The Wondering Prince

by Jean Plaidy

  “Won’t there be another Prince, Mam?”

  “Yes. We hope that when your sister’s child is born he will be the Prince.”

  “Then they won’t dare be friends with the beast?”

  “He will be but a baby. He can do little while he is so young. Oh, was there ever such an unhappy woman as your mother, child? Was there?”

  “There was our Lady of Sorrows,” said Henriette.

  Then Henrietta Maria swept up her daughter in one of her suffocating embraces. “You comfort me, my daughter,” she said. “You must always comfort me. You can, you know. A little girl like you can make up for all I have suffered.

  “I will, Mam. I will make you La Reine Heureuse instead of La Reine Malheureuse.”

  There were more close embraces; and Henriette could not understand why that which she had offered as comfort should open the gates to more floods of tears.

  There was one happy event which pleased the Queen: her daughter Mary gave birth to a son. He was christened William and there was great rejoicing, not only throughout Holland but in the convent of Chaillot. Henriette was delighted. Now there would be no more tears; now they could be gay.

  The Queen talked frequently of her grandchild. “My first grandchild … my very first!” She thought fleetingly of that bonny boy whom Charles called Jemmy. If that boy had been the child of Charles’ wife instead of that low woman Lucy Water, what a happy woman she would have been! Henriette too was thinking of Jemmy. She reminded her mother of him. “He is your grandchild too, Mam. And, Mam, it is said that Charles already has more than one son.”

  “Then they should have their tongues cut out for saying it!”

  “Why, Mam? Is it not a matter for rejoicing when a king has many sons?”

  “When a king decides to have sons he should first take the precaution of marrying.”

  “Why, Mam?”

  “Because when a man is a king he should have sons who could follow him as kings.”

  Henriette as usual sought excuses for her brother. “Mayhap as he has no crown, he thought he need not have a marriage.”

  “He is a gay rogue, your brother.”

  Henriette laughed; she did not mind Charles being called that, when it was done in such a manner that “rogue” was almost a compliment.

  “He is the most wonderful person in the world, Mam,” she said. “How I wish he could be here!”

  She looked eagerly at her mother, hoping that her attitude had softened towards her eldest son; but there were so many emotions to be seen in the Queen’s face that it was impossible to know which train of thought she was following.

  “Would the Prince of Orange had lived to see his son!” said Henrietta Maria fervently.

  “Still, Mam, it is a good thing that he has left a son, even though he is not here to see him.”

  Shortly afterwards they returned to their apartments in the Louvre, and there a shock awaited the Princess, for Anne Morton came to her and told her she was going home to England.

  “I have my own children who need me,” she explained.

  “But I need you,” said Henriette, her eyes filling with tears.

  “My dearest, I must go. I have outlived my usefulness to you.”

  “I’ll not let you go, Nan. You are my Nan. Did you not bring me here? Nan, do not talk of going. Instead let us talk of the days when we left England and I insisted on telling everyone that I was a Princess.”

  “That was long ago, sweetheart. Now you have your mother and Père Cyprien to look after you, and you no longer need your Nan.”

  So, thought Henriette, Anne was leaving because of the conflict between her and Père Cyprien. Henriette threw herself into her governess’s arms and begged her not to go. But Anne’s mind was made up, and so was the Queen’s, and beside those overwhelming factors, the tears and entreaties of a little Princess carried no weight.

  There came a wonderful day in the life of Henriette. It was during the October following her seventh birthday, and her mother and those about her had been more than usually somber for a long time.

  Henriette had tried to discover what it was that saddened them, but no one answered her questions. She was just set to do her lessons under the guidance of Père Cyprien, to read the holy books he brought for her, and so to study how to be a good Catholic.

  Then one day her mother said to her: “My daughter, we are going to meet someone. I want you to ride with me out of Paris to greet this person. Wear your prettiest clothes. You will be glad you have done this when you see who this person is.”

