This was the third time in my life that I had been in gaol.
The first time, I was thirteen and had stolen a loaf of bread so that Nell and I might eat. Although I was usually a quick and clever thief, that day I was slow and stupid. I was caught, imprisoned and branded with a ‘T’ on my wrist, to wear my shame publicly forever, so the judge decreed. Only the fact that I was a child restrained him from having me hanged.
The second time, I was fifteen and Nell was eleven. Our mother, who was habitually too drunk to turn a profit in her bawdy house, could not pay the rent and so we lost that roof from over our heads and were locked up for debt. By then, I was old enough to understand how to use any scrap of advantage I had. I sent a letter to the newly returned King Charles II asking for clemency on the grounds that our late father had supported him in the wars and lost his entire fortune in royal service. To my astonishment, the King ordered our release.
This time, the third, I was twenty-six years old and I was in gaol for treason. My crime was that I had been an accomplice in the attempted theft of the Crown Jewels.
Fortunately, there were several possibilities open to me before I was burned at the stake for my crime. I could plead marital coercion and blame everything on my husband. As he was a known highwayman and notorious villain, this had some authenticity.
I could claim I was quick with child, which I was – four months gone at least. The drawback to that would be that they could still condemn me to death after the babe was born and the mere thought of that turned my stomach to ice. No one and nothing was going to separate me from my child.
There was one more option. I could throw myself on the mercy of the one woman who might help me, the little sister from whom I had parted on bad terms three years before when I had married John Cassells and she had had the effrontery to tell me I was making a mistake.
‘He’s no good, Rose,’ Nell had said bluntly. ‘He’s a wastrel. He’ll come to a bad end and he will drag you down with him.’
How Nell would laugh to be proved correct. How I wished we had never argued over a man, least of all one as unworthy as John Cassells. But my pride was nothing compared to my life, and even more important was the future of my unborn baby. I had lost the last one. I would do everything in my power to protect this child, even beg Nell to help me.
I beckoned the gaoler over. She was a slovenly woman only a few years older than I at a guess, who spent half her time poking and pinching us for the fun of it and the other half drinking and flirting with the male warders. In my experience, the women gaolers were worse than the men, more cruel, more mean-spirited. It was a career of a sort for a woman who did not mind spending her days in the dank, stench-ridden bowels of the gaols, but living in perpetual dark had never appealed to me. The pay was but a fraction of a male warder so the females made up for it by stealing what small items they could take from their charges, beating us for the fun of it, pulling our hair. All of their frustrations had an easy target in the women in their care. This gaoler did not like me because I never tried to curry favour with her like the other women did, nor would I gossip. I suppose she had imagined that I would be a more tarnished version of my sister, a bawd and a bitch.
‘Fetch the priest for me, if you please,’ I said. I pressed a silver sixpence into her hand. Her eyes bulged a little when she saw it and I knew that if she had realised that I had coin hidden about me she would have robbed me of it before now.
‘You planning on asking for the last rites, Your Majesty?’ She laughed at her own wit, showing her blackened stumps of teeth. She called me ‘majesty’ or ‘highness’ all the time because of my crime. It amused her, but it had irritated me very quickly. ‘Or perhaps you are intent on tying the knot?’ she continued. ‘Is there a gentleman here who takes your fancy? I can arrange a tryst if all you need is a quick swiving, for we cannot be sure if your husband is dead or alive, can we? You would not want to add bigamy to treason on the charge sheet, would you?’
‘All I require is someone who can write,’ I said coldly. It was a constant humiliation to me that I had no learning, our mother never having seen the need for either Nell nor I to be taught to read and write. She had not understood the importance of education, whereas I knew all too well the advantages it gave. With education, a man, or even a woman, could change their life. ‘The priest, if you please,’ I repeated. ‘With a quill, ink and parchment.’
‘Of course, your highness,’ she said, pocketing the additional penny I offered and dropping a mocking curtsey. ‘You have the manner of a nob, that’s for sure, even if you have nothing else!’
