To Catch a King

by Charles Spencer

  On the Tuesday a dozen doctors assembled by Charles’s bed, to find their patient apparently much improved. He was given a gargle of elm bark and barley water for his sore throat, and was then encouraged to drink black cherry water, in which the cherries were mixed with lilies of the valley, flowers of lime, peony, lavender, sugar and crushed pearls. It was believed that this would reduce the likelihood of further convulsions. Another ten ounces of blood were extracted, this time from his jugular veins.

  The Wednesday morning started with the doctors hopeful once more, but there were soon more convulsions, followed by more bleeding, and a laxative of white tartar, senna leaf, gentian root, chamomile flowers, white wine and nutmeg. As the day drew on, it became clear that the king was gravely ill. His skin was clammy, and the convulsions returned. He was given forty drops of ‘Spirit of human Skull’.

  Convinced that he was showing symptoms of a fever that was currently doing the rounds in parts of London, and which also seemed to get worse as the day turned into night, the doctors decided to administer him with Peruvian Bark – quinine, diluted at first with ‘Antidotal milk water’ and syrup of cloves (later in the illness this was sweetened with Rhine wine). There seemed to be another brief upturn in Charles’s health, before it collapsed.

  The Archbishop of Canterbury, supported by the bishops of London, Durham, Ely and of Bath and Wells, now turned to the business of preparing their king for his death. Charles showed little interest in the words of the archbishop, or of the Bishop of London. Senior courtiers encouraged Thomas Ken, the newly consecrated Bishop of Bath and Wells, to oversee the end. Ken had a sweetness of voice and manner that his colleagues could not match.

  When Bishop Ken asked the king if he confessed his sins, he thoughtfully added that there was no need for him to attempt to list them, merely to be sorry for them. Charles confirmed that he was, but when pushed to take the sacrament, he said there was still time to think about that.

  The French envoy, Jean-Paul de Barillon, was now taken aside by Louise de Kérouaille, who told him, ‘Mr Ambassador, I am going to tell you the greatest secret in the world, and if it were known I should lose my head. At the bottom of his heart the King is Catholic, but he is surrounded by Protestant bishops.’ She begged Barillon to talk to the Duke of York, and persuade him to help save his brother’s soul.

  The queen had ventured back to the side of Charles’s deathbed whenever she felt strong enough to confront the awfulness of the situation. When Barillon re-entered the room, she had just fainted, after which the royal physicians had immediately bled her. She had now been removed, and Barillon seized the moment to pass on de Kérouaille’s message. James agreed that his brother’s soul was the priority, and that time was running out. He announced to the twenty or so bishops, doctors and courtiers in his brother’s bedroom that he needed to talk to the king. Everyone left, assuming that the heir needed to discuss matters of state with the dying incumbent. The brothers were together in quiet conversation for a quarter of an hour. Those outside in the anteroom heard Charles say from time to time, ‘Yes, with all my heart!’

  James then left his brother’s side, and told Barillon that Charles indeed wanted a Roman Catholic priest by his side. It would be impossible to bring in one of the queen’s Portuguese chaplains, or the Duchess of York’s Italian ones, since the Anglican bishops present would recognise them. Equally problematic was the fact that none of them spoke English.

  It was now that the Count of Castelmelhor, one of the queen’s courtiers, remembered Father John Huddleston. Huddleston’s celebrated role in Charles’s escape after the defeat at Worcester had resulted in his being excused, by name, from the severe attacks on Roman Catholic priests that had followed plots against the Crown during the previous decade. Castelmelhor realised that Huddleston alone could meet the dying king’s urgent need. He was Catholic, and he spoke English. Also, despite the king’s weakness, he would surely be recognised and trusted by the man whose life he had helped to save.

  This time it was Huddleston who had to hide his true identity and conceal himself. His disguise involved a wig and a cassock, and his hiding place was behind a side door that led to Charles’s bedroom. While waiting there, he realised that he had left behind the Holy Sacrament of the Altar. Fortunately Father Bento de Lemoz, one of the queen’s Portuguese chaplains, now passed by, and Huddleston tasked him with finding the Sacrament as quickly as he could.

