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

by Martin Stephen

  ‘So why would the London Livery Companies be hiring soldiers? The best soldiers? Not just any old troop, only the ones with a reputation. And promising money, real money, to commit themselves to one month’s service, in April of next year.’

  ‘They are?’

  ‘You bet they are. As you know, not much official fighting in the Low Countries, the end of the Irish campaign, relative peace in France ...’

  ‘Has left a lot of soldiers floating around London,’ finished Gresham. Jane reported that the gossip in St Paul’s was they were turning London into a war zone, and that the general feeling was that the sooner there was a proper war for them to go to, and die in, the better.

  ‘Well, there’s troops and there’s individuals. Most of the decent men prefer serving in a troop. You know how much a life can depend on the man you’re fighting with, and there’s the comradeship. And there are good troops and bad troops. The good ones know who they are. We don’t choose who someone hires, of course, but if we’re in a contract and we know they’re hiring more, if we get a chance we recommend a troop we know are good, simply because the chances of surviving a fight are so much better if you’re with good, disciplined men.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And the man doing the hiring is not only going for the best, he’s going for a lot of them. If what I hear is true, he’s signed up well over a thousand men, maybe more.’

  ‘That’s a proper army!’ said Gresham. It’s more men than Essex had marching with him at the end of the Irish campaign.’

  ‘It’s enough men to topple a government,’ said Travis flatly. ‘It stinks. The man doing the hiring has asked each commander if there’s anyone they wouldn’t fight for. He hasn’t said it, but my sense was that there’s only one power with enough money and motive to set a new army loose on England: Spain. I think I’m being asked to fight for Spain. My family were Catholic,’ Travis said, ‘ruined by it, actually.’ Catholics who refused to attend Protestant church services faced savage fines. ‘Interestingly, all the other commanders are either Catholic, or have Catholic connections.’

  ‘Is that so bad? Fighting for Spain? And Catholicism. You didn’t say if you were Catholic.’

  ‘No, I didn’t, did I?’ Travis laughed. ‘As for whether or not it’s bad, beggars – and mercenaries – can’t be choosers. It’s not who I fight for that concerns me. It’s the fact that this has to be an attempt to topple the throne, but we’ve not been told. It’s the only thing that explains recruiting a force that size to work in England.’

  ‘So you’re in love with James I?’ asked Gresham.

  Travis gave him a withering look.

  ‘If I and my men – who I have to say, I’ve become rather fond of – fight for one side or another in the Low Countries, or if we fight for England against the Irish, it’s simple. We fight. Some of us die. If we win, we get paid, and move on to the next contract. Sometimes if we’re lucky we can even do the same thing if we lose. But if I end up, as an Englishman, fighting to overthrow the legitimate government of England, I’m something even lower than a mercenary. I’m a rebel, a traitor. And if I happen to be paid by the losing side, instead of dying in battle I endure being spat on, reviled, and hung, drawn and quartered – and it might surprise you to know that even mercenaries quite like the idea of arriving in Heaven or Hell in one, rather than four, separate pieces. No, if you hire someone to oust a reigning monarch, that should be an extra on the bill.’

  Gresham grinned at Travis. ‘That’s a relief,’ he said.

  ‘What is?’ said Travis.

  ‘For a moment I thought you’d gone all moral on me. Now I can see the real reason for your anger, I’m reassured. It’s not morality. It’s that you’ve been offered the going rate for one type of job, whereas the reality is that the job is an altogether higher risk. I think it’s your commercial sensibilities that have been aroused, not your moral ones.’

  Even as he spoke, Gresham’s mind was racing. His outward manner showed no sign of it.

  Travis laughed. He really was rather an attractive young man. But then again, Gresham had always liked those who placed little value on their lives.

  ‘Perhaps we might agree at a half-way point. I’m offended about being misled, if that is indeed what is happening, and about being underpaid. I don’t think there is a Worshipful Company of Poor Bloody Footsoldiers – or should I say A Worshitful Company? – so I feel rather cast in the mould of the livery – scarlet, more often than not – worn by my men. I must fight for them, as I ask them to fight for me. And my problem is that in this case, where I either take the money or starve, or see my troop break up, I’m frankly out of my depth. I don’t do kingdoms.’

