Sea Change (26 page)

'Mr Spandrel?'

'Yes.' He nodded. 'I accept.'

INTERLUDE

April 1721–March 1722

At the beginning of April, 1721, the Earl of Sunderland bowed to the seemingly inevitable and resigned as First Lord of the Treasury. Robert Walpole succeeded him with immediate effect, combining the office with that of Chancellor of the Exchequer. The nation's finances were thus squarely under Walpole's control. So indeed was the nation's mail, since he at once appointed his brother Galfridus Postmaster-General, or Interceptor-General, as some suspicious letter-writers dubbed him.

Sunderland was not quite a spent force, however. He remained Groom of the Stole and the King's principal confidant, with control of the Secret Service. He was willing to lie low for a while, but not to accept defeat. There were Members, actual and prospective, to be bribed and blackmailed before the general election due to be held the following March. If more of Sunderland's bought men than Walpole's found a seat in the new Parliament, their fortunes might yet be reversed.

The South Sea Sufferers Bill had meanwhile to make its way through the old Parliament. It was intended to be the last word on the notorious Bubble, recovering as much as possible from the estates of the directors and other convicted parties to defray the company's losses. But the last word was a long time being uttered. Each director was allowed to offset certain inescapable liabilities against his declared assets, necessitating lengthy argument at every stage. Deals were done, bargains struck, favours rewarded. Aislabie, the disgraced former Chancellor, escaped with the bulk of his fortune intact. The heiresses of the deceased Postmaster Craggs were leniently treated. And Sir Theodore Janssen, when his turn came, was mysteriously allowed to keep more than any other director.

The public knew what all this amounted to, of course: corruption in its normal nesting-ground — high places. But what was to be done? Robert Knight remained locked up and incommunicado in the Citadel at Antwerp. (Though not if persistent rumours of his secret removal elsewhere were to be believed.) Of his most sensitive records there was no apparent trace. Walpole waited until most Members had slipped away to their country seats before bringing the matter to the vote early in August. Despite the audible protests of aggrieved creditors outside the House, the Bill was passed. Legally, the South Sea affair was closed.

In Rome, the Pretender continued to believe that discontent over the issue would lead to his restoration. As a plot-hatchery, the Palazzo Muti remained busy. But plots and risings, especially the successful kind, were not quite the same thing. The newly elected Pope Innocent XIII — the former Bishop of Osimo — assured James Edward of his full support, before giving a very good impression of forgetting about him altogether.

At the end of September came news of Knight's escape from the supposedly escape-proof Antwerp Citadel and his abscondence across the border into France. The Brodrick Committee's oft-repeated demands for his extradition had finally been answered, though scarcely in the fashion its members had hoped. Another deal had clearly been done. Before the year was out, Knight had established himself in Paris as a financial consultant. As the former chief cashier of a bankrupt company with debts of £14,500,000, his credentials for such a role were manifestly impeccable.

That portion of the British public still hoarding South Sea shares certificates and notes of credit bore such events in a mood of half-stifled fury. Out of pocket and humour alike, they came to hate Walpole even more than the delinquent directors who had bilked them. 'The Screenmaster-General', as they called him, had screened his enemies as well as his friends, leaving the poor and the innocent to pay the price.

They can hardly have been surprised when it became known that the presses used for printing the Brodrick Committee's reports had been smashed on the orders of Viscount Townshend. There were to be no second editions. Not that those reports contained more than a fraction of the truth, of course. Only a certain green-covered ledger could tell the whole story. And nobody seemed to know where that might be found, or indeed whether it still existed.

With a collective sigh of relief on the part of those who had lost less by it than they had gained, the sorry saga of the South Sea was consigned, if not to history, then at least to history's waiting-room, whence it was likely to be retrieved only in the most extraordinary circumstances. The political world's attention shifted back to more familiar ground: a struggle for power between two able and ambitious men, to be decided by that orgy of auctioned loyalty known as a general election.

BOOK TWO

April–June 1722

Viscount Townshend hurried across St James's Square through a breezy spring morning. His destination was the London residence of the Earl of Sunderland and the circumstances were sufficiently extraordinary for him to feel disconcertingly torn between elation and apprehension. The election results were still arriving, in their customary dribs and drabs, and those so far received had left the issue between Sunderland and Walpole tantalizingly undecided. But those results had suddenly become irrelevant. The issue was decided. Sunderland was dead.

News had reached Townshend the previous evening of Sunderland's sudden and as yet unexplained demise. It had been conveyed to him by the Lord Privy Seal, the Duke of Kingston, considerably put out at being instructed by Walpole to secure all the dead Earl's papers at once, even if it meant breaking into his study to do so. Kingston had not cared much for the propriety of this move and nor had Townshend. But he had nevertheless told Kingston to proceed. His brother-in-law's instincts, though sometimes brutal, were always to be trusted.

