King Charles II

by Fraser, Antonia

  In 1647 Mary’s husband William II succeeded his father, the talented Frederick Henry, at the age of twenty-one. Not all the Dutch approved of the help which the new Stadtholder wished to give his father-in-law. A Dutch counsellor would bewail the ‘English labyrinth’ in which it was feared the Prince of Orange would involve them through the fatal Stuart marriage – and with some reason.8 Besides which, the Scottish Covenanters, not the Stuart Episcopalians, were temperamentally the natural allies of the Protestant Dutch. Nevertheless, William, together with the Duke of Lorraine, raised troops on his father-in-law’s behalf – between five hundred and a thousand men – and encamped them at Borkum; he also chartered and equipped some ships at Amsterdam, and spent money buying munitions for the Scottish army.

  It was natural under the circumstances that, like the other young and spirited Royalists, Charles Prince of Wales should prefer the prospect of action based on Holland to inaction based on France. By the beginning of 1648 Henrietta Maria herself had come round to that point of view and, still treating her son as one who could be despatched hither and thither without too much consultation, sent him off to Calais on the French border, to await developments. But here Mazarin stepped in once more and obstinately blocked the young Prince’s progress. He must not leave France.

  It was a time of exceptional frustration for Charles.

  Meanwhile in England some at least of the Army and Parliamentary leaders were becoming ruefully aware of the underhand nature of their King. Very few in either category had abandoned the notion of a monarchy as such: negotiations with the King consisted in advancing various expedients for limiting his powers, and trying to work out some practical way in which his alleged tyranny could be held in check. As a result, certain members of the House of Commons decided to explore the notion of transferring the royal role into the hands of the Prince of Wales. Little was really known of Charles in England at this point: might he not prove more amenable to the idea of monarchy limited in its powers by Parliament? The answer from Charles was of course a firm negative – thereafter when these expedients were explored by Parliament it would be in terms of the younger princes: James, even Henry.

  When rumours of the King’s secret agreement with the Scots leaked out, the Army and the Independents in Parliament were together confirmed in their disgust. Negotiations with the King were formally broken off at the beginning of the year when a Vote of No Addresses was passed by Parliament.

  In the meantime the King’s intrigues appeared to have had a successful outcome: they had combined Royalists and Presbyterians in a further outbreak of fighting, which began with a Royalist insurrection in Wales and culminated in a Scottish invasion. This, the Second Civil War, was blamed by the Army leaders on the King’s double-dealing: he earned from them the unpleasant sobriquet of ‘the man of blood’. Charles’ position was made clear by the fact that commissions were issued in his name to various Royalist commanders, including Langdale in the north and Byron in the north-west. A signature was however still the sole measure of contribution by the unhappy Prince.

  By now the Engagers in Scotland were longing equally for the éclat of the Prince’s presence. Charles, the boy who, at the age of twelve, had drawn his sword at Edgehill and shouted, ‘I fear them not!’, was still kept prudently in reserve, like a weapon of uncertain provenance.

  Nevertheless, the moment of decision could not be much longer delayed. On 9 March a heated debate took place in the Prince’s Council. The Queen had given way and agreed to his departure. Hyde’s known views were overruled.

  At the end of the meeting ‘the Prince’s resolution was taken without more ceremony to come into Scotland’. By 23 March his offer was known in Edinburgh and on 1 May the Duke of Hamilton, the Earl Lauderdale and three other Engagers formally requested the arrival of the Prince of Wales. On 30 May Charles himself wrote back in the most flattering terms that he was ‘inexpressibly desirous of himself and impatient to be amongst them’.9

  Nevertheless, the Prince of Wales did not arrive in Scotland. By August, when the Scottish army passed lumberingly into England, he had still not arrived. His part in the Second Civil War was totally, not to say fatally, mismanaged by his elders and advisers.

  What now transpired, put briefly (although the expression of it was not brief at the time), was the re-emergence of all the old worries in Royalist circles about the Scots. Instead of permitting the Prince to depart, his advisers sent off renewed cautious enquiries concerning the use of an English prayer book in his private devotions, and similar questions which were surely of little import compared to the vast issue at stake – the defeat of the Parliamentary Army.

