A Health Unto His Majesty

TWO

In his early morning walks through the grounds which surrounded his Palace of Whitehall, the King was often a melancholy man during those first few months after his restoration.

He would rise early, for he enjoyed walking in the fresh morning air and at such times he was not averse to being alone, although at all others he liked best to be surrounded by jesting men and beautiful women.

He walked fast; it was a habit unless there was a woman with him; then he never failed to fit his steps to hers.

This was a January morning. There was hoar-frost on the grass and it sparkled on the Palace walls and the buildings which rose from the banks on either side of the river.

January—and seven months a restored King!

He had wandered into the privy gardens where in summer he would set his watch by the sundial; but this day the sheltered bowling green was perhaps more inviting. He would, as was his custom, look in at the small Physic Garden where he cultivated the herbs with which he and Le Febre, his chemist, and Tom Chaffinch, his most trusted servant, experimented.

He was in an unusually pensive mood on this day.

Perhaps it was due to the coming of the new year—his first as King in his own country. Those last months which should have been the happiest of his life were touched with tragedy.

He looked back at the Palace with its buildings of all sizes—past the banqueting hall to the Cockpit. Whitehall was not only his royal Palace, it was the residence of his ministers and servants, the ladies and gentlemen of his Court, for they all had their apartments here. And that was how he would have it. The bigger his Court the better; the more splendid, the more he liked it for it reminded him sharply, whenever he contemplated it, of the change in his fortunes.

The stone gallery separated his royal apartments from those of his subjects; and his bedchamber—he had arranged this—had big windows, which gave him a clear view of the river; it was one of his pleasures to stand at those windows and watch the ships go by, just as, when a small boy at Greenwich, he had lain on the bank and delighted in the ships sailing by.

In the little chamber known as the King’s Closet, to which only he and Tom Chaffinch had keys, he kept the treasures that he had learned to love. He was deeply attracted by beauty in any form—pictures, ornaments and, of course, women, and now that he was no longer a penniless exile he was gathering together pictures by the great artists of his earlier days. He had works by Holbein, Titian and Raphael in his closet; he had cabinets and jewel-encrusted boxes, maps, vases and, perhaps more cherished than any—except his models of ships—his collection of clocks and watches. These he wound himself and often took to pieces that he might have the joy of putting them together again. He loved art and artists, and he intended to make his Court a refuge for them.

He was already restoring his parks to a new magnificence. St. James’ Park was no longer to be the shabby waste ground it had become during the Commonwealth; he would plant new trees; there should be waterworks such as those he had seen in Fontainebleau and Versailles. He wished his Court to be as elegant as that of his cousin Louis Quatorze. And St. James’ Park should be a home for the animals he loved. He himself delighted to feed the ducks on his pond; he had begun to stock the park with deer; he would have goats and sheep there too, and strange animals such as antelopes and elks which would cause the people of London to pause and admire. And all these animals he loved dearly, as he loved the little dogs which followed him whenever they could and had even found their way into the Council Chamber. His melancholy face would soften when he fondled them, and when he spoke to them his voice was as tender and gentle as when he addressed a beautiful woman.

But on this January day, early in the morning, his melancholy thoughts pursued him, for those first months of his restoration had been overshadowed by tragedy.

The first trouble had been James’ affair with Anne Hyde, the daughter of his Chancellor, the man whom he had trusted more than any other during the years of exile. James had married the girl and then sprung the news on his brother at a most inconvenient time, falling on his knees before him, confessing that he had made this mésalliance and disobeyed the rule that one so near the throne should not marry without the consent of the monarch.

He should have been furious; he should have clapped them both into the Tower. That was what his ancestors—those worthy Tudors, Henry and Elizabeth—would have done; and they were considered the greatest King and Queen the country had ever had.

Clap his own brother into jail! And for marrying a girl who was so far gone in pregnancy that to delay longer would have meant her producing a bastard, when the child might well be heir to the throne!

Some might have done it. Not Charles. How could he, when he could understand so well the inclination which had first led James to daily with the Chancellor’s daughter (though to Charles’ mind she was no beauty, yet possessed of a shrewdness and intelligence which he feared far exceeded that of his brother) and, having got her with child, the impossibility of resisting her tears and entreaties.

Charles saw James’ point of view and Anne’s point of view too clearly even to feign anger.

“Get up, James,” he had said. “Don’t sprawl at my feet like that. ’Od’s Fish, man, you’re clumsy enough in less demanding poses. What’s done is done. You’re a fool, but alas, dear brother, that’s no news to me.”

But others were not inclined to view the matter with the King’s leniency. Charles sighed, contemplating the trouble which that marriage had caused. Why could they not take his view of life? Could they unmake the marriage by upbraiding James and making the girl’s life miserable?

It was a sad thing that so few shared the tolerance of the King.

There was Chancellor Hyde, the girl’s father, pretending to be distraught, declaring that he would have preferred to see his daughter the concubine rather than the wife of the Duke of York.

“A paternal sentiment, which is scarcely worthy of a man of your high ideals, Chancellor,” Charles had said ironically.

He had begun to wonder about Hyde then. Was the man entirely sincere? Secretly he must be delighted that his daughter had managed to secure marriage into the royal house, that her heirs might possibly sit on the throne of England. There had been whispering about Hyde often enough; a man so high in the King’s favor was bound to have his enemies. He had followed Charles in his exile and had always been at his side to give the young King his advice. Charles did not forget that when Hyde had left Jersey to come to him in Holland he had been taken prisoner by the corsairs of Ostend and robbed of his possessions, yet had not rested until he had effected his escape and joined his King. His one motive was, he had declared, to serve Charles and bring about his restoration; and Charles, believing him, had made the man his first adviser, had asked his counsel in all political matters, had made him Secretary of State in place of Nicholas, and later, when it seemed that one day Charles might have a country to rule, he had become Chancellor. The man had had many enemies who envied him his place in the King’s counsels and affections; they had done all they could to poison the King’s mind against him. But Charles had supported Hyde, believed him to be his most trusty servant because he never minced his words and was apt to reproach the King to his face concerning the profligate life he led. Charles would always listen gravely to what Hyde had to say, declaring that although he was ready to accept Hyde’s advice on affairs of state he felt himself to be the better judge in matters of the heart.

Chief of Hyde’s critics had been Henrietta Maria, the King’s own mother, who traced all the disagreements—and they were many—which existed between herself and her son, to this man.

Still Charles supported Hyde; and only now, when the man declared himself to be so desolate because his daughter was the wife and not the mistress of the Duke of York, did Charles begin to doubt the sincerity of his Chancellor.

He made him Baron Hyde of Hindon, and had decided that at his coronation he would create him Viscount Cornbury and Earl of Clarendon, to compensate him for his years of loyal service; but he had decided he would not be quite so trusting as hitherto.

Poor James! Charles feared he was not the most courageous of men. He was afraid of his mother. Odd how one, so small and at such great distance, could inspire terror in the hearts of her grown-up children. Henrietta Maria had made a great noise in Paris concerning this marriage—weeping, assuring all those about her that here was another instance of the cruelty of fate which was determined to remind her that she was La Reine Malheureuse. Had she not suffered enough! Was not the whole world against her! Charles knew full well how the tirades had run, and who had borne the brunt of them—his beloved little sister Henrietta, his sweet Minette. So James had trembled in Whitehall although it was so far from the Palais-Royal or Colombes or Chaillot or the Louvre, wherever his mother had been when calling those about her to weep for her sorrows, and the saints to bring vengeance on those who persecuted her. Then there had been his sister, Mary of Orange, who was furious that James could so far forget himself, and who had blamed herself because it was while Anne Hyde was in the retinue that she had first met the Duke.

Poor James! Alas, no hero. Alas, possessing no true chivalry. Terrified at what he had done in bringing upon himself the wrath of his formidable mother and strong-minded sister, he had declared his mistake to the world; he had lent his ears to the calumnies, which those who hated the Hyde family were only too ready to pour into them. Anne was a lewd woman, he declared; she had trapped him; the child for whose sake he had rushed into marriage was after all not his.

