Dark Matter

by Philip Kerr

  The Duke sued Oates for libel in 1684 and was awarded damages of one hundred thousand pounds; and having no money to pay, Oates was cast into the debtor’s side of the King’s Bench prison. But for him, even worse was to follow. The next year the Duke ascended to the throne and Oates was put on trial for perjury before Mister Justice Jeffreys, whose declared regret was that the Law did not prescribe Jack Ketch himself; and the following day, whipped from Newgate to Tyburn—which is about two miles. He was also sentenced to be imprisoned for life and pilloried once a year—which has killed many a stronger man than he. And this was the last I had heard of Titus Oates until that September’s Friday afternoon.

  Wishing to discover how Oates had been set at liberty, I went to visit Mister Jonathan Taylor, a friend of mine who was a barrister in the Court of Common Pleas at Westminster Hall and whose reputation was that he was a veritable almanac of legal matters. And he quickly completed the legal history of Titus Oates until that same date. Taylor told me that when William came to the throne in 1688, Judge Jeffreys was imprisoned in the Tower and Oates petitioned Parliament for redress against his sentence. And it says much about the anti-Catholic sentiments that were once again abroad in the country that, in the face of all the evidence that he had conspired in the death of many innocent men, Oates was given a free pardon and quietly released from prison in December of that same year. According to Taylor, he was even granted ten pounds a week from the Secret Service money—which was no small sum. He then wrote a long account of his treatment that was published under the title A Display of Tyranny. Taylor told me it was a work that was reckoned to be a most villainous and reviling book against King James, by all who read it, which Oates then presumed to present to King William, although the King certainly could not do anything but abhor it, speaking so infamously and untruly of his late Queen’s own father King James as it did.

  When I informed Newton that Doctor Davies was none other than Titus Oates, he was as much astonished as Mister Hall and I had been; and yet he quickly declared that it all made perfect if unpalatable sense that Oates should be involved in a plot to massacre London’s Catholics.

  “Evidently prison and a whipping have taught Mister Oates very little,” he said.

  “Is it possible that milord Ashley does not know the real identity of Doctor Davies?” said I. “For I cannot conceive that milord Ashley would have any dealing with such a devil if he knew who he was.”

  “Was it not the Earl of Shaftesbury, Ashley’s own grandfather, that helped promote Oates to inform the Privy Council of the Popish Plot? But for him, Oates would never have been heard of.

  “I believe it is significant also,” Newton added thoughtfully, “that this plot should be taking place when the country is trying to end a war. It was the same with the Popish Plot, which took place when King Charles was concluding a peace with the Dutch. There are some men for whom peace is always unwelcome, for peace means an end to lucrative government contracts for the supplying of an army and a navy. Worse still, it means paying off the army, and that means asking the Parliament for money, which always serves to increase its power at the expense of the aristocracy.”

  Newton shook his head. “There’s much here that disturbs me greatly,” he admitted. “But you have done well, my young friend. It is certain you have uncovered one of the ringleaders in this conspiracy. And yet I would know still more of their plans. I doubt that Sergeant Rohan or any of these other Frenchies could be persuaded to tell us more. And yet Oates might talk.”

  I frowned. “I don’t see how or why,” I said.

  “I have met the young milord Ashley,” said Newton. “At The Grecian; and at the Kit Kat Club. I would say he is about your age and build, and a dreadful snob. Which may be another reason why he has not met Titus Oates. But we may exploit that to our advantage. We shall send Oates a coded letter inviting him to meet Lord Ashley at some place we shall appoint. And there Oates will tell us everything.”

  “But how? I still don’t understand.”

  “Because you will act the part of Lord Ashley, of course,” said Newton.

  “I?”

  “Who else? I am too old. But I may play the part of your manservant. We shall borrow a handsome coach and six from milord Halifax. And we shall hire you some fine clothes, as might befit the future Earl of Shaftesbury. We will arrange to meet Oates outside the Kit Kat Club in Hampstead where I know him to be a member. And the three of us shall go for a drive about the countryside, as if we were three men with much to hide.”

  “But will this work, sir? If you are marked for assassination, then perhaps Titus Oates knows your face.”

