The Patriot

by Nigel Tranter

Genres: Historical Fiction

Synopsis

In 1678, Scotland liesunder the dark threat of union with England. In an era of intrigue and bloodshed, Andrew Fletcher, laird of Saltoun, stands out as a man of ideals and integrity. His fearless and dogged opposition to the Treaty becomes a thirty-year campaign fought in Europe as well as his native Scotland. His eventual defeat is the defeat of a hero and of a cause so dear to his people that his name is glorified in Scottish history. 'Through his imaginative dialogue, he provides a voice for Scotland's heroes' Scotland on Sunday

Release date: September 13, 2012

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 384

Sample

ANDREW FLETCHER: Laird of Saltoun, East Lothian, a rich property.

JOHN MAITLAND, DUKE OF LAUDERDALE: Secretary of State; Lord High Commissioner to the Scots Parliament.

JOHN HAMILTON OF BEIL: Another young laird, later 2nd Lord Belhaven & Stenton.

JOHN HAMILTON, LORD BELHAVEN AND STENTON: Uncle of above.

WILLIAM DOUGLAS, DUKE OF HAMILTON: Premier Scots peer.

JOHN LESLIE, EARL OF ROTHES: Chancellor of Scotland, later Duke.

ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL, 9th EARL OF ARGYLL: MacCailean Mor, chief of Clan Campbell.

HENRY FLETCHER: Brother of Andrew.

SIR DAVID CARNEGIE OF PITARROW: Brother of the Earl of Southesk, legal luminary.

MARGARET CARNEGIE: Daughter of above.

JOHN GRAHAM OF CLAVERHOUSE: Laird and soldier, later Viscount of Dundee. (Bonnie Dundee of the ballad.)

JAMES STEWART or CROFTS or SCOTT, DUKE OF BUCCLEUCH & MONMOUTH: Son of Charles the Second; Captain-General of the royal forces.

JAMES STEWART, DUKE OF YORK: Brother of Charles; later James the Second and Seventh.

SIR JAMES DALRYMPLE OF STAIR: Lord President of the Court of Session. Later Viscount Stair.

REV. DR. GILBERT BURNET: Scots scholar and divine, former tutor to Andrew and Henry Fletcher. Later Bishop of Salisbury.

SIR PATRICK HOME OF POLWARTH: Border laird, later Lord Polwarth and Earl of Marchont.

ALDERMAN HEYWOOD DARE: Taunton jeweller. Purse-bearer to Duke of Monmouth.

PRINCE WILLIAM OF ORANGE: Stadtholder of Holland. Later King William the Third.

PRINCESS MARY: Wife of above. Elder daughter of James, Duke of York. Later Queen.

WILLIAM PATERSON: Banker. Founder of the Bank of England. Initiator of the Darien Scheme.

JOHN HAY, EARL OF TWEEDDALE: Great Scots lord. Later Chancellor and Marquis.

ROBERT KERR, EARL OF LOTHIAN: Great Scots lord. Later Marquis.

JOHN KER, EARL OF ROXBURGHE: Great Scots lord. Later Duke.

SIR JAMES MONTGOMERY OF SKELMORLIE: Baronet and lawyer.

SIR JOHN DALRYMPLE, MASTER OF STAIR: Secretary of State, son of Stair. Later first Earl of Stair.

JOHN CAMPBELL OF GLENORCHY, EARL OF BREADALBANE: Great Highland lord.

ROB ROY MACGREGOR OF INVERSNAID: Captain of Glengyle Highland Watch.

WILLIAM DOUGLAS, DUKE OF QUEENSBERRY: Lord High Commissioner.

JAMES OGILVIE, EARL OF FINDLATER, later SEAFIELD: Secretary of State and Chancellor.

JOHN CHURCHILL, DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH: Captain-General of royal forces.

