Henrietta Maria now had her first real opportunity to exert her influence. Slowly, as was natural in a young man of late development, unaccustomed to women, Charles came to observe and listen to his wife more and more. Her petulant sprightliness could always explain what motives, greedy or amorous, lay behind people’s apparently simple actions. Like most women, she was a born story-lover, and had the fatal cleverness to enjoy weaving her own plots and translating them into certainties.
‘Woman’s wit,’ said he gravely, as he listened to some preposterous theory of hers to explain why it was that the Scottish nobles, whom she had never met, were behaving so trouble-somely.
Woman’s wit had to be supplemented. There must still be the elder brother to whom Charles could turn for final guidance. His trust in the dash and verve of reckless youth had been shattered. Henry had died suddenly as a boy, Buckingham had been murdered almost by accident. Charles must now choose someone wise and thoughtful to stand between him and the world.
In the unlucky isolation of his mind, his choice was one that scarcely any of his Court could understand. The Marquis of Hamilton did not look like a man who has soared into the sun of his sovereign’s favour; on the contrary, his nervous, touchy, over-subtle nature was that of a man under a cloud. But then he was, always had been under a cloud, for he was over-shadowed by his mother.
A wisp of a shadow it was, yet enough to darken his life. Lady Anne Cunningham of Glencairn, tiny, weather-beaten, frosty-eyed, was one of those old Scottish ladies whose ferocious pride and sense of humour could blast any mere man. Hamilton’s sensitive childhood had withered under her humour; but her arrogance was the more dangerous to his manhood, for it gave him ambitions that could be carried out only by a greatly heroic villain – or possibly his mother.
But Anne Cunningham was determined that a man was his mother, at any rate when that mother happened to be herself. Did not her blood run in his veins, and that, the blood of kings? Hamilton’s royal descent was hammered into him so frequently that whenever he looked in the glass he anxiously speculated what his face would look like under a crown. Under a cloud, under a crown, it was much the same thing.
There was too a prophecy that he would succeed King Charles, which Hamilton found very unsettling to his politics.
Something in his self-distrustful nature must have caught Charles’ fancy, for here was someone who could appreciate as he did the dangers and uncertainties of life. Hamilton appreciated them indeed so much as to make them twice as dangerous and uncertain as they need have been. Charles would wait with a slight sigh for one illusion after another to be shattered by Hamilton’s penetrating wisdom. That secretly bewildered brain was apt to attribute motives that never existed, to be as over-flexible as Charles’ was over-rigid, and equally incapable of understanding others.
To this man, the most powerful Scottish noble at the English Court, the young Earl of Montrose had first to pay his respects. The Marquis welcomed him with a great many kind inquiries, but all the time in a state of fuss, so that in spite of his determined frown and air of importance, he struck his visitor as rather an old woman – a sad nemesis of Anne Cunningham’s resolve to make the man his mother.
Hamilton was fussed because he was trying as usual to grasp more of the situation than it really afforded. Would the young man’s introduction at the English Court be an advantage to himself, or the reverse? In any case, one must never make an enemy. Like a child’s prayer gabbled mechanically at the back of his mind, he reminded himself of the whole duty of a courtier – ‘Let me draw him out while I seem to talk most myself, charm him to my side by a warm and friendly manner.’
They discussed the latest news. The King’s Ship Money had fitted out forty more ships of war, which had secured the narrow seas for English trade, and saved Dunkirk from the recent attack of the Dutch.
Yet Hamilton had his doubts. A very wealthy and influential gentleman called John Hampden had refused to pay this new tax and was even now on trial, and winning the sympathy of the country.
A matter of a few pounds seemed a small proportion of his thousands to pay towards the upkeep of the navy; but Hamilton shook his head slowly, like a cat licking its whiskers after cream, and said that a question had been involved more serious than the defence of the country’s coast and trade – and that was the question of correct parliamentary procedure.
