Twilight of Gutenberg

by Hitoshi Goto

  “Your father also told you about other clues from his death bed, that this puzzle is to solve a mystery that is now history, and that it should be possible now or ten years from now, but he wasn’t confident about in fifty years time.”

  “Also that our lives will not be in danger even if we do solve the mystery.”

  “Right. Something related to the February 1945 air raid on Dresden. And that was all.”

  Erika nodded. She was smiling as always, but her gaze had grown serious.

  “I’ve already solved most of the ten conditions, you know.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. Some answers are indicated directly in the memorandum, and others aren’t. All but five or six, I guess. The problem is that however much I stare at those fragmentary answers I just can’t get them. It’s what you get when you combine them, isn’t it? That must be the big historical mystery that your father was talking about.”

  “I’m half delighted, and half sorry. You are the person I thought you were, and even without reading the memorandum you’ve solved the part that had me stumped. But still, I hate to lose,” she said, puffing out her cheeks. “Anyway, can I ask you to hurry up and finish reading it?”

  The memorandum was beginning to feel like a dead weight.

  Chapter 3

  November 1605

  London, England

  The House of Tudor ruled for just over a hundred turbulent years.

  Although it was the bloodline of the Prince of Wales, nobody had expected it to take over the throne of England. It landed in their lap thanks to the Wars of the Roses, which split the country into two between the Red Rose of the House of Lancaster and the White Rose of the House of York.

  The page of history turned in their favour when Henry VII acceded the throne in 1485 having beaten Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth.

  The age of the Tudors was lent a touch of brilliance by Henry VIII who ruled for some thirty-eight years with extraordinary strength. He changed his queen six times and executed over fifty eminent nobles and clergymen, including three prime ministers. Furthermore he severed relations with the Vatican, was excommunicated, and as a result established the Church of England. This would later involve not just England but Scotland, and cause all kinds of friction between Catholics and Protestants.

  When Elizabeth, the daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, was crowned Queen, England was just a second-rate minor nation compared to the great powers of, say, France and Spain. The national power was at rock bottom, the streets were full of vagrants, and labourers were made to work for next to nothing. The citizens were living in poverty and unsanitary conditions, and daily faced the fear of death by infectious diseases or malnutrition. From the religious perspective, too, the queen before Elizabeth, her elder sister Mary, had been aiming to reinstate Catholicism, so the country was divided between the Church of England and the Catholics.

  So when this pale, thin Protestant queen took over the throne, she had a tough task ahead of her. Despite being surrounded by strong Catholic nations and with even her own life in danger, however, it soon became clear that she was the perfect queen to take on this national crisis. She also had luck on her side. She was blessed with such capable administrators as William Cecil, his son Robert Cecil, and the strong arm of Francis Walsingham. More than anything, she had the essential temperament for a monarch: decisiveness and the ability to act.

  In order to make England a great nation, Elizabeth threw herself into fighting the power of the Catholic Church at home and abroad. She dismissed the Catholic bishops and appointed bishops from the Church of England throughout the country, and foiled several assassination attempts including the revolt of the Duke of Norfolk. As the decisive battle with Catholic superpower Spain inexorably approached, she even took the step of executing Mary Stuart, queen of Scotland, to avoid war on two fronts.

  The climax of the fight against Catholic power came in July 1588. Spain, which had been supporting Catholic Scotland for some time, sent an Armada with tens of thousands of troops in order to overthrow the queen of England. Both sides clashed at sea off the coast of England. Contrary to expectations, Spain’s large ships had superior firepower, but they suffered devastating damage at the hands of the small and nimble English ships.

  England’s destruction of the powerful Spanish Armada instilled confidence in the English public, much in the same way that Japan’s defeat of the Russian Baltic fleet did for the Japanese.

  It was a major victory in religious, economic, and political terms during what was an unprecedented national crisis, and it probably laid the foundations for the world-powerful British Empire.

  However, Elizabeth who ruled England as a virgin queen for well over forty years was also facing the great leveller. At dawn on the 24 March 1603, she was on her deathbed. In the large bedroom of Richmond Palace, used by successive monarchs since Edward III, her turbulent life came to an end.

  Three hours later a post horse was racing through the chill air carrying a message to Scotland. Upon arrival in Edinburgh, the messenger notified King James VI of Scotland, son of the Scottish queen Mary Stuart who was Queen Elizabeth’s cousin, that he was now the King of England.

  Barely eight days after having received the news of Queen Elizabeth’s death, James was on his way to London. England at the time commanded a population of 4,100,000 and was emerging as a great power, and he headed for England with a spring in his step, delighted that the king of Scotland with a quarter of the national power and population could also become the king of England. His coronation also gave hope to the Catholics. His mother Mary had been beheaded by an order of execution signed by Elizabeth, so for the Catholics, she was a martyr—and now her son was King of England.

  Under the Reformation of the Church initiated by Henry VIII, the populace was divided into Catholics, those who hid their Catholic beliefs and attended a Church of England church, the Church of England followers loyal to the queen, and the most devout Puritans.

