Lady on the Coin

by Margaret Campbell Barnes

  “My love, it is not what they are paid, but the cost of all their liveries and their maintenance. You have no idea! Mrs. Harvest altogether agrees with me. It is enormous. The mountains of food and the extra cooks needed to prepare it.”

  In the end Lennox gave her full authority to order the domestic side of their home as she thought best. When he recalled her as he had seen her at Whitehall, the lovely Court butterfly, to whom one would have thought the value of a guinea was no more than that of a groat, he was amazed by her.

  “Better to be able to pay the workmen whom we do need than lazy gardeners and servants whom we don’t,” Frances pointed out.

  Although she recommended the temporary closing of suites of rooms in the unused wings, she was at one with Lennox in wishing to make their own rooms perfect. There was also the central block, demolished but only partially re-built and intended to form a connecting link between the two Tudor wings. With the eyes of one who was partly a visionary and partly practical, Frances viewed the proposed banqueting hall, which had a breathtakingly beautiful ceiling designed by Inigo Jones in his last years. It should combine a music-room, Frances decided, and to make extension possible there were various badly constructed, small rooms and domestic offices which could be done away with.

  Occupied with these plans which they could now discuss together, wandering hand in hand with Lennox in the first warm days of spring through the lovely grounds, Frances was blissful. The gardens provided a succession of surprises, for the owners in Tudor days had planted shrubs and trees which had been brought from far-distant countries, and these were now in their maturity. There were a succession of gardens designed as pleasances, a terrace walk which ran the length of the north wing of the house, and four avenues of lime trees radiating out like the spokes of a wheel from the west front of the house.

  These avenues, so Lennox told Frances, had been planted under the direction of his uncle James, who had died during the years of the Protectorate.

  It was perhaps the vast deer park which Frances most loved. In years to come she was to wander in it for hours, happy beyond expression, though sadness was to be later associated with her yearning for peace and silence. Nobody knew just how old that vast park was. The villagers genuinely believed that it had existed since the world’s beginning. There were trees of every description. One enormous chestnut was known as the Four Sisters. The deer were tame and gentle and most beautiful. As the park completely surrounded the house, the deer could stray into the formal gardens and sometimes did. One of the first orders that Frances gave was for protective palings to be erected.

  Busy with such innumerable occupations, happy in her companionship with Lennox, loving him dearly, Frances was for some weeks forgetful of the outer world. News reached her from London, in letters from Mistress Stuart, who was now at Somerset House. There was room and to spare there for Frances and her husband, she wrote, and she hoped they would soon be coming to her on a visit. There was nothing to prevent them staying there, even though the King was bitterly angry over their elopement.

  Mistress Stuart had begged for an interview, and this, after some delay, had been granted. The Queen had been kind enough, but the King had been very cold and had told her that her daughter had behaved disgracefully and would no longer be received at Court. The Duke had been given orders to this effect before the elopement. It was said, Mistress Stuart wrote as an afterthought, that Lord Chancellor Clarendon owed his fall to Frances’ action. The King believed he had helped her and encouraged her, and now, having fallen into disgrace thereby, he had left England for exile in France.

  “But that is terrible,” Frances cried when she read the last paragraph. “Poor old Clarendon and I scarcely knew one another — or at least only in the most formal way. He had no idea of my plan. Were you better acquainted with him?”

  “Even less well acquainted,” Lennox said. “But it is only an excuse. Clarendon is old, tactless, disliked by many. Buckingham and the Castlemaine detest him, and have been plotting his downfall for years. Charles is weary of the friction probably, and knows that Clarendon is no longer competent.”

  “Then he should have dealt honourably with him.” Frances was shocked and angry. “He was one of his most faithful supporters in the days when Charles most needed support. Why does not the Duke of York defend his own father-in-law?”

