Wheatley, Dennis - Novel 20

by Old Rowley (v1. 1)

  The trouble was, we had always been used to doing that sort of thing to other people and had never had it done to us. The raid itself had no more effect on the terms of the Treaty of Breda, which was concluded shortly afterwards, than the shelling of Scarborough and Whitby by the Germans in the first war had upon the Peace of Versailles.

  By the Peace of Breda, the Dutch were compelled to secede the whole of their American Colonies, including the important city of New Amsterdam, which was rechristened, in honour of James, New York. The English thus became the undisputed masters of nearly 2,000 miles of the North American littoral, stretching in an unbroken line from the frozen pine forests of Northern Maine to the semi-tropical plantations of South Carolina.

  The terms of the peace thus proved England victorious, yet to the mass of the people the Medway disaster was an uriforgettable disgrace. It came as the crown to a long series of catastrophes, and general unrest had reached such a height that revolution was feared by many; it was even rumoured that the King, despairing of the situation, had fled abroad.

  Charles, in this crisis, as usual, kept his head. He overruled his Council and called Parliament for July—immediately the tension slackened. Yet he was firm with them when they met, informing them politely that, ‘Having given them one mark of his affection by summoning them in his need, he would now give them another by sending them home till October’. With this, and an assurance that it was not his intention to rule by force of arms, he dismissed them, but he knew that he must take drastic action in the intervening months if he wished to save his crown.

  There was only one thing for it—Clarendon must go. He was old and ailing, tutorial in his manner to the King, and in recent years had proved himself incompetent, both in the management of Parliament and the war. He was hated by the Cavaliers, whom he had kept out of their estates; by the other members of the Council, who regarded him as a bar to progress; and by the people, for the ostentation of his vast new palace which he was building in Piccadilly. Charles’ natural loyalty to an old friend and recognition of his former services had alone sustained him for so long. The King softened the blow to the best of his ability, and, after having listened patiently to the old man’s abuse for two hours, left the room. As Clarendon passed down the steps of Whitehall for the last time, Castlemaine, dressed only in a smock, ran out of her aviary ‘to bless herself at his going away’, but something of Clarendon’s past greatness returned to him at that moment in the dignity of his rebuke, ‘Madame, you too will grow old.’

  The dismissal of the Chancellor gave satisfaction to all parties, and the able Henry Bennet, Earl of Arlington, succeeded him as Charles’ principal councillor.

  Louis XIV had now taken the government of France into his own hands and was endeavouring to emulate Charlemagne. The whole of Europe stood watching, filled with the gravest perturbation as the Legions of ‘Le Roi Soleil’, captained by the greatest generals of the age, swept in triumphant victory over vast tracts of territory. Arlington skilfully seized upon the situation to initiate a new foreign policy. He negotiated a treaty with the Dutch, into which Sweden was later drawn, thus forming the Protestant Triple Alliance to resist the aggrandizement of France and force peace upon Spain. These measures were greeted with the greatest delight, since the English, having satisfactorily crippled their commercial rivals, felt that they were now free to indulge their antiPapist hatred, and Charles, as the leader of a Protestant Alliance, became for the moment the most popular of kings. He immediately took advantage of this temporary goodwill to place further impediments in the way of the execution of the Anglican Persecutionary laws.

  In 1668, Parliament made a great to do about the accounts of the expenditure in the Dutch War. An inquiry was held and there was a general belief that out of the £4,000,000 which had all too late been voted for the Fleet, the King had put £1,000,000 in his own pocket. The unfortunate Pepys, who perhaps more than anybody was responsible for what little order there was in the chaotic affairs of the Navy, was called to the bar of the House to render an explanation of his accounts. He was not used to speech-making, and went to the ordeal in a terrible state of nerves, but his honest indignation at their cavilling leant him such eloquence that he spoke for two hours, giving chapter and verse as to the utilization of every penny, and thoroughly confounding his critics and the King’s. His reward was a warm friendship of the King, which he retained to the end of the reign, and an admiration from his whole acquaintance which must have truly rejoiced his naive, honest soul. To settle the matter once .md for all, Charles added accountancy to his other duties and, having gone through all the papers personally, produced an audit proving beyond question that far from there having been any peculation, not only the whole of the sum voted by Parliament had been expended in a proper manner but a further million and a half, raised on hk own rickety credit

