{"id":735,"date":"2026-09-13T15:34:55","date_gmt":"2026-09-13T15:34:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dorothydunnett.co.uk\/blog\/?p=735"},"modified":"2026-09-13T15:34:55","modified_gmt":"2026-09-13T15:34:55","slug":"the-play-for-jonathan-crouch-vi-forced-move-for-a-minor-piece","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dorothydunnett.co.uk\/blog\/lymond-reading-notes\/the-play-for-jonathan-crouch-vi-forced-move-for-a-minor-piece.php","title":{"rendered":"The Play for Jonathan Crouch – VI: Forced Move for a Minor Piece"},"content":{"rendered":"
Lymond reading notes 7 \u2013 Game of Kings \u2013 The Play for Jonathan Crouch<\/em><\/h5>\n

<\/i><\/a>Dalkeith and George Douglas<\/h2>\n

Dorothy uses the spreading news and humour about the events of Hume to follow it to Dalkeith and the home of Sir George Douglas where he receives it thoughtfully \u2013 a word which is repeated twice more as he climbs to his study to meet a messenger, supposedly bringing a message from the English Protector.<\/p>\n

The man is wearing a close cap which completely covers his hair \u2013 immediately raising suspicions among readers. His manner and speech soon amplify that suspicion and we realise this is Lymond in disguise.<\/p>\n

\u2018Today the palace, tomorrow the oubliette and the elegiac distich.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

An oubliette is a secret room in a dungeon. An elegiac distich is a funeral lament. This attracts Douglas\u2019 full attention.<\/p>\n

\u2018Je suis oiseau: voyez mes ailes…Je suis souris; vivent les rats.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018I am a bird, see my wings. I am a mouse: long live the rats.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

This is part of a fable – The Bat and the Two Weasels:<\/p>\n

The bat is twice captured by different weasels, but convinces one weasel that he\u2019s a bird rather than a rat, and the other one that he\u2019s a mouse rather than a bird. Both let him go for opposite reasons.<\/p>\n

The moral of the story: Look and see which way the wind blows before you commit yourself.<\/p>\n

Lymond reads out part of a dispatch from Lord Grey to the Protector, which mentions Douglas and that he has pledged to help put Queen Mary in English hands, and he then implies there is more in a postscript which he has left with friends to ensure his safety, and Douglas immediately and calmly supposes this to be an attempt at blackmail. After some verbal sparring Lymond says that the postscript and a copy of it does indeed exist:<\/p>\n

\u2018I\u2019m King of the Fidlers and swear \u2018tis a truth.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

This is from a ballad about Robin Hood, who is an interesting character to invoke in the circumstances regarding Lymond.<\/p>\n

Lymond offers the full dispatch for a nominal sum, which turns out to be Jonathan Crouch.<\/p>\n

Douglas wants to make sure that Mary of Guise doesn\u2019t hear about the dispatch, and attempts to bribe him, first with a ruby ring, and then by suggesting he could make money from the flow of information if they were to cooperate.<\/p>\n

\u2018Fools make news, and wise men carry it. You could become a rich man.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018I am a rich man,\u2019 said his visitor.<\/em><\/p>\n

Which is an interesting thing to say given his Scottish lands are confiscated. He may have funds overseas or he may just be saying it to dismiss the bribe or suggested plan.<\/p>\n

Sir George then has to admit that he no longer has Crouch but offers to tell who does and to engineer a way to enter the house where he is being kept.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u2018Oh Douglas, oh Douglas, Tender and true…\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

A very appropriate line from The Buke of Howlat<\/em>, though it refers to an earlier Douglas when they were supporters of Robert the Bruce.<\/p>\n

Sir George gives him Andrew Hunter\u2019s name and says he will send a secretary to tell him of the enquiry about Crouch, as he had agreed, but that it would be easy to slip an extra person to the party.<\/p>\n

Feeling a degree of kinship with his sharp-witted opponent he suggests they drink claret, to which Lymond agrees, but adds that he\u2019s left a barrel of beer for him \u201ca little stirred up\u201d \u2013 a clear hint of where it has come from and also a hint as to his identity.<\/p>\n

<\/i><\/a>Ballaggan and Catherine Hunter<\/h2>\n

Catherine, Andrew\u2019s mother is described as \u201dthe spirit of Ballaggan Keep – imperious, impervious, implacable, brooding over its fastness like a tribal mascot\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n

We find that Andrew had a \u201cbrilliant\u201d<\/em> older brother who died not long after their father, and it\u2019s clear that Catherine favoured him.<\/p>\n

We get a description of the contents of the house:<\/p>\n

Spanish tiles on the floor (even Midculter uses rushes), Aldine folios, rugs from Turkey and the Levant. The beds were wrought and gilded, and hung with heavy taffetas; chests and tables in marble and scented woods. It is lavishly decorated.<\/p>\n

Aldine folios are from the Aldine Press of Venice \u2013 a famous Renaissance printer whose publications were highly desirable. Amongst other things they introduced the use of italics.<\/p>\n

Clearly these are more than the estate can support:<\/p>\n

Lamentably aware that \u2013 even if gold mines sprang beneath his feet, like Olwen\u2019s trefoils \u2013 his mother\u2019s fancy would still outpace him, Sir Andrew was sometimes reduced to a state of nervous irritation very close to rebellion. That he invariably spared her either complaint or reproach labelled him a soft mark among his fellow knights and earned him a solid revenue of womanly sympathy.<\/em><\/p>\n

