The Loves of Charles II (87 page)

As Catherine sat with her ladies one day in the spring, and Barbara happened to be among them, they talked of Charles.

Catherine said she feared his health had suffered through the terrible afflictions of last year. He had unwisely taken off his wig and pourpoint when he was on the river and the sun proved too hot; he had caught a chill and had not seemed to be well since then.

She turned to Barbara and said: “I fear it is not good for him to be out so late. He stays late at your house, and it would be better for his health if he did not do so.”

Barbara let out a snort of laughter. “He does not stay late at my house, Madam,” she said. “If he stays out late, then you must make inquiries in other directions. His Majesty spends his time with someone else.”

The King had come into the apartment. He looked strained and ill; he was wondering where the money was coming from to equip his ships; he was wondering how he was going to pay his seamen, and whether it would be necessary to lay up the Fleet for lack of funds; and if that dire calamity should befall, how could he continue the war?

It seemed too much to be borne that Catherine and Barbara should be quarreling about how he spent his nights—those rare occasions when he sought a little relaxation in the only pastime which could bring him that forgetfulness which he eagerly sought.

He looked from Catherine to Barbara and his dark features were stern.

Catherine lowered her eyes but Barbara met his gaze defiantly. “Your Majesty will bear me out that I speak the truth,” she said.

Charles said: “You are an impertinent woman.”

Barbara flushed scarlet, but before she could give voice to the angry retorts which rose to her lips, Charles had continued quietly: “Leave the Court, and pray do not come again until you have word from me that I expect to see you.”

Then, without waiting for the storm which his knowledge of Barbara made him certain must follow, he turned abruptly and left the apartment.

Barbara stamped her foot and glared at the company.

“Is anybody here smiling?” she demanded.

No one answered.

“If any see that which is amusing in this, let her speak up. I will see to
it that she shall very soon find little to laugh at. As for the King, he may have a different tale to tell when I print the letters he has written to me!”

Then, curbing her rage, she curtsied to the Queen who sat stiff and awkward, not knowing how to deal with such an outrageous breach of good manners.

Barbara stamped out of the apartment.

But on calmer and saner reflection, considering the King’s cares of state and his melancholy passion for Mrs. Stuart, she felt she would be wise, on this one occasion, to obey his command.

Barbara left the Court.

Barbara was raging at Richmond. All those about her tried in vain to soothe her. She was warned of all the King had had to bear in the last few years; she was discreetly reminded of Frances Stuart.

“I’ll get even with him!” she cried. “A nice thing if I should print his letters! Why, these Hollanders would have something to make pamphlets of then, would they not!”

Mrs. Sarah warned her. She must not forget that although Charles had been lenient with her, he was yet the King. It might be that he would forbid her not only the Court but the country; such things had happened.

“It is monstrous!” cried Barbara. “I have loved him long. It is six years since he came home, and I have loved him all that time.”

“Others have been his rivals in your affections, and fellow guests in your bedchamber,” Mrs. Sarah reminded her.

“And what of
his
affection and
his
bedchamber, eh?”

“He is the King. I wonder at his tenderness towards you.”

“Be silent, you hag! I shall send for my furniture. Do not imagine I shall allow my treasures to remain at Whitehall.”

“Send a messenger to the King,” suggested Mrs. Sarah, “and first ask his permission to remove your possessions.”

“Ask his permission! He is a fool. Any man is a fool who chases that simpering ninny, who stands and holds cards for her card houses, who allows himself so far to forget his rank as to play blind man’s buff with an idiot.”

“He might not grant that permission,” suggested Mrs. Sarah.

“If he should refuse to let me have what is mine …”

“He might because he does not wish you to leave.”

“You dolt! He has banished me.”

“For your insolence before the Queen and her ladies. He may be regretting that now. You know how he comes back again and again to you. You
know that no one will ever be quite the same as you are to him. Send that messenger, Madam.”

Barbara gazed steadily at Mrs. Sarah. “Sarah, there are times when I think those who serve me are not all as doltish as I once thought them to be.”

So she took Sarah’s advice and asked the King’s permission to withdraw her goods; the answer she had hoped for came to her: If she wished to take her goods away she must come and fetch them herself.

So, with her hair exquisitely curled, and adorned by a most becoming hat with a sweeping green feather, and looking her most handsome, she took barge to Whitehall. And when she was there she saw the King; and, taking one look at her, and feeling, as Mrs. Sarah had said he did, that no one was quite like Barbara, he admitted that her insolence at an awkward moment had made him a little hasty.

Barbara consented to remain at Whitehall. And that night the King supped in her apartments, and it was only just before the Palace was stirring to the activities of a new day that he left her and walked through the privy gardens to his own apartments.

