Charles the King (33 page)

When the surgeon had bathed his wound and re-bandaged it, Cromwell sat down to write an account of the battle to his brother-in-law; afterwards he knelt for an hour in concentrated prayer. He was up before dawn inspecting his troops.

On June 16th, the Queen gave birth to a daughter at Bedford House in Exeter. Her doctors were not concerned with the baby; it was surprisingly healthy. They gave it into the care of the midwife who had been sent over from France by Henrietta's sister-in-law, Queen Anne, and did what they could for the mother.

Henrietta was desperately ill; she was feverish and tortured with pains and swellings all over her body, and the doctors were already discussing who should send the King the news that his wife was dead. Even the old English doctor Mayerne, who had travelled all the way from London after a personal letter from the King, thought it unlikely that Henrietta would live for more than a few days. At first most of her symptoms were hysterical; he had written to reassure Charles that there was no need to worry, and at the time he had felt greater pity for the harrassed King fighting his enemies outside Oxford, than for the weeping, ailing woman. He was an old man who seldom practised, but he had fond memories of the King in the brilliant days of Whitehall, and the tragic cry of that letter, “Mayerne, if you have ever loved me, go to my wife,” had brought him out of his retirement and sent him on the long and dangerous journey to the West Country.

But now, five days after the birth, he noted the signs of temperature and the racing pulse, and revised his opinion. By the end of the week it was common knowledge all over the city that Essex was marching on them with a large army to raze Exeter and capture the Queen.

She was propped up on a heap of pillows with a thin covering over her, for she complained of the heat and weight of the bedclothes and her face was flushed and damp with fever. It was a miracle to them all that she was still alive. She looked at the anxious faces round her, and dragged herself upright, catching hold of Mayerne's sleeve.

“What is it? Has something happened to the King? Mayerne, for the love of God, tell me!”

“Nothing has happened to His Majesty,” the old man said gently. “All the news of him is good, Madam. He has evaded the enemy, and is bringing his army Westwards, towards Exeter.”

“Thank God,” Henrietta leant back and closed her eyes. “All that matters to me is his safety. Why are you all here, Mayerne? Have you come to tell me that I am going to die? I have known it for days and I am not afraid.”

“Madam,” he said at last, “you must prepare yourself. Your health is better than we hoped a few days past and now we cannot keep the news from you a moment longer. The Earl of Essex is marching on Exeter. The City Commander says he cannot hold it against such a force. You must decide what you are going to do, Madam, while there is still time. If you stay here, Exeter will fall and you will be captured. If you fly, you will almost certainly die on the way.”

She did not answer for a moment. Essex was marching on Exeter, where Charles had assured her she would be safe …

“But you said the King was coming?” her voice quivered.

“And so he is, Madam; he knows what is threatening you and he has turned his army to the West to try and head them off. But he won't be in time. There is no doubt, no doubt at all. Essex will reach you first.”

She lay very still, with her eyes closed, almost as if she were sleeping, and for a few moments they stood round the bed, looking uncomfortably at one another, watched by the sturdy French midwife who did not understand a word of English.

At last Henrietta opened her eyes, and Mayerne was surprised to see them flash with something like her old fiery spirit.

“I will never be captured. I will never live to be held hostage against the King. I will ask that wretch for a safe conduct and if he refuses, I will go without it. How long can I wait?”

“One week, Madam, and not a day longer. Agreed, gentlemen?” The two doctors nodded.

“Then we have a week to prepare. You needn't warn me that Essex will refuse, Mayerne, I know that already. I'm not counting on anything but flight.”

“You realize what it may mean for you,” he reminded her gently.

“I do. I have no illusions.”

“And you cannot take the child. You will have to travel by night and run the risk of their advance patrols. A new-born baby would betray you. The Princess must be left behind.”

“I know that too;” she turned away, biting at her lips to stop a fresh outburst of tears.

