CHAPTER I

A DARK DAWNING

In the King's antechamber at Kensington House my Lord Dorset and one of his pensioners (of which he had a many) awaited an audience of His Majesty.

It was a year since the Revolution, a cold-wet autumn, and Kensington House, recently bought from my Lord Nottingham, stood blank and sad among dripping wet trees.

Lord Dorset strolled to the window and looked out on the great park spreading to the horizon. He, in common with every other Englishman, found both house and grounds an ill substitute for Whitehall, where the King would never go when not forced, spending his time at Hampton Court, Holland House, or here, in this half-built villa, still disfigured with the scaffolding poles of the alterations Mr. Wren was putting in hand. Lord Dorset sighed; he was a tolerant, sweet-natured man, more interested in art than politics; he had been magnificent as Lord Buckhurst, and was more magnificent as Marquess and holder of the office of Lord Chamberlain.

Presently the Lords Shrewsbury and Nottingham came out of the King's Cabinet; the first looked downcast, the second sour.

Dorset lifted his eyebrows at Shrewsbury, who said dolefully as he passed--

"Good God! we are like to get on the rocks--nothing is right."

When the two Secretaries of State had passed, Lord Dorset remarked to his young companion, with a kind of good-natured softness--

"You see--I have brought you to Court in an ill time; perchance I had best not press for an audience to-day----"

But even as he spoke the door of the Cabinet opened and the King came out.

He stood for a second in the doorway, looking at the few gentlemen standing about the bare, large room; then his glance fell on Lord Dorset, who moved forward with his splendid air of grace.

"Is it the wrong moment to present to the notice of Your Majesty the young poet of whom I spoke yesterday?"

The King's large open eyes turned to the pale and agitated young man in question, who instantly went on his knees.

"A poet?" repeated William; the word to him conveyed a mild, but scarcely harmless madness. He thought the patronage of these people an irritating trait in his Lord Chamberlain. "Have we not already poets in our Court?"

Lord Dorset smiled.

"This poet, sir, is also a very good Protestant, and one who did much service in writing of satires----"

"We have always uses for a clever pen," said William, in whose own country the printing press was a powerful political engine. He turned gravely to the young man--

"What is your name?"

"Matthew Prior, Your Majesty."

"You wish a post about the Court, Mr. Prior?"

The aspirant lifted sincere and ardent eyes.

"I have desired all my life to serve Your Majesty," he answered, which was true enough, for he cherished an almost romantical admiration for William.

"My Lord Dorset," said the King, "is a fine guarantee for any man; we will find some place for you----" He cut short protestations of gratitude by saying, "You must not expect us to read your poems, Mr. Prior."

"Your Majesty was ever severe on that art," smiled Lord Dorset.

"I do not understand it," said William simply; but the Lord Chamberlain had a fine enough perception to discern that there had been more poetry in the actions of the King's life than ever Matthew Prior could get on paper. He took the following silence for dismissal, and withdrew with his grateful pensioner.

The King drew out his watch, glanced at it, and called up one of the ushers at the further doors.

"When Lord Halifax arriveth bid him come at once to us."

He hesitated a moment, looking at the sombre prospect of grey and rain to be seen through the long windows, then returned to his private room and closed the door.

A wood fire burnt between two brass andirons and filled the plain closet with warmth, above the walnut bureau hung a map of the United Provinces, and on the high mantelshelf stood several ornaments and vases in blue-and-white delft.

The King seated himself in the red damask covered chair before the desk, and mechanically took up the quill that lay before him; but presently it fell from his fingers and he leant back in his seat, staring at the map of his country.

Since his coronation in April last, nay, since his first assuming the government a year ago, everything had gone wrong, and he had been blamed for it; nothing could exaggerate the difficulties of his position. He had partially expected them, for he was not naturally sanguine, but his worst imaginings had fallen short of the actual happenings.

Affairs had now reached a crisis. In England, Scotland, and Ireland was a deadlock, on the Continent imminent peril, and the King, for the first time in his life, doubted his own capacity to deal with such huge obstacles as those which confronted and threatened to overwhelm him.

Sitting utterly still, he mentally faced the task before him.

He believed that to fail utterly was impossible, since that would be to deny the teaching of his own soul, and so, God; but he might fail partially, and he might, even in winning a small measure of success, forfeit tremendous stakes.

The loss of personal ease, of his popularity in England, a complete misunderstanding of his motives, the rancorous, malicious hate of his enemies--these things he had, from the moment of his coronation, been prepared for; but it might be that he would be called upon to make vaster sacrifices--the friendship of many former supporters, even their long-cherished love and loyalty, the trust and confidence of the allies, the admiration of the dissenting churches throughout Europe, even his own peace of soul. Everything in brief, that he valued, save the love of Mary and the friendship of William Bentinck, must be pledged, and might be lost in this forthcoming conflict.

He had honestly and justly tried to satisfy the English, but had met with utter failure. They reproached--reviled him, complained, and loudly voiced their dissatisfaction; he had not pleased one of those who had placed him on the throne. The chaotic state of the Government might, to a superficial observer, appear to give some warrant for their discontent; but, as the King cynically observed to himself, they were incapable of even suggesting a remedy for the ills they so decried; he did everything, and Whig and Tory alike agreed in putting all burdens on his shoulders, then in blaming his administration.

In the crisis of '88 their action had been oblique. They had shifted the almost intolerable confusion of affairs into his hands, then stood back to watch and criticise, while he, who had already the business of half Europe on his mind, made what order he could out of jarring chaos. His health had broken under the strain; even his friends noticed a new languor in him, which the English were quick to dub sloth. Deprived of his one recreation of hunting--for which he had no time--hardly able to endure the stenches and smoke of London, his reserved temper taxed almost beyond bearing by the incessant, unreasonable, shortsighted quarrelling by which he was surrounded, he felt his strength slipping like water through his hands.

