by Emily Hahn
The widow was a carroty-haired girl of fourteen, granddaughter of the late Earl of Northumberland and only heir to the huge fortune of the Percy family. Her father had died, her mother had married Lord Montagu, and Elizabeth was being brought up by her grandmother the Countess of Northumberland. What sort of character she had is difficult to determine, for the world’s knowledge of her possessions always obscured the view of Elizabeth as a person. She had already been married at the age of eleven or twelve to a man she did not like; fortunately for her they had never lived together because of the bride’s youth, and soon after the wedding he died. Now she was the greatest catch of the season, and the situation must have vexed Lady Northumberland, on whose shoulders rested this grave responsibility.
Karl Johann paid his court as best he could among all the other claimants. He was a brilliant popular figure at court, but his popularity and the King’s favor did not make him any the more eligible. He was far from being penniless or lowborn, but many richer men with better titles were after Lady Ogle. Perhaps she liked him the best; perhaps she gave him reason to hope. Gossip said so when later events had transpired, but gossip would have said so whether or not it was true. I cannot think the smiles and blushes of any fourteen-year-old girl, except perhaps Juliet, would have been sufficient to inspire Count Karl to go the lengths he did. He needed no outside inspiration; his own greedy restless spirit was enough.
Suddenly the court and all London society were startled by news which amounted practically to a scandal. Lady Northumberland had bestowed her ward’s hand at last, in a manner which displeased more people than disappointed suitors. She had chosen Tom Thynne to be Lady Ogle’s husband—Squire Thynne of Longleat, a rich man with an income of ten thousand pounds a year, but that was all one could say in his favor. “Tom o’ Ten Thousand” was dull, he was getting on to forty, he was dissipated, and though there was nothing wrong with his family history there was nothing particularly glittering about it either. Worst of all, he was the best friend of the Duke of Monmouth, who was getting a bad name for his unremitting though underhanded attacks on Charles II, his father.
Why had the countess decided on Thynne, of all people, when she had her choice of all the bachelors in London? The answer was obvious: he had bribed her. Both bridegroom and grandmother knew they might run into trouble over the unpleasant bargain. Weddings were not public affairs, and were usually carried out quietly in the presence of near relations only, but this wedding was so swift and secret and unexpected that the unhappy bride’s own mother, Lady Montagu, knew nothing about it until it had been accomplished. No doubt Lady Northumberland gambled on the success of a fait accompli, but she was mistaken.
Lady Montagu gathered allies about her and rushed into battle. Her daughter was heartily on her side; poor little Elizabeth detested Tom Thynne, and had been dragooned into the marriage; she was overjoyed at her mother’s intervention. The wicked countess found herself pitted against powerful adversaries; the King himself might take a hand in the proceedings if she went on struggling on Thynne’s behalf, for Charles was no friend of any friend of Monmouth. It was too late, Lady Northumberland hoped, to undo the marriage itself, but for the moment she and Thynne had to submit to a postponement of the honeymoon. On Lady Montagu’s insistence, Elizabeth was sent out of the country, to a safe distance where her husband might not be tempted to swoop down, carry her off, and take his conjugal rights by force. Later, when she was grown up—— But before that the Montagu party had hopes of arranging an annulment, or, as it was called, a divorce, on the grounds of non-consummation.
Gratefully, poor little Lady Ogle went off to The Hague under the protecting wing of the British ambassador’s wife, Lady Temple, that same Lady Temple who was Dorothy Osborne. In London defrauded suitors seethed with anger and cursed Tom Thynne, and the angriest among them was Count Königsmark. Perhaps he persuaded himself, in retrospect, that his claims had been better than they really were. Perhaps he merely talked and drank himself into his wild plan.
For the time being, action was indicated to solace his disappointment. The nearest war seemed to be imminent at Tangiers, for the relief of which a detachment of soldiers was at that very moment setting out. Count Karl volunteered for service, was eagerly accepted, as he always was in such affairs, and accompanied them.
