A Health Unto His Majesty

by Jean Plaidy

  It was at this time that Catherine discovered she was pregnant, and her hopes of giving birth to an heir were high.

  *

  The year 1666 dawned on a sorrowing people.

  The plague had crippled the country more cruelly than many suspected. Since trade had been brought to a standstill during the hot summer months there was no money with which to equip the ships of the Navy. The French chose this moment to take sides with the Dutch, and England, now almost bankrupt and emerging from the disaster of the plague, was called upon to face two enemies instead of one.

  The English were truculent. They were ready for all the ‘Mounseers’, they declared; but the King was sad; he was alarmed that that nation, to which his own mother belonged and to which he felt himself bound so closely, should take up arms against his; moreover two of the greatest Powers in the world were allied against one crippled by the scourge of death which had lately afflicted it and by lack of the means to carry on a successful war.

  In March of that year bad news was brought from Portugal, but on the King’s advice it was not immediately imparted to the Queen.

  ‘It will distress her,’ said Charles, ‘and in view of her delicate health at this time I would have the utmost care taken.’

  But it was impossible to keep the news long from Catherine. She knew by the tears of Donna Maria that something had happened, and she guessed that it concerned their country, for only then would Donna Maria be so deeply affected.

  And at length she discovered the secret.

  Her mother dead! It seemed impossible to believe it. It was but four years since they had said their last goodbyes. Much had happened in those four years, and perhaps in her love for her husband Catherine had at times forgotten her mother; but now that she was dead, now that she knew she would never see her again, she was heart-broken.

  She lay in her bed and wept silently, going over every well-remembered incident of her childhood.

  ‘Oh, Mother,’ she murmured, ‘if you had been here to advise me, mayhap I should have acted differently; mayhap Charles would not now regard me with that vague tolerance which seems so typical of his feelings for me.’

  Then she remembered all her mother had bidden her do; she remembered how Queen Luiza had determined on this match; how she had again and again impressed on her daughter that she, Catherine, was destined to save their country.

  ‘Mother, dearest Mother, I will do my best,’ she murmured. ‘Even though he has nothing more than a mild affection for me, even though I am but the wife who was chosen for him and there are about him beautiful women who he has chosen for himself, still will I remember all that you have told me and never cease to work for my country.’

  Tempers ran high during those anxious months.

  When Catherine decreed that, in mourning for her mother, the Court ladies should appear with their hair worn plain, and that they should not wear patches on their faces, Lady Castlemaine was openly annoyed. She was affecting the most elaborate styles for her hair and set great store by her patches. Several noticed that, with her hair plain and her face patchless, she was less strikingly beautiful than before.

  This made her ill-humoured indeed; and in view of the King’s continued devotion to Frances Stuart, her temper was not improved.

  As Catherine sat with her ladies one day in the spring, and Barbara happened to be among them, they talked of Charles.

  Catherine said she feared his health had suffered through the terrible afflictions of last year. He had unwisely taken off his wig and pourpoint when he was on the river and the sun proved too hot; he had caught a chill and had not seemed to be well since then.

  She turned to Barbara and said: ‘I fear it is not good for him to be out so late. He stays late at your house, and it would be better for his health if he did not do so.’

  Barbara let out a snort of laughter. ‘He does not stay late at my house, Madam,’ she said. ‘If he stays out late, then you must make inquiries in other directions. His Majesty spends his time with someone else.’

  The King had come into the apartment. He looked strained and ill; he was wondering where the money was coming from to equip his ships; he was wondering how he was going to pay his seamen, and whether it would be necessary to lay up the Fleet for lack of funds; and if that dire calamity should befall, how could he continue the war?

  It seemed too much to be borne that Catherine and Barbara should be quarrelling about how he spent his nights – those rare occasions when he sought a little relaxation in the only pastime which could bring him that forgetfulness which he eagerly sought.

  He looked from Catherine to Barbara and his dark features were stern.

