Royal Sisters: The Story of the Daughters of James II Page 6

  The King was sitting with three of his favorite women—the Duchesses of Portsmouth, Cleveland, and Mazarine. He looked ill and had eaten scarcely anything all day, but he was smiling and chatting with his usual affability; and now and then would caress one of the ladies.

  Queen Catherine was not present—she was often absent from these occasions. Doubtless, it was supposed, because she did not care to see her husband with his mistresses; and, although he was kind to her in all other ways, this was one concession he would not grant her. It was the same with his brother the Duke of York; he was married to a beautiful wife, many years younger than himself and although she had hated him when she had first come to England she was now passionately in love with him and deeply resentful of his mistresses—yet he, though ready to do everything else she might ask, was not able to forgo this dalliance with women.

  The Duchess of Portsmouth was leaning toward the King telling him that he was tired and she suggested a little supper in her apartments.

  Cleveland and Mazarine were scowling at Portsmouth and Charles said that while he ever found supping in her apartments delightful, he had lost his appetite for the day.

  Cleveland and Mazarine were smiling triumphantly, but Portsmouth replied: “I have had a special soup made for Your Majesty—very light but nourishing.”

  Charles smiled and declared that he would taste it. He was anxious to leave the hall for he found the light trying and the noise from the basset table and the singer in the gallery gave him a headache.

  In the company of the ladies and a few of his courtiers he left the hall; and no one knew then that it would never be quite the same again.

  Charles spent a restless night and then in the morning when he left his bed for his closet his attendants noticed that he walked unsteadily. Later when he talked to them he seemed to forget what he was talking about and his speech was slurred.

  It took a long time to dress and as he moved away from his bed he swayed and would have fallen had not his attendants steadied him.

  Dr. King, one of his physicians, was in the palace and he came at once to the King’s bedside, but Charles was now clearly very ill indeed, for his face was purple and distorted and his power of speech had left him.

  There was tension throughout the palace. The King was ill—more ill than he had ever been before.

  They were sending for the Duke of York. What now?

  The King was still alive, but there was anxiety throughout the kingdom. He had lived for his own pleasure; he had set the tone of immorality not only in the Court but throughout the country; unknown to his ministers he had made treaties with France; and he was said to be a secret Catholic; yet rarely had the English so sincerely mourned the passing of a King.

  In the streets they were weeping openly. Many of them remembered his coming back to them twenty-five years ago—the flowers strewn over the cobbles; the music in the streets; the bonfires; wine and dancing and merriment. And if it had not turned out as wonderful as they had believed it was going to, at least it had been gay and lighthearted and different from the gloom of old Noll Cromwell’s day.

  They loved him; they called him the merry Monarch; they remembered some of his sayings which had often been repeated because they were wise and witty. And now he was dying, and leaving them—James!

  Under the sorrow there was low rumbling of “No popery!”

  In his bedchamber the King lived on. It seemed he could not die. They had tried all the remedies they knew; they had opened his veins with a penknife; they had put a hot iron on his head; they had purged him; they had placed newly killed pigeons at his feet.

  Under all these ministrations he rallied for a time and when the news was spread through the streets, the people shouted in their joy; they made bonfires and all the bells of London were ringing at once. He had been ill before and he was well again. All those who had seen him riding through his capital, sauntering through his parks in the company of his ladies with his spaniels at his heels, all those who had seen him throwing at pell mell were certain that he had the strength of ten men.

  But the rejoicings were soon over. He could not live and although as he said—and apologized for it—he was a long time a-dying, he was dying all the same.

  James was kneeling at his bedside, weeping, begging him to take the sacrament before he died.

  Poor James! he was a sentimental man and they were brothers. Later he would think of what his brother’s passing meant to him, but at this time he could remember only the long years of intimacy, of struggle and endeavor, of exile and strife and, at last, the homecoming.

  Charles tried to frame the words: “James, best of friends and best of brothers.…”

  The tears ran down James’s cheeks, and Charles begged forgiveness for those exiles which had been a necessity, but he was sorry for them.

  The Queen came to the bedside; she was a heartbroken woman; there were others too, women, who followed her into the bedchamber, to remind him that though she was his wife they were the ones who had shared his company.

  The Queen was sobbing; she begged him to forgive her if she had ever offended him. “Alas, poor lady,” cried Charles, “she begs my pardon! I beg hers, with all my heart.”

  He could not breathe; there were so many people crowding the apartment and all day and all night they remained.

  James came to the bed, his eyes alight with fanaticism; he bent his head and whispered to his brother that since he was at heart a Catholic he should receive the rites of the Catholic church.

  “No,” said Charles, “you endanger your life, brother.”

  But when had James thought of danger? He had the chamber cleared and Father Huddleston, who had once saved the King’s life at the battle of Worcester, was brought disguised into the death chamber.