At Tangiers he fell in with an acquaintance of his, a Dutch mercenary captain named Christopher Vratz who had fought under his father, been helped out of a tight place by that officer, and retained a warm loyalty ever since for all Königsmarks. There existed a freemasonry among mercenaries unlike any other form of fellowship. War, not patriotism, was their business. Naturally they had no fixed affection for one king or cause more than any other, but among themselves they maintained a code of honor and fidelity which was shaped to fit their special case. These relationships were disjointed but persistent; friends were seldom inseparable. They would fight in the same battles for a space and then lose track of each other, it might be for several years, to meet once more and carry on the friendship just where it had been dropped. Karl and Vratz were friends of this sort, though their backgrounds were dissimilar. Vratz was a gentleman, not what Karl would consider lowborn, but he was not a noble. He was a friend and yet a follower.
Their meeting on this African battlefield was characteristic of their relations. Karl, who had no idea Vratz was anywhere in the vicinity, found himself beset by several men at once. He had just received a slight wound and was facing defeat, when Vratz, an enormous burly fellow of fifty, came to his assistance, drove off the assailants, and carried his former commanding officer’s son to safety. One wonders what the accepted form of greeting was for such occasions—probably, “You here again, you old scoundrel?” They would not have wasted too much surprise on the matter; such a coincidence, they must have felt, might happen to any couple of mercenaries.
When hostilities ceased and they were again out of a job, the old veteran and the gallant young man did not shake hands and part, after their usual custom. Together they traveled to Paris. They had come to an understanding, and meant to stay in each other’s company for a space. But in the light of later events, it seems unlikely that they spent much of their time going over and over their plot, or doing any polishing of the structure. As conspirators they were woefully inept; never was premeditated crime committed in a more slapdash way.
To our minds, sophisticated by the light reading of our day, the actual killing of Tom Thynne sounds about as subtle as execution by poleax. It was Sunday evening, the twelfth of February, 1682, and Thynne was on his way home from the house of his grandmother-in-law, the Countess of Northumberland. The Duke of Monmouth had been with him all evening, but was now gone from the coach, and Thynne was accompanied only by his footmen and postilion. The vehicle made its way along St. James’s and turned into Pall Mall. That famous highway was dark and deserted, for in 1682 its locality was the very edge of London. It ran between the tree-shaded park called the Royal Gardens (now St. James’s Park) and St. James’s Square. The coach rattled along toward the Mall’s intersection with the road still known as St. Alban’s. Suddenly from the south side, near Prince Rupert’s residence, three men on horseback rode out to the coach and turned in next to the postilion, riding along pace for pace with him.
“Stop, you dog!” one of them cried.
The coachman probably thought fleetingly that this was a common holdup by ordinary highwaymen, but he had no time to pursue the idea, or even to come to a dead stop as he had been commanded. As for Thynne inside, he did not realize enough of what was going on to pull out his sword; he was not given a chance to do that. One of the men pushed a blunderbuss into the coach, and without further speech fired four times, straight at him. Thynne slumped from his seat as the three attackers spurred their horses, turned up the Haymarket, and galloped madly along the empty thoroughfare, shouting as they rode, to disarm possible witnesses, “A race! A race!” like young bloods at play.
Thynne never spoke again
. He lived long enough to be carried to his house, and there he expired.
It was a crime that shocked London. Murder was commonplace, but the violent death of a wealthy man like Thynne was no ordinary mishap, especially as it seemed so meaningless and mysterious. The public’s first hasty conclusion, naturally, was that it was somehow linked with Monmouth’s unceasing intrigues. Perhaps the King knew more than he would admit. He was duly informed, first thing in the morning, a few hours after Thynne’s death; bystanders commented on his surprise and regret, which seemed genuine, but one never knew.
There was no equivalent of our modern police force, but the justice of the peace for Middlesex went to work efficiently to find the criminals. His search parties were much helped by Monmouth and Lord Mordaunt and their followers. One full day had not elapsed before they met with their first success, and arrested Vratz the Dutchman. They found him in bed, whither they had been led by informing neighbors, and he admitted immediately, with astonishing candor, that he had killed Thynne. “I wondered he should make so tame a submission,” wrote Reresby, “for he is certainly a man of great courage, and appeared quite unconcerned from the very beginning, though he was very certain he should be found the chief actor in the tragedy.”