  “I am not such a remarkable-looking fellow,” said Newton, “although I do say so myself. Besides, I seem to recall that Lord Ashley has a servant who wears an eye patch. As shall I. It will help to disguise me.”

  “So I am to be an actor, then, as well as a clerk?”

  “Yes indeed, Ellis. Just like William Mountford, is it?”

  “With respect, sir, that is a poor example you choose. William Mountford, the actor, was murdered.”

  “Was he?”

  “Do you not recall it? Lord Mohun was tried for it.”

  “I do recall it now,” said Newton. “And that he was not murdered for his acting, but for his association with a lady to which Lord Mohun objected.”

  “I had better keep a pistol hidden in the coach,” said I, “so that if we are discovered, we shall be defended. For I believe your plan to deceive Oates and his Huguenot friends to be the most dangerous thing we have ever done.”

  “We shall do all we can to protect ourselves. Mister Hall shall be our postillion. And he too shall be armed. God willing, we shall prevail.”

  And, drawing up a clean sheet of paper, he wrote out the following message:

  On Monday morning we bought my suit of clothes at the second hand, from Mister George Hartley’s shop in Monmouth Street, with the promise that he would buy them back from us when we had finished with them. I wore a silk suit, a pair of silk stockings, a velvet cloak, and a fine beaver hat that was trimmed with an ostrich feather; also a fine knotted cane with a silver head, a little sword with a gilt handle, a large mouchoir of scented silk, a silver periwig, a pair of soft, jessemy-scented gloves, a blue sash, and around my waist a large fur muff for my hands in which I did conceal a small pistol. It was as fine a set of clothes as ever I had worn, although I was somewhat discomforted by the information from Mister Hartley that my clothes had been stripped from the corpse of a dashing highwayman named Gregory Harris who had been hanged at Tyburn, and whose clothes had been sold by his executioner, as was the hangman’s perquisite. I completed my lordly apparel with a good deal of powder on my face, my wig and my coat, a little snuff box, and a few affected airs. In truth I felt like a most modish creature, the more so when Newton told me that I went as handsomely as any lord he ever saw. And my only cause of regret was that Miss Barton could not see me and declare herself of the same opinion as her uncle.

  In the evening, at around seven of the clock, milord Halifax’s coach collected Newton and me from the Tower and drove us north up to Hampstead and the Kit Kat Club, which met at The Upper Flask Tavern in Heath Street. And while we drove through the town, people kept looking upon us, for the coach was very fine, with glass windows, two liveried coachmen and six black horses with their manes and tails tied with green ribbons that matched our livery.

  At a few minutes before eight, our coach drew up outside the tavern in the village of Hampstead, which is a most fashionable part of London, being very high up on a pleasantly aired plateau. The Kit Kat was a most ardently Whig club that for a while was the most famous club in London, and its members included Mister Swift, Mister Addison, Mister Steele, Mister Vanburgh, Mister Dryden, Mister Congreve, Mister Kneller, Lord Ashley, and the same Lord Mohun who had killed the actor William Mountford, and who later killed the Duke of Hamilton in a duel. The club was lit up like a lantern and already noisy, so that I saw the w
isdom of the club being here instead of in the City, for some of the younger members had a rakehellish reputation, and bonfires in Heath Street where the Pope was burnt in effigy were not uncommon.

  For the quarter of an hour my master and I sat in the coach awaiting the arrival of the vile Titus Oates, and I began to worry that he would not come.

  “Perhaps he suspects something is wrong,” said I.

  “Why should he?” asked Newton, who looked most threatening with an eye patch. “For all of the conspirators believe that their cipher remains inviolate. He will come. I am certain of it.”

  Even as he spoke, Mister Hall, who was acting as our postillion, saw a tall figure arriving up the hill and alerted us that our man was coming, so that we had but a little time to prepare ourselves for the dog’s arrival.

  “Remember,” said Newton, “you are a Member of Parliament and the future Earl of Shaftesbury. You need never explain yourself. Much of the time your conversation will have to improve upon what he himself tells you. I shall assist you if I can, but I cannot presume too much or it will look suspicious. We must be exceedingly subtile with this fellow.”

