“I want to live there,” said little James.
“Is Papa coming with us?” asked Charles.
“No,” said Nell. “If you went, you’d have to go alone.”
“Without you?” said Charles.
She nodded.
“Then I won’t go,” he answered haughtily—royally, thought Nell. The Divine Right of the adored child shining in his eyes.
She thought, Mr. Otway shall be his tutor. Poor Tom Otway, he’ll be glad of a roof to his head and his food each day.
Little James had taken her hand and was staring into space. He was picturing himself in France.
Nell thought: Lord Beauclerk would not feel the break so much. Perhaps he should go to France. It is more important for a young son to have that air of nobility. Honors may not come so easily to him as to his brother. Nell snatched him up suddenly and held him tightly in her arms. I can’t let him go, she told herself. He may be my lord Beauclerk, but he’s my baby.
Charles was relieved to have the troublemakers in the Tower. Their lodgings there were comfortable enough; they were allowed to have their own servants to wait upon them; they received visitors; in fact they lived like the noble lords they were; there was only one thing they lacked, and that was freedom.
Charles trusted none. To Danby, to Louise, he listened with sympathy; he visited Nell’s house and talked with the utmost friendship to her Whig friends. But all the time he was playing the secret game. He had one great desire—to rule his country without the help of Parliament. Parliament, with its opposing parties, made continual trouble. The Whigs slandered the Tories and the Tories the Whigs. They were more concerned with their petty hatred for each other than their love of their country. Charles loved his country (as he would have been the first to admit, loving his country was tantamount to loving himself) and he was determined to use all his skill—which was considerable when he brought it into play—to prevent himself ever going on his wanderings again.
He supported Danby because Danby was a wizard who had managed his financial affairs as they had never been managed before. He did not believe he could afford to do without Danby. For the first time since he had come to England he felt his affairs to be in good order. He placated Louise because she was Louis’ spy, and it was of the utmost importance that he should keep Louis’ friendship. The bribes he was taking from France now, in exchange for which he kept aloof from the Continental war, were the very reason for his country’s prosperity. Charles had always known that the country which stood aloof from war and concentrated on trade was the prosperous one. It was pleasant therefore to receive Louis’ bribes for keeping a peace which in any case he had intended to keep. He pretended to take Louise’s advice. Poor Louise! She must please Louis. He had to satisfy her in some way, and for the life of him he could not bring himself to visit her as often as he once had.
As for Nell, her dabbling in politics amused him so much that he could not keep away from her salon. She had as much understanding of politics as Old Rowley the stallion and Old Rowley the goat—who shared his nickname. Politics to Nell meant one thing: Who gives a dukedom to my lord Burford and makes the noble Earl’s mother a Countess, shall have my support. Danby had been against elevating Nell—doubtless on account of Louise—therefore Nell was Danby’s enemy.
So while Charles sympathized with Louise and Danby’s Tories and turned a sympathetic ear to Nell’s Whigs, he went his own way. And while he was accepting Louis’ bribes he was trying to go ahead with the arrangements for the marriage between his niece, Mary, and William of Orange.
James sought his brother. James’ face was dark with passion.
“Charles, you cannot mean this. My daughter Mary to marry that man!”
“Forget that he is the Protestant leader of the Dutch, and you’ll see what an excellent match he is.”
“The man’s a monster!” said James indignantly.
“The Prince is a brave soldier, Stadtholder of Holland, and our nephew.”
“My little girl is too young.”
“Your little girl is a Princess and therefore prepared for early marriage.”
“Have you forgotten his conduct when he was here?”
“That is a long time ago, and we made him drink too much. When a man drinks too much he does wild things. That is why I like only to drink when I am thirsty.”
“Brother, for the love of God do not give my little Mary to this man.”
“But this marriage is a necessary part of the peace between our two countries.”
“A man who smashed windows to get at the maids of honor. He is a lecher. He is debauched.”
“Oh, come … no more than the rest of us.”
James went away. He went to his little daughter and took her solemnly into his arms.
“Papa,” said Mary, “what ails you?”
