• • •
London
From the walls of Whitehall, Barbara’s view of the pageantry was all too good. The Thames was crowded shore to shore with boats and barges to welcome the arrival of the king and queen to London. Charles had bade her go to London and wait for him there, but she’d had little notion that his honeymoon in Hampton Court would continue so long as it had. Be that as it may, she had used the past month well, and her recovery from childbirth was complete.
Below her, Samuel Pepys stood on the banks, ostensibly to watch the pageantry of the king’s arrival but, if the lecherous little clerk’s gaze was any indication, he had eyes only for her. And by the veritable drool on his chin, she had lost none of her powers over men.
Barbara flung her hair over her shoulders and let it stream in the wind, glad she had chosen not to wear a hat today. It would be easier for the king to pick her out from the crowd. She had told Charles that she would stand upon Whitehall’s walls and wait for him. The nurse stood behind her, carrying baby Charles, stiffly swaddled, in her arms. When the king came near, she would take his son and hold him up. Let the boy see his father.
And let the queen see the boy.
Two great barges approached, covered in gilt and with the royal flags waving. Barbara leaned forward, straining for the first glimpse of Charles. There—he stood in red robes, with his long dark hair . . . no. No, it was not him. She sank onto her heels, clenching her fists. She had been taken in by a pageant. The two barges merely had actors playing the king and queen as a part of the celebrations.
Behind her, boots crunched on the gravel atop the wall. Barbara turned to see who had come to join the view and her heart clenched. Roger.
He removed his hat as a courtesy, but his gaze made it clear the salute was for the nursemaid and not for Barbara. She lifted her chin and gave a curtsy in response, as if they were alone and civil. Roger snorted and paced along the wall.
Barbara turned from him to the nurse. “Give me Charles.”
With a hasty curtsy, the woman handed the infant to her. Barbara tickled him under the chin and he made a pleased gurgle.
“And how do you do, my fine young man?” She walked with him along the wall, bouncing him gently in her arms.
Roger returned the way he had come, passing her upon the wall. His gaze stayed fixed ahead and he smiled cordially at the nurse.
Barbara stopped and turned her son so he could see the Thames, covered with barges and boats. The water was almost hidden. “There, now. You see? Your papa is coming soon.”
From upstream, a cry came upon the wind. Barbara craned her neck, seeking the source of the uproar. In the midst of the river, a gilt barge rowed under a canopy of royal purple. The king’s pennants snapped in the breeze as the ship rowed up the length of the Thames. Barbara clutched little Charles, holding him up, his head supported by his swaddling bands, as she searched for the king.
In the midst of the courtiers crowded upon the barge, she could spy only the edge of the throne of her lover. Of himself, any part she might know was obscured by a conspiracy of the canopy and the crowd. The barge came even with them, and the people on the scaffolding below shouted, “God save the king! God save the queen!” To think. Only a month ago, the theater had rung with cries pairing her name with Charles. She held her son in her arms and watched his father sail past without a glance towards her.
Behind her, Roger laughed.
• • •
Through a gap in the curtains surrounding Barbara’s bed, Charles could just make out the water-streaked windows. Rain pattered against the glass and created silver curtains across the courtyard as if the entirety of England was their bedchamber.
Charles ran his fingers along the warm fullness of Barbara’s breast, circling the aureole. Her skin was still flushed and slick from their lovemaking. She snuggled against him and sighed. Her own hand rose to run through the hair on his chest, sending pleasant shivers through his torso.
“Beloved . . .” Barbara raised herself on one elbow and the golden fall of her hair hung like another curtain to pool on the bed. “My circumstances . . . I need your help.”
Charles tilted his chin up to study her. Barbara might weep or rage, but his lively lady had a frown he was unused to seeing. “What is the matter?”
With another little sigh, she trailed her fingers up his chest to the line of his jaw. “Roger will not take me back.”