  Perhaps it might after all be better to despatch the Prince to Ireland. … The old mildew of indecision concerning the relative merits of Scotland and Ireland as a jumping-off ground continued to blight the Royalist counsels during this critical summer. Yet a realistic appraisal of the Irish situation should have made its relative weakness clear.

  Ireland was full of armies. The island itself was inhabited by an enormous variety of factions, in which religion and ethnic origin made many weird combinations – there were Anglican English, Anglican Anglo-Irish, Catholic Anglo-Irish, Catholic Irish and Presbyterian Scots, and that was not the end of it. Nearly all these bodies were represented at one time or another by an army, or at least combined into a military force. The presence of the Papal Nuncio further complicated matters by inspiring the view, at any rate in the breasts of Catholics, that Papal money might be enlisted. But the Pope, like the Presbyterians, demanded religious concessions.

  Ireland was therefore a quagmire during this period, rather than the sort of solid ground from which a counter-offensive could be launched. Yet still the Royalists dithered and would not commit themselves to Scotland.

  On 25 June Cardinal Mazarin, with the shadow of the impending war and the Fronde athwart him, released Charles. He had by now too many troubles of his own to wish to add to them by the presence of the English Prince of Wales. Now, if ever, was the moment at which Charles should have joined the Scottish Engagers under their leader the Duke of Hamilton. The Scots were about to invade England with a vast but ill-equipped army – it lacked any artillery, for instance. The propaganda value of the presence of the Prince of Wales at its head would have been immense, as the Scots themselves fully realized. It would have enabled this force to present itself as a monarchical army of liberation – rather than an invading body of England’s unpopular neighbours, the Scots.

  But Charles, on leaving France, had been re-routed to Holland by the news that part of the English fleet had revolted against Parliament. At first this seemed a wonderful portent of good things to come. At Helvoetsluys Charles found the rebellious sailors, and also his younger brother James, whom he had not encountered for over three years, since he left Oxford. Alas, the revolt of these ships proved an excessive blessing in terms of Charles’ fortunes. Not only did it provide an additional and fatal motive for delay in joining the Scottish army. It also provoked a coolness between the royal brothers which the Prince of Wales could well have done without, dependent as he was on his family for support.

  The trouble was that the disaffected sailors turned out to be rebelling against naval discipline, law and order, rather than against Parliament itself. Yet already James, with joy, had placed himself at their head. Despite its rashness, one can at least sympathize with this action on the part of the fifteen-year-old Duke of York. He was after all titular High Admiral. James was here enjoying his first measure of liberty since his dramatic escape from Parliamentary captivity in April. He had carried out that escape, dressed in woman’s clothes, specifically to avoid being used as a pawn against his father and elder brother, which had been Parliament’s hope after Charles rejected their approaches. It was natural to wish to spread his wings. The revolt of the fleet offered the perfect opportunity.

  But these wings his elder brother now proceeded smartly to clip. James was ejected from his self-appointed post
of admiral ‘much to his mortification’. He complained sulkily that he was once more being treated as a prisoner ‘and not trusted with himself’.10 Even more to the point, Charles sent packing a Colonel Bampfylde. This doubtful character, who had aided James in his escape, was now intriguing to put him in Charles’ place; James would then sail the fleet on his own responsibility. The brothers had been extremely close as children, devoted companions in boyhood, sharing the intimacies of such experiences as Edgehill and the tricky Court years at Oxford. It was regrettable that this new phase in their relationship, when they met for the first time as adults, opened under a cloud.

  Charles’ precise attitude to his brother James is one of the most fascinating conundrums both of his own nature and of his reign. From 1649 onwards James was only a heartbeat away from the throne, such as it was. Just as Parliament had turned from the vision of a pliant Prince of Wales to that of an accommodating Duke of York, there would always be the danger of others during the years of exile toying with the same fantasy. Rumours of Charles’ illness and death always brought the provident and the toadies scurrying to James’ side. It was sad but inevitable that Charles’ new relationship with his brother had to be built upon suspicion as well as affection.

