Sir Charles
For King and Country
August 18, 1746
Our grasp on life is tenuous. If anyone doubts it, let him stop at Tower Hill during the hour of execution. Although I travel to London for Parliament often enough, the Tower never fails to impress, especially the White Tower, some ninety feet high to the battlements. It’s built of dark, rough-hewn ragstone, the corners and windows of which are edged with finely cut pale Caen stone. The four turrets are topped with onion-shaped caps that glisten in the August sun.
Henry Fox and I chat as amiably as if we are still in Holland House, where Lady Caroline is, no doubt, telling cook what she wants served for dinner. As members of government, we are placed in the Transport Office next door to the two rooms that have been prepared for the two unfortunate Lords in view of the chopping block. The crowd hums in the distance, making us raise our voices.
The air is tense with anticipation. I have never been good at waiting and feel the need of a little mischief. I whisper to Fox, “If you had been born a Scot, dear Fox, would you have followed the Bonnie Prince into Culloden?”
Fox swivels his bewigged head around to ensure that no one has heard me. But the din of the mob beyond has veiled my words. “You are a dangerous friend, Sir Charles. I will consider the question as a sign of bad nerves, in light of what we’re about to witness. Though I can’t satisfy your morbid curiousity as I am sure that neither of us would ever’ve had the bad taste to be born a Scot. Wales is bad enough.”
I snicker at his reference to my birthplace. “You avoid the question, Fox,” I murmur. “Would you still give allegiance to our Hanoverian King, or would you bow down to the handsomest prince who ever took breath? Even if he is a Papist? Have you heard the song of late about the Bonnie Prince? ‘Speed bonnie boat like a bird on the wing…’” I sing it under my breath. “Now that’s a real British king! No matter that his mother is Polish and he lives in France.” I watch Henry for reaction — but he knows me too well — there is none. A bit of a sigh, a slight tremble of the powdered curls at my whimsical treason.
“A prince in exile is always more appealing than the king who rules,” he whispers. “A distant Stuart can be as romantic as a lost love. But let him set foot on English soil and raise his banner, and watch how quickly the fairy dust falls away. What will be left is a flesh and bones bully who will like nothing better than to invite the Pope to join him by the throne. No, I will stay with the king I know. King George is our rightful and legal sovereign, even if he speaks English with a German accent.”
“Then you admit he favours Hanover above us,” I say.
“I admit nothing whilst we sit ten yards from the scaffold that holds the block. Ask me again in Holland House after we’ve drunk some port.”
It is a full year since the Young Pretender, Prince Charles Edward Stuart, set up his standard in Glenfinnan and took possession of Edinburgh. There were months of panic while the rebel army advanced through England triumphant and unchecked. People could scarcely believe what was happening. I, myself, voted in Parliament to allow some Dukes and Lords to organize special regiments for service against the rebels. We need hardly have worried for they are a contentious lot and by Christmas had descended into quarrelsome parties.
And now it has come to this. The squaring of accounts.
The figure of Lord Kilmarnock appears across Tower Hill, walking with half-hearted steps before the mourning coach, which follows him, as does his horse. He looks very genteel, dressed in black, his own fair hair without powder. The Sheriffs walk before him; a clergyman supports him on one side with his arm, a sympathetic teacher named Foster on the other.
When Lord Balmerino appears walking upon Tower Hill towards the Transport Office, where we sit, I declare I can hardly believe it is the same fellow I saw at the Bar of the House of Lords, shabby-looking and old then, in a worn suit of clothes and a bad wig. Now here he is dressed in the Pretender’s regimentals, blue trimmed with red, a good tied wig, and a well-cocked hat. He walks firmly, supported by nobody. Two clergymen walk behind with nothing to do. He looks more like an officer upon guard than a prisoner.
At first they are both brought to the rooms right next to ours. Lord Balmerino asks to speak to Lord Kilmarnock, which is granted. We can hear everything, since they are within a yard of our door.
“Lord Kilmarnock,” he says, “had you heard ever that there were orders before the Battle of Culloden to put all the English prisoners to death? I fear rumours and lies are raised against Prince Charles.”
To which Lord Kilmarnock replies, “I knew of no such orders at the time, not being let in on such secrets. But now I have heard so from undoubted authority, and upon my honour I believe ’tis true.”
“No,” says Balmerino. “You are misled. I believe no such thing.” He walks out of the room.
Later, he meets with Lord Kilmarnock upon the stairs of the Tower. They embrace. Lord Balmerino says to the younger man, “I wish I could die for us both.” Lord Kilmarnock falls upon his neck.
