The Sensorium of God

by Stuart Clark

  Flamsteed nodded.

  ‘You must be planning a lavish presentation to do justice to such a monumental work.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘An expensive presentation?’

  ‘That is my intention.’

  ‘I think the Crown should support the printing, don’t you? You’re the Astronomer Royal, after all,’ Newton purred.

  ‘Do you really think they would pay for publication?’

  ‘Prince George takes a great interest in natural philosophy.’

  ‘But how would I raise such a matter with tact? I do not know Their Majesties well.’

  Newton smiled. ‘I could do that for you. Haven’t you heard? I’m to be knighted. I have the royal ear, and these things are always better coming from supporters. Shall I raise it with Her Majesty, to save you the embarrassment?’

  Flamsteed nodded dumbly.

  A steely exultation washed over Newton. He could almost see the data in front of him.

  Hooke’s apartment had rotted along with its owner. Neglected in the months since his death, there was a palpable decay in the air, and not just from the rancid food in the kitchen. The stench was so bad in places that Newton had to raise a handkerchief to his nose – not that it made any difference.

  Newton stalked the depressing chambers, still tingling from Flamsteed’s acceptance. The publication of the Greenwich star catalogue would be the first triumph of his reign as President, shortly followed by the new edition of the Principia, and then Opticks, with its queries for investigation. Within a year, he thought, he would change navigation for ever, and set the Royal Society on the path to completing his work on light. If enough experimenters could be brought to bear, all his queries would be solved in what remained of his lifetime.

  In the basement he found workers emptying the display cases, tucking the artefacts into straw-lined boxes. ‘Wait,’ he called, and lifted an object from a workman’s grasp. It was the little desktop telescope he had fashioned and presented to the Society thirty years earlier. Tarnished now, and all but useless, it had been left to perish by Hooke. Newton passed the telescope back for packing and renewed his prowl. Occasionally he diverted himself with a contraption or a book or a manuscript, mostly he just scowled. So much junk.

  ‘Whatever you don’t take will be burned,’ said a bailiff.

  ‘Burned,’ echoed his companion.

  Passing back through the familiar living-room where the Society used to meet, Newton made his way to the stinking bedroom where Hooke had died. He cast a disdainful eye over everything, fighting the desire to retch at the stained mattress – the sheets were already on the fire outside. Surely the rest of the bed must join them soon.

  He stared at Hooke’s microscope. Positioned on a table at the end of the bed, it was probably the last thing that the Gresham Professor ever saw. A dark urge stirred within Newton. He touched the etched leather of the main tube and the turned wood of the eyepiece. His finger left a clean streak on the dusty object. He grasped the tarnished brass support and lifted it up.

  He thought of Woolsthorpe and the plague summer, when he had buried himself in Hooke’s book Micrographia. Perched on the windowsill in his bedroom, overlooking the orchard, he had opened up the pages and marvelled at Hooke’s drawings of gnats and fleas and other minute natural objects. All of them were rendered in exquisite detail because of the instrument he now dangled above the floor.

  Newton had been full of admiration for Hooke and desperate to win his approval. He had stayed away from the Royal Society until he had achieved something big enough to impress with: a theory of colours, proven with a crucial experiment. Yet look how that had turned out.

  Newton’s fingers loosened on the microscope.

  He relived the hot confusion that Hooke’s assault had provoked, recalling the effort not to scream with rage, and the subsequent sitting into the night attempting to reconcile the insights of the Micrographia with the disingenuous missive that had carried the attack. And now Hooke’s most precious instrument was moments from destruction. Newton could already picture it in fragments on the floor. He lifted his arm.

  But he could not let it go.

  With a grunt he turned from the room and carried it down the staircase.

  ‘I’m finished here. Keep this safe.’ He handed the microscope to one of the bailiffs, who placed it near a pile of other things, including the portrait of Hooke that used to hang over the fireplace.

  Newton stared at the image. The Gresham Professor was seated and gowned, head cocked at an inquisitive angle, his curved spine disguised.