  “York’s position is precarious being a Catholic, and he is an embarrassment to Charles though he is fond of him. The old man was unpopular with the people, you know. They blame him for the sale of Dunkirk to the French. The Catholics detest him for his fervent allegiance to the Protestant Church, and it’s well known that Charles has borne with him patiently for years, though Clarendon has lectured him day in, day out, on what he calls his immorality. It’s possible, Frances, that he also lectured him about his infatuation for you.”

  “He does seem to have been tiresome,” Frances owned, but she was still troubled, feeling that Charles had been uncharacteristically harsh and unjust, and grieved by the fear that her own action might have brought disgrace upon the old man. “It is not like Charles to be so unforgiving,” she said.

  But that when profoundly hurt the King could be unrelenting she had soon good reason to realize, for when Lennox and Frances visited Mistress Stuart, they were implored by her to preserve a strict privacy, not to flaunt themselves driving around London in Lennox’s ornate coach, until it could be ascertained if the King were willing to pardon them.

  “He would,” said Frances confidently, “if I could have only a few words with him.”

  Her mother shook her head doubtfully. To her the King had been cold and unbending, but she did not deny that Frances could coax most people to do as she wished, and in these first weeks of her marriage she was more beautiful than she had ever been, for love and wifehood had already given her greater poise, to which was added a luminous tenderness of glance and smile.

  “If Frances Stuart imagines that she can now carry all before her, she is much mistaken,” the King wrathfully told the Queen. “I know you are fond of the girl and I would not prevent you from seeing her. But let it be at Somerset House and not here. As for the disloyal oaf she has married, when she has seen him drink to the point of insensibility day after day, it is scarcely to be supposed she will continue in a state of bliss.”

  But this was something Frances was never to see, for although Lennox did still drink more than was good for him, this was only when he was away from her. He could be abstemious when they were together, for, as he had truthfully said, the one intolerable thing would have been to know that she regretted her marriage.

  “The Duke is young enough to mend his ways,” the Queen said, as she had said more than once. “As for Frances, you cannot expect me to be otherwise than happy that she has married. I am fond of her, and how could I have continued to be fond of her had she become a second Castlemaine, or even one of your less obtrusive mistresses? Although I so foolishly love you whatever grief you bring upon me, it would have been hard to forgive had Frances become your paramour.”

  Charles regarded her with remorse and affection.

  “You are an angel to have put up with so much,” he said. “But try to understand, ma mie. It is not only the losing of Frances, but the way I lost her. ’Twas not only lechery. I was fond of her. If she had told me she was determined to marry Lennox, would elope rather than discard him…”

  “How could she, Charles?” Catherine was mildly derisive. “You would have stopped her at any cost, even though you had to lock her in her rooms.”

  “Need she have left every jewel I ever gave her?” Charles demanded. “Even the pearls which were my present to her soon after she came to Court, and before there was any thought of love?”

  “Her bridegroom may have insisted on it,” Catherine pointed out, and then added dryly: “But I understand the shock it is to you. She must have been the first woman you have desired who has refused to profit by it.”

  “Except yourself.”


  “But did you ever desire me?”

  “You know I did — you know I do. When you were like to die, what was Frances to me save a kind girl who shared any anxiety and tried to comfort me?”

  “Then, because of that alone, could she not be forgiven?” the Queen suggested.

  But Charles was not to be pacified, and Catherine did not visit the bride and groom at Somerset House, though she wrote to Frances explaining that for the time being, as the King was adamant, she thought it better to stay away.

  There were many Frances did see, however, during the short stay in London. Some of those who had admired her and had been friendly with her came to Somerset House to wish her happiness, amongst others John Evelyn, who had always liked her. Frances could now confide in him, and she told him that even if she had not fallen in love with her husband, she would have had to leave Court unless she was prepared to become the King’s mistress. She could no longer have held him off, and he had reached the point when desire had become greater than his scruples over forcing her to submit.

  “But I have been lucky,” Frances said, “for at last I met one I could truly love and who honoured me and believed in me.”

