Charles the King (9 page)

One of his hunting dogs came over from the fireplace and settled by his chair, its muzzle resting on his knee. Charles stroked it, and then rang the silver handbell which summoned his page of the bedchamber from the ante-room outside.

“I will be served privately here this evening,” he said. “Send word to the Queen that I shall not be joining her this evening and she may retire when she wishes.”

Chapter 3

At the end of September the King of France sent Marshal Bassompierre as his ambassador to England to enquire why Charles had dismissed the Queen's retinue and was permitting the Penal Laws to function in England in defiance of the terms of his marriage treaty. The atmosphere between the two countries was as hostile as the situation between Charles and Henrietta, but it was unrelieved by any saving moments of reconciliation. They quarrelled, but less violently than before, and as Charles's experience increased and his tenderness guided him, Henrietta began to respond to the physical aspect of marriage, and to find in it a release from the tension and jealousy caused by her husband's defence of the Duke of Buckingham. But they needed the mediation of someone outside their own circle, and the worldly Frenchman arranged a compromise within two months of his arrival, the terms of which permitted the Queen a limited number of French attendants and a complete Catholic Chapel at St. James's, and released Charles from the impossible obligations of allowing freedom of worship to his Catholic subjects.

Bassompierre went back to France imagining his mission to be a success, and found that the French King considered it a failure and the mitigations of the agreement a victory for the bad faith and bigotry of the English who had promised everything to gain his sister and consistently broken their word. There was no toleration for the English Catholics and he considered himself free to turn his attentions to the strong and militant Protestant community in his own country. He was advised on this course by Buckingham's old enemy, Cardinal Richelieu. The bastion City of La Rochelle on the west coast of France was a Protestant stronghold. The forces of the French king, led by the Cardinal, invested it for a siege and cut it off from the outside world by a fleet of twenty-six ships. The treaty with England was broken, the mass of English public opinion saw the siege of La Rochelle as part of the anti-Protestant campaign which was raging through Germany and Bohemia, and there was no alternative open to Charles but to declare war on Henrietta's country and go to the assistance of his co-religionists in France. The King summoned the second Parliament of his reign to vote the money for a fleet and an army to succur La Rochelle with Buckingham in command. Parliament, strongly Puritan and wholly Protestant, was in agreement with the war; it was in agreement with any measure aimed at the iniquitous followers of Rome, from a full-scale war, to the death of an ageing Jesuit whom the King had tried to pardon. But it was not in favour of the Duke of Buckingham as the expedition's leader. No favourite is popular, and his extravagance and immorality made him particularly hated by that section of the Commons who regarded a visit to the theatre as an unpardonable sin. If the Commons was asked to vote the money for the war, then the Commons felt they had a right to interfere in the choice of a commander, and to enquire into the failure of the last venture at Cadiz for which he was responsible.

Charles was holding a Council meeting at Whitehall. His second Parliament had been summoned the day before and he had opened it and made a speech, haltingly delivered because he was nervous in front of the assembly, explaining the financial needs of the Crown and the necessity of a generous grant to prepare for the war against France. The need of their fellow Protestants in Europe was being pressed upon him daily, and it was his Divine duty to come to the assistance of the Huguenots at La Rochelle. If he had not misjudged the temper of his people, they were in sympathy with that duty and anxious to see it carried out. He asked his Commons to vote the money for war with France.

Buckingham had sat in the Gallery, and he nodded approval at the King. It was a good speech, and the Duke decided that the King had made a good impression, very young and earnest and dignified. The Commons thanked him, flattered him, and promised to debate his requests. Charles went back to Whitehall, and he was discussing the needs of the navy, Buckingham proposed to take to La Rochelle when Lord George Goring was announced.

Charles looked up in surprise. He disliked being disturbed at Council meetings; Lord Holland, the Duke of Newcastle and the Lord Treasurer, Lord Weston, were seated down each side of the table, and Buckingham was at the end, facing the King.

“What is it, Goring?”

“Sire, forgive me for intruding but I dared not wait another moment! I was down at the Commons this morning—the Queen wanted to know how the debate was progressing when one of the members began attacking the Duke of Buckingham!”

“Which member?” Charles said sharply.

