HIS GRACE OF ALBEMARLE
At a vast writing-table placed in the middle of a lofty, sunny room,
whose windows overlooked St. James’s Park, sat George Monk, K.G., Baron
Monk of Potheridge, Beauchamp, and Tees, Earl of Torrington and Duke
of Albemarle, Master of the Horse, Commander-in-Chief, a member of His
Majesty’s Privy Council, and a Gentleman of the Bedchamber.
It was a great deal for a man to be, and yet George Monk--called
a trimmer by his enemies and “honest George” by the majority of
Englishmen--might conceivably have been more. Had he so willed it, he
might have been King of England, whereby it is impossible that he could
have served his country worse than by the restoration of the Stuart
dynasty, which he preferred to effect.
He was a man of middle height, powerfully built, but inclining now, in
his fifty-seventh year, to portliness. He was of a dark complexion, not
unhandsome, the strength of his mouth tempered by the gentleness of his
short-sighted eyes. His great head, covered by a heavy black periwig,
reared itself upon too short a neck from his massive shoulders.
As Holles entered, he looked up, threw down his pen, and rose, but
slowly, as if weighted by hesitation or surprise. Surprise was
certainly the expression on his face as he stood there observing
the other’s swift, eager advance. No word was uttered until no more
than the table stood between them, and then it was to the usher that
Albemarle addressed himself, shortly, in dismissal.
He followed the man’s withdrawal with his eyes, nor shifted them again
to his visitor until the door had closed. Then abruptly concern came to
blend with the surprise still abiding in his face, and he held out a
hand to the Colonel whom this reception had a little bewildered. Holles
bethought him that circumspection had ever been George Monk’s dominant
characteristic.
“God save us, Randal! Is it really you?”
“Have ten years wrought such changes that you need to ask?”
“Ten years!” said the Duke slowly, a man bemused. “Ten years!” he said
again, and his gentle almost sorrowing eyes scanned his visitor from
foot to crown. His grip of the Colonel’s hand tightened a moment. Then
abruptly, as if at a loss, or perhaps to dissemble the extent to which
he was affected by this meeting, “But sit, man, sit,” he urged, waving
him to the armchair set at the table so as to face the Duke’s own.
Holles sat down, hitching his sword-hilt forward, and placing his hat
upon the floor. The Duke resumed his seat with the same slowness with
which he had lately risen from it, his eyes the while upon his visitor.
“How like your father you are grown!” he said at last.
“That will be something gained, where all else is but a tale of loss.”
“Aye! You bear it writ plain upon you,” the Duke sadly agreed, and
again there broke from him that plaintive, “God save us!”
Randal Holles the elder had been Monk’s dearest friend. Both natives
of Potheridge in Devon, they had grown to manhood together. And though
political opinions then divided them--for Monk was a King’s man in
those far-off days, whilst the older Holles had gone to Parliament a
republican--yet their friendship had remained undiminished. When Monk
at last in ’46 accepted a command from Cromwell in the Irish service,
it was the influence of Holles which had procured both the offer and
its acceptance. Later, when Holles the younger decided for the trade of
arms, it was under the ægis of Monk that he had taken service, and it
was due as much to Monk’s friendship as to his own abilities that he
had found himself a Captain after Dunbar and a Colonel after Worcester.
Had he but chosen to continue under the guidance of his father’s
friend, he might to-day have found himself in very different case.
The thought was so uppermost now in the Duke’s mind that he could not
repress its utterance.
Holles sighed. “Do I not know it? But....” He broke off. “The answer
makes a weary story and a long one. By your leave, let us neglect it.
Your grace has had my letter. That is plain, since I am here. Therefore
you are acquainted with my situation.”
“It grieved me, Randal, more deeply, I think, than anything I can
remember. But why did you not write sooner? Why did you come vainly
knocking at my door to be turned away by lackeys?”
“I had not realized how inaccessible you are grown.”
The Duke’s glance sharpened. “Do you say that bitterly?”
