Earl of Shadows: A moving historical novel about two brothers in 18th century England

by Jacqueline Reiter

  By the time the Aldermen arrived in their scarlet cloaks and jewelled collars the crowd of spectators in Berkeley Square had swelled to such proportions that the dignitaries had to push through them to reach the front door. Mary was spending the evening with her parents in Albemarle Street, and the moment he saw the size of the crowds John was glad she was out of the way. He, William and Lord Mahon had difficulty pushing their way to the carriage, and when they got in a group of burly men unhitched the horses and hoisted the wooden struts onto their shoulders. They took an hour and a half to reach the Poultry, followed by a trail of Aldermen, Marshals, Constables, standards carried by young boys in white and pink cockades, and an entire orchestra of trumpets, clarinets and kettle drums.

  ‘I don’t think we should linger,’ John murmured to William as they entered Grocer’s Hall. The fact that the more respectable shopkeepers, artisans and merchants seemed outnumbered three to one worried him. William, however, was unconcerned.

  ‘They’re just curious, John. They will all be gone by the time we return.’

  But if anything the crowds swelled still further over the next few hours. John had enjoyed the rich food and drunk deeply of the Grocers’ wine, but he sobered up the instant he, William and Mahon emerged to face what was now more like a mob overflowing out of Grocer’s Hall Court. They were already unhitching the horses from John’s carriage before the three men had time to sit down.

  The air smelled of cheap wine and spirits. Some of the crowd had stolen torches from link-boys, and the white facades of the City’s guild-houses acquired a grim orange glow. John spotted some men in greasy leather overalls and large hats whispering together before dispersing. The sight of them made his skin prickle. Political feelings were especially volatile at the moment; these were not ordinary times.

  ‘Papa always said the mob and the people of England were one,’ William observed. He was half-drunk on alcohol and acclaim; John could smell the wine on his brother’s breath from across the carriage. ‘He would not have been afraid.’

  ‘I am not afraid!’ John snapped.

  ‘In that case try to enjoy yourself. We will be home soon.’

  After an hour, however, even William had gone pale and quiet. Without the horses, the three young men were utterly at the mercy of their mob. The cheers of ‘Pitt for ever’ had long ago been lost in random whoops of inebriated joy. A small child was nearly run down under the wheels, and William had to make more than one appearance to calm the crowds and cajole them, with difficulty, into changing direction.

  ‘Where are we?’ William asked for the tenth time in as many minutes. He had his back to the horses to be less easily seen, but his own view was thereby restricted. John looked out of the window and tried to recognise any landmarks. All he could see were large brick buildings, the odd bay window, and hundreds of people running alongside him, banging on doors, rattling windows and calling for lights. He slanted a sarcastic look in his brother’s direction.

  ‘At least you know you’re popular, Will. This is the price of your success.’

  The great dome of St Paul’s finally hove into sight, shadowy against the night sky, and the crowd moved down Fleet Street to the Strand. They passed the sprawling bulk of Somerset House just visible behind its pillared entrance. The carriage shuddered slowly by the King’s mews and the statue of Charles I at Charing Cross, skirted the empty pillory on Cockspur Street, and turned down Pall Mall.

  Just as John started to think they would soon be home, the mob stopped.

  ‘Carlton House,’ Mahon reported, peering through the window.

  ‘Oh dear God,’ John breathed. Carlton House was the private residence of the Prince of Wales, a notorious Foxite. The house’s porticoed frontage was plunged into darkness; the Prince, mercifully, was not at home. Had he been, he would have heard hissing as the crowd pressed up to the gates.

  ‘Down with Fox!’

  ‘Down with the Prince!’

  ‘We’ll break his windows till he lights up for the minister!’

  ‘Lights! Lights! Lights!’

  ‘In Heaven’s name, Will, do something!’ John urged.

  His brother gave him a frightened look then opened the carriage door. A cry of delight rent the air as he was spotted. John could almost hear William gritting his teeth as he acknowledged the cheers with a bow. ‘Gentlemen! We have no business here. I commend you all for your enthusiasm, but I should like very much to get home.’