“I enquired, Sire. Sir John Eliot, the member for Fothering.”

“Eliot?” Buckingham said slowly. His face was slowly reddening.

“Eliot is one of my creatures—he's been under my patronage for several years … Good God, I got him elected!”

Goring turned to him.

“Well, he denounced you this morning. And that is not all. The whole House joined him. And they have impeached you for High Treason.”

“What!” Charles pushed his chair back and stood up. He saw the Duke's colour fading, and his temper blazed. Impeachment was the only means open to Parliament of attacking a Minister of the Crown. And impeachment for High Treason carried the penalty of death.

“That is impossible—they wouldn't dare!”

“They did, Sire. They said the Duke was responsible for the Cadiz disaster—they accused him of taking money from the Exchequer, of selling offices and bribing his enemies. And someone, Eliot I think, accused him of giving some potion to the late King which hastened his death!”

Everyone was standing, and slowly they turned to the Duke, the man hated by most of them and feared by all, who was suddenly attacked and called a traitor and a poisoner and called to stand a trial he would never survive. It was incredible that a secondary assembly composed of members of the middle classes and the younger sons of the nobility should have dared to do what was beyond the power of the greatest peers in England.

Buckingham was standing with them and suddenly he laughed. He came round the table and put his arm round the King's shoulder and faced them all. He was betrayed by nothing but his ashen colour and even that was changing to his usual ruddy complexion. There was not a sign of fear or surprise or of anything but amusement when he spoke.

“If they've impeached me, Sire, then I'll stand trial and answer them. I should like to send such a pack of curs running with their tails between their legs.” Even his enemies, and Goring was among them, had to admit that in that moment Buckingham was worthy of respect. Charles turned to him; he was white and strained with fury.

“You will do nothing of the kind. You are my Minister and answerable only to me. This impeachment will be stricken from the records. Goring, send someone back to the Commons and let me hear everything that is being said. Now, my Lords, we will interrupt our business to make our will known to our subjects at Westminster. Sit down, please. Lord Holland, kindly write the following.

“To the Commons at Westminster from Charles, King of England. I am willing to hear your grievances, as my predecessors have been, but I must let you know that I will not allow any of my servants to be questioned by you; much less one who is of eminent place and near to me. I see you specially aim at the Duke of Buckingham. Your business is to hasten and grant me the supplies I ask or else it will be the worse for yourselves.”

“Sire,” Lord Goring protested, “you cannot send such a message …”

“I am not aware,” the King said, without looking at him, “that I asked for your advice. I thought you had gone to send an observer to Westminster as I ordered. When you have written that, Holland, I will sign it.”

He wrote his signature at the bottom of the letter and a messenger took it to the House of Commons. Then he resumed his seat and continued with the Council meeting. No one spoke of the Parliament's action again; Charles behaved as if the incident were closed and re-opened the question of the Fleet bound for La Rochelle. All his life he had disliked friction; he was genuinely peaceful and inclined to avoid conflict if he could see an honourable way to compromise. But there was one principle which he could never yield without surrendering everything he believed in with absolute fanaticism. That principle was the authority of the anointed sovereign. He might regard himself with humility, even with dissatisfaction and doubt, but he would never admit to error as the King of England. He would never admit that any human agency had the right to question him or to impose a limit upon his Kingly power. If he had hated Buckingham, instead of loving him, his answer to the Commons would have been the same. The King's Ministers were an extension of the King's authority, and responsible to him alone for the way in which they discharged it. The attack upon Buckingham was a criticism of his master; the attempt to arraign him for treason was an infringement of the rights of the King to govern through his Ministers and thereby create a precedent which brought those Ministers within the jurisdiction of the House of Commons. And they had no such jurisdiction. Their function was to assent to the laws their Sovereign made and to provide the means of putting them into effect. If the price of their support for the war with France was an encroachment on the authority of the King, then he would fight that war without them.

Henrietta was waiting for him when he dismissed the Council. Goring had come to her with the news; he was a member of her household and one of her circle of intimates, of whom Lady Carlisle was the leader and her inseparable companion. Much of her antipathy to the English had vanished in the past few months; she found many of them amusing and agreeable and ready to respond to any sign of favour. And in spite of everything she was happy with Charles and was desperately hoping for a child.

