by Ron Pearse
The bishop has finished his prayer and a hymn has been sung, Alice standing up but seeing the queen's eyes closed, believing her asleep and so not attempting to disturb her. Now the bishop has invited the four in the front row to stand before him as he begins to intone: "Dearly Beloved..."
Alice steals a glance behind her catching the eye of her brother smart in his new captain's uniform. He looks towards the front as the ceremony proceeds and has a few thoughts of his own, 'Good old sis. Bagged her colonel. She's done well. For me too! Captain Hill! It has a nice ting about it. But Colonel Hill sounds even better. Patience lad! It'll all come. After all Masham did it in a year. Captain, lieutenant-colonel, brevet-colonel. It was the year of Blenheim. He never talks of it. Got his pip on the battlefield by the duke hisself. No use Hill. The duke's got no time for you. Your only chance is sis. And the queen of course. What's the odds! Worse soldiers than me have made it to general even. Nobles even. That's a thought. General Hill. How 'bout lord general Hill. I do like the sound of that."
To Hill's ears comes the voice of the bishop: "...was ordained for the mutual society." But almost as soon as the words enter Hill's ears he is distracted again by his sister Alice. But then he notices the queen stir and turns to his sister who gets up and adjusts the pillow behind her head. She whispers something to Alice who smiles and sits down again. Not only Jack's head is turned but the young organist has turned around to observe the 22 year old Alice Hill attired in blue dress with puffed sleeves. Her long gloves accentuate her slenderness, her bonnet displays an impudent air and as she raises her eyes, his own sink resting upon her smart black shoes, shining and reflecting the lamps illuminating the large room.
Alice dare not look at Mr Clarke. She is all too aware of the social protocol even cynically so. If only Jeremiah was party to her thoughts. He might save himself much anguish. She has stolen a glance at people occupying chairs behind and thinks, 'There they stand the fops in their lacy frilled hats hanging onto every word the bishop is saying. They wouldn't look so fashionable in their underwear such as the garments we're expected to launder. Ugh1 The sweaty camisoles, soiled undergarments, smelly stockings, dirty whatnots all destined for the copper for boiling in clouds of smelly steam. Of course their fine frippery is not for the likes of me, a laundress. What's that to a duchess! That's a thought! Does the duchess know? She'd rage if she did. Let her! What's a duchess against a queen.'
Alice is alive to the queen stirring in her wheelchair but she does not turn round for attention. The bishop meanwhile intones: "I require and charge you both.." And Dr Arbuthnot standing to the rear of Abigail is ready to pronounce his words and has no thoughts of his own, for the time being. Not so a smartly dressed gentleman whose thoughts are not upon the ceremony but upon his colleague standing holding the gold band waiting like the good doctor upon the bishop's invitation. The smartly dressed man is Henry St John and his thoughts are centred upon Harley:
'Got to hand credit where it's due. Harley's the man to follow. Nobody more astute than he. Wouldn't be surprised that he'd arranged the entire match for his own ends. Bound to be for the benefit of Harley at bottom. But can he unmatch M and G, the Siamese twins. That will be a coup. But, if not, which way for me? Best not think upon that. Go with H. Otherwise I'm out of my depth. But must watch him like a hawk. What are his nicknames? The dragon. Robin, the trickster. Meanwhile what about fair Alice. She's a mount and no mistake. But not while queenie's around. But pleasure first and worry later. Yes, Alice! And I can offer her more than madrigals.'
There is movement at the front as the bishop invites Masham: "Wilt thou have this woman.." The word has electrified just such a creature sitting in the third row of seats. It is Missus Danvers who reminisces on her own ceremony performed in her village church so many years before. She asks herself, 'Who was at my mawidge cewemony when I ma-wied Danvuhs. Deah papa! How he wemonstated but wather Danvuhs than be an old maid. I thought that might be the fate of mistwiss Hill, congwatulating myself all these yeahs. Then pwince Geo-awge's gwoom comes a wooing. He took my bweth away. Took evewyone's bweth away. Womance faw Hill. Fwends we all ah now. Nevuh befaw. Today she was wadiant.' Tears well up in Mrs Danvers eyes and she takes a kerchief from her bag and dabs at her eyes as the bishop drones on:
"…and forsaking all other, keep thee unto him, so long as ye both shall live?" Abigail's voice is not so clear as Anne recalls but gets her response out: "I will." He bishop asks: "Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?" To which doctor Arbuthnot responds: "I do." The bishop then turns to Masham and asks him to take up the right hand of Hill with his own hand and to repeat after him:
"I call upon the persons here present..."
