Charles the King (21 page)

The King walked away from Strafford and stood beside the fireplace, hiding his head against his arm. Every instinct warned him not to listen. Every sense told him to trust anyone, even the Scottish lords who had defied him and invaded, rather than open the door of Westminster and give back power into the hands of the Parliament. Yet calling them was the lesser of the two gigantic evils which faced him, the obvious decision in view of the threat to his wife and his own life. But he did not want to do it. For a moment he followed his instinct and turned round to refuse. As he did so, Strafford spoke.

“You must trust someone,” he said. “In the end a King must trust his people. Give them another chance, and with God's grace they will not fail you.”

It was a moment before Charles answered. When he did his voice was low and his words came in a wretched stammer.

“So be it. I will send word to London.”

“Let me play for you, Madam. Lady Digby can sing. Sir John Suckling's verses have been set to music and they are so charming—I know it will cheer you.”

The Countess of Newport looked anxiously towards the Queen who was sitting with her ladies in her Privy Chamber at Whitehall. Henrietta had tried to embroider while one of her women read aloud but after a few minutes she threw the sewing on the floor and told the reader to close her book. She looked tired and strained and she was so restless that she frequently got up and walked round the room, bringing all her ladies to their feet until she sat down again.

The poet John Suckling was a friend and a favourite of Henrietta's; she enjoyed his verses and she was passionately fond of music. The Countess was only trying to relieve her and turn her mind from her anxieties.

“Please, Madam,” she repeated.

“If you like, Newport,” the Queen said wearily. “Play for me and let Digby sing the words. If you can lighten my heart it will be a miracle.” She sat back and closed her eyes as the clear notes of the instrument rang through the silent room, and Lady Digby's pleasant voice sang Suckling's poem to a famous beauty, Lady Catherine Howard.

“Her feet beneath her petticoat,

Like little mice stole in and out.

As if they feared the light:

But O, she dances such a way!

No Sun upon an Easter-day

Is half so fine a sight.”

Henrietta was not listening; her thoughts were full of Charles, Charles coming back to her weary and defeated, resting his head upon her breast like a tired child. He had summoned his Parliament and there was such an atmosphere of tension and foreboding that she did not know whether to sympathize with him or lose her temper and upbraid him for the obstinacy which had ruined their peace and shattered their happiness. She had been typically feminine and done both, and then changed completely by telling him to keep his courage and wait, using Strafford's words. Wait till his enemies had weakened themselves and make as many friends among the powerful as he could.

She had received Strafford twice since his return to London, and found him strangely uncommunicative. He did not wish to discuss the war or the opening of the Commons; when she questioned him he evaded and excused himself. He was waiting for something and so was Charles, and neither of them would tell her what it was.

“On the sudden up they rise and dance,

Then sit again and sigh, and glance:

Then dance again and kiss …”

The poem told of two lovers united in perfect happiness, dancing through their wedding feast. It brought unbearable memories of her life with Charles only two years before, a life when dancing and pleasure and serenity seemed to stretch before them. Suddenly her eyes filled with tears. When they came together now it was a furious escape; she could sense him burying himself in her passion, making his love a desperate act, returning unwillingly to the reality of life. The sweetness of their passion was becoming bitter with fear. Fear for her and for their children, fear for the future which had once seemed as certain as the sunrise.

“Stop! Stop the song, I've heard enough!” Lady Newport closed the instrument and got up, Lady Digby curtsied and moved away, and Henrietta found the eyes of Lucy Carlisle watching her intently.

“What is the matter, Madam? Don't you like it?”

“How can I like something which sings of peace and tenderness, when the King is so worried he cannot sleep and those wretches are sitting at Westminster, pouring out poison against him?” She turned on Lady Carlisle angrily. “Why are you wearing that plain dress?” she demanded suddenly. “Has colour and ornament gone out of fashion?”

Lucy flushed. Her dress was made of dark green silk, high collared and very simply cut; her only jewels were pearls and her face was pale. Henrietta and the other ladies glittered with gold and silver embroidery and reddened their cheeks and lips with salve.

