The King's Favorite

by Susan Holloway Scott

  He looked at me, surprised. “You remembered it?”

  “I have a player’s gift for speeches,” I explained, the truth, too. “One rehearsal, and I learn it, never to be forgotten. You do remember I was once a player, don’t you?”

  “How would I ever forget that?” He was pleased that at least I had thought enough of his words to be able to recall and recite them now, though I’ll grant it made for a strange speech to be shared between lovers. “ ‘Let us, therefore, take care that we do not gratify our enemies and discourage our friends by any unseasonable disputes.’ You’d think they would have caught at least that much, the part about unseasonable disputes.”

  I smoothed my hair back behind my ears and finished the rest for him. “ ‘If any such do happen, the world will see it was no fault of mine; for I have done all that was possible for me to do to keep you in peace while I live, and to leave you so when I die.’ ”

  He nodded, his eyes unfocused and his thoughts turned inward as he listened to my recitation without seeing my face. “I would keep them in peace, too, if only they’d let me. Though Parliament as a whole seems to act otherwise, no single sane man among us wishes another civil war.”

  That needed no reply. This was Charles’s greatest fear, and a fear shared by more and more within the country. Only last week a new comet had appeared in the night skies over London, a bright head with a short, drawn tail for all the world like a sword of fire, a dreadful portent that had frightened all who’d seen it.

  “It’s obvious enough, Nelly,” he continued. “You know as well as I that Shaftesbury will introduce another of his infernal Exclusionary Acts as soon as he can.”

  “Their supporters—a base rabble!—were chanting again in the streets outside.”

  “ ‘No York, no Popery,’ ” he said, and groaned. “That old saw again. At least you’d think the jackals would invent something new to match the new session.”

  “Whigs are not wits, sir,” I said, “nor are wits Whigs. You know that there are many folk who believe this time you’ll cast off your brother, for the sake of the country’s peace. That’s what they heard in your speech today.”

  “Did they, now?” For the first time, he smiled, grim and full of resolve. The light of the fire danced over the deep-carved lines of his face. He looked older, aye, but he also looked determined and wily with experience, like the oldest wolf in a pack of younger challengers. “What did you make of my speech, Nelly? If you listened close enough to learn it by rote, then you must have an opinion of your own.”

  “Oh, I do, sir.” I rested my hands on his knee and my chin upon my hands, the full sleeves of my velvet dressing gown falling back over my arms. “I believe that no matter what you might say now, in the end you’ll do whatever is right for England.”

  “My own clever Nelly.” He slipped his fingers into my curls to tousle them fondly. “You are right, of course, as you most always are. I won’t be outmaneuvered. I’ve a few cunning small tricks of my own to play. They’ll see that soon enough.”

  They would. Charles had a rare hand for politics when he chose, and the tricks he’d play were likely not at all small. I’d always thought he could have had a place in the playhouse, he’d that neat a gift for plotting, for knowing how much to reveal and how much to hold back.

  Now I smiled, glad to be able to share even this much, and winked up at him. “They’ll see, sir, and learn, with you to teach them.”

  “They will indeed.” He didn’t smile again, and I thought how I’d not wish to be his opponent, not now. “For England, Nelly, for England. That has always been my goal, my desire, for my people. For England.”

  Charles had been right to predict that this Parliament would not let the question of exclusion alone, and in early November, a Second Exclusion Bill was introduced. Determined as he was that his brother should inherit his throne, the king made it clear that he wished a version of the bill that would make York a Catholic king, but without any of the powers an Anglican king would have. The House of Commons preferred a more strident version that would skip (or exclude) York forever, and instead give the crown to his daughter, Mary of Orange, and this was the version passed on to the House of Lords.

  Charles had expected this. With Whigs dominating the Commons, it was predictable enough. Gleefully Shaftesbury believed his goals were finally within reach: York removed from succession, Monmouth set in his place, and the king humiliated in defeat.