And so poor Anne, deserted by her family and by her husband, would have been in a sorry state but for one person.

Charles shrugged his shoulders. He did not believe the calumnies directed against the poor girl, but he suspected that if he had, his reaction would not have been very different, for he could never bear to see a woman in distress.

So the one who had visited the Duchess at her lying-in, when all the world seemed against her, was the King himself; and it was the royal hand which had been laid upon her feverish brow with, as he said, the tenderness of a brother, and it was Charles who whispered to her to have no fear for all would come right for her, since it was the envious enemies of her family who, denigrating its special talents and good fortune, had sought to harm her.

Whither the King went so must the Court go too. How could the courtiers neglect one whom the King chose to honor? “Come, man!” he cried to Hyde. “This business is done with. ’Tis a fool who makes not the best of what cannot be mended!”

To James he said: “You shame me! You shame our family. The Duchess is your wife. You cared enough for her to make her that. Is your love for her then less than the fear you have for our mother? You know she is innocent of these calumnies. For the love of God, be a man.”

Thus had that most unhappy matter been satisfactorily settled, and it was then that Charles had given Hyde his peerage to show where his sympathies lay.

The next disaster had been the death of his brother, Henry of Gloucester, the younger of his brothers, and the best loved. Death had come swiftly in the guise of the dreaded smallpox; and young Henry, strong and healthy one week, had been gone the next.

Such a tragedy coming so soon after his restoration—Henry had died in September, a few weeks after the trouble with James had blown up, and little more than three months after the King’s return to England—dampened all pleasure, and even the sight of his beloved sisters could not entirely console him.

Minette he loved dearly—perhaps more dearly than any other person on Earth—and it was delightful and gratifying to receive her in his own country, which had now acknowledged him its King, to do honor to the lovely and sprightly girl who had suffered such humiliation as a poor relation of the French Court for so long. But with Minette came her mother; Charles smiled now at the thought of Henrietta Maria, the diminutive virago, eyes flashing, hands gesticulating, longing to give James a piece of her mind and assuring everyone that she would only enter Whitehall when Anne Hyde was ordered to leave it.

And to Charles had fallen the task of placating his mother; this he did with grace and courtesy, and some cunning. For she was dependent upon his bounty for her pension, and she had been made to know that the obstinacy of her eldest son still existed beneath the easy-going manners, and that when he had made up his mind that something should be done, he could be as firmly fixed in his purpose as that little boy who had refused to take his physic and who had clung to the wooden billet which it had been his custom as a small boy to take to bed with him each night.

So he had triumphed over his mother as gently as he could. “Poor Mam!” he told his little Minette. She has a genius for supporting lost causes and giving all her great energy to that which can only bring sorrow to herself.” He had insisted on her receiving James’ wife in public.

And then almost immediately the dread smallpox, which had carried off his brother Henry, had smitten his sister Mary, and in the space of a few short months, though he had regained his throne, he had lost a beloved brother and sister.

How the family was depleted! There was now his mother—but they had never really loved each other—his brother James—and James was a fool and a coward, as was obvious from his treatment of Anne Hyde—and Minette, his youngest sister, the best loved of them all; yet she was rarely met and the water divided them. He had said farewell to her but a few days ago, but how did he know when he would see her again? He would have liked to bring her back to England, to have kept her with him. Dear Minette! But she had her destiny in another country; she had a brilliant marriage to make; he could not ask her to forsake her affianced husband and come to England merely to be the King’s sister. There was scandal enough concerning them already. Trust the malicious tongues to see to that!

So it was small wonder that he felt melancholy at times, for he was a man who liked to surround himself with those he loved. He could remember happy days when he had been the member of a family; and it had been a happy family, for there was affection between his parents, and his father was a noble man and loving father; but that was before he had found it necessary to oppose his overbearing mother; he remembered her from then as ever demonstrative, quick to punish but full of an affection which was outwardly displayed by suffocating embraces and fond kisses. Yes, Charles was a man who needed love and affection; he longed to have his family about him. He suffered their loss deeply as one by one they left this life.

He remembered now, as he bent to examine a herb in his Physic Garden, the terrible anxiety he had suffered when he had believed that Minette herself was about to die. Stunned by the loss of a brother and sister he had thought that life was about to deal him the most brutal blow of all. But Minette had not died; she had lived to return to France, where she would marry the brother of the French King and every week there would be, as in the old days, loving letters from her to remind him of the bond between them.

Yes, he still had Minette, so life was not all melancholy; far from it. He had his crown and he had his beloved sister, and there was much merriment to be had in the Court of Whitehall. A man could not have pleasure all the time, for if he became too familiar with it he would be less appreciative of it. The loss of his dear brother Henry and sister Mary had made him all the more tender to his sweet Minette.

There were other matters which gave him some uneasiness. Were the people a little disappointed? Had they hoped for too much? Did they think that with the King’s restoration all the old evils would be wiped out? Did they look upon the King as a magician, who could live in perpetual royal state and give his people pageants, restore estates, abolish taxes—and all because he had found some magic elixir in his laboratories? Oh, the many petitioners who hung about in the stone gallery of Whitehall which led to the royal apartments! How many there were to remind him that they had been loyal supporters during the years of exile! “Sire, it was due to me … to me … to me … that Your Majesty has been restored.” “Sire, I had a great house and lands, and these were taken from me by the Parliament….” “Sire, I trust that Your Majesty’s restoration may be our restoration….” It was easy—too easy—to promise. He understood their different points of view. Of course he understood them. He wished to give all they asked. It was true that they had been loyal; it was true that they had worked for his restoration and lost their estates to the Parliament. But what could he do? How could he confiscate estates which were now the property of those who called themselves his loyal subjects; how could he restore property which had been razed to the ground?

It was his habit almost to run through the stone gallery to avoid these petitioners. They would drop on their knees as he passed, and he would say quickly: “God bless you! God bless you!” before he strode on, taking such great paces that none could overtake him unless they ran. He dared not pause; if he did, he knew he would be unable to stop himself making promises which he could not fulfil.

If they would but let him alone to enjoy his pleasures—ah, then he would forget his melancholy; then he would practice that delightful habit of sauntering through his parks followed by his spaniels and surrounded by gentlemen who must all be witty and ladies who need not be anything but beautiful. To listen to the sallies (and he had made it clear that they could disregard his royalty in the cause of wit) and to feast his eyes on the graceful figures of the ladies, whisper to them, catch their hands, suggest a meeting when there might not be quite so many about them to observe their little tendernesses—ah, that was all pleasure. He wished that he could indulge in sauntering more often.

In November the army had been disbanded at Hyde’s wish. Charles was sorry to see that happen, but whence would come the money to keep it in existence? It seemed to the King that as a monarch he was almost as poor as he had been as an exile, for, although he had a larger income, his commitments had multiplied in proportion. Monk kept his regiments—the Cold-stream and another of horse; and that was all, apart from another regiment which was formed from the troops which had been brought from Dunkirk. Charles christened this regiment the Guards and from it planned to build a standing army.

But there was one other matter his ministers were determined on, as fiercely as on that of reducing expenses, and it was one which gave him as little pleasure; this was revenge.

Charles alone, it seemed, had no wish for revenge. The past was done with; his exile was over; he was restored; let all the country rejoice in that. But No! said his ministers. And No! said his people. Murder had been done. The King’s father was Charles the Martyr, and his murder should not go unpunished. So there had been a trial, and those men who were judged guilty were sentenced to the terrible death which was accorded to traitors.

Charles shuddered now as he had then. If he had had his will he would have acquitted the lot. They had believed they were in the right; in their eyes they had committed no murder; they had carried out the demands of justice. So they saw it; and Charles, still remembering with great affection the father whom they had murdered, still very close to the years of beggary and exile, was the one who alone had desired that these men should remain unpunished.

Ten men died the terrible death that October, and there were others waiting to meet it. But the King could bear no more. He cried: “I confess I am weary of hanging—let it sleep!”