‘The English are idealists. The mere practical value of forty new ships is not to be set above a matter of principle.’
‘The English are apt to have principles where their interest is concerned,’ remarked his fellow Scot.
Hamilton smiled with some annoyance. He might have said that himself in another minute.
In compensation to himself, he gave so much good advice as to Montrose’s conduct with the King that the young man began to feel as though he were a new lion-tamer being given the charge of a dangerous animal. He must remember this, avoid that, walk warily, speak carefully, and only even smile at stated intervals.
With the Queen, on the other hand, Montrose should be gay and easy, and admire the beautiful eyes of the little Prince of Wales, for she had joked so much about her ugly little black brat of a baby that it was probably to hide her sensitiveness on the subject. Her dogs too were a good topic – if he were clever he would get her to tell him stories of their remarkable intelligence.
Hamilton’s air of sly affability, as if amused by his own triviality, then became deep, secret and portentous. Montrose must remember that the English resented the presence of Scottish nobles at the Court, and were even, so he whispered, inclined to be jealous of the fact that their King had come from Scotland.
‘He came long enough ago, then,’ said Montrose. ‘In Scotland, people are apt to think of the King as an Englishman.’
Hamilton turned over this questionable remark. Did it smack of treason, or only discontent? But it was always better to agree.
‘Just so,’ he said, ‘the King has been brought up as an Englishman. It is a pity you have still so much of the Scottish accent. Be careful not to use any uncouth native words or expressions. His Majesty always looked on his father’s use of them as undignified.’
The young Scot felt his face flaming. Should this man instruct his speech? That Hamilton was a powerful noble and his patron at Court, made the impertinence all the harder to digest. Montrose was easy and familiar enough with those beneath him; with those above him he was on his guard, anxious not to push his way, and therefore sensitive against any attempt to drag him.
‘It would be better,’ continued Hamilton, uneasily aware that the atmosphere had changed, but quite unaware of the cause – ‘It would be more politic not to drag in Scotland at all. Speak of Italy – of pictures. Have you seen any Mantegnas? – You can say you have. The King has bought some of his frescoes for his palace at Hampton Court.’ He warmed into genuine intentions for the young man’s good, since it would result from his planning – ‘Let the King discover you alone in his gallery, lost in admiration of his pictures – perhaps the new Breughel would please him best. Admire the snow effects.’
‘Thank you,’ said Montrose, ‘but I do not understand art – nor yet the art to pretend that I do.’
His voice was cold with contempt. It was Hamilton’s turn to feel uncomfortably hot. Once more had things turned out unexpectedly. He had been doing his best by this raw young cub, and he insulted him. Once more had his mother boxed his ears.
Chapter Twenty-five
In one thing King Charles’ artistic taste stood him in good stead. Kings should choose their portrait painters even more carefully than their historians.
The Dutch Court painter, Van Dyck, was acting as a happy interpreter for the Royal Family. Those who saw his groups of the lovely and intelligent children, their baby fingers resting fearlessly on the heads of bloodhounds, their candid gaze gravely answering that of the spectator, had little fear for the heirs to the throne.
And the King and Queen themselves owed much to the w
itchery of Van Dyck. No one had ever spoken of King Charles as particularly handsome at the beginning of his reign; and the little princess from France had been as lively as a kitten, but sallow, and her teeth stuck out. But now they had the reputation of a nobly beautiful couple; they had seen themselves as Van Dyck had seen them, and could show in their best moments, loyally treasured by the painter, the happy dignity, not merely of royalty, but of beauty.
Montrose had already seen the latest portrait of King Charles before his introduction to him in the gardens at Hampton Court. This meeting-place had been Hamilton’s final suggestion. King Charles liked the informality of the gardens; he also liked to be able to observe newcomers there before the actual meeting. Here again, however, Montrose proved difficult. He refused to loaf about in the gardens just in order to be observed. He would meet his King in an ordinary straightforward way, or not at all.