The first to go is Lord Kilmarnock. Yet supported by the two men on either side, he walks to the scaffold, which is erected some ten yards from the door. He stands and prays with Foster, who is very affected and embraces him often. After twenty minutes he begins to undress. Jack Ketch asks his forgiveness, which he grants. Then he declares to the few people on the scaffold that he repents his actions most sincerely and that he will bless and pray for King George with his last breath. He ignores the spectators, who cannot number less than one hundred thousand, but who are held at a distance of fifty yards from the scaffold by horse and foot soldiers. The noise rising from them is like the roar of the sea, indistinct but vast.
He tucks his hair under a night cap. Then he kneels down before the block, a horror of a thing with two hollows, one for the breast to rest upon and another to receive the chin so the neck lies upon a rise. He kneels upon a cushion. But he becomes very uneasy, rising from the block, pulling off his waistcoat, kneeling yet again and rising yet again. After showing much anxiety he kneels down finally for good and tells Jack Ketch he will drop a handkerchief for the sign. He prays for several minutes, then lets the handkerchief fall. The obstinate hum of the crowd suddenly stops. Jack Ketch lifts the axe and strikes off his head at one blow, all but a bit of skin. I cannot turn away as the head falls into a piece of scarlet cloth held by four men on the other side of the block. My stomach lurches into my mouth and I wonder if any cause is worth dying for, or whether either of them would have followed their path if they knew where it would lead. Now the stage is covered with new sawdust to hide the blood and the block is covered with black cloth. The crowd murmurs again, the sound emanating into the warm summer air like steam.
Very different is the behaviour of Lord Balmerino, who goes to die with greater indifference than I go to dinner. He comes out and first peers at the spectators. Then after mounting the scaffold he approaches his coffin, which lies there, saying, “I must see whether they have put my title right.” Once assuring himself, he throws his hat upon it and pulls out his spectacles in order to read some words to the people on the scaffold. The speech is very treasonable.
“If I had a thousand lives, I would lay them all down for the same glorious cause that I engaged in. How could I or anybody refuse to join with such a sweet Prince as Prince Charles?”
The executioner asks for his pardon, which he grants. Then he asks how many blows he gave Lord Kilmarnock.
“One,” he answers.
“Oh!” says the Lord. “That will do well for me.” Then he gives Jack Ketch all the coins he has, three guineas.
Going to the other side of the stage to look at his horse, he sees the warder that attended him in the Tower. He pulls off his peruke, then calls up the warder and makes him a present of it. He puts on a cap made of Scotch plaid and pulls off his coat. Then he embraces two friends so cheerfully that I can hear the smack of his kisses up to where I sit with Fox. He turns to the two clergymen to whom he has not yet spoken a word, and thanks them for attending him, that they had done all they could for him. From thence he walks to the block and kneels on the wrong side of it. When told, he rises nimbly up and goes immediately on the other. Jack Ketch, his black mask on, strides toward a box on t’other side of the stage to fetch the axe, the same as a carpenter’s. The condemned man follows him with his eyes, then calls out to him, asking to see it. The Lord takes the axe and feels it with his own hands. He returns it to Jack Ketch, saying his sign would be when he lifts up his right arm. Then he puts his head down upon the block. His face never pales, nor does he show the least shadow of fear. In a quarter of a minute he tosses his right arm up with the greatest calmness. Again, an ominous silence falls upon the crowd. Jack Ketch swings the axe down and severs his head. The first blow does the business, but two more are required.
When we get back to Holland House in Kensington, Lady Caroline is quite put out that we are not interested in dinner.
That night I dream of Winnington. Except that by some miracle he is still alive, my dear, dear friend, strolling the grounds of my beloved Coldbrook with me as if he had never been ill. In my heart I know it’s a lie, but I am so grateful that he is there with me that I am elated and fairly jump along the grass. “Thomas, my old friend, I have missed you more than I can say.” He does not respond but in the way of dreams I know he is equally happy to see me. A deer approaches him — he has always loved the deer on our grounds — and he stops. That’s when I notice that his head is only hanging on by a thread. Then the whole story floods back over me and I remember everything, his illness, the impossible news of his death, his waxy face in the coffin, a face I have loved since boyhood. If you could die so easily, dear Winnington, what hope is there for me? Nothing is the same, nor ever will be again. Dear Winnington, I wish I could have died for you.
