To Serve a Queen

by Josephine Bell

  There was hate in the look she turned on Anne. The latter felt a chill of fear. What had the two been at, so closely conspiring? She remembered what she had heard. They meant Francis, that was certain. A threat to Francis. She had warned him before. She must warn him again. To risk his own life in this way the man must be prepared to go to any length at all for his revenge. And Louise would help him. She must not show her own fear and suspicion to Louise.

  ‘I sought you out to warn you of the Queen’s displeasure,’ she said, turning away. ‘They are coming to take you to her to make explanation – if you can.’

  She walked back up the passage, leaving Louise to hurry off to a more suitable place in the villa from which to be summoned to the royal presence.

  Whether the girl lied her way out of the false rumours she had been spreading or whether the Elector considered the whole matter too trivial to become reason for a breach with his valuable physician, Anne never discovered. Nor really very much cared. For Francis came to her again that evening, they found themselves alone and he was able to give full and ardent expression to his love, which she returned as fervently.

  ‘Until the end of our campaign I can do nothing to approach your father,’ Francis said. ‘But we have good hopes, my dear love, in all directions.’

  ‘Your mind is more set upon Madam’s affairs than upon your own,’ she teased him. ‘Already I feel a most serious jealousy.’

  ‘And I am shocked you find any comparison. As well set up yourself beside the Queen of Heaven …’

  ‘And you blaspheme, were it not we have given up worship of the Mother of Christ in our religion.’

  Francis caught her to him and kissed her with passion, in part to show her his sincerity, in part to hide his sudden knowledge of the degree of his idolatry. But his heart was singing in triumph too. He laughed for sheer joy.

  ‘His Majesty insists he ride with us tomorrow on our return to our camp. At least he will go on to Lord Craven and from him to the King of Sweden. There was news in the packet I brought that disturbed him very sorely.’

  ‘Not some fresh reverse?’ Anne’s alarm showed in her brown eyes.

  ‘If so it will be retrieved. Victory is not complete, though assured.’

  She was reminded of Alan Carr and told him the story of her short encounter in the narrow passage.

  ‘The guard will never let him pass,’ he said, confidently.

  ‘They let him in,’ she countered.

  ‘True. He will know I am here, then. He will have heard it from Louise that I have changed my name, so he can ask for my whereabouts. Our scandal spreader, gossip-monger, what have you, the snake-tongued Louise, is his spy, perhaps.’

  ‘I will play her own game to her,’ Anne said, eyes sparkling, cheeks flushing. ‘I will tell her you go with the Palgrave to Amsterdam.’

  ‘So he will follow and discover his error in a matter of five miles. Nay, I have a better plan. My friend, Ian Munro, does in truth ride to Amsterdam. He goes on leave. Carr shall see him start – on my horse. I will take his. If the fellow has no horse he may try to borrow or steal one or he may beg carriage by ship on the Rhine to Rotterdam.’

  ‘You should warn the guard that they do not help him to a horse, else your friend will be in peril.’

  ‘I will warn Ian. But not the guard. I am ready to kill Alan Carr, but never betray him to the law.’

  She grieved for the risk he took, but loved him the more for his chivalry.

  So it fell out as they planned. Lieutenant Munro rode off at a rapid pace, watched by Alan Carr, misled by Louise Mayerne, who had herself been deceived by Anne. He took ship down the Rhine as Francis expected he would and did not discover his mistake for several weeks, much to his fury.

  Meanwhile Francis with the two troopers and some of the Elector’s own guards went all together to Lord Craven. The latter had feared some such move, for his news, conveyed in the private package, had been disappointing, to say the least of it.

  The enemy had been driven from a number of smaller towns and villages. There was great rejoicing there, but the people looked in vain for their lord. They were indeed grateful to the great Gustavus Adolphus, but why did not their own Elector Palatine, their Prince Frederic, their hereditary ruler, come back to them at the head of his army, to repossess the whole land and drive away the invader for ever? Lord Craven himself had previously urged the Elector to move. At his appearance, he believed, the whole province would rise.

