‘You dance so well and converse so sweetly,’ she told Monmouth, ‘we shall have you. Our stolid court is thus enlivened. England’s loss will be our gain until Charles comes round.’
William nodded and rose. ‘May that day be soon,’ he said, ‘but not too soon. Meanwhile let us make arrangements for your diversion.’ He stepped forward to join the Duke, raising his skinny arm to link his shoulders – and then thought better of it: the latest grenadier was insanely jealous. He and Monmouth forged into the crowd, ostensibly convivial host and guest.
‘So when do you make your move,’ he whispered, his sliver-thin lips returning to their normal twenty-past-eight.
‘Not yet,’ answered the Duke, seeing this was a time to be candid. ‘I will charm my way back to Charles’s favour. My hour will come when God calls him home.’
‘Word is you tried to remove him.’
‘My own father? Never!’ The words denied it but the tone meant ‘well, yes’.
William was sympathetic. Happily, his father had been seen off by smallpox nine days before his son entered the world. It greatly simplified things. He didn’t approve of sentiment in politics.
‘I agree. To wait the best policy is. Bide till the succession. James is papist and thus repugnant to a Protestant nation.’
‘And thus to yourself also,’ Monmouth reminded. William shrugged.
The tags serve to distinguish friend and foe,’ he replied, ‘but it is all one to me. They may call themselves black and white for all I care. I take it you do not believe any of the nonsense.’
‘Oh, no,’ the Duke reassured him.
‘That is good. Otherwise your judgement trust I cannot. Very well, I shall help. The English Ambassador asks me to arrest you but it will not be. Fobbed off he will be. When the day comes, guns and ships you will have.’
‘And men?’
The Stadtholder halted, as though a sensitive spot had been touched.
‘Understand,’ he wheezed, momentarily afflicted by his asthma, ‘this great gamble yours alone is. I cannot be too forward – England a great navy has! Many English conspirators this land harbours. Recruit you must amongst them.’
‘I’ve already started. The dregs of the Rye House business ended up here, to join the Cromwellian colony. There’s a mad, murderous preacher called Ferguson who daily implores me to invade.’
‘These are the sort of men,’ William agreed, recovering from his panic attack. ‘Best to receive the crown in London when Charles goes to judgement – but if love you cannot make him, then sail with fanatics of that ilk. Have you plans to tell?’
Monmouth could not repress a secret smile. This stolen-sealand kingling could little guess what allies he had to call upon.
‘The aboriginal Celts will rise for me,’ he confided. ‘That is arranged. Even so, I have many options. It might suit me to join them via a remote landing, to first weaken the English by inciting civil war.’
William regarded him with new respect.
‘This is good and I like,’ he said. ‘But best it is to triumph with words and charm. You have much of the last. Employ that which you waste to tip Dutch court-ladies on their back to win your Father’s love.’
‘It’s as good as done,’ answered the Duke, tormenting William with a dazzling smile. ‘What can stop me?’
Extracts deciphered from the diary of the Duke of Monmouth:
1685 January 5. I received a letter from Lord Halifax marked by the King in the margin … that in February I should certainly have leave to return … that the Duke of York had no suspicion, notwithstanding my reception here.
1685. February 3. A letter from Halifax, that my business was almost as well as done, but must be so sudden as not to leave room for the Duke of York’s party to counterplot…
1685. February 16. The sad news of his death … O, cruel fate!
When Charles II went to bed, very late, on Sunday, the first of February, 1685, an untoward thing occurred. At the door of his bedchamber a sigh from nowhere blew the only candle out. The King and his companions, old Earl Ailesbury and Harry Killigrew, stood for a moment in the Whitehall gallery’s inky dark and puzzled at the absence of any gust to account for it. Then they laughed at the happenstance. Up to then, Charles had been light-hearted, having just emerged from the Countess of Portsmouth’s chambers (and the Countess). Once light was restored, the Gentlemen-of-the-Bedchamber, believing the world was all there was, thought no more of it. The King, however, was secretly less sanguine.