The young man frowned as he dismounted in the Sidegate of Haddington. He was, to be sure, a ready frowner; but then, he was a ready smiler too, mobile and expressive of feature, quick to reflect his emotions, temperament and temper both far from placid. His frown now was directed not so much at the clutter of men and horses, children and dogs, all but blocking the street outside Haddington House, which must cause him difficulty in gaining access to the building; for this he was not wholly unprepared, for it was a special occasion. What he had not looked to see was the great coach with its six matching bays and lounging flunkeys and outriders, which all but filled the courtyard of the L-shaped tower-house, dominating all. He did not require to examine the vulgar display of paintwork on the carriage-door, surmounted by the newly-repainted coronet, from earl’s to duke’s, to recognise whose equipage it was.

He found an urchin to hold his mare, nodded to Willie Bryce, Baron-Baillie of the Nungate, who appeared to be in charge outside, and pushed his way through the crush to the forestair and main doorway, where two burgh officers stood guard, reinforced by two of the Duke’s own men wearing steel breastplates painted with coronets, hands arrogantly on sword-hilts. The town-guards knew Andrew Fletcher, however, and passed him inside, with only cold stares from the other pair.

The interior of the house was as crowded as was the Sidegate outside, each of the fine first-floor chambers spilling people out into the hallway and corridors, what they were all finding to do not clear. The place stank, despite its excellent proportions, fine panelling and rich decoration, and not just on account of the throng in the June warmth but because the dark basement cellars below were still serving as overflow for the town gaol, the Tolbooth in the High Street. In the year of Our Lord, 1678, the gaols of Scotland could be guaranteed to require some extra accommodation.

The young man guessed that what he sought would be found in the finest apartment, the former hall of the house. This, in fact, proved to be the least crowded, folk heedfully keeping their distance. Only half-a-dozen men flanked the great central table with its papers, quills, inkwells, wine-flagons and goblets – and of that number three hovered about the gross, florid, fleshy man who lounged midway on the window-side, wine-glass in hand. Of the other two, one, elderly, short, thick-set but neat, in markedly plainer clothing but wearing a chain-of-office, sat at the head of the table, hands clasped in front of him; the other, a thin, elderly and clerkly individual, bent of shoulder, kept his head well down and his quill scratching over paper.

The young newcomer removed his broad-rimmed hat and bowed – but not too deeply. It was the little man with the chain that he saluted first – for in his own burgh, in theory, the provost ranked supreme. Nevertheless, it was the other, the big, heavy, over-dressed individual further down the table, who spoke.

‘Ha – young Fletcher!’ he said, thick-voiced. ‘It’s yoursel’ – looking liker a whitrick than ever! Eh, Provost? And hoo’s Saltoun looking, these days?’

‘Well enough, my lord Duke.’ That was stiff. Andrew Fletcher did not relish being likened to a weasel, even though he was slightly, wirily built, narrow of feature and quick of manner. But the hulking man before him was uncrowned king in Scotland, so he added, carefully, ‘As is Lethington and yourself, I hope?’

‘Ooh, aye – weel eneuch, lad, weel eneuch. Better than some o’ my unfriends would hae me – eh, Provost?’ John Maitland, second Earl and first Duke of Lauderdale, Secretary of State for Scotland and Lord High Commissioner to Parliament, had adopted a broad Scots accent since he became so largely London-based – as had James the Sixth and First, of sacred memory, three-quarters of a century before, both allegedly finding it to pay, for some reason.

Provost Scott of Haddington moistened his lips, nodded, but said nothing. The three fine gentlemen around the Duke laughed heartily.

Fletcher came forward to the table, but to the Provost’s end of it, drew out a paper from a pocket, and laid it down before the little man. ‘I think that you will find that to be in order, Provost,’ he said.

No doubt it was the list of scrawled signatures at the bottom half of the paper which caught the ducal eye. Maitland heaved himself up, to lean over and peer at it. Frowning suddenly, he reached out and twisted the sheet so that it faced him.

