully expected to live out her life at the palace. Culturally, James was a Frenchman, albeit a Frenchman with an acquired nostalgia for England.
    Yet his lifelong connection with France was about to be permanently severed. Louis XIV, who had always sheltered the Stuarts, had died the previous year. France was ruled by a regency, with the pragmatic, shrewd Due d’Orléans at its head. Orleans was indifferent to the Stuarts, except for their potential value as a weapon to be used against King George of England. For the time being he had no use for James (though he allowed James's mother, Mary of Modena, to continue to live at St. Germain), and had no intention of harboring him. On the contrary, James's presence in France was an embarrassment, for Orleans was just then favorably inclined toward the English and was negotiating a rapprochement with King George. So James had to leave, and immediately.
    Where was he to take his ragged court? Sweden was one possibility. The Swedish king, Charles XH, was at odds with King George— in his role as Elector of Hanover—over some disputed territories on the continent. He was eager to assist any enemy of the elector's, and indeed had entertained the idea of supporting James with troops and money. But Sweden was remote, and the intrigues under way there on James's behalf were not yet ripe. Spain was another possibility, but though James wrote to King Philip V asking for support, he got no response. Hard-pressed, and with the regent uncompromising in his hostility, James took the easiest course and accepted the hospitality of Pope Clement XI at Avignon. Here he took up residence in April of 1716, trailed by his horde of servitors and hangers-on.
    James's position was especially difficult in that his abortive invasion of Scotland had provoked a crisis among his chief supporters.
    Until recently his principal supporter had been his half-brother James Fitzjames, Duke of Berwick, bastard son of James II and Arabella Churchill. Berwick was, like his uncle the Duke of Marlborough, a military genius and had been created Marshal of France.
    With his achievements on the battlefield and his bluff,