Here Lies Our Sovereign Lord

by Виктория Холт

  One could not go back. Anne was dying, and their married life was over. He wondered what he would do without her, for always during their life together he had respected her intelligence and relied on her advice.

  There were his two little girls who needed a mother’s care. If the King did not get a legitimate child, the elder of those little girls could inherit the throne.

  “Anne …” he murmured brokenly.

  But Anne was looking at Charles; it was from the King’s presence that she seemed to gain comfort. She was remembering, of course, that he had always been her friend.

  “Charles …” she murmured, “the children.”

  Then Charles bade the little girls come to him and, kneeling, he placed an arm about each of them.

  “Have no fear, Anne,” he said. “I shall care for these two as though they were my own.”

  That satisfied her. She nodded and closed her eyes.

  James, weeping bitterly, flung himself on his knees. “Anne,” he said. “Anne … I am praying for you. You must get well … you must …”

  She did not seem to hear him.

  Poor James! thought Charles. Now he loves his wife. She has but an hour to live and he finds he loves her, though for so long he has been indifferent towards her. Poor ineffectual James! It was ever thus.

  Charles said: “Let her chaplain be brought to her bedside.”

  He could tell by her stertorous breathing that the end was near.

  The chaplain came and knelt by the bed, but the Duchess looked at him and shook her head.

  “My lady …” began the man.

  James said: “The Duchess does not wish you to pray for her.”

  There were significant glances between all those who had come in to witness the death of the Duchess of York.

  Anne half raised herself and said on a note of anxiety: “I want him not. I die … in the true religion …”

  James hesitated. Charles met his eyes. The words which James was about to utter died on his lips. There was a warning in Charles’ eyes. Not here … not before so many witnesses. He turned to the bed. Anne was lying back on her pillows, her eyes tightly shut.

  “It is too late,” said the King. “She will not regain consciousness.”

  He was right. Within a few minutes the Duchess was dead.

  But there were many in that room of death to note her last words and to tell each other that when she died the Duchess was on the point of changing her religion. It seemed clear that, if the Duke was not openly a Catholic, he was secretly so.

  Monmouth must lie low for a while. He must curb his wild roistering in the streets; but that did not prevent him from spreading the rumor that the Duke—heir presumptive to the throne—was indeed a Catholic. Had not the English, since the reign of Bloody Mary, sworn they would not have a Catholic monarch on the throne?

  Nell was now enjoying every minute of her existence. She had indeed become a fine lady.

  She had eight servants in the house in Pall Mall, and from “maid’s help,” at one shilling a week, to her lordly steward, they all adored her. The relationship between them was not the usual one of mistress and servants. Nell showed them quite clearly that she was ever ready to crack a joke with them; never for one instant did she attempt to hide the fact that she had come from a lowlier station than most of them.

  She liked to ride out in her Sedan chair, calling to her friends; and to courtiers and humble townsfolk alike her greeting was the same. She would call to the beggar on the corner of the street who could depend on generous alms from Mrs. Nelly, and chat as roguishly with the King from the wall of her garden. Nor would she care who his companions were. They might be members of his government or his church, and she would cry: “A merry good day to you, Charles. I trust I shall have the pleasure of your company this night!” If those who accompanied the King were shocked by her levity, he seemed all the more amused; and it was as though he and Nell had a secret joke against his pompous companions.

  Nell entertained often. She kept a goodly table. And there was nothing she liked better than to see her long table loaded with good things to eat—mutton, beef, pies of all description, every fruit that was in season, cheesecakes and tarts, and plenty to drink. And about that table, she liked to see many faces; she liked every one of the chairs to be occupied.

  Nell had only one worry during that year, and that was the King’s failure to give her son the title she craved for him. But she did not despair. Charles was visiting her more frequently than ever. Moll Davies rarely saw him now, and it was not necessary to administer jalap in sweetmeats to turn the King from her company to that of Nell. He came willingly. Her house was the first he wished to visit.

  Louise was still tormenting him and refusing to give way. Many shook their heads over Louise. She will hold out too long, it was whispered. Mayhap when she decides to bestow herself the King will be no longer eager.

  Barbara Castlemaine, now Duchess of Cleveland, was growing of less and less importance to the King. Her amours were still the talk of the town, partly because they were conducted in Barbara’s inimitable way. When Barbara had a new lover she made no attempt to hide the fact from the world.

  That year her lustful eyes were turned on William Wycherley, whose first play, Love in a Wood, had just been produced.

  Barbara had selected him for her lover in her usual way.

  Encountering him when he was walking in the park and she was driving past in her coach, she had put her head out of the window and shouted: “You, William Wycherley, are the son of a whore.”

  Then she drove on.

  Wycherley was immensely flattered because he knew, as did all who heard it, that she was reminding him of the song in his play which declared that all wits were the children of whores.

  It was not long before all London knew that Wycherley had become her lover.

  So with Barbara behaving so scandalously, and Louise behaving so primly, and Moll ceasing to attract, Nell for a few months reigned supreme.

