There was a frisson amongst the crowd, as at a happy execution. When a pig’s bladder burst, two women screamed. Was this vessel really going to submerge and sail beneath the waves? All the way to Greenwich and back? How would it pass the river’s suck at London Bridge?
‘It will never do it.’
‘They will all be drown.’
‘They done it last night in a rehearsal and the King himself done ride in it, too.’
Rumours kept people occupied while they waited for something to happen. Some said it was the skeleton of a whale, preserved with glue, while others claimed it was a Papist spying ship that had been apprehended at Dover. A lord temporal watching from a balcony at Whitehall told his manservant the machine had ‘infernal eyes’.
Meanwhile, a professional crier wearing leather livery that matched the boat was pacing up and down beside it, shouting points of information at the crowd. ‘Self-sealing gaskets of leather cover heach and hevery hoar,’ he cried, pointing to the paddles. ‘Her skin is held in place by clinkers, a kind donation from the Wherry Forge at Richmond, my lords and ladies, a kind donation . . . The craft is made to sink by pumping pigs bladders full’o water, and it is made to rise by God’s will and the pumping of the said bladders empty-oh.’
‘How’s they breathe then?’ called a voice from the crowd.
‘In the old model, each oarsmen be breathing through a tube bobbin’ upon the surface of the water by means of cork, but this time, for the first time, ladies and gentlemen, for the very first time, air within the craft will be replenished by a burning hwick of nitreous, or salt-nitre. That’s right, a burning hwick, a double-you, aye, see, kay.’ He seemed about to spell out ‘nitreous’ but then decided against it.
The voyage had been carefully timed so that the strong neap tide would draw the vessel swiftly to Greenwich. ‘She shall slip around the eel-ships in a trice,’ he said. ‘There’ll be no grounding of this craft in the mud this time neither, no sticking here, sirs, oh no, sirs – the craft has been made to be nimble and sleek like the dolphin, ladies and gents, like the dolphin . . .’
A curved, close-fitting door in the side of the machine popped open, and the crowd gave a smattering of applause. Drebbel, drawn and preoccupied, was checking it was seaworthy one last time. Then the pikemen beat a tattoo to announce the approach, down Whitehall, of the Seven Proud Walkers: the noblemen who would sail beneath the sea. These very Jonahs, set to travel in the belly of this whale. Devil-daring, machine-crazed, super-heroes! Modern-day Athenians, about to ascend to the new Pantheon of mechanicians! Here they came, swaggering along the strand, preceded by sheriffs and pikemen in formation, their pikes and spurs clanking with the deep bass beat: Daah. Da-da. Daah. Da-da. Daah. Da-da.
All the nobles were masked and wearing matching doublets and yellow capes, each with a personal power symbol on their chest, a lightning flash or lion couchant, taken from their coats of arms. Kenelm had his fleur-de-lis. They assembled on the strand and then ran down together to the foreshore in formation, moody, powerful, oblivious to the crowd. They lined up on the strand in front of the vessel, and started performing squat thrusts and striking fencing poses. They were like dancing illustrations against the morning-lit sand. The crowd cheered and applauded, some for the spectacle’s sake, others with feeling, as the troop bent their knees and stretched their hamstrings. Endymion Porter – his shape gave him away, for he was biggest – performed his stretches with stiff seriousness. Another of the masked nobles came forward alone and pranced about, displaying his muscles.
‘Is that one Devereux?’ the women asked. ‘Is the other Carew?’ The younger ladies grew flushed and excited. The beat of the drum, and the swagger of the display, and the imminence of real danger combined to make one girl faint.
Ben Jonson paced up and down the sand, reading aloud a paean in praise of the men about to set sail, and the craft itself, which he referred to as The Magus. He spoke importantly, and the verse fell off with the heavy jingle of coins, not the living poetry of his plays. But he was clapped and cheered, as the greatness of his name resonated still.
On the terrace just down from the palace, the submariners’ wives and betrotheds stood together, watching and laughing and waving. They were a gay party, some decked out in yellow and orange silks correspondent with their husbands’; Olive was wearing a jaunty hat that was meant to be the shape of a submarine, but which had clearly been sewn by a milliner with no conception of what one looked like, so she kept having to explain (‘The vessel, d’ye see?’).
