MINETTE WALTERS The Players. Reviewed by Ann Skea

Minette Walters’ new historical novel features a consummate spy in the aftermath of an ill-fated seventeenth-century English rebellion.

A man of Royal descent stepped ashore this day in our fair port of Lyme Regis. Handsomely attired, he declared himself to be Duke of Monmouth, come from Holland to claim his rightful place as King of England.

It is this man, the illegitimate first son of the deceased King Charles II, who is later found face-down in a muddy Dorset ditch by men hunting the fleeing ‘traitor’ after King James II’s victory over Monmouth’s inadequate army at Sedgemoor.

It is this man, too, who is helped by a parson who lifts him from the mud, telling him:

I am a man of the cloth, my friend. My name is Reverend Houghton and I will give you what succour I can while the many gentlemen who surround you question you about your presence here. I seek only to help you and will remain at your side for as long as is necessary.

That Reverend Houghton also whispers Dutch phrases to the man goes unnoticed. He seems plausibly charitable, handy with his fists when necessary, and he is clever with his arguments, so the Duke of Monmouth is taken prisoner unharmed. It is no surprise to learn later that ‘Reverend Houghton’ is just one of the personas adopted by Elias, Duke of Granville, of Winterborne Houghton, and that he is a chameleon-like master of disguise, fluent in several languages, able to banter in French, to adopt a Bristol accent when necessary, and to pass himself off as a customs officer or a farm worker whenever the complicated and clever schemes he hatches in the cause of justice require this.

Elias is the consummate spy. He is a personable and likeable young man with a strong sense of fairness, and he treats others with respect regardless of their position in society. He is determined to fight for the rights of those fellow Dorset men he deems unlawfully imprisoned and facing execution after the battle of Sedgemoor, where they were shamefully abandoned on the battlefield by their leader, Monmouth.

Elias’s history is as complicated as the history he and his family have lived through. Minette Walters is adept at making both histories clear. In a prologue, she briefly outlines the ‘Aftermath of the English Civil War’, and the events that resulted in the crowning of the Catholic convert, King James II, who, in contrast to the much loved ‘Merry Monarch’, King Charles II, was widely feared and disliked.

Elias, who had served with Monmouth in Charles II’s Troop of Horse Guards, and who had been Charles’s personal envoy, skilled at travelling abroad incognito, knows that ‘Monmouth’s recklessness is matched only by his poor judgment’. His clandestine attempts to dissuade Monmouth from mounting an invasion to claim the English throne fail. Elias hears that King James ‘wants vengeance’, and he knows that

he will make such an example of the south-west that there will be no further talk of Protestant rebellion.

Soon, ‘in excess of three hundred men and a handful of women’ await trial for treason in Dorchester Gaol. Some bear unmistakable battle wounds; many are just boys; and others have been falsely accused of harbouring fleeing ‘traitors’ – often by neighbours who bear a grudge against them. Elias learns that James has appointed Lord Jeffreys as Lord Chief Justice, and Jeffreys, who is already known as ‘the hanging judge’ for his harsh sentencing, is rumoured to have dubbed the king’s campaign ‘the Bloody Assizes’.

In his early attempts to ensure that Monmouth is treated fairly, Elias calls on a prominent Dorset magistrate:

Anthony Ettrick was eating breakfast when his footman announced Reverend Houghton. Ettrick had a sense that he’d met the parson before, but he couldn’t recall where or when, and nothing in his memory conjured up the patronym Houghton. ‘Do I know you, sir?’ he asked, before spooning scrambled egg into his mouth.

Elias invents an acceptable lie about an earlier chance meeting, but in the course of explaining his visit he is startled by a sudden interruption from a woman whose presence had been concealed behind a high-backed chair close to the fireplace. Ettrick introduces his daughter, Althea:

She is the joy of my life when she’s not reprimanding me for small infractions of law, logic or philosophy.

Althea, who has a crippled foot and uses an improvised wheeled chair to get around, has become a recluse, believing she is unacceptable in company. She is suspicious of Houghton and later identifies him from an engraving she finds in her extensive library. Elias sees this library when she allows him to push her there and wait while she consults documents that will help her father asses the claims of the man soon be brought to his house who claims to be Duke of Monmouth:

the parson moved quietly along the shelves, marvelling at the wealth of knowledge displayed upon them. Bound books, being expensive, were usually the preserve of universities and the rich, but he estimated that upwards of two hundred were gathered in this room. And that number was swelled by piles of pamphlets, gazettes and news-sheets, stacked according to subject on the lower shelves. 

