Master of Shadows by Mark Lamster

Author:Mark Lamster [Lamster, Mark]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-0-385-53223-5
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2009-12-26T16:00:00+00:00

RUBENS’S DANGEROUS GAMBIT paid off. At the end of May, Gerbier and Carleton were dispatched to The Hague. Scaglia soon followed. On June 13, Carleton wrote to Edward Conway, the English secretary of state, assuring him that “Rubens pasport is graunted him, so we are likely to see him here quickly.” He later confirmed that the passport had been issued on the pretext that Rubens was traveling to deal in matters relating to his art.

In fact, it would be more than a month before Rubens would make it onto Dutch soil. The delay was due, in part, to the anticipated arrival in Brussels of Don Diego Messia, one of Philip’s chief ministers. He was carrying with him news “of the greatest consequence,” according to the painter, ostensibly concerning the funding of the Spanish war effort against the Dutch. Messia, who was engaged to Spinola’s daughter, would also be coming with wide latitude and authority from Philip to orchestrate negotiations on behalf of Spain, though he would presumably defer to his future father-in-law, the hero of Breda.

From an English perspective, word of Messia’s pending arrival did not bode well. Carleton, an old diplomatic hand, was inherently wary of Messia’s intervention, and his own contacts in the Dutch diplomatic community confirmed those suspicions. At the beginning of July, he wrote to Conway in London to express his concern: “I must lett your Lord understand that such advises as are come of late dayes from Bruxells to the Prince of Orange from such secret intelligencers as they here relye upon, all concurre that howsoever there is good affection in those parts to pacification, out of Spayne comes no signe of any such intention.”

By mid-July, with Messia delayed in transit—he had, supposedly, injured himself while stepping from a coach outside of Bordeaux—and the English growing impatient, Rubens was ordered to travel north to Spanish-controlled Breda. From his room at the Swan, he dashed off a letter to Gerbier in The Hague offering to meet just over the border in Zevenbergen; he was permitted to travel no farther into enemy territory. That didn’t sit well with Gerbier; Zevenbergen was too close to Flanders for his tastes. “My going thither would cause reports and suspicions,” he replied. Secrecy, as Charles had commanded, was essential, as there were any number of parties—in particular the French—who would be anxious to sabotage whatever progress they might achieve. “Choose whether you will come to Delft, Rotterdam, Amsterdam, or Utrecht, if The Hague does not suit you.” Later in the day, having had a chance to “ruminate” on the matter, Gerbier dispatched a second, badgering missive to Rubens, warning that the whole negotiation was in jeopardy. “I must tell you, as my friend, that I apprehend this business will end in smoke … If the Infanta and the Marquis are so zealous about this good business, why then render it subject to suspicions? … Do not let this business which took its rise upon the subject of pictures, end in smoke; our ancient friendship gives me liberty to speak freely.

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