“My little one … my little one,” sighed James.
Charles had followed him. He said: “Mary, a great future awaits you. You are to have a fine husband, and that is what every young lady—if she is wise—looks for.”
But Mary’s frightened gaze was fixed on her father’s face. She stared at him and slowly the tears began to fall down her cheeks. She understood. She would marry, and when a Princess married she was forced to leave her home.
The King liked to please Nell. Most of her requests—apart from the demand for that title which she felt should belong to the mother of her boys—were for others. She pleaded fiercely for Buckingham. His Majesty had so enjoyed the noble Duke’s company. Could he ever be really angry with Lord Buckingham? Not for long, surely. They missed him at her parties; and had Charles forgotten how they had been friends together in their childhood?
Charles prevaricated. He was afraid of offending Louise and Danby, whom he wished to keep in the dark concerning the policy he was pursuing regarding the French. The fact that he wished to bring about the marriage of Mary and William of Orange would displease Louis and therefore Louise, though Louise, still unsure of her position, was giving little trouble concerning this marriage. He did not wish to sway too much to the side of the Whigs by releasing Buckingham.
But he hinted to Nell that if she visited Buckingham in his prison she might intimate that the King no longer wished his old friend and companion of his boyhood to remain in the Tower.
This Nell quickly did, with the result that Buckingham was granted leave for a month’s freedom to help him throw off several indispositions which he had developed during his imprisonment. He did not return to prison, coolly taking up his quarters with his friend Rochester instead. They kept merry company with Nell Gwyn, and the King could not exclude himself from such entertainment as they gave.
Louise wept bitterly and told Charles that she feared he no longer had any regard for her. If he had, how could he show such friendship to those who sought to harm her?
The King softened towards Louise. He was more tender than he had ever been, because his love for her was gone. Poor Fubbs! She had never been the same since she had caught his sickness and she did not cease to remind him, with reproachful looks and hints, that she had suffered through him. He promised her that Buckingham should be dismissed from Whitehall; and he was as good as his word, knowing that Buckingham would not go far away. The Duke did indeed move to Nell’s house in Pall Mall, and there the merry supper parties continued.
And the French ambassador was almost as concerned about the King’s attendance at Nell’s parties, those hotbeds of Whiggery, as he was about this proposed marriage between Mary and William of Orange.
Meanwhile Charles was playing his lonely political game. The proposed marriage had thrown Louis into a fluster of anxiety. Louis, engaged in Flanders, was finding that the Dutch were a race of brave men, and stubborn fighters. William of Orange had proved himself to be a leader of genius, and Louis’ hopes of quick victory were not fulfilled. There was one thing Louis dared not face—an alliance between England and Holland.
Charles went with apparent heedlessness t
o Newmarket. He went to Windsor to fish. He laughed and made merry at the parties his mistresses arranged for him. Danby reproved him for his friendship with the Opposition, but he merely laughed at Danby. “I declare,” he cried, “I will not deny myself an hour’s pleasure for the sake of any man.”
Danby, bewildered and unable to understand on whose side the King was, wrote to Louis making fresh demands and promises. Charles read his Treasurer’s letters. To all of these Charles gave his royal sanction. “This letter is writ by my order. C.R.”
Louis continued to pay to keep England aloof to enjoy that peace which her King was determined to have. Louis was assured that the talk of a marriage between England and Holland was necessary to keep the people quiet and to prevent their demanding intervention in the war on the side of Holland.
But in October of that eventful year Charles announced the engagement of William and Mary. England and Scotland went wild with joy because they saw in this marriage an end to the menace of popery.
Not all rejoiced. In her bedchamber a fifteen-year-old girl sobbed bitterly while her father knelt by her bed and sought to comfort her.
It was a misty November day, and in the Palace of St. James were assembled those who would attend the marriage ceremony of the little fifteen-year-old Princess Mary. In Mary’s bedchamber an altar had been set up, for it was here in this room that the ceremony was to take place.