  Hardly an honest portrayal, Newton thought.

  ‘I’ll take care of this,’ he said.

  The painting was light enough for him to carry under his arm. He swept from the room.

  In the quadrangle outside the fire was crackling and giving out a fearsome heat. Two men with pitchforks were stoking it with Hooke’s unwanted possessions. One stopped to mop his brow with his forearm and eyed Newton with curiosity.

  The president ignored him and stepped closer, turning his face away from the flames. He swung his arm and sent the canvas curving through the air. The oil paint caught the flames with a hiss.

  Where once there had been pink silk filling the front room, now it was straw and tea-chests. Margaret had set herself up as foreman and Katherine was proving a reluctant worker. Even so, one by one the family possessions disappeared for the move to Oxford.

  ‘We don’t need to take the whole house,’ said Halley plaintively. ‘We’ll still be here as much as there.’

  ‘We’re not taking everything, just a few essentials,’ said Mary.

  Halley rolled his eyes and almost cried out.

  Through the window a familiar black carriage was visible, parked on the opposite side of the road.

  He slunk to the front door and rushed across the road. The carriage door was already open.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ he asked.

  ‘Thought it was time I paid you a visit at home. You have such a hectic social life, but you never seem to invite me.’

  Halley pointed his finger at Winslow’s face. ‘Don’t involve my family. They know nothing of you and that is how I like it.’

  The only thing preventing the astronomer from seizing the scraggy neck and making those bulbous eyes bulge even more was the dark shadow of a henchman within the carriage.

  ‘But Edmond, I want to talk to you,’ said Winslow mockingly.

  ‘I’ve been working.’

  ‘What on?’

  ‘Comet orbits –’

  Winslow held up his hand. ‘Not interested.’

  ‘Look, I’m finished with sailing. What further use can I be?’

  ‘You’re going to Oxford, for a start. Plenty of Jacobites there to interest me. They’re very upset that the Hanoverians are going to rule, you know.’

  Halley let out a derisive sound. ‘Is there anywhere you cannot unearth a conspiracy?’

  Winslow’s mouth creased into a lopsided grin. ‘It’s my job.’

  ‘Well, it’s not mine.’

  ‘I want to talk, that’s all,’ Winslow whined in his ear. ‘I’m interested in Newton.’

  So he had been eavesdropping in the library in Hanover.

  ‘Now, shall we discuss this in the street, or in private? Step inside. They let me choose my own carriage now. A job’s got to have some perquisites, don’t you think?’

  Halley folded his arms and stayed his ground.

  ‘What’s Newton’s agenda?’

  ‘No agenda, save understanding God’s laws.’

  ‘It’s interesting you should mention the Almighty.’

  Halley sighed. ‘If you have something to say, say it.’

  Winslow studied him for a moment. ‘The Hanoverians are devout Protestants. They’ve been promised a pure, God-fearing England of Protestant design. I will ensure they get it.’

  Halley feigned indifference. ‘I fail to see what that–’ A pain lanced hi
s wrist. Winslow’s bony fingers were wrapped around it, digging into the sinews on its soft inner side. Halley unfolded his arms but Winslow’s grip stayed firm.

  ‘Don’t play innocent with me. We both know exactly what was said in Hanover. I’m growing rather suspicious of this so-called Royal Society. Newton to be knighted, for goodness’s sake. What is becoming of the peerage? Springs for carriages to save our derrières, charts for navigation, clocks for timekeeping – I can see the value in all of that,’ Winslow said. ‘But spirits passing through space, changing our world and moving planets – what possible use has mankind for that knowledge? Except to undermine God, and by doing that you undermine all earthly authority based on God.’

  ‘That’s not our aim. We’re simply curious men. Newton’s about to publish another book. Written in English: plain language. He seeks only to prove God’s existence by observation.’

  ‘A book for everyone to read? Now that does concern me.’ Winslow tightened his grip.

  Halley yelped. Specks of blood formed around the tips of his captor’s fingernails.

