There comes a time in all biographies when dull facts must be recorded to appreciate to the full the life and works of the principal figure. A legendary hero may act upon the world's stage isolated from the rest of the chorus or the minor roles. He is permitted to pirouette and prance in a pas seul, and people do not require rhyme or reason for his dance. But an historic personage needs a background of ancestry from which his hereditary characteristics, both virtues and vices, may be accurately deduced; for the man or woman cannot escape from environment and upbringing, nor be separated from them. A man's actions are too complex, his thoughts too tangled to be analyzed simply. He cannot be detached from the foundation rock of family; he cannot be impaled on the point of a pin like a winkle and relished without seasoning. The necessary details must be touched upon -- those details which describe the real man, however briefly.
The exploits which gained for the unacknowledged son of John Blake the hand of Gilda Beresteyn, the beautiful daughter of the richest burgher in Haarlem and the honours which the Stadholder showered upon his broad shoulders, have been handed down from father to son in the families of two countries. The daughters of the Blakeneys of Sussex are still married in the lace veil worn by Gilda Beresteyn on her wedding day; the sons of the Blakes of Haarlem show pridefully the sword of Bucephalus with the petals of blood-rust upon its blade. Diogenes emerges against his will from the obscurity of his vagabondage and, in a few months, appears in the limelight of the historical stage. And his cue was the face of a beautiful maiden who whispered a few frightened words into his ear on New Year's Eve, 1625.
So much of the history is now legendary that it has been difficult to disentangle truth from fiction. History, however, provides the evidence which goes to prove that Diogenes, on New Year's Eve, 1625, fell in with a group of hooligans and rescued a Spanish girl from death at their hands. His two companions, vagabonds like himself, were wounded during the affray and Diogenes carried them into the precincts of St. Peter's Church in order to render them first aid. There it was that he encountered Gilda Beresteyn for the first time.
That much of the story is quite clear. The remainder of the tale is to be found in a little brochure written, some fifty years later, buy Hans Beresteyn, a cousin of this same Gilda. Unfortunately the author, in his endeavour to sing the praises of Percy Blake--Diogenes--whom he seems to have greatly admired, has slurred over the true facts, and in certain chapters he is undoubtedly guilty of deliberate romancing. Nevertheless, even allowing for considerable bias, a fairly accurate outline of the story may be gleaned from Hans' book, so long as the reader is careful to discount--at any rate, in part--the eulogistic phrases concerning Diogenes and to reject certain quotations of conversation for which the author must have drawn upon his imagination.
"Lord Stoutenberg," he writes, "that arch villain, was nursing his hatred against the Stadholder. On New Year's Eve, 1625, he, together with Nikolaes Beresteyn and a few others, was plotting to murder Maurice of Nassau. Fearful of some eavesdropper overhearing their nefarious plans, those abominable traitors had chosen the chancel of the church for their council chamber. And Gilda, who had entered the church to pray to the Almighty, unhappily overheard the treachery through the lips of her own dearly beloved brother.
"She was discovered. Horrified at the dastardly plot, she threatened to reveal it to her father; whereupon Stoutenberg demanded of Nikolaes the removal of Gilda to a place of safety where she could be kept prisoner until such a time as the deed was accomplished, lest she put her threat into execution. Nikolaes, unwilling personally to put this outrage upon his sister, searched the town for a man who would be unscrupulous enough to do it for a consideration. Everybody in Haarlem knew that Diogenes, the vagabond, was always ready for adventure, and that he suffered from a chronic lack of money. To him did Nikolaes unfold his story and succeeded in bribing him to abduct Gilda."
According to Hans Beresteyn, Diogenes accepted the bribe and consented to carry out this shameful plan because he deemed that the girl would be safer in his hands than in those of a pack of assassins and conspirators headed by her own brother.
He carried out the instructions given him by Nikolaes Beresteyn. Those were that he should convey Gilda, by a roundabout route, to Rotterdam, and there place her under the care of one Ben Isaye, with whom Nikolaes and his family often had business dealings. It seems that once there, the girl did attempt to win Diogenes over to her side and revealed to him the truth surrounding her abduction. Thus he learnt for the first time of the conspiracy to murder the Stadholder.
Percy Blake was now in a quandary. The adventure which had begun as a lighthearted affair, had turned into an undertaking of a grave and dangerous nature. He felt that he must try to warn the Stadholder of the peril which threatened him and, at the same time, keep watch over Gilda in order to protect her from the machinations of Stoutenberg.
With this double object in view, he hastened to Delft, where the Stadholder was staying, and was thus able, that same night, to warn Maurice of Nassau of the plot against his life. On his return to Rotterdam early the next morning, he found that Stoutenberg, no doubt aware that Gilda was likely to betray her knowledge of the conspiracy, had taken steps to keep her in durance under his own eye and, to Percy Blake's dismay, he saw Gilda being borne off in a sleigh, whither he knew not, surrounded by Stoutenberg's men.