  Those who had known Lennox in the days when he had been more unhappy than anyone suspected now marvelled at him. He had grieved for his first wife, had been wretched with his second wife, and now in his felicity it was not too difficult for him to reform. His gambling days were over. He had never been lucky at cards or betting, and had the sense to forgo these altogether. Because Frances so loved Cobham Hall it was twice as important to him, and he would not risk all their plans for it by staking and losing large sums. There was also much that he wanted to give her, though Frances told him that if necessary she could manage for years without a new gown. All her possessions had been sent to her from Whitehall, and a wardrobe which had barely sufficed for life at Court was resplendent for one living in the country.

  There, though they were entertained and returned hospitality, their friends had a very different outlook. The women who now made friendly approaches were occupied with bringing up their children and managing their households, the men in administering their estates and in outdoor pursuits. Frances did not actively discourage any of Lennox’s once boon companions, but the less reputable now drifted away of their own accord, and he was too contented to miss them.

  Returning to Cobham, the days passed rapidly as they concentrated on re-decorating the wing of the house they intended to occupy.

  The Dutch war had simmered down during the early months of the year. Louis XIV was now making a sincere effort to negotiate peace. His object had been gained, for both England and Holland had been much weakened in the inconclusive struggle, and peace talks had started at Breda. But although at this conference all the major points were settled, the English commissioners held so rigidly to various minor issues that antagonism flared up once more, and the exasperated Dutch elected to steal a march on their now unsuspecting foe.

  The news that the Dutch fleet was at sea again and had been sighted off the Dorset coast came as a stunning blow. Lennox, as Lord Lieutenant of Dorsetshire, received orders to be at his post there and to resist attack. With only time for a hurried leave-taking he was gone, and Frances was left behind, in some danger as it proved, for the Dutch plans had been incorrectly assessed. It was not their intention to strike in the open sea, but with far more devastating effect in the Thames and Medway estuaries, where some of the finest ships in the Navy were lying unmanned and unprepared, it being optimistically believed that the war was virtually at an end.

  From the high ground in the park, Frances, with straining, disbelieving eyes, saw the superb Dutch fleet come sailing up the estuary, to meet with only the slightest possible resistance from the great English ships they proceeded to systematically destroy.

  Frances and the domestic and outdoor staff at Cobham now had a ringside view of one of the most disastrous events in the naval history of the country. Frances was not the only one to weep with rage and frustration as the old house shook to the booming of cannon, and stories, both true and false, of England’s losses reached her ears.

  She had no idea how her husband was faring at Dorset, and her anxiety was intense until she received a visit from a Captain Johnson, one of Lennox’s privateer skippers in command of the Frances, the ship which had been named after her, who brought her a letter and reassuring news of him.

  Frances sat in the great hall at Cobham, where Captain Johnson hungrily devoured a substantial meal hastily prepared for him.

  “Keep up your heart, Your Grace,” he advised with rough solicitude. “The Duke is well and hearty and in command of as pretty a squadron as ever you saw. Those devils got the better of us, taking us by surprise as they did — a right scurvy trick seeing as we had believed in a truce — but they’ll soon be sent to the right-abouts, though at the cost of some of our best ships and men, which is a sore blow to be sure.”

  “Ships can be built again,” Frances said. “It’s the men — all those who were taken unawares. Oh, Captain Johnson, are you sure my lord is uninjured? If you have come here to break it to me that he is — he is…please don’t try, for you couldn’t. There would be no way of softening such news.”

  The rough, seafaring Johnson looked at her with astonished admiration. He had never seen a lady so beautiful and so unconcerned for herself. There she sat, facing him at the oak table, her elbows propped on it, and her chin resting on her clenched knuckles.

  “In truth the boot is on the other foot,” he said. “The Duke has been forced to stay at his post, and so far the Dutch ships having by-passed us, none on the Dorset coast has suffered harm. It is for Your Grace he has been in a sore fret. Cobham is not out of the reach of shelling, and should the enemy have made a landing God only knows what might have happened. Most women,” the captain said bluntly, “would have been scared out of their wits.”

