Читать книгу God and the King - Bowen Marjorie - Страница 11

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Gaspard Fagel, Grand Pensionary of Holland, and M. Dyckfelt, entered the little room where the Prince awaited them. They were both statesmen who had been trained under the last Grand Pensionary, John de Witt, whose Parliamentary Republic had kept the Prince twenty years out of his hereditary offices, and both retained something of the simplicity and sternness of their early life, especially M. Dyckfelt, who wore the plain falling band of the Republican era and a suit old-fashioned in primness and sombre colour.

He was a cleverer man than M. Fagel, who was utterly and entirely under the dominion of the Stadtholder, and saw too clearly with his master's eyes even to have an opinion of his own, His manner to the Prince was the more humble, but both addressed him with that deep respect which does not preclude perfect openness.

William looked at them both sharply, then down at the letters in his hand.

"I have received the invitation from England for which I have been waiting," he said.

M. Dyckfelt bowed, and M. Fagel answered—

"May I congratulate Your Highness—"

"Not yet," interrupted William. "Listen first to these letters—they ask almost the impossible."

He made a little gesture to the straight chairs the other side of the table, and the two seated themselves. M. Dyckfelt had flushed with eagerness and excitement, M. Fagel looked tired and ill. They were both considerably older than the Prince, both men of a fine type with honest, shrewd faces.

William drew his chair nearer the table and held the letters under the glow of the flame of the tall wax candles.

"These," he said, looking down at the flowing English writing, "were brought me by Mr. Herbert, whom I suppose you met, M. Dyckfelt, in England, and are written by Mr. Sidney."

He paused with a little cough; neither of the other two men spoke.

"In the preamble," continued William, "they say that they are pleased to learn from M. Zuylestein that I will be of assistance to them, but they fear the difficulties; and though every one is so dissatisfied with the King his government it would not be safe to speak to them beforehand—and though they might venture themselves on my landing they will do nothing now." He smiled unpleasantly, and added, "In brief, they are on the winning side, and I must go with strength enough to defend myself until they can be gotten into some order. For the army, they say the discontent is such that the King could not count on them, and for the navy, they believe not one in ten would do him any service in such a cause."

"Mine own observations confirm this advice," said M. Dyckfelt, with his eyes fixed on the Prince. "And M. Zuylestein hath writ the same."

William made no comment on that.

"Now," he said, "we come to the gist of the business, which is, that these gentlemen fear affairs will be worse next year, both by the officering of the army with Irish Catholics, the calling of a packed Parliament to pass the repeal of the Test Act, and the employment of violent means against the remaining liberties of the Protestants."

He raised his brilliant eyes to the two intent faces opposite. "Therefore they wish me to undertake this expedition this year."

A soft exclamation broke from Gaspard Fagel.

"Can it be done?"

"If it must be done it can be done," said the Prince firmly; "and I think it is 'nunc aut nunquam,' M. Fagel."

M. Dyckfelt gave a movement of irrepressible excitement.

"Do they not recognise the difficulties of Your Highness?" William looked again at the letter.

"These are their words, Mynheer: 'If the circumstances stand so with Your Highness, that you believe you can get here time enough, in a condition to give assistance this year sufficient for a relief under these circumstances which have been so represented, we who subscribe this will not fail to attend Your Highness upon your landing, and to do all that lies in our power to prepare others to be in as much readiness as such an action is capable of, where there is so much danger in communicating an affair of such a nature, till it be near the time of its being made public.' Then follow their difficulties: 'We know not what alarm your preparations for this expedition may give, or what notice it will be necessary for you to give the States beforehand, by either of which means their intelligence or suspicions here may be such as may cause us to be secured before your landing—"

William laid the paper down.

"That is their main trouble—they doubt whether I can be so secret as not to cause them and all like to support me to be clapt up before I sail—and wish to know my opinion on it—further, they mislike my compliment to the King on the birth of the Prince of Wales, which hath, they say, done me injury among the Protestants, of whom not one in a thousand believeth the child to be the Queen's—and for the rest—dare I, will I, adventure on the attempt?"