  With the coronation of the new king, the Puritans were the first to move. They sought an even more far-reaching reformation and presented the king with the Millenary Petition, which culminated in the Hampton Court Conference.

  But their hopes were unexpectedly betrayed. Far from being rehabilitated however, due to fierce opposition from the Church of England the intention to exclude both the Puritans and the Catholics was instead declared. And so the conference closed with the words “No bishop, no King.”

  Even though James clearly set out his plan to exclude the Puritans and Catholics, the Puritans still maintained a presence at the Conference and later they famously went to America, but the crackdown on Catholics intensified.

  †

  The two men nursed their drinks.

  “What a wretched country this is,” the first man spat, putting down his goblet with a heavy thud. He lightly touched the brim of his hat as he went on forcefully, “It’s William Cecil and the Earl of Leicester. What good has it done the country to have the Protestants holding onto power?”

  “Spiritual dereliction,” the other man, whose upper body was wrapped in a French style cloak, said dismissively.

  “Precisely. Time is out of joint,” said the first man, Robert Catesby, nodding emphatically.

  “What to do? We can’t count on Spain any more. The Catholic fleet of justice is in disarray,” said the other man, Thomas Percy, with a gloomy sigh.

  Silence held sway over the pair for a while.

  “There is still a way,” Catesby said abruptly.

  “What?”

  “A scheme to make this country a Catholic nation loyal to the Vatican, the way it used to be. In one blow everything will return to those good times.”

  “But how? What about the king, and the Protestant ministers?” Percy asked dubiously.

  “Night has already fallen,” Catesby said, not answering the question
directly.

  Percy looked confused for a moment, then a look of satisfaction spread over his face. “Of course! The night is long that never finds the day.”

  The two men laughed. Then Catesby lowered his voice. “There is a tide in the affairs of men. Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; Omitted, all the voyage of their life, Is bound in shallows and in miseries.”

  “So is now one of those times?”

  “That’s right. We put some gunpowder under Westminster. When the king, queen, and all the ministers attend the opening of Parliament, we’ll blow them all to smithereens along with the palace.”

  Several more people joined this preposterous plot. John Wright and his old friend from York, Guy Fawkes, were there. Fawkes’ father was protestant, but his mother was Catholic and he followed in her footsteps. As many of three of his childhood friends became Catholic priests, and were executed during Queen Elizabeth’s reign. This may have been a factor in driving Fawkes to an even greater sense of religious calling. He joined the Catholic Spanish army in the battle in the Netherlands and was famed for his bravery in battle and proficiency in the use of gunpowder. He had just returned to England in 1603.

  On 20 May 1604, the plot suddenly took a step closer to being realised as Fawkes, known as Guido to his co-conspirators, lent his support.

  At that time the area around the parliament in Westminster was very unlike what it is today. The area was made up of a number of small buildings, along with a lot of private houses. Guy Fawkes was able to rent a house in a false name close to parliament. The first step had been taken.

  There were now thirteen conspirators, all Catholics. The plan was to dig a tunnel deep underground from that house to the inside of parliament. They would use this tunnel to take gunpowder to right under the feet of the politicians. And when the day came, they would ignite it.

  The hard work to build the tunnel started, but before getting very far they were blessed with a stroke of unexpected good luck. The coal store was located in the undercroft below the House of Lords, but the coal had been moved elsewhere, and the space was empty. The plotters jumped for joy and quickly rented the vacant coal store and, brought the thirty-six ready prepared kegs of gunpowder from Lambeth on the other side of the Thames. In order to increase the power of the explosion, stones and iron splinters were mixed in with the gunpowder.

  By May 1605 the preparations were in place, and the opening of parliament on 3 October was set as the date for the explosion. However, James I postponed the opening until 5 November, and so the coup d’état was also rescheduled for that date. During the months up until then, the plotters tightened up the details of their plan, and put the finishing touches to the arrangements for taking control of the country once the king and the members of parliament had died in the blast.

  On the scheduled day of 5 November, one of the members held a hunting meet attended by influential Catholic acquaintances. The plan was to secure their full cooperation upon receiving the news of the explosion. There was a high likelihood that Crown Prince Henry would meet the same fate as King James, so it was decided to set Prince Charles up as the new King.

  The arrangements for the explosion too were minutely planned. Guy Fawkes was to be in charge of the most important role of igniting the gunpowder. Afterwards, he would immediately escape and head to the River Thames, board a small boat and flee to Flanders on the continent.

  They were divided right up to the last minute as to whether they should aim to kill the entire parliament. Should the Catholic members also be targeted? Some insisted that on the day of the opening ceremony they should be warned to stay away. However, Catesby was against giving a warning since it could lead to the plot being discovered, and in the end no warning was given.

