Giavarina pauses briefly for effect. ‘It is a message of hope, Principessa – of hope and of reassurance to those at court who despair of your father’s closeness to the army; the closeness that stopped him becoming king as perhaps he should have done. The song tells them to be patient. That though your father, his most serene Highness, God protect him, may be a brave soldier set in his ways, he will eventually …’ He struggles for the right words in English. ‘… give way to a new generation of graceful, courtly Cromwells more palatable to the old nobility and the Parliament. Sometimes you need the view of an outsider, as I have told you before.’
He turns his dark eyes to survey the room, and, as ever, I follow his gaze, now seeing signs of the hesitant reconciliation he speaks of everywhere. There is Secretary Thurloe standing with Bulstrode Whitelocke and the fashionably attired trio of Lord Broghill, Councillors Nathaniel Fiennes and his brother-in-law Charles Wolseley, talking with Viscount Fauconberg. There my brother Richard, who has hobbled over to share a glass of wine with the Earl of Warwick and a group of Robert’s other noble relations. And there, the Earl of Newport and Robert’s father Lord Rich, who are now dancing with their swords and cloaks in the old Jacobean style to the whoops and cheers of their friends. Father, perhaps a little the worse for the previous day’s excesses, I fancy, sits on his great chair and watches them, his brows knitted in thought while two of Elizabeth’s children play on the floor at his feet.
‘I hope you are right, Ambassador,’ I say, but as he bows and makes to leave me, I reach forward quickly for his hand. ‘And I hope too that you will always be my friend, whatever the future may hold. Go write your report for the Doge and make sure you tell him what a fine wedding it has been.’
‘Of course, my lady.’
Robert comes to claim me soon afterwards, determined to carry off his goddess at last, and I go with him happily, leaving a trail of seashell hairpins all the way into our bed.
The court spends the rest of the week in holiday mood, the celebrations of my wedding gradually blending into the preparations for Mary’s, especially once we have all travelled out to Hampton Court where she is to be wed. Father and the Council enjoy a brief respite from the concerns of foreign policy, though the newest Councillor John Thurloe continues to burn his candle at both ends and I can see that his thoughts never stray far from the latest intelligence report or dispatch from the Continent. Father is in an expansive mood and takes a moment from the festivities to bestow a knighthood on my brother Harry in Ireland, finally persuading the Council to confirm him governor now that Charles’s term of office has lapsed; formalising the work he already does governing that fractious and divided country on behalf of Father’s Protectorate and releasing him, at last, from Charles’s arm’s-length interference.
The future glitters for all of us Cromwell sons and daughters. Yet as the day of Mary’s wedding approaches, the questions about her betrothed, his true motives and the political fallout of their marriage gather pace as they scamper about the palace. It is Bridget with her characteristic candour who voices them to me most clearly as we sit in our private balcony room sewing ribbons for Mary’s wedding bouquet.
‘The news of Mary’s marriage has not been well received by the army,’ Bridget says, keeping her eyes on her stitching. ‘Charles tells me the other army leaders aren’t happy at all.’
I sigh at this, for all the newlywed smile that will not leave my face. ‘When are they ever happy though, Biddy? If we could never do anything but that which pleased them, life would be dull indeed.’
She tuts. ‘Frances, this is not a game.’
‘Indeed it isn’t, not for Mary certainly.’
‘There is no need to be defensive. I know you feel responsible for this match.’
Bridget has me there, her finger precisely on the point of my conscience as only an older sister’s can be – it is the one hole in my joy: my fear that Mary’s happiness may be the price of my own. Seeing this, Bridget presses home her advantage.
‘You would feel a greater sympathy with the soldiery if you had ever lived among them as I have, with Henry and then with Charles. While you were a child I was on campaign with the army, enduring the men’s privations, seeing the war at first hand. It is their suffering that has led to our luxury, their blood that has bought our liberty and peace.’
