In the King's Absence

by Josephine Bell

  ‘Is he ill?’ Alan asked, alarmed by her manner.

  ‘Neither truly ill, nor by any means well,’ she answered.

  ‘But he is here? He is in the house?’

  She agreed, grudgingly.

  ‘Then pray tell him his great-nephew asks the favour of presenting himself, on his return to Oxford to study.’

  After predicting total failure, the old woman went away, but came back almost at once with such a gloomy expression on her face that Alan expected to be sent about his business. But the message she brought was quite the reverse. Doctor Ogilvy would be pleased to receive his nephew; the lad in the yard would see to his horse. This sounded promising. Alan followed the housekeeper to the library and went in.

  Doctor Ogilvy had aged considerably in the two years that had passed. From being an anxious, indignant old man of considerable vigour and very reckless speech, even to relatives, he was now subdued, shrunken and frail. His white hair had thinned, straggling uncombed about his neck and ears. He kept his seat as Alan went in, but held out a hand to greet him.

  ‘You are Alan, are you not? Or Gordon? Alan is a boy.’

  ‘No longer, sir. It is two years since I was last in Oxford.’

  ‘So you are a man, I see. And they will let you study? Stay in England to study?’

  ‘I was recommended to Sir Thomas Hobbes and have his letter to the Warden of Wadham.’

  ‘I understand.’ The old man’s voice was bitter. Alan waited. But Doctor Ogilvy did not continue. Instead he turned away his face and after a short silence asked, ‘Where will you lodge, boy?’

  ‘I have called upon you first, sir, to ask your advice.’

  ‘Or to seek a free lodging?’

  Alan muttered with a red face, ‘I would know if there be rooms for undergraduates at Wadham.’

  Doctor Ogilvy laughed unexpectedly, a dry cackle that led to a coughing fit. When he recovered from it he said in a more friendly tone, ‘I did not suspect you, Alan. You will lodge with me tonight, at least. I have already ordered a bed to be prepared. And you will take your supper with me, if you please. Tomorrow you will consult Sir Francis Leslie who is better able to advise. I am still suspect, though they have cut me off from my work, also from my fellow scholars, except such as remain true friends. You must not risk contamination, nor must I give excuse for their further spite.’

  It all came out then. The subtle moves George Leslie made unceasingly, in spite of Sir Francis Leslie’s efforts to protect his old friend. The hints, the threats of sequestration, the invented news of his sons, several times falsely reported dead, or again taken prisoner or discovered making plots. All to frighten him, to wear him down.

  ‘I am alone, save for Francis Leslie,’ he ended. ‘And Lucy, who comforts me for my daughter’s loss. I would not have Cynthia untrue to her husband, but it is a sore grief to hear nothing from her, nor be able to send my news to London.’

  There I can help,’ Alan said eagerly, ‘I will do so gladly.’

  He explained his contacts with the Phillips family through Mistress Leslie. Doctor Ogilvy listened, unwilling at first to hear any good of the cloth merchant. But later so grateful for Alan’s news that he found fresh questions to keep the young man talking until a meal was served and after it until a late hour when Alan was clearly half asleep and his great-uncle released him to his bed.

  The next morning he rode over to Luscombe, where he was made very welcome by Sir Francis and his lady. Here he found a prudent prosperity together with the political neutrality Alan had by now sought refuge in. For himself he still felt a certain degree of guilt, for he had been flattered by the King’s favour and by his somewhat indefinite post as a page in the royal household. Besides, he held Charles in sincere regard for his courage, well proved, his wisdom and patience, upheld by his advisers, and above all for his wit and gallantry, all his own and overpowering where Alan’s reserved, though far from timid nature was concerned.

  On the other hand he had come to admire some aspects of the Protector’s administration. According to Master Phillips, commerce had every prospect of success if only the chaotic state of Europe with its old wars continuing and new ones recently begun. The new state in England seemed to be succeeding in the management of finance where the murdered king had failed utterly. So did the New Army and the New Navy. While here in Oxford, in such quiet homes as Luscombe, Sir Francis and others were able to continue their studies and their research with more encouragement than in the past, as he explained to Alan.

