Sea Change (42 page)

KINGSTON, Evelyn Pierrepoint, Duke of. Lord Privy Seal.

KNIGHT, Robert. Chief cashier of South Sea Company.

LANCKAERT. Sheriff of Amsterdam - the city's chief law and order officer.

LAYER, Christopher. Lawyer. Jacobite plotter.

LAYTON. Alias of Christopher Layer.

LONGRIGG, Esmund. Chief woodward of Windsor Forest. Local landowner. LORENZINI. Chancellor to Grand Duke of Tuscany.

McILWRAITH, James, Captain. Soldier of fortune. Secret agent for Brodrick's Committee of Inquiry.

MALSSEN. Captain of V.O.C. vessel Tovenaer.

MAR, John Erskine, Earl of. Commander of Jacobite army in Scotland during the Fifteen.

MARABOUT, Gideon. Shopkeeper who sells Spandrel a map of Windsor Forest. MARLBOROUGH, John Churchill, Duke of. Captain-General of the Army during War of Spanish Succession.

MARLBOROUGH, Sarah Churchill, Duchess of. Wife of Duke of Marlborough and mother-in-law of Earl of Sunderland.

MASTER, Harcourt. Director of South Sea Company.

MAYBRICK. A tile merchant Spandrel meets on his way to Amsterdam, de

MEDICI, Cosimo, Grand Duke of Tuscany.

MEHEMET. Turkish Groom of the Chamber to King George I.

MONTEITH, Father. Secretary to Cardinal Bortolazzi. NEGUS, Francis, Colonel. Deputy Lieutenant of Windsor Castle.

NEWCASTLE, Thomas Pelham-Holles, Duke of. Lord Great Chamberlain. NORFOLK, Thomas Howard, Duke of. Jacobite plotter.

ORRERY, Charles Boyle, Earl of. Jacobite plotter.

PELS. Sir Theodore Janssen's banker in Amsterdam.

PHELPS. British Consul in Milan.

PLATEN, Clara Elizabeth von Meyerburg Zuschen, Countess of. Secondary mistress to King George I.

PLENDERLEATH, Josiah. Deceased father of Estelle de Vries (according to her). PLUNKET, John. Jacobite plotter.

POWELL, William. Alias used by Spandrel when leaving Amsterdam for the last time, de PRIE, Ercole di Turinetti, Marquis de. Minister Plenipotentiary to Governor-General of Austrian Netherlands.

RAWLINSON, Richard, Dr. Theologian at Oxford University.

ROELANT. One of three ruffians who try to kill Spandrel in Amsterdam (see Henrik and Jan).

ROGERS, Captain. Adjutant to Colonel Negus.

ROSS, Charles, General. Member of Brodrick's Committee of Inquiry; former commanding officer of Captain Mcllwraith.

SCHAUB, Sir Luke. British Ambassador to Paris.

SIEGWART, Frau. Proprietress of Pension Siegwart, Berne.

SILVERWOOD, Naseby. One of two supposed Grand Tourists whom Spandrel meets with Estelle de Vries in Switzerland (see Buckthorn).

SLOPER, William. Member of Brodrick's Committee of Inquiry.

SPANDREL, Margaret. Mother of William Spandrel.

SPANDREL, William. Mapmaker. Son of William and Margaret Spandrel. SPANDREL, William senior. Bankrupt mapmaker. Died 1720.

SPENCER, Hon. William. Infant son of Earl of Sunderland.

STANHOPE, Charles. Treasury Secretary until forced to resign over South Sea scandal. Cousin of Earl Stanhope.

STANHOPE, James, Earl. Secretary of State for Northern Department until February 1721.

STOSCH, Philip von, Baron. German bibliophile recruited by Carteret to spy on the Pretender in Rome.

SUNDERLAND, Charles Spencer, Earl of. First Lord of the Treasury until forced to resign over South Sea scandal.

SUNDERLAND, Judith Spencer, Countess of. Wife of Earl of Sunderland. SURTEES, Richard, 'Dick'. Former apprentice of William Spandrel senior. TAILLARD, Jean-Luc. Surveyor for whom Spandrel works in Rennes. TOWNSHEND, Charles, Viscount. Secretary of State for Northern Department from February 1721; old friend and brother-in-law of Robert Walpole.

TOWNSHEND, Dorothy, 'Dolly', Viscountess. Wife of Viscount Townshend and sister of Robert Walpole.

TURRETTINI. Banker used by Estelle de Vries in Geneva.

UGELS, Balthasar. Amsterdam shopkeeper who rents his basement to Zuyler.

