A Health Unto His Majesty
Page 24
Barbara, whose spies were numerous, discovered that the Duke of Richmond was often in the company of Frances Stuart and that the conversations which took place between them were of a tender nature. Infuriated by the rumors she had heard of the King’s contemplating a divorce that he might marry Frances, Barbara had one object in mind—and that was to ruin Frances in the King’s eyes.
She did not believe that Frances was seriously contemplating marriage with her cousin, the Duke of Richmond. What woman, thought Barbara scornfully, would become a Duchess when the prospect of becoming a Queen was dangling before her?
She suspected Frances of being very sly and, in spite of her apparent ingenuousness, very clever. Barbara could be angry with herself when she came to believe that she, no less than others, had been duped by Frances’s apparent simplicity.
No! said Barbara. What the sly creature is doing is holding on to her virtue where the King is concerned, following the example of other ladies in history such as Elizabeth Woodville and Anne Boleyn. It may even be that she is not averse to entertaining a lover in private!
One day she discovered through her spies that the Duke of Richmond was in Frances’ apartment, and she lost no time in seeking out the King.
She waved away his attendants in a manner which annoyed him, but he did not reprove her for this until they had left.
Then she shouted at him: “Would you have them remain to hear what I have to say? Would you have them know—though doubtless they do already—what a fool Frances Stuart makes of you?”
The King’s calmness could always be shaken by the mention of Frances, and he demanded to know to what she referred.
“We are so virtuous, are we not?” mimicked Barbara. “We cannot be your mistress because we are so pure.” Her blue eyes flashed, and her anger blazed forth. “Oh, no, no, no! We cannot be your mistress because we think you may be fool enough to make us your Queen.”
“Be silent!” cried the King. “You shall leave the Court. I’ll never look on your face again.”
“No? Then go and look on hers now…. Go and catch her and her lover together, and then thank me for showing you what a fool that sly slut has made of you.”
“What is this?” demanded the King.
“Nothing…. Nothing at all. Merely that your pure little virgin is at this moment languishing in the arms of another Charles Stuart. It would seem that she hath a fancy for the name. Only one is a King and to be dangled on a string, and the other … is merely a Duke, so there is no sense in being quite so pure with him.”
“You lie,” growled the King.
“You are afraid of what you’ll discover. Go to her apartment now. Go … Go! And then thank me for opening your besotted eyes.”
The King turned and hurried from the room. He went immediately to Frances’s apartments; he pushed aside her attendants and went straight into that chamber where Frances was lying on a couch and the Duke of Richmond was sitting beside her holding her hand.
The King stood, legs apart, looking at them.
The Duke sprang to his feet. Frances did likewise.
“Sire …” began the Duke.
“Get out of here,” said the King ominously; and the Duke backed to the door and hurried away.
“So,” said the King, turning to Frances, “you entertain your lovers alone at times. Did you find his proposals to your liking?”
Frances said: “They were honorable proposals.”
“Honorable! And he here alone in your apartment?”
“Your Majesty must see that …”
“I know nothing of your behavior to this man,” said the King. “I can only draw conclusions, and I see this: that you, who have been so careful not to be alone with me, employ not the same care in his case.”
Frances had never seen Charles angry with her before, and she was alarmed; but she did not tremble before him; she knew he would not harm her.
She said: “Your Majesty, the Duke came hither to talk to me in an honorable fashion. He has no wife.”
“How far has this gone?”
“No farther than you saw. How could it? I would never submit to any man except my husband.”
“And you plan that he shall be that?”
“I plan nothing … yet.”
“Then he should not be here in your apartments.”
“Are the customs of the Court changing then?”
“We have always heard that you were set apart, that you did not accept the standards of the rest of us frail folk.”
He took her by the shoulders suddenly; his face was dark with passion.
“Frances,” he pleaded. “Have done with folly. Why do you so long hold out against me?”
She was frightened; she wrenched herself free and, running to the wall, clutched at the hangings as though childishly wishing to hide herself among them.
“I beg of Your Majesty to leave me,” she said.
She realized that his anger was still with him. He said: “One day mayhap you will be ugly and willing! I await that day with pleasure.”
Then he left her, and she knew that her relationship with the King had taken a new turn.
Frances, her fear still upon her, sought audience with the Queen.
She threw herself at Catherine’s feet and burst into tears.
“Your Majesty,” she cried, “I beg of you to help me. I am afraid. I have aroused the wrath of the King, and I have never seen him angry before. I fear that when his wrath is aroused it is more terrible than in those to whom anger comes more often.”
“You had better tell me what has happened,” said Catherine.
“He disturbed me with the Duke. He was furious with us both. The Duke has fled from Court. I know not what to do. He has never looked at me as he did then. He suspected … I know not what.”
“I think,” said Catherine sadly, “that he will not long be displeased with you.”
“It is not that I fear his displeasure, Your Majesty. He believes the Duke to be my lover; and I fear he will not have the same respect for me as hitherto.”