It was undeniable that the long struggle with Sunderland had taught Walpole some unedifying lessons. He had become more secretive, more devious, more downright egotistical. He hid the traits well, beneath bonhomie and bluster, but they were there for those who knew him best to detect. This latest turn of events was an example. With Sunderland scarcely cold in his death-bed, let alone his grave, Walpole was laying claim to documents that were technically the property of his family, trampling on the feelings of his pregnant widow and blithely incurring the wrath of his mother-in-law, the formidable Duchess of Marlborough. All this, moreover, he had embarked upon without troubling to consult Townshend.

A consultation of sorts was presumably what awaited Townshend at Spencer House. But it would be of the kind he was growing all too used to: one held after the event. Perhaps he should protest. 'Remember, my dear,' his darling Dolly had said to him more than once, 'Robin owes such a lot to you.' Townshend certainly remembered. But he was no longer sure his brother-in-law did.

Spencer House should have been a place of hushed mourning. Instead, it was a tumult of scurrying servants and bustling Treasury clerks. Several of the latter were loading tea-chests crammed with papers into a closed cart under the sheepish supervision of the Duke of Kingston, who cast Townshend a doleful look and shrugged his massive shoulders.

'He's been busy in Sunderland's study since dawn,' Kingston said, neither troubling nor needing to specify whom he meant. 'I found it locked, you know. I had to force the door open. Every drawer as well.' It was unlikely that Kingston had personally forced anything, but his point was made. 'Damned unseemly, I call it.'

'But necessary, no doubt,' said Townshend.

'Who's to say? All this' — he gestured at the tea-chests — 'is bound for Chelsea.' Walpole's London residence, then, not the Treasury. It was an eloquent distinction.

'How's the Countess?'

'In a torrent of tears, as you'd expect. And horror-struck to find a pack of inky-fingered clerks clumping about her home, as you'd also expect. She may have miscarried by now, for all I know.'

'Where's the, er…'

'Corpse? Taken away, thank God.' Kingston lowered his voice. 'They're talking of a post mortem.'

'Why?'

'Why do you think? The fellow was in rude good health when I last saw him.'

'You're surely not suggesting—'

'I'm suggesting nothing. But others won't be so circumspect, will they?'

'I dare say not.'

'Well, don't let me keep you. He's in no mood to greet late arrivals.'

'I'm not late.'

'No?' Kingston's voice sank to a whisper. 'If you ask me, we're all late when it comes to keeping up with him.'

There was unquestionably an air of pre-emptive industry in Sunderland's plundered study. Walpole sat at his dead foe's desk, a late breakfast mug of cider at his elbow and a drift of papers before him, his face flushed and beaming, like that of a farmer in their native Norfolk at the conclusion of a tiring but ample harvest.

'Ah, there you are, Charles. Welcome, welcome. How's the day?'

'Well enough,' Townshend conceded, though in truth he had only the faintest awareness of the weather.

'Better than well, I reckon. This is a day I didn't think we'd see.'

'What have Sunderland's papers revealed?'

'Much. You might almost say all. But—' He broke off and glared across at a pair of clerks filling boxes on the other side of the room. 'You two! Get out!'

'Yes, sir,' they chorused. 'At once, sir.' And out they got.

'Close the door behind you!' It clicked respectfully shut. 'I've had them under my feet all morning, damn their eyes.'

'It looks as if you've needed them.'

'For porterage, yes. It's about all they're good for. But sit down, Charles. Make yourself comfortable. You may as well.'

'Comfortable? In a dead man's study? I don't know about that.' Nevertheless, Townshend drew up a chair. As he did so, his eye was taken by a portrait above the fireplace of a good-looking young man in military costume of the Civil War era. 'An ancestor?'

'The first Earl. Killed at the battle of Newbury, a few months after he was given the title.'

'Sunderland's grandfather?'

'Yes. Note that. The grandfather, not the father. The second Earl was the same brand of scheming trimmer as his son. Maybe Sunderland wanted someone more inspiring to look at over his mantelpiece.'

'Have you found anything inspiring to look at?' Townshend nodded at the slew of papers on the desk.

'You could say so. Sunderland seems to have been mighty selective about passing on what the Secret Service brought him.'

'Has he held back anything important?'

'It's only the important stuff he has held back. You and Carteret can pick out the bones when it's all been collated. Carteret tells me, by the way, that he may have found someone who can give us more reliable information on the doings of the Pretender than the kilted drunkards we normally employ.'

'Baron von Stosch.'

'That's his name. The genuine article, you reckon?'

'About as genuine as a diamond necklace on a Haymarket whore. But he could be useful.'

'He'll need to be if I read these runes aright.'

'What is it, Robin?' Townshend sat forward, his curiosity aroused. 'Jacobite rumblings?'

'There are always rumblings. This is something more. What do you make of these?' Walpole plucked a batch of papers from the pile before him and tossed it across the desk.

It was a list of names, running to several pages, arranged under county headings. The names were familiar to Townshend. Many of them were known Jacobites. Many more were not. 'These surely don't all belong in the same basket,' he said. 'You're not suggesting…'

'Look at Norfolk.'

