London - Edward Rutherfurd [430]
“I gave my oath to your father, sir, to support his sons.”
“Ah. Loyal friend. I think” – the king suddenly turned to his companions – “we can do better for Lord Bocton here. The barony of Bocton is yours, my dear lord,” he said with a smile, “but how would you like to be an earl as well, eh?”
“Sir?” For a moment Sir Julius was too astonished to speak. A barony, the normal rank of an English peer, was a fine thing. Above that came the viscounts, but higher still came the three ranks of the upper aristocracy: the earls, marquesses and dukes. When a family reached that dizzying height, there was nothing above it save the monarch and, presumably, the portals of heaven itself. “An earldom?”
“What title would you like now?” King Charles laughed.
Another title? Sir Julius was so taken aback that he could hardly think.
As he dithered, Nell Gwynne cried out good-naturedly, “Come on, Lord Bocton! We can’t stand around in St James’s Park all day waiting for you to become an earl. Think of a name!”
“Could I be Earl of St James?” Julius asked in some confusion, seizing upon the words he had just heard.
“You can and you shall,” Charles cried, in the greatest good humour. “Ladies,” he admonished, “show respect for a loyal friend. We have not so many of them. You are Earl of St James, sir, and Baron Bocton, and I count on you.” The earldom would secure him support through hellfire itself, and cost him nothing. He only wished he could find a hundred such fellows and make them all into earls.
An hour later, the newly created Earl of St James was bowling back along Pall Mall, his mind in a whirl. The implications of what had just happened were so wonderful that he just sat there, turning them over in his mind again and again. His eldest son would be called Lord Bocton now, while he was the earl. Over the Ducket coat of arms, there would be a crown bearing the decoration of strawberry leaves reserved for earls. His father had always told him that the family had been chosen, by which he had meant that they were God’s elect. But, though he could not admit it, in his heart Julius knew that an earldom was more desirable even than the promise of heaven.
His carriage had just passed the top of Whitehall and was approaching the old Savoy when he noticed a party of men, carrying the green ribbons of the Whigs, clearly on their way to the palace to stage a little demonstration. Seeing them, he shrugged, and would not have given them a second thought if he had not realized that one, round-faced, rather gloomy figure at the back was vaguely familiar. The Temple was already in sight before he remembered who it was: O Be Joyful, of that cursed Carpenter family. And with the memory of the Carpenters came the memory of Jane and her curse on his family. He had not thought of her for weeks. Now, with a smile, he reflected that if anything was needed to prove how futile that curse had been it was today’s events.
It was during the summer that O Be Joyful realized the full extent of the popish deviousness of Sir Christopher Wren.
The usual procedure when building a large church had always been to start at the eastern end and complete that first. In this way, services could at least be held while the rest of the church went up. But whenever O Be Joyful went past it seemed to him that the workmen were being employed in a different place, and soon it became clear that Wren meant to lay out at least the entire foundations before building up. Having seen the master architect do this already with several smaller churches, O Be Joyful did not pay too much attention, but his suspicions were further aroused one day late in 1677 when, curious to look at the drawing of the cathedral with its spire once again, he called in at the office which Wren and those directing the work now used. He had found the office empty except for a clerk who was friendly enough. He explained that he worked for Gibbons, and asked if he might see the plans.