What had happened on the night of the banquet? How deeply had Luke become involved?
My thoughts went back to that terrible time when Oates's men were close at hand and we were afraid for Kirkwell. Kirkwell had been innocent. There was no case against him, but that would have carried little weight against the followers of Titus Oates. This could be different.
If Luke had been guilty of plotting against the King in order to set on the throne that man who had become a kind of symbol to him ... that would be considered treason, and treason was punishable by death.
By this time there was no topic of conversation other than the Rye House Plot.
The people, who loved their King and were very grateful to him for bringing merry England back to them after those years of Puritan rule, wanted the conspirators brought to justice.
The ringleaders were soon captured and were sent to the Tower.
Lord Russell seemed to be the chief of the conspirators. He was taken to Lincoln's Inn Fields and deprived of his head. Thousands were there to witness what they had decided was just punishment for a man who had plotted to kill the King.
Lord Essex, a man noted for his virtue and who could only have been persuaded to join such a conspiracy through his fear of a Catholic monarch coming to the throne, committed suicide by hanging himself in his cell in the Tower.
There was only one of those conspirators who escaped, and that was perhaps the one who hoped to profit most from its success. But the King was, after all, his father, and if, like my own father, he could not bring himself to legitimize his natural children, he could not suppress his affection.
The Duke of Monmouth, although it would seem that he had been as deeply involved as any, having more to gain—for the object of the plot was surely to set him on the throne—threw himself on the King's mercy and insisted that he had only listened to the plotters with the sole purpose of saving his father's life.
Did the King really believe that? I could imagine him shrugging his shoulders and telling himself that it was a good thing for a man to believe that which would give him the most comfort. So, with that cynical smile of his, he decided to give his son the benefit of the doubt ... if doubt there could be said to be.
Monmouth was excused. He could hardly be pardoned, as so many had lost their lives for their part. He could not appear at court. That would be asking too much of those who had lost a dear one who was certainly no more guilty of treason than the Duke. So Monmouth was banished. He went to the Continent, the natural resort of those forced to leave the country. And I guessed from that distance he continued to view the crown of England with renewed and earnest longing.
As for Luke, as the matter of the Rye House Plot slipped into memory, I noticed the intense relief which came to him.
I knew then that he had not been deeply involved in the plot, for his name had not been mentioned, but I did believe that he had been toying with the idea. Clearly he must have betrayed his feelings to those conspirators, and his championing of the Duke of Monmouth's claim must have aroused the interest of those men, but by great good fortune he had not quite committed himself so far as to have become implicated in the actual plot.
All the same, he continued to regard Rosslyn Manor with a yearning desire and I feared that that would persist throughout his life.
But perhaps he had learned the folly of such thoughts. Who knew? This experience, which might have brought him to disaster, might have taught him a lesson.
I was aware of the reverberations of the Rye House Plot all through that year. Indeed, it was not until December that Algernon Sidney lost his head.
I was very anxious about Luke. I knew him well enough to realize that he was deeply disturbed, even anxious. The sight of a stranger would have an effect on him which was not lost on me.
One day I burst out: "Luke, were you in any way concerned in the Rye House Plot?"
He looked at me in such a startled way that I guessed my suspicions had had some foundation.
"No ... no," he said.
"Look, Luke," I said. "You're my brother. I want to help if I can. I know something happened. I can see the change in you. You remember that time when our father took us to London. You remember the banquet and how we were all in the garden at Chelsea ... I saw you with those men ... Lord Russell, Algernon Sidney and the others."
He said nothing.
"Luke," I persisted, "I am very worried about you."
He drew a deep breath. "You need not be," he said. "I did not know that there was to be the Rye House Plot, only ..."
"Only?" I queried.
Again that silence.
Then he said: "Well ... I must have betrayed that I thought the crown should go to Monmouth."
I sighed.
He went on: "They did talk to me ... Lord Russell and Algernon. They overheard my defense of the Duke's right to the throne and they agreed with me that it was necessary to keep out Catholic James. The country would never endure his rule, which would mean turning back to the Pope. There would be trouble. The best course for the country to take would be to rid itself of James right away. Don't look so scared, Kate. They did not tell me of the plot. Do you think they would have told someone they had just met? No. We just talked, and they were sympathetic. They did say that they thought I might be very helpful to the cause ... when it came, and they would call me in then. That was all."
I sighed with relief.
"Do you swear it, Luke?"
"I swear it," he replied.
"So ... they plotted this. They were going to kill the King and the Duke of York and set up the Duke of Monmouth, and then they would remember you. They would call on you as one of their supporters."
"I think it must have been something like that."
"And you have been wondering, of course, whether someone might have mentioned your name and then you would be questioned ... even though you had no part in the plot. So that was the cause of your anxiety?"
"It is disturbing," he said, "when people one has known, however briefly, people one has talked to only a little while ago ...
and then one hears that they have been beheaded for treason."
"Oh, Luke," I said. "Do take care. We live in dangerous times."
Christobel was going to have a baby. She was blissfully happy. So was James. They at least were unconcerned about the Rye House Plot and its aftermath.
James fussed around her, not allowing her to carry anything or exert herself too much. Christobel reveled in it.
"I feel like a queen bee, with all my workers hovering around, and just think what it means—a baby! A child of my own. I cannot wait. I am so impatient. I am just longing for it. James wants a boy, of course. I do not care. I tell him, just to be obstinate, that I want a girl. Why do men always want boys? The egoistic male. They think their sex is superior in some way. I cannot think what gives them such an idea. I thought I had made James understand by now that that is not the case."
It was wonderful to see her so contented.
She was told she must take regular rests for the sake of the child, and she liked people to come and see her in the morning when she could lie on her sofa and receive her guests.
I would go over whenever possible and Sebastian, Kirkwell and Luke came often.
Luke was taking more and more of an interest in the estate and was often with James learning about it. I believe that somewhere within him was the belief that one day, in spite of everything, Rosslyn Manor would be his. I was getting quite fond of Sebastian. He was unlike any of the others. There was a certain nonchalance about him. He was a good-natured man, content with things as they were. Luke would say, why should he not be? Our father had decreed that Rosslyn Manor should be his one day. Sebastian's attitude to life was one of happy complacency. A distant connection of the family, he would one day be very wealthy and inherit the title as well as the estate, and this he took as it came, without it seemed any great excitement. He w^s relaxed. He was as courteous to a serving-maid as he would be to a lady of the court. He was extremely popular. In fact, we all liked him.