‘Only that the handsome one is a cousin of mine own upon his mother’s side.’
The King shook his head and laughed.
‘Your relations! These Villiers pop up like coneys from a warren! Like mushrooms overnight! Doth he know you? Or is it an independent strain of the breed?’
Being used to the King’s humour she knew how to turn it to advantage.
‘His father, Sir Winston Churchill, was honoured by your Majesty. The boy was taken for a page by His Highness.’
‘I do recollect them now. Also a most persistent old woman. Goose—Gander—Drake! Am I right?’
‘As ever, sire.’
‘With James, did you say? Churchill?—Why, that M—’
‘Removed into the Army, this young John, your Majesty.’
Charles stared at her. They had walked slowly on and then stopped; the other courtiers, just out of earshot, waited, wondering if another quarrel was to break out or what else could be the matter.
‘Go,’ Charles said suddenly. ‘Go greet your young cousin from me and tell him to find more occasion for action at Tangier than in my brother’s bedchamber.’
As she dropped her acquiescing curtsey, Barbara Villiers nearly gasped aloud. So Charles knew all about John, though he had not condescended to greet him. He knew he had gained a commission and that he had volunteered for Tangier. He knew his former post had been as a page and he had mentioned the bedchamber to hint that he was perfectly aware who had become his brother’s new mistress.
Lady Castlemaine turned back as directed. She gave John the King’s message for which he sent suitable humble thanks to his Majesty. She spoke a few friendly family words. But John, being still not quite eighteen, found himself tongue-tied before such high court manners, such overwhelming, such professional beauty. He tried hard to speak naturally and Godolphin, who was more fluent than he, came to his aid when he could not find any answer to one of the lady’s questions. But it was not a success, though she persevered for a few minutes before taking formal leave of him.
‘I wonder why she took this trouble?’ he said to Godolphin, when she had moved away.
‘I think she was commanded,’ answered his friend. ‘But with what purpose I do not pretend to guess.’
Lady Castlemaine discovered this when she reached the hard. For the King had by now embarked and was gone without her. There was no message.
All due deference was shown her, another barge indicated. But my lady knew better. She had received a deliberate rebuff. Charles was not interested in her family; she had tried to direct his interest to John Churchill; he had not accepted it.
So Lady Castlemaine detached herself from the river party. She did not appear at Greenwich but went back to her own house in Westminster, where she sat and thought for a while about her young cousin. Such a handsome lad, tall and strong and with that charming smile he could produce when he could not find courtly words to use. A face in a thousand among all those simpering and scowling fools her Master favoured, or perhaps only endured.
Charles looked for her at Greenwich and when she did not appear and he was told she had gone home instead, he laughed delightedly and swore she was the only woman who ever understood him.
That night he arrived on her doorstep in a long black cloak with only two attendants. He stayed till dawn.
It was nearly a month before John left London for Portsmouth to join the convoy of ships that was preparing to sail out to Tangier. During that time he had undergone training of a sort. Not the drill applied to the men, but some intensive theoretical work on strategy as used in naval warfare, the part played by the soldiers in fights between vessels, in boardings, in landings on enemy shores, in sieges, in assaults. All this seemed very simple to John, who would have liked to suggest modifications and additions to the lectures, but did not dare to do so for fear of being thrown out of the army for insolent pretension.
He also had frequent opportunity to practice athletic movements, from riding and hunting, swordsmanship, shooting with the pistol, to tennis and netball. He was often on the river, taking over from his boatman to go in close to the shores on either side, particularly down near the surviving London Bridge where great activity was going on to restore dwellings burned in the fire. It was astonishing how quickly the people were clearing up the ashes and rubbish left by the flames. Already those houses and public buildings only partly destroyed were being restored with brick or stone, in many places scavenged from houses burned beyond repair or blown up for fire breaks.
‘It is clear already,’ Godolphin said on one such expedition, ‘that no great overall plan will be accepted. It could not prevail.’
‘It could not indeed,’ John nodded. ‘They would have to knock down nearly as much as the fire devoured.’
‘You will find a new City when you come back from far Tangier,’ his friend told him.
The delay began to irk John. He knew his own preparation was grossly inadequate. And though the soldiers were drilled and exercised fairly thoroughly, even the real professional army, he decided, was of a pitifully low standard of proficiency, while the wretched ‘pressed’ men, unsuited, unwilling, were worse than useless, a mere encumbrance they would be on any vessel or in any planned attack on land.
Thankfully he found when he got to Portsmouth that only regular troops would be employed in the Tangier expedition. So he made it his business to discover all he could about his shipmates, which meant he must first of all find the whereabouts of the vessel on which he was to travel.
With three companions he rode first to the headquarters where he had been told to report. It was late afternoon when they arrived, only to find the chief officers were not yet there. In their absence there had been total confusion, which had now begun to resolve itself into an unpleasant kind of order. For a volunteer captain, a middle-aged, loudmouthed individual, had taken upon himself to assume command, without troubling to discover if he had the senior position and was in any way entitled to promote himself.
