CHAPTER IX

PEACE

The Earl of Sunderiand was again as great as he had been when he held James Stewart infatuate in his power, and as well hated throughout the country as then. The King had long consulted him in private, and now he was recognized as principal adviser to the Crown, and carried the gold key that was the symbol of the office of Lord Chamberlain.

He had no rival. Halifax was dead; Leeds a mere shadow; his intrigues had brought about the resignation of Godolphin, who had been implicated in the disclosures of Sir John Fenwick; Shrewsbury, stricken with remorse at his own treachery and the King's generosity, was but a figure in the background; and the other ministers, even such as Romney, who was William's personal friend, had little influence; Portland's power was not what it had been, and his rival, M. van Keppel, largely owed his fortunes to Sunderiand. The Lord Chamberlain was supreme in this year 1697, the year of the peace framed by Portland and Boufflers in the orchard at Huy and signed by the Congress at the King's palace of Ryswick.

This peace was an honourable close to an honourable conflict. Louis recognised William as King of England, and granted most of the terms desired by the allies, not one of whom complained that they had been forgotten or slighted by the King in the framing of the articles. The delay of Spain and the Emperor to sign, despite William's entreaties, had resulted in the fall of Barcelona and Louis' consequent rise of terms, the principal of which was the retention of Strassburg--a severe blow to Austria. But, on the whole, the peace was favourable to the coalition, and in England and Holland at least was received with unbounded rejoicing. William's return from the Continent was the signal for a display of loyalty as enthusiastic as that which had greeted the exiled Charles in '66.

William, to whose diplomacy the peace was owing, as the war had been owing to his indomitable energy, was at the very zenith of his reputation at home and abroad. He avoided the pageants, processions, triumphal arches, and general laudations, both from a natural modesty and a cynical perception of their hollowness, which was but too well justified, for the first act of the Parliament was to inflict cruel mortification on him by disbanding, at the instance of the Tory agitator, Robert Harley, the army which had done such magnificent service. Sunderland's utmost arts could only retain ten thousand men, including the King's beloved Dutch Guards.

This action was, to William, the worst of policy, besides a personal slight that he could not but feel that he had ill deserved. The peace was to him but an armed truce before the inevitable struggle for the Spanish possessions, and the part that he was to play in that struggle was considerably weakened by the disbanding of the troops which made England, save for her Navy, powerless again in Europe.

The English Parliament, profoundly ignorant of continental affairs, and not in the least understanding the spacious policy of the King, thought only of the power a standing army put in the hands of the Crown, and were not to be moved from their resolve.

William, driven back, as he had so often been, on his own innate statesmanship, endeavoured to accomplish by wit what he was now powerless to accomplish by arms, and secretly framed with Louis the Partition Treaty, by which the vast dominions of the imbecile and dying King of Spain were to be divided between Louis' grandson Phillippe d'Anjou, and William's candidate, the infant son of the Elector of Bavaria, who derived his claim through his dead mother, Maria Antonia.

The King had disdained to consult the English ministers until he had completed this treaty, and then only curtly demanded the necessary signatures; from the nation it was a profound secret.

Sunderland disapproved of this daring policy of the King's. He thought that many of the domestic troubles of the reign might have been avoided if William had been less resolute to keep foreign affairs entirely in his own hands, but the King's well-founded distrust of the levity, treachery, and ignorance of the English, and their personal malice towards him as a foreigner, could not be moved by the most specious of Sunderland's arguments. William refused to put any faith in the crowds who shouted after his coach, in the ringing and the toasts, in the bales of loyal addresses that were laid daily at his feet. He knew perfectly well that at bottom he was neither understood nor liked, and that all this rejoicing was not for the King, but because a peace, pleasing to English pride, had been signed; because bank stock had risen from sixty to ninety, paper money to par, the guinea from eighteen shillings to twenty-one; because the new milled coins were in every hand and an era of prosperity was following the crisis of '96.

Sunderland watched all these things with some misgiving. Under all his honours and greatness was a lurking uneasiness. He began to lose his courage at being so hated; hints of impeachment had risen in the House more than once; he could scarcely show his face abroad without a burst of popular fury. In the opinion of the people he should not have been intrusted with one of the highest offices under the Crown, but have been starving in exile, or dead, long since in the Tower, as his colleague under James--Lord Jefferies. The ministers, too, could ill disguise their dislike of him. He had befriended the Whigs, and they owed him a cold allegiance, but he had no real supporter save the King, whose will alone kept him where he was; and he had more enemies than he could count, including Portland, who hated him exceedingly.

