The King's Chameleon (25 page)

‘They hang, sir.'

‘Have you ever seen a hanging?'

‘Oh, yes, sir.'

‘Well, you are going to see something a little different today. Hanging is what happens to common felons, thieves, murderers, pirates and so forth. Today you are going to see three executions, not simple hangings but the choking, disembowelling, castration and quartering of three men who were party to the execution of King Charles I. Not only that, Charlie, but they were planning to kill His Present Majesty.'

Hargreaves frowned. ‘Castration … isn't that …' He made a twisting gesture towards his loins, making a wry face.

‘That is exactly what it is.'

‘Oh.' Hargreaves digested the intelligence. ‘What are these men's names, sir?'

‘John Okey, John Barkstead and Miles Corbett. They were among those who had the King's father executed.'

It was only when they were walking home that Faulkner addressed Hargreaves's ill-judged conduct aboard the
Hawk
. ‘You did wrong when Mistress Faulkner paid you to pass my wheel-lock to Master Henry, Charlie, for she and he were both trying to kill me.'

Hargreaves stood stock still, his face losing its colour, his brow furrowed by incomprehension. ‘To
kill
you sir? But why?' Then, seeing his master made no move to answer, and realizing the impropriety of his question, put up his defence: ‘But sir, Master Gooding paid me …'

‘I know, Charlie, I know, but you should forget that. Master Gooding did not know what the money was for, only that he had been told to pay you.'

They resumed their walk in silence for some time, then Hargreaves said, his voice small and anxious, ‘But Master Henry did not kill
you
, sir … He killed himself.'

‘He put a ball the size of a chestnut into my arse before he turned the gun on himself,' Faulkner said.

Another long silence followed before Hargreaves asked, ‘Are you angry with me, sir?'

‘Yes, Charlie, I am, but I am angrier with others and I do not think you knew what you were doing.' Hargreaves had the sense to remain quiet until Faulkner resumed. ‘I will tell you one thing, Charlie, one thing I was not entirely displeased with in your conduct.'

‘What is that, sir?' Hargreaves asked, eagerly.

‘You saw what they did to those Regicides today, didn't you?' Hargreaves shuddered in recollection and nodded. ‘I
smelled
it, sir,' he said.

‘Well, had Henry not shot himself it is very likely that they would have done that to him, for he had threatened the King's life.' The lad stopped again, his mouth and eyes open wide. ‘Come,' Faulkner said, placing his hand on the lad's shoulder, ‘let us go home now.'

After the wedding, the departure of Hannah for her new house, and the executions of the nineteenth of April, Faulkner's household truly settled into new ways. Nathaniel came home from another voyage to the West Indies and announced he was to marry a young woman who had travelled as a passenger aboard his ship. In due course, Hannah Drinkwater bade her new husband farewell and the East Indiaman
Duchess of Albemarle
slipped her moorings and made her way downstream, beginning her long passage to India under the command of Captain Edmund Drinkwater. On the ship's departure Faulkner wrote to Lord Clarendon, informing him of the fact, along with a summary of the manifest. He received neither reply nor acknowledgement but late in August a letter arrived from the Lord Chamberlain inviting ‘Captain Sir Christopher Faulkner to match his sailing yacht against those of His Majesty The King and His Royal Highness The Duke of York, to which may be added the Personal Yachts of several other Gentlemen of the Court'.

The match began abreast of The Tower of London at eight in the morning, taking the ebb down the Thames to Gravesend. One of the King's several Royal Yachts was moored off Shorncliffe as a turning mark, and the little fleet doubled this and began their passage upstream just as the tide turned. The running was close, and in several reaches it was necessary to tack, the boats criss-crossing each other's tracks, their helmsmen exchanging challenges and wise-cracks with a waving of wine-bottles and capon's legs as they wove recklessly in and out of the shipping busy in the waterway.

With Toshack and his crew, Faulkner took Gooding and his son Nathaniel, young Hargreaves making up the numbers and as eager and active as a monkey. Gooding commented on the lad's ability and asked what Faulkner made of him. Faulkner smiled. ‘He is too good to waste, Nathan. Now do you give that sheet a good haul and let us see if we can beat the Duke to the Kent shore and take his wind.'