  One name trembled on Henriette’s lips, but she did not say it; she was afraid that if she said that name her mother might shake her head and say impatiently: “How can that be! You know he is in Scotland.”

  So she waited, wondering who it could be; and on the road between Paris and Fècamp, she was suddenly gloriously happy; for it was Charles himself whom they had ridden out to meet.

  She stared at him for some seconds before she recognized him. He had changed so much. His beautiful curls had all been cut off, and his hair was like a thick black cap that did not reach below his ears. He was bearded and seemed even darker than before. He was taller than she remembered, and gaunt; he was no longer a young man. His face was tanned with sun and wind; there were fresh lines about his mouth; his expression was less gentle, more cynical, and the strain of melancholy was more pronounced. But it was Charles. There were the same large eyes ready to twinkle, the mouth so ready to curve into a smile.

  And when he saw her his expression became doubly sweet. He cried: “Why, if it is not my Minette! And growing fast! Almost a young woman.”

  She forgot her manners and cried: “Charles! Dear Charles! This is the happiest day since you went away!”

  Then she was aware of her mother’s eyes upon her, and hastily she knelt and kissed the hand of her King.

  They were together often in the apartment of the Louvre. She contrived to be with him whenever possible and he, characteristically, aided her in this. She would curl up at his feet or sit close to him on a window seat; and she would take his hand and hold it firmly between her own small ones as though to imply that if he tried to leave her she would hold him against his will.

  “You have been a long time away, Charles,” she scolded. “I was afraid you would never return.”

  “’Twas no wish of mine, Minette, and constantly I thought of you,” he told her. “How gladly would I have fled from those dreary Presbyterians to be in Paris!”

  “Were they very gloomy, Charles?”

  “Deadly. They preached all the time; I was called upon to say my prayers it seemed a hundred times a day.”

  “Like Chaillot,” murmured Henriette.

  “I’ll tell you this, Minette. Presbyterianism is no religion for a gentleman of my tastes.”

  “Your tastes are for dicing and women,” she told him.

  That made him laugh aloud and she held his hand more tightly than ever. What could be said to Charles of Charles could produce nothing but hilarious laughter, whereas said to others it would bring shocked reproaches. She loved that quality in him.

  “So you begin to understand your brother, eh?”

  She nodded. “Tell me about Scotland, Charles.”

  “Oh that! It was dull … dull! You would go to sleep if I told you. No! I will tell you what befell me in England, shall I? That makes a more stirring tale.”

  “Yes, please, dear Charles, tell me what befell you in England.”

  “It is only due to miraculous providence that you see me here, Minette. There was not only one miracle, but many were required to bring your brother back to you. And the wonder is that those miracles happened.”

  “What would have happened if you had not come back?”

  “At this hour my head would be on a pike on London Bridge and people passing would point up to it and say: ‘There is Charles Stuart—the second Charles Stuart—who came to seek his crown and left us his head!’”

  �
��No, no no!” she cried.

  “There, Minette, it was but a joke. There is no need for tears. My head is firm on my shoulders. Feel it. See how firm it is. Charles Stuart will never lose his head … except when dealing with your sex.”

  “You must never lose it … never!”

  “But to lose it in that way is not to have it cut off, sweetheart. It is just to love … so that all else seems of no importance. But I am talking foolishly as, alas, I so often do. No more of heads. I’ll tell you what befell me in England, and you must have no fear of what is past. What’s done is done, and here I am beside you. So while you listen to me remember this: I passed under the noses of my enemies and I came back here unharmed. Minette, I have been defeated by my enemies; but perhaps in some sense I have triumphed over them. I sought to win my crown, and in that I failed; they sought to make me their captive, and in that they failed. A stalemate, you see, therefore a victory for neither, and one day I will try again. Minette, there is something within me which tells me that I shall one day win my throne, that one day I shall be crowned England’s King. ’Tis a fate well worth waiting for, eh? God’s Body! ’Tis so indeed.”