But all the same he had to loaf for a good two hours, with plenty of people to observe him, though not the King, and all of them knowing why he was there; while he strolled up and down, trying to feel nonchalant; and nearer and nearer came the moment that he had awaited and revolted from, ever since he had been Earl of Montrose.
He hated the thumping of his heart, the eagerness with which his eyes turned towards the palace every time some fresh figure issued from it. It was a maddening waste of time on a sunny afternoon in May, when he might have been swimming in that broad slow river, or playing in those excellent tennis courts. The best of opportunities was being offered him – but he hated opportunities.
The wide lawns stretched down to the river side, flower-beds spread their perfume, the wind stirred in the globed chestnut trees, rustling their skirts of green, flecked with white or red. A group of ladies laughed in soft flattering tones round a small, solemn, dark-faced boy, who stared at him as he went past. So that was the little Prince of Wales.
Music came drifting across the river from a boat, bright with people, and the sound of voices calling lazily, clear as voices only are upon the water. He turned to see who answered them, and there were two or three gentlemen of the Court strolling back from the tennis courts in their shirt-sleeves, mopping their foreheads, too hot from their play to put on the splendid coats that dangled on their arms. They talked and laughed with the deep satisfaction of men tired with sport, and Montrose wished he were of their company.
Suddenly they began to put on their coats; the companionable leisure of their voices changed to something alert and wary. He turned his head as they had turned theirs; he saw a crowd of men coming in his direction, a crowd curving inwards to its centre, so that it had some difficulty in progression.
All these men were carrying their hats, flourishing them, bending their bare curled heads; they swayed towards a figure in their midst that made a sombre line among their colours – an upright, even rigid line among all those glances and gestures, eager to the point of unmannerliness.
And now Montrose’s desire to escape touched a strange fear, as though he knew this meeting would bind both him and his King in chains inextricable until the death of both.
Like a man blindly seeking to avoid his destiny, he glanced to right and left into those gardens that shone iridescent and unreal in the evening light. The sunset on the water, the silver drops of fountains in the air, the ladies like tropic flowers beneath the trees, were like the transparent scene reflected on the glossy surface of a soap bubble; they shimmered as if about to dissolve, while through them there came slowly towards him, nearer and nearer, through a buzz of talk and movement, the dark figure of his King.
His moment of panic dropped from him; he looked at Charles, and saw his courtiers pressing on him as hotly as hunters on their quarry.
Then that busy, shifting crowd melted round him; Montrose saw only the two men who now concerned him – Hamilton, pompous, ill at ease, with his air of trying to remember what it was he had forgotten; and on his arm the figure of his King. He was smaller and slighter not only than Hamilton, but than the impression given by his picture. The curiously appealing beauty of his King that had already been painted in Montrose’s mind, shrank as he looked on the reality.
He saw a face like a mask, blank and expressionless; the eyes indeed as beautiful as in the picture, but abstracted; their warm, reddish-brown colour contrasted strangely with their cold expression. They looked through him, as if not seeing him, while Hamilton introduced him; there was an instant’s awkward pause; and then the King gave him a hand to kiss, as lovely and lifeless as if it were modelled in wax. Almost as he did so, he turned stiffly towards Hamilton, and made some remark to him that had nothing to do with Montrose; then rigidly, icily, he moved away.
At the listless touch of that cold hand, the disturbing fancy struck Montrose that he was kissing a hand of the dead. It may have been that that sent an apprehensive shiver through his spine, like the first shiver of the wind in the trees that heralds a storm a long way off. Whatever it was, it was echoed in his company; there was all round him a stir, a rustle, a sigh of excitement, an almost audible smile. So the young Earl of Montrose had been condemned to disfavour at first sight by his sovereign. What was the reason for it? Hundreds would be found in half an hour. But that was the end of it. There was nothing for the young man to do but to return to Scotland.
