London (123 page)

And so, ashamed of himself though he was, and bound for damnation anyway, out of age and pride O Be Joyful made a secret vow. “If he builds a dome, I’ll refuse to work in this church, even if Gibbons dismisses me.” He might know the evil secret of St Paul’s, but at least, for once, he would take a stand.

1679

The event which finally convinced Sir Julius Ducket that Jane Wheeler’s curse upon his family had failed took placed on a July day in 1679.

As his carriage jingled down Pall Mall he felt, despite his seventy-six years, as excited as a young man. Who would have thought, at his age, that such a call would come? He was so pleased that besides having his tailor make him a new set of clothes he had made one other dramatic change to his appearance: Sir Julius Ducket was wearing a large grey wig.

The fashion, like most fashions, came from the court of the mighty King Louis XIV of France. King Charles had started it at Whitehall just after the fire; and though a man of Sir Julius’s years would have been forgiven if he had come to court without one, he had decided that today he must be fully up to the mark. Nor was his wig a trivial affair. Imitating the long hair-style of the cavaliers, its tightly rolled curls not only covered the head but its heavy flaps fell to the shoulders. It was expensive; and oddly enough would remain in one shape or another the essential accoutrement of the upper classes for over a century, and of the English courtroom for long after that.

It was not only his new finery that made Sir Julius feel younger: the whole scene around him suggested a vigorous new life. In addition to the new city that was arising at London, the developments out by Whitehall were growing every year. To the north, classical Leicester Square was being laid out. To the west, along the northern edge of St James’s Park, the former tree alley of Pall Mall had recently become a long street lined with fine mansions. Gentry, nobility, even Nell Gwynne the actress, currently the king’s favourite mistress, lived there. Above Pall Mall, St James’s Street, Jermyn Street, and stately St James’s Square were all nearing completion. This was the West End, the new home of the aristocracy. Compared to its broad, straight thoroughfares and open piazzas, even the Romanized city seemed cramped. For Sir Julius, this burgeoning of London had also meant a burgeoning of his fortune. He had obtained a grant to build several streets of houses on the old hunting grounds – still known by the ancient huntsman’s cry of “Soho” – above Leicester Square. The profit had been huge.

But, above all for Sir Julius, it was the sense of being needed that had raised his spirits. The monarchy was in trouble again; and his king had called for help.

The business in a way was absurd – though it concerned the succession. Charles II of England still had no legitimate child. He had any number of bastards of course, and one of them, a brilliant young Protestant called the Duke of Monmouth, was highly popular. “But you can’t make a bastard king,” Sir Julius would point out. “Apart from anything else, there are so many that if you start down that road you invite a civil war from all the rivals.” Legitimacy was key; which meant that after Charles would come his Catholic brother James.

James only had two daughters, Mary and Anne, both of whom were indisputably Protestant. And though, after their mother’s death, the Duke of York had, to everyone’s displeasure, married a Catholic, the marriage had produced no children. Better yet, in an effort to reassure his Protestant subjects, the king had married his niece Mary to that most utterly Protestant Dutchman, William of Orange, mortal foe to King Louis of France and to all things Catholic. “So,” Ducket would conclude, “even if, one day, the king should predecease his brother, we should have James for a few years and then, very likely, one of the most Protestant royals in Europe. There is simply nothing that any reasonable man need worry about.”

But there was: his name was Titus Oates.

History has seen many hoaxes, but few more devastating than the great hoax of 1678. Titus Oates, bow-legged, lantern-jawed, a known – though unsuccessful – trickster, suddenly devised a way to make himself famous. Working with an accomplice, he uncovered a plot so terrible that it made all England tremble. The plotters, he claimed, were papists. Their plan was to kill the king, put his brother James, Duke of York, on the throne instead, and proclaim the kingdom subject to the Pope. It was the Armada, the Inquisition, everything that Puritan Englishmen dreaded. It was also, from start to finish, a fabrication. Some of the details were absurd. When told that the papist army was to be led by an elderly Catholic peer – whom Oates clearly did not realize had long since been bedridden – King Charles burst out laughing. But as usual in politics, the truth was not only different, it was irrelevant; all that mattered was what people believed. While the king’s friends in Parliament protested, the more puritan-minded and those who wanted to see the power of the Crown reduced clamoured for justice. Oates’s supporters paraded in the streets of London wearing green ribbons. Catholics were hounded and abused. Oates himself was given apartments near Whitehall and looked after like a prince. And above all, the cry arose: “Change the succession!” Some spoke of William of Orange, some of the bastard Duke of Monmouth; but loudest of all was the call: “Exclude Catholic James! No papist king!” The House of Commons already had a Bill, with majority support. Even the House of Lords was wavering.

