Charles the King (13 page)

He rang his bell and his valet Parry came in from the antechamber. He lit fresh candles and poured Charles a cup of wine.

“Her Majesty sent a message asking if you would come and dine with her this evening, Sire,” he said. Charles looked up at him and his face lightened. He had made his decision and already he felt relieved; nothing in the world would please him more than to leave the silent room and escape into the gaiety and cheerfulness of Henrietta's Privy Chamber, and eat and drink with her and lean across and take her hand. He loved her so intensely that his happiness was very close to pain; he could watch her for hours, admiring the vivacity and grace which seemed to increase with every day, his passions awaking at every touch and every glance they shared. The thought of her reinforced his courage and confirmed his decision. With the support of an idyllic marriage, he would govern his country as Kings were meant to govern—wisely and justly and devotedly, until the people who had lost their loyalty and their faith in Monarchy went on their knees and blessed his reign.

“Send word to the Queen that I shall join her as soon as I have changed my costume.”

Half an hour later, attended by his Gentlemen-in-waiting, his page and his Groom of the Chamber, Charles went to his wife. They spent one of the gayest evenings they could remember and at the end of it he gave her a pendant of emeralds and pearls which had belonged to his mother and been specially brought up from the Treasury.

At noon the next morning he summoned Wentworth and the Council and announced the dissolution of Parliament. An hour later the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod rode down to Westminster.

The Commons refused to be dismissed. The Speaker tried to obey the King's order and rise, thereby ending the debate which was in progress, but Ben Valentine, the member for St. Germans, and Holles, Lord Clare's son, held him in the Chair by force while the doors were locked and the House continued its business.

Outside, the soldiers accompanying Black Rod battered the doors open. On March 10th the third Parliament of Charles' reign was at an end. Eliot, Valentine and Holles were fined and sentenced to imprisonment, and the windows of St. Stephen's Hall were shuttered and the doors were barred. The House of Commons became a place of dust and silence for the next eleven years.

Chapter 5

Whitehall in the Spring was like a village, festive and noisy and full of activity. The Palace sprawled across the acres of parkland and gardens, its dome and turrets shining in the bright sun, while the river ran high past the western walls, carrying a constant traffic of boats and barges up and down from the City and out to the surrounding countryside. The shrubs and trees were in bud, sweetening the air and colouring the lovely gardens with the pastel pinks and yellows and the snowy May blossoms that the Queen especially loved. Henrietta had taken a great interest in the planning of the gardens at Whitehall; she spent hours walking through them, arm-in-arm with the King and followed by a crowd of ladies and gentlemen, all laughing and talking and flirting, and none of them more tender in their devotion to each other than their King and Queen.

Charles had changed very little; he was graver and at thirty-five he was handsomer in his prime than when she met him first. He walked and spoke with unhurried confidence as if time were of no consequence, and indeed the hours and days and weeks ran into one another in an endless succession of pleasure and amusement and tranquility, illuminated by the blaze of an unquenchable passion for the woman at his side. The thin, mercurial little Queen with her childish figure and dainty air had now become a warm and rounded woman, glowing with beauty and high spirits, and if her tiny waist had gained in inches, there was a sturdy Prince of Wales toddling in the Royal nursery and three more infants sleeping in cradles by the Palace windows. She was pregnant every year, and whenever he looked at her, Charles found her splendid fertility an added blessing to all the others she had brought him.

He loved his children because they resembled her; his eldest son was as dark as a gypsy, to his own amusement and Henrietta's distress. The second son was fair, with downy yellow hair and hazel eyes, but his strong little nose and large mouth were Henrietta's, and the third boy had her colouring. Charles played with his sons and let them clamber on his knees, and hung over the cot where his little daughter slept, rejoicing because the tiny face and bright brown eyes mirrored the woman he adored. He lavished presents upon her, regardless of the fact that he was heavily in debt; he had been in debt for years and he had grown careless. It was impossible to refuse Henrietta new dresses or query the cost of one of her New Year Masques even if they were extravagant, when he spent so much money on his own art collection.