  Charles’s servant Chiffins waited with Huddleston until they heard James order the king’s bedroom cleared of everyone except two of his and Charles’s closest confidants, the Earl of Bath and the Earl of Feversham. Both were Protestant, which helped the subterfuge to succeed.

  So it was that, a little before eight o’clock on the evening of 5 February 1685, James brought Huddleston to his brother’s bedside. Charles greeted the kindly country priest with the welcome, ‘You, that saved my body, is now come to save my soul.’

  Huddleston led Charles through a declaration confirming that he wished to die in the faith and communion of the Holy Roman Catholic Church. He then heard the king’s confession, and gave him absolution. Charles took the other sacraments offered, before Father Bento de Lemoz eventually arrived with the Sacrament, which he had most likely borrowed from Somerset House.

  Charles tried to raise himself, saying, ‘Let me meet my heavenly father in a better posture than lying on my bed.’ Huddleston told him to lie comfortably, as it was the contents of the king’s heart that mattered, not the posture of his body.

  Charles received the Act of Contrition a second and third time. Huddleston said, ‘Your Majesty hath now received the comfort and benefit of all the sacraments that a good Christian, ready to depart our world, can have or desire.’ He then lifted a crucifix up for Charles to behold, while encouraging him to think hard about Christ’s sacrifice.

  Huddleston’s prayers with the king lasted three quarters of an hour, after which he slipped away. The king seemed briefly to recuperate, but the fourteen doctors in attendance realised that he was too near to death to escape it now. Because they thought it could do no further harm, they gave him Raleigh’s Antidote, a blend of many herbs and animal parts, given extra grit through the addition of ground coral and pearls. This was followed by a dose of powdered Goa stone, extracted from a goat’s intestine, which was thought to offset the effect of poisons.

  Perhaps it was because of the lift that Huddleston had given his spirits, but Charles defied the physicians’ expectations, and survived the night. With his customary politeness, he apologised to those attending him for the long time he was taking to die.

  James was in real anguish, kneeling by Charles’s bed, kissing his hand. One of the physicians present, Dr Charles Scarburgh, wrote of James that he was ‘so anxious for his recovery, that he scarcely ever had the heart to leave the prostrate King’s bedside, at times completely overwhelmed with grief, at times himself watching attentively the following out of the physicians’ instructions, at other times imploring Heaven’s Arch-Healer for help and succor with most earnest prayers and vows and with repeated lamentations’.2 Charles thanked James for having always been such a fine brother to him, and wished him a successful reign.

  The queen came again, and fainted again, later sending a message to her husband begging that he would forgive her faults. Charles, thinking of his constant infidelity to her, replied, ‘Alas! Poor woman! She begs my pardon. I beg hers, with all my heart.’

  He then asked his brother to look after two of his favourite mistresses, Louise de Kérouaille and Nell Gwynne, once he was gone, and to be good to all but one of his natural children. The exception was the Duke of Monmouth, his eldest son with Lucy Walter, who was skulking on the Continent. He had had a difficult relationship with his father and uncle for some years, after Charles discovered that he had known of an assassination plot against him and his brother at Newmarket races, yet had not revealed it. But the king’s other five illegitimate sons were there at the end, and he blessed them, b
efore also blessing all others who were in the room.

  The next morning, at six o’clock, he asked for the curtains to be opened so he could see the sun rise for the last time. He was having great difficulty breathing, and slipped into a coma four hours later, dying shortly after noon on Friday, 6 February 1685. This was thirty-six years and one day after the Scots had proclaimed him their king, in the week after his father’s beheading.