‘God’s death – what’s this? What’s this?’ he spluttered, bedewing the letter – for also like the aforementioned King Jamie, Lauderdale’s tongue was too large for his mouth and he tended to spray moisture even when he spoke normally – which was excellent excuse for frequent liquid replenishment. ‘Dammit, man – this is . . . this is a nomination-paper! For Parliament. The election – this election!’

‘Yes, my lord Duke.’

‘You . . .? Christ God – you! In your name!’

‘To be sure, mine.’

‘But . . .!’ Prominent eyes all but popping, the Duke glared, breathing stertorously. In his sixty-third year and after the life he had led, full but dissipated and indulgent, he was physically in poor shape – although shape is hardly the word to apply to that man. Corpulent, sprawling, he flopped and shook like a jelly. But there was nothing jelly-like about those pale eyes, however podgy and undistinguished the red and sagging features from which they protruded, choleric but shrewd, menacing.

‘ . . . for this Haddingtonshire seat?’

‘For what other, my lord, would I bring my paper to the Provost of Haddington?’

‘Then – how dare you! Devil roast you, man – in my own county! To think to stand here! Against my, my . . . against Stanfield!’ Maitland had rather forgotten his broad accent in his wrath.

‘A choice, my lord Duke. Is that not what an election is for? To give the voters a choice. Of men and policies.’

‘Insolent!’

They stared at each other, elderly man and young. And two greater contrasts in appearance, as in character, would have been hard to find, Andrew Fletcher, at twenty-three, so slight, supple, probably not half the weight of the other, keen-faced, alert, hot-eyed, not handsome but personable, straight and slender as a rapier-blade.

The Duke dropped his gaze, to grab at the offending paper with a slightly trembling hand. It was at the signatures of the sponsors, at the foot, that he looked now. The first, in a large if somewhat shaky hand, was BELHAVEN AND STENTON.

‘Belhaven!’ he exclaimed, in a positive shower of spray. ‘Aye – I might have known it! That . . . renegade!’

‘My lord Belhaven is a very noble gentleman and my good friend, my lord Duke.’

‘I say different! And you may tell him so. Let him watch where he treads! And you, sirrah – watch you!’ He paused, glowering expression changing. ‘See – you are young yet. Young enough to mend your ways. Put it by, Dand – put it by. Be not used by such as that old fox Belhaven. Gang a mair canny gait!’ He was back to the Doric again, poise recovered. He flicked the paper back across the table. ‘Burn you that, laddie. It’s no’ too late. And we’ll say nae mair about it.’

‘If you mean, my lord, that I should stand down from this election – then I say no. Not on any score. I regret it if I inconvenience your lordship – but my candidature stands.’

‘Fool! Knave! Upjumped Hielant scum! God damn you – will regret this, Fletcher! You’ll learn – ooh, aye you’ll learn that it doesna pay to tangle wi’ John Maitland. You’ll no’ gain this Haddington seat – but you’ll gain paiks and pains aplenty! That I promise you! You’ll rue this day . . .’

Deliberately turning his shoulder on the Secretary of State, the young man spoke to the Provost.

‘There is nothing else I require to do? For the election? Through you as officer, Provost? If there should be, you know where to find me.’

‘Aye, Saltoun, sir.’ They were the first words the Provost had uttered since his entry, and even so the chief magistrate’s eyes were on the Duke.

Inclining his head in a still briefer bow than on his arrival, directed somewhere between provost and duke, Andrew Fletcher turned to stalk out.

He was mounted and on his way, before it occurred to him that he had not so much as glanced at the three gentlemen with Lauderdale, one of whom almost certainly would have been Colonel Sir George Stanfield, newly knighted, the Duke’s personal nominee, along with John Wedderburn of Gosford, for this double-seat of Haddingtonshire in the Scots Parliament, former sitting commissioner and now his rival candidate for the landward division. One of the others likely would be Wedderburn.