  ‘How do you know your paymaster was the Livery Companies?’

  ‘Simple,’ said Travis. ‘As simple as following the little shit who sought to recruit us back to his base. Oh, he jinked and weaved enough, but I’ve good men under me. Straight back to a Livery Hall, he was. Turns out he’s Clerk to one of them, one of the richest.’

  ‘But why would some Livery Companies, of all people, be hiring an army, for Spain or for anyone else?’ asked Gresham.

  ‘Because peace with Spain will make them even more wealthy. True, the Spanish gain a lot by peace. Presumably part of the deal is the restoration of Catholicism to England. They not only gain that, and a salve to the pride that was so hurt by the defeat of the Armada, but an end to the loss of the bullion ships so beloved by English privateers, bullion on which I’m told the Spanish economy has become increasingly dependent.’

  ‘I can see what Spain gets out of a quick end to the reign of a Scottish Protestant. But what do the Livery Companies get out of it?’

  ‘There’s fortunes to be made out of opening up trade with Spain. And, I believe these stinking little commoners are desperate to sit their far arses in the House of Lords.’ Travis was revealing his upper-class background, showing that class’s contempt for those who had to work for a living. ‘In my mercifully limited experience of them their money can buy anything, except social acceptability. It’s what some of them crave as much as life itself. Whoever’s behind this plot needs the money to hire the necessary men, and there’s a stash of it in the Liveries. In return for their money, I bet whoever it is has offered them more knighthoods and peerages than even James has handed out.’

  ‘You could be right,’ said Gresham. ‘And there’s me thinking liverymen are so boring because they are the ultimate Establishment, conservative to their very core. The City could have toppled Elizabeth when Essex rebelled. They had nearly a thousand men available to take Essex on to the throne.’

  ‘Really?’ said Travis. ‘I never knew that.’

  ‘Few did,’ said Gresham. ‘But it took surprisingly little effort to get them to go away. Mind you, it does show they can be suborned.’

  ‘You persuaded a rebel force to disband?’ said Travis disbelievingly. ‘Christ Almighty! What haven’t you done?’

  ‘Saved my friends,’ said Gresham in a rare moment of bleak honesty, the sight of a torn young body in the Low Countries rising before him, and the body of his oldest friend George, Lord Willoughby. ‘Talking of which, I’d like to share this with my friends.’

  Mannion and Jane were briefed. They were nonplussed.

  ‘I don’t see as what these livery men ’as got to get out of rebellin’,’ said Mannion, who had clearly decided on this naming. Was it jealousy because of the time the Worshipful Members were reported to spend drinking and feasting?

  ‘Wealth,’ said Gresham, ‘and rank and the chance to pomp around Court and brag how important they are, to their fat wives.’ Gresham was finding himself agreeing with Travis. The English were hungrier for honours than any other race Gresham knew. England’s big mistake had been to let a dribble of middle-class men into the upper classes. Cecil’s father, Raleig
h himself, the infamous Cardinal Wolsey, Thomas Cromwell, all had been moved up, or climbed up, several leagues socially. In contrast, birth so dominated entry to the upper class in Spain and France that whilst the middle class might die for an invitation to a noble household, they would not dream of being upper class themselves. ‘I’m finding it harder to see what Spain sees in all this. Both James and Cecil want peace with Spain, see war as a waste of money. There’s talk of a peace conference, in May. Spain is ready for peace, if only because it’s spent a fortune on trying to defeat England, and failed,’ said Gresham.

  ‘You’re the spy. But do you want to know what a simple soldier thinks?’ asked Travis.

  ‘Try me,’ said Gresham.

