King Charles II (65 page)

But Windsor was also

Britain’s Olympus, where, like awful Jove

He pleas’d could sit, and his Regards bestow

On the vain, busy, swarming World below.

In 1675 commenced the building of St Paul’s, another Olympus, another symbolic act, since the great new cathedral would come to embrace the ceremonies of state under its powerful dome.

This same summer of 1674 two pathetic little skeletons, believed not implausibly to be those of the vanished ‘striplings’ Edward
V
and the Duke of York, were turned up by workmen at the Tower of London. The point is debatable and, as with all evidence pertaining to the controversial life of Richard
III
, keenly debated. Here we are only concerned with the reaction of Charles
II
. The find was reported to him by Sir Thomas Chicheley, Master of the Ordnance. The King’s immediate instinct was to command a more reverent burial for these pathetic relics: they were transferred to Westminster Abbey and Sir Christopher Wren was ordered to design a marble urn to encase them. Admittedly, the Royal Warrant, signed by Arlington the following February, hedged its bets by referring to ‘a white
Marble Coffin for the supposed bodies of the two Princes …’. Nevertheless, here, in the Abbey, they lie to this day, with a Latin inscription commemorating the action of the
Rex Clementissimus
– the most merciful King Charles the Second. Moreover, the English inscription beneath declares, in bolder terms than the Royal Warrant, that the bones ‘were deposited here by command of King Charles
II
, in the firm belief that they were the Bones of King Edward
V
and Richard Duke of York’.
²⁶

Whatever the rights and wrongs of the boys’ death, it was a gesture towards the concept of legitimate monarchy – as represented by the youthful Edward
V
, in contrast to his usurping uncle
Richardus Perfidus
, as the Latin inscription had it. The same instinct led to the glorification of the tomb of Charles
I
at about the same time, another monarch whose life was brought to an unnatural end. Less sceptical perhaps than his minister Arlington in his attitude to the ‘supposed’ remains, Charles
II
was reaching down for his royal roots.

For the first time, in 1674 the Court spent four months at Windsor during the summer. Within the picturesque fortress both King and Queen had new apartments created by Hugh May. Grinling Gibbons and Antonio Verrio were employed by May to adorn them; May was inspired by the patronage of the King. Charles showed throughout his life a love of the arts quite natural in a boy educated at that legendary, cultured Court of the 1630s who could remember going by barge with his father to visit the studio of Van Dyck. His predilection has however been understandably overshadowed by the supreme artistic taste of King Charles
I
. Charles
II
did all that he could to reacquire his father’s great art collection (it has been mentioned that he secured some pictures from the Dutch on the eve of his Restoration) although some masterpieces proved irrecoverable. Of his cabinet of treasures and curiosities, he spoke wistfully that it was not to be compared with his father’s, thirty years before. Charles
II
may well have been responsible for the collection of drawings by Leonardo da Vinci at Windsor, either by purchase, or by receiving them as gifts.
²⁷

As he enjoyed the company of writers, so Charles
II
appreciated that of artists generally; he sent for a doctor from Paris to treat the history painter, Robert Streater, for the stone. Gibbons’ work was originally shown to the King by John Evelyn: as a reward for the recommendation before which, in Evelyn’s words, ‘he was scarce known’, Gibbons presented Evelyn with a walnut table ‘incomparable carved’. Charles was so enthusiastic at what he saw that he rushed out of the room to show it to the Queen – who was less so. Later Charles, supported by Lely and Bab May, had his way. At Windsor, Gibbons, who also ornamented other royal dwellings, was allowed £100 a year. Verrio subsequently came to occupy the post of Chief Painter set up for Sir Peter Lely, at a salary of £200 a year. At the time of the Popish Plot the Catholic Verrio, and some other Catholic stonecarvers, assistants to Gibbons, were protected from the consequences of their religion.
²⁸

