Jean Plaidy - [Queens of England 10]

by The Queen's Devotion: The Story of Queen Mary II

  “Both the King and the Duke can remain faithful to those who really mean something to them. The King had been very friendly with Lady Castlemaine for some years and there is this play actress, Nell Gwynne.”

  “Pray do not change the subject, Anne. I said I want to know. One of the Villiers girls said that when Sir John provided the wine, someone else was accused of the murder.”

  “They had to blame someone.”

  “My father?”

  “No … not your father.”

  “Then whom did they blame?”

  “Well … they said … your mother …”

  “My mother! She would never have done such a thing!”

  “Of course not. As a matter of fact, the post mortem proved that Lady Denham had not been poisoned at all. So it was a lot of lies.”

  “Not all,” I said. “I suppose Sir John did go mad and his wife did take a lover, and that lover was …”

  “Dear Lady Mary,” said my friend Anne. “You must see the world as it really is. You cannot shut your eyes to the truth. Your father is not unlike the King in this. They were both born to love women. It is part of their natures. I sometimes think that the King is so greatly loved because of this weakness. He is the people’s charming, wayward King. He has so much that is good in him and must be forgiven this foible. And as for your father, he loves you dearly, as you love him. This love between you is a precious thing, the best you will ever know until you have a husband who will love you, too. Accept what is good in life. Do not allow others to influence your feelings toward those you love.”

  “I wanted him to be perfect, Anne.”

  “No one is that. Life is very rarely perfect and never for long. If you are going to savor the best of it, accept what cannot be changed and enjoy it while you are able. When you have learned to do that you have mastered as valued a lesson as ever Bishop Compton can teach you.”

  THE STEPMOTHER

  My father came to see me. He wanted to be alone with me and I knew he had something of great importance to tell me.

  “My dearest daughter,” he said. “I want to talk to you very seriously. I know you are young, but I want you to try to understand the position in which I find myself.”

  I nestled closer to him. No matter what evil stories I heard about his relationships with women, I still loved him the same. To me he was always the tender loving father, and whatever he felt for those women did not touch us.

  “You must know that the King cannot get children,” he began.

  I wrinkled my brows. I had often heard that this woman or that was going to have the King’s child.

  He noticed this and went on: “No child who could inherit the throne. The Queen, it seems, cannot produce one. Now this is of some significance to us. I am the King’s brother and, if he were to die … Oh, do not look alarmed … he is not going to die for a long time. He is hale and hearty. But there are those who say, yes, but suppose there was a riding accident … some mishap. Who knows in this life? And if your uncle died tomorrow … well, we must be prepared. I should be king then.”

  “I know that,” I said.

  “Well, I have two beautiful daughters and God knows I love them well, but the country looks for sons. People have this obsession for the masculine sex. That is a custom. They will take a woman, yes, but they would rather a man and they maintain that it is the duty of the heir to the throne to get sons if he possibly can.”

  “My mother is dead now,” I said.

  He looked mournful. “Alas,” he murmured. “But that is why they expect me …” He paused and, gripping my hand firmly, he went on: “to marry again.”

  “To marry? Whom would you marry?”

  “Ah! That is the question. The matter is being raised. Believe me, my love, there are many who would like to give birth to the heir of England. So I must needs put the past behind me. I must take a wife. I must show them that I will do my best to give them an heir.”

  I could not help thinking: you will do that with ease. If Arabella Churchill, with the enticing legs, were your wife you could have several already. I did not say that. It would have wounded him deeply. He would not want me to know of such matters. But I kept thinking of my mother, with the pain in her face just before she died, and at that time he was Arabella Churchill’s lover.

  These thoughts persisted, and I remembered what I had heard about the days when they were young and in exile at the court of the Princess of Orange, and how my father had fallen in love with my mother and proposed marriage to her. Then there came the Restoration and the Duke of York was no longer a wandering exile, and the marriage, which might have been acceptable when he had been, was no longer suitable for the brother of the King. There had been opposition, but my father had remained true to his word. I had liked that story. It fitted in with the image of him which I had created for myself.

  And now he was going to marry again, so that he could get an heir to the throne because, although he already had my sister and me, boys were preferable.

  “So you see, my dearest,” he was saying, “your father must do his duty. I hope you will like your new mother.”

  “I could not have another mother,” I said. “I had one and I have lost her.”

  He nodded and looked mournful again. Perhaps I was growing cynical, but I fancied he was not displeased at the prospect of having a new wife.

  It might be that she would be young and beautiful, so that he would not have need of those others.

  EVERYONE WAS TALKING about the proposed marriage of the Duke of York. It was freely discussed by the girls. There seemed to be no reason to be discreet about it, even though he was the father of Anne and me, since it was being spoken of throughout the court.

  The Duchess of Guise was highly suitable. Would it be the Duchess? Then there was the Princess of Wirtemburg. There was also Mademoiselle de Rais.

  “I wonder which one it will be,” said Elizabeth Villiers. I imagined she did not want it to be any of them. Or if there had to be a marriage that the bride would be ugly and barren. I imagined she was hoping that one day—some time ahead maybe—I was going to be Queen of England.