  At that time the Elector, as usual, had been willing to be urged but had no idea where he could find men or money to equip and organise a proper force. In consultation with his wife they settled upon a desperate plan. No other than to plunder the moneys laid down by various means from time to time for the use of their large family.

  ‘When we are established again, when you begin once more to collect the dues from your lands, we shall be able to lay aside those sums once more,’ the Queen said with cheerful energy.

  ‘After we have paid our debts,’ Frederic said. He always had a truer sense of reality but less ability to act in pursuit of it.

  ‘I think the banks in Amsterdam will understand,’ she told him.

  ‘There is no other possible source,’ Frederic agreed, still doubtful.

  But the Swedish successes had encouraged the whole Protestant cause and the Elector had a more sympathetic acceptance of his schemes than he had hoped for. It was his own money, after all, he considered. This was not really the view others took of it, for he had only been allowed to store these sums in the banks on behalf of the children. Otherwise they would have been exacted in payment of his debts.

  However, the money was forthcoming, soldiers were recruited and in a few months Prince Frederic, Elector Palatine once more in the opinion of many, was ready to set out to join the Swedish army, still conquering, still advancing.

  It was at this point that Lord Craven had sent his message and shortly afterwards found the angry, confused Elector on his doorstep.

  Lord Craven had to report that though Kreuznach was secured, and would be held, no progress had been made to relieve Frankenthal and Heidelberg, for the opposition had grown and Gustavus Adolphus had re-crossed the Rhine.

  ‘It is but a temporary setback, sire,’ Craven told the furious Elector. ‘Sweden is a great general. He plans a substantial victory, an end to all this weary purposeless marching to and fro, driving and driven.’

  ‘I must see the King,’ Frederic demanded. ‘I have means, I have men. I will bring them from Rhenen to Frankfurt. I will occupy my own country to rule it again. My people demand it.’

  This was true, as Lord Craven was aware.

  But Gustavus Adolphus would have none of the plan. Frederic had offered him troops before, which the former had not been able to support. Now he demanded to use his own men saying he was prepared to pay for them with money the banks in Amsterdam had promised to release to him. This seemed equally absurd, equally unreliable.

  It was not only a question of military plan. The Swedish king had no opinion of Frederic’s position or his prospects, both being totally insecure. Nor of his religion. Gustavus Adolphus was Lutheran, Frederic Calvinist. They could not agree. They even disliked each other. The Swedish king wanted his own troops to garrison some Palatine towns. Frederic was shocked. This seemed almost as great a sacrilege as their occupation by the Catholic powers. But he was helpless before the stronger man and he knew it.

  His meetings with Gustavus Adolphus took place at Frankfurt. When he found his requests refused and that finally, he withdrew, gathered such forces as he had mustered and with-our further delay re-entered his partially restored possessions.

  He was appalled by what he found. It was twelve years since he had visited these lands. They were unrecognisable. Not so much the smaller towns, many of which, being incapable of any kind of defence, had surrendered at once when the enemy appeared and thereafter only suffered the small damage to property of occupying troops. This did not show in the out
er aspect of houses, only in the inner searing of human souls exposed to the brutality of the conquerors.

  But any town that had resisted, any village that had refused to supply food stored for its own winter need, had been razed to the ground, burned, obliterated, the inhabitants massacred with unbelievable cruelty, burned in their homes, strung up to trees by their tenderest parts and left to die in agony, the children chopped in pieces before their parents’ eyes before they too were murdered. The stories that were poured out to the Elector froze his blood, sickened him until he could bear no more, could only mutter his horror, promise redress where none was possible and ride on to meet fresh horror at every mile.

  The countryside was a desert. Those prosperous fields, the larder of his people, were covered with a dense mat of useless weeds nourished by the carnage, among which the self-sown corn, fruit of unharvested grain, struggled to survive among the poppies, charlock, nettles, coarse grass and the rest, with here and there a young tree, grown from a dropped seed, prospering in the still fertile land, though the livestock that had replenished the soil before had long since been slaughtered to provide food for the invader.

