A Question of Loyalties

by Josephine Bell

  The new Whig faction, as everyone knew already, had grown with the excesses of Oates and his fellow criminals. It had been joined by a number of former Cromwellian army men, old now, but still active in revolutionary fervour.

  They knew how to raise the younger generation into active protest: they remembered Cromwell’s genius for training men in arms. Already certain groups had been recruited. Small private armies did exist that only needed a strong military leader to form a most positive threat of renewed civil war.

  Charles did not hesitate. He ordered the Parliament back to Westminster and his own forces to Whitehall. Before they left they dispersed, without actually coming to blows with them, those groups of half-trained, half-armed recruits the mutinous members of the new Commons had drawn to their side.

  But as King Charles declared, ‘Our ‘Little Sincerity’ lives up to his nickname. That treasonable threat of his at Oxford was sincere or it was madness. We threaten nothing, but if he and his persist we still may dissolve these obstinate, self-styled reformers.’

  He did not act immediately because his niece’s marriage was not finally arranged, but he left no one in any doubt of his final resolution.

  In Edinburgh the Duke of York fretted and fumed at all the delay, principally the delay in his own return to London.

  ‘It is an outrage,’ he complained to Colonel Churchill. ‘My own daughter and I am forbidden to be present at the negotiations with Denmark. What do I know of the Prince? Beyond the fact that he is eligible, of sound mind and body, they tell me.’

  ‘He is well favoured I hear, your Highness,’ John answered, rather at a loss how to discuss the matter.

  ‘From whence do you hear that?’ the Duke asked, testily. ‘I am told nothing, except that there be few crowned, heads can offer a suitable union for the Princess. Handsome or otherwise,’ he added, spitefully.

  ‘And very good-natured, I hear,’ John ventured to declare.

  ‘You hear! You hear! From whence come these would-be assurances? Answer me that!’

  ‘Your Highness!’ John was roused to protest. ‘Did not your Highness receive a long report concerning the Prince George of Denmark? Together with a portrait miniature of the Prince that your Highness permitted the Princess Anne to see? And her Highness expressed pleasure in that viewing?’

  James looked at the young soldier sternly. ‘You are giving us an opinion my daughter did not venture to give us, her father. But must have pronounced it to her own intimate, who is your wife. A double indiscretion, colonel, that we bid you beware of repeating.’

  John had no answer to this save a mumbled apology.

  ‘He waved me out of his presence with no ceremony,’ he told Sarah, describing the incident. ‘I was indiscreet, I acknowledge it. But I only tried to comfort him over his new son-in-law. For a while I feared dismissal, even ruin. It takes so little to offend his Highness these days. He resents most bitterly his continued stay here in the north. And so do I, my dearest love, for in this restricted household of his it keeps me from your side, attending to him every day. And in addition brings me no employment of any useful kind.’

  Sarah described John’s troubles to the Princess Anne and then laughed over his complaints. ‘He would not long so much for my company were there any fighting to be done,’ she said. ‘But with my lord Argyll in exile and the clans attacking one another he hath no opportunity for his sword or his daring.’

  ‘We must be patient,’ the Princess said. ‘I think my father must be allowed to come back with us for the occasion of my marriage. My uncle is driven by necessity in keeping him away, but his Majesty is not a cruel man. I thought so when her Highness of Orange was ordered into marriage against her inclination, but she is happy now, or as happy as she can be.’

  Sarah knew what this qualified statement meant and regretted it. The Princess Mary had grown fond of her husband but on account of his relations with her lady-in-waiting she suffered a most unjustified neglect. In Anne’s opinion, at least.

  As for Colonel Churchill he found an opportunity for swift action soon enough, though not of a kind he either expected or enjoyed.

  It was yet another mission of diplomacy, one of the last he was called upon to perform for the Duke. It was a final bid on the latter’s part to have himself recalled to the Court of St. James. It concerned the affairs of the Duchess of Portsmouth, that ‘Mrs. Carwell’ Sarah had discussed with the Princess Anne.