  There now was born in the strictest secrecy the germ of the ‘Grand Design’, a new foreign policy which was to dominate the remainder of the reign. Minette, the only one of the family who had been brought up a Catholic, had a vision. She saw England and France united and the supreme rulers of the world, her brother-in-law, Louis, King of Europe, her dear Charles, King of the Seas and all the Lands beyond—and the latter brought safely back into the fold of Holy Mother Church. For two years she worked untiringly upon this project.

  Charles at first conceded that he could see no objection to an understanding ‘as between gentleman and gentleman’, but pointed out that an open alliance would be impossible in the face of a hostile Parliament since he was dependent upon them for funds. This difficulty was overcome by the offer of liberal subsidies. He then stipulated that he should be asked nothing which might jeopardize the trade of Britain or her supremacy of the seas. The French gave in. Lastly, he was firm upon the point that he should not be required to violate his commitments under the Triple Alliance. Once more the French surrendered to his wish. From that time on the scheme gradually matured.

  Whatever opinion one may hold of the morality of this pact, the negotiation of it shows Charles as the supreme diplomat of his time. By it he gained considerable sums of money which, while lightening the burden of the English taxpayer, would free him from the necessity of bargaining with Parliament for every subsidy he got, and enabled him to pursue that policy of Religious Toleration which was so near his heart. What the French gained it is difficult to see. Meanwhile, during the course of the negotiations, he was playing not with fire but dynamite. Had his intentions become known before the time was ripe, this Catholic alliance would undoubtedly have cost him his throne, and the vital necessity for extreme caution was the cause of the many delays before the project came to fruition. With an iron nerve he conducted this long and dangerous correspondence, and at the same time took his precautions against betrayal. In the latter, his personal character stood him in good stead, since the majority of those about him loved him with a devoted loyalty. Arlington, although a Protestant, was entirely to be trusted and was the first to be admitted to the dangerous secret; then York, already secretly converted to Rome; next the Catholics Arundell of Wardour and Thomas Clifford, a young, energetic and devoted minister. After these, Buckingham was involved, but' only told a portion of the design. As protector of the Anabaptists, and therefore a power among the Puritans, he was used for cover, made to believe the idea was his own, and manoeuvred into pressing it through his hatred of Arlington, who pretended furious opposition—and all the while Charles was secretly consolidating his position. Commanders of doubtful loyalty were removed from forts and arsenals, to be replaced by trusted friends. The Army was freely exercised by him in person that he might win the attachment of his troops and officers, and the devoted Lauderdale coaxed through the Scottish Parliament an Act by which twenty- two thousand troops could be placed at the King’s disposal for use in any part of his dominions.

  Yet through all these months of skilful intrigue and manoeuvre, Charles remained to outward seeming the idle, dissipated Monarch. Lounging in
his big chair, his women seated on cushions about him, he fondled the spaniels on his knees and bandied jests with Rochester. No sign was allowed to escape him of that terrible secret knowledge that if he were betrayed his whole Kingdom would flame into revolution.

  In the summer of 1669, Louis revealed to him the secret overtures of De Witt for a Franco-Dutch partition of the Spanish Empire. Charles rightly felt that this relieved him of his obligations to Holland, and that he could now enter into a still closer alliance with France for a joint war to revenge the insult of the Medway.

  At last Minette obtained leave from her jealous, impotent husband to travel to England. Seven days was all that His Meanness of Orleans would allow, although the brother and sister who loved each other so tenderly had not met for nine years—but it was enough. In a blaze of pageantry Charles received this frail, beautiful Princess, whose flame-like vitality was burning away her life, and every waking moment of those few brief days they spent together in an ecstasy of their spiritualized love. All too soon Henrietta sailed away with a last remembrance of her brother’s dark, tear-dimmed eyes, but she carried with her his signature to the Treaty of her heart’s desire. By the Treaty of Dover the King of England became the Pensioner of France, but he had not sacrificed the interests of Britain to his needs, and he was immeasurably strengthened in the future governance of his people for what he believed to be their truest interests.