  ‘Master Wilkins of Wadham, with the Lord Protector’s aid, hath gathered together a parcel of good brains and inquiring minds and firm hearts, the three qualities most needed in the pursuit of knowledge. Use the letter you have with you and present yourself to Master Wilkins. I have no doubt at all he will find a place for you among those who study and discuss the ways of nature.’

  ‘Meanwhile you must stay with us here at Luscombe,’ Lady Leslie invited. ‘Doctor Ogilvy’s position grows ever more dangerous as he rages openly against our new rulers.’

  Alan said nothing. Sir Francis gestured to his wife to stop explaining a situation that grieved him very sorely since his own son was responsible for the greater part of it. Richard Ogilvy would have proclaimed his loyalty to the King in any case, but he had been goaded into his major indiscretions by George and that for the purpose of private revenge.

  Alan took Sir Francis’s advice and found the welcome the scholar had predicted. Among the Warden’s colleagues research by experiment held the highest place; discussion, dialectic, argument the second. Sir William Harvey’s discoveries about the circulation of the blood had pushed forward great advances in the field of medicine as well as the mechanics of animal and human physiology.

  It was in this field that Alan found his main interest. By the following year he knew that he was no scholar; philosophy, even of this advanced sort, was not his aim. But more than ever, his interest lay with man, rather than mankind. The model he would follow was the great discoverer himself. Sir William Harvey had been the late king’s doctor. He himself would become a physician, if required a surgeon too. His first patient, Cutler, had proved his innate ability. He could never be a soldier, supporting a special cause by fighting and killing. But a man of healing, supporting men, women and children by destroying the disease or mending the wounds that menaced them.

  Chapter Eleven

  For the next six months Alan worked hard and prudently at his chosen subjects, establishing himself in the student ranks at Wadham and making himself known personally at last to Warden John Wilkins through the good offices of Sir Thomas Hobbes, who spent much of his time now in Oxford.

  The author of Leviathan was no longer welcome in Holland, nor did King Charles consent to any further coaching in mathematics from the great mathematician and philosopher. So Sir Thomas found it necessary to return to England where he managed to make his peace with Cromwell.

  In fact the King had used his tutor simply to learn about navigation, for the monarch had never forgotten his earlier experiences at sea. Charles the First had made his son Admiral of the Fleet when he was only ten years old, in the first Civil War. This too the young King had never forgotten. There were times when he dreamed still of winning back his throne by a victory at sea, but he knew very well that Cromwell’s new navy and brilliant Admiral Blake made this impossible at present. So when the Dutch drove Sir Thomas Hobbes from Holland, Charles made no complaint. He knew he was no longer welcome there himself. He had spent most of the time since his escape from England in France. But even here his growing poverty made life disagreeable to him. He was already arranging to join his widowed sister Mary of Orange at Spa in the German Alliance, since she too, with her little son, was afraid to stay in the State of Orange.

  Alan profited by these moves of his Master. He managed to send news to the King in humble, loyal reports of conditions in London and Oxford, written to his father and mother. These were despatched from Luscombe to London and con
veyed abroad from there by Master Phillips, who accepted and respected Sir Francis’s apparent neutrality.

  Alan was uneasy over this mild deception, but he spoke the truth about his father’s employment abroad and the despatches were sent to Colonel Ogilvy, though the whole content was not for him.

  In time Alan felt secure enough to make a long-promised visit to his grandfather near Banbury. He carried a letter from his mother, declaring his intention to Sir Francis before he rode away. The latter insisted upon his taking a groom from Luscombe with him.

  Lord Aldborough was delighted to see the young man and particularly pleased to read his daughter’s letter, giving him and his wife the latest news of Colonel Ogilvy’s family. Since his very alarming visitation by the New Army, so cleverly managed by his son-in-law, Lord Aldborough had come to depend upon the younger man’s advice. As Lady Aldborough explained to Alan, ‘Your father hath been the greatest blessing to my lord. There is no situation we have been forced to endure that we have not surmounted through his wisdom and kindness. I trust you are not come hither, boy, to upset the peace and quiet we live in. Nor excite that evil interest in us that might have thrown us out of our property or even cast us into the Tower for treason or on some other fatal charge. We have feared it more than once these last years.’

