To Serve a Queen Read online

  But a year before James’s death he fell from favour with Prince Charles and Buckingham. To the latter his ability made him seem dangerous, and at this time Buckingham ruled both the King and his son. Since Cranfield was against war with Spain on financial grounds, for he knew there was no money to support it, the Parliament was against him. In May of that year he was impeached, he lost his offices, he suffered a heavy fine and was imprisoned in the Tower.

  But for only two weeks. Already there were doubts of his corruption. After all, it was customary in the confused management of patents and monopolies, not to mention taxes, levies and so-called benevolences, to fine great men in high offices subject to bribes and blackmail. Almost at once, upon the King’s death in March, in fact just a month later … ‘There is a strong rumour of his pardon by King Charles,’ Master Leslie wound up his tale. ‘He remains in the retirement he hath lived in since his release from the Tower last year.’

  ‘But his faults were venal,’ Francis said obstinately.

  ‘No worse than those of many who will never suffer. No, his chief sin was to mop up too swift a progression of offices where his performance was seen to be due to merit and not to dishonesty. This His Grace of Buckingham could not endure, having no merit but his handsome person –’

  He checked himself, cursing the strong feelings that had led him into indiscretion. But the boy was smiling now, with a kindly contempt for an old man that punished him further.

  ‘You do not wholly believe me,’ he said sharply. ‘But wait till we hear of Cranfield’s submission to his masters. In servile words on his knees to Buckingham, I doubt not.’

  ‘I cannot believe so great a gentleman would behave thus to another.’

  ‘Their origins are not so great. Son of a petty squire and son of a small merchant. A little owner of land and a little owner of merchandise. The progress of each has far outrun their habits of mind and heart. Do you understand me, boy?’

  Since Francis made no answer to this difficult question, seeing he considered his respected host was suffering from a mild form of madness, Alderman Leslie concluded his warning with a final thrust.

  ‘His Grace is, nevertheless, the present Lord High Admiral. He has achieved what he intended. He is, in his own opinion and that of many who fear him, the present King of England!’

  ‘I still admire him the more so if you may be right,’ Francis answered obstinately.

  Alderman Leslie emptied his glass, gave a great laugh, got up, clapped the young man on the shoulder and cried, ‘Treasonable talk! One as bad as the other! If my Walter were not without to keep off meddlers and eavesdroppers we might both find ourselves at Tyburn within the week!’

  Francis was on his feet directly, smiling at the old man’s levity.

  ‘Go you to my good wife, lad, and ask her will she ride with us to Wilkin’s farm by Hackney. The town is so cast into mourning over this long preparation for the royal funeral our winter spirits persist though the sun shines warmly and yellow buds break green on the trees. We all have need of exercise and I have business to discuss with Farmer Wilkin. So get you to Mistress Leslie and I to advise Walter of our intention.’

  The ride did them all good, though Master Leslie came home from it much fatigued, which annoyed him, as did any reminder of his increasing age.

  ‘My head is clear enough,’ he complained, leaning on his wife’s arm as he re-entered the house. ‘But I feel the stiffness coming on already. I foresee the coach will be my conveyor from now on.’

  ‘For a week maybe,’ Mistress Leslie said, laughing. ‘I have heard this before. Go and rest, sir, and I will come presently and rub in the oil Doctor Harvey recommends. Francis, will come to my parlour. I warrant the air beyond the City Wall hath give him a famous appetite. My Betsy shall find the wherewithal to sustain him until supper-time.’

  Nothing loth, Francis followed her to her own little parlour, which had been her chief retreat in the old days for herself and her daughter Lucy, now Lady Leslie.

  It was a pleasant small room, lined in late Elizabethan style with linen-fold panelling and one or two pictures by Dutch and Flemish artists that had been brought to England as presents for Master Leslie from various traders in the Low Countries with whom he did business.

  Mistress Leslie found Francis studying them when she came back after giving orders for their refreshment.

  ‘These painters have little in their heads but fishing boats and the hazards they meet in those waters,’ he remarked, turning round to her.

