The King's Courtesan (33 page)

“George? Who is she?”

“That, my lord, is the newest comedic actress. Her name is Eleanor Gwynn.”

Sherwood Forest, Nottinghamshire

UNDER A CANOPY
of gently rustling leaves, Robert leaned against the bark of the greenwood tree, a majestic yew with widespread arms that grew in Sherwood Forest.

Hope nestled quiet in his arms. Wel over one thousand years old, one could almost feel the life and warmth flowing through its ancient veins. One had but to close one’s eyes to imagine a time when ordinary men and women had done extraordinary things, defying great lords and braving great odds to keep their freedom.

What wonders had this monarch of the forest seen as it bore witness to the fleeting lives of men? It was not so much one tree as two, with roots entwined and trunks grown so close together they had, in a far distant past, melded into one. Some folk cal ed them marriage trees. Some said Robin and his Marian had been joined beneath this very one. He smiled and kissed the top of his pretty wife’s head.

one. He smiled and kissed the top of his pretty wife’s head.

It certainly pleased her to think so. And so they had married again, on this first day of May exactly one year from the day she had first stepped into his life, joyful y and freely, in a place of their own choosing, for themselves this time.

Hope stirred and put a sleepy arm around his waist.

Exhausted from the revelry, they watched contentedly as friends and servants and the Derbyshire pastor made merry in the distant courtyard. The sounds of flute, fiddle, laughter and song came to them in quiet bursts, carried by a dulcet breeze.

“Do you remember, Hope? When you told me that if I let go of the past, I might find what I was meant to do?”

“Mmm, yes. I remember.”

“I have discovered it, the thing I was real y meant to do. I was meant to love you.”

“Of course you were, sil y man. I am very wise. You should always listen.”

He tickled her and she elbowed him and shifted, settling now with her head resting in the crook of his arm.

“I love you, Hope Nichols, lady of the forest glades and my own sweet elf.”

“And I love you, Captain Nichols. I am thankful every day that you stepped out of my dreams and carried me away.” Something caught her eye, a movement through the trees that drew her attention to the top of a grassy hil . She saw a beautiful young girl with sweetly rounded features and flowing gold locks, flying a brightly colored kite. The child turned to look at her with a bril iant smile, then waved her hand. The sound of happy laughter fol owed her as she disappeared over the hil .

GULLS SCREECHED OVERHEAD
and flags snapped in the stiff breeze. The creak of straining rope and shifting wood rode atop the thunder of the waves. The boy watched from the shadows. Now the shouts of rough men, the crack of whips and the dul jangle of chains and iron shackles. A ragged line of broken men stumbled toward the fretting ship, bound for Jamaica. One of them was his father.

Nothing but a slave now. If he survived the voyage. No pity stirred within his breast. He stayed, watching, as the ship left the dock, sails bil owing. He didn’t turn away until it dipped below the horizon. When it was gone he looked to the ground and spat, before hefting the fat purse his father’s would-be kil er had given him. He stil didn’t know what to make of that, but he knew what he was going to do with the money.

AFTERWORD

AN AFTERWORD
provides the opportunity to share a few tidbits one finds interesting but might have slowed the pace of the story, a chance to acknowledge the contribution of others to one’s story and a chance to address things one could have missed. Some readers might have recognized that the character of Hope Mathews is loosely based on Nel Gwyn, the orange girl and actress who became an enduring mistress of King Charles I , giving birth to the Earl of Burford, later Duke of St. Albans. Hope and Nel share some similar adventures, including three lovers named Charles, and according to Charles Beauclerk, a direct descendant and Nel ’s biographer, the moniker of Cinder wench and Cinder whore. These seem to have been more a term of endearment on the part of Londoners who were delighted to see one of their own risen from the gutter to grace the bed of a king. Charles had a penchant for actresses from Drury Lane, and Nel was not his first or last, but from the moment she became Charles Stuart’s mistress, she never loved another man. She was, however, content to share him with Lady Castlemaine, his wife and several mistresses, and remained with him until his death, something Hope would never have done. Readers who would like to know more about Nel Gwyn and Charles would enjoy Charles Beauclerk’s biography, which includes stories and private papers passed down through the family.

