Sword of State: The Wielding

by Richard Woodman

  ‘Certainly, Your Grace.

  ‘And finally,’ Monck went on, ‘My Lord Mayor must be prevailed upon to pay for more lime, of which we stand in great need. That, I think, summarises the sense of this convocation, does it not?’

  Monck looked round the table at Lord Arlington, the Earls of Southampton and Manchester, and the Duke of Ormonde. Morice, meanwhile, completed his rough draft of the minutes. The handful of men held the great offices of state and, but two months earlier would have considered the plague a disease of the poor. Now it was plain to all that the hot, dry summer had fanned the contagion into a terrible epidemic. The ditches, runnels and choked rivulets that fed the Thames with the City’s sewage had all but dried up; the stench of shit rivalled that of the dead who were dragged out of their houses by those willing to undertake the task at the wages of desperation. The disease was no respecter of rank or birth, and a man fit at breakfast might be dead by dinner-time, so swiftly did the evil miasmas spread. Not even the burning of loose gun-powder or the breathing of posies or the scent of oranges turned aside the wrath of God, as preacher after preacher sermonised, adding to the fear that stalked the streets. Even Thomas Gumble who, in an access of loyalty, had refused to leave Monck’s side, had found sincere avid prayer no bulwark against terror, leading to the inevitable belief that God willed it upon the King and his people. The reason was not hard to discern. The licentiousness of King Charles’s Court, copied a thousand times by his now unfettered and un-Puritanical subjects; the vengeance wrought against the Godly dead, especially Cromwell; the vile and malicious harrying of the Regicides; the disbandment of the Army of the Lord of Hosts, all such acts of vengeance removed from the Hand of God Himself, had conduced to inflame the Almighty to His own Great Act of Retribution.

  The noblemen rose solemnly from the table to take wine before they departed.

  ‘They say it came from the Continent by ship,’ Morice murmured.

  Arlington demurred. ‘’Tis a disease of Jews, Catholics and Dissident fanatics,’ he responded with an aristocratic assurance. ‘They huddle in their conventicles in private houses, encouraging the miasmas which soon blow through their neighbours’ dwellings and so spread with such incontinent rapidity that no man, woman nor child is safe but by covering their mouths by a cloth of fine silk.’

  ‘It cannot have come by ship,’ remarked Manchester, ‘for it was first recorded in… where was it? Long Acre?’

  ‘Aye. Two Frenchmen died of it there.’

  ‘Ah, Frenchmen! Another pox from that accursed people.’

  ‘It was found elsewhere too,’ said Morice, voicing reason.

  ‘By what means doth it leave a ship and come ashore?’ Manchester pressed.

  ‘It went thither by the carriage there of bales of cloth imported from Antwerp.’

  ‘Some fools are placing the spread of it on rats,’ added Ormonde. ‘If ’twas the case, we should see it more often and more consistently.’

  ‘’Tis possible the rats are infected, ship-borne rats especially.’ Morice ventured, looking about him. The truth was they had no idea beyond knowing that if a person breathed tainted air, within hours a black sore, or bubo, would appear, quickly followed by a headache, chills, pains in the joints and the back, breathlessness and high-fever. In seven out of ten cases delirium and death soon afterwards followed, sometimes in two hours, more usually in six.

  ‘Is this the distemper Your Grace took some years ago?’ Ormonde asked, turning to Monck. ‘If so you have been uncommon lucky, for it damn near killed you, did it not?’

  ‘It was not plague that I took then,’ Monck answered, nodding, ‘for it lacked the black buboes. Mine was a plainer sickness, not so speedy as this.’

  ‘Nor so deadly, sir.’

  ‘Think thee that this is a judgement by God?’ Arlington asked of the company in general.

  ‘Upon the people? Why so? It kills without favour,’ Monck said, scoffing, but reminding them of popular opinion regarding the death of Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester.

  ‘That is true, Your Grace,’ said Manchester, ‘but the removal of the people doth mightily cast down the King…’

  ‘A judgement upon the King then?’ It was Monck who articulated the thought that few dared speak of. ‘For if the King hath not a people to rule he is no King, is that your argument, My Lord?’

  Manchester shrugged. ‘It must cross more minds than mine alone.’

