The Battle of All the Ages

by J. D. Davies

  ‘Not in my hearing, Mister Lanherne. Rarely in my hearing, at any rate.’

  At last, I walked to the water’s edge, and looked out to sea. The Jupiter had dropped anchor, and by the light of the flames from the Duirel, I could see Beau’s longboat approaching.

  My old friend waded ashore, and we exchanged formal salutes.

  ‘Deaths?’ he asked.

  ‘Two of ours. Perhaps ten of theirs. And I think Kranz will testify to all of it – the smuggling, the collusion with Conibear. Indeed, I think the Reverend Gale will be kept busy for a day or two, taking the sworn depositions of all concerned in this business.’

  ‘Then it’s done. The coast is safe from the hell-hound at last, and my reputation is redeemed. A part of my reputation, at any rate.’

  We were silent; we both knew what had to happen. At length, it was Beau who spoke the words that had to be said.

  ‘I shall need to make ready to ride to London, I take it? To appear before – who?’

  ‘Yes, Beau. Take the Jupiter back into harbour, say your farewells to Bella Mendez, and then we ride. And you will appear before the King, in person.’

  I did not tell him of the truth about the army at La Rochelle. Beau would realise at once what it meant: Nathaniel Garrett would have been the other obvious scapegoat for the division of the fleet, but he was dead. So if one man alone was going to be offered up as a sacrifice to the mob, as the King wanted, then that man could only be Beau Harris.

  It would be a bitter journey to London.

  Part Three

  THE ST JAMES’S DAY FIGHT

  21-25 JULY 1666

  Chapter Eighteen

  By this means, when a battle’s won,

  The war’s as far from being done;

  For those that save themselves, and fly,

  Go halves, at least, i’ th’ victory;

  And sometimes, when the loss is small,

  And danger great, they challenge all;

  Print new additions to their feats,

  And emendations in Gazettes…

  To set the rabble on a flame,

  And keep their governors from blame,

  Disperse the news the pulpit tells,

  Confirm’d with fire-works and with bells…

  Butler, Hudibras

  We stood before the King of England in a room on the landward side of the palace of Whitehall, in the block between the tennis court and the tilt yard. The small window gave a view over Saint James’s Park, but none of us – Beau, my brother, and I – had any leisure to admire it. We were all in awe of a King whose demeanour was akin to that of a lion moving indolently toward a kill.

  Charles the Second stood behind a small table. On it were two ship models.

  ‘Behold, Captain Harris. This ship, to my right, has a large gallery at the stern, to enable her captain or admiral to take the air.’ The King pointed toward the feature in question. ‘Such galleries are characteristic of Spanish men-of-war, and Spanish men-of-war alone. Now, this ship, to my left, has no gallery. You will perceive that she has finer lines, more sheer aft – you do know what sheer is, Captain Harris? – and sits higher out of the water than either the Spaniard or any of our English ships. Are you content with that, Captain Harris? Do you now see the difference between a Spanish fleet and a French one?’ Beau bowed his head miserably. Since we entered the King’s presence, he had been the very image of dejection. ‘Very well. Let us now consider what you reported –’

  All through the King’s tirade (which was already approaching perhaps ten minutes’ duration), a thought nagged away at the very edge of my mind. Slowly, this tiny thought chipped away at the other, more prominent ones: notably my near-treasonable rumination that it was surely hypocrisy for this King, who had enthusiastically granted commissions to gentleman captains like Beau and myself, now to denounce one of his own creations for an ignorance of the ways of the sea that His Majesty had done nothing whatsoever to remedy. Even that thought was progressively driven out of my mind by the other, more urgent, more elusive, one. It was something important, something I had missed, something I should have seen. But however hard I tried to concentrate, I could not quite grasp it.

  ‘You saw the Spanish fleet off Lisbon on the fourteenth of May,’ the King was saying, ‘and on your return to Plymouth you immediately sent an express to London –’

  There. There it was, emerging into the light. You fool, Matthew Quinton: you poor, stupid fool, for not seeing it until now.

  ‘Wait, Your Majesty,’ I said.

  The King peered down his remarkably long and ugly nose, fixing me with one of his coldest and most imperious stares.

  ‘It does not do to interrupt Majesty, Sir Matthew Quinton.’