  At his autopsy, it was noted that the arteries and veins in his brain were ‘unduly full’, and that his liver ‘was inclined to be livid in colour, perhaps because of the abundance of blood in it, with which the kidneys and spleen were also engorged’.3

  A third of a century earlier the English had stood on two distinct sides, as Charles had run for his life in what was to be the adventure of that life: half had wanted him captured, while half had prayed that he might, somehow, escape. Now, despite the controversies of his reign, and the inadequacies of key aspects of his languid kingship, his personal charm was remembered: the mourning was almost universal.

  * Parliament voted Sir Edmund King a reward of £1,000 for his bold decision to bleed Charles, though it was never paid.

  Picture Section

  Charles painted as a young warrior king in waiting, during his European exile. Portrait by Philippe de Champaigne, c.1653. (Art Collection 3/Alamy Stock Photo)

  Charles’s parents, King Charles I and Queen Henrietta Maria, painted by Sir Anthony van Dyck before the Civil Wars that cost the king his crown and his life. (Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

  Lucy Walter, the first of Charles’s many mistresses, reclining on her bed in a pose flaunting her famed sexual magnetism. Engraved by H. Van den Berghe from an original by S. Harding, c.1640. (Photo by Archive Photos/Getty Images)

  Sir Edward Hyde (later 1st Earl of Clarendon), who in many ways saw himself as the keeper of Charles’s conscience. Resistant to alliances with any who opposed the Church of England, he refused to have any part in Charles’s Scottish venture. By Jacob van Reesbroeck. (Paul Fearn/Alamy Stock Photo)

  James Grahame, 1st Marquess of Montrose, was the Royalists’ military champion in Scotland. He served the Stuarts with distinction, but was ultimately betrayed by Charles. By William Dobson. (Heritage Image Partnership Ltd/Alamy Stock Photo)

  A Parliamentary propaganda cartoon, mocking Charles for the desperate sacrifice in principles that his alliance with the Scots forced out of him. (Culture Club/Contributor)

  The decisive battle of Worcester was the final engagement of the Civil Wars. American presidents John Adams and Thomas Jefferson visited the battlefield in 1786, Adams calling it ‘the ground where liberty was fought for’. (BLM Collection/Alamy Stock Photo)

  A view of Boscobel, Whiteladies and the Royal Oak, by Robert Streater. All three subjects of this painting provided crucial cover for the king on the run, and have entered the mythology surrounding his escape. (Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2017)

  James Stanley, 7th Earl of Derby, was given military commands in the king’s army because of his social eminence, rather than through any military ability. He was no match for the able leaders of the New Model Army. By van Dyck. (Bridgeman Images)

  Major General Thomas Harrison was put in charge of mopping up Charles’s defeated army, and of bringing in the fugitive royal. A zealous Puritan, he had been one of the prime movers behind the execution of Charles I. Engraved by M.V. Gucht from an original painting. (Photo by Kean Collection/Getty Images)

  Richard Penderel – ‘Trusty Richard’ – was a key member of the humble rural family that risked all to hide the king during his earliest days on the run. After Gilbert Soest. (National Portrait Gallery, London)

  Father John Huddleston, Royalist and Roman Catholic, helped save Charles’s life – and later, perhaps, helped spare his soul. By Huysmans, 1685. (Bridgeman Images)

  Henry, Lord Wilmot, was Charles’s chosen sidekick when it became clear that he must try to escape from the enemy. Wilmot’s refusal to adopt a disguise did not help proceedings, but his bravery and loyalty were endless. He would be rewarded by Charles with the title of 1st Earl of Rochester. (National Portrait Gallery, London)

  Charles with Major William Careless, famously hiding in an oak tree while enemy patrols scoured the surrounding woodland for the defeated king. Charles would later recognise Careless for his ‘singular fidelity’, and would insist he change his name to ‘Carlos’ (the Spanish for Charles) in memory of his courageous service. By Isaac Fuller. (National Portrait Gallery, London)

  The Royal Oak today. It is a descendant of the original tree, which could not survive the plundering of souvenir-hunters, desperate for a memento of what seemed to be a miraculous tale of escape. (Jon Lewis/Alamy Stock Photo)

