Wheatley, Dennis - Novel 20

by Old Rowley (v1. 1)

  And now we come to the death of the man who stood head and shoulders above them all, who—if he was the chief figure at their gay suppers and encouraged their licence for his recreation—was also in the quiet hours the greatest diplomat and statesman of his time.

  When the King rose on the morning of February 2nd, 1685, he was far from well. He had not been in his usual health for some days, and now his attendants were alarmed at his condition. He was pale, vague in his movements, and seemed to understand ill what those about him said. Half an hour later, while being shaved, he had a fit. He was immediately blooded, and all those drastic, exhausting measures which the medicine of the age considered requisite were applied. All through that morning, afternoon, and evening, clysters, poultices, and purgatives were forced upon the unresisting King. At two o’clock the following morning he fell into an uneasy sleep. At dawn they woke him to see how he was getting on. He was sane and conscious and throughout Tuesday submitted with unfailing patience to the doctors’ renewed attacks. By nightfall he was well enough to send a last message to the greatest of his servants, the old and trusty Ormonde.

  In the meantime the news of the King’s seizure had been spread abroad. Consternation and dismay gripped the hearts of his subjects. A terrible hush fell upon the City, and a vast multitude assembled outside the palace gates. Kneeling in the streets, or standing mute and unashamed with tears coursing down their cheeks, the people watched and prayed. Charles stood for peace, for justice and fair-dealing; what would happen if he were to be taken from them? In these last years they had come to know him as their one defence against the tyranny of faction and the greed of self-seeking demagogues. It was a personal fear and sorrow as though some big, kindly, understanding brother had been stricken down.

  On Wednesday morning Charles was very weak, but better, then in the evening he relapsed, breaking into a cold, clammy sweat. The fourteen doctors in attendance, pressed by the Council as to the King’s malady, called it ‘intermittent fever’, but in the light of modern knowledge we know that it was an attack brought on by chronic Bright’s disease. By midday Thursday a terrible change had occurred—Charles had gone black in the face, was in great pain, and writhing in convulsions. They now realized that there could be no hope of his recovery.

  The waiting clergy knelt beside his bed, begging him to receive the last rites of the Protestant Communion. He thanked them and spoke of his sorrow for his sins, yet turned away, even from his dear friend ‘little Ken’, but Louise de Queroalle knew his need although she could not be beside him. She spoke urgently to Barillion, the French Ambassador, and begged him to speak to York. The Duke agreed and in a whisper asked the King ‘Was it his wish to be received into the Roman Communion?’ ‘Yes—with all my heart,’ was the dying man’s reply. James cleared the Royal bedchamber and smuggled in a Catholic priest. By the strangest of coincidences it was that same Father Huddlestone who more than thirty years before had led the fugitive Charles through the stormy night to the shelter and safety of Mosley.

  To Huddlestone Charles said that he wished to be absolved of the sins of his past life, for which he was truly sorry, that he pardoned his enemies, and begging pardon of those whom he had offended. He then made full and sincere confession and afterwards received the Sacrament, thus acknowledging at the last that doctrine of salvation which of all Christian faiths is still the most widely accepted throughout the world.

  From ten o’clock that night, when he received extreme unction, until the following morning, he remained conscious and spoke clearly. To York, who was weeping unrestrainedly, he spoke of his love for him as a brother, and begged him to overlook all his actions against him that might have seemed unkind, for he had been forced to them. To him, also., he recommended the care of his wife and children.

  At midnight that poor, barren lady the Queen, to whom, despite his many infidelities, he had through all the years been so steadfast a protector, came to say farewell. She was distraught with grief and so overcome at the thought of losing him that she had to be carried fainting from the room. Later she sent to ask pardon for her weakness. ‘Alas, poor woman,’ replied the dying King, ‘she asks my pardon? 7 beg hers with all my heart: take her back that answer.’

  With the Bishops and Great Officers of State kneeling about him, he raised himself up in his bed, asked God’s blessing upon his people, and prayed that they would pardon him if in anything he had not been a good King.

  Once he asked the time and, on being told, remarked, ‘My business will soon be done.’ Then he spoke to York once more, begging him to have a care for Louise and the children—and ‘Let not poor Nelly starve.’

  Although in great pain, he continued to submit to the ministrations of his doctors with a marvellous fortitude, and once, with a flash of the old humour, observed, ‘Gentlemen, I beg you to pardon me for being such an unconscionable time in dying.’

  ‘At the coming of dawn he asked the time again, and bid them ‘Open the curtains that I may once more see the light of day.’ For a little he lay still while the brightness of the February morning flooded the tall chamber. By ten o’clock he had lapsed into unconsciousness and the great spirit was free at last.

