The Loves of Charles II (86 page)

The King had scarcely left her side all the evening. Three pairs of eyes watched Frances—Buckingham’s, Arlington’s and those of Sandwich—and their owners were sure that very soon Frances would be ready to fall into the arms of the King.

And then the Queen arrived.

Buckingham and his Duchess must declare their delight in this unexpected honor. They hoped Her Majesty would stay and join the dance.

She danced for a while, and then she declared that she would return to Whitehall and take Frances Stuart with her.

If Frances left there was nothing to detain the King at the ball; so the evening ended very differently from the way in which it had been planned, and Frances and the King left for Whitehall in the company of the Queen.

Affairs of state were occupying the King continuously, so that he had little time for following pleasure. The Parliament were declaring that the damage inflicted on English ships was doing a great deal of harm to English trade. The merchants were demanding that the Dutch be taught a lesson. Dutch fishermen met English fishermen in the North Sea and fought to the death. On the African coasts Dutch and English sailors were already at war. In Amsterdam scurrilous pamphlets were published concerning the life of the King of England; and pictures were distributed showing a harassed King pursued by women who tried to drive him in all directions.

Charles was anxious. He loathed the thought of war, which he believed could bring little profit even to the victors. He had seen much of the sufferings due to war; his thoughts went back to that period of his life which would ever live vividly in his memory. He remembered Edgehill where he and James had come near to capture; but more clearly than anything that had ever happened to him would be the memory of disaster at Worcester and those weeks when he had skulked, disguised as a yokel, afraid to show his face in the country of which he called himself King.

But he knew that his wishes would carry little weight, for the whole country was calling out for war with the Dutch.

Every day, instead of sauntering in the Park he was on the Thames, inspecting that Fleet of which he was more proud than anything else he possessed.

He had told of his pride in it to the Parliament when he had asked them for money to maintain that Fleet.

“I have been able to let our neighbors see that I can defend myself and my subjects against their insolence. By borrowing liberally from myself out of my own stores, and with the kind and cheerful assistance which the City of London hath given me, I have a Fleet now worthy of the English nation and not inferior to any that hath set out in any age.”

After that speech he had been voted the great sum of two and a half million pounds for the equipment and maintenance of the Fleet; and although his pride in it was high, he was fervently hoping to avoid making open war on the Dutch.

That winter was the coldest that men remembered; but the great news was not of the phenomenal weather; it concerned the exploits of Dutchmen, for if Charles had a great Fleet, so had they, and they were as much at home on the high seas as were the English.

Barbara had given birth to another child—this time a daughter whom she named Charlotte. She declared she was the King’s child, and this time the King was too immersed in matters of state to deny this.

By March it was necessary to declare war on Holland, and the whole country was wild with excitement. The City of London built a man-of-war which they called Loyal London; and the Duke of York took command of the Fleet.

The spring came, warm and welcome after the long, hard winter, and all at home waited news of the encounter between the Dutch and English navies. In London the gunfire out at sea could be heard, and the nation was tense yet very confident. They did not know that the money voted by Parliament for the conduct of the war—a sum which seemed vast to them—was inadequate. There was one man who knew this and suffered acute anxiety. This was the King; he knew the state of the country’s finances; he knew that he could not go on indefinitely subscribing to the maintenance of the Fleet in war out of his inadequate allowance; he knew that the Dutch were wealthier than the English, and that they were as worthy seamen.

When the news came of the victory over the Dutch, when the bells of the city pealed out and the citizens ran into the streets to snatch up anything that would make a bonfire, the King was less inclined to gaiety than any; he had heard news that Berkeley—recently become the Earl of Falmouth—had perished in the battle. He had known Berkeley, well, and he guessed that he would be but one of many to suffer if the war continued.

Then in the streets of London there appeared a more cruel enemy than the Dutch.

In that warm April a man, coming from St. Paul’s into Cheapside, was overcome by his sickness, and lay down on the cobbles since he could go no farther. Shivering and delirious, he lay there, and in the morning he was dead; and those who approached him saw on his breast the dreaded macula and, shuddering, ran from him. But by that time others were falling to the pestilence. From the Strand to Aldgate men and women on their ordinary business would stagger and hurry blindly to their homes. Some of those stricken in the streets could go no farther; they lay down and died.

The plague had come to London.

