King Charles II

by Fraser, Antonia

  That of course was true. The King continued to desire that his heir should be outside the sphere of danger, where Parliament might capture him and use him either as a pawn or as a hostage with which to blackmail his father. A letter from the King at Oxford, dated 22 March, began, ‘Hoping that this will find you safe with your mother …’ But it went on to say, ‘I command you upon my blessing to be constant to your religion, neither hearkening to Roman superstitions, nor the seditious and schismatical doctrines of the Presbyterians and Independents.’ On 30 March Parliament itself showed an awareness of the Prince of Wales’ potential by formally inviting him to return. Charles replied tactfully that indeed he had a great and earnest desire to be amongst them, especially if it would lead to ‘a blessed peace’.13 But he seemed to be able to keep this great and earnest desire well under control: the next month he was still lingering in the Scillies.

  The King, in beleaguered Oxford, was out of contact. At the end of April he fled from Oxford to what he mistakenly believed would be the protection of the Scottish army. As a result he was still further embroiled in political intrigue, still more out of touch with his son.

  It was not until 16 April that Charles set sail again, and then the destination was Jersey, not France. There was not much the Queen could do about the decision except bewail it. At least she could take comfort from the fact that Charles was now extremely near the French mainland. (Jersey is only twelve miles away at its nearest point, but fifty miles from England.)

  On the journey it was the Prince of Wales who took the helm of the frigate Proud Black Eagle. But the arrival in Jersey seemed like a triumph for the Hyde faction. Jersey, for all its proximity to France, had been first joined to the English crown under William the Conqueror. Its governor, Sir George Carteret, came of a notable island family, but had also earned his post by a distinguished career at sea: he had been appointed to this vital naval outpost by the King in 1643. Since Jersey was now one of the few areas of the British Isles where the royal writ ran without contest, it became the focus for loyal hopes. Perhaps the island would ‘happily’ be the means to reduce its ‘Neighbour Rebells’ by force, as a suggestion made in January had it? ‘Or at least by your example of fidelity, to turn the hearts and affections not only of them but of many others in His Majesty’s dominions …’14

  To reward this fidelity, and promote it to further useful ends, the loyal islanders were granted the sight of Prince Charles dining in state. With great elegance, Charles accepted a gift of 1,500 pistoles (that is, money) from them – ‘having not 20 in the world’. When the Prince of Wales attended church at St Helier on Sunday, 26 April, it was a brilliant and royal occasion. The church was carpeted and beflowered, every pillar decked with branches and garlands: the harvest of the Jersey spring. The beach itself was crowded as the drums beat and the colours flew. Soon Charles was able to set up a miniature court, according to the gracious tradition in which he had been raised; to the Jersiaises, as a result, he appeared ‘un Prince grandement bénin’ [benign].15

  The feeling was mutual. That summer in Jersey left Charles with a particular affection for the place and its ‘cheerful good-natured people’, as Lady Fanshawe described them.16 His residence was the old Elizabeth Castle set in the fine bay of St Helier. It had been built in the reign of the great Elizabeth, on the site of an ancient monastery, but its romantic eminence might have been constructed for the court of King Arthur. It was even cut off from the main island at high tide, being reached by a causeway. The castle itself was not in a very splendid state of repair. But Charles appreciated the heady spring climate, the fine walks in the interior of the island amidst elms and oaks, in contrast to the rocky, picturesque coast.

  And he was able to pursue his new passion for sailing more or less without restriction, since the Parliamentary navy was unlikely to menace him so close to the French coast (and in any case the Jersiaises themselves were much given to privateering in a jolly, uninhibited way, which discouraged callers). A boat was built at St Malo; it was gaily painted, with twelve pairs of oars and two masts – the first of the many boats Charles would commission in a sea-mad life, a foretaste of those magnificent post-Restoration craft, the Henrietta, the Monmouth and so forth, on whose details he would lavish such care. (But it was Sir George Carteret who paid for it: Charles had not the wherewithal.)

