A Health Unto His Majesty Read online

  She called to her woman. The woman came nervously, curtseying to the King as her frightened eyes went from him to Barbara.

  ‘Bring me the child!’ cried Barbara.

  The woman went to the cradle.

  ‘Give the child to me,’ said the King. The woman obeyed. And because he loved all small and helpless creatures, and particularly children, the King was deeply touched by the small, pink, wrinkled baby who might possibly be his own’ flesh and blood.

  He looked down at the serving woman and gave her one of those smiles which never failed to captivate all who were favoured with them.

  ‘A healthy child,’ he said. ‘Methinks she already has a look of me. What say you?’

  ‘Why, yes . . . Your Majesty,’ said the woman.

  ‘I remember my youngest sister when she was little more than this child’s age. They might be the same . . . as my memory serves.’

  Barbara was smiling contentedly. She was satisfied. The King had come to heel. He had acknowledged her daughter as his, and once more Barbara had her way.

  The King continued to hold the child. She was a helpless little thing; he could easily love her. He owned to many children; so what difference did one more-make?

  *

  Spring had come to England, and once more there was expectation in the streets of London. It was exactly a year since the King had returned to rule his country.

  The mauve tufts of vetch with golden cowslips and white stitchwort flowers gave a gentle colour to the meadows and lanes which could be seen from almost every part of the city. The trees in St James’s Park were in bud and the birdsong there sounded loud and jubilant as though these creatures were giving thanks to the King who had helped to build them such a delightful sanctuary.

  The last year had brought more changes to the city. The people were less rough than they had been; there were fewer brawls. French manners had been introduced by the King and courtiers which subdued the natural pugnacity of the English. The streets had become more colourful. Maypoles had been set up; new hawkers had appeared, shouting their wares through the streets; wheels continually rattled over the cobbles. On May Day milkmaids danced in the Strand with flower-decorated pails. New pleasure-houses had sprung up, to compete for public patronage with the Mulberry Garden. Cream and syllabub was served at the World’s End tavern in the village of Knightsbridge. There was Jamaica House at Bermondsey; there were the Hercules Pillars in Fleet Street and Chatelins at Covent Garden – a favourite eating house since it was French and the King had brought home with him a love of all things French. Chatelins was for the rich, but there were cheaper rendezvous for the less fortunate, such as the Sugar Loaf, the Green Lettuce and the Old House at Lambeth Marshes; and there were the beautiful woods of Vauxhall in which to roam and ramble and seek the sort of adventures which were being talked of more openly than ever before, to listen to the fiddlers’ playing, and watch the fine people walking.

  Yes, there were great changes, and these were brought about through the King.

  There was a new freedom in the very air – a gay unconcern for virtue. It might be that the people of the new age were not more licentious than those of the old; but they no longer hid their little peccadilloes; they boasted of them. They would watch the King’s mistress riding through the town, haughty and so handsome that none could take his eyes from her. All knew the position she held with the King; he made no secret of it; nor did she. They rode together; they supped together four or five nights a week, and the King never left her till early morning, when he would take his walks and exercise in the gardens of his Palace of Whitehall.

  It was a new England in which men lived merrily and were more ashamed of their virtue than their lack of morals. To take a mistress – or two – was but to ape the King, and the King was a merry gentleman who had brought the laughter back to England.

  Charles was enjoying his own. The weather was clement; he loved his country; his exile was too close behind him for him to have forgotten it; he revelled in his return to power.

  He was a young man, by no means handsome, but he was possessed of greater charm than any man in his Court; moreover he was royal. Almost any woman he desired, be she married or single, was his for the asking. He could saunter and select; he could enter into all the pleasures which were most agreeable to him. He could sail down the river to visit his ships – himself at the tiller; he could revel in their beauty, which attracted him so strongly. He could take his own yacht whither he wished, delighting in its velvet hangings and its damask-covered furniture, all made to his taste and his designs.

