by Jean Plaidy
“Lies!” I cried. “Lies…it is all lies.”
But it was strange how many people were ready to believe it.
The King questioned me about it. I told him what had actually happened.
“Unfortunate,” he said. “Most unfortunate. Why did you have to walk to such a place?”
“I don’t know,” I cried. “We just arrived there.”
I could see that he did not believe me.
He took me by the shoulders and shook me gently. “You must try to understand,” he said with mild exasperation.
I said: “I won’t go near the place again. It’s horrible. I hate it. I feel as though I hear the cries of all those who suffered there.”
“They suffered there because they were criminals,” he said tersely.
“Not all,” I cried. “Not all. Some suffered for their Faith.”
“It would be considered quite amusing for a Catholic to complain about the wrongs done to others for the simple reason that they are of a different faith from their persecutors.”
I was silent then. I was only trying to explain what had actually happened at Tyburn.
He muttered: “It is that priest of yours. He is nothing more than a spy. He shall be sent away. Your entire retinue encourages you to behave as you do.”
Then he left me. He was really very angry but I thought it was such a shame that he should be prepared to listen to the stories about me and seem to believe those who circulated them rather than me, his own wife.
I was very angry and hurt. To cheer me my friends said that we should have a little entertainment in my apartments at Whitehall and so they brought in their music and we tried some new dances, becoming very merry.
I suppose we made a fair amount of noise. I know we were all laughing rather loudly and I was dancing with one of the gentlemen of my household when the door opened suddenly and the King stood on the threshold.
Everything stopped and the silence was so intense that it made me want to scream out for them to start the music again. I looked at him. I was holding my partner’s hand, for that was what the dance demanded, and I could see that the King thought my conduct most indecorous.
He did not speak immediately but stood still looking at us. Then he walked over to me. Everyone watched because he seemed to walk very slowly. He took me by the hand and said “Come.” That was all. Then he led me to his apartment, which was next to mine, and when we were there he locked the door.
I looked at him questioningly.
He said: “I have something to say to you. I have been meaning to tell you for some little time that those who came with you from France will now be returning there.”
I stared at him in astonishment. I stammered: “What? When…?”
He answered: “Immediately. It is all arranged. I am sure the trouble between us comes from their influence. The sooner they are back in their own land the better for us all.”
“No!” I cried.
“But yes,” he answered, and added soothingly: “You will see that it is the best thing.”
“I will not allow it,” I said fiercely.
“Now,” he went on in the same soothing manner, “you must not be so foolish.”
I moved toward the door. “It is locked,” he said. “I have the key.”
“Then open the door. I want to go to them. I want to tell them what you are preparing for them. It was agreed at the marriage settlement that they should stay with me.”
“The French have not always adhered to the terms of the marriage settlement, and I am weary of these people who do nothing but cause trouble. Your confessor is all the time stirring up strife. It was he who took you to Tyburn and advised you to act as you did. He is going back to France at once…and the whole pack with him.”
“No,” I said faintly, for a terrible fear was gripping me and I was thinking of all my dear ones but most of all my beloved Mamie.
“Let me go to them,” I pleaded.
“You will not see them again,” he replied firmly.
I stared at him aghast, and he went on: “They are leaving Whitehall today. Even at this moment the carriages are waiting to take them.”
“To…take them where?”
“Where they can be housed until arrangements are made to ship them back to France.”
To ship them to France! He talked of them as though they were bales of wool…my beloved friends…the people who made life here tolerable for me.
“I will not let them go,” I cried.
“My dear wife,” he said, “try to be reasonable. It is better that they go. It is better that you and I learn to love each other so that no others—save the children we shall have—can be of the same importance to us.”
“I cannot believe this. You are doing it to tease me.”
He shook his head. “It is true. They must go. There will never be peace between us two while they remain. Come with me.”
He took me to the window. Carriages were drawn up there and I saw that my friends were being directed into them.
“No. No.” I began to cry. I wrenched myself away from him because I had seen Mamie down there being put into a carriage.
“Mamie!” I whispered. “Oh…Mamie….” Then I started to call her loudly, but she could not hear me. She looked desperately unhappy.
Frantically I beat on the window.
“Don’t go. Don’t go,” I screamed. “Don’t let them do this.”
The window pane cracked. I heard the sound of tinkling glass and there was blood on my hands.
Charles had me by the shoulders. “Stop it,” he cried. “Stop it.”
“I will not. I will not. I hate England. I hate you all. You are taking away from me those I love.”
I slipped out of his grasp and sat on the floor sobbing as I heard the carriages drive away.
I was alone. Charles had gone and I heard him turn the key in the lock. I sat there on the floor, my hands covering my face, more desolate than I had ever been in my life.