  But now Charles would play the first of his “small tricks.” He attended the debate himself, listening closely to all the speeches. He’d begin the session sitting in the throne there for his use, then shift to one of the armchairs near the fire, pleading he wished the warmth; then, finally, roaming freely about the chamber like any other lord, chatting and arguing and securing favor for this or that point in a fashion that was both disarming and unsettling to the other lords—a position that, of course, he dearly enjoyed.

  But his greatest weapon was George Savile, the Marquis of Halifax. The older brother to Henry Savile, one of Rochester’s favorite cronies, Lord Halifax possessed the exact combination of sharpness, wit, and intelligence to defeat any argument that Shaftesbury might offer. Taking the stand that it was better to uphold York as the rightful heir, Catholic or not, and maintain the stability of the country, Halifax challenged Shaftesbury’s pursuit of exclusion point by point in a debate that lasted more than twelve hours on the floor. When a decision was finally taken, the act was defeated by thirty-three votes, and for now both the king and his brother had won.

  Yet Charles realized it was a private victory, better celebrated quietly. My days of burning effigies of the Pope were firmly in the past. Charles feared the reactions of his Pope-hating people sufficiently that for the week after the election, he ordered the guard in the City to be doubled in case of trouble.

  None came, at least not in that manner. But the outraged Commons decided to turn their knives toward another victim. At the height of the hysteria over the Popish Plot, Titus Oates had named five elderly Catholic lords as villains, and for the past two years the old gentlemen had since been held imprisoned in the Tower. Now the Commons, deprived of their sport with York, decided it was time to return to these lords, and to try Lord Stafford for treason.

  There was little doubt that the sworn testimonies against him were lies, perjury of the worst sort, claiming he’d been part of a larger Jesuit plot to assassinate the king and overthrow the English government, and more than enough to test the credulity of any half-sane person. But because he was a Catholic, and enough anti-Papist sentiment remained strong, he was found guilty of every trumped-up charge and sentenced to death.

  Charles was appalled and disgusted, especially since Lord Stafford had been a friend and supporter of his father. He could not overturn the conviction, though he was able to remit the more extreme charges of treason to remove drawing and quartering as part of the execution. Yet still there were those in the Commons who questioned his authority to do even this little favor to the wronged old lord, accusing Charles anew of being a friend of the Pope.

  Thus on a cold and gray January morning in 1681, I sat with Charles in a plain carriage outside of Westminster, near to the scaffold. He’d wanted to witness the execution for himself, though he’d not wanted it said he’d been there, which was why the carriage was unmarked, and why he’d brought me and not the queen. We weren’t the only ones. The yard was ringed with carriages, their horses steaming lightly in frosty morning air. My cloak was lined with fur, more furs wrapped over me, and my feet were propped on a pierced-tin warmer of hot coals. Yet still I shivered, not from the cold but from the hideous sight I was there to see.

  Unfair or not, executions were always a popular amusement, and the crowd for a Catholic peer like Lord Stafford was vast, a shifting sea of caps and hats and bare heads, too, standing together in the pale winter sun. I’d attended enough executions in my day, of highwaymen and murderers, to know they were not to my taste. I’d neither the s
tomach for the gore nor the taste for the cruelty that was required to truly enjoy an execution.

  I couldn’t tell with Charles. Beside me, he sat without moving, his expression studiously without emotion and intent on the figures on the scaffold. Though he’d never say so, I knew he was thinking of another execution (or a martyrdom, as true royalists called it) long ago, that of his father’s before the Banqueting House at Whitehall. He’d not seen his father’s death. By then he’d already been sent from the country and into exile, but his youngest brother, Henry, only ten, had been forced by Cromwell’s men to watch, and later shown his father’s head at close range, like some barbarous hunting trophy. Of course Henry would have later described it all to Charles, and Charles in turn would never have forgotten the slaughter of his much-loved parent.

  I glanced toward him now, drawing my hand from my muff to place it over his in silent sympathy. His fingers closed over mine, but he didn’t look away from the scaffold. A small procession had appeared: officials, clerics, and finally the poor old gentleman himself, walking unsteadily to the block. His long, white hair was tossed in wisps around his shoulders, and his chest narrow and frail beneath his white linen shirt. He received his last prayers, knelt bravely, more victim than villain, to my eyes. The crowd before him knew it, too, the most silent and respectful crowd I’d ever seen at an execution, without any of the usual jeering or catcalls.