The estate of Saltoun Hall lay some six miles south-westwards of the county town, in the Lammermuir foothills, with Lauderdale’s Lethington seat to pass on the way. But Fletcher did not head that way. Instead he rode away eastwards, over the humpbacked Nungate bridge and out of the little town, past its former abbey, the once-famed Lamp of Lothian, seat of learning if mistaken piety before the godly Reformation of the previous century. A staunch Presbyterian, Andrew frowned over the errors and follies of men – although in this instance it was women, for the Abbey of Haddington had been the most renowned nunnery in the land. The tragedy was that having so dearly got rid of papacy, now they were having episcopacy thrust down their throats, from the Court at London, by this turncoat and time-server Lauderdale and his like.

But, at twenty-three, that young man could not be wholly preoccupied with the problems and sorrows of his native land, not when riding down the Vale of Tyne, one of the fairest straths of Lowland Scotland, on a sunny June afternoon, on a fine horse and with all the challenge of life before him. Past the fine demesnes of Stevenston and Hailes, Whittinghame and Ruchlaw, he rode, whistling tunefully, these the seats of friends and acquaintances; but today he was bound farther afield, well beyond the whale-back hill of Traprain which rose like a stranded leviathan out of the wide vale, where Lothian was said to have taken its name from the Pictish King Loth. Eight miles from Haddington, where the encroaching foothills narrowed the vale near the great estuary-bay of Tynemouth, at Belhaven, he came to the fortified tower-house of Beil, perched on a shelf above the secret wooded valley of the Beil Water.

His close friend and associate, John Hamilton of Beil, welcomed him warmly, although engaged in his favourite activity of breaking-in a horse – breeding, training and racing horses his consuming passion.

‘Andrew!’ he gasped, panting from his exertions. ‘Good . . . to see you. I hoped that . . . you would come. Have you done it?’

The other nodded.

‘God be praised! Man, that is splendid! See you – hold this beast. While I get my coat. Watch her – she’s skittish . . .’

Leading his visitor up from the paddock in the green valley-floor to the house, he was eager for details. Hamilton’s had been the second signature of sponsorship on Fletcher’s candidature paper – although he was only just old enough to append it, being a year younger than his friend. Stocky, open-faced, freckled, boyish-seeming, he looked even more youthful than the other.

‘Now, let us hope, we shall see a new beginning in this sorry Scotland!’ he declared. ‘You will wipe that Stanfield’s nose for him! And go on to greater things.’

‘Be not so sure, Johnnie. Lauderdale was there . . .’

‘Lauderdale? Himself! Here? Back from London?’

‘Yes. At Haddington, with the Provost. He was . . . displeased.’

‘He saw you? Spoke with you?’

‘He more than spoke! He threatened me. First he sought to talk me out of standing. Then he told me that I would pay for it. My lord Belhaven too, for sponsoring me. You yourself, perhaps, Johnnie – if he saw your name . . .’

‘I care not for that! Damn the man! But – you will wish to see Belhaven. Ah – here is Margaret.’

Margaret Hamilton was a smiling if plain-faced creature, little more than a girl really, although at nineteen she had been married to Johnnie for almost three years. It was scarcely a love-match, it all having been carefully arranged in typical Hamilton fashion long before; but they made a happy and wholesome pair nevertheless. She was a great heiress, of course, which helped.

Kissing Andrew, Margaret cheerfully went off to get wine and cakes, to bring them to the wing of the house which the old lord occupied.

