by Jean Plaidy
Of course neither offense was very great and all that happened was that Holland was confined for a while to his house in Kensington and Henry Jermyn was sent away from the Court for a short time to stay in a private house.
It was typical of both men that they should make the most of their captivity. Holland gave parties and it was said that he attracted all the most amusing people from Court to visit him. I heard that his parties were the most exciting thing that was happening. The Court certainly seemed a little dull without those two. I particularly missed Henry Jermyn. I did not realize how much he had amused me until I had lost his company.
Charles had become more friendly than ever with the Earl of Portland since the incident and with his son—the little spy, I called him. They were both high in Charles’s favor.
I said to Charles, rather bitterly: “It is clear that you will never listen to my desires. You punish my friends and cherish my enemies.”
“You rule my heart,” said Charles, who could be very sentimental at times, “but, my dearest love, because God made me King I have to rule this kingdom. Those whom you think are your friends are not truly so for if they work against me and my ministers they cannot be mine, and you and I are as one, and therefore what is evil for me is evil for you also.”
I was so happy with Charles and the babies that I did not really want anything changed; but I did think a great deal about Holland and Henry Jermyn, and after a few weeks, because I missed them so much, Charles said they could return to Court. So they came back and I was delighted. But Charles was cool to them both and his trust in the Earl of Portland seemed not to have decreased.
Charles said that Holland was unreliable and I should not become too friendly with him. I reminded him that he had arranged our marriage and I added: “He will always have a special place in my regard because he did that.”
Charles was touched and very soon these two gentlemen were as much in evidence as ever, though I did believe they saw how useless it was to try to shift the King’s trust in his Treasurer.
It was soon after that that the second trouble arose.
I noticed that Eleanor Villiers had been looking a little strained lately and it gradually dawned on me that she was in a certain condition which I myself had been in more than once so I was very much aware of the signs.
I called her to me one day, making sure that we were alone and I said: “Eleanor, are you feeling quite well?”
She looked startled and then blushed a fiery red, so I knew I had not been mistaken.
“Who?” I asked.
She would not say at first and I thought I could not press her…just yet.
“How soon?” I asked.
“Five months,” she replied.
“Well, Eleanor,” I went on, “it is a good thing I know. Your marriage will have to take place without delay.”
She was silent and I feared the worst.
“He is married?” I asked.
She shook her head.
“Then that is good. There must be no delay. Why did you wait so long?”
“He does not want to marry.”
“Does not want to marry! But he will have to keep his promise.”
“He made no promise.”
“You mean that you…a lady of the Court…without a promise of marriage….”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
I said angrily: “Who is this man?”
And then she told me. “Henry Jermyn.”
“Oh, the rogue,” I cried. “Leave this to me. The King will be most put out. You know what a high standard of morality he sets upon the Court. I will speak to Jermyn at once. Go and leave this to me.”
I sent for Henry. He looked as jaunty as ever—not in the least like a man who was heading for trouble. He took my hand and kissed it.
I said: “I have just been talking to Eleanor Villiers.”
Even then he did not look in the least disturbed.
I went on: “She had some distressing news to tell me. I think you must know what it is.”
He put his head on one side in an amusing way he had and regarded me with earnestness. I said severely: “It is no use assuming innocence. You know what you have been doing. You have got the poor girl with child.”
“Most careless,” he said.
“I agree with that. There is nothing you can do but marry her.”
“That I cannot do.”
“What do you mean? You cannot marry her! You are a bachelor, are you not?”
“A very impoverished one.”
“I cannot see that that should prevent your marriage.”
“Alas, the lady is also impoverished and now that her uncle is dead and blessings have ceased to flow on the family, she is as poor as I am and such poverty should always be a bar to marriage.”
“You are a wicked man,” I said.
“Who sometimes amuses Your Majesty. If I can do that I must be content.”
“The King will hear of it and be most displeased.”
“I regret that.”
“He may well order you to marry the lady.”
“I do not think the King would step outside his rights.”
“No. He always does what is right. Well, Henry, there will be trouble over this. She is after all a lady of the Court and a member of the Buckingham family at that.”
“I know,” he said mournfully.
“You should marry her.”
“It would not be a good marriage for either of us. She is a charming girl…but penniless, and I am a rogue as you say and not worthy of her.”
In spite of his light manner I could see that his mind was made up.
The King was most distressed. “I will not have this immorality in my Court,” he said.
“You cannot make them marry though. Do you think Eleanor Villiers would want to marry a man who did not want to marry her?”
“As there is to be a child, yes.”
“But I do see Henry’s point. If he marries her he will have no chance of retrieving his fortunes.”
“If he doesn’t what chance has she of making a happy marriage?”
I looked at him helplessly and thought again how fortunate I was in my happy marriage.