It was late when the yachts crossed the finish and lay-to off The Tower where their owners were to disembark at Tower-wharf. Faulkner handed over to Toshack and shook Gooding's hand before tumbling into the
Hawk
's little shallop, which was pulled to the shore by Hargreaves. Stepping ashore Faulkner settled his dress and bade Hargreaves farewell, then he turned and nodded at a fellow competitor, Roger North, landing in his own shallop. The two men walked up to join the ladies. These included Queen Catherine of Braganza, the King's newly wedded consort, and the Duchess of York, Clarendon's daughter Anne. With their ladies-in-waiting and attendant gentlemen, they made a glittering company, withdrawing to The Tower where the Constable had been obliged to lay out wine and a cold collation for the King's pleasure.

Katherine was among the wives of the three other yachtsmen, apparently accepted by them, though the risk of a public rebuffing was not inconsiderable. These ladies greeted their respective heroes with as much enthusiasm as the Courtiers applauded the King and his brother, following the procession as the royal siblings led through the Lion Gate towards Tower Green. The King was in high good humour and summoned his fellow contestants to take wine with him, toasting first the winner.

‘To my Royal Brother!' They raised their glasses with a ragged hurrah and then the King walked among them, coming last to Faulkner. ‘Ah ha! Sir Kit and – of course – Mistress Villiers.'

Faulkner footed a low bow, and Katherine, on his arm, dropped a low curtsey. The King reminded them of an old joke. He passed a quick glance at Katherine and then detached his competitor with the command: ‘A word with you, Sir Kit, if you please.'

Faulkner felt Katherine remove her arm and back away, her eyes cast down. As Faulkner's publicly acknowledged mistress, the King could not properly acknowledge her and might, had he been so minded, have ignored her altogether, especially as it was said he had reformed his morals on his marriage. No-one thought this would last, but Faulkner had refused to leave Katherine at home. ‘You faithfully served Her Majesty of Bohemia,' he said when she remonstrated, ‘and it is well-known that I have a mad wife.'

‘Now, sir,' said the King as they strolled towards the Royal Menagerie in the shadow of the Conqueror's pale and massive keep, ‘had I not done so long since, I should have been pleased to have dubbed you this day, for you conceded the ground in tacking off Tilbury.' The King wagged a finger at him. ‘No, don't deny it, I noted it, and again when off Deptford. You might have beaten both my Royal Brother and Myself; you have a fine boat in the … What is her name?'

‘
Hawk
, Your Majesty.'

‘Ah, yes, just so.'

‘I assure Your Majesty that we near missed stays off Tilbury …'

‘Pah! I do not believe Sir Kit missed stays any more than he missed his target in Delft.'

‘Your Majesty?'

‘We have deeply angered the Dutch,' the King confided, ‘and were it not for Sir George's skill in getting de Witt's signature on his warrant – God knows by what means – we would likely be at war with them today.'

‘It was a tricky business, Your Majesty.'

‘But ended most satisfactorily for all of us, you included, Sir Christopher.'

‘As Your Majesty pleases.'

‘How is your wife?'

‘She is quite out of reason, sir.'

‘How so?'

‘She is turned in upon herself; keeps to her room, speaks to no man but her brother and that but occasionally.'

The King stopped and looked about him at the grim ramparts that surrounded them. ‘You were confined here once, I understand,' he remarked, changing the subject.

‘I was, Your Majesty.'

‘Hmm.' The King's grunt was equivocal; Faulkner had been mewed in The Tower at the point of his defection from the King's service to that of the Commonwealth. ‘Freedom has its price, they say,' the King remarked, ‘and, like exile, changes a man's view of the world, do you not agree, sir?' Then, without waiting for a response, he went on: ‘Now, tell me, have you news of your new ship? Damn me, I forget her name too. No! Wait, she is named for Monck's duchess, is she not? The
Duchess of Albemarle
.'

‘No news since she sailed from St Helen's Roads, Your Majesty, but I am anticipating a profitable voyage, providing, of course, we do not go to war with the Dutch.'

