Prince

Chapter 3

Outside Mrs Bull’s house on Deptford Strand a small crowd had gathered, perhaps fifteen strong. Shakespeare was taken aback to see his brother Will among them, with a group of familiar faces from the playhouses. Henslowe was there, Alleyn and Burbage, an uncommonly doleful Will Kempe, his customary jest and smile absent today. Marlowe’s patron, the poetry-loving Thomas Walsingham, stood tall and stiff with the little group. Nephew to Shakespeare’s late employer, Sir Francis Walsingham, Thomas cut an elegant, mournful figure. He smiled wanly at Shakespeare. George Peele, the poet and playmaker, cut an equally desolate figure in an outrageously costly doublet and hose of green and gold satin that would not have been out of place at court.

Shakespeare took his brother by the hand, then drew him close in an embrace. ‘This is a fine place to meet, Will.’

‘Self-defence, they say. Do you believe it, John?’

‘No, of course not. If Rob Poley said the sun was yellow I would believe it blue.’

‘First Thomas Kyd is tortured within an inch of his life, now Kit is dead. Which of us will be next?’

Shakespeare frowned. He had not thought of this killing in the context of a threat to London’s players and poets. Yet when he looked again at the group of men mourning Marlowe he saw anxiety as well as grief in their eyes. Also, despite the death and the arrest and hard questioning of playmaker Thomas Kyd for supposed heresy, he saw defiance in the crowd. He felt sick to the depths of his soul.

‘Come, John,’ Will Shakespeare said. ‘Come with us to St Nicholas and see Kit interred at least. And then I shall head home to Stratford. This city has become unhealthy.’

A small cart clattered westwards from Aldgate through the mid-morning streets of London. It was a Friday and the roads were busy with heavy drays nose to tail, drovers with flocks of geese and sheep at every turn.

The little cart pushed on regardless. The two men at the front drove their reluctant horse through the dung-thick streets with a lash. Every now and then one of them glanced over his shoulder at the barrel that bounced and jostled in the back. It looked innocent enough; onlookers, had they been interested, might have guessed that it contained biscuit or salt pork. They would have been wrong. It was packed tight with fine corns of gunpowder.

‘The city is like a farmyard today, Mr Curl.’ Luke Laveroke spoke in an accent that seemed to have no home, though there was certainly a little Scottish in there somewhere. Easily the taller of the two men, perhaps a foot above his companion, Laveroke was a good-looking man, but his face was in shadow today beneath a close-fitting leather workman’s cap. His greying hair, usually shoulder-length and well groomed, was neatly tied away from view. If anyone had cared to look closely, they might have noted his well-trimmed spade beard and fine features. But none would look at him today, for he wore the attire of a working man — a wool jerkin and knee-length brown hose — and had nothing to distinguish him from the common horde that cluttered these streets.

‘Indeed, Mr Laveroke. One cannot think for the cackle of geese and the lowing of the great beasts heading for slaughter. If only the nobility and their Dutch friends were accompanying them.’ Holy Trinity Curl was of an altogether different cut to Laveroke. His eyes were amber and piercing; so, too, his hair, almost concealed beneath a leather cap.

The cart arrived at Broad Street, its destination. Laveroke, who had the reins, pulled the unwilling horse to a halt.

‘Well, Mr Curl, here we are. The Dutch church.’

‘Not by right, Mr Laveroke. Not by right is it a Dutch church. A sad lapse by the poor young king, may God rest his soul. No part of England should ever belong to a scurvy foreign nation.’

‘Quite so, Mr Curl. So let us give the Council something to consider in the matter of strangers — following the recent sad events at Deptford.’

‘Sad events, Mr Laveroke, sad events.’

They drove the cart on a little further and stopped outside the colossal church, once the home of the Augustine friars but given to the Dutch nation by the boy king Edward VI in 1550. From inside, as they unloaded their deadly cask from the cart, they could hear the drone of prayers. The road and yard were busy; no one paid the two gunpowder men heed.

