Winsor, Kathleen (121 page)

Barbara
opened her mouth, her first impulse being to order him back—as she might once
have done—and then she heard a snicker from somewhere nearby. Swiftly her eyes
sought out the mocker, but all faces she met were veiled, innocently smiling.
She swept her train about and started off in the opposite direction, rage
swelling within her until she knew that she would burst if she did not break
something or hurt someone. At that moment she came upon one of her pages, a
ten-year-old boy, lying on the grass singing to himself.

"Get
up, you lazy lout!" she cried. "What are you doing there!"

He
looked at her in amazement, and then hastily scrambled to his feet. "Why,
your Ladyship told me—"

"Don't
contradict me, you puppy!" She gave him a box on the ear, and when he
began to cry she slapped him again. She felt better, but she was no nearer the
solution of her problem.

The
council-room was a long narrow chamber, panelled in dark wood and hung with
several large gold-framed paintings. There was an empty fireplace at one end,
flanked by tall mullioned windows. An oak table extended down the center and
surrounding it were several chairs, high-backed and elaborately carved, with
turned legs and dark red-velvet cushions. Until the councillors came it looked
like a suitable place to do state business.

Chancellor
Clarendon arrived first. His gout was bad that day and he had had to leave his
bed to attend the trial, but he would not have missed it had his condition been
a great deal worse. At the door-way he got out of his wheel-chair and hobbled
painfully into the room. Immediately he began to sort over a stack of papers
one of his secretaries laid before him,
frowning and preoccupied. He took no
notice of those who came next.

After
a few moments Charles strolled in with York at his side and several busy little
spaniels scurrying about his feet. One of them he held in his arms, and as he
paused to speak for a moment with Sir William Coventry his hand stroked along
the dog's silken ears; it turned its head to lick at him. The dogs were not
affectionate but they seemed to know and love their master, though the
courtiers were often bitten for trying to strike up a friendship with them.

Presently
Lauderdale, the giant Scotsman, arrived and stopped to tell Charles a funny
story he had heard the previous night. He was a very inept raconteur, but
Charles's deep laugh boomed out, amused more by the Earl's crude eccentricities
than by what he was saying. York, however, regarded him with contemptuous
dislike. Now he went to sit beside the Chancellor. Instantly they were engaged
in earnest low-toned conversation. No two men there today had so much at stake;
Buckingham had been an active and dangerous foe of both for many years. The
enmity far predated the Restoration, but had become even more virulent since.

If
there was one man in England who hated and feared Buckingham more than either
York or Chancellor Clarendon it was the Secretary of State, Baron Arlington.
They had been friends when Arlington had first arrived at Court, six years
before, but conflicting ambitions had since separated them until now each found
it difficult to show the other the merest civility.

At
last Baron Arlington paced majestically into the council-chamber—he never
merely walked into any room.

Several
years in Spain had given him an admiration for things Spanish and he assumed an
exaggerated Castilian pomposity and arrogance. He wore a blond wig, his eyes
were pale and prominent, almost fish-like, and over the bridge of his nose was
a crescent-shaped black plaster which had once been put there to cover a sabre
wound and which he had kept because it gave his face a kind of sinister dignity
he thought becoming. Charles had always liked him, though York, of course, did
not. Now he paused, took a bottle and a spoon from one pocket and into the
spoon poured several drops of ground-ivy juice. Placing the spoon to his nose
he snuffed hard several times until most of the juice was gone; then he wiped
at his nose with a handkerchief and put bottle and spoon away. His Lordship
suffered from habitual headache, and that was his treatment for it. The
headache was worse than usual today.

Charles
sat at the head of the table, facing the door, his back to the fireplace. He
lounged in his chair, a pair of spaniels in his lap—a lazy good-humoured man
who slept well and had no trouble with his digestion so that he looked
tolerantly upon the world and was inclined to be merely amused by many things
which infuriated less tranquil men. His fits of anger were brief
and he had long
since lost interest in punishing the Duke. He knew Buckingham for exactly what
he was, had no more illusions about him than he had about anyone else, but he
also knew that the Duke's own frivolity of temperament kept him from being
truly dangerous. The trial was necessary because of wide-spread public interest
in the case, but Charles no longer wanted vengeance. He would be satisfied if
the Duke gave them an entertaining performance that afternoon.

At
a signal from the King the door was flung open and there stood his Grace,
George Villiers, second Duke of Buckingham —dressed as magnificently as though
he had been going to be married, or hanged. His handsome face wore an
expression which somehow mingled both hauteur and pleasant civility. For a
moment he stood there. Then, erect as a guardsman, he crossed the floor and
knelt at the King's feet. Charles nodded his head, but did not give him his
hand to kiss.

The
others stared hard at him, trying to see into the heart of the man. Was he
worried, or was he confident? Did he expect to die, or to be forgiven? But
Buckingham's face did not betray him.

Arlington,
who was chief prosecutor, got to his feet and began to read the charges against
the Duke. They were many and serious: Being in cabal with the Commons. Opposing
the King in the Lower House. Advising both the Commons and the Lords against
the King's interests. Trying to become popular. And finally, the crime for
which they hoped to have his blood—treason against King and State, the casting
of his Majesty's horoscope. The incriminating paper was shown the Duke, held up
at a safe distance for him to see.