Dorothy spends quite a bit of time on Catherine Hunter, which makes one wonder why. What role could a bed-ridden old woman play in this swashbuckling story?<\/p>\n

<\/i><\/a>Crouch, and Dorothy\u2019s humour<\/h2>\n

Crouch is immediately described in a memorable section, beloved of many readers:<\/p>\n

With Mr Crouch came his tongue, his teeth, his lips, his hard and soft palate, his maxillary muscles, larynx, epiglottis and lungs: all the apparatus which enabled him, ne plus ultra, to talk. Like the enchanted garden of Jannes, tenanted by daemons, the keep of Ballaggan encased the ceaseless drone of Mr Crouch\u2019s voice. He droned through September until it and his captors were exhausted; then pounced on October with undimmed vigour and worried the blameless days for a fortnight.<\/em><\/p>\n

This is quickly followed by a delightful second description that gives a perfect visual impression.<\/p>\n

Mr Crouch, wittily obese like a middle-aged titmouse, sat enthroned on his stomach, giving tongue. Incidents of his boyhood surged to cataclysmic peaks of pointlessness. Episodes from his career in the Princess Mary\u2019s household explored tedium to its petrified core.<\/em><\/p>\n

Crouch is thus made a figure of fun but it\u2019s done gently, and he\u2019s also described as a kind man with a wife and 5 children (all girls) \u2013 who of course he promises to talk about!<\/p>\n

So it seems unlikely that he is the one of the three that Lymond thinks may have betrayed him.<\/p>\n

In the subsequent talk Andrew Hunter is also seen quite sympathetically \u2013 we start to feel sorry for him with Crouch\u2019s wittering, and his mother constant carping criticism. Why do we think Dorothy does this?<\/p>\n

Yet she also slips in subtle hints about his character via Catherine \u2013 that he\u2019s never been injured in battle for instance.<\/p>\n

What are we to make of him?<\/p>\n

We discover that Crouch does successfully return to his wife via a mention of him telling her of the encounter \u2013 another hint that he is not the guilty party.<\/p>\n

Hunter then produces a gift for his mother, though she takes her time opening it:<\/p>\n

A vast, hexagonal brooch set in ebony and diamonds shouted into the sunshine in a cacophony of light.<\/em><\/p>\n

Crouch is impressed \u2013 it\u2019s the most expensive jewel he\u2019s ever seen \u2013 and remarks that the letters written on it in diamonds must stand for Henri and Diane de Poitiers. (Though why it\u2019s not still in her possession is not explained.)<\/p>\n

Catherine is not impressed:<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u2018A remarkable piece of vulgarity,\u2019 she said. \u2018I fear, Andrew, that a stronger woman might have been able to do more than I to educate your taste a little. It is a great grief to me that I cannot help you more. However, there is no need for you to waste your purchase. I am sure there is some good burgess\u2019s daughter whom you have a kindness for, who would be perfectly satisfied with it.<\/em><\/p>\n

which, amongst other things, infers that Andrew has no fianc\u00e9 and no likely consort from the nobility. This is unusual for an estate owner with a title.<\/p>\n

As Andrew goes downstairs to welcome arriving visitors, Crouch suggests the brooch will have been expensive and not easy to resell. Catherine responds with a classic line:<\/p>\n

\u2018The price of aesthetic education, Mr Crouch,\u2019 she said, \u2018is never small.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

Mr Crouch (for once) did not feel competent to answer.<\/em><\/p>\n

The (for once) is a lovely touch that\u2019s bound to raise a smile.<\/p>\n

<\/i><\/a>The Fight<\/h2>\n

Andrew returns to find Crouch and Catherine tied up, and before he can take it in he\u2019s hit from behind by a black-masked man, who then applies a wrestler\u2019s lock to his knee, and says:<\/p>\n

\u2018The Common Thick-knee,\u2019 he said breathlessly, \u2018is a bird \u2026 capable of running at great speed.\u2019 He increased his leverage, grinning. \u2018Now here, Dandy mine, we have a specimen of the Uncommon \u2013\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

alerting us, if we hadn\u2019t already guessed, that this is Lymond. Hunter, out of sheer anger at the joke, fights back. We get some unusual descriptions slipped in during the struggle:<\/p>\n

\u201c…a fine stool splintered, its prowling leopards bifurcated, and a row of medicine bottles fell from the bedside table with a tympanitic crash.<\/em><\/p>\n

Bifurcated<\/em> and tympanitic<\/em> are not exactly typical words to find in the middle of a fight scene!<\/p>\n

Hunter seems to get on top and his opponent momentarily seems to go limp, but it\u2019s a ruse and he kicks Hunter in a tender area before hitting him with a fire iron and then throwing him across the room and hitting his head off the floor. The rich Spanish tiles are referred to in a sarcastic aside:<\/p>\n

\u2018Who \u2026 falls upon rushes, falls soft; beware of \u2026 vain pride in terrestrial treasure, Sir Andrew. And \u2026 doused lights \u2026 and fireirons \u2026 and wrestling in slippers.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

before Hunter loses consciousness, leaving Lymond to escape with Crouch.<\/p>\n

While some may query the level of violence used against Andrew Hunter, the fact that Lymond is alone and needs to get out, with Crouch doubtless slowing things down, means that he has to incapacitate Hunter otherwise he will alert his men and will be able to track Lymond down. So I think it can be forgiven in the circumstances.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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