That the arrest of Sir John Fenwick, reported in London on the 13th of
June, was regarded by all parties as an event of the first magnitude,
scarce exceeded in importance by a victory in Flanders or a defeat in
the Mediterranean, is a thing not to be denied at this time of day;
when men, still in their prime, can recall the commotion occasioned by
it. The private animosity, which was believed to exist between Sir
John and the King, and which dated, if the gossip of Will's and
Garraway's went for anything, not from the slight which he had put
upon the late Queen, but from a much earlier period, when he had
served under William in Flanders, aroused men's curiosity, and in a
sense their pity; as if they were to see here the end of a Greek
drama.
Nor, apart from the public and general interest, which Sir John's
birth and family connections, no less than his share in the plot,
considerably augmented, was there any faction which could view his
arrest with indifference. He had been so deep in the confidence of St.
Germain's that were he to make a discovery, not Tories and Jacobites
only lay at his mercy, but all that large class among the Whigs who
had stooped to palter with James. These, as they were the more
culpable had also more to fear. Trembling at the prospect of a
disclosure which must convict them of practices at variance with their
most solemn professions, they were supported by none of those
sentiments of loyalty, honourable if mistaken, which excused the
others; while as each fondly thought his perfidy unknown to his
neighbour, and dreaded nothing so much as detection by the rank and
file of the party, he found the burden of apprehension weigh the more
heavily, because he had none to share it with him.
The absence of the King, who was campaigning in Flanders, aggravated
the suspense; which prevailed so widely for the reasons above, and
others, that it is not too much to say that barely four politicians
could be found of the first or second rank who were not nearly
concerned in the question of Sir John Fenwick's silence. Of these,
however, I make bold to say that my lord was one; and though the news
that Sir John, who lay in the Tower, had sent for the Duke of
Devonshire may have excited a passing feeling of jealousy in his
mind--since he and not the other Duke was the person to whom Sir John
might more fitly unbosom himself--I am confident, and, indeed, had it
from his own lips, that at this time he had no notion of any danger
threatening himself.
His eyes were first opened by the Earl of Marlborough; who, calling
upon him one day, ostensibly on business connected with the Princess
Anne (to whom the King had been reconciled before his departure),
presently named Sir John. From this to the statement made to the Duke
of Devonshire, and the rumours of its contents which filled the
coffee-houses, was but a step. The Earl seemed concerned; my lord, in
his innocence, sceptical.
At length the latter spoke out what was in his mind. "To tell you the
truth, my lord," he said frankly, "I think it is a mare's nest. I
don't believe that any statement has been made."
The Earl looked astonished. "May I ask why not?" he said.
"Because, unless I am much mistaken," my lord answered smiling, "the
Duke would have brought it straight to me. And I have heard nothing of
it."
"You have not asked the Duke?"
"Of course not."
"But--he was with Sir John," the Earl persisted steadily. "There is no
doubt of that, is there?"
"Oh, no."
"Well, then, is not that in itself strange?"
"I think not, there have always been friendly relations," my lord
continued, "between the Duke and Sir John."
"Just so," Lord Marlborough answered, taking a pinch of snuff. "Still,
do those relations warrant the Lord Steward in visiting him now?"
The Secretary looked a little startled. "Well, I don't know," he said.
"But the Duke of Devonshire's patriotism is so well established----"
"That he may steal the horse, while we look over the wall," Lord
Marlborough answered, taking him up with a smile. "Be that as it may,"
he continued, "and I am sure that the same may be said of the Duke of
Shrewsbury,"--here the two noblemen bowed to one another--"I think
your Grace's information is somewhat faulty on this point. I happen to
know that immediately after the interview a special messenger left
Devonshire House for Loo; and that the matters he carried were reduced
into writing by his Grace's own hand. That being so, Duke, you are
better qualified to draw the inference than I am."