Soon after the apprehension of the captain, the searchers rounded up his two accomplices. These were men who made their living as mercenaries, like the captain, but they were of a different type: ordinary soldiers, not officers, less intelligent or at least worse educated, since they spoke only their own languages (Polish in the case of one, German in the other) and the imperfect French used by most wandering soldiers. They seemed to bear a servant’s relation to the captain. Nor did they maintain his courageous calm. John Stern, the German, would have confessed everything had he known enough to tell. George Borosky, the Pole, tried at first to hold out, but he soon broke down. However, with all the willingness in the world he was not able to satisfy his questioners to any great extent, during the first interview. It was obvious that Stern and Borosky had merely obeyed orders, blindly, like the well-trained soldiers they were.
The authorities were genuinely puzzled. What could have been the motive for the murder? They suspected there was nothing in the Monmouth theory, after all. Vratz placidly insisted that he had a private quarrel with Thynne, but the story did not carry conviction, for none of Thynne’s intimates had ever heard of this man, and they would hardly have moved in the same circles anyway. Then the investigators came upon a new clue. One of the foreigners, it was said, upon arriving in England had asked to be directed to Count Königsmark. The elder Königsmark was not believed to be in England at all, so the foreigner had been sent to young Count Philipp, at Faubert’s Academy. Pursuing their inquiries, the justice’s agents too went to Faubert’s, where they interviewed Philipp’s tutor, Hanson. What, they asked, had his fifteen-year-old charge to do with this galaxy of continental mercenaries?
Hanson was badly frightened. From his disjointed, rambling replies the questioners quickly learned that it was not Philipp at all who had been asked for, but Philipp’s elder brother, Count Karl. Karl? But he was not in England at all, said the searchers, or at least if he was, nobody knew about it. Was he in London, after all? And if so, where, and why had he kept so quiet about it?
Hanson gabbled and trembled and told them at last that Karl had lived in one set of lodgings after another, in the Haymarket, Rupert Street, and St. Martin’s Lane. He had used a false name. No, Hanson did not know why. He knew only that the elder count had been in London for several weeks, lying very low and calling himself Carlo Cusk. The Pole, he was given to understand, was Karl’s groom, but he had lately acted more like Vratz’s servant than Karl’s. Vratz? Yes, he knew the captain.
Borosky and Stern, questioned again, also admitted to knowing Karl Johann. It was too much of a coincidence. A fresh search was instituted, from the Haymarket to Rupert Street to St. Martin’s Lane, but Count Karl had disappeared. By this time, however, the entire population of London was on the lookout, and Karl was found just as he was about to escape by Swedish ship, from Gravesend, in disguise. At least in his trustful aristocratic way he thought it was a disguise. He wore a black wig over his thick golden hair, but there was too much hair for the wig, and though he had wrapped it in a sort of coronet around his head, a lot of it slipped down behind, giving a very odd effect.
The report of the trial of these four conspirators is good reading, but not in the way a mystery story is good. There was little mystery about it. Even a bush Negro, had the trial been held in his language, would have seen through everyone and everything connected with the affair. Admittedly, the language difficulty did lend a note of uncertainty to matters. Neither Borosky nor Stern spoke English; the count did, but for purposes of his own he preferred to claim that he didn’t. Two interpreters were provided, therefore; one of them, Sir Nathaniel Johnson, was not only an interpreter, but a self-appointed champion of Königsmark and Vratz as well. He twisted his translations, argued as if he were counsel for the defense, and generally behaved in a most unprofessional manner, but the magistrate did no more than comment, somewhat peevishly, on his habits. The magistrates had already been got at, no doubt, by the King’s party, and knew that the count ought to get off because Charles wanted it like that. The other prisoners on trial, however, were to be condemned. Nobody influential cared what happened to them. Besides, they had most indubitably killed Tom Thynne, and justice in one way or another had to be observed.
