The Speckled Monster Read Online Free PDF Page B

James II, from the throne in a brief and nearly bloodless coup d’état dubbed the Glorious Revolution. Passing over the prince, they had handed the throne to the more promising—and Protestant—couple, William of Orange (the ousted king’s nephew) and Mary (the ousted king’s eldest daughter). The prince, feared the Whigs, had spent those twelve years honing his grudges against them to glinting hatred. Suddenly, thanks to smallpox, the once glorious revolutionaries had everything to lose. All across London, Whigs of all walks of life huddled together in taverns like the Cat and Fiddle, in coffeehouses and drawing rooms, to take comfort in each other’s company and debate what might best be done about the succession.
    After a year of wrangling, on June 12, 1701, Parliament passed the Act of Settlement, debarring the Prince of Wales—and all other Roman Catholics—from the throne. As previously arranged, Mary’s younger sister Anne would succeed King William. After Anne, Parliament proclaimed it would toss the crown high over France and send it spinning toward Germany, to the tidy town of Hanover and the waiting head of the dowager electress Sophia.
    The granddaughter of England’s first Stuart monarch, old King James I, Sophia was Protestant, willing to share power with Parliament, and trailed by robust male heirs in two succeeding generations: both Protestant, and both named George. Furthermore, Sophia and the first of these Georges had already survived smallpox. Apparently, the House of Hanover had escaped not only their Stuart cousins’ weakness for the Roman religion, but their well-known susceptibility to smallpox.
    In London, as both smallpox and the storm it had brewed up over the succession melted away, men who had drawn together against the growing dark found they still liked each other in the clear light of day. Their numbers swollen, their loyalties cemented, the Kit-Catters kept meeting, but released from dread, their debates circled back to the delicious subjects of wine, women, and song.
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    So it was that Lady Mary’s entrance into the Cat and Fiddle caught Lord Halifax open mouthed and midpoem on the wonders of yet another famous beauty, who just happened to be the elder sister of one of Lady Mary’s friends. Shining with delight, Lady Mary stepped into the silence and spoke:
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    Even great Lord Halifax’s skill
Before such beauty must fall still.
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    Across the room, he raised one eyebrow, and took up her verse, raising his glass once more and picking up where she had left off:
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    To gaze in awe at Venus’ face,
Caught in Virtue’s strong embrace.
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    He gestured first to the lady’s husband and then turned to Lady Mary with the great teasing flourish of a full court bow, as if she were the dead queen come again.
    That was fine: it gave her more time to think. By the time Halifax rose again, she had him. She nodded first to him and then curtsied to Sir Godfrey Kneller, the court portrait painter. Last spring, she and her friend had been to Sir Godfrey’s studio to watch him paint the lady in question; Lady Mary had seen Lord Halifax there. She looked around the men gathered around her, leaning in to catch her words, and felt her heart swoop up to the ceiling with joy:
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    With so much justice, so much art,
Her very picture charms the heart.
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    Kingston was staring at Lady Mary as if a pet monkey had spouted Shakespeare. Glancing from daughter to father and back, the company regained its gallantry. The roar of approval was deafening as the men declared her the undisputed queen of the Kit-Cat Club.
    Fêted and petted, fed candies and sips of wine, she was whirled from one member to another. Halifax claimed her first and presented her to Sir Godfrey. She met Will Congreve, whose new comedy, The Way of the World, was the latest rage on the stage; he handed her on to Dr. Garth and the poet Arthur Mainwaring. Her