  All England mourned him, whatever might be their Creed. Rough sailors upon the high seas, the grooms and jockeys of the racing stables, merchants, scientists, men of letters. The actors at the theatre, the watermen upon the Thames, those saintly Divines whom he had so carefully selected, no less than the wits to whom he had been a boon companion, and the little Army which he had reared, later to earn such laurels under Marlborough. To one and all he had proved himself a master worth the serving, and the loyallest of friends.

  Nothing can better show his unfailing courage and gently kind nature than the repetition of a few of his own sayings which have come down to us.

  ‘Had I but ten thousand good and loyal soldiers and subjects, I would soon drive all these rogues forth out of my Kingdom.’... ‘I am weary of hanging—let it rest.’... ‘I will take care to leave my Kingdoms to him in peace, wishing he may long keep them so.’.. , ‘They think that I am anxious for a divorce, but I will not see an innocent woman abused.’ ... ‘I will never use arbitrary Government myself, and am resolved not to suffer it in others.’ ... ‘Let not poor Nelly starve.’

  He was a very human man, a good-natured roue—who seeks to deny it?—but, owing to his constant habit of jesting, his intellect has been underrated. He was undoubtedly the cleverest and perhaps the greatest man who ever sat upon the English throne.

  For two hundred years his character has been belittled as a definite policy against the weak and inept Pretenders who succeeded in the Stuart line. The legend that he was nothing but an idle, dissipated Monarch dies hard. Yet in the constant sifting of the sieve of time the dross of libel falls away, leaving the gold of truth revealed. The day will come when Charles will take his rightful place in history as the wise, sweet-natured King who led his people out of darkness, anarchy and persecution into the Great Prosperity of the Georgian Century.

  BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

  This short volume does not pretend to be anything but a sketch of ‘Old Rowley himself’, with, I trust, sufficient of those interests and personalities which filled the background of his life to give some idea of the pressures which were brought to bear upon him, his motives, failures and achievements.

  It would be idle to list all the volumes which I have read, since others more learned—writing on the same period—have read and listed all of them, and many more.

  The following, therefore, should only be taken as a guide by those who come fresh to the subject, and in whom the present book has been fortunate enough to raise a desire for further knowledge of Charles II and his times.

  Before any other, I would suggest that remarkable achievement King Charles II by Arthur Bryant. With monumental erudition Mr. Bryant has given us a long and detailed history of the reign, and his bibliography will supply the most voracious reader with material for many years
to come. Do not imagine, however, that his work is a dull tale of dates and charters. His prose is beautiful—there is not a single dull page in the book—and for our delight he makes the long-dead King, with his courtiers and courtesans, live once again.

  Among the most outstanding of the original sources are: Clarendon’s History of the Great Rebellion and Burnet’s History of My Own Times—long, heavy sometimes, but authoritative.

  The later historians, Gardiner, Hume and Ranke, in their respective Histories of England, discourse at length in the scholastic manner, and Strickland’s Lives of the Queens of England gives the story from a slightly different angle.

  Then we have the diarists—often inaccurate regarding affairs of state, but unparalleled for pictures of life as it was lived in those days—the delightful and so human Pepys, the sober and somewhat pompous Evelyn, together with the Letters of Madame de Sevigne, which make excellent reading.

  The Memoirs of the Comte de Gramont stand unrivalled for their portrayal of the amorous scandals of the Court, and those of Lady Fanshawe make an interesting study.

  On the more serious side, Keith Feiling’s two books, A History of the Tory Party and British Foreign Policy, 1660-1672, with Sir George Sitwell’s The First Whig, give an excellent exposition of the political and foreign situations which arose during the reign.

  Allan Fea’s After Worcester Fight and The Flight of the King are now accepted as giving the best account of Charles’ epic escape, while hunted across England by his enemies, and in Eva Scott’s Travels of the King will be found the full story of his exile.

  Saintsbury’s Dryden and the Nonsuch Wycherley give, in addition to the works of these leading dramatists, great variety of information upon the theatre and its denizens in those hectic days which succeeded the Restoration; and the Nonsuch Rochester not only gives all the verse but an admirable life of that versatile scamp.

  E. Barrington Chancellor’s Lives of the Rakes, Vols. I and II, give slight but informative sketches of the principal courtiers and mistresses, and Mr. P. Cunningham’s Story of Nell Gwynn and Sayings of Charles II will tell the reader quite a lot about the so-called ‘Merry Monarch’s’ domestic muddles.

  ‘And so to bed.’

  D. W.