The Merry Monarch's Wife

by Jean Plaidy

  At the door of the room Buckingham stood, the King beside him. On the bed, in the most compromising position, was Barbara with a young ensign.

  The young man was known to the King because his sister Arabella Churchill was the mistress of the Duke of York. He was John Churchill, who had been a page of the Duke of York while his sister had been lady-in-waiting to Anne Hyde. The Churchills had been loyal during the Civil War, hence the favor shown to them.

  Arabella had caused quite a stir, for she was the most unlikely girl to have been noticed by the Duke. But then everyone knew the Duke’s strange tastes. I had never seen her, but I had heard she was tall and thin, all skin and bone, someone had remarked, and not in the least beautiful. But she had apparently pleased the Duke, for she had had a child by him and was still in favor. Charles was always amused by James’s poor taste in women. However, this was the girl’s young brother, and he was destined for promotion and he would get it, people said, as long as his sister continued to please the Duke.

  I could imagine the young man’s terror when he saw the King, his hope of advancement doubtless evaporating.

  He did not know what to do. Half naked as he was, he leaped from the bed and jumped out of the window.

  Charles and Buckingham burst into laughter. Charles shouted: “Don’t worry, Churchill, I know you only do it for the money!”

  From the bed Barbara let out a stream of abuse. She was furious with Buckingham, for she suspected immediately that he had arranged this for her discomfiture, because she had meddled in the matter of the King’s divorce.

  Buckingham had had his revenge; and that event seemed to have its effect on the King, for after it Barbara lost the King’s favor. She had had years of power, but that had been coming to a close for some time and this really seemed to be the end.

  I HAD RARELY SEEN Charles in such good spirits, and the reason was that his sister was coming to England.

  He had talked now and then of Henriette—Minette was his name for her. She was the youngest of the family and when she was born the Civil War had already started.

  “Poor Minette,” said Charles. “She never knew peace in England. When she was about two years old, the situation had become dangerous and she had escaped to France with her governess, Lady Dalkeith, she who became the Countess of Morton later. She was a wonderful woman of great courage. Had they stayed in England, they would have become Cromwell’s prisoners.”

  “I suppose she would not remember much as she was so young.”

  “Oh yes, she does. Or it may be that she has heard the story so vividly told that she thinks she remembers, but Minette always says that what she recalls so clearly is the tattered gown she was forced to wear.” He smiled. “Minette is beautiful and always aware of her appearance, so that was natural. It must have seemed strange to a child accustomed to living in a palace to find herself tramping along the road to Dover. Lady Dalkeith was pretending to be the wife of a valet and one of the grooms was posing as her husband. Minette was supposed to be their child. Minette, of course, knew that she was a princess and expected to be addressed as such. Poor Lady Dalkeith must have been sorely tried to pass off this haughty little creature as the daughter of a valet. They decided that she must be called Peter, which was as near ‘Princess’ as she could get.”

  “And the journey, of course, was safely made.”

  “Yes. And what joy there was when they joined my mother, who was already in Paris. Minette said she thought the best thing that happened then was getting out of that horrible dress.”

  “And then she was brought up in France?”

  Charles nodded. “She is more French than English. Louis has been very good to us. So he should be, to his own family! I should have liked to see Minette married to Louis and Queen of France, as she might have been if I had been restored to the throne a little earlier. That would have suited her very well. She and Louis are fond of each other. He talks to her a great deal and she is in his confidence. Well, it was not to be, and she was paired off with Louis’s brother, Philippe…a poor consolation, I fear.”

  “How sad for her!”

  “Poor Minette. She is clever, though. She can take care of herself, but it would have been very good for us all if she had married Louis instead of Philippe.”

  “I can see that you anticipate her visit with the utmost pleasure.”

  He agreed that this was so.

  Charles and James went to Dover to meet her, where the castle there had been made ready for her, and the court followed.

  When I was presented to her, I was immediately charmed by her. She had that indefinable quality which she shared with Charles. She was perhaps not quite as beautiful as I had expected her to be, but there was an inner radiance about her which was fascinating.

  She was graceful and she spoke English rather haltingly, with a decided French accent; and it was difficult to remember that she was a member of the English royal family. She seemed to be so entirely French—well, she was the Duchess of Orléans and a leading figure in the court of Louis XIV.

  One of her attendants immediately caught the eyes of everyone at court. This was a young and beautiful Breton girl named Louise de Keroualle. I was particularly interested in her because I saw that Charles was watching her closely.

  Henriette’s stay in England was brief. Most of the time she was with Charles. I would often see the two of them alone, walking arm in arm, their attendants some little way behind, and I had the impression that there was some important purpose behind Henriette’s visit and that possibly she came as the confidential emissary of the King of France.

  There was a good deal of gossip about her and some of it came to my ears.

  She was unhappily married to Philippe of Orléans, who was by no means a satisfactory husband. Some said she should have married Louis as there was a very friendly relationship between them; others implied that the King used his friendship with her as a cloak to the visits he made to a certain Louise de la Vallière, who was a maid of honor to Henriette. There must always be rumors—half truths, I supposed—so that one was never quite sure what to believe.

