Read My Heart

by Jane Dunn

  The residency at Brussels was in many ways William’s idea of a dream job. He had become so frustrated by his inability to speak German and oppressed by the fact that all business and entertainment among the German principalities involved compulsory binge-drinking on a death-defying scale, that he had contemplated resigning his commission. There was some satisfaction, however, in reporting to Arlington that even the new royal favourite, Lord Carlingford, could not keep up with the German consumption of alcohol: in attempting to uphold his country’s honour at the emperor’s bibulous court, he was subsequently bedridden for ten days with agonising gout.

  William’s antipathy to German culture made his admiration for the Low Countries all the more marked. Brussels was part of the Spanish Netherlands and was neutral in the current Anglo-Dutch war. As he could speak French and Spanish well, William had suggested to Arlington that to have a man on the spot in Brussels, who could report on diplomatic and political shifts variously in Spain, the United Provinces to the north and an increasingly expansionist France, would be advantageous to the British king, and would indeed suit himself too. He had been greatly impressed by his first visit to Brussels as a young man and was attracted to a society that was more tolerant and egalitarian than his own. He found entirely congenial the wealthy, yet simple and highly cultured way of life he encountered there. So much so that he had declared at the time that if Charles was restored to the throne, ‘he should be soe well pleas’d to serve him in [Brussels], as being his Resident there’.41

  William might have thought twice about pursuing a diplomatic career if he had recalled the quip Sir Henry Wotton,† ambassador to Venice in James I’s time, inscribed in a visitor’s book: ‘An ambassador is an honest man sent to lie abroad for the good of his country.’ The Latin† in which it was written did not provide the elegant pun on ‘lie’, but instead was unequivocal about the dishonesty endemic to the office. There was too much truth in it and when the king heard of Wotton’s jest it was the end of his ambassadorial career. Some fifteen years after he had first declared his youthful ambition, William was about to be given his chance and was keen to prove himself a good ambassador for his country, still to learn what would be expected of him and how temperamentally unsuited he was. His main responsibilities were to keep on good terms with the governor Castel-Rodrigo,‡ bolster Spain’s neutrality and help advance a treaty between that country and England.

  Residency also meant William could send for Dorothy and his family, and his lonely exile would soon be at an end. But before a happy Temple household could be created in Brussels, he had to deal with the increasingly renegade bishop and the cargo of tin, sent to pay him for his troops, that had been lost or gone astray in a storm.

  The admirable Alderman Backwell had sent a huge cargo of tin packed into six ships, two of which were lost in a great storm off Ostend. As William described the disaster in one of his characteristically lively letters to Arlington: ‘do you know that the sea has drunk up half our tin to the Hollanders’ good health, being without doubt the best friend they have,’ and then switching lightly from metaphor to pun, ‘God knows how many poor innocent soles were knocked on the head last Monday morning by two hundred ton of our tin.’42 When Backwell tried to get a reasonable price for what had been salvaged, knowing he had no choice but to sell, the Antwerp traders took advantage of his misfortune. The Bishop of Münster blamed William for the delay in the money and William did his best to satisfy everyone, afraid of losing his precious reputation for honest dealing: ‘I shall look like the veriest rogue in the world, and such as it will not be much for his Majesty’s honour to employ.’ William sent his assessment of the situation as he saw it towards the end of the first year of what became known as the second Anglo-Dutch war: ‘For the Hollanders, they were certainly never worse at their ease than now, being braved and beaten both at sea and land; flayed with taxes, distracted with factions, and their last resource, which is the protection of France, poisoned with extreme jealousies; yet that must be their game, or else a perfect truckling [servile] peace with England.’43