As is the way of the world, not all the payments went directly to artists. The Dutch dealer Gerrit Uylenbergh, a cousin of Rembrandt’s wife Saskia, got into trouble when the pictures he was trying to sell the Elector of Brandenburg were denounced as fakes. Reaching England a poor man, he quickly fell on his feet, painted some backgrounds for Lely, and joined the King’s service as Purveyor and Keeper of his pictures. Uylenbergh helped to select and arrange the pictures for the private apartments of the King and Queen at Windsor; he was paid £50 for his ‘Extraordinary Care and Pains … and for Several Journeys’. Two young French painters, Nicolas de Largillierre and Philip Dolesam, also set to with their brushes, and, where necessary, fitted the King’s pictures into their new frames, carved by Gibbons. The King was particularly delighted with Largillierre’s partial repainting of Caracciolo’s
Cupid Sleeping
.
²⁹

At Windsor the only remaining rooms of Edward
III
were gutted, although many of the old walls remained embedded in the structure. Some of the modernization however brought unexpected problems, as when a series of tanners’ skins were found in the water supply. Water was once again used for embellishment at Windsor, on the French model. Charles
II
was fortunate to be able to enjoy the fruits of the ingenuity of Sir
Samuel Morland, appointed his
magister mechanicorum
. A special feat of Morland’s in 1681 caused water to be pumped from the Thames to the top of the castle, and thence in a great jet sixty feet high, which, mingled with red wine, was clearly and splendidly visible.
³⁰

Today the Windsor revivified by Charles
II
is best pictured from the Queen’s Presence Chamber, with its swirling Verrio ceiling; otherwise, the elegant hand of George
IV
has once more been at work, sweeping away the older embellishments with the new.
³¹
In this Presence Chamber the King was wont to dine in public, that strangely intimate glimpse of the monarch traditionally granted to his subjects since mediaeval times. Elsewhere the spirit of Verrio was much in evidence. The new royal apartments were decorated with splendid allegorical paintings in which fantasy brought a comfort denied by reality. Queen Catharine was at last depicted as Britannia – a role for which she had been passed over in favour of Frances Stewart when the new coinage was designed, as being too small. There was more reality in the fact that the Duchess of Portsmouth and her son were granted their own apartments. When four continents were seen bringing Charles
II
their riches, the King seated on a convenient cloud, then fantasy was certainly rampant.

Yet compared to the extravagance of his father, or for that matter of Louis
XIV
, Charles
II
had modest tastes. His own subject the mighty Duke of Beaufort, who with his wife struck terror into the hearts of servants and neighbours alike, kept as much princely state. The Duchess made a daily tour of her domains, instantly sacking any servant not about his or her lawful occasions. The Duke’s neighbours planted trees ‘to humour his vistas’ and ‘arranged Hills free of charge’.
³²
Queen Catharine made no such tour; the King planted his own trees.

There were also rural pursuits to be enjoyed at Windsor, even if some of them – those of Catharine rather than Charles – smacked a little of the Petit Trianon. The King could fish. The Queen could go on picnics. On one such outing each of the Queen’s attendants brought one dish: ‘Lady Bath’s dish was a chine of beef, Mrs Wyndham’s a venison pastry …’, and so on.
Catharine sat under a tree and was ‘wonderfully pleased and merry’.
³³

The King’s cousin, Prince Rupert, had been made Governor and Constable of the Castle in 1668. The old warrior enjoyed his fortress-residence and made it his permanent home. He was thus able to oversee the King’s numerous refurbishments. At the same time he reminded himself of the less pacific past by ornamenting his own rooms with a collection of arms, which made the post-war generation open their eyes wide when they visited him.

Music was another example of Charles
II
’s feeling for culture rather than for formality. He loved music more for its own sake than for the splendour surrounding the performance. In the mid-seventies expenses in the royal accounts for dresses – shepherds, satyrs and the like – for masques recall but do not emulate the great masque world of Inigo Jones in the previous reign. In 1674 Queen Catharine suggested a masque,
Calisto
, to John Crowne. The intention was quite plain: to provide a starring vehicle for the two young Princesses of York, Mary and Anne.
^fn3
It was only a moderate success. The story of Calisto, in Crowne’s own words, posed the problem of writing ‘a clean, decent and inoffensive play’ on the subject of rape – featuring two girls aged twelve and nine. Neither Crowne nor his leading ladies were equal to the challenge. The masque was dull. The amateurs’ voices had to be supplemented by those of two graceful professionals, Moll Davies and Mrs Knight. As both ladies were suspected – with good reason – of unprofessional relationships with the King, this led to considerable tension during rehearsals where the Queen was concerned.
³⁴