At the same time, Elias surreptitiously observes Althea Etterick, noting her youth and frailness, and her lack of attention to her appearance. From this point on, Althea begins to figure prominently among the other major ‘players’ in Minette Walters’ novel.

Indulged by her widowed father, who, with the help of her brothers in London, buys her whatever books and manuscripts she wants, Althea has schooled herself in philosophy, mathematics and law, reads widely in current news-sheets, and is able to read (but not speak) five languages. She is also a clever manipulator: ‘You spin a better story than I, mistress,’  Elias tells her, amused when she invents a reason for him seeming to favour the Duke of Monmouth, and understanding that she has worked out his true identity. He also, later, discovers that Althea has adopted the persona of a Middle Temple lawyer, Mister Hugh Milton, in order to write a letter offering her services, as one who has ‘strong ties to Dorset’, in the trials of the Dorset prisoners:

Acquaintances there tell me that Dorset gaol is filling with rebels, and that many of the prisoners are vehemently disclaiming any association with the Duke of Monmouth. For that reason, you may wish to employ me as an impartial arbiter of the charges against them.

The Assizes draw close, and to present Lord Chief Justice Jeffreys with a multitude of prisoners, one-quarter of whom may be able to prove their innocence, would be a mistake. You will be aware from your dealings with him that he is irascible and impatient.

A third major player in this novel is Elias’s mother, Jane. Readers who enjoyed Minette Walters’ novel The Swift and the Harrier will recognise Jane as the strong-minded woman who had studied medicine and although unable, as a woman, to be registered as a doctor, had opened her own hospital, where she still treats anyone in need of medical attention.

Lady Jane Harrier, as Althea learns after she has discovered Elias’s true identity, had been called urgently to help Althea’s mother when she was bleeding heavily in childbirth, and she had ensured that the newborn Althea was carefully nursed after her mother died. Neither Althea nor Elias know this when they first meet. 

Between these three strong characters, various ingenious ways are found of helping the Dorset prisoners. An important part of all this is Jane’s ability to alleviate the severe pain Judge Jeffreys suffers from kidney stones exacerbated by his ‘prodigious consumption’ of alcohol. Jane manages to convince Jeffreys to stay overnight at Winterborne Houghton House on his way to the assizes. There she diagnoses his condition, treats it while he is in a drunken sleep, and confronts him the next morning:

‘You were lucky, sir. The stone was not so big that you couldn’t pass it without a little assistance … I can’t prove that wine enlarges the stones, Lord Jeffreys, but I can prove that water keeps them small enough to pass with ease.’

Jeffreys, who is unused to being spoken to so candidly, refuses to give up wine but is thankful for the pain relief her administration of laudanum has provided. He is invariably rude and bad-tempered, but he learns to accept, grudgingly, that both Jane and Elias speak their minds.

Many of the exchanges between Jane and Judge Jeffreys are bracingly funny, and Minette Walters’ ease in retailing conversations between many different people – plain-speakers, sycophants, land-owners, lawyers, maids, farm-workers, mariners, and many others, draws the reader compellingly into their lives. History does not overwhelm the human interactions that are the major part of The Players, but Monmouth’s horribly botched execution, and the brutal hanging, drawing and quartering of the three hundred men Judge Jeffreys sentences to death, are not glossed over. Elias, Althea and Jane are champions of plain-speaking and honesty, engaging everyone, even the rude and unpleasant Jeffreys, ‘frankly and without artifice’. Elias, who has no time for empty-headed women who flutter their eyelashes at him in the hope of attaining a title, is naturally drawn to Althea, who is clever, forthright and independent.

And if some of his inventive and dangerous escapades are not altogether believable, this never interferes with the enjoyment of the story.

Minette Walters The Players Allen & Unwin 2024 PB  496pp $34.99 

Dr Ann Skea is a freelance reviewer, writer and an independent scholar of the work of Ted Hughes. She is author of Ted Hughes: The Poetic Quest (UNE 1994, and currently available for free download here). Her work is internationally published and her Ted Hughes webpages (ann.skea.com) are archived by the British Library.

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Tags: Bloody Assizes, Duke of Monmouth, historical fiction, James II, Minette | Walters, Monmouth Rebellion