‘I cannot help the cosseted life I have led, Bridget, any more than you can help the trials you have suffered,’ I say. ‘It is not my fault that Father’s great elevation came while I was still almost a child. I know you think I have enjoyed our status more than I should but that is only because I believe I have been extraordinarily blessed.’ The great happiness I feel keeps my tone conciliatory even though I always hate it when Bridget uses the fourteen years between us to belittle my views, fearing nothing so much than that she thinks me a vain, spoilt girl.
‘That is true, dearest.’ Bridget relents a little. ‘But to return to this Fauconberg. What do we really know of him? Who’s to say he will not turn out to be a viper in our bosom, sent to spy on us for Charles Stuart? And yet Father, in his wisdom, gives him Mary’s hand, a dowry of fifteen thousand pounds and Lambert’s former regiment in the north. You can imagine what Charles and Uncle Desborough think of that, what John Lambert himself thinks of that.’
I try not to drop a stitch as I order my thoughts. ‘But I can see the wisdom in it, Biddy. Father means to make the marriage a moment of reconciliation with former royalists who, after all, make up half the nation – there would be little point to it if he didn’t give Thomas some power and positions of his own.’
‘But this stranger will hold the balance of power in the north. Is that not rash? And you have seen how he now advises Father on foreign affairs and sits at his side when he receives ambassadors.’
‘We must trust to Father’s judgement,’ I say with more hope than confidence.
‘And Mary?’
I lay my sewing down in my lap and look at Bridget but she keeps her grey eyes on her needle. ‘I suppose she must learn to trust her new husband,’ I reply eventually, the guilt swirling within me once more. ‘Thanks to her I have had a choice but she, in her kindness, has surrendered hers. What choice does she now have?’
‘Very little.’ Bridget shakes her head. ‘Just as I had.’
Disquieting thoughts about the viscount continue to swell in my mind and send me stealing into Mary’s chamber late the night before the marriage, leaving the beloved husband, whom I alone among my sisters chose completely for myself, asleep in our bed.
‘Mall?’ I tiptoe into her room, my bare feet seeking the warm carpets as stepping stones over the cool tiles.
‘Come in, Fanny.’
Mary is sitting up in bed, a book absently in her lap which she places to one side as I approach. As I look at her moonlit in her nightgown, waiting as she always has for my embraces and my secrets, my teasing and my tears, I feel a sudden swell of grief.
‘After tomorrow, I will not be able to do this,’ I say, a lump in my throat.
‘I know.’ She pats the bed beside her and I hitch my dress to clamber up. ‘Several times in the last few days I have thought of slipping into your room to talk of some moment of the day and stopped myself, once already half along the landing, when I remembered that your new husband would be with you.’
‘And what shall we do when we are not even in the same house?’ I ask, my mind reeling at the idea of our separation; the first of our lives. ‘Thomas plans to take you into Yorkshire soon after the wedding, does he not? And Robert promises he will take me to visit his grandfather’s estate in Essex at Christmastide; he wants me to see the house which will one day be ours.’
Mary sighs and puts her arm around my shoulder. ‘Truly I do not know how I will bear it. At least you will remain here for the time being, close to Mother. And …’ She tails off but I know what she would go on to say if she were less kind: And you have a husband who you love and who you know already to be your best friend wh
ereas I go into unfamiliar country with a man I hardly know …
I choose to answer the words she has not said. ‘Mary, my love, I will never be able to thank you for what you have done for me and for Robert. And I know – I know – that God would not be so cruel as to punish such great kindness with unhappiness. I believe you will find love with Thomas, I truly do.’
‘And if he has ulterior motives?’ Mary interrupts me. ‘If he is marrying me to further the cause of our enemies?’
I shake my head, truly at a loss for a reply. ‘We can only trust Father and Master Thurloe in this. And why should Thomas not wish to ally himself with our house? Besides, I like his face. It is an honest face. He has a warm smile and gentle eyes, whatever the awkwardness of his conversation, and he couldn’t take those eyes off you when you wore the pink taffeta. When he sees you tomorrow …’
She smiles at that though I feel her tense a little too and I know she is thinking of the wedding night to come; an experience I struggle to imagine with a man I knew so little.
