Privilege Preserved (A Poor Man at the Gate Series Book 5)

by Andrew Wareham

  Boys! That was a question to be dealt with. He could see that twenty years hence, maybe even as soon as ten, there would be a shortage of skilled men in the yard. He must speak with the tradesmen and with the semi-skilled as well to see whether they could come up with an agreement to bring in youngsters to learn at their sides. Not as apprentices with the purchase of indentures and all of the legal fuss and bother that entailed and the worry of offending the unions, of giving them an excuse to recruit and spread their wings a little more, but perhaps more as a matter of charity. They could take eight year olds from the orphanages and put them to earn their daily bread and turn themselves into skilled hands who would make good money as adults and become useful citizens.

  His navvies would probably be in favour, most of them having crawled out of the gutter the hard way and being decent sorts of men who would be happy to see unfortunates having it a little easier than they had. The tradesmen might be a different matter, they being concerned to keep their wages up by restricting their numbers. An appeal to their good nature as Christians, coupled with a tutoring payment for every man who took a boy on, should do the job.

  They would need to build their own set of diggings for the boys, with a kitchen and laundry and bath-house, and cook and a couple of servants besides, doing the job properly, and that would not come cheap. A schoolroom as well, and an usher, or a Dame, they would need to read and write. He would have to persuade my lord, and then have him speak to Mr Richard.

  It would do him no harm in the area, either, to be seen as a philanthropist. If, as was not impossible, it was already under local discussion, a Private Act was passed to reorganise the old mayor and burgesses into a local council with power to levy a tax and spend on roads and sewers and such, then respectable and well-regarded local men would have a place to occupy. A good income and money in the bank together with a few years as mayor would do their children no end of good, could well result in them being able to marry up in the world. That was a thought to play with!

  What else?

  Not a lot.

  The only major problems were in the field of technical improvements, which was not where his skills lay. There was an argument about the merits of single large stern wheels opposed to smaller side paddles. It seemed probable that the larger wheel was more efficient, but it could only work at all on calm waters, while the side wheelers could thrash along through the waves of an estuary. The engines to be sent out to the Mississippi would be for stern wheelers, he had been told, but there was no use at all for them in England. For the rest - the questions about the best layout of boilers and condensers, the bore and stroke of pistons, the size, angle and number of paddles on a wheel – he had no opinion to offer because he was not an engineer.

  As a result, when that cocky little Scotsman, Fraser, came to lay the law down he could only reply ‘yes, sir’, much though he might have liked to say a great deal more to him. At least he came down on his own now that he had a wife to look after him, they no longer had to put up with that bloody great dog crapping all over the yard. Still, he was good at his job; it was just a pity that he had to make sure everybody he met knew that fact.

  Charlotte produced a son, as she had expected, to the general applause of the family. She could not see what all the fuss was about, she said, a perfectly ordinary process that any female might expect to find within her compass. Matthew had learned a sufficiency of tact to make his congratulations relatively low key, but to pay a visit to a very good little jeweller he had found in Manchester, a gentleman who had fled Holland some twenty years before, getting out with all of his stock and family before the French armies overran his country. The Dutchman specialised in amethysts and Baltic amber and had produced a truly striking necklace set in pale gold, a piece much out of the ordinary way which took immediate pride of place in Charlie’s jewel box.

  Tom and Frances stayed for the celebrations and then made their way to Thingdon Hall in response to a note from Quillerson that suggested all was not well at the Grafhams.

  They found the Marquis shrivelled, wizened, blue in the face, weary in an armchair.

  “Good to see you, my lord,” he greeted Tom, “and you, my dear. I suspect you are only just in time.” He stopped to catch his breath. “Damned heart has decided that enough is enough, it seems. Got out of bed last week and fell over. Quack says I had a heart attack and that I’ll have another soon and won’t get up a second time. Bloody nuisance! I wanted to see an end to the works on the river, and that will be another twelvemonth yet.”