Together, they hauled and rolled the barrel along its bottom rim through the churchyard towards the north transept of the old building, which was well away from the road where their horse and cart waited.

‘I have the beetle and the peg, Mr Curl. Shall we begin?’

‘Why, yes, Mr Laveroke.’

With his mallet, Laveroke struck the strong wooden peg hard into the lower portion of the barrel. One hit was enough; the black powder spilled out of the small hole. Curl took a saltpetre-impregnated cord from inside his grubby leather jerkin. He ruffled up one end so that the strands separated, then thrust the other end into the hole. A small brown and white mongrel dog trotted over and stood sniffing his legs as he worked. Curl kicked out at it, but it would not go away. At last, the two men stood back and admired their efforts.

‘Do you have a tinderbox, Mr Laveroke?’

‘Indeed, I do, Mr Curl. It was a gift from a very great gentleman who wishes success to our endeavours.’

‘Then let us blow an arsehole in this maggoty den.’

The praying from inside the church was barely audible at this part of the transept, little more than a low hum. Laveroke struck flint against steel and lit a taper with his ornate tinderbox. ‘This should bring them a little closer to heaven, Mr Curl,’ he said as he knelt down and touched the glowing taper to the saltpetre-soaked fuse. It immediately sparked up and the two men watched for a moment with satisfaction.

‘Or hell, Mr Laveroke. Or hell, where they do belong.’

As the flame smouldered along the length of the fuse towards the barrel, the tall and handsome Mr Luke Laveroke and the amber-eyed Mr Holy Trinity Curl walked nonchalantly back towards their horse and cart.

The high-ceilinged meeting room in Sir Robert Cecil’s small mansion close to his father’s great house on the Strand was weakly lit. A tall window looked out over a central courtyard where the sun only ventured in high summer afternoons. Despite this, the room was not gloomy and had a pleasing air of intimacy and privacy. John Shakespeare sat opposite Francis Mills, his colleague in the service of Cecil. At one end of the table sat the stiff-necked Sir Henry Lee; at his side, the quiet, intense Thomas Bedwell.

The fifth man, Cecil, paced the room slowly and silently, his feet clad in pantoufles of rich blue velvet, his monogram RC braided in gold on each of them. ‘One dog you say?’ He addressed the question to Shakespeare.

‘One dog dead. No other injuries. It was good fortune that the wall held or there might have been carnage. There is a deep hole and a great deal of rubble around the north transept of the church.’

Cecil turned to Lee. ‘Perhaps, Sir Henry, you would explain to Mr Shakespeare and Mr Mills your role in this inquiry.’

Lee did not smile. The downward trajectory of his sandy moustache and beard might have conveyed the impression that this was a man rarely given to expressions of humour, yet his friends knew of his generosity and those who had served under him revered his courage on the field. ‘I am commanded to convey from Her Royal Majesty the urgency of this affair,’ he said in a curt voice accustomed to giving orders, ‘lest you had thought otherwise.’

‘I think we already understood the urgency of the threat,’ Cecil said.

‘She summoned me like a boy to her presence. She demanded to know what I, as Master-General of the Ordnance, was doing allowing villains and traitors access to gunpowder. Such was her fury, I would have rather faced a culverin’s roar. She wants these men eviscerated and soon. They must be alive when bowelled and crying for mercy even as their hearts are torn from their bodies and held before their eyes. No one in this realm must be allowed to imagine that they can acquire powder and use it for such a purpose without suffering a similar fate.’

‘You have made your point well, Sir Henry,’ Cecil said. ‘Which brings us on to the questions that must be answered. The powder. Where did it come from — and who ignited it?’

‘Saltpetre, brimstone, charcoal. In parts seventy-five, ten, fifteen. Is that not correct, Mr Bedwell?’ Lee demanded. ‘How in the name of God would I know where it comes from? I am retired. The master-generalship is an honorarium; it is a pension for my years of service in the field. Ask Mr Bedwell where the damned powder came from.’

