“Where’s Wilky?” Stephen Wilky was my father’s personal servant.
“I don’t know, but I think he is in the hall.”
“Mr Killigrew has been pulling the bell and no one has answered it. Tell Wilky to bring the map of Europe from Mr Killigrew’s private chamber.”
I nodded and ran off down the passage, but after a moment’s hesitation fetched the map myself.
They were grouped round the long oak table at the end of the room, Ralegh at the head of it. “… if you are aware, Sir Henry,” he was saying, “whom you are suggesting we make peace with, for in this you cannot negotiate with Spain, but only with the man who speaks for Spam.”
“Difficult, I’m aware, but not impossible “
“I would have thought more and more impossible. Philip is a fanatic on the verge of mania. Look at his ancestry. His parents were first cousins, both grandchildren of Ferdinand and Isabella. He carries in him hereditary taints. His grandmother, Juana the Mad, lived three parts of her life in a melancholy torpor. His father, for all his gross appetites and power of mind and body, became in middle life a prey to moods of religious exaltation and black despair. Philip might make a peace, but it would only be on terms that a fanatic would approve.”
“Burghley is not unaware of the hazards,” Sir Henry said. “But throughout his life, in spite of all, Philip has striven for peace with England. He cannot be unaware of the great need for a respite in Europe, for time to let religious passions cool “
Ralegh interrupted impatiently: “Do not forget his own claim to our throne. Plantagenet blood and a direct descent from John of Gaunt, son of Edward III. He was married to Mary Tudor and has already virtually been King of England for a short time. And Mary Stuart by her last will disinherited her son in favour of Philip. He still dreams of inheriting England when Elizabeth dies, or of conquering England before. As he grows older and our queen still lives, his mind will turn more than ever to conquest.”
My father saw me. “Oh, you’ve the map, boy.”
“Were all else in favour,” Ralegh went on, “this is no moment to make peace. Had our forward policy been favoured after the Armada was beat back, Spain would have been brought to her knees. We should have been dictating peace, not feebly negotiating it through secret channels. It is too late for peace, Sir Henry. Four years ago Spain was in dire distress, her fleets scattered and destroyed, her coasts open to the massive counter-stroke which we could have mounted the next year. But instead we did all by quarter measures, by petty invasions and timid retreats. Now we are no longer in the strong position we were.”
My father began to unroll the map along the table; the others held it down with their hands but as yet paid little attention to it; Sir Walter was not now to be stopped.
“The Spanish are a noble and a clever race. If one thing was made plain to them by our defeat of their Armada it was that our ships, our training, our gunnery were better than theirs. Since then they have been building feverishly and every one of their new ships is built on English lines or putting to use the lessons of their first Armada. In some cases even the designers and builders have been English. Twelve great galleons, called after the apostles, have been built in Biscayan ports, another nine laid down in Portugal. There are at least another twenty nearing completion, with many flyboats, galleys and pinnaces to escort them. Look what happened in ‘91, when Howard and his fleet was nearly caught off the Azores. That was new tactics, not old. And the only one to stand and fight, by the living God, was my friend and dear Kinsman, Richard Grenville! It was two of the ‘apostles’ that in the end destroyed him. No … the defeat of the Armada did not signal the end of the Spanish navy, gentlemen, it marked its beginning! “
My father made love to his moustache. “All that may be better reason to come to peaceful agreement with Spain rather than a bitter fight to the death.”
“And I tell you, they’ll not make peace now on any terms acceptable to us. Not under Philip, not under the new leaders of the fleet. If you and the Cecils believe otherwise you are living in a fool’s paradise!”
In the hostile pause which followed Lady Killigrew turned her head and saw me. “Go, Maugan, this is no place for you. You intrude.”
“If you please, ma’am …”
Ralegh looked across at me. “Who is this boy?”
“My son. My base son, Maugan.”
He seemed in an instant to forget me and stared down, frowning at the map.
“Look,” he said. “The Spanish now hold Blavet on the Brittany coast. Troops can be massed there and brought over at will, not in helpless barges to be shot at or rammed by the Dutch. We have sent a new army to Brittany this autumn, but in November the Spaniards landed upwards of 2,000 fresh troops; they outnumber us three to one. Of course King Henry has promised to join us, but he will not; he is not ready and without him Norris is too weak to hold the field, certainly too weak to attack … Now look up here. Because the Dutch are enfeebled Denmark rules. Foreign ships must strike their topsails to Danish men-of-war as a token of her su-premacy. She possesses all the rich Norwegian fisheries and can close the Baltic to us at will. At present there is a minor on the throne. Protectorates are dangerous as we know too well. We suspect and I believe that Denmark has signed a secret treaty with Spain … Then consider the position in Ireland ...”
So he went on, dealing in turn with each country as its position and policy affected our struggle with Spain. I noticed that the hands with which he pointed to places on the map were long and slender, the hands of an artist rather than a soldier.
“Henry of France has undertaken to make no separate peace with Spain,” my uncle said. “Verbally, in a direct promise to me. And by treaty last June. He can gain nothing by breaking it.”
“Henry walks on a wire,” said Ralegh. “He fights his own Catholic Leaguers everywhere, the Spanish in Brittany or in Flanders, the Savoyards in Provence. In Normandy rival parliaments sit at Caen and Rouen. North of the Loire the Duc de Mercoeur is his bitter enemy. Picardy is for the Catholic League. Burgundy is a stronghold for the Duc de Moyenne. Champagne is governed by young Guise. Even in Navarre and his ancestral lands he is not unchallenged. And he distrusts the English whom he asks for help. You cannot expect any undertaking given in such plight to last beyond its usefulness.”
“Damme, even if he’s but half a king,” Mr Killigrew said, “there’s no one left to challenge him. And I believe he’ll see his best hope of prevailing is with our help.”
Ralegh drew moodily at his pipe. “The Estates meet in the Louvre this month. The Spanish Ambassador I think will be instructed to revive the idea of the Duc de Guise as King of France, with the Infanta as his consort. Such an idea would divide France more than ever, but with Spanish aid it could prevail … Henry has one counter to that, and one only.”
My uncle shrugged but did not speak.
Ralegh said: “Henry could counter it by turning Catholic.”
“By Godl” said my father; “he wouldn’t darer”
“I had heard the rumour too,” Sir Henry said impatiently. “He might gain much by so doing, but it would be such a vile betrayal of all that he and his people have been fighting for that I do not believe he would seriously consider it even if his conscience permitted him to do so. He would be discredited for ever. A commoner might do it and live. A king would no longer be considered fit to be a king.”
“Well, I do not think Henry is such a zealot that he will not weigh the issues carefully nor should I blame him if he did.”
“You would not blame him?”
“I would not blame him for weighing up the gain and loss. No.”
“Even in an issue of religious conscience, cousin, for which blessed martyrs have burned at the stake?”