A few more years passed after the attack on Heath Hall before our fate fell upon us.

I resolved to treasure every blessed moment I had been granted to awaken to no sound more threatening than the warbling of chiffchaffs, throstles, and blackcaps. And so equally to savor eating breakfast porridge across the table from my husband and watching our children grow in health and heartiness.

The years of rain and cold and bad harvests in Scotland of the 1690s had passed. Our tenants looked contented—some were even a bit stout! It was a pleasure to watch the fields around our home full of barley, oats and wheat, and the tenants’ cottages in good repair.

I was so grateful for this time of peace that I even took pleasure in walking out on a fine day to the washhouse and the bleaching green where our two household laundresses Fiona and Davina spent their days cleaning our clothing and our table and bed linen. Fiona was a big, bluff woman with round, red arms and a thicket of curly hair that would never stay tucked away under a kerchief. Davina was more delicate and liked to adorn her hair with ribbons or flowers. As different as they were, the two of them got along like loving sisters, and I liked to hear them laugh and chafe each other as they worked.

Nearby was the dairy where two other maids, Una and Morag, churned butter and made cheese and the Brew House where ale was made. Tenants brought us fresh partridge, salmon, trout and chickens. Our house gardens had expanded. We now had onions, leeks, parsnips, cabbages, three kinds of peas—Hotspur, Haston and sugar—cucumbers, cauliflower, melons and asparagus, each emerging in its proper season. The harvest from these gardens was often so bounteous that we could share it with our tenants and neighbors. We sent to Edinburgh for cinnamon, ginger, mace, cloves, capers, prunes and olives.

We had also finally acquired a few luxuries better suited to our station than the heavy, old furniture Gavin had inherited from his mother—a fine walnut dining table and chairs, crimson velvet hangings for the little study where Gavin and Alistair wrangled over the accounts of the estate, new featherbeds and silken quilts, and a new wardrobe for my best clothes.

One evening, at dusk, dinner was done and the children were settled upstairs. We had left Lucy inside, ensconced in one of the new armchairs with a book.

Gavin and I sat on a bench in the garden amidst the mingled fragrances of herbs that rose and drifted around us. It must have been late spring because I remember particularly the thick, green smell of new parsley, which would have emitted a thinner, more incisive aroma by summer.

Gavin was humming a tune and it sounded familiar to me. Then all at once we began singing together,

Thou art my life, my love, my heart,

The very eyes of me;

And has command of every part,

To live and die for thee.

It was a verse from a Robert Herrick poem, “To Anthea, Who May Command Him Anything.” Gavin, as a young man in the Scottish Lowlands, and I, as a young woman in London, had somehow learned the same tune for the verse and both of us remembered it. I squeezed his hand and put my head on his shoulder, and no one disturbed us for a long time. That memory is very sweet to me.

As for the children, Gareth was in constant motion and loved nothing better than riding out with his father, but we had little luck getting him to settle to books and study. Moira was quieter, very industrious and a lover of books like her mother.

I saw that she would be a beauty, a dark-eyed and winsome lass, but I did not intend to marry her off young. I was convinced that the success of my marriage to Gavin was partly due to the fact that I had not been bartered away as a child bride, although I did not want Moira to wait until the great age of twenty-seven to marry as I had!

Elspeth was a sprite with a head of pale golden hair, as spiky and unruly as yellow gorse, and great hazel eyes like my favorite sister Glynis who had left us long ago for the religious life and was now the abbess of a convent in Bruges. Elspeth loved her poppets and played with them in the herb gardens, but she was too young yet for me to see what she might become.

We were of necessity more and more concerned with political matters during this time, as it appeared that Queen Anne was failing in health and nearing the end of her reign. After King James II was forced off his throne, Parliament in its wisdom had passed a wicked act requiring that no king or queen of England could ever again be a Catholic or be married to a Catholic. This meant that, when Anne succumbed at last, the nation would pass over more than fifty closer relatives and bestow the kingdom on the Elector of Hanover for one reason only, the fact that he was the closest Protestant relation.

We all knew that Anne’s death would be the best chance the Stuarts in exile would ever have to regain the throne of England and end the persecution of Catholics before the kingdom was utterly stolen by the German rustic George, Elector of Hanover. George knew little of England and probably even less of Scotland.