He concealed his feelings as he had all his life, and bantered to his old friends about the new residence taking shape in Winchester. By next week, he said, he hoped the roof might be leaded and the place fit for regal habitation. Away from London’s prying eye, it would be ideal for his scientific investigations into the properties of mercury and lady’s maids’ nether-lips and suchlike intriguing topics.
His friends laughed again and Ailesbury asked for a commission in the Guards for a cousin of his. The King was in his nightgown by then and making water in a pot. He seemed cheerful enough and told the Earl he’d be happy to bestow such a trifle.
The following night was restless. A huge fire of scotch coal made the room hot and airless and the King’s hounds stirred and prowled without cease. Ailesbury and Killigrew were plagued by the room’s numerous clocks, gifts over the years from the monarchs of Christendom, which seemed to have slipped out of sync. The striking of every quarter, separately defined by each, chopped their repose into jagged bits. Charles slept through it all but tossed and turned, ill at ease. Several times he mumbled in distress and sought to wrestle free from his blankets.
A new day came at last and Charles woke between four and five, as was his custom. Though he pretended otherwise, the kindest witness could see he was not well. His face was puffed and as pale as paper. Most mornings he would play tennis or stroll in his Physic Garden where he grew herbs for his laboratory, or else trot through St. James Park and feed the maimed crane he’d repaired with a jointed wooden leg. Even the offer of a blow-job from the expert Duchess of Portsmouth did not intrigue as usual. No longer tempted by the ‘mouthful of fresh air’ (or anything else) and ‘a little ingenious raillery’ he once so loved, he declined each in slurred speech.
The weak illusion of normality lasted till his barber arrived. Consideration of a shave seemed too much to endure, and Charles shrieked in pain, falling back in a fit. He foamed at the mouth and thrashed about on the floor, eyes screwing horribly up till just white showed. Only the lancing of a vein and generous bleeding (so they thought) saved him from death there and then.
James was fetched, arriving breathless with a boot on one foot and a slipper on the other, and his heart was torn – because he straightaway knew. Whilst the emetics and purgatives, the blisters and pans of hot coal, were applied, the Duke bid swift farewell to his brother, and forced himself to think of mere worldly matters. The nation’s ports were ordered closed, lest Monmouth be advised, and the Guards were posted about town against an insurrection. It pained him to think that so many malignants awaited this day, to rejoice and make their move.
About midday, Charles rallied, despite all the doctors had done. In a voice already halfway from some other place, he asked for his wife – and Theophilus Oglethorpe.
‘Though there be but t-t-two doors to his room, the people we can trust do not outnumber them. What a s-sad comment on this life.’
‘No one shall enter through either,’ Theophilus told James. ‘Ellen and I will guard them well.’
The Duke already had proof of that. Mistress Oglethorpe had routed an imposing delegation of Anglican clergy that very morning, threatening them with a chamber-pot and hatpin when they imperiously sought audience with the dying Head of their Church.
‘We shall not forget,’ said James, gratefully, calling that noisy incident to mind. Neither would ‘Old Patch’, Bishop of Winchester, who’d been anointed with the one implement and prodded with the other. There’d ensued an ugly tuss
le as Archbishop strived with Bishop to get the retaliatory sabre back in its scabbard.
‘In particular, beware the Church of England,’ James advised, ‘for they’ve not given up yet.’
They ought to have done, for they’d received little encouragement to date. In the two days he’d been slipping away Charles had refused their offer of the sacrament, either saying it was too soon or, when the pain bit, denying they were real bishops. His secret disdain for their Church was long suspected but still a shock to hear announced out loud. Even little Bishop Ken of Bath and Wells, a man of known saintliness, could not persuade him. The King had nothing but respect for the man, even though – or perhaps because – he’d refused to share lodgings with Nell Gwyn when Charles came visiting; but for his office there seemed none. One and all, with greater or less charm, they were rebuffed.
