by Jean Plaidy
I continued to laugh and Charles managed to smile. It was such an incongruous idea. There had always been Kings; and who were these people who went about looking like black crows with their ridiculous haircuts?
If only we could have looked into the future then, perhaps we could have done something to prevent the holocaust. I think we might well have. When I look back I see the way we came was strewn with warnings which we ignored.
But for the time there was the problem of my mother.
Charles knew it would be a mistake to give her refuge in England, but he also knew that it was what I wanted. I could not bear the thought of her going about Europe like a beggar pleading for sanctuary. I wondered how my brother could allow her to be treated so, but I supposed he was under the thumb of that hateful old Richelieu. At least he gave her a pension but he was adamant about her leaving France. To be turned away from one’s home must be horribly humiliating, particularly when one had in the past been its ruler.
She was now in Holland and one of Charles’s agents there had sent a message to tell him that he believed she had plans for coming to England.
“The people would not like it,” said Charles, and he looked at me sadly. It was a great sorrow to him that the people had turned against me. I think he would rather have heard them cheer me than himself. He rarely ever did. I was not only a foreigner, I was a Catholic and that was enough to turn a great many people in England against me. “And,” went on Charles, “you know the state of the exchequer. We can hardly afford to entertain your mother in the manner she would expect.”
“Poor dear lady,” I said. “I daresay she would be pleased to receive any warm welcome from someone who cared about her.”
Charles was very depressed and I knew this was because he had sent a messenger to Holland to tell his agents to do everything to dissuade my mother from coming to England.
She must have known that she was unwanted but, being my mother, that did not deter her. I was her daughter; she imagined that I was rich and powerful. I was after all the Queen of England. Perhaps she did not know that there were certain difficulties in the country now, but even if she did she would sweep those aside. I knew her well. She was the sort of woman who made circumstances fit her needs.
I wondered how she felt about the new baby at the Court of France. There had been great excitement there for months because Anne of Austria, after twenty-three years of infertility, had given birth to a boy.
However I knew that the King was probably right in not inviting her to England but on the other hand I did feel that I had failed her. I decided I would try to persuade Charles to let her come if only for a brief visit. But that would mean that if she liked it here her visit would not be a brief one.
This was the state of affairs when we heard that my mother had actually set sail from Holland and was making her way to the English coast. Moreover she was bringing with her one hundred and sixty attendants and servants, six coaches and seventy horses, which was a clear indication that she expected to be received in a manner worthy of a queen.
Charles was nonplussed. “But I have not invited her,” he cried in despair. “I have not given her permission to come here….”
I knew that he was thinking of what it was going to cost to house my mother and I hated to see the furrows in his brow, but what could I do? I went to him and slipped my arm through his while I looked up at him pleadingly. “I could never be happy if we turned her away,” I said. “She is my mother….”
He tried to explain to me the cost and the attitude of the people—but eventually I won. The fact that I was pregnant again made him very anxious not to upset me. He promised that he would go himself in state to meet her to show everyone that she came as an honored guest. I should prepare rooms for her and have three thousand pounds to spend on any alteration or new furniture which I deemed necessary. She was my mother and for that reason, naturally he must welcome her.
I hugged him and told him he was the most wonderful husband in the world and my mother would be so happy to see what a perfect marriage I had made.
He was as good as his word and set out for Chelmsford and I went to St. James’s, where the children had their apartments, and chose fifty rooms for my mother.
My baby was due in four months’ time and I was feeling heavy and tired but exhilarated by the thought of seeing my mother. I had told the children that she was coming and the elder ones were very interested. Charles was now aged eight and different from the others, with his black hair cut into a fringe which almost covered his black brows, under which his flashing dark eyes were the most lively I ever saw in a child of his age. Mary, only a year younger, was beautiful and so was James; Elizabeth was three and Anne only a baby. She had been born in March of the previous year and within a few months I had become pregnant again. And I was not thirty yet! I often wondered how many children I would have. I was happy to be the wife of an ardent and loving husband and to have produced a growing family but frequent childbearing was often taxing and I certainly did not feel well at this time.
However, I tried to forget my own discomforts and prepare for my mother. Riders came in breathlessly to tell me that she had had a good reception in London, that people had hung out banners in the streets and that the Lord Mayor in all the splendor of his office had greeted her. I was immensely relieved because one could never be sure of the people of London and, with all those horrid Puritans about, they might have decided to become hostile. But they did love pageantry and it may have been that they found that more entertaining than a stupid riot. But I liked to think they did homage to my mother as a woman who had once been Regent of France and was still mother of their Queen.
I heard the sound of trumpets which meant that the cavalcade was approaching St. James’s. Young Charles was right beside me and the others came toddling up. I hurried into the courtyard. I could not think of ceremony at such a moment.
I ran to my mother’s coach, the children at my heels, and I tried to pull open the door. One of the coachmen opened it for me and as my mother stepped out, I was so overcome with emotion that I dropped to my knees and begged her to give me her blessing.