UGELS, Rebekka. Daughter of Balthasar Ugels.

de VRIES, Estelle. English-born wife of Ysbrand de Vries.

de VRIES, Gerrit. Son of Ysbrand de Vries by first marriage.

de VRIES, Ysbrand. V.O.C. merchant and old friend of Sir Theodore Janssen. WAGEMAKER, Augustus, Colonel. Secret agent of Robert Walpole.

WAGEMAKER, Dorothea. Sister of Augustus and Tiberius Wagemaker. Fiancée of Captain Hatton. Died in a fall, 1713.

WAGEMAKER, Henry. Father of Augustus, Tiberius and Dorothea Wagemaker. Died 1712.

WAGEMAKER, Tiberius. Brother of Augustus and Dorothea Wagemaker. WALPOLE, Catherine. Wife of Robert Walpole.

WALPOLE, Catherine, 'Kate'. Eldest daughter of Robert Walpole. An invalid. WALPOLE, Edward. Second son of Robert Walpole. Oppidan at Eton.

WALPOLE, Galfridus. Youngest brother of Robert Walpole. Postmaster-General from March 1721.

WALPOLE, Horatio, 'Old Horace'. Younger brother of Robert Walpole. Treasury Secretary from April 1721.

WALPOLE, Horatio, 'Young Horace'. Youngest son of Robert Walpole.

WALPOLE, Mary. Younger daughter of Robert Walpole.

WALPOLE, Robert junior. Eldest son of Robert Walpole.

WALPOLE, Robert, 'Robin'. Paymaster-General until April 1721. Thereafter First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer.

WELSH, Ann, 'Annie'. A neighbour of the Spandrels in Cat and Dog Yard. WHARTON, Philip, Duke of. Eccentric hell-raising Jacobite.

ZUYLER, Pieter. Secretary to Ysbrand de Vries.

APPENDIX B

Glossary

Recommended reading only for those with a taste for historical detail: an explanation of some eighteenth-century terms which may not be familiar to the contemporary reader, with notes on their significance in 1721/22.

THE AUSTRIAN EMPIRE AND THE AUSTRIAN NETHERLANDS

The Holy Roman Empire, a medieval attempt to unite central Europe under a single Christian Emperor, had long since become moribund. The Habsburg Emperors ruled effectively only in their Austro-Hungarian heartland, most of which actually lay outside the notional boundaries of the Empire thanks to recent conquests from the Turks — hence the growing trend to refer to this hotchpotch of territories as Austria. For finishing on the winning side in the War of the Spanish Succession (q.v.) Austria was rewarded with most of Spain's subject territory in Italy plus the Spanish Netherlands — the southern half of the formerly Spanish-ruled Low Countries, more or less equivalent to today's Belgium and Luxembourg. The Austrian Netherlands (as they were thereafter known) offered the Emperor a definite but far from straightforward opportunity to compete with the British, French and Dutch in maritime trade.

COFFEE-HOUSES

These establishments, which had begun to spring up in the middle of the previous century, provided rather more than coffee. They were male-only eating, drinking, debating, gambling and newspaper-reading dens, distinguishable from taverns by virtue of (slightly) higher standards of decor and behaviour.

DEBTORS' PRISONS

Imprisonment for debt was a Sword of Damocles hanging over the head of anyone who accepted any form of credit. It was also a Catch-22, since, once imprisoned, how could a debtor pay his creditors? Even in debt, however, there was class distinction. In London, the King's Bench Prison was reserved for gentleman debtors, the Marshalsea and the Fleet for the lower reaches of society. There were also gradations of imprisonment, since not all debtors were penniless. Some could pay to live outside the prison itself but within its rules, in designated lodging-houses, from which base they might hope to earn some money and claw their way back to solvency. Alternatively, a debtor could flee to a different county (which in London meant crossing the river), where there was no writ for their arrest, or take refuge in one of the recognized debtors' sanctuaries, such as Whitefriars in London and Abbey Strand in Edinburgh (the sites of ancient and legally protected monastic foundations). Debt also enjoyed a sabbath. No debtor could be arrested on a Sunday.

THE FIFTEEN AND THE FORTY-FIVE

The two famous Jacobite (q.v.) risings of the eighteenth century, the first a recent memory, the second yet to happen. The Fifteen was intended to exploit popular resentment of the shipping over of a German prince to succeed Queen Anne in the summer of 1714. The leader of the rebel army, the Earl of Mar, proved a disastrous military strategist and the rising was already a lost cause when James Edward, the Pretender, landed at Peterhead in December 1715. He retreated to France, along with Mar, in February 1716, leaving the remnants of their army to be hunted down by Lord Cadogan's forces. Thirty years later, the Forty-Five was to prove an altogether more serious rising under the personal leadership of Charles Edward, the Pretender's son.