  Like all adventurers the Duchess, as time went on, began to wonder how she might secure her future against the time when age or her protector’s inclination put an end to her present position. She did not plan to return to France. She had lost all her former standing there and her relations and friends had chosen to forget her. Charles was still devoted; he was generous. But she needed some secure and permanent income apart altogether from gifts.

  It came to her notice that the exiled Duke was largely sustained by an income of five thousand pounds a year derived from the operations of the Post Office. She suggested to the King that this might be easily transferred to herself, since the Duke must surely be in permanent exile.

  Charles was highly amused by the suggestion. He had always enjoyed the impudent extravagances of his chief mistress, his delightful ‘Fubbs’. She put them to him with a delicious mixture of French archness, peasant avarice and sheer childish greed. So now he promised to explore the possibilities, while taking a naughty pleasure in breaking his wish, or perhaps intention, to James.

  The Duke was furious again and this time the cause of his anger was not petty.

  ‘We are to be robbed,’ he thundered to his principal advisers. ‘We are to be beggared by our brother’s whore, whose jewels alone would provide her with sufficient fortune for a life-time.’

  Lord Sunderland protested, Colonel Legge murmured support in a counter-attack. Colonel Churchill said nothing until the three of them were released together to make plans and return.

  Then John said, ‘Our Mrs. Carwell will never be persuaded to take her pretty claws from that Post Office bounty. His Majesty will have some difficulty in changing its recipient. But this would be granted him if we tempt the Duke into acceptance of a bargain.’

  ‘What bargain?’ The other two were blank of ideas and showed it.

  ‘His dearest wish is to go back to the Court. He no longer fears for his succession, but he fears the Scottish nobles. They continue to abandon home and estate for a ship to Holland. They intend to come again with a sword.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So he must offer that part of his yearly income in exchange for his rightful place in Whitehall.’

  The others gasped, muttering that this suggestion, as so many others, would be refused. They went in again to the Duke to make the proposal. This time he listened without open wrath, but gave no decision. Two days later he sent for John and directed him to go at once to Whitehall to bargain further in the matter. His renewed and permanent place in the capital against a reduced pension for the French whore.

  It was the hardest mission John had ever accepted. Not the least irksome side of it was the ribald reception he found at Court. Everyone knew the detail, no one showed any sense of discretion. The odds on his success fluctuated day by day, depending upon the King’s frown, an attack of nerves on the part of the Duchess, an anonymous poem, recited in public, or set to music and sung with mock earnestness. There was even a threat of a duel, though whose honour was at stake remained obscure.

  While the outcome remained uncertain and the gamblers made and broke one another’s fortunes upon it, John found it impossible to escape back to his Sarah in Edinburgh. But in the end he managed to get leave to begin his journey. He set off for Scotland once more, with the final terms to take from the King to the Duke.

  It was near the end of April with Easter flowers in white and yellow masses under the trees of the great park-lands near the capital and in the cottage gardens beside the lanes through which he rode north.

  Wasting no time he ar
rived in five days and went at once to the Duke to explain what he had been able to achieve.

  It was immediately plain that James was far from satisfied. John put the position more starkly, his Master was affronted and dismissed him without thanks. He went quickly to pay his respects to the Princess Anne, who released Sarah to him, saying she need not hear his news for she would get it from Mrs. Freeman as soon as he was gone.

  ‘Mrs. Freeman?’ he asked, puzzled, when they were alone.

  ‘A quaint conceit of her Highness. We are such very good friends we must address one another informally. I am to be Mrs. Freeman, while she becomes Mrs. Morley.’

  ‘A somewhat unseemly, perhaps dangerous ploy,’ John said, irritably. ‘See that it doth not become dangerous.’

  ‘You find danger everywhere, in everything,’ Sarah returned, pouting.

  ‘There is danger everywhere.’

  He caught her to him suddenly in terror, crying out that they were moving through a dark world, a threatening scene, and instead of true guidance, Whitehall was a pack of criminal, licentious fools, gambling with their own death. Save only the King, God keep him!