Jeremiah Clarke is once again at his small organ his eyes scanning the pages of music resting on the easel of the organ. He is itching to play the finale waiting for the signal but his mind wandering at the thought of the lovely creature behind him, and thinking, 'Sobering thought for me that it's not my music or my playing skill that brings me here but Alice. She persuaded her sister so naturally the queen went along with it. Betrothal to Alice! That's a thought, or just a dream. I would not lack invitations. I'm for her, but is she for me! I don't know what I'll do if she refuses me. Blow my brains out!'
Robert Harley dives his hand into his coat waistcoat pocket and finds the ring and at the bishop's invitation hands it to Masham, who takes it nervously. He observes him shaking like a leaf. Fancy that! The hero of Blenheim. Captures a platoon of Frenchmen single-handed, but now his hand quivers like an aspen. There's no accounting for human conduct. He watches nervously praying Masham will not let the gold band fall, but no, he lifts his love's hand tenderly and counting to the fourth finger, looks up into her eyes, as he slips the ring onto her left hand echoing the bishop's words:
"With this ring…with this ring...a token and pledge of the vow...a token and pledge of the vow.."
The wife of the doctor sits and observes her husband but her thoughts are not on their own marriage ceremony but on the largesse of the queen. Her thoughts have an overtone of envy as they form themselves in her heated brain, 'Two thousand guineas from her majesty as a wedding dowry for mistress Hill. What generosity! Mr Harley offers his country estate for a week. A whole week. The doctor, my husband, offering his lodgings for the ceremony and a reception to follow. And her majesty paying for everything. Food, wine, carriages. For a bedchamber woman. She who scrubs floors. Empties chamberpots. I've never heard of such things before. What is this Hill to the queen? Is she a lesbian? It's grotesque. She'd have been burnt as a witch afore the revolution. Now she physicks the queen. And the prince. And no-one dare say nay. What is the world coming to?'
The ceremony is approaching its close for the bishop realising it himself gets a second wind, enunciating clearly:
"Forasmuch as Samuel Masham and Abigail Hill have consented."
'Fiddlesticks' that was the unspoken comment of a gentlemen sitting on his own behind the queen. He was William Legge, lord Dartmouth, the queen's secretary accompanying her everywhere in case she had a thought that he could take down. Earlier on he had devised a method of shorthand but dare not let anyone, excepting her majesty, know unless anyone should think he plied a profession. He had surveyed the proceedings with disdain and as he observed the couple in front receiving the sacrament of marriage, utter distaste clouded his mind.
He thought of Abigail Hill as, 'Mean and vulgar in her manner, of an unequal temper, childish, exceptious, and passionate which in my view is her worst conceit and as for that Masham, nothing better than a jumped-up boot boy. What Marlborough was thinking of making him a colonel for some petty services on the battlefield. What matters as everyone of breeding knows is not what you do but who you are, your breeding, but Marlborough himself was nothing but James errand boy. The very idea of making a commoner into a duke. What is England coming to?'
The ceremony was coming to an end as the bishop intoned: "Those whom God hath joined together let no man put a
sunder."
Jonathon Swift smiled and added a few shorthand notes on his pad for on the morrow he would write a piece in The Examiner about this happy event. He re-read his words to himself, 'The Hero of Blenheim, my Friend, Colonel Masham was married to Mistress Abigail Hill, a Person of a plain sound undetstanding, of great Truth and Sincerity, without the least Mixture of Falsehood or Disguise; of an honest Boldness and Courage superior to her Sex; firm and disinterested in her friendship, and full of Love, Duty, and Veneration for the Queen her Mistress. In brief my old friend Masham is married to a Paragon. Tis no Wonder the Irish do not rule the Earth for I fain could achieve no more than a tenth part of this Description.'
