Charles the King (3 page)

He thought of his Catholic bride and felt sure that under the benign influence of the clergymen at his Court and his own example she would see the error of her beliefs and embrace the Church of her adopted country. If she did not, then it was not in his nature to make her; nor was he capable of allowing her views to corrupt him or the children he hoped she would bear him. That had been clearly understood. The heir to the throne of England and his brothers and sisters would be strictly brought up in their father's religion. He had assured a sceptical House of Commons on that point and he intended to keep his word.

Steenie had said he must be firm with his wife. He sat on, thinking of that advice after the Duke had excused himself and gone away to change his clothes and prepare for dinner at the Royal table.

The more Charles thought of the girl he had seen for such a short time, the less he felt inclined to take a stern attitude with her. Her lapse of good manners seemed less significant as the time passed; his irritation and misgivings faded until he remembered nothing but the sweet, piquant little face and the lovely dark eyes full of tears.

He had never been in love, and he was not in love then, but he felt a curious disposition towards it, almost a longing for the emotion which was so lightly roused and as lightly blighted by immorality and cruelty and betrayal between men and women. He was not like Buckingham, as he had pointed out. He had never felt the least inclination to sample women indiscriminently, but that did not mean that his blood ran colder than in the veins of other men. He was not libidinous; he was incapable of the mental leer and the unclean experiment, but the passions of his Stuart ancestors slept lightly in his nature. They were as inflammatory as his temper. If those passions woke with the new Queen of England, if his hopes were fulfilled in her, then his love would follow. And love with Charles knew no limit of prudence or generosity.

In her own apartments, Henrietta Maria was being dressed for dinner with her husband. She had spent a long time choosing what she would wear, over-ruling the advice of Madame de St. George, to the surprise of that lady, who thought she saw signs of needless enthusiasm for the stiff young English King.

“I think you should have worn white, Madam,” she said. Henrietta sat down to look at herself in the dressing mirror on the oak chest by the wall. To her annoyance there wasn't a full-length glass in the room.

“Pink suits me better,” she answered. “You yourself always told me not to wear white when I am pale. And I am pale. More rouge, please, de Berrand.”

The dress was made of the finest Lyons silk, dyed a soft, coral pink and cut low over her tiny bosom and thin shoulders, with a wide collar of silver lace. There were pearl buttons on the bodice, and two rows of very fine pearls of a delicate rosy colour arranged in the curls of her black hair. She had very pretty hair and Mademoiselle de Berrand had dressed it in the style made fashionable by the beautiful Queen of France. It was drawn back from her face in soft waves and fell in curls and little wisps round her shoulders. She looked like an exquisite doll.

“It is not wise to make too much fuss of these people,” Madame de St. George said angrily. “After all the King himself appeared in front of you without even changing his dusty coat!”

“You said that before,” Henrietta answered. From the moment they left Charles, her lady of the bedchamber and the other ladies had been complaining about her husband on her behalf until she burst into tears and told them to stop or she wouldn't go down again that evening. They had fussed round her with wine and rose-water and some of the less vindictive had said half-heartedly that he was rather a handsome man and seemed quite kind … Praise was what Henrietta wanted to hear. She thought him handsome; she had thought it odd but pleasant when he kissed her and wiped her tears with his handkerchief, and she was desperately anxious for some word of approval or encouragement from her few friends in the strange country where everything, even the manners of Kings to their wives, was so different from France. She had an indomitable will when she felt it opposed; it was strong enough on that occasion to withstand Madame de St. George and she silenced her by saying that she had made her complaint over her apartments, and she did not intend to spoil her dinner by sulking.

“I wonder what the King will wear,” the Comtesse de Touillère remarked.

“God knows,” de St. George said acidly. “Let us just hope that it is the custom in this dreadful country to change one's clothes at all!”

“You look very beautiful, Madame,” the Duchesse de Chevreuse whispered, bending close to Henrietta. She was a kind woman, and she thought it a pity to upset the Princess when she was committed to life in England. She thought the English uncouth and unlikeable, but there was nothing to be gained by prejudicing the child and urging her to take a hostile attitude.