  When Oates came alongside the coach, Hall stepped down and opened the door, whereupon Oates, recovering his breath, for it was quite a walk from Axe Yard, bowed gravely.

  “Have I the honour to address Lord Ashley?” he asked in his pompous, ringing voice, which reminded me of my choirmaster at school.

  “This is His Lordship,” said Newton. “If you are Doctor Oates, come up, sir.”

  At this, Oates appeared taken aback, and then looked at Doctor Newton for a moment, so that he seemed upon the point of going away again.

  “Is there something wrong, Doctor Oates?” asked Newton.

  “Only that I do not go by that name anymore, sir,” said Oates. “At His Lordship’s own suggestion.”

  “If you prefer, we shall call you Doctor Davies,” suggested Newton. “But you need not concern yourself on this matter. I enjoy His Lordship’s complete confidence in this matter. As in all others.”

  Oates nodded and, climbing aboard, sat down heavily and with evident relief. Hall closed the door behind him, and immediately I noticed how a strange, cloying smell did attach to the person of Oates; and after a short pause to allow Hall to climb up again, I rapped on the roof with my cane so that we should drive back to London. Outside I heard the coachman crack his whip and we started south, down Heath Street, toward the City.

  “This is indeed an honour, milord,” said Oates, most unctuously. “I never met your grandfather, but from what I knew of him, he was a very great man.”

  I yawned ostentatiously and dabbed at my mouth with my mouchoir as I had once seen Lord Halifax do when we were at the Treasury.

  “And I am happy to be of service to you, as I was to him,” continued Oates. “Nay, not happy. Delighted and greatly honoured, too.”

  “Façon, façon,” I said with a foppish show of impatience. “Do let us get on. And pray do not call it my service, Doctor Oates, for this matter is too desperate to be done only on my account. In truth, you see me quite unnerved by the gravity of our design. So much so that I came up to Hampstead to take the waters. But now I desire that you might put my mind at rest that everything is made ready. It’s not scruple of my conscience that made me write to you, sir, but want of confidence in our enterprise. I do swear I wish every Roman Catholic to the infernals, yet, mal peste, it’s a beastly nuisance, for I still fret that something will go awry. But you have been through this all before, Doctor Oates. You are our Achilles in this endeavour, and because I am so chagrin and disquieted these past few days, I would have your counsel. That is why I wrote to you and summoned you, sir.”

  “Then be assured, milord,” said Oates, “everything is just as it should be. Mister Defoe’s pamphlet that will help to incite to anger all good Protestants is already printed and only awaits the proper occasion for its distribution.”

  “I should like to read that pamphlet,” said I. And then to Newton: “Why have I not seen it, John?”

  “You have not seen it, milord?” asked Oates. “I was informed that Lord Lucas had shown it to you.”

  I shook my head. “Perhaps he did show me something,” I admitted. “But I’m afraid that I lost it.”

  “I have some more at my lodgings,” said Oates. “I could show you one now if you wished.”

  “Yes, indeed you shall,” said I. “We will take the coach to your lodgings, Doctor Oates, and you shall fetch me one of these pamphlets of yours.”

  Newton leaned out of the coach window and instructed the coachman that when we reached London we should drive to Axe Yard.

  “And yet I am more concerned to know the mettle of our confederates, Doctor Oates,” I told him. “Lord Lucas will vapour most hotly about the men of the Ordnance and how they are loyal to him. But after all, a lot of these are Frenchies. What of good Englishmen? And when last I saw him I said to him à d’autre, à d’autre. Tell it to the others, my lord, but not to me. For I thought him all bluster and grimace, and his explanations did not convince me. But I have heard you are a man of much subtlety, Doctor Oates. My grandfather always said as much. Which is why I have met you à la dérobée, which is to say secretly. That is to say, Lord Lucas does not know that I am speaking to you. Nor does anyone else for that matter, and I would prefer if it were kept that way.”

  “Your Lordship does me great honour,” said Oates, bowing his head and trying to stop the self-satisfied smile that did appear upon his enormous chin, which was quite as big as the rest of his face.

  “Subtlety and integrity, Doctor Oates. You are a man to call a spade a spade.”

  “Your Lordship is too kind,” smirked Oates.