So he prevailed upon the Convention to turn their attention away from humble men to those who had been his father’s true enemies; those who were already dead. And so the bodies of Cromwell, Pride and Ireton were dug from their graves, beheaded, and their heads stuck on spikes outside Westminster Hall.

This was gruesome and horrible to a man of fastidious tastes, but at least their dead bodies could feel no pain. It was better to offend his fastidiousness than wound his tender nature.

Revenge, he had said, was enjoyed by the failures of this world. Those who achieved success spared little time for something which had become so trivial. He was now back in the heart of his country and the hearts of his people. He forgave those men who had worked against his family, as he trusted God would forgive him his many sins.

So with the King’s indifference to revenge, the people satisfied themselves with gloating over the decaying remains of the great Protector and his followers, which were displayed exactly twelve years to the day after the death of Charles I.

There were difficulties still over religion. How his people discoursed one against the other on this subject! What hot words they exchanged, what angers were aroused; how they disputed this way and that! Why could they not, Charles asked them and himself, be easy in their minds? Why should not men who wished to worship in a certain way worship that way? What should another man’s opinions matter to the next man, providing he was allowed to preserve his own?

Tolerance! It was a hateful word to these fierce combatants. They did not want tolerance. They wanted their mode of worship imposed on the country because, they declared, it was the right way.

The struggle continued between Presbyterians and Anglicans.

Charles exerted all his patience; he was charming to the Anglicans, he was suave to the Presbyterians; but at last he began to see that he could never make peace between them and because the Anglicans had supported him during his exile he shrugged his shoulders and went over to their side.

Had he been right? He did not know. He wanted peace … peace to enjoy his kingdom. He, who could see the fierce points of argument from both angles and many more, would have cried: “Worship as you please—but leave each other and me in peace.”

But that was not the way of these earnest men of faith, and Charles’ way was to take the easiest route out of a dispute which was growing tedious.

So now he had come to the end of those months, and the year was new, and who could say what fresh triumphs, what fresh pleasures and what fresh sorrows awaited him?

He must find a wife ere long. He was thirty-one, and a King should be married by that age if he were to provide his country with sons.

A wife? The thought pleased him. He was after all a man who loved his family. He pictured the wife he would have—gentle and loving and, of course, beautiful. He would discuss the matter with his ministers, and it might be well to discuss it now, while Barbara was less active than usual. She was expecting a child next month; his child, she said.

He lifted one side of his mouth in a half-smile.

It could be his, he supposed, though it might be Chesterfield’s or even poor Roger Palmer’s. None could be sure with Barbara.

It was time he grew tired of her. It astonished him that she had been almost his sole mistress since he had set foot in England. Yet he did not grow tired of her. Handsome she was—quite the most handsome woman he had ever known. Physically she was unique; the symmetry of her body was perfect and her person could not fail to delight such a connoisseur. Her face was the most beautiful he had ever beheld, and even her violent rages could only change it, not distort it. Her character was unaccountable; and thus there was nothing dull nor insipid about Barbara. He had tried others, but they had failed to interest him beyond the first few occasions. Always he must go back to Barbara, wild Barbara, cruel Barbara, the perfect animal, the most unaccountable and the most exciting creature in his kingdom.

He looked at his watch.

It was time the morning perambulation was ended.

He chided himself lightly for thinking of Barbara so early in the day.

Barbara sat up in bed in her husband’s house in King Street, Westminster. In the cradle lay her few-days-old child, a girl. Barbara was a little sulky; she would have preferred her firstborn to be a boy.

She smiled secretly. There should be three men who would come to visit her, and each would believe in his heart that the child was his. Let them have their secret thoughts; Barbara had long decided whom she would name as the little girl’s father.

Roger, the first of the visitors, came early.

How insignificant he was! How could she have married such a man? people wondered. She smiled when she heard that. Her reasons were sound enough. Poor Roger, he should not suffer for his meekness. Unfortunately nowadays he was not inclined to be as meek as she could wish.

He stood at the foot of the bed and looked from her to the child in the cradle.

Barbara cried: “For the love of God, do not stand there looking like a Christian about to be sent to the lions! Let me tell you, Roger Palmer, that if danger came within a mile of you you’d be squealing to me to protect you!”

“Barbara,” said Roger, “you astonish me. I should not have thought any woman could be so blatant.”

“I have little time for subterfuge.”

“You deliberately deceive me with others.”

“I deceive you! When have I ever deceived you? I am not afraid to receive my lovers here … in your house.”

“Shame, Barbara, shame! You, a woman just delivered of a child! Why, there are many who wonder who the father of that child may be.”

“Then they need not wonder long. They shall know, when the titles due to this child are given to her.”

“You are quite shameless.”

“I am merely being truthful.”

“I suppose, when you married me you had your lovers.””

You surely did not think, sir, that you could satisfy me?””

Chesterfield …?”

“Yes, Chesterfield!” she spat at him.

“Then why did you not marry Chesterfield? He was free to marry at that time.”

“Because I had no wish to marry Chesterfield. Do you think I wished for a husband who was ready to draw his sword every me he thought his honor slighted?” She laughed the cruel laugh he had come to know so well. “Nay! I wanted a meek man. A man who would look away at the right moment, a man without any great title … or hope of one, except that which I should bring to him.”

“You are a strange woman, Barbara.”

“I’m no fool, if that’s what you mean.”

“Do not think that I should wish for any honors which you could bring me. Honours, did you say? They would be dishonor in disguise.”

“Honors are honors, no matter how they come. Ah! I see the look in your eyes, Roger Palmer. You are wondering what His Majesty will do for you if you quietly father his child, are you not?”

“Barbara, you are vulgar and cruel, and I wonder … I wonder I can stay under the same roof.”

“Then cease to wonder. Get out. Or shall I? Do you imagine that there are not other roofs under which I could shelter? Why do you not admit the truth to yourself, Roger Palmer? You are jealous … jealous of my lovers. And why? Because you wish to be my lover!” She laughed. “My lover en titre…. You wish to exclude all others!”

“I am your husband.”

“My husband! What should I want of a husband except his complaisance.”

He strode towards the bed; his face was livid with fury.

Barbara called to her women, who hurried into the room.

“I am very fatigued,” she said. “I wish to rest. Arrange the pillows more comfortably. Roger, you must leave me now.”

“You must not excite yourself at such a time, Madam,” said one of her women.

She lay back upon her pillows and watched Roger as he went quietly to the cradle and bent over the sleeping infant. She knew he was telling himself that the little nose, small though it was, was yet a Palmer nose; and the set of the eyes, that was Palmer too.

Let him go on thinking thus, she mused, for what harm is there in thinking?

And when he had gone, she sent one of her women with a message to Lord Chesterfield at Whitehall.

Barbara’s messenger found the Earl of Chesterfield in his apartments at the Palace. The Countess was with him, and it was not the most propitious moment to deliver a message from Barbara; but all Barbara’s servants knew that to disobey was quite out of the question, and she would be amused to know that Chesterfield’s bride was present when he received his summons to call on his mistress.

Chesterfield still felt the power of her attraction, and he had not ceased to be her lover at intervals ever since their first encounter. There had been a time when Barbara had actually seemed to be in love with him; when she had so far subdued her personality as to write to him: “I am ready and willing to go all over the world with you, and will obey your commands whilst I live.” That was after Barbara’s own marriage but before the return of the King, before Chesterfield had fought that duel which had necessitated his leaving the country. Then she had compared him with the meek Roger and when she knew there could never be marriage between them, she had felt he was the only man who could please her.

That mood had not lasted. The King had come home, and the occasions when Barbara had been at home to Chesterfield became less frequent, although she had wished to receive him more often when she had heard of the beauty of his wife.

Barbara was a wanton, Chesterfield told himself; Barbara was cruel; but that did not prevent her from being different from all other women and very desirable. His common sense told him to have no more to do with her; his senses refused to release him.

Now he looked at the quiet girl who was his wife. She was about twenty years of age—the same age as Barbara—but compared with his mistress she seemed but a child. There was no guile about Elizabeth; she was pleasant to look upon but seemed dull when he compared hers with the flamboyant charms of Barbara. And of course he must compare her with Barbara, for Barbara was constantly in his thoughts.