When the King had created Joost van Keppel Earl of Albemarle, Portland had offered to resign his post and retire, and only by the intercession of M. de Vaudemont and the passionate entreaties of his one flatterer, the King, had he been induced to stay another year, which was employed in the gorgeous embassy to France from which he had just returned, to find Sunderland all-powerful and Albemarle in full possession of the King's confidence.

Sunderland saw that his temper was strained to the utmost, and that affairs in the King's household must soon reach a crisis. Although he used Albemarle as a balance against a man who hated him, Sunderland had no ill-will towards Portland, and wished to spare the King the agony he knew he would feel on the earl's retirement. He would have wished Shrewsbury to stay too--the King liked the young duke--but here, as in Portland's case, Sunderland felt matters had gone too far.

He was waiting now, in the King's gallery at Kensington, to intercept and argue with Shrewsbury, whom he knew was about to have an interview with William, and with the object, he suspected, of insisting on his often refused resignation.

He came at last, after his time and slowly, with a languid carriage and an unsteady step that expressed great wretchedness. Sunderland moved out of the embrasure of the window; Shrewsbury paused; and the two noblemen, alike only in birth and country, so totally different in character, intellect, and aim, yet both in the same service, faced one another.

Shrewsbury looked ill, miserable, even slightly dishevelled, his dark clothes were careless and plain, the beauty that had once made him famous as "The King of Hearts" was scarcely to be traced in his strained features, though he was not yet past his first youth. In contrast, Sunderland, though worn and frail, looked less than his years, and was habited very fashionably and gorgeously in black tissue of gold with diamond buttons, his peruke was frizzled and powdered, and he wore a bow of black velvet beneath his chin; his handsome, delicate features wore that expression of watchful, smiling repose which was so seldom from his face that it had come to be one with it, as the faint chiselling on an alabaster bust.

Shrewsbury showed some agitated emotion as the Lord Chamberlain stepped before him.

"I am due with His Majesty," he said.

"I know," answered the earl; "and I think I guess your business with the King."

Shrewsbury paled and said nothing; a defiant look hardened his eyes.

"You," continued the Lord Chamberlain, "are going, my lord, to force your resignation on His Majesty."

"Well--if I am?" Shrewsbury moistened his lips desperately.

"It is, your Grace, a most ill-advised thing to do."

"I have heard many people say that, my lord," answered the young duke, "and I have allowed myself to be too long persuaded. I cannot and I will not stay at Court."

Sunderland gazed at him steadily out of his long, clear eyes.

"You only give colour to the disclosures of Sir John Fenwick, which every one disbelieved. And no one more strongly than His Majesty."

"I bear the taint--the imputation," muttered Shrewsbury. "I cannot and will not endure it. My position is insupportable."

"Marlborough and Russell are in the same position, and find it easy enough to bear," said Sunderland quietly.

The Duke answered with some pride--

"I am not such as they. They act from their standards--I from mine."

He thought, and might have added, that he was not such as the man to whom he spoke. Sunderland was stained with treacheries, disloyalties, corrupt practices, and shameless false-dealing, the very least of which were more than the one lapse that was wearing Shrewsbury to misery with remorse.

The Earl took another tone.

"Think of the King. You call yourself friend to him; he is as harrassed now as he ever was before the war. He hath not too many men to help him--the Tories grow in strength every day. You have been of great service to His Majesty--the greatest in '88. Will you forsake him now--when he needeth you most?"

Shrewsbury put out a trembling hand.

"I have heard these arguments before. Lady Orkney hath been soliciting me to change my resolution--for the same reason that you bring forth. But I am a broken man; I am ill; I must get to the country; I cannot serve His Majesty----"

So speaking, in rapid, disconnected sentences, he gave a wild glance at the Earl's passive face, the fine lines of which had taken on an almost imperceptible expression of contempt and disgust, and passed on to the King's cabinet, which he entered abruptly.

The King was, as usual, at his desk, which was placed between the tall windows which looked on to the beautiful park, now grey and desolate under the afternoon sky of mid-November.

A great fire burnt on the hearth, and the glancing light from it threw into relief the furnishing of the room, every article of which bore evidence to the exile's wistful love of his own country. On the mantelshelf were the tall yellow, white, and blue vases from Delft; the brass fire-irons were Dutch, as were the painted tiles, the black, heavily polished chairs and tables; the exquisite paintings of peaches, carnations, grapes, and butterflies on the wall; and the elaborate china calendar above the King's desk. William was always consistently loyal to the products of his own land; his full cravat, shirt, and wrist-ruffles were now, as generally, of the fine Frisian lawn embroidery, and the buttons of his black silk coat were of the wonderful filigree gold-work for which the States were famous.