  Catherine lowered her eyes but Barbara met his gaze defiantly.

  ‘Your Majesty will bear me out that I speak the truth,’ she said.

  Charles said: ‘You are an impertinent woman.’

  Barbara flushed scarlet, but before she could give voice to the angry retorts which rose to her lips, Charles had continued quietly: ‘Leave the Court, and pray do not come again until you have word from me that I expect to see you.’

  Then, without waiting for the storm which his knowledge of Barbara made him certain must follow, he turned abruptly and left the apartment.

  Barbara stamped her foot and glared at the company.

  ‘Is anybody here smiling?’ she demanded.

  No one answered.

  ‘If any see that which is amusing in this, let her speak up. I will see to it that she shall very soon find little to laugh at. As for the King, he may have a different tale to tell when I print the letters he has written to me!’

  Then, curbing her rage, she curtsied to the Queen who sat stiff and awkward, not knowing how to deal with such an outrageous breach of good manners.

  Barbara stamped out of the apartment.

  But on calmer and saner reflection, considering the King’s cares of state and his melancholy passion for Mrs Stuart, she felt she would be wise, on this one occasion, to obey his command.

  Barbara left the Court.

  *

  Barbara was raging at Richmond. All those about her tried in vain to soothe her. She was warned of all the King had had to bear in the last few years; she was discreetly reminded of Frances Stuart.

  ‘I’ll get even with him!’ she cried. ‘A nice thing if I should print his letters! Why, these Hollanders would have something to make pamphlets of then, would they not!’

  Mrs Sarah warned her. She must not forget that although Charles had been lenient with her, he was yet the King. It might be that he would forbid her not only the Court but the country; such things had happened.

  ‘It is monstrous!’ cried Barbara. ‘I have loved him long. It is six years since he came home, and I have loved him all that time.’

  ‘Others have been his rivals in your affections, and fellow-guests in your bedchamber,’ Mrs Sarah reminded her.

  ‘And what of his affection and his bedchamber, eh?’

  ‘He is the King. I wonder at his tenderness towards you.’

  ‘Be silent, you hag! I shall send for my furniture. Do not imagine I shall allow my treasures to remain at Whitehall.’

  ‘Send a messenger to the King,’ suggested Madam Sarah, ‘and first ask his permission to remove your possessions.’

  ‘Ask his permission! He is a fool. Any man is a fool who chases that simpering ninny, who stands and hold cards for her card-houses, who allows himself so far to forget his rank as to play blind man’s buff with an idiot.’

  ‘He might not grant that permission,’ suggested Mrs Sarah.

  ‘If he should refuse to let me have what is mine . . .’

  ‘He might because he does not wish you to leave.’

  ‘You dolt! He has banished me.’

  ‘For your insolence before the Queen and her ladies. He may be regretting that now. You know how he comes back again and again to you. You know that no one will ever be quite the same as you are to him. Send that messenger, Madam.’


  Barbara gazed steadily at Mrs Sarah. ‘Sarah, there are times when I think those who serve me are not all as doltish as I once thought them to be.’

  So she took Sarah’s advice and asked the King’s permission to withdraw her goods; the answer she had hoped for came to her: If she wished to take her goods away she must come and fetch them herself.

  So, with her hair exquisitely curled, and adorned by a most becoming hat with a sweeping green feather, and looking her most handsome, she took barge to Whitehall. And when she was there she saw the King; and, taking one look at her, and feeling, as Mrs Sarah had said he did, that no one was quite like Barbara, he admitted that her insolence at an awkward moment had made him a little hasty.

  Barbara consented to remain at Whitehall. And that night the King supped in her apartments, and it was only just before the Palace was stirring to the activities of a new day that he left her and walked through the privy gardens to his own apartments.