“A message?” she said now. “From whom, Philip? I had hoped that you would spend an hour or so with me.”

“It matters not from whom the message comes,” he said coldly. “Suffice it that it is for me, and that I must leave at once.”

Elizabeth came to him and put her arm through his. She was very much in love with him. He had seemed so handsome and romantic when he had come to Holland; she had heard the story of the duel; she did not know the cause, and she imagined that it was out of chivalry that he had fought and killed a man. He would not talk of it. That, she had told herself, is his natural modesty. He will not speak of it because he fears to appear boastful.

She had led a sheltered life with the Duchess her mother, who, horrified at the licentious exiled Court, had kept her daughter from it in an endeavor to preserve her innocence; she had succeeded in her task too well, for Elizabeth at the time of her marriage had no notion of the kind of man she had married, nor of the kind of world in which she would be expected to compete for his affections. The marriage had seemed a good one. The Earl was twenty-five years of age, the Lady Elizabeth nineteen. Chesterfield, a younger widower, needed a wife and it was time the Lady Elizabeth was married.

It was true that the Duchess, having heard rumors of the bridegroom’s reputation, was a little hesitant; but those rumors were not so disturbing as they might have been, for at that time Barbara Palmer had not achieved the notoriety which she attained when she became the King’s mistress; and, as the Duke pointed out to his Duchess, a young unmarried man must have a mistress; Chesterfield would settle down when he married.

So the marriage took place at The Hague a little while before the Restoration; and Lady Elizabeth who, having seen the affection between her parents, had expected to enjoy the same happy state with her husband, met with bitter disappointment.

The Earl made it quite clear that the marriage was one of convenience and Lady Elizabeth found that her naive expressions of love were cruelly repulsed.

At first she was hurt; then she believed that he still thought of his first wife, Anne Percy. She asked questions about her of all who had known her; she tried to emulate what she heard of her rival, but her efforts seemed to win her husband’s impatience rather than his kindness. He was brusque, cold, and avoided her as much as possible. He made it clear that any intercourse between them was undertaken by him because it was expected of him.

The naive and gentle girl, being in every way different from Barbara, irritated him beyond all measure because, in everything she did, by the very contrast, she reminded him of Barbara, and set him longing to renew that tempestuous relationship.

Even now when they had returned to London she was kept in ignorance of the life he led. Her mother, unknown to her, had spoken to the Earl asking that he treat her daughter with the deference due to her; at which he became more aloof than ever and Elizabeth, left much alone, continued to brood on the perfections of Anne Percy who she believed could charm from the grave.

But at this moment the Earl was beside himself with the desire to see Barbara—and not only Barbara. He was sure the child was his. He had visited Barbara at the time she became the King’s mistress; he remembered the occasion when he had accused her of seeking royal favor; he remembered her mocking laughter, her immense provocation, her insatiable lust which demanded more than one lover at a time. Yes, the child could very possibly be his.

“Philip….” Elizabeth was smiling at him in a manner which she fondly imagined was alluring.

He threw her off, and the tears came to her eyes. If there was one thing that maddened him more than an attempt at coquetry, it was her weeping; and there had been much of that since her marriage—quiet, snuffling crying which he heard in the darkness.

“Why do you plague me?” he demanded.

“I … plague you?”

“Why do you seek to detain me when you know full well I have no wish to be detained by you?”

“Philip, you talk as though you hate me.”

“Hate you I shall if you will insist on clinging to me thus. Is it not enough that you are my wife? What more do you want of me?”

“I want a chance, Philip, a chance for us to be happy. I want us to be as husband and wife….”

That made him laugh. The spell of Barbara was on him. He was sure she was a witch who could cast spells from a distance. It was almost as though she were there in the room, mocking him, scorning him for not telling this foolish little girl the truth.

“You wish us to be as husband and wife? To live, you mean, as do other wives and husbands of the Court? Then you should get yourself a lover. It is an appendage without which few wives of this Court find themselves.”

“A … lover? You, Philip, my husband, can say that!”

He took her by the shoulders and shook her in exasperation. “You are like a child,” he said. “Grow up! For God’s sake, grow up!”

She threw her arms about his neck. His exasperation turned to anger. He found her repulsive—this fresh and innocent young girl—because she was not Barbara on whose account he had suffered bitter jealousy ever since the King came home.

“Know the truth,” he cried. “Know it once and for all. I cannot love you. My thoughts are with my mistress.”

“Your mistress, Philip!” Elizabeth was white to the lips. “You mean … your dead … wife?”

He looked at her in astonishment and then burst into cruel laughter.

“Mrs. Barbara Palmer,” he said. “She is my mistress….”

“But she … she is the King’s mistress, they say.”

“So you have learned that? Then you are waking up, Elizabeth. You are becoming very knowledgeable. Now learn something else: the King’s mistress she may be—but she is mine also. And the child she has just borne … it is mine, I tell you.”

Then he turned and hurried away.

Elizabeth stood like one of the stone statues in the Palace grounds.

Then she turned away and went to her apartment; she drew the curtains about her bed and lay there, while a numbness crept over her limbs, and it seemed that all feelings were merged in the misery which was sweeping over her.

Before Chesterfield arrived at the house in King Street, Barbara had another visitor.

This was her relative, George Villiers the Duke of Buckingham. He was now a gentleman of the King’s bedchamber; his estates had been restored to him, and he was on the way to becoming one of the most important men in the country.

He did not look at the child in the cradle. Instead his eyes were warm with admiration for the mother.

“So Mrs. Barbara,” he said, “you flourish. I hear that the King continues to dote. This is a happy state of affairs for the family of Villiers, I’ll swear.”

“Ah, George,” she said with a smile, “we have come a long way from the days when you used to tease me for my hot temper.”

“I’ll warrant the temper has not cooled, and were it not that I dare not tease such a great lady as Mistress Barbara, I would be tempted to put it to the test. Do you bite and scratch and kick with as much gusto as you did at seven, Barbara?”

“With as much gusto and greater force,” she assured him. “But I’ll not kick and scratch and bite you, George. There are times when the Villiers should stand together. You were a fool to get sent back from France.”

“It was that prancing ninny of a Monsieur. He feigned to be jealous of my attentions to the Princess Henrietta.”

“Well, you tried to make her sister Mary your wife and failed, then you tried to make Henrietta your mistress and failed in that.”

“I beg of you taunt me not with failing. Mayhap your success will not last.”

“Ah! Had I not married Roger mayhap I should have been Charles’ wife ere now.”

George’s thoughts were cynical. Charles might be a fool where women were concerned, but he was not such a fool as that. However, it was more than one dared say to Barbara. Roger had his uses. Not only was he a complaisant husband but he supplied a good and valid reason why Barbara was not Queen of England.

“It seems as though fortune does not favor us, cousin,” said George. “And the lady in the cradle—is she preparing herself to be nice to Papa when he calls?”

“She will be nice to him.”

“You should get him to own her.”

“He shall own her,” said Barbara.

“Roger spoke of the child as though there could be no doubt that she is his.”

“Let him prate of that in public.”

“The acknowledgment by her rightful father should not be too private, Barbara.”

“Nay, you’re right.”

“And there is something more I would say to you. Beware of Edward Hyde.”

“Edward Hyde? That old fool!”

“Old, it is true, my dear; but no fool. The King thinks very highly of him.”

Barbara gave her explosive laugh.

“Ah yes, the King is your minion. You lead him by the nose. I know, I know. But that is when he is with you, and you insist he begs for your favors. But the King is a man of many moods. He changes the color of his skin like a chameleon on a rock, and none is more skilled at such changing than he. Remember Hyde was with him years ago in exile. He respects the man’s judgment, and Hyde is telling him that his affair with you is achieving too much notoriety. He is warning him that England is not France, and that the King’s mistress will not be accorded the honors in this country which go to His Majesty’s cousin’s women across the water.”

“I’ll have the fellow clapped into the Tower.”

