Rule Britannia

by Alec Marsh

Genres: Crime Fiction; Historical Thrillers; Historical Mysteries

Synopsis

The first book in a light-hearted historical adventure series set during the mid-twentieth century. ' An immensely readable treat!' Alexander McCall Smith Ernest Drabble, a Cambridge historian and mountaineer, travels to rural Devon to inspect the decapitated head of Oliver Cromwell - a macabre artefact owned by Dr Wilkinson. Drabble only tells one person of his plans - Harris, an old school friend and press reporter. On the train to Devon, Drabble narrowly avoids being murdered, only to reach his destination and find Dr Wilkinson has been killed. Gripped in Wilkinson's hand is a telegram from Winston Churchill instructing him to bring the head of Oliver Cromwell to London. Drabble has unwittingly become embroiled in a pro-Nazi conspiracy headed by a high-status Conservative member of the British government. And so, Drabble teams up with Wilkinson's secretary, Kate Honeyand, to find the head and rescue Harris who is being tortured for information... Praise for Rule Britannia : 'A rollicking good read' IAN RANKIN 'Marsh chomps the period bit between his teeth and relates his yarn with winning gusto' NEW STATESMAN 'Tremendous stuff! With the arrival of Alec Marsh's first Drabble and Harris thriller, John Buchan must be stirring uneasily in his grave' STANLEY JOHNSON

Release date: September 26, 2019

Publisher: Accent Press

Print pages: 336

Sample

London, December 1936

A fog of tobacco all but concealed the strutting satyrs, winged cherubs, and nude dancing nymphs that adorned the low ceiling of the Granville Club’s Long Bar. The cloud floated over a noisy, bobbing, gas-lit landscape of gentlemen patrons, lounging in the deep leather armchairs, standing chatting in groups or propped at the bar, spirals of smoke ascending from their pipes, cigars, and cigarettes. There was a lone chromatic renegade among the uniform landscape of black and grey cloth – Ernest Drabble, dressed in a country suit of green herringbone tweed, finished off with a muted yellow waistcoat, and a blue and silver striped tie; this of his college, Sidney Sussex, Cambridge. He was thirty years of age, and in the prime of life.

‘It’s busy for a Monday,’ he remarked, as he pressed his stomach against the bar to allow another patron to pass. Drabble’s companion, Percival Harris, dismissed this comment with a shake of the head.

‘You’ve been hiding away in your ivory tower for too long, Ernest. I’ve warned you about this before.’ Harris lifted his silver tankard above head height and wagged it jauntily, ‘Let’s have another.’

A moment or two later, the two men raised refreshed pints to their lips. They complimented the brew. Harris nudged Drabble’s elbow.

‘See the chubby chap at the end of the bar?’

Drabble scanned the crowd.

‘Over there,’ said Harris, pointing brazenly with his tankard. ‘Barrel-chested fellow just ordering now.’ Drabble peered along the bar and saw him.

‘Reckon if he shaved his hair off, he’d be a spit for Mussolini.’

Drabble laughed; the stranger certainly had the rubbery pout and the bulging eyes of the Italian leader, not to mention the tan.

‘Look,’ continued Harris, ‘even waves his ruddy arms about like Il Duce.’

Drabble smiled. ‘You don’t suppose he’s actually one of his doubles?’

‘Or the man himself?’ Harris shrugged. ‘Dictators have to have holidays, too.’ He looked back over. ‘I really ought to find out who he is; it might make something for the column. People just die for lookalikes, especially of Latin tyrants; they can’t get enough of them.’

Drabble chuckled; Harris was never off-duty. Evidently deep in thought, he watched Harris grope in his jacket pocket and take out his pipe, knock it on the bar and then remove a rectangular tin from his other pocket. Gritting his teeth about the stem of the pipe, he pressed a pinch of tobacco into its small bowl, struck a match, and dipped the flaming tip in – all achieved in a rather graceful, sweeping action. A plume of smoke erupted from it, followed by a second, then a third. Each billowed heavenward and Drabble watched them blend into the nicotine congestion above; for a moment, he saw the slender arm of a nymph and the primed bow of a cherub.

Then Harris broke the silence.

‘So where are you off to again – Devon?’

‘Cornwall,’ corrected Drabble. He had been dreading this topic.

‘What’s the drill?’

‘Oh,’ he replied casually, ‘just a bit of research.’

‘Research of course, but what?’