With great joy I took her into the palace and showed her the apartments I had had made ready for her. I was rather shocked by her appearance. It was, after all, a long time since I had seen her. I had been the fortunate one. I had learned to love my husband and had made for myself a family life so felicitous that I could not believe many people were so blessed. Poor Queen Marie! She was sixty-five years old and her life during the last years had been very uncomfortable. She had never been beautiful and events, with the aid of time, had ravaged such looks as she had had. But I was quick to realize that the indomitable spirit had remained intact, and so had the determination to manage the lives of all those about her.
She talked incessantly. She was poor…yes poor! She, the Queen of France, now lived in abject poverty. She had her jewels…oh yes, she had been clever enough to bring those with her and it had occurred to her that she might have to sell some of them.
“I will buy them, dear Mother,” I cried. “That will give you some money and you will know the jewels are safe.”
She patted my arm. She said I was a good girl and as I was rich she would be glad to accept the money for the jewels and know that they were safe in the family.
I said: “I am not really rich, my lady. There is always trouble about money. There is never enough. Charles is always wanting money and unable to get it except by unpopular taxation.”
“The perpetual cry of Kings!” replied my mother. “Of course there is money, dear child. There always is in a country. It is a matter of knowing how to extract it. You shall have the jewels. I may not be here long, you know, to burden you.”
“Burden us!” I cried. “Dear Mother, how can you talk like that?”
“I did not mean I am going to die,” she replied. “I know you are pleased that I have come to be with you. It was far too long that we were apart, Henriet
te chérie. I will stay with you and help you. But I may be called back to France.”
“Do you think the Cardinal…”
“The Cardinal!” She spat out the words. “He is plagued by a terrible cough. He can’t keep warm. I hear he sits by the fire drinking that sickly strawberry syrup which is the only thing which gives his throat some relief. He crouches over the fire because he cannot keep warm. How long do you think he can last like that?”
“You really think he is desperately ill?”
“I know, my child. You don’t think I have been idle. I know what is going on. One advantage of being in exile is that one can send out one’s spies and no one can be absolutely sure who they are. There are always advantages in life, child.”
“I cannot understand my brother’s turning you away.”
“Oh, he is a weakling, Louis. He always was. He is guided by his wife and the Cardinal. He is nothing…a puppet…a cypher.”
“And the baby?”
She nodded, smiling. “A healthy boy. Another Louis.” She came close to me. “No, I shall not be here with you long, dear child. A breathing space, that’s all I need. My astrologers have told me that Louis cannot last more than a year or so. He is a sick man. He was never strong. And then when he is dead…can a baby rule? Little Louis XIV will be still in his nursery. Then it is for me to return and take over the reins as I did when your father died.”
“And this is the prophecy?”
“It is and I have had the best astrologers in Europe. Their verdict is always the same. So it would be advisable for your Charles to make me happy here. I could be of great importance to him later on.”
I was overawed. It all seemed so plausible and I had seen the evidence of astrologers and soothsayers. I should never forget Eleanor Davys and her prophecy about the first baby I had had.
My mother’s presence at Court did mean that I must spend a great deal of time with her, which gave me less time for my husband. She loved the children and was most impressed by Charles. She even liked his looks and said he had inherited them from some of my father’s ancestors—The Brigands of Navarre she called them.
“He has a look of your father,” she said. “Mon Dieu, how he reminds me! Quick, lively, eyes everywhere. Let us hope they do not linger on every woman in the vicinity as your father’s did. I had to shut my eyes to his infidelities and I did so without complaint…for the sake of the crown. You, my dear Henriette, have no such trouble with your husband. He seems a mild man…but devoted to you. There seems to be nothing but pregnancies for you. I know what that means. Your father always took time off from his lights of love to fill the royal nurseries. How different you are with your Charles. You are a very fortunate woman, Henriette.”
I told her I realized that and if only Charles would stop worrying about the troubles of the country and those wretched Protestants—and worse still Puritans—I could be completely happy.
“It appears there is always trouble for rulers, but you have done well and I believe even the Holy Father is pleased with you.”
“How is Madame St. George? Have you heard?”
“I haven’t seen her since I left France, of course. I think she is happy with that little tyrant. Gaston dotes on his daughter. It is a pity he could not get a son. Little Mademoiselle de Montpensier is very rich, for Gaston’s wife, as you know, left everything to her when she died. It is a pity it did not go to Gaston. It is a mistake, in my opinion, for young people to inherit large fortunes.”
“She will find it easy to get a husband.”
“My dear child, they are waiting to pounce. Gaston will have to be careful. I should be there to make sure no mistakes are made. Well, perhaps soon…according to the prophets….”
I was a little sad at the thought of Louis’s dying. After all, he was my brother and although I had seen very little of him and I did think of him more as the King of France than a relation, the bond was still there. My mother was so sure that he was going to die and I couldn’t help feeling a little horrified that she seemed to be looking forward to the event.