Who could now rejoice wholeheartedly? It was true that the English had taken eighteen capital ships from the Dutch off Harwich, and had destroyed another fourteen. It was known that Admiral Obdam had been blown up with his crew and would no longer worry the English. And all this had been achieved for the loss of one ship. It was true that many good sailors had been lost—Falmouth among them—with Marlborough and Portland and the Admirals Hawson and Sampson.

But the plague was on the increase, and its effect was already being severely felt in London. The weather was hotter than usual after the bleak winter. Stench rose from the gutters; refuse was emptied from windows by people who could not leave their houses since they kept a plague victim there. Men and women were dying in the streets. It was dangerous to give succor to any who fell fainting by the roadside. All indisposition was suspect. Many were frightened into infection in that plague- and fear-ridden atmosphere. Death was in the fetid air and terror stalked the streets.

The river was congested with barges carrying away from the City those who were fortunate enough to be able to leave the plague spots.

The Court had retired, first to Hampton, and then, when the plague stretched its greedy maw beyond the metropolis, farther afield to Salisbury.

Albemarle took command of London and, with the resourcefulness of a great general, made plans for taking care of the infected and avoiding the spread of the plague. He arranged that outlying parishes should be ready to take in all those who could arrive uninfected from the city.

London continued to suffer in the heat.

Grass was now growing among the cobbles, for the business of every day had ceased. Those merchants who could do so, left their businesses; those who could not, stayed to nurse their families and to die with them. Trade had come to a standstill and the City was like a dead town. Those who ventured into its streets did so muffled in close garments covering their mouths that they might not breathe the polluted air.

Almost every door bore a red cross with the inscription “Lord Have Mercy Upon Us” to warn all to keep away because the plague was in the house; by night the pest carts roamed the streets to the tolling of a dismal bell and the dreadful cry of “Bring out your dead.”

By the time that terrible year was over about 130,000 people had died of the plague in England. The citizens returned to London to take possession of their property, but the losses of life and trade were so great that the country, still engaged in war, was in a more pitiable plight than it had ever been in during the whole of its history.

It was at this time that Catherine discovered she was pregnant, and her hopes of giving birth to an heir were high.

The year 1666 dawned on a sorrowing people.

The plague had crippled the country more cruelly than many suspected. Since trade had been brought to a standstill during the hot summer months there was no money with which to equip the ships of the Navy. The French chose this moment to take sides with the Dutch, and England, now
almost bankrupt and emerging from the disaster of the plague, was called upon to face two enemies instead of one.

The English were truculent. They were ready for all the “Mounseers,” they declared; but the King was sad; he was alarmed that that nation, to which his own mother belonged and to which he felt himself bound so closely, should take up arms against his; moreover two of the greatest Powers in the world were allied against one crippled by the scourge of death which had lately afflicted it and by lack of the means to carry on a successful war.

In March of that year bad news was brought from Portugal, but on the King’s advice it was not immediately imparted to the Queen.

“It will distress her,” said Charles, “and in view of her delicate health at this time I would have the utmost care taken.”

But it was impossible to keep the news long from Catherine. She knew by the tears of Donna Maria that something had happened, and she guessed that it concerned their country, for only then would Donna Maria be so deeply affected.

And at length she discovered the secret.

Her mother dead! It seemed impossible to believe it. It was but four years since they had said their last goodbyes. Much had happened in those four years, and perhaps in her love for her husband Catherine had at times forgotten her mother; but now that she was dead, now that she knew she would never see her again, she was heartbroken.

She lay in her bed and wept silently, going over every well-remembered incident of her childhood.

“Oh, Mother,” she murmured, “if you had been here to advise me, mayhap I should have acted differently; mayhap Charles would not now regard me with that vague tolerance which seems so typical of his feelings for me.”

Then she remembered all her mother had bidden her do; she remembered how Queen Luiza had determined on this match; how she had again and again impressed on her daughter that she, Catherine, was destined to save their country.

“Mother, dearest Mother, I will do my best,” she murmured. “Even though he has nothing more than a mild affection for me, even though I am but the wife who was chosen for him and there are about him beautiful women whom he has chosen for himself, still will I remember all that you have told me and never cease to work for my country.”

Tempers ran high during those anxious months.

When Catherine decreed that, in mourning for her mother, the Court ladies should appear with their hair worn plain, and that they should not
wear patches on their faces, Lady Castlemaine was openly annoyed. She was affecting the most elaborate styles for her hair and set great store by her patches. Several noticed that, with her hair plain and her face patchless, she was less strikingly beautiful than before.

This made her ill-humored indeed; and in view of the King’s continued devotion to Frances Stuart, her temper was not improved.