by Davies, J. D
‘I – I have not heard such a name –’
‘Really, My Lady? How strange. For that is where you were born and christened as Louise Lugg, was it not? A remote place, cradled within the broad downs where Dorset comes down to the sea. The sea whither your Spanish father came, and whence he swiftly returned, or so the goodly folk of the place tell me. For I have been there, you see. I have even fought something of a battle there. And although you claim to have forgotten it, there are many still alive in that place who recall your birth, and your childhood. Aye, and many who remember who and what your mother was.’ Tristram smiled. ‘It must have been somewhat uncomfortable, growing up in the knowledge that your mother had given birth to you and was then immediately burned as a witch.’
Then, and only then, did Louise, Countess of Ravensden, break down. Her entire frame shook, and she sobbed pathetically. When she looked up, it was toward me: her one remaining hope of a sympathetic hearing in that place. But I could not meet her eyes, and looked away.
‘No child should suffer for the sins of its parents,’ said Charles, looking significantly toward our mother, ‘but equally, no king is likely to want to take as his mistress – or a royal duchess to take as her boon companion – the offspring of a condemned witch, and a mother who pimps her own daughter. Nor a murderess, in truth.’
‘I did not kill my husbands –’
‘Frankly, madam, it does not really matter whether you did or not.’ This was a Charles Quinton that I had never seen before: a decisive, even brutal, man of action. But then, I reflected, this was not really my brother at all. This was Lord Percival, and he was clearly a very different creature to the cultured, ascetic, sickly tenth Earl of Ravensden. ‘Enough of the world believes that you did – and if it does not now, then it certainly will after Lord Percival disseminates the rumour. A pamphlet, I think, from one of those infernally persistent printing presses in London that our ministers and intelligencers singularly fail to shut down. One of the better writers, perhaps Dryden or Marvell. The child of a witch and a papist enemy of England, her own child condemned to a brothel, the murderer of two husbands, an agent of the hated French, who tried to ensnare an earl, a duchess and a king with her wiles… We will rewrite history, of course, to ensure that the king and I appear as all-seeing and all-knowing, humouring your schemes until the moment came to strike you down. That is the good thing about history, I find – it is so easy to alter it entirely with a stroke of a pen, particularly in these days when mankind as a whole is so remarkably gullible.’
‘And with your own daughter swearing to the truth of this account, what will be left for you, mother?’ said Madeleine bitterly. The Countess Louise gave her a look that seemed to encompass the rage and hurt of a mother spurned, but perhaps something else, too: a pride that her child had inherited her steel.
‘There is one thing more,’ I said. ‘Something that your chosen writer will find irresistible, brother. Paint her as the dark power that prevented her country’s navy winning this war.’
Despite reeling from the onslaught against her, the Lady Louise still managed an incredulous laugh. ‘Dear God, you as well, Matthew? I thought you had better sense than all these who seek my ruin. Well, then, what did I do to prevent your precious fleet’s victory? Hold back your ships through witchcraft inherited from my mother, perhaps?’
‘I fought a duel with Harry Brouncker, lady. Brouncker ordered our fleet to shorten sail in the night after the battle. Now where do you suppose he got that idea, My Lady? From Clarendon and the Duchess of York, desperate to preserve the life of the Duke? That is the tale currently favoured in the fleet and the city. But Brouncker was your lover – your puppet. When you came down to the fleet at Harwich, was it not to perfect the scheme that you had hatched with Monsieur Courtin? Brouncker to do all he could aboard the flagship to prevent the fleet gaining too crushing a victory, for an English navy unchallenged at sea would be utterly contrary to King Louis’ interests?’
‘With the poor duped Duchess as your scapegoat should the scheme misfire,’ Charles added.
‘Aye,’ said I, ‘for how many hundreds would have seen her with you and Brouncker at the reception for the ambassadors? A wife’s natural concern for the life of her husband, translated into an order to Brouncker to keep him safe at all costs – both of them little realising that they were truly serving the cause of King Louis.’
Framed against the window, the Lady Louise finally recovered some of her fight. ‘Damn you all to Hell! You talk of the judgement of history upon me? Well, then, let history judge this, Matthew Quinton – which of us strove to stop a war and preserve the lives of thousands, you or I?’
The barb struck home. In a sense, I felt more pain in that moment than I had when the Dutch musket ball struck my foot; for was not this but the plain truth?
Tristram was unfazed. ‘My Lady, King Louis’ peace has another name to it. That word is slavery. Yes, it suits him at this present moment to have peace between England and the Dutch, but only so that he may eventually achieve his real aim – and that, My Lady, is to rule over us both.’
She stared at him, that same strange expression upon her face. ‘Tristram Quinton, my most inveterate enemy of all. And I know why, Doctor Quinton – I know the role you play.’ She looked around the room, her eyes ablaze. ‘You can accuse me all you like,’ she said bitterly, ‘but I know the truth of you Quintons now – of the secret that you have tried to hide all these years. I will take it with me to France, and denounce you all, and your foul hypocrite of a king, from there!’ She was exultant now. ‘Aye, none of you can touch me! I will walk from here a free woman, for I am under the protection of France!’ she spat. ‘Of France, I say!’
