Agnes Strickland's Queens of England (21 page)

If Charles had been as faithful to his wife as he was to his subjects she would have been a very happy woman ; but about this time he was imitating Henry VIII. by contemplating a divorce, because he had fallen in love with Frances Stuart, a maid-of-honor, and one of the most beautiful women of her day. This was a cause of great anxiety to the queen, but fortunately not for a long time, because her rival married the Duke of Richmond and went to Denmark to live. That put an end to the divorce question; but Lord Clarendon brought down the king's vengeance on his head by favoring Frances Stuart's marriage, and even using his efforts to bring it about. Charles never forgave his chancellor for that offence.

[A.D. 1667.] Shortly after this marriage there was a masked ball at court, at which the king and queen danced together. On St. George's Day Charles celebrated the festival of the Garter with all the ceremonies as they were originally observed when that order was founded. Offerings were made at the altar by the sovereign and his knights, after which they partook of a feast at the Palace of Whitehall. The king sat at a table on a dais alone, and part of the time the queen stood at his left hand as a spectator. The knights sat at a table ranged the whole length of the room to the right of the king, and at the middle of the feast they all arose and drank his health, whereupon the trumpets sounded and the Tower guns were fired. At the conclusion of the feast all the provisions that were left over were distributed among the crowd, that always assembled at the end of the hall, near the door, on such occasions. It was the custom m olden times, even to the end of the Stuart dynasty, for the kings and queens of England to dine in public; and any well-behaved, decent-looking person was free to take his stand in the dining-room to watch the proceedmgs. Charles II. was so good-natured that he would often hand a taste of some delicacy to one of the spectators on such an occasion, and won many. hearts by his gracious manners. He would converse freely, too, with those who happened to stand near enough. A well-known wit told him one day while he was dining " that matters were in a bad state, but there was a way to mend all." The king looked at him inquiringl}^, and he continued : " There is an honest, able man I could name, that if your majesty would employ and command to see things well-executed, all things would soon be mended, and that is one Charles Stuart, who now spends his time as if he had no employment; but if you would give him employment, he were the fittest man in the world to perform it."

After Lord Clarendon fell into disfavor with the king, he was replaced by Buckingham, a very bad, witty man, who had great influence with Charles. He was an enemy to Catharine, and proposed to his sovereign several plans for ridding himself of her; but they were all too absurd and too revolting for even Charles II. to consider, unprincipled as he was.

[A.D. 1668.] Seven years had elapsed since the marriage of Catharine of Braganza, and still the promised half of her marriage-portion had not been paid. Civil wars in Portugal succeeded the death of the queen-regent and exhausted the treasury. At last news arrived in England that the king had been deposed, and his younger brother, Don Pedro, placed on the throne instead. Everything connected with her family and her native land interested Queen Catharine very much, and it distressed her to hear of the struggle that had been going on there for so many months.

[A.D. 1669.] The king sympathized with her and treate

After the court took off mourning for the Duchess of Orleans, Queen Catharine indulged her fondness for dancing by giving balls and masquerades ; the latter becoming so much the rage as to resemble in some respects a carnival.

Separate parties would be formed by the king and queen,

with the ladies and gentlemen of the court; and so disguised as not to be recognized by their most intimate friends, they would go about in search of adventure. On such occasions they would enter any house where a party was going on, mingle with the invited guests, and commit some of the wildest pranks imaginable, only taking care that their rank should not be suspected. Once the queen got separated from her party, and by some mistake was left quite alone. She was a long way from home, and did not dare to announce who she was. In great alarm she stood in the street until a hack came along, when she summoned it and was driven to Whitehall. Whether or no she took the driver into her confidence has not been recorded.

During such escapades, of course, both their majesties were subjected to liberties from their subjects, which they bore most good naturedly. The king, especially, seldom resented even the most caustic sarcasms from his courtiers, though he generally returned a spicy repartee.