On August 1, 1714, Queen Anne died. Alistair had been to Glasgow on business and hurried back to bring us the news. He arrived on a bright, cloudless afternoon as I was playing a game of tag in the garden with the children. I had just “tagged” Elspeth and we had fallen on the grass, laughing, as I clasped her around her tiny waist.

I caught sight of Alistair and Gavin striding towards us across the lawn and knew at once by their stern expressions that Alistair’s news was grim. I pushed Elspeth away and stood up so abruptly, brushing tendrils of grass off my skirts, that she began to cry, and I had to stoop to comfort her while Alistair waited.

“Anne is dead,” he said, when he had my full attention. “George of Hanover is already on his way to London to be crowned.”

Over dinner that night, Alistair reported all the gossip he had heard among the coffeehouses of Glasgow. According to rumor, this George, this interloper, this thief, was unworthy to govern his own negligible fiefdom, much less rule a mighty nation!

To begin with, unlike the royal Stuarts, George of Hanover entirely lacked a kingly appearance or bearing. He was stubby and stout with coarse facial features, heavy-lidded, bulging eyes, an excessively long, pointed nose and cheeks so red that they appeared to be inflamed. (I can confirm the truth of this report myself, having later seen him up close.)

An ill-favored man may yet be an intelligent, or a witty, or even a good man. But in George’s case, his outward appearance, it was said, accurately reflected his inner nature. He had neither wit nor conversation nor any sort of style. As for his capacity for goodness or evil…I believe the tale of George and his wife Sophia Dorothea reveals the truth. I now remembered hearing some version of the story from the gleeful gossip of courtiers when I was a young woman in Paris. Serving a king in exile was a dreary job. Any scandal was noised about with much enthusiasm.

Sophia had found her husband dull, Alistair told us. It was reported that she fainted upon first setting eyes on her future husband and referred to him among her familiars as “Pig Snout.” She was a woman who preferred her pleasures and entertainments to her duties. In short, Sophia was a flibbertigibbet married to a block of wood. But the block of wood had a capacity for malevolence that was not yet fully known.

After bearing George two children, Sophia told herself her obligations to Hanover were done and took a lover more to her liking, a handsome, dashing Swedish count. But, alas, as Shakespeare observed, “Love is a devil. There is no evil angel but Love.”

Sophia and her count planned to run away together, but too many people knew. George heard of the affair. Just as the Swedish count was leaving the castle where he had spent the last night of his life with Sophia, a group of ruffians murdered him and threw his corpse into the Leine River. George then divorced Sophia and sent her to live for the rest of her days in dreary Ahlden House, a drafty chateau on the edge of one of those sinister, dark German forests where hobgoblins are said to abide.

The allotment of firewood for the house was strictly limited and George made sure the only foods and wines allowed were those Sophia detested. Sophia was never allowed to see her children again. George’s son never forgave his father for banishing his mother when the boy was only eleven years old.

A month or so after the death of Queen Anne, we learned that this George of Hanover, this Bluebeard, had arrived in England for his kingly coronation speaking no English and accompanied by two grotesque mistresses, one tall and emaciated, known as “the Scarecrow” and the other short and corpulent, who was called “the Elephant.” These harpies and George’s other attendants then proceeded to strip England bare, acquiring land and offices and demanding huge bribes from anyone who approached them for any sort of favor.

No wonder Catholic Englishmen and Scotsmen and many who were not Catholic wanted to overthrow this “King Troll” and place a true Englishman, the exiled Stuart prince James Francis Edward Stuart on the throne instead as King James III. It was long past time for the relentless persecution of Catholics to end.

The first clear sign that Gavin would be pulled into the maelstrom that was coming was the visit to Heath Hall of three of the most active plotters against George and in favor of our beloved James, the “king across the water.” I am not sure I ever saw around our great table an odder, more mismatched group of men.

Lucy and I spent most of a day preparing for their arrival, supervising a thorough cleaning of our great hall, dusting off two of the most distinguished bottles of our local whisky from the cellar, and making sure that Ainslie and her staff prepared several baked delicacies in addition to the ever-present oatcakes. We had a very presentable array of meat and onion pasties, Aberdeen butteries, and shortbread.

