Shrewsbury: A Romance

by Stanley John Weyman

  CHAPTER XXIV

  Apprised by what I heard, not only that I stood in the Gallery ofKensington Court--a mansion which His Majesty had lately bought fromLord Nottingham, and made his favourite residence--but that thegentleman in black whom I had found so simply employed was no otherthan the King himself, I ask you to imagine with what interest Ilooked upon him. He whom the old King of France had dubbed in bitterderision, the "Little Squire of ----," and whom two revolutions hadsuccessfully created Stadtholder of Holland and Sovereign of theseIsles, was at this time forty-six years old, already prematurely bent,and a prey to the asthma which afflicted his later life. Reserved inmanner, and sombre, not to say melancholy, in aspect, hiding strongpassions behind a pale mask of stoicism as chilling to his friends asit was baffling to his enemies, he was such as a youth spent under theeyes of watchful foes, and a manhood in the prosecution of weighty andsecret designs, made him. Descended on the one side from William theSilent, on the other from the great Henry of France, he was thought toexhibit, in more moderate degree, the virtues and failings whichmarked those famous princes, and to represent, not in blood only, butin his fortunes, the two soldiers of the sixteenth century whosecourage in disaster and skill in defeat still passed for a proverb;who, frequently beaten in the field, not seldom garnered the fruits ofthe campaign, and rose, Antaeus-like, the stronger from every fall.

  That, in all stations, as a private person, a Stadtholder and a King,his late Majesty remembered the noble sources whence he sprang, wasproved, I think, not only by the exactness with which his life waswrought to the pattern of those old mottoes of his house, _S[oe]vustranquillus in Undis_, and _Tandem fit Surculus arbor_, whereof theformer was borne, I have read, by the Taciturn, and the latter byMaurice of Nassau--but of two other particulars of which I beg leaveto mention. The first was that _more majorum_ he took naturally andfrom the first the lead as the champion of the Protestant religion inEurope; the second, that though he had his birth in a republic, andwas called to be King by election (so that it was no uncommon thingfor some of his subjects to put slights upon him as little more thantheir equal--ay, and though he had to bear such affronts in silence),he had the true spirit and pride of a King born in the purple, and byright divine. Insomuch that many attributed to this the gloom andreserve of his manners; maintaining that these were assumed less as ashield against the malice of his enemies, than as a cloak to abate thefamiliarity of his friends.

  And certainly some in speaking of him of late years belittle his birthno less than his exploits, when they call him Dutch William, and thelike; speaking in terms unworthy of a sovereign, and as if he haddrawn his blood from that merchant race, instead of--as the factwas--from the princely houses of Stuart, Bourbon, Nassau, and Medici;and from such ancestors as the noble Coligny and King Charles theMartyr. But of his birth, enough.

  For the rest, having a story to tell, and not history to write, Irefrain from recalling how great he was as a statesman, howresourceful as a strategist, how indomitable as a commander, howvaliant when occasion required in the pitched field. Nor is itnecessary, seeing that before the rise of my Lord Marlborough (whostill survives, but alas, _quantum mutatus ab illo!_) he had no rivalin any of these capacities, nor in the first will ever be excelled.

  Nor, as a fact, looking on him in the flesh as I then did for thefirst time, can I say that I saw anything to betoken greatness, or theleast outside evidence of the fiery spirit that twice in two greatwars stayed all the power of Louis and of France; that saved Holland;that united all Europe in three great leagues; finally, that leapingthe bounds of the probable, won a kingdom, only to hold it cheap, anda means to farther ends. I say I saw in him not the least trace ofthis, but only a plain, thin, grave, and rather peevish gentleman, inblack and a large wig, who coughed much between his words, spoke witha foreign accent, and often lapsed into French or some strange tongue.

  He waited until the door had fallen to behind the child, and the longgallery lay silent, and then bade my lord speak. "I breathe betterhere," he said. "I hate small rooms. What is the news you havebrought?"

