The King's Chameleon (37 page)

‘Sir Christopher …' he said at last, indicating a table, chair and the requisite writing materials. Without a word Faulkner sat down, opened his pocket-book, drew a blank sheet before him and took the quill Pett offered him. He paused before putting pen to paper, recalling the hours in the saddle, then, sighing, he began to write. After a brief account of the forcing of the chain-boom and capture of the fort at Sheerness, he recorded that ‘the land forces were being led, it is said, by Colonel Dolmen late of the Army of the Commonwealth'. After mentioning the advance of the Dutch fire-ships, Faulkner listed the large ships of war which had been either seized or burnt by the Dutch.

Burnt –
Royal James
,
Loyal London
,
Royal Oak
,
Vanguard
,
Charles V
,
Matthias
,
Marmaduke
,
Maria
Sancta
.

Captured and borne off by the Enemy –
Royal Charles
&
Unity
– this last formerly the Dutch
Eendracht
taken a prize by the
Diamond
and
Yarmouth
in the North Sea, April 1665.

He added the details of the
Eendracht
out of a desire to mitigate the disaster; somehow it made not a scrap of difference. Presenting the result to Albemarle he waited while the Duke looked it over.

‘I desire that you remain here for a few days, Sir Christopher,' he said, ‘in order to accompany Mister Pett, visit all the vessels once the fires are all dead and to survey the damage in detail. If you have private correspondence to convey to London regarding the delay in your return, I shall be happy to see it delivered.'

Edmund, hearing of his father-in-law being detained at Chatham, joined him a few days later and assisted in the tedious and depressing task Albemarle had assigned Faulkner and Pett. In an attempt to win over the man with whom he must, perforce spend the next few days, Commissioner Peter Pett, son of the famous Phineas, offered Faulkner hospitality, extending this to Edmund when he, enquiring for Faulkner and being directed to the Commissioner's house, turned up on his doorstep.

Thus the three of them dined together that evening, being joined by Mistress Pett until she withdrew, leaving the men to talk of the present calamity. They discussed the disgraceful conduct of Lord Douglas's men and remarked upon the arrival of Lord Middleton with more troops, and the futility of their raising defensive works along the river's bank.

‘Everything done too late,' Faulkner growled, an oblique accusation thrown in the embarrassed Pett's direction.

‘Believe me, Sir Christopher,' Pett defended himself, ‘I share your sentiments but the fault does not lie with me. You will doubtless charge me for not having moved the
Royal Charles
as ordered, but the lack of money with which to pay the labourers has led to indiscipline among them. Without the means to pay their rents, their land-lords expel them; the same is true of many seamen who reside hereabouts. They mustered last night in great numbers once they saw with their own eyes what was afoot but, as you say, too late … too late.' He lowered the palm of his hand on the table in a gesture of despair and shook his head. ‘Besides, the orders to fit out only half a dozen small frigates this spring, and to leave the ships above forty guns laid up in ordinary,
must
be the cause of their all lying here supine, must it not? The Chancellor and Lord Treasurer are said to have persuaded the King that it was unnecessary: the one said our last victory would dissuade the Dutch from further mischief; the other insisted that no matter what might be desirable, the Exchequer was devoid of funds. Ergo, the thing was impossible and there would be no Summer Guard!' Pett paused to let the implication of his privileged information sink in. ‘As for His Grace the Duke of Albemarle …' Pett shrugged. ‘I have heard both that he added his weight to the prevailing opinion and that he did not. I am inclined to believe he said little and abided by the conclusion. I did hear,' he added confidentially, ‘that His Highness the Lord High Admiral dissented strongly, but his was a minority view within the Council of State, and even Rupert's opinion, which coincided with the Duke of York's, carried no weight. In short we were left without a naval force at sea and de Ruyter even now lies anchored off the Nore.' He shrugged, looking directly at Faulkner. ‘Thus ends my exculpation, Sir Christopher.'

