‘I found quite a bit, yes.’ And, because it gave me something useful I could focus on, I told him a little of what I had learned from the Hamilton papers.
Stuart, settling back, asked, ‘And who was the Duke of Hamilton?’
‘James Douglas,’ Graham said, ‘Fourth Duke of Hamilton.’
‘Oh, him. Of course.’ He rolled his eyes, and Graham grinned and told his brother, ‘Don’t be such an arse.’
‘We don’t all sleep with history books.’
‘The Duke of Hamilton,’ said Graham slowly, as though speaking to a child, ‘was one of Scotland’s most important men, around the turning of the eighteenth century. He spoke out as a patriot, and had a place in line to Scotland’s throne. In fact, some Protestants, himself included, thought he’d be a better candidate for king than any of the exiled Stewarts.’
‘Aye, well, anyone would have been better than the Stewarts,’ Stuart said, but as he raised his glass the curving of his mouth showed he was goading Graham purposely.
Ignoring him, Graham asked me, ‘Does he play a great role in your book?’
‘The duke? He’s around in the background a lot. The story, so far, has kept pretty much to Slains, but there’s a scene at the beginning where he briefly meets my heroine in Edinburgh. And my characters, of course, all have opinions on the duke’s connection to the Union.’
‘So do some historians.’
Stuart drained his glass and said, ‘You’re losing me, again. What Union?’
Graham paused, then in a dry voice told me, ‘You’ll excuse my brother. His appreciation of our country’s past begins and ends with Braveheart.’
Stuart tried his best to look offended, but he couldn’t. In his easygoing way, he said, ‘Well, go on, then. Enlighten me.’
Graham’s eyes were indulgent. ‘Robert the Bruce was in Braveheart, so you’ll ken who he was?’
‘Aye. The King of Scotland.’
‘And his daughter married onto the High Steward, so from that you’ve got the “Stewart” line, which went through two more Roberts and a heap of Jameses before coming down to Mary, Queen of Scots. You’ve heard of her?’
‘Nice girl, bad marriages,’ said Stuart, sitting back to play along.
‘And Mary’s son, another James, became the heir to Queen Elizabeth of England, who died without a child. So now you’ve got a Stewart being King of Scotland and of England, though he acts more English, now, than Scots, and rarely even sets a foot up here. Nor does his son, King Charles the First, who gets a bit too cocky with his powers, so along come Cromwell and his men to say they’ve had enough of kings, and they depose King Charles the First and cut his head off.’
‘With you so far.’
‘Then the English, after years of Civil War and having Cromwell and his parliament in charge awhile, decide that they’d be better off with kings, after all, so they invite the old king’s son, Charles Stewart—Charles the Second—to come back and take the throne. And when he dies in 1685, his brother James becomes the king, which would be no real problem, only James is Catholic. Very Catholic. And not only do the English fear he’s trying to edge out their hard-won Protestant religion, they also fear he’ll enter an alliance with the Catholic King of France, who’s their worst enemy.’
He paused to take a drink from his own glass which, like his father’s, held neat whisky. Then he went on with the story.
‘The aristocracy in England starts to think of getting rid of James and putting someone on the throne who’ll be a Protestant, as they are, and against the French. And they have the perfect candidate in front of them, for James’s eldest daughter, Mary, has a Protestant husband who’s been waging war against the French for years, and who has had his eye upon the English throne since long before that—William, Prince of Orange. It doesn’t matter that he’s Dutch because he’s Mary’s husband, so if she’s made queen, he’ll only need an act of Parliament to rule as king beside her.
‘But just as the aristocrats are making all their plans, King James’s second wife gives birth to a son. Now the English have a problem, because male heirs trump females. So they put around a rumor that the newborn prince is not a prince at all, but just a common child that James had smuggled into his queen’s chamber in a warming pan, to give himself an heir. It’s not the most convincing story, but to those who want a reason to rise up against James, it’s enough.