  "No good news, sir," my patron answered. "And yet I can scarcely callit bad. In the country it will have a good effect."

  "_Bien!_ But what is it?"

  "I have seen Ferguson, sir."

  "Then you have seen a d----d scoundrel!" the King exclaimed, with anenergy I had not expected from him; and, indeed, such outbreaks wererare with him. "He is arrested, then?"

  "No, sir," the Duke answered. "I trust, however, that he will bebefore night."

  "But if he be free, how came you in his company?" the King asked,somewhat sharply.

  My lord hesitated, and seemed for a moment at a loss how to answer.Being behind him, I could not see his face, but I fancied that he grewred, and that the fourth person present, a stout, burly gentleman,marked with the small-pox, who had advanced and now stood near theKing, was hard put to it not to smile. At last, "I received a letter,sir," my lord said, speaking stiffly and with constraint, "purportingto come from a third person----"

  "Ah!" said the King, drawling the word, and nodding dry comprehension.

  "On the faith of which, believing it to be from that other--if youunderstand, sir----"

  "I understand perfectly," said the King, and coughed.

  "I was induced," my lord said doggedly, "to give the villain ameeting. And learned, sir, partly from him, and partly from this manhere"--this more freely--"enough to corroborate the main particularsof Mr. Prendergast's story."

  "Ah?" said the King. "Good. And the particulars?"

  "That Sir George Barclay, the person mentioned by Mr. Prendergast, isgiving nightly rendezvous in Covent Garden to persons mainly fromFrance, who are being formed by him into a band; the design, as statedby Prendergast, to fall on your Majesty's person in the lane betweenFulham Green and the river on your returning from hunting."

  "Does he agree as to the names?" the King asked, looking at me.

  "He knows no names, sir," the Duke answered, "but he saw a number ofthe conspirators at the Seven Stars in Covent Garden last night, andheard them speak openly of a hunting party; with other things pointingthe same way."

  "Was Barclay there?"

  "He can speak to a person who I think can be identified as Barclay,"my lord answered. "He cannot speak to Charnock----"

  "That is the Oxford man?"

  "Yes, sir--or Porter, or King; or the others by those names. But hecan speak to two of them under the names by which Prendergast saidthat they were passing."

  "_C'est tout!_ Well, it does not seem to me to be so simple!" the Kingsaid with a touch of impatience. "What is this person's name, and whois he?"

  The Duke told him that I had been Ferguson's tool.

  "That rogue is in it then?"

  "He is privy to it," the Duke answered.

  His Majesty shrugged his shoulders, as if the answer annoyed him. "YouEnglish draw fine distinctions," he said. "Whatever you do, however,let us have no repetition of the Lancashire fiasco. You will bear thatin mind, my lord, if you please. Another of Taafe's pseudo plots woulddo us more harm in the country than the loss of a battle in Flanders.Faugh! we have knaves at home, but you have a breed here--your Oates'sand your Taafes and your Fullers--for whom breaking on the wheel istoo good!"

  "There are rogues, sir, in all countries," my lord answered somewhattartly. "I do not know that we have a monopoly of them."

  "The Duke of Shrewsbury is right there, sir," the gentleman behind theKing who had not yet spoken, struck in, in a good-natured tone. "Theyare things of which there is no scarcity anywhere. I remember----"

  "_Taisez! Taisez!_" cried the King brusquely, cutting short hisreminiscences--whereat the gentleman, smiling imperturbably, tooksnuff. "Tell me this. Is Sir John Fenwick implicated?"

  "There may be evidence against him," my lord answered cautiously.