To make matters worse, whilst endeavouring to keep Gilda in sight, he himself was set upon by a band of ruffians and overpowered. He was taken across country to a deserted Molen where the conspirators had their headquarters, and here he was kept a helpless prisoner. He had apparently failed in his second undertaking. He certainly had succeeded in warning the Stadholder, but he was now powerless to help Gilda, who was trapped in the snares of the plotters; both she and he were at Stoutenberg's mercy.
"Gilda," Hans Beresteyn tells us, "proud and disdainful, still smarting under the humiliation of her abduction at the hands of the vagabond, believed the plausible stories which her brother and Stoutenberg now told her. She believed that Diogenes had abducted her solely for the sake of the ransom which her father would be willing to pay -- she believed that Stoutenberg had renounced his plan of murdering Maurice of Nassau and had, in fact, freed her from the hands of an unscrupulous and venal adventurer."
And here the author's admiration for Diogenes becomes very marked, for he declares that Diogenes actually confessed to the truth of these calumnies, because his one wish was to spare Gilda the pain of learning the full extent of her brother's turpitude. He denied nothing and calmly awaited death at the hands of his tormentors.
"Indeed," says Hans Beresteyn, "the brave man was on the point of suffering a shameful death when rumour spread like wildfire among Stoutenberg's followers that the plot had been discovered and that the Stadholder was advancing upon the Molen with a large body of troops. During the sauve qui peut which ensued, Diogenes succeeded in getting Gilda out of Stoutenberg's hands and forcing Nikolaes to confess to his father the ignoble part that he had played in the plot against his own sister."
That same evening, Percy Blake was betrothed to Gilda.
Cornelius Beresteyn was forced to admit that the vagabond was indeed a fine fellow! Ungrudgingly, the father agreed that Diogenes had earned the right to marry his daughter. But he was very anxious lest Diogenes' lack of patronymic should cause future unpleasantness for the young couple and affect their position in Haarlem. Now that the happy-go-lucky days were presumably over, now that Diogenes was assuming civic responsibilities by taking Gilda for wife, Cornelius insisted, not unkindly, that his future son-in-law should try and tell him something of his parentage.
Diogenes frankly told him all he knew; his father's name, the secret marriage, the cruel desertion of the young wife and child. Tactful questions had elicited these and other facts about the sad story. The older man felt that the time had come to forget rancor and to heal the breach between father and son. Not that Cornelius was a man of that stamp who would refuse his daughter happiness just because her lover was nameless; but he felt that irresponsibility had been carried too far and that the jest had been overdone.
But neither persuasion nor threats prevailed against Diogenes' obstinacy. He flatly refused to take any steps toward reconciliation with a father who had disowned him and broken his mother's heart. Cornelius therefore determined to seek out John Blake himself. The world was indeed a small place, Cornelius felt, for Blake was a man whom he had often met in the course of business; in fact, many pieces of the Beresteyn jewelry had been acquired from the English merchant.
As soon as the excitement of the Stoutenberg conspiracy had died down, Cornelius arranged a meeting between father and son. He discovered that John Blake was at that time visiting Rotterdam and straightaway sought him out and invited him to stay at the Beresteyn house in Haarlem. It was indeed a strange meeting for John Blake and Percy -- a meeting fraught with hidden and subtle emotions; on one side, the dull ache of ancient memories and the sharp pricks of a guilty conscience; on the other, the fierce force of hate and the cold contempt for the coward who had deserted wife and child.
But the call of the flesh proved stronger than hate or conscience. The father gazed upon the handsome, devil-may-care adventurer and indifference turned to ungrudging admiration. Here was a man to be proud of -- a man any father would joyfully acknowledge as his son. The wistful expression of the lonely old man thawed the ice which had frozen Diogenes' heart and, in a trice, the two were locked in one another's embrace, half-crying, half-laughing, with the emotion which overwhelmed them.
Naturally the father, overjoyed that the breach had been healed, wished for this son's company. He also felt that it was only right and proper that Percy should visit England with him; to be introduced to English society and installed as his legal heir -- a worthy heir indeed to the wealth and position which he had built up; and also to instill into his son a love for his own country.
Thus did Diogenes sail for England. An old letter written by him to Gilda in Dutch gives us an amusing insight into his first impressions of the country.
"My journey to England," he wrote, "has killed my only attempt at sobriety, for there I found that the stock from which I come was both irreproachable and grave, had been so all the time that I, the most recent scion of so noble a race, was roaming round the world, the most shiftless and thriftless vagabond it had ever seen."