My lord, at that, looked grave and nodded, being convinced; and I do
not doubt that he felt the slight which the other Duke's silence
implied. But though, of all the men I have ever met, he was the most
sensitive, he was the last also, to wear his heart on his sleeve; and
not only did he refrain from complaint of his colleague's conduct, but
he hastened to dispel by a word or two the effect of his momentary
gravity. "Ah, then I can guess what happened," he said, nodding his
comprehension. "I have no doubt that Sir John made it a term that his
discovery should be delivered to the King at first hand--and to no one
else."
Lord Marlborough rose. "Duke," he said firmly, "I think it is fair
that I should be more frank with you. The reason you give is not the
reason they are giving in the coffee-houses--for the Lord Steward's
reticence."
"No!" said my lord, with a faint note of scorn in his voice.
"No," said the Earl. "On the contrary, they say at Will's--and for the
matter of that at the St. James's too, that the statement is kept
close because it touched men in power."
"In power?" said my lord, with the same note in his voice. "In the
Council, do you mean?"
"Yes; three men."
"Do they name them?"
"Certainly," said my Lord Marlborough, smiling. "And they join with
the three one who is not in power."
"Ah!"
"Myself."
Nothing could exceed the placid indifference, as natural as it was
free from exaggeration, which the Earl contrived to throw into his
last word. Yet my lord started, and shuffled uneasily in his chair.
Knowing something, and perhaps suspecting more, aware of the character
which his enemies attributed to Lord Marlborough, he would not have
been the statesman he was, if he had not fancied an ulterior design,
in an admission not a little embarrassing. He confined himself,
therefore, to a polite shrug expressive of incredulity, and to the
words "_Credat Judaeus_."
"Just so," said Lord Marlborough, whose erudition was not on a par
with the marvellous strategical powers he has since displayed. "What,
then, will your Grace say--to Ned Russell?"
"The First Lord of the Admiralty? Is _he_ named?"
"In the coffee-houses."
"Ah!"
"Lord Godolphin!"
"Impossible!"
"Not so impossible as the fourth," Lord Marlborough answered, with a
light laugh, in which courtesy, amusement, and a fine perception of
the ridiculous were nicely mingled. "Can you not guess, Duke?"
But my lord, too prudent to suggest names in that connection, shook
his head. "Who could?" he said, raising his eyebrows scornfully. "They
might as well name me, as some you are mentioning."
Lord Marlborough laughed softly. "My very dear Duke," he said, "that
is just what they are doing! They do name you. You are the fourth."
I believe that my lord had so little expected the answer that for a
space he remained, staring at the speaker, in equal surprise and
dismay. Then his indignation finding vent: "It is not possible!" he
cried. "Even in the coffee-houses! And besides, if your story is true,
my lord, the Duke of Devonshire alone knows what Sir John has
discovered, and whom he has accused!"
Lord Marlborough pursed up his lips. "Things get known--strangely," he
said. "For instance, the shadow which came between your Grace and His
Majesty in '90--probably you supposed it to be known to the King only,
or if to any besides, to Portland at most? On the contrary, there was
scarce a knot of chatterers at Garraway's but whispered of your
dinners with Middleton, and meetings with Montgomery, watched for the
event, and gave the odds on St. Germain's in guessing."
The Earl spoke in his airiest manner, took snuff _in medio_, and with
a carelessness that none could so well affect, avoided looking at his
hearer. Nevertheless, the shaft went home. My lord, smitten between
the joints of his harness, suffered all that a proud and sensitive
man, apprised on a sudden that his dearest secrets were the property
of the market-place, could suffer; and rage dissipating the composure
which self-respect would fain have maintained, "My lord, this is going
too far!" he gasped. "Who gave your lordship leave to--to touch on a
matter which concerns only myself?"
"Simply this later matter," the Earl answered in a plain,
matter-of-fact tone that at once sobered the Duke, and seemed to
justify his own interference. "If there is anything at all in this
rumour--if Sir John has really said anything, I take it that the old
gossip is at the bottom of it."