  ‘There is an unseemly contempt in your voice,’ she answered tartly, ‘which does not at all become you in this house. Master Leslie belongs to the Worshipful Company of Fishmongers. It is a worthy trade and a prosperous. You must visit his great new offices above the wharf at Billings Gate. When Master Nimmo stayed here as a young man, set upon learning the trade, there were but a couple of sheds to serve both as storehouses and counting house.

  Even upon Master Alec’s first retun there was little difference. But in the last ten years –’

  Francis, who had turned back to the pictures, interrupted her in a low tense voice.

  ‘I ask your pardon, madam, but I think you have forgot you speak of that rogue, that cowardly villain, that betrayed my lady mother, and then deserted her. My father, this Alexander Nimmo, is it not, you speak of?’

  Mistress Leslie did not answer at once, chiefly because her maid Betsy came in with a tray of food, small chicken pasties, jellied eels, honey cakes, sugared plums from last summer’s harvest, with home-brewed ale to wash it all down. But she had not forgotten the boy’s relationship to Sandy Nimmo. It was precisely her memory of it that had determined her to speak freely and plainly. Young Francis had never been abandoned from the day of his birth. He had been excellently brought up. At a time when gentlemen usually acknowledged their bastards, if the lower orders and particularly the puritans among them did not, the lad had no excuse for such great bitterness. She proceeded to tell him so.

  ‘Aye, your father, Francis. And none of those names you use can suit him. Come your ways and sit down like a man and listen to what I shall tell. That gentle scholar, Sir Francis, who gave you his name and never took the least revenge for his betrayal – yes, his betrayal – upon either of your true parents. Sir Francis, I am sure, has never tried to explain to you the true story of your birth.’

  Young Francis, by now enjoying the excellent food laid out before him, attempted to forestall the painful detail he knew he must otherwise endure.

  ‘There is much need, child. Alec never knew he was to be a father when necessity forced him to escape from London. He never knew it until he was a world away in the new colony of Virginia.’

  ‘I have heard he killed a man in a brawl and was proscribed.’

  ‘He killed in fair fight or rather in a most unfair attack. Two real villains, one jealous of his growing position in Master Leslie’s employ, the other the evil procurer of a great lord, tried to embroil him in their corrupt schemes with infent to ruin him. He challenged them and while he fought with one the other sought to intervene, but received Alec’s sword in his own breast, a thrust meant not for him but for Alec’s already engaged foe. This took place at an inn where all three were known. Alec got away by sea to Scotland, fled to the Highlands and at last found his way to James Town. So there was no desertion since he was ignorant of the unhappy result of his former heedlessness.’

  ‘Could he not have discovered it, had he cared enough to do so?’

  Mistress Leslie lifted surprised eyelids at the flushed young face before her.

  ‘You have heard the reason for his sudden most unexpected flight. In the few weeks before that happening, when Katherine Ogilvy, as she was then, saw very little of him, she made no move to acquaint him with her condition. Would you have had him go to her to inquire? Is that how you conclude your own affairs, Francis? Or do you wipe the slate clean when the attraction fades and give thanks for no further obligation?’

  The
thrust went home, as she knew it would from the tales Sir Francis had brought from his brother Kilessie to the alderman, who had told them to her afterwards. This was certainly Alec’s son. His face had paled, his violet eyes, so like his mother’s, had sparked with rage as Alec’s lighter blue ones had. If she had been a man she would have felt a stab of fear. Being an elderly woman, well used to the world and its sins, she only smiled and changed the subject.

  ‘Did you remember my Lucy at Luscombe?’ she asked presently. ‘You were here or at Doctor Richard’s house in Oxford for the first three years and more of your life. Lucy used to play with you and with little George.’

  ‘I did not remember her face, but I recognised her voice,’ Francis answered. ‘I recognise this house, too, in part, though it appears smaller to me now.’

  ‘Since now you are so much bigger.’

  ‘Is that why? I never saw my little sister, Kirstie. She died four years ago, they tell me. I remember a cruel nurse, who was always correcting me and beating me for reasons I did not understand.’

