But at last the door opened and his name was called. He went forward, leaving his escort behind and there, at the far end of a room of moderate size, standing by one of the long windows through which a beam of sunlight shone upon white satin, silver lace, sparkling jewels and the broad blue ribbon of the Garter, stood Charles, tall and straight, his black curling locks flowing over each shoulder, his black eyes shining a welcome.
‘Approach, sir,’ the King said, holding out a hand, palm downward. ‘We are most pleased to see one who merits so great a measure of our regard.’
In a dream of wonder and joy Mr. Churchill did move forward, knelt and kissed the King’s hand.
‘Nay,’ Charles said, as Churchill made a move to rise. ‘We have a further business with a faithful friend. Look up sir!’
He did so and saw that the King now had his sword in his hand. It came down lightly upon either shoulder.
‘Rise, Sir Winston Churchill,’ Charles said, smiling broadly.
‘Oh, your Majesty! Oh, Sire! I have not deserved—I cannot express—’
Overwhelmed as he was, the newly-made knight lost his head, seized and kissed the King’s hand again, while tears stood in his eyes and his voice broke as his tongue stumbled. Shocked courtiers moved forward, but the King only laughed, waving them back. When Sir Winston was on his feet again, red with confusion now, Charles moved closer to the window and quite informally said, ‘I have heard much of your prowess when you fought for my father and your discretion too, in not throwing away your life when the usurper held the seat of power. Nay—’ for Churchill blushed a deeper red, thinking this sarcasm. ‘Nay, I do not jest at your expense. I am still thanking God for the number of loyal souls who have welcomed my return. There is much employment for them. I have employment for you too, my friend.’
Turning round he went past Sir Winston to seat himself at the end of the room, then called several of those present by name and introduced the new knight to them. After that the audience came to an end, swiftly, painlessly, as he afterwards described it laughing, to Elizabeth, Lady Churchill.
‘It was gracious, kind. There was no change in the kind face the King kept turned to me. A little movement of the hand, perhaps. A nod. A formal word, the royal ‘we’, all the gentlemen bowing, moving backwards to the door, me with them. Not so awkward, my love, as I would have feared had I not been in a happy dream.’
‘I am so very glad for you,’ his wife said, pressing his hand. She loved him dearly, but as the months went by had feared he might be passed over. There were so many loyal subjects in like case with Winston.
‘The title is well enough,’ Lady Drake said drily. ‘But the occupation has more importance, I think. You have had no word of it, yet?’
‘Not yet, my lady,’ Sir Winston said, his euphoria a little shaken. ‘But I have full trust in his Majesty,’ he added proudly. How could he doubt that magnificent, that resplendant figure.
Lady Drake made no answer. The Stuarts had always possessed this power over hearts, even that first James the Sixth of Scotland, who had sat on the English throne. So little merit, so great a moral turpitude. Already poor Mr. Palmer was to be created Earl of Castlemaine and rumour had it he accepted his own shame with that of his wife. Her puritan soul revolted at the thought.
Chapter Three
Before the end of that second summer of the new King’s reign an appointment was made for Sir Winston. It took him to Ireland, where he worked for the Court of Claims, and where he and his family stayed for nearly three years. In many ways this was a blessing for the Churchill family. They missed the continued raging of the plague in London and many other parts of England. Ireland, though not free of it, suffered less.
In later life young John was often asked what his time in that country had been like. He would answer, using his military experience in North Africa for comparison, ‘’S faith! I had rather find myself among the black Berbers of Algiers or the Barbary pirates than set to rule the savages of that other island of ours! At least the African devils lived by their Moselm rule and obeyed their prophet Mohammed. But the Irish! They called themselves Catholics, Christians, and thought only how to seduce, cheat, bribe or kill the foreigner, particularly the English foreigner! No Christianity in their hearts or in their behaviour, but hatred and a heathen lust for blood.’
