The Dark and the Light

by Josephine Bell

  ‘Never shall it be smoked in our presence,’ the King cried, with such emphasis that the guards stepped forward a pace and the visitors stepped back and there was near confusion. King James dismissed the Leslies, but with a return to his former graciousness.

  ‘His Majesty is not himself today,’ the equerry who was in charge of them explained. ‘There is news of some illness or disorder that afflicts the Prince Henry. As a rule his Highness enjoys perfect health. He doth not understand his own failing and will have none of it, forcing himself to ride and hunt when he is clearly in pain and far from well.’

  ‘The King can never abide illness,’ Alderman Leslie said gravely. ‘So this must fret him more than it would most men.’

  As they were riding home from Whitehall Francis said, ‘Master Rolfe will get little encouragement with his tobacco trade, if it rests with the King to promote it.’

  ‘Which it doth not,’ Master Leslie answered. ‘It is already well established. The palace may be forbidden those long pipes, but their use is spreading all over the country. To my mind the Indians have the correct idea of it, a promoter of peaceful discussion, friendly agreement, civilized behaviour. I have no need nor time for it myself but I hear it has become very prevalent at Oxford. No doubt thou’lt take to it before long.’

  To soothe, to subdue angry passion, jealousy, desire for revenge, grief. Well, perhaps he might take to it indeed, Francis thought, for he needed any sort of help he could get if he were to do his duty by his pupils at Oxford in the coming winter months. He remembered wryly the rhyme,

  ‘Tobacco, that outlandish weed,

  It spends the brain and spoils the seed,

  It dulls the sprite, it dims the light,

  It robs a woman of her right.’

  During the short period of delay Katharine had gone to see her parents, ostensibly to take leave of them, but chiefly to correct her former lies about the masque she was supposed to have seen in company with Lady Frances Howard.

  Her mother made light of the explanation, equally false, that Katharine provided.

  ‘Think nothing of it, my child,’ Mistress Ogilvy told her. ‘I’m sure I should have paid little attention myself to the performance when there was such company about me to distract my eyes and thoughts.’

  But Doctor Ogilvy was not so easily persuaded.

  ‘I mind me it was given out to be a work of Master Jonson that would be performed,’ he said. ‘I understood thee to say it was changed. Surely that would not have escaped thee had it been so?’

  ‘Nevertheless I was distracted and confused,’ Katharine insisted. ‘That dreadful ride through the storm, the cold, the icy wind, the snow driving into my eyes. I lost all feeling in my hands and feet. I wonder I did not fall from my horse.’

  ‘I wonder thou did’st not suffer an ague, a congestion of the lungs,’ her mother added. ‘She was in no fit condition, sir, to report on the night’s entertainment and surely it is of no consequence whether it were Master Jonson or Master Shakespeare that provided it.’

  ‘Only that the one was a matter of commercial interest and also one of many and the other is a work of genius.’

  Mother and daughter exchanged glances but said nothing. The doctor must have his way, undisputed. They were at one in their belief that the highest position in the land lay in the person of the King, neither in the arts nor sciences, which neither of them had the wish or ability to cultivate.

  Doctor Ogilvy left them with a pitying smile. They were only womenfolk, after all. Their silliness was of no account. He was fond of them both, he was proud of his daughter’s beauty and pleased that she had married a scholar of acknowledged merit. He had never been told of her real faults of behaviour, nor would he have believed them possible if anyone had attempted to enlighten him.

  So Katharine continued on her dangerous course without much fear of the possible consequences. Because of her present simmering quarrel with Lucy Butters she stayed at the house in Paternoster Row for two days, until in fact Francis sent Walter, the alderman’s man, to tell her the journey to Oxford was planned to begin the next morning.

  ‘Sir Francis bid me attend your ladyship to Gracious Street,’ Walter said as he gave the message.

  ‘I will be ready in an hour,’ Katharine answered. ‘Giles will tell Thomas to prepare my horse.’