All that summer the fear of plague was in the hearts of the citizens of London; the heat of the previous summer was remembered, and the dreadful toll which had been taken of the population. Through the narrow streets of wooden houses, the gables of which almost met over the dark streets, the people walked wearily and there was the haunting fear on their faces. From the foul gutters rose the stink of putrefying rubbish; and it was remembered that two or three times in every hundred years over the centuries the grim visitor would appear like a legendary dragon, demanding its sacrifice and then, having taken its fill of victims, retreat before the cold weather only to strike again, none knew when.

Catherine found this time a particularly anxious one. She was worried about her brother Alphonso who she knew was unfit to wear the crown; she knew that Pedro, her younger brother, coveted it; and now that the restraining hand of her mother would not be there to guide them, she wondered continually about the fate of her native country.

The condition of her adopted country was none too happy at this time. She knew of Charles’ anxieties. She knew too that he was beginning to despair of her ever giving him an heir. Again her hopes had been disappointed. Why was it that so many Queens found it hard to give their husbands sons, while those same Kings’ mistresses bore them as a matter of course? Barbara had borne yet another child—this time a handsome boy, whom she called
George Fitzroy. Barbara had, as well as her voluptuous person, a nursery full of children who might be the King’s.

In June of the year which followed that of the great plague the Dutch and English fleets met. De Ruyter and Van Tromp were in charge of the Dutchmen, and the English Fleet was under Albemarle. There were ninety Dutch ships opposed to fifty English, and when the battle had been in progress for more than a day, the Dutch were joined by sixteen sail. Fortunately Prince Rupert joined the Duke of York and a mighty battle was the result; both sides fought so doggedly and so valiantly that neither was victorious; but, although the English sank fifteen Dutch ships and the Dutch but ten English, the Dutch had invented chain shot with which they ruined the rigging of many more of the English ships; and all the latter had to retire into harbor for refitting.

Yet a few weeks later they were in action once more, and this resulted in victory for the English, with few English losses and the destruction of twenty Dutch men-of-war.

When the news reached England, the bells rang out in every town and hamlet and there was general rejoicing in London which, but a year ago, had been like a dead and desolate city.

These celebrations took place on the 14th of August. Hopes were high that ere long these proud and insolent Dutchmen would realize who would rule the sea.

It was less than two weeks later when, in the house of Mr. Farryner, the King’s baker, who lived in Pudding Lane, fire broke out in the early morning; and as there was a strong east wind blowing and the baker’s house was made of wood, as were those of his neighbors, in a few hours all Pudding Lane and Fish Street were ablaze and the streets were filled with shouting people who, certain that their efforts to quench the raging furnace were in vain while the high wind persisted, merely dragged out their goods from those houses which were in danger of being caught by the flames, wringing their hands, and declaring that the vengeance of God was turned upon the City.

Through the night, made light as day by the fires, people shouted to each other to come forth and flee. The streets were filled with those whose one object was to salvage as many of their household goods as was possible; and the wind grew fiercer as house after house fell victim to the flames. People with blackened faces called to each other that this was the end of the world. God had called vengeance on London, cried some, for the profligate ways of its people. Last year the plague and the Dutch wars, and now they were all to be destroyed by fire!

Showers of sparks shot into the air and fell like burning rain when a warehouse containing barrels of pitch and tar sent the blaze roaring to the sky. The river had suddenly become jammed with small craft, as frantic
householders gathered as many as possible of their goods together and sought the green fields beyond the City for safety. Many poor people stood regarding their houses with the utmost despair, their arms grasping homely bundles, both to leave their homes until the very last minute. Pigeons, which habitually sheltered in the lofts of these houses, hovered piteously near their old refuge and many were lying dead and dying on the cobbles below, their wings burned, their bodies scorched.

And all through the night the wind raged, and the fire raged with it.

Early next morning Mr. Samuel Pepys, Secretary of the Navy, reached Whitehall and asked for an audience with the King; he told him all that was happening in the City, and begged him to give instant orders that houses be demolished, for only thus could such a mighty conflagration be brought to a halt. The King agreed that the houses which stood in the way of the fire must be pulled down, as only by making such gaps could the conflagration be halted, and gave orders that this should be done.

Pepys hurried back to the City and found the Lord Mayor in Cannon Street from where he was watching the fire and shouting in vain to the crowds, imploring them to listen to him, and try to fight the fire.

“What can I do?” he cried. “People will not obey me. I have been up all night. I shall surely faint if I stay here. What can I do? What can any do in such a raging wind?”