He drew a deep breath as he finished this speech, and fixed his eyes on the dark, uncurtained square of the window as if he pictured something in his mind too vast, too confined, for the narrow room, and must imagine it filling the silent night without.

M. Fagel spoke, very low.

"Your Highness doth not hesitate?"

"I cannot," answered the Prince simply; "for it is the only way to gain England from France."

In those plain words lay the whole policy of his life—to gain England from France, to weigh the balance of Europe against Louis by throwing into the scale against him a nation so powerful, so wealthy, and anciently so glorious as England; for ten years he had been at the hopeless task of gaining England through her King, now he was going to ignore the King and go straight to the people; but confident as he was in his destiny, the difficulties of the project seemed overwhelming.

He turned again to the letter.

"This is signed by seven great lords," he said, "but I do not know that they are any of them great Politics—Mr. Russell and Mr. Sidney are the most knowing in affairs, and the last sendeth me words of no great encouragement—"

He picked up the other letter.

"There is advice here that I should take M. de Schomberg for the second in command, for he is beloved in England."

"Hath he not been too long in the service of France?" asked M. Fagel.

"Yet he resigned all his posts when the Edict of Nantes was revoked," said M. Dyckfelt. "And being so staunch a Protestant, and so famous a captain, it would be well if Your Highness could borrow him, as Mr. Sidney saith."

"He is very knowing in his profession," said William, without enthusiasm; "but I doubt he will be too dear—apart from his age, and, God forgive me, I do not relish a lieutenant of eighty."

He leant forward with one arm resting on the dark table. Behind him was the shadowed mantelshelf and the dark picture of a storm that occupied the whole width of the chimney shaft, obscured in gloom and touched only vaguely now and then with passing glimmers of candlelight. The Prince's face, which wore an extraordinary expression of concentration and resolve, was thrown out clearly against this darkness, for the lights stood directly before him, and the two men watching him, almost with suspended breath, were (though so familiar with his features) powerfully impressed by this intent look of unconscious strength in the mobile mouth and glowing eyes.

There was the same spirit of enthusiastic energy in his words, though his utterance was laboured and his voice husky from so much speaking.

"Those are the difficulties of the English," he said. "Aline, you know,"—he brought his fine hand down lightly on the table,—"after all they are—as always—summed up in one word—France."

The manner in which he stressed that name was almost startling in its bitterness, hatred, and challenge.

"Is it possible," asked M. Fagel, who was always at first afraid of the daring schemes of the Prince, "for you to deceive the French?"

"M. D'Avaux is a clever man," answered William grimly, "but Albeville and Sunderland will lull King James, and even I think M. Barillon. My Lord Sunderland," he added, with some admiration, "is the finest, most bewitching knave I have ever met—"

"Then," said M. Dyckfelt, "there are a many at the Court whose interest it is to keep the King deceived—namely, those nobles whose letters of service I brought to Your Highness—and from what I observed of His Majesty he was so infatuate with his own conceptions of affairs as to give scant hearing to good advice."

"That may be," answered M. Fagel. "But will France be so easily beguiled? M. D'Avaux at The Hague itself must suspect."

"He doth already," said William, in a kind of flashing shortness; "but he cannot prove his suspicions."

"Your Highness," asked M. Fagel, still anxious, "must take an army and a fleet with you—"

"You do not think," answered the Stadtholder, "that I would go with a handful of adventurers, like my poor Lord Monmouth?"

"Then," urged the Grand Pensionary, "what is to become of the States with all their defences beyond the seas and you absent?"

An expression of pain crossed William's face.

"It must be risked," he said, in his hoarse, tired voice. "Do you not suppose I have counted these risks?" he added half fiercely.

M. Fagel looked at him straightly.

"Will the States permit Your Highness to take these risks?" he asked.

"I must hope to God that the States will trust me as they have done before," answered William, with dignity.

"Your Highness must lay down new ships, raise new companies, and under what pretence?"

