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

by Martin Stephen

  They met in a small study, with rich hangings and an ornate ceiling. They were alone. As Gresham had once attacked Cecil, and nearly strangled him, at such a meeting Gresham had feared that Cecil might not see him alone.

  Cecil looked up as he approached. Gresham allowed him no time.

  ‘There’s a plot, of which you’re probably aware, to kick James out with the help of Catholic mercenaries and five hundred Spanish troops. And put the pliant Arbella on the throne. I’m here to tell you that that isn’t the plot at all. It’s concealing another plot and those Spanish troops have got to go home now.’

  Would it work? He would know immediately.

  Cecil looked for a few seconds at Gresham, like a snake looks at a mouse.

  ‘You have no evidence of my involvement in any such escapade.’

  No evidence. Cecil had not denied the existence of a plot, merely that Gresham could link Cecil to it. He would be right. There would be no evidence. Only a handful of the Spanish, safely far away, would know that Cecil supported it. Cecil doubted that Raleigh could implicate Cecil, as he would undoubtedly try to do. Yet Cecil’s response lifted Gresham’s heart. No blank incredulity. No out right denial. Gresham had guessed, and gambled, right.

  ‘True,’ said Gresham, starting to feel calmer. ‘But unlike Raleigh, I’m not trying to get you convicted as a traitor.’

  ‘What are you trying to do?’

  ‘Keep England for the English,’ said Gresham. ‘You see, I don’t believe Spain will pull its troops out, once you’ve guaranteed freedom of worship, and leave you as the effective King of England. I believe Spain will stay, and demand England become Catholic. And if Spain is in charge, England’ll be caught between some very angry Scots, who can point out that their King was actually crowned King of England, which is about as strong a claim as you can have to the Crown, and the French. They’re not going to tolerate a Spanish colony a few miles off their coast. England could become a battleground, like the Low Countries.’

  If Cecil was affected, he did not show it. The man was good, Gresham had to admit. He would not share Gresham’s fears. Cecil’s confidence in his ability to manage things was boundless. Whilst bowing to Spain, Cecil would probably send private reassurance to France that England would not act against them, and as for Scotland, Cecil was probably gambling that it simply could not afford an annual campaign.

  ‘Very noble of you,’ sneered Cecil, whose finger was tap-tapping on his knee. ’But you must have more to tell me. Your intelligence will tell you that if there were any truth at all in your story, a person such as myself could not afford to let you leave this house alive. This is not the Court,’ Cecil continued, conversationally. ‘It is my home. These are my servants, my acres. Unlike at Court, what happens at this place is what I say has happened.’

  Despite himself, Gresham smiled. ‘The thought had crossed my mind. And you’re correct, of course. I do have more.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘Raleigh and some liverymen opposed to peace have suborned the mercenaries. They’ll let the Spaniards disembark, then mow them down.’

  Some colour did leave Cecil’s face.

  ‘Why would they do that?’

  ‘You’re quite clever yourself,’ said Gresham. ‘You can work it out. The massacre of Spanish invaders happens outside Raleigh’s prison. He probably claims to have led the attack on them, claims to have joined the plot simply so he could work under cover to destroy it from within. England is saved by the hero Sir Walter Raleigh – the man you allowed to become an icon because of your fatuous show trial – who sweeps back into favour on an unstoppable tide of public emotion. A load of Catholics are executed, as are some very surprised members of some Livery companies – leaving, incidentally, a lot of gaps in London’s trade which the minority of businessmen behind the second plot will rub their hands at and pick up with glee.’

  ‘Is that all?’ said Cecil, his tiny eyes seeming to burn black and bore through Gresham.

  ‘Not quite. Firstly, I’m set up as the English leader of the Spaniards and chief villain, and conveniently killed so I can’t deny it. Secondly Raleigh seems to cite you as a prime mover in the original plot: risky, in my opinion, and I wouldn’t do it, but Raleigh hasn’t forgiven you for Winchester and sees it as poetic revenge to preside over your trial. Thirdly, I wouldn’t put it past Raleigh to be hoping that the public support for him will be so huge as to let him send James home and put Arbella on the throne anyway.’

