The Voyage of the Destiny

by Robert Nye

  The plot thickens, as they say. And King James is the hideous playwright. Thus march we, playing, to our latest rest. I was always in some part the actor. I have more than once admitted it. But here I am trapped and enmeshed in a tragi-comedy not of my own making, no longer master even of a simulated destiny I can choose, the King’s plaything, his victim, his Touchstone, his fool. My only hope is that, somehow, in the last act, at the play’s end, I might have a chance to speak out loud and clear in my own voice. If not, if the King brings the curtain down while I am still dumb and in darkness, then let what I write here do service as my testament. I only wish I had more energy for eloquence, a clearer head, a less depleted spirit.

  Fathers and sons.

  Kinsmen and cousins.

  Is the world just a stage-set for a blood-bath of blood-relations?

  My brain needs no maggots to consume it.

  The Frenchman is my friend. He brings me physic.

  The Indian stands close guard outside my door. Thank his golden gods for the leaf that keeps him from sleeping!

  Bess, I do wish you were here. I miss even your scolding, your shrewishness, your voice raised in anger against me. I’m sorry I sent you to London. The same old story. Whatever I have for a heart needs absence to sting it awake.

  But Carew is well out of this madhouse.

  *

  There’s thunder in the air tonight. Cousin Lewis is practising scales on his violin. He saws at it, up and down, like a coffin-maker. He must be tone deaf, or blind drunk. The strings keep breaking.

  41

  25 July

  A Warrant to Sir Lewis Stukeley, Knight,

  Vice Admiral of Devon (23 July, 1618)

  You have under your charge the person of Sir Walter Rawleigh, knight, touching whom and his safe bringing hither before us of his Majesty’s Privy Council you have received sundry directions signifying his Majesty’s pleasure and commandment.

  Notwithstanding, we find no execution thereof, as had become you, but vain excuses unworthy to be offered unto his Majesty or to those of his Council from whom you received his pleasure.

  We therefore now dispatch this Warrant unto you, and hereby do will and command you in his Majesty’s name and upon your allegiance, that all delays and excuses set apart (of which we will hear no more) you do safely and speedily convey hither the person of the said Sir Walter Rawleigh, to answer before us such matters as shall be objected against him on his Majesty’s behalf.

  And of this you are to be careful as you will answer the contrary at your peril.

  Signed with their seals:

  The Lord A rchbishop of Canterbury, the Lord Chancellor, the Lord Privy Seal, the Lord Chamberlain, the Earl of Arundel, the Baron Clapton, Mr Treasurer, Mr Vice Chamberlain, Mr Secretary Nau ntoru

  Sent post by James Tailor, messenger, the same day at 10 o’clock afore noon.

  *

  Good news, says Stukeley!

  The Privy Council’s messenger delivered this warrant into his hands at breakfast this morning, Saturday, the 25 th of July. As a token of unswerving friendship (says Stukeley) he allowed me to peruse it later at my leisure, and even to make a copy of it, now inserted here.

  ‘How can you call this good news?’ I asked my cousin.

  It’s a matter of interpretation,’ he explained.

  Then he gleefully pointed out to me that the Lord Admiral Charles Howard’s seal is missing from the document. This, he would have me believe, is a very good sign.

  ‘You mean Howard does not want you to act on this warrant?’

  Stukeley was startled. He swallowed a great gob of bacon in one go.

  ‘Not exactly,’ he said, when his digestive tract had recovered. ‘My Lord Admiral has withheld his seal as a cipher meant for me.’

  ‘Signifying what?’

  ‘That the omens are favourable. That in all probability Spain is saying no.’ My cousin forked more bacon into his mouth. He chewed contemplatively. A straggle of rind hung down, dripping grease on his hairless chins. He looked like a neutered tomcat munching a mouse, with its victim’s tail hanging out He seemed pleased with himself, and impatient that I was not sharing in his pleasure.

  ‘You’ll see,’ he murmured, smacking his lips with satisfaction. ‘I know the Lord Admiral He’s as clever as a fox.’

  ‘More clever than Count Gondomar?’