I supposed that the gaoler was right. I did have a certain peremptoriness of manner and very little on which to base it. ‘Never forget, girls, that you are the daughters of a gentleman,’ Mother had frequently told us when we were children. In practice, it had meant nothing at all since our father had died years before and we were nobodies. Yet perhaps I had cultivated an unconscious sense of authority alongside my criminal tendencies, or perhaps I simply had a managing nature. One of us had to be practical, and Mother was usually too drunk and Nell had her head in the clouds.
The priest came. I heard the clank of the iron door, the squeak of rusty metal on metal as it opened. A fresh breeze momentarily stirred the rank air of the cell, where twenty of us were huddled together in the corners like blind mice.
‘Has someone else died?’ the woman beside me asked, turning her face towards the lantern light, eyes wide with fear. She was shaking constantly, the ragged shreds of her gown rustling.
‘No,’ I said. ‘Do not trouble yourself. All is well.’
In gaol at thirteen, the sight of such pitiful wretches had shocked me; now I was hardened to it and grateful that my spirit was stronger, but how much longer it would remain so was a moot point. I shuddered. I had to get out.
‘Her over there,’ the gaoler said, pointing to me. ‘She was the one what called you in.’
The priest squatted beside me on the cobbled floor, close enough that I could smell him: a mix of pomade from his hair and old sweat from his dirty robes. My throat closed with revulsion, though I have smelled much worse in my time. He tilted his head towards me, the better to hear, for it was noisy with the shouts and screams of the madwomen and the chatter of the other girls echoing from the stone walls.
‘Write this,’ I said. I was pretending that I wanted a scribe because I was a lady; the truth of my illiteracy shamed me. ‘Dearest Nell,’ I began. ‘Out of the love you bear me, I beg that you will help me now that I am in such dire need.’
I stopped. Was that too much? I could not be sure, although I could easily imagine my sister throwing back her head as she heard this appeal and laughing until she cried. She would know that the words were forced out of me; that I hated asking for anything from her as a point of principle.
‘If not for me,’ I continued, ‘then I pray you to help me for the sake of the babe.’ Nell was a mother too; I thought that that might stir some pity in her. ‘I beseech you to plead with the King for me and free me from this place,’ I said, whilst the priest’s pen scratched across the parchment and he squinted in the pale light from the lantern, ‘before both I and my baby perish.’
‘A nice touch, mistress,’ the priest said. ‘Sure to melt the stoniest heart.’
‘I am truly penitent of my crime,’ I finished, ‘and my gratitude will know no bounds.’
‘Well put, mistress,’ the priest conceded, showing his tombstone teeth in a grin. ‘Who could resist? Do you wish to sign it with your mark?’
I hesitated, then took the quill and scratched a shaky cross on the letter. Shame stirred in me again that I could not even write my own name, and with it a fury that I had to pay this charlatan to put down my words, then pay him again to deliver them. He would charge dearly, particularly when he knew where the letter was going.
My money was almost all spent. I knew that when the priest had left, I would need to go out into the yard and beg for pennies from the passers-by who peered at us through the prison bars. We were the entertainment for the idle gawkers who came to jeer and crow over us, but we needed them too for their occasional charity paid for us to stay alive. The thought sent another rush of urgency through me. I almost pushed the priest away.
‘Take it to number seventy-nine, Pall Mall,’ I said, holding out a half guinea. I took a deep breath. ‘Make sure it gets into the hands of Madam Eleanor Gwyn herself.’
The priest was so focused on the pale shine of the coin that for a moment the name failed to register with him.
It was the gaoler, listening in as usual, who gave a squawk. ‘Nell Gwyn?’ she said. She gave a cackle of laughter. ‘Nell Gwyn! She won’t help you! Don’t you know they asked her about you when first Colonel Blood tried to steal the jewels? No one could believe you were her sister, she so witty and pretty, and you neither of those, and a criminal to boot! She said that both you and that fancy highwayman husband of yours were dead to her. She isn’t going to want the likes of you bringing her down.’ And she put her hands on her hips and laughed at the idea until the tears ran.
