The Coming of the King: Henry Gresham and James I (The Henry Gresham Series Book 3)

by Martin Stephen

  ‘Are you worried about the new Master?’ The election for Head of House had been postponed pending James’s accession, as had so many other things. It would not do to appoint someone the new King did not approve of. God forbid they would get a stinking Scotsman.

  ‘Yes,’ said Gresham. Silence.

  ‘Why don’t they go for your money?’ she asked. She regretted it the moment she said it. She was only his mistress, and had no real status. She was a woman. Women did not understand money, only how to spend it. The man was the provider. Money, like football, was the man’s world. She hurried on, flustered. ‘All these men, all our protection … if they ruin you financially, surely you’re a much-weakened prey?’

  He grinned at her, seeing and admiring the intelligence behind her question.

  ‘They don’t because they can’t,’ he said. ‘We’ve both known what it’s like to be poor. I vowed I would hold on to what I was left, even more so after I saw my best friend first betrayed and then killed by his need for money. So, first of all, a third of our fortune …’

  Our fortune? They were not married, and she had never thought of Gresham’s money as belonging any way to her.

  ‘Your fortune,’ she said primly.

  He ignored her. ‘…is in Europe, secretly and safely held in coin. A third is in land, good productive farm land that turns in as good profit even in the worst of harvests. Food will never go out of fashion. And the other third is in insurance …’

  ‘What’s insurance?’ asked Jane.

  ‘My father leant huge sums to the Crown,’ said Gresham. ‘I’ve done the same. Much more quietly, but even more efficiently. And to most of the major noble families in England. Very, very quietly. Why do you think when I’ve sailed so close to the wind so many times with the Crown I’ve never quite fallen? Because Elizabeth needed my money, however much she hated to admit it, as did so many noble families that she could never be sure how many would oppose my death, or a trial that would reveal so much detail about their pathetic finances. And Elizabeth was honourable. I’ve just been paid back a surprising amount of what Elizabeth owed me. So now I have to persuade James he needs me as much. Which shouldn’t be difficult, the way he’s spending England’s money. As for the other money, one reason I’m still alive is that quite a large number of the movers and shakers in England are quite literally in my debt – and not keen at all on the possibility of whoever inherits my estate suddenly calling in that debt.’

  ‘So we’re safe then?’ said Jane, her face lightening.

  ‘Hardly,’ said Gresham. ’I certainly haven’t leant to Cecil, nor top the new Scottish power brokers. And there’s always a time when a monarch asks why they shouldn’t simply grab what at present is in my power to give. A treason trial is a good one. The State gets all my assets. And even in the old Establishment there are families who I haven’t been able to lend to, who owe me nothing, literally. Not just Cecil; Raleigh is one.

  ‘I thought Raleigh was a friend,’ sniffed Jane.

  ‘So did I,’ answered Gresham...

  Her mind raced, but under it was a warm glow. Gresham never talked about money. It was a rare marriage where man and wife had such a conversation. Jane felt she had crossed a boundary that day, into a new form of acceptance.

  ‘Agamemnon,’ Mannion announced next day.

  ‘No,’ said Gresham. ‘I’m Henry Gresham. Agamemnon died some while ago.’

  ‘Very funny,’ said Mannion. ‘Students are putting on a play called Agamemnon. New thing, apparently. Someone’s father coughed up the money. So they’ve gone big time. Asked the Vice-Chancellor. And all the local gentry. And made a big thing of not asking the boys from St John’s.’

  The two men exchanged glances. The entrance to the college faced the side of St John’s College, so the two shared a street. There was no love lost between the students of the two Colleges, and because John’s was far larger than the growing Granville, the John’s students frequently fancied their chances, swaggering up the street drunk and shouting out insults.

  ‘Someone planning a riot?’ Gresham asked.

  ‘Wouldn’t be the first time,’ said Mannion. Plays, often in Latin or Greek, were put on for famous visitors, but were also hugely popular with the students, who needed no excuse to mount a show. There were frequently fights to get in, and the stewards or gatekeepers knocked senseless as one group of students, or even older men who should know better, tried to gatecrash.