  “Brother,” said James, “I bring you a man who once saved your life; now he comes to save your soul.”

  The sacrament according to the rites of the church of Rome was given with extreme unction.

  Then the doors were thrown open and those who had been shut out were allowed to return.

  The next morning Charles II was dead.

  LONG LIVE THE KING

  here was a quiet throughout the country. There was a new King on the throne—King James II—and everyone was waiting to see what would happen. The cries of “No popery” were no longer heard, but eyes were alert and there was an air of waiting, an implication that the present era was uneasy and perhaps temporary.

  There was one who was in the minds of all, though few mentioned his name: James Duke of Monmouth, at present at The Hague, the guest of the Prince and Princess of Orange. What would he do now? His greatest enemy had been the Duke of York who was now King James II. Monmouth had ostentatiously called himself the Protestant Duke. And what was the Protestant Duke doing now?

  Anne, heavily pregnant, was thinking constantly of the child she was to have. She indulged herself more than usual.

  “I am determined this time,” she told Sarah, “that my child shall live.”

  “He will be a step nearer to the throne when he is born than when he was conceived,” commented Sarah.

  Anne wept then for Uncle Charles. “He was always so kind to me. I cannot believe that I shall never see him again. Of course, dear Mrs. Freeman, there were times when I had no notion of what he meant. He was so witty always, but kind with it, and you know that is a rare gift. Is that why he was so loved, do you think? Oh, how I miss him.”

  Fat, pink fool! thought Sarah. You could be Queen of England before long and all you think of is crying for Uncle Charles!

  Sarah had long talks with John. They were growing closer together; they were more than lovers; they were partners and their ambition burned more brightly than any passion; Sarah was once more pregnant and this time they hoped for a son.

  “John, John,” she cried, “what does this mean? What can this mean?”

  “We can only wait and see.”

  Sarah stamped impatiently. “We mu
st not wait too long.”

  “But, my dearest, for a while we must wait. I am wondering what is happening now on the Continent.”

  “Monmouth?”

  “And William. Do not forget William, my love.”

  “Depend upon it Caliban is hatching some plot.”

  “And forcing his wife to help him, I’ll swear.”

  “She has about as much sense as my dear Mrs. Morley. They are told ‘Do this’ ‘Do that.’ And like idiots they do it.”

  John touched her cheek lightly. “Which is very good for my dear Mrs. Freeman.”

  “I’m thinking of the other one—Mary. Don’t forget she comes first.”

  “We must not plan too far ahead, my dear. Remember James is still the King.”

  “But is he going to remain King?”

  “He has stepped into his brother’s place naturally and easily. I confess I expected trouble. There has been none. It seems he understands his danger for he has been behaving with more good sense than he usually shows.”

  Sarah clenched her hands. “And Monmouth? What of Monmouth?”

  “They’ll never accept the bastard.”

  “The Protestant Duke!” said Sarah with a sneer. “And William? Those two are said to be friends. Rivals, as Charles once said, for the same mistress. And that mistress is the crown which James now wears.”

  “We’ll keep our eyes on The Hague. That’s where the next move will come from.”

  “William and Mary! Do you think they’ll make an attempt?”

  John shook his head. “Not yet. William’s too clever. James will have to commit himself more deeply before it would be wise for anyone to try to oust him from the throne. The English don’t want a papist King but you know what they are for fair play. They wouldn’t like Mary to take over before her time … unless it was for a very good reason.”

  “Mary! They say she does not enjoy good health and William would have no chance without her. And then it would be Queen Morley’s turn. John, do you understand that the day my plump Morley mounts the throne I can rule this country?”

  John smiled at her. “I believe you capable of anything, my love. But we must be patient. We must wait … alert. We must first see which way the wind is blowing. It would not do for us to get caught in the coming storm.”

  He was wise, she knew. Sarah had no doubt that when the time came they would be on the winning side.

  The preparations for the new King’s coronation went smoothly. Anne’s great regret was that she would not be able to attend for she was expecting her child to be born any day.

  James had found time to visit her at the Cockpit in spite of all his new duties. He embraced her with great tenderness and told her that she should rejoice to have a King for a father.

  “Rest assured,” he said, “that I shall see benefits flow to my beloved daughter.”

  That was comforting.

  “Dear Father, but look at the size of your daughter! Delighted as I am by my state I am irked that I shall not be able to see you crowned.”

  James smiled secretly and later Anne learned that he had ordered that a special closed box be erected in the Abbey from which she should watch the ceremony in the company of her husband.

  “You do not imagine,” he said, “that I could allow my dear daughter to be absent on this great day!”

  So Anne was in the box with George while the ceremony took place and afterward Mary Beatrice, the new Queen, made a point of visiting her stepdaughter there.

  “What do you think of my dress?” asked Mary Beatrice, her lovely dark eyes shining; she was always happy on such occasions because she liked to see honor bestowed on her husband.