The Duke stared before him with a troubled face; and did not answer.
To some it might have seemed the most natural course to carry the war
into the informant's country, and by a dry question or a pregnant word
suggest that at least as good grounds existed for the imputation cast
on _him_. But such a line of argument was beneath the dignity, which
was never long wanting, to my lord; and he made no attempt to disturb
the other's equanimity or question his triumph. After a time, however,
"I beg your pardon," he said. "I forgot myself and spoke hastily. But
he is a most impudent fellow!"
"A d----d impudent fellow," the Earl cried, with more fervour than he
had yet exhibited.
"And he is playing an impudent game," my lord continued, thoughtfully.
"But a dangerous one."
"As he will find to his cost, before he has done!" Lord Marlborough
answered. "It is cunningly thought of. If he will save his head he
must give up some one. So, as he will not give up his friends he will
ruin his enemies; if the King is a fool, and can spare us."
"The King is no fool!" said the Duke, rather coldly. It was no secret
that between William and Lord Marlborough love was not lost.
"Well, that may be a good thing for us!" the Earl answered lightly. He
had not the reputation even with his friends of setting his feelings
before his interest; nor probably in all England was there a man who
looked out on the world with a keener eye to benefit by the weaknesses
of men and make profit of their strength.
I know that it ill-becomes one in my station to carp at the great
Duke, as men now style him; though of all his greatness, genius, and
courage, there remains but a poor drivelling childishness, calling
every minute for a woman's tendance. And far am I from giving voice or
encouragement to the hints of those, who, hating him, maintain that in
future times things incredibly base will be traced to his door. But
truth is truth; that he knew more of the matter now threatening and
stood to lose more by it than my lord, I have little doubt; nor that
this being so, the real object of his visit was to ensure the solidity
of the assailed phalanx, and particularly to make it certain that the
Secretary, whose weight with the King was exceeded only by his
popularity with the party, should not stand aloof from the common
hazard.
Having attained this object, so far as it could be obtained in a
single interview, and finding that the Duke, in spite of all his
efforts to the contrary, continued moody and distraught, he presently
took his leave. But to my lord's astonishment, he was announced again
ten minutes later. He re-entered with profuse apologies.
"I went from your Grace's to the Venetian Ambassador's on the farther
side of the Square," he said. "There I heard it confidently stated
that Goodman, one of the two witnesses against Sir John, had
absconded. Have you heard it, Duke?"
"No," my lord answered with some dryness. "And I am sure that it is
not true."
"You would have heard it?"
"Necessarily."
"Nevertheless, and craving your pardon," the Earl answered slowly, "I
think that there is something in it. If he has not been induced to go,
I fancy from what I hear that he is hesitating."
"Then he must be looked to."
"Yet! were he to go, you see--it would make all the difference--to Sir
John," the Earl said. "There would be only Porter; and the Act
requires two witnesses."
My lord lifted his eyebrows; that two witnesses were required in a
case of treason was too trite a statement to call for comment. Then
seeing the other's drift, he smiled. "That were to lick the platter,
my lord, in order to keep the fingers clean," he said.
Lord Marlborough laughed airily. "Well put," he said, not a whit
abashed. "So it would. You are right, Duke, as you always are. But I
have detained you too long." With which, and another word of apology,
he took his leave a second time.
That he left an unhappy man behind him, none can doubt, who knew the
Duke's sensitive nature, and respect for his high position and
dignity. To find that the weakness, venial and casual, of which he had
been guilty years before in stooping to listen to Lord Middleton's
solicitations--a fault which he had fancied known only to the King and
by him forgiven--to find that this was the property of the public, was
burden enough; but to learn that on this was to be founded a fresh
charge, for the proper refutation of which the past must be raked up,
was torture intolerable. In a fine sense of the ridiculous, my lord
excelled any man of his time; he could feather therefore out of his
own breast the shafts of evil that would be aimed at the man, who, one
of the seven to bring over William in '88, had stooped in '89 to
listen to the Exile! He could see more clearly than any all the
inconsistency, all the folly, all the weakness of the course, to which
he had, not so much committed himself, as been tempted to commit
himself. The Minister unfaithful, the patriot importuned, were parts
in which he saw himself exposed to the town, to the sallies of Tom
Brown, and the impertinences of Ned Ward; nay, in proportion as he
appreciated the grandeur of honest rebellion, of treason, open and
declared, he felt shame for the pettiness of the part he had himself
played, a waverer when trusted, and a palterer when in power.