They had begun to indulge themselves after 1629, when the war with France was over, Parliament dismissed, and the country's economy returned to peace-time standards. He had redeemed the plate pawned to pay for Buckingham's fleet, and added to it, so that the royal tables at Whitehall and Hampton Court and Greenwich shone with the finest products of the goldsmith's art. He had given the Queen fabulous jewels in addition to the ones she had lent him when he needed money. Nothing delighted him more than to fasten a new trinket round her beautiful neck, and claim the reward of kissing her shoulder.

And while she amused herself with her ladies and her theatricals, he escaped from the trouble of governing his kingdom and spent long hours with his collection of pictures. He was passionately interested in art in all its forms, but the acquisition of the Italian and Flemish Masters occupied the major part of his energy and his time. The walls of Whitehall were hung with magnificent Correggios, and Rembrandts, and on that lovely day in spring the ceiling of the Banqueting Hall was being prepared for the superb paintings which Charles had commissioned from Rubens and which were waiting at Antwerp. Art dealers from all over Europe made their way to London and beguiled the King of England into purchasing more and more of the treasures scattered throughout the world, frequently stored away and unappreciated. His pictures cost a fortune but they gave him a joy and an absorbtion far more important than mere money, and he felt that they enhanced the prestige of the Crown. He had always appreciated beauty and tried to indulge his taste as far as his commitments would allow; in the last few years he had no commitments which could not be shelved or solved by some expedient thought up by his advisers, and his hobby became a passion which he pursued to the detriment of his pocket and the disapproval of his subjects.

The English people were not happy. They were prosperous, and they owed their prosperity to the good relations existing between England and her old enemies France and Spain. But they were not grateful; they regarded the two Catholic nations as instruments employed by the Pope, and their friendship with England as an earnest of a Catholic revival.

Public discontent was so inconceivable in the circumstances of peace and prosperity that Charles never considered it at all. He imagined that the things which were dear to him, things like light and cleanliness and space and beauty, were precious to the rough and insular citizens of London, and he was astonished when his plans for building a new church at St. Pauls and developing the fields of Long Acre into pleasure gardens were received with ingratitude and hostility. He was astonished and very angry; and he became very angry very quickly when his will was crossed by anyone except his wife. For years no one had said no to him or even expressed a contrary opinion. He was absolute master of his Court and his country, and, often without his knowledge, his Council and his judges quickly stifled a dissenting voice.

Charles loved his capital; he often stood by the windows at Whitehall and watched the fleets of ships and small craft sailing up the Thames.

London was rich and growing fast, and all he wanted was that it should mirror the beauty and grace established in his own home and his own life.

Charles saw no harm in the theatres which sprang up, or in the pleasure gardens at Hyde Park or Finsbury and the puppet shows and bear gardens along Bankside where the ordinary citizens amused themselves. Vice and robbery and prostitution were part of the life of a great city, and he could do no more against them than enforce the ferocious laws and maintain impeccable moral standards in his own Court. He could never share the Puritan's fanatical hatred of pleasure which was spreading like an insidious poison through the respectable members of the community. The fires of hell blinded them to the gleam of Heaven, and the trumpeting wrath and savage imagery of the Old Testament completely superseded the gentle teaching of the Christian doctrine. To thousands of his subjects Charles personified the levity and worldliness which the Puritan was dedicated to destroy. His love of beauty, his interest in the arts, even his devotion to his wife were only evidence of sin and idolatry and unseemly lust. His efforts to improve his people and induce them to share his tastes were resisted as an attempt to pervert the Godly. They hated and suspected him and everything for which he stood, and most of all they hated his Roman Catholic Queen. For this he could never forgive them. And on the occasions when they attacked her, and they did so in pamphlets and pulpits and street corners all over the country, Charles punished them with unremitting cruelty.