I don’t know how long I sat there before the door opened quietly and Lucy Hay came in. She did not speak for a moment but helped me rise and putting her arm about me led me to the window seat. She smoothed back my hair as though I were a child, and when I put my head on her shoulder she held me tightly, saying nothing but somehow giving me the comfort I sorely needed.
After a while I said: “They have gone…my dear, dear Mamie has been taken from me.”
She nodded.
I said: “I hate those who have taken her from me.”
Still she did not speak though she knew I was referring to the King.
We just sat there in that room with the broken window and I told her how Mamie had been with me since I was a child and how she had taught me so much and how we had laughed together.
Finally she said: “It happens to Queens. It is their sad fate.”
I knew then that she understood perfectly and that I could not have borne it if she had told me I must try to forget them. How could I ever forget Mamie?
She went on: “They are being taken to Somerset House and they will stay there until arrangements are made. They are being well looked after.”
A little later she led me back to my apartments and I asked her to stay with me, which she did.
I blamed Buckingham, my arch enemy, the author of my sorrows. It was true that he was in France at this time, making trouble there, but I knew that it was he who had instilled in Charles’s mind the need to rob me of my friends and that he taunted him with allowing me to have too much of my own way. Oh yes, Buckingham was the enemy.
I missed Mamie so much. I realized what wisdom she had tried to pass on to me and I bitterly regretted that I had not paid more attention.
I was turning more and more to my three ladies—oddly enough the Buckinghams—but most of all to Lucy. She was a great comfort to me during those days. She was so much wiser than I and she reminded me very much of dear Mamie. Her advice was very similar. Be calm. Think before you act…
before you speak even.
I knew it was sound advice. I wondered if I could ever be disciplined enough to follow it.
When I saw the letter Charles had written to Buckingham I was so incensed that I almost tore it into pieces and threw it out of the window. I wished I had done so and then I should have delighted in telling Charles of my act.
I don’t know how he could have been so careless, but I supposed he had thought it was safe in his own apartments. It was lying on a table just as he had written it, and slipping into the room I saw it.
“Steenie,” he had written.
“Steenie!” I said aloud scornfully. It was absurd how Charles doted on the fellow. He was as weak as his father. What was wrong with these Stuarts? Weaklings, that was what they were. Mary, the Queen of Scots, Charles’s grandmother had been foolish—so much so that she had lost her head at Fotheringay.
I went on to read the letter.
“I writ to you by Ned Clarke that I thought I should have cause enough, in a short time, to put away the monsers….”
I ground my teeth. He meant by “monsers,” monsieurs, my French attendants.
“Either by their attempting to steal away my wife or by making plots with my own subjects. For the first I cannot say whether it was intended; but I am sure it is hindered; for the other, though I have good grounds to believe it, and am still hunting after it, yet seeing daily the maliciousness of the monsers by making and fomenting discontents in my wife. I could tarry no longer in advertising to you that I mean to seek for no other grounds…. Advertise the Queen Mother of my intentions….
“I pray you send me word with what speed you may whether ye like this course or not. I shall put nothing of this into execution until I hear from you…. I am resolved it shall be done and shortly. So longing to see you, I rest.
“Your loving and constant friend
“Charles R.”
I was furious. They were talking about my friends, my happiness. And he would do nothing until my Lord Buckingham gave his permission! Oh yes, Buckingham was the evil spirit who had ruined my happiness. I hated him.
It soon became clear that Buckingham approved of the measure Charles was taking against me, for it was not long before all my dear friends left for France.
Lucy took the trouble to send someone along the river to Somerset House that I might know how my friends left.
There was a little trouble, she told me. When all the barges were there to take them away, the people crowded into the streets and along the river to watch them go. At first my dear friends declared they would not leave for they had not been properly discharged and were here on the terms of the marriage treaty. The King had to send a strong body of yeomen with heralds and trumpeters and they were told that His Majesty’s orders were that they were to leave without more ado. Mamie was very upset. She wept and explained that she had sworn never to leave me.
Dear Mamie. I knew she would do that.
“One of the mob threw a stone at her,” Lucy said.
“At Mamie!” I cried in horror.
“It was all right. She was not hurt. It just knocked her cap off and the man who had thrown it was killed on the spot. One of the soldiers drew his sword and ran it through the man’s body. Then, weeping, Mamie allowed herself to be put into the barge.”
So that was the end. They had left me.
I could not eat. I could not sleep. I could only think of my dear friends who were lost to me and most of all of my beloved Mamie who, I knew, would be heartbroken.
When Charles came to me I refused to speak to him. I see now how patient he was, how sorry that this had happened; but he was firmly convinced (and Buckingham had made him certain of this) that all the trouble between us came from my French retinue.
I would let him see that their dismissal had made everything more difficult between us.
