London (114 page)

He gasped. It was bursting with coins. Coins of every kind – gold and silver, English shillings, Spanish doubloons, heavy dollars from the Low Countries. Many were fifty or sixty years old, from the days of the Spanish Armada and good Queen Bess, but good gold and silver nonetheless. God knows what the treasure was worth. Many thousands of pounds. A fortune. He was saved.

From this moment, the slow recovery of Sir Julius Ducket had begun. He was very careful: after splitting the money up into twenty different bags, he secreted each one in a place where it would not be found. He said nothing, even to his children, about the treasure, but remarking that he had found a little cash, he was able to do some modest buying and selling of merchandise, supplementing the small profits with a little extra from the hoard so that, without drawing attention to themselves, the family were able to live quietly. If he produced one of the antique coins, he would remark casually, “I had this from my father,” and the word in London was: “Poor Ducket’s broken. He’s scraping by on any old coins he can find around his house.”

He still had to be careful. Though there were a number of known Royalists like himself in the city, he was also well aware that they were also watched. Gideon, he suspected, knew of every move he made. He would often stand in Cheapside by the stalls, to see if anyone was going down the lane to his house. Yet he was still able to outwit the Roundheads. Once, in late spring, he even managed to slip out of the city on a special errand.

If Julius had felt downhearted at the loss of his brother, and perhaps, still, a little awkward about his use of a treasure that was not strictly his, the secret journey he made to the king’s court at Oxford did much to raise his spirits. Together with two other trusted men, he had ridden out of London early one morning dressed as a Roundhead – a disguise they had kept on for more than twenty miles. Sewn into the clothes of the three men were quantities of gold coins provided by Julius from the treasure. Between them they were able to carry almost a thousand pounds. By the following evening they were at the defensive ramparts round the old university city; and the next day, in Christ Church college, Julius was able to present his money to the king in person.

“Faithful Sir Julius.” It was the proudest moment of his life when King Charles spoke those words. “We count you amongst our most loyal friends.”

“I should gladly fight for Your Majesty,” he declared. “But I have no skill at arms.”

“We should rather,” the king replied, “that you remain in London. We need faithful friends we can rely on there.” And for fully half an hour the king had walked with him around the old college quadrangle, asking for all kinds of information about the state of the city and its defences. For his part, the king did not hesitate to give him his confidence, explaining: “Many of my well-wishers would have me compromise my conscience. But this I must not do. I have a sacred duty.” It was, however, his final words, just as they were parting, that had gone straight to Julius’s heart. “I cannot tell,” King Charles said quietly, “how this great matter will turn out. That is in God’s hands.” He looked solemn. “But if anything should befall me, Sir Julius, I have two sons – two of the blood royal to succeed me. May I ask that you will keep faith with them, as you have with me?”

“Your Majesty has no need to ask,” he replied, much moved. “You have my word.”

“And I have no subject,” the king replied, “whose word is worth more. Thank you, Sir Julius.”

Julius was not able to slip through to Oxford again; the London approaches were too closely watched. But from that day, he felt he had gained an inner strength. If his life in London was drab, he was there for a purpose, and he would quietly remind his family: “I have given the king my word.”

Even so, in the years that followed, it was not always easy to keep up his spirits. Early in 1645, the Roundheads had executed Archbishop Laud. It was a sign of how far they meant to go. When Cromwell and his army won the war and King Charles was held captive, he had still hoped that a settlement might be reached. Once, when secret messengers from the king had called at his house he had advised them: “If the king would give up bishops, Parliament and the Londoners will surely compromise.” But when King Charles failed to give way, he was not really surprised, remembering his words: “I have a sacred duty.” As the negotiations dragged on interminably, Julius had wondered how they could ever come to a conclusion.