Such reflections weighed on him so heavily that though one of the
proudest and therefore to those below him one of the most courteous
and considerate of men, he could scarcely bring himself to face his
subordinates, when the hour came for him to attend the office. Sir
John Trumball still deferred to him, Mr. Vernon still bowed until
the curls of his wig hid his stout red cheeks, the clerks where he
came still rose, pale, smug, and submissive, in his honour. But he
fancied--quite falsely--something ironical in this respect; he
pictured nods and heard words behind his back; and suspecting the
talk, which hushed at his entrance rose high on his departure, to be
at his expense, he underwent a score of martyrdoms before he returned
to St. James's Square.
Meanwhile the absence of the King aggravated his position; firstly, by
depriving him of the only confidant his pride permitted him; secondly,
by adding to his troubles the jealousies which invariably attend
government by a Council. Popularly considered, he was first Minister
of the Crown, and deepest in the King's confidence. But the knowledge
that one of his colleagues withheld a matter from him, and was in
private communication with William in respect to it, was not rendered
less irksome by the suspicion, amounting almost to a certainty, that
his own concern in the business was that of a culprit. This it was
which first and most intimately touched his dignity; and this it was
which at the end of a fortnight of suspense drove him to a desperate
resolution. He would broach the matter to the Duke of Devonshire; and
learn the best and the worst of it.
Desiring to do this in a manner the least formal he took occasion to
dismiss his coach at the next Council meeting, and telling the Duke
that he wished to mention a matter to him, he begged a seat in his
equipage. But whether the Lord Steward foresaw what was coming and
parried the subject discreetly, or my lord's heart failed him, they
reached the Square, and nothing said, except on general topics. There,
my lord's people coming out to receive them, it seemed natural to ask
the Duke of Devonshire to enter; but my lord, instead, begged the Duke
to drive him round and round a while; and when they were again
started, "I have not been well lately," he said--which was true, more
than one having commented on it at the Council Table--"and I wished to
tell you, that I fear I shall find it necessary to go into the country
for a time."
"To Roehampton?" said his companion, after a word or two of regret.
"No, to Eyford."
For a moment his Grace of Devonshire was silent; and my lord without
looking at him had the idea that he was startled. At length as the
coach went by London House, "I would not do that--just at this time,"
he said, quietly.
"Why not?" asked my lord.
"Because--well, for one thing, the King's service may suffer."
"That is not your reason!" quoth my lord, stubbornly. "You are
thinking of the Fenwick matter."
Again the other Duke delayed his answer: but when he spoke his voice
was both kind and earnest. "Frankly, I am," he said. "If you know so
much, Duke, you know that it would have an ill-appearance."
"How?" said my lord. "Let me tell you that all Sir John knows or can
know, the King knows--and has known for some time."
This time there was no doubt that the Lord Steward was startled. "You
cannot mean it, Duke," he said, in a constrained voice, and with a
gesture of reproach. "You cannot mean that it was with his Majesty's
knowledge you had a meeting with Sir John, he being outlawed at the
time and under ban? That were to make His Majesty at best an abettor
of treason; and at worst a viler thing! For to incite to treason and
then to persecute the traitor--but it is impossible!"
"I have not the least notion what your Grace means," my lord said, in
a freezing tone. "What is this folly about a meeting with Sir John?"