  After a tense moment, the carriage once more began to move. John’s relief did not last long. They had not progressed more than 50 yards before the mob stopped again. A dreadful combination of hissing, shouting and cursing reverberated off the stuccoed frontages of the houses.

  ‘To St James’s Place! Break Fox’s windows!’

  ‘Will …’ John murmured, but his brother was already leaning out of the coach.

  ‘Gentlemen! To Berkeley Square, I beg you!’

  This time it took more effort on William’s part before the crowd lurched off again, hauling the carriage with its helpless occupants. John gazed out of the window, teeth clenched. He had not seen the leather-clad men in shadowing hats since passing Carlton House, and it bothered him. At least they were nearly home: John fancied he could almost see his house on Berkeley Square rising in the distance.

  But the real danger had not yet begun.

  They had just passed St James’s Place when the carriage stopped amid a sudden and terrible silence. John clung to the leather strap hanging from the carriage roof and peered out of the window. The men surrounding his carriage were looking, wide-eyed, at something ahead. Some of the nimbler ones turned and ran as though in fear of their lives.

  ‘What is going on?’ William said.

  John craned his neck, but whatever was happening was directly in front of them. ‘I do not know.’

  ‘Open the window.’

  ‘Are you insane?’

  ‘I’ll do it then.’ William made to pull the glass pane down, but John slapped his hand away.

  ‘Don’t be a fool. Lie low.’

  He eased down the glass. A couple more of the mob ran past as he did so. John turned his head to see what they were running from and felt his chest constrict.

  They had stopped outside Brooks’s, the Foxite club. A double line of porters and sedan-chairmen was blocking the street outside the club’s main entrance. All of them were tall and broad-shouldered and all had stripped to their shirtsleeves, although it was a cold night. Each held a weapon. Some had broken sedan chair-poles. Some had stubby coshes with smooth, rounded ends. John thought he saw one with a knife.

  The memory of the leather-clad men in their broad-brimmed hats rose in John’s mind. Had they disappeared to warn Brooks’s of the crowd’s approach? Or had they been urging the mob on? John stared at the men blockading the street and knew with terrible certainty this had all been planned. By whom he could not say, but he did not suppose it would be long before he found out.

  John caught William’s gaze across the compartment. His brother had shrunk into the shadows, his eyes bright with apprehension.

  One of the porters called out, ‘We know you have come to break our windows. We will not allow it.’

  One of the crowd spoke up in response, one of the better sort of men who had tried to restrain the crowd in its earlier stages. ‘We merely want to take Mr Pitt and his brother home. We promise you will not be molested.’

  ‘We know what value to place on Mr Pitt’s promises,’ one of the Brooks’s men growled.

  ‘Sirs, be reasonable. Let us by peaceably or there will be consequences on the morrow.’

  ‘Oh, there will be consequences,’ the reply came. ‘But not on the morrow, we promise you that.’

  John groaned and pulled up the window. He was hunting for the latch to open the carriage door when he heard a dull thump, followed by a cry. In an instant the trickle of people running away from the double line of porters became a flood.

  William leaned forwards
but John held him back. ‘Do not show your face! If they see you, they will rip you apart.’

  Mahon peeped through the glass on his side of the carriage. His tall forehead wrinkled. ‘Others are coming out of Brooks’s now.’

  ‘Carrying sticks?’ Mahon nodded and John cursed. He knocked against the boards of the roof to call the driver’s attention. ‘Can you get us away from here?’

  ‘My lord, we have no horses,’ came the reply.

  The true peril of their situation sank in then. John could hear the cries from outside, interspersed with yelps of pain and the crack of sticks making contact with backs and skulls. The street was full of running figures, bumping into each other and trampling the fallen to get away.

  William said, very quietly, ‘Can the footmen draw the coach?’

  ‘We’d need at least ten men to shift it with any speed, I would imagine,’ Mahon replied, so promptly he must have been wondering the same thing.