  ‘No comparison. Gondomar’s wits are poxed out!’ His eyes roved greedily over my platter. ‘Cousin, you have not touched your breakfast! I can tell you, this bacon is delicious…?

  I offered him my helping.

  ‘Are you sure….?’

  I nodded. ‘I find I have no appetite,’ I said. ‘But breakfast sets a man up for the day. You should eat it, Sir Walter. You will need sustenance for the journey.’ ‘We set forth today then?’

  ‘Immediately,’ he said. ‘They call us now to London. We go to London. The letter of the law must be observed.’ He took my plate.

  He said: ‘Cousin, your hand is shaking.’ ‘My ague,’ I answered. ‘It always comes worst in the mornings.’

  Of course. I do sympathise. But you appreciate at last what I have done for you?’ He flicked at thè warrant with his fingers. ‘Not a word about sending you to Spain. And the mere fact that this warrant is to bring you before the Council. That can mean only one thing. A proper trial. A fair hearing. Here. In England.’

  ‘Will his Majesty want that?’

  Stukeley winked.

  ‘His Majesty will do what Buckingham wants.’

  ‘Buckingham?’ I said wearily.

  ‘Villiers. Steenie?

  ‘But he’s not my friend.’

  ‘Ah! You’d be surprised!’

  Stukeley would say no more. He ate all my bacon.

  *

  Does cousin Lewis know? About that bribe?

  It pains me to confess this, but now I have no choice. His mention of George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, makes me wonder

  Ralph Winwood advised it. I had put all my plans and promises concerning Guiana into his hands. Ralph placed them most persuasively before King James. For more than a year he worked on it, while I was still sweating in the Tower. At last Ralph came to me. The King was almost willing. But he needed just the final word to decide him. Only one man could provide that word, Ralph said. George Villiers, the ludicrous Steenie, James’s favourite, the lover with the legs.

  Villiers would not take a bribe directly, Winwood warned me. That would be tantamount to touching me - me and my cause. So I arranged for the money to be paid to Villiers’ brother. It seemed little enough (£2000), but at the same time too much. Villiers’ brother passed on my bounty to Villiers. Villiers had a whisper with his master. That was enough.

  None of this makes James’s catamite my friend. More likely, the opposite.

  Can Stukeley mean that the tobacco money - gifted deviously to this toad Steenie, Duke of Buckingham - might purchase for me a trial in London?

  If so, he’s even madder than Sam thinks.

  Buckingham must be one of the richest and most powerful knaves in the kingdom by now. He’s unlikely to need the proceeds from my cousin’s sale of 25 hundredweight of tobacco!

  *

  Stukeley is running about like a rat in a granary. Haste, haste, he says. He must perform his duty for the Council. Horses? A closed carriage? Which would I prefer? All shall be just as I wish. But -I do understand, don’t I? - it is incumbent upon him that we set forth for London without delay. He trots up and down stairs, reciting all the great ones’ names like a Papist going over his rosary: The Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lord Chancellor, the Lord Privy Seal, the Lord Chamberlain, the Earl of Arundel, the Baron Clapton, Mr Treasurer, Mr Vice Chamberlain, Mr Secretary Naunton, the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lord Chancellor, the Lord—

  The Lord help us. Amen.

  I just interrupted his devotions to tell him that I elect for two closed carriages. Which surprised my dear cousin. ‘You once told me you
thought they were hell-carts!’ ‘That was before I sailed half the world over and back. I am an invalid, Sir Lewis. You don’t require a corpse to deliver to their Lordships?’

  ‘No, no! Of course not! Two carriages’

  I travel in the first with my keeper and Captain Sam King.

  Manourie, Robin, and the Indian in the second.

  My cousin’s outriders, naturally, in close attendance.

  But I have my own plan now.

  An alternative plot.

  And there are somewhat larger surprises in store for Sir Lewis Stukeley.

  42

  27 July

  I made sure we didn’t travel far on Saturday. All afternoon, I complained that I felt cold. Since the weather was exceedingly hot, and our carriage airless, cousin Lewis was soon regarding me with considerable consternation. We spent the Saturday night at a Mr Drake’s. I demanded a fire in my chamber, warming pans for my bed.