I was afraid that the gaoler was right, but I would not give her the satisfaction of admitting it. Besides, I did not know how much truth there was in her words. Gossip and rumour ran through the staff and inmates of the gaol like rats through a sewer, but not all of the information was accurate. In the six weeks I had been in the Marshalsea, I had heard that Thomas Blood had not only been pardoned of his crime in attempting to steal the Crown Jewels from the Tower of London, but that the King himself had received him and granted him estates in Ireland. It was said that he was lording it round court, full of swagger and pride. That in itself was so ridiculous as to be unbelievable to me.
I had heard that my husband John, who had been one Thomas Blood’s accomplices, had either been killed or had absconded abroad, no one seemed to know which. And I had heard that until they found John one way or the other, I would be held as surety for him, as well as a conspirator in my own right. It seemed not to matter that Thomas Blood had been freed; I would not be. Such was the lack of logic by which justice was served in London, and being a woman, and a destitute one at that, I had no way to challenge it.
Well, I had one way. Through Nell’s intervention, there was a small possibility I might be pardoned. But that would require so many things to go right, when lately everything had gone wrong.
The priest had gone, concerned perhaps that he might be robbed for his half guinea if he lingered in this nest of thieves.
‘He’ll cheat you,’ one of the other girls said, looking at his retreating back as he scurried away down the corridor. ‘He’s no real parson.’
‘He can be the devil himself for all I care,’ I said, ‘as long as he delivers the message to my sister.’
Her gaze swung back to me. She was staring, eyes bright in a face smeared with dirt. Lank strands of hair hung down to her shoulders. Her gown was torn. I felt sick all of a sudden to be such a figure of curiosity. I had always hated the attention that Nell revelled in. ‘Nell Gwyn,’ she said. ‘Only fancy!’ There was admiration in her voice, as though Nell was someone who had achieved something particularly fine in life, which perhaps she had.
I had long observed that whilst the nobility might be contemptuous of my sister’s position as the King’s mistress, the ordinary people loved her. They saw her as one of them, a girl from the backstreets of London who had risen to consort with the highest in the land. The truth was rather more complicated, but Nell, the consummate actress, played on their loyalty and support, especially now that the King had a new French mistress who was almost universally hated.
‘What is she like?’ the woman asked.
I knew she wanted an insight that no one but Nell’s sister could give, a special glimpse into the secret life of a public figure, but my mind was blank. I thought of all the quarrels that Nell and I had had over the past twenty years and the way we had drifted apart, firstly because as we grew up the difference in our characters had become very apparent, and then, later, because John had forced such a wedge between us. How had we become so estranged? I wondered, feeling suddenly tired. Blood should have been thicker than water. I could only hope it would prove to be so now.
The woman was still looking at me expectantly. ‘Nell cannot cook,’ I said randomly. ‘And she is the untidiest person I ever knew.’
The woman looked disappointed at such a banal response, but it was the best I could do.
I turned my back on her, leaned my head against the mouldy, dripping wall and closed my eyes whilst I thought about how I, who shunned attention as much as Nell loved it, had become the most notorious woman in London.
* * *
It had all begun back in January. It was a harsh winter. The shutters rattled with storms and the cold crept under the door of our tenement to freeze us in our bed. On the night I met Thomas Blood, however, huge snowflakes were drifting gently down between the misshapen chimneys and huddled roofs of London. They made the city look magical, hiding for a brief time the dirt and decay.
John, my husband, was in a good mood, that evening and for once it was not induced by drink.
‘Your sister performs tonight in Mr Dryden’s new play, The Conquest of Granada,’ he said, seated by the fire, his clay pipe in hand. ‘They are saying it is her last performance, now that she has produced a whelp for the King.’
Even though Nell and I were not close, I detested it when people spoke disparagingly of her, especially a man like John, who was far looser in his morals than Nell had ever been. For the sake of peace though, I held my tongue. I was tired of quarrelling with him and it felt as though that was all we had done these several months past.
‘They are always claiming it to be Nell’s last performance,’ I said. ‘It means they can charge more to see the play.’
‘I thought we might go,’ John said. ‘The theatre and then a hot pie and a drink at the alehouse. What do you say, Rose?’
He got up and came over to enfold me in an enormous hug. His clothes smelled of damp, tobacco and sweat. I pushed him away, ostensibly because I had my hands full of dirty laundry, but mostly because, these days, I could not bear his touch, not after what had happened the last time he had been in his cups.
