The Three Crowns

THE UNFAITHFUL HUSBAND

In spite of his dislike of his father-in-law William received him with respect. He met the royal party on their arrival and conducted them, surrounded by a guard of three thousand, to the Palace at The Hague.

As soon as the formal greeting was over James asked after his daughter, making many inquiries as to her state of health and expressing his concern.

“Your climate here is not good,” he said. “It is damp and cold.”

“I believe it to be very little different from that of England,” retorted William.

“There’s a world of difference. Ours is far more clement. Has not Mary suffered from ill health since she has been here? The ague! Those two miscarriages! She rarely had a day’s illness before she came to Holland.”

As James was the most tactless of men and William never made any concessions to flattery, there was certain to be friction.

William conveyed the fact that he was well aware why James was in Holland; and he strongly hinted that that reason would not endear him to a nation which was firmly Protestant and still remembered the miseries of the Spanish Inquisition.

Before they reached The Hague both knew that the visit was going to be an uneasy one.

When James and his wife were alone with Mary they embraced her tenderly. James held her at arms’ length and studied her; then they wept together. It was a great joy to Mary to be able to weep in comfort.

Mary Beatrice said: “Our only happiness at this time is to be with our dear Lemon.”

“Is it true,” asked Mary anxiously, “that you have been turned out of England?”

“I fear so, Mary,” James confessed. “I have many enemies and do you know who is foremost among them? Monmouth.”

“Oh, no.” Mary shook her head. She would always be especially fond of Jemmy and although she knew he behaved shamefully now and then she had always tried to make excuses for him. She would never forget how he had come to Richmond and been so kind to her, teaching her to dance. She believed that the reason she danced so well—and dancing was one of her greatest pleasures—was due to Jemmy’s tuition.

“He goes about the country calling himself the Protestant Duke. He is always urging Charles to legitimize him and you know what that means.”

“The King loves him dearly.”

“The King can be foolish when he loves—as we have seen with Castlemaine and Portsmouth.”

“Most men can be foolish over their mistresses,” said Mary, glancing at her father.

“Monmouth has made everything so much more difficult. I have always had my enemies and they have prevailed upon my brother to send me out of England. It is a polite kind of exile.”

“The King was deeply moved when we left,” Mary Beatrice reminded him.

“Oh, yes, he did not want us to go. But he had to accept it. My only comfort during these days is in my family … my dear wife—my dear daughters, you, Mary, dear Anne, and little Isabella.”

Mary thought: And your mistresses—unless you have very much changed, which I greatly doubt.

And she wondered why she felt her sympathy for her father touched by criticism. Was she beginning to think a little like her husband?

“Father,” she said, “all your troubles are due to your religious beliefs.”

“Well, I shall not be the first to be victimized for that reason. Mary, while I am here I want to talk to you about religion.”

She stiffened. “I do not think it would be any use,” she said quickly. “I respect your views, father, but I have mine; and they are far removed from Rome.”

“Oh, you are becoming a little like your husband. Do not, I pray you, become a Calvinist.”

“I belong to the Church of England, Father, as I was taught from a child. It is a faith which suits me well and in which I believe.”

“Hooper has been instructing you, I’ll be bound. Here is a sad state of affairs—a father who is not allowed to have charge of his own daughters.” James shook his head and looked melancholy. “You were taken away from me when you were beginning to grow up. They were afraid I would influence you, I … your own father. Anne wanted to come with us, in fact was coming … but the people did not wish it. They feared that I … her father … might influence her, might turn her into a Catholic. That is the state your father is reduced to, Mary. Here you see him … an exile from his country.”

“It is very sad,” said Mary; and she thought: But if you were not a papist none of it would have happened. She was beginning to see through William’s eyes.

William could not hide his distaste for his father-in-law and James, aware of it, found his position becoming more and more uncomfortable. He was turned away from his home because he was not wanted there, and however much Charles expressed his regret he showed clearly that he was ready to accept the demands of his brother’s enemies. And so he had become a guest at his son-in-law’s Court—but not a welcome one.