“Nay, Barbara, be subtle. He’s too big a man to be clapped into the Tower on the whim of a woman. The King would never consent to it. He would promise you in order to placate you, and then prevaricate; and he would whisper to his Chancellor that he had offended you and he had best make his peace with you. But he will not easily turn against Edward Hyde.”

“You mean I should suffer myself to be insulted by that old … old …”

“For the time, snap your fingers. But beware of him, Barbara. He would have the King respectably married and his mistresses cast aside. He will seek to turn the King against you. But do nothing rash. Work stealthily against him. I hate the man. You hate the man. We will destroy him gradually … but it must be slowly. The King is fickle to some, but I fancy he will not be so with one who has been so long his guide and counsellor. His Majesty is like a bumble bee—a roving drone—flitting from treasure to treasure, sipping here and there and forgetting. But there are some flowers from which he has drunk deep and to these he returns. Know you that he has given a pension to Jane Lane who brought him to safety after Worcester? All that time, and he remembers—our fickle gentleman. So will he remember Edward Hyde. Nay, let the poison drip slowly … in the smallest drops, so that it is unnoticed until it has begun to corrode and destroy. Together, Barbara, you and I will rid ourselves of one who cannot be anything but an enemy to us both.”

She nodded her agreement; her blue eyes were brilliant. She longed to be up; she hated inactivity.

“I will remember,” she said. “And how fare you in your married life?”

“Happily, happily,” he said.

“And Mary Fairfax—does she fare happily?”

“She is the happiest of women, the most satisfied of wives.”

“Some are easily satisfied. Does she not regret Chesterfield?”

“That rake! Indeed she does not.”

“She finds in you a faithful husband?” said Barbara, cynically and slyly.

“She finds in me the perfect husband—which gives greater satisfaction.”

“Then she must be blind.”

“They say love is, Madam.”

“Indeed it must be. And she loves you still?”

“As she ever did. And so do the entire family. It is a most successful marriage.”

Barbara’s woman came in and was about to announce that Chesterfield was on his way, when the Earl himself came into the room.

He and Buckingham exchanged greetings. Chesterfield went to the bed, and, taking the hand Barbara gave him, pressed it to his lips.

“You are well?” he asked. “You are recovered?”

“I shall be about tomorrow.”

“I rejoice to hear it,” said Chesterfield.

Buckingham said he would take his leave. Matters of state called him.

When he had gone, Chesterfield seized Barbara in his arms and kissed her with passion.

“Nay!” she cried, pushing him away. “It is too soon. Do you not wish to see the child, Philip?”

He turned to the cradle then. “A girl,” he said. “Our child.”

“You think that?”

“Yes,” he said. “It is ours.”

“You are proud to own her, Philip. Well, we must see that your interest in the little girl does not become known to your Lady Elizabeth.”

His faced darkened at the memory of the scene he had so recently experienced with his wife.

“I care not,” he said.

She tapped him sharply on the arm.

“I care,” she said. “I’ll not have you bruit it abroad that this child is yours.”

“You are reserving her for a higher fate? Barbara, you witch!”

“Philip, soon I shall be well.”

“And then …”

“Ah! We shall meet ere long, I doubt not. Why, you are a more eager lover than you once were!”

“You become a habit, Barbara. A habit … like the drink or gaming. One sips … one throws the dice, and then it is an unbearable agony not to be able to sip or throw the dice.”

“It pleases me that you came so quickly to my call.”

He was holding her hands tightly, and she felt his strength. She looked into his face and remembered that occasion four years ago in the nuttery. “The first time,” she said. “I remember. It was nothing less than rape.”

“And you a willing victim.”

“A most unwilling one. ’Twas forced upon me. You should have been done to death for what you did to me. Dost know the punishment for rape?”

The woman came in. She was agitated. “My lady, Madam … the King comes this way.”

Barbara laughed and looked up at her lover.

“You had better leave,” she said.

Chesterfield had drawn himself up to his full height.

“Why should I leave? Why should I not stay here and say, ‘By God, Your Majesty, I am honored that you should come so far to see my daughter?’”

Barbara’s face was white and tense with sudden anger. “If you do not leave this chamber this minute,” she said, “I will never see you again as long as I live.”

She meant it, and he knew she meant it.

There were moments when he hated Barbara, but, whether he hated or loved, the knowledge was always with him that he could not live without her.

He turned and followed the woman out of the chamber; he allowed himself to be led ignobly out through a back door that he might run no risk of coming face-to-face with the King.

Charles stepped into the room while his accompanying courtiers stayed in the corridor.

Barbara held out her hand and laughed contentedly.

“This is an honor,” she said. “An unexpected one.”

Charles took the hand and kissed it.

“It pleases me to see you so soon recovered,” he said. “You look not like one who has just passed through such an ordeal.”

“It was a joyful ordeal,” she said, “to bear a royal child.”

Eagerly she watched his face. It was never easy to read his feelings.

He had turned from her to the child in the cradle.

“So the infant has royal blood?”

“Your Majesty can doubt it?”

“There are some who doubtless will,” he said.

She was reproachful. “Charles, you can talk thus while I lie so weakly here!”

He laughed suddenly, that deep, low musical laugh. “’Od’s Fish, Barbara, ’tis the only time I would dare do so.”

“Think you not that she is a beautiful child?”

“’Tis hard to say as yet. It is not possible to see whether she hath the look of you or Palmer.”

“She’ll never have a look of Palmer,” said Barbara fiercely. “I’d be ready to strangle at birth any child of mine who had!”

“Such violence! It becomes you not … at such a time.”

Barbara covered her face with her hands. “I am exhausted,” she murmured brokenly. “I had thought myself the happiest of women, and now I find myself deserted.”

The King drew her hands from her face. “What tears are these, Barbara? Do they spring from sorrow or anger?”

“From both. I would I were a humble merchant’s wife.”

“Nay, Barbara, do not wish that. It would grieve me to see our merchants plagued. We need them to further the trade of our country, which suffers great poverty after years of Cromwell’s rule.”

“I see that Your Majesty is not in serious mood.”

“I could be naught but merry to see that motherhood has changed you not a whit.”

“You have scarce looked at the child.”

“Could I look at another female when Barbara is at hand?”

Her eyes blazed suddenly. “So you do not accept this child as yours …?” Her long, slender fingers gripped the sheet. Her eyes were narrowed now and she was like a witch, he thought, a wild and beautiful witch. “If I had a knife here,” she said, “I would plunge it into that child’s heart. For would it not be better for her, poor innocent mite, that she should never know life at all than know the ignominy of being disowned by her own father!”

The King was alarmed, for he believed her capable of any wild action. He said: “I beg of you do not say such things, even in a jest.”

“You think I jest then, Charles? Here am I, a woman just emerging from the agony of childbed; in all my sufferings I have been sustained by this one thought the child I bear is a royal child. Her path shall be made easy in the world. She shall have the honors due to her and it shall be our delight—her father’s and mine—to love her tenderly as long as we shall live! And now … and now …”

“Poor child!” said Charles. “To be disowned by one because she could be owned by many.”

“I see you no longer love me. I see that you have cast me aside.”

“Barbara, should I be here at this time if that were so?”

“Then you would take your pleasure and let the innocent suffer. Oh, God in Heaven, should such an unfortunate be condemned to live? As soon as I saw her I saw the King in her. I said, ‘Through my daughter Charles lives again.’ And to think that in my weakness that father should come here to taunt me…. It is more than I can bear.” She turned her face from him. “You are the King, but I am a woman who has suffered much, and now I beg of you to leave me, for I can bear no more.”

“Barbara,” he said, “have done with this acting.”

“Acting!” She raised herself; her cheeks were flushed, her hair tumbled, and she looked very beautiful.

“Barbara,” he said, “I beg of you, control yourself. Get well. Then we will talk on this matter.”

She called to her woman. The woman came nervously, curtsying to the King as her frightened eyes went from him to Barbara.

“Bring me the child!” cried Barbara.

The woman went to the cradle.