The bride’s eyes were swollen; she had wept incessantly since her father had told her the news. She was terrified of the small pale young man with the grim face who seemed to her so cold and so different from her father and her Uncle Charles. They told her that she should be proud of her husband. He was a great soldier. He was called the “hero of Nassau.” He had waged war on the invaders of his country; he had declared with such fervor his willingness to die rather than give in that his countrymen had rallied about him and followed his example. Nor had those been idle words. Mary was to marry a man whose name would be spoken of with awe every time military operations were mentioned. He was her cousin, her uncle had pointed out, his own sister’s boy; and when that sister—Mary’s own namesake—had died, Charles had promised his care of little Dutch William.
“And how could I relinquish that care to better hands than yours, my dearest niece?” asked Charles.
But Mary merely threw herself into the royal arms and sobbed bitterly. “Let me stay, Uncle. Please, please, dearest Uncle, Your Majesty, let me stay with you and Papa.”
“Nay, nay, you’ll be laughing at yourself in a short while, Mary. You are but a child, and we must all, alas, leave childhood behind us. You will rule Holland with your husband and, if this new child your new mother is to have should be a girl … well, then, one day you may rule England. If that became necessary, you’d have need of Dutch William.”
But Mary could only sob and refuse to be comforted.
Now in her familiar room the King and the bridegroom were present, and the King was saying: “My little niece is the softest-hearted creature in the world. She and her sister Anne have been dear friends since their childhood. Poor Anne is suffering now from sickness, and her sister suffers with her. It is a pity that her dearest Anne cannot be present to witness the greatest moment her sister has yet experienced.”
Mary wanted to cry out: “I do miss Anne. I would that she were here. But Anne will get well and, when she is well, I shall be far away. I shall lose all those I love, and in their place there will be this cold man who frightens me.”
Her father had entered now. She suppressed the desire to run to him, to fling herself into his arms. There were tears in James’ eyes. Dearest Papa, she thought, he suffers as I do. With James was Mary’s stepmother, Mary Beatrice; she was large with child, and her beautiful dark eyes were fixed with compassion on her stepdaughter. Mary Beatrice had offered as great comfort as any could during the preceding days. She herself had not been long in England, and when she had first come she had been every bit as frightened as poor Mary was now. “That was different,” said Mary. “You married Papa … my Papa … There is no one quite as kind as Papa.” “I did not think so. I burst into tears when I first saw him. It is only now that I begin to know him that I realize there was no need for those tears. So you will find it with William.”
Mary had allowed herself to be comforted, but now, in the presence of Dutch William, her courage was failing her again.
Charles, looking anxiously at his niece, was eager to have the ceremony done with. He called impatiently to Compton, the Bishop of London, who was to perform the ceremony.
“Come, Bishop,” he cried. “Make all the haste you can, lest my sister here, the Duchess of York, should bring us a boy, and then the marriage will be disappointed.”
William looked grim. His uncle’s jovial cynicism astonished him. He was aware that Charles knew that, in marrying Mary, he was hoping that one day he would come to the throne of England, but he thought it astonishing that Charles should refer to it at the ceremony.
He looked with distaste at the poor blubbering child, in whom his hopes were centered. She did not attract him, but there would be others who did.
“Who gives this woman?” the Bishop was asking.
“I do,” said Charles, firmly.
The Prince said the words required of him. He put a handful of gold coins on the book, as he endowed Mary with all his worldly goods.
“Put it in your pocket, Mary,” said the King with a smile. “For that is all clear gain.”
After that the ceremonies began. The bridegroom was aloof and indifferent to his bride, who continued to weep throughout the banquet in a quiet helpless way as though she had given up all hope of ever being happy again.
Charles was glad he had brought Rochester out of retirement. He found Dutch William and his friends a dull crowd, and was glad when the time came for him to officiate at the ceremony of putting the couple to bed.
Poor little Mary looked with dull eyes at those who crowded into the bedchamber to break bread and drink the posset, and cut her and her husband’s garters.
At last Mary and William were in the great bed together, and the King himself drew the curtains.