  ‘God forbid!’ Alan exclaimed. ‘But I did consider well before I came hither.’

  He explained his work at Oxford and his purpose in pursuing it. He offered to ride back with the groom on the morrow.

  ‘Or we may lodge at the inn here if your ladyship prefers it,’ he offered. ‘But I think a closer welcome might excite less comment.’

  ‘Seeing you are my grandson,’ she said in a sour voice, her Buckingham blood betraying her origin more than she would wish had she been capable of knowing it.

  ‘Why no, my lady,’ Alan said, blushing deeply. His mother, still beautiful, always gentle and loving, matched the old earl in her manners. His blushes were not for his own outspokenness but for Lady Aldborough’s lack of breeding. In any case the times had changed, he told himself smugly and at once thought of Susan and blushed again, seeing where these grand conclusions were leading him.

  Lady Aldborough saw the blushes, was pleased by this sign of youthful confusion, proud of her rebuke and its effect, as she judged it.

  ‘Nay, my son. You may lodge with us this night and tomorrow. It will be as well you do so, as we expect a visit from certain – from friends of your grandfather – by tomorrow evening. And by then you must be on your way.’

  Alan left her shortly after, to find the groom and discover what arrangements had been made for him. The man said little except that both he and the horses had been served and were provided for. The stables were not full and there were farm carts where there had formerly been coaches. But the whole scene was far more prosperous than poor Uncle Richard’s grass-grown yard, the cobblestones loose, the wooden doors of the stables cracked, their hinges leaning, the stalls inside broken up for firewood.

  He explained his plans to the groom, who led him aside a few paces and spoke in a low-voice.

  ‘As soon as may be, Master Ogilvy, sir,’ he said. ‘The sooner the better to my way of thinking. Those here be uneasy, they tell me. For all it looks so quiet, they know, and the village folk know, there hain’t no quiet in the land. The Lord Protector has it all in his big fist these days. And that holds the soldiers too, the big-mouthed major-generals, as they call them. But for how long?’

  ‘Quiet!’ Alan ordered. ‘I know nought of this, nor want to know, while it doth not come my way!’

  The man’s mouth twisted in contempt.

  ‘You speak like Sir Francis himself,’ he muttered. ‘And you but a boy, begging your pardon, sir.’

  ‘You need not do so, since you do not feel it,’ Alan said, with a gleam of anger in his grey eyes that altered the groom’s expression. ‘There has not as yet been any threatening thing that I have not avoided by my own efforts. When it comes to me, I will fight it, never fear.’ He added, seeing another change on the man’s face, ‘And I do not boast, I assure you.’

  He turned away without another word and went back into the house. The groom, only partly reassured, rejoined his stable companions.

  Lord Aldborough appeared with the rest of the family for the afternoon meal and later took Alan alone with him into his library. Here he demanded all the latest news from France, but Alan, partly because he had little to give and partly because he did not altogether rely upon his grandfather’s discretion, made a poor job of it. His lordship was disappointed. Admittedly Alan had worked himself into a position from which he could learn the rebel government’s main intentions. But these seemed to be peaceful, placatory.

  ‘The supplanter must needs encourage trade,’ he said. ‘Learning, too, cannot threaten his position. But he has enemies among his own following. Already his own so-called Council of State begins to fail him. And the first Triennial Parliament, but just formed, will not last out the year. The members dispute together and want alterations made.’

  ‘This I have heard,’ Alan said. ‘Also that the generals are turning against Cromwell because he hath set himself up above them.

  ‘But you have not yourself been troubled by all this discussion I trust, my lord?’

  Lord Aldborough allowed himself such a blatant conspiratorial smile that Alan shuddered inwardly to see it. Worse was to follow.

