The Historical Nights' Entertainment: Second Series Read online

  Produced by J. C. Byers, and Abdulh Ameed Alhassan

  THE HISTORICAL NIGHTS' ENTERTAINMENT, SECOND SERIES

  By Rafael Sabatini

  To David Whitelaw

  My Dear David,

  Since the narratives collected here as well as in the preceding volumeunder the title of the Historical Nights Entertainment--narrativesoriginally published in The Premier Magazine, which you so ablyedit--owe their being to your suggestion, it is fitting that someacknowledgment of the fact should be made. To what is hardly less thana duty, allow me to add the pleasure of dedicating to you, in earnest ofmy friendship and esteem, not merely this volume, but the work of whichthis volume is the second.

  Sincerely yours,

  Rafael Sabatini

  London, June, 1919.

  Contents

  Preface

  I. THE ABSOLUTION II. THE FALSE DEMETRIUS III. THE HERMOSA FEMBRA IV. THE PASTRY-COOK OF MADRIGAL V. THE END OF THE "VERT GALANT" VI. THE BARREN WOOING VII. SIR JUDAS VIII. HIS INSOLENCE OF BUCKINGHAM IX. THE PATH OF EXILE X. THE TRAGEDY OF HERRENHAUSEN XI. THE TYRANNICIDE

  The kindly reception accorded to the first volume of the HistoricalNights Entertainment, issued in December of 1917, has encouraged me toprepare the second series here assembled.

  As in the case of the narratives that made up the first volume, I setout again with the same ambitious aim of adhering scrupulously in everyinstance to actual, recorded facts; and once again I find it desirableat the outset to reveal how far the achievement may have fallen short ofthe admitted aim.

  On the whole, I have to confess to having allowed myself perhaps a widerlatitude, and to having taken greater liberties than was the case withthe essays constituting the previous collection. This, however, applies,where applicable, to the parts rather than to the whole.

  The only entirely apocryphal narrative here included is the first--"TheAbsolution." This is one of those stories which, if resting upon nosufficient authority to compel its acceptance, will, nevertheless,resist all attempts at final refutation, having its roots at leastin the soil of fact. It is given in the rather discredited Portuguesechronicles of Acenheiro, and finds place, more or less as related here,in Duarte Galvao's "Chronicle of Affonso Henriques," whence it was takenby the Portuguese historical writer, Alexandre Herculano, to be includedin his "Lendas e Narrativas." If it is to be relegated to the Limbo ofthe ben trovato, at least I esteem it to afford us a precious glimpseof the naive spirit of the age in which it is set, and find in that myjustification for including it.

  The next to require apology is "His Insolence of Buckingham," butonly in so far as the incident of the diamond studs is concerned. Theremainder of the narrative, the character of Buckingham, the details ofhis embassy to Paris, and the particulars of his audacious courtship ofAnne of Austria, rest upon unassailable evidence. I would have omittedthe very apocryphal incident of the studs, but that I considered it ofpeculiar interest as revealing the source of the main theme of oneof the most famous historical romances ever written--"The ThreeMusketeers." I give the story as related by La Rochefoucauld in his"Memoirs," whence Alexandre Dumas culled it that he might turn it tosuch excellent romantic account. In La Rochefoucauld's narrative it isthe painter Gerbier who, in a far less heroic manner, plays the partassigned by Dumas to d'Artagnan, and it is the Countess of Carlisle whocarries out the political theft which Dumas attributes to Milady. Forthe rest, I do not invite you to attach undue credit to it, which isnot, however, to say that I account it wholly false.

  In the case of "The Hermosa Fembra" I confess to having blended togetherinto one single narrative two historical episodes closely connected intime and place. Susan's daughter was, in fact, herself the betrayerof her father, and it was in penitence for that unnatural act thatshe desired her skull to be exhibited as I describe. Into the story ofSusan's daughter I have woven that of another New-Christian girl, who,like the Hermosa Fembra, her taken a Castilian lover--in this case ayouth of the house of Guzman. This youth was driven into concealmentin circumstances more or less as I describe them. He overheard thejudaizing of several New-Christians there assembled, and bore word of itat once to Ojeda. The two episodes were separated in fact by an intervalof three years, and the first afforded Ojeda a strong argument for theinstitution of the Holy Office in Seville. Between the two there aremany points of contact, and each supplies what the other lacks to makean interesting narrative having for background the introduction of theInquisition to Castile. The denouement I supply is entirely fictitious,and the introduction of Torquemada is quite arbitrary. Ojeda was theinquisitor who dealt with both cases. But if there I stray into fiction,at least I claim to have sketched a faithful portrait of the GrandInquisitor as I know him from fairly exhaustive researches into his lifeand times.

  The story of the False Demetrius is here related from the point of viewof my adopted solution of what is generally regarded as a historicalmystery. The mystery lies, of course, in the man's identity. He hasbeen held by some to have been the unfrocked monk, Grishka Otropiev, byothers to have been a son of Stephen Bathory, King of Poland. I am notaware that the theory that he was both at one and the same time has everbeen put forward, and whilst admitting that it is speculative, yet Iclaim that no other would appear so aptly to fit all the known facts ofhis career or to shed light upon its mysteries.

  Undoubtedly I have allowed myself a good deal of licence and speculationin treating certain unwitnessed scenes in "The Barren Wooing." Butthe theory that I develop in it to account for the miscarriage of thematrimonial plans of Queen Elizabeth and Robert Dudley seems to me tobe not only very fully warranted by de Quadra's correspondence, but theonly theory that will convincingly explain the events. Elizabeth, asI show, was widely believed to be an accessory to the murder of AmyRobsart. But in carefully following her words and actions at thatcritical time, as reported by de Quadra, my reading of the transactionis as given here. The most damning fact against Elizabeth was held to beher own statement to de Quadra on the eve of Lady Robert Dudley's murderto the effect that Lady Robert was "already dead, or very nearlyso." This foreknowledge of the fate of that unfortunate lady has beenaccepted as positive evidence that the Queen was a party to the crime atCumnor, which was to set her lover free to marry again. Far from that,however, I account it positive proof of Elizabeth's innocence of anysuch part in the deed. Elizabeth was far too crafty and clear-sightednot to realize how her words must incriminate her afterwards if she knewthat the murder of Lady Robert was projected. She must have been merelyrepeating what Dudley himself had told her; and what he must have toldher--and she believed--was that his wife was at the point of a naturaldeath. Similarly, Dudley would not have told her this, unless his aimhad been to procure his wife's removal by means which would admit ofa natural interpretation. Difficulties encountered, much as I relatethem--and for which there is abundant evidence--drove his too-zealousagents to rather desperate lengths, and thus brought suspicion, not onlyupon the guilty Dudley, but also upon the innocent Queen. The mannerof Amy's murder is pure conjecture; but it should not be far from whatactually took place. The possibility of an accident--extraordinarily andsuspiciously opportune for Dudley as it would have been--could not bealtogether ruled out but for the further circumstance that LadyRobert had removed everybody from Cumnor on that day. To what canthis point--unless we accept an altogether incredible chain ofcoincidence--but to some such plotting as I here suggest?

  In the remaining six essays in this volume the liberties taken with theabsolute facts are so slight as to require no apology or comment.

  R. S.

  Londo
n, June, 1919.