The Loves of Charles II (18 page)

“My child, you are but six years old, yet you have already known more sorrow than many know in a lifetime. This is a sad thing … in a way it is
sadder than the death of Elizabeth for, my love, Elizabeth was but a little girl … a prisoner. We loved her dearly and her death hurt us in one way; but the death of your other sister’s husband touches us more closely. Now that he is dead, your sister has not the same power, and there are men in her country who wish to be friends with Cromwell.”

“The beast Cromwell?”

“The beast Cromwell!” Henrietta Maria spat out the words, and the Cromwell in the Princess’s mind was an ape-like figure with terrible teeth and a crown on his head—her father’s crown. “They are friends of the beast, so they will not offer the hospitality to your brothers that they have received in the Prince’s day.”

“Won’t there be another Prince, Mam?”

“Yes. We hope that when your sister’s child is born he will be the Prince.”

“Then they won’t dare be friends with the beast?”

“He will be but a baby. He can do little while he is so young. Oh, was there ever such an unhappy woman as your mother, child? Was there?”

“There was our Lady of Sorrows,” said Henriette.

Then Henrietta Maria swept up her daughter in one of her suffocating embraces. “You comfort me, my daughter,” she said. “You must always comfort me. You can, you know. A little girl like you can make up for all I have suffered.

“I will, Mam. I will make you
La Reine Heureuse
instead of
La Reine Malheureuse.”

There were more close embraces; and Henriette could not understand why that which she had offered as comfort should open the gates to more floods of tears.

There was one happy event which pleased the Queen: her daughter Mary gave birth to a son. He was christened William and there was great rejoicing, not only throughout Holland but in the convent of Chaillot. Henriette was delighted. Now there would be no more tears; now they could be gay.

The Queen talked frequently of her grandchild. “My first grandchild … my very first!” She thought fleetingly of that bonny boy whom Charles called Jemmy. If that boy had been the child of Charles’ wife instead of that low woman Lucy Water, what a happy woman she would have been! Henriette too was thinking of Jemmy. She reminded her mother of him. “He is your grandchild too, Mam. And, Mam, it is said that Charles already has more than one son.”

“Then they should have their tongues cut out for saying it!”

“Why, Mam? Is it not a matter for rejoicing when a king has many sons?”

“When a king decides to have sons he should first take the precaution of marrying.”

“Why, Mam?”

“Because when a man is a king he should have sons who could follow him as kings.”

Henriette as usual sought excuses for her brother. “Mayhap as he has no crown, he thought he need not have a marriage.”

“He is a gay rogue, your brother.”

Henriette laughed; she did not mind Charles being called that, when it was done in such a manner that “rogue” was almost a compliment.

“He is the most wonderful person in the world, Mam,” she said. “How I wish he could be here!”

She looked eagerly at her mother, hoping that her attitude had softened towards her eldest son; but there were so many emotions to be seen in the Queen’s face that it was impossible to know which train of thought she was following.

“Would the Prince of Orange had lived to see his son!” said Henrietta Maria fervently.

“Still, Mam, it is a good thing that he has left a son, even though he is not here to see him.”

Shortly afterwards they returned to their apartments in the Louvre, and there a shock awaited the Princess, for Anne Morton came to her and told her she was going home to England.

“I have my own children who need me,” she explained.

“But I need you,” said Henriette, her eyes filling with tears.

“My dearest, I must go. I have outlived my usefulness to you.”

“I’ll not let you go, Nan. You are my Nan. Did you not bring me here? Nan, do not talk of going. Instead let us talk of the days when we left England and I insisted on telling everyone that I was a Princess.”

“That was long ago, sweetheart. Now you have your mother and Père Cyprien to look after you, and you no longer need your Nan.”

So, thought Henriette, Anne was leaving because of the conflict between her and Père Cyprien. Henriette threw herself into her governess’s arms and begged her not to go. But Anne’s mind was made up, and so was the Queen’s, and beside those overwhelming factors, the tears and entreaties of a little Princess carried no weight.

There came a wonderful day in the life of Henriette. It was during the October following her seventh birthday, and her mother and those about her had been more than usually somber for a long time.

Henriette had tried to discover what it was that saddened them, but no one answered her questions. She was just set to do her lessons under the guidance of Père Cyprien, to read the holy books he brought for her, and so to study how to be a good Catholic.

Then one day her mother said to her: “My daughter, we are going to meet someone. I want you to ride with me out of Paris to greet this person. Wear your prettiest clothes. You will be glad you have done this when you see who this person is.”

One name trembled on Henriette’s lips, but she did not say it; she was afraid that if she said that name her mother might shake her head and say impatiently: “How can that be! You know he is in Scotland.”

So she waited, wondering who it could be; and on the road between Paris and Fècamp, she was suddenly gloriously happy; for it was Charles himself whom they had ridden out to meet.

