A Masterpiece of Corruption

by L. C. Tyler

‘Henry Manning. A double agent and my best source of information at the Stuart court. He tipped us off that a prominent English Royalist had paid a visit to Charles Stuart. Cromwell couldn’t resist letting the same Royalist know we were on to him. But the only possible source of that intelligence was Manning. It was Manning’s death warrant. The Royalists seized him. Cromwell wanted us to bargain with Hyde but we could offer to exchange Manning for another prisoner only by admitting he was our man. We didn’t, of course. They shot him through the head in some woods just outside Cologne. A great pity.’

  I agree that it would be unfortunate if I met the same fate. Thurloe rubs his eyes. I wonder if he will weep for me if I am pistolled to death. It seems unlikely and it will be of no practical benefit to me anyway. Then I see that he is not crying for Manning. He is simply rubbing his eyes. He reads many documents, including some actually intended for him.

  ‘What do you require me to do next?’ I ask.

  ‘There is the question of whether Lambert or Fairfax could be implicated,’ says Thurloe.

  ‘Two of our most distinguished generals,’ says Probert. ‘We can scarcely send Mr Grey to interrogate them as he has interrogated Willys.’

  ‘Can we not?’ asks Thurloe. ‘I could not. Henry Cromwell could not. But perhaps … Mr Grey is, after all, obscure and insignificant. He has done well with Sir Richard. Lambert and Fairfax would have no reason to suspect him. What if we were to send him with a message for Lambert from Cromwell? What if he were to ask General Lambert not if he had murderous designs but on what terms he would consider a reconciliation? Let us see what he says. We shall at least know his price. The information will not be without value. And I am sure that Lord Fairfax would wish to say something on behalf of his son-in-law.’

  ‘Would the Lord Protector sanction such a thing?’ asks Probert.

  ‘He will not sanction it because I shall not ask him. The advantage of sending Mr Grey is that we could always claim later that a junior official had misunderstood or overstepped the mark. Lambert is in Wimbledon. Fairfax is currently here in London. The thing is not impossible. What do you say, Mr Grey?’

  It seems safer than many of the things that Thurloe might suggest that I should do. I cannot imagine either general will shoot me dead on the spot.

  ‘And this is the last thing you need me to do?’ I say.

  ‘Of course. The very last. Tomorrow then for Lambert. We’ll find you a horse that is strong enough to get you there and back in a day even in this weather. When are you to meet Ripley again?’

  ‘Not for some days. I can report back to you on the twenty-fifth of December.’

  ‘Or before, if Lambert or Fairfax say anything of interest. Do you plan to attend church on Christmas Day?’

  ‘You think that, as a purported Royalist, I should?’

  ‘No. You are a purported Royalist but you are a cautious one who does not wish to draw the attention of the authorities to his presence. I would suggest you keep away from Christmas services this year at least,’ says Thurloe.

  ‘Is that general advice or just for me?’

  ‘I would not repeat it to anyone, lest you are asked to reveal the source of your information.’

  ‘I see. Thank you,’ I say.

  ‘On the contrary, my thanks are due to you, Mr Plautus. I think that you may, after all, have the makings of a good agent.’

  ‘So, you are not to pursue Sir Richard Willys further?’ asks Aminta. She is drinking tea from a cup made of porcelain. I think that she has indeed sent Will to Exchange Alley to obtain tea at ten Pounds a pound. Each sip would drain money from my purse if it actually had any money in it.

  ‘No,’ I say.

  ‘But Thurloe thinks as you do? That Sir Richard is the leader of the Sealed Knot?’

  ‘Yes. But he must have known all along. With his network of spies, it simply isn’t possible that Thurloe was unaware who his main opponent was. At the very least he must have suspected, even if he lacked proof. So why didn’t he tell me?’

  ‘That is an interesting question. And he makes no effort to arrest him and question him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Sir Richard Willys knew who you were?’

  ‘From the moment I came through the door. Ripley would have told him, of course. But he claimed to have information on me that made him trust me. That wouldn’t have come from Ripley or Brodrick. So what is it?’

