The Chaplain's Tale

"Rubens stayed here with me on Tuesday last, while Barozzi, gentleman to the Duke of Savoy, when in shooting London Bridge had his boat overturned by the frightful stirring of one of his company, a churchman from Brussels as then employed by Rubens, whom Barozzi was conducting to Greenwich, and was there drowned, Barozzi himself being hardly saved at his third and last coming up to the top of the water by one of his spurs." – Lord Rochester to Sir Isaac Wake, July, 1629

ANYONE who embarks upon a journey realises that he may not die in his own bed of old age. From the time of his last prayers to the saints that protect his city's gates to the thanksgiving on his safe return, he is aware of death's constant presence. To make or maintain their fortune, men must always travel, although Master Rubens, now past the age of fifty and troubled by gout, was at first reluctant to start this journey in the service of her majesty the Archduchess, saying that the only advantage to be derived from such an excursion was that of dying a little better informed, since he had never visited England before. Dying was a topic of conversation on this journey from its beginning. My duty, like that of any companion cleric, was by prayer and vigilance to ward off the perils on the road, and to administer last Catholic rites to any of the company, should it prove to be his final journey. This crossing of unknown waters into Protestant England is particularly hazardous at present, on account of the many hostile Dutchmen that ply between here and there. Taking all precautions, our party's coaches -- six in number, with armed escort, trunks and cases, boxes, paintings, and no doubt secret papers from Madrid -- left the Spanish court in Brussels for Antwerp, then bumped and jostled through Flanders all the way to the port of Dunkirk to take the shortest crossing to England. From here in a fast ship it is a day's voyage, we were told, far shorter than sailing direct from Antwerp to the palace at Greenwich on the Thames. For my part, although I have visited many of the courts of Europe and been passenger to watermen and river barges, I have never crossed the sea before, and my fear had more to do with waves than enemy ships. Even on rivers I feel mightily unsteady, more than on a horse, which I have always found alarming, and I mentioned this want of my abilities to my travelling companions in our coach, which besides the Master himself and his secretary included Heer Brat, brother-in-law of his late wife. There is no better traveling companion than Master Rubens, who engages with everyone from nobility to commoner with the same enthusiasm and civility, but his concern about the possibility of sinking beneath a Dutch broadside subdued him more as the journey progressed, until after setting off from a luncheon stop on the last day of our journey, he asked if any of us had any experience of drowning. In the discussion that followed, of what agonies were caused when water displaces air in the lungs, how long it took and so forth, he said that it was a subject that had interested him when he was a young man in Mantua. It was there that he had painted a dramatic picture of the Greek goddess Hero and her drowned lover, Leander. On several occasions before and since, he said, he had seen corpses pulled from the Scheldt and had tried to recognise in their lifeless faces signs of fear or pain. I said that I was sure that any man who had lived a good life and had no fear of God would look at peace. But, the Master said, a dying man may not at that moment think of what he has been or where he is going, but what he is leaving behind. Addressing me, he said that a celibate man like me did not have the concerns of a father, who must worry for any want and happiness of his children. He then went on to tell us that he had pledged his great art collection -- one of the largest in Europe -- to either or both of his two surviving sons if they showed an interest in art and followed him into the fraternity of St Luke. But neither had so far displayed any intention in doing so. Of course, said his brother-in-law, the more children you have the better chance there is that at least one will not displease you. In my garden, he said, I prune my fruit trees hard, for it makes them think they are about to die, and therefore they produce more fruit to ensure the survival of their species. Acts of procreation, he concluded, must precede a journey, as they precede a battle. Master Rubens seemed amused by this suggestion, though he had been a widower more than two years. But I looked away, not wanting to embarrass him with any reminder of the confessions I had heard from him in recent months concerning a model seventeen years old and ripe as any in his paintings. If we did not reach Dunkirk soon, I remarked, it would be dark. But days were long now, and there was still light in the sky when we arrived at the fortified town among the dunes A man-of-war sent to fetch us by King Charles, arrived four days later. The size of a castle with two decks of cannon, it looked down on the fishing boats and privateers that filled the harbour. Captain Mennes came ashore to greet us. He was as robust and cheerful as Master Rubens, and I wondered if all Englishmen would be like this. They matched each other, each using words in half a dozen languages as well as Latin, in the hope that some might hit the mark. Even I understood a part of their conversation. Before retiring Master Rubens said that if all Englishmen were like Captain Mennes, he would be happy in King Charles's court, and he was now looking forward to the extra knowledge this excursion would bring him. Shortly after Mass the next morning, at which special prayers were offered for our journey, my fear of water and all that float upon it came back to me as I stepped aboard the launch that was to row us out to the Adventurer. Fear of the water made me clumsy and I toppled on to a sailor, before scrambling to a seat. A light wind enabled us to be soon out of the harbour. Master Rubens remained on the high poop deck with the captain, walking back and forth, his dark eyes keenly roaming in search of enemy ships. Such a vantage point may have benefitted in the viewing of distant horizons, but it was no good for my stomach, because the further from the surface of the water, the more we heaved and swayed. The sickness I endured was a great torment, and nothing would relieve it, though I went below and found a cot to lie in. For all those hours as we crossed the water I was in fervent prayer, listening out, half in hope, for Dutch cannonballs to come crashing through the timbers to send us all to heaven. But none came. In that respect the journey was uneventful, and when we arrived in Dover in the evening, no man was gladder than I to step ashore. As our coaches left the quay, I said how glad I was to be on dry land, and not have to endure such discomfort for some months, until we set sail on our return to Antwerp. But Master Rubens pointed out that though we may have left the sea behind, London relies upon its river. Captain Mennes had told him that just two weeks ago Queen Henrietta, returning to Greenwich after Mass had such a terrifying journey beneath London Bridge, where a fast ebbing tide can roar like thunder between its pillars, that her first child, the son and heir to the English throne, had been stillborn. I expressed condolences for the couple, and was glad that I would never have any heirs to worry about.