  “Would they? Well, I wasn’t,” Frances stated flatly, “though it is true the cannons made a great noise and I was in much concern for that part of the house which is only half built and might be brought down by the shaking it has had. But it stood up to it, and so you will be pleased to tell the Duke. It was a dreadful sight though, to see them start firing in the Medway, and none of our cannon to answer them.”

  “You should have taken cover. Had it been my wife, though she’s no coward, she’d have been hiding in the cellar.”

  “That didn’t occur to any of us,” Frances told him with truth and simplicity. “There we all were on the high ground watching, and the men cursing. I have never,” and she giggled irrepressibly, “heard such language in all my life as I did from the builder’s men and Waring, our head gardener. It was — it was inspiring. The pity is that I have forgot all of it.”

  Captain Johnson joined in her laughter. “It will be my honour,” he said, “to tell His Grace that he has the bravest of all brave ladies.”

  “I might have been brave if I had thought of it,” Frances owned, “but the worst is over now, for the bombardment has died down, and Prince Rupert with his forces has arrived at Sheppey to fortify it.”

  “And those land-lubbers in London have at last bestirred themselves and raised ten thousand pounds,” Johnson told her.

  “At Sheppey they cannot be too well off for provisions,” Frances worried, “for the Prince sent a message to me, asking for a buck to be shot for venison. I have had this done and despatched to him, as well as a load of provisions we could supply from our own stores. I sent the same by road to Dorset. Powder too, of which my lord had an amount. All should have arrived by now.”

  Before Captain Johnson left to rejoin Lennox there was time for Frances to write him a letter, which the Captain took with him.

  “Oh, my dearest, if you love me have a care of your selfe,” Frances entreated. “I am still the hapyest woman that ever was borne in haveing the heart of my Dearest Lord, and the only Joy of my life, which I will rather chuse to die than lose.�
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  Within a few days of Captain Johnson’s departure the crisis was over. The English envoys at Breda, due to the shock of the Medway attack, were prepared to come to reasonable terms, and Coventry, the English ambassador, arrived from Holland with a draft of the peace treaty.

  Even so Lennox was unable to leave Dorset immediately, though the King had ordered the peace medals to be struck. Although Frances had fallen from favour — badly though she was missed at Court, nobody dared to speak of her in the King’s presence — the design for the medals had not been changed, and there she was, a regal Britannia, serenely gazing upon her ships as they sailed on the ocean.

  Calmly, in Lennox’s prolonged absence, Frances occupied herself with the re-building of Cobham, revealing a capability which would have surprised any of her friends and not least the King.

  She wrote to Lennox that their bed-chamber was being painted, she having hired the painter he had mentioned. It was almost done, Frances told him, though in these times it was difficult to get workmen. She was also occupied with the garden, planning a special enclosure for herself, fenced with palings over which she intended climbing roses should be trained. Busy from morning to night, and sometimes in her impatience doing more than give directions, but demonstrating how she wished some particular piece of work to be carried out, Frances was watched with consternation by Mrs. Harvest, the housekeeper, who was constantly begging her to rest and to have a care of herself — not unnecessary advice since it was known by now that Frances was in the early stages of pregnancy.

  But rest with so much that she longed to see accomplished was beyond Frances’ power, and the housekeeper’s gloomy prognostications were fulfilled when one day her young mistress stumbled over a pile of stones for coping, which had been dumped in her path. She fell full-length, bruised an elbow and her knees and was carried into the house in a fainting condition.

  An hour or so later, a groom was sent off on horseback for the doctor, and before evening Frances had lost her hope of maternity. Since she had given the matter of her pregnancy little thought, it was surprising how deeply she grieved, turning her face into her pillow and sobbing heart-brokenly.