To Serve a Queen

by Josephine Bell

  She had recovered her dignity. It was obvious to Francis that she would not share with him her reasonable anger at the messenger’s outrageous conduct. So he urged the horses into a quiet walk and set off to find the friends who must by now be searching for the Lady Anne Wolmer.

  Chapter Fourteen

  News of his exploit in saving Anne Wolmer from a certain severe fall from her horse brought Francis notoriety, with mixed praise and blame. Praise for his bold, most capable action in securing the girl’s safety and overcoming her demoralised state, but blame for putting himself forward when the immediate danger was over. For Francis had not been content to hand her to the friends who had arrived far too late to prevent the harm that might have come to her. Instead he had refused to give up the conduct of her horse until the animal too had recovered completely from the episode and was no longer sweating and shivering and starting away from every shadow. He stayed by the beast’s side until they had almost arrived back at the camp.

  This conduct on Francis’s part was described in some quarters as presumption. Particularly as the girl herself approved very strongly of it, protesting she would not continue to ride except under Lieutenant Leslie’s care.

  Those on the side of Francis, however, spoke up boldly for him, even going so far as to lay the blame for Lady Anne’s fright upon the stranger, Captain Alan Carr, who, they said, exaggerating the importance of his mission, had made unsuitable advances to her, urging his mount so close to the palfrey, even before he used his switch upon it, that the latter took fright in sympathy with her mistress’s maiden affront, and so set off at a gallop that grew to panic as the Lady Anne lost control.

  Colonel Ogilvy heard both sides of the affair before the day was done. He determined to get the truth of it from his nephew.

  ‘I fear me you will never learn to keep yourself in modest obscurity,’ he told Francis, with a sigh for the latter’s impetuosity and a smile for his bold horsemanship.

  ‘I did naught but stop the mare and save the lady from further mischief,’ Francis said, laughing. ‘They that blame me are making excuses for their own feebleness.’

  ‘But the attack upon this adventurer and his motives?’

  ‘Ah, that I know nothing of but what the Lady Anne told me. That he thrust his company upon her and when she desired him to leave her, gave her mare a blow that sent the poor dull animal near out of her senses.’

  He laughed again, but Colonel Ogilvy did not join his mirth.

  ‘Clearly you have not learned who this man is,’ he said, ‘or you would not be so foolish as to spread stories of his conduct.’

  Francis flushed at this.

  ‘I have said, sir, I tell only what the Lady Anne in her state of disorder described to me. I did not repeat. If it is widely known, she must have complained to her father and others. I swear I said nothing.’

  ‘I am relieved to hear it.’ Colonel Ogilvy hesitated, then went on. ‘I will enlighten you. Captain Carr hath been in the employ of Count Mansfeld these ten years and more. He left England in good time when his brother, Robbie Carr, raised to be Earl of Somerset by King James, was convicted with his wife Frances Howard, of the most foul murder in the Tower of London of a man lying there under the King’s displeasure. You may know the story?’

  ‘If I ever heard it I have forgot it,’ Francis answered. ‘What became of the murderers?’

  ‘They lay in the Tower themselves for a period of years, but are now, I have been told, banished to one of their properties, where they are forbid to roam more than a league from the house.’

  ‘And this mercenary captain is their brother, is he? An officer in Mansfeld’s army?’

  ‘The Count’s beaten, penniless, unpaid army. Now delivered over to Bethlen Gabor, we are told. No doubt the captain hath discharged himself and is once more seeking his fortune here in Holland.’

  ‘Then good luck to him,’ said Francis, easily.

  Colonel Ogilvy struck his hand on the arm of his chair.

  ‘Fool boy!’ he roared. ‘Do you wish luck to a starving brigand? To a misused hound? To a homeless, mannerless mercenary? I do not know the fellow’s real reputation. But I do know how he was brought up, nourished by his brother’s evil success. I think him dangerous and do you likewise, Francis. We want no more entangling with the darker side of the old Court in England.’

  He got up as he finished speaking, for he was afraid he had said too much and that Francis would begin to ask further and more awkward questions.