  ‘I know they’re bad,’ said Jane, ‘but a riot at a College play is hardly going to close a College down. Reprimand, fines … but not closure.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Gresham carelessly, ‘I think I could find a way to make it more serious.’ He then deliberately annoyed Jane by refusing to elaborate. It amused him at times to test the submissiveness she showed to him, he knowing just how rebellious she was and submissive she was not, without ever quite understanding why he qualified for this special treatment from her.

  There were no mud-stained messengers beating the door down at midnight, no sudden flights away from or in to attack. Instead two waxed packages appeared in close succession at the Porter’s Lodge, closed by a plain seal with no markings on it, containing news of London. Catholic priests had been hung in London, Elizabeth’s funeral taken place in a mood of great gloom, though observers were unsure whether this was sadness at her loss or fear of her replacement. Arbella Stuart was banned from attending, and all the common people could talk about was the death of an old lion called Elizabeth in the Tower at the same time as the Queen. Who had sent these packages? It could only have been someone at Court, briefed and paid for by Elizabeth to keep Gresham informed in the event of her death. To his surprise, he felt a warm rush off affection for the old harridan. Gresham asked Wilf, Granville’s grumpy old Porter, for his view on it all. He wiped the fluid hanging from his nose, sniffed, and without looking up from his ledger said,

  ‘Seldom cometh the better.’

  It was a proverb, but Wilf made it sound all his own.

  *

  As spring grew, the plague grew in London, brought over from Europe. James’s coronation was postponed, probably until the summer. Raleigh had seen James at Theobald’s, Cecil’s sumptuous residence, and been himself.

  It had started badly, according to Gresham’s informant, who was one of Raleigh’s few acolytes.

  ‘James kicked it off. He greeted Raleigh with, ‘Mon! I’ve heard rawly of you!’

  It was an old joke and a pun on Raleigh’s name, and by the speed with which the informant was downing his drink it seemed as if he was looking to a bleak future. A master out of favour killed any hope of preferment for their hangers-on.

  ‘Raleigh tried to argue his case, but did it with swagger. I think he quite frightened James. Not hard to do. Raleigh can be powerful, as you know. I guess he appeared a threat to James, not an ally. Didn’t have the sense to lie low, grovel a bit, beg mercy … arrogant idiot.’ The man’s speech was starting to slur.

  ‘Then he played his ace. James was bragging that he could have taken England by force had he so chosen. As if. Raleigh responded that he wished James had had to fight for the country, because then he would have known who his true friends were.’

  Gresham winced.

  ‘And James took that as a threat,’ Gresham commented. It was not a question.

  ‘James kicked him out,’ said the man.

  Gresham recounted the conversation to Jane and Mannion.

  ‘Cecil’s clever, isn’t he?’ said Jane. ‘And Raleigh’s supremely arrogant, always a bad combination for a man with good looks. Cecil knows he doesn’t have to invent a plot. Just create the circumstances that make people plot. James had been poisoned against Raleigh. Now he’s stormed off, James’s every suspicion will be confirmed. Raleigh might as well have pinned a handbill to his head saying, ‘I�
�m plotting against you!’’

  It was a coded warning to Gresham. Jane knew Raleigh had made a secret visit to Gresham, a visit Gresham had not mentioned to Jane. Dare Jane confess her concern? It was worrying he had not told her, but her supremely intelligent man had still not realised that the servants knew everything, and Jane made sure that she knew everything the servants knew. Gresham was not the only person in the Gresham household to run a network of spies.

  Gresham turned away. Raleigh was a wild star, out of anyone’s control and would almost certainly crash to the ground and burn. In the final count, Gresham realised that Raleigh would decide his own fate, but the issue was whether Gresham himself was consumed in that conflagration. He had not told Jane of Raleigh’s visit because when it finished Gresham was convinced Raleigh saw Gresham as a co-plotter. It was typical of Raleigh to assume such a thing without the formality of any discussion. Full of foreboding that he was being dragged unwillingly into the last act of the tragedy that was Raleigh’s life, he decided to spare Jane that worry at least, failing to realise that she had more than enough brains to guess at what he knew.