It could not be described as a summary trial; on the face of it, everything was more than fair. To be sure, the unimportant two, Stern and Borosky, were so awed by the proceedings and the language trouble that they never availed themselves of such privileges as the law allowed, such as objecting to jurors as they were sworn in. Karl Johann more than made up for this deficiency, by excepting against one juror after another. Some of his exceptions were quite logical, based as they were on national prejudice. There must be no Danes or Poles or Papists on the jury, he contended, for his father had served against the King of Denmark, and against the Poles, and the Papists, and his father was a Protestant, and served the Protestants. He also objected to Walloons, “because they have always been against the Swedes.” It is worth noticing how many foreigners there seemed to be in London, that one stray scoopful of jury candidates should turn up so many as are mentioned among Karl’s rejects.
The trials of Vratz and the lesser mercenaries came first. The prosecution got very little change out of the Dutchman, but on the face of it his story of his motive was unlikely, from the foundations up through the entire edifice. Vratz had quarreled, he said, with Thynne, and so had killed him. Twice before the murder he had written from Holland, challenging the Squire of Longleat to a duel, but Thynne had ignored the messages, and at last the captain’s patience was at an end. He had crossed the Channel, hired his former comrades in arms, and attacked the coach: that was all.
Pressed for an explanation as to what Thynne and he could possibly have quarreled about, he said it was not so much a quarrel as an insult. What insult? Why, Thynne had said unpleasant things about his good friend and former officer, Count Königsmark, Vratz said; so he had simply gone out with his bravoes and killed Thynne.
From a reporter’s point of view Stern, who had actually fired the blunderbuss, made a most unsatisfactory witness. He was either permanently dazed, overpowered by the language difficulty, or mentally subnormal. His story was shockingly direct. He had shot Thynne, he said without amplifying the statement. They gave him the gun and he shot Thynne as he was told to do.
Borosky was the prosecution’s best bet. Though he had not been present at any crucial interviews between Vratz and Karl, he did have some idea of the count’s having been behind the affair, and in spite of his desire to shield the whole crew, this conviction was bound to leak out. As for facts, however, he knew only that he had been imported for some mysterious purpose, and had been clothed and armed by the count before the fatal expedition.
/> The count’s name recurred so often in the replies of Borosky and Hanson, and was so doggedly left out of Vratz’s, that when it was his turn to take the stand, most of the onlookers must have come to their conclusions long since. But Karl Johann was a quick thinker if not a solid planner, and he had his story ready. He was not very convincing about that restless secret sojourn of his in London before the murder, but he had an explanation, if a limping one. He did not feel well, he said, and was in no mood for rollicking company. He kept moving about because each place that he tried out was unsatisfactory because of smoking chimneys and so forth. For that reason he had seen only his servants and his doctor and his old comrade-in-arms, Vratz.
He had not much to say about a question Hanson unfortunately recollected his asking, “that if he should meddle with Esquire Thynne, what the consequence might be and if the laws of England would be contrary to him in the hopes or pretensions he might have to my Lady Ogle.” There was another awkward question too, which his servantboy alleged he had asked on the day of the murder. “He asked me on Sunday, in the forenoon, whether people were suffered to ride about the streets on horseback on Sundays.… I told him, yes, before sermon-time, and after sermon-time.”
At this point we are tempted to call Count Königsmark all sorts of a nincompoop. A man contemplating such a crime today, who committed such offenses against the most ordinary rules of caution as these questions were, would not be considered sane. After his trial, if not before, he would be whisked off to a lunatic asylum. But in our day the very children have become crafty. People were simpler then. It may seem incredible, but Königsmark was not, for his day and age, a stupid man. In fact, he was an astute courtier who knew his way around, and could gauge to a nicety how far this foreign justice would dare to go in risking the displeasure of his powerful connections in Sweden. He knew, too, that the King was displeased with Monmouth, and had never loved Thynne, so that Monmouth’s much publicized enmity toward himself was an asset, not a liability. How far the King’s private approval might extend was, of course, the ticklish question. Also, though this does not seem to have bothered him very much, he knew that Vratz was doomed, and that he was betraying a friend of matchless loyalty. The gamble had failed. But it might have worked. It might not have failed.