The King’s personal preference was for the French instrumental music he had grown to love in exile; Pelham Humfrey was sent to France to learn it, that the English Court might be graced with the innovation. By Humfrey’s death in 1674 this
new type of music was prospering. Violins were introduced into church music at the King’s request. As for the royal bills for violinists’ costumes – ‘Indian’ gowns trimmed with tinsel – and garlands for their violins (cost £6),
³⁵
these would have seemed mere trifles, albeit agreeable trifles, to a Louis
XIV
. One of the beneficiaries of this new style in music was Henry Purcell. Taught by Humfrey, among others, Purcell sprang from a family closely connected with the Chapel Royal. Purcell himself – ‘so arch especial a spirit’, as Gerard Manley Hopkins described him two hundred yeas later – was a Child of the Chapel Royal. (He features by name in the Wardrobe accounts from time to time for two suits, a bed and so forth.)
³⁶
As such, he was inevitably much in contact with the King. The 1670s saw the metamorphosis of Purcell from a chorister to a composer, but the royal connection was maintained. Two welcome songs to the King and Duke of York respectively brought him into prominence.
³⁷
Many of his early odes hymned such court events as the King’s return from Newmarket, his return from Windsor, his reappearance at Whitehall after a summer outing. Later it seems that Charles introduced Purcell to the delights of Italian music as well as French. Purcell’s
Sonatas in Three Parts
, dedicated to the King, make some allusion to the introduction.

Queen Catharine enjoyed Italian opera and Italian songs generally (if less so when sung by Mrs Knight). Charles was fond enough of Italian songs – and expert enough in the language – to hold a part himself from time to time at Windsor. He had a great ‘thorough-bass’ voice. A duet by Carisimi, Charles’ favourite composer, exists written out in Purcell’s handwriting. Purcell became successively organist at Westminster Abbey in 1679 (John Blow, who probably taught him composition, resigned in his favour) and Composer in Ordinary in 1682.

It was helpful that Charles
II
had a predilection for experiment, be it scientific or musical: under his influence music was also introduced into the English theatre, on the French model. The French musician Louis Grabu came to England and was appointed ‘composer to His Majesty’s Musique’ in 1665. The appointment of a Frenchman caused some raised eyebrows.
³⁸
Nevertheless, Grabu was made Master of the English Chamber Musick in ordinary, following the death of Nicholas Lanier. The first public concert in England was also given in the reign of Charles
II
. It was organized by the violinist John Banister, for a while leader of the King’s Band, and held in a large room in Whitefriars in 1672.

Nevertheless, in seventeenth-century England all this kind of expenditure – on music, on art, on building and redecoration – was understood and appreciated; whereas the vast sums visibly deployed on the foreign Popish mistresses were seen as a sign of weakness in the bedroom. Might the King, under such dangerous influences, be equally weak in the council chamber? The question remained. A witticism went the rounds to explain why the Accession Day of Queen Elizabeth
I
was being celebrated with such warmth: ‘Because she being a woman chose men for her counsellors and men when they reign usually choose women.’ It was an unfair barb. Women were not the King’s counsellors but his concubines – and his companions. But the extravagance which he permitted on their behalf invited it.

In the short term – but only in the short term – the political methods of Danby looked like being as successful as his economic policies. Stoutly Protestant himself, Danby aimed at a political alliance in Parliament which would comprise Anglicans, and other confirmed Royalists, against those whom he conceived of as being the King’s enemies. These were the Catholics, the nonconformists, and the opponents of the royal prerogative. It will be appreciated that the latter group included many whom Charles
II
had sought persistently to conciliate by toleration. Nor did Danby, in his concentration on the alliance of the monarchy and Anglicanism, allow for the special position of the Duke of York in the King’s favours.