  Rose was a frequent visitor. She was now married to John Cassels, and when this man found himself in trouble Nell managed to extricate him, and not only do this but obtain for him a commission in the Duke of Mon-mouth’s Guards, so that instead of having a highwayman for a husband Rose had a soldier of rank. Nell had also found it possible to bring her cousin, Will Cholmley, his heart’s desire. Will Cholmley was now a soldier, and she hoped that ere long there would be a commission for him.

  Rose came to her one day, and they talked of the old days.

  Rose said: “We owe our good fortune to you, Nell. It is like you, Madam Gwyn of Pall Mall, the King’s playmate and the friend of Dukes, not to forget those you loved in the old days. We have all done well through you. I’ll warrant Ma wishes she had used the stick less on you, Nell. Little did she think to what you would come.”

  “How fares she?” asked Nell.

  “She will not fare for long.”

  “The gin?”

  “It is as bad as ever. She is more often drunk than sober. I found her lying in the cellar—that old cellar; how long ago it seems!—dead drunk. John says she’ll not live long.”

  “Who cares for her?” asked Nell.

  “There are plenty to care for her. She can pay them with the money you send her. But ’tis a foul place, that cellar in Cole-yard. The rats are tame down there. ’Tis not as it was when Ma used it as her bawdy-house.”

  “She will die there,” said Nell. “’Tis her home. I give her money. That is enough.”

  “’Tis all you can do, Nell.”

  “She needs care,” said Nell. “We needed it once. But we did not get it. We were neglected for the gin bottle.””

  ’Tis true, Nell.”

  “Had she been different … had she loved the gin less and us more …” Nell paused angrily. “’Tis no concern of ours … if she be ill and dying of gin. What is that to us? What did she do to you, Rose? What would she have done for me? I’ll never forget the day the flesh-me
rchant said you stole his purse. There she stood before you, and there was terror on your face … and she pushed you to him. Rose, she cared not for us. She cared for nothing but that you should sell yourself to pay for her gin. What do we owe to such a mother?”

  “Nothing,” said Rose.

  “Then she will die in her cellar, her gin bottle beside her … die as she lived. ’Tis a fate worthy of her.”

  Nell was angry; her cheeks were flushed; she began to recount all the unhappiness and neglect she and Rose had suffered at their mother’s hands.

  Rose sat listening. She knew Nell.

  And as soon as Rose had left, Nell called for her Sedan chair.

  “Whither, Madam?” asked the carriers.

  “To Cole-yard,” said Nell.

  That night Nell’s mother slept in a handsome bed in her daughter’s house in Pall Mall.

  “Old bawd that she is,” said Nell, “yet she is my mother.”

  Many were disgusted to discover the bawdy-house keeper installed in her daughter’s house; many applauded the courageous action of the daughter, which had brought her there.

  Nell snapped her fingers at them all. She cared not, and life was good. She was again pregnant with the King’s child.

  That was a happy summer for Nell. She was with the King at Windsor, and it was a pleasure to see his affection for her little son.

  Never, declared Nell, had she known such happiness as she had with her Charles the Third. Charles the First (Charles Hart) had been good to her and taught her to become an actress. Charles the Second (Charles Sackville, Lord Buckhurst) was a regrettable incident in her life, but with Charles the Third (the King) she found contentment. She did not ask for his fidelity. Nell was too much of a realist to ask for the impossible, but she had his affection as few people had; she knew that. She had discovered that she could keep that affection by means of her merry wit and her constant good humor. Charles had been accustomed to women who asked a great deal; Nell asked for little for herself, but the needs of her son were ever in her mind.

  The little boy was now called Charles Beauclerk—a name given him by his father as a consolation while he waited for a title. He was called Beau-clerk after Henry I, who had received it because he could write while his brothers were illiterate. This Henry I had been the father of a greater number of illegitimate children than any English King before Charles—Charles, of course, had beaten him. It was characteristic of the King to remind the world of this fact in naming Nell’s son.

  So temporarily Nell had to be content with the name Beauclerk which, while it brought no earldom nor dukedom for which she craved, at least was a royal name and a reminder to the world that Charles accepted Nell’s son as his own.

  Louise was growing a little anxious. Nell Gwyn was becoming too formidable a rival. It was rather disconcerting that, as in the case of his other mistresses, the King seemed to grow more rather than less affectionate towards Nell. It was incredible that the girl from Cole-yard should have such power to hold the elegant and witty King’s attention where fine ladies failed.

  Louise began to listen to the warnings of her friends.

  Louis Quatorze had work for her to do. He was very impatient with her on account of her delay. Lord Arlington, who had Catholic inclinations and who had made himself her protector, was decidedly worried.

  Louise had declared so frequently that she was too virtuous to become the King’s mistress that, unless she made a complete volte face, she did not see how she could be. Yet she, too, had come to realize that to delay any longer would be dangerous.

  “The King is an absolute monarch,” she said to Arlington. “Why should he not, if he wishes, have two wives?”

  Arlington saw the implication. He approached the King. Mademoiselle de Kéroualle loved His Majesty, said Arlington, and there was only one thing which kept her aloof—her virtue.

  The King looked melancholy. “Virtue,” he said, “is indeed a formidable barrier to pleasure.”

