Devil's Cathedral

David Fairer

Description

THEATRE ROYAL, DRURY LANE, 24 April 1708. A performance of Macbeth is under way when disaster strikes and the stage becomes a scene of elemental chaos - and for Widow Trotter and her friends at the Bay-Tree Chocolate House, a new adventure begins, involving murder, poison, fire, and a rogue elephant . . .Devoted fans of Chocolate House Treason will welcome this second novel in the Chocolate House Mysteries series, which captures all the energies of the early eighteenth-century theatre. We move among the eccentric characters of the Theatre Royal company, in Drury Lane and at the exuberant May Fair where the actors moonlight in the fairground booths.The puritanical reformers are determined to close the theatre and abolish the Fair, and 'accidents' begin to happen - but Mary Trotter and her friends at the Bay-Tree are determined to expose the conspiracy, and the action reaches its climax at the Fair when the players are faced with the ultimate act of terror.Once again, David Fairer offers the delights of the classic eighteenth-century novel, intricately weaving a murder mystery with authentic history, and bringing the London of Queen Anne to life.

Informations

• Publié par: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 08 octobre 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781800466753
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Copyright © 2021 David Fairer

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

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ISBN 9781800466753

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For Adam Bray



. . . Not only the Play-House which is called the Theatre-Royal , and is as it were the Cathedral Church of the Devil in this Kingdom, but the other inferiour Temples , which are but as Chappels of Ease to the former, ought to be remov’d, as Obstacles and Hindrances to Vertue , and the Reformation of Manners . The Drolls and Interludes , at Smith Field and Southwark Fairs , at May-Fair under the very Nose of the Court . . . Play-Booths and Musick-Booths are directly contrary to the Nature of a Fair , which is Established for the benefit of Trade and Commerce; yet are our Fairs turn’d into Buffoonry , set off with Booths instead of Shops , and Peopled with Merry Andrews and Jack Puddings instead of Trades-Men . . .

The Societies for Reformation of Manners ought principally to be taken Care of; they have entred themselves Voluntiers in the Service of Heaven, and have hitherto subsisted themselves in their Spiritual Warfare . . . it is high time they should be brought on a National Establishment . . . They want nothing but a National Authority to carry on a National Reformation .

John Tutchin, England’s Happiness Consider’d, in Some Expedients . . . Humbly Offer’d to the Consideration of both Houses of Parliament (London, 1705), p. 20


Contents
Characters
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty

Historical Note
Praise for Chocolate House Treason:


Characters
Historical figures marked with *

STATE POLITICS

*Queen Anne, the last Stuart monarch, niece of Charles the Second
*Prince George of Denmark, Anne’s ailing husband
*Robert Harley (later Earl of Oxford), wily politician with Tory sympathies, Anne’s confidant
*Abigail Masham, Harley’s cousin, now Lady of the Bedchamber
*John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, the great general, v ictor of Blenheim (1704) and Ramillies (1706)
*Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough, Queen Anne’s friend and adviser, now out of favour, supporter of the Whigs
*Wriothesley Russell, 2nd Duke of Bedford, a Whiggish young man who owns most of Covent Garden

THE BAY-TREE

Mary Trotter, the widow who now rules in the Bay-Tree
Henry Trotter, memorably deceased
Tom Bristowe, budding poet born under Saturn; a Juvenal with ambitions to be a Virgil
Will Lundy, Tom’s best friend, mercurial law student of the Middle Temple, future Westminster Hall orator
Mrs Dawes, creative in the kitchen
Jenny Trip, barista princess with a sharp eye
Peter Simco, skilful coffee-boy with a bright future
Jeremy Jopp (Jem), does errands and hard lifting, but learning to be elegant
Old Ralph, sweeps and cleans
Jack Tapsell, Whig wine merchant
Barnabas Smith, Whig cloth merchant
Samuel Cust, Whig with a Caribbean sugar plantation
Laurence Bagnall, poet and critic with laureate ambitions, author of ‘The Shoe-Buckle’
Captain Roebuck, old soldier of Marlborough’s Flanders campaign
Gavin Leslie, down from the glens of Scotland
David Macrae, his friend and compatriot