“I thought it wiser, Madam,” she answered. “It seems foolish to antagonize the people by calling attention to the rich clothes worn at Court. I did not mean to offend your Majesty.”

“The people!” Henrietta snapped, her eyes bright with rage. “The yelling mobs and the yapping curs at Westminster … Good God, how I hate them all. How I wish that this were France—we'd know how to deal with them when they dared to come round the Palace … If the King listened to me he'd order the guard to fire on them all.”

“Why doesn't he, Madam?” the Countess asked gently. “Perhaps it would solve all our troubles …”

“Don't be such a fool,” Lady Newport said quickly. “The King would never use force against his own. The King is the soul of justice and kindness.”

“Too just and too kind,” Henrietta said. “And what has he received in return? Treason! Treason from the nobles and double treason from the Commons! Not a penny of money, not a motion against the Scots—nothing but complaints and demands and open collaboration with the rebels. They have the Covenanters camped in England to protect them and they're going to harry the King to his knees if they can.”

She looked round at the silent ladies, and then vented her irritation on her dearest friend, the friend who still heard her confidences but was somehow changed. Less gay and amusing, almost as if she held something of her feelings in reserve.

“Lucy, go and change that dress at once. Don't come before me again like that; you remind me of that wretched Puritan, Lady Essex.”

The Countess curtsied low and backed out of the room. She went to her apartments and sent her personal servant to find Harry Vane, the son of the Royal Secretary. While she waited she hummed the tune of Suckling's poem under her breath. When Vane came through the door she sent the maid away.

“I've been waiting for a chance to speak to you since yesterday,” she said. “Thank God her Majesty took offence with me this afternoon and sent me out. I persuaded your father to let me see his reports of the Council at York and I managed to copy something which might interest Mr. Pym. How long are you staying at Whitehall?”

“Only until tonight,” Vane answered. They had met secretly many times in the past months. The Countess gave him the reports, explained the important parts in them and sent them direct to Pym. She had decided not to risk taking them herself.

“The King allows me to visit my father here from time to time. But he doesn't extend a long invitation,” Vane added.

“Good,” Lucy Carlisle found the sheet of paper in a small drawer at the back of her cabinet. “You can take this to Mr. Pym as soon as you leave. I was out of my wits keeping it here overnight. Look, I've marked what he should read first.”

The paper was covered in her tidy writing; there were notes on days of debate and suddenly one sentence given in full and heavily underlined. Vane came close and read it over her shoulder.

“I have a loyal Irish Army which is only waiting to land here and subdue this Kingdom.” He read it aloud in a whisper and she folded the notes and gave them to him. She was smiling.

“Lord Strafford's words,” she said. “Like Judith, I give the head of Holofernes to Parliament with this single sentence. Those words alone will convict him of High Treason.”

“Not if they referred to Scotland,” Vane said. He was a sincere man who had ruined himself for his beliefs, and he did not like the malice of that smile. It disappeared and the Countess looked at him.

“Mr. Pym will judge which was the ‘Kingdom' he meant to subdue with foreign troops. Leave at once and take care you're not seen.”

With the help of her maid she took off her green gown and dressed in scarlet, the skirt and bodice sparkling with gold thread, the neck cut low over her breast. She returned to the Queen's Privy Chamber and went to Henrietta's chair and curtsied to the ground.

“Sweet Madam, do you like me better now?”

It was early in the morning of November 11th, and the House of Commons was full. There was not one vacant seat on the benches and many of the members who had arrived late were standing round the walls. The debate had been less noisy than usual; there was a sense of crisis which communicated itself to the few Royalists who had been elected; they could feel the excitement among the Puritans. There was a buzz of whispering and notes were passed between the leaders while the speeches were being made. Something was going to happen. The Speaker looked uneasy. Several times he had glanced towards the Puritan leader Pym, expecting him to enter the debate but Pym only sat with his arms folded, occasionally conferring with John Hampden who was on his right. Then at a little before noon, Pym took out his watch and at last he rose to speak. There was not a sound in the House. Everyone craned forward to watch as he stood up.