  The fleet, which had arrived ‘full of anger, hatred and disdain’, was restored to discipline.11 Lord Willoughby of Parham, who had the advantage of being a Presbyterian, was made Vice-Admiral. It was now time to resume the original plan of sailing for Scotland. Money and supplies continued to present difficulties and the Dutch were not in a particularly generous mood. Nevertheless, on 17 July Charles set sail and by 24 July the fleet was off Yarmouth.

  Meanwhile, matters had already progressed in the north. Hamilton had actually crossed the border on 8 July. The Covenanters however did not join him and remained in Scotland, like so many Achilles sulking in their tents. In the absence of the Prince of Wales, gleeful Parliamentary propaganda put exactly that xenophobic construction upon the expedition which the wiser Royalists dreaded. The Parliamentary newspaper Mercurius Britannicus was able to write disdainfully of the Scots bringing ‘their lice and Presbytery amongst us’.12 Mere words of scorn might not have harmed the royal cause overmuch: the trouble was that northern Royalists, acting on the same anti-Scottish principle, simply did not join in with the so-called Scottish army of liberation as had been expected. The Scottish army’s reputation for plunder, as it zig-zagged uneasily south, completed the disastrous picture. Rumours that the Scots would be rewarded with good English lands for their efforts were readily believed.

  In the south, Charles, at the head of his newly acquired fleet, showed resolution and courage. It was born of a surge of new Royalist optimism, since he was in no position to appreciate how disastrously the northern situation was deteriorating. He tried first to save Colchester, which was being besieged by Fairfax. Then he sailed for the Downs, seizing a number of merchant ships on the way and exacting a useful ransom of £20,000 from the Common Council. Next he set up a blockade at the mouth of the Thames, penning in the Earl of Warwick and the rest of the Parliamentary fleet. Here another important ship absconded to his side; now in command of a fleet of eleven ships, carrying a total of nearly three hundred guns, Charles felt sufficiently confident to write to the House of Lords on behalf of his father.

  It was certainly in Charles’ mind that he might soon be in a position to rescue the King, still in his Isle of Wight fastness, if this naval superiority was maintained.

  At this point the Scots reminded Charles strongly of their prior strategic claims. On 10 August an emissary from the Committee of the Estates, in the shape of the Earl of Lauderdale, arrived in order to persuade Charles to fulfil his promise and join them. Yet, even at this stage, both sides continued to argue out the points of dispute – mainly religious – between them. The Prince was informed in unvarnished terms that certain members of his train, such as Prince Rupert, the Marquess of Montrose and Lord Digby, would not be welcome among the Scots. And there was no question of the Prince being accompanied by his own Anglican (non-Covenanting) chaplains. The Prince must also promise to use the Presbyterian form of service.

  It is true that the Prince and Lauderdale did establish a good personal relationship. This Lauderdale, a man of thirty, must be distinguished from the infinitely grosser and less attractive post-Restoration statesman he subsequently became. He was odd-looking, with a mass of uncouth red hair hanging down on either side of his face, but he was acute and quick-witted, despite his barbaric appearance. Nevertheless, for all his Caliban quality, Lauderdale would go down in history as the only Scot Charles actually liked. As for Lauderdale himself, from the first he formed ‘a great opinion’ of the Prince’s ‘power’ – ‘We are like to be very happy with him,’ he wrote.13

  For all this amity, no immediate resolution of the problem of the Covenant versus the Royal Anglican position was found.

  Neither the Prince nor Lauderdale were aware that as these discussions on the finer points of Presbyterianism raged, General Cromwell was sweeping down on the hapless Scots. They had reached Lancashire; he approached them across the Pennines. It was a dramatic tactical manœuvre, the finest of Cromwell’s career. It met its reward at the Battle of Preston on 17 August, at which Cromwell defeated the numerically far superior Royalists by pouncing on them from the rear.