  She was ready to go. She had had a very satisfactory last meeting with Alan, grief at parting for so many disagreeable months adding fuel to their passion. She had no fear of losing the young man’s love in the interval. But she did not expect him to be faithful to her. That would be against nature, she considered. Nor would she have acknowledged that it would certainly be against the common practice of a corrupt, licentious Court, with its deadly intrigue and bribery and blackmail. But she knew that her hold on his affections went deep. She knew that Alan trusted her as he did not trust Lady Essex, that he had no cause to fear her as he feared greatly his brother’s mistress.

  He was right to trust her. Katharine was fully satisfied at least for the present, with all that her position at Court gave her. As matters stood she had no further ambition. She herself felt no uneasiness about Lady Essex. She was quite aware of what the former Lady Frances Howard planned, though she did not know of the means that were being employed to that end. She did know, for the Lady Frances told her, that all was going well and an annulment of the wretched child marriage should be possible, if the King’s interest could be sufficiently aroused.

  At that time, however, King James was much exercised by affairs of State. He had always been dilatory in such matters, preferring the hunting field to the Council Chamber. Cecil had understood this and had relieved him of the bulk of dull business, while seeing he was fully informed of all matters that were likely to interest his still acute mind. But Cecil was gone and as the months passed James began to realize the full worth of what he had lost.

  There had been of course at once a re-shuffle of high places. Lord Suffolk, though he had little experience of finance, was made Treasurer. Lord Northampton was unquestionably the most important of the veteran Councillors of State. Sir Francis Bacon, however, now at long last Solicitor-General, was the most forward with his usual flow of ideas, couched in his accustomed brilliant phrases. The King, more than ever before, was inclined to listen to him.

  For his part Bacon regretted the loss of his cousin’s skill, determination and great authority, but he rejoiced to find himself loosed from the obscuring presence, freed into the sunshine of the King’s regard. It went to his head a little. He saw no reason why he should not become Attorney-General, but found the way was blocked for the time being. He did however become a Privy-Councillor. And knowing how much the Protestant faction approved of the proposed match between the Princess Elizabeth and Frederick the Second, Elector Palatine, he bent his mind to discovering some means for James to provide a suitable dowry for his daughter.

  This alone pleased the King very much. He knew already how difficult he would find it to live, without Cecil’s help and contriving, on the poor revenues he could command. He had given so much away in wealth, in land, in presents of jewellery, to Robbie and to others of passing favour with him. On the other hand nothing would induce him at present to recall that group of cantankerous, rebellious, even treasonable men, his House of Commons. They had insulted him by their coarse behaviour, they had threatened his Prerogative, his God-given position in the State. He would have none of them.

  But Bacon presented him with a fresh light upon parliament in its relation to the never ceasing question of revenue, of taxes and how they were to be imposed and more practically, how they could be collected.

  For Bacon pointed out to His Majesty that whereas in the past taxes were raised chiefly upon the land, its owners and its produce, the greater wealth of the country now lay with the merchants and their merchandise, their products, their exports and imports, in fact the great and growing value of trade.

  ‘With all thanks, your Majesty, to the w
orld peace your Majesty hath procured by wise counsel and cunning manoeuvre and signed treaty,’ Sir Francis told James, in private conclave.

  The King was flattered, as Bacon intended he should be, by this analysis, though nothing came of it immediately. However, seeing he had the monarch’s ear, at least for the moment, Bacon recited to him the main principles he had written down many years ago for Queen Elizabeth, relating to the repeal of obsolete laws, the control of monopolies, the safe-guarding of merchants with cargoes abroad and so on.

  ‘You may write out these matters afresh, Sir Francis,’ James told him. ‘You may submit them to our Council. The judges may consider them. Peace abroad hath been our great and continuing interest. So will be ever the peace at home.’

