by Jean Plaidy
I could feel nothing for them. That would come later. At this moment I could do nothing…think of nothing but this overwhelming tragedy.
Charles was dead and I should never see that dear face again.
DESPAIR
I do not know how long I sat there. I was unaware of time, of all those kind people around me who shared my suffering.
It was Madame de Motteville who in due course put her arms about me and helped me to my bed. I lay there and she knelt beside it. I could see the tears glistening on her cheeks. I shed none. My grief went too deep for tears. They were for ordinary tragedies, disappointments and frustrations; this was the greatest disaster that could befall me, and I longed above everything else to be lying beside him in his cold grave.
I dare not think of him…that beautiful head which I had so often caressed…. No, anything was better than thinking of that.
“Merciful death,” I prayed, “take me. Let me be with him in death as I was in life.”
Madame de Motteville was speaking gently. “Madame, dearest lady, you must live for your son. There is a new King of England now. God bless Charles the Second.”
She was right, of course. I saw that. I could not selfishly indulge my grief. What would he have said? He believed in the crown, the Divine Right of kings to rule. The King was dead. Now it was Long Live King Charles the Second. My son was nineteen years old. He was strong; he was royal.
Perhaps there was something yet to be saved.
“Madame,” said Madame de Motteville, “you will wish to send a message to the Queen of France.”
“Yes, yes,” I answered her. “Send someone to her, tell her of my state. Tell her that the death of the King, my husband, has made me the most unhappy woman in the world. Oh, warn her, my dear friend, warn the Queen of France. Tell her never to exasperate her people unless she is certain she has the power to subdue them. The people can become as a savage beast. My dear lost lord the King has proved that. I pray that she will be happier in France. Now I am desolate. I have lost that which meant more to me in life than anything else…a King, a husband and a friend.”
Madame de Motteville bowed her head and turned away because, I knew, she could no longer endure looking on my terrible grief.
I called on God to help me. I reproached Him for allowing this thing to happen. And then I repented and said that I knew it was His will and I wanted strength to bear it.
Madame de Motteville told me that she would go to Queen Anne and tell her what I had said; and as she was about to depart I called her back.
“There is one thing I wish you to say to her. Ask her this for my sake. If she does it, there will be a little lightness in the dark gloom of my life. I beg her to acknowledge my son the Prince of Wales as King of England, King Charles the Second, and my son James, the Duke of York, as his heir presumptive.”
Madame de Motteville left me and I realized that when I thought of my son I was beginning to live again.
I wanted to know all that had led up to that terrible climax in Whitehall but it was a long time before I was able to piece together the entire terrible events. Charles’s later life had been strewn with misfortune. Even after the escape to Carisbroke, where he had expected to find loyalty, he had been betrayed by Colonel Hammond, the Governor of the island. It was understandable that Charles should have expected Hammond to be his friend for he was a nephew of his chaplain. What Charles did not know was that he had married a daughter of John Hampden and become an ardent partisan of Oliver Cromwell. At first Hammond had treated Charles like an honored guest but even while he was doing this he was informing the Roundheads where Charles was, and my poor husband soon realized that he was a prisoner. How he must have despaired! But he would be calm and more serene than most men would be in his position, and while at the castle he had walked on the ramparts for exercise and played on the bowling green and spent a great deal of time reading.
I heard how he had made an attempt to escape when he discovered the perfidy of Hammond. There was a faithful attendant called Firebrace who acted as his page and planned escape with him. Firebrace’s scheme was that he should cut through the bars of the prison window, but Charles had thought this would attract attention and he believed he could squeeze his body through. He tried it with his head. They were ready. A ladder was placed against the window for it was planned that when Charles was on the ground below Firebrace would get him across the main courtyard to the main wall which he could descend by means of a rope. Men were waiting with a spare horse and close by was a boat which was ready to carry him to France. Everything was in order and would have succeeded but for the fact that Charles had miscalculated and although he got his head through the bars he was stuck between his breast and shoulders and could move neither in nor out.
Alas, poor Charles! Sometimes I think that Heaven itself was against him. If ever I had a chance I would find the good Firebrace and reward him for his attempt to help the King.
After that Charles was taken to Hurst Castle, a dreadful place which was situated on a kind of promontory off the Isle of Wight. There could not have been a more uncomfortable place, lashed as it was by the winds and at high tide cut off from the island. I could picture him in that grim fortress. He must have thought of some of his forebears who had offended their enemies and ended up in places such as Hurst Castle where they were done to hideous death.
Fortunately he was not long in Hurst Castle and from there was brought first to Windsor and then on January the fifteenth to London.
By this time Cromwell was in control and I wondered, not without some satisfaction, how the people liked being under the orders of the military. His soldiers took great pleasure in breaking up many of the beautiful churches and homes which in their narrow Puritan minds they thought were sinful. They even desecrated Westminster Abbey. The stupid people! Now they would learn what it was like to be ruled by men who had no joy in them, who made harsh rules and thought it was a sin to smile.