HANOVER

The Electorate of Brunswick-Luneburg, commonly known as Hanover, qualified as an electorate because its ruler was one of the German princes traditionally entitled to vote on the choice of Holy Roman Emperor. It became attached to the British crown at the death of Queen Anne in August 1714. The Act of Settlement of 1701 had settled the presumptive succession on Princess Sophia of Hanover, granddaughter of King James I and Anne's closest Protestant relative. Sophia died in May 1714 and it was thus her son George, who had ruled Hanover since 1698, who succeeded to the British throne. Hanover, however, remained officially a foreign country, with a completely separate (benignly despotic) form of government, coincidentally reigned over by the same man.

JACOBITES

Any person who maintained (as many did) that King James II remained the rightful King after and despite the Glorious Revolution of 1689 was, by definition, a Jacobite (the name being derived from the Latin version of James, Jacobus), but slowly the expression became limited in application to those who wanted to do something about it and engaged in treasonable conspiracy to that end. Following James II's death in exile in 1701, Jacobites recognized his son as King James III. The succession of George I in 1714 outraged them even more, since Anne had at least been a daughter of the royal blood, but it also raised their hopes of a restoration of the true line — hopes destined ever to be dashed.

THE MISSISSIPPI COMPANY

When King Louis XIV of France died in September 1715, he was succeeded by his five-year-old great-grandson, Louis XV. Power was vested in a Regent, Louis XIV's nephew, Philippe, Duke of Orleans, an insecure and impressionable individual who was rapidly seduced by the economic theories of the Scottish financier, John Law, a far-seeing advocate of paper money, who founded the Banque Generale in April 1716 and soon turned it into a quasi-national bank. In August 1717, Law took over the ramshackle Mississippi Company, which held the monopoly on trade with France's North American colonies, renamed it the Company of the West (though the old name somehow refused to go away) and transformed it into a vigorous commercial enterprise with, it soon came to be believed, such limitless wealth-making possibilities that only a fool would refuse to invest in it. The company's stock soared in value and soared again as it gradually acquired every other overseas trading monopoly at the Regent's disposal. It was accordingly renamed the Company of the Indies (although everybody still called it the Mississippi). In August 1719, Law played his trump card: the conversion of the entire National Debt of France (standing at more than £100 million) into Mississippi shares. The calculation on which the scheme was based — that the shares would continue to rise in value — proved a self-fulfilling prophecy, fuelled by generous instalment arrangements for payment and a flood of paper money from Law's bank (by then the official Banque Royale). What Law had failed to foresee, however, was the resulting hyper-inflation, which soon began to dislocate society. In his newly appointed role of Finance Minister, Law resorted to ever more draconian measures to control the beast he had let loose, culminating in May 1720 with an edict halving the face value of banknotes and Mississippi shares. Three days of rioting in Paris persuaded the Regent to overrule him. The shares sank like a stone and the bank was besieged by mobs demanding coin for their notes. Want and ruin had suddenly taken the place of glut and prosperity. Not long afterwards, plague arrived in Marseilles to add to France's woes. By November 1720 paper money was dead and the Banque Royale broken. Law fled the country and a full-scale inquiry was launched into the disaster, the laggardly conclusion of which, in October 1722, was that all documents relating to the affair should be destroyed, by public burning in specially designed cages. The Mississippi Company lived on, but its secrets were not permitted to. The Duke of Orleans also lived on, but only until the following year. He is commemorated by the city of New Orleans, Louisana, named in his honour. Law died in Venice in 1729 and is commemorated by every colourful chapter in the subsequent history of financial speculation.

NEW STYLE, OLD STYLE

The Julian Calendar (credited to Julius Caesar) counted every fourth year as a Leap Year, an insufficiently precise adjustment which led to a gradual separation of the calendar and tropical years. The Gregorian Calendar (promulgated by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582) solved this problem by omitting the Leap Year at the turn of three out of every four centuries. It was rapidly adopted by most European countries, but not by Great Britain until 1752. The result was that in 1721/22 the British calendar lagged eleven days behind most of the rest of Europe. This was further complicated by the British practice of beginning the year for legal and civil purposes on 25th March (Lady Day - the Feast of the Annunciation of the Virgin Mary) rather than 1st January. Businessmen dealing with the continent took this in their stride, moving easily between the two systems and often employing double dating. Hence Sir Theodore Janssen would probably have dated the letter he sent to Ysbrand de Vries after his meeting with Robert Knight at the outset of this story 19th/30th January 1720/21. Dates in the continental calendar were referred to as New Style, those in the British as Old Style. (When Great Britain finally adopted the Gregorian Calendar, it also moved the beginning of the year to 1st January. Money-lenders did not care to lose eleven days' interest, far less the better part of three months', hence the financial year has begun ever since on 6th April, being 25th March plus the missing eleven days.)