He looked up once more and caught the bishop's final word, Amen and repeated it loudly, as did everyone in the assembly. The couple stood a while then embraced and both Harley and Dr Arbuthnot stood awkwardly to one side before Mr and Mrs Masham each thanked them before Mrs Masham turned around looking towards the queen observing Bishop Sacheverell exchanging words with Queen Anne who gestured to the happy couple to add her felicitations.
As this was happening a grey-haired man dressed for the occasion with flourishes of white in his lapels looked on benignly. He was Monsieur Adam de Cardonnel, secretary to the duke of Marlborough and given permission to leave his side in order to return to England to attend the nuptials. They had met soon after Blenheim quickly discovering they shared a common language for Cardonnel was a refugee from France whereas Masham's father had taken his son with him on military missions.
Both men were bi-lingual and it was said of Cardonnel that he knew Marlborough's mind so well that when Cardonnel mislaid an unsigned letter to the House of Commons, the duke had signed it as one of his own. This facility would stand Cardonnel in good stead becoming Minister for War after Henry St John vacated the position on the dismissal of Robert Harley.
Almost in anticipation of this event, Cardonnel reflected as he watched his friend and his lady walking between the neat rows of chairs towards the refectory which the queen had ordered to be given over for the reception, 'We have both followed the same star, Samuel, which has still some way to travel in its progress through the firmament. I've little doubt we shall both be needed in Paris after the Duke rides in triumph through the streets. We are privileged to serve under the finest general who has ever lived. What an age in which to live!'
There was a crush of people at the door and he heard farewells being shouted and heard the sounds of hooves and a carriage and pressed through the throng. He had caught Samuel's eyes and they had showed delight and happiness and he would see the couple ere long so did not overly rush but was pleased to wave at both happy people from their carriage whose top had been turned down such as used by the queen on her progresses through the kingdom. Then he noticed Robert Harley also waving and thought how odd for surely he was to lead the way.
Then Cardonnel realised that Samuel already knew the way to Brampton Bryan so perhaps had been there before. Or perhaps Mrs Masham held the key to that mystery. He decided to stay for the reception and caught Henry St John's eye. They could yarn over battlefields and perhaps drop a throwaway question about relationships. He would have something to report to Marlborough after all and it would not be about the niceties of English and German beer.
The carriage and its four white horses disappeared into the distance and he joined his fellow guests making their way towards the right royal spread which the palace catering staff had prepared for them in the refectory.
PART 3: NURSE
Chapter 13
When treachery is being planned for the public good, people need to be clear about their motives. In these days of whistle-blowers an excuse is that one is acting in the public interest. So, although morals and mores between the eras of the 17th and the 21st century are decidedly different, the argument that an act of treachery is justified by reason of exalted motives is timeless. Take the case of Robert Harley. He entered Parliament as a Whig and was drawn towards the left wing of the Party being labelled a Country Whig; otherwise the Party was made up of Court Whigs who believed that success in business and trade could only develop through royal patronage.
If history is anything to go by they had a point in that it was Elizabeth I who granted the first merchant adventurers their charter, '...that they, of their Adventures, costs and charges, as well as for the honour of this our realm of England...might adventure...to the East Indies..." So the East India Company was inaugurated in 1599.
Yet having a royal charter was no help to a captain of a trading ship at a standstill on the Hooghly river because gunboats of the Portuguese, the Dutch and the French had got there before you and now prevented you from entering the anchorage at Chuttanuty. The English had been slow off the mark and might have remained barred from carrying on trade in the Deccan had not Shah Jehan's daughter been badly burned in an accident.
Desperately his courtiers sought help from the resident Europeans but could only obtain it from the surgeon of that English ship moored along the Hooghly. Its name was Hopewell which would augur well for the English in India for Mr Gabriel Boughton cured Shah Jehan's beloved daughter. This was the same Shah that loved his dear wife, Mumtaz, so passionately that in memory of her he built the Taj Mahal. Now he asked the surgeon to name his price as a measure of his gratitude. In the words of Proffessor Charles Stuart, 'With that liberality which characterises Britons, he sought not for any private emolument, but solicited that his nation might have the liberty to trade....', and the rest is history.
