1634: The Baltic War: Chapter Seventeen

Whitehall Palace
London, England

    “Three more!” shouted King Charles, holding up the middle three fingers of his left hand. With his right, he pointed accusingly in the direction of the palace’s servant quarters. “A cook and two cleaning women. That’s quite enough! The city has become a pesthole. The queen and I depart for Oxford on the morrow.”

    Sitting in his chair, the king lowered his head, gazing up at the Earl of Strafford in the way that a stubborn child will make clear to his parent that he is most displeased. The royal expression combined sullenness, petulance, anger and resentment—and was about as unregal as anything Thomas Wentworth could imagine.

    He took a breath, but before he could speak Charles snapped: “That is all, I say! There will be no further discussion on this matter. Simply see to the arrangements. I want a full escort out of the city, mind. London has become as infested with unruly apprentices as it has with vermin and disease.”

    Thomas bowed his head, bowing to the inevitable at the same time, and left the royal chamber. Outside, in the corridor, he took several deep breaths. Partly to control his anger; partly to give himself time to decide what steps he might still be able to take to alleviate some of the political damage that would be caused by the king leaving the capital for Oxford.

    He considered, for a moment, simply biding his time and approaching the king with a proposal to reconsider later that day, or in the evening. That had worked twice before, after all.

    Almost instantly, he discarded the notion. On the two previous occasions, the king hadn’t been as set in his course. And, what was more important, his wife hadn’t been involved. But Thomas has already learned from one of his assistants that Queen Henrietta Maria had been in hysterics this morning, after she heard about the latest outbreak of disease in the palace. With the queen in that state of mind, there was simply no chance any longer of persuading Charles to remain in the capital. The king doted on his wife. It was a personal characteristic that Thomas might have respected and even found attractive, had the king’s doting not been so excessive and the wife herself such a blithering fool.

    The fact that disease continued to crop up in a huge palace in the middle of winter, especially in the cramped servants’ quarters, was a given. Thomas’ assistant had told him that none of the cases involved plague. They were simply the sort of illnesses that were inevitable under the circumstances, and posed no real danger to the king and queen, living where they did elsewhere in the palace—in conditions that were anything but cramped.

    For that matter, they weren’t even inevitable—if the king has been willing to either move to the Tower or allow Thomas to bring the American nurse Rita Simpson into Whitehall to oversee the reorganization of the sanitary and medical practices in the royal residence. But the king has refused, to the second proposal even more vehemently than the first. As the months had passed, Charles had developed a detestation and fear of the captive Americans that was simply not rational. Even for him, it was not rational.

    Thomas wasn’t certain yet, but he was coming to the conclusion that a cabal against him had formed among the queen’s courtiers. More precisely, a competent cabal. Even more than disease in winter, it was a certainty that a cabal would be formed against the most powerful minister in the government, by one or another of the cliques that made up the not-so-small horde of courtiers who infested the palace even worse than vermin did. The queen, with her love of flattery and lack of common sense, provided them with a natural center. And the long nights and slow months of winter provided them with the time and idleness to engage in their schemes and plots.

    A given, in short, and not something Thomas was normally given to fretting about overmuch. Every powerful minister in English history had faced the same, after all.

    But, lately, some new faces had been showing up at the queen’s masques. Men of real substance, like Sir Francis Windebank and Sir Paul Pindar, Endymion Porter, or noblemen such as the Earl of Rutland, Francis Manners. The most dangerous of them was probably Richard Boyle, the Earl of Cork. He was one of kingdom’s richest men, very astute, given to malevolence, and as ambitious as anyone Wentworth had ever met.

    Thomas began pacing slowly down the hall, his hands clasped behind his back. He’d been incautious, he realized. The severe and unprecedented measures he’d taken to secure the king’s rule and forestall any possibility of the English revolution that the up-timers’ books depicted had enraged much of the populace and the merchants classes. Especially those inclined toward Puritanism, of course.

    So much, he’d expected and planned for. What he hadn’t considered was that the same measures would stir up the ambitions of men who were inclined to support them. In a sense, by breaking the rules under which England had managed its affairs for so long, Thomas himself had inspired others to do the same. If he could do it, why couldn’t they? The fact that his own motives, allowing for a reasonable amount of personal ambition, had been primarily political, was neither here nor there. Men like the Earl of Cork wouldn’t care. Such men were simply too self-centered to see any distinction at all between what they wanted and what the nation needed.