  *

  All that summer the fear of plague was in the hearts of the citizens of London; the heat of the previous summer was remembered, and the dreadful toll which had been taken of the population. Through the narrow streets of wooden houses, the gables of which almost met over the dark streets, the people walked wearily and there was the haunting fear on their faces. From the foul gutters rose the stink of putrefying rubbish; and it was remembered that two or three times in every hundred years over the centuries the grim visitor would appear like a legendary dragon, demanding its sacrifice and then, having taken its fill of victims, retreat before the cold weather only to strike again, none knew when.

  Catherine found this time a particularly anxious one. She was worried about her brother Alphonso who she knew was unfit to wear the crown; she knew that Pedro, her younger brother, coveted it; and now that the restraining hand of her mother would not be there to guide them, she wondered continually about the fate of her native country.

  The condition of her adopted country was none too happy at this time. She knew of Charles’s anxieties. She knew too that he was beginning to despair of her ever giving him an heir. Again her hopes had been disappointed. Why was it that so many Queens found it hard to give their husbands sons, while those same Kings’ mistresses bore them as a matter of course? Barbara had borne yet another child – this time a handsome boy, whom she called George Fitzroy. Barbara had, as well as her vuluptuous person, a nursery full of children who might be the King’s.

  In June of the year which followed that of the great plague the Dutch and English fleets met. De Ruyter and Van Tromp were in charge of the Dutchmen, and the English Fleet was under Albemarle. There were ninety Dutch ships opposed to fifty English, and when the battle had been in progress for more than a day, the Dutch were joined by sixteen sail. Fortunately Prince Rupert joined the Duke of York and a mighty battle was the result; both sides fought so doggedly and so valiantly that neither was victorious; but, although the English sank fifteen Dutch ships and the Dutch but ten English, the Dutch had invented chain-shot with which they ruined the rigging of many more of the English ships; and all the latter had to retire into harbour for refitting.

  Yet a few weeks later they were in action once more, and this resulted in victory for the English, with few English losses and the destruction of twenty Dutch men-of-war.

  When the news reached England, the bells rang out in every town and hamlet and there was general rejoicing in London which, but a year ago, had been like a dead and desolate city.

  These celebrations took place on August 14th. Hopes were high that ere long these proud and insolent Dutchmen would realize who would rule the sea.

  It was less than two weeks later when, in the house of Mr Farryner, the King’s baker, who lived in Pudding Lane, fire broke out in the early morning; and as there was a strong east wind blowing and the baker’s house was made of wood, as were those of his neighbours, in a few hours all Pudding Lane and Fish Street were ablaze and the streets were filled with shouting people who, certain that their efforts to quench the raging furnace were in vain while the high wind persisted, merely dragged out their goods from those houses which were in danger of being caught by the flames, wringing their hands, and declaring that the vengeance of God was turned upon the City.

  Through the night, made light as day by the fires, people shouted to each other to come forth and flee. The streets were filled with those whose one object was to salvage as many of their household goods as was possible; and the wind grew fiercer as house after house fell victim to the flames. People with blackened faces called to each other that this was the end of the world. God had called vengeance on London, cried some, for the profligate ways of its people. Last year the plague and the Dutch wars, and now they were all to be destroyed by fire!

  Showers of sparks shot into the air and fell like burning rain when a warehouse containing barrels of pitch and tar sent the blaze roaring to the sky. The river had suddenly become jammed with small craft, as frantic householders gathered as many as possible of their goods together and sought the green fields beyond the City for safety. Many poor people stood regarding their houses with the utmost despair, their arms grasping homely bundles, loth to leave their homes until the very last minute. Pigeons, which habitually sheltered in the lofts of these houses, hovered piteously near their old refuge and many were lying dead and dying on the cobbles below, their wings burned, their bodies scorched.

  And all through the night the wind raged, and the fire raged with it.

  *

  Early next morning Mr Samuel Pepys, Secretary of the Navy, reached Whitehall and asked for an audience with the King; he told him all that was happening in the City, and begged him to give instant orders that houses be demolished, for only thus could such a mighty conflagration be brought to a halt. The King agreed that the houses which stood in the way of the fire must be pulled down, as only by making such gaps could the conflagration be halted, and gave orders that this should be done.