  On the Sunday we passed on to Sherborne. I sat huddled in a corner of the carriage, rugs muffled right up to my ears. Stukeley sought to enliven me with conversation. The idiot has about as much tact as a Spanish man-o’-war. Didn’t I feel some twinge of regret, says he, to be so near to the great house which was once my own? Didn’t I wish to look out and across the River Yeo? To see those tall towers, three storeys high, and the fine corner turrets I had built with stone transported from the old castle? I shook my head. My teeth chattered. I conveyed to him that I could scarcely see his face where he sat opposite. (In fact, Sam distracting the fool’s attention with much detail on the subject of tropical diseases, I did manage to sneak one glance through half-closed eyelids, looking down over the parklands to the Lodge. The cedars I planted a quarter of a century ago have grown quite tall. I brought those young trees home with me from Virginia. When my cousin looked back at me again, it was not hard to be found weeping. Sam told him: ‘Another symptom of malaria.’)

  The Sunday night was spent at the Sign of the George.

  Today, Monday, Sir Lewis instructed the coachman to go faster. I protested that each rut and bump in the highway drove hot pokers through my bones. At the same time, I asked for Sam’s cloak. I was freezing, I said. Sweat poured down my face, of course. I compelled my teeth to chatter. Stukeley leaned forwards once or twice as if to touch my forehead, then thought better of it. ‘These tropical chills and fevers, are they infectious?’ he asked nervously. I pretended that I could not hear him. That I had gone deaf. ‘Infection?’ Sam growled. ‘Infection’s not in it Contagious! That’s the word. I’ve seen men rot alive who’ve just knocked on the door where such plagues have a household in thrall.’ My cousin stuffed his kercHicf in his mouth. Later, Sam put his hand gingerly to my thick-beaded brow. ‘Sweet Jesu!’ he remarked. ‘As cold as death!’

  Torn between fear of disease and fear of the wrath of the Privy Council, Sir Lewis passed a most miserable day, one eye on me and the other on his pocket-watch. He managed to keep the coachman up to his work. We journeyed 35 miles. We are now at the White Hart in Salisbury.

  *

  Stukeley plans to leave here tomorrow. We shall do no such thing. I intend to stay here until Saturday. Here is my reason:

  Before we left Plymouth I took the trouble to send Sam in search of news concerning the King’s summer progress. For it appears that he took poor dead Winwood’s advice in this matter. Like Queen Elizabeth, he now shows himself to his people. Not anything like as liberally, of course. But, in summer, James flaunts about England from city to city, waving his dirty hands a little to encourage the mob, then retreating for some sport with his hawks and his hounds and his Villiers.

  And this Saturday his Majesty comes to Salisbury.

  *

  I shall confront him, if I can. I shall beg for an audience of the King. A single opportunity to speak to him, face to face.

  God knows, I have no hopes that anything will come of it.

  I remember the first (and last) time I met him, in 1603. He was journeying slowly south from Edinburgh to London, in the direction of his coronation, but in no haste to arrive in time for Elizabeth’s funeral. I took horse to pay court to him. We met at Northampton. I saw that he detested me from the start. ‘Sir Walter Ralegh,’ the herald announced. To which James of Scotland responded: ‘Rawley? Aye, Rawley indeed! True enough! On my soul, I think rawly of you, mon!’ Perhaps I should have laughed. Or smiled. I didn’t. Within four months, he had me locked in the Tower.

  But I want to see my destroyer before I die.

  And I want to see him seeing me.

  He’ll have my head soon enough.

  I want only his face.

  *

  The King’s eyes. The King’s ears. That’s what I require. I’m not going to waste my time these next few days. I propose to pen some brief Apology for my voyage to Guiana. If his Majesty will not take notice, then the Privy Council may. And if not the Privy Council, then posterity. If I am allowed a trial, I shall use what I write as my defence. If no trial is permitted me, I might still find I can publish it from the scaffold. If that scaffold is in Spain—? Then no one will understand a word I say! (I refuse to quit this world spouting in the tongue of my enemies) Yet, even then, though I am choked to death in Madrid, my written words will stand, they shall speak for me in London, my voice will be heard. At all events, I must seize this final chance to set the record straight, to present my own case clearly before history, to die upright in the truth like a downright man.