  By comparison, preparations for a College play seemed minor, but for some reason he would not explain to Jane, Gresham saw the events as a real threat. Jane was in a sulk, because she could not attend the play. Fellows had to be unmarried, by statute, and live in College. Behaviour was appalling, of course, and women frequently passed round the College at night among the men, with many Fellows housing a mistress or a whore somewhere in Cambridge. At the same time, there were limits, and a limit no fellow would breach was bringing a woman to an official College function. Jane adored plays, even ponderous and pompous ones in Latin acted mainly by students, but it was Mannion’s response to the plays that most amused and worried Gresham. That man of huge bulk, unremitting common sense and vast world experience became like a child at the playhouse. He laughed and clapped like a two-year old, and actually had tears in his eyes at the emotional moments. He commented loudly on the accuracy of the fighting scenes, so much so that his finest hour had been a summons from Ben Jonson, Gresham’s friend, to coach the Admiral’s Men for a planned fight scene in Every Man In His Humour. Mannion was devastated when the company decided not to play the scene. Not that Jonson, who had fought as a soldier and killed a man in a duel, needed much advice on fighting.

  For the play itself the Hall had a makeshift stage on the dais where High Table normally sat. Hundreds upon hundreds of candles filled the room, the atmosphere thick with their smell and smoke. Three times as many people as came to even the biggest Feast crammed out the place, only the most senior, distinguished or infirm allowed stools. The stagekeepers were shouting at people they thought had no right to be there, the uninvited guests shouting back. The whole room felt like a keg of gunpowder, waiting for a spark.

  Mannion slid up to Gresham, who had been in pretended nonchalance with the Acting Master, the oldest fellow and dodderingly harmless.

  ‘You were right,’ he said.

  ‘Are we ready?’ asked Gresham.

  ‘As ready as we’ll ever be. Thank God it’s raining.’

  Trumpets blew, and as near a silence as that Hall would ever see that night fell on the multitude. Agamemnon would go down in College history for a number of reasons, one of which is that it was perhaps the worst production of the worst play ever performed at College. Not surprising, thought Gresham. It had to be a complete lie that a student’s parent had put the money up. Parents paid to keep their sons away from plays, not to encourage involvement. It was the enemy of Gresham and the enemy of the College who had put the money up. There were actually a couple of students who could write vibrant verse in Latin, but both had been ill for several weeks. A similar fate had affected three or four of the best actors, with the result that the project had been taken on and the money been taken up by students with more ambition than skill, and some Fellows without the sense to realise.

  The trumpets blasted, three times. A vision wafted on to the stage and, from the first moments, laughter began to bubble from the audience.

  The figure was meant to be Zeus, judging by the god-like toga and head-dress. The actor, whose godly visor did nothing to hide his huge size and weight, was clearly Frederick, Doctor of Divinity, a Fellow whose Yorkshire accent was so thick his students had trouble understanding him. He strode to the front of the stage, boards creaking under the strain, struck a pose, and announced firmly, in Latin complete with Yorkshire accent,

  ‘I AM ZEUS!’

  Most of the audience would not have guessed that the King of gods came so obviously from Yorkshire, which was hilarious enough. What really set the audience off was that in taking the heroic stance before announcing himself Zeus flung a corner of his toga dramatically over one shoulder. A fold of the material was clearly caught up, with the result that a larger piece of the cloth was flung up as well, exposing what seemed remarkably little manhood, at least in comparison to the size of the rest of him. Zeus apparently failed to realise that he had exposed his private parts to the audience. Or, a flickering thought crossed Gresham’s mind, was this what gods did?

  The audience erupted. For a moment Gresham wondered if it was deliberate, a superb piece of comic timing designed to introduce not a tragedy but a satirical comedy. But no. It was serious.