    So be it. Thomas Wentworth was no mean practitioner of the factionalist’s art himself. He was confident enough that he could out-maneuver his rivals. Their great advantage was equally their disadvantage. Seeing—correctly—in the queen, the softest target in the court, they set their aim there. It was not hard to gain her confidence and support, after all, if you were prepared to ladle flattery and fawning with neither shame nor restraint. But once it was gained, the confidence always proved to be as soft as the target itself. Henrietta Maria was a superb complainer, whiner, critic and nay-sayer. But Thomas had never once seen her throw her influence with the king behind a project or person for any motive beyond petty and usually personal ones. She was simply not cut from the same cloth as Marie de Medici, the French king’s mother who had been an incorrigible meddler in political affairs for years, and was still continuing her intrigues from her exile in Brussels.

    Whitehall was possibly the largest palace in the world—certainly in Europe—and it was more in the nature of a small town with buildings all jammed together than a palace as such. All told, it had more than a thousand rooms and a multitude of corridors. So, long before Thomas reached the quarters he’d set aside for himself, he’d settled his nerves over the king’s foolish decision. There was nothing for it except to make sure the foolishness went smoothly.

    Encountering two guards at a corridor intersection, both of them in the colors of the mercenary company he’d decided to use for the purpose, he instructed one of them to find Captain Leebrick and have him report to the earl’s quarters. Anthony Leebrick was one of the steadiest of the mercenary captains, with a well-trained company and good lieutenants. He also had a phlegmatic personality, which he’d need dealing with Charles and Henrietta Maria in the course of a long journey to Oxford in midwinter. Their complaints would be incessant, especially the queen’s.

    Leebrick arrived not long after Thomas reached his quarters. Once Wentworth had explained the situation, and what was needed, the captain quickly left to make the arrangements. Even with as well-trained and disciplined a company as his, Leebrick was still dealing with mercenary soldiers—who were not prone to do anything “on the morrow” except sleep off a bout of drunkenness, unless they were actively on campaign in the field.

    That done, and remembering that his friend William Laud was still in the palace, Thomas decided to pay him a visit. The Archbishop had decided to postpone his return to Canterbury for a few more days, in order to deal with a few problems that had come up lately.

    That probably meant Thomas would have to put up with at least half an hour’s worth of listening to William’s querulous complaints, until he settled down his nerves. But it was a small price to pay. One of the drawbacks to becoming England’s most powerful minister was that Wentworth had found he had very few friends left. More precisely, friends whose motives he didn’t have to scrutiny carefully at every turn. He had plenty of the other sort, most of them men who’d never indicated the slightest fondness for him in times past—and a fair number who’d been actively hostile.

    For all his many faults, William Laud was one of the few left whom the Earl of Strafford could accept at face value. Perhaps the only one, really, except…

    And there was an odd thought. Except a prisoner sitting in a dungeon in the Tower named Oliver Cromwell. Who, to be sure, had played a major role in separating Thomas Wentworth’s head from his body, a few years from now in another universe. But who also, Thomas was quite sure—in that world as much as this one—had never lied to him or told him anything except what he thought.

    There was an irony there, of course. It seemed the more powerful a man became, the more limited became his pleasures. To the point where, reaching the pinnacle, it sometimes seemed that the only pleasure left to him was simply knowing that a statement made was the truth and not a lie or a ploy. Even if the statement was “let me out of here, and I’ll try to slit your throat.”

    He even laughed then, in a very dry sort of way.

    “And now this!” the archbishop exclaimed, throwing both his hands in the air. When they landed back on the armrests of his chair, Laud had them clenched into fists. Then, after taking a couple of deep breaths, he gave Wentworth something of an apologetic grimace.

    “Yes, yes, I realize it must seem like a small matter to you, this business of the Americans asking me to appoint a bishop for them. Certainly compared to the problem you’re having to deal with.” He sniffed, disdainfully. “Our beloved monarch decamping from his own capital in the middle of a crisis.”

    “I wouldn’t call it a ‘crisis,’” Thomas said evenly. “More in the way of a tense time. But you’re actually wrong about the rest. I don’t think the matter you’re wrestling with is a small one, at all. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if—”

    He broke off abruptly, realizing the precipice he was nearing.

    Unfortunately, he’d forgotten just how perspicacious his friend could be, at times. The Archbishop of Canterbury’s faults were so pronounced that it was easy to underestimate the man. William Laud hadn’t fought his way up from very humble beginnings to become the primate of the Anglican church without there being a keen brain there, beneath the mulishness and the peeves and the personal quirks and foibles.

