waited. Guards passed the alcove three times, but no one ever saw him crouched down in the shadows. Finally, Sinclair heard the door open. Peering from his hiding place, he saw James II’s private secretary step into the corridor holding a small lamp. The secretary locked the office door and disappeared down the hallway leading to the kitchen.
Sinclair waited for several minutes, listening for any movement nearby. Satisfied that no one was approaching, he crossed the corridor to the office door. Taking out a couple of metal tools from his waistcoat pocket, he picked the lock and was soon inside the dimly lit office.
He picked up the candelabra on the edge of the secretary’s desk and walked over to the fireplace. He took a stick from a small leather tube on the hearth, lit it with the embers still smoldering at the back of the fireplace, and used it to light the candles. Then he looked around the room.
There, sitting on the desk in front of him, were the secretary’s notes.
Sinclair couldn’t believe his luck. The secretary always kept his papers locked in the cabinet against the far wall at night. Looking toward the cabinet, Sinclair noticed that the secretary had left it unlocked and open as well.
Sinclair immediately sat down and began going through the notes. He could tell by how neatly the papers were written that they must be the final draft for James to review. He read every page quickly. Then he looked through the secretary’s cabinet for any other papers that would contain information vital to England’s interests.
The information the spy found proved beyond any doubt that James planned to invade England with his French allies and regain his throne. But the plans went far beyond that. Sinclair found additional documents outlining plans for France and England to seize Spain’s colonial holdings once James was king again. The treasure from Spain’s colonies in the Americas would be used to fund a series of military campaigns that would result in France controlling most of Europe, Africa, and the Americas. England would be an ally of France, but Sinclair could tell that England would be ruled by France in the end.
Sinclair carefully folded the notes and other documents, placing them in a watertight leather pouch under his shirt that was secured by a belt around his chest. He was so busy with the papers that he didn’t notice the sound of anyone approaching the office until he heard the door being unlocked. Before he could move, the door opened and the secretary entered the office.
“What are you doing here?” the secretary demanded when he saw Sinclair behind his desk.
Sinclair didn’t hesitate. He grabbed the candelabra and hurled it at the secretary, hitting the man in the head. The secretary fell against the wall as Sinclair jumped over the desk. He pushed the secretary out of the way and ran out of the office into the corridor. He turned down the hallway that led to the kitchens, hoping that he could escape from the palace before the secretary could raise the alarm.
He made it as far as the kitchen when he heard the sound of guards shouting. Glancing out a nearby window, he saw guards carrying torches spreading out around the palace grounds. He knew that there was no way he could escape yet.
He quickly made his way down the stairs to the cellars beneath the kitchens. He had discovered a niche behind two wine casks several weeks earlier and decided to use that as his hiding place while he planned his escape.
As he tried to make himself comfortable in the niche, he felt angry and foolish that he had successfully spied on James II for so many weeks without being noticed, only to be discovered on the day he was due to leave for England.
He knew that the guards must be making a thorough search of the palace grounds and buildings, and he wondered how long it would take them to reach the cellar. Hours passed before he heard someone coming down the stairs. Sinclair peered out of the niche and saw that there was only a single guard there. When the guard began searching near the casks, Sinclair climbed out of the niche and leapt off one of the casks onto the back of the guard. The guard fell hard against the stone floor of the cellar and didn’t move.
Sinclair waited to see if anyone heard the sound of his attack, but no one came down the stairs to check on the guard. Sinclair quickly exchanged clothes with the unconscious guard and crept upstairs.
Looking out a window, he saw several guards exiting the stables. Knowing that they had just been searched, he strode out of the main palace building toward the stables like a guard on his normal patrol route. After looking around to see if anyone had noticed him, he ducked into the stables and hid in the loft just as the sun appeared over the palace walls. He stayed there buried under piles of straw for two days and didn’t venture back out until the sun had set the next evening.
Sinclair knew that he’d never be able to escape through the main gate, but there were other ways out of the palace grounds. Halfway along one of the palace walls, there was a drainage pipe that was large enough for a man to get through. Normally, there would have been metal grates on both ends of the pipe, but these had been removed by English agents several months earlier so spies could come and go more easily. He knew that he needed to head straight for that pipe when he was ready to make his escape.
It was several hours after sunset before he felt that it was safe to leave the stables. He thought the guards would have stopped searching the grounds, but he saw patrols moving on the grounds as he approached the palace walls. When he heard someone behind him, he started running.
“You, there. Stop!” the sergeant of the guard shouted as Sinclair ran toward the shadows of the palace walls.
Sinclair didn’t stop. He heard the musket fire from the guards behind him, but the musket balls missed their mark and hit the masonry wall above his head. Once he reached the safety of the shadows, he quickly crept toward the small drainage pipe he had used to enter the palace grounds three months earlier. He checked to make sure that no guards were near him before he dove headfirst into the pipe and crawled away from the palace grounds.
Once outside the palace walls, he looked around again to see if the guards had reached the gates. There were no lights coming from the direction of the gates, and no sounds of pursuit were coming through the pipe. Satisfied that he was safe for the moment, he turned and ran toward the inn where he knew a fast horse waited.
The sergeant of the guard turned at the sound of voices behind him. A slightly pudgy and richly dressed nobleman, along with several of his retainers, approached the sergeant from the palace.
“My Lord,” the sergeant began, “you shouldn’t be out here. The man may be armed and waiting for a chance to kill you!”
“Nonsense, sergeant,” the exiled James II of England stated. “The man was a spy, not an assassin. Do you have him in custody yet?”
“No, my Lord. We tried to follow him, but he disappeared over there,” he replied, pointing toward the shadows where the figure had run. “I sent a detachment of men to search outside the walls and in the village in case he escaped from the grounds, but so far we haven’t found him.”
“Contact the garrison and have every available man search the countryside,” James II said. “And send riders to the coast and notify the Navy. If he’s supposed to meet a ship in the Channel, he must be intercepted before he can board her.”
“Yes, my Lord,” the sergeant said, snapping quickly to attention. “At once!”
As the sergeant gave orders to his men, James II turned and walked back to the warmth of the palace. Paris was a bit warmer in October than London was, and the palace that had been provided for his use was comfortable and made his exile more bearable. He was fortunate that he had a friend in the King of France.
As he entered the palace’s grand salon, his son strode into the salon like one of the peacocks that strutted in the palace gardens and showed off its plumage. The young prince attempted to hide his usual pompous air as he approached his father, but years of pampering and privilege couldn’t be disguised easily.
In spite of the Prince’s age, his father had already been preparing him to take his rightful place as the future King of England by allowing him to sit quietly and listen in on the strategy meetings with their French