  ‘The King’s sins are the more likely to give him the pox,’ said Monck dismissively, easing the mood of their Lordships, who laughed uncomfortably at the prospect.

  ‘I have heard,’ said Arlington, ‘His Majesty is greatly taken with Colonel Cundun’s device…’

  ‘Oh, that is an old thing.’

  ‘But much in want now and most appropriate that it cometh from the Guards!’

  ‘’Tis said Cundun will get a step in rank for it.’

  ‘He should have a Peerage if he keeps the King from the pox!’ laughed Manchester.

  ‘My Lords…’ Monck paid his respects and left them to their idle chatter and their salacious laughter. Whether or not Charles had acquired the habit of bedding all and sundry as a consequence of his long years of exiled idleness, Monck did not find anything the least amusing in the King’s low cunt-itch.

  *

  Monck had continued to supervise the procurements for the Navy, Pepys being a frequent visitor to The Cockpit. Another habitué of the Albemarle’s quarters in Whitehall was Lord Craven in his capacity as enforcer of the plague regulations. Sir John Lawrence, the Lord Mayor of London, and his Aldermen were also enforcers and all these men were forbidden to leave the City. Monck and the Earl of Craven ordered any gatherings, particularly the religious meetings of the Quakers and other sects, to be broken up as being seats of infection, while a strict watch was kept for looters and other trouble-makers, especially Dissenting and disaffected soldiers. Despite Monck’s assiduous efforts to ameliorate the effects of enforced disbandment of the New Model Army, there yet remained a number of veterans ready to take advantage of the disruption of the epidemic, the streets being deserted, and may rich households left empty.

  The invocation of the regulations drawn up forty years earlier, which ruled that pest houses must be isolated, had been ruthlessly enforced by Monck and Craven. These included the Draconian compulsion that all infected persons should either be removed into the nearest such facility as soon as any symptoms appeared, or their houses were to be isolated and marked with red crosses, with a watchmen posted over them. Although this condemned those still uninfected but living within the property to the probability of acquiring the disease, it had its slow impact.

  The plague gradually abated as the weather changed and the fall of the year drew on. By mid-August the curfew was lifted and those confined in their houses were allowed to take the evening air after nine of the clock. The Committee of the Privy Council marked the decline in the parish returns that Morice garnered every week. After some two thousand and twenty deaths in the capital alone during the week between the 25th July and the 1st August, the toll slowly diminished. Nevertheless, Morice’s carefully complied record told of the passing of some seventy thousand souls over the summer months.

  ‘I am convinced it came to us by ship,’ he had told Monck when the Duke announced his intention of disbanding the Special Committee. ‘From the Levant by way of the Smyrna fleet I surmise.’

  ‘The Smyrna fleet.’ Monck nodded, recalling it had been plague contracted in Smyrna that was believed to have killed Anne’s first husband. ‘Well, well.’

  Monck joined his family at New Hall on two occasions, glad to see that the Clarkes had taken advantage of the Moncks’ hospitality and that Will was much improved. Dorothy Clarke thanked Monck for his consideration but he made light of it as they walked, the four of them, in the formal gardens of New Hall, the great brooding red-brick presence of the Tudor Palace basking in the warm sunshine.

  ‘It is the very least that I can do for
the years of service he rendered me,’ Monck said, drawing aside to look at some roses and leaving Clarke and Anne to walk on ahead. ‘He deserves some time to give over to idleness, for I placed a heavy demand upon him in Scotland.’

  ‘He has not been idle, Your Grace,’ Dorothy responded with some asperity. ‘He has been attending to his papers, compiling a record of those events during the Civil War of which he bears witness.’

  ‘Oh! Well, well,’ grunted Monck with a smile. ‘If it pleases him, I am glad of it. I understand Clarendon intends some such conceit. I suppose someone will profit from it. See, Mistress Clarke, these white roses thrive in this clay soil; have you noticed that?’

  ‘They have a lovely scent on a warm afternoon such as this.’

  ‘Here, then…’ Monck plucked a bloom and presented it to Dorothy Clarke with a bow and a flourish. ‘A smaller recompense for the faithful wife, eh?’

  ‘I have heard that the soldiers thought you a devil, Your Grace,’ she said, carefully taking the rose stem.

  ‘Only the enemy’s, Mistress Clarke, or so I am told.’