One night he awoke in his apartments with griping pains, alarming Mary Beatrice as for some minutes he could do nothing but groan and press his hands against his stomach.

“What can it be?” cried Mary Beatrice fearfully. “I must call for help.”

But James shook his head. “We are here in a strange country, an enemy’s country. How do we know what that enemy plans against us?”

“James, you think William is trying to poison you!”

James groaned aloud. “My body tells me someone has.”

She was hastily scrambling out of bed, but he detained her.

“Wait awhile. I fancy the pain grows less. Perhaps they have not succeeded this time.”

“I cannot believe this of the Prince. Our dear Lemon would never allow it.”

“Do you think Mary has any say in matters at this Court? Have you not seen the manner in which he treats her? My daughter will always be a good daughter to me—but how I distrust her husband!”

“You are a little better now, James?”

He nodded. “The pain is subsiding. For a moment I thought this was the end of me.”

“My poor, poor James.”

“Ah, you have been a good wife to me. You have given me our dear Isabella.”

“And I shall give you sons one day, James.”

“If that hope is to be realized,” he said, smiling wryly, “I do not think we should spend another day at The Hague. If I am well enough we shall leave in the morning.”

“We cannot go back to England, James. Where can we go?”

His lips twisted into a bitter smile. “Exiles!” he said. “Behold the heir of England who has no lodging but that which is grudged him. No, my dear wife, we cannot return to England and if we value our lives we cannot stay at The Hague. We will go to Brussels for a while and there await events.”

In the morning the Duke of York was sufficiently recovered for a journey. With his wife and a few friends he set out for Brussels.

To be an exile! To know that in one’s own country one was not wanted. It was enough to make the gayest of men melancholy; James was scarcely the gayest.

In Brussels he dreamed of home. Mary Beatrice did her best to console him—and herself, with the reminder that at least he was separated from some of his mistresses, but she was certain that it would not take him long to fill those vacancies. It was a pity he could not find men to support him as easily as he found women to share his bed.

Mary Beatrice loved him dearly and to her he was always tender. Like Anne Hyde she found him a good husband apart from this failing—which was, alas, the cardinal sin of marriage. He himself deplored it, but found temptation irresistible. Poor James! He could not help failing in everything he did.

Mary Beatrice longed for the company of her enchanting little daughter Isabella, the only child who had survived and had now lived three years. Such an adorable creature, a delight not only in herself but because she was a symbol that Mary Beatrice could have healthy children, a promise that one day she would have a son.

If her stepdaughter Anne could have accompanied them she would have enjoyed those days in Brussels more; and of course she saw nothing now of dear Lemon; in any case she was worried about this stepdaughter, because William was not pleasant to James and it seemed that Mary was a little cowed by him.

A not very happy state of affairs for James—with Monmouth setting himself up in opposition to his uncle, ostentatiously calling himself the Protestant Duke, William of Orange an ungracious host, and all the enemies at home! Just when Mary Beatrice was beginning to be happy and to love England all these troubles were rising round her.

“If,” she told her husband, “I could only have little Isabella with me, I could I think be more reconciled.”

James clenched his fists and cried: “Why should we endure this? Why should we be cut off from home and family? I shall write to my brother without delay. I am going to tell him that since we are to stay here we must have our children with us.”

“They may allow Isabella to come. But will they allow Anne?”

“I will promise not to contaminate my own daughter,” retorted James bitterly.

He went to his table and wrote such an impassioned appeal to his brother that in a short time news came to them that the Princesses Anne and Isabella with suitable attendants were on their way to Brussels.

The Princess of Orange was suffering so acutely from the ague that her father was summoned to her bedside at The Hague.

James went at once and there was no doubt that his presence comforted Mary. When she heard that Anne and Isabella were on their way she was delighted and her determination to get well quickly was so beneficial that in a short time she had left her bed.