‘No longer, madam.’ This voice was the least expected of all. I turned, startled beyond all measure, to look upon my mother. She was smiling; and in recent times, I had known my mother to smile only when a particularly large dissenter congregation was arrested. But the revelation of her extraordinary past had seemingly liberated the Countess Anne. ‘King Louis was susceptible to your reasoning once, perhaps,’ she said. ‘But now, My Lady, he takes the counsel of others. Recently, he has been particularly receptive to the arguments of his aunt, Queen Henrietta Maria. My dearest friend. Arguments that I provided her with, before she left this shore for the last time.’
The Dowager Countess of Ravensden raised herself from her chair. My brother might have feigned his pain, but my mother clearly did not; yet she intended to bring down this interloper, who had deceived her more thoroughly than any of the rest of us, by confronting her face to face.
The Countess Anne walked slowly, painfully, across the great gallery, and stood at last in front of her daughter-in-law.
‘You may ruin my name,’ said my mother. ‘It is of but little concern to me now. But you will not ruin the sainted reputation of the Queen Mother with malicious accusations about what passed between her and Colin Campbell, and you will not sully the name of the King and Martyr whom I loved.’ The dowager countess was almost spitting her bile at her good-daughter. ‘It would be impossible to proceed against you here, in England. We have such inconveniences as a rule of law, with juries, a need for evidence, and other such troublesome barriers to the execution of justice. But they are not so particular in France, and for all your bluster, you are now an embarrassment to that state and its king, good-daughter. The French have a device called the lettre de cachet, which permits indefinite imprisonment under royal warrant and without trial.’ She reached within her sleeve and produced a small, folded piece of parchment, sealed with wax. ‘A letter such as this one.’
‘It need not be so,’ said Charles, ‘depending upon –’
But it was too late. Louise Quinton ran to the wall near where Cornelia and I were, lifted the tapestry over her, and disappeared. Musk tore the tapestry from its hangers, revealing a concealed doorway. Despite the pain from my foot, I was the first to reach the opening and the spiral staircase behind it. Drawing my sword,
I took the steps two at a time. I could hear Louise’s steps high above me. Below, Charles, Tris, Musk, Madeleine and Cornelia followed up the stairs in their turns, for this was a particularly narrow spiral which must have survived from the earliest days of the castle.
At last there was some light upon the stair – the roof had to be near –
Out, and onto a broad crenellated platform with fine views of the wooded countryside all around. She stood there, before me, pressed against the battlements.
‘Louise,’ I said, ‘I beg you, there is no need for this – I will mitigate their wrath –’
My brother stepped out onto the roof behind me, followed in short order by the others.
‘Damn you,’ she hissed. ‘Damn you all, you so-mighty Quintons! What did I do? What did I do? All I sought was to end a war – is that so very wrong? And Harry Brouncker ensuring sail was shortened, saving thousands more lives – can that be a crime?’ She looked at me imploringly. ‘True, I also wished for the best life I could have – to be a great lady – I saw the coach of the Lady Bankes once, when I was a child in Dorset – aye, a child living with the stigma of having a witch for her mother – the coach came through our village, and I thought, one day that will be me – oh yes, but that which in men is called ambition, in women is called whoring and witchcraft. Sweet Mother of God, is all I have done so very wrong?’
‘Wrong indeed, if at the expense of the lives of your husbands and your daughter!’ cried Cornelia.
‘And of your king,’ said Tris, coldly.
‘Oh, Tristram Quinton,’ she said mockingly. ‘See yourself now, sir, as I see you. A fine, rational man of science. Master of an Oxford college, member of the Royal Society. But what has it been, your pursuit of me, if not that of a witchfinder hunting his witch?’
I had never seen my uncle flummoxed and wholly at a loss for words: never until then.
‘It is over, madam,’ said Charles firmly. Then his voice changed; no longer was he Lord Percival. ‘Come, Louise. We need not employ King Louis’ letter – quiet exile will not be so bad, if you will but agree to it –’
Louise was flushed and increasingly hysterical. ‘You think I believe that, Charles? That you and your harridan of a mother will trust me to keep the secrets I now know? And even if I trusted the House of Quinton, do you really think I trust Charles Stuart? Do any of you?’
‘I give you my word,’ said Charles Quinton. ‘The word of the Earl of Ravensden.’
‘And is that really a word you can give, husband? You, who might be a king’s bastard instead? And in any case, would it truly be your word, or that of Lord Percival? For I would not trust him in a century of Sundays.’ She laughed bitterly. ‘Ah, perhaps I might trust the word of an Earl of Ravensden, after all. But only of one.’
At that, she stared directly upon me. As she did so, she moved along the wall until she was framed directly in the embrasure, her back to the open air.
I stepped forward. ‘Louise,’ I said, ‘you have my word – in the name of God, come away –’
‘Too late, Matthew. Too late for all, now. You will not parade me to public scorn, as you did my mother. You will not burn me as you burned my mother!’