The Earl of Rochester once wrote upon Charles's chamber door: -r-

" Here lies our sovereign lord the king, Whose word no man relies on ; Who never said a foolish thing, And never did a wise one."

Very true," returned King Charles, after reading the lines. *' My doings are those of my ministers, but my sayings are my own."

[A.D. 1671.] Once when Queen Catharine was at her palace in Suffolk, with her court, she determined to have a little frolic; and for that purpose took the Duchesses of Richmond and Buckingham into her confidence. This was her plan : A fair was being held at the neighboring town of Saffron Walden, and there her majesty meant to go in disguise. So the three ladies dressed themselves like

CHARLES n.

country girls, in short, red petticoats, intending to mingle with the crowd, fondly hoping that they would not be recognized. Catharine was sensible enough to select for her cavalier Sir Bernard Gascoigne, a brave old gentleman, loved and respected by all who knew him ; and a warm personal friend to the king. Mounted behind this cavalier, on an old cart-horse, and followed by the other ladies, each riding in the same primitive fashion with her escort, the party set out. But they had copied their costumes, not from those of the peasants, but from the representation of them at the theatres. So as soon as they arrived on the fair-grounds they were mistaken for a company of strolling players; and supposing that they would soon begin to perform, the rustics followed them in crowds. When the queen entered one of the booths to buy " a pair of yellow stockings for her beau," a man who had seen her at one of the public state dinners recognized her, and, proud of his superior knowledge, announced his sovereign's presence at once. The information spread like wildfire, and the court party returned home, followed by a motley crowd.

The same year the king and queen made a tour through several counties, and were sumptuously entertained. At its conclusion, Catharine remained quietly at Euston Hall, in Suffolk, with her ladies, while the king attended the Newmarket races, attended by his lively courtiers.

[A.D. 1677.] The marriage of the king's nephew, Wil liam. Prince of Orange, with Princess Mary, eldest daughter of the Duke of York, was celebrated at Whitehall in November; and as the anniversary of the queen's birth occurred the same month, there was occasion for double rejoicing. Catharine had known the young princess almost from the day of her birth, and felt a warm attachment for the motherless girl.

When the time came for her departure for Holland with

her husband, she fell on the queen's breast and burst into tears.

Catharine endeavored to soothe her by recounting her own exoerience in having come to England a perfect stranger, v^fithout even having seen the man she was to marry.

But Mary thought no sorrow could equal hers; and replied, between her sobs : " Yes ; but, madam, you came into England, and I am leaving England,"

If she could have looked into the aching heart of the woman who was offering words of comfort scarcely needed she would have been awed into silence. Poor Catharine's position at that period was worse than ever before. The Earl of Shaftesbury, an ambitious, revengeful, dishonorable man, was her avowed enemy, and bent upon her destruction ; so he had influenced the king to absent himself from her in the hope that time and separation would at last induce him to consent to a divorce. He was not successful in this; but he was so in bringing about the popish plot, his intention being to destroy the queen and rob the Duke of York, whom he hated also, of his right of succession.

We do not intend to give all the details of this wicked plot; but it played such an important part of Queen Catharine's life that we will, in as few words as possible, explain the nature of it. We must go back to a year or two after her marriage, for it was then that Catharine made a serious mistake, which caused her name to be connected with this plot nearly fifteen years later. Catharine's anxiety to have the mdependence of Portugal acknowledged by the pope was so great that soon after she got to England she induced her husband to send Richard Bellings, one of the gentlemen of her household, on a mission to Rome. The object was to promise his holiness that if he

would extend his proteclion to her native land she would use her utmost endeavors to advance the Catholic cause in England ; adding that her desire to accomplish this had been the sole cause of her marriage. Letters of the same purport were sent to several of the cardinals also. Her appeal had the desired effect; but Bellings let out the secret, and the vigilant enemies of Queen Catharine made a note of it, to be used against her when opportunity offered.