  “Mademoiselle de Kéroualle,” mourned Arlington, “as a lady of breeding, finds it difficult to fill a part which has been filled by others who lack her social standing. If in her case an exception were made …”

  “Exception? What means that?” asked the King, alert.

  “If her conscience could be soothed …”

  “I have been led to believe that only marriage could do that.”

  “A mock marriage, Your Majesty.”

  “But how is this possible?”

  “With Kings all things are possible. What if Your Majesty went through a ceremony with the lady …?”

  “But how could such a ceremony be binding?”

  “It would serve one useful purpose. It would show a certain respect to the lady. With none of those who pleased you has Your Majesty gone through such a ceremony. It would set Mademoiselle de Kéroualle apart from all others. And, although she cannot be Your Majesty’s wife, if she were treated as such her pride would be soothed.”

  “Come, my lord, I see plans in your mind.”

  “What if, when Your Majesty is at Newmarket, you called at my place of Euston. What if we had a ceremony there … a ceremony which seemed in the outward sense a marriage … then, Your Majesty …”

  The King laughed. “Let it be!” he cried. “Let it be! My dear Arlington, this is a capital idea of yours.”

  Arlington bowed. It was his greatest pleasure to serve his King, he murmured.

  So, when the King set out for Newmarket, he did so with more than his usual pleasure. Racing delighted him. Monmouth, now fully restored to favor, was at his father’s side most of the time. They went hawking together, and matched their greyhounds. They rode together against each other, and the King won the Plate although his young son was among the competitors. Charles, at forty-one, had lost little of the attractiveness of his youth. His gray hair was admirably concealed under the luxuriant curls of his periwig; there were more lines on his face, but that was all; he was as agile and graceful as he had ever been.

  Every day he was at Euston; often he spent the night there; and all the time he was courting Louise who was growing more and more yielding.

  And on one October day Arlington called in a priest who murmured some sort of marriage service over the pair, and after that Louise allowed herself to be put to bed with all the ribald ceremonies in which it was the custom to indulge.

  Now Louise was the King’s mistress and, in view of her rank and the high value she set upon herself, was being regarded as maîtresse en titre—that one, of all the King’s ladies, to take first place.

  Nell realized that her brief reign was over. There was another who now claimed the King’s attention more frequently than she did; and because she was what Louise would call a vulgar play-actress, she knew that the Frenchwoman would do all in her power to turn the King’s favor from her.

  That December Nell’s second son was born. She called him James, after the Duke of York.

  As she lay recovering from the exhaustion of childbirth, which, because of her rude health, was slight, Nell determined to hold her place with the King and to fight this new favorite with all the wit, charm, and cockney shrewdness at her disposal.

  She did not believe she would fail. Her own love for her Charles the Third strengthened her resolve; moreover she had the future of little Charles and James Beauclerk to think of.

  SIX

  Nell saw little of the King during the months which followed. He was completely obsessed by Louise, who gave herself the airs of a queen; she had only to imply that the apartments at Whitehall which had been hers before the mock ceremony were now no longer grand enough to house her, to have them remade and redecorated at great expense. With Louise it was possible not only to make love but to talk of literature, art, and science; and this the King found delightful. He realized that for the first time he had a mistress who appealed to him physically and intellectually. Barbara had been outrageously egoistical and her own greed and desires had shadowed her mind to such an
extent that it had been impossible to discuss anything with her in an objective manner. Nell had sharp wits and a ready tongue, and there would always be a place for Nell in his life, but what did Nell know of the niceties of living? And Frances Stuart had been a foolish little creature for all her beauty. No! In Louise he had a cultured woman, moreover one who was well versed in the politics of her country, which happened to be at this time of the utmost importance to Charles.

  It seemed that Louise had succumbed at exactly the right moment, for Louis Quatorze was about to undertake that war in which, under the terms of the Treaty of Dover, Charles had promised to help him.

  Louise had received the French ambassador; she had been informed of the wishes of the King of France; it was for her to ensure that the King of England kept to his bargain. Louise was happy. She was pleased with her progress. She had held out against the King until it would have been dangerous to remain longer aloof. It had taken her some time to realize that her greatest rival could have been the common little play-actress, Nell Gwyn, simply because her aristocratic mind refused to accept the fact that one brought up in Cole-yard could possibly be a rival to herself. But at length she had realized that this play-actress—low as she was—had certain qualities which could be formidable. Her pretty, saucy face was not the most formidable of her weapons. Had Nell Gwyn received even the rudiments of education it might have been hopeless to do battle with her. As it was she must be treated with respect.

  French soldiers were now crossing the Rhine and marching into Holland. The gallant Dutch, taken off their guard, were for a short time stunned—but only for a short time. They rose with great courage against the aggressors. In fury those men, the brothers De Witt who had advocated a policy of appeasement, were torn to pieces by the mob in the streets of The Hague. Dutchmen were calling on William of Orange to lead them against their enemies, declaring they would die in the last ditch. They were ready to open the dykes, an action which had the desired effect on the invaders by showing the French that no easy victory would be theirs when they came against Dutchmen.