“Give the child to me,” said the King. The woman obeyed. And because he loved all small and helpless creatures, and particularly children, the King was deeply touched by the small, pink, wrinkled baby who might possibly be his own flesh and blood.

He looked down at the serving woman and gave her one of those smiles which never failed to captivate all who were favored with them.

“A healthy child,” he said. “Methinks she already has a look of me. What say you?”

“Why, yes … Your Majesty,” said the woman.

“I remember my youngest sister when she was little more than this child’s age. They might be the same … as my memory serves.”

Barbara was smiling contentedly. She was satisfied. The King had come to heel. He had acknowledged her daughter as his, and once more Barbara had her way.

The King continued to hold the child. She was a helpless little thing; he could easily love her. He owned to many children; so what difference did one more make?

Spring had come to England, and once more there was expectation in the streets of London. It was exactly a year since the King had returned to rule his country.

The mauve tufts of vetch with golden cowslips and white stitchwort flowers gave, a gentle color to the meadows and lanes which could be seen from almost every part of the city. The trees in St. James’ Park were in bud and the birdsong there sounded loud and jubilant as though these creatures were giving thanks to the King who had helped to build them such a delightful sanctuary.

The last year had brought more changes to the city. The people were less rough than they had been; there were fewer brawls. French manners had been introduced by the King and courtiers, which subdued the natural pugnacity of the English. The streets had become more colorful. Maypoles had been set up; new hawkers had appeared, shouting their wares through the streets; wheels continually rattled over the cobbles. On May Day milkmaids danced in the Strand with flower-decorated pails. New pleasure-houses had sprung up, to compete for public patronage with the Mulberry Garden. Cream and syllabub was served at the World’s End tavern in the village of Knightsbridge. There was Jamaica House at Bermondsey; there were the Hercules Pillars in Fleet Street and Chatelins at Covent Garden—a favorite eating house since it was French and the King had brought home with him a love of all things French. Chatelins was for the rich, but there were cheaper rendezvous for the less fortunate, such as the Sugar Loaf, the Green Lettuce and the Old House at Lambeth Marshes; and there were the beautiful woods of Vauxhall in which to roam and ramble and seek the sort of adventures which were being talked of more openly than ever before, to listen to the fiddlers’ playing, and watch the fine people walking.

Yes, there were great changes, and these were brought about through the King.

There was a new freedom in the very air—a gay unconcern for virtue. It might be that the people of the new age were not more licentious than those of the old; but they no longer hid their little peccadilloes; they boasted of them. They would watch the King’s mistress riding through the town, haughty and so handsome that none could take his eyes from her. All knew the position she held with the King; he made no secret of it; nor did she. They rode together; they supped together four or five nights a week, and the King never left her till early morning, when he would take his walks and exercise in the gardens of his Palace of Whitehall.

It was a new England in which men lived merrily and were more ashamed of their virtue than their lack of morals. To take a mistress—or two—was but to ape the King, and the King was a merry gentleman who had brought the laughter back to England.

Charles was enjoying his own. The weather was clement; he loved his country; his exile was too close behind him for him to have forgotten it; he reveled in his return to power.

He was a young man, by no means handsome, but he was possessed of greater charm than any man in his Court; moreover he was royal. Almost any woman he desired, be she married or single, was his for the asking. He could saunter and select; he could enter into all the pleasures which were most agreeable to him. He could sail down the river to visit his ships—himself at the tiller; he could revel in their beauty, which attracted him so strongly. He could take his own yacht whither he wished, delighting in its velvet hangings and its damask-covered furniture, all made to his taste and his designs.

He could spend thrilling hours at the races; he could stand beside his workmen in the parks, make suggestions and give commands; he could watch the stars through his telescope with his astronomers and learn all they had to tell him. He could play bowls on his green at Whitehall, he could closet himself with his chemist and concoct cordials and medicines in his laboratory. Life was full of interest for a lively and intelligent man who suddenly found himself possessed of so much, after he had lived so long with so little.

He longed to see plays such as he had seen in France.

He was building two new theaters; he wished to see more witty plays produced. There were to be tall candles and velvet curtains—and women to act!

These were great days of change, but there was one thing which existed in abundance in this colorful and exciting City: dirt. It was ever present and therefore, being so familiar to all, passed unnoticed. In the gutters decaying matter rotted for days; sewage trickled over the cobbles; servants emptied slops out of the upper windows, and if they fell onto passersby that merely added gaiety and laughter—and sometimes brawls—to the clamoring, noisy city.

Noise was as familiar as dirt. The people reveled in it. It was as though every citizen were determined to make up for the days of Puritan rule by living every moment to the full.

Manners had become more elegant, but conversation more bold. Dress had become more alluring, and calculated to catch the eye and titillate the senses. The black hoods and deep collars were ripped off, and dresses were cut away to reveal feminine charms rather than to hide them. Men’s clothes were as elaborate as those of women. In their plumed hats and breeches adorned with frilly lace they frequented the streets like magnificent birds of prey, as though hoping to reduce their victims to a state of supine fascination by their brilliance.

And now the arches, which would be adorned with flowers and brocades, were being set up; the scaffolding was being erected. People stood about in groups to laugh and chatter of the change which had taken place in their city since the King came home. They would turn out in their thousands to cry “A Health Unto His Majesty” when the King rode by on his way to be crowned, and drink to him from the conduits flowing with wine.

Charles, driving his chariot with two fine horses through Hyde Park, bowing to the people who called their loyal greetings to him, was, for all his merry smiles, thinking of a subject which never failed to rouse the melancholy in him: Money.

A Coronation was a costly thing, and these people who rejoiced to see the scaffolding erected, and talked of the changed face of London, did not alas realize that they were the ones who would be asked to pay for it.

Charles had a horror of inflicting taxes. It was the surest way to a people’s disfavor. And, he thought, I like my country so well, and I have travelled so much in my youth, that I have no wish ever to set foot outside England. It would therefore grieve me greatly if I were asked to go travelling again.

Money! How to come by it?

His ministers had one solution on which they continually harped. Marry a rich wife!

He would soon have to marry; he knew that; but whom should he marry?

Spain was anxious that the woman he married should have some ties with their country. The Spanish ambassador had put forth some suggestions tentatively. If Charles would consider a Princess from Denmark or Holland, Spain would see that she was given a handsome dowry.

Charles grimaced. He remembered the “foggy” women of those capitals in which he had sojourned as an exile. His ministers wished him to take a rich wife; it was imperative for the state of the country’s finances that he did so. And for the sake of my comfort, he had begged, let her be not only rich but comely.

His ministers thought this a frivolous attitude. He had his mistresses to be beautiful; suffice it that his wife should be rich.

Hyde was a strong man. He had deliberately flouted Barbara; and only a strong man would do that, thought Charles grimly. Hyde had forbidden his wife to call on Barbara, and Barbara remembered insults. She was going to be angry when she heard that the King was giving him the Earldom of Clarendon at the Coronation. Why do I give way to Barbara? he asked himself. Why? Because she could amuse him far more than any woman; because there was no physical satisfaction equal to that which Barbara could give. And why was this so? Perhaps because in her great gusto of passion she herself could enjoy so wholeheartedly. One could dislike Barbara’s cupidity, her cruelty, her blatant vulgarity, yet Barbara’s lusty beauty, Barbara’s overwhelming sensuality chained a man to her side; it was not only so with himself. There were others.

But he must not think of Barbara now. He must think of a means of raising money.

When he returned to the Palace Lord Winchelsea was waiting to see him. Winchelsea had recently returned from Portugal, and he had news for the King which he wished to impart to him before he did so to any other.

“Welcome, my lord,” said the King. “What saw you in Portugal that brings such brightness to your eyes?”

“I think mayhap,” said Winchelsea, “that I see the solution to Your Majesty’s pecuniary difficulties.”

“A Portuguese wife?” said Charles, wrinkling his brows.

“Yes, Sire. I had an interview with the Queen Regent of Portugal, and she offers you her daughter.”

“What manner of woman is she?”

“The Queen is old and earnest, most earnest, Your Majesty.””

