Iain Pears - An Instance of the Fingerpost

In effect, there ends my story as well, for the rest is outside the scope of Cola’s account, and much of my own triumph is already well enough known. I never saw Cola again, for he left Oxford shortly afterward, but Wallis was highly satisfied with what I told him and gave me all the information I required. Within a month my name was restored and, although it was considered impolitic to proceed directly against Mordaunt, his rise was forever blocked. The man who, at one stage, was going to be the most powerful politician in the country ended his days in grubby obscurity, shunned by his old friends, enough of whom knew the truth about him. The favor of many men in high places, in contrast, won me the rewards my birth and position merited, and I exploited my good fortune so successfully I was soon able to begin rebuilding my estates. And, in the fullness of time I built my mansion just outside London, where my detested uncle comes to pay court to me, in the futile hope that I will pass some goodness on to him. Needless to say, he goes away empty-handed.

I have done much in my life which I regret and, if I had the opportunity, there is much I would now do differently. But my task was all important, and I feel reassured that I am acquitted of any serious offense. The Lord has been good, and though no man deserves it, my salvation has been no injustice. I would not have so much, and such a tranquillity of mind, had I not been blessed by His merciful providence. In Him I place all my trust, and have endeavored only to serve as best I can. My vindication is my assurance of His favor.

Having been sent the collected notes of the papist Marco da Cola, I feel it necessary to comment, lest others also come across his outrageous scribblings and believe what he says. So let me state it plainly that this Cola is a pernicious, deceitful and arrogant liar. The wide-eyed naïveté, the youthful enthusiasm, the openness he presents in his narration are nothing but the most monstrous of frauds. Satan is a master of deception, who has taught his servants his tricks. “Ye are of your father the devil…for he is a liar, and the father of it” (John 8:44). I intend to expose the full extent of the duplicity he reveals in this memoir of his, this true account (as he has it) of a voyage to England. This Cola was the worst of men, the most savage of murderers, and the greatest of deceivers. It was only by the grace of Providence that I escaped that night when he tried to poison me, and it was the greatest misfortune that Grove took the bottle for himself and died in my place. I had half expected some attempt once he arrived in Oxford, but had thought more in terms of a knife in the back—I never conceived of such a cowardly assault, and was not prepared for it. As for the girl, Sarah Blundy, I would have spared her had that been possible, but could not do so. An innocent died, one more of Cola’s many victims, but many more would have done so had I not kept my counsel. It was a hard decision to take, but still I try to acquit myself of wrong. The danger was great, and my own sufferings were hardly less.

I say this calmly and with consideration, but it has cost me much to do so, for the arrival of the manuscript came as the greatest shock. Lower, indeed, had not intended to send it to me even though he sent one to that man Prestcott; it was only when I heard of its existence that I demanded to see it and made it clear I would brook no refusal. My intention was to expose the manuscript as a piece of imposition as I could not believe it genuine, but now I have read it I know my initial assumption was wrong. Contrary to my belief, and the assurances of those I had reason to trust, it is clear that Marco da Cola really is still alive.

I do not know how this can be and I most certainly wish it were not so, since I did my best to ensure his death and was certain I had succeeded; I was told that he had been taken to the edge of the boat, and there pushed into the North Sea, that his deeds might be punished and his lips forever sealed. The captain himself told me the boat had hove to for many minutes until the man sank beneath the waves. The knowledge had given me some solace over the years, and it is cruel to have that consolation so rudely ripped away, for that manuscript shows plain that those I trusted lied to me and my triumph ended in fraud. I do not know why, but it is now too late to discover the truth. Too many of those who might know the answer have died, and I now serve new masters.

I feel I should explain myself; I do not say, you note, justify myself, as I believe that throughout my career I have been consistent. I know that my enemies do not accept this, and I suppose that the reasonableness of my actions in the course of my public career (if such you can call it) has not been absolutely clear to uninformed minds. How is it, they say, that a man can be Anglican, Presbyterian, loyal to the martyr Charles, then become chief cryptographer to Oliver Cromwell, deciphering the most secret letters of the king to aid the parliamentary cause, then return to the established church and, finally, use his skills to defend the monarchy once more when it was restored? Is that not hypocrisy? Is that not self-serving? So say the ignorant.

To which I reply, no. It is not, and anyone who may sneer at my actions knows very little about the difficulties of rebalancing the humors of a polity once it has become subject to disease. Some say that I changed sides from day to day, and always for my own advantage. But do you really believe that I needed to settle merely for the professorship of geometry at the University of Oxford? Had I been truly ambitious, I would have aimed at a bishopric at the very least. And do not imagine I could not have had it—it was not my aim. I have not been governed by selfish ambition and have studied more to be serviceable than great. I endeavored at all times to act by moderate principles in compliance with the powers in being. Since my earliest days when I discovered the secret patterns of mathematics and dedicated myself to their exploration, I have had a passion for order, for in order lies the fulfillment of God’s plan for us all. The joy of a mathematical problem solved with elegance and the pain of seeing the natural harmony of man disrupted are two sides of the same coin; in both cases I believe I allied myself to the cause of righteousness.

Nor did I desire fame and reputation for myself as a reward; indeed, I shunned these as vanity and was content for others to take the great positions of church and state, knowing rather that my secret influence was of far greater weight than theirs. Let others talk; it was my task to act and I did so to the best of my ability; I served Cromwell because his iron fist could bring order to the land and stop the bickering of faction when no one else could, and I served the king when that God-ordained role passed to him on Cromwell’s death. And I served each well; not for their sake certainly, but because by doing so I served my God, as I have tried to do in all things.

My desire for myself was merely to be left in peace to approach the divine through the mysteries of mathematics. But, as I am a servant of God and of the realm as I am of philosophy, I have frequently been constrained to put such selfishness aside. Now there is another who will surpass me, as David surpassed Saul, or as Alexander surpassed Philip, I can do so easily—then it was a real hardship. Mr. Newton says he sees so far because he stands on the shoulders of giants. I hope it will not seem vanitous if I say that my shoulders are among the strongest to support his glory, and I am ever mindful (though too modest to repeat in public) of that saying of Didacus Stella, a dwarf standing on the shoulders of a giant may see farther than a giant himself. More than this, I could have seen farther myself, and taken some of his great fame, had my duty not called me to other things so insistently.