The strange spectacle was enough to stir the slumbering piety of Ellen’s ex-employer, the Duchess of Portsmouth. A Catholic herself, she contacted the French Ambassador who in turn alerted the distracted James to his plain duty. Like a veil falling from his eyes, he realised there were more important issues than placing his behind securely on the still-warm throne. The Duke had many faults but once shown a moral obligation he was at it like a fox with a hen. The Oglethorpes’ fiery talents were directly put to use in securing some Royal privacy.
Theophilus didn’t catch the question James put to the King as he made to leave the room, but Charles’ reply was loud and clear: ‘Yes, yes, with all my heart!’
In the England of the Popish Plot and riotous Guy Fawkes nights, it was no easy matter to lay hands on a Catholic priest. For them to be both alive and in the Kingdom was a capital crime. The Queen was attended by monks from her native Portugal but none of them spoke English. Fetching a chaplain from one of the Embassies would attract undue attention. They were in a quandary till Ellen Oglethorpe recalled Father John Huddleston, a Benedictine who resided at Whitehall. Her lodgings as Royal seamstress had been near his. Long ago he’d saved Charles’s life in the mad flight from Worcester, and, his loyalty proven beyond reproach, he was always excepted by name from every step of anti-papist legislation. Fortune smiled and he was soon found and brought, more than willing to risk his life a second time.
Excalibur to hand, Theophilus stood guard outside while the dying King revisited his little sins and then came home to the faith of his fathers.
‘He will n-not be long now.’
For a second Theophilus thought it was James. He was wrong. Arthur had mimicked his voice. Oglethorpe whirled round to face the spectre sitting, vast and vile, on one of the broad sunlit windowsills overlooking the Thames. Though tired by his night-long vigil a sword was soon between him and this other King.
Arthur either felt or feigned no fear of it. On the contrary, his empty eye-sockets regarded Excalibur with love.
‘Yes, please,’ he said, in his own withered voice, extending a mail-shod claw.
Theophilus realised his mistake and stepped back, sheathing the blade.
‘It is mine,’ whispered Arthur, appealing to the human sense of property.
‘Was, perhaps,’ counted Theophilus, not taken in by wrong’s misuse of right.
‘And shall be again,’ the King persisted. ‘But it must be given; willingly given. The presiding Power demands the owner’s permission; be they false holders or not. As you humans say: “possession is nine-tenths of the Law” – and there are Lawmakers even I must obey. You will give me the sword.’
Theophilus was about to say ‘don’t hold your breath’, but saw in time it was hardly appropriate. Arthur no longer had need of air.
‘Tell me something,’ he ventured, seeing the King was minded to conversation rather than violence. ‘What if I should call the guards? What if we should hose you down with musket shot? Would that be an end to our troubles?’
Arthur was absolutely still, as fixed as a statue, and Theophilus liked that least of all. There was no gauging his reactions.
‘Unlikely,’ came the hissed reply. ‘Some bones might be broken, my scanty chest further sundered, but the force that binds all would go on. Should I be at any risk I would answer in kind and my power, I think, would be the stronger. Besides, it cannot be, for I have seized this room. Time is excluded and there will be no interruptions. Life goes on around but not here.’
‘I might be needed …’ said Theophilus, concerned.
‘And a facsimile you would answer the call,’ Arthur reassured him. ‘I have placed us slightly sideways and no one will notice. We must have time to talk.’
Oglethorpe would have asked ‘what about’ but he was damned if he’d play by the kidnapper’s rules. The King seemed unconcerned by the ensuing silence.
‘There is a false dawn,’ he mused eventually. ‘Charles fools them again by making a last stand. He was never one to husband his spark.’
Theophilus had no choice but to believe him. When there is only one source of news people will make do with it.
‘How is he?’ he asked.