  Another pleasant aspect of that summer interlude was the relationship Charles formed with Marguerite Carteret, daughter of the Seigneur of Trinity Manor. This is Charles’ first recorded love affair and his inamorata was about twenty, four years older than himself. The setting also seems appropriate. Sex and the sea were two splendid new discoveries.

  Did their summer dalliance have more serious consequences than either intended? The figure of Marguerite’s son James, occasionally claimed as Charles’ first child, has to be considered. There are certainly legends surrounding the life of James de la Cloche (the surname derived from the man Marguerite subsequently married, Jean de la Cloche). When he applied to become a Jesuit novice at Rome, de la Cloche produced mysterious letters to substantiate his claim to royal origins. The story ran that he had been kept abroad in obscurity. At the English court in the mid-1660s, the King was supposed to have told him out of the blue that he had a better title to the throne than the Duke of Monmouth, because his mother was of higher rank than Lucy Walter.17

  But all this is fairly suspect: the incident at the English court is quite uncharacteristic of the known behaviour of King Charles II on the subject of his bastards. On the one hand Charles showed absolutely no hesitation in acknowledging them, as witness his immediate recognition of James Crofts, the future Duke of Monmouth, born only a few years after the Jersey episode. On the other hand he was extremely careful never to make any kind of remark concerning their possible title to the throne, having troubles enough with the remarks of others on that subject. The obscurity surrounding James de la Cloche is likely to have originated with his mother’s rank rather than with his father’s – the assumption must be that he was an illegitimate son, born before her marriage, concealed to save her reputation. After the English King was restored to prosperity, stories of the youthful romance inspired either de la Cloche himself or his sponsors to try and take advantage of it. As for the mysterious letters, de la Cloche probably forged them.

  Love and the sea, twin passions, did not preserve the peace of Charles’ summer from continued storms over his residency. Queen Henrietta Maria had succeeded in suborning Charles’ attendant John Colepeper when he visited her for money and supplies. He now agreed with the Queen that France was the obvious place. Colepeper arrived in Jersey from France shortly after the Prince of Wales and Hyde. But Hyde continued to maintain stoutly that it would be the greatest possible mistake for the Prince of Wales to desert British soil.

  In the course of the summer the Prince of Wales was also won round to his mother’s point of view. This was not solely due to the vehemence with which Colepeper argued the case, for he was a man notorious for arguing every case with passion, however often he changed his mind; nor was it due to the assistance of Lord Digby, a future Catholic, and another pro-French attendant, Lord Jermyn. It was the views of the King, now in the hands of the Scots, that weighed most heavily with his son. These were fully passed on by his mother. ‘Dear Charles,’ she wrote, ‘you see the King’s command to you and me. I have no doubt you will obey it, and suddenly.’18

  The King had become convinced that Charles should join the Queen in France, particularly since he had heard rumours of schemes afoot to make the young Duke of York – a Parliamentary captive since the fall of Oxford – a puppet monarch. By 17 June the King was longing to hear that Charles was safe with his mother. Of course he was adamant that Charles must continue to protect the Church of England, stoutly and for ever. As the King wrote on 16 August, from Newcastle upon Tyne where the Scots held him, ‘Take it as an infallible maxim from me, that, as the Church can never flourish without the protection of the Crown, so the de
pendency of the Church upon the Crown is the chiefest support of regal authority.’19

  It was a strong directive, which lingered in Charles’ mind throughout the years of exile. But that summer to neither King nor Prince did the maintenance of episcopacy seem incompatible with both Scottish and French aid. So the fateful decision was taken to embark at last for France.