  She listened to him, watching his lips as he talked, looking now and then into those gentle humorous eyes which were momentarily sad, but never for long.

  He told her of marching down from Scotland to England, of the fierce battle he and his supporters had fought against the Parliamentary forces. She did not understand all he said; but it seemed to her that he brought a thousand pictures of himself and held them up for her to see, and she believed she would remember them forever; she would preserve them, and when he was not with her that would, in some measure, serve instead of his exuberant presence.

  She saw him, tall and dark, sitting on his horse with his men about him; they would be sad and dejected, for they had suffered terrible defeat at Worcester, and many of his friends were in the hands of the enemy. He had escaped by the first of the miracles, and as the few survivors from the battle clustered about him, they would be wondering how they could escape from a hostile country where at any moment, from behind any bush, their enemies might spring upon them.

  She pictured him, rising with the Catholic gentleman, Charles Giffard and his servant Yates, whom Charles’ devoted supporter, the Earl of Derby, had produced to guide him through the dangerous country to Whiteladies and Boscobel, where there were many places in which a King might hide. She saw him stopping at an inn for a hasty tankard of ale and then riding on through the night, bread and meat in one hand, eating as he rode, because he dared not stay but must journey south since the enemy and their scouts were waiting for him at every turn. She felt she was with him in the saddle as, in the early morning light, he saw in the distance the ruined Cistercian convent of Whiteladies.

  He was silent for a while, his face hardened because he was thinking it was a bitter thing that England’s King should depend on the bounty of humble Englishmen for a night’s lodging.

  “Did you stay in the ruined convent, brother?” asked Henriette.

  “It is not a convent now. It had been turned into a farmhouse. It was the property of the gentleman, Giffard, who had brought us there. We were not sure whom we could trust, sister. That was why every movement we made was perilous. I remember standing beneath a casement window which was opened suddenly and a man’s head appeared. I knew this to be one of the Penderels, a family who had been servants to the Giffards, and who were now tenants of Whiteladies. There were three Penderel brothers living at Whiteladies, and this I guessed to be one of them.

  “‘Bring you news of Worcester?’ cried a voice as the head appeared. It was that of a young man.

  “Giffard answered: ‘Oh, ’tis you, George Penderel. The worst news from Worcester I could bring. The King is defeated!’

  “‘What happened to His Majesty?’ asked George Penderel.

  “‘He escaped and waits your pleasure below!’ I answered.

  “Then, my Minette, we were brought into Whiteladies and, to appease my hunger and thirst I was given wine and biscuits; and never, Minette, had food tasted so good as that did. So I sat on the floor with Derby, Shrewsbury, Cleveland, Buckingham and Wilmot about me, and we discussed with Giffard and these Penderels what might next be done.”

  She clasped her hands together. “What wine was it, Charles?”

  “Sack … the best in the world.”

  “It shall always be my favorite.”

  “Sister, you say such quaint and charming things that touch my heart and make me love you.”

  Then he told her how the Penderel brothers sent a message to Boscobel, and more Penderels came to the aid of the King.

  “I changed my clothes, Minette. I wore a green jerkin and breeches, a doublet of doeskin and a hat with a steeple crown—oh, such a dirty hat! I was loath to put it on my head. And when I put on these clothes and my own were buried in the garden, the man under that greasy hat still looked like Charles Stuart and none other—so what do you think? It was Wilmot, merry Wilmot—who could never be serious, even at such a time—who said: ‘We must shear the sheep, for by his curls shall they know him.’ And by God’s Body, without a by-your-leave, the rogue set about hacking my hair with a knife—and a pretty bad job he made of it—and there were those Penderels and those Yateses and their servants catching my curls as they fell, declaring they would put them away and keep them forever.”

  “I wish you had kept one of your curls for me, Charles.”

