CHAPTER I

VITA SINE AMOR MORS EST

Henry Sidney, Lord Romney, and the Earl of Portland were walking up and down the cloisters of Westminster Abbey. It was the end of April--a bitter spring following a severe winter; constant clouds blotted out the sun, and sudden falls of snow had left the square of grass in the centre of the cloisters wet and white.

The Earl, muffled to the chin in a red mantle, and carrying a great muff of brown fur, was talking earnestly to Lord Romney, who, though a feather-head and useless in politics, was more loved by the King than any Englishman, and of unimpeachable loyalty to the throne.

"This," said Portland, with energy, "is death or madness--nay, worse than either, for he is but a figure of himself that deceiveth us into thinking we have a King."

"God knoweth," returned Romney, who looked old and worn, sad and dejected, "never have we so needed his wisdom and his courage. Whom can we trust since the death of Her Majesty? Not even my Lord Nottingham."

"Sunderland," said the Earl, "is creeping back to favour--the knave of two reigns, who would get a third King in his clutches--and the Lord Keeper is very active in the House. Now I have done what I can to transact necessary business since the Queen's death--but I cannot do much, for the malice against foreigners is incredible----"

"No one but the King can do anything!" broke out Romney.

"I at least can do no more," admitted Portland. "And certainly my heart misgiveth me that this is going to be the end--in miserable failure."

"Why--not failure," protested the Englishman.

Portland paused by the clustered pillars which divided the open windows; a few ghastly flakes of snow were falling from a disturbed sky against the worn, crumbling, and grey masonry.

"Miserable failure," repeated the Earl; his fine fair face was pale and stern in the colourless shadows of the heavy arches. "Parliament needeth a leader, the Republic needeth her magistrate, the allies their commander--there is very much to do--with every day, more--and the man who should do it is as useless as a sick girl."

"I think," said Romney, with some gentleness, "that his heart is broken."

"A man," flashed Portland, "hath no right to a broken heart. Good God, could we not all discover broken hearts if we took time to probe them? I know the Queen's worth, what she was to him, and all of us--but is she served by this weakness of grief? He would best commemorate her by making no pause in his task."

"That is a hard doctrine," answered the Englishman half sadly.

"It is a hard fate to be a great man, my lord--the destinies of nations are not made easily nor cheaply. When the King began his task he was prepared for the price--he should not now shirk the paying of it----"

"It is higher than he thought would be exacted, my lord."

Portland answered sternly--

"You surely do not understand. What was she, after all, but an incident? He had been ten years at his work before she came."

The snow fell suddenly, and, caught and whirled by a powerful wind, filled the air with a thick whiteness like spreading smoke; it blew against the two gentlemen, and in a second covered their mantles with glittering crystals.

Romney stepped back and shook it from him.

"Shall we not go into the church," he said, with a shiver, "and persuade the King return?"

"It doth not matter if he be at her grave or in his cabinet," answered Portland gloomily, "since his temper is the same wherever he be."

Romney turned towards the low door that led into the Abbey.

"Did you mark," he said irrelevantly, "that the robin was still on her gravestone?"

"Yes," replied Portland; "it hath been singing there since she was buried."

They entered the large, mysterious church. The snowstorm had so obscured the light from the tall, high windows that the columns, roof, and tombs were alike enveloped in a deep shade; it was very cold and the air hung misty and heavy.

Above the altar, to their right, swung a red burning lamp that gave no light, but showed as a sudden gleam of crimson.

On the altar itself burnt four tall candles that gleamed on the polished gold sacred vessels and faintly showed the sweep of marble and the violet-hued carpet beyond the brass rails which divided the altar from the steps.

There was only one person visible in this large, cold, dark church, and that was a man in the front pew, entirely in black, who neither sat nor knelt, but drooped languidly against the wooden rest in front of him, with his face hidden in his right hand.

Portland and Romney took off their hats and approached the altar; they had nearly reached it before they noticed the King, whom they had left at his wife's grave.

Their footsteps were very noticeable in the sombre stillness. The King looked up and rose, holding heavily to the arm of the pew.

Romney hesitated, but Portland stepped up to William.

"We had best return, sire."

The King was silent, his eyes fixed on the altar and the fluttering gold light that dwelt there--a radiance in the gloom.

