The Royal Changeling

by John Whitbourn

  ‘Hope,’ answered Monmouth, ‘is usually a vain thing.’

  This caused the visitor’s eyes to widen. Theophilus sought for the pupils therein but could find none.

  ‘We are in complete earnest,’ he went on, ‘I assure you. Moreover, we evidence our sincerity with a gift.’

  A tiny scroll, banded with golden ribbon was proffered. Monmouth didn’t hesitate to accept.

  ‘I like presents. What might this be?’

  ‘A prophecy, my Lord,’ said Pelling. ‘A whisper clawed down from the ether by our more venturesome explorers. It definitely concerns you and your earthly path, though doubtless its meaning is presently obscure.’

  The Duke elegantly flicked off the bow and spread the scroll with two long fingers.

  ‘“Between the darkness and the shine

  Duke Monmouth, Duke Monmouth

  Beware of the Rhine!”’

  ‘A warning, eh?’

  ‘Indisputably. Even in your doggerel translation the sense is clear. Note also the underlying significance, Lord: we never forewarn those not high in our favour.’

  ‘Or fears,’ added Monmouth, brusquely.

  Mr Pelling conceded that by silence.

  The message was allowed to flutter to the ground, where, though not the most enquiring of scholars, Theophilus noted the text of curious circles and whorls. He’d shed tears over Greek (to no avail) in recent years but not even that struck his eye as so utterly alien.

  ‘I am grateful for this valuable offering, Emissary,’ Monmouth advised. ‘Though gratitude is a short-lived sentiment, as you’ll appreciate. I’m likewise impressed – and informed – by your foolishness in making it.’

  ‘We had intended,’ Pelling said slowly, looking all around, ‘to make you a most … attractive offer.’

  Monmouth gave him a dismissive ‘oh, did you now’ glance and caused another petitioner to venture forward. This newcomer was less abundantly blessed by nature but equally self-assured.

  ‘Mr … Pelling,’ introduced Monmouth, ‘I give you Master Nicholas Boson of Newlyn in the County of Cornwall.’

  ‘The Country of Cornwall, with your kind indulgence, Highness,’ said Boson, daring to correct the Duke. Monmouth didn’t seem to mind in the slightest.

  ‘Just so,’ he confirmed. ‘Or Kernow as it is properly known.’

  Theophilus had at length found the features he looked for in Pelling’s oval eyes, though a puzzling trick of the light made those pupils seem golden. He then turned his attention to the comic provincial wilting under their gaze.

  Boson was shaped by and for scholarship. Theophilus took leave to doubt he’d ever played tennis or poked a sword in anger. His clothing and demeanour were those of the small-town pedant; starved of female admiration and therefore despairing-careless. The man’s accent was as impermissible as his linen. He could not stand against the visitor’s adverse judgement. Pelling, by contrast, appeared sprung from some superior breed.

  ‘Your Highness …’ Boson quavered, appealing for help.

  ‘This gentleman,’ said Monmouth, supplying it, ‘is the fore-most scholar and revivalist of Cornubic-British …’

  ‘A dying tongue,’ snapped Pelling; his tone impertinent in present company. Somehow the spark that should have lit the guards’ ire failed to ignite.

  ‘The dying may be revived,’ countered Monmouth, just as convinced. ‘Even the dead themselves may rise – so Scripture advises us.’

  Pelling shook his pale face in disbelief.

  ‘I reject my breeding,’ crowed the Duke, ‘and turn my coat. I have been offered better terms.’

  ‘No,’ protested Pelling. ‘Listen: Arthur deceives …’

  Monmouth was unappeased.

  ‘We tire of you – begone. The final struggle is underway. Boson: show him the future.’

  The Cornishman nigh tore the buttons off his coat in his zeal to draw some object from within. It proved to be a rough-hewn cross of lead, hand-sized and irregular. Held helpfully before his eyes, Pelling could study the angular script covering its surface. Something he saw or read quite mortified him.

  ‘Resurgam,’ confirmed the Duke unpleasantly.

  Pelling, his mission miscarried, fled Windsor Castle in defeat.

  THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 1674

  ‘So talk us through it,’ said King Charles, from amidst his swarm of giggling mistresses. ‘And give us no false modesty, sirrah.’