    “You’re thinking about it, aren’t you?” said Laud, peering at him intently.

    Frowning in as innocent a manner as he could manage, and being careful not to clench his own fists, Wentworth said: “Thinking about what?”

    “Don’t play the innocent with me, Thomas—and for sure and certain, don’t try to play me for a fool. You know perfectly well what I’m talking about. It’s not as if we haven’t danced about the subject for weeks, now. You’re thinking about the Glorious Revolution, that’s what.”

    Wentworth sighed, and turned his gaze from the archbishop to the window looking out over London. Slowly, his hands curled on the armrests of his own chair. Not quite into fists; more like a man might try to seize something intangible in midair.

    “Oh, yes, it’s been quite obvious to me for some time,” continued Laud. “Even if you do manage to stymie the revolution of 1640, then what? You can’t continue this way, you know it as well as I do. This is England, not—not—the Ottoman empire.”

    Wentworth said nothing. He just continued to gaze out over the city. There really wasn’t much to see, beyond a gray sunset lowering over a city that was grayer still. Gray everywhere he looked, nowadays, it seemed to him.

    “Come, come, Thomas, speak up. I shall not betray you. You must know that, if nothing else.”

    There was that, after all. One of the few certainties in a world that grew less certain by the day.

    “Very well, William. Yes, I am thinking about it—and, yes, of course you’re right. Everything I’ve done since the king brought me to London has been a stopgap. Just a temporary measure—often enough, a ramshackle one—to keep a situation from spiraling out of control. But that’s all it is. The king may be under the delusion that he can rule this way for a lifetime, and his successor after him, but that’s all it is. A delusion. A ruler needs legitimacy before all else, and legitimacy in the end must have its base in the consent of the governed. Their acquiescence and acceptance, at the very least. When all is said and done, that’s as true for the Turk as it is for the Englishman.”

    Laud made a face. Wentworth chuckled. “Granted, the Turk is more acquiescent to begin with. But read the histories, William. Even the Ottomans fell. Even the Tsars fell. All of them fell—or they accommodated to survive. How is England to be the sole exception? Even allowing for God’s special favor.”

    He planted his hand on the armrests and pushed himself erect, feeling far wearier than any forty-year-old man should be, who hadn’t done anything more physically strenuous that day than walk corridors and sign documents. Then, went to the window. Hoping, perhaps, that the city might look less gray if he could peer at it directly.

    No, it didn’t. He wasn’t surprised.

    “He was an excellent ruler, you know,” he said softly. “I’ve pored over the records that we’ve been able to obtain. All of them, twice over and more. And the more I read, the more I found myself wishing that I’d been his chief minister. All that Charles isn’t—nor his father before him, nor any of the Stuarts—Oliver Cromwell was. Firm, steady, decisive. Yet not given to harshness for no purpose. He’d be labeled a tyrant after his death—they even dug up his corpse to decapitate it—but it wasn’t true. Compared to Henry VIII? Or Elizabeth? Any of the Tudors? To say nothing of the Plantagenets. Ridiculous.”

    “He was a rebel and a regicide,” Laud said stiffly. “Graciously, I will leave aside that he had the two of us executed, as well.”

    “Yes, he did, and so he was. But much more to the point, William, he was a rebel who never found the path to legitimacy. That’s what did him in, in the end. His regime, rather, since”—Wentworth barked a harsh laugh—“no one tried to beard the lion while he was still alive. But after he died, it all fell apart. And there’s really the lesson, I think. If a supremely capable and successful rebel can have his regime undone by a lack of legitimacy, what chance does a legitimate monarch who is not capable and successful at anything beyond petulance and caprice have of not squandering it away?”

    He turned from the window to face the archbishop squarely. “That was not a rhetorical question, William. I need an answer to it. Quite desperately.”

    It was Laud’s turn to look away. He glanced at the various portraits on the wall—men and women once famous, now half-forgotten—before spending a minute or so staring at a vase. A very attractive vase, and a very fragile one.

    “No chance at all,” he said finally, the words almost sighing from his mouth. “No more chance than I have, in the end, in what I had hoped to do. Damned Scotsmen.”

    Wentworth laughed again, rather gaily this time. “Oh, please, William! It was hardly just the Scotsmen!”

    “They started it,” Laud growled. “But… no, it wasn’t just them.”

