Charles the King (24 page)

He was courteous to his enemies, moderate in his council to his friends, and apparently without rancour for what he had been forced to do. And a sense of shame crept over his people and with it a feeling of uneasiness. Parliament ordered arrests and conducted prosecutions and suddenly the ancient order seemed preferable with all its abuses to the innovation of a supreme power in the hands of the Commons and its leader Pym. In August, Charles left for a visit to Scotland. His intention was to restore peace and confidence in his changed policy and to unite his Scottish subjects under the Crown, bringing as he said, both countries to a firm co-operation. Parliament could not stop him; they sent commissioners to report on his proceedings because they trusted neither Charles nor the Scots. To reassure them he left the Queen and his children behind at Oatlands, and he also left a disturbing impression that he had been wiser and fairer in his rule of England than the men who had crippled his power.

In that hot summer of 1641, Oliver Cromwell was a frequent visitor at Pym's house, and he had found a friend among the landed gentry. Sir Thomas Fairfax was a very rich man, he was cultured and shy. He was a Yorkshireman, like Strafford whom he had hated with relentless bitterness and his father was a wealthy and influential peer. Fairfax was as handsome as Cromwell was uncouth and ugly, but the two men possessed the same fierce religious feeling, and a burning sense of mission. Neither liked Pym, neither liked his position of unrivalled power or trusted his dealings with the nobility. And if Pym considered the King beaten, Cromwell and Fairfax did not.

They paced up and down Pym's narrow garden on that hot afternoon and after a moment Fairfax said suddenly:

“How quiet it is, sir. Not a sound in the streets, not a voice raised. Three months ago we lived in tumult. Now the whole nation might be sleeping.”

“It's an unnatural quiet,” Cromwell said. “I don't like it, it's the lull before the storm and the storm is not of our making. The centre of it is in Scotland, wooing the Scots away from us. And his quietness is the worst of all.”

“He hasn't changed,” Fairfax said, “I hear everyone round me praising his forbearance, taking his promises as if he meant to keep them. He's submissive because he's plotting. I'd wager my life on that.”

“That's what we're all wagering,” Cromwell looked up at the bright sky and frowned. “No man gives up his power with a good grace. And ours is a King whose love of it brought the whole country to the edge of ruin. Why does he go to Scotland, Sir Thomas, answer me that? It is for love of them? Why, God's life, they were the first to defy him with armed force I He's set out against them twice with an army and now he goes full of fair words of friendship, calling himself King of Scotland and taking his worst enemies into his Scottish Council, flattering and ennobling right and left. He's trying to win them over so that when he returns he can strike against us! I've said this again and again to Pym but he won't listen. He thinks the King is defeated and he's bent on humiliating and breaking him still further.”

“Pym goes too fast,” Fairfax said slowly. “Even some of my friends are changing. Three months ago they were set against the King, ready to kill Strafford with their own hands if he refused consent, but now they're murmuring and its not a murmuring I like to hear. All the blame is laid on Strafford. See, they say, now that the tyrant is dead, how sweetly reasonable the King's become! And what are these powers the Commons take to themselves without any right or precedent when they first proclaimed themselves the guardians of the ancient law? I cannot talk to Pym. I try but he smiled and shrugs and turns my arguments against me.”

“Lawyers' tricks,” Cromwell said angrily. “His tongue is smooth enough but his sense is another matter. He's only a common man, Sir Thomas, dealing with common men, and in the end the commonalty prefer to bend their knees to Kings! If he doesn't turn away from taxes and legislation and look to the true point, we'll be helpless when the time of testing comes. And it is coming, Sir, it's coming as surely as the night will follow this day!”

“I believe that,” Fairfax said. “But what is the true point? In all this welter of debate and law making, which is it?”

Cromwell stopped and faced him, his small eyes were smaller still under their heavy lids and there was a piercing light in them.