Gilda, however, did not believe him, since it was nearly always impossible to detect when he was joking or being serious. And this time he was joking. He had now seen the stately home; he had breathed the calm air of his native land; his blood had responded to the call. He realized that he was English of the English, and not just a nameless and homeless vagabond. He felt that he could easily learn to love this rain-soaked country as soon as Gilda should live there as his wife.
England, at this time, was transported with joy; illuminations and bonfires lit up the streets of London all night long! The marriage between Charles, Prince of Wales, and the Spanish Infanta had been definitely broken off. The people acclaimed with enthusiasm the collapse of that shameful policy which for so long had dragged England on the tow-rope of Spain. The return of the Prince from there was taken as a sign of his strength and the complete rupture of any Catholic alliance. Buckingham demanded war! Cranfield was accused of deceit! The Spanish ambassador left London!
So England turned to its only Protestant ally--Holland. James the First sent for John Blake and entrusted to him the mission of winning the Stadholder's support. And the father, proud of his only son, and knowing how high Diogenes stood in the Stadholder's esteem, led him to the king, and it was agreed that Percy should lead the Embassy to Holland, not as a poor vagrant, but as the representative of a mighty nation. The Stadholder showed appreciation of the delicate compliment paid him by the King of England in thus sending to him as ambassador, the man who had saved his life, by readily acceding to the English proposals.
On the successful conclusion of the mission and the signing of the treaty of alliance, King James, realizing the signal services thus rendered by John Blake, desired to confer some honour on him. But the latter, either because he was advanced in years, or because he desired to show some singular mark of favour to his son and to make amends for past wrongs, petitioned His Majesty to bestow the proposed honour upon his only son.
The King agreed to this course and conferred a baronetcy upon Percy Blake. But an initial difficulty arose, owing to the fact that at this time, no legal precedent existed which permitted a son to take a hereditary title whilst a father was still alive. A compromise, however, was reached; Percy changed his name to that of the village in which his father now lived -- a name that was curiously like to his own -- Blakeney. Thus it came about that Diogenes, the vagabond, the beggar, the outcast, became Sir Percy Blakeney -- the first Sir Percy.
But Diogenes -- Sir Percy Blakeney -- did not remain in England long; his heart was away in Haarlem with Gilda, the lone star which had led him into accepting honour, position, and wealth. For himself, he laughed heartily at the very notion that he had now become a baronet of England. So, within three short months, he was back again in Holland, awaiting, with as much patience as he could muster, the day of his marriage.
Nevertheless, the few fleeting weeks had been sufficient to give birth to that strange sense of longing and incompleteness which he had always felt. The call of blood had worked its miracle in him; the green meadows and scented orchards of England had twined themselves into his heart. He was infused with its spirit, drunk with its fragrance, filled with its beauty. After the wedding, he made up his mind that he would return thither with his bride, to dream his life away in love and contentment.
But the Fates decreed otherwise. Sir Percy Blakeney did not return to England until 1630. The records show that he was again called upon to take an active part in the destinies of his adopted country, Holland. Van Aitzema, in his voluminous work entitled Saken von Staat, refers again and again to the "Englishman," the husband of Gilda Beresteyn. He is recorded by that chronicler to have been an active participator in the fighting which followed a second uprising engineered by Lord Stoutenberg.
Thus, in the spring of 1626, Van Aitzema tells us that the Dutch were being driven in defeat in front of an invading Austrian army headed by Stoutenberg; that these troops had contrived to cut the Dutch armies in two; that an attack on Arnheim had been successful and that Vorden was menaced with a siege. He relates that the Dutch had been caught unawares and thus had been put to flight, but that the only chance of salvation lay in sending a message across the Veluwe, through the invaded areas, so that the Dutch troops and German mercenaries in the Stadholder's pay could join forces in time to co-operate and perhaps thus avoid total destruction.
"The Englishman," he writes, "undertook this perilous task. By night, right under the mouth of the Austrian musket and cannon, did Sir Blakeney (as he calls him) swim under the Veluwe. For ten long miles he swam, sometimes diving under the icy waters in order to escape detection by the Austrian outposts; sometimes battling desperately against an adverse wind which whipped up the surface of the river and threatened to drown him. But, though spent and severely wounded, he reached Vorden in time to save us from disaster."
Again, a few weeks later, Blakeney, it seems, was leading a detachment of Dutch troops against the Austrians at the "Battle of the Molen," and distinguished himself in conspicuous style by the capture of Lord Stoutenberg himself. In fact, Van Aitzema declares that it was through Blakeney's fine tactics that the Austrian army was forced to retreat and the uprising finally stamped out.
It seems that from then on Sir Percy Blakeney sheathed the sword Bucephalus and took to the quill. But, in his case, the pen was certainly not mightier than the sword, for he made but little mark in the world of politics, though the Stadholder showered appointments upon him.