  Bacon left the King in a good mood, but he knew he would never fully understand that devious personage nor would he ever be admitted to any real intimacy. The famous peace he had used for flattery he saw clearly was less a case of brilliant diplomacy than an active use of bare-faced duplicity. He was not at all surprised as he left the King’s presence to see Gondomar, the Spanish Ambassador, making his way towards the very apartment he himself had just left. The Princess Elizabeth might soon be wed to the Protestant mid-European Elector Palatine, but a marriage was already being discussed for Prince Henry with the Infanta of Catholic Spain.

  This and other interviews with the Solicitor-General did persuade the King both of his need for money, some possible means of securing it and the overall necessity of keeping good relations with Archbishop Abbot and his followers. And this led, as Lord Northampton had foretold, to the recall of the Ambassador to Holland, Sir Ralph Winwood. Before long Winwood was named Secretary of State, the post that Cecil held when James first came to the English throne. So the balance was restored. The King felt he had made a wise and sufficient compromise.

  Lord Northampton had protested a little at Winwood’s promotion but had agreed the man had done his duty well in the matter of the negotiations for the marriage of the Princess. It was not for James to know of the old schemer’s plan to destroy Sir Thomas Overbury. Wisdom, insight into character, imagination, formed no part in the royal character. Not that James trusted all and sundry with a foolish lack of suspicion. Far from it. He inclined more particularly to suspicion. But all in relation to himself, his own safety, his own well-being.

  Meanwhile Northampton made ready for the next move forward.

  Chapter Nine

  Towards the end of October Lady Essex found herself in a safe position to put forward her first definite petition for divorce.

  ‘But first, my dear love,’ she pleaded with Rochester, ‘thou must break it to the King that my state is wretched both by the wrong done me in my body as a married woman and in my mind as the spiritual torment consequent upon this deprivation.’

  Rochester laughed, fondling and kissing her until she lay expectant in his arms.

  ‘Thy body lacks nothing,’ he growled into her ear. ‘It is insatiable and lacks nothing. Indeed it is my body is like to lack the means to satisfy thine. It were perhaps better we remained with bars between us. Otherwise thou might’st well destroy me.’

  As Tom Overbury never ceases to warn, he reflected, but did not repeat this to his jealous mistress. He was not exactly afraid of her. Living in the King’s protection for so long, careful not to offend any great lord with whom he came in contact, Robbie Carr had grown to believe himself invulnerable. So he disregarded his friend’s advice, repudiated it utterly, but still did not quite dare to make it a matter of jest with the Lady Frances Howard.

  For her part she did not tell her lover of Lord Northampton’s plan to remove Overbury. She had wheedled the outline of it from her father and been content to wait for the event. So now she gave herself up to passion and only murmured when Rochester rolled from her. ‘Thou must not forget to move his Majesty’s compassion with a recital of my misery.’

  Whereat they both laughed until they were totally exhausted with mirth and love.

  Lord Rochester found it quite easy to bring the subject of Lord Essex’s disability to the King’s notice. He found that his Majesty had not forgotten the Lady Essex’s earlier hints on the subject. Indeed he had at once followed them up in a general discussion with his old personal physician, Doctor Mayerne, and also with the younger, more modern man Doctor William Harvey of Saint Bartholomew’s Hospital, whose services had been added to the royal household.

  Each of these doctors had discoursed at some length on problems connected with sex and its function, Mayerne boldly stressing the social and moral aspects and Harvey the biological. Neither, of course, touched upon any personal aspect regarding James himself. To both, the perversion of monarchs was of age-old acceptance. A king might and always did indulge himself as he pleased. It was one of the prerogatives of his office. His God-given office, James believed and was both shocked and angry every time this belief was questioned. As it seldom was in his presence, but only in great privacy, even secrecy, behind his back by his immediate entourage, including his Scottish guards. Away from the Court his loyal subjects, as usual among the English in speaking of their ruiers, criticized him freely.