I flung my arms round him and told him so. He smiled quietly and indulgently at my demonstrative behavior, which was so unlike his own; he patted me and said that he would consider the matter and decide what should be done.
The King saw both Eleanor Villiers and Henry separately.
He was determined then that Henry should marry Eleanor. He said he must have promised marriage before she agreed to intimacy with him but Eleanor, who was a very honest girl, said there had been no talk of marriage.
The King was horrified, but she said; “I loved him too much.”
Charles was touched and that made him all the more angry with Henry. He said that as there had been no promise of marriage he could not insist on it, but he would not for one moment give his approval to what Henry Jermyn had done. He did not demand that there should be a marriage but he said that Henry would not be welcome at Court until there was one.
That meant banishment. Henry went abroad and once more I was deprived of his company.
In the meantime I had become pregnant again. I often thought that Buckingham must have laid a spell on me because during the time of his ascendancy over Charles, I remained barren; and no sooner was he dead than I became as fertile as any woman in England.
When I told Charles that I was expecting another child he was overjoyed.
“We must go to Scotland soon,” he said, “for you will not be able to travel when your pregnancy is advanced.”
“Scotland!” I cried in dismay. I had never liked what I heard about the place. It was cold and the people were dour, so said my informants. I thought some of them in our own Court were solemn enough so I did not relish going among those who were more so.
“It is time I was crowned there,” said Charles. “The people expect it.”
I
was immediately apprehensive. I had refused to be crowned with the King in England. How could I possibly be in Scotland? I was in a very difficult position as my French advisers had pointed out. For a Queen not to be crowned was to place herself in a position which could be dangerous. On the other hand, how could I, a fervent Catholic, bow to the doctrines and customs of the Protestant Church?
“I cannot do it,” I said. “I should hate myself if I did. It would be wrong. I cannot deny my Faith.”
Charles tried to explain patiently that there was no question of denying my Faith. All I had to do was stand beside him and be crowned. But I knew there was that in the coronation ceremony which obligated the sovereign to swear to live in the Reformed Faith. I knew what that meant. It was flouting the Holy Church, and I could not do it.
In the old days there would have been a quarrel. There was none now.
Charles looked at me sadly and tenderly; he said that he understood the depth of my feelings and would do nothing to distress me.
So he went to Scotland without me and I stayed at home to await the birth of my next child.
When I look back in the light of hindsight, and perhaps because I have become wiser than I was, I think perhaps the first seeds of disaster were sown during that visit to Scotland. I now understand the character of my husband as I never did then. Then I loved him for his concern for me, his devotion and the knowledge that he was one of the few faithful husbands at Court and because he made me feel cherished and beautiful. Now I can love him for his many sterling qualities and at the same time for the weaknesses which would destroy him.
I thought then—and I think now—that Charles was one of the most noble and virtuous men ever to sit on the throne of England; he was a good man, but to be a good man is not necessarily to be a good King; some of the greatest Kings who ever lived have been far from good in their private lives. I see now that the two lives are different and one cannot be judged against the other. We do not judge a man but a king. As a man Charles was noble and good; as a king he was often blind, often foolish, unable to see beyond his own vision, which was misted over by the firm belief that Kings are chosen by God and rule by the Divine Right.
I can see all this now; but I could not see it then. In fact I did not give much thought to it. If I had been asked I should have said that of course we should go on living as we were, raising our children, and in due course my eldest son would take the crown. There were outcries about taxes and Charles said the exchequer was in a sorry state but that had often happened before and as it never made any difference to my way of life, I ignored it.
Now I look back at Charles and try to see him as he was—a smallish man, fastidious and very reserved; he took a long time to make friends, but when he did he became devoted to them, as I had seen through Buckingham and, once he had really grown to love, with me. He was the sort of man whose friendship was to be completely trusted. He was very steadfast in his opinions, and if he liked or disliked a person it was hard to shake either his trust or his suspicion. He loved art in any form and once told me how he would have enjoyed being able to paint, write verses, or compose music; he lacked the talent of performance yet that did not mean he was not a good judge and he did a great deal to encourage painters, musicians and writers at our Court.
“I want a cultivated Court,” he once said to me.
I enjoyed these things, too, so that was an added bond between us.
Dear Charles! He could not make friends easily and he never really understood the people whom he was so anxious to govern well. Later I read a great deal about Queen Elizabeth. This was when I was trying to understand what had gone wrong. I remembered those pilgrimages she made through the country—getting to know the people, always pleasing the people; she had been much more careful in her treatment of them than she was of her intimate friends. Oh, she was a clever woman—a great Queen and a great ruler…but she lacked the noble personal character of my Charles.
He would become less aloof in the hunting field. He loved horses and understood them far better than he did people. Perhaps that was why he liked to be with them and avoided human contact—except with those few whom he loved.