  He paused, took a sip at a cordial, needing both hands to hold the glass steady.

  “Damned stuff! Makes me breathe easier but I’d rather it was brandy! Rothwell’s here, as he should be, and so’s Anne. A pity that…”

  He left the rest of the sentence unsaid.

  “Don’t know that I’ve ever said it, my lord, but meeting you was the best thing that’s ever happened to the Family. Thank you, Thomas!”

  They held the funeral two weeks later, the Bishop of Peterborough officiating, Reverend Harker at his side, second fiddle in his own church.

  Tom estimated that half of Debrett’s was present, certainly every peer who was related to the Grafhams, the dozen or so of pre-Restoration families all represented and a surprising number of the more recent political creations who made up the bulk of the aristocracy. All made a point of not only greeting the new Marquis, as was only right, but also acknowledging his wife, now a leading figure in Society, and of speaking to their son, become Lord Rothwell, properly silent behind them.

  “Will you be ordinarily resident at Grafham House now, Marquis?”

  “Definitely, my lord. I have no intention of seeking office or of taking a position at Court. One of the Prince Regent’s people has already spoken to me, suggesting that a place at Carlton House would be open to me, but I have explained that the estates need my presence for the while.”

  Tom was not surprised, the Prince Regent was increasingly desperate in his pursuit of followers. It would not have been at all unlikely for Rothwell to have been able to parlay his new Marquisate into a dukedom on the Prince’s accession to the throne if he had been willing to offer his public support.

  “You have heard that the Prince Regent’s brothers are all rushing into matrimony, despite their advanced years, following the death of Princess Charlotte, Thomas?”

  “I had. I presume they have all decided that HRH will be unable to finagle his divorce and so he will not produce an heir. They are all trying to remedy that lack.”

  “Just that. I believe, in fact, that there has been an amount of official encouragement to them to do so, government having finally concluded it to be preferable that there should be an heir in the Hanoverian line.”

  “Weaklings, with a history of disease and insanity. Why should they want them? Because they are weaklings, of course! If the Hanoverians failed, who would stand to take the throne?”

  “Good question, Thomas! There are several distant Protestant cousins to choose between, and the choice, whichever it was, would cause some hackles to raise. Amongst them one can discover more than one intelligent, resolute figure, but all of them with a degree of backing either from Prussia or Austria.”

  “Better to keep the Hanoverians, if it be possible. It would be so embarrassing to invite a young princeling to take the throne and then to cut his head off ten years later for trying to make his kingship a reality. The Prussians might be quite annoyed and we really do not need another war.”

  “And we really do not need, and will not accept, a monarch who has any significant degree of political power.”

  The funeral feast ended, the guests left, mostly to stay at the great houses within a radius of twenty or so miles, none having expected accommodation of the bereaved family.

  “What will your mother do now, Marquis?”

  “Retire, she says, to the dower house. An inconvenient place down towards Thrapston. I hope to persuade her to remain in her rooms here. The
house is big enough that I am not depriving my wife of her standing by doing so.”

  The Dowager put up no fight when begged not to retire to the dower house. She could see no reason to go to the expense of setting up a household for herself if it could be avoided and she did not wish to leave her home, she was too old and felt that any new dwelling would only be temporary.

  “I can be useful as well, Thomas. Young Rothwell will work with his tutor here and he can learn about the estates in his spare time. The boy has grown up in London and he needs to become acquainted with the land he will eventually inherit. He can get used to riding his acres and I can tell him all of the stories and name the various families he should know.”

  “What is he, sixteen or so?”

  “Thereabouts. Old enough to get up to mischief, I doubt not, and better out of Town than exposed to temptation there.”

  The old lady’s almost rueful cynicism was as appealing, and perceptive, as ever. Tom grinned, commented that the boy was of much the same age as Joseph had been when he first spread his wings.

  “And you as well, was it not, Thomas?”