  Six

  The Snarling Pack

  For the time being, Charles was master of the situation. With money in his pocket he could afford to indulge his policy of sending his Parliament for a holiday whenever they became too troublesome. In April, 1671, he prorogued them for nearly two years. Rochester’s verse sums up the situation.

  THE COMMONS PETITION TO THE KINO

  ‘In all Humility we crave,

  Our Sovereign may be our Slave;

  And humbly beg, that he may be

  Betray’d by us most Loyally.

  But if he please once to lay down

  His Sceptre, Dignity and Crown,

  We’ll make him for the Time to come,

  The greatest Prince in Christendom.’

  THE KING’S ANSWER

  ‘Charles, at this Time having no Need,

  Thanks you as much as if he did.’

  It was during these years, and the difficult ones which were to follow, that the King’s leisure moments were brightened by the gay companionship of Pretty, Witty Nellie, ‘The wildest creature that ever was at Court’.

  Nell Gwynn’s tender years were spent in the bawdy house of a Mrs. Ross, where she was wont ‘to fill strong waters for the gentlemen’. Thence she took to selling oranges in the Pit at Drury Lane, and there Charles Hart, the actor—a great nephew of Shakespeare—found her, made her his mistress and put her upon the stage. The handsome Buckhurst saw her act and if we can believe Sir Carr Scrope, another of the wits:

  ‘None ever had so strange an art

  His passion to convey.

  Into a list’ning virgin’s heart

  And steal her soul away.’

  Buckhurst must have been a very attractive young man; in any case, it did not take him long to succeed with Nelly, and in July, 1667, he carried her off to Epsom, where, with Sir Charles Sedley, they ‘kept merry house together’ throughout a halcyon summer.

  Epsom at that date was much what Bath became in the following century. In addition, it was near enough to London for the wealthier citizens to make a day’s outing there on Sunday, and many a merry party took place at •Clay Hill’, ‘Mawse’s Garden’, and ‘The King’s Head’.

  It was at Epsom during that same summer that an incident causing great scandal occurred. Rochester, ‘Gentle George’—as Etheridge was called—Captain Bridges and a Mr. Downes, having dined one night very much too well, proceeded to toss their hired fiddlers in a blanket. A barber came to the musicians’ rescue, and then to save himself offered to take the four men to the lodgings of the sauciest and handsomest girl in Epsom; instead he took them to the Constable’s house and there left them. To the officer’s astonishment, the roisterers demanded immediate access to his wife, and on his refusing them they attacked his house, burst in his doors and broke his head. The poor man escaped and summoned the watch, upon which Etheridge made a drunken but submissive oration; thus pacified, they departed. Then Rochester treacherously drew his sword and lunged at the Constable. Downes, seizing him from behind, diverted the thrust, but on the Constable yelling ‘Murder! ’ the watch returned and, the others running off, the unlucky Downes first had his head cracked and then lost his life by being run through the side with a half-pike.

  By the following January, Charles II had succeeded Charles Buckhurst as Nelly’s lover, and with Charles Hart in mind, she used to refer to the King as ‘my Charles the Third’. He settled her at a house in Pall Mall, but upon being presented with the lease, she tore it up and, although she w;as the least grasping of all Charles’ mistresses, demanded a freehold. Charles smiled and gave it to her, and it is for that reason that there still remains today one gap in the Crown property which otherwise occupies the whole of the south side of Pall Mall. Nell did not finally leave the stage until some years later, although she bore a son to the King in May, 1670.