  *

  ‘So, George, now that our labours are done here, what do you intend? Devon or Essex?’

  Monck swallowed, dabbed his mouth with his napkin and swilled his mouth with wine, throwing a glance at Anne at the far end of the table. She was staring at him pointedly.

  ‘Well,’ he began, lowering his glass and addressing his interlocutor, the Earl of Craven, though he knew it was Anne who was the more interested. ‘Devon for preference, William, but Essex if I must. There is much to be done at New Hall.’

  ‘I recall it as a grand pile.’

  ‘Aye, and the hunting is good, both deer and duck.’

  ‘But it is better at Potheridge,’ put in Anne sharply, to which the twelve-year old Kit added eagerly.

  ‘You are right, Mother,’ the lad said, turning enthusiastically to Craven. ‘I shot a buck there last year, My Lord.’

  ‘Well done, young fella,’ congratulated Craven while Monck nodded, his expression rueful. He avoided Anne’s eyes. Craven’s glance flickered from one to another. He had been courtier long enough to divine tension and felt for his friend.

  ‘If Your Grace will forgive me for so saying,’ he addressed Anne, ‘the King is much in need of your husband’s services, ma’am. No-one could have performed those prodigies which, if they have not saved this city, have at the least ameliorated the impact of the recent plague. No-one knows this better than myself, for I was at His Grace’s side throughout.’

  Anne had coloured and Monck himself felt for her as Craven delivered his gentle admonishment. At once grateful on his own behalf, he was embarrassed for Anne who seemed close to tears or to precipitately withdrawing. Only recently admitted to the privilege of dining with adults, Kit was looking at her with obvious concern.

  ‘You flatter me too much, sir,’ Monck demurred. ‘It was you who put activity into the wanting.’

  ‘No, George, I could not have done a thing without your authority.’

  This awkward scene was abruptly terminated by the opening of the dining room door and the announcement of a visitor.

  ‘His Highness Prince Rupert, Your Grace,’ the servant announced breathlessly, ‘prays you will allow him a word with you.’

  ‘Then show him in at once.’ Monck rose, followed by the others as the tall figure of Rupert of the Rhine swept into the room and made his elaborately courteous bow to the Duchess of Albemarle. The men, including Kit, made their own genuflection but it was Anne the Prince addressed, which further flustered her discomfiture as she rose from a deep curtsey.

  ‘Pray, forgive me, Your Grace. You are still at table,’ Rupert said in his impeccable, slightly accented English.

  ‘Will you join us, Your Highness?’ Anne asked.

  Rupert declined. ‘I have eaten, thank you.’

  ‘In a glass perhaps,’ said Monck, motioning the waiting servants to draw up a chair close to Monck’s.

  ‘A glass would be perfect, thank you.’

  The company sat again and for a moment was silent as the wine was set before the Prince and he sampled Monck’s sack.

  ‘I was saying, Your Highness,’ put in Craven, breaking the silence, ‘that London owes much to My Lord Albemarle’s sedulous attention to his duty in regard to the plague.’

  ‘Indeed. And I understand – though you will both deny it – to the generous purses of both, Your Lordships.’ Rupert smiled and raised his glass in tribute to Monck and Craven before turning to Anne. ‘And His Grace could not have effected anything without the loyal support of his lady, eh, gentlemen?’ Rupert toasted Anne, inviting Craven and Monck to join him.

  Anne flushed with pleasure, but was not to be over-set so quickly. ‘Your Highness is too kind. My husband’s duty is his own.’

  ‘But no man’s duty comes unencumbered if he be married,’ soothed Rupert. ‘Besides, there is the future to think of and women do that best.’ Rupert smiled over his raised glass at the boy sitting beside his mother. ‘He takes after Your Grace,’ he observed.

  Flattered, Anne bobbed her head then looked at her husband. ‘We should leave you gentlemen to your tobacco,’ she said rising and, taking Kit with her, she withdrew.

  Monck blew out his cheeks in unashamed relief as Craven chuckled. ‘Forgive me George,’ he said leaning forward. Pipes and tobacco were placed on the table and the servants followed their mistress from the room as Monck, eschewing a pipe, tucked a quid into his cheek.

  ‘I have arrived at an awkward moment, eh?’ Rupert asked.