  As Frederic rode about the ruins of his possessions his grief increased daily, together with remorse for his early lack of comprehension and all the following unworthy efforts he had made to retrieve what he had lost by his fatal stupid incompetence. He had never understood the degree of his feebleness which he now saw amounted to a positive evil in him, where before he had seen himself simply as a victim, always well intentioned.

  He ate little and that unwillingly, surrounded as he was by semi-starvation. He slept badly, pursued by dreams of atrocious acts. At last in October he fell ill, retired to Maintz and took to his bed in a fever for which his physicians could find no definite cause.

  Disease due to the general privation and suffering was common. Smallpox and the dreaded plague and other ills more slow to develop were common in the province. In his depressed, broken-hearted state, rejected by Gustavus Adolphus, exposed to his people, at any rate in his own mind, as the author of their tragedy, it was not surprising that in the end he shared their ruin.

  Francis Ogilvy knew nothing of this. With his Scottish regiment he fought on under the King of Sweden, whose dispositions were as usual well devised and looked to be victorious. As Lord Craven had tried to explain to the Elector, the temporary setback had been used to advantage. The war was not over yet, not all the conquered lands had been released. But the prospects were as fair as ever. The winter was not yet upon them.

  Ian Munro found this cheering view on his return from leave in Scotland. He and Francis distinguished themselves again, and again were recommended to the notice of the generals. Lord Craven sent for Francis.

  ‘You are doing well, Ogilvy,’ he told him in his usual dour manner. ‘But that is not the object of this interview. The Palgrave, I have just heard, is gravely ill at Maintz. I think Madam has not been told of this, so either he conceals it from her in those weekly letters they exchange or he is too ill to write them and the news has been kept from her by his physicians.’

  He paused, waiting for comment.

  ‘She would be frantic if she heard it!’ Francis cried. ‘She would go to him at once, at any cost …’

  ‘So I think, too,’ Lord Craven answered. ‘Which must be prevented.’

  ‘She would never forgive concealment if the case is truly serious!’

  ‘Again I agree. Therefore,’ Lord Craven said very gravely, ‘I am going to use you again, Ogilvy. You are very much in her favour. She will heed you. You will go to Maintz. You will discover Prince Frederick’s condition and take the correct news of it to Madam and persuade her to have patience whatever this news may be. You understand me?’

  ‘Fully, my lord.’

  So, with a word of his destination to Ian Munro, Francis set off on his mission with a heavy heart, for he foresaw anxiety if not worse for his beloved queen.

  His fears were fully realised. Not only was the Elector too ill to see him, but his attendants would on no account allow Francis near the invalid.

  ‘We think his fever is contagious,’ his principal gentleman of the bedchamber told the lieutenant, ‘and therefore you cannot be allowed to his bedside.’

  ‘But Her Majesty …’

  The man hesitated, his eyes going this way and that.

  ‘Naturally she will be told. But she too would be excluded.’

  ‘Will be told? But has not already? How long –? My orders –’

  ‘We take orders from His Majesty’s physicians,’ the man said, closing the interview.

  So Lord Craven’s fears were correct, Francis decided. He must go north to Rhenen, he must face imparting the blow he would have to deal his queen. He rode away, his mind totally occupied with the dread message he carried. As his journey progressed his preoccupation grew.

  So intent was he upon the burden of his thoughts that it was only his horse that alerted him to danger by its hesitation, ears pricking forward, snuffled breath. Francis saw the thin line stretched between trees on either side of the path. He flung himself down on the horse’s neck, freeing his feet from the stirrups and swinging himself under its belly in an action he had learned as a sport in Scotland and taught with profit to Ian Munro and his fellow-officers.

  It saved him now. He was on his feet, sword out, when the two ruffians that had helped to lay the trap leaped forward, one to hamstring the horse, the other to finish off the rider who had appeared to fall as they intended.

