Wife to Charles II

Hilda Lewis

• Publisher: The History Press
• Year: 2011
• eBook ISBN: 9780752472089
• Topic: Literatura
• Subtopic: Literatura general

Tells the story of Catherine of Braganza, Charles II's Portuguese Queen set against the background of injustice and tragedy. Politics, sex, lies, religion and misunderstanding meant that their marriage was never going to be what she hoped. A wonderful story making you feel for Catherine, but understand Charles. A really good read if you're into Restoration history, and even if you're not.

XX

Rumour thickened. The Papists were plotting the country’s downfall; and now it was not only the foreigners, but Englishmen—Englishmen, if you could call them so! They meant to assassinate the high officials, to murder the King, to hand the country over to the Bishop of Rome. And it was not only the ignorant that believed the tales. There was fear everywhere and there was anger; anger, most of all against the King that, with foolish indulgence, had left the way open to such vile plotting.

Blame their King that had spent himself in their service! Catherine found it hard to bear.

‘We must be patient,’ Charles said. ‘The people have suffered too much. First the plague and then the fire. And the result? Prices rising. Price of food—of flour, of meat. Price of wool, of wood; of every day-to-day need. And we are still at war with the Dutch and with the French. We are menaced; we are poor—no money. These things cannot make for a gentle humour.’

‘But anger against you; you that work only for their good. Can they not see?’

‘An empty belly clouds the eye!’ Charles said.

An empty belly was, indeed, clouding many eyes.

Mutiny in the air.

Charles rode alone to the Strand to face the hungry mob. Its anger he could understand. It is hard to be patient when backside goes bare and children cry for bread. But for all that he must beseech their patience. Let them trust him. Let them go about their lawful business and they should be paid—every penny! He swore it; and he meant it—he with but three cravats to his name. If not punishment must follow; the only punishment for mutineers—the gallows.

So honest he looked, so debonair—and withal so set upon his will, they gave him three cheers and went their ways.

Lacking ships, fighting-men pinched with hunger, the Fleet set out to meet the Dutch—the Dutch in full fighting-trim, well ordered, ships and plenty of them; men well-fed, well-paid—fighting cocks.

The Dutch sailed up the Thames. They stormed Sheerness; they sailed up the Medway. London shook to the thunder of their guns. They broke through the chains set to keep them out. They burned the English ships within the port. They sailed off again with—unendurable insult—the Royal Charles towed behind them.

Ships burnt in their own backyards! The English bowed their heads in shame. Not so their King. He was here, he was there, he was everywhere. He was looking to the forts, he was examining his ships, he was encouraging his men to fight and fight again. But it was not easy; the men were still unpaid.

In London preachers prophesied doom upon a wicked nation; naked men ran this way and that throughout the streets carrying fire of coal upon their heads. Londoners, fearing yet another raid, hid their wealth. Prudent Mr. Pepys buried his treasure within his garden. Charles had no treasure to bury.

And everywhere the rumours. The King means to use the army to overthrow the government. The King puts the country’s revenues into his own pocket. The King has fled the country....

Charles spoke his mind in Parliament. ‘I am too much of an Englishman to wish to govern by anything but law. As for my revenues—I have never received the sum you promised; and the little I had in my private purse I have poured into maintaining the army and the navy.’

Mr. Commissioner Pepys of the Admiralty, at his wits’ ends for money and inspired by strong liquor, spoke eloquently in the House. He talked himself into tears and Parliament into a grant; ‘a small grant but better than a kick in the backside,’ Charles said.

In November Charles gave a ball in honour of the Queen’s birthday. She was twenty-eight and looked younger; but it seemed to her a great age. She could not think she had given Charles or the country much cause for joy... there was, as yet, no sign of the longed-for child. She could not but wonder, also, whether in this time of hardship and unrest a ball should be given at all.

‘Yes, it is wise,’ Eliza said. ‘It puts an end to the absurd rumour that the King has fled. And, moreover, he needs relaxation. He works himself to death upon the nation’s business—though the people don’t know it, so smiling he is, so easy. Surely, Madam, we’ll not grudge him a little pleasure!’

‘For eight months we have been in mourning for Madam your mother,’ Maria Penalva said. ‘Now it is time for a little joy.’

She was being laced into a new gown of white and silver—the King’s present and heaven knew how he was to pay for it!—when Charles came in. He wore an old suit of black and white satin; it became him well. He looked debonair, he looked young; the periwig with its dark flowing curls gave him back the years he had lost. Her heart turned over with love; he smiled upon her with pleasure—he had chosen the gown well; she was in looks tonight.

Light streamed from crystal chandeliers upon black and white and silver; no other colour for a court in half-mourning. Yet the full court-dress a-glitter with jewels, with decorations, was as unlike mourning as one could imagine. It had almost a carnival air; it lifted the heart like wine.

Catherine sat smiling and gracious. She smiled upon James and his wife, heavy and handsome both and a little over-size in cloth of silver; she smiled with especial warmth upon Eliza and Ormonde. She smiled upon them all, the court ladies and their gallants; yes, even upon Buckingham and his wife—whom for all her trying she could not like. Yes, she thought, it is time for a little joy.

She had forgotten that woman... but for the moment, only.

Suddenly she was there, my lady Castlemaine, outfacing them all; the full breasts above the low white gown challenged the eye. And everywhere—head and breast, hand and arm, jewels flashed; her harvest over the years, filched, coaxed or shamelessly demanded from the King—a King so poor that some recognised their own gifts to him brazenly displayed. She poisoned the Queen’s pleasure; nor did she appear to add to the King’s.