The supporters of the king, who believed that the hereditary principle must remain inviolate, had even acquired a nickname. “Tories” they were called, which meant “Irish rebels”. They in turn described the king’s opponents with an equally rude epithet: “Whigs”, which meant “Scottish thieves”.

For Sir Julius Ducket there could be no doubt. Quite apart from his own calm assessment of the succession, and his disbelief in the preposterous Oates, he was bound by personal oath and by a lifetime of loyalty. Sir Julius was a Tory.

At the end of Pall Mall stood the Tudor gateway of the little palace of St James, a cheerful brick building which the king sometimes liked to use and which gave easy access to the park; and a few minutes later Sir Julius was walking across the grass to the long avenue of trees, known simply as the Mall, which ran down the centre of the park and where King Charles II was genially taking the air.

How strange it felt. Sir Julius was suddenly reminded of that other meeting, over forty years before, when he had gone with his brother Henry to see the first King Charles at Greenwich. Yet what a contrast. He thought of that small, quiet man, so obviously chaste, so politely formal, and compared him to the large, rather swarthy man who was approaching him now. There was nothing formal about Charles II. At the Newmarket race meetings he so loved, he would cheerfully mix with the crowd, and any man who pleased might talk to him. As to being chaste, the bevy of women who were walking with him in the Mall included his favourite, Nell Gwynne. Now, as the pretty little royal spaniel sniffed round the older man’s feet, the king greeted him warmly.

“Well, good Sir Julius, have you chosen your new name?”

For Sir Julius Ducket was to be made a lord. Charles II liked to reward his loyal friends with titles – just as he had made most of his bastards into dukes. But in the case of Sir Julius the need was practical. Of a sound city family with no trace of popery anywhere, and a man whose opinion carried respect, Sir Julius was just the sort of man he needed in the House of Lords when the question of succession came up again that autumn.

“I should like to be Lord Bocton, Your Majesty.” The ancient family seat; it had been an easy choice.

The king nodded thoughtfully. “We may count on you to support us over this Exclusion Bill? You will not desert my royal brother?”

“I gave my oath to your father, sir, to support his sons.”

“Ah. Loyal friend. I think” – the king suddenly turned to his companions – “we can do better for Lord Bocton here. The barony of Bocton is yours, my dear lord,” he said with a smile, “but how would you like to be an earl as well, eh?”

“Sir?” For a moment Sir Julius was too astonished to speak. A barony, the normal rank of an English peer, was a fine thing. Above that came the viscounts, but higher still came the three ranks of the upper aristocracy: the earls, marquesses and dukes. When a family reached that dizzying height, there was nothing above it save the monarch and, presumably, the portals of heaven itself. “An earldom?”

“What title would you like now?” King Charles laughed.

Another title? Sir Julius was so taken aback that he could hardly think.

As he dithered, Nell Gwynne cried out good-naturedly, “Come on, Lord Bocton! We can’t stand around in St James’s Park all day waiting for you to become an earl. Think of a name!”

“Could I be Earl of St James?” Julius asked in some confusion, seizing upon the words he had just heard.

“You can and you shall,” Charles cried, in the greatest good humour. “Ladies,” he admonished, “show respect for a loyal friend. We have not so many of them. You are Earl of St James, sir, and Baron Bocton, and I count on you.” The earldom would secure him support through hellfire itself, and cost him nothing. He only wished he could find a hundred such fellows and make them all into earls.