  Pepys hurried back to the City and found the Lord Mayor in Cannon Street from where he was watching the fire and shouting in vain to the crowds, imploring them to listen to him, and try to fight the fire.

  ‘What can I do?’ he cried. ‘People will not obey me. I have been up all night. I shall surely faint if I stay here. What can I do? What can any do in such a raging wind?’

  The Secretary, thinking the man was more like a fainting woman than a Lord Mayor, repeated the King’s order.

  ‘I have tried pulling down houses,’ wailed the Lord Mayor. ‘But the fire overtakes us faster than we can work.’

  They stood together, watching the flames which, in some places, seemed to creep stealthily at first, as tongues of fire licked the buildings and then suddenly, with a mighty roar, would appear to capture yet another; the sound of falling roofs and walls was everywhere; the flames ran swiftly and lightly along the thatches; now many streets were avenues of flame. People screamed as the fire-drops caught them; flames spread like an arch from one side of London Bridge to the other; the air was filled with the crackling sound of burning and the crash of collapsing houses. It was almost impossible to breathe the dense smoke-filled air.

  *

  On Tuesday morning the fire was still raging, and the King decided that he dared no longer leave the defence of his capital to the Lord Mayor and the City Fathers.

  Fleet Street, the Old Bailey, Ludgate Hill, Warwick Lane, Newgate, Paul’s Chain and Watling Street were all ablaze. The heat was so fierce that none could approach near the fire, and when a roof fell in great showers of sparks would fly out from the burning mass to alight on other dwellings and so start many minor fires.

  The King with his brother, the Duke of York, were in the centre of activity. It was they who directed the blowing-up of houses in Tower Street. The citizens of London saw their King then, not as the careless philanderer, but the man of action. It was he, his face blackened by smoke, who directed the operations which were to save the City. There he stood passing the buckets wit
h his own hands, shouting to all that their help was needed and they would be rewarded for the work they did this day. There he stood, with the dirty water over his ankles, encouraging and, being the man he was, not forgetting to joke. It was while he stood in their midst that the people ceased to believe those stories which the Puritans had murmured about God’s vengeance. This fire was nothing but the result of an accident which had taken place in a baker’s kitchen and, on account of the high wind, the dry wood and thatch of the houses all huddled so closely together, had turned the fire in Pudding Lane into the Fire of London.

  By Thursday the fire showed signs of being conquered. The heat from smouldering buildings was still intense; fires raged in some parts of the City, but that great ravaging monster had been checked.

  It was said that day that all that was left of London owed its existence to the King and his brother James.

  *

  Now it was possible to look back and see the extent of the disaster.

  The fire, following so soon on the plague, had robbed the country of the greater part of its wealth. London was the centre of the kingdom’s riches, for more than a tenth of the population had lived in the Capital. Now the greater part of the City lay in ruins, and for months afterwards ashes, charred beams, and broken pieces of furniture were found in the fields of the villages of Knightsbridge and Kensington; and the people marvelled that the effects of the great fire could still be seen at such great distance.

  But there were more terrible effects to be felt. In the fields the homeless huddled together, having nowhere to go. The King rode out to them, bags of money at his belt; he distributed alms and ordered that food and shelter should be found for these sufferers.

  His heart was heavy. He knew that never before in her history had England been in such a wretched plight. There was murmuring all over the country and in particular throughout the stricken City. England was no longer merry, and people were beginning to think of the period of Puritan rule as the ‘good old days’. The wildest rumours were in the air. New terrors stalked the smouldering streets. The fire was the work of Papists, said some. Those who were suspected of following the Catholic religion were seized and ill-treated and some were done to death by the mob. Feeling ran high against the Queen. She was a Papist, and trouble had started during the last King’s reign, declared the people, on account of his Papist wife. Others said the profligate life led by the King and his associates was responsible for the fire.