  She soothed and comforted her troubled love; she coaxed him out of his black mood and took him back to their tall grey house, where he was at once surprised and shocked by an infant’s wail.

  ‘I forgot!’ he stammered. ‘God forgive me, I forgot even her existence! How—? Henrietta? How—’

  ‘Your daughter is well,’ Sarah said gently. ‘Well and thriving. Come. We will go visit her.’

  The child greeted her parents with an abrupt change of temper, all smiles and gurgles of pleasure. She was nearly a year old and had given no trouble at her birth. In the next few weeks her father took much comfort from watching her progress as she began to haul herself upright in a walking chair and from standing to begin to set an awkward foot forward.

  But by the beginning of May the Duke’s impatience drove him into action. There had been no further news from London. He had not yet given formal consent to that considerable part of his annual income being handed to the Duchess of Portsmouth. Nor had he received in exchange the necessary formal permission to return south. The injustice of the bargain rankled. His priests found it outrageous that he should be forced to condone blatant sin in such a fashion. He agreed whole-heartedly with his priests, though his own behaviour from early manhood had matched that of his brother in nearly every particular.

  In May, therefore, he made up his mind to force the issue. He would go by sea to the capital. He would confront the King with his actual presence; he would dare him to continue his exile in any form or place.

  A frigate, the ‘Gloucester’, was ordered to be got ready to transport the Duke. Together with his most important followers, but with no women or children, he went on board. Among those chosen to go were the Colonels Legge and Churchill. Several other vessels accompanied the royal ship. The weather was favourable, with light but useful winds and a calm sea. Nevertheless, off the coast of Norfolk the ‘Gloucester’ went aground on a treacherous shoal and stuck fast.

  James, in former times, when he was Lord High Admiral of the King’s navy, had often gone to sea in the warships and even at times sailed into battle. He prided himself upon his seamanship, though it was necessarily limited. His physical courage had never been doubted.

  So now he displayed his authority and sent for the Master of the ‘Gloucester’ to explain to him how the ship must be got off the shoal. The Master respectfully demurred.

  ‘Your Highness speaks truth,’ he began, ‘but it will not serve here. This bank is notorious.’

  ‘How so, sir?’ The Duke was unwilling to be taught and showed it.

  ‘Begging your Highness’s pardon, it shelves so steep, she cannot lie plumb but with the ebb that even now begins to run, she will slide and list and slide again so the water and sand pour into her. So heavy loaded as she be, the danger is very great, your Highness.’

  The Duke paid little or no attention to the Master’s words. He knew better. He said so. The danger could not be imminent. The vessel had not suffered by her grounding. It was not upon rocks, was it, but merely sand?

  ‘Sand be a wicked thing hereabouts, sir,’ the Master insisted. ‘The danger is very great, sir.’

  As if to support his words the ship gave a considerable lurch at that moment while the list that had been barely noticeable before became much worse so that papers and charts, rulers, compasses and markers slid off the table, while the Master had to clutch at an overhead beam to keep his balance.

  Nevertheless James persisted. He ordered which anchor should be used to hold the ship, how and where a kedge must be laid out.

  How the cargo should be re-distributed and the passengers told of the delay but not frightened by news of danger.

  The Master was horrified, but helpless. He knew the ship would founder. He knew the Duke’s orders were meaningless. He knew moreover that the ‘Gloucester’ had come away in such a hurry she was so ill equipped with boats and rafts that there would be little chance for the more than three hundred passengers and crew on board unless preparations for rescue were begun immediately.

  He went away from the Duke’s cabin, determined to organise what he could. He found the two colonels, pale, distracted, clinging to the rail that was uppermost, with a terrified crowd on either side, imploring to know what had happened and why.

  Disregarding them Legge appealed to the Master. He had a knowledge of ships and recognised the danger in which they lay.

  ‘The Duke—’ the man began.

  ‘Will not listen?’ John shouted. ‘So we must drown, must we?’

  ‘I would send to the ships about us if he would but see the danger and go himself.’

  ‘Then send, man, send!’

