by Jean Plaidy
He was ugly in spite of his finery, but none in those fear-ridden streets dared so much as hint that this was so. All who saw him bowed in homage, all called to him that England had been saved by him.
Catherine knew that the misshapen little man was thinking particularly of one victim whom he longed to trap; she knew he was waiting for the right moment, because she was such an important victim that he dared not pounce too soon.
Then suddenly she knew that she was not alone. She knew that she had not been mistaken, for the King came riding into the capital from Windsor.
He had heard of the accusation against the Queen’s servants, and he would realize to what this was leading.
He sent for Bedloe. He would have an exact description of what had taken place at Somerset House. Would the man describe the room in which the murder had taken place? Would he give the exact day on which this had happened?
Bedloe was only too willing to oblige. He gave details of the Queen’s residence, for he had made sure of being correct on this.
But when he had finished the King faced him squarely. ‘It is a strange thing to me,’ he said, ‘that I should have visited Her Majesty on the day you mention, and that I should have been at Somerset House at the very hour the murder took place.’
‘Your Majesty,’ began the man, ‘this may have been so, but Sir Edmund was lured inside while Your Majesty was with the Queen.’
The King raised his eyebrows. He said lightly: ‘Since you and your friends startled my people with your stories of plots, my guards have been most careful of my person. I must tell you that, at the hour when the magistrate was said to have been lured into Somerset House, every possible entry was well guarded because I was there also. Could he have been lured past the guards, think you? And I will add that your tale lacks further conviction, for the passage, in which you say the body of the man lay, is that which leads to the Queen’s dining chamber, so that her servants, when bringing her meals, must either have walked over the corpse or not noticed it, which I scarcely think is likely.’
Bedloe was about to speak.
‘Take this man away!’ roared the King.
And Bedloe was hurried out, lest a command to send him to the Tower might be given. Charles was too shrewd to give such an order. He was aware that, as at the time of the war with the Dutch, revolution was in the air.
He could not stem the stream of accusations against the Queen, but he was there to give her his protection while he could do so.
*
The people continued to believe that the Queen was guilty. Buckingham and Shaftesbury were bent on two things: the exile of the Duke of York and his Duchess; and the ruin of the Queen. The King had declined to rid himself of her by divorce; therefore there was only one other way of ridding the country of her.
Why should she not be accused of plotting against the King’s life? Titus Oates had the people ready to believe any lie that fell from his lips. He must now uncover for them a plot more startling than any which he had given them before. It could be proved that the Queen had written to the Pope; she had done this during the first weeks of her arrival in England; she had offered to try to turn the King to Catholicism, in exchange for the Pope’s recognition of her brother as King of Portugal. But more should be proved against the Queen,
She had refused to enter a nunnery; perhaps she would prefer the block.
Titus Oates, drunk with power, delighting in his eminence, knew what was expected of him.
He set out to concoct the plot to outshine all plots.
The country waited; those men who had determined on the ruin of the Queen waited. And Catherine also waited.
*
Oates stood before the members of the Privy Council. He had grave matters of which to speak to them. He was a careful man, he reminded them; he was a man who had pretended to become a Jesuit for the sake of unearthing their wicked schemes; he was a brave man, they would realize from that, so he did not hesitate to make an accusation against a person however high that person stood in the land.
‘My lords,’ he said in his high affected voice, ‘there are certain matters which I feel it my duty to disclose to you concerning the Queen.’
‘The Queen!’
The members of the Council feigned to be astonished, but Titus was aware of their alert and eager faces.
‘Her Majesty has been sending sums of money to the Jesuits. They are always at her elbow . . . in secret conclave.’
They were watching his face. Dare I? He wondered. It needed daring. He was uncertain, and this matter concerned no other than the King’s own wife.
But Titus was blown up with his own conceit. He was not afraid. Was he not great Titus, the saviour of his country?
He made his plots, and he made them with such care and with such delight that he came to believe in them even as he elaborated and made his sharp little twists and turns to extricate himself from the maze into which his lies often led him.
‘I have seen a letter in which the Queen gives her consent to the murder of the King.’
There was a sharp intake of breath as every eye was fixed on that repulsive, almost inhuman face.
‘Why did you not report this before?’ asked Shaftesbury sharply.
Titus folded his hands. ‘A matter concerning so great a lady? I felt I must make sure that that which I feel it my duty to bring to your notice was truth.’
‘And you have now made certain of this?’
Titus took a step nearer to the table about which sat the ministers.
‘I was at Somerset House. I waited in an antechamber. I heard the Queen say these words: “I will no longer suffer such indignities to my bed. I am content to join in procuring the death of the Black Bastard, and the propagation of the Catholic Faith.”’
‘This were high treason,’ said Buckingham.
‘Punishable by death!’ declared Shaftesbury.
But they were uneasy.
‘Why did you not tell this earlier?’ asked one of the ministers.