I do not come downstairs until lunchtime. Lady Caroline has the good grace to refrain from mentioning my absence at breakfast. That is because she is Fox’s wife, not mine, and she has not Frances’s rancour nor her wifely interest in me. That is why Frances, God save us, lives elsewhere while I sojourn with the Foxes when Parliament, or anything else for that matter, brings me to London.
Lady Caroline does, however, venture to say, “It is barbaric enough to execute someone, but to make it into a public spectacle! I fear we have not gone far enough from the Dark Ages.”
“My lady,” says Fox, “as much as I agree with you, I feel we must put traitors to death in full view of the throngs to show them what lies in store for them if they choose such a path. Otherwise I fear our country will ever be at the mercy of ruthless men and will never know peace.”
“I am sure you are right, Sir,” she says, throwing me a secret look. “Only I am grateful my presence there is not required.”
“It is the most terrible thing I have ever seen,” I say, for that is the truth. “Yet I know not what else could be done with two Lords who plot the death of the King. And the Bonnie Prince yet abroad, still plotting.”
“After the slaughter of Culloden,” says she, “I hardly think the poor Prince has enough supporters left to scrape together another army.”
“I did not suspect Jacobite sympathies in you, Lady Caroline,” I say.
“My sympathies are with innocents who are put to the sword.”
The country is torn between pride in the Duke of Cumberland (the King’s brother) for his victory at Culloden, and loathing at his methods, the bloodletting after the battle, the chasing down and murder of every Scot in the vicinity, including women and children.
“Just so,” I say, relieved that my battles are in Parliament and not in the field.
“A package came for you, Sir Charles,” Lady Caroline says. “Delivered by a subaltern of the Marines, I believe.”
It waits for me on a small silver tray in the dining room. The letter is addressed to The Paymaster of the Marines. It is a commission that has given me much trouble, one that I will soon relinquish.
The Foxes watch me open the letter with interest.
Dear Sir Charles,
Please accept a small token of our gratitude for your efforts on our behalf. Thanks to your help, the men have received their first pay in two years. They have not done with drinking to your health in the evenings and have found a way to show their appreciation by presenting you with this gift, which was acquired on their last voyage.
Your servant, Lieutenant Samuel Blocker, 4th Regiment of the Marines
I am quite overcome, but manage to unwrap the package. Inside lies a blue velvet bag. I pull open the drawstring and insert my thumb and forefinger, retrieving a small silver sundial, half of which is taken up by a round compass embedded beneath glass. The whole thing is not more than three inches long, in the octagonal shape of a coffin. A handsome little piece with the pointer for the sundial fashioned out of silver in the form of a bird’s beak.
“Why Williams, you have an admirer!” Fox says coming up behind me.
“Eleven hundred admirers,” I say, showing him the letter.
“I take it you finally solved the puzzle of the two masters for your Marines.”
Lady Caroline joins her husband. “I beg your pardon, Sir Charles. I imagined a female admirer grateful for your poetry.”
I bow politely. “You flatter me, dear lady. Despite my modest reputation as a versifier, this gift has a more prosaic source. Since I am Paymaster of the Marines it falls to me to take charge of their pay. But till recently I have been helpless to straighten out accounts for these poor lads who, through no fault of their own, suffered because they joined the Marines rather than the army or navy. It really is too complex to relate…”
“Oh, Sir Charles,” Lady Caroline says, “don’t leave us in mid-tale. Tell us why a whole regiment is in your debt.”
“Not just one regiment, Lady Caroline,” Fox interrupts. “All the regiments. The whole of the Marines.”
I must smile. “If I tell the whole wretched story, you will see what a bore it is and how small was my part in the solution. Here it is at your insistence: A regiment of soldiers is paid only after it is mustered. In order to be mustered the whole regiment must come together. No problem for the army or the navy. But the Marines belong to both the land and sea forces at the same time, under two masters so to speak: the Secretary-at-War while ashore, and the Lord High Admiral when at sea. An anomalous position, as you can imagine. Once they are on the sea, the lads are split up among various ships. Therefore they cannot be mustered, and if they cannot be mustered, they cannot be paid. A very unsatisfactory situation, which caused many hardships among the men. My paltry role was to write to Sir William Yonge when he was Secretary-at-War, describing the whole sorry affair and pleading on their behalf.”
“So here is your reward,” Fox says. “How prophetic of them to know you would be needing a compass.”
“I won’t be going before the winter, my dears. You shall have the pleasure of my company till then.”