Not the Queen—I have not to marry her. What of the daughter?”

“I saw her not.”

“They dared not show her to you! Is she possessed of a harelip, a limp, a squint? I’ll not have her, Winchelsea.”

“I know not how she looks, but I have heard that she is mightily fair, Your Majesty.”

“All princesses are mightily fair when they are in the field for a husband. The fairness is offered as part of their dowry.”

“Ah, Sire, the dowry. Never has there been such a dowry as this Princess would bring to England—should Your Majesty agree to take her. Half a million in gold!”

“Half a million?” cried the King, savoring the words. “I’ll swear she has a squint, to bring me half a million.”

“Nay, she is fair enough. There is also Tangier, a seaport of Morocco, the island of Bombay—and that is not all. Here is an offer which Your Majesty cannot afford to miss. The Queen of Portugal offers free trade to England with the East Indies and Brazil. Sire, you have but to consider awhile what this will mean to our merchants. The treasure of the world will be open to our seamen….”

The King laid his hand on Winchelsea’s shoulder. “Methinks,” he said, “that you have done good work in Portugal.”

“Then you will lay this proposition before your ministers, Sire?”

“That will I do. Half a million in gold, eh! And our sailors to bring the treasure of the world to England. Why, Winchelsea, in generations to come Englishmen will call me blessed. ’Twould be worthwhile even if …”

“But I have heard naught against the lady, Sire. I have but heard that she is both good and beautiful.”

The King smiled his melancholy smile. “There have been two miracles in my life already, my friend. One was when I escaped after Worcester; the other was when I was restored to my throne without the shedding of one drop of blood. Dare I hope for a third, think you? Such a dowry, and a wife who is good … and beautiful!”

“Your Majesty is beloved of the gods. I see no reason why there should not only be three but many miracles in your life.”

“You speak like a courtier. Still, pray for me, Winchelsea. Pray that I get me a wife who can bring much good to England and pleasure to me.”

Within a few days the King’s ministers were discussing the great desirability of the match with Portugal.

On the scaffolding the people had congregated to watch a procession such as they had never seen before. They chattered and laughed and congratulated one another on their good sense in calling the King back to his country.

Tapestry and cloth of gold and silver hung from the windows; the triumphal arches shone like gold in the sunshine; the bells pealed forth.

The King left his Palace of Whitehall in the light of dawn and came by barge to the Tower of London.

On St. George’s Day the great event took place. The procession was dazzling, all the noblemen of England and dignitaries of the Church taking part; and in their midst rode the King—the tallest of them all, dark and swarthy, bareheaded and serene with the sword and wand borne before him on his way to Westminster Abbey.

That was a day for rejoicing, and all through it the city was thronged with sightseers. They were on the river and its banks; they crowded into Cheapside and Paul’s Walk; they waited to see the King, after his crowning, enter Westminster Hall, passing through that gate on which were the decomposing heads of the men who had slain his father.

“Long live the King!” they shouted; and Charles went into the building which was the scene of his father’s tragedy. And when he sat at the great banqueting table, Dymoke rode into the hall and flung down the gauntlet as a challenge to any who would say that Charles Stuart, the second of that name, was not the rightful King of England.

Music was played while the King supped merrily, surrounded by his favorites of both sexes; and when it was over he took to his gilded barge and so to Whitehall.

But the merriment continued in the streets where the fountains flowed with wine; the bonfires which sprung up about the city cast a fantastic glow on the revelers.

Men and women drunk with wine and excitement lay together in the alleys and told each other that these were King Charles’ golden days, while others knelt and drank a health unto His Majesty.

The glow of bonfires was like a halo over the rejoicing city, and from a thousand throats went up the cry: “Come, drink the health of His Majesty.”

A few weeks after his people had crowned him King, Charles called together his new Parliament at the House of Commons and welcomed them in a speech which charmed even those who were not outstandingly Royalist in their sympathies.

“I know most of your faces and names,” said Charles, “and I can never hope to find better men in your places.”

Charles had come to a decision. He had to find money somehow. The revenue granted him was not enough by some £400,000 to balance the country’s accounts. Charles was grieved because the pay of his seamen—a community in which he was particularly interested, for indeed he considered them of the utmost importance to the Nation’s security—was far in arrears. He had had to raise money in some way, and had borrowed from the bankers of the city since it was the only way of carrying on the country’s business; and these bankers were demanding high rates of interest.

How wearisome was the subject of money when there was not enough of it!

So he had come to his decision.

“I have often been put in mind by my friends,” he told his Parliament at that first sitting, “that it is high time to marry, and I have thought so myself ever since I came into England. If I should never marry until I could make such a choice against which there could be no foresight of inconvenience, you would live to see me an old bachelor, which I think you do not desire to do. I can now tell you that I am not only resolved to marry, but whom I resolve to marry if God please…. It is with the daughter of Portugal.”

As the ministers had already been informed of what went with the daughter of Portugal the house rose to its feet and showed the King in boisterous manner that it applauded his choice.

Barbara heard the news. She was perturbed. The King to marry! And how could she know what manner of wife this Portuguese woman would be? What if she were as fiercely demanding as Barbara herself; what if she resolved to drive the King’s mistress from her place?

Barbara decided she was against the marriage.

There were many people to support Barbara. Her power was such that she had but to drop a hint as to her feelings and there would be many eager to set in motion any rumor that would please her.

“Portugal!” said Barbara’s friends. “What is known of Portugal? It is a poor country. There is no glass in the windows even at the palaces. The King of Portugal is a poor simple fellow—more like an apprentice than a king. And what of the Spaniards who are the enemies of the Portuguese? Where will this marriage lead—to war with Spain?”

Barbara demanded of the King when they were alone together: “Have you considered these things?”

“I have considered all points concerning this match.”

“This dowry! Her mother must be anxious to marry the girl. Mayhap she can only marry her to someone who has never seen her.”

“I have reports that she is dark-haired and pretty.”

“So you are already relishing your dark-haired pretty wife!”

“’Tis well to be prepared,” said the King.

Barbara turned on him fiercely. There was a flippancy about his manner which frightened her. Of all her lovers he was the most important by reason of his rank; the others might seek consolation elsewhere, and she would not care with whom; with the King it was another matter. There must be no woman who could in his estimation compare with Barbara.

“Ah,” sighed Barbara. “I am an unfortunate woman. I give myself … my honor … and I must be prepared to be cast off when it pleases you to cast me aside. It is the fate of those who love too well.”

“It depends on whom they love,” said the King. “Themselves or others.”

“Do you suggest that I think overmuch of myself?”

“Dearest Barbara, none could help loving you beyond all others—so how could you yourself help it?”

“It amuses you to tease me. Now tell me that you will not let this Portuguese woman come between us.”

She put her arms about his neck; she lifted her eyes to his; they were wet with tears. Barbara was a clever actress and, even though he knew this, her tears could always move him. Barbara tender was almost a stranger.

He said: “There is only one, Barbara, who could prevent my loving you.”

“And who is that?”

“Yourself.”

“Ah! So I have let my feelings run away with me, have I? How easy it is for some to be calm and serene…. They do not love. They do not care. But when emotions such as mine are involved …” She threw back her head and laughed suddenly. “But what matters it! You have come to see me. We are here together…. This night we may be together, so let the devil take the rest of my life…. I still have this night!”

Thus she could change from tearful reproaches to urgent passion; always unaccountable, always Barbara.

Nothing should alter his relationship with her. He assured her of that. “Not a hundred Portuguese women who brought me ten million pounds, twenty foreign towns and all the riches of the Indies.”

That year passed pleasantly for Charles. There was business to be conducted, affairs of state to be attended to, there was sauntering in the Park, bowls and tennis; there was racing, sailing and all the pleasures that a King could enjoy who was full of health and vigor.

He had made inquiries of Portugal. He had written letters to Catherine of Braganza, charming letters, which reflected his own personality, the letters of a lover into which he was able to infuse the illusion that the marriage which was to take place was not as one arranged by their two countries but based on pure love.