He told me that all my servants had not gone yet and he was arranging for one of the nurses and Madame Vantelet to stay—also a few of my servants. It was a slight concession for none of these people was particularly close and all held minor posts, so this did little to alleviate my grief.
“I want to see my confessor,” I cried.
I knew that Father Sancy had either gone or was going. He would have a fine story to tell them when he returned to France.
“I will send Father Philip to you,” said Charles.
I brightened a little. I was fond of Father Philip, who was much less stern than Father Sancy, and I would be pleased to see him.
He came and talked to me and we prayed together; he said that there were many crosses to bear in this world and I had just been presented with one of them. I must carry it bravely and keep my eyes on the goal, which was to spread the Truth wherever I was and always remain steadfast in following the true Faith.
I felt much better and later Charles told me that Father Philip might stay.
I was pleased to hear that, but I did not tell Charles so. I felt in no mood to give him any satisfaction.
One of the hardest things to bear was that François de Bassompierre was not entirely on my side. I had expected condolences from him when in desperation the King sent for him to try to reason with me.
“Your Majesty,” he said, “I must talk to you most frankly. I know you will allow me—as a loyal subject of your father and one whom he regarded as a close friend—to say exactly what is in my mind.”
My spirits sank. My experience told me that when people declared they were going to speak frankly something unpleasant was certain to follow.
“I have seen you in the presence of the King,” he went on, “and it appears to me that His Majesty has tried to do everything within his power to make you happy.”
“Such as depriving me of my friends,” I cried petulantly.
“It is the custom when a princess comes to a new country for those who accompanied her on the journey to return in due course to their native land.”
“Why? Why shouldn’t anyone…most of all a queen…keep her friends about her if she wishes to.”
“Because, Majesty, they do not always understand the customs of the new country and it is the duty of a princess to adopt those customs as she has become a member of that country.”
“I am French. I shall never be anything else.”
He sighed. “That I fear is at the root of the trouble.”
“How can you ask me to become one of these people? They are heretics.”
“Adequate arrangements have been made for you to worship as you wish, and I see that the King has kept his word in seeing that these are carried out.”
“And taken away my confessor!”
“I did not think you cared greatly for Father Sancy and Father Philip is left to you.”
I was silent. It was true that I greatly preferred Father Philip to Father Sancy.
“Oh,” I cried. “Can’t you see! I have been robbed of those I loved most.”
“You are thinking of your governess. She understands. She is sad, but she is not lost to you. You can write to each other and no doubt she will pay a visit to these shores at some time and you may come to France. Then you will have an opportunity of meeting.”
I felt exasperated. What compensations were letters and the occasional visit for the hours of confidences and fun which Mamie and I had shared?
Bassompierre went on to lecture me. He could see that the trouble between the King and myself was largely due to my attitude. If I could only be reasonable…try to adjust myself…much progress could be made. The King was fond of me. He wanted to be more fond. He would do a great deal to make me happy, but my demands were childish and he was the King on whom state duties weighed heavily. I was not helping him nor myself by my conduct. I was self-willed, said Bassompierre. My father would not have been pleased with me if he were here today. I was impulsive; I spoke before I thought what I was saying; I must try to curb my temper.
I scowled at him and he went on: “It is not merely yourself you have to consider. Do you reali
ze that your actions are causing strife between France and England?”
“They do not need me to bring strife between them. It has been there for centuries.”
“There was friendship. The marriage was meant to make that firm, and it should have done so, had you behaved in a manner which your great father would have expected you to. Instead you have made this petty war between your faction and that of the King with the result that they are all dismissed…banished…because they have been fomenting strife between you and the King.”
“You think I and my friends are to blame. You should be on my side. I thought you were French and would stand by me.”
“I am French and I will stand by you but there is much you must do for yourself. You must change your attitude toward the King.”
“Shouldn’t he change his toward me?”
Bassompierre sighed. “He is willing to do much for you.”
“Will he send back my friends?”
“You know you ask for the impossible.”
“I never thought you would turn against me.”
He was on his knees, taking my hand and kissing it. He was for me, he declared. He would do anything for me. That was why with great temerity he was telling me exactly what he believed without subterfuge, and he hoped I would see it in the way it was meant and forgive him if he had offended.
He was so handsome, and contrite in a way while adhering to his principles, that I smiled and said: “Get up, François. I know that you do what you do and say for my good. But if only you knew how tired I am of having things done for my good.”
He smiled. I was the dear, adorable child once more.
I was sure he thought that now we had passed through the emotional preliminaries he could talk seriously to me. This he began to do. The situation between England and France was becoming dangerous. The English were very unpopular in France and the return of my attendants had made them more so. Some of them who had served me were circulating rumors about the way in which I was treated in England and my countrymen were becoming incensed.
