As North approached the Tower walls, with the White Tower looming above them from within, he thought, as he did every time he saw it, about all those who had died inside, from the two young princes murdered by their uncle, Richard III, to Henry VIII’s wife of three years, Anne Boleyn, and many others, before and since. North’s enemies, for whom he was a man lacking in emotion, would have been surprised to know that he shivered slightly every time he laid eyes on the place. Once at the Tower, North located both the Governor, Major Gore, who oversaw the Tower’s operations, and the Warder, who was charged with the well-being of those who were staying there. Both men were clearly astounded to see him. First Ministers did not usually visit.
“Gentlemen, I will soon be sending you a special prisoner,” he said. “Someone suspected of high treason, but not yet indicted.”
“May we know his name?” the Governor asked.
“You will learn his name when he arrives, which will probably be within two days, maybe sooner.” Although North well knew, of course, that they would probably read it in the newspapers within the day.
“I understand, Excellency,” the Warder said. “I will not enquire further for now. Is the man to be treated as a prisoner or a guest?”
“I do not understand the difference.”
“We have some sections of the Tower containing rooms which are more like apartments. They have no bars and the people living in them are accused of no crime. They are simply living here, day in and day out. We might better call them residents.”
“And others?”
“There are prisoners who are given more or less the run of the Tower, except that they may not leave entirely freely, or are restricted only to certain areas. They are locked in only at night. Still other sections have cells, with bars, in which the prisoner is more closely guarded and sometimes not permitted to leave the cell at all. This man Laurens, of whom I trust you are aware, is in two small rooms, formerly an apartment, to which we have added bars. They overlook the parade, where he may be stared at by those who walk by. He is largely confined to the rooms.”
“Those in the first group you call guests?”
“It is more my own term to help distinguish one from the other, my Lord.” He grinned.
“I see. I think the King would like to see him treated more as a guest for now, with some possible restrictions I will later suggest to you.”
“If I might ask, my Lord, if the man who will shortly be delivered here is suspected of high treason, why is he to be treated as a guest of any kind?”
“I didn’t mean that he is to undergo no stresses. He should be permitted, for example, to walk about, but only where people can see him and jeer at him. My goal is to humble him. Also, we can perhaps influence him later by taking away some of the liberties he comes to enjoy.”
“The King giveth and the King taketh away?” the Warder asked.
“Precisely.”
“Is he to be permitted visitors? Lord Gordon, for example, has been permitted visitors from time to time, although Laurens’s visitors are very restricted.”
“Yes, we may learn important things by seeing who comes to visit him.”
“All right, my Lord, we will put him in a room with bars, as we have done with Laurens, but not restrict him so much. Are people to be permitted to throw things at him? Offal and rotten fruit and eggs and the like? There is a building on the parade to which the public might be given access during the day. If the prisoner—excuse me, the guest—could be restricted to walking only upon that area of the parade, he might be a target of items thrown from the windows of that structure.”
“Is that something that has been done here in recent times?”
“Not that I know of, my Lord, but it is done in other places in England, and if you wish him to be humbled...” He raised his eyebrows and shrugged his shoulders.
North thought a moment. “All right, but only with small, soft things. With larger things, there would be too much chance of injury.”
“We will see it done properly.”
“And there is one other thing, Governor. Do you have a room from which the prisoner will be able to see the stone on which Anne Boleyn lost her head?”
The Governor gave him a strange look. “I have never heard that we still have such a stone, if it even was a stone rather than a wood block. But I think it was more likely a block. A stone would dull or break the executioner’s sword.”
“Well, nevertheless, find a big, flat stone and put it someplace where the prisoner can see it. If he asks, tell him it’s where the Queen lost her head. The King wishes it done.”
“And if the prisoner doesn’t ask?”
“Tell him nothing.”
“All right, my Lord. I will be sure to do so.”
He bid them good afternoon and walked to his carriage, which was waiting in a courtyard. He glanced up and saw three ravens peering down at him from a high wall. It did not seem a good omen.
He climbed into the carriage and bid his driver take him back to Number 10. When he arrived there, it was already late in the day. With the exception of Hartleb, the staff had gone, his wife was out of town and the two of his children who still lived with them, ages fifteen and twenty, were out and about. He felt the fatigue and despondency from which he sometimes suffered coming upon him and wandered into the garden at the back of the house. The garden was still very much in winter, but nevertheless a place he liked to go and sit and think. His favourite spot was a weathered oak bench built around an old holly tree. He sat there and let the usual thoughts run through his head: that he was stuck in a life he increasingly found not to his liking and wished fervently to cease being First Minister if only the King could be persuaded to let him go. So far His Majesty had not agreed.
He had been active as a young man and enjoyed clubbing and playing at sports. Now, although he was only forty-eight, he felt like an old man, and he had become increasingly inactive and, as the kinder opposition papers described him, corpulent. He rarely got to go out and do anything, let alone observe anything first-hand or close-up. Instead, he spent his days listening to the Members of Parliament whine and his ministers complain.
He had even tired of meeting with the King, whom he had known since childhood, when his father was the King’s tutor.
Next month would mark the tenth anniversary of his accession to his current office. At first, meeting one-on-one with George III about affairs of state had been fascinating. But the King’s idiosyncrasies—including his constant desire to shape political events and, since the revolt in the American colonies began, his desire to win the war no matter the cost—had begun to wear on him.
From the bench he could see the small wooden door that led through the garden wall into an alleyway. He had often thought of just walking through it and leaving it all behind.
He suddenly had an idea. He heaved himself up from the bench and went to find Hartleb to see if they could make it happen.
* * *
Several days later, in the afternoon, Hartleb approached North and said, “We have received word that the marines and their prisoner have reached the south side of London Bridge and await instructions.”
“Very good. Send a messenger to let them know that when the sun has just begun to set they should start to proceed across the bridge and then to the Tower. Is there any other information?”
“Yes. Crowds have begun to gather. Word has spread that someone important is being brought in. But there are different rumours as to who it is. They are shielding him with a hood, so no one is certain.”
“Let them know to take the hood off when they proceed across the bridge and let people know who it is. But have him gagged. I’ve heard that he doesn’t speak often, but when he does, he has a silver tongue.”
“Your Lordship, is that not risky? Ruffians may hurl stones at him.”
“I earlier thought that risk too great to take, but I think I will take it for now in order to enjoy the humiliation he is certain to feel by being paraded in public like a common criminal. We can take greater precautions later, when he is in the Tower.”
“Yes, my Lord.”
“If Colonel Black is there with his prisoner, as I suspect he must be, ask that he call on me first thing tomorrow morning at Number 10.”
“Yes, my Lord.”
“And when you return, let us put our plan in motion.”