The Merchant Adventurers came to realise that it was private enterprise and initiative that would drive their project forward and increasingly sought the support of like-minded men in Parliament and so arose the faction of the Country Whigs. Robert Harley had been such a merchant adventurer sending his son into Parliament where he quickly rose to prominence. Yet being elected Speaker of the House of Commons led him into politics and away from the business interests of his colleagues.
He could only observe and not participate in the setting up of the Bank of England which more and more was funding not only trade by the East India Company and other trading enterprises but also became instrumental in controlling and channelling the supply of money to fund the War of the Spanish Succession. It was the likes of John Churchill and Lord Godolphin who were setting the agenda; it seemed to Harley he was little more than a messenger boy in the great schemes of state. To the Duumvirs, as Churchill and Godolphin came to be called, he was a mover and shaker yet the real power lay outside his purview. One of Harley's great assets was personal charm which had brought him the office of Speaker and in fulfilling his duties it brought him into contact with her majesty, the queen.
It did not take long to appreciate her opprobrium towards the war. Her people were suffering. She could witness it on every street corner and on the roads in her various progresses through the kingdom. She had shown him letters of distress from officers who having lost a limb or been blinded were as badly off as any commoner. Indeed many officers in Marlborough's army were commoners as it was his custom to promote on the field of battle. It was also a stroke of fortune for Harley to discover that the woman who was doing much good to the queen was a cousin of his. It was the aftermath of that fateful meeting one day at the Garden House, Windsor, having been summoned there by the queen, that he ran across that cousin, Abigail Hill, and came to the decision that it was his destiny to bring peace to the country. By so doing he was fulfilling an ardent wish of the queen. He saw no higher duty.
Nonetheless it quickly transpired that a direct political assault upon the bastions of power firmly in the hands of the Duumvirs could not be successful. He had tried it, had failed and had lost even his post in the ministry. His next attempt would require careful planning; it would also involve more people and he speculated with his close friend and fellow MP, Henry St John, upon their reliability, yet the prize was great. Nonetheless were he to fail this time, he and his friend would not only lose their positions
in the ministry; both could be charged with high treason.
This attempt to dismiss Lord Godolphin (Duumvir 2) had the direct support of the queen for although she had supported his earlier attempt, it had failed when Marlborough had threatened to resign. He proved to be irreplaceable. Yet Harley was about to come face to face with the unpalatable truth that the Duke of Ormonde, approached to replace the Duke of Marlborough (Duumvir 1), was an idiot and this denouement had come about as a result of Harley's own misdemeanour. It has already been remarked that payment of remuneration often was months in arrears although as officers were in possession of a private income, there were no consequences.
The Duchess of Marlborough had brought off a coup in obtaining a post for Jack Hill, but as he had no private income, he was often penniless. In a similar manner Robert Harley had taken onto his staff an able officer by the name of Anthonie de Guiscard. He was soon to discover the sad outcome of withholding payment from an employee with no other means of support. Fortunately for Harley the hearing of the accused was being held in camera as it was deemed a matter of national security. Yet some doubts raised by Henry St. John as to the suitability of the man to replace the captain-general when the time came, would now surface.
The hearing was conducted in the presence of this person whom Henry St John regarded as little better than a high-born messenger as he filled that role when William III sent him with his instructions to Princess Anne to send Lady Churchill packing. In revenge Anne, then queen, sent him with orders to the earl of Rochester to quit as lord-lieutenant of Ireland. Robert Harley had invited him to chair the hearing on the evening of March 7th, in the year 1711. Full of self-importance, he was announced by the footman, as he entered the chamber set aside for the hearing, and drew himself up to his full five feet and eight inches stature, as the footman words rang out: James Butler, Duke of Ormonde. In this manner, he took his seat in the chair that Anne normally occupied at her Councils of War and addressing nobody in particular, said grandly: "Well, gentlemen, are we ready?"