“The child can be hidden here; no one will denounce her. And what happens to me is not important. I would rather die a thousand times than live and be used to harm His Majesty. Thank you, gentlemen. Will you be good enough to leave me for a little while. I'm very tired …”

When they had gone, the midwife came to her; she was a plump, cheerful woman, the most skilled in her profession in the whole of France, and she was shocked by the plight of the Queen of England, who had borne her child in such uncomfortable conditions, with her husband and children far away. She bathed Henrietta's face with rose water, and gently brushed back the damp hair.

“Bring me the baby,” Henrietta said.

“Not now, Madame,” the midwife protested. “You are exhausted with all these people talking. You must sleep first.”

“I can sleep later. Bring the baby here.”

It was a small child, but the weight of it made her arms ache, she was so weak. She held it, moving the embroidered satin shawl away from its face, and kissed it.

“The King named her Henriette, even before she was born,” she said. “She's a beautiful child, Péronne, and so healthy, isn't she? Look at her skin, it's like a rose …”

“Beautiful indeed, Madame,” Madame Péronne smiled at them both. Few of her noble patients showed as much interest in their children as the Queen of England.

“And exactly like the King,” Henrietta whispered. “Her hair has red lights, and her eyes are the same blue as his. They won't change, will they … They're too bright to change …”

The baby kicked in its coverings and began to cry. It was a loud and lusty cry. Henrietta held her tightly for a moment, and when she raised her head the midwife saw that she was crying bitterly.

“Take her,” she said. “And don't let me see her again. In a week from now I shall be leaving Exeter without her. If I see her or even hear her cry before I go, my heart will break.”

Essex refused a safe conduct. If the Queen fell into his hands, he retorted, he would send her under guard to London to stand trial, where she would be in good company, for the vindictive and victorious Parliament had dragged the ageing and enfeebled Laud out of his prison in the Tower and arraigned him on a charge of treason.

Fifteen days after her child was born, Henrietta gave it into the care of Lady Dalkeith and escaped from Exeter in disguise. She was hardly well enough to walk; her fever continued and she hid for two days without food in a peasant's hut, under a heap of refuse, while the soldiers of Essex's army marched down the road outside. A week later she reached Falmouth on the Devon coast, carried in a litter with a little company of faithful ladies and gentlemen who had met her on the way, and on July 14th she embarked on a Dutch ship and sailed through a bombardment of Parliament ships to the safety of France.

Those who had made that frightful journey with her spoke of her survival as a miracle. She had not died on the road, or in the wretched hovels which sheltered her, but her spirit was broken and her health was gone for ever. Her last letter to Charles, explaining why she had left him, reached him at Dartmoor a week later.

The words swam in front of him, distorted by the tears which filled his eyes and fell in drops upon the paper.

“I am giving you the strongest proof of my love that I can give. I am risking my life so that I may not hinder your affairs or prejudice your victory. If I die, believe that you will lose a person who has never been other than entirely yours—” The pen had trembled, blotting the last letters, and then been taken up again in an unsteady hand. “And who by her affection deserves that you should not forget her … Adieu, my love, may God protect you always, ever your faithful and devoted wife …”

Charles folded the letter and put it away in his coat. The Battle of Marston Moor had been lost; Newcastle's men had been annihilated, and Newcastle himself had fled to Holland. Rupert had been defeated, and his defeat was like an omen. He had marched his weary army into Devonshire in a desperate attempt to save Henrietta, but he had not been in time and she had gone. She had gone to France where she would be safe and well, and now he was free to continue the war without the fear of her death or capture to impede him. His mind was light of that insupportable burden, but now that she had truly left him, his heart was as heavy as if he had suffered the final defeat.

