University of Virginia Library

5. CHATER V.
The King.

Unlike the dramatic writers, who must move constantly forward in time with
his events, the novelist has the privilege of going back on time and bringing
up the past to the present, like the worker at the loom, he now drops a thread
which is not wanted in the part of the figure he is then forming; but soon he
goes back and takes it up to weave into the next design, and so on till all parts
of his pattern are complete. Availing ourselves of this privilege, we shall,
before proceeding onward any further in the direct line of occurrences, retrace
our path a few hours to about the time on the evening previous, that this story
opened with Dauling on his way from the yacht, to visit Moloch in the Jew's
quarter in Monmouth street.

The scene to which we introduce the reader is in an apartment in St. James'
Palace. It was a room which the king used both as a library and private audience
chamber. It was hung with tapestry three centuries old, yet the colors
were still brilliant and rich. A few antiquated and massive pieces of furniture
of the Elizabethan age, stood around the walls, and on one side was a
tall gothic book-case of jet black oak. A large square table stood near it covered
with books, maps and writing materials, with a guzette or two in French
and German. Upon this table stood a tall silver candle-stand with seven
branches of stag's antlers capped with silver branching from it, a chased silver
socket at the extremity of each horn. In each socket burned a lofty wax-candle,
the whole presenting to the eye a magnificent candelebra well becoming
a royal palace. The chamber was otherwise very plainly furnished; two or
three portraits of the king's German ancestors hung above the fire-place; and
a jewel-hilted dress-sword lay across the mantle upon a plain chapeau distinguished
only by a sample cockade of black silk.

By a large velvet covered arm-chair with a high carved back surmounted
by a small bronzed crown stood a man large in bulk, and something inclined to
corpulency, with a heavy countenance and fleshy chin: yet, withal, with a
clear, lively blue eye, and an agreeable expression of kindness and suavity
about his mouth, which was very finely shaped. His stature was commanding
and his air of dignity and power, at once proclaimed him a monarch. It was
George III. He was dressed in a violet colored velvet coat much worn at the
cuffs and soiled about the collar, with the lace torn off in front; for he had
when deeply thinking, a habit, of pulling at it with his fingers, which he was
now doing with great perseverance. His head was divested of the silver-powdered
wig, which he was accustomed to wear, and being slightly bald, exhibited
finely developed outlines of benevolence and firmness; though these attributes
of character were, as the phrenologist would speak, much qualified
in his acts by a deficiency of conscientiousness and a large share of
combativeness.

The king had been seated but a moment before, but had risen to walk the
room, and after a few turns paused by his chair and stood there as we have
described him. His eyes were fixed upon a person opposite to him, who had
also risen when he saw the king do so, and who now stood, as waiting the decision
of his majesty. This person was tall and spare, with a dark full eye and
a countenance full of intelligence and feelin. His person was strikingly
handsome and his air imposing. He was about fifty six years of age but had
the appearance of being under forty five. There was in his address an unstudied
elegance and quiet dignity, a pleasing union of graceful ease with
boldness and courage, of decision with mildness, that could not fail to prepossess
in his favor the most indifferent observer. He was attired in a plain suit
of black velvet, and was booted and spurred. This person was the Duke of
— the father of Tudor Dauling, and a near relative to the king.

`I am at loss, your grace,' at length said his majesty without looking up,
speaking slowly and as if still deeply meditating, `I am at a loss how to proceed

in this matter you urge upon me! My love for you, cousin, would prompt
me to do you this service. But I would some other way could be devised.'

`I can think of no other, your majesty. The expedient I have suggested is
the only one I can think of. Tudor must have an end put to his course at
once or he will make himself amendable (as he already is) to the law of the
land, and then, beyond even the reach of your majesty, he will die a
felon's death at the hand of the hangman! Although he is but an illigimate
son, he is my son, and my only son; and much as he has tried my love and patience
I am still attached to him, and it would deeply grieve me that this affair
should come to light. The blood which flows in my veins and also in your
majesty's, flows in the veins of this unhappy young man! Your majesty, I
know would not wish all England to ring with the infamy that a near relative
of her king was dragged from Newgate to the gallows and there suffered
death for forgery.'

