taken by Maurice as his flagship, renamed the Defiance.
At last, in summer 1652, the tiny squadron crossed the Atlantic.
They had misjudged the moment. They found that the last Royalist enclave, in Barbados, had been extinguished by the Parliamentarian navy. The other islands and the American colonies saw where the future lay; they were coming to terms with the Commonwealth. There was no Caribbean safe haven. Instead of enjoying a tropical welcome, the Royalists found themselves isolated and at risk. Late summer was the season for heavy weather too, as fierce storms formed over the warm oceans. After sailing north past unfriendly islands, taking a few prizes, bartering glass beads for fruit and obtaining water — but no other supplies — at an anchorage controlled by the French, they sheltered in a bay called Dixon's Hole in the Virgin Islands. There they rationalised their motley collection of ships and prizes, while they prepared for the bad weather they knew was coming and considered their options. Provisions ran low, and there were many complaints about the local staple, cassava, a root for which they had to forage in dense undergrowth and which, even when they managed to find it, made unpalatable tapioca dumplings or a bitter bread; eating too much of it was poisonous.
Rupert had decided they were at risk of discovery by hostile Commonwealth patrols. He had set sail for Anguilla. Their situation worsened dramatically when, in the middle of September, a hurricane blew up. They were caught at sea; it was on them with frightening suddenness. They had seen enough bad weather, but this was far outside their experience. Apocalyptic winds howled in the sky. Enormous waves, fuelled by the great winds' passage over the mighty Atlantic, surged ever and ever higher. They had no chance to outrun the weather or to find shelter. Ships which had seemed perfectly substantial on a dock-side now felt like fragile toys; they became unmanageable. Helpless, they slid down vast swells of water as if they were heading inevitably to the bottom, then when they somehow cheated death and were driven up again from terrifying troughs, unrelenting water swept across their decks so powerfully neither man nor gear could withstand its power. Anyone carried overboard was gone in seconds. Lifeboats, sails, masts and rigging were torn away. Loose barrels rumbled to and fro and crashed about dangerously in their flooded holds. Even with barely a shred of canvas, the waves forced ships to careen sideways so steeply their spars seemed ready to touch the water and drag them under. Every rib and joint of their wooden hulls groaned in agony, as if the tormented timbers were being crushed in some giant ogre's paw. The soldiers cursed the sailors and the sailors, when they had breath to do it, cursed them back. Everyone was exhausted within hours, but they knew they would have days of this to endure.
Orlando Lovell played his part, as crews and troops fought heroically to survive. It was impossible to see from one end to the other of the small ship he was on. Dim figures loomed through spray, gesticulating wildly. Lovell worked now without complaint, soaked through to his shirt, long hair flying in wet strands as he fought to bail water, help reduce sail, clear spars, bolster holes. Now the men with him remembered why they had deemed him a good colleague. He lacked no courage in a disaster. Released from lethargy and ill-humour, he showed strong mental toughness. He bawled or signalled frantic orders above the howls of the wind, while he strove against their coming doom, using all his strength physically and encouraging others. They hardly heard a curse from him; he would not waste the energy. As the ship staggered and risked foundering, he was a desperate participant. Lovell was now a fierce man of action who fought strenuously, tirelessly, ingeniously for his own life and the lives of everybody with him.
The hurricane roared up to a climax. On the second day, the ships lost sight of one another. Unable to steer in the pitch darkness, they had to battle on, every ship independently, and every man for himself. Even the best captain in the sturdiest vessel could not help his craft survive the damage they were suffering. Rupert's ship was driven helplessly towards ferocious jagged rocks and his appalled men must all have perished, had not the wind then abruptly changed. They were flung into a safe harbour on an uninhabited island, where they made anchor in complete exhaustion.
When the hurricane finally passed over and made landfall far in the west, Rupert's battered vessel was alone. Somehow they crawled back to Dixon's Hole for repairs, intending to wait for any other survivors to reconnoitre at their last-known berth. As the last rags of storm blustered under grey skies, Rupert then searched desperately for his brother Maurice. One other ship of theirs was picked up, but of the Defiance no trace could be found.