By the end of the year Barbara was pregnant again. She was exultant.

“I am glad!” she cried. “I would have the whole world know that I bear your royal child. This time there shall be no doubts. Charles, if you doubt this one to be yours, I’ll not have it, I swear. I’ll find some means of destroying it ere it is born…. If that fails, I’ll strangle it at birth.”

The King soothed her. The child was his. He was as sure of that as she was.

“Then what will you do to prove it? How long shall I remain plain Barbara Palmer?”

It was more than a hint, and the King was not slow to act. It seemed only fair to him that Roger Palmer should be rewarded for his complaisancy.

It was during that autumn that Charles wrote to his Secretary of State: “Prepare a warrant for Mr. Roger Palmer to be Baron of Limerick and Earl of Castlemaine, these titles to go to the heirs of his body gotten on Barbara Palmer, who is now his wife.”

Barbara was delighted when she heard she was to be the Countess of Castlemaine.

She could not rest until she had sought out Roger.

She flung the news at him like a gauntlet.

“Now you see what marriage with me has brought you!”

“I know what marriage with you has brought me.”

“Come, Roger, why do you not rejoice in your good fortune? How many women are there in the world who can bring an earldom to their husbands?”

“I had rather you remained plain Barbara Palmer.”

“Are you mad? I, plain Barbara Palmer! You fool! I see I work in vain to bring honor to you.”

“It is so easy … so natural for you to bring dishonor on all those connected with you.”

“You sicken me.”

“As your conduct does me.”

“Roger Palmer, I despise you. You stand there, so sanctimonious … such a hypocrite. Do you think I see not the lust in your eyes? Why, I have only to beckon you and you’d be panting for me … dishonor or not…. You fool! Why should you not share in the honors and riches I can bring to us? Do not think that this is all I shall have. Nay! This is but the beginning.”

“Barbara,” he said, “be not too sure. There will be a Queen of England on the throne ere long. Then it may be that the King will be engaged elsewhere and may not come a-supping with you night after night.”

Barbara flew at him, and the marks of her fingers lingered on his cheek long afterwards.

“Don’t dare taunt me with that! Do you think I’ll allow that miserable little foreigner to come between me and my plans?” Barbara spat over her shoulder; she liked to indulge in the crude manners of the street; it was as though it brought home to herself as well as others that she had no need to act in any way other than the mood of the moment urged upon her. “She’s humpbacked, she squints! The only way her mother can find a husband for her is by giving away half her kingdom.”

“Barbara … for the love of God, calm yourself.”

“I’ll be calm when I wish to be. And wild when I wish to be. And I’ll tell you this, Master Roger Palmer—who cannot bend his stiff neck to say a gracious thank-you for the earldom his wife has conferred upon him—I’ll tell you this: the coming of this Queen will make no difference to my relationship with the King.” She put her hands on her stomach. “In here,” she cried, “is his child. Yes … his … his … his! And by the saints, I swear this child shall be born in the royal apartments of Whitehall. Yes! even if my confinement should take place during the honeymoon of this Portuguese idiot.”

Her eyes flamed. She turned away and paced the floor.

She was eager to tell the King of her plans for lying-in when her time came at his Palace of Whitehall.

Christmas came. Charles had laughingly waved aside the question of Barbara’s lying-in. It was six months away, and he never let events so far ahead cast a shadow over the pleasure of the moment.

Marriage plans were going forward. It seemed very likely that by the Spring the little Portuguese would be in England.

The thought of her excited him, as the thought of any new woman would. That again was an excitement for the future. In the meantime there was Barbara to be placated, and enjoyed.

Barbara was brooding, still determined to be confined in his Palace. He wondered if he had been right to confer a great title on her husband that she might enjoy it. To give a little was to be asked for much. His experience of a lifetime told him that.

Still, there were occasions when he could remind even Barbara that he was the King, and he foresaw that when he had a wife such occasions might occur with greater frequency.

That again was a matter for the future.

So it was a merry Christmas—the merriest since he had come into England, for last Christmas had been overshadowed by the deaths of his brother and sister. It was good fun to revive those merry customs which had been stamped out by the Puritans—the old revelries of Christmas and Twelfth Night.

There was sadness to come in the New Year. His aunt, Elizabeth of Bohemia, who was at his Court, died there, and it was to him that she turned in her last moments.

He was saddened; he was indeed a family man; he could not bear that any member of his family, which had been so tragically torn apart in his youth, should die.

He had been fond of his aunt.

“So few of us are left now,” he pondered. “There is James and Mam and Minette … and Mam is ailing, and Minette has never been strong … as James and I are.”

He wrote to his sister then: “For God’s sake, my dearest sister, have a care of yourself and believe me that I am more concerned for your health than I am my own.”

She understood him as, he often thought, no one else in the world had ever understood him.

She wrote to him that she was thinking of sending him a little girl to be a maid-of-honor to his Queen when she arrived in England. “She is the prettiest girl in the world,” wrote Minette, “and her name is Frances Stuart.”

The Earl of Sandwich was soon on his way to Portugal. Arrangements were being made to receive the King’s bride in England; and there was always Barbara to placate.

He was spending as much time in her company as he ever had.

He was now supping at her house every night, and the whole city was talking of the King’s infatuation for its most handsome woman, which did not diminish even though he was negotiating for a wife.

He but takes his fill of Castlemaine until the Queen arrives, said the people. Then we shall see the lady’s handsome nose put out of joint.

Charles was treated to the whole range of Barbara’s moods during that spring. She would plead with him not to let the Queen’s coming make the slightest difference to her position; she would scorn him for a coward; she would cover him with caresses as though to remind him of the physical satisfaction which she alone could give.

She was determined to bind him more closely to her than ever.

She talked continually of the child—his child—which was to be denied its rightful bedchamber when it came into the world. She pitied herself; she flew into rages and threatened to murder the child before it left her womb.

She demanded again and again that she should have her lying-in at Whitehall Palace.

“That is impossible,” said the King. “Even my cousin Louis would not so insult his wife.”

“You did not think of your wife when you got me with child!” “A King constantly thinks of his Queen!”

“So I am scorned.

“For the love of God, Barbara, I swear I cannot much longer endure such tantrums.”

Then she wept bitterly; she wished that her child had not been conceived; she wished that she herself had not been born; and he was at his wit’s end to stop her doing herself some damage.

But on one thing he was adamant. It seemed likely that her child would be born just at the time of his Queen’s arrival in England and the child must be born in Barbara’s husband’s house.

“What will become of me?” wailed Barbara. “I see I am of no account to you.”

“You shall have a good position at Court.”

She was alert. “What position?”

“A high position.”

“I would be a lady of the Queen’s bedchamber.””

Barbara, that is almost as bad as the other.”

“Everything I ask is bad. It is because you are tired of me. Very well. You no longer care for me. I shall take myself to Chesterfield. He is mad for me. He would leave that silly little wife of his tomorrow if I but lifted my finger.”

“I will do much for you,” said the King. “You know it well.”

“Then promise me this. I will go quietly to my husband’s house and there bear our child. I will not embarrass you while you receive your wife. And for that … I shall be made a lady of your wife’s bedchamber.”

“What you ask is difficult.”

“Are you a King to be governed? Are you not a King to command?””

It seems that you would command me.”

“Nay! It is that humpbacked, squint-eyed woman who would do that. Come, Charles. Show me that I have not thrown away all my love on one who cherishes it not. Give me this small thing. I shall be a woman of your wife’s bedchamber and I swear … I swear that I will then be so discreet … so gracious … that she will never know that there has been aught between us two.”

He was weary of her tirades. He longed to rouse the passion in her … He wanted to find the Barbara who returned his passion so gloriously when she was in that abandoned mood which made her forget to ask for what she considered to be her rights.

She was near that mood. He knew the signs.

He murmured: “Barbara….”

She leaped into his arms. She was like a lovely animal—a graceful panther. He wanted her to purr; he was tired of snarls. “Promise,” she whispered.

And weakly he answered, for now it seemed that the moment was all important to him, and the future a long way off: “I promise.”