The Duke of Devonshire was as proud as my patron; and nothing in the
great mansion which he was then building in the wilds of the
Derbyshire Peak was likely to cause the gaping peasants more
astonishment than he felt at this setback. "I don't understand your
Grace," he said, at last, in a tone of marked offence.
"Nor I you," my lord answered, thoroughly roused.
"I am afraid--I have said too much," said the other, stiffly.
"Or too little," my lord retorted. "You must go on now."
"Must? Must?" quoth the Duke, whose high spirit had ten years before
led him to strike a blow that came near to costing him his estate.
"Ay, must--in justice," said my lord. "In justice to me as well as to
others."
After a brief pause, "That is another thing," answered the Lord
Steward civilly. "But--is it possible, Duke, that you know so much,
and do not know that Sir John asserts that you met him at Ashford two
days only before his capture, and entrusted him with a ring and a
message--both for St. Germain's?"
"At Ashford?"
"Yes."
"This is sheer madness," my lord cried, holding his hand to his head.
"Are you mad, Devonshire, or am I?"
Whether the Duke, having heard Sir John's story and marked his manner
of telling it, had prejudged the cause, or thought that my lord
over-acted surprise, he did not immediately answer; and when he did
speak, his tone was dry, though courteous. "Well, of course--it may be
Sir John who is mad," he said.
"D----n Sir John," my lord answered, sitting up in the coach and
fairly facing his companion. "You do not mean to tell me that you
believe this story of a cock and a bull, and a--a----"
"A ring," said the Duke of Devonshire, quietly.
"Well?"
"Well, Duke, it is this way," the Lord Steward replied. "Sir John has
something to say about three others. Lord Marlborough, Ned Russell,
and Godolphin. And what he says about them I know in the main to be
true. Therefore----"
"You infer that he is telling the truth about me?" cried my lord,
fuming, yet covering his rage with a decent appearance since a hundred
eyes were on them as they drove slowly round in the glass coach.
"Not altogether. There are other things."
"What other things?"
"The talk there was about your Grace and Middleton at the time of your
resignation."
My lord groaned. "All the world knows that, it seems," he said. "And
should know that I have never denied it."
"True."
"But this! It is the most absurd, the most ridiculous, the most
fantastical story! How could I go out of town for twenty-four hours,
and the fact not be known to half London? Let Sir John name the day."
"He has," the other Duke answered. "He lays it on the tenth of June."
"Well?"
"There was a Land Bank meeting of the Council on that day. But your
Grace did not attend it."
[Illustration: HE SHUT HIMSELF IN WITH HIS TROUBLE]
"No? No, I remember I did not. It was the day my mother was taken ill.
She sent for me, and I lay at her house that night and the next."
His Grace of Devonshire coughed. "That is unfortunate," he said, and
leaned forward to bow to the Bishop of London, whose chariot had just
entered the Square.
"Why?" said my lord, ready to take offence at anything.
"Because, though I do not doubt your word, the world will require
witnesses. And Lady Shrewsbury's household is suspect. Her Jacobite
leanings are known, and her people's evidence would go for little.
That that should be the day--but there, there, your Grace must take
courage," the Duke continued kindly. "All that the party can do will
be done. Within the week Lord Portland will be here bringing his
Majesty's commands, and we shall then know what he proposes to do
about it. If I know the King, and I think I do----"
But the picture which these words suggested to my lord's mind was too
much for his equanimity. To know for certain that the King, who had
extended indulgence to him once, was in possession of this new
accusation, and perhaps believed it, that was bad enough. But to hear
that Portland also was in the secret, and grim, faithful Dutchman as
he was, might presently, in support of the low opinion of English
fidelity which he held, quote him, the first Minister of England, was
too much! In a hoarse voice he cut the Duke short, asking to be set
down before they quarrelled; and his Grace, hastening with a hurried
word of sympathy to comply, my lord stepped out, and looking neither
to right nor left, passed into the house, and to the library, where,
locking the door, he shut himself in with his trouble.