`Of this forgery you are quite confident,' inquired or rather remarked the
the king sadly.

`Yes, your majesty. I was this day at my banker's to make my semi-yearly
settlement with them, when to my surprise I found there a draft dated at Portsmouth,
thirty days ago, for five thousand pounds, drawn by Tudor in his own
name and bearing on its face my forged acceptance. He had got it discounted
in Portsmouth and the broker there had forwarded it to my bankers for collection.
It had lain with them unsuspected. Confounded and grieved as I
was at this discovery, I forebore to express my astonishment, and without a
word paid the draft and took it into my possession. Here it is your majesty.'

`It is skilfully done,' responded the king, sitting down and examining
closely the forgery. `I approve of the course your grace took in not denouncing
it as a forgery to your bankers.'

`But to make a beneficial use of my forbearance, your majesty, it is needful
that very positive steps should be immediately taken to protect both Tudor and
myself against a like occurrence! This may not be the only draft! He must
be checked at once in his career of guilt.'

`If he were supplied with a sufficient income, cousin; would not this prevent
a temptation like this?'

`Your majesty is not ignorant of what I have, from time to time, done for this
young man, if I may still call him so, who has reached his thirty fifth year!
My indulgence has but given him licence for carrying out his follies! I can
do no more for him! A sufficient income, your majesty? What amount can
be a sufficient income for one who plays so deeply as Tudor does, and never
rises a winner! No, your majesty. He must be at once arrested, ere he bring
disgrace and bitterness upon me and render forever foul a near current of the
royal blood.'

`I perceive your view of the case, cousin. Something shall be done forthwith!
Your suggestion that I have him imprisoned in the tower to save him
from Newgate, to which he seems hastening, is one which it would be injudicious
to carry out. The tower is the state's prison for the realm, and is as
much under the control of Parliament as the king. If I should arrest Tudor
and privately imprison him in the tower, it would ere long be bruited abroad
that there was a prisoner mysteriously and secretly held there, and I should
have to yield to the public voice and declare who he was.'

`I see the position, your majesty, in which such a course would necessarily
place you.'

`He is your son and in your hands you, also, hold the evidences of a crime
that would bring hun to the gallows! Arrest him privately. Convey him to
your castle in the north, and there detain him a prisoner so long as you will.
Perhaps you could soon conquer him and suffer him to go free, holding over
his path ever the evidences of his crime, for which, assuring him on the first
act of his, unbecoming his birth and blood, you would deliver him up to the
laws he has offended.'

`Your majesty knows the peculiar character of this young man! If I could,
for a time, detain him prisoner without bringing about my castle spies and

whispers of public curiosity, yet whenever I should release him, and holding
above his head this forged draft show him the power I hold over his future
course; he would laugh at me, knowing well and truly, your majesty, that I
would never dare bring him to justice.'

`He deserves to be brought to justice this day,' said the king in a tone of
displeasure. `Let the laws have him, your grace.'

`Your majesty forgets the considerations I have already urged against this
step—much as his conduct merits such a decisive course. Tudor is very much
beloved by me, still. He is nearer to my heart tkan I dare confess to myself.
He is the child of a lovely woman who gave me her maiden love and all her
heart'a treasures. I was then a young man at Oxford. She was of good birth,
your majesty, and her ancestors hold fame and name in history as brave knights
and wise statesmen. But she was poor and a widow's only child. She loved
me ere she knew my rank, and I adored her with all the ardor of my soul. Two
years of exquisite happiness I passed in the stolen society of this lovely and
virtuous woman—for your majesty I made her my wife, marrying her under
the assumed name by which only she knew me. I deceived her; but thank
God she never knew it to the hour of her death, which took place a few months
after the birth of her boy! But, alas! she knows it all now! continued the
Duke looking upward sadly, `and her pure spirit is gazing down from the skies
gently reproving me for my guilt! Can I then desert her child? Can I surrender
him to an ignominious death?'