In November of that year, Cromwell rose in the House of Commons, in the place where he had sat silent for so many sessions while the great orators like Pym and Hampden spoke. The atmosphere was hostile, for the members were suspicious of the insignificant squire who had returned as a famous General. His voice filled the Chamber, resonant and full of fire and authority, and it was the voice of a preacher with an inflammatory power that made his words sweep over them like the exhortations of the ancient prophets. He denounced Manchester, and until that moment Manchester had been their favourite. He denounced the muddle and delay which had squandered the victories bought with the blood of thousands of honest men. Let those who sat in Lords and Commons prove their good faith, he demanded, as he was ready to do, and disarm all criticism of the army and the Commons, by resigning their commands. When he had finished, the Self-Denying-Ordinance was passed by a triumphant majority and the career of Manchester and all the moderates was in ruins.

The army was voted an independent force, generalled and officered by men outside the power of Parliament, guaranteed regular pay and identical training. By popular demand, Cromwell was pressed to defer his resignation, and with suitable humility he allowed them to persuade him to keep the power he had wrested from his rivals. Essex had been defeated by the King in Devonshire, and Essex had failed to seize the Queen. Essex retired into the shadows with Manchester and all those who might have wanted to keep the King in power after his defeat. And now the defeat was only a matter of months.

And in his dwindling Court at Oxford Charles waited for the final battle. The West of England still held out for him, and Rupert was in the North, gathering recruits and forming an army to replace the scattered hosts of Marston Moor. The months passed and the new year opened with preparations on both sides for what each knew would be the end for one and the beginning for the other. And in January, 1645, four years after the death of his friend Strafford, the seventy-year-old Archbishop Laud went out alone to die on the scaffold on Tower Hill.

“Your Majesty, Her Majesty the Queen and His Eminence the Cardinal will see you now. If you will be gracious enough to follow me …”

Madame La Flotte was a personal friend of the Queen of France, and she curtsied very low before the Queen of England who had come to beg an audience at the Louvre.

Henrietta was unable to walk without a stick; her spine had been wrenched in childbirth and her shoulders were not quite straight; she was haggard and haunted-looking, with prematurely grey hair. She had once been high-spirited and decidedly frivolous; now she was never seen to smile.

“I hope your health is better, Madam,” the lady-in-waiting ventured to speak to her, presuming on her singular friendship with Queen Anne of France.

“I am as well as I shall ever be,” Henrietta answered. “I owe my life to the care Queen Anne has taken of me since I came here as a miserable fugitive. She has a noble heart.”

“She has suffered a great deal herself,” La Flotte said under her breath. “Only now at last she is finding a little happiness. Two years ago she could not have succoured you, Madam. She had scarcely the right to order a few necessities for herself.”

“I know how my sister-in-law was persecuted by my brother King Louis and by Cardinal Richelieu. She has survived her trials with fortitude and now fortune smiles on her as brightly as it once shone on me.”

And not only fortune, but another Cardinal, and a very different Cardinal from the implacable genius who had ruled France for over twenty years until his death. Richelieu was dead, and his successor as Minister and confidant of the Crown was an Italian, Giulio Mazarin. But where Richelieu had been the King's man, Mazarin was the Queen's.

And Anne was Regent for her son, Louis XIV, and in a position to alter the outcome of the war which was blazing across the Channel. Kind, generous Anne, who had sent her money and a midwife when she was in such straits at Exeter. As she approached the entrance to Anne's private apartments Henrietta began to hope as she had not dared to do for months.

The French Queen's Cabinet was in fact a large room with a high frescoed ceiling, and an abundance of splendid furniture and hangings, and Queen Anne herself was sitting in a velvet chair under a canopy at the far end of it when Henrietta came into the room.

She rose and walked forward to meet her sister-in-law; the two women kissed, and Anne led her by the hand back to the chair. The figure of a man detached itself from the shadow behind that chair and moved down towards Henrietta, his scarlet robes sweeping the floor; they hid his feet and she thought suddenly that he moved as if he were gliding. It was not a man's approach; it was as smooth as the dark handsome face which bowed over her hand. He had very black eyes and they shone at her with velvety softness. There was no reason in the world why that look should make Henrietta feel suddenly very tired and weak and unsupported, and wish that her green velvet dress were not three seasons out of fashion.