‘Same old stuff.’ Drabble looked down at his drink. ‘More Cromwell - nothing to interest your readers, I’m afraid.’

Harris arched an eyebrow at him.

‘Why don’t I believe you, Professor?’

‘Because you never do, Harris,’ he sighed wearily. Drabble remembered the several times before when Harris had used information supplied by him journalistically, rarely with his blessing. They eyed each other for a moment.

‘Come on,’ said Harris. ‘Spill the beans.’

Drabble felt his resolve weaken; the truth was he liked his friend more than he always trusted him, but he also knew resistance was a waste of time. Harris had a way of getting it out of you in the end. Drabble set down his tankard and cleared his throat: ‘Well, since you asked,’ he paused, finding the words. ‘I confess. . . it’s all a touch morbid.’

‘Morbid?’ Harris’ eyes lit up. ‘Morbid in what way?’

‘Promise you won’t breathe a word of it?’

Harris’ hand went to his chest and he frowned as though the mildest suggestion of indiscretion was a grievous insult.

‘You have my word,’ he declared, with the solemnity of an archbishop officiating at a state funeral. Drabble contemplated his friend’s face doubtfully one last time, and lowered his voice. He did a quick look left and right, and then announced: ‘I’m going to inspect the head of Oliver Cromwell.’

Harris recoiled in disgust.

‘Good God –’

‘I know,’ sighed Drabble. ‘It sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it?’

Harris’ eyes narrowed.

‘It sounds bloody grotesque, old man. Christ alive. And you’re really positive that this is the actual bonce of the Lord Protector?’

‘That’s what I’ll find out.’

He grinned.

‘And suppose it is. What can this sensational artefact actually tell you, over and above what we already know?’

Drabble eyed him sharply. ‘Well, that remains to be seen. The fact is that no one has seen it for hundreds of years.’ He saw Harris’ nostrils flare and regretted this revelation. He cleared his throat, and tempered his enthusiasm: ‘The primary reason is simply to verify that it really is what this chap Wilkinson holds it to be - i.e. the decapitated cranium of Oliver Cromwell. But, as it happens, my next piece of research is going to be on the Restoration of 1660, and that was when they dug him up and everything else, so it’ll be interesting to see what marks there are on the skull, what bits are missing - you never know.’ He could feel his pulse beginning to quicken at the prospect but he caught his breath, and gave a grudging grimace as though it was a serious chore after all. ‘It might even lead to further avenues of academic endeavour,’ he concluded, in what he hoped was an especially boring-sounding voice.

‘What you really mean, Ernest, is that you just want to see it.’

The accusation stood a moment. Then Drabble broke into nervous laughter.

‘I don’t know,’ said Harris, shaking his head. ‘You grotesque so-and-so.’

‘Come off it!’

‘Come off it yourself,’ countered Harris, chuckling amiably. His tankard hovered at his mouth – a pose Drabble recognised as being preliminary to his draining its contents. ‘So, a question,’ the drink remained poised. ‘Or rather two questions: what is Cromwell’s head doing in Cornwall, and where the dickens is the rest of him?’

‘What we think we know is that Oliver Cromwell’s body was – and remains to this day – buried in the mass grave at Tyburn, underneath what is now the Regal Cinema at Marble Arch.’

‘Never did much like that place,’ Harris announced thoughtfully. ‘But if Oliver is under the Regal, what’s his head doing two hundred miles away in Cornwall?’

‘I’m coming to that.’ Drabble placed his glass on the bar. ‘As I’m sure you can remember from dear Mr James’ lessons at school, Oliver Cromwell died in 1658 and his son, Richard, succeeded as Lord Protector.’

‘Tumbledown Dick.’

‘That’s right. Anyhow, he was a bit of a numpty and the British people saw it in their wisdom to return the monarchy. Hence the Restoration.’

‘Charles the Second,’ interjected Harris. ‘Lots of bastards. Loved spaniels. Good egg.’

‘Well, as you might very well imagine, the King and his supporters were still pretty miffed about the execution eleven years before of the King’s beloved father, Charles the First.’

‘Perfectly reasonable.’

‘And, of course, the man they blamed more than any other for this was Cromwell. The tiny problem was, while they could torture and hang some of the other chaps responsible for killing old Charlie, Cromwell was dead already.’

‘That old chestnut.’