  ‘I have now but one long boat, for the others have been crushed in the list. I must save that boat for his Highness.’

  Legge groaned aloud. Churchill said, ‘He might listen to you, George. You have served him at Portsmouth and elsewhere. He will have nothing to do with me since I brought him back uncomfortable news from London.’

  For several hours they argued with James; they pleaded, they even considered force, but the Duke’s stupid obstinacy was so strong they knew he would even fight them off if they dared to lay hands on him.

  Only at the last minute he gave way. The ‘Gloucester’ was clearly sinking now, settling into the deep water, sand and shingle, just as the Master had foretold.

  With his priests, his dogs and those of his followers he invited to join him, the Duke condescended to go off in the long-boat. The two colonels were among these. They were directed to draw their swords to prevent any others, uninvited, to attempt to board the longboat. None did. The passengers accepted their fate. The seamen were taking to the rigging in hope that they might be picked up from the mastheads when the ‘Gloucester’ found bottom.

  They were disappointed. Though there were plenty of craft about, time had run out and they were too late to save any but the few who could swim or found some wreckage to cling to until rescued.

  In silence and misery the Duke was rowed ashore. In silence his unhappy escort found horses and a coach or two to transport them all back to Edinburgh and Holyrood, where they were allowed to disperse.

  The news had gone before them, relayed at speed by appalled witnesses of the disaster, for the ‘Gloucester’ had been seen to be in trouble only three miles off shore and everyone knew the danger she had fallen into. As always the Duke was blamed for it; this time rightly.

  John arrived home dirty, bedraggled, hungry, utterly exhausted in body and spirit. He had eaten little on the journey by land and had no appetite now. Sarah persuaded him to drink some Scotch whiskey, and then got him to bed with a hot brick wrapped in flannel at his feet.

  In the night she heard him groaning, then crying out. His nightmare was all of the last moments of the ‘Gloucester’ as he had seen them from the lonboat.

  She held him in
her arms till he was fully awake, able to tell her through bitter tears how his Master had betrayed all those poor devils to their deaths.

  ‘I cannot go on,’ he whispered. ‘I have no more faith, no more respect. This is the end. I have tried. Before God I have tried. It was my duty—’

  ‘It is that still,’ she whispered back, terrified of what he might do, such was his grief, his desperation.

  ‘Not this,’ he went on. ‘Told all the facts and rejecting them for sheer pride and obstinacy. Murder! No better than murder, as God is my judge! I cannot serve a murderer!’

  ‘Hush, oh hush, my dearest! You must not even think thus, never never speak it! For my sake—for little Hetty— never—never.’

  So she persuaded and calmed him and drove the secrets of that night into the utmost depths of her mind and heart, not to be brought out for more than sixty years.

  In the morning John Churchill, his face white and drawn, but quite composed, reported for duty at Holyrood and took his orders for the day from his Master in his usual smooth, obedient manner. No one who knew him, certainly no one else, could guess, even imagine, that his long allegiance to James, Duke of York, was dead.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Permission to return south did come to the Duke very soon after his mishap on his sea voyage. For this was how he alluded to the tragedy of the ‘Gloucester’ on the few occasions when he felt inclined to do so.

  He and his family and the remains of his Court in Scotland travelled by road and took up their residence in and about St. James’s Palace. Certain rewards were handed out to those of his establishment who had striven hardest on his behalf. Colonel Churchill was the one most favoured by the King. He promoted him to the command of the Second troop of the Life Guards, which bore for him an increase in salary.

  For the King’s confidence was returning with the decline of the Popish Plot. The people were tired of blood; the old Cromwellian supporters had over-reached themselves; their self-righteous outpourings, as before, were self-defeating. The ordinary Englishman in the countryside, the hard working shop keeper, the patient craftsman at loom or bench, had never felt much real hatred of Catholics until he was told to believe that these people were foreigners because they held a foreign belief. But the poor wretches on the scaffold he had seen or heard about had, except for some of the priests, been Englishmen and women. The ordinary Englishman turned his back upon the hysterical followers of Titus Oates.