“Yet I don’t see why you must go,” says Lady Caroline, feigning a pout. “I know how travelling disagrees with you. Every time you must journey in a coach you suffer fever.”
“And a swelled face and a stomach turned to jelly. That is because an indolent, high-fed body such as mine knows of no motion, though my mind is in constant exercise.”
Fox turns his narrow eye on me. “Have you not heard Copernicus has discovered that the sun stands still in London? Everywhere else ’tis damps and vapours. Why would you think of leaving?”
“I am sure I shall regret it,” I say, with a happy flutter in my heart at even the thought of leaving. I do not fool them, nor mean to.
Lady Caroline leans over and plants an impulsive kiss on my cheek. “Sir Charles, you are our best friend and we are always in your debt.”
I smile at her large grey eyes. She is so beautiful, a worthy partner for my friend. To say nothing of being the great-granddaughter of Charles II. “It’s been two long years since I made enemies of your parents by hosting your wedding. You have more than repaid me with your friendship.”
Fox places a hand on my arm. “We can never repay you for your loyalty when we most needed it. You took upon yourself a heavy load.”
“But I have gained the respect of all the romantics in England,” I say quite happily. “At least all those who are not friends of the Duke and Duchess of Richmond. I do not repent my role in your marriage. There is nothing I enjoy better than to play the controversial host and smooth the progress of true love. My worst sin was not informing the parson whom he had the privilege of marrying. Do you remember how quickly it all went? I wonder if he ever connected your quiet wedding with the furor that burst forth when it was discovered that the daughter of the Duke and Duchess had married a commoner.”
“You and Marlborough were the only ones at our wedding,” says Fox. “You’re like a brother to me.”
“Believe me, dear Fox, nobody but Lady Caroline can love you better than I do.”
I embrace him as if I am on the point of departure. “You and my children are all I will regret leaving. Everything else is gall and wormwood to me.”
Fox and I were both devastated by Winnington’s death, only Fox had Lady Caroline to console him. I found myself, all at once, questioning my entire life. I was thirty-eight, a minor official in government, a poet whose words would no longer come, alone too often in the evenings. I adored my two girls, but they were with their mother, who never forgave me for neglecting her. And I, in turn, never forgave her for not forgiving me. My solution was escape. I begged the King to send me abroad.
“I’m hoping for Dresden, Fox. I have heard the court is strange and the people disagreeable. But the place itself has a reputation for beauty. The King of Poland has spent an unseemly amount of his treasury collecting the finest paintings, the opera is the best in Europe, and grand churches are being built in the baroque style. I shall have to kiss hands at court, of course, but perhaps I will come across an agreeable one that belongs to a German countess.”
“I will whisper your name in people’s ears,” Fox says. “The King couldn’t have a better minister to represent him.” He nods at the compass, still in my hand. “This gift comes at an auspicious moment. It will help you find your way.”
Dresden, June 1747
My dear Fox,
I have received a most cordial reception on my arrival in Dresden. ’Tis impossible to tell you how well I am with the King of Poland. There is no distinction or civility that he does not show me. I eat with him twice, sometimes three times a week. I am of all his parties that I like to be of, and those I don’t, I always make fun of, which pleases him. He has sometimes talked to me for an hour without saying one word to the French Ambassador who stood by me, and which I think a little impudent of His Majesty, who receives a pension from France. In short, it is impossible for a Minister to be better at a foreign court than I am here.
The King of Poland (for he is known by that title more than the Elector of Saxony) is very healthy despite his fifty-three years, though he now grows too corpulent. His pleasures consist of hunting, music, pictures, and smoking tobacco. While the King, his father, lived, he managed his own private affairs with great economy and applied himself to public business with great diligence. But since his accession to the crown, Count Brühl has taken over management and has always endeavoured to alienate the King from business, in which he has succeeded too well. Even in his pleasures, the King is the worst-served Prince in Europe; for though his expenses in dogs and horses are prodigious, yet, during the time of my being there, he had not one hound that could hunt, nor three horses in his stable fit to be mounted.
Count Brühl’s power and favour are absolute. While in the court of the King, his father, the Count rose from being a page in two years to become Privy Councillor, Ministre de Conference, and Great Master of the Wardrobe. His house is a palace. He has every vice and expense that would each of them singly undo any other person: gambling, horses, books, pictures, and a mistress. To this end he freely takes bribes for crown appointments and services rendered.