  The last lords to have been executed here had been the men who’d participated in the death of Charles I. How many in this crowd were thinking of that now, or, like my Charles beside me, of that earlier royal execution? How many were watching and thinking of all the unholiness and loss of the wars that had followed, and how England was so perilously close to tumbling that way again? How many, like Charles himself, would do anything to avoid it?

  I saw the axe swing high, and at the last I looked away, unable to bear the sight. An instant later came the thump that marked the end of Stafford’s mortal life, and the beginning of the one he was sure to have in heaven. In unison the crowd seemed to moan and shudder, a shared sorrow. Drawn by the sound, I looked up in time to see the executioner holding aloft the dripping, severed head, his fingers twisted into the thin white hair to keep from dropping it.

  “That’s blood on the heads of those who brought about this murder,” Charles said quietly, his eyes fixed on Stafford’s head. “Mark well what I say, Nelly. This shall not be forgotten.”

  Given the trials of this session, no one was surprised when Charles dissolved Parliament on the eighteenth of January 1681, and announced that it next would meet in March. It was where they’d meet that stunned everyone: not in London, but in Oxford.

  This was far more calculated than another “small trick.” The king understood entirely what he was doing. He’d precedence on his side, of course. Parliament had met before in Oxford, most recently when the plague had forced the members to flee. But it had also been his father’s capital during the wars, those same wars he’d wish to be well remembered. Even now Oxford remained a royalist stronghold where the king’s supporters outnumbered all others. Here Shaftesbury and his fellow Whigs would be removed from their followers and the mobbish displays that filled the streets of the City.

  But most of all, by moving Parliament, Charles was reminding the country that he still was the one who’d that power. No matter how hard the Whigs tried to attack him, ultimately he was the one who would decide England’s fate. It all made for a nasty dose of physic for Shaftesbury, and ’Od’s blood, I could not wait to see it.

  It seemed to me the king did not so much arrive in Oxford as he entered it, like a great noble hero already assured of victory. Charles described it all to me later, full of happy joy at such a welcome. Banners and flags flew from every staff and steeple to welcome him, drums thundered, and trumpets blared. So many well-wishers thronged the streets to clamor for him, swelling around the royal carriage for a glimpse of him and the queen that it took them more than an hour to reach their lodgings. Over and over, the same cheer of “Long live the king!” echoed through the ancient town until every house rang with the pride.

  I understood the heady love of a crowd, and this for Charles was as fine as it could be. I could barely remember the first days of his reign, when he was newly restored to his throne, but surely the wild devotion of his people could not have been greater than it was now in Oxford. But just as I understood the joy to be had from a crowd, I also knew how fickle a lover it could prove to be. Charles knew it, too, and as much as he basked in the cheers, he realized he’d still much work before him.

  Shaftesbury had brought down plenty of Whiggish followers from London, and they roamed the streets with their red ribbons on their coats and caps, chanting their same tired slogan of “No York, no popery!” Shaftesbury had made it clear that he was determined to push the Second Exclusion Act through this session of Parliament, and was shamelessly lobbying and bribing whomever he could. Even Monmouth had appeared in town, still ignoring his father’s declaration of his bastardy and clinging to his place as the Protestant duke and heir. He paraded about the streets in a fancy sedan, acting as if he were royalty already, with a private guard around him. While he drew more curiosity than serious support, it was still the attention that he craved above all else. Was it any wonder that Charles had ordered soldiers to patrol the streets to keep the peace, and to stand ready in case the braves hired by both sides came to blows?

  Of course I couldn’t resist being part of this merry Oxford circus. I soon joined Charles by his command and my own wish, for my role as his Protestant mistress was important to the gaudy show he was staging. I didn’t ride in his carriage into town—that was the queen’s place—but I followed in my own, gaily emblazoned with the Tories’ blue ribbons, and more blue ribbons braided into the manes and tails of my horses. I’d also made sure to wear my biggest pearls in my ears, and that the silk knots and lace on all my gowns was fresh and crisp, to offer the bravest show possible for Charles. With so much at stake, I meant to leave nothing to chance.