  ‘Why do you need proof of God? Isn’t faith enough? Start questioning divine wisdom, and what’s to stop you questioning earthly authority? Let me put it to you another way, Mr Halley: the monarch is the head of the Church. Any attack on religion could therefore be seen as an attack on the state, and an attack on the state could be seen as treason.’

  ‘Ridiculous.’

  ‘Is it really?’ Winslow’s eyes burned. ‘Look around you next time you take a walk. All those people going about their daily lives, trying to make enough to eat, to protect themselves in their old age. What stops them just taking what they want from each other? There are plenty of dark streets where murder is easy. What makes society work? What makes people better than the beasts in the forest, eh?’ He jerked Halley’s hand, eliciting another cry of pain.

  ‘Common decency.’

  ‘Common decency? What dream world do you live in? Divine retribution, Edmond. The Day of Judgement. Without the threat of God hanging over them all, London would be in chaos. And, trust me, it’s bad enough already. Power is changing in England. It used to lie solely in the Church, but since Henry Tudor sacked the monasteries it’s all changed. Power went to the monarch, but these past few decades it’s been unseated again. Now it’s coming to roost in Parliament. And to keep order, they need a religious population, not a new way of looking at nature.’ Winslow released Halley’s wrist with a sound of disgust.

  The astronomer cradled his arm. The throbbing red nail-marks looked like a succession of crescent moons.

  ‘What troubles me, Edmond, is that if Newton or you explain everything, what room does that leave for God? Ever thought about that?’

  Halley looked up sharply. He could picture Hooke’s incredulous face that night up on the Gresham observing platform long ago, when he had asked him that exact question.

  A knowing look spread across Winslow’s face. ‘Newton may seem invulnerable now,’ he said, leaning out to reach for the door, ‘but all that could change when George Ludwig arrives in town. Think about it. Don’t get caught on the wrong side. I’d hate that to become a family trait.’

  ‘Are you referring to my father?’ Halley stammered.

  ‘I was at the Tower that day. You know, the older you get, the more you look like him. Especially, when you’re scared.’ Winslow winked and slammed the door.

  Halley watched the black vehicle trundle away. Legs unsteady, he felt as if he had just been robbed in broad daylight.

  36

  Cambridge

  The Cambridge streets were lined with academics, their woollen and silk gowns billowing in the breeze. The dons’ presence and the bellowing of the town crier had drawn the townsfolk out of the taverns to swell the ranks, and everyone was watching the trotting Horse Guards and the carriages of the Royal Procession. Newton looked out from his vehicle in the line and watched the faces in the crowd.

  It had crossed his mind to wear his old gown, but when he had looked at it in the wardrobe that morning he had shuddered. He had opted instead for a jacket of the brightest bottle-green, trimmed in thick black braid, with matching waistcoat and a velvet tricorn for his head.

  He had selected a new wig, four inches longer than his last. It was only a fraction shorter than Prince George’s, a fact that had raised a few eyebrows at the palace that morning. Waiting for the carriages to arrive, one of the royal attendants had discreetly approached him with a pair of shears on a cushion and a hastily-appointed barber. Newton had shooed both away.

  Faces flashed by. Each one conveyed a mixture of fascination, jealousy and cynicism, and served to distract him from the approach of his destination. It had certainly not been his idea to conduct the investiture at Cambridge. He had hoped never to set eyes on the place again.

  Those final months in Trinity still haunted him. He could recall the heat of the furnace and the sting of the chemicals. As much as he hated to admit it, he could still sense Fatio’s absence from his side. He had never seen him again. Months later, he had heard that the boy had left the country; then a paper appeared, written by Fatio, attacking Leibniz for claiming the invention of the calculus. Most recently the gossip had it that the Swiss mathematician was back, teaching in Spittlefields again. Newton’s urge to see him had increased tenfold.

  The carriage drew to a halt. Ahead, footmen jumped from the back of the Queen’s carriage and opened the door for her. The university hierarchy jostled, greeting her and her husband with supercilious smiles and too much bowing.

  Idiots.