She stared at him for some seconds before she recognized him. He had changed so much. His beautiful curls had all been cut off, and his hair was like a thick black cap that did not reach below his ears. He was bearded and seemed even darker than before. He was taller than she remembered, and gaunt; he was no longer a young man. His face was tanned with sun and wind; there were fresh lines about his mouth; his expression was less gentle, more cynical, and the strain of melancholy was more pronounced. But it was Charles. There were the same large eyes ready to twinkle, the mouth so ready to curve into a smile.

And when he saw her his expression became doubly sweet. He cried: “Why, if it is not my Minette! And growing fast! Almost a young woman.”

She forgot her manners and cried: “Charles! Dear Charles! This is the happiest day since you went away!”

Then she was aware of her mother’s eyes upon her, and hastily she knelt and kissed the hand of her King.

They were together often in the apartment of the Louvre. She contrived to be with him whenever possible and he, characteristically, aided her in this. She would curl up at his feet or sit close to him on a window seat; and she would take his hand and hold it firmly between her own small ones as though to imply that if he tried to leave her she would hold him against his will.

“You have been a long time away, Charles,” she scolded. “I was afraid you would never return.”

“’Twas no wish of mine, Minette, and constantly I thought of you,” he
told her. “How gladly would I have fled from those dreary Presbyterians to be in Paris!”

“Were they very gloomy, Charles?”

“Deadly. They preached all the time; I was called upon to say my prayers it seemed a hundred times a day.”

“Like Chaillot,” murmured Henriette.

“I’ll tell you this, Minette. Presbyterianism is no religion for a gentleman of my tastes.”

“Your tastes are for dicing and women,” she told him.

That made him laugh aloud and she held his hand more tightly than ever. What could be said to Charles of Charles could produce nothing but hilarious laughter, whereas said to others it would bring shocked reproaches. She loved that quality in him.

“So you begin to understand your brother, eh?”

She nodded. “Tell me about Scotland, Charles.”

“Oh that! It was dull … dull! You would go to sleep if I told you. No! I will tell you what befell me in England, shall I? That makes a more stirring tale.”

“Yes, please, dear Charles, tell me what befell you in England.”

“It is only due to miraculous providence that you see me here, Minette. There was not only one miracle, but many were required to bring your brother back to you. And the wonder is that those miracles happened.”

“What would have happened if you had not come back?”

“At this hour my head would be on a pike on London Bridge and people passing would point up to it and say: ‘There is Charles Stuart—the second Charles Stuart—who came to seek his crown and left us his head!’”

“No, no
no
!” she cried.

“There, Minette, it was but a joke. There is no need for tears. My head is firm on my shoulders. Feel it. See how firm it is. Charles Stuart will never lose his head … except when dealing with your sex.”

“You must never lose it … never!”

“But to lose it in that way is not to have it cut off, sweetheart. It is just to love … so that all else seems of no importance. But I am talking foolishly as, alas, I so often do. No more of heads. I’ll tell you what befell me in England, and you must have no fear of what is past. What’s done is done, and here I am beside you. So while you listen to me remember this: I passed under the noses of my enemies and I came back here unharmed. Minette, I have been defeated by my enemies; but perhaps in some sense I have triumphed over them. I sought to win my crown, and in that I failed; they sought to make me their captive, and in that
they
failed. A stalemate, you
see, therefore a victory for neither, and one day I will try again. Minette, there is something within me which tells me that I shall one day win my throne, that one day I shall be crowned England’s King. ’Tis a fate well worth waiting for, eh? God’s Body! ’Tis so indeed.”

She listened to him, watching his lips as he talked, looking now and then into those gentle humorous eyes which were momentarily sad, but never for long.

He told her of marching down from Scotland to England, of the fierce battle he and his supporters had fought against the Parliamentary forces. She did not understand all he said; but it seemed to her that he brought a thousand pictures of himself and held them up for her to see, and she believed she would remember them forever; she would preserve them, and when he was not with her that would, in some measure, serve instead of his exuberant presence.

She saw him, tall and dark, sitting on his horse with his men about him; they would be sad and dejected, for they had suffered terrible defeat at Worcester, and many of his friends were in the hands of the enemy. He had escaped by the first of the miracles, and as the few survivors from the battle clustered about him, they would be wondering how they could escape from a hostile country where at any moment, from behind any bush, their enemies might spring upon them.

She pictured him, rising with the Catholic gentleman, Charles Giffard and his servant Yates, whom Charles’ devoted supporter, the Earl of Derby, had produced to guide him through the dangerous country to Whiteladies and Boscobel, where there were many places in which a King might hide. She saw him stopping at an inn for a hasty tankard of ale and then riding on through the night, bread and meat in one hand, eating as he rode, because he dared not stay but must journey south since the enemy and their scouts were waiting for him at every turn. She felt she was with him in the saddle as, in the early morning light, he saw in the distance the ruined Cistercian convent of Whiteladies.