  To me it seemed preposterous and I could not conceive its ever coming to pass. The idea filled me with dismay. But if my father married and there was a son, the household at Richmond would sink into insignificance.

  Poor Elizabeth! How sad that would be for her!

  Then there suddenly appeared another candidate for marriage into the House of York. This was Princess Mary Beatrice of Modena.

  My father had sent the Earl of Peterborough to the Continent. It was said he was to spy on these ladies and to report secretly on them in such a way that none should know the true verdict but the Duke of York himself. But by some means we heard of the reports.

  The Duchess of Guise was very short and not elegantly shaped; nor did she appear over-strong and it seemed unlikely that she would produce the much-desired heir. Mademoiselle de Rais? The Princess of Wirtemburg? Fair enough, but in the meantime my father had seen a portrait of the young Mary Beatrice of Modena.

  I like to remember that when he made his choice he came first to me.

  “She will be your companion,” he said. “Peterborough sent home such a report to me. She is of middle height, which is good, for although I would not choose one who was low in stature, I would not care to have a wife look down on me. Her eyes are gray and she moves with grace. She has a sweet innocence, for she is but a child yet. She is strong and very young. She would bear sons, this little lady. Peterbor-ough reports that, although she is gentle and of great modesty, yet she discourses with spirit. Methinks you will like my little bride from Modena.”

  “It is not for me but for you to like her,” I said.

  “You are right, but I should like to have my dearest daughter’s approval. She will give it, I know, when she knows that is what I wish. My dearest child, I am going to bring you a little playfellow.”

  SHE WAS YOUNG and very frightened. I liked he
r from the moment we met. My father was proud of her and must have thought himself very lucky to have such a beautiful bride.

  There was, of course, a faction who were against the match. They called it the Papist Marriage and tried to prevent its taking place; and when they heard it had actually been celebrated they suggested that my father should retire and lead the life of a country gentleman somewhere away from the court. This the King refused to take seriously.

  I did not know at that time how intense the feeling against my father was becoming. If only he had not been so frank, so honest. If he had only been like the King, who leaned toward the Catholic faith but was wise enough not to let his subjects know this, how different everything might have been! But my father was no dissembler. To deny his faith would be a mortal sin to him.

  At this time I could only be glad that he had acquired such a charming bride. I understood absolutely how he had been prevailed upon to marry; and although I could never forget my mother, I ceased to mourn for her so acutely and began to like my stepmother.

  My father had said he was providing us with a playmate and this was true in a way. She was about the same age as Elizabeth Villiers and Sarah Jennings, but she seemed younger and, in spite of the fact that she was the daughter of a great house, she lacked the air of superiority which characterized those two. Fifteen was young to be married, particularly when the union brought with it two stepdaughters only four and six years younger than herself.

  I sensed that she was very unhappy to have been taken away from her home and sent to a strange country and to a husband who must seem very old to her. My father was, in fact, twenty-five years her senior, but, I told myself, she would soon discover what a wonderful man he was—the best in the world—and when she did, she would cease to regret her marriage and would stop mourning because she had not become a nun, which was the life she would have chosen for herself.

  Because of my understanding and the closeness of our ages, she began to confide in me.

  “The thought of marriage was very unpleasant to me,” she told me in her musical voice with the quaint accent. “I had set my heart on going into a convent.”

  I felt very sorry for her, putting myself in her place and imagining being forced to leave my father and go off to some foreign land.

  When I learned a little more about her life, I thought it was not such a tragedy for her that she had come to us. Her childhood had not been as happy as mine had.

  Poor Mary Beatrice, born to the illustrious House of Este, noted for its chivalry, its bravery, its encouragement of literature and all forms of art and civilization in general!

  Unfortunately, her father Alfonso was a victim of crippling gout and depended on his forceful wife, the Duchess Laura, who ruled not only her household but the country. Mary Beatrice could scarcely remember her father, for he had died when she was very young. There were two children, Mary Beatrice and her brother, Francisco, two years her junior.

  Her father’s brother, Rinaldo d’Este, was appointed guardian of the children on Alfonso’s death, but it was Duchess Laura who assumed command.

  “My mother is a very good woman,” Mary Beatrice told me. “We did not always understand that when we were children. We thought she seemed very harsh, but it was because she was always concerned with what was best for us. You see, she thought we must never show weakness so that we might grow up strong.”

  “So she was very severe with you.”

  “For our own good,” insisted Mary Beatrice. “I hated soup. It made me sick once and ever after I did not want to take it. My mother said that was weakness. Soup was good and nourishing. I must overcome my petulance and folly. I must learn to like soup because it was good for me. So every day I must sit at table and take soup. There was always to be soup for me.”

  I shivered and had a quick picture of my mother sitting on a chair with my sister Anne beside her, a bowl of sweetmeats beside them. I could hear my mother’s voice, laughing as she said: “You eat too many sweetmeats, child. I fear you are as partial to them as your mother is. So no more, eh? Let us be strong or the palace will not be big enough to hold us. Look at this plump little hand …” taking Anne’s hand and kissing it. And a few minutes later that plump little hand would be reaching for a sweetmeat and my mother, watching, would laugh and jokingly scold as she took one herself.

