‘“But I am not a foreigner, sir,” said she, with an accent as pure as ever was heard between Portsmouth and Manchester; “My name is Lady Clarik … “‘
In June 2017, while staying in a Portsmouth Airbnb, I chatted with my fellow guest, Elba, from Mexico. She was a biology doctorate student in neuroscience. After much confusion, and changing her topic for the third time, she was now getting good results with an excellent supervisor at the University of Portsmouth. In the course of our scientific discussion, she told me about rescuing one of her rats. She was supposed to kill him but it was very late and she wept as she remembered her struggle and final decision. Now he lives with her boyfriend back in Mexico and she loves that rat. How many millions of animals are bred and killed for experiments these days? I wonder if their ancestors might number among the millions of rats that lived over the past hundreds of years in the seafaring town of Portsmouth?
We know Milady stayed in Portsmouth. Dumas gives her a thrilling imprisonment, by her righteous brother-in-law, where she is able to bend a young officer, John Felton, to her will to assassinate the Duke of Buckingham. Which he did.
As any reader of The Three Musketeers knows, a past liaison is implied between fictional Milady and Buckingham when Dumas recounts the story of the diamond brooch, based on a true story of a necklace between Buckingham and real Lucy Hay, the Countess of Carlisle. The titillating hints of past entanglement will be developed in my account of Milady’s English life, you can count on that! In my retelling, Lucy Hay slaps Milady in the face - in the Globe Theatre no less. You’ll have to read it one day.
I found signs of Buckingham. The museum attendant was keen for me to visit the house where he died. It was for sale and the woman in the church thought the real estate agents would probably send me a brochure if I asked. Not having an address was one thing but I supposed an early seventeenth century building would have changed and gone for ever in the interior design of the new millennium. It was nice to read the historic marker on the wall and wonder at the criss-cross of history and fiction. The pub across the road is called the Duke of Buckingham. They have his portrait on their wine-of-the-month card. This month featured a wine from Argentina.
What I didn’t know was how Milady got to Portsmouth from France. As usual, for my sins, Portsmouth Museum and Art Gallery had good information before and after my time. Although, one young man thought, remembered, and rushed away to find a painting of Portsmouth, Spice Island, showing drunken sailors and buxom wenches cavorting in a shameful manner. He made me a photocopy.
The main Portsmouth drawcard turned out to be the Mary Rose Museum in the Portsmouth Dockyards. The Mary Rose, a Tudor ship, was dredged up from the past, and kept in a dehumidified and honoured condition. A great modern building, the shape of an oyster, wraps lovingly around this half-a-ship. The remains were preserved by burial under sand and silt. The top half was eaten away by oxygen-loving elements and creatures while an amazing amount of the structure, guns and bows, plates, bowls and skeletons have been preserved.
After a huge, expensive raising exercise in 1982, an evocative display was created by conservationists and museum designers. Projections and written explanations are arrayed through and around rescued artifacts bringing the past to life. First passing through a grand airlock you catch a glimpse of an archer or carpenters working on deck. You see the grommets (ship’s boys) sweeping or the gunners slurping beer.
Not sure where it takes me with Milady - unlikely she would ever have been onboard a military vessel. Although there were 500 men and one dog onboard they found only a few rosaries.
They only found one rat skeleton too, suggesting the dog was effective or that rats could escape the boarding netting that kept the humans inside when the ship keeled over under the weight of the 90 cannons she carried. As the Mary Rose retreated from the French, she turned suddenly, and possibly due to the guns’ port doors being open, she took on water as she tilted and went down in a matter of minutes.
I became aware of sound in Portsmouth. I made a note to remember noises and make them strange, elongated, eerie. The sounds of footfalls, horseshoes on cobble stones, sighs, wind and bird wing. Remember that England has gone forever - if it ever existed.
I proceeded down the coast to see the fortifications. In those days of yore, Portsmouth was a fort, defenses surrounding the whole town. It was also extremely unruly with wild sailors and good times aplenty. The young museum attendant had said, ‘Ungovernable.’
Portsmouth has created The Millennium Promenade enabling the modern tourist to stroll from the Harbour to visit all of Henry VIII’s fortifications. It was actually Henry V who first built the Round Tower but VIII had it rebuilt and further on, a Square Tower. There is a Triangle - Spur Redoubt - but built later. You can see part of the original wall which once protected Portsmouth on the journey which leads to Southsea Castle. This is where Henry VIII was when the Mary Rose sank. There is no doubt Henry VIII needed to protect the coast of England from the Holy Roman Empire and from France. Did he have to destroy all the monasteries to do so? There’s a lot of lead in canon balls.
Remember Milady was known by different names. In England she was known first as Charles, then Mistress Charlotte Backson before she became a Lady. Not sure why Charlotte would land here, it was more likely to be Dover. The streets seem wide and glamorous, the houses larger than Dover. Hard to imagine which houses belong to those times and if they are greatly changed. I fear so. Trying to find the past in these modern times is difficult. I imagine these coastal towns to be vulnerable to extreme weather. Any wobbly structure would fall over or burn.
Don’t worry. All will become clear. Dumas is helping now.
It’s Mike Oldfield, everybody! https://youtu.be/8CCf7gvmDEU?si=RFjjz8C1P9VHVBkJ