  In January 1666 France, in support of the United Netherlands, declared war with Britain and sent an army against the Bishop of Münster whose forces had made a foray over the eastern border. In a letter to the Duke of Ormonde William wrote how, despite being on the opposing side, he had great sympathy for the civilised, generous-natured Dutch whose hospitality and good manners he saw patronised and abused by the French troops sent to their aid. There was a great deal of anecdotal evidence suggesting the bishop was utterly duplicitous and seeking to make a separate peace with France but William continued to trust that he was a man of his word. Writing to Münster as late as March 1666, in Latin, their lingua franca, he set out to assure him that he had authorised another payment, unable to believe the bishop capable of such bare-faced treachery: ‘On the contrary, I am entirely persuaded, as well from your Highness’s last letter, as from your virtue and good sense, that you have too great a regard for your faith and honour, to darken the luster of so fair a life, by so foul a stain.’44

  In fact this said much more about William’s concept of good faith and honour and his extraordinary naivety than about the bishop whose strength of purpose and ambition he had recognised rightly, but whose moral character he had entirely misread. William’s ingenuousness, however, meant that the following month he had to embark on a clandestine dash to prevent Münster signing a separate treaty with the Dutch, followed by a breakneck cross-country ride, while suffering the effects of a hangover and sleep starvation.

  The moment Charles II had heard that this perfidious peace treaty was pending he ordered Temple to reach the bishop as fast as possible and, by being over-punctilious, to delay proceedings as far as he could. Having to pass through enemy territory, William travelled incognito, pretending where necessary to be a Spanish envoy. When he was accosted by the Duke of Neuburg’s* men, however, who demanded to know who he was and what his business, he found he could not bring himself to lie to a man whom he respected and who had been kind to Charles II. Again this incident reveals William’s temperamental unfitness for highest diplomacy, unwilling as he was to be anything other than frank and open. Scruples apart, he knew he would make an unconvincing liar, telling his father, ‘though I went upon an errand that I knew was disagreeable to [the duke], yet I thought he would be less likely to cross me, if I acquainted him frankly with it, than if I disguised scurvily, as I was likely to do, being the thing of the world I could do the most uneasily’.45

  In fact, this time William’s judgement of the duke as ‘the finest Gentleman of any German I have seen’ was proved to be correct, for, although Neuberg wished for peace at any cost and warned William not to proceed as the journey was too dangerous and he would find the treaty already signed, he agreed after much persuasion to lend him a guide. William acknowledged he was extremely weary but insisted he would ride on. His letter to his father took up the story of this dangerous and gruelling cross-country dash.

  ‘I never travelled a more savage country, over cruel hills, through many great and thick woods, stony and rapid streams, never hardly in any highway, and very few villages, until I came near Dortmund, a city of the Empire, and within a day’s journey, or something more, of Munster.’ William, with his page and guide, arrived too late and found Dortmund’s city gates already closed. Exhausted and desperate for food and sleep, they begged to be allowed to enter but were turned away with the suggestion they try a village about three miles away. Here they found a section of the German cavalry and therefore had to duck into the animals’ quarters: ‘so as the poor Spanish Envoy [William] was fain to eat what he could get in a barn, and to sleep upon a heap of straw, and lay my head upon my page instead of a pillow’. This page saved him from arrest, for as the soldiers entered the barn to enquire about this stranger and the purpose of his journey, and also whether they had seen an English envoy on the road, the page assured them that the Englishman was a good two days’ ride away. Will
iam was left in peace to sleep at last.

  His next ordeal was when he arrived in Münster’s territory and was received by the bishop’s Scottish lieutenant general with the usual drinking competition. William, anxious and exhausted, recognised with a sinking heart that ‘nothing of honour or entertainment’ would be omitted. On entering the great hall of the bishop’s castle, he was faced with

  the most Episcopal way of drinking that could be invented … there stood many flaggons ready charged, the General called for wine to drink the King’s health; they brought him a formal bell of silver gilt, that might hold about two quarts or more [half a gallon or 21/4 litres]; he took it empty, pulled out the clapper, and gave it to me, who he intended to drink to, then had the bell filled, drunk it off to his Majesty’s health, then asked me for the clapper, put it in, turned down the bell, and rung it out, to shew he had played fair, and left nothing in it; took out the clapper, desired me to give it to whom I pleased, then gave his bell to be filled again, and brought it to me.