In spite of all this, the magnificence of the city itself makes visitors here for the first time wander about with their necks sore and their jaws low. I begin to believe all I ever read in the fairy tales, Arabian Nights, etc. to be very true. The churches and state buildings are baroque in style but built on such extravagant scale that they take one’s breath clean away. It is hardly surprising to find the Saxons writhing under a grievous burden in taxation. No farmer could expect to sell the produce of his land without paying sixty percent of the value to the government. Yet the court is content to spend £100,000 on the purchase of the Duke of Modena’s collection of pictures — to say nothing of double that amount on the recent royal marriages — unmindful of the hardships which the Prussian invasion of 1745 had inflicted on the inhabitants of the country.
Dresden, November 1747
My dear Fox,
Despite the gaiety of the court, I fear I am unwell. My spirits have been brought low by my anxiety not only for my health, but also about money. Or rather the lack thereof. Living in Dresden is proving to be very dear and I have already put in a request for an increase in my allowance, which I must have in order to remain any longer. It has become impossibly cold here and I await the onslaught of winter with dismay.
I fear for my health, and in this regard, I implore you, my dear Fox, to whisper in the right ears so that I may be moved from here. I have always, as you know, coveted the post at Turin, which will be vacant soon. The Italian climate would cure my ills, of that I am certain, and I would be just as useful to the King. I hope I shall not be sent to a German court; all the rest are equally indifferent. But not having the language here, makes Germany very disagreeable to me. I throw myself on your mercy in this matter. The hope of one day seeing my children and you is the only agreeable thought that I have refuge to.
When you write of the cheerful hours we spent together, Winnington, you, and I, you put me in mind of an agreeable dream I once had. For at this time I cannot bring myself to believe that I really ever was so happy.
My dear Fox,
I fear I shall never see a more southern clime than Brighton despite your greatest efforts on my behalf. If Cumberland asks that Lord Rochfort be sent to Turin, then I cannot oppose his wishes, no matter how vexing those wishes may be. I ask you, as Secretary-at-War, to impress upon the court that Dresden is the dearest spot in all of Europe and it is impossible for me to stay without a substantial increase in pay. Could not the rank of Plenipotentiary now be accorded to me?
April 1749
My dear Fox,
Rumour has it in Dresden that Prince Charles Edward Stuart has arrived in Poland. Since I have urgent instructions from home to send news of his whereabouts as I learn them, I am doing so with the proviso that all sorts of stories are being put about. One of these is that the Prince is in Paris incognito. Another account has him in Venice, where a marriage is being negotiated for him with a certain Princess Radziwill, a very plain child not twelve years old. It is not bad enough that we must ever protect ourselves against outside enemies, but the constant anxiety of duelling with an enemy from within is too much.
May 1749
My dear Fox,
I own I am flattered with the King’s thinking me capable to serve him in Prussia despite the difficulties any Englishman would encounter in that court. Of course, I accept with pleasure. I am greatly honoured that the King sees fit to raise me to the rank of Plenipotentiary. But my dear friend, I must tell you some of the consequences that attend my going to Berlin. I know I shall have a jealous and suspicious Prince to deal with who cannot bear to have his own actions pried into, while at the same time leaves no stone unturned nor any means unemployed to penetrate into those of other peoples’, particularly of the Foreign Ministers residing at his court, whom he looks upon as spies of the most dangerous sort and treats them as such. Because of Prussia’s intimate connection to France, I believe at this instant I have the honour of being as ill with His Prussian Majesty as any Minister in Europe.
Please be so kind as to tell your sister that I accept her kind offer of the sacrifice of her second son to my service. Ensure her that I will not allow Harry to starve or live out of doors whilst in my employ and that his education on the continent will more than make up for his paltry allowance.
Berlin, October 1750
My dear Fox,
My brief stay in the Prussian court has served only to confirm what I hitherto maintained — that an Englishman will find himself unwelcome and suffer indignities at the hands of the King.
I have known for a month that his Prussian Majesty has made up his mind to get me removed. I am shunned and avoided by everyone at court, most people having orders not to visit me. I am looked upon as a dangerous spy and an enemy to the King’s views and treated accordingly. I had rather be a post horse with a fat man on my back than Frederick’s First Minister, or his brother, or his wife. He has abolished all distinctions. There is nothing here but an absolute Prince and a People all equally miserable, all equally trembling before him.
The only agreeable event I can relate is a fortuitous acquaintanceship with young Count Poniatowski, whose older brother I met in Dresden. The young Count has an exceptionally gifted mind paired with a genuine heart and I expect, in the fullness of time, he will be a great man in Poland.