He made no sign that he saw her. He had suffered over-much humiliation from this woman. The child she carried beneath her girdle was, very like, not his own. It might be Jermyn’s or Buckingham’s or Churchill’s... or her own footman’s even; she was not delicate when the flesh drove. He’d not own the child she carried, let her threaten as she would! At the memory of those wild threats he sickened.

And she stood unmoving. Skin yellow against her white gown, eyes set in stained skin proclaimed her pregnancy; that pregnancy she had always flaunted made more bitter her humiliation. She stiffened with pride. It will pass. Soon I’ll have him on his knees again. And then he shall pay for this. God damn him—how he shall pay!

The red burning in her sallow cheeks, she moved backwards, found a place among the less notable ladies; the haggard dark-blue eyes shifted a little.

The Queen’s eyes followed, rested upon Frances Stuart lovely and young; so young, scarce nineteen. In clouds of grey and white she moved like a goddess; and, like a goddess, was adorned with a crescent of stars. Charles was looking at the girl; he was hopelessly lost. James’ touch upon his arm recalled him. Like a man in a dream he offered his hand to the Queen; and though he kept his eyes fixed upon the dance, she knew well where his heart wandered. What use all his kindness? What use?

Of all the beauties of the court Catherine feared Frances Stuart most; and with cause. The girl was young and lovely; she was virgin and gentle. She was a Stuart... and Minette had sent her.

Charles loved Minette above all living things—her wit, her courage, her gaiety, her beauty and her gentleness... but he could not marry Minette. Was this the cause of his hunger for women? Is he forever seeking that which he can find in Minette, alone? The question struck at her; struck and struck again.

Quiet above her fears she watched Frances. That the country would welcome the King’s divorce from a barren Queen she had known ever since her last miscarriage. Now she was to learn—Mary Buckingham taking care not to lower her voice in the next room—that, especially, the country would welcome a Stuart Queen. If Charles could win the girl—then his wife had lost him for ever. And what woman had held out, ever, against him? The wonder was that this young creature had held out so long.

Charles spoke no word of divorce though Buckingham was forever at his ear. But he burned with his passion. He was restless, he was melancholy. Once he had kissed Frances in corners; now he kissed her openly. Why not? She was his cousin. But it was not as a cousin that he kissed her. He issued new coins. The court said it was that he might have her forever under his hand; for he commissioned Rôtier, his royal medallist, to engrave her as Britannia. And there she sat with helmet and trident—a figure, Charles said, to hold Englishmen forever enchanted. He could not endure her out of his sight. He pursued her with offers. Her cousin and his, Lennox, had offered to make her his duchess—duchess of Richmond. But the King would make her duchess in her own right.

‘A duchess; in her own right!’ Catherine choked upon her anger.

‘She’ll not accept,’ Penalva said.

As always, when alone, they spoke their own tongue, though Penalva, too, had some English. Catherine, indeed, now spoke well; but, though for the most correct, it came more slowly to her lips; and the pretty foreign accent must always proclaim her foreign birth. When deeply moved she found it hard to make this new language bear the full weight of her passion. With Penalva she did not have to try. It was a comfort to both to talk together in their own tongue.

‘She’ll not accept,’ Penalva said again. ‘She’s ambitious, that one! She’ll not rest till she be a Queen.’

‘You do her wrong!’ Catherine cried out sharp with fear. ‘She’ll not lie with any man save in the marriage-bed; no, not though it should make her a Queen... and that she can never be!’

Can she not? The question was instant in Penalva’s mind. She said, slow and heavy, ‘Buckingham works for her.’

‘Yes,’ the Queen said and there was no colour in her cheeks. They had heard, both of them, Buckingham’s foul offer to kidnap the Queen and ship her off to the Indies. Then, she being safe out of the way, he would put it about that she had run from the King. So it would leave the way open to divorce.

‘To run from my husband; who shall believe such a tale, shameful alike to the King and to me? And who should tell it but Buckingham that’s known for a liar and my enemy? Who shall believe him?’

But they knew both of them that plenty would pretend to believe him—and not only his toadies; not only Rochester and Sedley and the rest of the King’s dissolute friends, but men of greater weight that, for the good of the country, desired the divorce and would welcome any step to secure it.

‘They do not know the King,’ Catherine said. ‘His fancy may lead him... will... will o’ the wisp these English call it. But his good heart must always send him home. Divorce. To a Christian soul the very word is shame.’

Penalva said, very slow, ‘Bristol, the wicked man that once tried to wreck your marriage, is now bent upon that same business. He has sent two friars home—yes, to Lisbon; they will bring back the news—these holy men, their tongues, well-greased—that your marriage was a cheat. They will say—Madam, my darling, forgive me—that you are barren and that you knew it; you and your mother, both. There are those, their tongue well-oiled, will swear to it.’

‘The King shall give them the lie!’ The scarlet ran swift in the Queen’s cheeks. ‘I have quickened three times and the King knows it. There is no reason, no reason at all, I should not bear a child. The King knows that also; the physicians have told him.’

‘Yes,’ Penalva said...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• About the author
• I
• II
• III
• IV
• V
• VI
• VII
• VIII
• IX
• X
• XI
• XII
• XIII
• XIV
• XV
• XVI
• XVII
• XVIII
• XIX
• XX
• XXI
• XXII
• XXIII
• XXIV
• XXV
• XXVI
• XXVII
• XXVIII
• XXIX
• XXX
• XXXI
• XXXII
• XXXIII
• XXXIV
• XXXV
• XXXVI
• XXXVII
• XXXVIII
• XXXIX
• XL
• XLI
• XLII
• XLIII
• Epilogue
• Some Books Consulted