He looked up sharply as Shrewsbury entered, and seemed a little disappointed, as if he had been expecting some one else; but instantly commanded himself, and greeted the Duke affectionately.

Shrewsbury looked at him wretchedly, crossed to the hearth irresolutely, then burst out impetuously--

"Sire--I must resign--I can take your wage no longer----"

The King's full bright eyes swept over him in a quick glance of understanding.

"I have told you," he said, with a gentleness that had a note of pity in it, "that I hold you innocent of those scandalous slanders that villain Fenwick flung. I have assured you, my lord, of my affection, of my need and wish for your service."

Shrewsbury bit his lower lip, and stared blindly into the scarlet heart of the fire.

"My health will not permit me----" he began.

"Ah, tush!" interrupted the King, with a little smile. "Your health is good enough."

Compared to his own, it was indeed. Shrewsbury could not, for very shame, argue that plea.

"I think you have another reason, your Grace," added William, kindly and a little sadly. "And I am an old enough friend for you to confide in me----"

Still the Duke could not speak, but trembled and looked into the fire.

"You are a man of honour," said the King. "I have and do trust you. I shall never forget the services you rendered me, when such services were vital indeed; I believe I do not lack gratitude; I should never--I _could_ never--desert a friend."

He exerted himself to speak with courtesy and animation, and there was real feeling behind his words; gratitude was indeed almost a fault with him. Cold as he appeared to outsiders, nothing could turn him when he had once given his affection; he had often, at the expense of his own interests and popularity, defended and upheld his friends.

Shrewsbury clasped the edge of the chimneypiece and tried to speak, but made only some incoherent sound.

"Let me hear no more of resignation, my lord," said William.

The Duke turned and looked at him desperately, then suddenly and utterly broke down.

"I am guilty, sire!" he cried. "I betrayed you, and you know it!"

He fell into the chair beside him, and covered his white face with his quivering hands.

"Your generosity is more than I can endure," he gasped. "I have been a villain, and I have a bitter punishment!"

The King rose and looked at his minister. A heavy silence hung in the brilliantly firelit little chamber. The Duke was sobbing wretchedly.

William went slightly pale.

"Fenwick spoke the truth," cried Shrewsbury; "I have tampered with St. Germains----"

The King crossed over to the young man, and laid his thin, beautiful hand on the bowed shoulders.

"You are my friend," he said simply. "I trust you and wish to keep you with me. Nothing else, my dear lord, is of any matter."

Shrewsbury's answer came hoarsely.

"It is of great matter to me that I have lost my honour----"

The King answered gently.

"While you say that, my lord Duke, you can have lost nothing----"

Shrewsbury would not speak or look up. William returned to his seat at the desk, and began turning over the papers before him. After a few minutes he said, with his eyes still on his letters--

"I have heard nothing--I know nothing--I trust you to continue in my service, my dear lord----"

The Duke sprang up and stood with his back to the fire.

"I cannot--I am not fit," he said desperately, yet with resolution.

William flashed a glance over his shoulder.

"Will you not serve England, then?" he cried, with a deep note in his voice, and waited for the answer, gazing brilliantly at the haggard young man.

"No--no," muttered Shrewsbury. "I am broken--I am not fit----"

There was a little silence. It was the King who spoke first.

"I can say no more," he said quietly. "You have decided. I trust that you will justify your resolution to yourself."

The Duke came heavily to the desk, laid the seals that were the symbol of his office on the desk, and was turning silently away, when the King held out his hand impulsively.

"My lord," he said, with much warmth and kindness, "even if I should never see you again--I should never forget '88."

Shrewsbury seized the frail hand, kissed it with tears, and went violently from the room.

William gave a little sigh, pushed back his chair, and put his hand to his head, coughing.

He was not long alone. Sunderland entered the little cabinet with his cautious light step and an expression that had a little lost its usual composure.

"The little Duke hath resigned," said the King laconically.

A rare ejaculation of impatience and contempt broke from the Lord Chamberlain. "Every one falleth away!" he exclaimed. "There goeth the last link with the Whigs!"

William gave a short laugh.

"I suppose that you will be the next, my lord?" he said shrewdly.

The Earl went rather pale.

"I will hold office as long as I can, Your Majesty," he answered. "But it is a hard thing to maintain my position in the face of all England. But whether I am in office or no, I shall, sir, always serve you."

The King lifted his dark eyes.

"I believe you will, my lord," he said simply; "we are old allies now. Well--we have not either of us much more to do--the people have their peace, and we have our positions, and may grow roses, and build villas, and wait for death."