“The King your husband will be enchanted by you,” she added.

“I hope so,” Henrietta frowned. “Thank God he speaks French so well; it would be so difficult otherwise, because I shall never learn this awful English language. It's nothing but grunts and coughs, like a lot of pigs at feeding-time!”

“All educated people speak French,” Madame de St. George said. “No one expects you to learn their ridiculous language, Madam. As for the King being enchanted by you—how could he help it? It is much more important to me that he should please
you.”

“I shall know better after this evening,” Henrietta stood up. “After all, one can't judge anyone by a few minutes' conversation when we were all upset.”

“Reserve your judgement, Madam, until after the final marriage service the day after tomorrow,” the senior lady-in-waiting said significantly. There was silence then until the King's personal equerry, Sir James Paget, came to escort the Queen and her women to the dining-hall.

They left the next morning for Canterbury. The dinner had been a success; even the most hostile of the French entourage admitted that the King of England treated their Princess with courtesy and charm; carving the meats and waiting on her himself. They had sat together talking and laughing; Henrietta very animated like an excited child, with her cheeks flushed till she looked positively radiant, and the grave young King watching her with an expression of increasing tenderness and delight. They had looked so well matched in their youth and their preoccupation with each other, the handsome young man, very regal and splendid in crimson velvet and lace, with a huge jewelled order blazing on his breast, and the exquisitely pretty French Princess in her shining rose-coloured dress. He asked her many questions, and listened with amusement to her graphic descriptions of the stormy journey and the sea-sickness which had reduced her and her ladies to a state in which they looked like half-drowned cats. The remark was Henrietta's, but the Duke of Buckingham looked pointedly at all her ladies and burst into a roar of laughter. She had managed to ignore the Duke, but she did it cleverly, giving all her attention to the strange, intense, yet charming man who was her husband. He thought she was amusing, and he told her, somewhat shyly, that he thought her very beautiful; she had made a conquest of him in one evening, and her vanity and her optimism soared. The threat of Madame de St. George lost all its potency during that delightful dinner and the hours that followed. The day after tomorrow she would truly be his wife, and there was nothing in the prospect to frighten or repel her. Charles came up the stairs to the door of her suite, accompanied by Buckingham and all his gentlemen and the English ladies, some of whom were quite handsome and painted as much as anyone she had seen in France. He bowed low over her hand and kissed it, and to her surprise, he kissed her gently on the lips. It was a pleasant kiss, the first she had received in her life from any man, and she went straight to her detestable, dingy little mirror and looked at her mouth as if she expected to find it altered by the experience.

It had been perfect, and she slept happily and long through the night, while her husband lay awake until the dawn, thinking about Henrietta, and thinking very impatiently about the night after the next when he would be able to go through the door with her.

But it was all spoilt on the journey to Canterbury. It was a small thing, relatively unimportant in the lives of both of them, but it disrupted the harmony between them as if someone had thrown a charge of explosive into the carriage.

In the State procession to the Cathedral City of Canterbury, in the presence of the English Court who had assembled there and the ambassador of France, Madame de St. George demanded to sit with the King and Queen, and the Queen supported her. Faced by two furious, insistent women, joined by the French ambassador anxious to preserve the honour of his country, Charles refused to allow his wife's attendant to take precedence over a high-ranking English lady. He was white and tight-lipped with anger; it was inconceivable to him that his wife should so far forget her dignity and the obedience she owed him as to argue with him in public and question English custom. He glanced away from Henrietta's flushed, furious little face; she was holding on to her attendant's arm and urging her to step into the carriage, and he saw the annoyance and astonishment of his courtiers and the disgusted look of the Duchess of Newcastle who was being deprived of her rightful place by a foreigner. Buckingham came towards him at once.

“What is the matter, Sire?” He turned and glared at the Queen of England, who had the grace to stop arguing, and Charles, stammering with anger and embarrassment, explained the situation.