  Monmouth was now additionally honoured with the titles of Privy Councillor, Lord Great Chamberlain of Scotland, Governor of the Arsenals in the North at Kingston-upon-Hull and Lord Lieutenant of East Yorkshire – and a fashionable type of cocked-hat was named after him. Most recently he had been Lieutenant Colonel of the Royal English Regiment, His Majesty’s contribution to Louis XIV’s war against the Dutch. They were well regarded in continental circles. Their practice, inherited from Cromwell’s New Model Army days, of advancing in silence – save to cheer on first sight of the enemy – intimidated as much now as when initially noted by the Great Marshall Turrenne himself.

  Armed with such an instrument Monmouth had covered himself in martial glory in the service of the French and returned to England, bathed in the favour of both the Roi Soleil and his own royal Father. Even James, Duke of York, being an honest man and temporarily sweetened by a lively new wife, was forced to admit he’d done well. Success had even improved Monmouth, rather than ruined him, and the wild boy of years gone by was replaced by a more mature, more thoughtful man. No one could report him bragging of his deeds. He’d even learned to read and write.

  ‘I have little to tell,’ he said, turning his unfairly handsome face on the gaggle of courtiers. ‘We came, we saw, we conquered. My gallant Englishers did all the work. There was such a lot of smoke: I just waved my sword around and suddenly the city was ours …’

  Theophilus Oglethorpe, standing alongside his friend and commander, had different recollections. To him the taking of Maastricht was a military miracle – as was his survival of it. In the final charge the ground rang with shot like hailstones.

  Captain John Churchill likewise disagreed – and strongly enough to contradict the third man in the Realm.

  ‘Over there,’ he said, pointing across Windsor Great-Park to where the replica city-wall had been erected, ‘by the half-moon of paving beyond the counterscarp: that is where the Duke saved my life.’ Monmouth demurred most attractively but Churchill shook his wig. ‘No, Highness, I will have it said.’

  ‘Indeed you will,’ echoed the King. ‘We shall attend the spot.’

  The courtiers rustled across the lawn to the convincing array of bastions, bulwarks, ramparts and walkways erected for the wargame that evening. A thousand favoured guests would be attending to see Monmouth (and, to appease him, the Duke of York) recreate the siege and a full programme of approaches, sallies, trenching, mine-springing, parleys and assaults was arranged. Two little armies of English and imitation-Dutch camped nearby under a bitterly resented teetotal regime.

  It was a delightful late August day, warm but not oppressive: by evening it would be perfect for the event. Afterwards, they could have fireworks and party the night away. For once, there seemed to be no fly-in-the-ointment; no half-a-maggot in the apple. King Charles’s over-tested heart was cheered by something going right. He looked paternally on the advancing Monmouth and, noting that, the Court took their tone from him. After the ups and downs of previous times, he could do no wrong.

  They reached the paved expanse meant to represent Maastricht’s Brussels Gate. Monmouth seemed very thoughtful.

  ‘If my son is so maidenly-modest,’ laughed the King, ‘then some other must speak for him. Take it away, Churchill: give us some of that madcap, martial mayhem!’

  The Captain was delighted to repay his debt and further his career at one and the same time.

  ‘Majesty,’ he said theatrically, bowing like a huckster, ‘Lords, Ladies, Gentlemen, members of the Quality – and Nell Gwyn.’ The mob shrieked
joyfully at specific mention of the erotically-talented, but socially-challenged, one-time orange-girl attending the King. She and her lover laughed not one jot less, for, alone of all vices, hypocrisy found no welcome in Charles’s Court.

  ‘Pray attend,’ Churchill continued, once he could be heard, ‘to the glorious feat of arms I shall unfold. We marched to Charleroi, to add our two thousand Englishmen to the hundred thousand Frenchies slung together by Lewis, the fourteenth of that name. The army’s fighting prowess was doubled – at least – thereby. Don’t titter so immodestly, Madame, you’ll wet yourself. Where was I? Oh yes, we stomped through the flatlands taking more boring towns than I care to recall and put the Dutch burghers – no, lady, I said burghers – to flight. They, unable to face English steel – assisted by a few frog-molesters, resolved to ruin the country instead: not a titanic task, I admit. The dykes were opened and the sea came to claim what is rightfully its own. We halted on the shores of an expanded ocean. I went fishing from a Dutch church steeple.’

  ‘Did you catch anything?’ yelled the Duchess of Portsmouth, a frighteningly forward mopsy.