Young as he had been during this protracted visit to Ireland, John Churchill came back to England at fourteen with an enlarged view of the world and its terrors and a greater prejudice than ever against the Catholic faith. Not that his opinion upon religion was ever asked in the family or for that matter upon any other topic of importance. Lady Churchill, his mother, Puritan by upbringing, remained so by choice, though in a modified manner. She had followed a gentle understanding rule with her children, finding no interference from her husband, whose religious views were conventional Anglican, those of an enlightened scholar of his day.
The Churchills were all pleased to settle in London. By this time the plague had lessened its dire goings on in the capital, though not entirely so in the crowded slums of the City. John was entered at once at St. Paul’s school, where Dr. Collet was in charge. Sir Winston had taught his son well, though the subjects in which he was already proficient were limited to the classical languages, a firm knowledge of the Scriptures, a smattering of history as found in the classics and in mediaeval literature, and an unusual grasp of heraldry, Sir Winston’s favourite study.
It was this subject of heraldry that had filled the latter’s empty hours during the Commonwealth’s long years. He had produced books that were published as innocent additions to general scholarship. These marked him out to the new King as someone exceptional as well as loyal; a combination of qualities Charles seldom missed, though he did not always act upon his knowledge.
In this case, however, he did act. First by augmenting the new knight’s arms and crest, an act that delighted Sir Winston, and second by making him a member of the Royal Society, that body of distinguished scientists with Newton at the head, set up to promote and foster the growth of new ideas while discrediting superstition. Besides these honours the knight was given a minor post in the royal household as Clerk Controller of the Green Cloth, with an office in Whitehall.
Lady Churchill was enchanted by the change in the family fortunes. She had not enjoyed the Irish interlude but did understand it was an important step to higher things. Her patience and good management at Ashe and since then at Wootton Glanville, though they now spent little time there, were amply rewarded. She was received at Court, complimented by the King and, which was perhaps of even greater significance, recognised as kinswoman by Barbara Palmer, prime favourite of the monarch, acknowledged beauty, now Lady Castlemaine.
On the occasion of Lady Churchill’s first audience Barbara was standing not far from the King as he received the deep curtseys of several ladies. Lady Castlemaine’s wide gown of rich blue silk with a froth of delicate lace at neck and sleeves distinguished her at once by its elegant simplicity from the more elaborate dresses of the others; just as her jewels, for the most part gifts from Charles, glowed against her smooth white neck and arms with a richness of quality not reached by the ornaments of the rest. Too many heirlooms, too many family stones of great value, had been lost by the old aristocracy through death, theft, exile and fines. They had not yet been replaced.
But Charles had money at last. Less than he needed, far less than he wanted, but enough to begin to set up a Court that in splendour, glittering beauty, gaiety and wit, became unrivalled save by the France of Louis XIV, now the greatest state in Europe.
So Charles, to his immense pleasure, was able to indulge his principal mistress, who in her turn found an added joy in showing favour to family connections. Lady Churchill found the lovely Lady Castlemaine at her side as she turned with another deep curtsey from her brief exchange of words with the young King.
‘I think we have never met, my lady, though your ladyship’s mother is a Villiers, as I am.’<
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‘True, my lady,’ answered Lady Churchill, a trifle stiffly, remembering the other was until very recently, plain Mrs. Palmer, as she herself had been plain Mrs. Churchill. But the Duke of Buckingham, though not present, stood between them. And it was the favour of the same King, whose bright black eyes swivelled now and then in their direction, that had raised them both from obscurity.
So Lady Churchill added, ‘We are cousins of a sort, are we not?’
She smiled, inclined to laugh aloud at the absurdity of such a relationship; she middle-aged, faded, her court dress a made-over relic of her mother’s early wardrobe, meant originally to be worn over a farthingale; Cousin Barbara young, very young, the long smooth oval of her clever face discreetly painted, her rubies and diamonds flashing and winking as she moved.
‘Yes indeed, cousin,’ agreed Lady Castlemaine.