  “Many years ago, ma’am, and the world a different place.”

  “The people in it are much the same, I believe.”

  “Probably, ma’am. A few are good, even fewer are bad and the great mass are credulous and silly and can be led by the nose, happy to accept the chains they do not recognise. I have no doubt that the Bishop would have told us that it is all for the best.”

  She spared him her opinion of the Bishop, having that morning sat through his eulogy of her late husband, a bland paean of praise that had diminished his real achievements while ignoring all of his failures. She felt his life had been lessened by the refusal to see that he had faced up to challenges which he had failed to surmount; he had fought and there was no shame in honourable defeat and by denying the losses the Bishop had devalued his successes against equal odds. The Marquis had been a public man in a period of war and turmoil, and had experienced a tumultuous existence, unlike the complacent cleric who had hidden away from reality and now denied its very nature.

  “I was talking to Reverend Harker last month, Thomas. He tells me that he knows that somewhat fewer than one half of local people attend any form of divine service and that he had been informed by men whose wisdom he trusts that in your industrial North Country the figure is far, far lower. This is not a Christian country, Thomas, and when I meet up with bishops or the Nugents of this world I can fully understand why.”

  “I know little of the history of our country, ma’am, but I suspect that the ordinary people have a memory of Cromwell’s drab days, when the country was actually ruled by Christians, and then was given into the hands of the traitor King Charles the Second, who sold us to the French and was a Catholic by sympathy. After that, who wants Christians in government, or interfering in our daily lives?”

  It was a persuasive argument, but the old lady had half an eye on her own grave, was perhaps unprepared to take the risks of denying the afterlife.

  Christopher had heard a most discomfiting rumour from some of his Radical friends. They told him that a man known as Oliver the Spy had betrayed the Derbyshire blanketeers, had been hand in glove with the government and was expected to be called to the witness stand in their forthcoming trial.

  He wrote an immediate letter to Humphrey at his London address to ask if this could be true, was both pleased and relieved to be assured in person the very next week that it certainly was not. He could trust Humphrey, he knew, and accepted that theirs was a completely different Oliver. The name, after all, was one that any revolutionary might wish to take and be proud of.

  “Indeed, Christopher, I am off to meet him myself this very week. I believe he has received a proposal from a group of Welsh coal miners to blow up their pits and bring all of the men out in rebellion. They want but the gunpowder to achieve their aim.”

  Christopher was appalled.

  “But, Humphrey, I have finalised in my mind my own plan, using two tons of gunpowder to achieve the end of most of the cavalry and yeomanry officers in Lancashire. I do not believe it would be possible to obtain the means other than from the carters and I doubt that two ambushes would be possible.”

  Humphrey was sure that that was so. One attack could be successful but after that the authorities would vastly increase the protection put upon the deliveries.

  “Could I perhaps meet Oliver again and lay my scheme before him? I am sure he would see its merits, relying as it does upon the enterprise of a single bold man rather than on the dubious possibility of five thousand acting together.”

  Humphrey thought it very likely. Was it possible for Christopher to make his way to Stafford, where Oliver was to be found for the while?

  Christopher could. He agreed to be present three days hence because Mark would be attending the assizes in Lancaster for two weeks and would not be aware of his absence.

  Humphrey did not have to be in Stafford for another day, wondered whether he could find a night’s lodging in Manchester, was pleased to discover that there was a spare bed in Mark and Christopher’s set of rooms, the lawyer not being present. It seemed desirable to him that the keen brain of the barrister should be elsewhere. After dinner he suggested to Christopher that it would be easier to persuade Oliver if he had his plans laid out clearly for him and made helpful suggestions of the best way to write them out so that everything would be easily understood.

  Christopher spent the better part of two days setting out his ‘Great Plan of Vengeance upon the Oppressive Military Powers, whose Wickedness exceeds that of the Grand Turk himself’. The operation was to have three parts: appropriation of the gunpowder; manufacture of bombs; placement of the devices, each part numbered and accompanied by drawings.