“The Duchess should ride with us. The Queen insists upon this woman de St. George. I cannot allow it, Steenie. I will not have her in the coach with me.”

Buckingham addressed Henrietta's lady-in-waiting.

“Get back to the second carriage, Madam. Go of your own free will or I will remove you by force.”

Then Henrietta stepped in front of him. She was so angry that she could have struck him. Madame de St. George was the first of her ladies, the highest ranking, her inseparable companion; she had been warned to give no concessions in precedence to any of the English nobility or their wives.

“You overreach yourself, sir,” she snapped. “Madame de St. George rides with me.”

Out of the corner of her eye she saw the English Duchess shrug and move away. She turned towards the carriage door and climbed in. The first battle had been won. Then she heard Charles speak in a voice which was as cold as ice.

“Lady Newcastle, follow the Queen. And you, Madam, go to the other carriage where you belong.”

They had made the journey to Canterbury in silence. The King stared out of the window after trying to speak to her and receiving no answer; protocol forbade the English Duchess to speak at all unless she was first spoken to, and after a few words which Henrietta suspected were an apology but could not understand because Charles was rude enough to say them in English, the King said nothing to anyone for the rest of the journey.

The route was lined with crowds who cheered and waved, and the King acknowledged them, and his new bride stared out of the window through tears of rage and waved her hand, but nothing would induce her to smile. She glared at the Duchess of Newcastle, who was sitting beside her looking fixedly at the scarlet cushioning above the King's head, and bit her lips until they stung to stop herself from digging the hated interloper in the ribs. How dare they; how could Charles, the attentive, doting husband, humiliate and hurt her by sending poor de St. George away and forcing her to sit with this odious stranger? Didn't he know how de St. George would cry and complain and play on her mistress's nerves until she felt ready to scream with tension…?

And why did he summon that monster, that vulgar, bumptious Buckingham and allow him to threaten one of her ladies as if she were a common drab from the streets?

She was so painfully young and, in spite of her upbringing, sadly undisciplined; she had been taught so much of pride and protocol and ceremony without knowing how to control herself or bend with dignity in any kind of crisis. She reacted and she behaved like the child that she was, in spite of her fashionable dresses and her jewels and the fact that she would no longer be a virgin by the same time tomorrow.

They went through a ceremony of presentation at Canterbury, and she had recovered herself sufficiently to nod her head to the English officials who came up and kissed her hand. She could not reply to their speeches welcoming her and wishing her a happy life and reign with the King because she did not know or understand one word of English. Charles guided her through everything; his attitude was conciliatory because he had already begun to excuse his wife and blame the whole incident upon her lady-in-waiting. Be firm, Steenie had said, and he had been firm. He had made her give way but to his surprise he found that in the process he himself was downcast and disturbed and troubled by a most unreasonable feeling of guilt. And an hour before their marriage, which was to be a Civil ceremony in St. Augustine's Hall, neither Catholic and therefore offensive to the English, nor Protestant and so invalid to the French, Charles went to see her. An attempt was made to refuse him. However, her attendants, though furious at the treatment given to de St. George that morning and plainly disapproving, did not dare to disobey the King when he ordered them to leave him alone with Henrietta.

He saw at once that she had been crying; she had such luminous eyes and they betrayed her emotions. He had seen them flash with anger and sparkle with laughter, and now they were red and tragic with tears. Immediately he felt that odd sensation of pain and disquiet as if he were entirely responsible for her unhappiness. She was dressed in a long velvet wrapper; her white wedding-dress was laid out ready on the bed and the skirts swept down to the floor like a waterfall, blazing with diamond embroidery. He saw the little satin shoes on the floor beside it, and his own magnificent present, a diadem of pearls and diamonds and a rope of pearls which had belonged to his own grandmother, Mary Queen of Scots, and been sold to Elizabeth Tudor by the rebel Lords of Scotland. Henrietta curtsied, but her expression was stubborn.