`I sympathise with your affliction, cousin,' said the King with emotion.—
`Doubtless this sorrow that now comes upon you, is the Providential judgment
which in this life always follows wrong-doing.'

`If the affliction Tudor has caused me is sent upon me for the injury done
his mother, then have I been punished indeed, your Majesty. Unworthy as his
conduct has been, so long as I can see in his features the beloved lineaments
of her I loved but to injure, so long my heart will yearn towards him, however
severely I may treat him outwardly. Scarce has my sweet daughter, now in
her tenth year, with all the graces of person and mind she possesses, with all
her gentle affection and innocence, scarce has she the hold upon my heart
which he retains.'

The king remained silent and began vigorously to pull at the torn lace on
his coat. His brow was bent, his eyes fixed upon the floor, and his mouth
firmly compressed. The Duke watched his countenance with deep anxiety.—
At length his Majesty raised his eyes and his countenance cleared up all at
once:

`Cousin, I have it cow, I think. The yacht which he commands is now at
the Tower, where she was ordered by the Queen to wait for her to embark on
an excursion to the mouth of the Thames and so up the land a few leagues to
Morley Castle. The indisposition of one of the little ones has delayed the
contemplated expedition; and the Queen told me an hour since she would
give it up altogether, as it was already so long deferred. Now the yacht,
therefore, is unemployed. Tudor is on board!—'

`Unless, your Majesty, he be on shore at some of the gaming saloons.'

`He can easily be found. I will at once prepare an order under my private
seal to be despatched to him by a special messenger, with direction for him to
get underweigh at dawn, and lay to off the Tower to take on board a states-prisoner.'

`And who is this prisoner of state, your Majerty, and how is it to carry out
my views with regard to Tudor?' asked the Duke perplexed.

`The prisoner of state is to be none other than the captain of the yacht himself,'
said the King smiling.

`I do not comprehend your Majesty.'

`I will explain, cousin. When he lays off the Tower, a boat containing
seven persons shall come off to him and they shall get on board. One of them
shall be masked. He shall be yourself. The others shall be four stout menat-arms
of tried courage, and the other two officers of the Police disgnised as
king's messengers! Tudor shall be instructed to give you the liberty of the

deck, and leave you to the four men-at-arms. In my order I will instruct him
to proceed to the mouth of the Thames where the frigate Serapis is at anchor
awaiting my despatches for America, and after anchoring near her open the
private despatch which the chief of the police will retain for him, by my command
till then. That despatch will show hun who is the true prisoner of
state, and when he has read it through, reveal yourself to him and who your
companions are. You can then dictate to him your own terms. Shew him
that the Head of the Police, who alone we must take into our confidence, has
a warrant for his arrest as a forger, and that it will at once be served upon
him. Give him the alternative to sail away from England in the yacht (which
I give him) and carve out a name and fortune in distant lands, or to be taken
back to London in the custody of the Bow street officer as a common felon.—
If he attempts resistance show him the frigate, the captain of which will be instructed
to obey your slightest signal, and assure him he and his yacht are
entirely within your power. This is an unusual plan of proceeding, but, your
grace, under the circumstances, I cannot well devise any other. The succes of
it, I think, is sure. His pride of character will lead him to adopt the least disagreeable
alternative, and as I state in my despatch to him that his return to
England or its waters without permission will be the signal of his arrest as a
common forger!'

When the King had done speaking, the nobleman, who had listened at first,
with incredulous surprise and then, as his majesty proceeded, developing his
plan, with the closest and most interested attention, became thoughtful as if
deeply meditating upon the king's project. His majesty watched him closely
and with an expression of anxiety.

`Your majesty, he at length said, `has manifested in this affair the kindest
interest, for which I know not how to be sufficiently grateful. The plan you
have suggested, at the sacrifice of your yacht, and at the expense of so much
trouble in person, seems to me, on the whole, our only alternative. It is attended
with some difficulties, but I confess to your majesty, my cheerful cooperation!
But whither shall he go? Whereve he wanders he carries a fond
father's heart with him. It will be hard to give him up forever, perhaps to
pursue a course of crime and bloodshed!'