But relations between the Prince of Orange and his father-in-law were as uneasy as before and James declared his intention of returning to Brussels. Mary said that when her sister and half-sister arrived they must be her guests and William made no objection.

There followed a few happy weeks. Anne had arrived with the adorable Isabella who took an immediate fancy to her half-sister Mary which was reciprocated. In Isabella Mary saw the child she had recently lost and could scarcely bear her out of her sight; and to have her dearest Anne with her, that she might hear all the gossip from England, filled her with delight. How was Frances? she wanted to know. She had only her letters to tell her and letters were inadequate. There was Sarah Jennings, now Sarah Churchill, full of vitality, governing all those about her, including her Colonel John who had accompanied the party. After a few days Mary felt she could have been very happy without the company of Sarah Churchill who seemed to have completely bewitched Anne, for she listened attentively to everything she said and appeared to take her advice on all matters.

Sarah, sensing the hostility of the Princess of Orange, was not in the least perturbed. She thought Mary a ninny who was considerably under the thumb of the man she had married. That was no way to live, in Sarah’s opinion. And her John, who adored her more as the weeks passed and who rarely acted without taking her advice, was proving her right.

She had the Princess Anne in leading strings; she was determined to make a great career for John; so she was in no mood to allow the faint criticism of such a weakling as the Princess of Orange to disturb her ways.

Mary Beatrice awoke each day with desire to enjoy it which was almost fanatical. She wanted each day to be twice as long; for always at the back of her mind was a fear that it could not last; and in fact she knew it could not. When her mother arrived from Modena, she felt that this was the happiest time of her life—or would have been if she were not continually reminded of the exile and the memory of their enemies.

The Duke of York burst into his wife’s apartment; an unusual color burned in his cheeks and his eyes were brilliant. He shut the door and made sure that they were alone before he told her what had excited him.

“A letter,” he cried, “from Halifax! Charles is ill … unto death, they say. Essex joins with Halifax. They say a few days will see the end of my brother.”

“Charles … dying!” Mary Beatrice was horrified, vividly picturing her brother-in-law with his dark, smiling face showing her such kindness and understanding on her arrival in England that he had made the future seem just tolerable.

James nodded. He, too, was fond of his brother, but this was no time to indulge in sentimentality.

“You see what this could mean! Charles, dying, and myself in exile. Just the chance Monmouth and his friends are waiting for. I have to go back to England … without delay.”

“But, James, it is forbidden. If you were betrayed they could send you to the Tower.”

He put his hands on her shoulders and smiled at her tenderly. “My dear,” he said, “if this be the end of my brother, I shall be the one who decrees who and who shall not be sent to the Tower.”

“So you are going to England?”

“I am.”

“But James, Charles is not dead. You are not yet King.”

“Have no fear. I shall be disguised and no one will recognize me.”

Mary Beatrice clasped her hands in dismay. This was an end of peace. James was going into danger. And what would happen to them if her dear kind brother-in-law were no longer there to protect them?

She would be Queen of England and James King—but, she asked herself, what would become of them?

A party of five men were riding to the coast. At the head of them was the Duke of York and with him rode John Churchill, Lord Peterborough with Colonel Legge; his barber came on behind.

They spoke little as they rode; every one of them was aware of the need for speed; even now what could they know of what was happening in England? Delay could be disaster.

It took them two days to reach Calais; the first night they spent at Armentières and when they arrived at the coast James bought a black wig and with this hoped he would disguise himself. They found a French shallop and in this crossed to Dover; from there they rode with all speed to London, and went to the house of Sir Allen Apsley in St. James’s Square, where Frances and her father welcomed the party warmly.

“The King still lives,” said Sir Allen, “and indeed is much better. It is well that you have come, but I trust the Monmouth gang are unaware of your arrival.”

“ ’Tis to be hoped so,” said James, “for I must see my brother before my enemies know I am here.”