  At a loss to understand the howling mirth that had greeted his arrival, Zeus gamely battled on.

  ‘SOME CONFUSE AGAMEMNON WITH ZEUS! I AM HERE TO TELL YOU WE ARE NOT THE SAME. YET I, ZEUS, WILL TELL YOU THAT THE GREAT AGAMEMNON TRULY RANKS AMONG THE GODS!’

  Good God! It wasn’t even in verse.

  Zeus spluttered on, promising to show the audience sights they had never seen before and which would instil fear and terror into them. Well, they had certainly seen something they had never seen before, but the sight had failed to instil either fear or terror.

  There are times when military expeditions, and plays, are fated from the outset. Destiny? Bad luck? Pure chance? Gresham did not know the reason, but he knew from that first moment that any sensible member of the cast of Agamemnon should have picked up their coat tails and run and run as far away from Cambridge as they could get, staying wherever they landed for the maximum number of months until every link between them and the show had been forgotten so that only then could they creep back.

  Mannion, who had received a verbal translation from Gresham, was looking rather hurt at the growing chaos.

  ‘Dunno what’s got into them,’ he muttered. ‘I thought he was quite good, really.’

  Highlight followed highlight. A long suffering board finally gave up under the weight of Zeus, who sank one leg through the splintered wood up to his knee, to the accompaniment of copious streams of blood from his wounded shin and calf. A masterpiece of casting had one of the smallest students in College, albeit with a wonderfully incongruous deep bass speaking voice, take the part of Agamemnon. The victor of Troy made his first entrance on what was clearly meant to be a copy of the Trojan horse, pulled by six Trojan captives. Unfortunately the horse looked more like a child’s rocking horse, being only three foot high at its tallest point. Bits of verse did begin to appear, some of them rather good, Gresham grudgingly noticed. They must have dragged some lines out of one of the sick students. It made little difference. Mercifully near the end, the plan was for Clymnestra, wife of Agamemnon, to throw a net over Agamemnon in his bath and knife him. Clymnestra was a student who appeared to enjoy playing a woman rather too much. She cast the net well enough, but in her rush to do the deed tripped up and went headlong over the bath and lay over the supine Agamemnon’s knees. He squealed as the breath was knocked out of him, threshed around in panic and entangled the net round them both. The bath tipped over and they rolled over the stage, the metal bath clanging and clanking behind them. Finally, in a merciful termination of mutual agony, they fell off the stage where those in the audience
who could see for laughing tried to disentangle them.

  Gresham missed the finale. He was outside when, just after the failed murder, there was a crash and tinkle of breaking glass, the new glass Gresham had put in the windows of the Hall.

  ‘John’s! John’s!’ two or three students yelled, almost certainly placed there in advance. The message was clear. Students from John’s, angered at being refused admission, were taking their revenge on some of Granville College’s most expensive assets. There was a rush to the doors, to defend the honour and the very fabric of the College. Anyone over twenty stayed in the Hall. There would be broken heads, broken limbs and perhaps even a death as a result of all this. Students would go to the top of Henry’s Tower, in effect the main gatehouse, picking up anything heavy they could find to hurl down on the heads of the students below, not stopping at roof tiles or coping stones. It was likely that some troublemakers, guessing what would happen would have laid in a store of cobbles and rocks, creeping up the stairs when the Porter was looking the other way, or paying him to do so.

  Except this time it was not going to be like that. The students were allowed to fly out of the Hall and down the two staircases that flanked the entrance, but found the door out into the quadrangle bolted and barred. Several tried charging at the door, but the speed with which they bounced off it suggested it had been reinforced with something very heavy from the outside. There was a distant tinkle of glass from the Hall – were the Johnians getting impatient, fearful of being deprived of their own little riot? – and a roar from the Granville’s. The only other exit was back through the Hall, and out from the dais that led through to the Senior Combination Room and then out into the Quad, through a small door.