In 1627, Maurice of Nassau appointed Blakeney reorganizer of the army. In this he seems to have succeeded remarkably well and was created a general of the Dutch army as a reward for his industry. And he himself has left us a record of his impressions in a long letter which he penned to his father about this time.
"I fear me," he writes, "that I am no clerk. Certainly I am no diplomat. Already have I made enemies with the stolid Dutch colleagues with whom I am supposed to work. They are senseless and wooden-headed, and do not seem to realize that fighting consists of a little more than mere brawn and a straight eye. It really amazes me that these people have ever contrived to win a battle. But one must give them their due; they are a loyal set of men, earnest and patriotic, thinking only of the good of their beloved country and the greatness of it. The Stadholder continues to shower honours upon my unworthy shoulders -- honours which I am totally unfitted for. Thus, he informs me that he wished me to become his comptroller! Imagine it! Diogenes, the vagabond who could never keep a guilder in his purse, practicing accounts and learning the art of domestic economy! Cornelius, that dear man who is my father-in-law, naturally desires me to accept. I feel that my only chance of safety lies in escaping to Blakeney Manor."
In spite of all his protests, Blakeney was persuaded to accept the position, and so his dream of returning to England receded farther and farther into the future.
The only other event during those five years worth recording is the attempt that was made on his life. At least, the happening must be so designated; actually, it seems to be rather of a mystery, and so far, an unsolved one.
To celebrate the anniversary of the "Battle of the Molen," the Stadholder had commanded a military display of all the Dutch troops. This review took place on the banks of the Veluwe, on the old-time battle-field. The principle event in this display was a mimic battle portraying the actual fight of three years ago. For this purpose Blakeney unsheathed his sword Bucephalus and re-enacted his part in the affair. At the critical moment when he was charging to the head of the company, a musket was loosed and the bullet wounded Blakeney in the left shoulder, luckily only causing a flesh wound.
An investigation was immediately set up in order to discover the culprit. It was speedily ascertained that there were many malcontents among the troops -- men who resented Blakeney's position as general of the army. But as those men confessed freely to their opinion, it was perfectly evident that none of them would ever have dreamt of attempting a criminal act on Blakeney's person.
The soldiers who had been standing near the spot from whence the shot must have been fired, stated that they had noticed nothing untoward and were willing to undergo torture to the death should they be lying. The only conclusion to which the authorities could come was that some unseen assassin had lain in wait and shot at random in the hope of killing Blakeney. But the culprit was never discovered. Blakeney himself vowed that the whole affair was the result of an accident and begged the Stadholder to drop the matter. The soldiers who had been implicated in the cabal against Blakeney were pardoned at his earnest request and the affair remains a mystery to this day.
In the meanwhile, over in England, John Blake had died and left his son sole heir to his vast wealth and considerable property. Nothing, therefore, kept Sir Percy in Holland now that peace had been restored. Blake House awaited its future master. Sir Percy took his bride across the water and settled down in England, there to pass the rest of his days in peace.
And so the years passed away.
Atropos cut the thread of life with her scissors, and Diogenes rests in the churchyard of Blakeney beside Gilda, his dearly beloved wife.
And Nikolas, his son, reigned in his stead.
Sir Nikolas Blakeney carried on the tradition -- love of adventure cannot be quenched in the "mad-cap" Blakeneys. They can never settle down and live in quiet enjoyment; they must always be up and doing, battling for fame and fortune, for the mere sake of the sport itself. And Nikolas was a true son of his father; he fought with Marlborough, going with him from victory to victory; he organized the Dutch allies; he was caught spying for the English generals; he escaped by the skin of his teeth; whilst his wife, Helen Hamilton, waited patiently at Blake with her son, George. But Nikolas never returned. On the eve of the Battle of Blenheim he was stricken down by a fever and died within a few days -- died as all Blakeneys have wished and ever will wish to die, to the sound of the trumpet and cannon, with a sword in his hand.
Sir George Blakeney was a failure! Nothing could induce him to travel or to take up arms. It is to be feared that he was the black sheep of the Blakeney family. The only important thing in his life, on which entitled him to a mention in their chronicles, is the fact that he nursed his grandchild, Percy, the Scarlet Pimpernel, on his knee. He played games with the baby; invented stories, recounted the history of his famous ancestor to this boy, who was himself destined to invent the greatest game of all -- who was to be the most famous and most beloved Blakeney throughout the length and breadth of England, the most hated and feared man in revolutionary France. A small, insignificant red flower became a device, the mere sight of which thrilled the hears of his gallant friends, brought smoldering fear into the souls of his enemies.
And soon a lazy, slightly inane, but irresistible, laugh echoed down the corridors of Blake House...