‘You, sir,’ he accosted John, picking him out from his three companions by reason of his superior height and general alertness. ‘You, boy! Ensign, are you? Your regiment? Answer me! These others? Answer! Speak up! No insolence, or I’ll—’
John was stung into rapid speech and gave a simple, accurate, account of their journey, their names, their equipment. His manner was polite, without insolence or deference.
The bully was clearly taken aback. His dull mind had not grasped the wealth of detail that had been poured over him. A sneering voice from behind said ‘Speak more slowly, young sir. Captain Trumble is sinking in your sea of information.’
Captain Trumble swung round. He wasted no words in rebuke or counter abuse. His big hand flew out to strike the attacker’s mouth with a resounding smack.
The growing crowd that had begun to titter fell silent instantly, though many hands reached for sword hilts. Lieutenant Lawson, white-faced with blood on his lips, was one of these. But he merely bowed, said in the same mocking voice, ‘You will hear from me, sir, within the hour,’ and walked away. Captain Trumble, also pale, called for a friend by name and when the latter reached his side, took his arm in a firm grip and led him off in the opposite direction.
‘Better here and now than in Biscay,’ said a voice that John recognised.
‘Hugh!’ he cried. ‘Hugh Offord!’
It was indeed his childhood friend, unexpected, restored to him just as he had imagined himself bereft of any intimate to share this new adventure.
They had much to tell one another. Hugh’s father had been restored to his parish and was content to build up his position there to all it had been before, much to the approval of his parishioners who wanted no more alarming innovations. But Hugh and his companions had not been content, especially after the Churchill family had left the neighbourhood. So he had sought and been given permission by his father to seek patronage from my Lord Silester, with whose help he had gained a commission as ensign in a west country regi
ment of foot.
‘From which you have volunteered in like manner to myself?’ John asked.
‘You have it. And have been to that burned-out desert, the ruined London and also at Whitehall, for approval in several quarters and at last directed to join ship here in Portsmouth.’
John capped his friend’s story with a short account of his own life at Court since he left St. Paul’s School.
‘Now burned to the ground together with the great church it was christened after,’ he explained. ‘My grandmother’s house too, though it was pulled down to make a fire break.’
He explained how the King and his brother had fought to save the City while the inhabitants thought only of saving themselves and their goods.
‘In which many of the rich merchants have succeeded remarkably well,’ he went on. ‘They have lost their Halls and in a great measure their books and their papers, but I think they have preserved their gold.’
‘And their will to continue in business,’ said Hugh, who had heard much of this from clerical relations with whom he had lodged in the neighbourhood of Kensington village. They had preserved nothing, for their house near one of the City churches had been burned down with all its contents while they helped their older parishioners to escape.
‘We shall see a great restoration made when we get back from this voyage,’ John said.
He had grown very tired of stories of the Great Fire. At Court the topic had not been laboured, for few of the high nobles had suffered, or not directly. Any who had felt themselves threatened had been able to arrange early evacuation by cart or barge and the King had quickly suppressed what he considered to be idle and vulgar emotional gossip. A few ribald stories amused him, a few poor folk’s tragedies touched his kind heart, but without sentimental overtones. The disaster remained a disaster, stark, dangerous, for the war with the Dutch continued and now there was less money than ever with which to supply the Fleet, that constant, necessary drain upon feeble resources.
Hugh Offord agreed. London would be built again. London’s rich merchants would find a way of restoring its wealth. It was not their concern. They were off to those distant shores to prove themselves against strange foes, that he thought of vaguely as savages and yet at the same time romantic Moslem princes, turbanned, dark-skinned potentates, those cruel but honourable adversaries of the ancient crusades.
The Tangier expedition was a success as far as it went. The English presence was made secure, as were the fortifications, the mole, the harbour and the anchorage. In driving back the attackers Ensign Churchill distinguished himself for his command of his company of soldiers and for the vigour of their action. He accepted his superior officer’s commendation with dignity, in silence. But later on, in private talk with Hugh Offord, he laughed over the action, belittling his own part in it.
‘I found I could do nothing if I followed my orders precisely,’ he said, grinning widely. ‘It was suicide for us all. So I disregarded them and set out to win and hold our position by other means. I think he saw little difference, my poor captain. Good was his name, but his strategy was bad, damned bad.’
‘He had scarce time to see anything, I reckon,’ said Hugh. ‘It was but a few hours after he commended you that he fell to enemy fire, did he not?’
‘True,’ said John. ‘By which time Lieutenant Lawson—’
‘The same that shot Captain Trumble’s firing arm to splinters at Portsmouth in their duel?’
‘The same. Trumble lived, but lost the arm and resigned his commission. Lieutenant Lawson was cleared at his court martial. The provocation was patently the big bully’s.’
‘Since Lawson had volunteered for this expedition I wager it was thought too he might not return to make further brawls in England or elsewhere, innocent or not.’
‘He supported my group with his larger body of men. For that I am eternally grateful to Lawson. For his invaluable help at a crucial moment.’
‘Without revealing that your insubordination, we might almost call it mutiny, had contributed to Captain Good’s early death?’