Portland touched his arm and he moved then, with no sign of animation, towards the Abbey door; his two friends followed shivering in the great spaces of the church that were more bitterly cold than the outer air.

The King's eyes turned to the shadowed dark aisles which led to the chapel of the seventh Henry and the spot where the Queen, a few months ago young, and beautiful, and gay, now lay among her royal kinsmen, dust with dust.

The King opened the heavy door and stepped out into the bitter light of the snowstorm which hid sky and houses, whitened the coach waiting and the liveries of the impatient footmen who walked about in the endeavour to keep warm. The King himself was in an instant covered from head to foot; he gave a lifeless shudder as one so sick with life that sun and snow were alike to him.

He entered the coach and the two lords followed him; there was no word spoken; his friends had lost heart in the fruitless endeavour of comfort; he had scarcely spoken since the Queen's death, scarcely raised his eyes; for six weeks he had remained in his chamber, and now he came abroad it was to no purpose, for he took no interest in anything in life.

He gave himself much to religious observances, and was often closeted with the Archbishop; he uttered no word of complaint, never even had mentioned his wife's name, which was the more remarkable after the first frantic passion of his grief; he would attend to no business and see no one; he replied to the addresses of the Houses only by a few incoherent words; his answers as they appeared in the _Gazette_ were written by Portland.

He fainted often, and his spirits sunk so low that the doctors feared he would die of mere apathy, for all their devices were useless to rouse him to any desire to live.

Portland could do nothing. M. Heinsius, Grand Pensionary of Holland, wrote in vain from The Hague; that long, intimate, and important correspondence was broken by the King for the first time since his accession; the allies clamoured in vain for him whose guidance alone kept the coalition together; factions raged in parliament with no authority to check them; the Jacobites raised their heads again, and, the moment the breath was out of the Queen, began their plots for a French invasion and the assassination of the one frail life that stood for the forces of Protestantism; this was generally known, though not proved, but the King cared for none of it.

The home government, since the retirement of Leeds after the East India scandal, was in many hands, mostly incompetent; foreign affairs fared worse, for these the King had always kept almost entirely in his own control, and had scarcely even partially trusted any of his English ministers on these matters, that, as he was well aware, neither their knowledge nor their characters fitted them to deal with. Portland held many of the clues to the King's immense and intricate international policy, and he had done what he could with matters that could not wait, but he could not do everything, nor do anything for long, and what he could not do was left undone.

As the Royal coach swung into Whitehall courtyard the sudden snowstorm had ceased and a pale, cold ray of sun pierced the disturbed clouds.

The King had lately taken a kind of horror to his villa at Kensington, and resided at Whitehall, though he had always detested this palace, and the foul air of London was perilous to his health.

There was, however, no pretence even of a Court. The ladies, with their music, their sewing, their cards and tea drinking, had vanished; the Princess Anne, nominally reconciled to the King, lived at St. James's, and no woman came to Court now; the great galleries, chambers, and corridors were empty save for a few Dutch sentries and ushers and an occasional great lord or foreign envoy waiting to ask my Lord Portland when His Majesty would be fit to do business.

Without a word or a look to any the King passed through the antechamber to his private apartments. Portland stopped to speak to Lord Sunderland, who was talking to the Lord Keeper, Sir John Somers, the Whig lawyer, as industrious, as honest, and as charming as any man in England, and an extraordinary contrast to Sunderland in character. The two were, however, for a moment in league, and had together brought about that reconciliation of the King and the Princess Anne that set the throne on a firmer basis, though neither had as yet dared to bring forward my Lord Marlborough.

Romney, who disliked the everyday virtues of the middle-class Lord Keeper, would have preferred to follow the King, but William gave him no invitation, but entered his apartments and closed the door, so he had to join the little group of three.

Their talk was for a while of general matters--of the heats in parliament and the prospects of the campaign of the allies under Waldeck and Vaudemont; each was silent about the matter uppermost in his mind--the recovery of the King. Portland, the lifelong friend, upright, noble, stern; Romney, gay, impulsive, shallow, but loyal and honest; Somers, worthy, tireless, a Whig, and of the people; Sunderland, aristocrat and twice told a traitor, shameless, secretive, and fascinating, by far the finest statesman of the four--all these had one object in common, to rouse the man on whom depended the whole machinery of the English government and the whole fate of the huge coalition against France, which had taken twenty years to form.