The scene had not dissolved. The shadows slanted from the yew trees, the fountains splashed, the voices from the boat, now under the bank, called up to the gardens, unaware that the King had come out into them. The courtiers who had been playing tennis joined the crowd round the King; the crowd condensed again, hiding him entirely as he moved away, leaving this new aspirant to the royal favour standing alone, looking after them, until they disappeared.
Chapter Twenty-six
That then was the end of it all. The small dull words pressed down on him as he rode back to Scotland, flattening down his mind, which till then had ridden as high as a conqueror’s. His pride rebelled at the knowledge that his career could be crushed because any man, however much a king, had neither spoken nor smiled at him, had merely passed him by. Yet this was the disaster that he did not know how to tell Magdalen, or Archie Napier, who had such high hopes of him.
The flat pasturages of the midlands unrolled before him as he rode north; forests spread across the horizon, and swept down to the edge of the common, roughened with whin, and to the fields of fresh green corn that rippled in the breeze like the sea. Brown villages nestled into the countryside; here and there a castle stood up, gaunt and grey, but more often a farm or manor house of red brick, built in the comfortable modern fashion, new any time these last hundred years since civil war had ceased to trouble the land. Then on the fourth day he saw a solid block with square towers in the distance, the first fortified farmhouse, showing he was nearing the Border.
Now the landscape rolled upwards into hills, while the proud woods grew narrow and timid, they huddled into deep hollows as though they had dug themselves in with a spade to escape the wild weather; through the trunks of the fir trees he could see at the bottom the white and black of a tumbling stream. Rocks and rough little walls of piled stones glistened black with rain; the sunset was a torn ridge of fire and white light in a thunderous sky.
And now after days of heavy cloud, he once again saw before him the fleeting splendour of early morning, too brilliant to endure, painting the first of the Scottish hills. The bushes of broom were golden banners; the spaces of pale bent or hair-grass, torn by the north wind, gleamed like flowing silver among the rich bracken.
Tunes he had forgotten for the past three years came bubbling up to his lips, tunes that he had sung among hills like these, on May mornings like this, when he rose at dawn and whistled his dogs to him and ran to the greenwood with his gun, ‘to bring the dun deer down’.
He’s lookit east and he’s lookit west
And a little below the sun,
And there he spied the dun deer lying
Aneath a buss o’ broom.
He was com
ing home where these tunes and these hills and these cowering trees and noisy streams and this smell of damp earth and peat smoke all belonged. Never had he been so glad to be a Scot.
For the first time he had a glimpse of himself as part of these things. His life had been like a bright morning in a northern country – he rode out, the sun shone, the streams sparkled on the hills; then the black cloud of his disappointment had swum over him, tearing off all the colours of his hopes, as the cloud shadows stripped the hills of their gold and green; it darkened his early manhood, and so made him for the first time aware of it, and of himself.
Where then had the pageant of his youth been leading him? He had done nothing yet with his life, had failed to find his sister, and had been shown that his King had no wish for his services. He had sought favour, knowing it not worth the seeking. In that, and not in the caprice of his King, lay his true humiliation.
The youth of the gay cavalier was over; his disillusionment with his sister, his disappointment with his King now led him to the mood of the puritan, who sees his adventure, not in things outside, but in himself. Was he to be happy, like an insect, only when the sun shone on him? He had never noticed in the past what others had done or not done to him. Now that carefree immunity was gone, and he must recover it. What adventure would be a worthy one? To travel and discover the rarities of the East seemed now a trivial exploit. Any boy could be excited by strange countries. It was a sterner taste for adventure that bade him seek it at home.
He longed to serve some high cause, some enthusiasm in which he could forget himself as utterly as when he had been wont to forget himself in the tunes to which he sang, in the lovely lilt and speed of his horse moving in a rhythm more gracious and inevitable than any dance.
And now he began to see his disappointment, not as the end to his adventure, but the beginning. His heart rode high again with that nameless hope, that bright expectation of he knew not what, that had always accompanied him.
The Proud Servant Page 14