Arthur seemed almost sad. ‘Fading,’ he replied. ‘But with customary charm. He has just apologised to the waiting horde “for being so long a-dying”. Now he implores James to “let not poor Nelly starve”. Having embraced the false fantasy of religion he goes easily, without fear of the everlasting dark.’
‘To beyond your reach, at least,’ said Theophilus, combatively.
‘What makes you so sure, human? What is your knowledge of such things?’
The ‘human’ wouldn’t be drawn. He looked round the now confined seeming anteroom, wondering whether to attempt escape. He suspected it might prove undignified.
‘It would,’ confirmed Arthur. ‘Listen to my words and then we will soon be done. Be reasonable – and patriotic: you can save your beloved country from endless harm.’
Theophilus objected to attempts to play him like a harpsichord.
‘I’ve learnt,’ he answered back, ‘that my kind can expect little from you.’
The King appeared interested by the response. Perhaps he sensed an opening.
‘Ah, now there you are wrong,’ he said. ‘What allies I have is of no interest to me, so long as I have some. Last time the Celts served well enough, and it’s simplest for them to do so again – they are prepared ground and the prophecies are the seed in it. But there’s no other reason. I could just as well lead you and do great things for your nation. Besides, one was obliged to ride the Celts hard, as you’ll note from their earliest legends of me. The “good and fair” King is a much later fiction. Doubtless a certain resentment abides. It might suit to dispense with them and rally other foot-soldiers. Had you thought of that?’
‘No,’ said Theophilus, bluntly; refusing to think of it.
‘Even Monmouth is a means to an end. One by one I have bargained his secrets from him, till his presence is almost superfluous. Once I’m recovered enough to unleash my Knights it will hardly matter when or where he invades. Any rising might serve as cover, an English one as good as a Celtic. I require only two things. One is a diversion, which Monmouth will provide. The second is in that scabbard attached to your belt. I need it.’
Theophilus’s straightforward mind chewed on that, vaguely sensing some leverage.
‘If you can do all this,’ he asked, waving to indicate the isolated room, Arthur’s presence there, his survival into the modern age – and all the other wonders he’d seen and suffered from of late, ‘why do you await a simple blade?’
‘That is easy,’ replied the King, his bony arm extended once again. ‘Even you can comprehend. I cannot trust my essence to mere flesh and blood. It lasts, as you see,’ he demonstrated by plucking at the dried sinews working his raised hand, ‘but not for an indefinite span. I thought – and still do think – it safer to place most of that which is me into more durable form. The bulk of what I am, or could be, is in that sword, whereas the “I” you see is but a husk, a portion of the whole: a rearguard, to put it in terms you would approve.�
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‘So how did you come to be divided?’
‘Treachery, deceit, betrayal: normally weapons I wield myself but lethal nonetheless against me. I thought that virtue was just a chain around my foes but at Camlann I learnt its absence sometimes costs. I died for a while and my attention was stunned. Excalibur was taken and concealed. When at last I reawoke, we called one to the other and like magnets started the road to reunion. That process is now almost complete. To you falls the honour of the final yard. Pass it to me.’
‘I shall not.’ Theophilus sounded stout enough but in reality he pondered what there was to do. A being of Arthur’s size demanded a double-charged musket at least. Fortunately, the King showed not the slightest sign of hostile intent. On the contrary, he grew more and more reasonable.
‘To what purpose is this negativity?’ he asked. ‘What end do you seek?’
‘Yours.’ Oglethorpe’s reply was succinct but heartfelt.
Arthur lowered his head in apparent despair. ‘Do you believe the Elves?’ he spat in exasperation. ‘Stealers of babies and haters of men? Do you take all you know of me from them?’
‘Well …’ Doomed by upbringing to be obliging, Theophilus had to admit there was the ghost of the genesis of an embryo of a good point in that.
‘Well,’ said Arthur, ‘it is time to look and learn another story.’ He waved at the high window behind him and the scene changed.
The Royal Changeling Page 20