But he could still scarcely believe the events of the last two months. Only after Pride’s purge of Parliament had the full naked power of the army been clearly seen. Having asserted their power, the army men moved ruthlessly. By January the scene was set. The king was brought to Westminster Hall for a trial. “Or a mockery of a trial,” as Julius described it. Certainly many of those summoned to sit in judgment upon the king, including several London aldermen, refused to take part. King Charles, true to form, refused to recognize the court’s authority, but as he also pointed out, this was not even a court of the Parliament, since the army had thrown out most of its members. The answer of the army’s court was to remove him, on both the first and the second day. “He was tried, in effect, in his absence,” Julius noted. On the third day the army’s henchmen, who insisted on referring to him as “Charles Stuart, that man of blood,” arbitrarily sentenced their monarch to death. “We killed the archbishop,” they could announce. “Now with the king, our work is complete.”

And so it had come to this. In the morning, after this night under the cold stars, they were going to kill their king. Such a thing had never been done before. But if they thought they would change the world thereby, Sir Julius Ducket at least, as he kept his vigil, swore to himself: “They shall not.”

It was already the fourth night that the fellow had been staying at the George. He was a gnarled old sea-dog, but he gave no trouble, kept himself to himself. Each day he went out in the morning and did not return until dusk. No one knew what his business might be, though he had confessed to the innkeeper that he had never been to London before; but it evidently kept him busy. When the innkeeper had asked him if he was going to watch the king’s execution the following morning, he had shaken his head and replied: “No time.” He had only three days left before he sailed.

Twenty years had passed since the first mate had received his commission from Black Barnikel; for twenty years he had carried the pirate’s will. But the passage of time meant little to him. He had been asked to deliver it and, if he could, he would keep his word. It had been three years before he could make detailed enquiries after Jane in Virginia, and even then his first search had failed to find any record of her. A year later, however, he had had the chance to spend another ten days in Jamestown, and this time he had more luck. Someone remembered the woman he described, told him she had married Wheeler; and before he left he was fairly sure that Jane and the widow Wheeler were one and the same. They told him she had returned to England. “Said she came from London,” one farmer remembered. Ten years back he had been to Plymouth and looked there; five years ago to Southampton, now London.

His method of enquiry was simple and logical. He went from parish to parish and enquired of the clergyman if he had ever heard of a Widow Wheeler. So far he had drawn a blank. But tomorrow, perhaps, he would have better luck. He was going along Cheapside: to St Mary-le-Bow, and to little St Lawrence Silversleeves.

The crowd in Whitehall had begun to gather early that icy morning, but several hours had passed and still the business had not begun. In front of Inigo Jones’s beautiful Banqueting Hall, gleaming white even in the pale January morning light, they had erected a wooden platform. The Roundhead troops in their heavy leather tunics and sturdy boots had formed a guard round the platform, and twice now fresh contingents armed with pikes had arrived, forcing the crowd to edge back even further.

What was the mood of the crowd, Julius wondered. Were they stern Puritans like Gideon? Some were, but the majority seemed to be a motley crew – all kinds of folk from gentlemen and lawyers to fishwives and apprentices. Were they indifferent? Had they come just to be entertained? As they waited in the bitter cold, they seemed strangely subdued. He thought of the Banqueting Hall with its magnificent Rubens ceiling. It depicted the king’s father James being taken up to heaven – not the first time that a great work of art had been created from a faintly absurd subject; and he thought of what it really meant. It meant the court, the civilized, European world of the king and his friends, the splendid houses, the great picture collection – all to be destroyed by these rude, obstinate Puritan fellows with their brutal God. Was the king waiting in there now? Was he being allowed a last look at the beauty he had created before they cut him down? The crowd had swelled still further; the whole of Whitehall was full of folk. Now mounted troopers were coming and forming up round the execution platform. There was a roll of drums. An upper window of the Banqueting Hall was thrown open; and a moment later, simply but elegantly dressed in cloak and doublet, King Charles I of England quietly stepped out.

How strange. Julius had expected a roar, or even hoots from the crowd; but it remained strangely silent. A clergyman in a long robe followed, then several secretaries and other members of the execution party. Finally, bringing up the rear, with a black mask over his face and carrying an axe, came the executioner.

