‘Happy?’ Robert whispers into my hair and I can only smile up at him in reply, tears welling in my eyes.
We are swept along then by the throng of guests until we spill into the hall where liveried servants wait for us with great trays of wine glasses and plates of sweetmeats. Looking around me I see a sea of faces both new and familiar: the new – formerly estranged members of the old nobility, friends and connections of Robert’s powerful family; the familiar – Uncle Desborough, my aunts, cousin Lavinia and her handsome husband, the Captain of the Life Guard Richard Beke, the Russell family, Bulstrode Whitelocke and Master Thurloe, Lord Broghill, Sir Philip Jones and Sir Oliver Flemyng, Masters Marvell, Milton and Hingston and the ambassadors, Signor Giavarina among them, who winks at me and grins. Surveying them, my whole body tingles with the thrill of entering the room hand in hand with Robert just as my mind swells to contain the knowledge that we are now husband and wife. Every sense is heightened and I smell the wedding feast and later hear Master Hingston’s sublime music as never before though, curiously, all appetite deserts me and I am too distracted to eat a thing all day. Yet this hardly matters as there are to be at least three more days of celebrations to follow before we move on to Robert’s grandfather the Earl of Warwick’s splendid house on the Strand for yet more revels.
I glide among my friends talking and laughing, touching everyone as if I long to pass on my joy. Father makes a speech and after toasting our health, announces that Mary and Viscount Fauconberg are to be married next week, news that, even though it had been expected by the court, still sends ripples and murmurs around the room on the heels of the round of applause. Over a shoulder I see the black-coated figure of Marchamont Nedham, editor of our government newsletter Mercurius Politicus, circulating notebook in hand, and realise with a thrill that he will report on the wedding. If so, the details will be read across the three nations and even at the exiled court itself, perhaps even by the young ‘king’ who once sought my hand. Brides up and down the country will pore over the account and I take a vain and guilty pleasure in the thought that my wedding may influence others.
I am proud too of my family, every one of whom shines in their spectacular new clothes. I wonder how Master Nedham will describe them: Father in his costly new suit of uncut grey velvet made in the Spanish fashion; Mother in a new dress of deep green silk, her second-favourite pearls at her neck while her favourite set adorns mine; Elizabeth in a pale blue gown edged with silver, her children about her skirts in delicate white lace; and Mary in rustling layers of pink taffeta with a pearl trim – a masterpiece of a dress which I hope her betrothed appreciates. Truly Master Hornlock has excelled himself. Even Bridget is dressed finely in a simply cut deep blue dress, with Charles beside her fresh and cleanly scented with the brightest white collar above his suit, their assortment of children a rainbow of colours. John is in his full courtly regalia, of course, and Richard and Dorothy have taken trouble with their clothes too, though Dick is forced to spend much of the day with his broken leg propped on a chair.
It is he who beckons me over and demands the gift-giving begin. Robert joins us eagerly and we sit like a king and queen as our friends and family bring us their presents. Robert’s grandmother, the Countess of Devonshire, gives us a set of plate worth a rumoured two thousand pounds – a sum which astonishes me. John and Elizabeth giggle like newlyweds as they give us a pair of huge silver sconces which can hold twelve candles apiece; though I hardly know where we are to put them until Robert inherits his family house of Leighs Priory and we have a Great Hall of our own to decorate. Still, they are a fine gift.
My favourite present of all, however, has travelled across the sea from the west coast of Ireland. It is John Russell who brings the cage to me, its contents hidden by velvet curtains. ‘I am entrusted to deliver this gift to you from Harry with his love,’ he says, before whisking off the drapes to reveal a small silver-blue bird, its breast speckled white beneath the hood that covers its eyes.
‘A merlin,’ I say, clasping Robert’s hand in excitement. ‘My own bird. Thank you, John, thank you!’
Robert kisses the back of my hand before dropping it so that he can lead an applause. Smiling shyly, John Russell moves away, re-covering the cage as he goes.
We have almost reached the end of the gifts and Dick and Doll are the last to approach, presenting us with a great quantity of Canary wine. It is Robert’s turn now to be delighted and there is much back-slapping between him and my brother and promises of many a late night sunk in wine to come. I notice Father’s brow crease into a frown at this and nudge Robert to remember his promise to mend the recklessness of his youth.
Yet, in truth, Father’s disapproval is short-lived and, as the evening dances on, it becomes evident that he is the merrier for wine more than almost anyone else. Before the night is done indeed, he is running around the hall like a schoolboy, flicking his drinks on ladies’ dresses and hiding pastries and jellies on chairs, dissolving into fits of laughter with Uncle Desborough and his other army friends when unsuspecting guests sit upon them. His jesting reaches its apogee when he whips off Robert’s wig and sits on it, causing my new husband to colour momentarily with annoyance. ‘It’s a sign of favour,’ I whisper quickly. ‘He only plays practical jokes on those he likes.’ And, as if to prove me right, Father is up on his feet again in a trice, the wig returned to his new son-in-law with a slap on the back and a bow of apology. Mother watches Father with a wry smile and raises an eyebrow to me as if to say: ‘You have a husband now, you will see.’
