She was also the best friend and confidante of Princess Charlotte, the Prince Regent’s daughter.

Margaret had declined numerous marriage proposals from rich and powerful men. Notably, she knocked back William Cavendish, the fifth Duke of Devonshire, owner of the magnificent Chatsworth in Derbyshire, Devonshire House in London and other great estates. Four months after the Holland House dinner, Byron sent her a message from Dover, ‘that he would not have had to go into exile if he had married her’.20 But she was smitten with the Count de Flahaut, former aide and personal friend of Britain’s greatest enemy. On hearing of this, Admiral Lord Keith was apoplectic. He emphatically refused permission for his daughter to marry the Frenchman; when she persisted, he disinherited her. Margaret confided her distress to her cousin and close friend, Lady Malcolm.

London society was avid for details of the unlikely match (the wedding was to occur in June 1817, without Lord Keith’s blessing). Gossip thrived in the newspapers. The story was naturally of riveting interest to the people at Longwood.

Lady Malcolm had actually arrived on the island with a letter from Flahaut for his good friend Fanny Bertrand; she had been asked by her cousin to deliver it secretly, but she replied from The Briars, where she and her husband were staying with the Balcombes, that she felt constrained from giving Fanny the letter from Flahaut. Governor Lowe had told her he objected to it being delivered as it had not come through the ‘proper channels’ and he was annoyed by the volume of mail that was reaching the Bertrands, ‘sent in parcels and in various clandestine ways’.21

O’Meara reported that his patient was ‘much pleased’ with Sir Pulteney Malcolm and his wife.22 Of course he was. Napoleon was bound to cultivate the Malcolms, given their connections. As fond as he was of his stepdaughter Hortense, now abandoned by her lover, he would have been delighted to hear of his former aidede-camp moving in such influential circles in London, of his new romance and of Miss Margaret Elphinstone’s close friendship with the Princess of Wales.23

Meanwhile, Hortense was residing at Baden Baden with her sons by her estranged husband: Napoleon Louis was aged twelve and Louis Napoleon four years younger. The latter, in subsequent years, was to become a friend of Betsy Balcombe and would entreat her to tell stories about his illustrious uncle. Later still he would proclaim himself Emperor Napoleon III.

Napoleon still considered that his best hope of release from St Helena, other than through the Regent himself, was by Princess Charlotte taking a personal interest in his case. He was delighted to learn that she had married Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha at the beginning of May. He said that the prince, who had once applied to be his aide-de-camp, was one of the most handsome and pleasant young men he had ever met.24 All the while, the tantalising rumour of William Balcombe’s blood connection with the royal family persisted.

The purveyor visited the Bertrands at Hutt’s Gate on 28 June and was particularly indiscreet about his house guests. According to Bertrand’s 1816 journal, still with no published English translation, Balcombe reported that Lady Malcolm was very happy about her conversation with the emperor; that Napoleon had many supporters in England as well as many women admirers and that their numbers were increasing daily; and that Admiral Malcolm would be staying on the island for just one year, and for less time than that if the emperor himself departed, in which case he would accompany him.25

It may have been to impress the Malcolms that Napoleon reopened the issue of the slave Toby’s freedom. O’Meara recorded: ‘When Napoleon discovered some time after the departure of Sir George Cockburn that the poor man had not been emancipated, he directed Mr Balcombe to purchase him from his master [a certain Captain Wrangham, who had left the island], set him at liberty and charge the amount to Count Bertrand’s private account.’ Both Balcombe and O’Meara had put this to the governor, who ‘however, thought proper to prohibit this’.26 Montholon’s memoirs provide further details, including the alleged reason for Lowe’s refusal: his fear of a great slave uprising such as that led by Toussaint L’Ouverture in the Caribbean.

On 2 July, Lowe visited Longwood and spoke to Montholon, the official manager of the household, about a reduction in expenses, particularly for food and wine. Balcombe’s purveyorship was criticised too, not just for the excessive quantity of food provided, but for its inedible nature.

The governor refused Montchenu permission to visit Madame Bertrand, which drove her to distraction, as the marquis had seen her ailing mother in France before setting off for St Helena. Napoleon still declined to meet the commissioners, which suited Lowe. Count Bertrand had conveyed the message that ‘if they wished to be introduced as private persons’ they should apply to him, but ‘The Emperor’ would not receive them officially. He did not recognise the right of the Allied powers to arbitrate upon his fate. He was the prisoner of England ‘in fact, but not in right’, but not the prisoner of Europe.27

Lowe fretted about what the commissioners were doing, determined to prevent any undue association between them and the people at Longwood. They in turn, finding themselves watched and their freedom curtailed, complained about him to their home governments, so adding to Lowe’s growing unfavourable reputation. Count Balmain’s assessment went to the Czar: ‘The responsibility with which he has been charged makes him tremble, and he becomes alarmed at the slightest incident, puzzles his brain for hours over nothing, and does with vast trouble what any one else would do in a minute.’28 Balmain had no idea at the time that he was writing about his future father-in-law.

On 10 July, O’Meara sent a letter from Longwood to Sir Thomas Reade, officially the governor’s deputy adjutant-general, effectively his espionage agent. In it the doctor sounded remarkably like a spy himself: ‘I understand from Madame that they have it in contemplation here to forward a letter of complaint against Sir Hudson to England (by what channel I did not understand), containing, no doubt, divers untruths, and praying he may be recalled. You had better give Sir Hudson a hint about it, but let it be between you and him only; as, though I have some reason to think that some plot is hatching, I am not quite sure of it, and any premature disclosure of it would not be the thing.’ 29

He went on to protest again about the food supplies to Longwood, lodging the blame to Balcombe’s partners rather than to the man he claimed as a friend. He said that Montholon was building up a file, finding out the price of every item of food and drink brought to the house. However, the purveyor had defenders in Sir Pulteney and Lady Malcolm, who were still at The Briars. Lady Malcolm wrote to her aunt, the wife of Admiral Lord Keith, that she sympathised with Balcombe for having to feed the ingrates at Longwood: ‘They complained that the wine was bad, but how can it be otherwise, for if they get a week’s supply at a time, the servants drink it all in three days.’ Bonaparte had a great appetite and demanded a roast every day; after fourteen consecutive days of roast pork, he complained: ‘“Encore cochon de lait”. It was the fault of his own people, who took the turkeys and geese, and continued to send the pigs to his table!’30 But the cost of catering was enormous and Bonaparte himself had said that Balcombe ‘costs more than he is worth’.

Meanwhile, the Colonial Office had sent out the components for a new prefabricated house to make the prisoner and his retinue more comfortable.