"It can be done," said William. "Have not Algerine corsairs shown themselves in the North Sea? There is one excuse."

M. Dyckfelt spoke now.

"I see other difficulties. I do not think that Your Highness need fear the loyalty of the States, but what of your Romanist allies, the Pope himself?"

"The Pope," said William calmly, "is on the verge of war with Louis over the Cologne affair, and as long as I stand against France I am assured of his secret support—and as for England, I have it from a sure hand that His Holiness was so offended by the sending of Lord Castlemaine as envoy that all King James his compliments to his nuncio have had no effect."

He could not forbear a smile, for in truth the sending of a man who owed his very title to an infamous wife to the court of the saintly Pontiff was one of those almost incredible blunders it is difficult to believe even of a stupid man.

"I have good hopes from that incident," continued the Prince. "The King who made that mistake may make others."

"Ah! Highness," said M. Dyckfelt, "the mistakes of King James will not help you so much as your own wisdom."

William glanced at the speaker. In the faith and trust of such lay his surest strength. These men, incorruptible, clever, industrious, devoted, and patriotic, such as the two now facing him, were the bulwark of the position he had held fifteen years, the instruments of all his projects. These thoughts so moved in his mind that he was constrained to speak warmly.

"Mynheer, neither on my own understanding nor on the mistakes of my enemies do I rely, but on the services of such as you and M. Fagel."

Praise was rare from the Prince they served, and at the sound of it the two grave diplomats coloured.

M. Dyckfelt answered.

"Where should Your Highness find perfect loyalty if not in us?"

"God be thanked," said William, with a contained passion, "I have no cause to doubt my own people. But here," he added frankly, "we have to deal with foreigners, and those a nation of all others light and changeable in politics, arrogant and wilful. At present every noble out of office for not attending Mass, and every officer removed to give place to an Irish Papist, is for me; every courtier who thinketh the King insecure is my very good friend, and every country gentleman deprived of his vote raileth against King James—it will take some diplomacy, gentlemen, to combine these into a firm support for my design, and at the same time to conciliate the Catholics."

"There is a great body of fanatics very eager to call Your Highness their champion," said M. Dyckfelt.

"The Hague is full of them," replied the Prince; "but as each man spendeth all his energies in advancing his own grievances and his own schemes there is not much use in them. Methinks the Tories are a surer strength, but they love me not—only use me to save their liberties. The Whigs shout for me, but know me not—"

"They are a corrupt and shallow people," said M. Fagel.

M. Dyckfelt, who had spent several months in England marshalling the discontented factions, and putting them under the leadership of the Prince, answered this statement of the Grand Pensionary.

"There are many able, knowing, and patriotic men among them, though, being out of office, they are not so commonly heard of as the knaves who make the ministry."

William spoke with some impatience.

"Heaven help me, I would never trust an Englishman, unless it were Mr. Sidney; for when they are honest they are lazy, as Lord Halifax and Sir William Temple, and too indifferent to business to be stirred; and when they are dishonest, which I ever found the great majority, they are the most shameless creatures in the world."

"Yet in the present instant Your Highness must trust them." William smiled grimly.

"Their heads are on their secrecy this time, Mynheer. Besides, I think these men are spirited enough if I can use them before their indignation cools."

There was a second's pause of silence, then M. Fagel spoke.

"Your Highness will require a vast deal of money."

"Yes," said the Prince dryly; "but I believe that it can be raised.'

"In England?" inquired M. Dyckfelt.

"—and among the French refugees here—and from my own fortune, Mynheer, which hath ever exceeded my wants—also, Mynheer, I hope the States will help."

"How great a sum would it be, Highness?"

William, who had the whole project already clear in his head, and had made careful calculations as to the cost, answered at once.

"About three hundred thousand pounds."

M. Fagel was silent. His secret thought was, that to raise this money, overcome all opposition, and complete every preparation by the autumn was impossible.

The Prince was quick to divine his doubt.

"You think I cannot do it?" he asked, with that breathlessness that was a sign of his rare excitement.

"No, Highness. I think of France."

