Dishonour and Obey: A thrilling seventeenth century investigation

“If only it were true that the wicked of the world did not prosper! I know that this is corrected in the life to come, but it would be good if God occasionally smote someone for being miserly. Having conceived the wish, I decided not to stand too close to Vlisser in case God answered my prayer with a thunderbolt and his aim was off.” Dishonour and Obey is the third book in the Master Mercurius Mysteries series by British author, Graham Brack. Now an octogenarian cleric, Master Mercurius dictates to his clerk a third episode that occurred during his days as a young lecturer in moral philosophy and ethics at the University of Leiden. It is 1676, and two years since he was enlisted by Stadhouder, William III of Orange to look into a treasonous plot against him. Now enjoying a quiet life of study, writing and some teaching, Mercurius is quite dismayed to learn that the Stadhouder has not forgotten him, but indeed has a new assignment for him, in London. Under the pretext of checking that William’s English cousin, Mary is a sound Protestant and therefore suitable for marriage, Mercurius is to take advantage of his free passage as a clergyman, to note any who might sabotage these plans and bring them to the notice of Ambassador Extraordinary, Van Langenburg. For this, Mercurius has to take a crash course in English although he observes that: “There are people who will tell you that if you just speak Dutch slowly and loudly, the intelligent Englishman will understand you. That may be true, but we cannot rely on always having an intelligent Englishman to hand, and I understood not a word they said in their barbaric language.” And when in London, he notes that: “they are so certain that everyone in the world speaks English that even if you obviously don’t, they will behave as if you do and just talk a little louder to you.” Luckily, with Princess Mary he can converse in Latin. Mercurius notes the Court’s abundance of food and drink and is impressed with the city’s rebuild after the Great Fire, and Christopher Wren, the man building St Paul’s Cathedral. But their welcome is marred when one of their party is falsely accused of theft by a market stallholder during their City tour. Then, while enjoying an evening of English hospitality, the Dutch embassy party notices that one of their number is missing. A search finds him, face down in an alley with a dagger in his back. Now with some investigations to his credit, Mercurius inspects the scene and deduces that all is not as it might appear. It seems that the victim was on a covert mission for the Stadhouder, and Mercurius wonders if it was this, or the negotiations for the marriage that got him killed. Working with the English Lord Chamberlain, Lord Arlington, he learns that there are an almost dizzying number of opponents to this politically motivated union, and their motives equally various. If Mercurius is often clever and quick-thinking, he sometimes makes incorrect deductions which delay his ultimate discovery of the who and why. Along the way, he has his first taste of tea, and concludes that “London was full of places to get drunk” but “English beer is horrible. And expensive” so he is pleased to return home. His blush is well-exercised when he is, several times, offered “comfort” from young women of the court, including “one of the King’s Acknowledged Bastards”. After surviving abduction, he eventually gets to reveal all he has learned in the King’s audience chamber to a large gathering, although Charles II does show a bit of impatience: “‘Master Mercurius, have you a deal more to say? For if you have, for God’s sake go away and write a book about it”. The King is pleased enough with the result and Mercurius goes home with gold and an offer of one of his “unwanted mistresses”, after almost, despite his being a minister of the Dutch Reformed Church (and a secretly ordained Catholic priest), being made Bishop of Norwich. He will still have to somehow avoid being appointed the Royal Chaplain in The Hague.