“Ah.” It might have been a mistake to have an Anglican priest rechristen the baby. At the time, he had been so outraged that he had agreed to Barbara’s demands and even granted the child “Fitzroy” as a surname, to claim him as his own. The “Fitz” marked him as a bastard and was, perhaps, too much for Palmer to overlook. “He needs only some time to calm down.”
“No . . .” Tears brimmed in her eyes. “No, he means it this time. I am utterly cast out, and—”
She pressed her hand to her lips and turned away. Charles sat up, cursing himself for a fool even as he put his arms around her shoulders. “There, there . . . Even if that is the case, you still have your apartments here and at Hampton Court. You shall not be out on the street, dearest.”
“But I cannot be your mistress!”
“You . . . but, dearest, you already are.”
She shrugged his hands away and struggled out of bed, almost upsetting the ewer on the bed table. “Oh! Men. You understand nothing of what it means to be a woman.”
“I can certainly attest that I understand nothing of women.”
“Do not mock me!”
Charles held up his hands and slid to the edge of the bed, setting his feet upon the stone floor. “Why can you not be my mistress?”
“Because my husband has left me!”
“Surely it makes things easier.” Though, in truth, Charles would never have pursued an unmarried woman, for fear of ruining her.
“If I am kept purely as your plaything, then the polite fiction which keeps me respectable is gone. I will have no position, no standing. No one will invite me into their home unless you are there, and then they will only suffer my presence.”
“Barbara, it is not as if our affair is a secret.”
“But you are married now!” She buried her face in her hands and wept. “And I am nothing—I have no husband. I have no honor . . . I must have some reason to be at court.”
He stood and took her hands, kissing the tears away from her cheeks. “If that is all it takes to make you respectable, you shall have a position. What should you like?”
“I have already told you! Make me a Lady of the Bedchamber.”
A cold spike buried itself in Charles’s spine. He pulled away from her. “That is a very bad idea.”
“I do not see why. It would more than make up for the precedence I have lost and give me unobjectionable cause to be always where you are.”
“It is the last I question.”
“Oh! You find me objectionable now, do you.”
He ran his hands up her arms to cradle her face. “It should be clear I do not.”
“Then why will you not grant me the position?” She yanked free of him, magnificent bosom heaving as anger painted her cheeks red. “Shall I tell you? It is because my association with you has sullied my reputation. Even you know it, if you will not admit it.”
“Are you not the most celebrated lady in my court?”
“I was, until you married. Now? Now I am only your mistress, and not fit to be seen in polite society.” Her voice rose. “Tell me truthfully, if I were not your mistress, would you have any objections to making me a Lady of the Bedchamber?”
“I have told you that is the decision of the queen.”
“Oh, yes. Hide behind the skirts of your wife!” She snatched the ewer from the bed table and threw it across the room. It shattered against the wall. “Take no responsibility for the straits you have forced upon me. If you were not in some manner ashamed of me then you know full well that as ‘the most celebrated lady in your court’
I should be an ornament for the queen.”
“Enough!” Charles pressed his hands against his temple. “Woman, I will make it so, if only you will be calm. But heaven help us both. Nothing good can come of it.”
Episode 3: On His Blindness
by Barbara Samuel
June 1662
Catherine and her ladies clustered in small knots around her privy chamber on a fine Thursday afternoon. Some plucked gold threads from worn-out garments for use in other work, while others bent over a tapestry frame, their needles building a bright scene of a stag hunt. Beautiful and gruesome, Catherine thought.
She preferred her own project. A few days before, she had been abroad in the park with Charles, and she had taken along her sketchbook and chalks to capture the woodland plants and birds that were unfamiliar to her. Ordinarily, Charles was a vigorous walker, but on that morning, he’d slowed his pace to allow her an opportunity to sketch whatever caught her eye, and kindly took the time to name each one, spelling out the words in English, which she carefully wrote beneath the sketches.
This afternoon, she transferred her sketches to a length of linen, adding detail to bird wings and branches. Next to her, the Lady Suffolk’s fingers flew over her embroidery, and the helpful young maid Jenny repaired the lace on the sleeve of a gown. As Catherine transferred the drawings of birds to her fabric, she asked Lady Suffolk to repeat the words she had written.