`Either he or yourself, my lord Duke, must be sacrificed,' said the King firmly.
`If he remains in England he will involve you, perhaps, irrevocably, when
he knows you will not prosecute. It is better he should be exiled, and I trust
your grace will feel the expediency of it.'

`It shall be done, as your majesty commands!'

`I do not command, cousin; I do but advise.'

`Your wishes are to me as commands. I require your command or else, I
am satisfied, I should let my weakness betray me in my stern duty!'

`Be it my command then, cousin,' said the King pleasantly. Will you
touch that bell for my private secretary. The despatches shall at once be
made up. The secretary need know nothing, as I will fill up with names,
etc., in my own hand!'

`Your Majesty is most kind.'

`You are too valuable a friend, and I esteem you too highly, my lord duke.
for me to suffer your happiness to be thus daily ventured by this reckless son
of yours, to call him by no worse epithet. Moreover, unless he be compelled
to leave our realm he will ere long be interfering, ten to one, with the happiness
of the young lady Mary, your daughter, whom, I have heard say, he
loves not too well for occupying his place as the inheritor of your name and
dukedom!'

`Have you heard such things of him?' cried the Duke, becoming very pale.

`Truly have I, cousin; and yet by your looks it seems news to you!'

`It is news, indeed!' answered the Duke faintly.

`Have you never seen ought of this ill-will manifested in him?'

`No, your majesty. On the contrary, Tudor has always shown the most
fraternal love for his sister. I never suspected but that he loved her with sincerity
and tenderness!'

`It may all be a skillfully worn cloak to deceive your grace,' observed his
majesty impressively. `Does the child regard him with attachment?'

`The most devoted and faithful! She has of late seen him but seldom, but
never does a day pass but she names her brother Tudor with affectionate language.
If he is hypocritical only in his love for his sister, would not her pure
love discover the disguise by instinct, and take alarm at once?'

`Perhaps not, my lord duke, perhaps not,' responded the king with a shake
of the head.

`But what motive could he have?'

`That I cannot answer. One thing is very clear, that it would not be natural
for Tudor to love sincerely his sister under their mutual relations to each
other—she your legitimate child and heiress, he an outcast without other
name than that which you assumed and under which you became the
husband to his mother. On the contrary he has every thing to make him hate
her, and every thing to make him just the reckless man he is! He feels that
he has a right to avenge himself upon you, for the wrong you have done him;
and, I fear, that this vengeance he will not be satisfied in limiting merely to
extracting money from you.'

`What does your majesty mean?' demanded the duke alarmed by this mysterious
yet significant language.

`I mean that he may be tempted to pierce your heart through your daughter.'

`Your majesty cannot mean—' gasped the Duke—but he could speak no
farther, and stood gazing upon the king with the most painful anxiety, his lips
parted, his eyes fixed and wild.

`I do but surmise, your grace. I know nothing sure. Recover from your
alarm. If Tudor is at once aken care of as I have suggested, there need be
no apprehensions.'

`I thank your majesty for this hint. Your majesty is wise and clear-sighted!
I will not delay in taking this course you have pointed out. I shall feel
insecure while he remains on British ground. If he perish in far lands he
must perish! My child must not become the victim of his disappointed ambition—of
his filial vengeance.'

He then took up the little silver bell to which the king had before drawn his
attention and rung it. In a moment afterwards the door opened and a slender,
gray-headed man wearing a long silk gown, and his head buried in a huge
red woolen cap shuffled into their presence. A pen was stuck behind his ear
and the second finger of his right hand was blackened with ink. He was the
secretary.

After a busy half-hour the necessary documents were executed, and that
directed to the captain of the yacht was immediately despatched by a king's
messenger. Its arrival on board and the events which followed are already
known to the reader. The remaining papers were given by the king into the
Duke's possession, and in a little while afterwards he took leave of his majesty.