  ‘So why tell all this to me? Why not just flee the country?’

  ‘Because you’re the only man who can stop it.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘The Spanish troops will not receive messages from England; too much danger of a messenger being captured, or realising that what he carries is worth enough to keep him and his living in splendour forever. No, communication with the troops will be via Spain. And despite the worry about messengers from England, there’s got to be a panic button, a way of calling off the troops if, say, they’re betrayed. An ambassador would be my guess, or one of the lowly Spaniards who’s here trying to set up the early stages of the peace conference. The Spaniards will only believe you, no-one else. It’s got to be you who tells them the plan’s been betrayed, and it’s my guess you’re the only person who knows who is the person to get that message to those troops. You’ve got to call it off. I tell you, the plot you thought would put you in control will actually kill you, and put Sir Walter Raleigh as the most powerful man in the land.’

  ‘You know,’ said Gresham, ‘I’m surprised at you. You intercepted a plot by Raleigh to give him power, and used it to destroy him and put yourself in power. And that’s exactly what Raleigh has done with your plot. How Raleigh must be laughing! I repeat, you’ve got to call those troops off. If you don’t, their massacre will destroy you and put Raleigh in authority over England.’

  ‘I have got to do nothing, Henry Gresham,’ said Cecil. ‘If there is even a shred of truth in what you say – and I admit to nothing, you understand – what happens if I do very little? I would be most surprised if these supposed mercenaries knew who they were going to be ordered to fire on. Their commanders might be in on the secret, in which case it is relatively simple to replace them with new commanders who will do what they have been paid to do, or just give them new orders. Mercenaries do not follow a cause or even their heart. They follow orders. So you tell me, in this fantasy you have invented ...’

  Did Cecil always speak as if someone was listening and taking notes that might later be held against him?

  ‘… new orders could be given to these supposed mercenaries not to fire upon these supposed Spanish troops, but fire instead in their support. By seeing me, you have simply given me the means – were any of this true – to put things back to where I wished.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Gresham, ‘I’d thought that one out for myself.’

  ‘And no doubt produced an answer?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Gresham. ‘Two, actually. The first one is very amusing. Here; I had these printed before I came here.’

  It was a handbill, printed on the cheapest possible paper. INVASION! it screamed, and in the simplest of language summarised the plot, down to the fact five hundred Spanish troops would land opposite The Tower to mount an attack on England’s King. It named the only five nights when the tides were suitable.

  ‘I’ve enough of those hidden away to have one nailed to every wall and door in London. It’s not perfect, I grant you. But the weakness of the plot has always been what ironically is its greatest strength, taking The Tower. Landing those troops anywhere else simply won’t do the job. To do so you’ll need to cram the Spaniards into the smallest number of hulls, and ships that size will need an exceptionally high tide to get up the river far enough, preferably at night, followed by another high tide between midnight and an hour before dawn
to disembark. That limits the nights. The handbills also dictate that a lot of people will be interested in looking at The Tower on those nights. Needless to say, those bills go out if you kill me. The weakness of the idea, before you tell me, is that it might not be believed – unlikely, in my opinion – but more importantly you’ll take your revenge on my servants and dependents.’

  ‘And will you risk that?’ said Cecil.

  ‘I’m hoping not to have to find out,’ said Gresham honestly, ‘because there’s a second option that leaves both of us alive.’

  ‘And what is that option?’

  ‘I give you Aldgate. Or, to be more precise, I let you keep it. I destroy the document that would return ownership to the College.’

  Cecil leant forward. For a moment he seemed genuinely confused.

  ‘Why would you do that?’