All eyes turned to Thomas Bedwell, Storekeeper of the Ordnance. He had a pair of spectacles on the table in front of him, which he now picked up and placed on the bridge of his nose. Bedwell was in his mid fifties, a few years younger than Lee though he looked a fair bit older. As an engineer, he had applied new technologies in the building of the defensive walls of Dover harbour and Portsmouth and along the Thames. He had modernised gunnery with his rules for elevation of cannon to establish the distance a ball would travel. More than that, he claimed to have devised a method of establishing longitude at sea. Now his primary task was ensuring the care and safe-keeping of the ordnance and munitions held in the White Tower armoury and the nearby storehouses in the Minories, once home to nuns from the Order of St Clare.

‘Well, Mr Bedwell?’ Cecil said, an edge of impatience in his tone. ‘Where did the powder come from?’

‘Not the Tower. I am certain of that. But nor was it made in someone’s backyard, for the quantity used was too great. I visited the site of the explosion and from the extent of the blast, I would say the barrel contained one hundredweight or more of fair quality powder.’

‘So where?’

‘From one of the mills. The powder is supposed to be kept secure in locked vaults, but some of the mill owners fall short. Powder is left lying about. Though the mills are supposed to be strictly guarded and are inspected regularly, it is entirely possible that an amount has been stolen or sold illegally.’

‘Could it not have been stolen in transit?’ Shakespeare asked.

‘Yes, that is possible, but less likely. Had a highway robbery occurred, I would have been informed straightway, and I have had no such reports in recent months. The other places powder might have been acquired is from county stores or from the hold of a ship-of-war. County stores do not hold great quantities, but a ship is a distinct possibility. However, powder is usually not loaded until shortly before a ship weighs anchor, to reduce the risk of mishaps. My firm opinion is that a powdermill is the source.’

‘Where are they, Mr Bedwell?’

‘The nearest to London is Rotherhithe. It is powered by a watermill on a small tributary of the Thames. A little further afield, in Essex, you will find the Three Mills site on the river Lea at Bromley-by-Bow, which has recently been converted to powder production. There are also established mills at Faversham in Kent and Godstone in Surrey, and we have lately licensed a saltpetre works east of London in Suffolk.’

Cecil approached the table. He had heard all he needed from the ordnance men. ‘Thank you, Mr Bedwell. I know you have brought papers with further details of the positioning of these mills, their keepers and production details. I would ask you to leave those with Mr Shakespeare. And Sir Henry, if you see Her Majesty before I do, please assure her of our most rigorous efforts in this matter.’

‘Quite so, Sir Robert.’ Sir Henry Lee rose from his seat, followed by Bedwell. ‘I bid you all good day, leaving you with this thought. All spring, the Queen has talked of nothing else but her racehorse, Great Henry. She is convinced he will win the Golden Spur for the third year; but this news has quite distracted her. She considers the attack a personal affront to her authority. I would have her talking horses again, gentlemen, not raging like a North Sea tempest about gunpowder. That way we may all sleep a little better. So I urge you to put an end to this nonsense in short order. Until you do so, Her Majesty is expecting regular reports.’

After Lee and Bedwell had departed, Cecil turned to Mills. ‘What are your thoughts, Frank?’

‘Well, it clearly wasn’t Marlowe.’

Cecil sighed. Wearily, he rubbed the hunch of his shoulder that had earned him the epithet Robin Crookback. He was a small man, neat and self-contained. Always in control — in control of himself, of others, of his surroundings. ‘Yes,’ he said impatiently. ‘I think that is clear enough. It wasn’t Marlowe. So who was it?’

Mills lowered his pinpoint eyes, chastened. He was a tall man, about Shakespeare’s height, but thinner and older. He was becoming more and more stooped, as if he had invisible weights pressing down on him. Perhaps it was the burden of his sins, or the adulteries of his wife, that pulled him down.

He and Shakespeare had worked together for years, first for Walsingham and now under Cecil. Though their relationship had been reasonably cordial in recent months, Shakespeare could never forget that Mills had once betrayed him. Yes, he would work with him, but he would never trust him.