Holles almost bounded from his seat. “Nay--on my soul! I vow I am
incapable of that, however low I may have come. What you have, you have
earned. I rejoice in your greatness as must every man who loves you.”
With mock cynicism as if to cover up any excessive emotion he might
have used, he added: “I must, since it is now my only hope. Shorn of it
I might as well cast myself from London Bridge.”
The Duke considered him in silence for a moment.
“We must talk,” he said presently. “There is much to say.” And, in his
abrupt fashion, he added the question: “You’ll stay to dine?”
“That is an invitation I’d not refuse even from an enemy.”
His grace tinkled a little silver bell. The usher appeared.
“Who waits in the anteroom?”
Came from the usher a string of names and titles, all of them
distinguished, some imposing.
“Say to them with my regrets that I can receive none before I dine. Bid
those whose business presses to seek me again this afternoon.”
As the usher removed himself, Holles lay back in his chair and laughed.
The Duke frowned inquiry, almost anxiously.
“I am thinking of how they stared upon me, and how they’ll stare next
time we meet. Forgive me that I laugh at trifles. It is almost the only
luxury I am still able to afford.”
Albemarle nodded gloomily. If he possessed a sense of humour, he very
rarely betrayed the fact, which is possibly why Mr. Pepys, who loved a
laugh, has written him down a heavy man.
“Tell me now,” he invited, “what is the reason of your coming home?”
“The war. Could I continue in Dutch service, even if the Dutch had
made it possible, which they did not? For the last three months it
has been impossible for an Englishman to show his face in the streets
of The Hague without being subjected to insult. If he were so rash
as to resent and punish it, he placed himself at the mercy of the
authorities, which were never reluctant to make an example of him.
That is one reason. The other is that England is in danger, that she
needs the sword of her every son, and in such a pass should be ready
to afford me employment. You need officers, I learn--experienced
officers....”
“That’s true enough, God knows!” Albemarle interrupted him, on a note
of bitterness. “My anteroom is thronged with young men of birth who
come to me commended by the Duke of This and the Earl of That, and
sometimes by His Majesty himself, for whom I am desired to provide
commissions that will enable these graceful bawcocks to command their
betters....” He broke off, perceiving, perhaps, that his feelings were
sweeping him beyond the bounds of his usual circumspection. “But, as
you say,” he ended presently, “of experienced officers there is a sorry
lack. Yet that is not a circumstance upon which you are warranted to
build, my friend.”
Holles stared blankly. “How ...?” he was beginning, when Albemarle
resumed, at once explaining his own words and answering the unspoken
question.
“If you think that even in this hour of need there is no employment
for such men as you in England’s service,” he said gravely, in his
slow, deep voice, “you can have no knowledge of what has been happening
here whilst you have been abroad. In these past ten years, Randal, I
have often thought you might be dead. And I ask myself, all things
being as they are, whether as your friend I have cause, real cause, to
rejoice at seeing you alive. For life to be worth living must be lived
worthily, by which I mean it must signify the performance of the best
that is in a man. And how shall you perform your best here in this
England?”
“How?” Holles was aghast. “Afford me but the occasion, and I will
show you. I have it in me still. I swear it. Test me, and you shall
not be disappointed. I’ll do you no discredit.” He had risen in his
excitement. He had even paled a little, and he stood now before the
Duke, tense, challenging, a faint quiver in the sensitive nostrils of
his fine nose.
Albemarle’s phlegm was undisturbed by the vehemence. With a sallow
fleshly hand, he waved the Colonel back to his chair.
“I nothing doubt it. I ask no questions of how you have spent the
years. I can see for myself that they have been ill-spent, even without
the hints of your letter. That does not weigh with me. I know your
nature, and it is a nature I would trust. I know your talents, partly
from the early promise that you showed, partly from the opinion held
of you at one time in Holland. That surprises you, eh? Oh, but I keep
myself informed of what is happening in the world. It was Opdam, I
think, who reported you ‘_vir magna belli peritia_.’” He paused, and
sighed. “God knows I need such men as you, need them urgently; and I
would use you thankfully. But....”