  The first stage was to mount an escalade upon a cart carrying powder from Faversham to the quarries in Derbyshire. The roads across the hills there were steep and slow and offered opportunities for concealment. Six bold men, Christopher to be one, the others yet to be identified, would hold the carters and guards at musket point, tie them and leave them in a convenient barn or sheepfold and then drive the cart away. It was to be hoped that the guards would be sensible, but if they proved themselves enemies of the people it would be regretfully necessary to shoot them.

  On reaching a warehouse in Manchester - there were always a number empty and available to let, it would be easy to obtain a lease for a twelvemonth, paying a quarter in advance - the load of one hundred and sixty barrels would be split into eight parts, each to be loaded into a donkey cart together with another five hundredweights of cobble stones. Donkey carts were commonly used by small tradesmen and would attract no undue attention, would in fact be ignored by sentries at barracks gates. In each load there would be another small keg containing a length of slow match and two pounds of powder.

  The final stage would be to lead the carts to the officers mess kitchens of the eight biggest barracks and camps, detailed in an appendix. They would travel separately, of course, each timing their arrival for exactly six o’clock of the afternoon, the time chosen for being during the normal hour for dinner when a regiment was on call and when the cooks and kitchen staff would be too busy to inspect the deliveries. The fuses were to be lit at fifteen minutes after six and were to explode some ten minutes later, to the great detriment of all those within fifty yards of the bombs.

  Wednesday came and Christopher took the stage to Stafford where he met Oliver in conditions of great secrecy in the house of a true supporter.

  Oliver read the proposal in eight sheets of quarto, said he could hardly believe it, then hastened to reassure Christopher that it was an expression of awestruck amazement. The evening was spent in celebration of the awe-inspiring coup de main that was to come, Christopher hailed as a True Briton who would bring Behemoth down. In the morning he was given one hundred sovereigns so that he could make arrangements for the warehouse and carts and was told that he must expect a ver
y early call to play his part.

  “I must go to London, Mr Wakefield, to speak to my informant there, for I believe there may be a load of powder bound for the quarries of North Wales as early as next week. Having confirmed it to be so and discovered its itinerary then I shall gather together six hardy souls, all lately of the dragoons, and bring them north with me and then you may lead them to Glory!”

  The six men would remain with Christopher and Humphrey to take a donkey cart apiece when the infernal devices were loaded. Humphrey begged that he might be permitted to take an active part himself in so great an endeavour, he would be proud to be second to Christopher’s leadership.

  The road to North Wales was far closer than that through Derbyshire, much more convenient. Fate was conspiring to bring the enemy into Christopher’s hand.

  Oliver took the briefing paper south with him, delivered it to Mr Smith, chuckling in self-satisfaction.

  “There is sufficient there to hang him on a charge of conspiracy, Mr Smith. I believe I may be said to have earned my fee, sir.”

  “Not yet, Mr Oliver. The Lord Chancellor has informed Lord Liverpool that there is some dissatisfaction amongst our leading judges and that they wish to see an end to the discovery of the conspiracies plaguing our nation. They seem to feel that some of the evidence has been too good to be true!”

  Oliver was quite upset; he had worked very hard to bring about some of the recent convictions.

  “This is in the gentleman’s own handwriting, Mr Smith, and he is a lawyer’s clerk.”

  A previous document had excited some derision in court when it had been discovered that the author it had been ascribed to was an illiterate weaver.

  “Even so, Mr Oliver, I believe the court might prefer to discover the gentleman to have been caught red-handed. It might well, indeed, be desirable that the case should come before the coroner rather than a judge.”

  Oliver acknowledged the order, not displeased to have been given the means to exercise a little delicate pressure on Mr Smith on some future occasion. Blackmail was one of the tools of the trade, after all. A pity he had not given his instruction in writing.