The Body in the Thames: Chaloner's Sixth Exploit in Restoration London (Exploits of Thomas Chaloner)

by Gregory, Susanna

  ‘White’s name was not on this death list,’ said Thurloe. ‘Why was he omitted?’

  ‘It must have been written on the burned part. God alone knows how many more were there – victims claimed and others pending. But I am sorry about White. I might have been able to save him had I known his identity sooner …’

  ‘Do not blame yourself,’ said Thurloe. ‘He knew the risks when he elected to tackle Falcon. But let us turn to happier matters. I enjoyed hearing you play your viol at the Savoy last night, and so did Heer van Goch. He asked me to tell you.’

  ‘I performed abominably,’ said Chaloner gloomily. ‘Because I can never practise. Since we married, Hannah has confessed to a deep dislike of the solo viol.’

  ‘All marriages have their problems,’ said Thurloe sagely.

  ‘Not ones of this magnitude,’ muttered Chaloner.

  A short distance away, a man lay in bed, swathed in bandages. He was miserable and in pain, although his physician had assured him that he would make a complete recovery.

  ‘How much did you salvage from this debacle?’ he asked of the visitor who sat at his side.

  ‘Almost all of it,’ replied Williamson. ‘Your victims must show me the original blackmail notes if they want to reclaim what they paid. And as they paid because they want their dirty secrets buried, few have come forward. Chaloner is an odd devil, though – he refused to accept any of it as a reward.’

  ‘Decent to the end,’ said Bulteel savagely. ‘Honest, incorruptible Tom.’

  ‘You should have come to me with your plans,’ said Williamson reproachfully. ‘We have always worked better together than alone. And you almost brought me down.’

  Bulteel winced. ‘Well, you did bring me down. You ordered me shot.’

  ‘I did nothing of the kind! Swaddell acted before I understood what was happening. Assassins have a habit of squeezing a trigger first and asking questions later, and he always was jealous of our association. But you will recover, and then we shall turn our attention to the future. Together.’

  ‘I am not sure I trust you any more,’ said Bulteel resentfully. ‘I almost died.’

  ‘But you survived,’ Williamson pointed out tartly. ‘And you tried to kill me, anyway – sending Kicke and his villains my way.’

  ‘No! I told them to keep you in your office until I had delivered my carefully forged papers to the delegates at the Savoy. I expressly ordered them not to harm you in any way.’

  ‘Well, that makes two of us, then,’ said Williamson. ‘We are even.’

  Bulteel regarded him suspiciously. ‘I still do not understand why I am not in prison. I blackmailed half the Court, and went a long way to sabotaging the negotiations with the Dutch. The former showed you in a bad light because you could not solve the case, and you will disapprove of the latter because you want peace.’

  ‘Peace is certainly the more sensible option, but it was never really on the table. The talks were doomed long before you became involved.’

  ‘What about the blackmail?’ asked Bulteel. ‘How can you forgive me for that?’

  ‘The generous donation from Chelsey went some way to salving my wounded pride.’

  ‘Then why did I detect a cooling of our friendship these last few weeks?’

  ‘Because Griffith was always in your company, and one needs to be careful around professional spies. Of course I maintained my distance – as I would have explained, had you asked.’

  Bulteel continued to scowl. ‘What happens if Tom learns I am alive? He will not overlook what I did to Thurloe and Hannah. He does not understand that he would have been better off without them – a relic from a lost regime and a woman who will make him miserable.’

  ‘Do not worry about him. He is going to Tangier soon, and by the time he returns, he will have forgotten all about you.’ Williamson hesitated. ‘But I have one question. It concerns the death list he passed me. He thinks the “Joseph” refers to Molins’s son, but I would like to hear from your own lips that he is right – that you were not thinking of Joseph Williamson when you penned it.’

  ‘Of course not,’ said Bulteel flatly. ‘I have already said that I went to some trouble to keep you safe.’

  Williamson smiled, although there was no warmth in the expression. ‘Good. Now drink the wine I bought you. It is Kersey’s best, and will soon have you strong again.’

  Bulteel did as he was told, then lay back on the pillows. After a while, his breathing became laboured. His eyes snapped open in alarm, and his frightened gaze settled on Williamson.

  ‘There, there,’ said the Spymaster gently. ‘It will soon be over, and this is a lot more pleasant than what Swaddell had in mind for you.’

  ‘Why?’ Bulteel managed to gasp. ‘I thought we … allies again …’

  ‘That was before you lied to me,’ said Williamson softly. ‘You did plan to kill me, just as you planned to kill Chaloner. I could see it in your eyes. He mourns the loss of a friend, but I shall not. You were never a friend to me.’

  Bulteel released a strangled gurgle, although whether it was a denial or a death rattle, Williamson did not know. He sat quietly for a moment, lost in his thoughts, then stood to close the dead man’s eyes.

  Historical Note

  The peace talks between England and the Republic of the Seven United Provinces – also called the Dutch Republic or the States-General – in the summer of 1664 did not go well. A large delegation, headed by Ambassador Michiel van Goch (or Gogh), had arrived in London, but relations between the two countries had been deteriorating for some time. The Dutch government was eager for a treaty, probably because of the cost involved in staging a war and the disruption to trade.