Charles came to her and kissed her and, without being dismissed, Lady Carlisle and Lady Newport curtsied and left them alone together.

“Goring told me what had happened,” Henrietta said. “I can hardly believe it!”

“Nor can I,” Charles put his arm round her. She showed no visible sign of triumph at the attack launched on her enemy and he was deeply grateful to her.

“I sent them a message, and I don't think we will hear any more of it. Steenie has offered to stand trial, but of course I wouldn't think of it.”

“How you must love him,” she said slowly. “One is tempted to suspect that in striking at him, they are really aiming at you.”

He sat down and held on to her hands, looking up at her.

“That is exactly how I see it,” he said. “They
are
striking at me. They are striking at my authority, and that, my love, is just as important to me as Steenie himself. On my way here I prayed to God that you would understand that. I know you dislike him,” he went on, and turning her hands upwards he kissed them tenderly, “But I relied on you to see that much more is at stake than personal enmity.”

Henrietta knelt beside him, and gently touched his face.

“Six months ago I would have rejoiced to hear anyone, even the common people, do what this Parliament has done. Don't look hurt, Charles, you know I'm not a hypocrite and nothing has changed in my feelings for that man. I can never forgive him for what he has said and done to injure me, but I too am royal, and I know that, whatever happens, he must be protected against this impeachment. The men in this Parliament are subjects; they have no right to attack him because he is your servant. That is what matters. So you needn't fear I shan't support you, even though it means supporting him.”

He gathered her in his arms and held her closely. “God bless you, my love.”

She knew that war was inevitable between her own country and his; she and her family would be enemies within a few weeks, but she had not protested or reproached him. He was so relieved to find that her miraculous tolerance and control extended to Buckingham that he could have wept. She had changed, slowly perhaps and with much pain and difficulty, but there was little left of the unruly, wayward child who had caused him such unhappiness when they first married. She no longer shrank from him as a husband, and the understanding they shared in the nights was influencing every aspect of their life together. There were times when he found the magnetism of Buckingham an oppression and secretly resented it. He knew now that his wife and his favourite were in mortal competition for him and he also knew instinctively, and with relief, that his wife was slowly winning.

He began to caress Henrietta, touching her soft shoulders and her hair, drawing strength and confidence from the physical contact. Whatever happened he would not falter. Without money, without legal sanction, he would go to war and win it if he had to pawn the plate on his table and the jewels in his Treasury. And if his Parliament refused his demand and defied him, he would dissolve them and rely upon the loyalty and good sense of the English people. He pressed his wife against him and whispered, “Will your ladies come in…?”

“No one will disturb us,” Henrietta murmured “until I ring.”

Parliament defied him. The landowners and lawyers received his peremptory message with its ring of Elizabethan autocracy, and their resistance hardened. Most of them were honest men with a genuine sense of grievance and a conviction that the ineffective foreign policy which neither succoured the Protestant forces in Europe nor built advantageous alliances with anyone else was due to the influence of the King's favourite. Buckingham had always been unpopular; he was hated for his extravagance and his arrogance, and more simply because he owed his power to infinite charm. And the charm was not wasted on his inferiors. It was difficult for the members of the Commons to respect and trust the King when the King was tainted by his favourite's influence. The King had chosen the most hated man in England as his friend and an unpopular French Catholic as his wife. The tiny sect of Puritans that had been so cruelly persecuted in the preceding reigns had grown into a solid body of responsible men, many of whom belonged to the middle and professional classes and found sympathizers in the aristocracy. They believed passionately in the right of men to worship God according to their conscience, provided that it did not advise them to be Roman Catholics or even members of the Established English Church. They preached humility and virtue, but they burnt with the pride of the Israelites in believing themselves the chosen people and all others destined for hell-fire. To such people it was blasphemy to declare that a King, anointed by rites of which they deeply disapproved, was above criticism and that his immunity extended to his servants. Sir John Eliot, at one time Buckingham's protégé, was a typical example of a minor courtier drawn to the idea of a responsible legislative body where his oratory and knowledge of the law was not dependent upon the favours of a monarch or that monarch's friends.