Antonia Hodgson - The Last Confession of Thomas Hawkins

I look up, still bent in my bow. ‘Furious, Your Majesty.’

She laughs, great hiccuping gulps that make her long strands of pearls slide across her vast bosom. ‘Princess Amelia is in deep mourning for you. Such a heroic death. She will be most disappointed when she hears you are alive. Debout, monsieur. ’

I stand. It is many weeks since our last meeting. Since then I have been arrested, put on trial, sentenced to death, hanged, and revived. The queen, meanwhile, does not appear to have moved. Her dress is new – a heavy, dark-blue sack gown – and there is a fresh plate of confectionery at her side. Other than that, the room is precisely as I remember it, and unbearably hot. She holds up a fan embroidered with garden scenes. Fans herself.

‘All in black,’ she muses. ‘How very sober you look. I suppose you wish to know why I chose not to pardon you?’

Chose? And with that word she reveals the truth – that my death was indeed part of her agreement with Howard. The truth is, she had enjoyed very little choice in the matter – and she would rather die than admit it. ‘I am sure Your Majesty had a very good reason.’

‘Oh, he is sure. What, am I your servant, to solve all your petty troubles? Fold them up comme ça ?’ She snaps the fan closed. ‘What a conceited notion. Perhaps the Queen of England had no reason at all. Perhaps she was busy playing cards or embroidering a handkerchief. Budge, pour the boy a glass of claret.’

I sip the wine. It is even better than I remember. The queen decides to rise. This takes some effort and she appears to regret it, wincing as she walks to the fire. A touch of gout, I think. When she first arrived in England she would walk for at least an hour every day and wore out all her ladies-in-waiting.

‘Have you ever visited Yorkshire, Mr Hawkins?’

I am too tired to wonder at such an unexpected question. ‘No, ma’am.’

‘I’m told it has a rugged charm.’ She lets her gaze wander over me for a moment, but leaves the jest unspoken. ‘We have a friend, in need of assistance. You will set off at once. You may take your little trull along, if you wish. You had best marry her somewhere along the way. Your city manners will not be appreciated in the North.’

‘Your Majesty…’ I stop. Why waste breath refusing? This is not an offer, it is a command. I throw back the last of the wine. Bow my obedience.

Budge leads me back down the stairs. When we reach the final landing he hands me a sheaf of papers, bound with a black ribbon. ‘For Yorkshire.’

I tuck it beneath my arm. There are many things I wish to say to him. That I feel betrayed. Ill-treated. That I have no desire to travel all the way to Yorkshire, or perform any service for his mistress. But there seems no purpose in arguing, and so I say nothing. I find that I am saying less these days.

Budge is not used to my new, sombre ways. He peers at me, worried. ‘You hoped for an apology.’

‘No.’ I am not so foolish.

‘The queen never explains,’ Budge says. ‘And never apologises.’

I nod. In truth, I do not really care.

He glances up the staircase. Leans in. ‘Howard refused to agree terms unless you hanged. Twelve hundred pounds a year, control of his son, and no pardon for Thomas Hawkins. I do think she was passing sorry, sir.’

‘And Betty? Was she sorry?’

Budge frowns. ‘What choice was she given, do you think?’

The carriage rolls along the Strand. Kitty is so angry not to have met the queen that she cannot disguise it. She looks so furious and beautiful that I begin to laugh, for the first time in weeks.

‘We were going to Italy,’ Kitty grumbles. ‘I have seen Yorkshire on a map. I believe it is some distance from Italy.’

Sedan chairs weave around us, chairmen trudging through the rain, water pouring from their hats. A merchant skirts past a stream of brown filth spewing from a broken gutter. I have not left London in three years. I cannot decide if I will miss it. ‘The queen wants us to marry.’

Kitty looks down at her boots.

‘Kitty. Are you afraid I will gamble away all your money?’

‘Yes.’

‘Are you afraid I will grow bored and leave you?’

Her boots are still of enormous interest to her. ‘Yes.’

‘Do you truly think that, my love?’

She looks up at last and stares deep into my eyes. ‘I don’t know.’

I smile at her. ‘Well. That is progress.’

The carriage rolls over a hole in the road and she is flung forward. I grab her and pull her to safety, holding her close. She laughs, a little, and her shoulders soften as she settles against my chest.

The carriage moves on through the rain, the driver urging the horses forward with light taps of his whip. He is keen to travel as far north as possible today before the rain turns the roads to a sticking mud. He doesn’t see the small, dark figure slip down from a sodden rooftop. The boy in the clean, patched clothes sprints after the carriage and climbs on the back. He tucks himself into a gap between the luggage until he is quite invisible. He’s good at that.

The ‘ imprisonment ’ of Henrietta Howard

In the winter of 1727-8 the king’s mistress, Henrietta Howard, was kept a virtual prisoner in her rooms at the palace of St James. Her husband, Charles Howard, had sent her stark messages, demanding that she return to live with him. When Henrietta refused to comply, Howard applied to the Lord Chief Justice for a warrant that allowed him to seize his wife ‘wherever he found her’.

This was all play-acting on Howard’s part, though no doubt he would have followed through if need be. The couple had lived separate lives for years and clearly loathed each other. But following George II’s coronation in October 1727, Howard saw an opportunity to humiliate his wife and gain a fortune: irresistible for a man of his nature. While in public he continued to press – violently – for his wife’s return, in private he made it clear that he would relinquish all claims to her for the enormous sum of £1,200 per annum. Although he applied to Henrietta for this ‘fee’, it was clear that – as she couldn’t possibly afford it – his demands were really made to the king.

The implicit threat was clear. The more Howard insisted upon Henrietta’s return, the more attention he would bring upon her intimate relationship with the king. It was generally accepted at the time that kings took mistresses, but they were expected to be discreet. This was messy and embarrassing. If the situation wasn’t resolved swiftly, it could make everyone involved look weak and a little ridiculous.

However, Howard’s plan had one flaw. He’d waited years for George to become king in order to ensure the maximum embarrassment and thus the best pay-off. But by this time, George had grown tired of his mistress. When he became king it turned out – much to everyone’s astonishment – that Henrietta had no influence upon him whatsoever. People who had paid court to her for years in the hope of gaining a decent position under the new regime were left bitterly disappointed.

George refused to pay Howard’s bribe. Perhaps it’s not all that surprising: he was notoriously tight with money. He was also proud, stubborn and prone to terrible bouts of temper. (When very angry, he would snatch off his wig and kick it around the room, ranting and raging like a toddler.)

This left Henrietta in an intolerable situation. The early years of her marriage had been shockingly bad, even in the context of the time. Howard had married her for her large fortune and then gambled it away, leaving them with nothing. Far worse, he had abused and tormented her throughout their life together. Neighbours later testified that she had been beaten often and savagely, and that Howard would then abandon her and their young son Henry for months at a time, leaving them destitute and desperate. Henrietta even contemplated selling her hair, but could not agree a decent price. Howard taunted her about this when he learned the truth.