  Aminta considers this. ‘I think you should be worried about anything that doesn’t quite add up,’ she says. ‘And there’s a lot there that isn’t quite as it should be. I certainly think Underhill has been talking to Ripley. And somebody has been talking to Willys. You will not see Sir Richard again?’

  ‘No, Mr Thurloe does not wish it. But Sir Richard may send a message here for me to take to Brussels. Sadly, I shall be unable to deliver it, since I have no plans to travel to Brussels, but the contents may be helpful to Mr Thurloe.’

  ‘I am sure they would be,’ says Aminta. ‘It also shows that Sir Richard believes you will come through this alive and return to Brussels. That is in itself interesting, because Ripley doubted it very strongly. When you learn anything further, perhaps you could let me know?’

  ‘Why?’ I ask.

  ‘So that I may be of service to you in return for your hospitality. I am concerned for your safety. Two minds may be quicker to spot dangers than one alone – particularly if the one alone is yours.’

  I look at Aminta. I have never seen a face so innocent and untroubled.

  ‘Are you planning to attend church on the twenty-fifth of December?’ I ask.

  ‘Is there any reason why I should not?’

  ‘It may not be advisable.’

  ‘What’s going to happen?’

  ‘I don’t know. Parliament may be planning one of its periodic round-ups of Royalist sympathisers. Christmas services would present a convenient opportunity.’

  ‘Thank you for warning me, but I am, as you know, no longer a Royalist sympathiser. Unlike many of my friends, I speak of the titular King of the Scots with the utmost scorn.’

  ‘If you mention this to anyone else, Thurloe will know I’ve told you.’

  ‘Then I shall allow my friends to be arrested and fined or whatever His Highness has in mind for them. I should not dream of interfering.’

  Again, a look of innocence of which an angel would be proud.

  ‘Just so that you know,’ I say, ‘keep away from churches on Christmas Day. And tell nobody.’

  A Letter

  The Manor,

  Clavershall West,

  Essex

  19 December 1657

  My Dear John,

  It was pleasant, as ever, to receive your rather brief note and to hear as much of your news as you are willing to tell me. I am glad that you have been able to provide Aminta with protection while she is in London. I had of course recommended to her that she should contact you when she returned to England, and I am pleased that she at least takes my advice. I had, as you well know, hoped that you and she would marry, but Lord Pole will, I am sure, make a very good husband, with a little training and direction from her. The loss, I think, is entirely yours, and if I recommend other young women to you in future, then I hope that you will be more effective in your pursuit of them. Verb sap, as Mr Probert would doubtless say.

  As to your father’s whereabouts – which seems to be your main reason for writing – I am not sure why you think I should have heard from him, still less written to him. He was living in Bruges with a female of tender years. I assume he left Bruges with the King and is now in Brussels. I have heard nothing of his travelling to England again, but I of course correspond with nobody at the King’s court since you have forbidden it. If I had heard news of your father, it would not be a matter of great consequence for me or anyone else. But I haven’t.

  Your curiosity on the matter is, however, interesting. Am I right in suspecting that there are things that you have not told me? Obviously, you may prefer tha
t Aminta lets me know in due course and in somewhat greater detail. The choice is yours.

  We shall be celebrating Christmas here in the poor fashion that the law and your stepfather permit. I hope that you will fare better at Mistress Reynolds’s and that we shall see you here in Essex in the New Year. In the meantime, I seal this with a mother’s love and a mother’s reasonable expectation to learn more, once you wish to tell her.

  My Lord Lambert

  I have been given slightly more horse than I am comfortable with – a black stallion who has, I think, opinions on many things. Fortunately we are agreed that a journey south to Wimbledon, on a bright morning with the snow thick and soft on the ground, is in order. He makes light of the drifts that I fail to see until we are in them, and scarcely notices my weight as we toil up the long hill near Wandsworth. More usually he carries a dragoon with full equipment. He is perhaps wise enough to regard this as a holiday that may be repeated if he does not misbehave too badly. Certainly it is not my horsemanship that keeps him on the road. If he decides that he would like to dine in Putney, then I fear that I must needs dine in Putney too.