‘Country cousins,’ added Lady Churchill, gaily. ‘Buried in abandoned ruins for so many years I am quite bewildered by all this – splendour.’
If Lady Churchill was bewildered by the magnificence of the Court at Whitehall and by the friendliness of her Villiers cousin, Sir Winston wasted no time over enlightening her.
‘My Lady Castlemaine hath indeed captured the King and will hold her grip upon him for many years in my opinion. She breeds by him too, much to her poor husband’s shame.’
‘His earldom is not sufficeint compensation?’
‘It is not. Nor should it be. The world wonders how long he will endure his position. Already there are noisy quarrels. An it were me I would leave the brazen whore and go live where it was not known.’
‘Taking Cousin Barbara with you?’
Sir Winston laughed. ‘Think you she would go?’
‘I do not. Moreover I think the King would prevent it.’
‘I wonder.’ Sir Winston became serious. In Parliament a totally different notion of the King prevailed. There he was considered to be frivolous, careless, lazy at business, cruel upon occasion, less able in leadership than his brother, the Duke of York, newly appointed Lord High Admiral.
In Parliament the discussion was all of how to supply Charles with money for the defence of the realm. This referred mainly to the Navy, which had been developed during Cromwell’s reign and did well under the Commonwealth. The Protector’s Admiral Clarke won several encounters with the Dutch and took Spanish treasure ships in acts of open piracy. But now a new enterprise was on foot to besiege ports on the North African shores of the Mediterranean. Charles wanted to send an expedition to Tangier. This town had come to him as part of the dowry of Catherine of Braganza, his Portuguese Queen. The Earl of Sandwich, chief director of the Navy Office and now under the Duke’s overall command, knew what was needed and knew that the Navy coffers were empty. Parliament must vote funds, collect them and hand them over.
Sir Winston, as M.P. for Weymouth, knew all there was to know of these matters. He knew what were the real needs of the nation’s defenders and he knew too, in his office at Whitehall, much of the real expenditure and gross extravagance of the Court. He did not altogether agree with the sourer spirits in the House of Commons, who joined the King’s extravagance wholly to his immoral life, his self-indulgence, his luxury, his lively patronage of the arts, the theatre, horse-racing, hunting, sailing in newly designed yachts built specially for his entertainment. True, all this cost money and Charles’s personal income had vanished with the crown property and the crown revenues from the Customs, levied at the ports. And Sir Winston sympathised with the young King’s desire for relaxed living, fit for the ruler of a potentially rich country that needed only peace and trade to rival those continental enemies who had held him in poverty and contempt for ten long years.
So Sir Winston spoke up for allowances without too many crippling conditions attached and voted for them too. In his usual way he explained all his ideas and conclusions to his wife, who understood and sympathised with them. Her chief concern at this time, however, was with their eldest child, Arabella, who was now sixteen and inclined to be flirtatious. But she did not yet broach the subject of the girl’s marriage to her father. She had no beauty, nor as yet any fortune; Lady Churchill foresaw difficulty in this direction.
In addition to his wife Sir Winston discussed parliamentary matters with his son, John. The boy was less interested in the members’ views than in the subject of their debates and particularly in the Mediterranean project. Battles begun at sea and carried on to land had always fascinated him from hearing of them in ancient history. To find invasion being planned by his own countrymen against nations that in the far past had been the invaders of Europe enthralled him. He determined to find out all he could of that distant history and was able to satisfy himself to a very great extent before he left St. Paul’s school when he was sixteen.
But he kept his interest very largely to himself. His masters noted his success in Latin and the intelligent grasp he showed of the military history of the Roman Empire from its steady rise to its slow fall.
‘Your son will be a scholar,’ Sir Winston was told by Dr. Collet. ‘His grasp of high policy and the philosophy of government is quite remarkable. Hath he shown this capacity in childhood? It is so marked now that he is almost a man.’
‘In childhood his chief activity was in fighting others of his kind,’ his father answered.
‘In play, yes, as all boys do.’