John Hamilton, first Lord Belhaven and Stenton, was now in his early seventies, and frail. But the spirit still burned brightly in that stooping frame and glowed intensely in the blue eyes deep-set in the hawklike face – and his had been a vehement spirit indeed. He had been one of the late King Charles’s most bold and vigorous cavaliers, fought on many Civil War battlefields, languished in sundry prisons and escaped, and attempted an audacious rescue of his imprisoned monarch at Carisbrooke. After his sovereign’s execution, with Cromwell’s bloodhounds after him, he had actually feigned death for seven years. With a brother and two servants he had made to cross the great tidal Solway Sands on his way back to Scotland, but had never reached the northern shore, the others bringing only part of his clothing, to sorrowfully announce his lordship’s death in the treacherous sinking sands. In fact he had returned to England and gone to work as a simple gardener, at a small manor-house, for those dangerous years of the Commonwealth, until the present monarch’s glorious Restoration allowed him to return home in 1660. His only son had died; and he had persuaded the grateful Charles the Second to redestine his peerage to be heired by the young man he had chosen to marry his grand-daughter, Margaret – a kinsman, Johnnie Hamilton, eldest son of Lord Presmennan, of Session, which kept lands and title nicely in the family. His lordship, of the main Hamilton line, was the son of two Hamiltons, the grandson of four Hamiltons, had married a Hamilton and seen his daughter married to another. His wife long dead, now he lived with his grand-daughter at Beil.

‘Andrew, lad,’ he greeted his grandson’s-in-law friend. ‘You get liker your good father each time I set these old eyes on you! A sore loss he was to this land. But his son, now, will make up for his untimely passing, I swear! Eh?’ The voice was strong, vibrant, however feeble the body.

‘That is my hope and prayer, my lord – however lacking I feel in the abilities. Do I find your lordship well?’

‘As well as I shall ever be, I think. My time wears to its end. But I too, I hope, have heir to follow on and do the things I ought to be doing! That is, if I can wean him away from breaking horses before he breaks his own fool neck!’

Johnnie grinned. ‘I have a thick and stiff neck, my lord – as you have frequently told me! And you risked yours sufficiently often – even almost on the block! But – Andrew, here, has in a manner of speaking risked his today. When he handed in his nomination-paper at Haddington. Lauderdale was there. And – displeasured!’

‘He was? That overblown toad! Save us – he comes early. Why, I wonder? It is three weeks before the opening of the new parliament. He usually spares us his company until the day before – thank God! Why? He could not possibly have got to hear? Of our plans. In London. To unseat his Stanfield?’

‘I think not, my lord,’ Fletcher said. ‘At least, he seemed much surprised at my candidature. Angry when he heard of it, yes – but surprised.’

‘Yet he was there, at Haddington? On the day for the depositing of papers. Not by chance, I swear! He is ever well-informed, is John Maitland – even down in London. He has spies everywhere. He could have learned of talk that Stanfield was to be opposed. But not hear that it was yourself, Andrew. And came to put a stop to it.’

‘It could be. He is well-informed, yes. In more ways than one. He surprised me by naming me Hielant scum! Not many would have said that.’

‘Ah, but he would know your grandsire, old Innerpeffer, know that he came from the North, to Saltoun.’ Andrew, a Lowland laird with a Lowland name, and with his mother a Bruce, was not in fact so far removed from the heather. His grandfather and namesake. Sir Andrew, a shrewd lawyer, had come south from Perthshire, anglicising his name from Mac-an-Leister, the Son of the Arrow-maker, to the equivalent Fletcher. But when he had in due course mounted to the Bench as a lord of session, he had taken his title not from his new estate of Saltoun in East Lothian – the man he bought it from was already Lord Saltoun – but from his ancestral home at Innerpeffray in Strathearn, where they were a sept of MacGregor. Perhaps that is where his grandson heired his quick temper and high spirit.

‘I hope that you answered him suitably?’ Johnnie said. ‘I could think of a few things to call John Maitland!’

‘No doubt. But I . . .’

‘Easy said, here in Beil House, boy,’ the old lord reproved. ‘But to his face you might be less bold. Lauderdale may look like a horse-couper and worse, but he has all the unlimited power, more’s the pity. He has the King’s ear, is one of the Cabal, Lord of the Bedchamber, Lord President of the Council as well as First Commissioner of the English Treasury as well as Secretary of State for Scotland. A man dangerous to meddle with.’

‘That is almost exactly what he himself said to me,’ Andrew told them. ‘He said that I would learn that it did not pay to tangle with him. And to tell you that, my lord – when he saw your signature as my sponsor. He said that we would pay for it.’