  Only the day before, Lauderdale had been finally called into the Prince’s Council and told that his conditions would be accepted. It did not help that the scene in which concessions – too late – were made to the Scots was extremely unpleasantly handled. Prince Rupert, who was about to be excluded, found himself sitting next to Lauderdale, who was successfully demanding that exclusion.

  The sacrifice and the humiliation were in vain. A few days later the news of the disastrous defeat at Preston made it clear that the Second Civil War was in effect at an end. And with it had perished the Engagers’ authority in Scotland. It was now Lauderdale who was unable to return to a Scotland newly dominated by the Kirk, the Covenanters, and ‘gley-eyed’ (squinting) Argyll – all those uncontaminated by the recent débâcle.

  The whole incident left a bitter taste behind it. Each party, Royalists and Scots, could argue that they had been let down by the other. This sour sediment was not a good omen for any future co-operation between them.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The King’s Son

  ‘Almighty God, who do’st establish thrones of Princes, and the succession in those thrones, by giving thy judgements to the King, and thy righteousness to the King’s Son …’

  ‘Prayer for the Prince of Wales’, The Cavalier Soldier’s

  Vade-Mecum, 1648

  In the light of the Scottish defeat at Preston, the immediate instinct of the Prince of Wales was to head back for Holland. There counsel could be taken, this new situation assessed and a new strategy devised. There was obviously no future in hanging about the shores of England. The Engagers were in total disarray. Nothing could be expected from the Covenanting Scots.

  But Charles reckoned without his surly navy.

  Seeing no reason whatsoever to depart without the fun of a fight, they crowded on deck of the royal ship and threatened to throw Lauderdale and John Colepeper overboard. It was their belief – quite unfounded – that this little clique intended to take the Prince away from them in a single ship. The only person they would heed was their Prince himself. Charles rose to the occasion. After a great deal of pacification at his hands – or the ‘so kind words’, as they were afterwards described – the sailors finally agreed to return to Holland.

  Or so it was believed on the Prince’s ship. In fact, two of the largest vessels continued to ignore orders and sailed defiantly in the direction of Lord Warwick and the Parliamentary Navy. This was an age when there were new chords of disobedience to be heard, amidst the general music of strife and war. It was a phenomenon from which neither side was immune. The year before, the ranks of the Parliamentary Army had threatened their officers in a b
ellicose manner; in 1649 the Levellers in the Burford mutiny would challenge the authority of Cromwell himself.

  The royal ship was compelled to give chase to the deviants and an absurd and unnecessary engagement took place. The action would have been farcical if men’s lives had not been at stake. Before the battle was joined the rival royal commanders, Sir William Batten and Prince Rupert, were already yapping at each other like jealous dogs. When Batten wiped the sweat off the back of his neck with a napkin Rupert took it as a signal to the enemy and threatened to shoot Batten for treachery if they were defeated.

  The only person who continued to behave with calm and courage, as he had done throughout this long and trying summer, was Prince Charles. He refused to go below decks to protect himself, just as he had tried to remain on the scene of battle at Edgehill. This time he had his way. He told his attendant lords very firmly that dishonour meant more to him than his safety, and stayed on deck.

  The sailors’ action was particularly ill-advised since they had hardly any water aboard. In the end it was a propitious storm which saved them from the consequences of their rashness by deflecting the Parliamentary Navy from their challenge. And on 3 September, when there was a possibility of an encounter with Warwick’s ships, they were saved by the determination of the Dutch States-General to remain neutral. The Dutch Admiral Tromp was ordered to station himself between the Royal Tweedledee and the Parliamentary Tweedledum.

  So Charles returned at last to Holland.

  For the next six months he was, with his brother James, more or less dependent on the personal charity of the Prince of Orange, the Dutch States-General having declined to provide further financial assistance for the crippled English Royalist cause. It was a curious time in Charles’ life, during which cares were not unalleviated by pleasures. Like the phoney war which preceded the bombing of London at the beginning of the Second World War, it was in some ways a period of calm and even relaxation, a prelude to, rather than a foretaste of, the searing experiences to follow.