IF POORJACK’S RAVINGShave any color of truth in them, then you have been among Persons of Quality. So you have learnt how important Family is to such people: that it gives them not only name but rank, a house, a piece of land to call home, income and food, and that it is the windowpane through which they look out and perceive the world. It brings them troubles, too: for they are born heirs to superiors who must be obeyed, roofs that want fixing, and diverse local troubles that belong to them as surely as their own names.

Now, in place of “Persons of Quality” substitute “common men of soldier type” and in place of “Family” say “Regiment,” and you will own a fair portrait of my life.

You seem to’ve spent a lot of time with Jack and so I’ll spare you the explanation of how two mudlark boys found themselves in a regiment in Dorset. But my career has been like his in a mirror, which is to say, all reversed.

The regiment he told you of was like most old English ones, which is to say, ’twas militia. The soldiers were common men of the shire and the officers were local gentlemen, and the big boss was a Peer, the Lord Lieutenant-in our case, Winston Churchill-who got the job by living in London, wearing the right clothes, and saying the right things.

Those militia regiments once came together to form Cromwell’s New Model Army, which defeated the Cavaliers, slew the King, abolished Monarchy, and even crossed the Channel to rout the Spaniards in Flanders. None of this was lost on Charles II. After he came back, he made a practice of keeping professional soldiers on his payroll. They were there to keep the militias in check.

You may know that the Cavaliers who brought Charles II back made their landfall in the north and came down from Tweed, crossing the Cold Stream with a regiment under General Lewis. That regiment is called the Coldstream Guards, and General Lewis was made the Duke of Tweed for his troubles. Likewise King Charles created the Grenadier Guards. He probably would have abolished the militia altogether if he could have-but the 1660s were troublous times, what with Plague and Fire and bitter Puritans roaming the country. The King needed his Lords Lieutenant to keep the people down-he granted ’em the power to search homes for arms and to throw troublesome sorts in prison. But a Lord Lieutenant could not make use of such powers save through a local militia and so the militias endured. And ’twas during those times that Jack and I were plucked out of a Vagabond-camp and made into regimental boys.

A few years later John Churchill reached an age-eighteen years-when he was deemed ready to accept his first commission, and was given a regiment of Grenadier Guards. It was a new regiment. Some men and armaments and other necessaries were made available to him, but he had to raise the rest himself, and so he did the natural thing and recruited many soldiers and non-commissioned officers from his father’s militia regiment in Dorset-including me and Jack. For there is a difference ‘twixt Families and Regiments, which is that the latter have no female members and cannot increase in the natural way-new members must be raised up out of the soil like crops, or if you will, taxes.

Now I’ll spare you a recitation of my career under John Churchill, as you’ve no doubt heard a slanderous version of it from brother Jack. Much of it consisted of long marches and sieges on the Continent-very repetitive-and the rest has been parading around Whitehall and St. James, for our nominal purpose is to guard the King.

Lately, following the death of Charles II, John Churchill spent some time on the Continent, going down to Versailles to meet with King Louis and biding in Dunkirk for a time to keep a weather eye on the Duke of Monmouth. I was there with him and so when Jack came through aboard his merchant-ship full of cowrie-shells I went out to have a brotherly chat with him.

Here the tale could turn ghastly. I’ll not describe Jack. Suffice it to say I have seen better and worse on battle-fields. He was far gone with the French Pox and not of sound mind. I learnt from him about you. In particular I learnt that you have the strongest possible aversion to Slavery-whereof I’ll say more anon. But first I must speak of Monmouth.

There was a Mr. Foot aboard God’s Wounds, one of those pleasant and harmless-seeming fellows to whom anyone will say anything, and who consequently knows everyone and everything. While I was waiting for Jack to recover his senses I passed a few hours with him and collected the latest gossip-or, as we say in the military, intelligence-from Amsterdam. Mr. Foot told me that Monmouth’s invasion-force was massing at Texel and that it was certainly bound for the port of Lyme Regis.

When I was finished saying my good-byes to poor Jack I went ashore and tried to seek out my master, John Churchill, to give him this news. But he had just sailed for Dover, London-bound, and left orders for me to follow on a slower boat with certain elements of the regiment.

Now I’ve probably given you the impression that the Grenadier Guards were in Dunkirk, which is wrong. They were in London guarding the King. Why was I not with my regiment? To answer I would have to explain what I am to John Churchill and what he is to me, which would take more time than it would be worth. Owing to my advanced age-almost thirty-and long time in service, I am a very senior non-commissioned officer. And if you knew the military this would tell you much about the peculiar and irregular nature of my duties. I do the things that are too difficult to explain.

Not very clear, is it? Here is a fair sample: I ignored my orders, cast off my uniform, borrowed money on my master’s good name, and took passage on a west-bound ship that brought me eventually to Lyme Regis. Before I embarked I sent word to my master that I was making myself useful in the West, where I had heard that some Vagabonds wanted hanging. As I’m certain you have perceived, this was both a prophecy of what was soon to come, and a reminder of events long past. Monmouth had set sail for Dorset because it was a notorious hotbed of Protestant rebellion. Ashe House, which was the seat of the Churchill family, looked down into the harbor of Lyme Regis, which had been the site of a dreary siege during the Civil War. Some of the Churchills had been Roundheads, others Cavaliers. Winston had taken the Cavalier side, had brought this riotous place to heel, and he and his son had been made important men for their troubles. Now Monmouth-John’s old comrade-in-arms from Siege of Maestricht days-was coming to make a bloody mess of the place. It would make Winston look either foolish or disloyal in the eyes of the rest of Parliament, and it would cast doubts on John’s loyalty.

For some years, John has been in the household of the Duke of York-now King James II-but his wife Sarah is now Lady of the Bedchamber to the Duke’s daughter, the Princess Anne: a Protestant who might be Queen someday. And among those Londoners who whisper into each other’s ears for a living, this has been taken to mean that John’s merely putting on a show of loyalty to the King, biding his time until the right moment to betray that Papist and bring a Protestant to the throne. Nothing more than Court gossip-but if Monmouth used John’s very home ground as the beach-head of a Protestant rebellion, how would it look?

Monmouth’s little fleet dropped anchor in the harbor of Lyme Regis two days after I had arrived. The town was giddy-they thought Cromwell had been re-incarnated. Within a day, fifteen hundred men had rallied to his standard. Almost the only one who did not embrace him was the Mayor. But I had already warned him to keep his bags packed and horses saddled. I helped him and his family slip out of town, following covert trails of Vagabonds, and he despatched messengers to the Churchills in London. This way Winston could go to the King and say, “My constituents are in rebellion and here is what my son and I are doing about it” rather than having the news sprung on him out of the blue.