‘I am not speaking of private quarrels, personal strife. John built up his army from friends and boys on the estate and led it against an enemy composed of lads from the village.’
Dr. Collet passed this over with a wave of the hand.
‘Yes, yes, sir. Childish pranks, childish pranks. But serious study. In the lessons you gave him, did this historical bent ever show itself?’
‘If it did I failed to notice it,’ the knight said, determined not to support the schoolmaster in any easy conclusion.
‘All the same his theology is poor.’ Dr. Collet went on. ‘Also his knowledge of the scriptures. To become a true scholar he will have to take holy orders, so—’
‘I have no wish to see my eldest son a divine,’ Sir Winston objected, hoping to end the discussion. ‘He will have Wootton Glanville to preserve and develop and that will be fit occupation for any gentleman.’
The interview ended at this point with the eminent schoolmaster offended but rescued by Lady Churchill’s arrival with news of dinner just ready on the table. In the consumption of breast of veal, a couple of roast duck, some lobster claws and other delicacies, both men became affable again and parted with compliments on each side.
Nevertheless Sir Winston later that day confided Dr. Collet’s views to his wife. John was leaving school in a few weeks’ time, which event had led to the headmaster’s visit. As far as Sir Winston was concerned he had no particular wish for his son to go on at once to Oxford as Dr. Collet had recommended. The boy’s main intellectual interest might be in ancient history and the classical languages, but his favourite activities were, as ever, sporting and athletic. He had his own horse in his father’s modest stable and with school friends had gone hunting in the woods north of the City about Highgate and Hampstead Heath. Sir Winston had taken him to Whitehall where he had watched the courtiers and even the King and his brother the Duke play tennis. He had walked with his parents in St. James’s Park and had followed games of bowls or ninepins in the alleys and smooth lawns built for those purposes.
At about this time young Arabella Churchill, being now eighteen, received an unexpected mark of royal favour. She became a maid of honour to the Duchess of York.
This came about through Lady Churchill’s attendance, sometimes accompanied by Arabella, at several court functions, more in the capacity of onlooker than any more intimate part in the formal proceedings. There were occasions when the King dined in public, at a table on a raised dais, with one or two companions or even alone. He was served on the knee by various young members of the aristocracy, with due ceremonial according to long-established
customs, restored with the return of the monarchy. The public, sifted from among those found worthy of the occasion, watched from a discreet distance, near enough to take note of the brilliance of dress and trappings, gold and silver flashing plate, sparkling glass, snowy linen; but too far away to intrude upon the royal conversation.
On one such evening, when the meal was over and the King had left the candlelit table hand in hand with Lady Castlemaine, the Duke and Duchess of York, who had eaten in company with Charles, walked away past the onlookers and the Duchess stopped as she was passing the Churchills, mother and daughter.
Both sank in deep curtseys as the Duchess turned towards them.
‘Come, my lady,’ she said. ‘I have a word to speak to you—both.’
She moved on, a lady in waiting beckoned to the Churchills to follow her, and they found themselves passing into a small room where the Duchess had already placed herself upon a narrow couch.
‘Be seated, my lady,’ the Duchess said, pointing at the other end of the couch. Arabella, well trained at home, moved quietly to stand behind her mother.
Ann Hyde, wife of Prince James, Duke of York, was the daughter of the Chancellor, Earl Clarendon. She had been married, more by the King’s command than James’s wish, when it was disclosed that she was pregnant by the royal prince. In spite of her father’s anger Charles had insisted his brother’s child be made legitimate by marriage. Less in the cause of morality, since the young King’s behaviour was more lax than his brother’s, but in regard for the succession, since the King at that time had not yet found a wife.
The Duchess of York produced a son very soon after the marriage, but this infant and later on four more sons were born only to perish in infancy or early childhood following the unhappy pattern of the time. Only the two princesses, Mary and Anne, of all their mother’s many offspring, survived into adult life.
A Question of Loyalties Page 3