  He could spend thrilling hours at the races; he could stand beside his workmen in the parks, make suggestions and give commands; he could watch the stars through his telescope with his astronomers and learn all they had to tell him. He could play bowls on his green at Whitehall, he could closet himself with his chemist and concoct cordials and medicines in his laboratory. Life was full of interest for a lively and intelligent man who suddenly found himself possessed of so much, after he had lived so long with so little.

  He longed to see plays such as he had seen in France.

  He was building two new theatres; he wished to see more witty plays produced. There were to be tall candles and velvet curtains – and women to act!

  These were great days of change, but there was one thing which existed in abundance in this colourful and exciting city: dirt. It was ever present and therefore, being so familiar to all, passed unnoticed. In the gutters decaying matter rotted for days; sewage trickled over the cobbles; servants emptied slops out of the upper windows, and if they fell on to passers-by that merely added gaiety and laughter – and sometimes brawls – to the clamouring, noisy city.

  Noise was as familiar as dirt. The people revelled in it. It was as though every citizen were determined to make up for the days of Puritan rule by living every moment to the full.

  Manners had become more elegant, but conversation more bold. Dress had become more alluring, and calculated to catch the eye and titillate the senses. The black hoods and deep collars were ripped off, and dresses were cut away to reveal feminine charms rather than to hide them. Men’s clothes were as elaborate as those of women. In their plumed hats and breeches adorned with frilly lace they frequented the streets like magnificent birds of prey, as though hoping to reduce their victims to a state of supine fascination by their brilliance.

  And now the arches, which would be adorned with flowers and brocades, were being set up; the scaffolding was being erected. People stood about in groups to laugh and chatter of the change which had taken place in their city since the King came home. They would turn out in their thousands to cry ‘A Health unto His Majesty’ when the King rode by on his way to be crowned, and drink to him from the conduits flowing with wine.

  *

  Charles, driving his chariot with two fine horses through Hyde Park, bowing to the people who called their loyal greetings to him, was, for all his merry smiles, thinking of a subject which never failed to rouse the melancholy in him: Money.

  A Coronation was a costly thing, and these people who rejoiced to see the scaffolding erected, and talked of the changed face of London, did not alas realize that they were the ones who would be asked to pay for it.

  Charles had a horror of inflicting taxes. It was the surest way to a people’s disfavour. And, he thought, I like my country so well, and I have travelled so much in my youth, that I have no wish ever to set foot outside England. It would therefore grieve me greatly if I were asked to go travelling again.

  Money! How to come by it.?

  His ministers had one solution on which they continually harped. Marry a rich wife!

  He would soon have to marry; he knew that; but whom should he marry?

  Spain was anxious that the woman he married should have some ties with their country. The Spanish ambassador had put forth some suggestions tentatively. If Charles would consider a Princess from Denmark or Holland, Spain would see that she was given a ha
ndsome dowry.

  Charles grimaced. He remembered the ‘foggy’ women of those capitals in which he had sojourned as an exile. His ministers wished him to take a rich wife; it was imperative for the state of the country’s finances that he did so. And for the sake of my comfort, he had begged, let her be not only rich but comely.

  His ministers thought this a frivolous attitude. He had his mistresses to be beautiful; suffice it that his wife should be rich.

  Hyde was a strong man. He had deliberately flouted Barbara; and only a strong man would do that, thought Charles grimly. Hyde had forbidden his wife to call on Barbara, and Barbara remembered insults. She was going to be angry when she heard that the King was giving him the Earldom of Clarendon at the Coronation. Why do I give way to Barbara? he asked himself. Why? Because she could amuse him far more than any woman; because there was no physical satisfaction equal to that which Barbara could give. And why was this so? Perhaps because in her great gusto of passion she herself could enjoy so wholeheartedly. One could dislike Barbara’s cupidity, her cruelty, her blatant vulgarity, yet Barbara’s lusty beauty, Barbara’s overwhelming sensuality chained a man to her side; it was not only so with himself. There were others.

