by Oliver Ma
Chapter 1 King in Exile
Paris was an entirely different world from London. The city of Paris was as crowded as an anthill. London’s streets were mostly empty except during Sunday, when the streets were filled with church goers. Paris was always bustling. Farmers drove carts full of vegetables to sell at the city’s huge markets. The streets were filled with beggars, drunkards, and peasants loitering down its roads, peeking into the many shops in the great city. Uniformed soldier marched in their battalions to and fro, patrolling the city. The concept of a standing army was a strange one to me, and I was obviously very surprised to hear the Louis had 5,000 soldiers at his disposal in the city of Paris alone. How could these French Soldiers leave their families and fields for years at a time, just to serve the French King?
One thing the two cities had in common was the rampant civil disorder. Things were almost as turbulent in Paris as they are in London. When the civil war started in England in 1642, France was led by 3 great figures; King Louis XII, (my first Uncle), Cardinal Richelieu, (the King’s prime minister) and Marie de Medici, queen mother of Louis XII. Together the three managed the country as well as its involvement in the Thirty Years War. Then, in the same year, all three died within months of one another. France would likewise have dissolved to civil war had the King’s young son, Louis XIV, assumed the throne under the capable Cardinal Mazarin. Nether the less, sentiments still persists all over France, and the country was a lot weaker than it otherwise would have been.
The Palace of Fontainebleau was even bigger than St. James. The English Palace had been a compound with a small, elegant hall in the middle. The French Palace is fantastically huge, like a small town in the middle of the French countryside, consisting of many buildings of both medieval and renaissance taste. It is manned by battalions after battalions of well-armed, well dressed Royal French infantry. Each man is a well groomed gentleman, with a handsome mustache and dressed in a spotless white uniform, decorated with golden buttons, blue ribbons. In their hands they held the same muskets that father’s men held, but they seemed to be completely different from the motley militia that made up father’s royal army. Instead of drooping low and casting mournful glances around, the French troops stood proud, and tall, carrying themselves around with a majestic demeanor. Why, they were the soldiers of God!
As we were led to mother’s chambers by a French gentleman, I thought over how I could persuade the 10 years old Louis to lend me some of his troops. Why, just 1,000 of these elite soldiers could turn the tide of the war!
Mother awaited my siblings and me in her room. When I saw her I almost turned on the French around me in anger. Her eyes were sunken, almost like sockets in a skull. Her hair, usually elaborately made and glistening with oil, was messy as a crow’s nest. Her smooth pale skin was wrinkled and smudged, and she was thinner than an old, street hag.
“Mother! What is wrong? Have the French mistreated you? Have you been fed poorly here?” I gasped.
She didn’t reply, but instead rushed at me, arms wide. Astounded by her unusual show of emotion, I stood awkwardly while she wrapped her arms around my waist, resting her head in my chest. I was now a head taller than her.
“Mother?” I asked again, cautiously this time, longing to hear her voice, hear her reply.
“No…they have treated me quite fairly.” Mother signed. “Thank god you came! But alas! I had hoped for better news. Why would he send James, Mary and you over if he kept Henry and Elizabeth trapped in Oxford?” She asked, a bit distraught. I was surprised by her negative attitude of the war.
“Mother! Do not say things like that, the war may yet be won!” I said desperately.
“There is no need to be foolish and stubborn like your father. If the royal army lost to the New Model Army while it was forming, how could a shattered royal army defeat a completed New Model Army?” She cried. “Now I’m afraid it’s too late for your father to leave Oxford!”
I looked at her horrified. There is no more point in arguing, now that we both knew the inevitable.
“What do you think they’ll do to him?” I asked. In my mind I pictured the old Peasant elder that Alger had almost killed. I’ve heard of some pretty horrifying stories. Cary, killed at Gloucester, was reclaimed by several rebels. They hacked his body apart and skinned his face. I shuddered to think what would happen to father if those soldiers caught him alive!
Then I remembered Fairfax, who had treated me so fairly when I was captured. Hopefully it will be Fairfax that receives father’s formal surrender!
Suddenly a squire stepped into the room. I thought he was English at first, for he was wearing the tight uniform that English squire wears. However his uniform was colored white and gold, the colors of the French king. In rich French he addressed mother.
“Le roi a demandé votre présence à sa table.”
“Merci. Je viendrai à la fois.” Mother replied. “Here is some good news at last. We will go tonight to dine with Cardinal Mazarin and his Majesty King Louis. Remember, Charles, that Cardinal Mazarin is not like Buckingham. He will not spoil you, and King Louis….you must remember pay your respects to him as if he was your monarch.” Mother sighed. I was surprised, then mad at myself for not realizing this before.
“Of course.” I sighed. What more can I expect? I was nobody.
The squire lead us through the palace and finally into a huge, elaborate dining room with a tall ceiling, golden pillars and a large, metal table in the middle. Plants stood juxtaposed with servants, and there were about 20 armed soldiers in the room. The dining room of the French king was so different from England’s, which was large, but much less decorated, being simple and modest.
Only one man was sat on the table. His head was bowed in Prayer, and I suppose he was in his sixties. His hairline was receding, and his mustache was coarse. He wore all red. A cardinal. There was only one cardinal in Paris, and that would be Cardinal Mazarin, King Louis’s primary advisor. I looked at him in surprise. Mazarin should only be in his early forties. The man glanced up at us. His eyes were blood shot, as if he hasn’t closed them in weeks.