My stomach was fluttering to such a degree all day that I had to depend on Lucy to sample the breads. I could not eat and found it was wisest not to even look at the set table. I was so torn in my head, I couldn’t tell if my indisposition was more a matter of excitement or fear, or a confused mixture of the two.

I was almost afraid to ask myself what I wanted. Well, of course, I wanted George off the throne and young James, whom all were calling “the Chevalier,” on it. I wanted freedom for Catholics to pray and live as they wished throughout the land. But I also wanted my husband safe at home and our peaceful, sweet life to go on without interruption.

I am not a fool. I could see perfectly well that freedom could only be bought with blood spilled, and that a rebellion against George was unlikely to be a swift campaign of a summer’s day. But then I would purse my lips and remember all the cruelties my family had suffered and my anger grew until, yes, I could almost imagine carrying the banner into battle myself. And yet again, I would think, Oh! I do not want my husband to suffer pain, to be maimed, to die.

I was in this bemused state of mind when our first guest arrived. The “first among equals” was John Erskine, Earl of Mar, a tall, lean man of middle years, wearing an elegant sandy-blonde peruke and fine red frock coat, with cascades of Flemish lace falling from his cuffs and down his breast. His wig was of the most exaggerated type with curls halfway down his back and above his forehead, the fashionable twin humps or peaks that were as absurd, I thought, as the tall, narrow, fontange worn above the forehead like a unicorn’s horn by fashionable French ladies.

Mar’s long, thin face seemed almost lost, peering out from the surround of his immense crop of false curls like a fox peeping out of a bramble thicket. Mar always, I noted, stood self-consciously with one foot pointed forward in a posture that seemed to demand that all admire his well-rounded calves.

The Earl of Mar had already changed sides several times, alternating between the Whigs who had brought George to the throne, on the one hand, and the Tories, who were aligned with supporters of the Stuarts, on the other. Because of his history of changing allegiances, Mar was known behind his back as “Bobbing John,” though I doubt anyone ever said it to his face as he was a skilled swordsman. Mar was now styling himself as the man who would lead the revolt against George of Hanover and replace him with James Stuart.

Lucy and I saw to it that our guest was served bannocks and pasties and Ainslie’s strawberry jam, along with a dram of whisky, while I observed that, whenever he began to try to explain and justify his revolving loyalties, his right eyelid started twitching.

We had heard that Mar had changed sides this time only because the new King George had rudely rejected his service. I had expected to find Mar slippery and to dislike and distrust him at once. But I had to admit the man radiated sincerity like a fume. There was nothing oily or evasive in his manner. Whatever star he had followed before, whatever his motives, he admitted his mistakes so openly and spoke so plainly of his enthusiasm for young King James-to-be, that it was hard not to believe that he was now devoted to the fortunes of the Chevalier. Yet even so, that twitching eyelid would set off little bursts of doubt in my mind.

While we were waiting for our other guests, Mar withdrew a little painted snuffbox from one of his deep pockets, wiped it off with a lace handkerchief and displayed it to us.

“I bought it in Edinburgh,” he said. “There are many such items in the stores and sold on the streets. They show you the heart of the people.”

The snuffbox depicted in miniature a notorious, rumored incident in which the maladroit “King George” had fallen out of bed while attempting to have congress with both of his mistresses at once, the Scarecrow and the Elephant. George’s rotund, naked body was rolling over the edge of the bed towards the floor, while a toothpick woman and a great barrel of a woman, similarly undressed, were reaching over the edge of the counterpane, trying to catch him. I would not have exposed this item to the gaze of my children, but I have to admit that Gavin and I had a good, guffawing lachan gàire over it, as Ainslie would have said in the Gaelic.

The next to arrive was the famously eccentric George Seton, Earl of Winton, whose estates lay in East Lothian, just to the east of Edinburgh. Winton was a bit younger than Mar and not quite as tall, but a well set-up man, powerfully built with broad shoulders.

I was very curious about this Winton, whose behavior had caused many rumors to spread about him. He was said to be an irritable recluse, a misanthrope, a madman even. As a youth, he had gone abroad and returned to find his father and brother dead and evilly disposed cousins making off with his property and attempting to claim his estate. He had to face them in court and prove that his parents had married (although they did so rather late in their lives) to recover his own. Perhaps it was no wonder he was distrustful of everyone.