Rupert was devastated. The Defiance and the other ships must have been wrecked on the treacherous reefs and rocks of the low-rising, sparsely populated Anegada, in the north of the Virgin Islands, or perhaps they came to grief on Sombrero Island, above Anguilla. Rupert hunted the region, fruitlessly seeking answers. Rumours would persist for years that Maurice was still alive, perhaps a prisoner of the Spanish, but eventually Rupert abandoned the search. He returned to Europe.
No word ever came. Only many years later did Sir Robert Holmes, who had served with Prince Maurice, learn from some Spaniards that shattered pipe-staves had been seen, washed ashore in great quantities on the beaches of Puerto Rico. Pipes were huge nautical barrels, the size of two hogsheads. These had been branded MP, which was the mark Prince Maurice used.
Long before that, early in 1653, just two ships crept back to France, with Prince Rupert. He was depressed, ill and exhausted. He lay sick for weeks, before his cousin Charles II sent a carriage and he rejoined the court. By then Rupert had accepted that his brother had perished. The Defiance was lost: utterly lost, with no survivors.
Chapter Sixty-Eight — The Middle Temple: 1653
In England, Juliana Lovell consulted a lawyer.
It came about by accident. Juliana did not go to the Middle Temple in order to enquire about her personal position. She thought she knew that all too well: a married woman, with two children to support, having no money — but a fixed intent to lead a life of the utmost simplicity. What else could she do? Since Edmund Treves first said her husband had sailed with Prince Maurice, she had had no news. The princes' movements were sporadically mentioned in news-sheets, so as the years passed, Juliana became familiar with foreign affairs as she scanned reports from France, Holland, Spain, Naples and anywhere else that might be relevant. Early in 1653 she saw mention that Prince Rupert and perhaps ten ships had been glimpsed carrying out repairs at Guadeloupe, then she read of a rumour he had been shipwrecked. In mid-February the Weekly Intelligencer gave her dark news:
It was this day confirmed by letters from Paris that Prince Rupert landing a few days before at Brest in Brittany, did take his journey from thence to Paris. Some letters make mention that he came only with two ships, some say three, the only relics of the storm. There is nothing yet certain of his brother Maurice, but some say that both he and his ship were devoured by the sea in the great tempest.
Juliana went to the Middle Temple because she was invited. Mr Abdiel Impey who had already informed her of her guardian's death, was searching for a document one day in spring 1653 and came upon the long-forgotten papers of Mr William Gadd, deceased — deceased, in fact, in 1649. Mr Impey kept an extremely cluttered office, where his rule was the good one that whenever he wrote a letter he placed a copy handy in a mountainous document tray; if nobody replied within two years, or when the pile grew so tall it toppled over, he dropped the copy into the basket of papers which his clerk was allowed to use to light the fire.
However, Mr Impey had known and liked William Gadd.
Extensive exploration among pleas, draft wills, receipts for embroidered waistcoats and vintners' price lists revealed that Mistress Juliana Lovell had answered his first letter with a polite acknowledgement; at the time she had said she would come to discuss matters as soon as it was convenient. This phrase either meant the party would turn up within three days, hoping money had been willed to them, or if they were frightened off by officialdom they would never come at all. Being in a kindly mood the day he found the papers, Mr Impey had his clerk dispatch a reminder.
This time, Juliana came. She worked on the principle that one invitation was mere etiquette, but two indicated something important.
Besides, she needed to cling to this last link with the people she had known during her marriage. Now Lovell was permanently missing. Mr Gadd was dead. So too, killed in 1651 at the battle of Worcester, was poor Edmund Treves. One of his sisters had sent Juliana a locket with his portrait, which apparently Edmund had wished her to have, and a jewelled watch for his godson Valentine; there was mention of a small legacy, though it had not arrived. Worcester had been the most desperate of battles. The young King's troops were outnumbered almost three to one and despite successful cavalry sallies in the early stages, they ended up bottled in, short of