Townshend leafed forward to their own county and read the names, with rising incredulity. 'Bacon, l'Estrange, Heron, North, Wodehouse.' He stopped. 'Some of these are our bought men.'

'But some men sell themselves twice over. Ever hear of a lawyer called Christopher Layer?'

'I don't think so. Hold on, though. Not Layer of Aylsham?'

'You have him. Not a credit to his profession, as you know. That list seems to be his handiwork. And Secret Service reports say Layer visited Rome last summer.'

'He's gone over to the Pretender?'

'To the extent of boasting he'll be Lord Chancellor under King James, apparently.'

'Then… how did Sunderland… come by his list?'

'There's the question, Charles. How indeed? Perhaps he was simply sent it. Perhaps he asked for it to be drawn up. Sudden death leaves no time for the disposal of incriminating documents. That's the best of it. On the one hand the Secret Service is busy telling Sunderland that Layer's an active Jacobite plotter known to be in regular communication with one James Johnson, an alias, they believe, of none other than George Kelly.'

'Secretary to the Bishop of Rochester.'

'Exactly. Our least loyal prelate. That, as I say, is on the one hand. On the other, Sunderland has Layer's list in his possession, bearing every appearance of a muster-roll of traitors and their camp-followers, including twenty-three peers and eighty-three Members of Parliament.' Walpole grinned. 'I counted.'

'How long has he had the list?'

'Who knows? Long enough to alert the King's ministers to its contents, I'd have thought. But he didn't, did he? And this may be the reason.' Walpole slid a single sheet of paper across the desk to join the pages of Layer's list.

Townshend picked up the sheet of paper. It was a letter, addressed to Sunderland. As he read it, his mouth fell open in surprise. Then he read it again, this time aloud. '“I am greatly obliged to your lordship for the service you have rendered my cause and wish to assure your lordship that such service will be well rewarded. Your privileged foreknowledge of the Electoral itinerary will be our sure and certain guide in determining when it would be most propitious to set our enterprise afoot. It will be an enterprise of honour and of right and to find that you have as keen a sense as did your grandfather of where honour and right abide is to me a distinct and pronounced pleasure.”'

'You didn't know the Pretender had such a florid style of expression, did you, Charles?'

'“Jacobus Rex.”' Townshend read the signature in no more than a murmur. Then he looked at the date. 'This was written less than a month ago.'

'So it appears. In perfect confidence, so it also appears. But I could hardly ask Galfridus to rifle through Sunderland's post-bag, could I? There are limits.' Walpole sighed. 'This is what comes of abiding by them.'

'I can hardly believe it, Robin. Sunderland… and the Pretender.'

'He'd have thrown in his lot with the Devil himself to get the better of me.'

The use of the singular pronoun registered somewhere in Townshend's confused thoughts. Me, not us. It was telling, in its way. But not as telling as the letter in his hand. 'What's meant by the… “Electoral itinerary”, do you suppose?'

'The date of the King's departure for Hanover, I'd surmise. He's set on going this year. As to precisely when, who'd know sooner than his Groom of the Stole?'

'They plan to strike when the King's out of the country?'

'Or worse — to assassinate him on the road to Hanover.'

'Surely Sunderland wouldn't have put his name to that.'

'He put his name to something. Of course, if he'd succeeded in packing the House with his creatures and ousting us from office, he could have exposed the plot and claimed the credit for saving the kingdom. No doubt he only meant to go through with it if the elections went against him. As our managers seem to reckon they generally have. A desperate man, our Sunderland. And now a dead one.'

'What are we to do?'

'Nothing, for the moment. I want the ringleaders, Charles. And I mean to have them.' Walpole sat back in his chair. 'So, let them think they're safe for a little longer yet. Let them plot away their days while we gather the evidence to damn them.'

'Where's such evidence to be found? This letter condemns Sunderland, not his co-conspirators.'

'We must draw them out.' Walpole smiled. 'And I think I may have found a way to do just that. Sir Theodore Janssen came to see me a few days ago.'

'Is he still complaining about his treatment?'

'With decreasing energy. No, no. He came to see me because of an undertaking I secured from him while he was in the Tower — an undertaking to keep me advised of any developments in the matter of the Green Book.'

'How can there be any developments now?'

'I expected none, certainly. But what Janssen said gives me—' There was a sudden commotion outside. Kingston's voice could be heard above that of another man. 'Ah! That'll be Lord Godolphin.'

'Godolphin? What will he say when he finds us taking our ease in his brother-in-law's study?'

'Very little, when we show him that letter. I suggested he call, as a matter of fact.'

'Why?'

'So that one of Sunderland's relatives could witness our destruction of the letter.'

'You mean to destroy it?'

'Certainly. As an act of compassion, to spare the noble Earl's reputation and his family's feelings. That should take the wind out of Madam Marlborough's sails, don't you reckon?' Walpole winked. 'It's not the dead we need to snare, Charles. It's the living.'