“The army—the army is the ultimate of all power, greater than tradition, greater than law! And the right to command the army and the right to levy troops is still the King's right. It is the only one left to him, but by Heaven it's the only one that will count in the end! And that's what Pym will not see! Times have changed; the nobles who followed him unwillingly to Scotland see that not only his authority but theirs is being taken by Parliament. I tell you, Sir Thomas, if the King made a call to arms, he'd find a strong and willing support among the nobles
and
the gentry. They wanted to be rid of Strafford and limit the King's power, and now they find they cannot halt what they began.”

Fairfax put his hand upon his shoulder and the two men stood still.

“Do you think it should be halted?”

Cromwell looked at him and again the fanaticism blazed in his pale eyes.

“No, I do not. I think it should go further even than Pym dreams. I think the chance has come to sweep away all the privilege and abuse which has bedevilled our country for centuries. At last we are in a position to keep faith with our ancestors and bring the Reformation to reality. We can abolish the Bishops and destroy the last vestige of Romanism. We can give every man the right to worship according to his conscience and the right to live under just laws, free from the caprices of a King. Parliament can be the saviour of England and England can save the Protestant world if we accept our destiny with courage. And Pym is no longer the man to do that. God knows who is,” he added slowly.

“God knows and he will direct him,” Fairfax said quietly. “Let us go in now, Oliver.”

Charles was in Scotland, making friends with his old enemies, and Henrietta was at Oatlands secretly negotiating with every peer and landowner who could supply the King with troops and money. Both of them were tireless, both of them sacrificed their pride and exerted their charm, so different and yet so appealing, in the cause of winning allies and infusing loyalty into those who had wavered and even those who had actually betrayed them in the past. In Scotland, Charles tried to make amends to his tough, independent nobles by giving them positions in his Government, promising them the religious reforms they wanted and attaching them to himself personally.

Henrietta's letters assured him that at home their friends were growing in numbers and importance. The nobility resented Pym and the Parliament, and the moderates in both Houses longed for a return to stable government, headed by a wise and tolerant King. All was going well at Oatlands and all was going well in Edinburgh, and then suddenly, with the speed and fury of a volcanic eruption, rebellion blazed out in Ireland.

It was a rebellion for the King. It was the rebellion of the Irish Catholics, nobles and peasants alike who saw their rights threatened by the power of the Puritans across the Channel. All Strafford's work had been undone, all his attempts at justice for the native population and tolerance for their religion were reversed by his triumphant enemies and to the minds of the Irish worse was to come. The nation rose in arms, with the King and the Church as their battle cry, and soon the refugees were streaming into England, telling tales of horror and atrocity, lucky to escape the vengeance of the rebels who were burning and killing in a terrible retribution for the wrongs inflicted on them over the last hundred years. From that moment the issue Cromwell raised in the Commons became the only one that mattered. Parliament and not the King must raise the army to crush the Irish revolt.

Henrietta met Charles at Theobalds, the magnificent Elizabethan country mansion built by the old Queen's great Minister Burleigh and, forgetting all protocol, they ran into each other's arms, surrounded by their children.

Tenderly he kissed her cheeks and lips, and stroked her hair, and held her away from him to see how she looked. Still pretty, still as sparkling and vivacious as ever, but there were fine lines under her eyes and grey lights in her hair.

“My love,” Charles whispered, “my own darling love, thank God to see you.”

“And you,” she said, clinging to him. For some moments they stayed in each other's arms, ignoring the young Prince of Wales and his brothers and sisters who stood shyly in the background, waiting to greet their father. They loved their children, but that love came far behind the intense passion they felt for each other. At last Charles broke away from her and kissed his eldest son. Their eldest daughter Mary was already married to the Protestant Prince of Orange. It was a poor match for such an illustrious Princess, but her parents had more need of the Dutch Prince's money than time to search for a suitable bridegroom. The bride was only ten and her husband twelve, and Henrietta had delayed sending her to join him for a very pressing reason. When the King went to war, and they both knew that now there was no alternative, she needed an excuse to leave the country and raise money and support for him abroad. So Mary came forward and curtsied and kissed her father's hand, and then he hurried his wife away to their apartments and the children returned to their own quarters.

