THE PLAYERS by Minette Walters

THE PLAYERS by Minette Walters is so cleverly told. The first chapter,opening in April 1685, is told by a narrator, referred to as The Watcher. This person is clearly a British spy who spends hours watching the house in The Hague where the Duke of Monmouth – Charles II’s illiegitimate son – is living. When, finally, he meets Monmouth, he is greeted as a friend. It turns out that both men know each other well as they fought together some six years earlier in the 1679 Battle of Bothwell Bridge. But now, King Charles II is dead, and his eldest son Monmouth is planning to go to England to claim the throne. 

The second chapter takes places several months later, in July 1685, just after the Battle of Sedgemoor, in which Monmouth’s rag-tag army is defeated by forces loyal to James II, Charles II’s younger brother who is now King of England. Monmouth tries to hide in a ditch that runs beside a pea field. But he is discovered at dawn the next day. Just as he is found, a mysterious parson appears, who is able to converse (in an understone) with Monmouth in Dutch, which turns out to be Monmouth’s native tongue as he spent his childhood and formative years in the Netherlands. The parson tries to help Monmouth, even hinting that he is just an impoverished serf. However, Monmouth spoils everything by admitting that he is, in fact Monmouth, with a bounty on his head for £5,000 (an enormous fortune in 1685.) After the local magistrate rules that he is in fact who he says he is (Monmouth famously bore a striking resemblance to his father Charles II) he is hustled off to the Tower of London, where he is executed several days later.

In the third chapter, we learn that The Watcher, is the same person as The Parson, and that he is actually the Duke of Granville, a local grandee in Dorset, where this novel is set. Anyone who grew up in Britain, probably had a history class of The Bloody Assizes of Judge Jeffreys. My history teacher had no trouble expressing her disdain for Jeffreys, and the horrifying punishment he meted out of hanging, drawing, and quartering. I haven’t thought of this for years, and I must say I appreciated Ms. Walter’s more even-handed approach to Jeffreys. She points out that Jeffreys was bound by his oath to King James II and was forced to flollow his instructions. Ms. Walters places the blame for the horrifying events of te autumn of 1685 at James II’s feet, and shows how his vindictiveness eventually led to him being kicked off the throne of England three years later.

And then there are such wonderful characters. In this novel, we have three main characters ~ the intriguing Duke of Granville, who is an expert spy., his mother, the incredible healer Lady Harrier, and the woman who becomes his wife, the brilliant lawyer Miss Althea. It is so wonderful to read about vivid female characters who imbue this tale with so much vivacity. If Granville himself were not so brilliant at disguises and deception, he would be boring by comparison. But of course he is not. I have never heard of this author before, but I now consider THE PLAYERS to be a gem of a novel!

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