The story of the Welsh mistress of James II and her necklace is based in part on the true story of a woman named Goditha Price. She bore Prince James two children, one of whom, Mary Stuart, married a Scottish laird named McBean. As a wedding present she received from her royal father her mother’s necklace. An ancient piece in the form of a silver triskelion set against a bluestone disk, the necklace is said to grow warm in the hands of the one destined to possess it. It is also said to bring long life.
Mary Stuart gave the necklace to her son, Edward McBean, when his participation in a rising against the Hanoverian dynasty on behalf of his uncle, the Old Pretender, led to his exile. McBean sailed for America, where he lived to the ripe old age of 102 and fathered a large family from which the author is descended. The necklace has not, unfortunately, descended along my branch of the family. Its most recent owner, a salty old lady I first met over the Internet, died at the age of 103.