“What has been happening?” Henrietta asked him, “Tell me, tell me everything!”

“I wrote as much as I dared,” Charles said. She was sitting on his knee with her arms round his neck, and he interrupted her questions to kiss her repeatedly.

“I've won over the Scots,” he announced. “Rothes, Montrose, even Argyle. I've made Argyle's kinsman, Loudon, my Chancellor, and Argyle himself a Marquess. I've even given General Leslie the Earldom of Leven!”

“Leslie, who led the Covenanters against you?” she exclaimed. “Charles, how could you!”

“Easily. I went to make friends, my love, and I succeeded. I cannot hope to fight here with the Scots at my back unless they can be trusted. And now I feel certain of them. I've drawn my worst enemies into my government and made them' my friends. We've nothing to fear from Scotland … What news from you?”

“Good news,” she said happily. “I've talked to so many people I can hardly remember them all. I saw them all at Oatlands and I can promise you money and men from Lord Herbert, Bristol and of course his son Digby, George Goring, Newcastle and Falkland and Sir Ralph Hopton, to name only a few! Half the Lords are ready to side with you and abandon Parliament, and I hear news from some of my people in Ireland that the Irish rebels are only waiting to march into England if you will give the word.”

“You've performed miracles,” he said gently. “Those names alone mean millions of pounds and thousands of men. God bless you, sweetheart.” He hesitated, hating to rebuke her when she had accomplished so much. “But what do you mean by some of my people in Ireland? How have you communicated with the rebels?”

“Oh, by word of mouth and by letter—other people's letters,” she added quickly. “I hear news through the priests here at the embassies. The rebellion is for you, my darling. For once in their history these people have given an example of loyalty to the world.”

“An example of treason,” Charles said slowly. “Treason and horror, without my consent and using my name. I forbid you to involve yourself by word or letter with anything or anyone connected with it. The revolt must be put down. If I need Irish troops I'll send for them in my own time.”

“That's what you said to Jermyn and Goring,” Henrietta retorted. “And you never did use them because Pym found the plot out somehow and the whole thing miscarried. Why will you never act without troubling about all these scruples and niceties like what is treason, when a whole race is fighting your enemies and offering to support you, and these Puritan wretches are levelling your power with every day that passes. Now they want command of the army and the Militia! Will you give them that, before you fight?”

She got down from his knee and faced him angrily.

“I will never give them that,” he said quietly, and reaching out he took her hand and brought her close to him. “Don't flay me, sweetheart, I couldn't bear to quarrel with you. Come here and sit with me again.”

“I'm not flaying you,” Henrietta said. “I love you more than anything in the world, but there are times when you frighten me more than the people who are fighting against us. You are a good man, my love,” she touched his face and looked into it sadly. “A good man and a kind one, always trying to do what is right and hoping that by doing so you'll turn away the wrath and wickedness of men who could never be like you. In my heart I know you're nearer to God than I shall ever be.”

“A King should be in His Image,” Charles said. “I cannot compromise with what is right and still claim to be a King in the true sense. I have only done that once, and I shall never know peace of mind again.”

“Thomas had to die,” she whispered. She had heard him say again and again that he had perjured his soul by condemning Strafford. He had turned to her and to many witnesses on the morning of the execution and said simply, ‘I owe a life,' and then walked out of his room and spent the rest of the day on his knees in the Chapel at Whitehall.

“You must not blame yourself, blame me if you like. It was I who persuaded you.”

“I shall always blame myself,” Charles answered. “Thomas was not your responsibility. Yours was my safety and the safety of our children. You were right in your way, my darling, but I was eternally wrong in mine. I compromised once and all I know is that I will never compromise again with anything I know is wrong. The Irish rebellion is wrong, and I will not make use of it.”