Faulkner nodded. ‘I apologize if I spoke too hastily, Mister Pett,' he said. ‘At the root of it lies a lack of money. Indeed, only yesterday, His Grace mentioned his regret at not compelling the King to over-rule the other members of the council.' He paused, adding, ‘Their judgement might have been worth the hazard were it not for the fact that de Ruyter is a formidable opponent. Indeed, all the Dutch admirals are able men; one does not rise to high station in The United Provinces without ability, but de Ruyter is a giant among them.'

Eventually, they turned to Edmund, who thus far had had nothing to contribute to the discussion, asking what he knew of events in the Thames.

‘All I can tell you is that de Ruyter's second, Admiral Willem van Ghent, attempted to force the river. His ships carried the flood tide as high as they could, intending to take the Indiamen at Gravesend, but we got them shifted in time. Then the ebb came away in our favour so that van Ghent withdrew, the wind then falling light. I saw nothing of this beyond a few sails in the distance, but the King and Duke of York had made their appearance, and ordered ships down from Woolwich and Deptford to be sunk at Barking, which was all done but too late. I heard too that Prince Rupert was at Woolwich and Deptford, very active in placing artillery to cover the upper reaches and protect the Pool, which was well enough done in its way but …' Edmund shrugged and left his sentence unfinished. These measures seemed not to have impressed the populace who dwelt by and on the River of Thames.

For the next two days the three men took the Commissioner's barge and went from ship to ship. Truth to tell there was little to cheer; the burnt-out hulks had most of them broken free of their moorings, some from the burning of their bitts where the mooring chains were secured, others cast adrift by their skeleton crews in order to avoid the approaching fire-ships. Those few whose crews had attempted to save them in this manner had been attacked and set ablaze by armed parties of Dutchmen in their boats, putting off from their men-of-war with combustibles. The burning ships had drifted, to run aground on the copious mud-flats which were exposed at low water. Among them were the
Loyal London
and the
Royal James
, their huge hulls reduced to a residual skeleton of massive oak futtocks that smouldered yet as they lay like decomposing whales, heeled over, dead.

‘All the pride of the state reduced to this,' Pett remarked as their oarsmen lay on their oars and the barge glided towards the
Royal Oak
, the three gentlemen in her stern regarding the sad wreckage. As they pulled away over the calm waters of a river unruffled by the slightest breeze and running like molten copper over the hot sunlight of the June day, a lone herring gull landed on what was left of the great ship's beak-head. Opening its gape it let out its cry.

‘I never heard anything more like a great laugh of derision,' Faulkner said.

Before they left Chatham, Edmund and Faulkner mounted their horses and rode downstream, towards Sheerness, to observe what was left of the fort. Faulkner had some hopes of finding his lost telescope. It was not the long-glass presented to him by the late King, but it was a useful item and he was annoyed at having lost it in such circumstances.

On their way they passed Lord Middleton's encampment and, in paying their respects, encountered John Evelyn in conversation with the general. Evelyn seemed keen to know what Faulkner had seen of the Dutch attack and, learning that they were proposing shortly to return to London, advised them that the roads were bad.

‘The country is in an uproar, having heard that the Dutch have landed, and there are those among the soldiery busy robbing and looting. As for the populace, many run like rats in fear of their lives, abandoning their property and clutching their chattels. They achieve little thereby except to create disorder to add to our disgrace.'

‘'Tis my Lord Douglas's men who do the looting,' Edmund remarked sardonically. ‘I saw some of their handiwork. I have little doubt but it is they who put the word about that it is others.'

Having passed the time of day and commiserated on the state of affairs, the two continued their ride to the fort – or what remained of it. The Dutch had done an efficient job in its demolition. Its embrasures had been destroyed, its guns tipped into the fosse and those parts of the structure made of wood burned. Faulkner thought of his madcap charge with a sense of shame; he thought better of regaling Edmund with a narration. Instead he picked at his scabby ear and began a half-hearted hunt for his lost glass. Finally, he gave up.

Edmund had walked his horse down to the shore to investigate the shipping lying in the distant channel. Reluctantly, Faulkner followed. By the time he drew rein alongside Edmund, the younger man had scanned the horizon and turned to his father-in-law.