  ‘Try to bribe you into calling off the Spanish? Or lose the College such wealth? I’ll answer the last one first. I don’t actually need to own Aldgate. I’m wealthy enough without it. I sense already the temptations wealth has to corrupt the soul, and I’ve enough to fight with my present very considerable wealth without wishing or needing to add to it. As for the College, it’s doing fine without Aldgate. Sometimes places like a College can be too rich, as can humans. Wealth can breed a corruption – as it did when Aldgate was released to your father. Better for the College that it stays a little hungry. As for doing everything in my power to get you to call off the Spanish troops …’

  ‘The troops which you say exist, but of which I have no knowledge …’

  ‘I feel a little sorry for you, for once,’ said Gresham.

  ‘How gracious of you to pity me,’ said Cecil.

  ‘You see, I don’t think you invented the original plot. It’s not your style, and you worked too hard to get James on the throne. No, I think the plot was hatched by Raleigh. But the Spanish were suspicious of this overture from a man they saw as an enemy, rightly so as it turns out. So they came to you, expecting you to warn them off. But I think you were starting to get cold feet about James, worry you’d backed the wrong horse. You saw how fond he was of beautiful young men with long legs, and how he might become putty in their hands even as his hands roved over them and their private parts. You’ve never had to deal with someone dominated by their sexual drive. You’re not driven by it yourself, and Elizabeth had hers as firmly under control as she had you and everything else. I think you were frightened by that side of James. And as well as that, you saw a man who was rarely sober, a man obsessed with hunting, a man bored by the affairs of state. Most of all you saw a man who whether through fear of assassination or simple snobbery despised the common man and who in turn might become despised by them. The man you backed for King was no popular leader. You were spoilt by learning your trade under Elizabeth. Your father backed her, against the current of the time, because he saw she had something unique, a capacity to reach out beyond Palace walls and into the heart and mind of the common man. And for those who were not common, she inherited from her father an even stranger thing called authority, the power to command and be obeyed by those of even the highest blood. And you thought all monarchs were like that, because the only monarch you had known was like that. So when you finally met James, your world crumbled. He was fatally flawed, yet your power rests on him, and if there is rebellion you fall, as any servant does, with him. So, hearing of this plot and believing that you might manage things so as to send the Spanish home and leave you to run the country, you didn’t so much join or even encourage the plot. You just didn’t warn the Spaniards off. You let it happen, to see what would happen. But Raleigh had a plan even your devious brain had not worked out. I tell you: let those mercenaries open fire on the Spanish troops and it’ll be a race between Raleigh and the Spanish as to who kills you first. The attacks on me paid for by the Spanish damn nearly succeeded, and they were only called off because Raleigh saw my usefulness as a scapegoat, and probably told the Spanish that instead of working against the plot I was working for it. There’ll be no-one to call off the Spanish for you, and they’ll think you betrayed them. And, to be frank, I’m better at surviving attempts on my life than you are.’

  The silence stretched into minutes.

  ‘How will I know that you have destroyed the paper?’

  Gresham felt as a man must feel when the jury announces ‘Not Guilty’.

  ‘I’ll give it you. So you can have the satisfaction of seeing it destroyed by your own hand, what you’ve wanted all along. On the day after I go to The Tower to find a surprising absence of Spanish soldiers. Oh, and one other thing. I want it made clear to the Spaniards that it was me who saved five hundred Spanish lives, and the hope of peace. I’ve really had enough of attempts on my life.’

  ‘So why will you go to The Tower knowing that the young man Travis will undoubtedly try to kill you if you thwart Raleigh’s planned massacre? What do you know about

  Travis?’

  This jolted Gresham. He had envisaged Cecil standing back from the plot, willing to profit from it if it succeeded but putting himself at such distance from it that he could not be implicated. Yet Cecil obviously knew who was the commander of the mercenaries on the night, and was implying he knew more about Travis than Gresham.

  ‘It appears not enough,’ said Gresham. ‘Tell me.’

  Cecil coughed a dry laugh.