Frances was longing to ask for news of Mary but this was not the appropriate time. The Duke’s brother-in-law, Laurence Hyde and Sidney Godolphin, came at once when Sir Allen let them know that James had arrived. Both these men occupied high places in the government. Godolphin was now a widower having married Margaret Blagge, the gentle girl who had been reluctant to join the ballet and so upset when she had lost the borrowed jewel; Margaret had died three years after her marriage and Godolphin had never married again. Charles, one of whose favorite ministers he was, had said of him that he had the great quality of “never being in the way and never out of the way.”

These two, being aware of the aspirations of Monmouth, were determined to flout them and on their suggestion James left at once for Windsor to see the King.

Four days after he had left Brussels, James arrived at Windsor. It was nearly seven o’clock when he saw the towers of the castle and he made his way at once to his brother’s apartments where Charles, miraculously recovered, was being shaved.

Charles looked at him, feigned astonishment—but in fact he was well aware that he had been sent for—and then embraced his brother with affection.

“It does me good to see you,” he said. “We are brothers and good friends … nothing should be allowed to part us.”

James expressed his emotion less gracefully but it was more genuine. He was fond of Charles and always would be; and he was sincerely delighted to see him well.

He knelt and begged Charles forgiveness for returning.

“You should be at my side at this time,” said Charles seriously.

James was welcomed by the King’s courtiers but it soon became clear that he would not be allowed to stay. There was a large section of the people who did not want him; the cries of: “The Duke is back. No popery!” were heard again. His enemies were too numerous.

Charles said: “You will have to go away, James. I sometimes fear that if you stay they’ll send me off too.”

“Return to Brussels!” cried James. “Have you an idea what my life is like there?”

“A very good idea. I was once an exile myself in Brussels.”

“Then you will understand that I find it … unbearable.”

“We bear what we must.”

“Is it necessary?”

“For a while James, yes.”

“Then I ask a favor … two favors. Let me go to Scotland where I have friends and where I can feel less of an outcast.”

Charles considered. “It could be arranged,” he said at length.

“And the other favor,” began James.

“I had hoped you had forgotten it. But let us hear what it is.”

“Should Monmouth stay in England while I am in exile?”

Charles looked at his brother wryly.

Reluctantly he agreed that he had a point there.

Monmouth would be sent abroad; and James would return to Brussels to collect his family and then go to Scotland.

Mary missed her family sadly and found it hard to settle down to life without them. William was as brusque as ever and she longed for him to show a little affection toward her. She excused him again and again to herself; he was noble, idealistic, she believed; naturally he had little time to fritter away with a wife when state affairs were such a concern to him. And she was a frivolous young woman who liked to dance, play cards, and playact.

He was unaware of her wistful glances but she began to build up a picture of him as a hero; he was the savior of his country; one day perhaps when she was older and wiser she would be able to share his counsels; that would be a goal to hope for.

There was something else which grieved her. Dr. Hooper and his wife, of whom she was very fond, returned to England. His stay had not been a comfortable one for William disliked him, mainly because he had persuaded Mary to remain faithful to the Church of England and not to join the Dutch Church.

It seemed to Mary when they left that not only had she lost the very dear members of her family but two good friends. In Dr. Hooper’s place came Thomas Kenn, a fiery little man who never hesitated to say what he meant and right from the first he expressed displeasure with William’s treatment of his wife. He was unkind and impolite, said Kenn. And that was no way in which to treat a Stuart Princess.

Mary wished that he would not call attention to William’s attitude when she was just beginning to make herself believe that the unsatisfactory state of her marriage was due to her own inadequacy. She wanted to make a hero of William; it was the only way in which she could find life endurable. She had to love someone because it was her nature to do so. Dear Frances, the beloved husband of fantasy, was so far away; besides, she had a real husband; in her imagination she was building William up into the hero figure, and people like Kenn with their caustic criticism did their best to destroy the dream.