  “Worthy of a Queen,” declared Anne. “Tell me, how do you feel … now that you are a queen?”

  Mary Beatrice looked a little sad. “I should feel happier if I were in your condition.”

  “You will be … ere long,” said Anne.

  Ten days later Anne’s daughter was born. She seemed healthy and although Anne and her husband had longed for a boy they now declared themselves to be completely delighted.

  “Soon she shall have a brother,” George promised Anne; and she was sure he would be proved right.

  “I shall call her Mary after my dearest sister,” said Anne. “Poor Mary. I feel so guilty to be happy here in England while she must remain in Holland with Caliban.”

  John had returned from a mission to France whither he had gone ostensibly to tell Louis of James’s accession, but actually to attempt to obtain further loans from Louis. This he failed to do, but when he returned there was an opportunity of spending a few weeks with Sarah in the house he had built on the site of that old one near St. Albans where Sarah had spent part of her childhood.

  Then came the news that Monmouth had landed in England. And John knew he must return to Court without delay.

  “So,” said Sarah, “you will fight for the Catholic against the Protestant?”

  John smiled. “This is the King against the bastard,” he said. “Until James changes the religion of this country he is still the King as far as I am concerned.”

  Sarah agreed that this must be so.

  “We should never bow to Monmouth,” she said. “You will defeat him, John.”

  “Feversham will be in command,” John replied sardonically, “and I see that the trouble will be mine but the honor will be his.”

  “It shall not always be so,” declared Sarah firmly.

  The defeat of Monmouth was due to Churchill, for when the battle of Sedgemoor began Feversham was in bed, having, with many of his cronies, drunk rather heavily, and the command was left to John Churchill who started a strong offensive and secured victory for the King’s men.

  Monmouth was discovered in a ditch and brought as prisoner to London. There followed his trial, death on Tower Hill, and the great scandal of Judge Jeffrey’s Bloody Assizes.

  That affair was ended and James II was firmly on the throne.

  Everyone in England seemed aware of the King’s unpopularity except himself. Like a true Stuart James had an inherent belief in the Divine Right of Kings and it was inconceivable to him that his throne could be threatened by the people. He had had two enemies in his nephew Monmouth and his son-in-law William; now Monmouth was dead and only William remained. He had always disliked William and had never ceased to deplore the fact that his beloved daughter Mary had married him. He himself had been against that marriage, but Charles had insisted on it, pointing out that because William was a Protestant it was more necessary to James than to anyone else, for if James did not allow his daughter to marry a Protestant, Charles believed that the people would insist on excluding him from the succession.

  So there had been this Dutch marriage—but he never trusted his son-in-law and what was so heartbreaking was that he believed William was trying to influence his daughter against him.

  Rake and libertine that he could not prevent himself being, James had a great desire for a happy family life to which he could retire for a short rest from his mistresses. He had convinced himself that he had enjoyed this for a time with Anne Hyde, the mother of his daughters, and the two girls themselves. He remembered several occasions when they had sat on the floor and played childish games together. He looked back—sentimentalist that he was—with great yearning to that period.

  He sincerely loved his daughters. In her childhood Mary had been the favorite, but she was far away and William’s wife, whereas Anne was at hand and he could see her frequently. Moreover he had written to Mary in an endeavor to convert her to Catholicism, and her replies had been cool; she implied that she was firmly Protestant.

  William’s wife, he thought sadly, scarcely James’s daughter now.

  So he turned to Anne. He increased her allowance, for the dear creature had no money sense at all and in spite of her enormous revenue she was constantly in debt. He enjoyed those occasions when she sought his help; it was a pleasure to see her woebegone face break into a smile when he tol
d her that she could rely on her father to help her in any difficulty.

  “You are the daughter of a King now,” he was constantly telling her. “The beloved daughter.”

  Anne thought what a pleasure it was to be a sovereign. So much homage; so much adulation. Sarah had grown even closer because that year they had both given birth to daughters: Anne’s Mary and Sarah’s Elizabeth.

  Sarah would whisper to her: “And think, dear Mrs. Morley, one day you may be the Queen of England.”

  “I do not like to think of that, Mrs. Freeman, because my father would have to die first.”

  “H’m!” retorted Sarah. “He is a papist, you know, and that is not good.”

  “Alas no.” Anne was a staunch Protestant, as she had been brought up to be, for her uncle Charles had taken her education and that of Mary out of their father’s hands. “But he is firmly convinced that he is right.”

  “Mrs. Morley must never allow herself to be converted. That would be dangerous. They would never allow you to be Queen if you became a papist. These papists are a menace.”

  “I know, I have heard from my sister.… She is not very pleased with my father.”

  “Nor is it to be wondered at. He is under the thumb of his wife. She is the real culprit.”

  Anne looked puzzled as she thought of her lovely stepmother with whom she had always been on good terms.