Charles the King (34 page)

By contrast, the Queen of France was almost too effusive. She held her sister-in-law at arm's length and exclaimed indignantly at the ravages of travelling and worry that she saw. And under Anne's examination, Henrietta looked at her with envy. She had always been beautiful; she could remember Buckingham standing rooted in front of Anne at a reception in Paris, and saying out loud that he beheld a goddess rather than a mortal woman. It was a fiery beauty, full of colour and statuesque proportions, and there was not a grey light in her red hair or a line on her smooth and handsome face. And yet she was a cold woman, cold and strained and lacking in natural charm. Henrietta felt grateful to her for her kindnesses, and they were many, but she also sensed reserve. She also imagined that while they were exchanging trivialities about their health and Henrietta's dreadful experience and escape, that the Queen glanced once or twice towards the Cardinal who stood a few paces behind them and did not speak a word.

“My poor sister,” Anne said, “How terribly you've suffered. I can't bear to think of it. Come, Cardinal, doesn't it horrify you?” He moved beside her, and to Henrietta's surprise he put his hand on top of the Queen's chair. His enormous ruby ring shone in the candlelight.

“Thank God your trials are over, Madam,” he said gently. His French was heavily accented. Henrietta stiffened; this was her opportunity, and she knew by instinct that unless she came to the point, her interview would be over and she would not have been encouraged to say anything. Neither Anne nor the Cardinal had asked for news of Charles.

“My trials have just begun, Eminence,” she said. “I may be safe under your kind protection, but my heart and soul are with my husband. And you must believe me when I say that only my love for him brings me to beg still greater favours from you.”

“My dear sister,” Anne said uncertainly, “what can we do?”

“Send money and men to England!” Henrietta begged her. “The King is in desperate need of help. In his last letter he told me that the rebels have reorganized their army, and that it outnumbers him by two or three to one. He has no resources left, he has pawned and borrowed on everything he possessed and I haven't a jewel left to sell for him. Madam, I beg of you, think of his position! How can he arm and feed and pay his troops without money.”

“Has no one subscribed for him?” Mazarin asked gently.

“Everyone,” Henrietta spoke up sharply in defence of the hundreds of loyal peers and gentlemen who had beggared themselves to help the King.

“Everyone has given to him with the utmost generosity. Lord Newcastle alone gave him three million pounds since the beginning of the war. There's nothing left to give.”

“Wars are expensive,” the Cardinal remarked. “As we know to our cost, having just fought one with Spain. Our own finances are sadly low. I cannot help feeling that the King of England would be wise to treat with his Parliament if he is really as hard pressed as you say.”

“That's good advice,” Queen Anne interrupted quickly before Henrietta had time to answer. “After three years of war, both sides must be ready to compromise.”

“The King will never compromise,” Henrietta's voice trembled; she was afraid that she was going to demean herself by bursting into tears in front of them. “If he loses, God only knows what will be done with him … Madam, Madam, I beseech you, think if your own son were in peril from a treacherous revolt, bereft of men and money, separated even from those who love him best in the world—think if it were him and yourself, and give me one word of hope to send to my husband!”

“What use are words?” Anne said slowly.

She avoided the strained and desperate face of the unhappy woman and looked up at Mazarin for guidance. He had warned her to delay seeing Henrietta, impressing upon her in his gentle yet insistent way how awkward it would be to refuse her pleas for help. Because she was certain to make them, and it was cruel to disillusion her by explaining that France had no intention of wasting men and money to put back on his throne a King who was incapable of keeping it—as incapable as he was of winning this extremely foolish war. He had made Charles seem so inept and ridiculous that she had lost her sympathy for him; now it had returned and to her miserable embarrassment, the proud and noble Henrietta, daughter of Henri le Grand, Princess of the Blood and Queen of the three Kingdoms over the Channel, left her chair and fell on her knees in front of her and Mazarin.

“I kneel and implore you both,” Henrietta was weeping as she tried to speak. “Send help to my husband before it is too late. If he is defeated he will never run away. And if they capture him, they will kill him. I ask you, my Lord Cardinal, use your influence with the Queen and her Council, in the name of a brave and noble King!”