“My Lords and gentlemen, for the past eight days we have been discussing the sorry state to which our country has been brought by the mismanagement and illegality of those whom the King has entrusted with its government. We have heard of the abuses and misfortunes inflicted upon our people by a war against our Scottish brethren; we have seen our Treasury emptied, our freedom taken from us and our religion prostituted to the forms of Rome. Many of us have suffered imprisonment and confiscation, and we are but a shadow of the thousands who have cried out under tyranny for nigh on twelve years while the doors of this Chamber were locked and our voices were stilled. But now the voice of the nation cries out in protest; let those who hear it tremble!”

He paused and there were shouts of encouragement which brought the Speaker round in his Chair, calling for order. When there was silence again Pym's tone was quieter; too quiet for the comfort of the King's few supporters.

“The King's administration is on trial in this House today, and on trial before the whole of England. There was one in that administration more signal than the rest, being a man of great parts and contrivance, a man who in the memory of many present here had sat in this House as an earnest vindicator of the laws, a most zealous champion for the liberties of the people.” Pym's voice rose suddenly.

“He is become the greatest enemy to his country and the greatest promoter of tyranny that any age has produced! I name the Earl of Strafford! And on these counts and others not yet set before you, I impeach him for High Treason!”

There was a tremendous shout of approval; the members sprang to their feet, cheering and stamping; the cry ‘Impeachment' became a triumphant roar of hatred. Pym had promised them their victim and he had kept his word. The scattered Royalists sat in silence, too frightened to protest; one of them edged his way out of the crowd and reached the door. Pym turned and shouted after him.

“Go! Go and warn him—nothing can save him now. Tell him to come down to us before we send to Whitehall to take him…!”

“I second the motion, I second the motion,” Sir John Clot-worthy yelled at the Speaker.

He had once tried to purchase a large area of land in Derry, Northern Ireland, and Strafford, suspecting his loyalties, had advised Charles to refuse him. He was the Earl's mortal enemy for this and many other reasons; as a devout Puritan he rejoiced in the old law of an eye for an eye. For refusing him Derry, for fining and imprisoning and disregarding hundreds like him, Strafford was going to pay with his life. The motion was carried and the Impeachment was sent to the House of Lords. By the afternoon, Strafford's fellow peers, many of them friends of the King, some of them Puritans, most of them men who had hated and envied the great Minister for a dozen years, agreed with the Commons.

The Earl was to be arrested and tried for his life.

There was a large crowd in the King's ante-room and it bore a sinister resemblance to the mob which had gathered in the streets outside Whitehall and were packed round the Houses of Parliament at Westminster. The courtiers were not yelling and hooting like the common people, but they too wanted to see the mighty Earl of Strafford leave the shelter of the King's apartments and go out to meet his enemies. He had no friends among the lords and ladies and members of the Royal household. He had never tried to make any; his only loyalty had been towards the King. He had been shut up alone with Charles since the early afternoon, when the news of the Commons impeachment first reached him. Not long afterwards the Queen was seen hurrying down to them, with eyes red with weeping, and she disappeared behind the doors. The member who had been present in the Commons and brought the news to Strafford was telling his story over and over again and insisting that not even the King could protect him unless he was ready to lose his throne. There was a lot of talk and some laughter, and the sound reached Charles and Henrietta as they stood with Strafford in the inner room.

Charles was terribly pale; he had put his arm round the Earl's shoulders, and when he heard the murmurs and the laughter his eyes blazed with anger.

“How dare they! Don't they know what has happened—I'll have the ante-rooms cleared!”

“Please, Sire,” Strafford begged him wearily, “ignore it. Human nature has no pity for the fallen. They know and that's why they are laughing. You cannot stop them. If you clear the rooms it will be said that I'm afraid to face them. And I'm not, believe me. I despised them from the first and I despise them now. They shall have their sight of me, and all they'll gain from it is my contempt for all of them.”