  ‘Though I live here in great retirement, have given up all intercourse with my London friends, such as frequented the Court in former times, I do have news of them. As I do, they live on their estates, farm their lands for sustenance, which pleases the peasants, hunt seldom, but on well-advertised occasions. At such times we meet where none can interrupt or interfere.’

  Seeing his grandson was duly impressed, Lord Aldborough went on to explain his own dangerous involvement in a body of disaffected or as they preferred to be known, loyalist peers and gentry, who called themselves the ‘Sealed Knot’.

  ‘Oh yes, we intend to rise when all is ready, all the arms collected, all the branches of our society linked, fully prepared.’

  It seemed to Alan that such a loosely knit body of conspirators must come to disaster, but he only said, ‘I trust you know and study your immediate enemies, my lord.’

  ‘Ah.’ Lord Aldborough spoke thoughtfully. ‘That buzzing bluebottle that plagues your family connections comes here at regular intervals. I do not find it convenient to receive him.’

  ‘Is that wise?’ Alan could not help asking. He had seen nothing of George in Oxford; he knew that Parliamentary member had been dismissed from Westminster with the other ‘Rump’ members, but had heard no more during the year and had supposed he had been otherwise employed or had decided to give up his attacks upon the Ogilvy family.

  In this he was quite wrong. George Leslie’s bitter envy and hatred of his former friend, Master Phillips, burned ever more fiercely as he continued to fail in his attempts to injure him. At the time of Alan’s belated visit to his grandfather George was in Whitehall, making reports, both true and false, to his master, John Thurloe, that prime spider at the centre of the Protector’s intelligence web.

  Master Thurloe had employed George Leslie more regularly since the latter had been removed from Parliament when Cromwell dissolved the ‘Rump’ before setting up new instruments of government. Master Leslie had come to him complaining of this harsh treatment. Master Thurloe had pointed out that Master Leslie need not complain at the flow of events. He pointed out too that the Lord Protector had made no criticism of his behavior, he was known to be a loyal parliamentarian, no wild enthusiast, no mad sectarian. He would not be forgotten. As peace and order developed in the land, no doubt a suitable employment would fall to all those loyal members not at present able to represent their constituents. Without suggesting any special field of endeavour Master Thurloe got rid of his complaining visitor, who presently found himself assigned an easy task to compile a list of identities. He f
ulfilled it grudgingly but fairly fast. He was paid a reasonable sum for his pains. A succession of tasks followed, some in England, chiefly at Oxford, some abroad.

  It was not long before he realized he had far better opportunities now for injuring his personal enemies in the performance of his work. He took pride in his ingenuity. Also he had more time to use a certain source that had always been available to him. And with his most recent work in London and near Banbury he had decided he could arrange for some telling blows where they could hurt most.

  Master Thurloe’s head offices in Whitehall occupied a number of rooms for himself and his chief assistants; the clerks and sorters of the posts, the agents from abroad and where necessary their interpreters. To one like George Leslie, whose work had seldom lain behind a desk, the Thurloe rooms seemed one huge confusion, a sinister ant-hill of secret activity. In reality they held the widest, deepest, most accurate compilation of foreign knowledge that any government in Europe had ever been able to set up.

  ‘Master George Leslie wishes to make a report,’ a young man in sober brown clothes reported.

  ‘Again!’ Master Thurloe sighed. He covered what was lying on his table with a large hand and nodded. He was staring towards the door, his hand still flat upon the table, when George was shown in. He remained silent until the door was closed behind his visitor, but then seemed to come to himself, started and said, ‘Be seated, sir. You have news for me?’

  It was the usual beginning. The silence and the stare had been added recently, meant to hurry up delivery of a report or shake out a complaint or an excuse. Master Thurloe had found them effective.

  But not today. Master Leslie produced, in a great many virulent, for the most part malicious words, a mass of detail, relating to Alan’s innocent life in Oxford, another relating to Master Phillips’s industrious, honest life in the City, a third describing the feeble, pitiful, impoverished existence of Doctor Richard Ogilvy.