  ‘Only a cold and the clap, Madame,’ replied the Captain. ‘But that’s another story.’

  ‘Cancel our assignation!’ she roared back.

  ‘Anyway,’ said Churchill, feigning massive disappointment, ‘come June, a month as wet as a Scottish holiday, we entrenched before Maastricht. We had already acquired honour enough and shown the French how fighting is done. His Majesty, Lewis, presented our Colonel with a diamond-crusted ring and sword in token of his gap-mouthed amazement. My Lord Monmouth honours him by condescending to wear them.’

  The Duke obligingly showed off the dazzling items. The audience duly ‘oooooo’ed its approval.

  Now, the continentals conduct a siege with the patience of a corpse. Inch a trench forward here, erect some gabbions there, have a parley and start again. That is not the English way and certainly not Colonel Monmouth’s! One foul evening our volunteers got before the city walls and set to silent work under the squat Dutch noses. Come morning, we’d got three new batteries and twenty-six guns at “hello, how are you?” range. Did we then give them some or what?’

  ‘We did,’ conceded Monmouth, with a wry smile.

  ‘Soon we could venture an assault and, leaving the French behind, Monmouth cleared the way! Over the outer line we went, beyond the counterscarp, putting the defenders to the sword, establishing a bridgehead on this half-moon here. The last thing I recall is attacking a flatlander’s musket-butt with my brow. I was spark-out and fit to be skewered, but the Duke here stood over me with pistol and blade, laying all-comers low until help arrived. I am here today,’ said Churchill, suddenly solemn, ‘because he was there then.’

  The Duke acknowledged the heartfelt tribute with a brisk nod of his fair head.

  ‘We held our position,’ continued the Captain, ‘till relieved at dusk, and retired, we thought, to earned repose beneath the stars. It was not to be. A single well-placed mine slew sixty-two of the new garrison. Then, the Dutch, revived by this luck, sallied out to drive the blackened survivors from our gains. We saw all, out on the plain, and the sight wearied our limbs even more. We had striven so valiantly, it seemed, to no end. It was the Duke that then rallied us and no other! He dashed back with but a sword, and we were shamed into following. There was me, and Oglethorpe here, and Kirke, despite his hangover, and some few waifs-and-strays plus a few foreigners, including Lewis’s famous musketeer, D’Artagnan: twelve men in all and precious few for the task.’

  Churchill looked about and saw by the rapt faces he still had his audience. Drawing his sword he darted about the ersatz Brussels Gate, engaging invisible enemies.

  ‘We met our fleeing comrades not twenty paces from the oncoming foe. The Duke repaired these broken men with nothing but his example. The tide was turned and we swept back against a sea of opposition. The gallant D’Artagnan fell, most of us fell; my top-coat had more holes in it than a beggar’s britches. Then,’ he paused for dramatic effect, halfway through dispatching some unseen Dutchman, ‘there was a lull, a quiet. We looked about. Only two types remained in the breach: Englishmen and dead-men. The Hollanders were all gone to a better place – which is anywhere but their own nation. We had won.’

  The courtiers broke into wild spontaneous applause. Nell Gwyn punched the air and shouted ‘Eng-er-land!’

  ‘Maastricht surrendered soon after,’ concluded Churchill quietly, with excellent bathos.

  The murderous melee was re-enacted but this time in more friendly fashion. Monmouth was mobbed, not by Dutch grenadiers but by courtiers; streamlined human weather-vanes adept in tacking to the prevailing winds. He suffered more ill-usage from back-slapping and fervent kisses than he ever did at the real siege of Maastricht.

  For a moment King Charles was left behind, no longer the sole fountain of worldly blessings. Only the stolid Oglethorpe remained by him, unwilling, or perhaps unable, to join in the easy expressions of joy. Charles noted that too, pleased to find at least one real human at his court.

  He was likewise … glad that things had ended well. There’d been times when even paternal love – which is almost limitless if real – had sighted its furthermost shores and faltered over the boy Monmouth. For every peak of pleasure or pride, there had been accompanying sloughs: messy patches to wade through. Sometimes the King recalled his son aboard the Royal Charles at Solebay, blasting the Dutch flagship Eendracht apart – and Admiral Opdam with it. Elsewhen though, he saw the widow and little children of the harmless Beadle his son had murdered. What was the name, Vernell? Viddle? Charles ought to know for he signed their generous pension every year. A drunken celebration at Lincoln’s Inn, some worthless noble cronies, a ‘lark’ – and a watchman died to round off the evening. Charles recalled the puzzled faces of the beheaded family each time Monmouth’s charm tempted him to affection. The righteous uproar from that night’s work had been deafening. He’d been minded to abandon his son to justice and not sign a pardon.