  It is mid-morning when we arrive at General Lambert’s house. The land is white and the air sparkling. I think that the merest breath of a wind would dislodge the covering of snow from the tree branches. But there is no wind. Everything is still. Even though the world is bound in ice, the sun warms my cheek.

  This then is where you live when you have quarrelled with the Lord Protector. It is a very pleasant mansion made of soft red brick. Roses grow above the door, though I must return in May if I wish to discover what colour roses they are. Beds of bedraggled and snow-bound lavender stretch out before it. Neat box hedging makes pretty, angular patterns between. It is rumoured that two thousand Pounds a year comes with the house. I wonder if Lambert will wish to end a quarrel that has left him so comfortable.

  I am not certain how I expected a retired general to pass his time, but not in this manner to be sure. He looks up from his needlework.

  ‘It will be a rose,’ he says, indicating the half-completed bloom. He selects a long strand of white silk from a tray before him and expertly threads a needle. He studies the design, head on one side.

  ‘I noticed that you had roses above your door,’ I say.

  ‘Rosa canina,’ he says without looking up. ‘The dog rose. This that I am stitching now is rosa alba – the old rose of York. That is also in my garden, but elsewhere. I would show you round the gardens, Mr Grey, but they are not at their best at present. Indeed, I could not tell you precisely where the lawns end and the flower beds commence. The box hedges look very well, however, beneath their crust of snow.’

  ‘That is true,’ I say, ‘but I had not come to see the gardens.’

  ‘No, my man told me. You come with a message from Cromwell.’ His hand smooths out the fabric in front of him. Something about the rose displeases him.

  ‘I am, of course, grateful to you for seeing me,’ I add.

  ‘Why should I not see you? Did you think I would not cease my sewing for long enough to listen to what the Lord Protector has to say to me?’

  ‘You haven’t ceased your sewing,’ I say.

  ‘No, I haven’t, have I? So, what does His Royal Highness require of me?’

  ‘His Highness,’ I say without thinking. ‘Not His Royal Highness.’

  Lambert smiles. ‘A slip of the tongue,’ he says. ‘Which I hope is not treason at all, even now. The farmer’s boy from Huntingdon is, of course, merely His Highness. Scarcely royal at all. He was proud once to be called General. Which would you rather be, Mr Grey? A General or a Highness?’

  It is the sort of question Cromwell might have thrown at me – innocent enough but a test of some sort.

  ‘If I were a Highness,’ I say, ‘I could make myself a General easily enough.’

  Lambert frowns and for a moment I think that I may have insulted him, but he eventually nods grudgingly. ‘Well said, Mr Grey. So you might. General is a discounted title these days. Its value drops in times of peace. We can be bought cheaply at market.’

  I think that two thousand a year is not cheap, but I do not say this. Perhaps Cromwell is prepared to pay more than the going rate.

  ‘The Lord Protector still values the services that you rendered the State.’

  ‘Values? So he should. Men like me created the State. No army, no victories at Marston Moor or Dunbar. No victories at Marston Moor and Dunbar and we’d still have a throne and a Stuart arse on it. A Stuart arse on the throne, and Cromwell’s head would just be one of many on a spike on London Bridge. That may still come to pass if he’s not careful.’

  ‘Nobody doubts your contribution, my Lord,’ I say.

  I wonder if he will spit the word ‘contribution’ back at me as he spat ‘values’. But he simply sniffs at it.

  ‘Do they not? I sometimes wonder if your master believes that he and his Cambridgeshire militia defeated the King on their own. He certainly seems to have convinced Parliament that that is the case. Harrison, Fairfax, Fleetwood, myself – we all count for nothing. The Good Old Cause counts for nothing. The will of the people counts for nothing. Cromwell thinks I can be bought for a house and a pension. We shall see.’

  ‘The Republic is safe in His Highness’s hands,’ I say.

  ‘Who told you that? Cromwell?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Ha!’ he says.

  He starts to unpick the rose he was sewing. Something about it is not right. For a moment his needlework has his complete concentration. I wonder briefly who he reminds me of – then I realise that it is Cromwell whom he resembles. This is Cromwell as he would be if he had lost. But Cromwell would not have lost. That is the difference between them. Parliament was willing to let General Cromwell become their master. They would never have suffered my Lord Lambert to do the same.