‘Look!' Edmund exclaimed, sweeping his right hand from left to right. ‘As far as one can see the Dutch fleet lies at anchor on our doorstep as though it were their own – which I suppose it is for the time being.' From the faint speck of the buoy of the Nore, eastwards as far as the keen eye could see, lay a long line of men-of-war. Every one of them within sight bore the red, white and blue colours of the Seven United Provinces. ‘You did not find your glass?'

‘No.' The two men sat for a moment side by side. ‘De Witt has had his revenge,' said Faulkner resignedly. ‘Revenge for Downing's outrage on his country's integrity, revenge for de Ruyter's late defeat and revenge for Holmes's Bonfire. We are laid low, Edmund, as low as it is possible to be, and I recall how low we were in King James's day, aye, and that of the first Charles. I was myself adopted, brought up and nurtured to help end that state of affairs, and now look at us: back where we began. It is as though my life has meant nothing.' He paused, aware that Edmund was looking at him, ignorant of what he spoke. He smiled. ‘I will tell you some time, Edmund, of old Sir Henry Mainwaring, of the late King presenting me with a long-glass, of meeting and losing Katherine, of marrying Hannah's mother, of raiding the coast of Morocco to root out the Sallee pirates from their lair, of teaching the present King how to sail, of civil war and exile and much more, but now –' he tugged his horse's head round a second time – ‘now we shall go home.'

If Faulkner thought that he might be allowed a life of retired ease, he was mistaken. Although a peace treaty was signed at Breda in July, there was a growing appetite for revenge upon the Dutch. It was whispered that there were secret negotiations in train between King Charles and King Louis of France, the latter eager to extend his kingdom's borders to the Rhine and over-run Flanders.

In the immediate wake of the Dutch raid the Duke of York, in his capacity as Lord High Admiral, ordered Faulkner to join other senior commanders as a commissioner to investigate the best way to restore the Royal Navy to its former power. Only one fleet flag-ship, the
Royal Sovereign
, had escaped destruction through being at Portsmouth, but it was the lack of money that doomed the commissioners' recommendations from being carried out in the months that followed. There were also political dimensions: a Committee of Miscarriages set up by the House of Commons, in an unholy union of Royalist and Republican members, sought to discover where the two and a half million pounds sterling voted by Parliament for the war had gone.

This in turn engendered a seeking of scapegoats, though the King's mistresses were exempt. Among those who lost their posts in the wake of de Ruyter's final retreat from his anchorage along the coast of north Kent was Peter Pett at Chatham. Dismissed with obloquy, his dilatoriness was unjustly held to have been the chief cause of the Dutch success. Clarendon also fell from grace, dismissed as the architect of disaster and subject to impeachment. Albemarle too faded from public notice from this time, age and infirmity taking their toll.

Although Sir George Downing, sometime earlier recalled from The Hague and appointed Secretary to the Treasury, skilfully reconstructed the King's finances, they waited upon time for the effect of taxation to pay its dividend. Nevertheless, the Admiralty and the Navy Board underwent reform, driven by the Duke of York and largely put into effect by that same Samuel Pepys who Faulkner had first noted at the Trinity House as a pushy young fellow. Meanwhile poor Evelyn toiled to ease the burden of the sick, the wounded and the unpaid seamen, supported as far as they were able, by the Trinity Brethren.

Against this background the optimism in which Faulkner and his fellow commissioners first met withered quickly and had little effect. The commission was quietly wound up and, in the end, Faulkner's contribution to the rebuilding of the King's navy was to answer some questions put to him at Trinity House by Master Pepys. This grew into a modest correspondence in which Faulkner gave of his experience, remarking to Katherine that he considered Master Pepys would reserve to himself any credit accruing to his suggestions.

‘That is the way of the world,' Katherine replied, smiling. ‘The young push out the old when they can, thinking the old know little and what little they know is made better use of by the young.'

Faulkner chuckled, reaching for his spectacles. ‘He'll learn, and one day likely suffer the indignities of old age.' Faulkner rubbed his eyes before clamping the spectacles on the bridge of his nose. ‘Now I have Edmund's report on the new ship to read.'