Venetia cut a strange figure, since she had two dark green glass plates in front of her eyes, held onto her face by a metal and leather contraption, ostensibly to rest her eyes from the glare. It was clearly a nod to the theme of the day’s festivities – designs and mad mechanicals – but it gave her a look of a blind, nocturnal creature, as if a parasite had attached itself to her pale, half-hidden face, and was feeding on her spirit. I would rather they thought me odd than blown, she thought. The younger ladies, lately come to court, who knew her by reputation only, did not mingle round her, but kept in their own girlish clusters, as if her predicament might be catching.
Maids distributed fresh nosegays, although after half an hour by the Thames they were already inured to its fester. No one knew where Penelope Knollys was, and they joked that she had masked herself and joined the submariners, ‘making an unlucky seventh aboard their boat’.
Someone suggested that Master Hudson, the Queen’s dwarf, should have a miniature submarine built for him to follow behind the large one down the Thames. ‘That would be a very good use of the Forced Loan,’ replied Lucy Bright tartly, and everyone laughed, but the laughter subsided into an unhappy sigh as the party considered the finances of the Crown.
Venetia asked the Earl of Hitchin three times if he knew what o’clock the submarine was due to land at Greenwich, but although he went through the motions of politeness, he did not listen to her question, and thus he never told her the answer, being more busy making sure that Lucy Bright had somewhere to sit, even though she was not yet married.
There was some raillery about the dwarf Jeffrey Hudson, whom they called Lord Minimus, hunting for a wife. Venetia remarked that there were too many Ladies Maximus, and some of the girls laughed. Next when they were talking about Ben Jonson she said knowingly, ‘He is a bricklayer’s son, which means his hands are great,’ and the girls laughed again, as if they were beginning to understand her, but the Earl of Hitchin looked past her with an expression of distaste, as if bawdy did not suit her so well now.
The nobles in their yellow capes and masks lined up, ready to board the vessel, and as they did they sang a strange marching song about their submarine sailing under the sky of green, and sea of blue. A horn pooped as they clambered through the portal. A cymbal crashed, and with their friends all aboard, yes, every one of them, the little door in the side was jammed shut. Muffled singing and laughter inside the craft could be heard, as Drebbel’s sons-in-law ran out, sealing the door with red wax. After an unbearable delay of about three minutes the men pushed the contraption down across the sandbank to the tide, which caught faster than anyone expected, and dragged it backwards into the river, while the crowd gasped. It bobbed on the surface, then quickly, gracefully, the submarine began to descend.
Going.
It was a thrilling and somehow peaceful sight.
Going.
The crowd let out a long cry of wonder.
Going.
Was this a mutual hallucination?
Gone.
Only the ensign remained above the flood, attached to the vessel by a long string and wooden float, bobbing swiftly down the Thames. And the race was on. A Royal Navy observation boat and rescue skiff cast off and skulled after the ensign, whistles blowing to keep their rowing in time. All the busy traffic of the river raced to the wharves to get out of the way of the magnificent machine. The crowd pursued the underwater ark along the riverbank, pointing and racing, boys streaking a
head, ponies and carriages clattering along, children tottering to keep up, and everyone pushing each other, for they all were at least two ale-cups down already, and mothers following, gathering up blankets and baskets, and old men finally hobbling after, all trundling down the main roads together and darting down the narrow alleys that gave onto the Thames, or running down the wharves to the water’s edge, where they hung over the river squinting for a sight of the brave white ensign.
On the terrace at Westminster, some of the ladies were crying and Lucy Bright was encouraging them that all would be well. ‘Though what authority she has I do not know,’ exclaimed Olive, becoming fractious in her anxiety. As for Venetia, she had torn off her sunglasses and was already racing through the corridors of the palace to find her groom, so she could give chase to the boat by carriage.
‘About 1620, Drebbel constructed an oar-driven submarine . . . In this boat Drebbel travelled down the Thames from Westminster to Greenwich under the surface of the water . . . He refreshed the air in the boat by heating saltpetre in a retort, which – as was known – gave an ‘air’ which one could breathe.’