‘
Touché
, Sir Kit,
touché
.' The King laughed. They were walking back towards the company now, and Faulkner knew the unofficial audience was ending. Faulkner could see Katherine cast him an anxious glance; so too did the King. ‘How is she, Sir Kit,
your
Villiers wench? She looks well for her years.'

Faulkner recognized the intimacy and the reference to his own Villiers connection. He remembered, too, his suspicions of the King when he had been the Prince of Wales exiled in The Netherlands. It was now said that was when he had first encountered Barbara Villiers, a distant cousin of Katherine's, when she had been used as courier to pass him money. Married, with a compliant husband who had been ennobled at the King's Restoration, the former Mrs Palmer currently enjoyed the title of Lady Castlemaine along with the pleasures of the King's bed. It was gossiped abroad that His Majesty had been supping at her house when the news was brought to him that Princess Catherine of Braganza, his affianced, had arrived at Portsmouth from Lisbon.

‘Well, sir, has the cat got your tongue? Does the lady please you?'

‘She delights my heart, Your Majesty,' Faulkner stammered, aware that the King, shrewd and observant as he was, had noted his hesitation. The two men were now being stared at by the entire assembly. Someone, probably the Duke of York, must have remarked at the interest His Majesty was showing in Sir Christopher Faulkner.

‘Count yourself a lucky man, sir,' said the King, before nodding his dismissal, turning aside and walking swiftly back towards his new Portuguese Queen. Faulkner made an elegant bow at his retreating figure. As he straightened up, aware that all eyes now followed the King as he re-joined them, Faulkner was flooded with a profound relief, and it took him a moment to set his legs in motion and return to Katherine's side. Later, when they lay in bed together, he told her what had passed between them.

‘All is well then, between the King and you, my darling,' she said, rousing herself to look down on him.

‘And he approves of us too,' Faulkner breathed, drawing her mouth down to his own.

‘Now perhaps we can be happy.'

The
Duchess of Albemarle
took up her mooring off Blackwall in early January 1663. Having laid his logs and accounts before the Directors of the East India Company and spent a night with his happy wife, Captain Edmund Drinkwater paid his respects to his ship's owners. Bronzed from his travels, he apologized that his duty required him as a sworn Company commander to report first to the Company's Court before appearing before his owners. Faulkner waved his excuses aside. ‘I hope you also did your duty by your wife, sir,' he said, making the young man blush. Hannah had not conceived in their post-marital intimacies, and Faulkner, increasingly aware of his own mortality, was anxious for grand-children.

‘It is enough that my portion goes to the King,' he remarked to Katherine as they prepared for bed that night. ‘Still, Edmund made a substantial sum from his private trade, so if I starve, he and Hannah will be well enough.'

‘I doubt you will starve,' Katherine said drily.

Captain Drinkwater sailed again in July. He had pronounced the
Duchess of Albemarle
a good ship, and Gooding had filled with cargo those spaces the Company could not. Meanwhile, Faulkner did not starve. On the contrary, his and Gooding's business throve, though the market was not an easy one, with Dutch shipping constantly under-cutting the costs of their English competitors.

Her husband absent in the Indian seas, Hannah gave birth to a fine boy that December. He was christened Edmund in his father's honour and Christopher in his grand-father's. Hannah refused to allow her mother to see the baby for fear of the evil-eye. When Faulkner informed Judith she had a grand-child, she stared at him. ‘What is that to me? I know nothing of the father while the mother abandons me, so the child might as well be a bastard.'

Faulkner walked out without a word.

Nathaniel, whose voyages to the West Indies were shorter that those of his brother-in-law, had meanwhile married well and was, besides being captain of one vessel, part-owner in three other ships in the West India trade. He cherished his independence, making his own way in the world, and it came as a terrible shock when his ship went missing, presumed lost in a West Indian hurricane.

When a grieving Faulkner dragged himself upstairs to inform Judith, she smiled at the news. She laid her Bible down and said, ‘Hannah's bastard may carry your seed, but no-one shall carry your name, Husband. That is the Lord's judgement upon you.'

Looking at her expression, Faulkner had the unpleasant thought that she had had something to do with the loss of their son. He dismissed the evil assumption immediately. That night Katherine held her lover in her arms. It seemed to her that he was inconsolable, for she knew that it was not merely Nathaniel for whom he wept.