So they brought my Charles to trial and condemned him to death. I do not want to recall all the horrendous details. It is too painful even though it is so long ago. He was serene and went to his death like the brave man he was.
I cannot bear to think of the last time when he saw our two little ones, Elizabeth and Henry, who were brought from Zion House to take their last farewell of him.
I have heard it many times from different sources and each time I weep.
How could they be so cruel to two innocent children!
When my daughter Elizabeth saw her father she fell into passionate weeping. She knew what was in store for him and how different he must have looked from the handsome father she had known. He had suffered so much since they had last met. I pictured his graying hair, his resigned looks—but he would always be handsome, impeccable in dress and manner.
She could not speak to him through her weeping, and little Henry seeing his sister cry, joined in.
Charles drew them to him and embraced them. Elizabeth was only twelve but immediately afterward she wrote down exactly what had happened. I have read it many times and each time it fills me with an infinite tender sadness.
“I am glad you have come,” he told her, “for there is something I wish to say to you which I could not tell to another and the cruelty of it, I fear, was too great to permit me to write it…. But, sweetheart, you will forget what I tell thee.”
Elizabeth assured him that she would not. “For I will write it down,” she said, “and it will be with me for as long as I shall live.”
“Do not grieve,” he said. “Do not torment yourself for me. It will be a glorious death which I shall die, it being for the laws of the land and for religion. I have forgiven all my enemies and I hope God will forgive them too. You must forgive them, as must your brothers and sisters. When you see your mother…” And this is the part which I could never read without my tears blinding me…“tell her that my thoughts have never strayed from her and my love for her will be the same until the end. Love h
er and be obedient to her. Do not grieve for me. I shall die and I doubt not that God will restore the throne to your brother and then you will all be happier than you would have been if I had lived.”
Then he took little Henry onto his knee. “Sweetheart,” he said, “now they will cut off thy father’s head.”
Poor little Henry stared at his father’s neck and seemed utterly dismayed and bewildered.
“Heed what I say, my child,” went on the King. “They will cut off my head and perhaps make thee King. But mark what I say, you must not be King as long as your brothers Charles and James live. Therefore I charge you, do not be made a king by them.”
Poor little Henry tried hard to understand. Then he drew a deep breath and said: “I will be torn into pieces first.”
Then they prayed together and Charles commanded them always to fear God and this they promised to do.
One of the bishops came to take the children away; they were weeping bitterly. Charles watched them and when they reached the door he ran after them and snatched them up that he might embrace them once more and they clung to him as though they would never let him go.
The hour was fixed. They brought him dinner but he was in no mood to eat.
“You should eat, sire,” his Bishop Juxon warned him. “You will faint for lack of food.”
“Yes,” agreed Charles, “and it might be misconstrued if I did that.” Whereupon he took some wine and food.
When he had eaten he said: “Let them come. I am ready.”
But they did not come. There was a delay. Two of the military commanders who had been chosen to superintend the murder refused to do so at the last minute. Nothing could shift their decision; they were jeered at and threatened; still they would not take charge of the grisly task. Their names were Hunks and Phayer. I would remember them too.
There was a small grain of comfort in knowing that they had to offer one hundred pounds to one who would aid the executioner—and thirty-eight people refused.
In the end they had to threaten one of the sergeants from another regiment to do the deed, and the executioner himself had tried to hide himself and when he was found he had to be threatened too and offered thirty pounds to do his work. They insisted on wearing masks as they did not want to be seen as executioners of the King.
It must have been a great joy for Charles to receive from our son Charles a blank sheet of paper with his signature at the bottom. Our son had written in a separate note that he would pledge himself to carry out any terms which might be imposed on him in exchange for his father’s life.
Charles kissed the paper and burned it.
I heard that he slept quietly on the night before he went out to face his murderers. Thomas Herbert who, as Groom of the Bedchamber, was sleeping in the room with him awoke shouting in his sleep and he told the King that he had been disturbed by a nightmare. He had dreamed that Archbishop Laud had come into the room and knelt before the King while they talked together.
The King knew why he was shaken. It was because Archbishop Laud was dead, having been executed four years before.
They could not sleep after that although it was only five o’clock.
When Herbert was dressing him he said he wished to be as trim on this day as he had been on the day of his marriage. They said his voice broke a little when he said that and I knew it was because he was thinking of the sorrow this day would bring to me.
He bade Herbert bring him two shirts.
“It is cold outside,” he said. “The wind might cause me to shake on my way to the scaffold and I would have no imputation of fear, for death is not terrible to me. I am prepared, I thank God. Let the rogues come for me when they please.”
I do not want to think of that scene but I can picture it so clearly and I cannot get it out of my mind. I can see the mass of people who would not be allowed to come too close to the scaffold and were kept back by the many soldiers whom Cromwell had commanded should be there. How apprehensive he and his friends must have been!