‘Precisely, so they did the next best thing: they dug him up from his resting place in Westminster Abbey, along with two other Parliamentarians, one of whom – fellow by the name of Bradshaw – had only died the year before and hadn’t been embalmed terribly well, to say the least.’ Drabble cleared his throat.

‘Still a bit saucy, was he?’ said Harris, with a wince.

‘It gets better,’ Drabble leaned in. ‘Cromwell’s corpse spent the night under guard in the Red Lion at Holborn, hence the legend about it being haunted by his ghost.’

‘Is that so?’ Harris looked up from his pipe, grinning with all his white teeth. ‘That’ll explain the beer.’

‘At dawn the following morning the bodies were carted up to Tyburn, which is where they did all the public executions in the capital in those days, and hanged by the neck, next to one another on a three-armed gibbet. Then in the afternoon, in front of crowds of onlookers, they were cut down – and beheaded at sword-point. It is said that Cromwell’s head took eight blows to hack off, which goes to prove what a tough old boot he really was.’

Harris chuckled.

‘No joke,’ added Drabble. ‘Bradshaw only needed six.’

‘What a pushover.’

‘The corpses, minus the heads, were then dumped into the communal grave beneath the Tyburn Tree – but a final ghoulish punishment awaited the severed heads. Those were taken to Westminster Hall and stuck up on high poles of oak, tipped in iron. There Cromwell’s head resided for twenty-five years – a grim reminder to all and sundry of what happens if you have the temerity to mess with the monarchy. It wasn’t until about 1685 that during a particularly violent storm it blew off, bounced down the slate roof, and landed in the guttering, where it was found by a sentry, who decided to keep it for himself.’

‘Well, naturally,’ said Harris, smirking, ‘what else would you do with the embalmed skull of the late dictator? One for the mantelpiece, surely.’

‘In point of fact, he hid it in his chimney for a further twenty years.’

‘In his chimney?’ Harris nudged his elbow. ‘Seems a rather cavalier thing to do!’

Drabble acknowledged Harris’ rejoinder with a friendly nod and cleared his throat: ‘On his death the sentry bequeathed it to his daughter, who sold it, and a little later the head ended up in a travelling circus as the chief freakish exhibit, you know, taking top billing over the bearded ladies, three-headed pigs, and ventriloquist ponies. It changed hands again and reappeared about the same time as the French Revolution, when it was bought by three chaps and put on display – people queued around the block to see it, sixpence a time. But then the head was lost – I mean, literally, it vanished, until the other day when I got a letter from this doctor saying he had it. Like everyone else, I’d assumed it was gone for ever. If it is what he claims it to be, then this is going to be a major breakthrough.’

‘Seriously?’ The light that had gone out in Harris’ eyes suddenly returned. ‘How major?’

‘It’s hard to say, but I promise you’ll be the first to know. For now, I’ll repeat, the owner says he doesn’t want people to know about it, so keep it under your hat.’

‘Blimey,’ said Harris, scratching his chin. ‘If heads could speak.’

‘But a touch morbid.’ Drabble shrugged and raised his glass. ‘Cheers.’

‘Cheers.’

They sank their drinks.

‘Righty-ho.’ Harris plonked the empty vessel onto the bar and thrust his pipe into his mouth. ‘I’ve a man to see about a dog,’ he nodded his head in the direction of Mussolini’s double, ‘and you’ve a date with a skull.’

Drabble emerged from the Granville Club into the teeth of a decided drizzle, one as strenuous as it was unremitting if the new deep, broad puddles were anything to go by. Why he had entrusted his Cromwellian secret to Harris, who, let’s face it, had never proven himself so very reliable over the years, could only be guessed at. A Freudian analyst would no doubt have ascribed it to some unexpiated, infantile confessional impulse.

He was still pondering this as he climbed into a taxi and the bright gas lanterns outside the doorway of the club faded from view as they jolted and juddered along the cobbled thoroughfare of Pall Mall and then turned up onto St James’s. It was sheer childish excitement. There could be no other explanation; that sense that only at the threshold of a journey does the excitement of its impending reality take hold. Until then it is but a mere apparition. Now it is real. He would just have to hope that, for once, Harris could be trusted to act honourably.

