“Only by your own carelessness,” said Newton.
“How so?”
“I deciphered your letters.”
Oates looked disbelieving. “If that is so, Doctor, then I would simply ask you to name the keyword that we used.”
“Willingly. It was ‘blood.’”
Oates whistled. “Then it is true what they say, that you are the cleverest man that ever was.”
“I deciphered it, yes,” said Newton. “But I would still know more of how it was devised.”
Oates waited for a moment as surprise gave way to recollection.
“The original cipher was devised by a French diplomat, Blaise de Vigenere, in 1570. He was secretary to King Charles IX until it was discovered that he was a Huguenot, upon which he left the court and devoted himself to his ciphers. His work was taken up by Monsieur Descartes.”
“Do you mean Rene Descartes, the philosopher?” said Newton.
“I do, sir. He lived in Poitiers as a student when Poitiers was still Huguenot. Which was where I came across it. When I was in a French seminary.”
“But Mister Descartes was a Roman Catholic, was he not?”
“Mister Descartes’s family was Roman Catholic, but Descartes had many close family connections with the Huguenots and was all his life a great friend to our Protestant religion. It was Mister Descartes who refined De Vigenere’s code and made it impregnable until this day when you solved it, Doctor.”
“Then my triumph is complete,” said Newton. “For I would have defeated Monsieur Descartes above all men.”
“No doubt you shall be well rewarded for your endeavour. By Lord Halifax.”
“To know that it was the mind of Descartes I struggled to overcome is reward in itself,” said Newton.
“Oh, come, sir,” said Oates. “‘Tis well known that you are much preferred by Lord Halifax. It is already whispered that when Mister Neale leaves the Mint, you will be the next Master.”
“A false rumour, sir,” replied Newton. “There, at least, you have the advantage of me, lies and false rumours being your own stock in trade.”
“But does it not gall you, sir? To know that the reason for your preferment is not your fluxions and gravitation, no, nor even your excellent mind? Does it not sit badly with you, sir? To know the real reason you thrive?”
Newton stayed silent.
“Even in this poor light, I see the truth of it plain upon your face,” continued Oates.
“Be silent, sir,” commanded Newton.
“I don’t say I blame you, sir. I would probably do it myself.”
“Be silent, sir,” insisted Newton.
“What man in our situation would not trade the virtue of a pretty niece, to the advantage of his own career? ’Tis given out that Lord Halifax is much taken with the girl. That he has made her his mistress and his whore. Lord Lucas had it from Lord Harley, who had it from Halifax himself. She is seventeen, is she not? Now that’s a fine time for a girl. Her cunny is not too young. Nor too old. It’s like a tomato when there is still a little bit of green in it. Sweet and firm. A girl of quality, too, so that her cunny is a clean one. For there’s many a bawd that plays at being a virgin. But the real thing is something else. And who else could afford such pleasures as that but a rich man like Lord Halifax? For the price he has paid is your preferment, Doctor.”
“That is a damned lie, sir.” And so saying, Newton struck Oates, slapping him hard on the face, which was the first time and last time I ever saw such a thing.
Oates bowed his head. “If you say so, sir, I shall believe you, even if all London does not.”
After that we all stayed silent.
I, most of all.
Yet it was already my opinion that Miss Barton was become Lord Halifax’s whore for no other reason than she wanted to be.
Thus was a great disaster in the realm most narrowly averted. Although in the face of my own disaster I must confess I hardly cared. But what was worse, so little was done afterward to punish the principal ringleaders of these seditious men that a man might have thought there were some in the Government who were in league with those who had promoted this mischief. And which did explain why Oates had seemed so calm in the face of this disaster to his plans. At least that was what Newton thought when we discussed the matter afterward; and he said it was often thus, that the common people were held to account for themselves while their betters went scot- free.
Titus Oates was prosecuted not for treason or sedition, but for debt; in 1698 he was released and, most unaccountably, granted a lump sum of five hundred pounds and three hundred pounds a year on the Post Office in lieu of his pension. No explanation was ever discovered by Newton as to why this came about.
Or at least none that was vouchsafed to me. But that Oates continued his seditious activities seems most certain, for the Whitehall Palace was burned to the ground on January sixth, 1698, and only the Banqueting House survived. It was given out that a Dutch laundrywoman had been careless with a hot iron. Much later on, Newton had information that the woman was not Dutch at all, but a French Huguenot.
No action was taken against milords Ashley and Lucas. They were not even arrested. Lucas remained the Lord Lieutenant and welcomed Tsar Peter the Great upon his royal visit to the Tower of London in February 1698. Lord Ashley resigned as the Member of Parliament for Poole in 1698, and succeeded his father as the third Earl of Shaftesbury in 1699. He retired from all public life in July 1702, following the accession of Queen Anne. John Fauquier continued as Deputy Master of the Mint, while Sir John Houblon even became the first Governor of the Bank of England.
The King returned to England, landing at Margate on Sunday, November fourteenth, 1697. It rained almost continuously, but the weather did little to dampen the enthusiasm of all loyal Englishmen for the return of William; all over London, bells were rung, and it need hardly be said that guns were fired at the Tower, which brought down the ceiling in my house. Two days later the King arrived back in London, in a very pompous procession, although many who remembered it said that it was not as pompous as the return of King Charles.
Tuesday, November the second, was a Thanksgiving Day for the peace, and despite more wet weather, there were fireworks in the evening. The next day, many of the French Huguenots that were arrested as supposed Jacobites were tried for high treason. In courts that were closed to the general public, they loudly protested that they were no Jacobites, nor any Roman Catholics, but their offers to prove they were not Papists by taking the sacramental tests under the Act were ignored as being sharp and cynical—captious attempts to thwart justice. In truth there was precious little justice about, that December, and the trials were more show than substance, with the sentences, in Shakespeare’s phrase, a foregone conclusion. More than one hundred men were transported to the Americas, but six, including Valliere and Rohan, were sentenced to death.
Sunday, December the fifth, was the first Sunday St. Paul’s had any service in it since it was consumed at the conflagration of the City. The work was still not complete, with Sir Christopher Wren’s great dome still not built; but the choir was finished and the organ looked and sounded most magnificent. Newton and I attended the service, with Mister Knight preaching on the Epistle of Jude, verse three, in which the brother of James exhorts that Christians should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. Mister Knight applied this text against the Socinian doctrine, which was only a short step away from the Arianism of my master.
Upon our return to the Mint, some days later, after an absence of several weeks, Newton received a message that Sergeant Rohan—who was held in Newgate, where Newton’s reputation for obtaining pardons for them that gave him information was well known—wished to meet with him in order that he might impart a great secret.
“What? Another damned secret?” I said.
“It is the Tower,” said Newton, as if that were all the explanation needed.
Which was true indeed. The Tower was more than just a prison and a place of safety to mint the coin; it was also a state of mind, an attitude that affected all who came into contact with its walls. Even now I am haunted by its memory. And if you would speak to my ghost you must look for me there, for it was while I was in the Tower that I died. Not my body, it is true, but my heart and soul, which were most certainly murdered while I was in the Tower. Young ladies that wished to conceive of a child were in the habit of visiting the Tower armouries, intent