  ‘The idea of peace is driven by Cecil. James is either too drunk or too busy hunting to invent a foreign policy. He leaves it to Cecil, but Cecil is almost the last Englishmen James had left in office. The message is clear. James only really trusts his own kind, Scots. Seen from the outside, Cecil has to be at risk. If he goes, James’s advisors are fundamentalist Protestants who got rid of James’s mother as their ruler largely because she was Catholic.’

  ‘Or because she was a woman,’ said Gresham, ‘or because she was a glamorous, enticing idiot, whose judgement was always likely to be overridden by her innate sensuality …’

  ‘That’s not how Spain sees it, I bet,’ said Travis. ‘I’ll bet they never get past her Catholicism. Why gamble for peace on a Scottish Protestant King keeping his Chief Minister? Why not mount an almost bloodless coup against an increasingly unpopular King, one that puts a Spanish nominee on the throne and secures Cecil if office as the greatest proponent of peace? Why take by negotiation what you can grab by force?’

  ‘That load o’ Spaniards you sent scuttling down the Thames two year ago must ‘ave cost a lot,’ said Mannion. ‘Must ‘ave made the Spaniards think they couldn’t rely on things ‘appening according to plan in England.’

  ‘That ‘load’?’ said Travis.

  ‘There were Spanish soldiers moored in the Thames to support the Essex rebellion,’ said Jane. ‘He cut their anchor chains on the ebb tide.’

  ‘Was this the thousand men you mentioned?’ asked Travis, eyes wide.

  ‘No, actually,’ said Gresham. ‘It was nearer 500 men. The other thousand were a militia levy.’ If Travis’s eyes had gone any wider they would have vanished down his ears.

  ‘You realise what will happen if Spain does ever rule in England?’ said Jane quietly.

  ‘As far as I’m personally concerned, It’ll make the fate of Walter Raleigh look the height of fairness and good will,’ said Gresham. ‘I doubt they’ll even wait to try me. In any event, it hasn’t happened yet. Let’s see where we are ...’ He rose up to pace the room. ‘A large, trained and effective army is being raised, funded at least in part by livery companies who wish to remain anonymous. We’ve convinced ourselves the only use such a force could be put to is regime change. So who benefits from James going?’

  ‘Raleigh,’ said Jane simply.

  ‘Well, yes, alright, Raleigh. Who else? Catholics in England are increasingly feeling betrayed by James. The English Court are coming to hate him for giving preference to the Scots nobles, and bringing lice into the Court. The common people have started to turn against James because he won’t walk among or meet them, and because Raleigh’s trial was clearly a travesty. The anger and sense of betrayal felt by the Catholics argues for Spain being dragged in on their side, but equally there’s a sense that Spain is ready for peace.’

  ‘You have to ask where Cecil stands in all this,’ said Jane.

  ‘You do indeed,’ said Gresham. ‘He takes a Spanish pension, and has made it clear he sees war as a waste of money. He’s behind this peace conference it’s rumoured will happen next year.’

  ‘But James very much has a mind of his own,’ said Jane. ‘Suppose Cecil preferred the pliant Arbella Stuart on the throne, far more under his control than James? Spain knows Cecil is a friend. It tried direct rule with Philip and Mary, and it didn’t work.’ Jane was getting more and more excited by her idea. ‘So with their man controlling the throne, and them knowing that with their man on the throne they could walk in at the front door any time they wanted, it’s the perfect situation. England stops pillaging their fleets, the English pirates are hung for once, and Catholics allowed not to burn.’

  Gresham’s eyes snapped up at something Jane said, but he said nothing.

  ‘Liverymen?’ was all he said.

  ‘Apart from class issues, don’t some businesses suffer from the war with Spain? And let’s say all sorts of contracts have been offered for their support, starting with favourable terms for the import of Spanish wine. The Livery Companies make a fortune, and comfort themselves with the fact that all they’ve done is replace a Scottish King with a legitimate English heir.’

