Shakespeare understood. As he picked at the food, he summoned up his recollections of the Hellburners, or Hellebranders as the Dutch knew them. In the spring of 1585, messages from the Low Countries to Walsingham’s intelligence network in London had been hot with news of them. They had come into existence at a time when the Duke of Parma, general of the Spanish armies in the Low Countries, was besieging Antwerp and had built a barrier of ships across the river Scheldt to stop supplies reaching the city.
Federigo Giambelli was there. He was an ambitious military engineer from Mantua who had tried to sell his expertise to King Philip, but had been rebuffed. Now he offered his services to the city of Antwerp, believing he had a way to break through this impenetrable siege barrier. Ordinary fireships — ships piled high with firewood and set ablaze — would be too easily doused by the Spanish soldiers guarding the barricade. Giambelli’s hellburners would be a different proposition. And the city fathers of Antwerp agreed to his plan.
Two seventy-ton ships, the Fortune and the Hope, were appropriated for the purpose. Giambelli had these vessels stripped down, then built enormous chambers deep in their holds. Shakespeare tried to imagine how they looked. He had heard that the chambers were like funnels, built of brick and stone — forty feet long and three feet in diameter. The chambers were packed solid with good corned gunpowder. More stone slabs and old scrap metal were piled high above the chambers to compact the powder and maximise the blast. False decks were then built above the huge bombs so that the Spanish would not know them from the far less dangerous fireships they had encountered in the past.
As Shakespeare recalled it, the last problem Giambelli faced was how to light the powder. In one of the ships, the Fortune, he used a slow-burning taper. He saved his masterstroke for the other vessel, the Hope. For this one, he enlisted the aid of a local clockmaker, who designed a timing device that would bring down a lever at a given time, soon after the ship had drifted into the Spanish barricade. This lever would turn a serrated steel wheel — much like a wheel-lock pistol — sending a shower of sparks into the powder.
When the ships were ready, the Dutch sent ordinary fireships towards the barricade, as a decoy. These were easily extinguished by the Spanish, who were much amused by the feeble efforts of the Dutch. Then came the hellburners, disguised as fireships by the burning of a few smoke-belching twigs and branches on their decks. The Fortune drifted into the riverbank and its fuse fizzled out. The Hope, however, reached its target. The unsuspecting Spanish swarmed all over it with their pails of water. And then the clock lever dropped, steel span against flint and sparks flew into powder…
‘One thousand dead?’
‘Possibly more, John. But some believe the effects were far greater than that. Signor Giambelli insists that his hellburners gave England victory over the Spanish Armada.’
‘Surely no hellburners were involved?’
‘No, but the Spanish did not know that. When the English sent commonplace fireships towards the Armada near Calais, the Spanish convinced themselves they must be hellburners. They were in utter terror — panic ensued. The Spanish dispersed and were never able to regroup in good order. That, asserts Signor Giambelli, is how the battle was won for Drake and England.’
‘Let us go to clockmaker Gulden now. We cannot afford to wait.’
‘It is mere conjecture, John,’ Henbird replied, ‘but you are right, of course.’
Shakespeare gazed on Henbird’s black-bruised face. ‘I will go, Nick. You stay here. Return to your sickbed.’
The watchman, lantern in hand, called the hour of eleven and eyed Shakespeare with suspicion. ‘Where are you going after curfew, master? Only whores and thieves are abroad at this time of night.’
‘Queen’s business,’ Shakespeare said sharply. ‘You can light my way.’
The watchman, a stocky fellow of middle years, grumbled, suddenly unsure of himself. ‘Find your own way,’ he said and turned away.
Shakespeare grabbed him by the collar of his thick woollen jerkin. ‘No, you light my way. Take me to Gutter Lane.’
The watchman, half a foot shorter than Shakespeare and ten years older, considered for a moment whether to summon other members of the watch for assistance. Instead, grudgingly, he shuffled forward as ordered. It was only a few hundred yards eastward and took them little more than ten minutes. The house was in darkness. Shakespeare banged his dagger haft at the door and kept banging until it was answered by a nervous-looking serving girl in her nightgown and cap.
‘I am here to talk with Peter Gulden.’
The girl stood well back from them. ‘He sleeps, master.’
‘Wake him. This is Queen’s business.’
She scuttled off into the house. Shakespeare dismissed the watchman, then stepped into the hall. It was a large, well-appointed room. Clockmaker Gulden was clearly a wealthy man.
He appeared shortly, pulling on a doublet over a hastily applied shirt and breeches. The clockmaker was a tall, weak-built man with high cheekbones and almost no hair on his pate. He wore a beard, trimmed short, but no moustache. He looked as if he had spent too many long hours stooped over a workbench, eye fixed to a magnifying glass, working at his intricate springs, pallets and toothed wheels.
‘Peter Gulden?’
‘Yes,’ he said slowly. ‘But who are you, sir?’
‘My name is John Shakespeare. I am an officer with Sir Robert Cecil. I apologise for waking you at such an hour, but I have important business with you.’
Gulden clearly had been in the depths of sleep for he rubbed his eyes and stretched his aching back. He had a good-humoured but worried face, with blue eyes that might have twinkled had he not been so sleepy. ‘What sort of business could Sir Robert have with me, Mr Shakespeare? I am a clockmaker.’ His brow creased in bemusement.
‘I am told you worked with Signor Giambelli on a project to build English hellburners.’
Gulden nodded. ‘That is true, yes. In the late eighties. But it came to nothing.’
‘You were working on the timing devices?’
‘I was.’
‘I can tell you, sir — though it is not to be repeated — that the recent gunpowder blast in the Dutch market involved a timing device.’
‘That is deeply shocking, Mr Shakespeare. I had no idea.’
‘Are you Dutch, sir?’
‘I am, yes, but I have been here for years.’
‘You must know most of the clockmakers of London.’
‘Indeed, I am sure I know them all. There are no more than twelve of us to my knowledge.’
‘Could any of them have made a timing device such as the one used in the market?’
‘Why, all of them would be capable, I am sure. With patience, such a thing would not be demanding for one versed in the clockmaker’s art, certainly not one experienced in constructing domestic table clocks. The hardest part would be making the timing device accurate enough to operate within a minute or so of the required time. Too quick and the attacker might be blown up, too slow and the device could be discovered and disabled.’
‘Give me a name, Mr Gulden. Of the dozen clockmakers you know, who might do such a thing? Who would attack your people?’
‘Oh, Mr Shakespeare, what a question!’
‘But one that must be answered.’
‘It is not something I have ever considered.’
‘Consider it now.’
‘Well, I suppose none of the Dutch. There are four of us, all refugies from the endless war. Nor the Huguenot, Sieur Josselin. Never was there a more kindly man. One of the English, I suppose, for was it not an attack on strangers?’
‘What are their names?’
Gulden suddenly put his hand to his mouth. ‘You know, Mr Shakespeare, I have just had a terrible thought. I believe I may know the man you want.’
‘Yes?’ Shakespeare was impatient now.
‘He is a man I have had much trouble with over the years. He has accused me of taking his trade, for when I first came to London my premises were within two doors of his in Goldsmiths Row. He has insulted me in the street in the worst, most ungodly language and has had his apprentices throw stones through my windows and at my servants. I think he resents all strangers, perhaps because his clocks are so poor in comparison to ours. He has never built other than church-tower clocks of iron and steel, but wishes to learn our ways with finer machines…’