He did not look at Mary. He could not trust himself to meet the appeal in the tear-drenched eyes of his little niece.
He glanced at grim William, who looked like a man at a funeral rather than at his own nuptials.
“Now, nephew, to your work!” cried Charles. “St. George for England!”
Charles could no longer deceive Louis. The marriage with Holland was a fact, and the Parliament—Shaftesbury had now been released from the Tower and was back in the House—were demanding that an army be raised to assist Holland. Louis, through Danby and Louise, increased Charles’ pension. Charles, in accepting this, continued to assure Louis that the raising of the army was being effected only to pacify his people and keep secret his friendship with France.
Louis was realizing that, in hoping to work through Charles, he had given himself a more difficult task than he might have had. There were others in England who could be of the utmost use to him. He considered the career of Shaftesbury, he whom Charles had named “Little Sincerity,” and he felt that the leader of the Opposition might be as useful to him as the King. Louis was rich; he offered more bribes, and it was not long before the members of the Opposition—those stern Protestants—were on his pension list.
Thereupon Parliament refused to advance the money necessary for the troops, and there was nothing to be done but disband the army. Charles was forced to pay them out of his own pocket, which again put him in the power of the Parliament, for it was necessary to ask for a further grant of money.
The old struggle between King and Parliament was revived. The Commons made it clear that they wished to control the country’s affairs. Shaftesbury demanded the expulsion of the Duke of York. And Louis, furious at the way in which Danby had made him his dupe, passed over to the Commons Danby’s letters in which he had arranged for Louis’ bribes to be pa
id to the King.
Now Danby’s enemies were at his throat.
Charles assured the Parliament that all Danby had done had been at his command; and indeed at the bottom of each letter was written in Charles’ hand, “This letter is writ by my order. C.R.” The Commons decided to ignore the King’s part in these communications with Louis. They were out for Danby’s destruction; and his impeachment was imminent.
Nell tore herself from the domestic flurries concerning my lord Bur-ford’s shoelaces and my lord Beauclerk’s cough, and gave way to rejoicing. Danby and Louise had worked together, and she was sure that but for them she would have been a Countess by now, and my lord Burford a Duke.
Louise was afraid for, as Danby and she had worked together, she knew that many of his enemies strove to strike at her through him.
Then throughout the city there were rumors. They penetrated Whitehall.
Plots were afoot to murder the King and set the Duke of York on the throne.
People began to talk of a man named Titus Oates.
NINE
Terror swept over England. No one was safe from the accusations of Titus Oates. The Queen herself was in danger. As for Louise, the lampoons which the Whigs had been accustomed to pass round the coffeehouses were replaced by demands that she be brought to trial or sent back to France.
The King, hating trouble and realizing as few others did that Titus Oates was a rogue and a liar, did all in his power to keep himself aloof from the troubles. He dared not expose Titus; he dared not attempt to prevent the cruel executions which were taking place, for he knew that revolution was in the air and that he was in as dangerous a position as his father had been before he had laid his head on the block.
Louise was now known as the “Catholic whore.” No sin was too black to be imputed to her. She trembled in her apartments and played with the idea of abandoning all she had worked for and slipping back to France.
Nell, on the other hand, was unaware of danger. The King seemed fonder of her than ever before. She wept now and then because Lord Beau-clerk was in France, and thus her happiness could not be complete. Since the birth of her children her thoughts had been occupied with them almost to the exclusion of all else. Nell wanted to have the King and her sons with her, like any cozy family; then she could be happy. Plots whirled about her, but she was scarcely aware of them. Her so-called friend, Lady Harvey, had recently tried to bring to the notice of the King a lovely girl named Jenny Middleton. Lady Harvey—urged by her brother Montague—had sought Nell’s help in bringing this girl to the King’s notice, and Nell, her mind being taken up with her grief in the absence of my lord Beauclerk and the promotion of my lord Burford to a dukedom, had been quite unaware of Lady Harvey’s intention of bringing to the King’s notice one who would turn him from Nell herself.
Here Lies Our Sovereign Lord Page 28