  ‘So you remember that, do you?’

  ‘Who was she, madam? Why did my father, I mean Sir Francis, employ her?’

  But Mistress Leslie did not answer him. Instead she got up, to put the dishes together and take the tray to the door. Francis sprang up to open it for her.

  ‘I remember you too, madam, though I think I have confused you with my Lady Leslie. You were not my cruel nurse, were you? For I am sure I did not profit a whit from her beatings.’

  ‘I was not that unfortunate woman,’ answered Mistress Leslie firmly. But neither then nor at any future time, until forced of necessity to do so, did she enlighten the boy further.

  Chapter Three

  The summons came for Francis two days later. A messenger in the livery of Lord Aldborough brought a short note requesting the presence of Master Francis Leslie at the palace of Whitehall on the morrow, to present himself before His Grace, the Duke of Buckingham. There had, as yet, been no further word from Richard Ogilvy.

  Francis was overjoyed. He had not taken Master Leslie’s warning tales of Buckingham very much to heart and this mark of the great man’s interest fully restored his former romantic vision of the favourite.

  ‘His Grace, George Villiers,’ the alderman grumbled to his wife. ‘The fellow’s progress to the highest position in the land, short of royalty, hath been faster than any natural unwanted plant in my garden. The highest rank for a rank weed.’

  ‘I am sorry we have heard naught from Doctor Ogilvy,’ Mistress Leslie answered, disregarding this very forced conceit. ‘His brother, the gallant soldier, cannot yet have arrived. Until he does we are powerless to help Francis.’

  ‘I think we may be so in any case,’ Master Leslie told her. ‘I am beginning to be sorry my Lord Aldborough thought to show his gratitude for the help I gave him in his affairs last year. I would not have missed attending our late Majesty’s lying-in-state, but I fear I have set our young friend in the way of very great danger.’

  Mistress Leslie’s abundant commonsense did not desert her.

  ‘A soldier’s life is never a safe one,’ she reminded her husband. ‘Under Buckingham or elsewhere abroad he must find his own path and overcome or submit to the same hazards.’

  The alderman sighed, but he could not dispute this argument. So he put aside his disapproval to make the interview as easy as possible for the totally inexperienced young man. He provided his own coach with Thomas to drive it. The latter knew Whitehall well enough, from the time when the young Mistress Katherine Ogilvy, Francis’s mother, had been employed by old Lady Chiltern in the household of the late Prince Henry.

  The young man’s clothes caused no difficulty, for he still had his mourning suit of black borrowed in Oxford for the London visit. Master Leslie lent him a silk-lined short black cloak to give the garb more dignity and broaden a little his slim young outline: while Mistress Leslie’s sewing woman decorated his black shoes with two ruched black silk ribbon bunches, called ‘roses’, set upon the toes. As far as the sombre colour would allow, Francis presented an appearance both modest and pleasing, especially when the broad felt hat was set upon his auburn curls to make them glow about his face with startling richness.

  His Grace of Buckingham was pleasantly surprised. He was not often aware of such a sensation, since he spent far less time observing the effect of others upon himself than in marking the effect he himself made upon others. Even now the fresh sensation soon faded as the accustomed gratification took its place.

  Francis was in no way disappointed. Lord Aldborough had been told of his arrival and after keeping him waiting in nervous embarrassment among a number of other would-be-visitors to the great man, came in as if in haste to claim him and lead him out ahead of all the rest.

  They passed through numerous passages and courts that the youth made no attempt to record until they came to yet another outer room and across it and through great carved double doors flanked by liveried attendants, not into a great state room such as the ones he had walked through at Denmark House, but into a spacious charmingly decorated and appointed room with wide tall windows giving a distant view of the Thames.

  At the far side of the room a pair of stiff, dark, carved armchairs stood side by side, with footstools in front of them, suggesting thrones, though clearly this was no throne room or audience chamber, but a private apartment. Only one of these chairs was occupied. But at sight of the figure in it Francis whipped off his hat, checking his approach, so that Lord Aldborough, who had not yet removed his own headgear proceeded a few steps alone.