“But what, sir? In God’s name!”
The heavy, pursed lips parted again, the raised black eyebrows resumed
their level. “I cannot do so without exposing you to the very worst of
dangers.”
“Dangers?” Holles laughed.
“I see that you do not understand. You do not realize that you bear a
name inscribed on a certain roll of vengeance.”
“You mean my father’s?” The Colonel was incredulous.
“Your father’s--aye. It is misfortunate he should have named you after
him. But there it is,” the deliberate, ponderous voice continued. “The
name of Randal Holles is on the warrant for the execution of the late
King. It would have provided a warrant for your father’s own death had
he lived long enough. Yourself you have borne arms for the Parliament
against our present sovereign. In England it is only by living in the
completest obscurity that you’ll be allowed to live at all. And you
ask me to give you a command, to expose you prominently to the public
gaze--to the royal eye and the royal memory, which in these matters is
unfading.”
“But the act of indemnity?” cried Holles, aghast, seeing his high hopes
crumbling into ashes.
“Pshaw!” Albemarle’s lip curled a little. “Where have you lived at
all that you do not know what has befallen those whom it covered?” He
smiled grimly, shaking his great black head. “Never compel from a man
a promise he is loath to give. Such promises are never kept, however
fast you may bind them in legal bonds. I wrung the promise of that bill
from His Majesty whilst he was still a throneless wanderer. Whilst he
was at Breda I concerted with him and with Clarendon that there should
be four exceptions only from that bill. Yet when, after His Majesty’s
restoration, it was prepared, it left to Parliament such exceptions
as Parliament should deem proper. I saw the intention. I pleaded; I
argued; I urged the royal promise. Finally it was agreed that the
exceptions should be increased to seven. Reluctantly I yielded,
having no longer the power effectively to oppose a king _de facto_.
Yet when the bill came before the Commons--subservient to the royal
promptings--they named twenty exceptions, and the Lords went further
by increasing the exceptions to include all who had been concerned
in the late king’s trial and sundry others who had not. And that
was a bill of indemnity! It was followed by the King’s proclamation
demanding the surrender within fourteen days of all those who had been
concerned in his father’s death. The matter was represented as a mere
formality. Most were wise enough to mistrust it, and leave the country.
But a score obeyed, conceiving that they would escape with some light
punishment.”
He paused a moment, sinking back into his chair. A little smile twisted
the lips of this man who had no sense of humour.
“It was announced that those who had not surrendered were excluded from
the Bill of Indemnity, whilst, as for those who having surrendered
were to be supposed included in it, a loyal jury found a true bill
against them. They were tried, convicted, and sentenced to death.
Major-General Harrison was the first of them to suffer. He was
disembowelled over yonder at Charing Cross. Others followed, until the
people, nauseated by the spectacle provided daily, began to murmur.
Then a halt was called. There was a pause, at the end of which the
executioners began again. Nor were those sentenced in that year the
only ones. Others were indicted subsequently. Lambert and Vane were not
brought to trial until ’62. Nor were they the last. And it may be that
we have not reached the end even yet.”
Again he paused, and again his tone changed, shedding its faint note of
bitterness.
“I do not say these things--which I say for your ears alone here in
private--to censure, or even criticize, the actions of His Majesty.
It is not for a subject to question too narrowly the doings of his
King, particularly when that King is a son concerned to avenge what he
considers, rightly or wrongly, the murder of his father. I tell you all
this solely that you may understand how, despite my ardent wish to help
you, I dare not for your own sake help you in the way you desire, lest,
by bringing you, directly or indirectly, under His Majesty’s notice, I
should expose you to that vengeance which is not allowed to slumber.
Your name is Randal Holles, and....”
“I could change my name,” the Colonel cried, on a sudden inspiration,
and waited breathlessly, whilst Albemarle considered.
“There might still be some who knew you in the old days, who would be
but too ready to expose the deception.”
