Craig Castle
Castle Craig
Aberdeenshire

26 December 1946

Dear Miss Engel,

I apologise for intruding upon your privacy so abruptly, especially given that I don't think it's possible that we could have met in the past. But word of your situation has been brought to my attention, and I wanted to reach out to you myself.

My friend, Miss Rose Moyer Justice, arrived in Castle Craig two nights ago for Christmas, along with her friend, Miss Róża Czajkowska, at the invitation of myself and my husband, Jamie. Rose, as I believe you know, was an ATA pilot during the war, as was I. She brought along a draft of the article that she is writing for the Olympia Review, about the ongoing Nuremberg Trials, and asked if I would read over what she had written so far. I hope that you will not be alarmed to hear that she has included an account of your conversation in the washroom, in which she speaks quite fondly of you, based on the kindness that you showed her throughout her imprisonment during the war. In the same account, she also reveals that you are to be handed over to the British authorities after giving testimony in Nuremberg, and could face imprisonment as a result of your employment at Ravensbrück.

I am not a judge in the legal sense, but based on Rose's praise of your character, Miss Engel, I want to help you in any way that I can. Bloody and Machiavellian though the English may all appear to be to someone who fought on the other side of the war, I reported every single action I made during my service to some very Intelligent Officers. And I will do what I can to see if one of them can't peer through his spectacles and scratch your name off any list of accused, on account of your extremely humane treatment of your team at Ravensbrück, and any other less-public acts that you may have done in rebellion against the Reich. Whatever wrongs you may have committed during the war, I'm sure you have acquitted yourself through a thousand small and unknown acts of virtue and honesty, and I trust that my government will find that to be the veritable truth, as well.

Rose also reported that she had promised you a proper flight, once the trial is over. As her family's planes in Pennsylvania are considerably farther away than ours here in Scotland, I must insist that you come visit us here and make use of our languishing aircraft, since such a prescription would undoubtedly cheer everyone greatly. I do hope that you will say yes. As a dear friend of mine would once have argued, even an angel sometimes needs to borrow the wings of a hawk to fly free.

Yours sincerely,

The Honourable Margaret Brodatt Beaufort-Stuart