There was another newcomer to The Hague. This was Henry Sidney who replaced Sir William Temple as British envoy; he was a very handsome man, the same who had been over-friendly with Mary’s mother and on account of this had been temporarily banished from the Court by James. Sidney was still unmarried, extraordinarily attractive, and in a very short time had become very friendly with William.

Mary had begun to suffer more alarming attacks of the ague and with the coming of winter these were more frequent, causing her to take to her bed.

During the cold weather she became so ill that she was not expected to live and there was consternation at The Hague. William saw his chances of the throne diminishing, for Anne and her children would stand in his way. In vain did he remind himself of Mrs. Tanner’s vision of the three crowns. But if Mary died how could he achieve them?

He visited her and sometimes she was aware of him.

“You must get well,” he said. “You must get well. What shall I do without you?”

Those words were like a refrain in her mind. Had she not always known that he was no ordinary man? He loved her; he needed her; because he had not been able to show his affection she had believed it did not exist.

It was a thought which sustained her through those days and nights of semi-delirium. Sometimes she thought she was floating down the Thames in a barge from Windsor to Whitehall; at others she was acting with Jemmy, and Margaret Blagge was there crying because she had lost a diamond; sometimes she was standing at the threshold of a room looking on at Jemmy and a woman … or her father and a woman; she cried out her protests and someone put cool ointment on her head and soothed her with gentle words. Then she was writing to Frances. “Dear husband …” And it was not Frances who was reading but William who said: “Did you not understand? I loved you all the time. I am not a man to talk of love. Would you have me as your father … as Jemmy … ready to make love to any woman anywhere?”

“No … no,” she whispered. “I would have you as you are. I have been foolish. I did not understand. But I do now. I must get well. You said you needed me.”

She did begin to recover. The fits were less frequent; the spring was coming and the apartments were filled with sunshine. Flowers were laid on her bed.

“The Prince of Orange sent them from his own gardens.”

Her fingers caressed them. “They are wonderful,” she said, and told herself: “I must get well. I have grown up now. I understand what I could not before. I shall no longer irritate him by my tears and childishness. I shall try to be wise, to talk with him of his plans, of his ideals. I shall listen at first while I learn … but I will let him know how willing I am to learn.”

She saw a future in which they would sup together; and they would talk. He would tell her what he thought of certain ministers; perhaps there would be little conferences between them, with Bentinck sharing of course. She would have to accept Bentinck who rarely left his master’s side.

So she began to get better.

Anne Trelawny and Elizabeth Villiers were quarreling.

“I trust you will be a little more careful now that the Princess is so much better.”

“What I do is my affair,” replied Elizabeth Villiers.

“It would be very much the Princess’s affair if she knew you were sleeping with her husband.”

“Do you propose to tell her?”

“You know your secret is safe with me … if it is a secret. She doesn’t suspect. So innocent is she.”

“One would have thought having been brought up in her uncle’s Court she might have learned a little suspicion.”

“He is so … so …”

“Yes?” mocked Elizabeth. “Pray proceed. What, you will not? Are you afraid I shall tell him?”

“How do I know what you say to him in bed at night?”

“Well, rest assured I shall not tell you.”

“I beg of you do not tell the Princess either. That’s one thing I would ask of you, Elizabeth Villiers. For God’s sake don’t let the Princess know you are the Prince’s mistress.”

“And one thing I would ask of you, Anne Trelawny, is look to your own affairs, and keep your nose out of mine.”

Mary had meant to surprise them, to walk a little farther, to open the door quietly and say: “See how much better I am!”

She had paused by the door. She had heard them. Anne, loyal Anne, who had nursed her so devotedly, her best friend in Holland, and Elizabeth Villiers, the traitor.

She stood against the door, her hand on her heart which was beating irregularly and as though it would burst out of her body.

“Don’t let the Princess know you are the Prince’s mistress.”