  The King sneered openly. "Yes," he said. "I see Porter and Goodman andCharnock are guilty! But when it touches o
ne of yourselves, my lord,then 'There is evidence against him,' or 'It is a case of suspicion,'or--oh, you all hang together!" And pursing up his lips he lookedsourly at us. "You all hang together!" he repeated. "I stand to beshot at--_c'est dommage_. But touch a noble, and _Gare la Noblesse!_"

  "You do us an injustice, sir," my lord cried warmly. "I will answerfor it----"

  "Oh, I do you an injustice, do I?" the King said, disregarding hislast words. "Of course I do! Of course you are all faithful, mostfaithful. You have all taken the oath. But I tell you, my LordShrewsbury, the King to whom you swore allegiance, the King crowned in'89 was not William the Third, but Noblesse the first! _La Noblesse!_Yes, my lord, you may look at me, and as angrily as you like; but itwas so. _Par dieu et diable_, you tie my hands! You tie my hands, youcling to my sword, you choke my purse! I had as much power in Hollandas I have here. And more! And more!"

  He would have gone farther, and with the same candour I think; but atthat the gentleman who had interrupted him before, struck in again,addressing him rapidly in what I took to be Dutch, and doubtlesspointing out the danger of too great openness. At any rate I took thatto be the gist of his words, not only from his manner, but from thefact that when he had done--the King looking gloomy and answeringnothing--he turned to my lord.

  "The King trusts your Grace," he said bluntly. "He has never said asmuch to an Englishman before. I am sure that the trust is well placedand that his Majesty's feelings will go no farther."

  The Duke bowed. "Your Majesty authorises me to take the necessarysteps then," he said, speaking somewhat drily, but otherwise ignoringwhat had passed. "To secure your safety, sir, as well as to arrest theguilty, no time should be lost. Warrants should be issued immediately,and these persons taken up."

  "Before Ferguson can warn them," the King said in his ordinary tone."Yes, see to it, my lord; and let the Council be recalled. The guards,too, should be doubled, and the regiment Prendergast mentioneddisplaced. Cutts must look to that, and do you, my lord," he continuedrapidly, addressing the gentleman beside him, whom I now conjecturedto be Lord Portland, "fetch him hither and lose no time. Take one ofmy coaches. It is a plot, if all be true, should do us good in thecountry. And that, I think, is your Grace's opinion."

  "It should, sir. Doubtless, sir, we English have our faults; but weare not fond of assassins."

  "And you are confident that tins is no bubble?" the King saidthoughtfully.

  "Yes, sir, I am."

  By this time Lord Portland had withdrawn through a door at the fartherend of the gallery. The King, taking a turn this way and that, withhis hands clasped behind him, and his head bent low, so that his greatwig almost hid his features, seemed to be lost in thought. Afterwaiting a moment the Duke coughed, and this failing to attract theKing's attention, he ventured to address him. "There is another matterI have to mention to you, sir," he said, with a touch of constraint inhis tone.

  The King paused in his walk, and looked sharply at him. "Ah, ofcourse," he said, nodding. "Did you see Lord Middleton."

  The Duke could not hide a start. "Lord Middleton, sir?" he faltered.

  The King smiled coldly. "The letter," he said, "was from him, Isuppose?"

  My lord rallied himself. "No, sir, it was not," he answered, with aflash of spirit. "It purported to be from him."

  "Yet you went--wherever you went--thinking to see him?" his Majestycontinued, smiling rather disagreeably.

  "I did," my lord answered, his tone betraying his agitation. "But todo nothing to the prejudice of your service, sir, and what I could tofurther your interests--short of giving him up. He is my relative."

  The King shrugged his shoulders.

  "And for years," my lord cried warmly, "was my intimate friend."

  The King shrugged his shoulders again. "We have fought that outbefore," he said, with a sigh of weariness. "And more than once. Forthe rest in that connection and whatever others may say, LordShrewsbury has no ground to complain of me."

  "I have cause, sir, to do far otherwise!" the Duke answered in a tonesuddenly changed and so full of emotion that it was not difficult todiscern that he had forgotten my presence; which was not wonderful, asI stood behind him in the shadow of the doorway, whither out ofmodesty I had retreated. "God knows I remember it!" he continued."Were it not for that, if I were not bound to your Majesty by morethan common ties of gratitude, I should not be to-day in a servicewhich--for which I am unfit! The daily duties of which, performed byother men with indifference or appetite, fill me with pity anddistaste! the risks attending which--I speak without ceremony,sir--make me play the coward with myself a hundred times a day!"