Drabble looked out; through the raindrop-flecked windows he saw dense avenues of long winter coats capped with umbrellas, illuminated by the glittering shop-fronts either side. There were festive garlands and bunting in the bright windows – it was a world away from the poverty in the provinces, let alone his life at Cambridge. The traffic queued to get onto Piccadilly and he could make out the distinctive stage-lights of the Ritz up the hill on the corner. He rubbed the misted-up glass and looked out; there was a lad selling the Evening Standard sheltering beneath a hotel’s arcade. Drabble rolled down the window and called out to him.

The boy, his teeth chattering from cold, looked over and then up at the rain. He pulled down his broad cloth cap – roughly half as wide again as his head – and trotted over, jumping some of the larger puddles on the way. He shoved the damp folded newspaper through the gap, and snatched the waiting coin in one rapid movement, concluded with a polite brush of his dripping peak before scampering back to the covered pavement. The taxi moved on. Drabble unfolded the newspaper and held it in the light:

‘LET KING MARRY WOMAN HE LOVES’– PLEADS CHURCHILL

AMID angry exchanges in the Commons this afternoon Mr Winston Churchill called upon the Prime Minister, Mr Stanley Baldwin, to clarify the precise Constitutional position concerning the marriage of His Majesty to Mrs Wallis Simpson, before any ‘irrevocable’ step was taken.

The traffic eased as the taxi approached Hyde Park Corner. Suddenly they braked hard and the driver swore. Through the windscreen Drabble saw the flank of a horse, with bridle and tack, pass in front, followed by the coachwork of the number 23 tram. The driver leaned out of his window and bellowed. Drabble held the newspaper up to the window and the light:

Mr Churchill was shouted down on all sides of the House and failed to pass a motion calling on the National Government to do so. He accused Ministers of forcing the King’s hand before being silenced by the Speaker. At this the whole House cheered and Mr Churchill was obliged to take his seat.

They passed Apsley House, squat, grand, rain-stained and streaked in soot, and were soon speeding northwards along Park Lane; the great open space to their left an infinite black void. On the right, there were crowds in evening wear – men in silk top hats and capes, and ladies in long coats – massed under dripping umbrellas, queuing at the entrance of the Dorchester.

‘Excuse me, guv.’

Drabble saw the driver strain his face around to address him; he had a spiky white moustache that bristled as the words emerged from the corner of his mouth. ‘You look familiar; ain’t you that mountaineer – what was it? Oh yes, the “Bouncing Don”?’

Drabble lowered the newspaper and forced a smile.

‘That’s right,’ he said.

‘How’s the arm?’

‘Much better, thanks.’ He lifted his elbow up and down in a peculiar, half-embarrassed demonstration of its recovery.

‘Honour to have you on board, sir.’

Drabble nodded his thanks, mentally cursing Harris, and returned to the newspaper.

‘And if you ask me, sir,’ the driver continued, ‘you should have another go, now you’re back on your feet.’

Drabble gave the driver a thumbs-up and picked up his newspaper; his eye retraced the main headline again. What business was it of Stanley Baldwin’s, or anyone else’s for that matter, whom the King married? Mrs Simpson was certainly not everyone’s cup of tea, that was clear, but she clearly floated the top man’s boat so that was settled. Apart from a dozen or so all-but-fossilised bishops, who cared if she’d been divorced? It was 1936, not the bloody Dark Ages. And you couldn’t exactly say that there was no constitutional precedent entirely – Henry VIII was divorced at least twice. . . Mind you, that was at least two dynasties ago. Drabble’s thoughts trailed off. He noticed a smaller headline down in the corner:

‘Grievous Blow to Monarchy’

English-speaking South Africans are deeply uneasy over the mounting Empire Crisis. Whether or not the King now marries Mrs Simpson he has undermined the standing of the Monarch and damaged the prestige of the Empire.

Christ alive. The ‘Empire’. ‘Prestige’. It would take a damned sight more than Mrs Simpson to undermine the prestige, if such a thing existed, of the Empire. Drabble snatched open the next page and saw another two pages dedicated to the affair; at the top of each the words ‘Constitutional Crisis’ were printed in bold type. His eye caught a headline about a fascist rally against the government, which sealed his contempt. He tossed the newspaper onto the seat. It wasn’t going to happen. British kings didn’t abdicate: that’s what they did on the Continent – everyone knew that. Plus the Windsors were too clever by half. Review the evidence; they and their Germanic forebears had withstood terrible wars, an industrial revolution, domestic upheavals, the loss of the Americas, and at least one well-documented case of actual lunacy – and none of them had abdicated. Any one of those would have been enough to dispense with a French, Austrian, or Russian head of state. They’d be damned if they were going to let an American divorcee beat them, whatever English-speaking South Africans might think.