  But the young man was too inexperienced and too far absorbed in his own affairs to listen very carefully to the story his uncle had told. However, he did see it was necessary to keep his own counsel, answer modestly when questioned and play down the importance of what, after all, had been a very minor event. He did not expect that it would come to the notice of the Prince of Orange, nor did it. This served the purpose of the adventurer, Carr, and as events turned out, was no help to Francis, though at the time he was grateful for it. His only fear was that he might be forbidden the Prince’s Court, or more particularly, that of the Princess.

  He need not have worried. It was here, among the Princess’s ladies, that he found himself most popular. He was able, as never before, to enjoy his sight of Anne Wolmer’s beauty, increased in his eyes by her unchanged friendliness. For she showed no embarrassment when they met again after her misfortune, though she did not refer to it. Nor did any of her companions, so it seemed to Francis the incident was now to be forgotten. And quite rightly so, he decided. He had nothing to complain of, and all to hope for, he rashly allowed himself to think.

  Until, at the Queen of Bohemia’s Court he received a cold douche of discouragement from that very acute but acid person, Louise de Mayerne, daughter of the royal physician.

  Francis had been praising her father for the success of his measures to improve the Queen’s health.

  ‘Her Majesty is quite restored, is she not?’ he asked her. ‘Thanks to your honoured father’s skill?’

  ‘And Madam’s great strength of constitution, sir,’ answered the girl. ‘I am told she recovers very promptly from her confinements, thinks nothing of them indeed and well she may, having littered yearly and is already again in pup.’

  Francis was shocked, as much by the news as by the girl’s coarse way of announcing it. He was no prude and in the company of men thought nothing of far fouler language. It was simply because he had exalted the Electress to such a height of virtuous regality that she had become for him a glorious symbol rather than a woman.

  Seeing his embarrassment Mistress Louise gave her high-pitched derisory laugh.

  ‘I think you become confused, sir,’ she said. ‘Where does your heart in truth beat the faster? In our so-called queen’s presence, where you have come but seldom of late, or in the entourage of that other princess, Her Highness of Orange, who maintains her rivalry so unbecomingly?’

  This questioning was not at all to Francis’s liking. There had been a time when Doctor Mayerne’s daughter had amused and stimulated him, with her free speech and generally bold views. But now she offended him. There were undertones of malice in everything she said. He had no intention of confiding in her, which he made quite plain by turning the conversation to his plans in his profession.

  ‘I trust I shall not be obliged to attend any Court for many more weeks of idleness,’ he told her. ‘I am here to practise my profession, or rather learn it, since I would not have you imagine I boast.’

  She smiled at him for that, touched in spite of herself by the boy’s honest modesty.

  ‘That I could not accuse you of,’ she said in a gentle voice, but spoiled the effect of this by adding characteristically, ‘And I warn you, sir, forget not your – forgive me – personal situation where the Lady Anne Wolmer is concerned.’

  She could not have spoken more cruelly, Francis thought, anger bursting up in him, just when her changed mood had softened his usual opinion. Vixen, shrew, foul-mouthed harpy! He swept her a very
deep, mocking bow, and turned to leave her.

  But Louise, who had seen a dangerous light in the brilliant blue eyes flashed at her from a grim face, felt a kind of exultation in her power to inflict pain. She called after him, ‘Nay, Lieutenant, do not take such offence! I do but try to help you! There is so much …’

  So much to tell him, so much he did not know, Francis wondered as he strode away from her. But it must wait for another time. Further speech with her would choke him until he had mastered the consuming fire within, that had so often betrayed him. He dragged out his memories of the kindness of King Charles, the welcoming greeting of the royal sister, of her gentle husband. He turned over these memories for any double meaning they might hold, but found none. Simply, his bastardy meant nothing to them and if not to them why to obscure lordships, such as Aldborough, who owed their eminence, he had learned, to their willingness to serve His Grace of Buckingham, both directly and in bringing their titles into the Villiers family, where such distinctions were rare. He himself had neither title nor fortune, but good, gentle blood of scholars and soldiers. Well, good if not altogether gentle. He cursed his absent father, regretted the man’s success when a felon’s unknown grave would have been more suitable reward for his baseness. And then swore to himself, base-born or not, it was none of his choosing, whereas the Lord Aldborough had indeed chosen to prostitute his name and was therefore culpable where he himself was not.