“Robin,” the lady said of a plump bird with a rosy wash over its neck, and Catherine repeated it.
“Chaffinch, blackcap.”
“This one?” Catherine said in English, pointing to a round little bird with a blue head and white cheeks.
“Blue tit,” Lady Suffolk said, and Catherine repeated it, taking pleasure in the crisp sounds.
Lady Suffolk laughed, and Catherine frowned. “I do wrong?”
“No, no. I beg your deepest pardon, Your Majesty!” The lady waved her hands and said something to Jenny.
“She only asks that I warn you, Your Majesty. Tit is another word for el pecho.” She patted her breast.
“Nice word? Or no?”
“No.”
Catherine laughed merrily, realizing why Charles had delighted in her repetition of the word. Scoundrel!
Lady Suffolk pointed at the sketches. “You have a fine hand,”
“Sank you,” Catherine said in English. Lady Suffolk smiled at her.
The young page Samuel entered and, bowing deeply, presented a rolled parchment. Catherine put aside her handwork and glanced at it.
“These are the names proposed for Your Majesty’s Ladies of the Bedchamber,” Lady Suffolk said.
“Ah.” Catherine, eager to have more English ladies in her personal household, had been awaiting this list. She scanned it, recognizing few of the names. Except one.
There, written in a plain, fine hand, was Barbara Palmer, the Lady Castlemaine. Her husband’s mistress. Whom Catherine had strategically and methodically refused to acknowledge in name or at court.
A prickling of blackness edged around her vision, and she took in a breath to calm herself. She had gained a reputation for her even temper, but in truth she sometimes suffered from a surfeit of strong reactions—high and low, admirable and not—and under such influence, had been prone to fits of fainting. The nuns had trained her how to hide her emotions, but she’d never learned how to avoid feeling them.
As she held the list for the suggested Ladies of the Bedchamber, Catherine’s fingers trembled. Her ears roared, drowning the sound of the Italian musician bowing his viola da gamba along with Lady Chesterfield’s harp and the chatter of the ladies bent over their needlework.
Before her stood the young page, luminous eyes wide. Again the edges of her vision blackened, and she forced herself to focus on the golden, late afternoon sunlight that fell in bars to the floor. Again she took a breath. The threatening fit eased.
With a strong, sharp gesture, she struck the loathed name from the list.
The other names on the list blurred and she cast it from her. “Take it away,” she said in a voice that held no hint of her fury. “Relay to my husband that I will not tolerate the Lady Castlemaine in my bedchamber.”
“Your Majesty, perhaps it would be wise to listen to the king’s suggestion,” offered Lady Suffolk, her hand settling over Catherine’s forearm. “He has his reasons, I believe.”
“I will not.” She waved the page off and he scurried away. Catherine stared after him, unseeing, imagining Charles curled with his mistress, tenderly tucking her hair behind her ear, as he had tucked hers.
A wise wife is wary of mistresses, her mother had warned. A queen does not weep.
To hide her strong emotion, she strode toward the window, her skirts swirling with the fury of her steps. Her heels made sharp commentary against the floor. Behind her, Feliciana hurried along, all floppy ears and tufted paws.
Weaving her fingers together tightly over her roiling gut, she strove for a calm countenance and stood in the warm sunlight. It fell on her throat and shoulders, gentle as a kiss. Below was the knot garden, a placid scene, blooming now with airy white flowers and an edging of English lavender, a sweetly scented flower her perfumer, Dom Abravanel, had offered her only this morning. “Much deeper scent than the Mediterranean version,” he said. “It will lend marvelous top notes.”
She had tucked the frond into her bodice and reached for it now, pinching the row of tiny blossoms between her fingers to release the calming scent.
How she longed for home! The vivid colors and scents of Lisbon, the hot sunlight and bright birds; the scent of the sea in the wind! She longed for her mother, who would know just how to sort the tangled threads of a queen’s life at court. Mamãe!