‘As we may, yes,’ Belhaven agreed gravely. ‘Yet we must do what has to be done. Someone must give a lead, make a start. If our land and nation is to be saved. Lauderdale’s rule has to be opposed. Scotland must be stirred to action, to be true to itself, to reject the evil policies and corruption which are rending and destroying her. Before it is too late. I am an old done man, by with it. I will do what I can – but that is little now. But you – are both young, all before you. All depends on you and such as you. Win this election, and you will have your chance, soon. John, here, will take my place. Then . . .’

‘But, my lord – what chance have I of winning the seat?’ Fletcher demanded. ‘Young as I am, untried, against all Lauderdale’s power and influence?’

‘A fair chance, lad – a fair chance. Or I would not be bringing down Maitland’s wrath on my grey head by sponsoring you! He has many enemies, that man. Even amongst his own kind he is scarcely loved. And though few will defy him to his face, many will be glad to vote secretly against his candidate. And Stanfield, although an able man, is not popular. He is English, one of Cromwell’s former colonels. He has made a fair member and has done much for Haddington and the shire. But few there love him either. He is arrogant. Forby, there are still some honest men left in the land, who will vote for the nation’s sake, not because they are bribed.’

‘All my friends are for you, Andrew,’ Johnnie assured. ‘They do not all have votes, to be sure. But . . .’

‘There’s the rub. There are eighty-three voters in all. How many are in Lauderdale’s pocket . . .?’

Margaret Hamilton came, with the refreshment carried by a servant, and for a little they observed the courtesies. But quickly they got down to calculations, by no means for the first time. Each of the voters, who qualified only by their landholdings in the shire, had two votes, it being a double-seat; and nobody had been found to oppose Wedderburn, Lauderdale’s other nominee in the seaward section of the county. Indeed, in opposing Stanfield, Fletcher was taking a very great risk, not only to his pocket and reputation but to his very freedom, and all knew it. Try as they would, the three men could not count on more than thirty probable votes – and some of those were doubtful. On the other hand, nor could they identify with any certainty more than a similar number of votes sure for Stanfield, who had been unopposed for the last elections. Wedderburn was in a different category, not a strong man but not unpopular, and a local laird. Not a few would vote for him who would shy at Stanfield; however, he was unopposed, so that did not signify. Which left over a score who might vote either way, depending on their religious scruples, whether they had ambitions for themselves or their adherents in the way of preferment, whether their pockets were empty, and so on. There was one advantage for Fletcher, in that Stanfield, who had done much for Haddington town itself, in establishing industry, mills, dye-houses and the like, could not look to that town for votes; for the burghs of Scotland appointed their own members to the Estates of Parliament, from amongst the burgesses. Nevertheless, shareholders of these enterprises amongst the East Lothian lairds might well vote for Stanfield as, thanks to Lauderdale’s patronage, these mills and works were all exempted from taxation.

Long they debated and assessed, considering any and all means by which the odd extra vote might be gained. Belhaven had considerable influence at this Dunbar end of the county and amongst the parish ministers who, by and large, were Covenant-minded and anti-prelacy, which would lead them to vote against the government; on the other hand, Dunbar and district had suffered so much under Cromwell, after his winning the battle there twenty-eight years earlier, that they were pretty staunchly monarchial now and might well choose to support the King’s representative’s nominee. Not that Fletcher and the Hamiltons were against King Charles – only against the policies of his London government, of imposing prelacy and its desire for an incorporating union of the two kingdoms. It was all complicated and difficult.

Andrew took his leave, with a programme of visits and interviews arranged for the period before the election, for the Hamiltons and himself, to seek to persuade and cajole. Belhaven himself would make shift to go and see the Earl of Haddington, across the Tyne estuary at Tyninghame. His support could be crucial. He was a Hamilton too – but was married to the heiress of the Earl of Rothes, the Lord Chancellor, Lauderdale’s colleague and crony. With him it would be a near thing.