He was so constantly reading the book his father had written called Basilicon Doron that he must have known it off by heart for it was not very long. It was a kind of guide book for kings and had been intended for Charles’s elder brother, who had died leaving Charles to bear the burden. The theme of this book was that a king had received his crown from God. Charles never forgot that and he always believed firmly in the Divine Right of anointed Kings to govern their people.
I realize that I was in a great measure responsible for the people’s dissatisfaction—but perhaps I should say my religion was. There were, it was true, many Roman Catholics in England, but the country as a whole was solidly behind the Reformed Church. And here was I, the Queen—a Catholic.
Charles did everything he could to make things easy for me. He never tried to make me give up my Faith and I had my chapel, which was as Catholic as anything I had in France. But the people did not like it. He had introduced certain ceremonials into the Church of which the people did not approve and Charles, believing that he had Divine guidance in this, had directed the clergy to keep silent on the matter. There was trouble with the people they called Arminians, who were followers of a Dutchman, Jacobus Arminius. He had published a book which opposed some of the teachings of Calvin, and the Commons had wanted the Arminian theory to be suppressed and were annoyed with the King’s attitude. This was disastrous for him because he needed their support over the tonnage and poundage matters which could provide funds for the Treasury.
I paid very little attention—I wish now that I had paid more. I might have seen the storm clouds gathering and done something to protect ourselves from them.
Charles had dismissed that Parliament and not called another. For eleven years he had ruled without a parliament. How blind we were not to realize what forces we were building up against ourselves.
Meanwhile the King went to Scotland. There he angered the Scots by being crowned by five bishops all ceremoniously dressed in white rochets and sleeves and copes of gold and shoes of blue silk of which the Scots did not approve; moreover the communion table was arranged after the manner of an altar with a tapestry set up behind it on which the crucifix was put up.
This was bringing something which the Scots called near-idolatry into their Church and they did not like it. Moreover they strongly resented it and there was a very dangerous moment during the Parliament which Charles was forced to call in Edinburgh after his coronation, when the matter of imposing apparel on churchmen was raised.
The majority of members voted against it, but Charles, who was certain he could manage very well—in fact much better without Parliament, instructed the clerk of the court to announce that the matter had been carried in the affirmative.
Charles then said that the decision must be right since the clerk had made it, and since it was a capital offense to falsify the records were some members going to accuse the clerk? None was prepared to put the clerk into such a dangerous situation, for how could they know what would be proved against him; but the Scottish nobles were not the kind of men to allow this to pass. There were objectors and the chief of these was John Elphinstone, Lord Balmerino, who was consequently arrested and put into Edinburgh Castle. Charles had returned to England before he was tried. It was imperative that Elphinstone should be found guilty and, when he was, the people gathered in the streets of Edinburgh, threatening to kill the judge and jurors, swearing vengeance on all those who had connived against their hero Elphinstone. He had to be reprieved but was made a prisoner in his castle at Balmerino and finally he was freed.
I mention this because I think it was one of the pointers to the King’s eventual fate and was the beginning of Scotland’s disenchantment with him.
The King returned from Scotland in time for the birth of our next child. There was great joy on that October day for
we had another boy. We called him James after Charles’s father and a pretty boy he was—so different from his brother. Poor Charles, his looks did not greatly improve, but he was certainly bright and clever enough to demand attention. Beside him James and Mary looked beautiful, but a little frail.
When the King pointed this out I replied: “All children look frail beside our dark gentleman. He is already twice as big as other children of his age. Don’t worry about the others because they lack his undoubted strength. They have the consolation of being beautiful.”
The arrival of a new baby was certain to arouse the controversy of religion. If Charles had not been a king who took his duties so seriously I was sure I could have made a Catholic of him by this time. But of course the English were a stubbornly Protestant people. I had always maintained that they were not deeply religious. They were Christians; they worshipped God, but they were a lazy people and they did not greatly care to bestir themselves until some issue was presented to them which they considered worth fighting for. How formidable they could be when this happened I did not learn until later. At this time I saw only their lazy indifference. Another thing which I had not seen was that there was a Puritan element beginning to arise in direct defiance of the beautiful church ceremonies and the gracious way of living which I flattered myself I had introduced with the help of Charles, who was such a great lover of art and all its beauties.
The trouble started with the baby. A boy was more important than a girl and, as he was a possible King, next in line to the dark gentleman, he must be baptized by the King’s Protestant chaplain. James was christened and created Duke of York and Albany. I was very proud of him because he was a good and beautiful baby, but I did feel that as he was mine I should not give way to the Protestants on every point, so I engaged a wet nurse knowing that she was a Catholic—in fact choosing her for that reason. It was soon being whispered about the Court that the nurse would inject the baby with idolatry and Charles’s advisers warned him that the nurse must either be converted to Protestantism or go.