  "Caesar," the King said quietly, "lets none but Caesar call him coward."

  Kindly as the words were uttered, and in a tone differing much fromthat which the King had hitherto used, the Duke took no heed of them."Others wish for my place; God knows I wish they had it!" he cried,his agitation growing rather than decreasing. "Every hour, sir, I prayto be quit of the faction and perjury in which I live! Every hour Iloathe more deeply the work I have to do and the people with whom Ihave to do it. I never go to my office but my gorge rises; nor leaveit but I see the end. And yet I must stay in it! I must stay in it! Itell you, sir," he continued impetuously, "on the day that you burnedthose letters you but freed me from one slavery to fling me intoanother!"

  "Yet an honest one!" said the King in a peculiar tone.

  My lord threw up his hands. "You have a right to say that, sir. But ifanyone else--or, no I--I forget myself."

  "Something has disturbed you," said the King intervening with muchkindness. "Take time! And in the meanwhile, listen to me. As to thegeneral distaste you express for my service, I will not, and I do not,do you the injustice to attribute it--whatever you say yourself--toyour fears of what may happen in a possible event; I mean, _l'ancienregime restitue_. If such fears weighed so heavily with you, you wouldneither have signed the Invitation to me, nor come to me eight yearsago. But I take it with perhaps some apprehensions of this kind, youhave--and this is the real gist of the matter--a natural distaste foraffairs, and a natural proneness to be on good terms with all, roguesas well as good men. It irks you to sign a death-warrant, to send oneto Newgate, and another to--bah, I forget the names of your prisons;to know that your friends abroad are not as well placed at St.Germain's as they were at St. James's! You have no care to push anadvantage, no anxiety to ruin a rival; you would rather trust a manthan bind him. In a word, my lord, you have no taste for public lifein dangerous and troubled times such as these; although perforce youhave played a high part in it."

  "Sir!" the Duke cried, with an anxiety and eagerness that touched me,"you know me better than I know myself. You see my failings, myunfitness; and surely, seeing them so clearly, you will not refuseto----"

  "Release you?" the King said smiling. "That does not follow. Forconsider, my lord, you are not the only one in the world who pursuesperforce a path for which he has little taste. To be King of Englandhas a higher sound than to be Stadtholder of Holland. But to be a Kingand no King; to see your way clearly and be thwarted by those who seeno fool of the field; to have France by the throat and be baffled forthe lack of ten thousand men or a million guilders; above all, to beserved by men who have made use of you--who have one foot on eithershore, and having betrayed their old Master to gain their ends, wouldnow betray you to save their necks. This, too, forms no bed of roses!But I lie on it! I lie on it!" he concluded phlegmatically; and as hespoke he took a pinch of snuff. "In fine, my lord," he continued, "tobe high, or what the world calls high, is to be unhappy."

  The Duke sighed. "You, sir, have those qualities which fit you foryour part," he said sadly. "I have not."

  "Have I?"

  The King said no more, but the gesture with which he held out hishands, as if he bade the other mark his feebleness, his short breath,his hacking cough, his pallor, had more meaning than many words. "No,my lord," he continued after a pause, "I cannot release you. I cannotafford to release you, be
cause I cannot afford to release the one manwho does not day by day betray me, and who never has betrayed me!"

  "I would to heaven that you could say that!" the Duke cried, muchmoved.

  "I can, my friend," the King answered, with a gesture of kindness. "Itwas nothing, and it is forgotten. I have long ceased to think of it.But, _c'est vrai!_ I remember when I say I can trust no one else. I domy good Somers an injustice. He is a dry man, however, like myself,and poor company, and does not count for much."