“I’ll take the risk of that.” Holles laughed in his eagerness, in his
reaction from the hopelessness that had been settling upon him during
Albemarle’s lengthy exposition. “I’ve lived on risks.”
The Duke eyed him gravely. “And I?” he asked.
“You?”
“I should be a party to that deception....”
“So much need not transpire. You can trust me not to allow it.”
“But I should be a party none the less.” Albemarle was graver than
ever, his accents more deliberate.
Slowly the lines of Holles’s face returned to their habitual grim
wistfulness.
“You see?” said the Duke sadly.
But Holles did not wish to see. He shifted restlessly in his chair,
swinging at last to lean across the table towards the Duke.
“But surely ... at such a time ... in the hour of England’s need ...
with war impending, and experienced officers to seek ... surely, there
would be some justification for....”
Again Albemarle shook his head, his face grave and sad.
“There can never be justification for deceit--for falsehood.”
For a long moment they faced each other thus, Holles striving the while
to keep the despair from his face. Then slowly the Colonel sank back
into his chair. A moment he brooded, his eyes upon the polished floor,
then, with a little sigh, a little shrug, a little upward throw of the
hands, he reached for the hat that lay on the floor beside him.
“In that case....” He paused to swallow something that threatened to
mar the steadiness of his voice, “ ... it but remains for me to take my
leave....”
“No, no.” The Duke leaned across and set a restraining hand upon his
visitor’s arm. “We part not thus, Randal.”
Holles looked at him, still inwardly struggling to keep his
self-control. He smiled a little, that sad irresistible smile of his.
“You, sir, are a man overweighted with affairs; the burden of a state
at war is on your shoulders, I....”
“None the less you shall stay to dine.”
“To dine?” said Holles, wondering where and when he should dine next,
for a disclosure of the state of his affairs must follow upon this
failure to improve them, and the luxury of the Paul’s Head could be his
no longer.
“To dine, as you were bidden, and to renew acquaintance with her
grace.” Albemarle pushed back his chair, and rose. “She will be glad to
see you, I know. Come, then. The dinner hour is overpast already.”
Slowly, still hesitating, Holles rose. His main desire was to be out
of this, away from Whitehall, alone with his misery. Yet in the end
he yielded, nor had occasion thereafter to regret it. Indeed, at the
outset her grace’s welcome of him warmed him.
The massive, gaudy, untidy woman stared at him as he was led by
Albemarle into her presence. Then, slapping her thighs to mark her
amazement, up she bounced, and came rolling towards him.
“As God’s my life, it’s Randal Holles!” she exclaimed. And hoisting
herself on tiptoe by a grip of his shoulders she resoundingly kissed
his cheek before he guessed her purpose. “It’s lucky for George he’s
brought you to excuse his lateness,” she added grimly. “Dinner’s been
standing this ten minutes, and cooling do spoil good meat. Come on. You
shall tell me at table what good fortune brings you.”
She linked an arm through one of his, and led him away to their frugal
board, which Mr. Pepys--who loved the good things of this world--has
denounced as laden with dirty dishes and bad meat. It was certainly
not ducal, either in appurtenances or service. But then neither was
its hostess, nor could any human power have made her so. To the end
she was Nan Clarges, the farrier’s daughter and the farrier’s widow,
the sempstress who had been Monk’s mistress when he was a prisoner
in the Tower some twenty years ago, and whom--in an evil hour, as
was generally believed--he had subsequently married, to legitimize
their children. She counted few friends in the great world in which
her husband had his being, whilst those she may have counted in her
former station had long since passed beyond her ken. Therefore did she
treasure the more dearly the few--the very few--whom she had honoured
with that name. And of these was Randal Holles. Because of his deep
regard for Monk, and because of the easy good-nature that was his own,
he had in the early days of Monk’s marriage shown a proper regard for
Monk’s wife, treating with the deference due to her married station
an unfortunate woman who was smarting under the undisguised contempt
of the majority of her husband’s friends and associates. She had
cherished that deference and courtesy of Holles’s as only a woman in
her situation could, and the memory of it was ineffaceably impressed
upon her mind.