Among
these men Buckingham had just two friends, Lauderdale and Ashley, and though
the others intended at first to conduct the investigation with dignity and
decorum that resolution was soon gone. In their excitement several of them
talked at once, they began to shout and to interrupt one another and him. But
Buckingham kept his temper, which was notoriously short, and replied with
polite submissiveness to every question or accusation. The only man for whom he
showed less than respect was his one-time friend, Arlington, and to him he was
openly insolent.

When
they accused him of trying to make himself popular he looked the Baron straight
in the eye: "Whoever is committed to prison by my Lord Chancellor and my
Lord Arlington cannot help becoming popular."

He
had a glib answer for the charge of treason. "I do not deny, gentlemen,
that that piece of paper is a horoscope. Neither do I deny that you got it from
Dr. Heydon, who cast it. But I do deny that it was I who commissioned it or
that it concerns his Majesty's future."

A
murmur rushed round the table. What was the rascal saying? How dare he stand there
and lie like that! Charles smiled,
very faintly, but as the Duke shot him
a hasty glance the smile vanished; his swarthy face set in stern lines again.

"Would
your Grace be so good, then, as to tell us who did commission the
horoscope?" asked Arlington sarcastically. "Or is that your Grace's
secret?"

"It's
no secret at all. If it will make matters more clear to you gentlemen I am glad
to tell you. My sister had the horoscope cast." This seemed to astonish
everyone but the King, who merely lifted one quizzical eyebrow and continued to
stroke his dog's head.

"Your
sister had the horoscope cast?" repeated Arlington, with an inflection
which said plainly he considered the statement a bald lie. Then, suddenly,
"Whose is it?"

Buckingham
bowed, contemptuously. "That is my sister's secret. You must ask her. She
has not confided in me."

His
Grace was sent back to the Tower where he was as much visited as a new actress
or the reigning courtesan. Charles pretended to examine the papers again and
agreed that the signature on them was that of Mary Villiers. This brought
furious and impassioned protest from both Arlington and Clarendon, neither of
whom was willing to give up the fight for the Duke's life or, at the very
least, his prestige and fortune. He was caught this time, trapped like a stupid
woodcock, but if he got away this once they might never have the like
opportunity again.

Charles
listened to both of them with his usual courteous attention. "I know very
well, Chancellor," he said one day when he had gone to visit the old man
in his lodgings at Whitehall, "that I could pursue this charge of treason.
But I've found a man's often more use with his head on." He was seated in
a chair beside the couch on which Clarendon lay, for his gout now kept him bed-ridden
much of the time.

"What
use can he be to you, Sire? To run loose and hatch more plots—one of which may
take, and cost your Majesty your life?"

Charles
smiled. "I'm not in much awe of Buckingham's plots. His tongue is hung too
loose for him to be any great danger to anyone but himself. Before he could
half get a plot under way he'd have made the fatal mistake of letting someone
else into the secret. No, Chancellor. His Grace has gone to considerable pains
to insinuate himself with the Commons, and there's no doubt he has a good deal
of interest with them. I think he'll be more use to me this way—chopping off
his head would only make a martyr of him."

Clarendon
was angry and worried, though he tried to conceal his feelings. He had never
reconciled himself to the King's stubborn habit of deciding, when the issue
interested him, for himself.

"Your
Majesty has a nature too fond and too forgiving. If you did not personally like
his Grace this would never be allowed to pass."

"Perhaps,
Chancellor, it's true as you say that I'm too forgiving—" He shrugged his
shoulders and got up, gesturing with his hand for Clarendon to stay where he
was. "But I don't think so."

For
an instant Charles's black eyes rested seriously on the Chancellor. At last he
smiled faintly, gave a nod of his head and walked out of the room. Clarendon
stared after him with a worried frown. As the King disappeared his eyes shifted
and he sat looking at his bandaged foot. The King,
he knew, was his
only protection against a horde of jealous enemies, of whom Buckingham was
merely one of the loudest and most spectacular. Should Charles withdraw his
support Clarendon knew that he could not last a fortnight.

Perhaps
I'm too forgiving—but I don't think so.

Suddenly
there began to go through the old Chancellor's mind a parade of those things
he had done
which had offended Charles: Clarendon had never admitted it but many insisted
and no doubt Charles believed that Parliament would have voted him a greater
income at the Restoration, but for his opposition. Charles had been furious when
he had prevented the passage of his act for religious toleration. There had
been the arguments over Lady Castlemaine's title, which had finally been passed
through the Irish peerage because he refused to sign it. There were a hundred
other instances, great and small, accumulated over the years.

Perhaps
I am too forgiving—Clarendon knew what he had meant by that. Charles forgot
nothing and, in the long run, he forgave nothing.

Less
than three weeks from the time that Buckingham was sent to the Tower he was
released and he appeared once more, arrogant as ever, in all his old haunts. At
one of Castlemaine's suppers the King allowed him to kiss his hand. He began to
frequent the taverns again and in a few days he was at the theatre with Rochester
and several others. They took one of the fore-boxes and hung over the edge of
it, talking to the vizard-masks below and complaining noisily because Nell
Gwynne had left the stage to be Lord Buckhurst's mistress.

Harry
Killigrew, who was in an adjoining box, presently began to comment audibly on
the Duke's affairs to a young man who sat beside him: "I have it on the
best authority that his Grace will never be reinstated."