  But he must not think of Barbara now. He must think of a means of raising money.

  When he returned to the Palace Lord Winchelsea was waiting to see him. Winchelsea had recently returned from Portugal, and he had news for the King which he wished to impart to him before he did so to any other.

  ‘Welcome, my lord,’ said the King. ‘What saw you in Portugal that brings such brightness to your eyes?’

  ‘I think mayhap,’ said Winchelsea, ‘that I see the solution to Your Majesty’s pecuniary difficulties.’

  ‘A Portuguese wife?’ said Charles, wrinkling his brows.

  ‘Yes, Sire. I had an interview with the Queen Regent of Portugal, and she offers you her daugher.’

  ‘What manner of woman is she?’

  ‘The Queen is old and earnest, most earnest, Your Majesty.’

  ‘Not the Queen – I have not to marry her. What of the daughter?’

  ‘I saw her not.’

  ‘They dared not show her to you! Is she possessed of a harelip, a limp, a squint? I’ll not have her, Winchelsea.’

  ‘I know not how she looks, but I have heard that she is mightily fair, Your Majesty.’

  ‘All princesses are mightily fair when they are in the field for a husband. The fairness is offered as part of their dowry.’

  ‘Ah, Sire, the dowry. Never has there been such a dowry as this Princess would bring to England – should Your Majesty agree to take her. Half a million in gold!’

  ‘Half a million?’ cried the King, savouring the words. ‘I’ll swear she has a squint, to bring me half a million.’

  ‘Nay, she is fair enough. There is also Tangier, a seaport of Morocco, the island of Bombay – and that is not all. Here is an offer which Your Majesty cannot afford to miss. The Queen of Portugal offers free trade to England with the East Indies and Brazil. Sire, you have but to consider awhile what this will mean to our merchants. The treasure of the world will be open to our seamen . . .’

  The King laid his hand on Winchelsea’s shoulder. ‘Methinks,’ he said, ‘that you have done good work in Portugal.’

  ‘Then you will lay this proposition before your ministers, Sire?’

  ‘That will I do. Half a million in gold, eh! And our sailors to bring the treasure of the world to England. Why, Winchelsea, in generations to come Englishmen will call me blessed. ’Twould be worth while even if . . .’

  ‘But I have heard naught against the lady, Sire. I have but heard that she is both good and beautiful.’

  The King smiled his melancholy smile. ‘There have been two miracles in my life already, my friend. One was when I escaped after Worcester; the other was when I was restored to my throne without the shedding of one drop of blood. Dare I hope for a third, think you? Such a dowry, and a wife who is good . . . and beautiful!’

  ‘Your Majesty is beloved of the gods. I see no reason why there should not only be three but many miracles in your life.’

  ‘You speak like a courtier. Still, pray for me, Winchelsea. Pray that I get me a wife who can bring much good to England and pleasure to me.’

  Within a few days the King’s ministers were discussing the great desirability of the match with Portugal.

  *

  On the scaffolding the people had congregated to watch a procession such as they had never seen before. They chattered and laughed and congratulated one another on their good sense in calling the King back to his country.

  Tapestry and cloth of gold and silver hung from the windows; the triumphal arches shone like gold in the sunshine; the bells pealed forth.

  The King left his Palace of Whitehall in the light of dawn and came by barge to the Tower of London.

  On St George’s Day the great event took place. The procession was dazzling, all the noblemen of England and dignitaries of the Church taking part; and in their midst rode the King – the tallest of them all, dark and swarthy, bareheaded and serene with the sword and wand borne before him on his way to Westminster Abbey.

  That was a day for rejoicing, and all through it the city was thronged with sightseers. They were on the river and its banks; they crowded into Cheapside and Paul’s Walk; they waited to see the King, after his crowning, enter Westminster Hall, passing through that gate on which were the decomposing heads of the men who had slain his father.