Anne rose from her chair and whispered quickly to him. “Giulio, Giulio, can't we do something …” Out of sight of the Queen of England, who remained on her knees, Mazarin put out his hand and pressed Anne's shoulder. “No,” he murmured. “You have promised to trust me … I know what is best …”

Courteously he lifted Henrietta to her feet.

“Hope, Madam, and pray to the Almighty Power. It is unfortunate that you come to France at a time when we are in no position to help you or the King of England. France is impoverished by many wars and unstable after the misgovernment of the late Cardinal. Believe me, my heart bleeds for you and his Majesty King Charles. And now, if you will pardon us, Her Majesty is expected in Council.”

Henrietta stood in front of them, and her sad pinched face was suddenly hard. She glanced at the tall, handsome woman in her rich blue dress, diamonds worth millions of livres sparkling round her neck and wrists, and, as she looked at her, the Queen of France avoided her eyes and turned away. She was ashamed and embarrassed, but there was nothing she could do. It was suddenly obvious to Henrietta that Mazarin and not Anne had been conducting the audience. And as she looked at them both, her instincts, sharpened by suffering and anxiety to an abnormal pitch of sensitivity, told her that they were lovers. She straightened, and without speaking to Mazarin she turned to her sister-in-law. The reproach and the contempt in her eyes made Queen Anne flush to the roots of her fiery hair.

“I understand, Madam,” Henrietta said. “I thank you for the shelter you have given me and all the proofs of your kindness. Forgive me for asking that you should extend your generosity to the person who is dearest to me in the whole world. I will take the Cardinal's advice and go and pray that God may help him in his mortal need. I see only too plainly that he has nothing to expect from France.”

It was a very hot day a heat haze shimmered over the flat plain of Broad Moor which stretched below the Royalist Army, and further still, drawn up in order of battle on rising ground, the sun set the armoured hosts of Parliament on fire. Seven thousand troops, mounted and on foot were waiting to fight for the King on that boiling June day in 1645, and fourteen thousand soldiers of Cromwell's New Model Army prepared to meet them across the baked and dusty plain.

Charles, mounted on his white horse, wiped the sweat from his face and stood in his saddle to watch Rupert's cavalry on his left flank, for Rupert was about to lead the attack.

The King had dined with his nephew the night before, after leaving Market Harborough with only a few hours to spare before the enemy caught up with them, and Rupert had chosen this spot, a few miles beyond the little town of Naseby, to halt and accept Cromwell's challenge. In spite of everything, Charles felt a resurgence of hope that morning. No aid was coming from France; Henrietta had admitted that, in a letter full of anguished apologies, but he had not expected any. His armies were depleted and undisciplined, but the hard core of loyalists and officers were with him still, and over the border Montrose had at last raised the Royal Standard in the Highlands and was routing the Covenanters of Argyll. If he could win today, with the genius of Rupert to help him, all was not yet lost. And now the battle was beginning. A shout rose, as it had done at Edgehill and Marston Moor and many other places where Englishmen had shed their blood over the past three years, and the word of command was taken up and passed down the troops of cavalry, and though there were only two thousand of them left, Rupert's horsemen stood in the saddle and yelled their battle-cry, and the roll and rumble of hundreds of horses hooves made the ground tremble.

Charles had chosen the word for the day, the day on which he knew he would either be finally defeated or restored to power. And because his rough Englishmen could not pronounce Henrietta's name in full, he had shortened and anglicized the last part of it. His army advanced upon Cromwell with the battle cry “Queen Mary!”

Rupert's big black horse was galloping ahead, flying over the rough ground, and behind him, racing in line abreast, the famous Cavalry rode down into the hollow of Broad Moor and passed up the hill like a wave. And like a wave, with the shocking impact of a mighty tide of steel and muscle, they smashed into Ireton's horses on the brow of the hill. Rupert himself killed and ran down so many men that he reined in to wait for the rest of his forces, and recognizing the commander of the retreating enemy, yelled to his men to capture and not kill him. For a moment Rupert paused, looking down on the dishevelled soldier in his breastplate and scarlet coat. Blood was seeping from beneath his steel helmet, and two of Rupert's cavalrymen were binding his arms behind his back.