Sunderland, heartily disliked by the other three, yet master of all of them, suddenly, with delicate precision, came to the heart of the matter.

"Unless all Europe is to slip back into the hands of France," he said, "the King _must_ take up his duties."

"This temper of his is making him most unpopular," remarked Somers, who, honestly grateful to his master, had always endeavoured to turn people and parliament to an affection for the King. "Though the Queen was greatly beloved they resent this long mourning."

"She held the King and country together," answered Sunderland. "Her English birth, her tactful, pretty ways did His Majesty more service here than a deal of statecraft--the Jacks know that; the country is swarming with them, and unless it is all to end in disaster--the King _must_ act his old part."

Portland flushed.

"You say so, my lord, but who is to rouse a man utterly prostrate? Nothing availeth to draw him from his sloth."

"He is neither dead nor mad," said Sunderland calmly. "And grief is a thing that may be mastered. He should go to Flanders in May and take command of the allies."

"It is impossible!" broke out Sidney. "Did you mark him but now? He hardly lifts his eyes from the floor, and I have not heard him speak one word these ten days."

Sunderland answered quietly--

"A man who hath done what he hath cannot utterly sink into apathy--there is a spirit in him which must respond, if it be but rightly called upon."

"Will _you_ assay to rouse His Majesty?" asked Portland haughtily.

Sunderland's long eyes narrowed.

"I am bold to try where your lordship hath failed," he said, with a deference that was like insolence; "but it is a question of great matters, and I will make the trial."

"You will make it in vain, my lord," answered Romney. "The King is beyond even your arts."

Sunderland delicately lifted his shoulders.

"We can but see." He looked rather cynically round the other three men. "If the King is out of the reach of reason it is as well we should know it, my lords."

Portland did not reply. He bitterly resented that this man, whom he scorned and despised, should gain this intimacy with the King's weakness; but he led the way to William's apartments. He had practically control of affairs since the King's collapse, and no one questioned his coming or going.

They found William in his cabinet that overlooked the privy gardens, at the bottom of which the river rolled black and dismal in contrast to the glitter of the snow on the paths and flowerbeds.

The King sat by the window, gazing out on this prospect, his head sunk on his breast and his left arm along the sill of the window. The crimson cut crystal bracelet round his wrist was the only light or colour on his person, for he wore no sword, and his heavy black clothes were unbraided and plain; the considerable change in his appearance was largely heightened by this complete mourning, for he had seldom before worn black, having, indeed, a curious distaste to it. He had been born in a room hung with funeral trappings and lit only with candles, and for the first months of his life never left this black chamber, which had caused, perhaps, a certain revulsion in him to the sables of mourning, which he had worn only once before, when, a pale child of ten, he had been dressed in black for his young mother, that other Mary Stewart whose coffin lay in Westminster within a few feet of that of his wife.

He did not seem to notice that any had entered upon his privacy. Portland glanced back at Romney and the Lord Keeper with a look that seemed to convey that he felt hopeless of my Lord Sunderland doing what he had boasted; but that lord went forward with his usual quiet carriage.

A large fire filled the room with cheerful light that glowed on the polished Dutch pottery and rich Dutch pictures on the mantelshelf and walls. On a marquetry bureau, with glittering brass fuchsia-shaped handles, was a pile of unopened letters, and amid them a blue-glazed earthenware dragon that used to stand in the Queen's withdrawing-room at Hampton Court.

Sunderland paused, looking at the King. The three other men remained inside the door, watching with painful attention.

"Sire," said the Earl, "there is news from France. M. de Luxembourg, who was your greatest enemy, is dead."

The King did not move.

"It is a great loss to King Louis," added Sunderland. "They say M. de Villeroy is to have the command."

William slowly turned his head and looked at the speaker, but without interest or animation, almost, it seemed, without recognition.

Sunderland came nearer. A book was lying on the window-seat, he glanced at it--it was Dr. Tenison's sermon on the text, "I have sworn and am steadfastly purposed to keep thy righteous judgments," which had been preached after the Queen's death, and printed by the King's command.