  How different from ours Mary Beatrice’s mother must have been!

  “I was not allowed to leave the table,” she went on, “until every drop of the soup had gone. But I did teach myself not to be sick. My mother is a very strong, good woman.”

  “I should have hated to be forced to take what I did not want,” I said.

  “The soup was usually well watered with my tears. She was right, of course. One has to learn to do things one does not like. It makes it easier to face the world.”

  I wondered whether drinking soup she had hated had made it easier for her to come to England. I did not believe it had for a moment and I felt very critical of Duchess Laura and a fresh flood of sadness for the loss of our kind and clever mother.

  “Our lessons were not easy either,” said Mary Beatrice. “Many times I was beaten because I could not remember a verse in one of the psalms. You see, my mother wanted the best for us. She wanted us to be clever, so that we were prepared for anything that might happen to us. It was all for our benefit. The doctors once said that my little brother was not strong enough to sit so long over his lessons. He should be more in the fresh air. But my mother replied that she would rather have no son at all than a dullard. So poor little Francisco had to persevere with his lessons.”

  How different it had been with us! I remembered Anne, lolling indolently in her chair. “I shall not do lessons today. My eyes will hurt if I try to.” And everybody said she must not hurt her eyes. Lessons were there if we wanted them, but no one in the household should think of forcing the Lady Anne to learn if she did not want to.

  Poor, poor Mary Beatrice—although it must be rather pleasant to have learned as much as she appeared to have done.

  “You will find my father very kind,” I assured her. But I could see that she was unsure and uneasy, although she had already been charmed by the King.

  I was a little piqued to realize that she wished my uncle had been her bridegroom instead of my father—and not because of his superior rank. I had heard it said so often that the charm of the King was unsurpassable. Kindliness was at the very essense of that charm and, because of her youth, and perhaps her beauty, he had made a very special point of showing affection and kindness to his new sister-in-law.

  He appeared often at St. James’s Palace, which was my father’s official residence and, of course, with him would come the courtiers so there were some very lively gatherings.

  My uncle obviously liked Mary Beatrice. He was always attracted by beauty such as hers, and I realize now that he made such a show of favoring her because of the unpopularity of the marriage. He wanted to soothe the people’s fears regarding it. But at the same time, he deplored my father’s preference for the Catholic faith—or rather his refusal to keep it a secret.

  This show of favor had its effect on Mary Beatrice and she was no longer the melancholy girl she had been on her arrival.

  The shock of meeting her husband who was so much older than she was had subsided a little. My father was making her see that he was not an ogre. In fact, I thought she was beginning to like him, but her uneasiness had not entirely disappeared.

  Elizabeth Villiers talked of the great excitement there had been on Guy Fawkes Night, the fifth of November, just a short time before Mary Beatrice arrived in the country.

  “The fires were bigger than ever this year,” said Elizabeth. “There were grotesque images of Guy Fawkes. Hideous, they were. Well, he did try to blow up the Houses of Parliament, so it is understandable that people remember. It was all due to the Papist Plot. It will never be forgotten while there are Catholics in the country.”

  She began to chant,
>
  Remember, remember the fifth of November

  The gunpowder treason and plot

  I see no reason,

  The gunpowder treason

  Should ever be forgot!

  “That is what they sing!” Her eyes were wide with innocence. “Why did they make such a special occasion of it this year?” she asked.

  This was Elizabeth stressing the unpopularity of my father’s marriage.

  I was pleased when it became clear that Mary Beatrice was not afraid of my father as she had been at first. When I grew older I realized that, with his great experience of women, and his considerable charm—although some degrees less than that of the King—he had begun to win her affection. I noticed the smiles they exchanged and that the melancholy which she had not succeeded in hiding on her arrival was no longer there. There was an acceptance of her new life which grew firmer every day.

  Card-playing was one of the most popular pastimes at court and Mary Beatrice was expected to join in. She told me that she disliked it and that she found no excitement when she won and she hated to lose.

  “Then if you do not want to play, why did you do so?” I asked.

  “I am told it is expected of me and some of the company look very displeased when I show no enthusiasm for the game.”

  “But it is amusing!” I cried. “I play now and then. Even my sister does. We like it very much.”

  Mary Beatrice shook her head. But that was just a minor irritation.

  DURING THE MONTHS that followed and as my father was revealed to Mary Beatrice as the considerate and kindly man he was, she grew to love him. The lazy manner of our court must have seemed a great contrast to that of her mother’s. She remained enchanted by the courteous attention paid to her by the King. And she was becoming a lighthearted girl of sixteen.

  Of the four ladies she had brought with her from Modena two were young. One of these was Anna, the daughter of Madame Montecuculi, the lady who was in charge of them all; and the other was Madame Molza, who was only a little older than Mary Beatrice herself. The other lady was Madame Turenie, who had been with Mary Beatrice since she was a baby.