  All that winter, with his uncle’s help, Francis sought to secure a definite appointment as an officer in some active part of an armed force. The four English troops that had served the Allies in the German states for so long were still in Holland and still serving after a fashion, though the wages of the soldiers had not been paid since the death of King James. Colonel Ogilvy had no intention as yet of retiring. He had hopes of the Prince of Orange’s known generosity and also of the country’s prosperity to support him and his kind until supplies came. As they surely must, he told Francis, when the latter again begged him to promote his appointment in active service.

  ‘Have patience, nephew,’ the colonel urged. ‘The whole of this business is so confused we simple soldiers know not who be our enemies never mind where. King Charles purports to form alliance with France even to the point of lending certain warships to Richelieu with which to attack the Huguenot stronghold of La Rochelle. But he complains that the French seize our merchantmen besides, in payment for ships of theirs our men have secured as prizes. It is even said they will not allow the wine to be sent from Bordeaux, though we have paid for it and looked to have a fine supply for the year.’

  ‘Then we are at war with France as well as Spain?’

  ‘It may be so. There is no clear news. Only that the Duke comes hither. To comfort the exiled pair, it is said by some, but others speak of a plan I hardly dare mention.’

  Francis waited expectantly, until his uncle laughed and went on, ‘You will certainly hear it from others if not from me.’

  ‘But I believe I have,’ Francis interrupted. He repeated the rumour Louise Mayerne had given him which he had thought to be idle women’s talk.

  ‘Her Majesty would surely never countenance such a connection,’ he finished. ‘The Duke’s daughter a possible Queen of England! It is not ambition only, it is madness!’

  ‘Speak softly, my lad. There are always those who would sell rash words where they are profitable.’

  ‘Corporal Stubble came hither with me, sir. I doubt not he is waiting at the door to preserve our privacy.’

  ‘And perhaps hoping to hear good of himself and his prospects, for they depend on yours, do they not?’

  For answer Francis strode across the room and flung open the door. Will Stubble, standing at ease, his musket leaning on the wall behind him, stiffened at the sound of the opening door and saluted. Francis said, ‘I will be with you presently,’ and turned back to take leave of his uncle.

  ‘So,’ Colonel Ogilvy said, smiling. ‘I accept your proof. I will do my best. I take it you do not want me to press your services upon the Duke?’

  ‘Heaven preserve me from another useless venture by sea!’ Francis exclaimed.

  For he had heard another rumour that Buckingham was eager to lead the expedition to La Rochelle himself.

  Nevertheless he set himself to discover His Grace’s purposes in this visit other than the advancement of the Villiers family. One was to bring the Order of the Garter to the Prince of Orange, an honour that had been proposed for his brother Prince Maurice and was now bestowed upon the successor. Another was to bring greetings and comfort from her brother Charles to the exiled queen. With proposals, as vague as ever but this time supported by some funds, for bringing the war to an end and restoring the Palatinate to its rightful hereditary ruler.

  All this was much as his Uncle Arthur had told him, Francis decided. Except for one item of news that might profit him. Or so he thought in his more hopeful moments, building wild dreams upon his very slender acquaintance with the noble lord. For Aldborough was in attendance upon the Duke and Anne, his beloved Lady Anne, was Aldborough’s eldest daughter. If Aldborough gained further patronage, could he himself win some advance through Aldborough?

  ‘You will not see so much of your idol when the Duke arrives,’ Louise Mayerne told him. ‘I hear she will leave the Princess Amelia’s entourage to stay with her father, for he means to find her a husband, if possible under the patronage of the great duke himself.’