  Having turned his mind upon the probable particulars of Lord Essex’s difficulty, the King set about checking the actual facts of his case. This did not involve any new departure, any noticeable change of routine, additional spies, a fresh set of instructions. Essex, as the son of a convicted traitor, had always been under a mild form of supervision. Reports of his conduct came to hand quite regularly. As it was widely known that the young earl’s still younger wife was estranged, that the circumstances of their marriage must have contributed to this estrangement quite as much as the lady’s known imperious uncertain temper and general ruthlessness, the watchers needed little prompting to follow Lord Essex’s movements and actions to console himself. To the King’s astonishment, since he had often found Lady Essex too arrogant to be attractive, the latest reports seemed to show not only that Essex failed in his attempted relations with his wife, but that he had not been able to relieve himself with other women either.

  So James sent for the Lady Frances Howard, reminded her of his former sympathy and demanded to know if there had been any improvement in her husband’s behaviour.

  ‘None, your Majesty,’ she answered in her former shy, modest manner, while slow tears filled her eyes and spilled on to her cheeks. ‘I would give my lord an heir but it seems this will never be possible.’

  James, who knew perfectly well the woman was his Robbie’s mistress, smiled so kindly and sympathetically at her that she nearly lost her head in a sudden rage at the total hypocrisy of the scene. But she remembered in time. She must force herself to be patient. So she followed her plan, offering to bring proof of Essex’s condition, accepting the shame, the humiliation of a public scandal, so long as she might come before a commission that would set her free.

  King James was chilled a little by the force of character, the blind determination he saw at this moment in the lovely face before him, but he promised to bear the case in mind. He dismissed her with an exhortation meant to cheer. Since it seemed to Lady Essex that it merely showed a disposition to put off once more any real progress to achieve her divorce, she had to endure another paroxysm of rage within while making her cutsey and moving from the Presence.

  ‘He is as slippery as an eel, as crafty as a fox and as dilatory as an old man,’ she raged at Robbie the same evening.

  ‘Patience, madam, patience,’ her lover assured her. ‘He cannot be swept into any course of action. He hath been so since ever I first knew him.’

  ‘Thou art as bad,’ she cried. ‘I wonder I ever took thee for a friend.’

  But Robbie only laughed, sending fresh waves of despair through her whole being. The next night she visited Mistress Anne Turner again, to discuss and plan the immediate future. The two women parted at a late hour, neither wholly satisfied with the other.

  Lord Northampton, on the other hand, went
quietly about his own plans, suggesting here, advising there, reporting malicious tales of Overbury’s arrogance to those he knew would pour them into the King’s ear. As Northampton had foreseen, the ambassador to Holland had been recalled. That Sir Ralph Winwood had been made Secretary of State was unexpected and unwelcome, but it made no difference to the earl’s plan. When he considered the time was ripe, he set about suggesting Overbury’s removal abroad by promotion to the vacant mission in Holland.

  At first King James was surprised by this advice from his Chief Councillor. He remembered that he had heard a good deal of late about the fellow’s bad manners, his self-satisfied, aggressive pronouncements upon this and that. Moreover he was an ardent follower of the Protestant faction, owning complete allegiance to my Lord Chancellor Ellesmere, to the Archbishop and to my Lords Pembroke and Southampton. A hidden, unacknowledged jealousy moved him to bring that influence to an end.

  True, as Northampton reminded him, James had promoted the retired ambassador to a position of great power and consequence. Had not the late Lord Salisbury been Secretary of State during that most critical time, when his Majesty first came into England to take the throne? And now that amazing little man was succeeded by another friend of the Archbishop, also of Lord Chancellor Ellesmere and the great lords, his adherents. Overbury was of like mind with Winwood. To give him Winwood’s former place would be both appropriate and well-liked by the opposite faction, Northampton urged.

  James was easily persuaded. He had grown rather tired of the stories told him about Sir Thomas Overbury. An insignificant man, surely, to take up his thoughts and his time. But dangerous in his menace to the Howards. James consulted his Robbie.

  ‘They tell me thou hast a friend named Overbury,’ he told his favourite, stroking the arm of the loved one and looking up into his face. ‘A plaguey fellow, it seems. Sets men at odds with himself and one another by provocative speeches and clumsy deeds.’