That afternoon Charles and Henrietta picnicked under some trees in the gardens at Whitehall. Henrietta had posed most of the morning for a portrait, one of the many her husband commissioned of her, and at last he had found an artist worthy of his subject. Anthony Van Dyck had come to London from his native Holland, and the King had been so pleased with his work that he induced him to remain, gave him the post of Court Painter, and knighted him. He had come to see the picture during the morning and expressed his delight. Henrietta was posed in profile, wearing a splendid dress of yellow silk collared in exquisite lace and with a single strand of enormous pearls at the base of her throat. The artist had captured the mobility of her features and the brilliance of her eyes; the mouth was slightly curved as if she were about to smile. Charles had turned from the portrait to the sitter and immediately decided that his wife still looked pale and needed a diversion. He sent word to Wentworth that he would not attend the Council meeting in the afternoon and ordered a picnic in the gardens instead.

Chairs and tables had been set up, covered with linen cloths and gold and silver dishes, and a canopy had been erected to protect them from a breeze. They sat together, their seats so close that Charles felt her elbow when he moved, and lunched on a dozen courses, all of which were served by stewards and cupbearers on bended knee. It was a lovely afternoon, made lovelier for him by Henrietta's gaiety; he could not forget that he had found her weeping bitterly only two nights before because someone had left an obscene pamphlet in her room. She had organized a Masque, very stately and beautiful, and performed it with her ladies in front of him and the whole Court, and within a week London was flooded with a scurrilous article condemning the performance and describing the principals as notorious whores. He had taken the filthy thing out of her hands and ripped it to pieces and caught her fiercely in his arms, wiping away the tears and promising a vengeance on the author that would be an example to every Puritan in England. He leant across and kissed her cheek, now pink with the fresh air, and begged her to tell him she was happy and enjoying his surprise.

“Of course I'm happy, my love,” Henrietta gave him the warm and tender smile that always quickened his heart. “You take too much care of me—I tell you again and again that I'm the happiest woman in the world.”

“You were tired this morning,” he insisted. “I was so worried to have you upset like that so soon after the birth of the child.”

He looked at her anxiously. His beloved, adorable, perfect wife whose life was so innocent, who did nothing but good and kindness to everyone who came in contact with her. He thought of that revolting pamphlet and his face grew hard and cold with anger.

“We will not mention it again, my darling, but I want you to know that the author of that paper has been caught.”

One of Henrietta's closest friends was sitting on the other side of the table and he looked up as he heard the King's words. Wat Montagu was the son of the Duke of Manchester. It was odd to Charles and to Henrietta that the dismal and unbending man whom neither of them liked could have produced such an intelligent and charming son. He was especially dear to the Queen because she had converted him to Rome. He glanced at the King for permission to speak.

“Who is it, Sire?”

“A Puritan.” The King's voice was like ice. “A barrister called William Prynne. He came up before the Court of the Star Chamber this morning.”

Henrietta turned to him. “In France he would be broken on the wheel for what he wrote,” she said.

Charles lifted his hand to have their cups refilled with wine.

“We don't use the wheel in England,” he answered, “but you can rest content. I sent word to the judges what sentence I expected them to pass. Master Prynne will be fined to the last penny of his goods; he will have his ears cut off and stand in the pillory at Palace Yard for the amusement of the people. If he is alive when he is taken out, he will go to the Tower for life.”

Henrietta raised her cup to him.

“Thank you, my love,” she said.

“With your permission, Sire, some of us will go and watch,” Wat Montagu remarked. “The last man I saw in the pillory was an old Papist, convicted for carrying a rosary. He was covered in filth and blood in a few minutes and the good ladies of London took turns to go up and spit in his face. I'll be interested to see what they do with this scum who has insulted the Queen!”

Lucy Carlisle, Henrietta's inseparable companion, leaned across Montagu and shrugged.

“Much as I should like to see you properly avenged, Madam, I hope you'll forgive me if I renounce the pleasure. I have a horribly squeamish stomach!”