  That was the trouble with the boy; every good thing was balanced by a bad, woven into a seamless garment. There was no encouraging the one at the expense of the other, without rending him in two. Whereas virtue warred with evil in the hearts of most men, in Monmouth a truce seemed declared and the two lived alongside each other in accord. It showed in his actions. For every day of good company and service: days of wagers and racing at Newmarket, or deeds of daring in the Great Fire of London, there were overbalancing months of pain and worry. Charles felt sure other parents didn’t have to put up with that.

  For instance, when Monmouth slit the nose of Sir John Coventry, MP – or hired bullies to do so, that wasn’t for the man’s maligning of his Father’s name; oh no. Charles was sure of it for he’d closely enquired. The true motive was his son’s prickly honour, and enjoyment of the deed – and its tumultuous aftermath. Parliament had been fit to send the Stuarts on their travels again for that infringement of their liberties. Charles had dined on piled helpings of humble pie for months – and for what? If some three-a-farthing tribune from the Shires implied the King was keen on the company of actresses, what of it? It was nothing less than the plain truth anyway – and no cause for fanning the embers of civil war.

  The same applied to his feud with the Duke of York: whence did that come and to what purpose? Charles’s brother, stiff-necked though he was, would be friends with the boy if only he was met half-way. James didn’t – altogether – deserve the ‘Dismal Jimmy’ nickname Nell Gwyn had coined for him. He had a good heart when he cared to turn it on. The two men had no true grounds to fall out: it was just discord for its own sake. And the bounteous harvest raised of that bitter crop was no surprise given the company Monmouth kept. Villains like Shaftesbury and Oates and all the green-ribbon ‘no-popery!’ crowd were strange friends to choose. Sparks from the disloyal conspiracies Monmouth circled round leapt back to burn Charles when he heard of them.

  So, the boy had been sent
to the wars: the traditional making or breaking of wayward youths from time immemorial. It seemed to have worked. In battle things were simple: black and white, and character was put to the test. The boy came back a man, his mettle proved, and so much … quieter.

  And thus Charles smiled on his son and the blessing was returned in kind. The King rested content: for once self-deceiving. Love blinded him. He would not see that Monmouth’s smile was mixed with hunger.

  THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 1679

  ‘He’s a liar and a sodomite, a murderer of innocents. Every time I see his lantern chin I want to stamp on it.’

  Brigadier Oglethorpe turned in the saddle, looking at General Monmouth in amazement born of hearing these words. Amidst the dour Scottish landscape his commander’s scarlet and lace array made him seem all the more vibrant.

  ‘Why then,’ Theophilus asked, almost angry when sufficiently recovered from shock, ‘are you and Titus Oates such warm associates?’

  Monmouth was merely amused. He always seemed to value his friend’s naivety rather than mock it.

  ‘The man serves a purpose,’ came the blunt reply, sugared by courteous tones. No further explanation was deemed necessary.

  Theophilus disagreed. His outrage made him no respecter of persons, causing him to press the point.

  ‘He spouts the wildest fantasies,’ he growled, ‘careless of consistency or truth, and stirs the unwashed to fresh atrocities. His Majesty is forced to sign the death warrants of guiltless men: harmless old priests and loyal patriots. I …’ anger caused him to splutter and stumble, ‘I’d like to …’

  Monmouth rode on at the head of the column, unaffected, unoffended.

  ‘To gut him slowly,’ he agreed calmly, ‘yes. I’ve told you that I wish likewise. Perhaps that day will come and I’ll defer the pleasure of the deed to you. In the meanwhile, Titus Oates and his Popish Plot suit me very well. If I’m to be Prince of Wales and succeed the throne, then the Catholic Duke of York must be discomfited: disinherited even. The fever of the nation must be stoked until James is as welcome as plague in a playground – though ‘tis sad that men must perish to see that day. Mark me, Oglethorpe, I speak plain to you because of our bond. I can rely on your discretion if not your approval. However, I’d advise less volume in your virtuous views: many of our men lap up each unfolding instalment of the plot as Oates dreams it up.’