  Her full-blooded vitality and rollicking wit were just the things which Charles needed to distract his mind from the eternal worries which pressed upon him, but he was incapable of remaining interested in one woman alone for long. When Minette came to Dover she had brought in her train the beautiful, baby-faced little Breton, Louise de Queroalle. Charles had been smitten at once and begged her of his sister, but poor Minette lay dead within a few weeks of her return to France, poisoned, it was said, but more probably stricken down by an attack of peritonitis. The King suffered an agony of sorrow, for she had held a place above all others in his affections, and the little Louise, whom he had so much admired, was sent from France to be a consolation.

  He created her Duchess of Portsmouth, and in the conversation of this well-born little foreigner, Charles seemed to have derived a pleasure which none of his other mistresses could give. She retained a large share of his affections until his death, as also did the bawdy Nelly.

  There was bitter rivalry between the two, of which Madame de Sevigne gives us an interesting picture. ‘She (Louise) did not foresee that she should find a young actress in her way whom the King dotes on, and she has it not in her power to withdraw the King from her. He divides his care, his time, and his health between the two. The actress is as haughty as Mademoiselle. She insults her, she makes grimaces at her, she attacks her, she frequently steals the King from her and boasts whenever he gives her the preference. She is young, confident, wild, indiscreet, and of an agreeable humour. She sings, she dances, she acts her part with a good grace. She has a son by the King and hopes to have him acknowledged. As to Mademoiselle, she reasons thus: This Duchess pretends to be a person of quality, she says she is related to the best families in France, whenever any person of distinction dies she puts herself in mourning. If she is a person of quality, why does she demean herself to be a courtesan? As for me, it is my profession, and I do not pretend to be anything better.’

  Nell won the hearts of the English people by her honesty, her gaiety and her generosity. Her father had died in Oxford Prison, and perhaps because of that her charities to prisoners were many, but the principal reason for her popularity was that she was English and Protestant. That she knew this herself is shown by her words when a hostile crowd mobbed her sedan at Oxford in mistake for that of the hated ‘Mrs. CarwelP. Poking her curly head out of the window, she cried, ‘Pray, good people, be civil—I am the Protestant Whore.’ Upon which she was borne on her way midst ringing laughter and a chorus of bawdy good wishes.

  She did not forget her old mother in her rise to prosperity, and kept that good lady well supplied with gin, so well in fact that, staggering home one night, old Mrs. Gwynn fell in a ditch by Westminster and was drowned. On this occasio
n Etheridge belied his sobriquet of ‘Gentle George’ and composed this by no means kind epitaph:

  ‘The Pious Mother of this Flaming Whore.

  Maid, Punk and Bawd full sixty years or more,

  D’yd drunk with Brandy on a Common Shore.’

  In 1775 another Duchess came to adorn the cushions about Charles’ easy chair—the lovely Hortense Mancini, Duchesse de Mazarin, whom the too cunning Cardinal had denied him as a bride only six months before his triumphant Restoration. It has been said that the life of Hortense ‘might well adorn a tale’. Cultured, amorous, bewitchingly beautiful, the heroine of a hundred strange adventures, she sought refuge at the Court of Charles from the persecution of her husband, a religious maniac, who kept her up all night to pray. She occupied a charming house at Chelsea and lives immortal in the letters of another exile, the great epicurean philosopher St. Evre- mond, who was her neighbour, platonic lover, and constant companion till her death.

  Assessing Charles’ women as a whole, it is doubtful if any prince in modern, as opposed to ancient, times ever gathered together a finer seraglio. In numbers, compared to certain other sovereigns, they were not excessive; but Charles was a connoisseur, and each of the six great mistresses possessed some outstanding quality of wit, intellect, or passionate loveliness which made her a real personality. Even Frances Stewart, stupid as she may have been in other ways, had, in addition to her beauty, the by no means inconsiderable distinction of being the best-dressed woman at his elegant and splendid Court.

  It is, perhaps, partly this factor which has resulted in more prominence being given to his amours than those of equally dissolute but less fastidious kings. Yet the man who demands personality in addition to beauty in his loves must pay the price, unless he is prepared to be faithful to his choice, Charles, incapable as he was of remaining devoted to any one woman over a period of years, suffered considerably from the jealousy and intrigue of the others whenever he brought a new inmate to the Royal bed.