‘You will be worried about your first night together.’ Again, I choose to address her thoughts rather than her words. ‘But it will be easier and less frightening than you imagine. I know.’ I put my hand up to her gaze – a gaze which says I can hardly know how it will feel in the same circumstances. ‘I know that he will be kind. And you will find it becomes easier once you have kissed for a time and your limbs have relaxed. Have plenty of wine and try and encourage him into conversation first. Take his hands in yours – he is shy, I think. Speak gently, let him kiss you. Try and be soft however much your body stiffens against him. You know where to find me if you need me; Robert be damned.’
Mary pulls me to her roughly and for a few minutes we cling to each as other if no one else but us exists. And then, with no words left to say between us, we clasp our hands and close our eyes for our last prayers together: prayers for a safe future, prayers for our new husbands, prayers for happiness and for love.
For all her resemblance to Father, Mary is a vision on her wedding day and I am gratified to see a spark of enthusiasm in Thomas’s eyes and the hint of pleasure about his mouth as he takes her hand before the Justice. In the prayer led by the Reverend Dr Hewitt I squeeze my eyes shut, praying desperately for them to be happy; indeed I do not believe I have ever longed for something so much with the exception of my wish to marry Robert and, despite the brave words I had for Mary last night, my deepest fear remains that the one will be the price for the other.
The wedding is a smaller, more private affair than mine, the date not even revealed to the public beforehand. Much of Thomas’s family stays away, yet Father spares no expense and the Great Hall at Hampton Court glimmers over the wedding feast as the haze from the candlelight layers over the tapestries along the walls so the figures woven within them seem to move shimmering around us. I take a few moments to look around my family and friends and count my blessings, grateful for the chance to relive a day so close to my own wedding and yet one which will pass at a normal pace and allow me to form the memories I have barely managed to retain of my own. All eyes are on Mary and not me and I find myself surprised to enjoy the change, letting my hand slip into Robert’s beneath the table, my head resting happily on his shoulder as if no one is there but us two.
It is in this same pose later in the evening that we sit to watch the masque that Master Marvell has written for Mary’s wedding to match that composed by Master Waller for ours. It is Father himself who has commissioned it, having so much enjoyed the performance at our wedding. And if the audience retains any doubts whether this revival of the royal masque will last at the Cromwell court, the Lord Protector banishes these in a single instant. For when the masque begins, the curtains are drawn back to reveal Father himself, swathed in a toga and breastplate and atop a throne as Jove, the benevolent king of the gods, who rules the imaginary world of the stage and watches the play unfold beneath him. It is a non-speaking part, and Father shifts a little uncomfortably in his seat, but the impact on us all is enormous. Never before, I think looking up at him, has our court been closer to the ones that came before.
But I am soon caught up in the story. Where my masque was a seascape, this is a pastoral scene with mythical shepherds and shepherdesses evoking an ancient English idyll. Unlike me, Mary has no desire to perform, hindered she told me not only by her own shyness but by the awkwardness she feels as bride to a little-known and politically contentious husband. Yet Master Marvell has no such reserve and the songs he has composed cast the young couple in every bit as heroic and romantic a light as that which shone upon us. This time, the bride is portrayed as the mythical Cynthia to her new husband’s Endymion and the songs tell the story of their courtship as hired dancers play it out beneath the benevolent gaze of the almighty Jove.
Mary struggles with embarrassment as the singers heap praises onto her and Thomas, though none but I could tell what she feels behind her serene bridal expression.
I cannot help but whisper my suspicions to Robert:
‘Mary should take it in good humour. It does no good to shy away from the absurd position we East Anglian farmers now find ourselves in. We can only rise to the challenge and surprise our enemies with the nobility of our charm, else they have more weapons against us.’
I would go on but Robert hushes me, his eyes lifted to the stage, ‘Shhh. I think they sing now about us.’