Mills’s great talent was in drawing information from suspects. His presence alone could often produce results as quickly as Topcliffe’s rack. At times the two interrogators had worked together — Topcliffe applying the engines of despair, Mills coaxing the confession or required information with soft words. He understood that the anticipation of agony and mutilation could often be as bad, worse even, than the pain itself.

Shakespeare disliked this in Mills, this resort to fear. Yet he had to concede that there was more to the man than this. Mills had a sharp, political mind that understood better than anyone the significance of intercepted correspondence between the courts of Europe — what to dismiss as tittle-tattle or disinformation, and what needed acting upon.

‘A witness speaks of seeing two men rolling a barrel from a small cart,’ Shakespeare said. ‘One man was tall, the other not so tall. Other than that the witness could describe nothing remarkable about them and paid them no heed. Their features were concealed by caps or hoods.’

Silence descended on the room. Sir Robert Cecil, privy councillor, chief minister in all but name, did not expect Shakespeare and Mills to speak unless they had something noteworthy to say. In many ways he was like his predecessor, Walsingham; that fastidious attention to detail, that utter belief in the power of secret knowledge. Yet Cecil was not Walsingham. He was too worldly for that. Cecil’s father had brought him up to understand the mechanics of power — and how to acquire it — without ever asking himself why he should want it. It was power for duty’s sake and it was as natural as eating, breathing or pissing to Robert Cecil. Walsingham, on the other hand, had acquired power for a purpose. It was for his sovereign, his religion and his country. He had beggared himself getting it and holding it, and had died in penury because of it.

The seconds passed in the meeting room, hidden deep in the somewhat anonymous house. Cecil’s father, Lord Burghley, Elizabeth’s longest-serving and most faithful minister, had bought it for his second son so that he should have a town place of his own; his other, greater mansion on the Strand, would go to Robert’s older half-brother, Thomas, along with the title Burghley. Robert knew, however, that he was his father’s chosen son and that he would inherit the jewel of his father’s holdings, the great palace of Theobalds in Hertfordshire.

‘And yet we cannot ignore the Marlowe connection,’ Shakespeare said, breaking the silence at last, glancing towards Mills for support. ‘Anything that involves Rob Poley must always raise suspicion. And what is Topcliffe’s interest?’

Shakespeare noticed the tightening of Cecil’s little fist, the stretching of the short and slender neck away from the hunch; most would not. Was it the name Poley or Topcliffe that brought a chill to this room?

‘Frank?’ Cecil demanded, as if Shakespeare had not spoken.

Mills studiously avoided the question of Marlowe. ‘There are many in this city who would wish harm to our Dutch friends, Sir Robert-’

Shakespeare recoiled slightly as Mills spoke. The man had midden breath and it wafted across the table at him. Before Mills could expound further, he interrupted. ‘If Marlowe was in any way involved in the intimidating placards posted outside the Dutch church, then we must wonder about a possible connection to the men who laid powder in that very place. Their method was more extreme, yet their target was the same. The Council — and you Sir Robert — thought Marlowe a fit subject for investigation alive. Has so much changed now he is dead?’

Once more, Cecil ignored Shakespeare and addressed Mills. ‘Who, Frank? Who in this city — Marlowe apart — would harm those who have sought refuge here? You called these strangers “our friends” — and they are friends of England. They bring skills and wealth with them at a time of great need. They help us open new trade routes. They help fill the war chest. And, above all, they abhor the Pope.’

Mills consulted a paper on the table in front of him. He smoothed it flat with the palm of his hand. ‘The welcome offered by the Crown and Council is easily understood, but it is worth looking at this from the perspective of the merchants and the common man. Consider this,’ he said, indicating the paper. ‘It is a summary of the recent Return of Strangers, dated May the fourth — four weeks ago. The aldermen and constables of each of the twenty-six wards have been diligent in their searches and have noted the names of more than seven thousand refugees and their children. We must assume, however, that the true figure is considerably higher. Many strangers keep others illegally about their houses as servants and apprentices. They hide when the word gets about that searchers are in the area. It would not be unreasonable to suggest that a true figure of fifteen or even twenty thousand incomers now live here.’