  ‘I crave Your Majesty’s pardon. But is there a copy of the Gazette to hand? The copy that contains Captain Harris’s letter?’

  ‘The Gazette?’ said the King. ‘What light can that tedious rag possibly shed upon this business?’

  ‘Trust me, Sire.’

  The King gave me what seemed remarkably like a royal evil eye. I was taking an almighty risk; all Charles Stuart had to do was to stand upon his royal authority, to reject my imprecations, and to damn me for an impudent scoundrel who dared to contradict the will of God’s anointed upon Earth. But I had the credit of having undertaken this distasteful mission for him, and my brother had the credit of being, perhaps, the king’s own sibling. If Charles the Second could not trust the Quintons, then his throne rested upon feeble foundations indeed, and at last, that simple truth seemed to win out. The king beckoned one of his pageboys to him, and sent him scuttling away.

  The minutes passed. Beau, Charles and I stood there, unable to move without the King’s express command. And the King sat, stock still and impassive, almost as though he had been turned to stone by an invisible Medusa.

  At length the lad returned, and handed me the copy of the Gazette. I opened it, read, and handed it directly to the King.

  ‘Behold, Your Majesty. Proof that Captain Harris is entirely innocent of any wrongdoing.’

  Both Beau and my brother looked at me in utter astonishment. But the King simply read, then re-read, the page in front of him.

  ‘I do not see it,’ he said. ‘It is his own letter to Coventry, reporting his sighting of the French fleet. The fleet that proved to be the Spanish. The letter that I fully intend to upbraid him about.’

  ‘Quite, Your Majesty. Captain Harris’s letter of the twenty-second of May, from onboard the Jupiter in the harbour of Plymouth. My Lord?’

  I turned to my brother. The Earl of Ravensden seemed nonplussed, but then he blinked. He had caught my meaning.

  ‘The twenty-second of May was the very day that Your Majesty and your councillors took the decision to divide the fleet,’ he said.

  ‘But a letter could never get from Plymouth to London on the same day!’ cried Beau. ‘It must have been two days, perhaps three, before my letter reached Whitehall!’

  ‘That can only be so, Your Majesty,’ said my brother.

  There was a long silence. Although it was a warm day in July, the room suddenly seemed chill beyond measure.

  ‘Yes. It can only be so.’

  There was a curious note in the King’s voice, and an equally curious aspect to my brother’s expression.

  ‘And the publication in the Gazette proves it,’ said Charles Quinton. ‘The mob may blame Captain Harris now, because the only evidence they have of how the fleet came to be divided is this published copy of his letter. But if they were aware of all the facts, they would see that this evidence also exonerates him. And, of course, those facts could be brought to light in any trial of Captain Harris for treason. Would that not be so, Your Majesty?’

  ‘It would be so,’ said the King, with evident bad grace.

  From being like a statue upon his chair, Charles the Second was now shifting uncomfortably and fidgeting.

  At last, I realised what I was witnessing. The King would have known full well
that he and his ministers made the decision to divide the fleet long before Beau’s letter arrived in London. At first it must have seemed like a godsend: proof that the French fleet was sailing for the Channel, and that a decision taken with considerable reluctance had turned out to be correct after all. But there was an unintended consequence of the letter’s arrival, and the decision to publish it in the Gazette. The intelligence of the fleet off Lisbon was the single piece of information that the government made public. The people of England duly assumed that the division of the fleet was founded upon Beau’s letter. So when the King learned, through me, that Beau had mistaken the Spanish fleet for the French, he must have thought that he had the perfect scapegoat, the ideal sacrifice to offer up to the baying mob. And that is how it might have been, but for the inconvenient fact that publishing the letter in the Gazette also set the date of its despatch in stone, and proved beyond doubt that Beau Harris could not possibly have caused the division of the fleet.

  Of course, I could say none of this in that room, at that moment. Openly to accuse the King of England of being prepared to have an innocent man executed to serve his own dubious ends would undoubtedly have seen me changing places with Beau. But I did not need to say it. I could see in my brother’s expression that he thought it, and I could see in the king’s face that he knew full well what my brother – who was, perhaps, also his own brother – was thinking. That was sufficient.