“Your Majesty,” said Lady Suffolk. Jenny stood at her side and curtsied deeply, eyes on the floor.
Catherine held her chin high. She tended toward liking Lady Suffolk, with her calm manner and smooth, low voice. Just now, she offered Catherine a cup of water, a silent and welcome gesture of understanding. Catherine accepted it, and drank deeply. The only virtue it held was its cooling nature. Otherwise, the water tasted of catfish and piss, tainted with all of London’s refuse. She ached for the water of Lisbon, fresh and clean. She wished, desperately and with sudden, acute longing, to be home. Away from these challenges and torments.
But to this she had been born. With a wince, she swallowed, then gave the cup to Jenny.
“You must not enrage your husband,” Lady Suffolk said “He was fond of Lady Castlemaine, but we have all seen that he has been devoted to you these many weeks.”
Heat stung the back of Catherine’s throat. She said, “Devotion would show finer action than this.”
Lady Suffolk nodded, fingering the garnets and pearls laced around her throat. Quietly, she said, “He is a man of great appetites, madam.” Her cheeks showed a pale red blush, and she could not meet the queen’s eye, but continued, her tone low and urgent at once. “The Lady Castlemaine has late been separated from her husband, and relies on the king’s goodwill. She is very popular at court. It would show you the better woman to allow this one goodness.”
“Perhaps if a woman wishes honor, she should conduct herself in an honorable manner,” Catherine returned sharply.
“His Majesty will be angry.”
Catherine made a noise of impatience. “And what of his fear of enraging me?”
Lady Suffolk lowered her voice. “What husband ever fears enraging his wife? I speak in good faith, madam. The king’s mother ever overshadows his thinking on the subject of women. She is shrewish and overly religious and—”
“Enough!” Around the base of Catherine’s skull rose a buzzing fury that spread upward and downward, filling her head with the noise of ten thousand hornets. They blurred her vision, squeezed her distressed heart into her ribs.
Everyone thought her small and demure and weak as a mouse. Overly religious, no doubt, boring in her devotion. She glanced toward the sliver of the True
Cross, the lock of St. Catherine’s hair, each in its own gilded coffin, things that had brought her such comfort in the past. Her throat closed.
A Portuguese proverb wound through her mind: “The mistress is queen, the wife is the slave.”
No. If it came to it, she would sail home rather than face such humiliation.
What king would want a mouse for a wife? Her own mother was a strong woman, whose husband had loved and respected her for it. It was not easy for Catherine to stand up for herself, but how could she expect others to respect her if she did not?
They had misread her, all of them. Was she not a princess of Portugal, the daughter of a powerful queen?
“I will not have that woman attend me. Nor even acknowledge her.” She cast a quelling eye on her retinue. One by one, she stared them down, the ladies and the servants, English and Portuguese.
The Countess of Buckingham was last, an English beauty with dark curls who met her gaze unwaveringly—mockingly?—until Catherine bored the full heat of her fury into the lady’s face. She flushed and turned her head.
Catherine lifted her chin. “I will not have her. No matter what the king may say.”
As she turned her back on them, looking outside at the members of the court strolling through the gardens in the fine day, she untwisted her fingers and took a breath to cool her humors. Lavender filled her head, but it could not ease the thin ribbons of wounded pride and terrible disappointment that ran through her.
“Leave me,” she cried to her attendants.
Dona Maria lingered. “Alteza, you must stand your ground. Men ever have their ways and we have our own.”
Catherine thought of Charles’s breath on her shoulder, his chuckle of delight when she cried out softly under his ministrations. She had not thought to love her husband, but had welcomed the emotion as a blessing. Not all queens were so sweetly situated.
Perhaps it was more trouble to love than not. Perhaps she was already made a fool.
And yet, still she was queen. The crown carried a measure of dignity on its own merit. She needed only learn how to be more lion than mouse.
Whitehall--Season One Volume One Page 9