Elizabeth Villiers! who had been the jarring influence in the nursery. And William loved her!

If it had been anyone else, it would have been bearable. But would it?

She had fallen in love with her image of William during those hazy days of illness. She had fought off the listlessness which could have carried her to death; she had wanted to live; she had fought for life, because she had wanted to be loved by a husband whom she could love; she wanted a happy family, a man whom she could admire and adore, children made in his image.

“What shall I do without you?”

She had heard that? Or had she imagined it?

He had said it, she was sure, and then he had gone to bed with Elizabeth Villiers.

Elizabeth was so much older than she was, so much wiser. How long had it been going on? From the beginning? When she had so disappointed him, had Elizabeth been there to console him? She remembered hearing that Elizabeth had had a lover. Was it true? A lover before William? She would not have been a silly shrinking virgin, frightened by the touch of a stranger.

Elizabeth … and William!

She did not know what to do. If she sent for Elizabeth and accused her of being a harlot, what would William say? He would despise her more than ever.

Something had happened during that illness. She had fallen in love with an ideal husband who did not exist and she had fallen out of childhood.

She must remember that she was a woman now; she was royal. Princesses and Queens did not make scenes with their husband’s mistresses unless of course they could banish them from Court, which she could not. She thought of poor little Mary Beatrice, who had been nothing more than a child when she had discovered that her husband still kept his mistresses. How she had wept and stormed! And what had James done? He had made vague promises which he had not kept; and he had avoided his wife because he hated scenes. William was different. She could picture the coldness with which he would receive her accusations.

She faced the truth. She was afraid of William—afraid of his coldness and anger. She had intended to melt that coldness with her own ardor; but Elizabeth Villiers had done that before her.

Strangely she did not weep.

She was grown up now; she had done with weeping; but she would keep herself under a rigid control; neither Anne Trelawny nor Elizabeth Villiers should know that she had overheard their words.

When Anne came into the apartment she found her mistress lying on the bed, her face pale but composed. Anne thought she looked exhausted and anxiously asked if she needed anything.

“To be left alone,” said Mary. “I am so tired.”

Mary was eighteen and when she finally rose from her sickbed she seemed older. The change in her was noticed; she, who had always seemed young for her years, had become a woman.

She was composed and dignified, quiet and gentle. She did not betray by a gesture or look that she knew Elizabeth Villiers to be her husband’s mistress, even though Elizabeth was in constant attendance. William rarely visited her; she wondered whether he had come to the conclusion that she could not give him children or whether being Elizabeth’s lover demanded all he had to give in that way—his physical disabilities would make it difficult for him to play the constant lover.

She did not complain; she waited, praying for strength to bear whatever she must; and because she had built up an image of William which she had forced herself to love, she continued to love that image and to tell herself that indeed it was the true William.

Had she been as eager to escape from him as she was in the early days of marriage her life would have been easier; but she could not do this now.

She wanted to please William; she longed for his approval; she continued to hope that one day he would turn from Elizabeth to her and the ideal relationship for which she craved would begin.

But there were times when she was very unhappy; then she would take up her pen and write to Frances.

It was long since they had corresponded and now she upbraided Frances for her long silence.

It was soothing to scold a dear husband. She could think of them as one—William and Frances. Dear husband … dear faithless husband!

“I daresay you are grown cruel,” she wrote, “for it is long since you wrote to me. Oh, dearest, dearest husband, send me a letter. One kind word will give me ease. Have you forgotten me? Do you love someone else? I do not now mourn a dead lover but a false one. Daggers, darts, and poisoned arrows I could endure them all for one kind word from you.…”

Dear Frances, she said as she sealed the letter. Frances would understand. Perhaps she had heard. Rumors traveled quickly; and those in the center of a scandal were often the last to hear of it.

If she knew, Frances would understand that Mary had grown to love her stern William and had discovered that he was an unfaithful husband.

The cry of dear husband was not addressed to Frances … but to William.