I focus once more on the singing, just in time to catch the chorus in the guise of shepherds instruct the bridegroom on his courtship of Cynthia:
Courage Endymion, boldly woo
Anchises was a Shepheard too;
Yet is her younger sister laid
Sporting with him in Ida’s shade.
I gasp, my composure momentarily deserting me as a few glances both knowing and unknowing turn from the stage towards us. The reference, to my mind at least, is as clear as Venetian glass: I am the younger sister who sported with my lover before our marriage – a Venus indeed in my ungovernable passion. Have I imagined it or has Master Marvell broadcast Robert’s and my premarital indiscretions to the entire assembly and immortalised my unwedded loss of virginity in verse? But surely it can’t be. How could he know? Did everyone know all this time? I glance at Mother but she is smiling at Mary while, from the stage, Father continues to impersonate godlike impassivity.
I am numb for many moments before I feel the pinch of Robert’s hand on my thigh.
‘Smile, darling. You were saying something about taking it in good humour?’
The new Viscount and Lady Fauconberg leave court for the long journey north into Yorkshire only a few days later, Thomas eager to travel before the Wolds are blanketed in the first snow. I lend Mary my fox fur stole and matching gloves, though otherwise we have barely a moment alone before she is gone.
From that moment of separation I never cease fretting about her, missing her like a part of my own self. Adrift, I look for companionship elsewhere and find myself spending more time with my cousin Lavinia, who knows almost as many of my secrets as Mary from when she used to live with us when we were younger. With her I enjoy the knowing conversation of young wives, which I used to watch with fascinated envy, and we spend many hours sitting together exchanging our discoveries about married life behind our hands.
Although the thrill of being a bride does not leave me for months, around me the court gradually settles down after the excitement of our weddings to resume normal life. Yet my family has scarcely known such a thing as normal life and, once more, frightening events beyond our walls disrupt any domestic peace. Again Councillor Thurloe’s spies earn their pay when they reveal a planned royalist uprising intended to coincide with a Spanish invasion to restore the exiled ‘king’ Charles Stuart. Rumours flow along the streets of London like dirty rainwater in the gutters and the Council of State orders the guards doubled at the Tower and all other strongholds, summons more men in to the defend the city and dispatches weapons and munitions all across the country. Beyond
the palace privy gardens, the streets ring with the clink of breastplates and the shouts and stamps of soldiers.
In private the family huddles and whispers its fears, though Bridget chides us for nervous fools and Charles, who is a passionate hater of Spain, rails and rants and prays to God as he oversees the mustering of the army. ‘I wish Lambert were with us, for all his love of the Spanish papists,’ he admits to me one evening. ‘The men need him.’
Father distracts himself with his nominations for the new House of Lords, or ‘Other House’ as everyone awkwardly refers to it, remembering the hasty abolition of its predecessor after the old king’s execution. There are sixty-three names when he finally finishes the list, among them not only Richard, but also my other brother Harry and each of my three brothers-in-law: Charles, John and the newest, Thomas, Viscount Fauconberg. My grandfather-in-law the Earl of Warwick is asked to sit alongside them; Uncle Desborough, Lord Broghill, Bulstrode Whitelocke, Edward Montagu – who, since he has returned from the sea, has also joined the Council of State – and many others of the erstwhile kingship party too. Robert tries to hide his disappointment that he alone is overlooked and I seek every opportunity to explain how Father could hardly raise him up to the level of his grandfather, the great parliamentary war hero. This of course is true but I see how Robert champs at the bit like one of Father’s new Arabian stallions.
‘How would you like to go and see my family estate in Essex?’ he asks me one evening while I watch him take a bath before the fire in our bedroom, the water itself seeming to blaze with the reflected flames against his chest and knees. ‘It’s an old priory, you know – quite beautiful. I long for the fresh air there and to have something more substantial to do.’
‘Do you mean to tell me, my dear husband, that Robert Rich wishes to give up his life of carousing around court for some more gainful employment?’ I tease him because I know he enjoys it even though I am secretly pleased at this new application of his.
The Puritan Princess Page 23