  “So I would know how many we really are, and not what Lord Lucas sees fit to tell me. And what are our chances of success.”

  “We are not so many,” said Oates. “But we are enough.”

  “Ods my life, Doctor, now you sound like Lucas. Not so coy, I pray you, or else I shall believe that this plot is mere fancy. The wise man builds his house not on sand but on a rock. So I would know who we may rely on, for I trust not men who have no names.”

  Oates’s eyes narrowed and he stared out of the window for a moment as Hampstead became the manor of Tyburn, with its many dairy farms that supplied London’s milk and cheese, so that I almost believed he suspected something was amiss, and I placed my hand on the loaded pistol concealed inside the fur muff that lay on my lap like a dead spaniel. Instead he nodded with much thoughtfulness.

  “Milord,” he said, most pleadingly, “it’s safer that you do not know. And yet I wonder why Lord Lucas should not have kept you better informed. ’Tis most strange.”

  “Lucas is not a considerate man,” said I. “Indeed I may tell you in secret that I do not like him.”

  “He is most impatient, and intemperate, it’s true,” agreed Titus Oates. “Why then, I will tell you as much as I know myself. Inside the Tower there’s him, Captain Lacoste, Captain Martin, Sergeant Rohan, and several men of the garrison: Cousin, Durel, Lasco, Devoe, Harald. Then, in the Mint there’s Mister Fauquier, the Deputy Master; Mister Collins, one of the assay masters, who did descend from Coligny, the great Huguenot admiral who was butchered by the French Catholics upon Saint Bartholomew’s; Vallière, who works the melt, Mister Silvester, the smith, and Peter Bayle, the victualler. That’s thirteen all told in the castle itself.

  “Outside the Tower there are almost a hundred Englishmen in the barracks at Whitehall and at Somerset House; and among them several more Huguenots: Colonel Quesnal, Major Laurent, Major Sarrazin, Captain Hesse, Captain Popart, Lieutenant Delafons, and Sergeant Barre.

  “Among the civilians there are perhaps a hundred more, including myself; Sir John Houblon at the Bank; Sir John Peyton; Monsieur Piozet, who’s pastor at the Savoy; Monsieurs Primerose, La Mothe, Chardin, and Moreau, who are on the grande comité français. In Soho there is Monsieur Guisard, whose father was burned for h
eresy, and Monsieur Peyferie, as well as several dozen hatmakers, buttoners, silk-weavers, drapers, chandlers, apothecaries and wigmakers in the City that do number at least six or seven dozen.

  “Last of all, there’s Mister Defoe the pamphleteer, Mister Woodward the publisher, and Mister Downing, his printer; not to mention the several incendiaries who will help me to set the blaze at Whitehall, including young Mister Tonge, who knows much about raising fires.

  “They are all good Protestants, milord,” declared Oates. “Therefore be assured that our chances of success are high.”

  “For the conflagration,” said Newton, “will surely be blamed upon the Papists.”

  “Aye,” said Oates, “for it is only what they would do had they sufficient opportunity.”

  “Who would doubt such a thing after the Ailesbury Plot?” said Newton. “Or the insurrection of Sir John Fenwick?”

  “And yet,” said I, “so many Jacobites have been arrested this year that I fear they are driven underground and we shall find fewer Papists than there are. Were not all Papists banished ten miles from London, last February?”

  “Aye, milord,” said Oates. “But the measure was relaxed after only a month; and those few who were obliged to leave were soon back, like rats after the Fire.”

  “Then pray tell me, Doctor Oates, how accurate are your lists of who is to be killed? We do not want any Papists getting away.”

  “I’ll warrant none shall escape, milord,” said Oates, grinning most fanatically so that I saw how much he relished the bloody prospect that was plotted. “We shall begin with the Spanish Ambassador’s house in Wild Street, Covent Garden, that bestows a Roman Catholic aura upon that whole area. I expect to find papers there that were compiled for the Catholic Minister Apostolic in Flanders as to how many Papists there are in England and Wales, and their names. I do not think we shall slaughter fewer Catholics than Huguenots were murdered in Paris, milord.”

  “It seems only appropriate that the number should be the same,” murmured Newton. “But when will it be done?”