‘You are very flush all of a sudden,’ I remarked. ‘How may we afford such indulgence?’
John seldom had any work, at least not honest toil, as he felt manual labour was beneath a man who claimed to be the heir to a baronetcy and had once been an officer in the King’s army. I suspected he was no more a baronet than I was a duchess, and he had certainly never been a soldier. The only time he made any money was when he robbed travellers out on the dark streets at night. He called himself a highwayman and expected the respect due to such a villain, but, in truth, he could not ride and owned no horse, which made him no more than a common footpad.
‘Ask no questions.’ He tapped the side of his nose at me. ‘I have a business arrangement with a gentleman. It promises to be lucrative.’
I sighed. Whatever it was, it was bound to be illegal, but at least there would be more money. Whilst I scrubbed floors and washed dishes in the inns, took in laundry and peddled goods in the markets to scrape together what pennies I could, winters were the worst times because John was too lazy to go out to rob people in the bad weather. This scheme, whatever it was, must be taking place within doors.
In the end, we did go to the theatre, I seeing no reason to refuse an outing that would involve a hot meal prepared by someone else. John, still in expansive mood, bought us seats in the pit and I was glad I had worn my best lace-trimmed bodice and embroidered skirt. I had never been able to compete with Nell in terms of looks, for I was taller and larger all round, with hair of a darker auburn and eyes of hazel. Nell, in contrast, was a pocket goddess with fiery red hair and bright blue eyes.
There was a buzz when we took our seats and John loved that, adoring being noticed as the brother-in-law of the leading lady, even though that leading lady scorned us both. For me, the memories of the theatre were different; I had not been sorry to put it behind me. Nell and I had worked there for Orange Moll when we were little more than children, selling fruit and sweetmeats. It had been Nell’s pathway to the stars, but for me it had been no more than achingly hard work for the pittance of the few pennies Moll spared us. As I grew older and less winsome, the ladies stopped cooing over me, but some of the men still wanted to pinch my cheek and much more besides. It was a grubby world of powder and pretence. Nell saw the glamour in it, but I only saw abuse and manipulation.
Now, I watched the orange girls dart among the crowds, selling their wares and the promise of themselves, carrying messages from gallants to ladies; I smelled the remembered scent of the candle wax and sawdust, and felt the press of sweaty bodies. I heard the whisper run through the audience: ‘It is Rose… Rose Gwyn… The sister who became a thief rather than a bawd…’ Self-consciously, I touched the brand on my wrist, the indelible mark that condemned me as a criminal. It could be hidden but it could never be erased.
Nell was superb, of course. The torches dimmed, she sauntered on to speak the prologue, and the house immediately went wild. She lit up the stage with her wit and her presence. For a few brief hours, the theatre was a magical place that carried us all away from our humdrum cares. I was not immune to Nell’s skill, only deeply envious of it. I always had been, ever since I had realised that she had the ability to act, and, as such, to escape, whilst I had the quick wits but no talent.
Nell did not so much as glance my way. I felt the sense of regret rise when I thought about our quarrel. I had been enamoured with the idea of marriage and the pretence of respectability it brought with it, and I had not wanted to hear Nell’s assessment of John’s character. It was doubly annoying that she had been proved correct about him. John was indeed a bully, a braggart and a drunkard, as I had discovered for myself all too quickly.
At the end of the evening, the cheers threatened to bring down the rafters, the thunderous clapping making the building shake to its foundations. We applauded too and Nell bowed and kissed her hand to everyone, dazzling, the darling of the crowd, and yet as far removed from me now as she could possibly be. She had that talent of giving the impression that she was still the same as everyone else and people loved her for her lack of snobbery. You could see it in their faces. They thought she was one of them, but I knew better. She had left us all behind.
As the good-natured crowd spilled out into the snowy street, looking for a link boy to light them home or, in the case of the nobles and gentry, their carriages in the melee outside, John slipped my hand through his arm and steered me towards The White Hart Inn. Covent Garden was full of people with the same idea, all jostling to get out of the cold and continue the evening’s entertainment.