‘Out of perhaps two hundred thousand… possibly one in ten.’

‘Indeed, Sir Robert. And they make their presence felt, for they have a wide variety of trades and crafts. They bring skills to produce fine lace, glass, shoes, starch, hats and many more items. Their produce is much admired and desired by the English — yet they resent them, too. It cannot be denied that in some cases they do take trade away from their English neighbours. And it is true that they often keep themselves aloof and do not learn to speak English. Many English merchants, shopkeepers and craftsmen hate them. They fear their livelihoods are threatened and feel that parts of the city — Blackfriars, Billingsgate, St Martin le Grand and, further afield, Southwark — are become strange lands where a very Babel of languages is spoken.’

Cecil stopped pacing. He drew up the chair at the head of the table where Lee had recently been positioned, and sat down. He leaned forward purposefully. ‘Is there any evidence that Englishmen are joining together against the refugees?’ he demanded. ‘Have there been illegal gatherings? Will there be mobs in the street or insurrection?’ Cecil took a draught of ale and wiped a finger across his thin lip.

Mills hesitated.

‘Well?’

‘I cannot give assurances that there will be no riots; no man could. We know that the apprentices, when they are in drink, often cast stones at those they take to be refugees. But I would say this: there is no evidence that such events are organised.’

‘Somebody is organising gunpowder, however. It is a short step from there to insurrection.’

‘As yet we have no suspects,’ Mills said dolefully. ‘Nowhere to start.’

Shakespeare sat in irritated silence. Cecil turned to him.

‘John?’

‘You know my feelings, Sir Robert.’

‘Yes, I do. And I am mighty confused by them. You do not believe Marlowe wrote the outrage — and yet you think you should waste time and effort inquiring further into his death. I am surprised a man of your wit does not see the contradiction here. Furthermore, you talk of Poley: are you suggesting Robert Poley was somehow involved in this gunpowder incident? My understanding is that it occurred within a short time of Marlowe’s inquest. Poley was there as a witness, was he not? And Topcliffe was there to report back to Her Majesty. How could either man have been in two places at once?’

Cecil’s words were sharp, but Shakespeare would not roll over so easily. ‘No,’ he said, shaking his head, ‘that is not it. I have not accused Poley or Topcliffe of complicity in the gunpowder intrigue. My point is that Marlowe’s death was not straightforward. For one thing, there was the time discrepancy…’

For a moment, he wondered whether he had gone too far to speak to a senior minister thus. The moment passed. Nothing he could say would ever shock or dismay Cecil; that was why he worked for him — because he could talk to him man to man, he could disagree with him where others in power would expect to be fawned upon by obsequious underlings.

Cecil sat back from the table. ‘Mr Shakespeare,’ he said, his voice quieter, more intense. ‘John… the discrepancy over the time of Christopher Marlowe’s death is irrelevant. He still died from a blow of a dagger struck by Ingram Frizer. Even Searcher Peace agrees with that. And who are Poley, Frizer and Skeres anyway? Just the sort of low company that Marlowe always kept. There is no mystery here. He is buried. That is the end of it.’ Cecil turned back to Mills. ‘Now then, Frank, let us talk of the other faction that might have ignited the powder, if you please.’

Mills affected a solemn countenance. ‘The Spanish, Sir Robert. They are the ones who stand to gain most from unrest in London. Even now they are building up the war fleet that God and the weather saved us from last year. Philip and his Romish toad-eater in the Vatican are the ones that would happily wreak bloodshed upon our Protestant refugee friends here in London…’

‘John, the intelligence from Spain, if you will.’

Shakespeare smiled grimly. Cecil would not be moved on this. Marlowe was dead and that was it. He unfurled the paper on the table. ‘This is from Anthony Standen, sent as he travelled back from Spain through France. He writes, “The fleets in Cadiz and Lisbon are fitted for a surprise attack given fair weather and an opportunity. They plan to have Brest soon. They will not wallow as in ’88.”’ Shakespeare did not mention the intended recipient of the message, the Earl of Essex — Cecil’s great rival. The message had been intercepted from Essex’s messenger by Cecil’s searchers at Dover.