Power! I thought. How people crave for it! I didn’t think I did. What I really wanted was to be with my husband and family in a peaceful country where there were no troubles—but of course that must be a country which had turned to the Catholic Faith.
My mother was saying: “I could have returned to Florence.”
“Oh, my dear lady, that would have been wonderful,” I replied. “You could have gone back to your family.”
“Oh yes. The Medicis would have welcomed me. They have a strong family feeling. It would have been strange to be in Florence again, to stroll along the Arno and to live in the old palace. But think how I should have gone back. A queen yes, but one who had been turned out of her adopted country by her own son and a cardinal. No, I could not do that.” For a moment the mask of optimism slipped from her face and I glimpsed a rather fearful old woman. Fleetingly I wondered how much she really believed in those prophecies. She added slowly: “I could not go back to Florence…a failure.” Then the mask was back again. “One day, I shall be very busy. If I have to return to France—I am sure the message will come before long—then I shall be fully engaged with affairs in Paris.”
While she was waiting for all that, she concerned herself with affairs in England.
The children were very interested in her and I was delighted to see how well they got on. She wanted to take charge of the nurseries. Charles, oddly enough for such a precocious child, had always taken a wooden toy to bed with him. He had had it when he was about two years old, had formed an attachment to it and his nurses told me that he would not go to sleep without it.
“Nonsense,” said my mother. “Of course he must give it up. It is not becoming in the Prince of Wales to need toys to go to bed with.”
She talked to Charles very seriously and somehow made him see that it was childish and not worthy of a future King.
When that argument was put to him he allowed them to take the toy away. He was very interested in the fact that he would one day be King and was already talking now and then of what he would do, and it was only this which made him relinquish his toy.
He was a shrewd, often devious little boy. We were amused by the incident of the physic, but at the same time it did show that he had a clever, if crafty, nature. The fact was that he had refused to take some physic which his Governor, Lord Newcastle, thought he needed and Newcastle had complained to me, so I wrote to Charles telling him that I had heard he had refused to take his physic and if he persisted I should have to come and make him take it as it was for his health’s sake. I added that I had told Lord Newcastle to let me know whether or not he had taken his medicine and I hoped he was not going to disappoint me.
Lord Newcastle visited me next day with a note which he said the Prince had sent him.
“My Lord,” Charles had written in his still-childish script and on ruled lines to keep the writing straight, “I would not take too much physic for it doth always make me worse and I think it will do the like for you. I ride every day and am ready to follow any other direction from you. Charles P.”
I could not help laughing and was so impressed by the wit of my son that I told Lord Newcastle that we would not impose the physic for a day or so and if the boy was well enough without it he deserved to escape.
How could I help being proud of such a boy? And I was sure that even my mother could not succeed in getting the better of him.
My mother was complaining now that Mary ate too much at breakfast and must expect to be sick if in addition to manchets of bread and beef and mutton she took chicken as well. Also she drank too much ale.
It was true that when her rather large meals were curtailed Mary did seem better.
My mother was not popular. People thought she was too extravagant and that too much money was being spent on her entourage and entertainment. It was true that she expected to live like a queen—but then she was a queen.
The weather had c
hanged as soon as she arrived, and the southern half of the country was engulfed in storms and gales which caused a great deal of damage. The people, always superstitious, said it was a sign and meant that the Queen Mother was going to be a menace to the country. It was very upsetting and I was afraid my mother would hear these rumors. But if she did, she brushed them aside. I had forgotten her capacity to accept only what she wanted to happen.
Whenever the weather was bad during my mother’s stay in England, the Thames watermen would shout to each other that this was more of the weather the Queen Mother had brought to England, as though she used some malicious influence in the heavens to make us uncomfortable.
As a queen she looked upon luxury as her natural right and maintaining her household was a drain on the exchequer. She did not, however, see why the people of England should not pay for it. They did, and complained bitterly about her in the streets and now and then I overheard unflattering comments. It was said that she was a trouble-bringer and there was never tranquility when she was nearby. There was grumbling about the people of England being taxed to pay for her “shaggrags”—by which I presume they meant her household.
Charles grew worried and told me he had sent a message to King Louis urging him to invite his mother back to France. “It is the best way,” he said. “She pines for the old life in Paris. I know that she has entered into intrigues in the past, but I feel sure she would promise not to if you would only have her back.”
Charles explained to me that, apart from the expense of keeping her in England, her presence was an irritation to the people and that was something he wanted to avoid because he was growing more and more uneasy about the state of the country.
I hated to see him worried so I made no protest, but Louis wrote back to the effect that however much his mother promised not to meddle she would be unable to prevent herself doing so because she was a meddler by nature; and he would not give her permission to return to France. He was sorry for his brother-in-law but he must be as firm as Louis himself was and explain to Queen Marie that her presence was no longer wanted in England.