  Newton took great pleasure in being announced to the College Master by the palace spokesman as if he were a stranger.

  ‘Would you like to see your old room?’ the Master asked, beaming at him.

  ‘No, thank you.’ Newton strode on to rejoin the royal party.

  The college dining-hall was smaller than Newton remembered. He made his way through the gloomy ranks, past the portraits where the windows should have been and up to the top table. He was shown to his seat, next to the Queen’s, and stood watching the royal couple make their way through the rank and file of the Fellowship, crowded at the trestles stretching the length of the hall.

  Queen Anne was unusually homely for a monarch. Her rosy cheeks and round face reminded Newton more of a cook, and he imagined her bustling round a kitchen rather than a throne-room. Only her drooping expression gave away her melancholy, a nagging doubt that God was displeased with her.

  Newton had heard the details discussed often by courtiers: thirteen miscarriages and stillbirths, four dead infants, one dead child. Her inability to produce an heir had led to the crisis that had resulted in the House of Hanover’s good fortune.

  Newton concentrated on his rehearsed small-talk during dinner. She wheezed between mouthfuls. With every deep breath her ample bosom swelled. Newton looked away.

  ‘You don’t eat very much,’ she observed.

  ‘I find myself replete with the honour of the occasion,’ he bluffed.

  Her face glowed with pride. ‘Then I have finished, too.’ She stood, sending the room into a clatter of hastily replaced cutlery and scraping chair-legs, and walked to the front of the table, where she surveyed the lines of diners.

  ‘We are gathered today to honour a man of extreme intellect and moral conduct. Many men have served this country with greatness and distinction, but few have contributed so much in more than one field . . .’

  Newton watched the crowd as she spoke.

  ‘Step forward,’ commanded the Queen, breaking Newton out of his surveillance. ‘Either one of your achievements, here in Trinity College or at the Mint, would have been enough to see you knighted.’

  A page handed her the ceremonial sword and backed away. Newton knelt before his monarch and dipped his head. He sensed the weight of the weapon on his shoulders, imagining the metal’s icy touch even through the thick padding of his jacket.

  They say that the executioner touches the
axe blade upon your neck before raising it for the fatal blow . . .

  ‘I now pronounce you Sir Isaac Newton.’

  As the procession wound its way to the chapel, Newton hung back to fall in step with the Queen’s Consort, Prince George. As he drew close he saw that the man’s jacket was splattered with remnants of his dinner. On the few occasions they had met before, Newton had talked and George had snorted his way through the conversation.

  ‘How are the old experiments coming along?’ the Prince asked breezily.

  ‘Very well, Your Royal Highness,’ said Newton. ‘The Royal Society makes excellent progress.’

  ‘Good, good.’

  ‘There is one area, however, about which I am concerned.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ George guffawed as if Newton was joking.

  ‘It’s a most lamentable situation, sir.’

  ‘I’ll wager . . . Oh, birds!’ George pointed at a flock of black birds taking to the wing.

  ‘It’s Mr Flamsteed at Greenwich. I hear that he seeks royal patronage to publish his star catalogue.’

  ‘Does he now? Well, I cannot say I blame him, it is my observationory, after all.’ The Prince nudged Newton with an elbow.

  ‘Quite, sir, but despite Mr Flamsteed’s repeated assurances to me that the work is almost complete, he never manages to present his manuscript.’

  ‘What prevents him?’

  ‘He may not be a man of true learning like you and me,’ greased Newton. ‘I fear that he may have something to hide, some error in his observations or calculations that he has made. But I cannot ascertain whether it is laziness or incompetence.’

  ‘Dear me.’

  ‘You know, it has been on my mind for some time, sir, to invite you into the Royal Society. We have languished too long without a royal Fellow, and I know of your fondness for the mechanical arts.’

  George stopped dead in his tracks. ‘You mean it?’

  ‘Of course.’

  The Prince’s eyes widened like a puppy’s. Newton thought for an awful moment that he might start bouncing on the spot. ‘Then I jolly well will gravitate along to the next meeting. I’m full of ideas, you know.’