‘Given an opportunity,’ Cecil echoed. ‘That is just what we must not give them. There are threats enough.’

Indeed, Cecil had rehearsed the perils recently for the House of Commons. There were, he declared in a speech of eloquence and drama, dangers on all fronts.

Shakespeare had heard the speech — and the plea for tax revenues — and had been impressed. The way Cecil spoke, he made it sound as if Spain was closing a net around England. His words, calm and precise, instilled in every member of the House both fury and fear, so that none should doubt the need to dig deep into their own coffers. He itemised the threats from west, east, north and south.

In the west, Sir John Norris’s expeditionary force to Brittany was hard-pressed against the Spanish army of General Don Juan d’Aguila. Money, men and supplies were needed if Norris was to prevent the enemy taking the deep-water port of Brest on the western tip of that nose of land. Brest was a harbour so large it could safely have concealed the whole armada of 1588. If it should fall, Cecil proclaimed ominously, the Channel would be exposed to a new Spanish fleet, complete with invasion barges. Striking from Brittany, the whole of southern England would be at Spain’s mercy. Such an armada would start with fresh supplies and could be resupplied with victuals and ammunition as it drove eastwards towards Kent and London. In two years of campaigning in Brittany, Norris’s situation had become increasingly parlous. His poor band of troops was heavily depleted by disease, desertions, the wounding defeat at Craon and a devastating ambush at Ambrieres. Now there was hard and bloody fighting at Laval. Norris needed help, and that cost money.

In the east, the Catholic king of Poland, Sigismund, had done a deal with Spain to disrupt English trade. If this was carried through, there was a real risk that some vessels of the Navy Royal would have to be diverted from their crucial role of protecting the western approaches and the narrow seas.

In the north there was subversive action among the Scots: the Catholic noblemen Erroll and Angus had corresponded secretly with the Escorial Palace with the aim of bringing Spanish troops to Scotland against James VI, and from there to march on England.

In the south, the Spanish fleet harried England’s merchant ships in the Mediterranean; in France, the Catholic League promised towns and ports to Spain. Worse, the Protestant king, Henri IV, had announced he would receive instruction in the Catholic faith. It seemed he would convert to Catholicism to unite his country — but what would that mean for England? Elizabeth was grievously put out.

Cecil’s words had been concise and they had hit home, for he had had his way with a huge triple subsidy to raise a hoped-for three hundred thousand pounds for the Treasury.

Shakespeare recalled one other thing Cecil said that day: ‘Her Majesty, to her great renown, made this little land to be a sanctuary for all the persecuted saints of God.’

It was true. England had been a sanctuary for many thousands who had lost their homes and families to the Spanish onslaught on the mainland. Many Englishmen were unhappy, however; one member of parliament, Walter Ralegh, had gone so far as to protest that ‘the nature of the Dutchman is to fly to no man but for his profit’. So what sort of a sanctuary did it seem now, with such hostile words bandied about and with gunpowder exploding outside church doors?

This unrest at home was the last thing England needed as the net drew tighter from outside.

‘And so,’ Cecil concluded, rising once more from his chair at the end of the table in his quiet room, ‘we will find these gunpowder men without delay, and we must show them no mercy. The Queen is clear on that, and I echo her sentiments. John, this is your task. Nothing else. No Marlowe, no Poley — it is the powdermen I want. If you need manpower or funds, they are yours. Frank, you will summon every intelligencer in London and find out what they know. Report everything to Mr Shakespeare, however insignificant it might seem. Good day, gentlemen.’

As Shakespeare and Mills stood from their chairs, Cecil walked with businesslike little steps towards the door. Then he stopped and turned to Shakespeare. ‘But tread lightly, John. You can offend Coroner Danby all you want, but do not walk roughshod over English sensibilities in this matter. We must protect our foreign friends for they have brought great honour to our realm, yet our charity to them must not hinder or injure ourselves.’