  William had worked out a way of coping with the expectations that he drink gargantuan amounts on every occasion by sharing the toast with other men in his retinue: ‘I that never used to drink, and seldom would try … had the entertainment of seeing his health go current through about a dozen hands, with no more share in it than just what I pleased.’

  However, when he finally faced the bishop himself in Münster, he was unable to get away with this stratagem but had to endure a feast with all the bishop’s chief army officers that lasted four hours ‘and in bravery I drank fair like all the rest’ but was sick as a dog once he got back to his lodgings. William realised pretty quickly that, despite the bishop’s evasions, the treaty was already signed and the wily old prelate was just waiting to receive any day the money he had already authorised. The bishop tried all kinds of delaying tactics to keep William in Münster, hoping thereby to prevent him blocking this latest payment, but when he realised that William intended to return to Brussels sooner than he hoped, the bishop suggested he go by Cologne for safety’s sake. William knew that route would not only have taken days longer but was also bristling with hostile troops and was therefore, in fact, much more dangerous. Now that the alliance with Münster had collapsed, William saw his duty only to salvage as much of Charles’s money as he could. This called for subterfuge and almost superhuman physical endurance.

  He had to survive one last eating and drinking marathon. Martha tells us that this one lasted for eight hours, before William made his excuses and pretended to stagger to his bed to sleep. But instead of sleeping off the enforced excesses, he slipped out of his lodgings and was mounted on his horse and away between three and four in the morning. It was Good Friday and he hoped this would mean his absence went unremarked for some time. Bribing the gatekeeper to close the city gates behind him and keep them closed for two hours past their usual opening time, he set off with spare horses and the Duke of Neuburg’s guide to find his quickest route back to the duke’s territory and safety, his life in real danger until then. William continued the story to his father:

  I rode till eight at night through the wildest country and the most unfrequented ways that ever I saw, but being then quite spent, and ready to fall from my horse, I was forced to stop and lay me down upon the ground till my guard went to a peasant’s house in sight, to find if there were any lodging for me; he brought me word there was none, nor any provision in the house, nor could find anything but a little bottle of juniper water [gin], which is the common cordial on that country: I drank a good deal, and with it found my spirits so revived, that I resolved to venture upon the three leagues [nine miles] that remained of my journey, so as to get into the territories of Neuburg.

  Only then would he be safe from hostile troops. He still had a long way to go, however: his entire trip from Münster to Brussels was nearly 200 miles and the Neuburg territories began about halfway between the two. ‘About midnight I came to my lodging, which was so miserable that I lay upon straw, got on horseback by break of day, and to Dusseldorp* by noon; where being able to ride no further I went to bed for an hour, sent to make my excuses to the Duke of Neuburg upon my haste and weariness, and to borrow his coach to carry me to Ruremond† the next.’46

  Eventually William arrived in Brussels in a collapsed state. He was, however, just in time to stop the next tranche of money being handed over to the bishop and, even better, managed to impound between 5,000 and 6,000 of the bishop’s best troops and sent them to the Marquis of Castel-Rodrigo, neutral governor of the Spanish Netherlands, thus keeping them from French employment against the English.

  William wrote to his father that it was the hardest journey he had ever made in his life and he would never be able to undertake such a relentless and demanding ride again. Nevertheless the extent of his determination, courage and sheer physical energy displayed in the whole enterprise belied those who accused him of being a dilettante and epicurean. He was close to forty and a diplomat, not a soldier, and the very real danger and physical hardship of his mission was beyond the usual brief for a king’s ambassador, even in that volatile time. His superhuman efforts, however, did not go unrewarded. In January 1666, while William was in the middle of his struggles with the faithless bishop, Charles II, on the recommendation of Arlington, had seen fit to reward William Temple with a baronetcy.