“That may be true,” agreed Catherine.
She felt then that she hated the beautiful face which was turned up to hers, hated it as much as she hated that other bold and arrogant one. These women with their beauty! It was cruel that they should have the power to take so easily that for which she longed, and longed in vain.
At that moment she would have given her rank and all she possessed to be in Frances Stuart’s place, loved and desired by the King.
He was angry with this girl, she was thinking; yet with me he never cared enough to be anything but kind.
She was aware of a rising passion within herself. She longed to rid the Court of all these women who claimed his attention. She believed he was tiring of Barbara, whose continual tantrums were at last wearing him down; but this young girl with her matchless beauty and her girlish ways was different. He loved this girl; he had even contemplated making her his wife. Catherine was sure of this.
She said suddenly: “If you married the Duke you would have a husband to protect you. You would show the King that he was mistaken in thinking you had taken a lover. Would you marry the Duke? He is the best match you could make.”
“Yes,” said Frances, “if it were possible. I would marry the Duke.”
“Can you keep a secret?”
“But of course, Madam.”
“Then say nothing of this, but be ready to leave the Palace should the summons come.”
“Whither should I go?”
“To marriage with the Duke.”
“He has gone away. I do not know where he is.”
“Others will have means of knowing,” said the Queen. “Now go to your room and rest. Be ready to leave the Palace if need be.”
When Frances had gone, Catherine marveled at herself. I have come alive, she mused. I am fighting for what I desire more than anything on Earth. I have ceased to sit placidly waiting for what I want. Like others, I go out to get it.
Clarendon came, and they talked long and secretly together.
The King’s fury and sorrow, when he learned that Frances had eloped, was boundless.
He could not bear to think of Frances and her Duke together. He knew the young husband to be a worthless person, a devotee of the bottle, and he did not believe that Frances was in love with him. That she should have chosen such a man increased his rage. He declared he would never see Frances again. He blamed himself for having caused that scene in her apartments; he suspected several people of being concerned in helping the lovers to elope, and he vowed that he would never forgive them. The only person he did not suspect was the Queen.
He believed Clarendon to be the prime mover in the affair, and both Buckingham and Barbara confirmed this belief.
Barbara was delighted. Not only was she rid of her most dangerous rival, but Clarendon was in disgrace because of it.
The King’s natural easy temper deserted him on this occasion. He accused Clarendon and his son, Lord Cornbury, of conspiring to bring about the elopement, and for once would not let them speak in their defense. He was unable to hide his grief. All the Court now understood the depth of his feeling for Frances and that it was very different from the light emotions he felt for his mistresses.
This was the most unhappy time of his life. He dreaded the coming of the spring when his ships, still laid up and in need of repairs, would be required to set out to face their enemies; he did not know how he was going to make good the country’s losses which were a direct result of the plague and the fire.
His position was wretched, and there was only one person at that time who could have made him feel that life was worthwhile. Now he had to think of her—for he could not stop thinking of her—in the arms of another man.
His rage and grief stayed with him; and at length he turned to one whose very outspoken vulgarity seemed to soothe him.
Barbara was in the ascendant again, and it seemed that the King was spending as much time with her as he had in the first days of his infatuation.
Barbara was determined that Buckingham should not go unpunished for his support of Frances Stuart, which was blatantly inimical to her interests.
Buckingham had become involved with a woman, notorious for her love affairs. This was Lady Shrewsbury, a plump, languorous beauty whose lovers were said to be as numerous as those of Barbara herself. She was a woman who seemed to incite men to violence, and several duels had been fought on her account. When he fell under her spell, Buckingham appeared to become more reckless than even he had been before, and was continually engaged in quarreling with almost everyone with whom he came into contact. His passion for Lady Shrewsbury increased as the months passed. He followed her wherever she went; and she was by no means loath to add the brilliant and witty, as well as rich and handsome, Duke to her list of lovers. On their first meeting, the Earl of Shrewsbury had quarreled with Buckingham, but neither Lady Shrewsbury nor Buckingham took the slightest notice of their marriage vows; and both the Earl and Lady Buckingham should, from their long experience, not have expected them to take such notice. Buckingham could not tear himself away from his new love; he was drinking heavily; he quarreled with Lord Falconbridge, and the quarrel threatened to end in a duel. He tried to quarrel with Clarendon; he attacked the Duke of Ormond; at a committee meeting he pulled the nose of the Marquess of Worcester; he insulted Prince Rupert in the street, whereupon the Prince pulled him off his horse and challenged him on the spot. Only the King could pacify his infuriated cousin. There was a quarrel at the theater whither he had gone with Lady Shrewsbury. Harry Killigrew, who was in the next box and was one of Lady Shrewsbury’s discarded lovers, began attacking them both and shouting to all in the theater that Lady Shrewsbury had been his mistress—and declaring indeed there was not a man in the theater who might not aspire to the lady’s favors, for she was insatiable in her demand for lovers—and that if the Duke believed he was her sole lover they could wager the very shirts on their backs that he was wrong.