The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 2012
Stepping like ghosts out of their bathysphere, but leaving real footprints in the sand, the submariners disembarked at Greenwich, cheered by a raggle-tag band of onlookers, congratulated by a delegation of His Majesty’s naval commanders, and observed by an artist making sketches of the whole event (later lost in the Fire of London). The nobles were bandy-legged, dizzy and laughing from the nitreous gas, and they staggered, listing and clasping each other, into a tent of green cloth of gold. Ned Denny was ghost-pale, having fainted during the voyage in the ‘stinking slave-bows’, as he described them. They lay on cushions and drank white bastard, while meat carbonadoes were prepared on coals. Fatigue, relief, kinship and alcohol made them merry, and their talk turned to vaunting anecdotes.
They toasted Cornelis Drebbel who got up anxiously, struggling with his thick black smock, and told them all was not well – my Lord Denny must not undertake the return trip, and there were too many aboard besides. One other patron must forgo his place and return by horse or foot.
‘Nay, this stands not!’ and ‘Shame ye’ cried the nobles. They each wanted to disembark The Magus at Westminster, with the show and splendour that was their due. All of London would be waiting for them. James Lennox got up to speak, calling Drebbel ‘old man’ and laying a discernibly false show of deference over his attitude of wanting what he had paid for – all who sailed in The Magus had contributed handsomely towards the project.
‘Sirs,’ said Drebbel, ‘your rowing is at fault, not my mathematics.’ Jeering ensued. The argument was abated by one of the sons-in-law who said, without conviction, that they would all sail, but not till a few hours hence, when the river-tide had turned.
Endymion Porter and Edward Carew went off to climb the ferny Greenwich wilderness up the hill about the tower, or glimpse the ruins of the old Plesaunce palace, while others lay about under the awning, chatting, but in an off mood, disputatious, doubtful. Kenelm wandered for a slash behind a tree.
Legs unsteady, his head aching from the submarine, he laced himself up and headed back, slowly, pausing to inspect the shoresmen’s horses, careless talk from the awning was carried on the breeze towards him. Their voices were guilty with gossip.
‘Aye, his father. Pale, he looked, and his eyes very puffy, but he made a goodly show of it.’
‘At Powles, was this?’
‘Aye, he was dragged through the street behind a horse’s tail. The other plotters were jackanapes. They were ill-made men. Not him. He looked more like a thing of heaven than of the other place. The crowd was oh, deathly quiet as he bade farewell to each of his former friends by name: “My Lord Darnley, long have I loved thee”; “Dear Lady Segismund, goodbye”, and so forth, just as easily as he was wont to do when he went from court or out of the city, to his own house in the country.’
‘He was as fair and fine a man as I have ever seen.’
‘As fair and foul. He tried to kill our fathers, mine certainly, and yours, and yours.’
‘When he was convicted he cried out to the jury, “Do you forgive me?” And to a man, they answered, “Aye.”’
‘He was awake to till the very last?’
‘Yes, hung by the neck only a little, so he saw his bowels turned out in front of him, and then the hangman went to work on his vitals, and leaned on his knife to get purchase on his heart, and held up before the crowd, so!’
Kenelm heard his friends make low tutting noises. He shut his eyes before the sun and saw shapes pulsing red and melting white. It was a tale he knew well; it was his father’s execution.
‘Then the hangman gave his cry, “Behold the heart of a traitor!” To which the man himself replied: “Thou liest!”’
The company made groaning noises; someone thumped upon the table. ‘Nay, nay,’ said one voice, ‘I do not believe it.’ Another voice: ‘Francis Bacon saw it.’
Sir Kenelm could take no more and strode into the tent. ‘Gentlemen,’ he said, and only a stiffness in his neck showed he was not himself. For a second the three men seemed to think they had got away with it.
Ned said, ‘Ken, we thought you were up the hill.’
‘Aye,’ Kenelm said tightly.
‘We meant no insult by our talk, I would have you know that, Ken, I would,’ said Ned, rising.