Winton’s eyes were unusual—large and green and staring. I once saw a drawing of a mysterious African animal with enormous, specter-like blue eyes that appeared to be lidless and wild. Winton’s eyes reminded me of the fearsome gaze of that creature. Winton had a way of turning his head and fixing his stare upon you abruptly.

He also had a high-pitched laugh, more like a whinny. When he looked at me and erupted into his tinny laugh, it was unsettling. But most of the time he was quiet. He would idly pick at a loose button on his coat or twist his neck and pull at his cravat as if it irritated him. Often he did not even seem to be paying attention to what was being said by the other men.

In his defense, however, when he did speak, he came straight to the point and seemed to see circumstances more clearly than others. He knew devilment when he saw it and it angered him greatly. I gradually saw that he laughed his odd whinny when he was angry.

The last of the three was the most appealing by far, young James Radclyffe, Earl of Derwentwater, who was only twenty-six years old at the time. James Radclyffe was a bonny young man, much like my husband when he and I first met in Paris at the forlorn Court of King James II in exile.

Derwentwater, it was said, was a true nobleman by nature—plain in his speech and considerate of all, from his noble friends to his aged relations to his servants to his dogs. He had taken on the task of raising up the needy on his estates as his personal crusade. His loyalty to his religion and to his Stuart lord, the young Chevalier, never wavered for a moment. He was that singular creature, someone of whom nothing bad could be said and of whom no low act was ever reported. Everyone loved him.

I observed Derwentwater and a small voice inside me seemed to say, “Tell him to run away and live. The rebellion does not need him.” But I knew I would scandalize everyone there and the young man would insist on doing his part anyway. His honor would demand it.

When all were present, Mar began again with his explanations and excuses—and his eyelid twitching—while Derwentwater listened intently and Winton seemed lost in his cups, until Gavin finally broke in with, “Accepted, Mar. We understand that you are with us now and will keep to the cause. What exactly do you propose to do?”

In the midst of this group of conspirators, my husband appeared to be the most admirable and also the most sensible. Gavin was close to forty at this time, but, on this fine summer afternoon, he was blooming with the health and strength of a much younger man. He was neither foppish nor careless of his appearance, but dressed in a simple, elegant fashion that suited him. He had taken to wearing the shorter, shoulder-length peruke and had put on his best tan-colored frock coat trimmed in silver gilt embroidery. He wore indigo breeches, ivory stockings and boots polished to a bright sheen.

How my heart yearned towards him. My fear for him had been partially smothered under, earlier, by the busy thrum of our many preparations to receive company. But now, as I was gazing at Gavin and heard Mar begin to talk plainly of war, anxiety seized me. This was no longer only a frustrated, long-repeated tallying of grievances. These men were going to take action.

“I am prepared,” Mar was saying, with intense passion, “to return to Braemar Castle, gather our supporters, and declare our intent to restore King James to his rightful throne. Then we will begin to seize key points, including Edinburgh Castle, moving gradually south to join with the English supporters of James, led by you, Derwentwater.” Here he gestured toward James Radclyffe.

Derwentwater’s rosy face was troubled, clouded. I thought he seemed terribly solemn for such a young man. I saw that, although he had raised his glass for a toast to our hoped-for King James III with the others, he had only taken a sip and put it down again.

“But what of our king? Where is James?” Derwentwater demanded. “We have nothing if we do not have him. What news is there? When will the Chevalier come with troops and money from abroad? Are we to leap into the darkness without any knowledge if or when he will be with us?”

Winton spoke last, and I knew why this man had never married and why he laughed when he was irate. He did not expect either joy or good fortune in his life and thus did not trouble himself to seek it.

“King or no,” said Winton, turning his green gaze first on Mar and then on Derwentwater, “this uprising is foredoomed. We all like to say that this will be just like the restoration of Charles Stuart to his throne in 1660 after the reign of Oliver Cromwell. But at that time Cromwell had just died, the nation was leaderless, and everyone was heartily sick of the repression of the Puritans.