  ‘Very well, then,’ said King Charles the Second, as though he had tired of the entire matter in the blink of an eye. ‘Captain Harris, you may return to your ship at Plymouth. We are well pleased with your actions against the privateer Kranz, and are glad that our coasts have been rid of such a pest. We are also certain of your future discretion in this matter of our, uh, slight misconception of your actions.’ Beau bowed. He was a staunch Cavalier, and no man would ever hear of the king’s duplicity from his lips; every one in the room knew that. ‘But take heed of this lesson. Learn seamanship, as your friend here has done. Above all, Captain Harris, learn how to distinguish the ships of one nation from another.’ The King turned his gaze toward me. ‘Sir Matthew, you may return to the fleet. If the reports coming to me are accurate – if they have been dated correctly, and so forth – then it should be weighing from the Buoy of the Nore upon the next tide.’

  I bowed. Beau and I left the room, leaving my brother to embark upon what must have been a particularly strained conversation with the King.

  ‘Well, Matt!’ Beau was not one to dwell on things: he was already in remarkably good spirits, for a man who had been staring at the gallows barely five minutes before. ‘By God, Sir Matthew Quinton, I owe you my life! You are a new Nostradamus, or a Merlin – a veritable seer! How could you know that the dates did not match?’

  ‘I should have realised long before, when I received intelligence from my brother giving the date of the decision to divide the fleet. But it is an odd thing, is it not? One can stare things in the face, yet not see they are there.’

  Quite suddenly, the colour seemed to drain from Beau’s face, and he swayed upon his feet. He reached out and steadied himself upon the oak panelling that covered the wall of the corridor. In that moment, Captain Beaudesert Harris must have realised what had very nearly happened, and how lucky he had been. But as a loyal Cavalier, he voiced no criticism of his King. None whatsoever.

  ‘I am eternally in your debt, Matt – and that of the Gazette, by Heaven!’ he said instead. ‘Think upon it, my friend. Just a year ago, before the Gazette existed, I would surely have hanged, for my letter would have been lost somewhere here in the palace, never to be seen again. Thank God for the news-papers, then, Sir Matthew!’ His colour returned, and with it his usual, unabashed good humour. ‘And I’ll not take the Plymouth road before buying you a fine dinner, Matt Quinton, and pouring enough ale and wine down you to float a fireship!’

  ‘Another time, Beau. I must go to Cornelia before I leave for the fleet. But when you return to Plymouth, my friend, be certain to pass my compliments to Mistress Mendez!’

  Beau grinned.

  ‘The fair Bella. Yes, I will. A bewitching little creature, is she not?’

  ‘Be careful that you are not bewitched too far, Beau. She is much too young and much too clever for you, Captain Harris!’

  * * *

  Phineas Musk’s familiar form lurked in the entrance hall of Ravensden House.

  ‘Sir Matthew.’

  ‘Musk. You are ready to return with me to the King’s – to the Royal Sceptre?’

  ‘Sea chest packed and already on its way to Tower Wharf, Sir Matthew. Looking forward to sea air and killing a few Dutchmen after this last business with your brother. Too much politics, and you know my feelings about that sorry world of scabrous blaggards and whoremongers. Too much of trying to wring the truth out of shifty clerks in the secretary of state’s office, too. Took a lot of wringing, some of ’em.’

  ‘As you say, Musk. A bad business altogether. It very nearly went badly for Captain Harris.’

  ‘But it wouldn’t have been him, would it, even if they’d chopped him into pieces on Tower Hill. Way I see it, the Duke and the Prince were each determined to be on their own. If it hadn’t been the tales of the French fleet and army, it would have been something else. Especially for Prince Rupert. Never could stomach anyone else’s authority, that one. Everyone said as much, back in the wars, your uncle Tristram at the head of them. Rupert would have found a way to have his own fleet, mark my words.’

  A dark thought struck me, but I suppressed it. I was in a desperate hurry to see Cornelia and to return to sea, so I pressed on, through the warren of corridors and low, narrow doorways that characterised Ravensden House, up to the room that Cornelia had appropriated for her own.

  ‘Matthew!’

  She flung herself into my arms and kissed me profusely. She had a better pallor than when I saw her last; indeed, she seemed radiant. She had also put on weight.

