The Saber and Scroll Journal Volume 8, Number 3, Spring 2020 | Page 94

The Saber
retary of State, and the Lord Treasurer,
Sidney Godolphin, against each other.
Finally, Harley believed he won her attention
when he allowed her release and
the continuation of her mission. When
she arrived at her home, Westbrook, in
England, she safely delivered the crucial
messages from St Germain, where the
King’s court was held. She found herself
before Harley again in 1707 when Frances
Shaftoe, a servant, accused both
Oglethorpe women of kidnapping her.
The servant accused them of taking her
to France to convert her to Catholicism,
which failed. 28
Hired by the Oglethorpes in 1699,
Frances Shaftoe claimed she overheard
a secret conversation between Anne
and Eleanor. 29 During the conversation,
Anne had confided that James II’s infant
son died at five- to six-weeks-old
of convulsions. 30 And upon receiving
the news of the royal heir’s death, Lady
Eleanor Oglethorpe rushed to England
with her newborn son to switch King’s
the dead baby boy for her living son. 31
With this news, Court gossip and Whig
propaganda claimed the infant son to
be a pretender, the son of Theophilus
and Eleanor Oglethorpe, instead of the
true Stuart heir. The scandal over James
III’s legitimacy continued his entire life
and earning him the nickname, The Old
Pretender. 32 Even though the episode
was vexing, Harley’s interest in Anne
grew, and she became his official mistress.
33 And with Jacobite flair, she employed
the influence and power of her
position in the realm of international
diplomacy. 34 As such, Anne helped to
arrange peace talks between France and
Spain in the hopes of gaining Spanish
4