  Philippe, they said, was annoyed by the friendship between his brother and his wife.

  There was another reason why the marriage was not satisfactory. Philippe had a great friend in the Chevalier de Lorraine, who was constantly trying to make trouble between Henriette and Philippe. I imagined this escape from the intrigues of the court of France must have been very welcome to Henriette—particularly as it gave her an opportunity to be with her beloved brother.

  But the trip was not meant to be entirely devoted to pleasure. Henriette had work to do; and I believe that during that short time she spent in England she did it very well.

  What she had to say to Charles was for his ears alone; it was for Charles to make a decision, and he would do this without the advice of his ministers.

  There was something mysterious about that treaty Charles made with Louis. I think the details were known only to Charles himself. There was, however, a treaty which a few of his ministers signed with him; but there remained this one with which only he was concerned.

  Henriette must return to France as soon as the mission was accomplished. She was most eager to please the King of France, and knowing Charles, I guessed that he would do all he could to make his sister happy.

  But from what I later heard of that treaty, I believed that Charles had acted in a very shrewd and clever way.

  The exchequer was as usual unable to meet the demands made upon it and Louis had offered a great deal of money if England would assist him in the war against Holland. Louis was anxious to quell Dutch ambitions and Holland was, of course, a great rival of England in trade. They were old adversaries and it seemed that if Louis’s rewards were great enough, there would be few who would want to hold out against that clause. Another clause was that England should assist France in placing a Bourbon on the Spanish throne.

  All this was in the future, and Charles was to recei
ve a large sum of money in advance. The last and most secret part of the treaty concerned religion.

  Charles did talk to me about this, for he knew he could trust me on this point entirely.

  He said: “James has already publicly announced his conversion to the Catholic faith, and see what harm he has done.”

  “It is brave of him to have made an acknowledgment of his faith,” I insisted.

  “It is foolhardy,” muttered Charles. “Depend upon it, I shall not indulge in such folly. If I did, more than likely I should soon be wandering again.”

  “Charles,” I said earnestly, “I believe you are a Catholic at heart.”

  “At heart,” he mused. “Well, was I not brought up in it…halfway perhaps. My mother was one of the most fervent Catholics I ever knew. And you…my dear, almost equal her.”

  “It would give me the greatest pleasure if you…”

  He looked at me ruefully. “I fear it would not have the same effect on my subjects. They are set on one thing. If they thought I was even interested in the Catholic faith, they would be planning to send me the way of my father.”

  “No!” I said fiercely.

  “Fear not. I shall do nothing to offend them in that quarter. Louis has strange ideas of the English. He suggests that I offer concessions to the Puritans. Let them go the way they will…and then…suddenly we turn Catholic. We purge the land of all those who do not believe as we command. Do you think the English would accept that?”

  “If it were the law…”

  He laughed. “You don’t know the English, Catherine. They are lazy, careless, you think. But when they decide to take a stand, they are the most stubborn people in the world. When Mary died, that was the end of Catholicism for them. Never again, they said. Elizabeth was a wise woman. She would have gone the way they wanted. They would have none but a Protestant to rule them, so Elizabeth was a Protestant. She would have been equally at home in the Catholic faith. She was a shrewd one, Catherine. I intend to be as shrewd.”

  “But Louis is paying you…”

  “Louis is paying me to take this country into the Catholic faith.”

  “And this you have agreed to do!”

  “Yes…when the time is ripe. That is the clause. He will give me my pension, because I have given my word on this.”

  “Then how…?

  “Catherine, I have said ‘when the time is ripe.’ That is the heart of the matter. When the time is ripe I take my country into the Catholic faith.” He was smiling at me in that quizzical way of his. “It may well be that during my lifetime the time will never be ripe.”

  Then I understood. Charles would never admit to Catholicism because he knew the English would never accept it.

  He had promised to take the country into the Catholic faith when the time was ripe. But he knew that while he was King the time would never be ripe.

  CHARLES WAS ANXIOUS for Henriette to prolong her visit. There were reasons for this. One was, of course, his desire to keep his sister with him, and the other was his interest in Louise de Keroualle.

  I believed that he did not visit Barbara at all now. The Churchill incident had been his excuse, but for some time he had been tired of her. In his easy-going way, though, he had found it easier not to tell her so but to drift along avoiding seeing her as much as possible.

  It seemed that there must always be one of his mistresses who reigned supreme. Moll Davis was fading out and Nell Gwynne was still in favor. I was sure he liked her sharp cockney wit, but what he needed was an elegant mistress who was accustomed to court life.

  And here was this delectable girl—fresh from the court of France, undeniably beautiful, someone who could replace poor Frances Stuart.

  Henriette greatly wished to stay longer in England but she appeared to be afraid of her husband, who had not wished her to come at all and had only given way because his brother Louis insisted on it.

  I was unsure of Louise de Keroualle. She had an appearance of innocence but I detected something calculating about her. I was sure she must find Charles attractive. Most women did. But the choice was not theirs. Henriette decided that she could not allow her lady-in-waiting to stay in England until she had consulted with the girl’s parents or some authority in France.