  So like, but so far indeed from his own wish! Francis hid the painful shock this news dealt him, smiled into the eager face of the gossipmonger and asked, ‘He will have no lack of suitors for his daughter’s hand! Since you know so much can you name at least one that might succeed in winning the lady?’

  Somewhat put out by this response, Louise said sharply, ‘What say you to that bold handsome man, the Captain Alan Carr? Connected with the nobility, I am told.’

  She did not say she had this from her father, who refused to name these connections or to say anything of the gallant captain that could possibly recommend him to the noble lord.

  But Francis did not know this and after concluding that she wanted to tease him by withholding the rest of her news, he shrugged his indifference and left her, merely saying, as he did so, in a very worldly-wise fashion, ‘I mistake me if the Lord Aldborough shows favour to a ruined man, fine soldier though he may be.’

  When he had gone Louise stamped her foot in anger and spite. Francis had withdrawn his former easy friendship from her as his obsession with Anne grew. But she would be even with him yet, she promised herself. What right had he, with his unfortunate family handicap, to belittle her, a great physician’s daughter and maid-of-honour to a royal princess? How dare he speak of a ‘ruined man’ when his own marriage prospects, at least for a connection with the aristocracy, were rendered hopeless by that ‘bar sinister’?

  Francis, who had never dared to consider marriage with the Lady Anne as any but a precious dream he knew was fantasy, did however begin to feel a certain increased curiosity about the raffish, haggard-faced individual now becoming well known, or at any rate notorious, as ‘The Captain’. He had paid little attention to his uncle Ogilvy’s very guarded and purposely vague account of the man. He had already come across several similar characters who for one reason or another had made themselves unwelcome in their homeland, but had rendered valuable service in the incessant continental wars. The names of Carr, Somerset and Howard meant nothing to him, since he had been a child when they had blazed worldwide in a very astonishing scandal.

  But he had gathered that Captain Carr had been an accepted member of the Court of King James and it was but a step from this to his realisation that Captain Carr had arrived in Holland shortly before his mother set sail to visit friends in the same country. Suppose this soldier had known those friends? Could he give him news of them, or their possibly continued establishment in this country? His thirst for news of his lost, neglected mother grew stronger than ever as he considered these
things. He must approach the man and find out the answers to such very urgent questions.

  True, he had not made an auspicious start to acquaintanceship, much less to a friendship that could lead to delicate disclosures about his abiding sorrow. He must go slowly in his quest for facts, slowly and patiently, he decided, as he strode along the pleasant pavements and canal-centred squares of the town. His eager gait and splendid presence did not suggest the virtue of patience. His aim was made impossible by his own nature. He neglected his uncle’s emphatic warning of the danger he ran in approaching such a warped character, such a thoroughly disappointed, disillusioned figure as Alan Carr, self-exiled brother of a fallen, criminal favourite.

  It was typical of the man that he had the audacity to seek out Lord Aldborough in a desperate attempt to find employment and perhaps reinstatement by His Grace of Buckingham. Aldborough was still far from rich in spite of his wife, in spite of his servility to his patron. But he could be expected to provide a fair dowry for his daughter, so it was not altogether fanciful of the hardened warrior to seek a marriage there, with such a connection in the background. The captain, even at this late hour, was still struggling to secure himself a place among the great, where he felt he truly belonged, before age and possible infirmity forced him down into total obscurity, poverty, misery and death.

  Since Anne Wolmer was the object of both men’s interest it was inevitable they should meet from time to time at the Prince of Orange’s public audiences. Anne by this time had developed very clear opinions of each. Captain Carr had never apologised for causing her palfrey to run away. He had continued his half ardent, half insolent, advances. She found him odious; old, coarse, selfish, rather stupid, when he was not making fun of the sober Dutch with a certain degree of wit, though always with great unkindness.

  As for Francis, he had become so like her ideal of a hero, both in looks and manners, that she dared not, out of prudent modesty, show him more than cool friendship, never advancing herself, but usually agreeing to bring her companions to join him and his at the balls, masques, concerts and plays with which the court entertained itself and its frequent guests from England.