    He looked up at Wentworth, the expression on his face a half-pleading one. “I’ve been pondering the matter a great deal myself. Always managing to evade the collision, until…”

    “Until Tom Simpson and Lady Mailey asked you to appoint a bishop for Grantville.”

    There’d been a time when William Laud would have objected to the term “Lady,” applied to a commoner like Melissa Mailey. But, like many things, that time had passed. Seemed very ancient, in fact.

    “Yes. A simple and straightforward request, on the face of it. Underneath, something vastly different. If I refuse, I undermine the true church of which I am the primate. But if I accept, I must limit that same church. I must agree—acquiesce, at least—to limits I have never heretofore accepted.”

    “And?”

    “And… I don’t know yet, not for sure. But I think I will finally agree. Because, in the end, I don’t believe I really have any choice. Whether I like it or not.”

    Wentworth nodded. “No, I don’t believe you do. Any more than I do.”

    Silence, again, for another minute. Then Laud asked: “What do you propose to do, then?”

    “I have no idea, at the moment. My thoughts have gone everywhere for the past weeks—and come back as if they’d never gone. I even contemplated for a time releasing Oliver from the Tower and helping him overthrow the dynasty.”

    Laud’s eyes were practically protruding. “You must be joking.”

    “Oh, no. I gave it quite serious thought. But what would be the point? He failed once, why would he succeed now? The goal was unobtainable in the first place, insofar as he ever had a clear goal in mind.”

    For a moment, his gaze grew unfocused. “It would be quite fascinating, you know, to be able to speak to that man. Not the man in his early thirties named Oliver Cromwell who sits this moment in a dungeon, but the man he became in that other universe, a quarter of a century from now. The Lord Protector of England, in his late fifties. What had he learned? What did he regret? What would he do otherwise, could it do it over again?”

    The gaze came back into focus; a very keen one, in fact. “A fancy, you’ll say. But is it? Are we not—you and I—in a position every bit as fanciful? Two dead men—my head rolling off a block on Tower Hill on May the twelfth of 1641, and yours in the same place on the tenth of January, not four years later—who are even this moment speaking to each other nonetheless. As if two severed heads on a mantelpiece were to be having a conversation.”

    “Oh, that’s…”

    “Yes, I know. Fanciful.”

    “I was going to say, ‘silly’.”

    “That, too, I suppose. But the substance remains. We are not in much different a position than two men who have a chance to relive their lives. What we chose once, we do not need to choose again.”

    “Yes, true enough—but it doesn’t make our current choices any easier or less uncertain. And, for me at least, what shakes my resolve is not my knowledge of errors made in another universe, or a life that might have been. What shakes my resolve—all my certainties, except that I believe in Him—is what God did in this world.”

    Laud rose from his chair. Almost sprang from it. “It’s none of that, Thomas! It’s the Ring of Fire itself that my brain cannot wrap itself around. Let the papists prattle about ‘God’s hidden purpose’ all they want. Let the Calvinists do the same. The fact remains. For the first time since the Resurrection, the Lord moved His hand so powerfully and so visibly that any man can see it. The first undoubted miracle in sixteen hundred years. Why?”

    “I don’t know.”

    “Of course you don’t. None of us do. But He did. That, whatever else, can neither be questioned nor denied.”

    He fell back into the chair, collapsing as quickly as he came out it. “We ignore the deed at our great peril. I am uncertain of most things, now. But of that, I am not uncertain at all.”

    Again, silence.

    “So. What will you do?” the archbishop asked the minister.

    “I don’t know. I simply know that it cannot go on like this.”

    Wentworth glanced at the window, and saw that the sun had set. He hadn’t noticed earlier, because of the grayness of the day outside and the light cast by the lamps in Laud’s chamber.

    “I must be off. The captain I entrusted with the task is a capable one, but I’d best make sure there any no unforeseen problems.”

    Laud nodded heavily, but said nothing.

    When he reached the door, a thought came to Wentworth. Half-smiling, he turned back. “You, on the other hand, should have—just now—answered your own question.”

    The archbishop looked up. “Eh?”

    “The question of the bishop. As you said yourself, God moved His hand. That being so, how can you refuse to send a bishop to that very place He did the deed, when his presence is requested from there?”

    For a moment, Laud looked alarmed. Then, smiled—and quite cheerfully. ‘Why, yes. That’s very nicely put, Thomas. My thanks, indeed. It would seem to border on apostasy, wouldn’t it? Can’t have that.”