And my husband, oh my husband. We dance and dance until almost five in the morning before our desire to be alone sweeps us quietly from the hall in a whispering, giggling run to our new rooms. Drink and exhaustion almost get the better of us and Robert falls asleep in my arms for half an hour before waking reinvigorated, just as I am sliding into sleep, and covering me with kisses. There is no sleep for me then.
We wake entangled in mid-morning to a great booming sound as guns fire from the Tower of London to mark our wedding. Robert laces his fingers through mine as we listen.
‘Did you know, wife, that the last time the Tower fired its guns to salute a marriage was when the old King Charles wed his French bride?’
I shake my head in wonder. ‘And to think that they then lived here in the same rooms my parents now have.’
‘Extraordinary,’ Robert agrees and we lie there in silence for some time gazing up at the canopy over our marriage bed, each cowed suddenly by the enormity of who we now are.
‘And yet that is the fate of the family to which you now belong, my darling,’ I say at last, twisting a curl of hair around my finger. ‘How does it feel to become a Cromwell?’
He chuckles at that. ‘And I may ask Your Highness how it feels to become a Rich? But yes, I cannot pretend it to be a small matter to join the ruling house of England. I will have to work hard to accustom myself to it and not least to overcome my nervousness of your father.’
I smile to myself, still the cherished daughter of a playful, affectionate father, struggling to imagine how others see the same man from a distance. ‘You will, dearest, you will. Once you come to know him better. And, however strange it may seem, his joke with your periwig was his way of showing favour.’
Robert raises a doubting eyebrow. ‘I thought it rather his way of putting me in my place.’
‘No, no.’ I laugh. ‘It was his way of showing that you will be friends. He was making the first move, after his own bizarre fashion.’
Even this little talking utterly exhausts me and the thought of rising from the bed for the next day of our wedding celebrations is almost too much for me to contemplate.
‘Do we have to get up?’ I turn to Robert and bury my face in the hot skin of his neck. ‘Can’t we just stay here?’
‘Mmmm. I think that would be entirely reasonable.’
He runs his hands through my hair, pushing the loose, damp curls off my face before pulling it up to kiss. For all my t
iredness and growing hunger, I feel myself draw into him and we are a tangle of limbs and sheets once more when the poor servant who knocks discreetly at the door with our breakfast receives Robert’s fierce shout to go away.
The wedding masque is planned for that evening and so after supper, at a sign from Master Hingston, I slip away with Mary and Katherine, who help me change into my costume behind the raised platform at the end of the Banqueting House which is to be the stage. I am to play the goddess Venus who is born from the sea and Master Hornlock has made a gown of silver-blue satin which winds around me in waves of sea spray edged with pearls, looping over my shoulder like a Roman toga. It is too much trouble to change my hair and so we simply slide hairpins topped with seashells into my ringlets, which we can remove again easily after the performance.
I climb up onto the stage, which is hidden from the audience by a rich pair of curtains hung beneath a huge proscenium arch. Behind me, the stage hands test the painted wooden waves with their hidden pivots, which they turn from the wings so that they form a rolling sea. Above our heads, a blue sheet is the sky, tiny star-shaped holes pricking the deep blue. Master Waller is bustling about speaking last-minute instructions and Master Hingston’s singers are gathered now on either side of the stage whispering excitedly, the boy trebles giggling and poking each other. Peeping around the edge of the curtain, I watch as the wedding guests take their seats, Father and Mother on large gilded chairs in the centre of the front row of the special tiered seating, Robert smiling on one side of them; Master Waller, as the author of the masque, now taking his place on the other. I swallow to ease my dry throat and try to think of my last rehearsal, repeating one of the harder lines of my song under my breath, picking my notes from the orchestra as it tunes up.
And before I know it, the strings have started the great swell of the opening music and I rush back to crouch behind the waves before the curtains are slowly drawn apart to reveal our timeless ocean scene, which is greeted with a pleasing gasp and applause from the audience. Master Hingston then brings in the singers and the voices of the little trebles soar over the waves like the calls of sirens. I know my cue at the end of the first verse and try and slow my breath so I can hear it above my thumping heart. ‘Peace,’ the singers call to the violins. ‘Peace when the bride begins to charm us with her voice.’ The orchestra falls silent and there is a heartbeat, a hair’s-breadth pause when I think I cannot do it, and then instinct takes over and I begin to sing.
Slowly, I rise from behind the waves and uncurl my new bridal body like a water nymph as I send my song forward, my voice wavering at first but growing more confident as I see the smiling faces arranged before me. I dare not look at Robert in case I lose concentration and so I lift my gaze over his head to the last row of chairs. I sing of the sea that gave me life and of the love to whom I go and as I do I feel a surge of power run through me; the power to hold the entranced gaze of all the court, to have won the love of the handsomest and best man in the room; and perhaps most of all, as I let my eyes meet the moistened eyes of the Lord Protector for just a second, the power to please my father.