  The fateful day of 5 November approached, but the collapse of the plot came from an unexpected quarter. This was an anonymous letter sent to Lord Monteagle on 26 October warning him not to go to Parliament. There are a number of theories of who the sender was, but Monteagle’s brother in law, Francis Tresham, was one of the plot leaders and a strong candidate. Anywhere in the world the biggest cause of a conspiracy being discovered is betrayal. In no time at all, the entire plot was leaked to the government.

  The plot was brought to an abrupt halt at two o’clock in the morning of 5 November, 1605, when the door of the undercroft was suddenly kicked down and a search party led by Thomas Knyvet burst in. Guy Fawkes was quickly overcome and arrested.

  When Catesby and Percy realised the plot had been discovered, they fled to the Midlands.

  Guy Fawkes was interrogated by King James and the President of the Privy Council in the king’s bedroom and then incarcerated in the Tower of London. At first he had identified himself as John Johnson and insisted he was working alone, but after being tortured for three days he finally confessed to the whole plot.

  Apart from Catesby and Percy, who were felled by musket shots when they put up a resistance, the remaining plotters were caught and all found guilty. Three months after the plot, in the last two days of January of the following year, they were executed in the west side of Saint Paul’s Cathedral’s churchyard and Old Place Yard right outside Parliament by the cruellest form of execution, being hung, drawn, and quartered, although Fawkes managed to hang himself and was already dead when quartered. The whole affair came to be known as The Gunpowder Plot.

  †

  As the ink dried up, William replaced his quill in its holder and gently massaged his eyelids with his fingertips.

  He opened his eyes again and looked at his father’s portrait hanging on the wall: it bore the family’s coat of arms, two spears; his ancestors must have been fierce Saxon warriors. He himself had substituted the spear for a pen. Odd how life worked sometimes.

  To the right of the portrait was hanging a lithograph sent to him recently by a patron from the nobility. It was a painting of a woman with curves that had absolutely no place in religion. She had her eyes closed, and held a lock of her long blonde hair between the index and middle fingers of her right hand. Who on earth had made such a sensuous picture? Neither the cross nor the Virgin Mary were depicted in it, something unheard of at the time. For some reason it set his heart racing.

  As if to escape the strange spell of the picture, he shook his head hard and took up his pen again.

  The piece he was working on now was titled Macbeth, and was set in the eleventh century.

  However, his mind wasn’t on the play, it was on the progress of the trial now taking place. What could he take his anger out on?

  The gunpowder plot had been discovered at the critical moment, just as it was to be put into action, and the conspirators had been caught red-handed. This had given people the impression that all Catholics were part of a conspiracy.

  But William himself was secretly a Catholic, and wondered whether it hadn’t been a trap set by the government to corner the oppressed Catholics into an even worse position.

  He could only think that the plot had been intentionally set up by the government, who laid the groundwork and cunningly incited hot-blooded young Catholics who fell for it as surely as fire set to dry leaves.

  However, this play would be performed at the palace and he couldn’t openly criticize the government. It was vital to proceed with the utmost caution. Once again he locked his anger away in his heart.

  Just then, he had a flash of inspiration.

  Of course! Couldn’t he use similar technique as Anthony’s oration at Caesar’s funeral? He had had Anthony say that he had no intention of directly criticising Brutus, and followed this with a pause.

  The pause had let the opposite meaning of the spoken words sink in with the audience.

  All he had to do was to outwardly be in agreement with the government line, while in fact hinting at the opposite meaning. Yes, that’s what he would do. The Catholics at least would understand. They would see the pale
flame of anger burning in his heart.

  He smiled, and again took up his pen and started writing the lines for Lennox in Act 3 Scene 6 of Macbeth.

  My former speeches have but hit your thoughts,

  Which can interpret farther. Only I say

  Things have been strangely borne…

  6 June 1944

  Normandy, France

  A long time had passed since William had set sail from Normandy and headed for the White Cliffs of Dover to claim the throne of England.

  This time, from the other side of the cliffs, the Anglo Saxons were aiming to descend on the continent in their hordes, descendants of the Angles and Saxon tribes that previously had made the crossing to Dover.

  In June 1944, the biggest known seaborne invasion in history, the Normandy Landings, later written about in the The Longest Day, was being carried out. The weather on the sixth was to be stormy, but if they delayed the landings until the conditions were perfect, the next possible date would be after the nineteenth. Despite the less than ideal conditions, therefore, at the very last minute General Allied Commander Eisenhower ordered the landings to go ahead.

  Having received their orders, Allied forces mostly comprising the Americans and British went into action. Three airborne divisions, and the first amphibious landings force of five infantry divisions and three armoured brigades were to arrive on the Normandy coast. There were five landing sites in all, Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, and Sword.

  D-Day started quietly, as early in the morning the first troops were parachuted in. Numerous round white objects floated down from the sky as the 82nd and 101st American Airborne Divisions were dropped inland of the Utah landing site.

  “Achtung! Achtung! Sie kommen!”

  Fire from the German carbines and US machine guns crisscrossed the night sky.

  The battle for Normandy had started in spectacular fashion.