‘Aye, you would,’ said Ken in a playful, frightful voice. Then he put on his hat, backwards, and picked up a half-eaten lobster from the table and made it dance like a puppet, waving its claws, and saying in a high pipsqueak voice: ‘Oh, Lord Darnley, oh, Lady Segismund, farewell, it seems I am a traitor. I never meant to harm ye . . .’ Ken put the lobster’s face right up against Ned’s. ‘I would have warned you if I could, before we made our little firework display . . .’ The three men laughed, loudly and uncomfortably. The lobster’s two black eyes shook on their stalks and his empty carcass danced, as it looked around at them all, full of wonder and pathetic malice, and Kenelm had him sing ‘Eeee’ in a creaky voice, like the puppet Mr Punch, while the lobster, consumed by anger, started bashing its head against on the table, sending shell-shards flying.
‘Eee, I would have you know I was played like a puppet by the plotters,’ said Kenelm in his lobster falsetto. ‘My wife?’ The lobster looked urgently in the face of Sir James, then up and down his body assessingly, and the uncomfortable laughter grew. ‘No, you are not my wife.’ It turned to Ned Denny, and looked him inquisitively up and down as well. ‘No,’ he said sadly. ‘You are not my wife either.’ The lobster shook its head. ‘My son?’ it said, looking around again, then seeming to have seen its own puppeteer, threw itself on Kenelm’s own neck. The others jumped back, laughing, embarrassed. Then the lobster looked again sad and alone, squeaking: ‘But now, aye me, I am undone, I am for the pot.’
And Kenelm threw the lobster on the bright red cooking coals and then tipped a cup of bastard over him so the whole mess sizzle-screamed and smoked. The men cheered and tapped their signet rings against their tin cups, so they ding-ding-dinged. But they were mighty confused and their blood was up, in case at any moment Kenelm turned upon them with a poignard.
‘I meant no dishonour by it, Ken.’
‘The dishonour is all my father’s, sir,’ said Ken, smiling, not looking at him. He bowed graciously, which was harder still for Ned to bear.
Ken insisted on renouncing his seat on the submarine, and did not stay to watch it sail. Instead, he climbed the hill at Greenwich, to stand on the line marked by standing stones and menhirs where the time was once told by the sun. He marched up the steep knoll easily, breathing deeply, rabbits’ scut-tails bobbing ahead of him under the racing sky. It did him good to see the runic stones, to run his finger over their long-carved patterns. He felt as if his time was set to a new o’clock. All things pass.
He wandered next through a sweet sunlit dell where through the bright-li
t green he heard a bird cry: Milk, milk milk today?
He paused. It was the London milk-sellers’ street cry, sung by a bird. It came again, swooping and familiar: Milk, milk, milk today?
Another bird replied: Cherries! Cherries!
What was this? Street cries, from tiny feathered throats. The words were indistinct, of course, but the tune was the same as in the market. Had a family of crooked streetsellers been bewitched and sent to live in a nest? Or were these traitors turned skylarks, men’s lying tongues poured into quick little dust-bathing bodies?
Meelk, meelk, meelk?
Che-rries! Che-rries!
The bower was green and silent and Kenelm turned around, looking for the birds, feeling he was being tested like a knight in a fable, who must resist enchantment.
Pipit, pipit, cherries!
Another bird joined in, like a wherryman: Sideside, ho; sideside, ho.
Milk, milk, milk. Freeeeeesh.
Sidey-sidey bankside, ho, pipit.
Perhaps they were rare sentient canaries, escaped from the old Plesaunce palace below. Then how would they know the street cries? More likely – yes, this must be it – they were birds once caged for sale on Cheapside or Seething Lane, who had heard street cries all their lives, and were now either released or escaped, and come to hide out in the trees together and rehearse their cries in strophe and antistrophe. Perhaps that was why they were so tame, singing close to him and yet never letting themselves be seen for fear of capture. Kenelm made a mental note to record this. He recalled something similar in Montaigne.
And there was another strange bird call, Brrring! Brrring! Bright and tight as a bell. Brrring! Brrring!
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