Clarendon, who detested her as did so many, has damned her in a phrase:
“_Nihil muliebris præter corpus gerens._” Clarendon did not credit her
with a heart, under her gross, untidy female form, a woman’s heart as
quick to respond to hate as to affection. Holles could have enlightened
him. But, then, they never knew each other.
The trivial, unconsidered good that we may do on our way through life
is often a seed from which we may reap richly anon in the hour of our
own need.
This Holles was now discovering. She plied him with questions all
through her noisy feeding, until she had drawn from him, not only the
condition of his fortunes, but the reason of his return to England, the
hopes he had nourished, and her own husband’s wrecking of those hopes.
It put her in a rage.
“God’s life!” she roared at her ducal lord and master. “You would ha’
turned him like a beggar from the door? Him--Randal!”
His grace, the dauntless, honest George Monk, who all his life had
trodden so firmly the path of rectitude, who feared no man, not even
excepting the King whom he had made, lowered his proud, grave eyes
before this termagant’s angry glance. He was a great soldier, as you
know. Single-handed once he had faced a mutinous regiment in Whitehall,
and quelled its insubordination by the fearless dominance of his
personality. But he went in a dread of his boisterous vulgar duchess
that was possibly greater than the dread in which any man had ever gone
of him.
“You see, my love, according to my lights....” he was beginning
uneasily.
“Your lights quotha!” she shrilled in scorn. “Mighty dim lights they
be, George, if you can’t see to help a friend by them.”
“I might help him to the gallows,” he expostulated. “Have patience now,
and let me explain.”
“I’ll need patience. God knows I shall! Well, man?”
He smiled, gently, as if to show that he used gentleness from
disinclination to assert his mastery. As best he could, seeing that he
was subjected the while to a running fire of scornful interruptions, he
made clear the situation as already he had made it clear to Holles.
“Lord, George!” she said, when he had finished, and her great red face
was blank. “You are growing old. You are not the man you was. You, a
kingmaker! La!” She withered him with her scorn. “Where are the wits
that helped King Charles Stuart back to his own? You wasn’t put off by
the first obstacle in they days. What would ye be without me, I ask
myself. It needs me to help ye see how ye can help a friend without
bringing him under notice of them as might do him a hurt.”
“If you can do that, my dear....”
“If I can? I’d ha’ my brains fried for supper if I couldn’t. I would
so--damme! For ’tis all they’d be good for. Is there no commands in
your bestowing but commands here at home?”
His eyebrows flickered up, as if something in his mind responded to her
suggestion.
“Are there no colonies to this realm of England? What of the
Indies--East and West? There’s a mort o’ them Indies, I know, whither
officers are forever being dispatched. Who’d trouble about Randal’s
name or story in one o’ they?”
“Egad! ’Tis an idea!” The Duke looked at Holles, his glance
brightening. “What should you say to it, Randal?”
“Is there a post for me out there?” quoth the Colonel eagerly.
“At this very moment, no. But vacancies occur. Men die in those
outlandish parts, or weary of the life, or find the climate intolerable
and return. There are risks, of course, and....”
Holles cut in briskly. “I have said that I have lived on risks. And
they’ll be less than those you represent as lying in wait for me here
at home. Oh, I’ll take the risks. Right gladly I’ll take the risks.
And I’ve little cause to be so wedded to the old world that I’d not
exchange it for the new.”
“Why, then, we’ll see. A little patience, and it may be mine to offer
you some place abroad.”
“Patience!” said Holles, his jaw fallen again.
“Why, to be sure. After all, such posts do not grow like apples. Keep
me informed of where you are lodged, and I will send you word when the
occasion offers.”
“And if he doesn’t send word soon do you come and see me again,
Randal,” said her grace; “we’ll quicken him. He’s well enough; but he’s
growing old, and his wits is sluggish.”
And the great man, whose eye had daunted armies, smiled benignly upon
his termagant.