  ‘So, it has come to this!’ he exclaimed. ‘Spy master Henry Gresham, inheritor of Walsingham’s empire, asking questions of Robert Cecil.’

  ‘I’m willing to admit I feel thoroughly annoyed and totally humiliated,’ said Gresham. ‘Go on. Please.’ He added for good measure.

  Cecil laughed again, an unpleasant noise.

  ‘Do you know,’ said Cecil, ‘in a different world and a different time I might almost have liked you.’

  ‘God preserve us both from such a fate,’ said Gresham. ‘Do tell me about Travis.’

  ‘Travis is a by-blow, a bastard,’ said Cecil. ‘Like you. The product of a liaison between a Lady in Waiting and a Spanish diplomatic mission that visited England in the early 1580’s. The father refused to acknowledge his bastard. The mother pupped him and then left him to be brought up by an impoverished gentry family in Shropshire, grateful for the annual pittance she gave them for his upbringing. They grew fond of the boy, told him who his father was.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And on his sixteenth birthday he left his adopted home, and somehow with no money and only his wits about him, found his way not only to Spain but into the presence of his father, by now rather high-ranking. He introduced himself, demanded that his natural father have him trained in the military arts and pay for him to go to the Netherlands as a mercenary, and whilst outwardly fighting for the Protestant cause be in fact what I think you in your trade call a ‘double agent.’

  ‘But my … sources …,’ Gresham said. He had of course asked his own men to explore who and what Travis was, ‘… they confirmed he was seen as a great leader.’

  ‘Indeed he was,’ said Cecil, ‘but look closely at his campaign history and you will see that his victories were always minor skirmishes, important enough for the men fighting them but insignificant in terms of the outcome of the war. And his reputation as a heroic leader? Earned by shows of immense bravery in battles or sieges where a Spanish victory was assured. I confess, I was … fooled by his record, the number of times he appeared willing to die for Spain. Certainly my Spanish informants were convinced that Travis was Spain’s man.’

  Hence his promotion to the command of the forces that would take The Tower, Gresham thought.

  ‘And you?’ Gresham asked. ‘Were you convinced?’

  ‘Yes, I was,’ said Cecil. How extraordinary. They were talking now as if they were old friends, not bitter enemies. ‘Yet I had a niggling doubt. In the report I had compiled on Tr
avis, someone had talked to the old woman who had been his wet nurse. A woman he had kept contact with, for some reason.’ If you suck life from someone’s tit, they might be deemed important in that life, thought Gresham. It was clearly not a thought that had struck Cecil. ‘The old woman recollected how much the young Travis had hated Spain, hated it for the fact that his Spanish father had spurned him at birth. At the time, I took it as the ravings of an old woman who had been paid in too much drink for her recollections. But when I heard your story …’

  Gresham was there.

  ‘When you heard my story, you wondered if Travis’s whole life had not been a subterfuge, winning his way into Spanish hearts until he could use the power and credibility he had amassed to do them real damage.’

  ‘Just so,’ said Cecil.

  Gresham should have been triumphant as he rode away, intact and with mission accomplished. Instead, he felt a deep and aching sadness. He felt sure he would have to kill Travis, or Travis kill him. Yet Gresham knew that if the lottery of birth were to be reversed, and Gresham born as Travis, Gresham would have done as Travis had done.

  Aftermath

  Two nights after The Tower, Gresham and Jane made love. It was gentle love-making, so different from the frantic grapplings Gresham had engaged in with Ladies in Waiting. Or, as the young courtiers frequently joked, the Ladies Who Could Not Wait.

  Afterwards, they had talked.

  ‘Do you know,’ Gresham said, ‘half of me thought five hundred Spanish troops would land. I wasn’t sure Cecil would call them off. I couldn’t know if he had.’

  ‘I can see why he called them off,’ said Jane. ‘I’m just surprised he got involved in a plot like that in the first place. Surely he didn’t trust Raleigh?’