  William had stopped asking what was going on; the terrible sounds from outside spoke for themselves. His fearful expression was that of a soldier encountering his first bloodshed. The cries brought back unpleasant memories of John’s own blooding, and his hand instinctively moved towards the place at his waist where his sword had once been. He knocked again to attract the driver’s attention. ‘How many of the footmen are armed?’

  ‘We have one blunderbuss,’ the driver said. ‘It’s not loaded.’

  The coachman’s answer deepened John’s sense of impotence. The despair turned to alarm moments later when the carriage rocked ominously on its wheels.

  ‘We could try getting into Brooks’s and asking for help,’ Mahon suggested. ‘The gentlemen would have nothing to do with this, I am certain.’

  John was not so sure. Faces at the club’s windows gazed out languidly at the fleeing crowds and made not so much as a gesture to stop the violence. Up on the first floor the balcony thronged with shadowy forms. One or two men even threw missiles –bread rolls, candle stubs and dice. The others cheered every time one hit a fleeing man.

  Suddenly a face peered into the carriage from the other side of the glass: a cultivated face, with powdered hair hanging in sweat-soaked tendrils. The man wore a half-mask of the kind worn while gambling at cards but John did not need to see all his features to recognise him. It was James Hare, one of Fox’s staunchest friends, and a man with whom John himself had played many a rubber of whist.

  John snapped out of his shock with effort. He pulled down the glass, put his hand in Hare’s face and pushed him away, but it was too late: Hare had picked out William. ‘It’s him!’

  A deathly ‘View-Halloa’ reverberated around the street. Apart from Hare, John recognised John Crewe and thought he might have seen Fox’s cousin Colonel Fitzpatrick, though he could not be sure. All of them were men he had mixed with socially in the past.

  A porter tried to break down Mahon’s door. He managed to wrench it open a few inches but Mahon pulled it closed. A blow from a broken chair-pole shattered John’s window, showering the three men with glass. John was dimly aware that he had cut his hands but he had no time to take stock of his injuries. Someone was aiming blows at William through the broken window and it was all he could do to shield his brother.

  ‘White’s.’ William spoke through clenched lips. ‘We should get to White’s.’

  ‘Are you mad? It’s at the other end of the street!’ John shouted.

  ‘Have you got a better idea?’

  There was a cry from the back of the coach. The three footmen had beaten the attackers off successfully with their fists, but they were no match for the mass of armed porters. A blue-and-silver-liveried body was thrown onto the cobbled pavement and set upon by men with sticks. A howl from the front of the coach signalled that the coachman had been overcome.

  Someone broke in Mahon’s door and ripped it off the hinges. Mahon kicked off the intruder with his long legs but John was having less luck on his side, from where the attackers could see William more clearly and tried harder to get at him. John pushed a man out of the way and shouted, ‘William is right. We must get to White’s before they rip the carriage apart. Have you got your canes?’ Mahon nodded but William shook his head. John gritted his teeth, gripped his own stick and said, ‘Stay close to me and keep your head down.’

  He pushed his door open. The impact knocked down another attacker who had just climbed onto the step. John ploughed forwards, dragging William behind him, Mahon bringing up the rear. For a moment they had the element of surprise and John managed several steps before a cry from the club balcony alerted the porters to the fact their prizes were escaping. John staggered under a blow, then grabbed his attacker by the lapels and shoved him into the path of another man brandishing a broken chair-pole. He did not wait to see whether the two collided, but grabbed William’s arm and ran for his life.

  Most of the houses had darkened windows, their owners either away or pretending not to hear the fuss, but further off John could see lights. He remembered his cousin Temple’s house on Pall Mall had been lit up when they had passed only a short while before. He grabbed his brother-in-law’s arm. ‘Mahon. Can you get to Temple’s house?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Go and get help. And quickly.’

  Mahon sped away, dodging a couple of desultory blows, but the attackers were not interested in him. They were closing in on William, the real prey. John took his cane in both hands and pushed it against a chairman’s breast to push him aside, but so many blows rained down on him and his brother from so many directions that he hardly had time to brace himself before the next one came. He shielded William as best he could but they were outnumbered, and it was a miracle they got as far as they did before someone grabbed John from behind.

