Deeds of Men by Brennan Marie

Author:Brennan, Marie [Brennan, Marie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery, secret history, murder, seventeenth century, faerie, historical fiction, historical fantasy, Fantasy
Publisher: Book View Café
Published: 2009-06-10T06:00:00+00:00

The prince, who shames a tyrannes name to beare,

Shall never dare doe any thing, but feare

—II.ii.40-1

Whitehall Palace, Westminster: 1 March, 1624

“God’s blood!” Henry exploded, hurling his unlit pipe to the floor. “How can the King think of it? How can he listen to more promises from the Spanish? After that farce in Madrid last year, all the reports from the Prince and the duke about the duplicity of the Spanish—”

Deven answered him in a single word. “Peace.”

“The whole point of the Spanish match was to gain us help for war in the Palatinate!”

Perhaps more than a single word was needed, after all. “Peace with Spain. Whom James views in a friendly light, as he has always been wont to do.”

Henry opened his mouth to reply, but stopped himself. The young man was learning to chart the winds of these storms; what he still struggled with was remembering to do so before he gave his mouth free rein. Deven waited, patiently, not prompting him with any clues. How much had Henry learned?

“The Commons,” the young man said at last. “James had to call a Parliament if he were to have any coin at all for war, in the Palatinate or otherwise—but the Commons would rather see us fight Catholic Spain. A war of religion, against an old enemy.”

“Whereas James,” Deven finished for him, “wants only to restore the Elector Palatine to his dominion in the Germanies—mostly for the sake of his daughter. Were she not wed to the Elector, this would be a much smaller matter.”

“But Buckingham is on the side of the Commons, is he not? Against Spain.”

“Not quite.” Deven kept sparse quarters here in Whitehall Palace, liking his ability to claim a room, but not often bothering to occupy it. The furnishings, however, did include a chess board. He fought the urge to place a piece in front of Henry and ask him to list the players in the question of Charles’ marriage, and the Palatine war. “Buckingham sees, not states, but something else. The Habsburgs.”

Henry paled. “Spain—and Austria.”

“And anywhere else they have extended their influence. Which is much too far, and that is why Buckingham hopes to check them.”

“Hence courting France,” his friend said, comprehension dawning. “The French can be Catholic all they like, so long as their sovereign is not a Habsburg. Though isn’t his Queen one of theirs?”

Deven scratched behind his ear, grimacing. “Yes, Anne of Austria. Sister to King Philip of Spain. Round and round the kinship goes, and that is why Buckingham fears the House of Habsburg. Henrietta Maria, by virtue of being Louis’ sister, is clean of that taint—and if this French match Buckingham desires goes through, it will bind France into alliance with England. First for the Palatinate, and then, perhaps, for more.”

Henry’s breath blew out in a long, impressed sigh. Then he said, “No wonder James quails.”

“Precisely.” The Scottish King had always been a peacemaker, detesting war. It must be a bitter pill in his old age to see Europe crumbling into chaos, the Protestant corners of the Holy Roman Empire against those that remained Catholic.

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