"France!" cried William. "I think of France also."

"If they should attack us while you were absent—or even before you were ready—"

William lifted his hand gravely and let it fall lightly on the smooth surface of the table.

"Ah, if—M. Fagel," he said solemnly; "but that is in God His keeping, where all our destinies be—and we can but fulfil them."

He smiled a little as if he thought of other things, and his bright gaze again sought the window, but instantly he recalled himself.

"I need detain you no more to-night—I shall need to see the States separately and the Amsterdamers—everything must be put in train immediately."

All three rose. The two older men were much moved; before the mind of each were pictures of ten years ago when with the same deliberate courage and heroic fatalism the Prince had pitted himself against France and been forced by the treachery of Charles Stewart into the peace of Nymwegen.

Ten years ago, and ever since William had been working for and planning a renewal of the war he had then been forced to conclude; now it seemed that he had accomplished his desire, and that his re-entry into the combat would be in a manner to take the breath of Europe.

Grave men as these two were, and well used to the spectacle of high policies, they felt that extraordinary thrill which shakes those about to watch the curtain draw up on tremendous events.

They knew that in that quiet little room actions were being resolved and put in train that would stir every court in Europe and make all the pomp of Versailles show hollow if successful; and looking on the Prince, they could not think of failure.

When they had taken their leave, William locked the two letters in a Chinese escritoire. Mr. Sidney had requested that they, being in his known hand, might be destroyed, but the Prince considered his desk as safe as the fire, and was always loath to burn papers of importance.

In that same inner drawer where these letters now lay were offers of services from many famous English names, and that correspondence with Henry Sidney which had prepared the way for the invitation received to-night; also all the letters from King James written since the marriage of Mary, which the Prince had carefully kept.

As he turned the little gold key in the smooth lock he thought of his father-in-law and of the personal aspect of his undertaking. Though he would very willingly have avoided the odium and scandal that he must incur by a break with so near a relation, he had no feelings of affection or even respect for King James. They were antagonistic in religion, character, aims, and policy. James had opposed the Prince's marriage, and ever since he had come to power opposed his every wish and desire. The withdrawal of Sidney from The Hague, the sending of Skelton in his stead, the attempt to recall and place at the disposal of France the English troops in the service of the State, his refusal to interfere with Louis' insulting seizure of Orange, his constant spyings in the household of the Princess, his endeavour to convert her to his own faith, had been all so many widenings of a breach that had never been completely closed; and, on the other hand, the Prince knew that the King had never forgiven him three things—the League of Augsburg (which confederacy of the German Princes against France was known to be his work, though his name did not appear in it), the refusal, really his, though nominally the State's, to return the English troops or to put Skelton at the head of them, and his refusal to countenance the Declaration of Indulgence, even when accompanied by the tempting bribe of alliance against France.

They were, and always had been, natural enemies, despite the accident of the double tie of blood and marriage, and even the conventional compliments of their rank had long since been worn thin between them. William was indebted to his uncle for nothing. James did not even give his eldest daughter an allowance, while his youngest received a princely income; but the Prince, faithful to his unchanging policy, would have passed all this, would James have but done what Charles had always been pressed to do by his nephew, namely, join the States in an alliance against France. The Prince had, indeed, with this end in view, endeavoured to please the King on his first accession, and would have worked with him loyally as an ally.

But for the last year he had seen clearly, and with mingled wrath and pity, that James was bent on the old dishonest policy of packed parliaments, French money, and corrupt ministers, added to which was an intolerant, almost insane, bigotry which, discountenanced by the Pope himself and displeasing to all moderate Catholics, was an impossible scheme of government, and in William's eyes, all religious considerations apart, the act of a madman or a fool.

And it did not suit his statecraft to have either on the throne of England. He had waited a long time for this country, which he had seen from boyhood was essential to his schemes for the balance of power and the liberty of Europe, and now was his moment.

As he walked up and down the plain little room he vowed that the difficulties should be conquered, and that even if the Bourbon lilies were flying over Brussels he would lead an armament to England that year.