At the side of the road, a brazier glowed warm and filled the air with the sweet nutty scent of chestnuts. Further along, another vendor was offering hot baked apples. John grabbed one in passing and tossed a few pennies to the street seller as though he were a lord. He bit into it heartily and swore when it burned his mouth. I was afraid he might turn back to berate the man who’d sold it, so I tugged on his arm and quickened my step.
‘We shall be fortunate even to get within doors,’ I remarked, brushing the snow out of my eyes and shrinking more deeply within my cloak. It was cold and I needed hot food to warm me. ‘All the world seems to be out on the town tonight.’
‘Thomas will have secured us a place,’ John said confidently, his bad temper forgotten. ‘No one refuses him.’
I had some curiosity then to see this man with whom John had entered into business and who could apparently secure a spare seat in a busy alehouse.
As we entered, John pushing his way forcefully through the crowd, a man equal in height and bulk to him rose from a table right beside the fire and gestured to us to join him. I recognised him, having seen him once before, preening and parading himself at Whitehall with the infamous Duke of Buckingham. It was Colonel Thomas Blood, a soldier and adventurer who was said to do the duke’s dirty work for him, a man without morals or conscience.
‘Why, it is Colonel Blood,’ I said. I shot John a glance. ‘You are in deep waters now, are you not?’
John’s hand gripped my arm almost too tightly. I sensed bluster in him but also nervousness. Thomas Blood was a man who would make most other men quail, and women too. I felt a shiver of revulsion run down my spine.
‘Be nice to him,’ he hissed at me, dragging me behind him through the crowd.
Thomas Blood was all smiles as he stood to greet us and kiss my hand, pressing his wet lips against it for rather too long. ‘A rose indeed,’ he murmured, smiling into my eyes. ‘A pleasure to meet you, mistress.’
‘This rose has more thorns than sweet flowers,’ John said, and roared with laughter at his own witticism as he gestured for me to sit beside the man on the settle by the fire.
I cast him a sharp glance. I didn’t trust him and was suspicious about this encounter. Was Thomas Blood looking for a mistress? It would not be the first time that John had tried to whore me out, though I had told him before in no uncertain terms that I would not do it. John had seen it as just another way to make money when times were hard despite the fact that I was his wife. Such niceties, I had discovered, did not count with him. And there were men who would offer good coin to be able to say that they had bedded the sister of the King’s whore.
The colonel grinned and raised a hand to summon the barmaid, who darted over with plates piled high with steaming beef pudding. My mouth watered. I resolved that if I needed to walk out in high dudgeon, I would take the pie with me.
‘I might have guessed as much,’ the colonel said, sloshing ale into the beaker beside him, ‘from Madam Eleanor Gwyn’s sister.’
John and he, in great good humour, dug into their pies and seemed in no hurry to tell me the detail of their plan. I decided not to ask. The food was, for the moment, more important.
Around us, the chatter and bustle of the ale house swirled, the air thick with beer and the rich smell of meat. No one paid us much attention. Thieves and criminals were common here. A highwayman sat in the corner by the door, smoking a clay pipe and counting his gold; a couple of dishevelled gentlemen played cribbage over by the privy entrance. Peg Cherry, the barmaid, was leaning over the next table to pour the customers more ale, tossing her black curls as she flirted with them, her breasts almost falling out of her gown. Both John and Thomas Blood were staring at her cleavage like a pair of youths whose tongues were hanging out.
‘So, mistress,’ Blood said, dragging his gaze from Peg and wiping the back of his hand over his fleshy lips, ‘you will be wondering what this is all about.’
‘In your own good time, sir,’ I said, but the sarcasm passed directly over him, which was probably just as well.
He belched several times and patted his belly, which was straining at the gold buttons of his waistcoat.
‘My friend and I—’ he nodded to John ‘—have a plan to rob the Tower of London and steal the Crown Jewels.’
I almost spat out my mouthful of ale.
Colonel Blood slapped me on the back as I choked. When I had got my breath back, I glanced over my shoulder instinctively to see if anyone had overheard him, but everyone was intent on their own business.