The taxi made a left at Marble Arch, leaving the tall Portland stone facade of the Regal Cinema – and probable location of the Tyburn mass grave – to their right, and they drove across the top of the park, the carriage rocking gently from side to side as they clattered along. He glanced at his watch and nodded satisfactorily. The taxi crossed over the Bayswater Road and up into Paddington proper, along Sussex Gardens, with its proud pillared mansions.

‘Excuse me, guv?’

He looked up to see the driver’s moustached mouth in the light.

‘Do you reckon he’ll go, sir?’

‘Who?’

‘The King, sir,’ the driver said, straining to be heard over the engine and traffic noise.

‘Oh, I shouldn’t think so.’

‘They say Baldwin’s got it in for him.’

Drabble shrugged.

‘As far as I can tell, Baldwin’s got it in for everyone.’

The driver nodded. Through the side window Drabble glimpsed a drinks party in full swing under electric lights in one of the grand houses.

‘But if he does go, won’t that mean the Duke of York becomes king?’

Drabble sat forward so he didn’t have to shout.

‘I suppose so.’

‘But that’s crackers –’ the driver’s contempt was captured in the corner of the mouth by a passing headlamp: ‘Nice enough bloke, don’t get me wrong, but he can’t even ask for the bog without making a meal of it.’ Drabble saw the head in front of him shake in dismay. ‘Why can’t Edward marry this Simpson? So she’s been married!’ The driver shrugged, ‘Who cares?’ He glared malignantly at Drabble: ‘We know they’re all at it, anyway.’

From the bar, Harris watched Drabble weave through the crowd, and exit through the wooden door of the saloon. He shook his head gently. Oliver Cromwell - now that was a story if ever there was one, not that he wanted to let Ernest realise it. Found after being missing for – what was it, 150-odd years? Fantastic. He tugged out his pocket watch. Ten past eight. There was still time to get a paragraph or two in for the morning’s paper. The ‘return of the Lord Protector’. . . He grinned. It could be a ruddy good yarn, oh yes. He felt in his coat pocket for his pencil, located his discreetly slim notebook, and caught the barman’s eye before evincing the tiniest of nods towards his empty glass.

‘While you’re there, Harris,’ announced a voice from behind. ‘I’d die for a whisky and soda.’

Harris nodded again to the barman to approve the exhortation, and turned on the voice: ‘Grubby Howse!’ he declared, shaking the proffered hand of the Right Honourable Member for Kensington South. ‘As always, you show impeccable timing.’

Grubby beamed, his open mouth revealing tombstone teeth.

‘Come, come, Harris, you know as well as I do that I’d be shirking my public duty if I didn’t rescue a constituent – even an incorrigible denizen of Fleet Street such as yourself – from the appalling vice of drinking alone,’ he furrowed his brow with mock sincerity and nodded significantly. ‘Striving to rehabilitate society’s waifs and strays is an important part of an MP’s vocation, you know.’

‘Well, I’ll drink to that -’ Harris raised his brew, ‘and I’ll take this opportunity,’ he looked down at Grubby’s drink, ‘to pay homage to your ceaseless dedication in this matter.’

‘Cheers,’ said Grubby.

‘Cheers.’ Harris glanced towards the doors and the row of telephone booths that lay beyond; there was still time to make the first edition, masses of it, but he couldn’t afford to be complacent. ‘You know what, Grubbs, I’ve just heard the most remarkable thing – and I’ve got to tell someone before I ruddy well burst. You can be trusted to keep something under your hat, can’t you; well at least ’til the morning?’

The taxi pulled away and Drabble trudged up the covered incline leading to the entrance of Paddington Station. The domed crescent latticework was filled with smoke, its zenith lost to the night, and the air was heavy with the faintly sweet smell of coal dust and soot. Three locomotives, their coaches beyond, stood to the right, steam hissing from the flexing muscles of the engines. People shouted orders and called out; passengers and porters hurried back and forth; there was the blast of a whistle, and Drabble saw a conductress wave to a fireman. The engine on the far platform moved off and its carriages emitted a collective rasp. The iron hands of the station clock pointed to eight forty-nine.

He consulted the board and confirmed the platform number for the Penzance sleeper, then picked his way through the. . .