  ‘A repeat of 1588 and 1601?’ asked Gresham quietly. ‘In 1588 the plan was to bring Parma’s army across from the Netherlands, where there was virtually nothing to oppose it. Brilliant plan, but they never managed to get Parma’s army over the Channel. So in 1601 they parked 500 crack troops in transports, smuggling them up the Thames in disguised merchantmen, hoping to team them up with a thousand militia loyal to Essex. But the militia were unreliable, and we stopped the troops from landing. But the concept was sound. So this time they send another batch of crack troops – England has nothing mustered to oppose even a small army – but instead of fleshing the force out with unreliable militia they recruit top mercenaries, not only the best fighters there are but reliable to the extent of obeying the orders of their paymaster, keeping their mouths shut – and perhaps even thinking they’re doing it for religion. And it explains...

  ‘It explains the attempts to murder you,’ said Jane.

  ‘How ... what ...?’ spluttered a confused Travis.

  ‘There was a whole series of attempts on my life, one after the other, some of them very expensive.’ He stayed silent.

  Jane was impatient. ‘He won’t tell you. I will. He did more to destroy the 1588 Armada than any other man in England at the time, just as he’s told you he destroyed the last Spanish attempt on the throne two years ago by disposing of their troops. The Spanish must fear him as once they feared Drake, see him as a strange Anti-Christ who somehow always foils their plans.’

  Gresham smiled. Was he really an Anti-Christ, and used to frighten naughty children as Drake had been?

  ‘They’d want him out of the way more than anyone else,’ continued Jane, ‘in case it became third time lucky for him against them.’

  ‘So those attempts weren’t to stop the Deed being found?’ said Mannion.

  ‘What deed?’ said Travis, his ears picking up.

  ‘Best you don’t know,’ warned Mannion. ‘Well?’ he said to Gresham. ‘Was bloody Cecil innocent?’

  ‘Spain might be the answer to some of the attempts,’ said Gresham, ‘but not to all of them. What’s in it for Spain to damage Granville College?’

  ‘So we may ’ave a truce with Cecil, but we ain’t got one with Spain. So Spain’s probably still after your guts.’

  ‘They probably are,’ said Gresham. He was silent, thinking.

  ‘You could always ask Cecil,’ said Jane.

  ‘How so?’

  ‘He’s in Cambridge for a big dinner at Trinity, apparently.’

  ‘I thought the smell in Cambridge was even worse than usual,’ said Gresham, ‘How do you get to hear this stuff? I’m meant to be the spy!’

  ‘Oh ...’ said Jane, vaguely waving her arms in the air, ‘servants. And stuff.’

  ‘So where does we go from ’ere?’ said Mannion

  ‘We ...’ Gresham started to say. There was a tap on the door, and a servant ushered in an equally nervous young man. He was the most recent Fellow appointed to Granvi
lle College, and a protégé of Gresham’s. He looked nervously at Gresham and the others in the room.

  ‘Henry ...’ he stuttered.

  ‘You can say what you wish,’ said Gresham easily. ‘I trust all those here.’

  ‘I think you ought to come to College. They’ve summoned a special meeting of the Fellows. I think it’s to vote you out as a Fellow.’

  Gresham’s face showed none of his shock, or the cold, hollow feeling that hit his stomach. What did his Fellowship mean to him? He was frequently absent from College, was never part of the Fellowship as were those whose only employment it was. Yet it did matter to him, hugely. He had had a rough time as a student at Granville, forced to serve other students to keep body and soul together, but the College had in its own way been kind to him. Some of the Fellows had spotted the capacity of his brain, and given him extra time. He had shone at the disputations that were so crucial to Cambridge academic life, and had his own devoted band of students who valued above all others the rare moment he spent with them. As a young and poor student, Granville College had seen him simply as an intellect, not as the bastard son of Sir Thomas Gresham. He had won his degree and his status there in the early years on his own and through his own merits. His present status was bought by the money he gave, but Granville College would always be the place that had allowed Henry Gresham to be himself, and he loved it. Were he robbed of his Fellowship something in him would die.

  ‘But why this hatred of you?’ Jane had asked one afternoon when Gresham had reported a spat in College, ‘this hatred when your money has saved the College?’