‘I beg your pardon,’ I said, eyes streaming. ‘I thought you said you planned to steal the Crown Jewels. But surely no one could be so foolhardy.’
John shifted on the bench, looking a little uncomfortable at what he perceived to be an insult, but fortunately Colonel Blood seemed to take it as a compliment on his daring.
‘No madness, I assure you, madam,’ he said, ‘but a cunning plan for the highest of rewards.’
At least a dozen reasons came swiftly into my mind as to why stealing the Crown Jewels would be anything but a cunning plan. I did not voice them. There was no point; neither man would listen and John would only become angry to be called a fool. I bit down hard on the inside of my mouth to stop myself blurting out my thoughts. I knew I could be impulsive and I knew the price I paid for it.
‘You need not know the details of course,’ Blood said carelessly, taking another swig of his ale, ‘for I doubt they would make sense to you, and a woman can never hold her tongue, so best you know nothing other than your own part in this.’
‘My part?’ I almost choked again at the implication that I should have a role in this ludicrous scheme. It was one thing to keep quiet whilst John ruined his life but quite another to be forced to participate in my own downfall.
‘Aye, madam.’ Blood leaned close to me all of a sudden, his hectically flushed face only inches from mine, his breath foul. ‘I need someone on watch on Tower Pier on the day of the robbery, someone who can sound a warning if anything goes awry, provide a distraction, perhaps, should we need to affect an escape. Can you do that?’
‘I could,’ I said, ‘but—’
‘There is no option of refusal,’ Blood interrupted. ‘John will explain that to you if you do not understand.’
I did not dare glance at my husband. I could sense he was wound as tight as a vice, as tight as the anger I also sensed wound up in Colonel Blood. Men like that were dangerous on so many levels, physically large and strong, given to violence. We women walked a tightrope beside them. I already knew what would happen if I refused. The last time I had defied John, he had beaten me, and after that, I had told him I would kill him if he laid a hand on me ever again. If I failed to do his bidding now, I would have to make good on that promise, and if I killed him, I would be hanged for it.
I felt the familiar weight of fury and frustration settle inside me. I was trapped. Digging my nails into the palms of my hands, I tried to calm my racing heart. My mother had married the son of a gentleman and had imagined herself set up for life as a result. How illusory that had turned out to be and how swift our fall into the gutter. Nell had scrambled her way out of poverty via the theatre, ruthlessly using all the talents she possessed to climb the ladder to freedom. She might live in comfort now, but that was entirely dependent on the whim of the King. And I had married John, tired of fending for myself and thinking him a strong man who would protect me, only to realise that I had to protect myself from him. It was a mistake that haunted me.
I had no illusions that John would share any of his ill-gotten gains with me even if he were able to pull off this ridiculous theft, but it did occur to me that for once we might have some money and I would be able to steal a part of it when John was insensible with drink, and run away to make a better life for myself. It was not much of a plan, I knew that, but it was something, and it was enough to pull me out of my torpor and inspire me to fight again.
‘Very well,’ I said. ‘I will play my part.’
‘Of course you will,’ Thomas Blood said, bellowing with laughter. And he and my husband set out to get roaring drunk.
I left them when Thomas was three sheets to the wind and regaling a keen audience with boasts of his exploits in the Dutch Wars and John was fondling Peg Cherry, who was perched on his lap regardless of the fact that I was sitting next to them. I trudged back to Three Kites Alley through the falling snow, the cold piercing my boots, and I reflected as I went that this foolish plot would surely never come about for neither John nor Colonel Blood had the discretion needed to keep a secret. In that I was wrong, and in another matter also, for I should have been more suspicious of the whole affair. I should have wondered at Thomas Blood’s complacency, for even for a man so confident in his own negligible abilities, he seemed strangely relaxed about a plot that anyone with any sense could see was madness and would never succeed.
Now, within the dank and dripping walls of the Marshalsea gaol, with the shrieks and screams of the mad and starving around me, I went over once again the circumstances that had brought me here and reflected that I should have realised from the start that it was not a simple case of robbery, but a deep and complicated game of treason and betrayal that I had been drawn into. Yet it is easy to be wise after the event, and after the event, it is also too late.