An hour later, the newly created Earl of St James was bowling back along Pall Mall, his mind in a whirl. The implications of what had just happened were so wonderful that he just sat there, turning them over in his mind again and again. His eldest son would be called Lord Bocton now, while he was the earl. Over the Ducket coat of arms, there would be a crown bearing the decoration of strawberry leaves reserved for earls. His father had always told him that the family had been chosen, by which he had meant that they were God’s elect. But, though he could not admit it, in his heart Julius knew that an earldom was more desirable even than the promise of heaven.

His carriage had just passed the top of Whitehall and was approaching the old Savoy when he noticed a party of men, carrying the green ribbons of the Whigs, clearly on their way to the palace to stage a little demonstration. Seeing them, he shrugged, and would not have given them a second thought if he had not realized that one, round-faced, rather gloomy figure at the back was vaguely familiar. The Temple was already in sight before he remembered who it was: O Be Joyful, of that cursed Carpenter family. And with the memory of the Carpenters came the memory of Jane and her curse on his family. He had not thought of her for weeks. Now, with a smile, he reflected that if anything was needed to prove how futile that curse had been it was today’s events.

It was during the summer that O Be Joyful realized the full extent of the popish deviousness of Sir Christopher Wren.

The usual procedure when building a large church had always been to start at the eastern end and complete that first. In this way, services could at least be held while the rest of the church went up. But whenever O Be Joyful went past it seemed to him that the workmen were being employed in a different place, and soon it became clear that Wren meant to lay out at least the entire foundations before building up. Having seen the master architect do this already with several smaller churches, O Be Joyful did not pay too much attention, but his suspicions were further aroused one day late in 1677 when, curious to look at the drawing of the cathedral with its spire once again, he called in at the office which Wren and those directing the work now used. He had found the office empty except for a clerk who was friendly enough. He explained that he worked for Gibbons, and asked if he might see the plans.

“The plans aren’t here,” the clerk explained. “Sir Christopher took them all away.”

“There must be something,” O Be Joyful objected, but the clerk only shook his head.

“I know it’s odd, but there isn’t. We’ve a ground plan but no elevations, no models, nothing. All Wren does is provide drawings of the sections we’re working on. I suppose it’s all in his head.”

The signs in the heavens began the next spring. No one had ever seen anything like them before, and not only was their message clear; it was insistent. There were two eclipses of the moon, and of the sun first one, then another, then a third. Amidst these terrible signs, Titus Oates confirmed all O Be Joyful’s worst fears. There was a popish plot, and Sir Christopher Wren, O Be Joyful felt sure, was involved.

He would like to have denounced Wren; but if he did that, he would simply lose his job and nobody would believe him. He did join some Whig marches, but all that year and through the next, as the revelations of Titus Oates kept coming, and the popish court still held out, he could only reflect, with increasing bitterness: what would Martha have said?

O Be Joyful’s greatest confusion had been caused by Meredith. Once or twice he had reminded the clergyman about his fears over Wren’s papist cathedral, but even after Oates had revealed the conspiracy, Meredith refused to worry. Most puzzling of all, however, had been his reaction to the eclipses.

“The eclipses are welcome,” he told Carpenter. “By these events we may measure the heavenly motions precisely.”

“Are they not a sign from God?” asked O Be Joyful anxiously.

Meredith smiled. “They are a sign of how wonderfully He has made the universe.” And as best he could he explained to the craftsman how the solar system worked and how eclipses took place. “All these eclipses may be precisely predicted,” he told him. “Why, even the wandering stars, the fiery comets which used to frighten men, these too, we may suppose, travel in paths we shall be able to discover.” This at least was the idea of a fellow member of the Royal Society, Edmond Halley, who had just returned to London from a voyage to the southern hemisphere where he had been mapping the stars of the southern sky. “Eclipses, comets, all the heavenly motions, these are determined by huge physical causes, not by the puny actions of men,” he said reassuringly. But O Be Joyful was not reassured at all. The universe as Meredith described it sounded like a machine, strangely godless.

“You mean that God cannot send us a sign by an eclipse or a comet?” he demanded.