Sunderland spoke again.

"The Whigs have ousted my Lord Leeds and his friend Trevor--and continue to press heavily upon him."

Again it was doubtful if the King heard; he fixed his large mournful eyes steadily upon the Earl, and made no sign nor answer.

Sunderland, finding neither of these matters touched the King, drew from the bosom of his grey satin waistcoat a roll of papers.

"Sir Christopher Wren showed me these this morning," he said, "and doubted if he dared bring them to Your Majesty. They are those plans for the turning of Greenwich Palace into a hospital that Her Majesty had ever at heart."

The three men watching caught their breath at the delicate bluntness of my lord. This time there could be no doubt that the King had heard; he made some incoherent answer and held out his hand for the plans, which he unrolled and gazed at.

"It should be a noble monument," said the Earl softly, "to Her Majesty and those who fell at La Hogue fight. Sir Christopher would have an inscription along the river frontage saying she built it, and a statue of her--looking along the Thames to London."

The King answered in a low voice--

"Let it be put in hand at once."

"Will Your Majesty see Sir Christopher?"

William lifted his eyes from the drawings.

"No--let him get to work," he murmured; then, after a second, "Do you not think it will be a worthy monument?"

"So fine that I can but think of one more worthy," answered Sunderland.

A languid colour touched the King's hollow cheek.

"What is that?"

"The completion of Your Majesty's life-work."

There was silence. The King paled again and looked out of the window.

"I cannot talk of business," he said hoarsely, after a while.

"I speak of the Queen--her wishes," answered Sunderland. "She greatly desired the building of Greenwich Hospital, but she still more desired the preservation of this realm--and of the Republic."

At this last word the King gave a little shiver.

"The Republic," repeated Sunderland, "needeth Your Majesty."

William looked round again--his face was troubled.

"You speak to a dead man," he said, in a hurried whisper. "I have finished."

"If that be so," replied the Earl, "we and the United Provinces are lost, and King Louis will triumph after all, yea, after all the toil, and loss, and patience, and endeavour, France will triumph over Europe. Your Majesty had better not have flung the gauntlet in '72--better to have bowed to France then than submit now."

The King seemed disturbed; he laid the plans of Greenwich down and moved his hands restlessly.

"I am not fit for--anything," he muttered. "I am not capable of military command--there are others--I have been at this work twenty years--let some other take it up----"

"There is no other," said Sunderland. "This is Your Majesty's task, and no one else can undertake it."

The King looked round in a desperate fashion; he saw the three men at the other end of the room.

"Why do you come bating me?" he asked. "I tell you there is nothing more in me"--he laid his hand on his heart--"all is dead--here."

A sudden violent cough shook him; he gasped with pain.

"In a few months I shall be with her," he added, and his voice was so weak and shaken that Sunderland could scarcely catch the words.

"Doth not Your Majesty believe in predestination?"

William was silent.

"Doth not Your Majesty believe that God hath some further use for you?"

The King answered simply and with infinite sadness--

"I think He hath had from me all the work I am capable of."

"No," said Sunderland. "Your greatest tasks, your greatest victories lie before you. William of Nassau will not die while the battle rageth. God, who put you in the vanguard of the world, will not let you fall out with the deserters."

The King drew a sharp breath; he seemed considerably moved and agitated; his dark eyes turned to Sunderland.

"What is it to you whether I fail or no?" he asked wildly.

The Earl smiled.

"I stand for England, sire. Besides that, I always believed in you, and you are the only man in Europe worth serving."

William flushed.

"You speak very boldly."

"I spoke boldly to Your Majesty in '77. I said to you then, you are the Prince for England--your moment will come. The little things, sir, often clog, and hamper, and bewilder, but in the end the big things win--as Your Majesty will win, though through wearisome ways. Sir, kingdoms are large stakes. Sir, to be a champion of a creed is a great responsibility, and he who taketh it up must forgo the grief of common men, for surely his tears are demanded as well as his blood."

William sat motionless, with his hand to his side.

"You think I can take it all up again?" he asked, in his hoarse, strained voice. "My God! I think it is too late."

Sunderland turned and whispered something to Somers, who left the room; to the King he said--

"I entreat Your Majesty see a young officer new come from Flanders."