Charles stepped out through the banqueting hall for one of the windows had been removed so that he could do this.
I often wonder what his thoughts were as he went up to the scaffold. Of me, I like to think; and yet again I did not want him to think of me then because I knew that to do so would increase his sorrow.
What does one think of when one faces death? He was a good man, a man who had tried to do his duty, and if he had failed to please his people it was through no lack of effort on his part. He had always done what he believed to be right; and I knew—and was proved right in this—that these would be seen to be unhappy days for England and those people who had fought—valiantly I must admit—for Cromwell would soon be longing for the days when people could sing and dance and be joyful; they would regret those harsh laws of the Puritans ere long. And I was glad. I hated them. I was not calm and thoughtful like Charles. They were my enemies…those men who had put to death a great good man and I fervently wished that they would all burn in hell.
So he came out looking beautiful as he always had and without showing a tremor of fear.
I could imagine his looks of contempt for the bewigged and masked murderers who had not the courage to do the deed in the open but must cower behind disguises.
The executioner knelt and asked forgiveness.
Charles’s reply was quiet and dignified. “I forgive no subject of mine who comes hither to shed my blood.”
When he stepped up to the scaffold there was a terrible hush in the crowd. The executioner in a quiet and respectful voice asked him to push his hair under his cap.
This he quietly did.
He said in a clear voice: “I go from a corruptible to an incorruptible crown.” Then he took off his coat and doublet.
He asked the executioner to make sure that the block was firm. “Now,” he said, “I will say a short prayer in silence and when I lift my hands I shall be ready for you to strike.”
That was the end.
My Charles, King, husband, lover, friend and martyr was dead.
They told me that a groan was heard through the crowd of people and that there was a terrible sense of foreboding in Whitehall that day.
I had to shut myself away for a while. I could not bear to see my attendants, let alone hear them speak to me. There was so much to remind me.
My poor little Henriette, who was not yet five years old, was quite bewildered. She would watch me and her eyes would fill with tears.
“I am doing no good to her and none to myself,” I told Lady Morton. “She would be better with you alone.”
Lady Morton had too much good sense to deny this and so I decided that for a while I would seek the peace and solace of my favorite Carmelite convent in the Faubourg St. Jacques. I gave my daughter into the care of Lady Morton with instructions that she should look after the child’s creature comforts while Father Cyprien should see to her spiritual welfare. I thought I could not do better than that and I gave myself up to meditation and prayer and lived a life of seclusion governed by bells. I needed it. I was angry with the Almighty for what seemed like indifference to my suffering and for permitting the cruel murder of my husband. I knew I should not complain; it was His will; but I railed against such treatment and I could not be reconciled until I had wrestled with myself.
I dressed in black, which I swore I would do to the end of my life. I would mourn for Charles as long as I lived. I looked very like one of the nuns of the convent in my long rustling skirts and I wore a cap with a widow’s peak which came over my forehead and with a black veil cascading from the back.
When I had been a few weeks in the convent and was beginning to accept the fact that I must learn to live without Charles, Father Cyprien came to see me and gave me such a lecture that I felt like boxing the man’s ears, priest though he was. Then I knew I was becoming myself once more.
“What are you doing shutting yourself away from the world?” demanded Father Cyprien. “Have you forgotten that you have a so
n and that he has to regain his throne? Have you forgotten that you are the daughter of the great Henri IV? Is it fitting that you should spend your days thus in idleness when there is work to be done?”
“Have I not done enough…and to what avail?” I cried.
“Your father did not give up in his struggles. When he suffered temporary defeat he fought again and so came to greater glory.”
“Murdered,” I reminded him, “as my husband was…but differently. I’d rather Charles had gone by the knife of a madman than the action of coldblooded murderers and pilferers of his throne.”
“That is more like you. Your household needs you. Have you forgotten your young daughter? She pines for you. And what of your son? You must bring Charles to Paris. There must be no more delay. He has a throne to fight for.”
Two days later I left the convent.
Father Cyprien was right. I should be planning. It did wonders for me. I was alive again. I was going to live through my children. I was blessed in them. Charles was a son a mother could be proud of; James had come to Paris from Holland; he was good looking and his manners were as charming as those of his brother Charles. I had always insisted on impeccable manners. It was strange but loving my husband as I had I was able to see where he had failed. That aloof manner of his had alienated people and it may have been one of the causes why so many turned against him. Rulers must not keep themselves too much apart from their subjects; it was not easy to keep the balance between royalty and the necessary bonhomie needed to win people. My father had had it to a great degree; my son Charles had it; James less so, but it was there and he was young yet.
Mary had been a wonderful friend to us and she and the Prince of Orange, who were so devoted to each other, had shown us comforting hospitality and had done everything to help us. I had my precious Henriette with me now but the two who worried me were little Elizabeth and Henry—both in the hands of the Roundheads. If I could only have them with me I should be greatly relieved.