  Unwilling to languish in my shadow, Lady Portsmouth had come to Oxford, too, though not in such a bold style as did I. How could she? She was rightly seen as grasping, greedy, Romish, and French, with nothing whatsoever to recommend her to true, sturdy Englishmen, who’d always been quick to demonstrate their dislike of her. Thus she came skulking into town, and was not seen much about it, nor did I care a French fig about her either way.

  Besides, Oxford was my town, the place I’d been born, and a place ready to embrace me as its own. With so many young blades about the universities, I’d a ready following among those who liked a show of wit, and there remained a good many who recalled me from the playhouse. On my second day, whilst bound from my lodgings to the king’s, my carriage was stopped and my horses held by a crowd of angry fellows who’d mistaken me for that whoring French baggage the Duchess of Portsmouth, and much deserving of a little ill treatment at their hands. As soon as I realized their mistake, I thrust my body from the window of my carriage and held my hands out for their attention, exactly as I’d once appealed to the rowdies in the pit.

  “Pray, good people, be civil!” I called wryly, with booming good fellowship. “As you can see, I am the Protestant whore!”

  At once the menace turned to cheers, and my would-be assailants became my escorts, bearing my carriage on a rush of favor to the king. Preoccupied as he was, Charles still laughed heartily to see me arrive in such a fashion, and to hear of how I’d come to have such a crowd with me.

  “You should be the politician, my dear,” he said, smiling still as I joined him in his rooms. “How much more agreeable you’d make Parliament!”

  “Why not, sir, when politicians and players are snipped from the same cloth?” I asked, delighted I’d made him laugh amidst so much serious talk. “We both mix a smidgen of truth with a barrel of fiction, then gloss it with a nice sheen to catch the eye.”

  “Take care with what you say, Nelly, take care,” he
warned. “Else you’ll find yourself with a seat in the Commons, and I’ll have lost a friend.”

  “Never, sir,” I declared, my arms around his waist. “I’ve too little patience for politics, and too much loyalty to leave you.”

  I’d said it as a jest, true, but there was much truth in it besides. I was as loyal and true a friend as he’d ever have. Yet where once Charles would have laughed aloud and called me his cunning sprite and a score of other endearments, now he only smiled, turning thoughtful as he let his gaze wander over me.

  “I like that gown,” he said, a compliment with the feel of another purpose. “I’ve always liked you in blue.”

  “It’s blue for Tories, sir.” I turned before him on my toes, as I’d once done with my old jigs. “I want all the world to know where I stand. And if scarlet for Whigs is likewise the color of whores, well, then, for once I’ll let them claim it for themselves.”

  “Hah,” he said, amused by my logic. “Here I’d thought it no more than that you looked well in blue.”

  “Thank’ee, sir,” I said, pleasure staining my cheeks. “It comes from learning to dress at the playhouse. A good costume can save an indifferent performance, just as a bad one can rob even a brilliant play of its luster.”

  He nodded, as if this notion were both new to him and useful, too. Later I realized it was both, considering what he did soon afterward.

  “I will be going to the Cotswolds tomorrow for the hawking,” he said. “I would have you with me, if that pleases you.”

  “Aye, it pleases me, sir.” I turned again, making my petticoats fan shamelessly about my legs for the sheer sport of it. “Because it pleases you, it pleases me.”

  Later I realized that the next week was another of Charles’s small, cunning tricks, meant to divert and confound his enemies. Instead of remaining in Oxford to fuss and scheme like Shaftesbury until the session began, he left, as if, being king, he was so confident and supreme he need do no more. He took me and a few others to Burford (that same place named in our son’s title), in the Cotswolds, a small town of jumbled stone houses and agreeable folk. We inspected the old market, dined at the priory, and went hawking on the Burford Downs, the birds a beautiful sight to see as they wheeled and dove over the frost-covered fields.