‘I have been turning over in my mind whether I should not first impart it to His Majesty.’
‘How can you be sure that it was the Queen who spoke these words?’
‘There was no other woman present.’
‘So you know the Queen?’
‘I have seen her, and I knew her.’
‘This is a matter,’ said Shaftesbury, ‘to which we must all give our closest attention. It may be that the King’s life is in imminent danger – in a quarter where he would least expect it.’
*
Titus was elaborating his plot. Poison was to be administered to the King; and when he was dead the Duke of York would reign, and there would be a place of honour in the land for his Catholic sister-in-law.
In Somerset House the Queen was fearful. Rumour reached her. She knew that evil forces were working against her. What if, next time she was accused, the King could not save her?
What would he do then? she asked herself. Would he stand by and leave her to her fate?
*
The climax came on a dark November day. Titus could contain himself no longer. His friend Bedloe had been pardoned for all his offences, as payment for the evidence he had given against the Papists.
Titus, so happy in his episcopal robes, smoothing his long scarf, thinking of the happy days on which he had fallen after all the lean years, hearing the shouts of acclamation when he had been so accustomed to shouts of derision, was called to the bar of the House of Commons to give further evidence of plots he had unearthed.
He stood at the bar, and his voice rang out.
He said those fatal words which were meant to condemn an innocent woman to the block and to bring about the long hoped-for conclusion of unscrupulous statesmen: ‘Aye, Taitus Oates, accause Catherine Queen of England of Haigh Treason.’
The words were greeted with a shocked silence.
Buckingham was heard to curse under his breath: ‘The fool! It is too soon as yet!’
And then the news was out.
All over London, and soon all over the country, the people of England were calling for the blood of the woman who had sought to poison their King.
*
So this was the end. Catherine sat like a statue, and beside her was the Count Castelmelhor, whose expression of blank misery made it clear that he believed there was nothing more that he could do for her.
There would be a trial, thought Catherine; and her judges would find her guilty because they had determined to do so.
And Charles?
She understood his case.
His position was an uneasy one. The people were crying out for the blood of Papists, and she was a Papist. Revolution trembled in the air; she was fully aware that there was one day which Charles would never forget – that was a bleak January day when his father had been led to execution.
If he showed any leniency towards the Catholics now, the country would be screaming for his blood too. He knew it, and he had sworn that, at whatever cost, he would never go travelling again.
The people of England were repudiating her. She was a barren Queen; she was a Queen whose dowry had never been paid in full; and she was a Papist. The tall dark man with the melancholy face was no longer ruler of England; that role had fallen to a shuffling man with the most evil of countenances who went by the name of Titus Oates.
There seemed nothing to do but to wait for her doom.
*
Castelmelhor had news for her.
‘The King has questioned those who accuse Your Majesty. He has questioned them with the utmost severity, and it is clear to all those who hear him that he is greatly displeased with those who would destroy you.’
A gentle smile illumined Catherine’s face. ‘Yes, he would be unhappy. That is like him. But he will do nothing. How can he? It would be against the people’s wishes. And he must consider them now.’
‘He has insisted on a minute description of the room of this Palace in which Oates swears he overheard you plan to poison him; he says a woman would have to shout, for Oates to have heard her say what he declares he heard you say; he has said that you are a low-voiced woman. He is doing everything to prove your accusers liars.’
Catherine smiled, and the tears started to flow gently down her cheeks.
‘I shall remember that,’ she said. ‘When they lead me to the block I shall remember it. He did not pass by on the other side of the road. He stopped to succour me.’
‘Your Majesty must not despair. If the King is with you, others will follow. He is still the King. He is very angry that you should be so accused. They are saying now that Sir George Wakeman was to have brought the poison to you, and that you were to administer it to the King when he next visited you. The King has laughed the idea to scorn, and he says he will never suffer an innocent lady to be oppressed.’
‘I shall never forget those words,’ said Catherine. ‘I shall carry them with me to the grave. I know they have determined on my death, but he would have saved me, if he could.’
‘You underestimate the power of the King, Madam.’
‘My dear Castelmelhor, come to the window.’
She took his hand and drew him there, for he was reluctant to go with her. Already the crowds were gathering. She saw their hats with the bands about them on which were written ‘No Popery! No Slavery!’ They carried sticks and knives; they were a vicious mob.
They had come to mock and curse her on her journey to the Tower.
*
A barge was on the river. The crowds hurried to its edge.
They have come to take me away, thought Catherine. I shall lie in my prison in the Tower as others have before me. I am guilty of the crime of Queens; I could not bear a son.
This was the end then – the end of that love story which was to have been so perfect, and of which she had dreamed long ago in the Lisbon Palace. She would sail down the river to the grim grey fortress into which she would enter by way of the Traitors’ Gate.
It might be that she would never again set eyes on Charles’s face. He would not wish to see her. It would distress him too much, for however much he wished to be rid of her, he would never believe her guilty of conspiring to poison him.
