God's Playthings 1

God's Playthings 1

God's Playthings

Author: Marjorie Bowen

CONTENTS PAGE

 

I. THE KING’S SON 1

 

II. A BIOGRAPHY 23

 

III. A POOR SPANISH LODGING 35

 

IV. DEFEAT 59

 

V. TWILIGHT 80

 

VI. THE CAMP OUTSIDE NAMUR 93

 

VII. THE POLANDER 113

 

VIII. THE EXTRAORDINARY STORY OF GRACE ENDICOTT 135

 

IX. THE CUP OF CHICORY WATER 153

 

X. THE BURNING OF THE VANITIES 180

 

XI. A WOMAN OF THE PEOPLE 202

 

XII. THE ARISTOCRAT 225

 

XIII. THE BETROTHED OF PEDRO EL JUSTICAR 249

 

XIV. THE MACEDONIAN GROOM 260

 

XV. THE PRISONER 273

 

XVI. THE YELLOW INTAGLIO 301

 

 

 

 

GOD’S PLAYTHINGS

 

 

 

 

THE KING’S SON

 

“This letter has given rise to various

conjectures.”–_Dalrymple’s Memoirs._

 

 

_From Ringwood, the 9th of July, 1685._

 

MY LORD,

 

Having had some proof of your kindness when I was last

at Whitehall, makes me hope now that you will not refuse

interceding for me with the King, being I know, though too

late, how I have been misled; were I not clearly convinced of

that, I would rather die a thousand deaths than say what I do.

I writ yesterday to the King, and the chief business of my

letter was to desire to speak to him, _for I have that to say

to him that I am sure will set him at quiet for ever_. I am

sure the whole study of my life shall hereafter be how to serve

him; and _I am sure that which I can do is worth more than

taking my life away_; and I am confident, if I may be so happy

to speak to him, he will himself be convinced of it, _being I

can give him such infallible proof of my truth to him that,

though I would alter, it would not be in my power to do it_.

This which I have now said, I hope will be enough to encourage

your lordship to show me your favour, which I do earnestly

desire of you and hope that you have so much generosity as not

to refuse it. I hope, my lord, and I make no doubt of it, that

you will not have cause to repent having saved my life, which

I am sure you can do a great deal in if you please; being it

obliges me to be entirely yours, which I shall ever be, as long

as I have life.

 

MONMOUTH.

 

_For the Earl of Rochester, Lord High Treasurer of England._

 

Knowing that I had been involved in the miserable final adventure of

that unhappy Prince, James Scot, Duke of Monmouth, and even been with

him in that last Council in Bridgewater, my lord Rochester showed me

this letter with a kind of languid malice, and even had the indecency

to smile at it and address to me a remark slighting to the unfortunate

writer of that desperate appeal.

 

“For,” said he, “had Monmouth a secret to reveal, though ever so base

a one, he had disclosed it to save his life–and since he disclosed

nothing ’tis proof plain this was but a fool’s trick to catch mercy.”

 

He said no more, but I was minded to tell what I knew that I might do

justice to the memory of one wronged and wretched; yet the impulse

was but passing, for I knew that the secret his dead Grace had never

discovered was one which for pity’s sake I must be silent on; and well

I was aware also that what I could say would awaken no understanding in

the cold heart of Lawrence Hyde. My Lord’s Grace of Monmouth has been

dead ten years, and in the potent and huge events that have changed

Europe since, he has been forgotten by all but some of those poor souls

in the West who called him King. But I, who joined fortunes with him in

his reckless enterprise, hold often in my thoughts him whose fate is

now reckoned but a trifle in the history of nations. Both in the exile

that followed Sedgemoor and the years in England under His present

Protestant Majesty have I considered silently the tragic mystery of

this young man whose life was useless pleasure and whose death was

bitter anguish.

 

It hath a curious sound that I, once penman to his Grace, should now be

secretary to the Earl of Rochester; I gave my master this reflection,

and he laughed in his indolent fashion and answered that ten years

had accomplished the work of a hundred, and that the rebellion in

the West was ancient history. Yet when he had left me to my work I

copied this same letter (written in a quick hand with the agony of the

author showing in that forceful entreaty to one who had never been his

friend), and I brought the copy home with me and now must write under

it the explanation like the key to a cipher. Not to show any, but

rather to bury or destroy; not to betray the secret of the dead, but to

ease mine own heart of one scene which has haunted me these long ten

years.

 

It hath a turn of folly to write what will never be read, but the

impulse driving me is stronger than reason, and so I make confession of

what I know while holding my faith inviolate.

 

At the time of the capture of my lord in ’85, the indecent cruelty of

the then King in seeing one whom he had resolved to be bitterly avenged

on, and in commanding to be published an account of those agonies he

should have been most sedulous to veil, was much commented upon, and

first gave his people the impression of that ill-judging severity of

character and stern harshness of temper they soon found unendurably

galling.

 

It was well known too at that time, that my lord had obtained that

interview with the King by reason of the desperate letter he wrote, of

the same trend as the epistle he sent to my lord Rochester, declaring

he had somewhat of such importance to reveal that it should put the

King’s mind at rest for ever concerning him. Various were the rumours

abroad concerning this secret and what it might be, and as it was

known from the King’s lips that his Grace had revealed nothing, many

supposed, as my lord Rochester, that it was but a feint to obtain an

audience of his Majesty; yet how any could read those letters and not

see they were inspired by the bitter truth, I know not. Some believed

that it was that his Grace had been urged to his fatal undertaking by

His present Majesty, then Stadtholder of the United Provinces, and

that he had about him letters from that Prince’s favourite, Monsieur

Bentinck.

 

Yet all evidence was against this, and the Duke himself appealed to the

Stadtholder to bear witness that he had no designs against England when

he left The Hague, but intended for Hungary (for which purpose, indeed,

the Prince equipped him) and had since been misled by the restless

spirit of the Earl of Argyll and other malcontents whom he met, to his

undoing, in Brussels.

 

More believed that the disclosure related to that subtle designing

minister, the Earl of Sunderland, who was deep in the councils of

the King’s enemies, yet held his Majesty in such a fascination that

no breath against him was credited, even at the last, when he ruined

the King easily with a graceful dexterity that deceived even Monsieur

Barillon, who is esteemed for his astuteness.

 

Yet what reason had my lord Sunderland, intent on far larger schemes,

to lure my lord Monmouth into a disastrous expedition, and what object

had his Grace in keeping a final silence about such treachery?

 

Nor would the revelation of the falsehood of his Majesty’s minister or

the discovery of the dissimulation of his Majesty’s nephew be such a

secret as his Grace indicated in his letter–“for I have that to say to

him which I am sure will set him at quiet for ever”–whereas either of

these communications would rather have set King and Kingdom at great

trouble and dis-ease.

 

No one came near the truth in their guesses, and after a while no

one troubled, and truly it is an empty matter now; still, one that

containeth a centre of such tragic interest that for me the wonder and

pity of it never dieth.

 

To bring myself back to the events of that fatal year (the recollection

groweth as I write), it shall here be noted that I was witness of the

great and bitter reluctance of my lord to lead this rebellion.