  Charles’ departure from Jersey was delayed for two days by a storm, and when he did manage to leave on 25 June it was to an orchestral accompaniment of thunder, lightning and a ‘pell-mell wind’.20 The elements were noisier but scarcely heavier in their disapproval than those royal servants who continued to regard this French venture as a catastrophic error. It was the custom for Hyde, Hopton and Capel to come once a day to kiss the hands of the Prince of Wales; as the pro-French party of Colepeper, Digby and Jermyn gained ascendancy, the ceremony became increasingly embarrassing to all concerned. The pro-French lords took to lingering on the rocks by the waterfront, or on the bowling-green, until it was over.

  When the Prince of Wales did embark, so fearful were Jermyn and Digby of Hyde’s moral influence that they actually walked with the Prince to the ship, one either side.

  There was no need.

  Hyde had put every argument and failed. He had also correctly foreseen the suicidal divisions which the departure to France would spread within the Royalist ranks. But he had not been able to provide a viable alternative. For all the balmy delights of Jersey, the Prince of Wales really could not be expected to maintain his court there for ever. The military situation in Ireland had changed, to the King’s disadvantage, and even if Charles had been able to make the sea voyage in safety, he was not certain of a proper welcome, let alone military backing. The possibility of Denmark, in so far as it had ever existed, had receded since the previous year: in any case, Denmark too was a foreign power, albeit a Protestant one.

  Armed with these melancholy thoughts, Hyde continued to lurk in Jersey, a prophet without honour.

  The Prince of Wales, more cheerfully, sailed off on his French adventure.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Dependence

  If there lie man (ye Gods) I ought to hate Dependence and attendance be his fate.

  Abraham Cowley

  France had expressed in advance a flattering desire for the company of the Prince of Wales. His reception there only confirmed the morbid suspicions nourished by the anti-French party in his entourage: France, in the shape of her effective representative Cardinal Mazarin, was playing a game of diplomatic dog-in-the-manger. True enough, the Cardinal had been extremely anxious to secure the Prince’s person, when there was some danger of this prize falling into other hands. Now that danger was eliminated, the Cardinal intended to proceed extremely cautiously. It was one thing to offer a refuge to the first cousin of the King of France, joining his mother in penurious exile. It was quite another matter to set that same exile on his route homewards, at the head of French troops.

  In order to launch such an operation, the Cardinal felt it his duty as a Frenchman to be absolutely sure his country would end up on the winning side. It was certainly not enough, in diplomatic terms, to draw a bow at venture.

  It is only fair to state that France had her own controversies. The death of Louis XIII in 1643 had left his widow Anne of Austria as titular regent for her son. The responsibility of government was, however, born by Cardinal Richelieu and at his death devolved upon Cardinal Mazarin. But the two men were not totally comparable. Richelieu had been an aristocrat not only in style, but by birth. Much was made of Mazarin’s lowly Italian blood by the French nobility and it became a convenient scapegoat for their dislike of his regime. His relationship with the widowed Queen was in contrast warm: it was rumoured that they were secretly married.

  Two years after Charles reached France, Queen and Cardinal would have to face the first of the series of rebellions against their Regency which took their name – the wars of the Fronde – from the stone-bearing sling borne by their popular assailants. Not all Frondeurs, however, formed part of the mob. The second and third wars of the Fronde were headed by the Prince de Condé. At least the Stuarts did not inhabit a throne perilously surrounded by senior near-royal nobles: the murderous policy of the Tudors towards royal rivals had seen to that. The French throne was menaced not only by Condé, but by others, including the King’s uncle, Gaston Duc d’Orléans.

  And the French exchequer, full as it might be by the current English standards of exile, was not full by its own. France had been fighting the Spanish Hapsburgs for over ten years and as a result was maintaining armies as far apart as Spain, Italy and Flanders. Taxes were high, the people resentful. On the one hand, the Cardinal did not approve of the anti-monarchical standards flourishing across the channel. On the other hand, he could not spare men and money for a useless crusade.