My verse is over before I know it and I freeze in echo of the privy garden statues while the singers take up the song, joyfully bidding the orchestra to play once more so the bride can dance. I unfurl each arm to instruct the waves to part before me and, as if by magic, they roll back to let me through to the front of the stage. There I glide and twirl while the choir sing of Venus outshining the stars around her. I almost gasp indeed when turning around I see real stars glowing in the sky as the stage hands standing on ladders behind the sheet sky hold candles to the star-shaped holes. This is greeted with another sigh from the audience who burst into applause when a fleet of model ships then sails through the moving waves in honour of Father’s naval victories. It is with him and me that the song ends, the singers contrasting his military glory with my beauty and grace. I stop dancing and gesture forward to Father, bowing my head to him just as Master Waller instructed me. The choir and orchestra fall away to leave a single violin dueting with the sweet treble of the smallest boy who sings the closing couplet: ‘So honey from the lion came, and sweetness from the strong.’ It is an allusion to the Bible story of Samson where bees are found making honey in the body of a dead lion, which I know Master Waller will have chosen to please Father: I am the honey and Father the lion and Providence smiles on us both.
My gaze is on the floorboards and all I can hear is the thundering in my chest as I wait for the applause. And then it comes, crashing over me like a flood, and I splutter and laugh with relief. Standing I curtsey to the room and gesture for the singers and Master Hingston’s orchestra to receive applause. Only then, at last I allow myself a look at Robert, who is standing to clap an ovation and beaming at me. When Father rises to his feet alongside him, the rest of the audience stands and the applause peters out as each face turns to Father for his response. I watch with the rest as he beckons a servant forward with a tray of wine. Taking a cup and raising it high, he turns away from me to the audience behind him and toasts: ‘My beautiful daughter, the goddess Venus!’ Great cheers and echoes of ‘Venus, Venus!’ follow as he strides forward to the platform and offers his hand to help me down the steps. With a kiss on the top of my head as I reach him, Father leads me over to Robert and places my hand in his, calling for the chairs to be moved so there can be dancing.
‘I must change,’ I whisper to Robert, suddenly conscious of my godly attire now that I have come back down to earth.
‘Oh no, you don’t,’ he says, tightening his grip on my waist. ‘I want to dance with my goddess bride.’
And so we do. I dance with Robert, with Father and John before I am claimed by a succession of my new relations and their grand friends from the old nobility. The most exciting of these is Mountjoy Blount, the Earl of Newport, a handsome, sprightly man in his late fifties whom I know to have been a great favourite and ladies’ man at the courts of the dead King Charles and his father the Scottish King James as far back as the early ’20s.
‘It was my perfectly pointed beard,’ he sighs to me as he relives those days while we dance. ‘That was what earned me the admiration of the court. Van Dyck called it a work of art and it was the envy of Prince Charles himself, who took a great interest in fashion. But that must seem horribly old-fashioned to you, my dear; there is hardly a moustache at your father’s court, where I can see the clean-shaving of the Ironsides reigns supreme. Look there – even Sir Thomas Billingsey, who was a courtier even before my time, has shaved off his beard to match the new fashions here. And his beard was almost as fine as mine!’
I cannot help laughing at this; the earl is quite right. None of the young men would be seen dead with a beard nowadays, though I have no wish to say so and hurt his feelings. Instead I say: ‘You put the young men here in the shade, my lord, even now. Saving of course my husband.’
‘Haha! Thank you, my lady. And may I compliment you on your gracious performance. It was quite the equal of the great masques we used to have at court before the war. Indeed, I saw the young Queen Henrietta Maria sing and dance once as you did, though you quite outshone the memory of her performance today. Isn’t it quite something?’ the earl continues, his eyes drifting away from me into the distance, his voice dropping as if he speaks only to himself. ‘Here I am today – after so many years and so much fighting – dancing once again with a princess; but a princess from among our own people, not born to a royal house of Europe. A new era indeed.’
I blush at his words, even as I know Father would chide me for vanity if he were to hear my thoughts. I excuse myself when the dance ends, desperate suddenly to rest my feet. Finding a glass of wine I sink into a chair and have barely taken a sip before Signor Giavarina appears before me, his dark eyes shining with humour as he rises from an elaborate bow.
‘You have made another conquest, Principessa.’ He nods to the earl. ‘Or should it be la divinissima?’
I laugh. ‘You tease
me, Ambassador.’
‘Indeed I do not.’ He affects mock offence as he takes the seat beside me. ‘I was most affected by your portrayal of Venus, for you know our city of Venice is closely associated with her. Venice has been married to the sea for over six hundred years and we celebrate their wedding every spring.’
‘How wonderful! I would love to see that.’
‘I hope you will one day, Principessa. You could reprise your role as Venus and delight my master the Doge and the Senate just as you have me.’
I incline my head at his ambassadorial flattery and wait for him to say what he has really come to tell me. Giavarina leans closer.
‘But beyond your obvious beauty and grace, Principessa, there was a serious message in your performance which I and every other ambassador here will this night be scribbling back to our masters.’
I stiffen at little, anxious to hear what analysis my Italian friend has of Master Waller’s masque, for I know such allegories are open to multiple interpretations; that they always convey messages of politics as much as love. ‘Ambassador?’
The Puritan Princess Page 22