  Unfortunately, van Goch’s efforts were in vain. The moderate voices of men like the Earl of Clarendon, then Lord Chancellor, were drowned out by the warmongers – the dukes of Buckingham and York. As conflict was not really in Britain’s interests, either, historians have debated long and hard about why two Protestant countries, surrounded by enemy Catholic states, should want to damage each other. The most likely explanation is that there was not enough room for two powerful maritime nations, and England intended to rule the waves. It sounds petty, but one of the sticking points in the negotiations involved the dipping of flags – a previous treaty stipu-464 lated that the Dutch should salute the British first; this they did, but the Dutch captains were understandably offended when their salutes were not acknowledged or returned.

  It was not the first time trouble had erupted between the two nations. The First Dutch War (1652–1654) had been won handily by Cromwell, but his ships had been well maintained and had full complements of sailors. The same could not be said for Charles II’s navy, and a second victory was by no means certain. Contemporary broadsheets and newsbooks bray about the fleet’s state of readiness, but Samuel Pepys, navy clerk and diarist, did not agree, and was deeply concerned. Heer van Goch failed to reach any agreement, and the delegation left London in September.

  The Envoy Extraordinary to The Hague at the time was Sir George Downing. He had held the post under Cromwell, and had been so determined not to lose everything he had gained just because of a change of regimes that he promptly abandoned his old master (John Thurloe, Spymaster General and Cromwell’s Secretary of State) and swore undying loyalty to the Crown. Amazingly, Charles II not only accepted his pledge, but knighted him into the bargain. To demonstrate his new allegiance, Downing engaged in a nasty piece of skulduggery that involved luring three regicides into a trap, and smuggling them back to England to face the horrors of a traitor’s execution.

  It is difficult to find a contemporary with anything good to say about Downing. The most common words used to describe him include unscrupulous, petty, mean, greedy, duplicitous and unsavoury. He was doubtless no worse than any other ambitious man in those turbulent times, but probably attracted dislike because he was good at earning himself riches and power. He travelled from The Hague to London in the summer of 1664 to advise the government,
although he misread the situation badly, and many said he did more to aid the cause of war than of peace.

  He recruited a number of spies, including the ex-patriot merchant Abraham Kicke, and the Royalist officer (once a spy for Clarendon) Colonel John Griffith, both of whom helped him catch the regicides. He was not a good master. He neglected to pay his intelligencers, blithely sent them into dangerous situations, and treated them with open disdain.

  Nevertheless, he was proud of their achievements, and in one letter, he boasted how his spies were so skilled that one broke into Grand Pensionary Jan de Witt’s house while he was in bed, stole his keys and used them to enter the closet where he kept his confidential papers. These were delivered into Downing’s hands for an hour, then returned to the closet and the key slipped back inside de Witt’s pocket, with the hapless Dutch head of state none the wiser.

  Naturally, the Dutch had their agents, too. Zacharius Taacken was arrested in Ipswich in 1667 and was eventually brought to appear before the Privy Council, while van Goch’s secretary, the aged Latin scholar, Peter van der Kun (his pen name was Petrus Cunaeus) was arrested on changes of watching the English fleet. Gerbrand Zas was also a Dutch spy; he was arrested and taken to the Tower in the 1660s.

  Joseph Williamson, who eventually stepped into Thurloe’s shoes as Spymaster General, also recruited intelligencers. The native Dutchman Dirk van Ruyven was banished from Holland for his association with Williamson; Henry de Buat, an Orangist Franco-Dutch officer, was executed; and John Nisbett had a narrow escape. Philip Alden was an Irish spy who was rewarded with a pension of £100 a year.

  During the summer of 1664, London was full of rumours about the war and England’s chances of winning one. Some were reported in The Intelligencer and The Newes, and others were just gossiped about in the coffee houses. These included the tale about the Duke of York setting to sea with thirty warships, and the story that the Dutch had launched forty ships of their own. Both were later found to be untrue.

  Many of the other characters in A Body in the Thames were real people. Richard Wiseman was appointed Surgeon to the Person in June 1660, and John Bulteel was Clarendon’s private secretary. Thomas Chaloner was a regicide who died in Holland in 1662; he had several siblings, one of whom may well have had a son named Thomas.

  Daniel, Josias, Nathan and William Cotton were all Court officials during the early years of the Restoration. Nathan died in 1661, but Daniel kept his post as Yeoman Cartaker until his resignation in 1682. Charles Bates was a minor courtier who had a wife named Ann. Henry Killigrew was Master of the Savoy in 1664; his wife was Judith.

  Sir William Compton was a son of the second Earl of Northampton. He fought for the Royalists during the civil wars, and co-founded the secret organisation known as the Sealed Knot. At the Restoration, he was made Master of Ordnance, and became MP for Cambridge. He was highly thought of, even by Parliamentarians, for his honesty and integrity, and died suddenly and unexpectedly in October 1663. He was 38 years old.

  Edward Molins the surgeon lived on Shoe Lane. He also died in 1663, following a botched operation to remove his leg – he had broken his ankle, and the wound had become gangrenous.

  There was a rumour circulating in 1664 that Cromwell had opened the royal tombs in Westminster Abbey, and swapped the bones about. One of Cromwell’s chaplains, Edward White, denied the tale vigorously.

  Finally, Talbot Edwards was Assistant Keeper of the Crown Jewels in 1664, and did indeed show them to paying guests. A few years later, he almost lost them when the infamous Colonel Blood staged an audacious raid on the Tower, and started to make off with them. But that is another story …