  ‘Long live the King!’ they shouted; and Charles went into the building which was the scene of his father’s tragedy. And when he sat at the great banqueting table, Dymoke rode into the hall and flung down the gauntlet as a challenge to any who would say that Charles Stuart, the second of that name, was not the rightful King of England.

  Music was played while the King supped merrily, surrounded by his favourites of both sexes; and when it was over he took to his gilded barge and so to Whitehall.

  But the merriment continued in the streets where the fountains flowed with wine; the bonfires which sprung up about the city cast a fantastic glow on the revellers.

  Men and women drunk with wine and excitement lay together in the alleys and told each other that these were King Charles’s golden days, while others knelt and drank a health unto His Majesty.

  The glow of bonfires was like a halo over the rejoicing city, and from a thousand throats went up the cry: ‘Come, drink the health of His Majesty.’

  *

  A few weeks after his people had crowned him King, Charles called together his new Parliament at the House of Commons and welcomed them in a speech which charmed even those who were not outstandingly Royalist in their sympathies.

  ‘I know most of your faces and names,’ said Charles, ‘and I can never hope to find better men in your places.’

  Charles had come to a decision. He had to find money somehow. The revenue granted him was not enough by some £400,000 to balance the country’s accounts. Charles was grieved because the pay of his seamen – a community in which he was particularly interested, for indeed he considered them of the utmost importance to the Nation’s security – was in arrears. He had had to raise money in some way, and had borrowed from the bankers of the city since it was the only way of carrying on the country’s business; and these bankers were demanding high rates of interest.

  How wearisome was the subject of money when there was not enough of it!

  So he had come to his decision.

  ‘I have often been put in mind by my friends,’ he told his Parliament at that first sitting, ‘that it is high time to marry, and I have thought so myself ever since I came into England. If I should never marry until I could make such a choice against which there could be no foresight of inconvenience, you would live to see me an old bachelor, which I think you do not desire to do. I can now tell you that I am not only resolved to marry, but whom I resolve to marry if God please . . . It is with the daughter of Portugal.�
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  As the ministers had already been informed of what went with the daughter of Portugal the house rose to its feet and showed the King in boisterous manner that it applauded his choice.

  *

  Barbara heard the news. She was perturbed. The King to marry! And how could she know what manner of wife this Portuguese woman would be? What if she were as fiercely demanding as Barbara herself; what if she resolved to drive the King’s mistress from her place?

  Barbara decided she was against the marriage.

  There were many people to support Barbara. Her power was such that she had but to drop a hint as to her feelings and there would be many eager to set in motion any rumour that would please her.

  ‘Portugal!’ said Barbara’s friends. ‘What is known of Portugal? It is a poor country. There is no glass in the windows even of the palaces. The King of Portugal is a poor simple fellow – more like an apprentice than a king. And what of the Spaniards who are the enemies of the Portuguese? Where will this marriage lead – to war with Spain?’

  Barbara demanded of the King when they were alone together: ‘Have you considered these things?’

  ‘I have considered all points concerning this match.’

  ‘This dowry! Her mother must be anxious to marry the girl. Mayhap she can only marry her to someone who has never seen her.’

  ‘I have reports that she is dark-haired and pretty.’

  ‘So you are already relishing your dark-haired pretty wife!’

  ‘’Tis well to be prepared,’ said the King.

  Barbara turned on him fiercely. There was a flippancy about his manner which frightened her. Of all her lovers he was the most important by reason of his rank; the others might seek consolation elsewhere, and she would not care with whom; with the King it was another matter. There must be no woman who could in his estimation compare with Barbara.

  ‘Ah,’ sighed Barbara. ‘I am an unfortunate woman. I give myself . . . my honour . . . and I must be prepared to be cast off when it pleases you to cast me aside. It is the fate of those who love too well.’