  ‘No, no. Your Highness is always most welcome.’

  ‘I never doubted that, George,’ Rupert laughed. ‘Not from you, anyway.’

  ‘Please forgive –’

  ‘There is nothing to forgive. I am the intruder on your domesticity; it is I who require forgiveness.’

  ‘Your Highness –’ Monck began a protest but it was cut short.

  ‘I think I bring you bad news, but it is better you are warned,’ Rupert began, turning to Craven. ‘I rely upon your discretion, Wilhelm.’

  ‘Of course, sir.’ Craven said easily. He and Rupert were old friends. As young men they had fought on the Continent and been taken prisoner together. Craven had been long in the service of, and benefactor to, Rupert’s impoverished mother who was sister to the executed Charles I. As the exiled and widowed Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia, she relied upon such charity for the King spared her nothing and Craven had wasted a fortune in her service. Once immensely rich, Craven had lost most of his wealth in the Civil War and was attempting to recover what was left. Any confidence of the Prince’s was safe with him.

  Rupert smiled and turned to Monck. ‘The late action with the Dutch off Lowestoft,’ he began, nailing their attention. ‘’Twas a fierce fight. I was, as you know, initially in command of the van. Sandwich had the rear squadron and the centre was under the command of my cousin, the Duke of York, with Penn at his side. The Dutch were well served, though their fleet was not in as good an order as was ours, for the winds were light, but they engaged with their customary vigour and courage and all swiftly descended into a chaotic mêlée. His Highness in the Royal Charles was hard-pressed by Opdam van Wassenaer in his flagship Eendracht. Chain-shot carried away several officers hard by my cousin who was covered with gore but gallantly stood his ground and the engagement between the two flagships was only ended when a chance shot lodged in the Eendracht’s magazines and blew her company into the next world.’

  Rupert paused. Both Craven and Monck were silent, the latter staring at the soiled table cloth but in his mind’s eye he saw again the stricken body of Richard Deane, all but cut in two at Monck’s side in the opening broadsides of the Battle of the Gabbard.

  ‘The enemy rapidly lost heart and, leaving the field to us, retired to their own coast with the loss of more than thirty ships.’

  ‘Thirty? Good heavens, I had heard but a score!’ Craven remarked.

  ‘And, I a
m told, a good deal of squabbling among the surviving admirals, or so Master Pepys informed me,’ added Monck.

  ‘Indeed. But the point is, gentlemen,’ Rupert went on, ‘that, not unreasonably, His Majesty has ordered that the Heir Presumptive to the throne cannot again be exposed to such mortal danger.’

  Monck knew what was coming and was profoundly thankful that Anne had left the table.

  ‘And so, George, I have come to warn you that it has been decided by His Majesty that you and I shall command the fleet in the forthcoming campaign. I have need of your advice, for I declined the sole command and asked for you.’

  The Prince’s admission invited little comment but the thought of a return to sea was no longer much to Monck’s liking, flattering though it was that Rupert had asked for him. Anne, he knew, would be opposed to the project; he must at least seek a relief from the obligation.

  ‘Why me, Your Highness? Ned Sandwich was made a General-at-Sea at the Restoration, and he has recently served, as you have just indicated.’

  ‘He is disgraced, George.’

  ‘Why so?’ Monck was shocked. That such a profound fall from grace could have happened without his knowledge disturbed him.

  ‘You have not heard?’

  ‘No. Not to my recollection. Pepys is my chief informant. He is usually to be relied upon for gossip; the more derogatory the better.’

  ‘Well, perhaps on this occasion it is no surprise that he is tight-lipped. Little Master Pepys is a nosey fellow, but he is both Sandwich’s man and the Duke of York’s.’

  Was that the reason? Monck asked himself. Certainly he could recollect no such event being described by Pepys when he had brought him news of the Lowestoft fight. Rupert sighed and resumed his narrative.

  ‘Well, to tell the tale… After refitting following the action, Sandwich cruised on the Dogger Bank and fell upon a convoy of homeward Dutch East Indiamen. Owing to the emptiness of the King’s Treasury he had presciently obtained permission from the King that, were he to be successful in such an endeavour, he might allow his men to plunder the Dutch prizes in lieu of pay, thus reliving His Majesty’s purse.’