  I knew Charles was very disappointed. He had made his wishes clear. I heard that Henriette wished to give him a jewel as a parting gift. She sent for her jewel box, opened it and asked her brother to take anything that pleased him.

  Louise was standing beside Henriette at the time and the King lifted his eyes to the girl’s face and said: “There is the jewel I covet above all other.” Then he took Louise’s hand and looked appealingly at Henriette.

  But Henriette was firm. That particular jewel was going back to France with her.

  Charles was very sorrowful when they left.

  He had the treaty which he thought would bring great good to England—and himself—but he had to say good-bye to his beloved sister and Louise de Keroualle.

  WHEN THE SAD NEWS CAME we were completely amazed and horrified.

  I could not believe what the messenger was telling us.

  Henriette was dead.

  It was less than three weeks after her arrival in France that she had died in mysterious circumstances.

  When Charles recovered from the first shock he was very angry, for he could not believe she had died from natural causes.

  He made the messenger repeat what had happened. He was completely distraught. He paced up and down the apartment, his eyes wild; now and then he stopped to clench his fists and wring his hands.

  “This is my sister, Catherine,” he said. “The one I loved best. We were always good friends. She should have stayed here with me. Then this would never have happened.”

  He seemed to find comfort in going over it and told me what he had heard.

  “It was soon after she returned. Someone has done this. It is Philippe…that creature. She should never have married him. He is unworthy. My sister…given to that…dandy! He put the Chevalier de Lorraine before her. They have killed her. And Louis…what has he done? Why does he not find the murderers? Because he knows his own brother is involved! He pretends to accept this stupid doctor’s verdict.”

  I pieced the story together. Henriette had returned to France. She had been at Versailles…with Louis. Of course, Louis would want her to tell in every detail what had happened in England. She had come here in his service, but against Philippe’s wishes. Philippe could not bear to think that the King placed more confidence in his brother’s wife than in his brother.

  At Versailles, Philippe had come upon his wife and the King in deep conversation. He had stamped his foot and flounced away in a state of pique.

  Shortly afterward—it was the afternoon of the twenty-ninth of June, and Henriette had left England only on the twelfth of that month—she had asked for a cup of chicory water. She drank this and was immediately sick.

  She said: “I have been poisoned.”

  There was great concern, the doctors were summoned and ten hours later she was dead.

  There was a postmortem. The doctor who conducted it was young and unpracticed. Charles swore that he had been procured by Philippe. His verdict was that death was due to natural causes.

  There were the inevitable whisperings and rumors throughout the court of France, for there had been every indication that Henriette had been poisoned. What was in the chicory water? people asked. A servant had brought it but that servant could not be the one who had put the poison in the cup. There was no reason for a servant to do so. But there were others.

  Charles was certain that the Chevalier de Lorraine had killed Henriette with Philippe’s connivance. The Chevalier de Lorraine was jealous of her; Philippe greatly resented her friendship with the King and the fact that she could be trusted with special missions. Philippe could have been in the plot to kill Henriette, and almost certainly was. Philippe’s squire D’Effiat and the Count de Bevron, the captain of Philippe�
�s guard, could easily have poisoned the chicory water. They had been on the spot at the time. Charles wanted them brought to trial with Philippe.

  But Louis would not interfere. He thought he could compensate by giving Henriette a grand funeral at St. Denis.

  Charles was consumed by grief and anger. He shut himself in his apartments and refused to see anyone. When he did emerge he was pale and subdued.

  “I shall never feel the same toward Louis,” he said. “He has allowed my sister’s murderers to go free because they are in high places.”

  Louis would know what effect his sister’s death would have on Charles. He tried to make amends in a special way. I could wish he had chosen some other method.

  Charles told me he was giving a place in my household to a lady who, he was sure, would be useful to me. Louis had heard that Mademoiselle Louise de Keroualle was much liked at our court and he was sending her over to join us.

  I must have shown my dismay.

  Charles put his hand on my shoulder. “She is very young, and I am sure will be most eager to please,” he said.

  I guessed whom she would be eager to please. I was no longer the innocent girl I had been.

  This was how it would always be.

  Barbara Castlemaine was no longer in the ascendant; Frances Stuart, poor girl, had lost her appeal; Nell Gwynne was not cultivated enough to hold him; so now there would be a new one: a lady from the court of France—Louise de Keroualle.

  CHARLES SENT one of the royal yachts to meet Louise de Keroualle when she came to England. He was considerably cheered by the prospect of a new mistress.

  Louise undoubtedly had a social appeal. There was a childishness about her. She reminded me in some ways of Frances Stuart. But Frances’s innocence was not assumed, as I was sure was that of Mademoiselle de Keroualle. I sensed those demure looks covered a certain shrewdness and self-interest. I guessed that Louis had sent her over for a purpose other than to present Charles with a new toy as consolation for his grief over his sister’s death. Louise would be watchful of the situation in England and, if she were as close to the King as Louis would expect her to be, she would be well qualified to pass on vital information to Louis.