Riding home the fourteen miles south-westwards through the lovely East Lothian countryside, it did occur to Andrew Fletcher to ask himself why he was doing this, putting himself and his future in grave jeopardy, challenging the powers that had broken finer and wiser and more influential men than himself? Although a good Presbyterian, he was no bigoted Covenantor. He rather admired Charles the Second – even whilst judging him to be sorely lacking in his understanding of the Scottish situation and temper, misguided by those around him. He was instinctively against Charles’s brother, the Duke of York, converted to the Romish Church and fanatical about it; but so far these Popish pretensions posed no real threat to Scotland. Misgovernment and tyranny there was – but why did he feel compelled to oppose it with all his strength and fortune? His father, Sir Robert, had died young, leaving him laird, in his early teens, of a large and rich estate, an old castle and a tradition of sober well-doing. Neither father nor grandfather, Lord Innerpeffer, would have done what he was doing now, he very well knew; careful, steady men – at least in their public life – disinclined for adventures and dramatics. Not like the Hamiltons, or the Maitlands, for that matter. Yet here he was, seeking to set out on what was little less than a crusade, with the enemy all-powerful. Why? His Highland blood coming out perhaps, vehement, turbulent – like that of his far-distant kinsman, Rob Roy MacGregor? Or his mother’s Bruce blood – although the Clackmannan Bruces had been a comparatively tame lot for generations. Bruce? He did not presume to speak of himself, even secretly, in the same breath as the hero-king of three centuries before. Besides, it was Wallace, not Bruce, whom he might wish to emulate – if he dared to let his mind stray that far. Bruce had fought for a throne, power, a dynasty; Wallace only for an idea, love of country, simple patriotism, with nothing to gain personally and everything to lose – as he did. Wallace, indeed yes – and God forgive him for daring to link his situation with that of the Patriot.

When he came, with the sunset, to his house, the Abernethy castle extended with its fine 17th-century additions, set between his two villages of East and West Saltoun, such thoughts did not survive the first sight of the place in its secluded foothill valley of the Birns Water. For the wide forecourt area was full of men and horses, reminiscent of the Sidegate of Haddington. But these were uniformed men and their mounts cavalry horses. Dragoons – and making entirely free with his premises.

Hot temper rising, Andrew spurred in amongst them, demanding what this meant, what they wanted, how dared they off-saddle in front of his house, where was their officer?

A youthful cornet was brought out from the house itself, to announce that his name was Dalrymple, cutting short Andrew’s indignant representations with a military gesture, to declare that he and his troop were billeted on Mr Fletcher of Saltoun until further notice, in the interests of national security. He drew a document from his open tunic to prove it. Although he did not actually read it, Andrew saw that it bore Lauderdale’s peculiarly neat signature at the foot.

John Maitland moved fast, it appeared.

Fletcher went in search of his brother Henry.

Andrew Fletcher gazed around the crowded Parliament Hall of Edinburgh, at something of a loss. There appeared to be no one to tell new members, or commissioners as they were called, where to go or what to do. The place seethed with people and the noise was deafening. There must be many hundreds thronging the long, narrow hall under the open-beamed roof so lofty. They could not all be commissioners. Supposedly there could only be two hundred and ninety of these – although the numbers varied from parliament to parliament owing to the different proportions of lords temporal and spiritual available. The Scots Parliament, unlike the English, sat together in one chamber, lords, commissioners of the shires and burgh representatives, the Three Estates.

Andrew perceived, then, that quite a number of those present were dressed scarcely in a style to be expected of the occasion; indeed some seemed actually to be selling pamphlets, even snuff and tobacco. He could have brought his brother Henry, after all.

He saw old Lord Belhaven seated alone in stalls near the right-front of the hall, and went to sit beside him.

‘I am glad that you were able to make the journey, my lord,’ he said. ‘I hope that it has not wearied you overmuch?’

‘I took it gently, lad – in tw