  “One of my curls! They are all yours, Minette—entirely and forever yours. And what would you want of one small curl when you have the whole of the man at your command?”

  “For when you go away again.”

  “You must remind me to give you one when next I depart.”

  “I pray you do not talk so soon of parting.”

  “Nay, Minette, I shall stay here for as long as I can … having nowhere else to go and no money even to buy me a shirt. Here’s a pretty pass! Would you believe I was the King of England—a King without a shirt or the wherewithal to buy one?”

  “One day you will have as many shirts as you desire.”

  “Alas, dear Minette, so many of my desires go beyond shirts. Now I will tell you how Mistress Yates brought me a dish of eggs, milk, sugar and apples, such as I had never tasted before and which seemed good to me; and when I had eaten again, I stood up in my leather doublet and my greasy hat and learned to walk in a loping manner as a rustic would, and Yates taught me how not to betray myself by my speech. I was a sorry failure. I could not rid myself of Charles Stuart. There he was … always ready to leap out and betray me … in my speech … in my walk … my very gestures. We heard that a party of Roundheads was not far off, so I went and hid in the woods while they called at the house to ask if Cavaliers had ridden that way; one of the party, they stressed, was a tall, dark, lean man. George Penderel said that such a party had passed that way but had headed away to the north some hour or more since … and off they rode; and as soon as dusk fell I went back to the house and nursed little Nan Penderel while her mother cooked eggs and bacon for my supper.”

  “What was she like, Nan Penderel? Did you love her?”

  “I loved her, Minette, because she reminded me of my own little sister.”

  He told her of his arrival at Boscobel, a hunting lodge, and the home of other members of the Penderel family.

  “I had walked so far that my feet were sore and bleeding, and Joan Penderel—who was the wife of William and lived with him at Boscobel—washed my feet and put pads of paper between my toes where the skin was rubbed. I rested there and I ate again; but the neighborhood was full of Roundhead soldiers, and it was certain that soon they would arrive at the house. Staying at Boscobel was a friend and good Royalist, Colonel Carlis, who had escaped from the Battle of Worcester, and was so delighted to see me that he wept—partly with joy to see me alive, partly with sorrow to see me in these straits—and he and I went out and climbed a great oak tree. The leaves were
thick and they hid us, but we could peep through and see all that went on below. And while we were up there, we saw the soldiers searching the woods for us; and that was another miracle, Minette. Had we hidden anywhere but in an oak tree we should have been discovered; but who would look for a King in an oak tree? So Colonel Carlis and I waited hidden yet watching, while below us the Roundheads wandered about searching for me.”

  “I shall love oak trees forever,” said Henriette.

  Charles kissed her and they fell silent. Henriette was seeing pictures of Charles on a horse, riding for his life, a piece of bread and meat in his hand; Charles in a greasy hat, and pads of paper between his toes; Charles hidden in an oak, the leaves of which hid him from his enemies.

  He was thinking of these things too; but he did not see them as Henriette did. He saw himself an exile, a King without a crown; he had left more than his curls behind him in England; he had left his youth, his lighthearted optimism; he felt jaded, cynical, and at times even careless of his crown.

  Now he spent his time dicing and with women, as they had said of him in his little sister’s hearing.

  He burst into sudden laughter.

  It was perhaps a more satisfying way of passing one’s time than fighting for lost causes.

  At her lodgings in The Hague, Lucy heard of the King’s return. She stared at her reflection in her mirror as Ann Hill tired her hair. Ann knew what she was thinking, and shook her head sadly. How differently she would have behaved had she been the King’s mistress!

  Lucy said suddenly: “Do not look at me thus, girl!”

  “I am sorry, madam,” said Ann, lowering her eyes.

  “He has been away so long,” said Lucy sullenly. “It was too long. I was faithful to him for many weeks.”

  “A long time for you, madam.”

  If it had not required so much effort, Lucy would have boxed the creature’s ears.