Many people believe stories such as
Cinderella
are inventions of the Brothers Grimm, but as noted in the afterword of
Libertine’s Kiss,
Mother Goose was wel -

known at the time. Some say she was a real figure, the wife of a fifteenth-century monarch, but by the seventeenth century
a Mother Goose tale
was a common phrase.

Charles Perrault (12 January 1628–16 May 1703) was a French author whose best-known tales, derived from preexisting folk tales, include
Le Petit Chaperon Rouge
(Little Red Riding Hood), La Belle au Bois Dormant
(Sleeping Beauty), Le Maître Chat ou le Chat Botté (Puss
in Boots)
and
Cendrillon ou la Petite Pantoufle de Verre
(Cinderella and the Glass Slipper)
complete with pumpkin, glass slippers and stepsisters.

May Day and Valentine’s Day were both celebrated with a good deal more passion than they are today. According to Samuel Pepys, one’s Valentine was the first person of the opposite sex one encountered that day. In his diary he grumbles about being caught by a maid before he sees his wife. One assumes he had to give them both presents. May Day celebrations were raunchy, uproarious and decidedly pagan. They were banned during Cromwel ’s reign, but made a triumphant return with the Restoration. May Day celebrations general y included traditional Morris Dancers (who are stil present in May Day parades and celebrations today), the choosing of a May King and, more important, Queen, dancing around the maypole, and jack-in-the-greens men loaded with so many garlands they ended up resembling trees. Different guilds would often compete to see who could provide the most elaborate celebrations.

They are stil a part of May Day festivities in Britain to this day.

The Restoration and termination of the civil war did not end al divisions in England at the time. The king was a suspected Catholic, his brother James a professed one, and there were many lingering plots to remove them both.

The foolish and il -planned treason at Farnley Wood was one of the first attempts. Undermined by informers, it came to nothing but resulted in the arrest and charges of treason against twenty-six men.

Poetry, music, literature and plays were an integral part of seventeenth-century life. Those who read
Libertine’s Kiss
are already familiar with Wil iam’s penchant for conversing at times in verse, and that the words are actual y those of John Wilmot, the Earl of Rochester, on whom the character was based. None of the poetry in
The King’s Courtesan
is my own. Some of course belongs to Wilmot. Some include his translation of verses that were original y Ovid’s, and the Robin Hood poem comes from
Robin Hood: a collection
of all the ancient poems, songs and ballads, now extant,
relative to that celebrated English outlaw,
which was first printed in 1795.

If you go to Sherwood Forest today you can stil visit the major Oak, where legend has it Robin Hood and his men often stayed.

Hope’s interest in gardening was not unusual at the time.

The English loved their gardens, and during the seventeenth century there was an explosion of exotic plants available from al over the world. John Rose, King Charles’s gardener, is credited as the first to introduce the pineapple to English gardeners, but it was the Tradescants, father and son (1570–1662), botanists, explorers, adventurers, horticulturalists and garden planners, who introduced many exotic plants to England that remain staples of English gardens to this day. Amongst many other plants and flowers these included magnolias, yucca plants, asters and Virginia creepers.

I’d like to thank my copy editor, John Oberholtzer, whom I missed in the initial acknowledgments, but whose contribution, insights and sharp eyes were of tremendous value. I’d also very much like to thank my readers. Your encouragement and kind words mean more than you can know. I hope you enjoyed
The King’s Courtesan
. Having read it, you have, I suspect, a very good idea of what’s coming next.

Al the best,

Judith James

ISBN: 978-1-4592-1187-2

THE KING’S COURTESAN

Copyright © 2011 by Judith James

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