  ‘Thank God you are well, husband! Your business in Plymouth was not dangerous?’

  I thought of swinging from yardarm to yardarm with Bella Mendez, and fighting desperately against Kranz’s men on Cawsand beach.

  ‘No, my love. Not dangerous at all. And you are well? Truly well?’

  She pushed herself away from me.

  ‘Do I not look well, Matthew?’ She grinned. ‘Do I not look as well as you have ever seen me?’

  ‘That you do.’

  ‘It has a cause, husband. The miracle we prayed for has finally happened. I am with child, Matthew.’

  I stood there, stock still, as the room vanished all around me. I felt myself begin to sway, but somehow I remained upright capable of speech.

  ‘With child? Great God in Heaven – Cornelia, a child? How long…?’

  ‘Three months, perhaps.’

  I thought back to my brief time at home after returning from Sweden with the Gothenburg convoy and before taking command of the Royal Sceptre. It had been a loving and vigorous time, but no more so than many of our other times together, when we had hoped in vain for success in conceiving our long-desired child.

  I gathered her in my arms, and suddenly realised I was weeping profusely. I could find no words; none at all. It was as well that she could.

  ‘He will be Earl of Ravensden one day.’

  ‘It might be a girl.’

  ‘Or twins. Remember you and I are both twins, Matthew.’ She never usually spoke of this; my own twin, Henrietta, had died when we were thirteen, and she knew I still grieved for her loss. ‘But I am certain it will be a boy, and he will be an Earl one day.’

  Neither of us thought to suggest that Charles might marry again, and father a son. After all, his experience of marriage, in a perverse alliance engineered by the King for his own ends, had been calamitous.

  It had also run contrary to his own instincts in every conceivable way.

  ‘If it is a girl, I will be well content as long as she is like her mother.’ She looked up at m
e with an uncommon seriousness in her damp eyes.

  ‘Boy or girl, husband, the child will need a father. Do not get yourself killed in the next battle, Matthew. Do not let my countrymen deprive our child of you.’

  ‘Fear not, love. Remember I am the only captain in the fleet that sails with three indestructible talismans – Phineas Musk, the King’s Prick, and Lord Rochester’s monkey.’

  Chapter Nineteen

  What’s that I see? Ah, ’tis my George agen!

  It seems they in sev’n weeks have rigg’d him then

  The curious heav’ns with lightning him surrounds,

  To view him and his name in thunder sounds…

  Stay heaven a while, and thou shalt see him sail,

  And George too, he can thunder, lightning, hail.

  Marvell, Third Advice to a Painter

  ‘Did you ever see the like, Musk?’

  ‘Course I did, Sir Matthew. Saw old General Blake’s fleet put out against the Dutch in the year Fifty-Three. A grander sight still, that was.’

  The old curmudgeon and I were on the deck of the Bezan Yacht, sailing north-east towards the King’s Channel. There, dead ahead, was a remarkable sight; and despite Musk’s attempt to belittle it, I could see that even he was awestruck by the spectacle that lay ahead of us. The Navy Royal of England, beaten and shattered less than seven weeks before, was in magnificent order, a vast line of ships perhaps ten miles long, the White Squadron leading the Red and then the Blue to sea. Ensigns and pennants streamed proudly in the south-westerly breeze. The dockyards had done an astonishing job. Not only were all the damaged ships from the four-day fight repaired: new ones had joined the ranks, and only a few of them were feeble hired merchantmen brought in to make up the numbers. As we passed through the fleet, the sense of determination was palpable. The navy was sailing to avenge its humiliation and its fallen heroes, to pay back the Dutch for all the death and suffering they had inflicted. There was the Royal Charles, the great Union Flag streaming out from her main top, but I had little regard for her; my heart was leaping at the sight of the ship directly behind the flagship. There was the Royal Sceptre, immaculate and with no sign of the damage she had sustained, keeping station a few hundred yards ahead of the Black Prince, Kit Farrell’s command. My old friend doffed his hat and grinned as we sailed past, and while I replied in kind, Musk waved boyishly to his old shipmate. But I requested the Bezan’s captain to put some searoom between ourselves and the Sceptre. I did not think I could bear the sights and sounds of my crew’s greetings before doing what had to be done.