  Charles riding with Jane Lane on a strawberry roan horse. Jane had secured a pass from a Parliamentary official that enabled her to travel with a manservant towards Bristol. Charles took this opportunity to head for the coast in disguise. By Isaac Fuller. (ART Collection/Alamy Stock Photo)

  Parliament’s proclamation for the discovery and apprehending of Charles Stuart, listing his treachery and offering the huge reward of £1,000 to whoever captured the defeated king. It was disseminated in print, and read out to crowds across the land. (Private collection/Bridgeman Images)

  Colonel George Gunter was one of the great heroes of the tale. He provided total commitment and sharp focus to the business of getting the king to safety, and believed he had been involved in a matter that had been decided by God.

  Colonel John Lane – Jane Lane’s older brother – had served under Lord Wilmot during the Civil Wars. He was among a band of Royalist regimental commanders who kept the king out of the enemy’s clutches. (National Trust Photographic Library/Bridgeman Images)

  Thomas Whitgreave was a well-known Royalist, who had fought at the battle of Naseby. He was roughed up by Parliamentary redcoats while hiding the king, because they were convinced he must have been involved in the battle of Worcester. His home, Moseley Hall, contained priest holes that Charles hid in. (Private collection)

  Oliver Cromwell and John Lambert were two of the great military figures of the New Model Army, who delivered repeated and comprehensive defeats to those Scots who chose to support the doomed Stuart cause. By Robert Walker. (Private collection/Photo © Philip Mould Ltd, London/Bridgeman Images)

  The priest hole in which Charles hid at Moseley Hall, and which he declared the best he had ever seen. (The National Trust Photo Library/Alamy Stock Photo)

  Bentley Hall, in Staffordshire, stood in quiet isolation. Colonel Lane, Bentley’s owner, insisted the king move there, rather than remain at Moseley Hall, which was overlooked by neighbours and was known for its Roman Catholic inhabitants. Drawn and engraved by Michael Burghers for Robert Plot’s Natural History of Staffordshire, first published in 1686. (The Trustees of the William Salt Library, Staffordshire)

  The Surprise, a 60-ton coal barge, was captained by Nicholas Tatersall. At the Restoration she was renamed the Royal Escape. By Willem van de Velde the Younger. (Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2017)

  The Restoration of Charles II at Whitehall on 29 May 1660. The magnificent return of the young king could not have been further removed from his last time on English soil, as a desperate fugitive. (Private collection/Bridgeman Images)

  Charles II in middle age – charming, lazy, and addicted to pleasure. His rule was controversial, and punctuated by disaster. He would look back at his time on the run as the high point of his life. By Sir Peter Lely. (Royal Hospital Chelsea/Bridgeman Images)

  Acknowledgements

  I would like to thank Nigel Fortnam, of Lyme Regis, who wrote to suggest the subject of this book to me after reading my 2014 effort Killers of the King. I had no idea how rich the subject would be.

  I will forever be grateful to Gillon Aitken, my late literary agent, who was a truly great man, combining the very best attributes of gentleman and schol
ar. Gillon was a passionate believer in my telling this tale, at a time when I was reluctant to write for a while. I am grateful to Clare Alexander for keeping everything on an even keel after Gillon’s death.

  Arabella Pike has proved to be the cleverest of editors. Her constructive comments after the first draft have been truly invaluable to structure and tone. It has been the easiest of working relationships, which is really all a writer wants. I would also like to thank her colleagues at HarperCollins, including Robert Lacey who copy-edited the final manuscript with a quiet finesse.

  Relevant facts have been kindly shared with me by John Giffard, descendant of Charles II’s first supporters on his escape attempt, and by Dr David Bartle, company archivist of the Haberdashers’ Company.

  My wife, Karen, deserves the greatest credit, helping me to juggle our diary-defying lives so that I have had time to write. Meanwhile, her ear for prose, and her editor’s instincts, have been invaluable. To her go my endless thanks.