ST JAMES’S

John Popham, Second Viscount Melksham (Tom’s Uncle Jack), Deputy Keeper of the Privy Purse, an unwilling courtier
Sophia Popham ( née Doggett ), Viscountess Melksham, a young step-mother, enjoys London’s social whirl
The Hon. Frank Popham, Tom’s cousin, politically ambitious young man returned from the Grand Tour
The Hon. Lavinia Popham, Tom’s other cousin, lively and advanced for eighteen
The Countess of Welwyn, of St James’s Square, friend of the Pophams
Lord Tring, her Italophile son, fresh from the Grand Tour, Lavinia’s admirer
Arthur, the Pophams’ footman
Julia, Lady Norreys, friend of Lady Melksham, helps weave Arachne’s Web
*Delarivier Manley, controversial journalist and fiction-writer, chief weaver of the web

THE THEATRE ROYAL

*Christopher Rich, hard-pressed manager of the Drury Lane Theatre
The Sixth Baron Tunbridge, theatre patron – of actresses especially
*Colley Cibber, popular comic playwright and actor, later Poet Laureate
*William Pinkerman, chief comedian of the Drury Lane company and fair-ground impresario
*William Bullock, Pinkerman’s partner in comedy, second witch in Macbeth
*Christopher Bullock, William’s son, young actor and future playwright
*Anne Oldfield, young actress becoming the star of the company
*Thomas Betterton, the renowned Shakespearean actor-manager, now 72
*Elizabeth Barry, a celebrated Lady Macbeth
*Will Keene, plays Duncan in Macbeth
*Robert Wilks, plays Mosca to Powell’s Volpone, and a seductive Dorimant in The Man of Mode
*George Powell, plays Macduff in Macbeth , and Volpone to Wilks’s Mosca
*Anne Bracegirdle, celebrated actress of star quality, just retired, now looking down on the Bay-Tree
*Lucretia Bradshaw, actress having her benefit night
Sally Twiss, young actress attracting admirers
Gilbert Angell, ambitious young actor, an admirer of Sally, third witch in Macbeth
Mr Bolt, intrepid lightning-man at the Theatre Royal
Mr Grant, exasperated prompter
Mr Bridge, under-prompter
Mr Bannister, housekeeper
Mr Howell, chief carpenter
Amos Jackson, burly scene-man and carpenter
Mrs Moody, theatre-sweeper, handy with broom and bucket
Betty, the new assistant sweeper
George Bellamy, script-man, arrested at the molly house
*Owen Swiney, theatre impresario and shareholder in the Theatre Royal company
*Richard Estcourt, actor and shareholder
Mr O’Malley, a disappointed playwright
*Sir Richard Steele, author of The Tender Husband (1705)
*Joseph Addison, poet, critic and cultural authority, partner with Steele on The Spectator (1711-14)

THE CHURCH

*Arthur Bedford, Bristol minister, Chaplain to the Duke of Bedford. Moral reformer and enemy of all things theatrical, author of The Evil and Danger of Stage Plays (1706)
The Revd. Mr Ebenezer Tysoe, reformist preacher and saver of souls
*The Revd. Robert Billio, popular dissenting minister at Hackney
*Henry Compton, Bishop of London, 73, hates Papists
*Thomas Tenison, Archbishop of Canterbury, 71, hates Papists even more. Ardent campaigner for moral reform. Advocates government surveillance of the theatre and censorship of blasphemous publications
Abraham Gell, Nonconformist minister of Shoreditch, big in the Society for the Reformation of Manners

THE LAW

*Sir James Montagu, Her Majesty’s Solicitor-General
Benjamin Hector, conscientious new-broom magistrate
George Grimston, aggressive magistrate humiliated at the Fair
Richard Sumner, respectable Middle Temple barrister and Will’s pupil-master. Lady Norreys’s brother
Elias Cobb, Covent Garden’s chivalrous Constable, with semi-official interests, long-time friend of Mary Trotter
Tobias Mudge, Elias’s bold apprentice who’s shaping up
Bob Turley, Toby’s fellow-watchman

THE FAIR

*Edward Shepherd, May Fair landowner
Dick Middlemiss, landlord of the Dog and Duck
Charles, pot-boy of the Dog and Duck
*Isaac Fawkes, man of tricks renowned for his sleight of hand
*Mr Finley, entrepreneur and Pinkerman’s rival, owns a popular booth at May Fair
*Mr Miller, another rival May Fair showman
Edwin Price, runs his waxworks at the Fair
Francis Flinn, his talented apprentice, a budding artist
Sophie, the amazing rope-dancer
*Hannibal, Pinkerman’s African elephant, star of the May Fair
Tiny François, big in tumbling. Has appeared by Royal command at Versailles
Bob Stanley, playing the apothecary in The Tender Courtesan
Lizzy Wright, playing Agnes, the novitiate nun
Joe Byrne, pla