“Your name,” the Prince shouted at him.

“Colonel Ireton, Commander in the Parliament Army,” the prisoner answered. Rupert levelled his sabre and brought it against the man's throat; Ireton remained standing where he was, and Rupert surprised him by laughing and putting his weapon up.

“I know your name and your fame,” he said. “You're also a brave man, sir, and for that reason I'll not cut you down as you have done to prisoners taken from me. Content yourself; you'll see your general before the day is out, and in the same sorry case as yourself. Unless he meets with me, because I'll surely kill him.” He spurred his horse and in leaping forward, it knocked the helpless Ireton to the ground.

“Forward,” Rupert's shout rallied his men from their business of riding down the fleeing stragglers. “Forward to Naseby!”

As the King's cavalry chased down the hidden side of the hill in pursuit of the enemy's baggage train, the Royalist infantry locked in a fierce struggle with the foot-soldiers of Thomas Fairfax. Sir Jacob Astley, the veteran of Edgehill, had been made a peer by Charles, and he fought the last battle of his life with the tactics used at Leipzig so many years ago, his pikemen in the centre, his musketeers supporting them on either side. He was sixty-six, and he led his forces into battle, crying the name of the Queen he had never liked, and by the miracle of courage and example, he thrust Fairfax back on his reserves. From his place on the hilltop, Charles turned excitedly to Lord Carnworth, a Scot and a professional soldier, and pointed to the wavering, retreating line of the enemy.

“God be praised,” he said, and he thrust his glasses on him. “Look for yourself! Rupert has broken through, and Astley is pushing their infantry back. We're going to win, Carnworth, we're going to win the battle and the war!”

As he spoke, and the Scot focused the glass upon the confusion below them, the dark and glittering mass of Cromwell's cavalry detached itself from the right flank of the enemy, and began to trot down the hill. The trot became a canter, and as they approached the rise behind which the Royalist, Sir Marmaduke Langdale, and his horses waited, the canter broke into a furious gallop. It was a terrifying sight. They were not scattered or uneven like the best of Rupert's horses. They rode side by side in unbroken lines, perfectly disciplined, the sun blazing down upon their polished breastplates, racing across the uneven ground and breasting the hill in a most unnerving silence, and from that distance it was impossible to see if the great General Cromwell was riding in the first line of them or not. As Charles snatched the viewing glass back and strained to see through the thick dust, Cromwell's Ironsides met with Langdale's men, and broke through them as if they had burst a paper hoop. The sounds of fighting were all about Charles; his horse began to tremble and curvet nervously from side to side; he calmed it gently.

“Who is it, Sire?” Carnworth demanded. “Who's leading them? They've ridden Langdale into the ground …”

“General Cromwell,” the King said, but the noise of shouts and firing was so close that the Scot could not hear him. “Cromwell,” he repeated. “For the moment I had forgotten he was here in person.”

There was no doubt about it now; officers passed him running for their lives, and as they passed, they shouted to him to ride off. Rupert had won, and old Lord Astley had driven Fairfax back, but Cromwell had driven his men down upon the cavalry protecting the King and his reserves, and having scattered them, he wheeled his troops and fell upon the infantry. The Royal Horseguards surrounded Charles; they were picked and seasoned cavalry, every man of whom was trained to fight to the death for the King. He turned to the commanders of the troop.

“There is the enemy! Follow me!” Carnworth heard him, and as Charles called out, he sprang forward and pulled his horse's head round.

“Will you go to your death?” he shouted. “Ride back, Sire, ride for your life!” He lashed the white horse with his own crop and the animal sprang forward away from Cromwell's advancing troopers, and as the King turned, struggling with his frantic mount, the Horseguards wheeled and followed him into retreat.

When Rupert returned with his cavalry, he found the Royalist army broken and fleeing, and the King carried away into the rear. Astley was captured and his infantry, including Rupert's famous Bluecoats, perished as bravely as the vanished host at Marston Moor. By the afternoon five thousand men were prisoners of the Parliament, and the King and what was left of his officers were fugitives. Cromwell declared that God's triumph was complete when he welcomed his friend Ireton back into his camp.