With that, she turned, gripped the battlements, stepped up and flung herself into space.
I was the first to reach the wall, and was thus the only one to see the mortal form of Louise, Countess of Ravensden, strike and break upon the ground far below. To this day, I can recall the expression on her face in that last moment before her head snapped forward on impact with the earth. I will go to my grave convinced that she was smiling.
Tris gently moved me to one side and looked down upon the grim sight. ‘A singular woman,’ he said. ‘Singular and unsettling. Her entire life was a lie, and yet at the end it brought her to a clear vision of the truth. Disturbingly clear.’
My brother looked down upon the remains of his wife, watching as Madeleine came out from the castle, knelt down by her mother’s body, and began to weep. Charles was silent for some moments, but when he spoke again, it was with the voice of Lord Percival. ‘Musk, attend to the body. She will be buried with all the honours and respect that befit a Countess of Ravensden.’
‘As you say, My Lord.’
As Musk retired, I went to Cornelia and took my shaking wife into my arms. ‘You called her Louise,’ she said, half quizzically and half accusingly.
I looked out, far beyond the walls of Lyndbury Castle. A small black cloud upon the horizon seemed to presage a distant storm.
We boys are truly loyal,
For Charles we’ll venture all,
We know his blood is royal,
His name shall never fall!
[Chorus]
Fill the pottles and gallons,
And bring the hogshead in,
We’ll begin with a tallen,
A brimmer to the king!
~ Anon., The Courtier’s Health, or The Merry Boys of the Times
(popular royalist song of the 1670s)
The court and government of Charles the Second had descended upon Salisbury like a plague of locusts. The population almost doubled overnight; the cesspits and the old-fashioned water channels that flowed in the midst of every street could not cope. The rooms of the antique low-roofed inns of the town were suddenly crowded out. It was said that at the Haunch of Venison, two baronets and a viscount shared one garret, while the King’s Arms was so full of young ladies of dubious reputation that it was newly by-named Signor Dildo’s Convent. The butchers, bakers and brewers were confronted by at once the greatest opportunity and the greatest nightmare of their lives, for the insatiable needs of the royal purveyors and the countless lackeys placed intolerable demands upon their supplies. Within days, courtiers and men of Sarum alike were grumbling at this singular choice of a royal refuge. What was wrong with Oxford, the old cavaliers complained, which was good enough for this king’s parents, the royal court and the entire royalist army in the civil war? Plenty of rooms in the Oxford colleges, they said, and spacious quadrangles for perambulation. Ah, said the more knowing, but Oxford is not My Lord of Clarendon’s city. Hereabouts are the village where the Chancellor was born and the ruined palace from which he takes his title. The graves of Salisbury are full of dead Hydes. Most of the butchers, farriers and vintners are kin to the Hydes. Such economy of effort on the part of the Chancellor, who could thus attend to his estates, the enrichment of his friends and neighbours, and the governance of England without needing to move an inch! And so the capital of England had decamped to this peculiar little provincial town, beneath the shadow of the cathedral’s lofty spire, simply because it was convenient for His Eminence, England’s secular Richelieu.
The king had installed himself in a fine new house close to the cathedral, a square, grey-stone pile with a multiplicity of south-facing windows. It was there that my brother and I found him, looking for all the world like a lofty attendant to the far grander personage in his company, the Earl of Clarendon himself.
King and Chancellor began by congratulating me on my efforts in the Merhonour – heroics, Clarendon said – during the late battle. The king demanded a detailed account of the action, clapping his hands with glee at the account of the Eendracht’s destruction. Only that morning, he had learned that Obdam’s family had invoiced the States-General for all the silver cutlery, extravagant tablecloths and other personal effects lost when the ship blew up.
‘And that, of course,’ said King Charles, ‘is why the Dutch are destined to lose this war. Mean, avaricious penny-pinchers, all of them, who can think only of their balance sheets! Whereas our true and honest Englishmen serve for honour, not for base coin.’
Which is as well, I thought, given how tardy this king’s treasury proves in actually paying any of the moneys now long overdue to the same true and honest Englishmen, the captain of the Merhonour among them.
Clarendon was clearly bored during my discourse of the battle; his entire lack of interest in naval affairs c
ould not be shaken even by the tale of England’s greatest victory by sea. As soon as he decently could, he changed the topic of conversation to his perennial and most pressing concern, the security of the crown – that delicate euphemism for the continuation in power of the Earl of Clarendon.
‘As you know, sirs, the business of the twenty captains was seemingly a canard, a mere fiction,’ said the Chancellor. My brother and I glanced at each other complicitly. The great Clarendon was clearly not as all-knowing as he assumed, for in this matter he had been well and truly gulled. ‘The invention of a disgruntled Middlesex magistrate and some of his circle of fanatics and malcontents, who turned the ordinary murder of a poor wretch into the basis of a great conspiracy. They sought to spread dissension and uncertainty within our fleet, hoping thereby to bring about a Dutch victory –’