  My lord, contending with his feelings, did not answer, and the Kingwho, while speaking, had seated himself in a high-backed chair, inwhich he looked frailer and more feeble than when on his legs, let aminute elapse before he resumed in a different and brisker tone, "Andnow tell me what has troubled our good Secretary to-day?"

  "The Duke of Berwick, sir, is in London."

  To my astonishment, and I have no doubt to the Duke's, the King merelynodded. "Ah!" he said. "Is he in this pretty plot, then?"

  "I think not," the Duke answered. "But I should suppose----

  "That he is here to take advantage of it," the King said. "Well, he ishis uncle's own nephew. I suppose Ferguson sold him--as he has soldevery one all his life?"

  "Yes, sir. But not, I think, with the intention that I should carryout the bargain."

  "Eh?"

  "It is a long tale, sir," the Duke said rather wearily. "And havinggiven your Majesty the information----"

  "You need not tell the tale? Well, no, for I can guess it!" the Kinganswered. "The old rogue, I suppose, was for ruining you with me ifyou hid the news; and for damning you with King James if you informed:which latter he did not think likely, but that instead he would have ahold on you."

  The Duke in a tone of much surprise acknowledged that he had guessedrightly.

  "Well, it was a pretty dilemma," said the King with a sort of gusto."And where is M. FitzJames in hiding?"

  "At Dr. Lloyd's in Hogsden Gardens," my lord answered. But he couldnot conceal his gloom.

  "He must be arrested," said the King. "A warrant must be issued. Willyou see to it with the others?"

  My lord assented; but with such a sigh that it required no wizard todiscern both the cloud that hung over him, and also that now he haddone what Ferguson had dared him to do, the consequences lay heavy onhim. The King, after considering him a moment with a singularexpression, between amusement and reproach, broke the silence.

  "See here, my lord," he said with good nature. "I will tell you whatto do. Sit down now, and here, and write a line to Monsieur, biddinghim begone; and send it by a private hand, and the warrant by amessenger an hour later."

  The Duke stared at the King in astonishment. "But he will escape,sir," he faltered.

  "So much the better," the King answered indifferently. "If we take himwhat are we to do with him? Besides, to tell you the truth, my lord,he did me a great service eight years ago."

  "He, sir?"

  "Yes," said the King smiling. "He induced his father to fly thecountry, when, if he had stayed--but you know that story. So do youwarn him, and the sooner he is beyond La Manche the better."

  The Duke looked unhappy. "I dare not do it, sir," he said at last,after a pause.

  "Dare not do it? When I authorise it? Why not?"

  "No, sir. Because if I were impeached by the Commons----"

  The King shrugged his shoulders.

  "Ah, these safeguards!" he muttered. "These town councils, andprovincial councils, and States-General! And now these Commons andLords! Shall I ever be quit of them? Well, there is but one way then.I must do it. If they impeach me, I go back to Loo; and they may stewin their own juice!"

  He rose with that, and moving stiffly to the table at which LordPortland had been writing when we entered, he sought for and found apen. Then sitting in the chair which the Groom of the Stole had leftvacant, he tore a slip of paper from a folio before him and, writingsome lines on it--about six, as far as I could judge--handed the paperto the Duke, who had remained standing at a formal distance.

  "Voila, Monsieur," he said. "Will that suit your lordship?"

  The Duke took it respectfully and looked at it. "But, sir, it is in myname!" he cried, aghast. "And bears my signature."

  "_Eh, bien_, why not?" his Majesty answered lightly. "The name is thename of Jacob, but the hand is the hand of Esau. Take it and send itby a trusty messenger. Perhaps the man who came with you, andwho--pheugh, my lord! I had forgotten that this person was here! Wehave spoken too freely."

  The oath which the Duke let fall as he turned, and the face of dismayand anger with which he gazed on me, were proof enough that he sharedthe King's opinion, as he had shared his mistake. For a moment, thetwo glaring at me with equal disgust and vexation, I thought I shouldsink into the floor. Then the King beckoned me to come forward, and Iobeyed him.