  For a tantalising moment he and William managed to maintain a connection; then William’s fingers slipped away. John collapsed. His stick clattered onto the cobbles and rolled out of reach.

  John pushed himself onto his knees. ‘Will!’

  Several men pounded past him towards his brother. At first John thought they were reinforcements from Brooks’s, but then his eyes cleared and he felt a thrill of hope at the realisation that they were not from Brooks’s but from White’s. The Brooks’s men forgot their original purpose and began trading blows with their rivals. Moments later Mahon appeared, followed by half a dozen men wearing Temple’s livery. The gentlemen who had taken part in the struggle disappeared into the darkness. John did not even see them go.

  Mahon knelt by John’s side. ‘Temple’s sent for the Bow Street men. Where’s William?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ John replied, then struggled to his feet when he saw his brother coming towards him on the arm of one of Temple’s servants.

  ‘Are you injured?’ Mahon asked. John gave his brother an appraising look. William’s breath came in ragged gasps, he had lost his wig and his coat was torn, but he seemed unhurt.

  ‘Can you run?’ William’s eyes rolled to meet John’s. He nodded, and John took his arm. ‘Then do so.’

  The street-fight was over. By the time the Bow Street men arrived, if they ever did, they would find little but a ruined carriage and a handful of casualties, most of whom were being helped off the thoroughfare to be plied with brandy in the kitchens of White’s. A White’s porter, pale and trembling, held the door open for John, William and Mahon as they came in, then shut it behind them as though afraid of what might follow. John’s hands shook and his ears rang, but they were safe at last.

  The calm of White’s barrel-roofed subscription rooms contrasted with the chaos the brothers had endured outside. Despite the late hour there were a few people there: Edward Eliot, Pepper Arden and Steele, among others. They watched in stunned silence as William was taken to a couch to sit down. It was not a moment too soon for John thought his brother’s shaking legs were about to give out on him. He himself was suddenly aware of the bruises across his shoulders, arms and legs and of the stinging cuts all over his hands fro
m the broken carriage window.

  Someone forced a glass into his hands. He expected the wine to invigorate him but it didn’t. All he felt was a numbness that deepened whenever he glanced across the room at William’s ashen face.

  The door flew open to admit Lord Sydney and his son John Townshend, both red-faced and out of breath. Sydney glanced at William, who was wiping away the blood on his hands with the aid of a napkin dipped in a bowl of warm water, then rushed to his son-in-law’s side. ‘What the devil happened, John?’

  ‘We heard the commotion from Lord Temple’s house,’ John Townshend explained. ‘Papa and I were at dinner with him when Mahon came calling for help.’

  ‘Are you hurt?’ Sydney said.

  ‘Merely bruised. William too.’

  At the sound of his name William said, in a strange voice, ‘Which is more than I can say for your carriage, John. They tore it to pieces, I think.’ He gave a high, desperate laugh.

  Sydney looked at William with anger in his eyes. ‘Who did this? Fox?’

  ‘I do not think Fox was involved,’ John said. ‘But I saw others: Crewe; Hare; Fitzpatrick. And they had accomplices. Strange-looking men in cocked hats. I saw them at Grocer’s Hall, and they followed us all the way up to Pall Mall, where they disappeared.’

  ‘An ambush?’ Mahon frowned.

  ‘Our attackers were prepared. They were ready for us, Charles.’

  ‘It’s a serious accusation,’ Sydney said, looking worried. ‘They might have killed you.’

  ‘I do not think they wanted to kill us. Punish us, perhaps, and they certainly intended to injure us. But there were too many gentlemen involved.’

  Mahon snorted but said nothing. John knew he was thinking how ungentlemanly it was to ambush a man and beat him to within an inch of his life, and he agreed. He was, however, highly aware of the delicacy of the situation. William was gaining public support, but the wrong response to tonight’s activities might change everything. Blaming men whom John could not even be sure he had seen participating – although he was certain about Hare and Crewe – would get William nowhere. The attackers would get away with it.