  With a quick thrust Francis accounted for the first and saved his mount. The startled beast leaped away, but after a few paces stopped, bewildered by these strange happenings. Backing away to the nearest tree, Francis held off the other with a few strokes while calling upon him to surrender in the Queen’s name. He had never seen the man before; perhaps it was a native who mistook him for the recent enemy.

  The man said nothing, but fought on until Francis disabled and disarmed him, whereupon he fled away a few paces, fell down and did not move again. As Francis stood breathing hard from the suddenness and fierceness of the attack he heard a rustle of leaves in the tree above him. He looked up just in time to spring sideways. But the flung knife struck him in the back of the thigh and he fell, with Alan Carr leaping down upon him, a madman’s face glaring into his own.

  They fought on the ground with bare hands. Francis knew if he let the other get to his feet it would mean his own death. So he fought to roll Carr over and when with his great strength he half managed this, he pinned down the would-be murderer with one hand, while he snatched the villain’s knife from his own thigh and plunged it into the other’s neck.

  Carr gave a choking scream. With a last effort he threw off Francis’s body, rolling away to snatch up the latter’s sword that had fallen a few feet off. With blood pouring from his neck he tried to scramble to his feet, the sword clutched in his hand.

  But Francis, too, had risen to his knees and managed to fall again upon Carr, this time upon his back. In a supreme effort, being now weaponless, he seized the man’s head in both hands, jerked it back and broke his neck against his spine.

  When all was quiet again the horse came back and stood above his master, wondering what all this flurry had been about. Francis, who had managed to tear up his shirt to stanch his wound, now tried to stand and after one or two attempts managed to do so, but found it beyond his powers to get up into the saddle. The wound was not deep, nor really disabling, but he had lost blood and knew he would get weaker if he waited. He looked at the tree from which Alan Carr had jumped on him. The thin rope, broken in the action, hung from it. The man had climbed into the tree. If Carr, why not himself? Perhaps he need not bend the injured leg …

  Slowly, painfully, using his strong arms and the rope to lift his weight, he hauled himself a short way up the trunk, then swung out along a stout branch until he was above his horse, that stood quietly obeying his master’s order.

  The drop into the
saddle brought a pain so sharp in his thigh that he nearly fainted, but he clutched horse and saddle and hung on till the cold mist passed from before his eyes. Then slowly and painfully he moved off on his way.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  It is probable that he would not have reached Rhenen had he not been found by Lieutenant Munro two days later, still riding forward, still guiding his horse, but in a high fever, half delirious, babbling about the Elector, the Queen of Hearts, and repeatedly about Anne, his beloved Anne, in danger from the villain, Alan Carr.

  As he was only some five miles from Rhenen when the lieutenant came up with him, the latter simply took the horse’s rein and finished the journey, as the quickest way of bringing relief to his friend.

  Munro brought the horses to a halt in the courtyard of the villa, whereupon Francis fell from the saddle, unconscious.

  They carried him in, quickly prepared a bed for him in an isolated quarter of the house and sent for medical aid. Lieutenant Munro had been ordered to Maintz by Lord Craven to recall Francis, to stop if possible his mission to the Queen of Hearts, for there was worse news for her than her husband’s illness, news that was already on its way from the headquarters of the Swedish king. This was that Gustavus Adolphus was dead, slain at the Battle of Lützen, his victorious campaign over, his army, together with his plans, thrown into confusion.

  Lieutenant Munro arrived at Rhenen ahead of the Swedish envoy. When he was given his orders to find and recall his friend he had gone to the Elector’s headquarters and so he had learned of the latter’s serious illness. Having handed Francis over, with much misgiving, to those who would now struggle for his life, he demanded to see the Queen to break the dreadful news of a double calamity.

  The fatal battle had taken place on November 6th of that year, 1632. It was two days after the event that Munro had set out to find Francis, ten days before he caught up with him, tracing his first rapid progress north through the inns he had used. Until these reports gave out and he could only proceed on the usual road which proved to be the right one.