His popularity had gone as he had predicted it would. The Jacobites were already a tremendously strong party, and his own ministers were half of them already beginning to traffic with the exiled King--who was now in Ireland with French troops, and of whom it had been said that, would he but change his religion, he could not be kept out of England six weeks.

William, reviewing his position, smiled at the shallow taunts that accused him of having thirsted for a crown.

He was working like a galley-slave for England--working with insufficient money, false servants, unfriendly onlookers, and an apathetic nation ready to seize on frivolous pretexts to dub him unpopular--and his reward for labours, that perhaps not one of his subjects had any conception of, was the nominal dignity of kingship and the long-fought-for alliance of England with the States.

He was certainly paying a bitter price.

All the great nobles were dissatisfied. The King had a keen dislike of party, and his ideal of government was a cabinet comprising of the best men of every faction to advise a ruler free to decide the final issue of every question. He had tried this scheme in England, equally honouring Whig and Tory, and taking his ministers from the rival ranks.

The plan had been an utter failure; each faction wanted the supreme control. The Whigs wanted the King to become their champion, and avenge them indiscriminately on every Tory; the Tories, who had always been opposed to William, refused to work with the Whigs; Danby, created Marquess of Caermarthen at the Coronation, was furious because he had not the privy seals; Halifax, to whom they had been given, grudged Danby the Marquisate; the two Secretaries, Shrewsbury and Nottingham, were scarcely on speaking terms; Russell, now Lord Orford, and Herbert, now Lord Torrington, quarrelled fiercely over the naval affairs; at the Treasury Board, Lord Mordaunt, now Earl of Monmouth and Lord Delamere, both hot Whigs, did their best to disparage their colleague, Lord Godolphin, who, of all the Government, was the quietest man and the one most esteemed by the King; Clarendon, the Queen's uncle, had refused to take the oaths; and his brother Rochester was suspected of plotting with James. There was, in fact, scarcely one Englishman, even among those who had accompanied William to England, whom he could trust, yet the advancement and favour he showed his Dutch friends was made the matter for perpetual and noisy complaint.

On the other hand, the Church of England, which owed its very existence to the Revolution, proved itself unreasonable and ungrateful; it refused stubbornly to grant any concessions to Non-conformists, and wished severe penalties visited on the Papists.

Added to this, the home government was rotten to the core, the army and navy in a miserable state, the people overtaxed, business disorganised, the treasury empty, credit low, every one discontented, Ireland in the possession of James, a revolt in Scotland, and, on the Continent, the French making unchecked progress, and the Dutch beginning to complain that they were being neglected for the English.

When it is considered that the man who was to face and overcome these difficulties was disliked, distrusted, misunderstood, and betrayed on every hand, it can be no wonder that even his brave soul was drooping.

His position was in every way complex. By nature imperious, arrogant, of the proudest blood in Europe, he had a high idea of the kingly prerogative, and by instinct leant to the Tories; but the Whigs claimed him as peculiarly their champion, and it was undoubtedly to their influence that the Revolution was due. As King of England he was head of the Anglican Church and swore to uphold it; but he was a Calvinist himself, and the whole tenor of his life had been towards that broad toleration which the Church regarded with abhorrence. He was avowedly latitudinarian and set his face resolutely against any form of persecution for religious belief, and while this attitude cost him the support of the Church, his refusal to treat the Catholics harshly lost him the alliance of the Dissenters, who regarded him as disappointingly lukewarm in the true cause.

A gentle treatment of the Papists was essential to William's foreign policy, since he had promised his Catholic allies--Spain, the Emperor, and the Pope, to protect those of this persuasion--and it was, besides, his own conviction of justice and the general good. He had therefore forced through Parliament the Toleration Act, which was, however, too limited to heal the internecine disorders of religious parties; he had then endeavoured to bridge the schism between Nonconformists and Anglicans by the Comprehension Bill, but the measure was before its time and failed to pass.

Many of the bishops and clergy having refused to take the oaths and been obliged to resign, William had been forced to make new appointments, every one of which, including that of his chaplain, Dr. Burnet, to Sarum, caused universal dissatisfaction.

There had been a mutiny in the army which had to be repressed by Dutch troops--a further grievance to the English, who began to bitterly resent foreign soldiers in their midst; yet on these troops alone could the King rely.

William's lieutenant, the popular and brilliant Schomberg, had proved an expensive failure. He was at present in Ireland, with a huge army dying of fever about him, doing nothing but writing maddening letters of complaint to the King, who had, on the other hand, to listen to the ceaseless goadings of the English Parliament, who wished to know why Ireland was not reduced, and, until that plague spot was attended to, who refused to turn their attention to the Continent, where the great events gathered that were ever next William's heart.

Those were the great difficulties, but there were many smaller vexations, such as the party the Princess Anne, under the influence of those adventurers--the Churchills--was forming against the Court; the sulky, unreasonable behaviour of Lord Torrington at the Admiralty Board; the constant necessity the King was under of going to London (the air of which was literally death to him), and of dining in public at Whitehall--a practice he detested; the lack of money for the buildings at Hampton Court and Kensington, which were both in an uncomfortable state of incompletion; his own ignorance on little technical points of administration and costume, which made him dependent on his English advisers--all these were added annoyances and humiliations that went far to unman a nature well inured to strenuous difficulties.

The King made a little movement forward in his chair with a short cough, as if he caught his breath, his eyes still fixed on the map of the United Provinces; his haggard face slightly flushed as if he was moved by some intense thought.

The latch clicked, and William turned his head quickly.

In the doorway was the handsome figure of the tolerant, able, and cynical chief adviser to the Crown, the Lord Privy Seal, my Lord Marquess Halifax.