  The news of William’s honour was brought to Sheen by William Godolphin,* a young man of considerable charm who was to make his career as a diplomat in Spain. He appeared to have stayed with Dorothy and Martha for a few days and organised the payment of the fee for William’s baronetcy (the sale of honours was an accepted source of revenue for the crown). Dorothy thought highly of Godolphin, writing to her husband ‘that she shall love [him] whilst she lives for the kindness of that visit’.47 Interestingly, he seemed to fall a little in love with the young widow Martha but she seemed resolutely set on never marrying again, although this possible suitor went on to impress Lord Sandwich, earn a knighthood, and even be described by Samuel Pepys in glowing terms as ‘a very pretty and able person, a man of very fine parts and of infinite zeal’.48

  William was delighted to become Sir William: the title gave him the necessary status in his negotiations and was also a symbol of the king’s recognition of the hard work he had put in on his behalf. As a young man William had written of the joy of just rewards compared with the corruption of flattery: ‘I must confesse there is no voice so sweet as that of praise where a man thinks he deserves it, and that tis the right kind of praise wch rewards worth and virtue, not that bastard one which soothes greatnesse and fortune.’49

  In his delight he wrote to thank Charles and sent him, via a friend, the gift of a painting by the Renaissance master Holbein,† one of the best, he assured the king, from Lord Arundel’s collection.

  Even though the Münster treaty proved to be a fiasco it was the responsibility of the architects of the treaty, Clarendon and Arlington, and not the man on the ground who had struggled to make a politically mismatched alliance work. Arlington graciously credited William for his tireless effort in the matter: ‘His Majesty is entirely satisfied in your proceedings; and therefore whatever your success has been in your journey, or whatever mortification your disappointment may give you, do not believe any of it is imputed to you, or to your want of good conduct and zealous affection to his Majesty’s service.’50

  The Münster treaty displayed William’s full range of qualities as a diplomat: his great personal charm and frank, open nature that made him impetuous and impatient in action; his reliance more on intuition and gut instinct about people and situations than the usual cautious protocol; his lack of diplomatic evasion and the silken hand of the courtier. He was courageous and energetic with a highly principled attitude to everything, interpreted by some as arrogance, for he preferred to walk away from success and financial reward than compromise his honour or beliefs. But it revealed too his potentially disastrous naivety and lofty expectations of the honour of other
s. His candour and romantic idealism enhanced the happiness of his personal life but did not lend itself to a cynical court riven with factions at home, and intrigue abroad.

  The main pleasure of William’s life, however, was his home and family. We have no direct evidence of Dorothy’s domestic life at the time but it is more than likely that she lived at their house in Sheen much as she had at Chicksands, with a personal maid, kitchen staff, and household servants to make the fires, clean the floors and wash the linen. Gardeners would tend the fruit trees and grow vegetables and flowers for the house. To these were most likely added a tutor for John, now ten. Dorothy’s day, like many gentlewomen of the time, was taken up with reading, writing letters, embroidering and walking in the gardens. There was a certain decorum to social life with necessary visiting and receiving of family, friends and acquaintances. Family members came to stay, sometimes for weeks on end, moving from house to house, and they had to be endured, as Dorothy had found to her chagrin when cousin Molle had turned up regularly at Chicksands. But Dorothy also had an informed and intelligent interest in William’s career and it is clear that he confided in her and valued her judgement. She gave the impression of being more focused and ambitious for her husband than he was for himself. William had a relaxed confidence in his abilities but was unwilling to promote himself to others, something Dorothy was not afraid to do, specifically when she became his debt collector from the government.

  During William’s absence Dorothy had been pregnant with her eighth child: having lost all six babies that had followed their first beloved son, it was a time of foreboding. She was thirty-eight and her pregnancy had been turbulent, full of alarms and desperate excursions with her frantic attempts to escape the Great Plague and keep Martha, her son and servants safe. Given her past history, it must have seemed a miracle that Dorothy’s baby, a girl, was not only born healthy but defied the painful pattern of birth and death, and lived. They named her Diana after Dorothy’s closest friend Lady Diana Rich.