  If only the Cardinal could be sure that the monarchy in England would prevail! In vain the English Royalists exclaimed with increasing desperation that indeed the monarchy would prevail – provided that there was French assistance. The sagacious Cardinal shook his head. The news from England indicated that in purely worldly terms Parliament was the better bet of the two. The King had fled from Oxford to the Scots, only to find himself held in quasi-captivity. The so-called Newcastle Propositions presented to him in July would, if he had accepted them, have involved him in swearing the Covenant; they also represented the domination of the Presbyterians, not only in Scotland but in the English Parliament. For in 1643 the Oath of the National Covenant, which applied only to Scotland, had been reinforced by a new oath, the Solemn League and Covenant. According to this, the religion of England and Ireland was also to be reformed ‘according to the Word of God’. It was a significant advance: the Scots were committed to imposing Presbyterianism on England. The English Parliamentary leaders had signed as well as the Scots.

  Despite this, the Cardinal had to admit that the English royal family did have a moral claim on their French relations. The argument was of course circular. And it continued to rage, in one form or another, at times disguised by Mazarin’s subtlety, at times exposed by the English Royalist disgust, throughout the first period of Charles’ exile.

  Charles’ initial experience of France and French methods consisted of politely induced frustration. For himself he discovered that nasty truth best expressed by Abraham Cowley:

  If there lie man (ye Gods) I ought to hate

  Dependence and attendance be his fate.

  Far from being greeted with open arms, Charles was not even officially received by his cousin, the young King Louis XIV, for several weeks after his arrival. Excuses of protocol (oh, the difficulties of two royalties greeting each other – at any rate in polite French eyes!) were used to stave off this moment of commitment. The Prince of Wales kicked his heels and resumed his long-interrupted relationship with his mother.

  Henrietta Maria was living in the old palace of Saint-Germain, near but not too near Paris, and at some distance from the French court, which was established at the Palais Royal and had one of its country retreats at Fontainebleau. The exiled Queen was in no fit state to handle a relationship with an adolescent son. Distraught herself, she was incapable of spreading happiness and reassurance about her. Her problems ranged from the financial to the emotional. She was paid a small pension of twelve hundred francs a day by the French government, but sent most of it abroad; in the meantime her love and concern for her afflicted husband racked her daily. She corresponded ceaselessly with the King, in codes devised by Cowley, brought into her employ by Lord Jermyn. Another poet, Richard Crashaw, a Catholic convert, also formed part of her little entourage, but the presence of these bards, romantic-sounding as it might be, was hardly conducive to an easy establishment. Above all they were poor. Crashaw was described as ‘a mere scholar and very shiftless’. The Queen needed rich and stable men about her, as Julius Caesar had once needed the sleek-headed who slept at night.

  The lack of money was already chronic. Jewels
and gold and silver objects, souvenirs of a vanished gold and silver age, departed regularly to be sold. The two-year-old Princess Henriette-Anne, smuggled out of the siege of Exeter in yet another dramatic escapade in the history of the Stuart children, was now in Paris, shivering and at times virtually starving with her mother. The spectacle of a foreign queen, who was also a daughter of France, living in such evident penury, enraged the emotional Parisians, who blamed Mazarin. In a rude rhyme the Cardinal was described as robbing the English Queen of her rings: leur reine desolée/De ses bagues par toi volées….

  Officially, Charles himself received no money at all. This was a matter of policy. It was thought to be injurious for the Prince of Wales to appear as a pensioner of a foreign government. Therefore ‘a mean addition’ was made to the sum paid to Henrietta Maria.1 For funds Charles was expected to apply to her. It was of course a situation which was equally injurious in another way – to the relationship between mother and son.

  Perhaps this relationship was doomed even if Henrietta Maria’s agitated hands had not been left clutching the purse-strings. For one thing, the Prince of Wales could hardly be expected to regress into youth without demur. At sixteen he was of an age when many kings took over the reins of power. He had spent nearly four years following the flag of his father, and the last fifteen months in nominal independence fighting in Cornwall and elsewhere. He had presided over his own court at Jersey.