It was the custom that the condemned man might address the crowd. This had been allowed to Charles Stuart also. Holding a few notes on a scrap of paper in his hand, the king began to speak. How gracefully he did so. The day when he had met him at Greenwich came back into Julius’s mind. There was the same calm manner, the careful politeness. He even seemed to be addressing this rabble who had come to gawp at his death as though they were so many ambassadors.

But what was he saying? Julius could see that the secretaries on the platform were making notes, but from where he was standing in the crowd it was hard to hear. Certain phrases he caught. Parliament, he declared had been the first to begin the conflict over privilege, not he. Monarchs, he reminded them, are there to keep the ancient constitutions, which are the people’s freedom. Now, instead, they had only the arbitrary power of the sword in his place. Whatever his own sins might be, “I am a martyr of the people,” he cried. “And a Christian of the Church of England,” he reminded them, “as I found it left by my father.”

Then he was done. They removed his cloak and jerkin so that he stood only in a white shirt over his breeches. They tucked his hair under a cap, so it should not impede the axe and they led him to the block. And it was just then, in the awful silence before he knelt down to the block, that, surveying the faces in the crowd, King Charles caught sight of Sir Julius Ducket, and their eyes met.

How sad those eyes looked, in that noble, kingly face, yet as they held Julius’s for a moment, they seemed to contain a question. How could he forget his vow at Oxford, and the king’s words – “if anything should befall me” – how solemnly, how tragically prophetic? Looking King Charles straight in the eye, he made a quick bow of his head. There could be no mistaking its meaning. It said: “I have promised.” In the moment of his death, King Charles should know that Ducket at least, of all the men in that crowd, would keep faith with his sons. It seemed to Julius that he saw a look of gratitude in reply.

Not even his most bitter enemies could deny that King Charles I of England went to his death with the most remarkable grace. As the axeman struck a single, clean blow, the whole crowd let out a great groan, as if suddenly they understood their awful deed. And as the executioner held up the king’s severed head, perhaps Sir Julius Ducket was not alone as he murmured to himself: “The king is dead. Long live the king.”

Two days afterwards Sir Julius Ducket received a visit from Jane Wheeler. The document she showed him was perfectly clear. It stated plainly that a certain sea captain by the name of Orlando Barnikel had left her his treasure chest which resided in the safe keeping of his father Alderman Ducket. It also exactly described the chest. There could be no mistaking it. And what in heaven’s name, Julius wondered, as he gazed at Jane in stupefaction, was he to do?

Was the old chest with its padlocks burst still lying down there in the cellar? He could not remember. What about the treasure itself? About half was left, but who knew what he might need in the uncertain years to come? What if he were to give her some of it and tell her he had removed it from the chest to hide it more easily? Would she believe him? He suspected not. And that, he thought, would invite people to investigate his own affairs. Those old coins – people would start saying they were the sea captain’s instead of his father’s. They’d call him a thief.

A sea captain! He knew perfectly well what kind of man had left this treasure to this apparently respectable widow. A blackamoor. A pirate. Stolen money anyway. But of course, if he said that, he would be admitting he knew about the matter. And why, why should this woman, friend of Dogget and the cursed Carpenters, take money which such people in no way deserved and which might yet be needed in the Royalist cause? It could not be right. It couldn’t be God’s purpose. Hadn’t he known since his childhood that it was the Duckets who were chosen by God to do His will, and that these other folk were cursed? Surely the heavenly Father had not altered his priorities? It would be too unjust. Gravely therefore he shook his head.

“I fear, Mistress Wheeler, that this document may be a forgery. I will look through my father’s records. If I can find this chest, of course it will be yours. But I must tell you, I have never seen it. Unless,” he added, with a flash of inspiration, “it is at Bocton. But then you must ask the Roundheads for it.”

Jane stared at him; then she remarked very calmly: “You’re lying.”

Outraged, Sir Julius asked her to leave. “No one,” he declared, “has ever said such a thing to me.” But late that night, when all the household was asleep, he went down to the cellar, and found the old chest, and broke it up and burned it in the fireplace, and took the metal remains from the cinders, and buried them before dawn. And hoped, thereafter, to put the business from him.