“When William of Orange invaded England and took the throne from James II in 1688, the circumstances were quite different. William arrived with money and troops and easily overwhelmed a king whose people mistrusted him because he was a Catholic.”

“You mean you will not join us, Winton?” Mar declared, rising. “You do not see how the people despise this German infestation—this pestilence—overrunning our country? You are defeated before you have even come to the fight? I say, let the brave join our cause and let cowards skulk at home!”

I gasped inwardly: Would this newborn rebellion perish in a duel between two hotheads? I started to rise from my seat and saw that Gavin also had lifted an inch or two off his chair.

“Patience, Mar,” said Winton and then laughed his odd snicker, threw back his head and quaffed another dram of whisky. “Do not insult me. You have only been with us a little while. It is…unbecoming of you to accuse a man who has loved the Stuarts all of his life.”

Mar’s lean cheeks reddened and his eyelid twitch returned. He placed a hand on his sword and made as if to pull it from its sheath, but Winton was already holding his hands up, palms out, trying to explain his meaning:

“I did not say I was not with you,” he said. “I will bring my men, and I will fight. I just do it frankly, I tell you, without hope. I agree with Derwentwater. Where is the young king? Have you had any message from him or his people? Does anyone even know where he is now or what resources he has…?”

Mar cut him off before he had finished.

“When he hears that the people have risen, he will come,” he said. “He cannot deny us. This German George has been on the throne for almost a year. The longer we let him enjoy the trappings of royalty, the harder it will be to dislodge him.”

Then all of them turned to look at Gavin and there was silence while he appeared to come to a decision. He motioned for Mar to resume his seat.

“Should we not wait until we know what James Stuart can do and when he will come to us? What if we rise and gain ground and he is prevented from coming?” said Gavin.

Gavin was only speaking aloud what we all were thinking. We knew the aged Louis XIV, always a great friend of the young Chevalier, was dying. When the Sun King died, the Duke of Orléans would become regent for Louis’ great-grandson, the five-year old who would reign as King Louis XV. The Duke of Orléans would not risk war with England to put a Stuart back on the English throne.

Who then would give James treasure, weapons and troops to take back his kingdom? Even with all the courage in the world, his Scottish and English supporters alone could not seize the throne for him.

It was also quite plain that none of these men assembled here, despite their determination to challenge the reign of German George, had any military experience to speak of. They would be opposed by an army of redcoats whose very business was war.

I had welcomed the men and said little but observed them closely. But, now with the prospect of fighting so close to hand, I wanted to seize Gavin’s arm and hold him back.

I wanted to kiss Radclyffe’s cheek and send him home to his young wife. I even wanted to urge Winton to run from battle, to marry and raise children and live a long, comfortable life in defiance of his melancholy nature. As for Mar, somehow I did not fear for him. I suspected that, even if he meant well now, the Mars of this world would always survive, though they might lead others to their graves.

But what could I say, though my heart misgave me? I knew as well as any that our best chance was now, when we could offer England a fine young English king to replace a German lout. Once the English had learned to live with alien rule, another King George would follow this King George and then another and another, and these Georges would learn to speak English and to feign Englishness. The people would become accustomed to them—and the persecution of Catholics would continue and perhaps even worsen.

More silence. Winton helped himself again to the whisky decanter. Gavin and Mar joined him, and even young Derwentwater threw back a glass.

Gavin broke the silence again. Now he smiled, though ruefully.

“Of course, I will join you,” he said. “I have been anticipating this day all of my life. You awaken in me the memory of stories I was told as a child, of the burning cross, the Crann Tara, that was carried from village to village in a time of danger to rouse the clans to fight. I cannot deny the call. Whether we succeed or fail, we must seize our best chance yet to restore our rightful king.”

He looked at me, filled another glass and invited Lucy and me to join them.

“My wife is an even more passionate supporter of the Stuarts than I am,” he said. “She fled England with King James II and his queen and lived in exile with them in France for many years. The fortunes of our women will rise and fall with ours. I ask her—and her companion—to share this pledge with us.”

I knew he needed me to signal my willingness to stand with them. I came to them and Lucy came with me. We each swallowed our dram, and I added a hearty toast to James Stuart, forced a smile and downed another glass, although I had to fight to keep the tears down as I did it.

Two weeks later, my husband went off to war.