  ‘So, what is Cromwell’s offer?’ he asks, not looking up. ‘More money? A bigger house? In return for which I agree to become Lord Lieutenant of Ireland or Governor of Jamaica or somewhere else obscure and far away, and I promise my allegiance in whatever terms they are demanded? Is that what His Highness requires?’

  ‘There is no offer,’ I say. ‘Cromwell simply wishes to know under what circumstances you are willing to take an oath of allegiance to the State.’

  ‘And by the State, he means His Majesty King Oliver the First?’

  ‘The oath would be to the new constitution.’

  ‘The difference is too small to matter. So, what were his precise words?’

  ‘As I say, just what the circumstances would be that might lead you to reconsider your decision not to swear allegiance.’

  ‘Those are the precise words?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘No, they’re not. Those aren’t Cromwell’s words. Cautious circumlocutions of that sort come from Thurloe. It’s Thurloe who’s sent you, isn’t it?’

  ‘I have spoken to Mr Thurloe,’ I say.

  ‘I don’t doubt it. Thurloe’s behind this as he’s been behind most things lately. It will have been Thurloe who calculated that a pension of two thousand – rather than one thousand or four thousand – was just enough to keep me quiet. And he was right, wasn’t he? I have kept quiet. And it will have been Thurloe who suggested that Wimbledon was close enough to London not to look like exile, but far enough away to ensure that it was. And now he sends you to sound me out. Why?’

  ‘Because His Highness asked him to do so.’

  ‘I doubt Cromwell is even aware you’ve come here. Thurloe knows Cromwell is sick. We all know Cromwell is sick. Thurloe needs to decide who to back next – me or Richard Cromwell or Henry Cromwell or Fairfax or Charles Stuart. That’s your real mission, in case you were wondering.’

  ‘You mean he is preparing to back you? Not Richard?’

  ‘Me. Richard. Richard and me. You can bet on more than one horse,’ says Lambert.

  ‘So, what would you have me say to Mr Secretary Thurloe?’

&nb
sp; ‘Nothing,’ says Lambert. ‘I won’t need him. If you speak to Cromwell, tell him I’m here in Wimbledon and that I can wait a long time. I’ve got longer than he has.’

  ‘It would certainly be convenient to you if the Lord Protector should die.’

  ‘You think so? It would be more convenient to everyone if the Lord Protector recognised who his true friends were. I am plotting no rebellion, if that is what Thurloe has sent you here to discover.’

  ‘Do you,’ I ask, ‘know a man named Sir Michael de Ripley?’

  There is no sign of recognition on his face – merely puzzlement. ‘Who is he? Some aristocratic friend of Thurloe’s? What role has Cromwell promoted him to?’

  ‘Or Sir Richard Willys?’

  ‘Willys? There was a Royalist general of that name. If he’s still alive, he’ll be a forgotten man. We all are. I doubt that Charles Stuart has any more loyalty to his generals than Cromwell does. Except that Cromwell was one of us once, and should know better.’

  ‘What about Esmond Underhill?’ I ask.

  Lambert pauses. I am not sure whether he will curse my impudence for questioning him so, or whether he will deny that he knows the man. Lambert is also unsure what he is about to do.

  ‘A man of that name once served under me,’ he says at length.

  ‘You remember him then?’

  He pauses again. ‘He was a corporal.’

  ‘You must have had many corporals.’

  ‘A few.’

  ‘Have you met with him lately?’

  ‘I cannot see that is any concern of yours. Did Thurloe tell you to question me on him?’

  ‘No,’ I say.

  ‘Then why do you ask after him?’

  ‘I met him recently,’ I say.

  I watch Lambert’s face. He is curious to know more, but I say nothing. Something tells me that Lambert remembers Underhill very well indeed.

  ‘Where did you meet him?’ he asks casually.

  ‘At Hampton Court,’ I reply.

  ‘I trust that you found him in good spirits?’

  ‘He seemed to be.’