  With a thrill of pleasure Francis saw a figure, an appearance, that more than fulfilled his long-held dreams of the great personage. Here was true magnificence, he thought. This was perfection.

  The great Duke of Buckingham was dressed in mourning, like the rest, but his black garments of silk, satin and damask shone where cloth was dull and besides glittered with discreet silver thread. Black ostrich plumes stood up or drooped from his hat, fastened to it by a great clasp of diamonds and rubies. On his ample cloak, whose folds were draped about his feet, the Garter Star blazed. The face above all this fine clothing was handsome, clear-cut, coldly disdainful, framed in long dark curls. His Grace wore a small moustache and a short pointed beard.

  Lord Aldborough presented his young protégé, while Buckingham condescended to turn his eyes in the youth’s direction while not exactly looking him in the face. He did, however, stretch out a hand to him, palm downwards, with a very kindly gesture.

  Francis did not fail to interpret this correctly. Without any inward questioning he submitted willingly to the Duke’s over-powering personality; he bent a knee and kissed the hand, recovered himself very gracefully with a low bow and stood waiting.

  ‘A pretty fellow,’ His Grace said, turning to Lord Aldborough. ‘His manners commend him. But lately come into England, I believe?’

  ‘That is so, Your Grace,’ Francis said. ‘Three months since.’

  ‘And still with the speech of a Scot upon your tongue. Yet your – father, if I rightly remember it, is a worthy scholar at Oxford University.’

  Francis noticed the pause before the word ‘father’. One glance at Buckingham’s face, an amused, a cruel, flash in the dark eyes, told him the pause was deliberate. His figure stiffened, his face paled as his ready anger seized him. But he lowered his own glance, which the Duke took to be the normal, expected reaction to his delicate jibes. Francis’s anger grew, but Buckingham was never aware of it, for at that moment the attendants without flung open the double doors to announce the King.

  Lord Aldborough and Francis wheeled about, the former hatless now, both bowing to the ground.

  ‘Nay, Steenie, do not uncover,’ Charles said, approaching with easy steps. The Duke, who had put up a lazy hand to his headgear, took it away again. The attendant courtiers disposed themselves about the room with glances of surprise and inquiry directed at the strange young man and his attendant
nobleman.

  The King stopped short a few feet from the two chairs. He was noticeably not dressed in the universal deep mourning, but in dark grey satin with very fine white lace and diamond buttons. His cloak was black, but lined with white mink. He carried his hat which he now put on. His limp brown hair hung straight from the crown of his head. His weak beard and moustache were a little fairer than his straggling locks.

  Charles reached the chair at Buckingham’s right hand, settled himself in it and only then turned a not unkindly eye upon Francis.

  ‘Well, George, whom have we here?’ he said.

  His Grace, without permission, resumed his own seat.

  ‘My Lord Aldborough presented the boy, sire. He met him recently in company with a certain alderman of the City whom his lordship was escorting to Denmark House as a return for certain business accommodations –’

  ‘And so?’ Charles asked, interrupting this rather complicated explanation. ‘And so, my Lord Aldborough?’

  Lord Aldborough, distinctly nettled by the King’s total neglect of his presence hitherto, said stiffly, ‘Sire, Your Majesty’s Lord High Admiral seeks men for Your Majesty’s ships to go into Spain. Knowing this and wishing to help the alderman’s kinsmen. I sought interview with His Grace.’

  ‘Present the young gentleman to us, my lord.’ Charles spoke quietly, but Francis saw a quick look and a smile pass between the King and his favourite. He feared what was coming.

  ‘Master Francis Leslie –’ Lord Aldborough was beginning, when Buckingham, hiding his blatant insolence in a smile of great charm, leaned towards his master and said:

  ‘The lad desires to be a soldier. He hath the aspect of a new-hatched fighting Scot. Shall I have him, sire?’

  ‘A Scot, say you?’ Charles turned to Francis. ‘Leslie? Yes, a name I know well. Be you from Fife, young sir?’