“Good Day, Queen Herinetta and the young princes and princesses of the English Royal House.” He said, nodding his head at us. I was a bit surprised at how he addressed me, straight forwardly and to the point, not bothering with flowery language.
Mother nodded at him as regally as she could in her sorry appearance, and took her seat. Both my siblings and I sat huddled next to her, like little children again.
“You must excuse my untidy appearances.” He said quietly. “For I have been extremely busy of late. The emperor’s army was smashed at Turee and the Thirty Years War looked like it could finally be over. I have spent the last few weeks meeting foreign diplomats.” He sighed. By emperor the Cardinal meant the holy Roman Emperor King Ferdinand the Third, of course.
“It is fine, Cardinal.” Mother said politely. “It is good news, the victory at Turee.” She said, still making no move for the pastries set up on the tables. My hands were itching to grab some of the steaming bread, yet I restrained myself and reminded myself that I was a guest here.
“Ay it was, a fantastic victory. 30,000 of the emperor’s finest troops laid low and scores of the emperor’s artillery captured, all for the loss of a bare 5,000 of his majesty’s troops. Even fair Vienna will fall into our hands soon, unless the emperor agrees to negotiate.” The cardinal told us with an air of arrogance. The words seemed to relax his tense features.
I was astonished by the huge numbers. England was fighting its own bloody, civil war, but the Thirty Years war in Europe made the civil war in England seemed like an argument between village elders.
A silence now fell over the table, and I thought it was finally time to begin the meal, but alas, no one made a move, and thus I restrained myself. After about 5 minutes of waiting, music filled the air. Brightly dressed jesters entered, blowing trumpets. Everyone’s heads snapped toward the door. Two streams of well-dressed soldiers
entered the room. Between them was a stream of elaborately dressed men, courtiers and ministers by the look of them. In the very front of the entire column, so short I missed him at my first glance, was his majesty Louis the XIV himself.
The boy had strong features, with a hawkish nose, large mouth, and large, black eye orbs that seemed to fill up his entire eye. His hair was different from what I wore in England. They were twisted and braided into a fantastic display, dropping down to his shoulders.
In fluent French he addressed me.
“J'espère que vous avez une bonne soirée.”
My French was good enough that I replied
“Je suis. Et vous?”
He smiled, talked some more, and then turned to mother, who talked back with her head bowed in respect. I watched as servants helped my little cousin onto his especially tall chair so he could eat at the same height at the rest of us. It was almost comical, and he reminded me of the Dwarf Hudson, who had joined the French army and was appointed a captain by several facetious noble women.
When everyone had taken their seats, servants entered in throngs to pour wine into our goblets, and people started to take bread from the baskets on the table, slowly, one by one. I bit into one of the perfect loafs, letting its aroma fill my nose and mouth, stabbing at the soft inside with my tongue.
Dish after dish began to pile onto the tables. A stuffed peasant drifted in front of me, followed by some sugared frosted eggs.
I ate busily, not bothering to listen to the conversation around me. It was not until I was finished eating did I realize everyone else hadn’t even finished their bread yet. They were taking their time, eating and chatting about all sorts of different things. I wanted to excuse myself from the table, but I knew it was impolite to leave before Louis does, so I sat in absolute boredom, my stomach too full to allow in any more food.
After Louis was finally done eating, (he took his merry time too, talking to everyone around him) we were finally allowed to leave, and a gentleman led my siblings and me to our room. The chamber was fair, I guess, with a soft bed and lots of light. I rather disliked it, for although it was as furnished as my old room, this one was too large and not cozy, and it smelled of wine.
The war continued while we idled away in Paris like ants sealed from their hole.
Rupert was separated from father at Nasby, and he was chased all the way to Bristol. The Parliamentarians quickly laid siege to the city, and it soon fell, throwing much of royalist south into chaos. Rupert was captured and exiled to Europe, but he secretly met with father one last time. Some hot words were exchanged between the two men, both of who now realized the war is lost. Then Rupert left. Father continued the war by himself. Hopton was defeated and captured at the tip of Wessex, and his army disbanded. With all of England under Parliamentarian control the rebels proceeded toward Oxford and Wales. Fairfax laid siege to father’s capital while Cromwell stormed most of Wales. Father, with a small regiment of cavalry, broke the encirclement and fled Oxford with my siblings, heading north, attempting to contact Montrose and his royalist Scots. He was intercepted half way by a rebel Scot army, which he surrendered to. The Scots delivered him to London.
Jacob Astley fought the last battle of the war, the battle of Stow-Upon-Woods, where, despite a heroic resistance, his army, both smaller and of less superior quality, was cut apart. Astley surrendered honorably, telling his soldiers,
“You have done your work, boys, and may now play, unless you will fall out amongst yourselves!”
With the war over father, his allies, and my siblings Henry, Henrietta, and Elizabeth were confined back to London, which we have tried so hard throughout the war to take. Mother was allowed to write letters with him back and forth. I was surprised at how lenient the rebels were. They knew that if they had lost the war every single one of them would be hung, but they still treated father with respect. He was simply sentenced to house arrest in St. James for the time’s being while Parliament decided what to do with him. Most agreed that he would continue to be king, but would have to sign much of his power away. A few hardliners, Oliver Cromwell included, want him exiled or hung. They had the support of the military, who obviously hated father the most, but in England no one is allowed to be executed without trial, and it is clear that the King cannot be tried by any court. Thus the situation in England remained the same, and I began zooming out of it, realizing, to my relief, that they can never kill father, that not even his enemies dared to execute him.