‘Good. Teach Mercurius to speak English. You’ve got a month before you leave.’
CHAPTER THREE
There are people who will tell you that if you just speak Dutch slowly and loudly, the intelligent Englishman will understand you. That may be true, but we cannot rely on always having an intelligent Englishman to hand, and I recalled that when I questioned some English people in Utrecht on my last little job for the Stadhouder I understood not a word they said in their barbaric language. Nevertheless, I thought, if I can master Latin and Greek, I can surely pick up some English. Actually, although I did not know it then, Mary was a bit of a bluestocking and we could have conversed in Latin quite successfully. However, I could hardly rely on plotters speaking Latin when I was overhearing them, so I completely understood the need to get on top of this language.
Bouwman was very patient. We started each morning as soon as we met and continued late into the evening. I was given plays by Shakespeare to read aloud so I could get used to the sounds, and each Sunday I was sent to the British Church to hear the service and the sermon. As to the service, I understood little, and the sermon itself was near impenetrable. Dr Bowie, the minister there, was very kind to me, and made me a copy of his sermon so that I might study it at leisure, but since he spoke extempore his notes were sketchy, and it came to me that I could not expect people in England to write down everything they said.
My mind was somewhat eased when I was introduced to the Heer Van Langenburg.
‘You’re the minister who is coming with us,’ he said cheerfully. ‘I’m glad of that. Religion is not my forte, you understand.’
Van Langenburg was one of those irritating people who speaks four languages, plays every musical instrument known to man, and can improvise Greek quatrains at a moment’s notice. In his youth he was a noted tennis player, at least until he ran at full speed into the court’s wall, which accounted for his broken nose.
I had worried that my actual mission would not have been explained to him, but he soon put my concerns aside. He had been fully briefed. Thus reassured, I felt able to confess that I was finding English quite difficult.
‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘The English are an odd people, but one of their endearing habits is that they are always happy to talk, so you won’t have to say much. Just ask them their opinion on the weather and all will be well.’
‘The weather?’
‘Yes, the English are fascinated about weather. They can talk about it for hours. And they are so certain that everyone in the world speaks English that even if you obviously don’t, they will behave as if you do and just talk a little louder to you.’
‘Have you any other advice for me?’
‘Yes. Take your warmest clothes. And lots of them.’
A carriage duly arrived at the University to take me to Scheveningen, where our ship would be waiting. It was not as luxurious as other carriages I had been lent by the Stadhouder, but it had plenty of space for my trunk, in which I had stowed almost every item of clothing I owned.
The sandy shelf at Scheveningen meant that the ship had to stand off to sea and we were rowed out to it. I was in the last but one boat. It seemed that this embassy consisted of fifteen people, though I had no idea what most of them were there for, and I was no wiser after we had all been introduced.
Van Langenburg was there, and a man I took to be his personal attendant, and Bouwman had been attached to the party, presumably in case my hard-won English failed me. There was an elderly man called Preuveneers who had been included because he had known the King when he was in exile and it was hoped that Charles would be especially happy to see him again. As for the rest, I would have to learn their roles as we went along.
Bouwman, Preuveneers and our baggage filled the boat. I am not a terrible sailor, but I confess that I did not enjoy the short trip out to the ship. For some reason, the idea weighed upon me that the boat would overturn and all my possessions would descend to the depths. A little thought would have told me that the very reason why we were having to use a boat was that the sea was too shallow for a ship and the chances were that if anything fell overboard one of the swimmers amongst us could have easily retrieved it.
“Swimmers”, incidentally, does not really include me. My late brother Laurentius was very happy diving into ponds or canals as a boy, and subsequently went to sea, where he died. Admittedly the proximate cause was an English bullet at the Battle of Lowestoft, but if he had kept clear of the oceans that would not have happened.
The ship’s master told us to expect a two-day voyage, though he cheerfully added that if the winds were contrary it might well take double that time, or more. Wishing to reassure myself, I asked whether he had sailed to London before.
‘Aye, Master,’ he said, ‘some years ago. But this will be an easier trip, because this time they won’t shoot at us.’
‘Shoot at us?’
‘It was during the late war, and a merry time it was for us as we wrecked their ships. I do not propose to do that this time.’
I assured him that I was pleased to hear this and privately hoped that they did not recognise him as we docked.
We had been sent in one of William’s grandest ships so that we could make some display as we arrived, but I pitied the poor mariners sent aloft to tie orange streamers to the mast, not least because it was raining. While this was unfortunate for the sailors, it gave the Lord Mayor of London something to talk about when we disembarked.
About a decade before, London had suffered an enormous fire, and rebuilding was still in hand, but my first impressions were very favourable. With much of the medieval city having gone, there was less wood and more stone than many Dutch cities could boast at that time. The carts bringing bricks from the works outside the city rolled back and forth without rest.
In the rebuilding the opportunity had been taken to widen some of the streets and reduce the overcrowding at the centre by expanding, mainly to the north. Unlike the Amsterdammers, who enlarge their city by draining the surrounding sea, the Londoners build outwards until their feverish construction absorbs the nearby villages. I was told that hamlets which were once out of town were now mere suburbs of the city. Since much of this expansion was taking place on farming land, I wondered how it would be possible to feed so great a population, who must undoubtedly someday succumb to famine and die in large numbers.
I was assured by one of the Englishmen that the city contained no less than half a million souls, and by another that there were very near two hundred thousand; at which a man called Pepys standing nearby sniffed, and said that like most enumerations, the number discovered depended upon the purpose, it being his experience that when the people were counted for taxation there were far fewer of them than when some benefit was on offer.
This Mr Pepys was the Master of Trinity House, it seems, and therefore responsible for all the lighthouses around England and Wales, not to mention the “improvement of mariners”. To judge by the English sailors I had met, there remained a considerable amount of work to do in that regard.
The Lord Mayor had commenced a speech of welcome. Since we were not Englishmen, he spoke slowly and loudly, but in English, while Bouwman translated quietly for our benefit.
His name was Sir Thomas Davies, and he was a stationer, which was useful to know because I had not brought much paper with me. It was a little vexing to be uprooted from Leiden just at that moment, because I was about two-thirds of the way through writing a book evaluating the orthodoxy or otherwise of the writings of John Scottus Eriugena, and being separated from the original sources (and my paper) was extremely inconvenient. I realise, of course, that there are lecturers at universities who take the view that reading a man’s work before commenting on it is an unnecessary step that merely slows the whole process down, but I felt I owed it to Eriugena to at least skim his writings before declaring that he was lucky to escape burning at the stake.