what they wanted. He bemoaned ‘the counsel that prevails here is that which advises inaction and waiting for a miracle’. The ultra-pious Mary of Modena liked to believe waiting for a miracle was a viable policy and would retreat frequently to the convent at Chaillot to pray for one.
Middleton had some reason to pursue the policy he did. Even pro-Hanoverians admitted the level of support for James in both English Houses of Parliament. ‘There is a party in this Kingdom for the Prince of Wales,’ they wrote to the Elector of Hanover. Even his enemies called Young James the Prince of Wales. Their ‘boldness is founded, not only on their confidence in the King of France, but on an assurance with which they flatter themselves, of being countenanced and supported by the present government’. Many of the most powerful men in Queen Anne’s administration – Godolphin, Marlborough, Bolingbroke, Ormonde – engaged in friendly communications with St Germains. It did not mean they would actually vote to bring ‘King James III’ back. Lovat declared in frustration that ‘while her Majesty implicitly followed the advice of the people who were at the head of the English Parliament, Jesus Christ would come in the clouds before her son would be restored’. Middleton recalled the Queen Regent to the reports he had from Scotland, that Lovat ‘joined insinuating talents to low manners and a profligate character’.
Lovat lost patience. He had intended to be in France just a few weeks, obtaining money and stirring up opposition to Anne in the Scottish Parliament and the Highlands. He urged the Jacobites to catch hold of the opportunity the war presented and persuade Louis XIV to back them. It offered the sort of chance that might not come again for another fifteen years. An invasion of Scotland would merely be part of Louis’s larger strategy, and divert some British troops menacing his northern border through the Low Countries.
Though Mary disliked Lovat’s arrogant tone, the logic of his argument tempted her. She agreed that Middleton’s policy was not working, and if the war suddenly turned against France, Louis might recognise Anne, and then George as her successor. She would ask Louis to back an invasion.
Before she could act, the Queen Regent was distracted by a bizarre religious conversion. Middleton claimed to have been woken in the night, ‘hearing the Blessed Sacrament carried along with the sound of a little bell before it, to the apartment of his son, Lord Clermont, who was at the point of death’. Middleton’s son suddenly felt better. He was convinced it had been Mary’s husband, the late James II, ringing to exhort him to convert to Catholicism. Middleton declared that the keys to the offices of state were incompatible with the keys to heaven, and theatrically handed them back to the Queen Regent. He needed to go on retreat to clean his soul.
Mary’s attention swung ecstatically away from Perth, Sir John MacLean and Lovat, and back to her dear Middleton. She told everyone that Middleton’s conversion gave her the only joy she had experienced since the death of ‘our Saint King’, as Mary now called her late husband. It was almost beyond belief. Up to now, Middleton ‘had so mean an opinion of converts, that he used to say, “A new light never comes into the house but by a crack in the tiling”.’ It was a miracle, said the Queen, the first her dead husband had performed. Middleton slid back into Mary of Modena’s favour, and slipped the keys of office back into his pocket. Mary waited for another ‘sign’.
Living with the infighting at St Germains for even a few months made it clear to Lovat that he must go straight to the real decision-maker, or he would be trapped inside this melodrama for years. Only Louis XIV could provide effective support for an uprising. However, the French King would not meet with a heretic. All things considered, it was a good time to consult one’s religious conscience. Besides, it was clear that conversions were de rigueur for ambitious politicians at St Germains.
Lovat went to Brother McLoghlan, a priest at St Germains, and declared his intention to convert. Brother McLoghlan advised the Scot to retire to a convent to think it over. Lovat did not need to go that far: this was not a huge leap of faith for an Episcopalian, and not a very devout one. Without Catholicism he did not have the support of the Queen Regent or a recommendation to Louis XIV. By early the following year, Lovat was writing to Italy to offer the Pope his service to the Holy Mother Church ‘to the spilling of my blood … With this object I go to hazard my life and my family.’ The Pope replied, thanking Lovat and welcoming him into the Church of Rome.
Lovat’s persistence had paid off. In the autumn of 1702, he had heard that Louis XIV would grant him a private audience. Immediately Lovat started penning a grandiloquent harangue for the edification of ‘The Greatest Prince in the Universe’ from the self-appointed spokesman of his Scottish allies – les chefs des tribus montagnards – the chiefs of the Highland clans.
‘The Greatest Prince in the Universe’
– LOVAT TO LOUIS XIV
Lord Lovat, MacShimidh Mor, had abandoned his clan for exactly this sort of opportunity. As for his Most Christian Majesty, the Stuarts were loved relations. Schemes to benefit them had bubbled out of this chiefly milord for months before Louis granted him an audience.
He clattered into the courtyard at Versailles, his nerves steeled by need. Lovat felt the Sun King’s presence all round him, monumentalised in the buildings Louis had raised and the gardens he had laid down, beautifying the face of the earth and glorifying God as Louis had been glorified by the Almighty. When Louis walked in the gardens, fountains sprang to life. To bring off the effect, other fountains had to die down behind him. The plumbing was not up to his vision. Nothing quite worked as hoped.
Lovat chivvied himself down miles of corridors towards his private audience. He was shown into a small chamber off the Hall of Mirrors. Standing in his stockinged feet ‘Louis le Grand’ was just five feet five inches of global power. Lovat, broad and long, loomed over him by seven inches. He had to bow very low. The Court flunkies retired leaving just the Marquis de Torcy (son of the great Colbert), who placed himself behind the King, now seated in the royal chair, and giving the Highlander space to speak. Torcy was keen for the invasion of Scotland to happen. It would pull thousands of British troops out of the Continental field of operations and weaken the Duke of Marlborough’s army.
Addressing the King in good French with a Scots accent, Lord Lovat enlarged ‘upon the ancient alliances between Scotland and France’. He expatiated on genealogies: Louis XIV’s, ancient and connecting him intimately to the royal House of Stuart; and Lovat’s, 500 years old, connecting him to French aristocracy. The Frasers were originally a French family, Lovat reminded the King: they went to England with the last successful French invaders, the Normans. This Fraser could go with the next, the greatest Bourbon. Lovat knew Louis adored genealogy.
‘At a thousand hazards to [my] … life,’ Lovat accepted the commission of the Highland elite to come here, he said. If the Highlanders rose in rebellion and were ‘honoured with the protection of the greatest King that ever filled the throne of France’, he said they could not fail. Lovat drew to a close. ‘With a look of much benignity,’ he noted happily, Louis assured him the ‘whole French nation had their hearts unfeignedly Scottish’. The two men speculated about invasion plans. It pained Lovat to be looking back towards his homeland through the spyglass of an invading soldier, pointing out opportunities to attack it.
Back at St Germains, Lord Lovat’s mind flitted between France and home. With Louis behind him, his hopes of his own restoration had been revived. He broadcast the news of his success to the Duke of Perth, Sir John MacLean, and MacLean’s cousin, Alexander. ‘The King promised at all times to assist the Scots with troops, money and everything that might be necessary to support them against the English,’ he told them. The men were overjoyed and raised their glasses. Lovat looked at the old men around him. They had all come here to this place as optimistic young men; he was determined not to get stuck, like them, for a decade and a half.
The Middletonian faction took little notice