She heard the shouts of the people. She could not see the barge, for the crowds on the bank hid it; but now someone had stepped ashore. It was a tall figure, slender, black-clad, the dark curls of his wig falling over his shoulders, his broad-brimmed plumed hat on his head, while those about him were hatless.
Charles!
So he had come to see her. She felt dizzy with her emotion. He had come; and she had never thought he would come. He could have only one purpose in coming to her now.
With him were members of the Court, and his personal guards; he came from the landing stairs to the house with those so well-remembered quick strides of his.
‘The King is here!’ The words echoed through the house. It was as though the very walls and hangings were trembling with excitement – and hope.
He strode into the room; she tried to approach him, but her limbs trembled so that she could not move. She wanted to sink to her knees and kiss his hand. She merely stood mutely before him, looking up into that lined and well-loved face.
Then he put his hands upon her shoulders and, drawing her towards him, kissed her there before them all.
That kiss was the answer to all who saw it; it was the defiance of two people who were going to stand against all those who were the enemies of the Queen. They had not understood him. They had thought him too facile. They thought that he, being an unfaithful husband, was faithless throughout. They thought that he, finding it so easy to smile and make promises, could never stand firm.
‘I have come to take you with me to Whitehall,’ he said. ‘It is not meet that you and I should live apart in these times.’
Still she could find no words. She felt his hands gripping hers; she saw the tender smile which she remembered from the days of their honeymoon.
‘Come,’ he said, ‘let us go now. I am eager to show them that, whatever comes, the King and Queen stand together.’
Then she could not suppress her emotion.
She threw herself against him and cried, half laughing, half in tears: ‘Charles, you do not believe these stories against me? Charles, I love you with all my heart.’
He said: ‘I know it.’
‘They will seek to prove these terrible things against me.’ They will lie and . . . and the people listen to their lies.’
‘You are returning with me to Whitehall,’ he said, ‘whence we shall go to Windsor. We will ride through the countryside together, you and I; for I wish the people to know that in this turmoil there are two who stand side by side in trust and love and confidence: the King and his Queen in whom he puts his trust.’
The crowds were gathering about the house. She could hear their shouts.
‘Come,’ he said. ‘Let us go. Let us leave at once. Are you afraid?’
‘No,’ she said, putting her hand in his, no longer afraid.
They left the house; the people stood back in a hushed silence; they stepped into the barge; the King was smiling at the Queen, and he kept her hand in his.
They sailed along the river to Whitehall and it was seen that never had the King paid more attention to any woman than he did at that time to his Queen.
Catherine felt then that those dreams which had come to her in the Lisbon Palace had materialized. She knew that it was such moments as this which made all that she had suffered worth while.
All through the years to come she would treasure this moment; she would remember that when she was lonely and afraid, when she was in imminent peril, that man who had come to her and brought her to safety was the one whom she loved.
EPILOGUE
Some twenty-four years after the reign of Charles had ended, Barbara, Duchess of Cleveland, lay in a house in the village of Chiswick; she was dying.
Sixty-eight years of age, an intriguante to the end
, she had not ceased to look for lovers. So many of those who had witnessed the days of her glory were long since dead. Even Catherine the Queen, who had lived to an old age, had died four years before, just at the time when Barbara was contracting that most disastrous marriage with a man who had in his day been one of the most handsome rakes in London.
She lay on her bed, swollen to a great size by the dropsy which had attacked her. She felt too old and tired even to abuse her attendants; a sure sign, they felt, that the end was near.
She dozed a little and allowed her mind to slip back to events of the past. It was the only pleasure left to her. The greatest evil which could befall her had come upon her; she was old, no longer beautiful nor desirable; she remembered faintly that some member of the Court, with whom she had quarrelled, had once declared that he hoped to see her come to such a state.
Well, it was upon her now.
She had lost the King’s favour to her old enemy the Duchess of Portsmouth; she had had many lovers since then but she had never ceased to regret the loss of Charles. She had schemed to marry her children into the richest and most noble families of England; and only Barbara, her youngest and Churchill’s child, had become a nun.
She thought of coming back to England just before Charles’s death, with high hopes of returning to his favour. But he remembered too well the tantrums and furies of the past; he was happy with Louise de Kéroualle, his Duchess of Portsmouth, and Nelly the play-girl.
In place of the King she had found an actor lover, a gay adventurer, named Cardonell Goodman. Ah, he had been handsome, and what joy to see him strut across the stage as Alexas in Dryden’s All for Love, or Julius Caesar, or Alexander the Great. She had paid him well; and he had been grateful, for an actor’s pay of six and threepence a day had been inadequate for the needs of such a man. No wonder he had loved her. No wonder he had refused to allow the play to start until his Duchess was in her box, even though the Queen herself had come to see it! He had tried to poison her children. Oh, he was a rogue, but an exciting one, and she had his child to remember him by.