John aimed a blow at his friend, but missed his target and fell off his stool at Hugh’s feet. He gathered himself up, not laughing now, but grim-faced, humiliated.
Hugh watched him with interest, in silence. John was not much changed from his early days. He was ready to join in any joke, take part in any violent action, all with the same happy vigour. But he had always taken himself seriously in their mock battles at Ashe and he was the same now, cheerful, light-hearted, but totally sure of his own judgment and never more dangerous than when he suffered a rebuff or felt himself mocked.
John sat down again upon his stool. Hugh continued to regard him in silence. When they spoke again it was of the strange beauty of the north African coast, its mixed population, the hot sun, the fierce colours of the market stalls in the little town below the castle, the violent white and black of peasant clothing, the mules, the camels, the babel of strange tongues.
Altogether John served for three years in the Mediterranean. He grew from a boy of eighteen to a young man of twenty-one. Together with Hugh they earned the distinction and praise, and of more importance, skill and knowledge in their profession. When they returned to England both were determined to continue soldiering.
For John Churchill the prospects of so doing were fairly straightforward. He decided that he must renew his connections with the Court. His father still held his position there, he knew he could present himself again to the Duke of York and there was always that distant relative, that second cousin once removed, Barbara Villiers, now Duchess of Cleveland and still, to the surprise of many, holding her position of favour with King Charles.
For Hugh Offord the situation was somewhat different, but with John’s help he was able to appear at Court from time to time in the intervals of his soldiering, very much surprised, bemused and part delighted, part shocked, by all he found there. His old father at Musbery read his much edited accounts of Whitehall with considerable astonishment but great pleasure at his son’s obvious advancement.
Chapter Eight
While John had been upholding the supposed might of England in the Mediterranean much had happened at home to lower the nation’s prestige with its neighbours and the respect of Englishmen for their government and more particularly for their King.
The war with the Dutch had not prospered. In fact quite the contrary. Partly because of the perverse meanness of Parliament, which hesitated to provide Charles with money on account of his known extravagance, his lavish gifts to unworthy followers, his wild pursuit of pleasure; but chiefly because such fears, though justified, meant that the Navy was deprived and the Fleet was run down most dangerously low; in fact reduced to such a condition that the major warships were laid up, unfit to go to sea, and the crews that should have manned them were dispersing for want of money to pay them their overdue wages. Apart altogether from these long arrears of pay, owing in some cases for months, even years.
As a consequence of this neglect, mismanagement and muddle, with its fearful result, the absence of any proper defence, the Dutch had been able to sail into the mouth of the Thames and had even penetrated to the Medway. There they destroyed the feeble opposition, captured some of the warships at anchor, burned others, and retreated to sea again in triumph. No wonder a shameful peace had to be made, which was really no peace at all but merely a respite in the war with the United Provinces.
All this John learned from Sidney Godolphin. He had renewed his friendship with the latter immediately upon his return, finding to his surprise that Godolphin too had finished his service as page to Charles and, in addition to being made a groom of the bedchamber, had been given a commission in the army.
‘You have fought for your country?’ John asked him. ‘Where? When?’
‘I have not left these shores,’ Sidney answered. ‘In fact I have but learned that I could make but a very indifferent soldier. However, it is very plain we have not finished with the Dutch, so I
must continue in the hope that I may be of some service unless his Majesty hath other plans for me.’
‘While I look to the Duke and like most of my superior officers hope we may find employment abroad. Maybe in France, where I am told King Louis hath set up an English regiment for his coming attack on the old Spanish lands in Flanders, as a way to get at the Dutch.’
Godolphin sighed. ‘You find this country of ours in a poor way, my friend?’
‘Not London,’ John answered, more cheerfully. ‘I always said it would be transformed by the time I came home. And so it is. A grand re-birth. A fine inheritance for those who shall come after. I have walked these new wide streets and looked up to the tall roofs, and wondered how we ever endured the stifling squalor of the old town.’
‘For those who shall come after,’ Godolphin repeated seriously. ‘Who will that be, I wonder?’
‘Why, our heirs when we have them.’
‘The King hath none. You have learned that, have you not?’
John was serious now. ‘Nor His Highness, I have been told. Those two little Dukes are gone. Cambridge was the elder, was he not?’
‘And the Queen barren. No hope there, after so many years. Four sons the Duchess bore to the Duke and all gone. All. While the King’s bastards thrive.’
John laughed. ‘So do my sister’s. A girl as like his Highness as a mirror image and a tiny boy with Arabella’s long face and big mouth.’
‘You have seen her then?’
‘Why not? She is still my sister and I still love her. Also my mother dotes upon her grandchildren. Only my Lady Drake will not have her name mentioned. But the old dragon hath gone to spend her last days at Ashe and those will not be long, I believe.’
Sidney looked thoughtful. ‘Nor in the general opinion will those of her Highness.’
‘The Duchess? She is in truth very ill, then? I did find a great change in her on my return, but thought this merely in contrast to the full-blown beauties I knew abroad.’
‘Not so. It is a wasting from some sickness that hath not been named.’
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