Week by week, and month by month, the factions contested with each other, and foreign bribes flowed in. Not a minister, nor officeholder, failed to enrich himself from this battle, for that is what it was. At one moment the Spanish faction held the upper hand, as Mr. Bennet and others consolidated their positions and took more power into their hands. At another the French struck back, subsidizing the dowry paid for the king’s new wife. And the Dutch looked anxiously from one great enemy to another, knowing that if they allied with one, they would be attacked by the other. The interests of justice and religion were lost sight of in their entirety as the battles at court played out in miniature the greater battles that were yet to come on the seas and fields of Europe.
And there were two great enigmas—the king, who would have allied with anyone who paid enough to subsidize his pleasure, and Lord Clarendon, who opposed any foreign entanglements, believing His Majesty’s position at home to be so insecure that the least trembling from abroad would shake his throne irrecoverably. His views prevailed in 1662, but others, such as Lord Bristol, held the opposite view, thinking either that fine victories abroad would strengthen the crown, or secretly hoping for the opportunities that defeat would offer. For many wanted to bring about Clarendon’s fall, and worked tirelessly to accomplish his ruin. A defeat in arms would destroy his career more surely than anything else, and I do not doubt that many loyal servants of the king lay awake at night, hoping that one would come to pass.
For the moment, though, the greatest weapon the opponents of Clarendon had was the scandalous behavior of his daughter, which had convulsed the court scarcely six months before, and severely weakened the chancellor’s position. For the wretched woman had married the king’s brother, the Duke of York, without troubling to gain permission first.
That his daughter was well pregnant by the time of the nuptials, that Clarendon loathed the Duke of York deeply, that he was as deceived as the king, none of this was of any consequence. Royal authority had been held to ridicule, and the king had lost a valuable card in the diplomatic game—the duke’s hand in marriage would have been a fine inducement to seal an alliance. It was said Clarendon himself would not have the subject raised in his presence, and was said to pray daily that the queen would give birth to an heir, so that he could be acquitted of conniving to put his own daughter on the throne, which would surely happen should the king die without legitimate issue. It was not a matter easily forgiven, and his enemies, above all Lord Bristol, who had the finest wit of them all, made sure it could not be forgotten either.
Such maneuverings among the mighty and the puffed-up did not attract my attention overmuch; foolishly so, perhaps, as more attention to the details of such petty squabbles would have helped me greatly. I was, as yet, far from understanding that these intrigues were fundamental to my own enquiries, and without them I would have had no grounds for concern over anything. This, however, is a matter which will become clear in its proper place. At that time, I saw myself in all modesty as a servant—one of importance, perhaps, but nonetheless with no interest in courtly battles nor even with a concern for influencing the policy of the realm. My task was to tell my masters the secret history of the kingdom, so they might reach their decisions with knowledge, if they wished to do so. In this, my importance was crucial, for good intelligence is the mother of prevention, and the measures of suppression being taken were far from complete. Town walls were being razed, but not fast enough; sectaries of all sorts were being arrested and fined, but there were always more, and the more cunning kept themselves in concealment.
Anybody reading this account may wonder why I was prepared to give such attention to the question of Marco da Cola, since I have as yet described little to justify my effort. In fact, he was still only of passing interest to me, one of those lines of enquiry which are pursued for the sake of thoroughness—there was nothing solid on which I could concentrate, and little more than curiosity to keep my attention focused. I had, it was true, established a possible link between the exiles and the Spanish, and he and his family formed that link. I had an incomprehensible letter and an intriguing connection with another document written three years previously. Finally, I had the enigma of Cola himself, for it struck me as unusual that he could spend many months in the Low Countries without his profession of soldier being commonly known. Nor could I understand why his father, a man of known ability, was prepared to release his only effective son from his family obligations. Yet, not only was the younger Cola apparently entirely unengaged in trade, he was not even married.
Such were my thoughts, and I mentioned the puzzle to Mr. Williams, my merchant friend, when I met him the day after I arrived in London in early 1663.
“Let me pose you a problem as an adventurer,” I said. “Let us say that you lose your main markets and trading partners through ports being closed by war. You have three daughters, one of whom is married, and two are rapidly approaching marriageable age. You have only one useful son. What tactics, do you adopt to defend and expand your business?”
“Once I have stopped panicking, and praying for a turn of good fortune?’’ he said with a smile. “I can think of worse situations to be in, but not many.”
“Let us say you are a naturally calm man. What do you do?”
“Let us see. Much depends on the reserves I have at my disposal, and the relations I have with my family, of course. Will they step forward and help? That might fend off an urgent crisis and give me time to recover. But it gains me room to maneuver, it does not solve the problem. Obviously, the need is to find new markets, but to break into a new port requires money, as it is often necessary to sell at a loss for some time to establish oneself. Now, the easiest solution is to establish an alliance with another house. You marry a son if you have one and if your position is strong, a daughter if it be weak. The situation you describe indicates the need to marry a son to advantage, for that brings money into the business, rather than putting it out. However, you are also at a disadvantage, of course, for you need markets, and that suggests that marrying a daughter will be required.”
“And where do you find the money for that? Any possible ally will be aware of the problem and drive a hard bargain, will they not?”
Mr. Williams nodded in agreement. “That is precisely the case. In my position, I think I would have to consider a marriage of the son out of business to a lady of as much fortune as 1 could find, and immediately use the dowry to marry a daughter to trade. With good fortune my family might end up with a small surplus, without luck I might have to borrow at interest to fund the difference. But that would be no problem if my trade recovered. It is not a strategy that is guaranteed to bring success, but it offers by far the best chance of it. Why do we have sons except for such purposes?”
“So if I said this trader not only seemed to have no plans to marry his son, but had even let him go wandering Europe, where he is out of reach and consuming substantial amounts of money?”
“Then I would be strongly adverse to venturing money in any enterprise with which he is concerned. Am I right in thinking that you are still occupying yourself with the house of Cola?”
I nodded, with great reluctance. I had no desire to take Mr. Williams into my confidence in any way, but he was too intelligent to be fooled and an honest admission, I considered, might be enough to bind him to obligations of silence.
“Do not think that such matters have not come into our minds as well,” he said.
“Our?”
“We traders. We are jealously eager to hear news of our competitors and, sad though it is, rejoice too much to hear of a rival’s downfall. The better of us are always reminded that such a fate can easily befall anyone, of course. It takes very little ill fortune to turn riches into dust. One storm, or a war unforeseen, can be a catastrophe.”