  *

  Hence all this counterfeit of sickness. My shammed fevers and chills in the coach were merely the prelude.

  As soon as we arrived here at Salisbury, I lay down on my bed. I groaned. I moaned. I coughed up blebs of blood (never difficult).

  Stukeley hovered anxiously in the doorway. I complained with bitterness of the day’s long journey. He offered to bring me broth. I said I could not possibly sup it. I turned my face to the wall. I pretended to sleep. After a while, I heard him go tip-toe down the stair. I had banked on his stomach calling him to supper.

  Manourie came immediately to my chamber. (Sam had instructed him.) I told the little Frenchman I wanted no more sleeping draughts. I asked if his knowledge of medicine extended to emetics. Something to make me vomit, that’s what I needed. He recommended a certain root, euphorbia corollata. He promised he could procure this for me by tomorrow morning. I thanked him, swore him to secrecy, and gave him three gold sovereigns.

  No sooner had Manourie gone, than Stukeley came back. He was gnawing pigeon pies. He had a tray of them. He set his tray down in the doorway, covering the pies with a cloth, to avoid infection.

  ‘Are you feeling any better, cousin?’ he whispered.

  By way of answer, I gave him a fright. I lurched up from the bed, drumming with my clenched fists against my skull. Then I staggered across the room, fell down, got up again, blundered towards the door as if half-blind, hands groping for him. Sir Lewis Stukeley retreated in alarm. I managed to stamp on his pigeon pies before falling once more, most violently, so that my head struck a post of the gallery which runs past my chamber.

  Stukeley fled, shouting.

  He fetched the Indian to get me back to bed. I heard him explaining to Sam King and Robin that it was better this way. No Christian soul should run the risk of such plague.

  *

  I have told the Indian my plan. For the first time in our acquaintance, he seems amused. Sam King will have told Robin what to do.

  I shall snatch a few hours’ sleep now.

  These have been dress rehearsals.

  Tomorrow I must launch on the great performance.

  43

  28 July

  Perfect.

  I rose early this morning, stripped naked to my shirt, then got down on all fours like Nebuchadnezzar, crawling about the bedroom, scratching the rushes strewn upon the planks, stuffing them into my mouth, pretending to eat them.

  The Indian went running for Robin. Robin came, saw, gave an excellent scream, and ran to St
ukeley’s room. My cousin, still in nightcap and nightgown, took one peep around my door, then sent for Manourie. Manourie brought me the emetic. I swallowed it down in one gulp. I allowed Sam and the Indian to carry me back to my bed.

  I lay as if dead for some minutes. Then I yelled out, and drew up my arms and legs in a knot, as if having a fit of convulsions.

  ‘Contractions of the sinews,’ Sam King said. ‘That’s always the next stage. I’ve seen it often.’

  ‘He’ll strangle to death!’ Stukeley cried. ‘He’ll swallow his tongue! You must do something!’

  ‘I don’t care to touch him,’ Sam remarked. ‘The Admiral is too far gone. At this point, the contagion—’

  ‘Gloves!’ Stukeley shouted. ‘Boy, you’ll find gloves on my dresser!’

  Robin raced off obediently, flicking the feather in his cap.

  ‘Not the kid gloves!’ cousin Lewis screeched down the gallery, as an afterthought. ‘Not my best gloves The ones to the left of the ewer ‘

  Robin came panting back. He delivered a great pair of padded buff gloves to Stukeley. Stukeley thrust them at Sam King. Sam put them on. They came up to his elbows. He looked like a lobster.

  Sam caught my right leg in his lobster claws. I let him straighten it. But as soon as he caught at my left leg, I bent up the right one again. He tried seizing both legs at once. I threshed out with my arms. Sam went reeling.

  ‘You, fellow, help the man!’ cousin Lewis shouted at the Indian.

  I was jerking about in all directions. I was coughing and choking.