The audience watched with great interest while the Duke ordered Killigrew to be quiet, and Lady Shrewsbury leaned forward in her box, sleepy-eyed, half smiling; for, next to getting men to make love to her, she liked setting them to fight each other; nor did she in the least mind being stared at.
Killigrew drew his sword and struck the Duke with the flat side of it. Buckingham thereupon sprang out of his own box and into Killigrew’s, but Killigrew had already leaped out of his and was scuttling across the theater. The Duke flew after him, to the delight of the audience who found this far more entertaining than the play which was being performed on the stage. The Duke caught Killigrew, snatched off his periwig and threw it high in the air; then he set upon the man until he begged for mercy.
Killigrew was given a short term of imprisonment for the offense, and banished; and Barbara persuaded the King that her relative should also be banished until he learned to be less quarrelsome.
So Buckingham departed for the country, taking with him his wife and Lady Shrewsbury. There, he declared, he was content to stay. He had his music and his mistress, his chemists and his uncomplaining wife.
He knew though that Barbara was responsible for his banishment, and he promised himself that he would not let her escape punishment altogether, although he agreed that in trying to promote a marriage between Frances and the King he had not acted in the interest of his fiery cousin.
In his pastoral retreat he would have stayed, had not one of those men, who had professed to be his friends, made an accusation of high treason against him; the charge was of forecasting the King’s death by horoscope.
He was ordered to return to London and sent to the Tower.
Barbara was now furious that a member of her family should be so imprisoned. She had merely wished that he should receive a light rap over the knuckles for having supported Frances’s interest against hers.
She had forgotten that the King was no longer in love with her, and that it was only his acute sorrow in the loss of Frances which had made him turn to her. She believed her power to be as great as it had ever been, and she strode into his apartments, as soon as she heard the news, and cried aloud: “What means this? You would imprison your best servant on the false testimony of rogues!”
The King cried in exasperation: “You are a meddling jade who dabbles in things of which she knows nothing.”
Barbara was furious. “You are a fool!” she shouted, not caring who heard her.
“Be careful!” he warned.
“Fool! Fool! Fool!” was Barbara’s retort. “If you were not one, you would not suffer your business to be carried on by fools that do not understand it, and cause your best subjects and those best able to serve you to be imprisoned.”
“Have done, you evil woman,” cried the King.
He strode away and left her; she fumed up and down the apartment, declaring that ere long she would have her cousin free. It should be learned that any who dared imprison a noble Villiers was the enemy of the entire family.
By that she meant Clarendon.
And it was not long before Barbara had her way. No case could be proved against Buckingham. The paper on which he was supposed to have drawn up the horoscope was given to the King, who confronted Buckingham with it; but the Duke declared he had never before seen it, and asked the King if he did not recognize his (Buckingham’s) sister’s writing upon it.
“Why, ’tis the result of some frolic of hers about another person whose birthday happens to be the same as Your Majesty’s. Your Majesty’s name does not appear on the paper.”
The King studied the paper afresh; he considered the whole matter to be too trivial for his attention, and he said so.
“Have done with this business,” he cried. “There is no need to press the matter further.”
Buckingham was released, though he was wise enough to know that he must not yet appear at Court.<
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Clarendon had imprisoned him. He decided, and Barbara agreed, that Clarendon’s day must soon be over.
The Fleet was crippled; the navy in debt to the extent of over a million pounds. There were two alternatives: not to repair the ships but to keep them laid up, and sue for peace; or bankruptcy.
Charles, with his brother, their cousin Rupert, and Albemarle passionately declared that the ships should be refitted at whatever cost to the nation; but the will of the Council prevailed.
The Dutch, however, were not prepared to make an easy peace. Why should they? They had had peaceful months in which to refit their ships; they had spent three times as much on the war as the English had. They believed that action was better than words at a conference table; and they were not going to lay up their ships merely because their enemy had been forced to do so.
It seemed to all Englishmen in the years to come that in June of the year 1667 there fell upon their land the greatest calamity which had ever touched its pride and honor.
On that warm summer’s day some nine months after the Fire of London, the Dutch fleet sailed up the Medway as far as Chatham. They burned the Royal Oak, the Royal James and the Loyal London, together with other men-of-war; they blew up the fortifications and, towing the Royal Charles, they returned the way they had come, while their trumpeters impudently played the old English song “Joan’s Placket is Torn” and on either side of the river Englishmen looked on, powerless to prevent them.
Crippled by the great plague and the great fire of London, England suffered the most shameful defeat of her history.
The people were numb with shame and anger.
They could not understand how such an insult could be aimed at them. They had believed they were winning the war against Holland. They had shown themselves to be seamen equal to—nay, better than—the Dutchmen. They had not been defeated in action. It was plague and fire which had defeated them, together with the threat of bankruptcy.