[A.D. 1678.] Titus Gates and Bedloe were the infamous characters selected to swear away the lives of a large number of innocent persons.

Gates was the son of a weaver and preacher, and a villain of the deepest dye. If he had not been so brainless as to swear to a tissue of falsehoods too palpable to gain credence, rivers of blood would have been shed, and the disgraceful scenes that attended the St. Bartholomew massacre in France would have been repeated in England. But when the king questioned him and Bedloe, their statements as to the place and manner that the queen had used for declaring her intention of poisoning his majesty were so absurd that they stood self-convicted.

King Charles never for a moment suspected his wife of any attempt on his life ; and he knew, besides, that although the Duke of York, his brother, had become a member of the Catholic church, it had not been through her instrumentality.

But the public mind was aroused to such a pitch by the daily inventions of Gates and his adherents that the business of life was interrupted, and the wildest statements were eagerly accepted as indisputable facts.

Catharine was even accused of having caused the murder of Godfrey, a city magistrate, whose body was found on the highway, pierced with his own sword.

It was Shaftesbury who prompted Gates in all he said and did, though he was wily enough to keep himself in the background. It was he who secured from parliament, for the shameless perjurer, a pension of twelve hundred pounds a year for the information he had given, in consequence of which all the Roman Catholic peers were deprived of their seats in that body.

All this time Queen Catharine was surrounded by spies, ready to pounce upon any action of hers that might be perverted into an appearance of guilt; but her honesty and simplicity of character spoke so loudly in her favor that there was not a true-hearted man in the realm who was not assured of her entire innocence.

But she was aware of her danger, and expected nothing less than that she would be brought to the block, as Charles I. had been. She, therefore, sent a messenger to her brother. Don Pedro, informing him of her situation, and asking his protection in case her life should be in jeopardy. Her adviser was Count Castelmelhor, a noble Portuguese exile, who proved of such service to Queen Catharine that she helped him to retrieve his lost fortune by purchasing a new estate for him, to which he gave the name of Santa Catarina, out of compliment to her.

Kmg Charles offered five hundred pounds for the murderer of Godfrey. Tempted by so large a sum, Bedloe, Oates's colleague, and a discharged convict, swore that the deed had been done by the queen's popish servants ; and that he had been offered two thousand guineas to assist in the removal of the body, which he saw lying on the queen's back stairs. When cross-examined, this rascal contradicted himself, and described the portion of the palace where he beheld the corpse so inaccurately as to prove conclusively that he had never been in it at all.

The members of the house of commons were paralyzed

with astonishment at their next session, when Oates advanced to the bar, and, raising his voice, exclaimed: " I, Titus Oates, accuse Catharine, Queen of England, of high treason."

His partners in villany, taking advantage of those present, who were so surprised as to remain speechless, voted an address to the king, requesting the removal of his wife to the Tower, But the lords refused to admit the testi-

CHAPEL IN THK TOWER

mony of such men as Oates and Bedloe, so appointed a committee to investigate the charges brought against her majesty. Shaftesbury protested, but he was overruled.

King Charles was perfectly conscious of a conspiracy against his wife, and vowed that he would not suffer her to be wronged. His indignation was so great that he began to treat her with such affection and respect as she had not known for many a day at his hands. He had Oates arrested, but was obliged to release him; and then the man

went beyond all bounds. Five Catholic lords were sent to the Tower on account of his accusations against them ; thirty thousand Catholics were driven out of London fron\ terror, and arrests and executions were of daily occurrence.

[A.D. 1679.] Some of the queen's servants were of the number, much to her horror and grief, and the Duke of York frequently assured her that his turn and hers would come next. Although the king feared the popular rage, he absolutely refused to permit the queen to stand a trial when his privy-council proposed it, because he knew it would not be a fair one. Shortly after he went to Newmarket with the queen, and while they were there Bedloe died. In his last confession he swore that so far as he knew both the queen and the Duke of York were innocent of any attempt on the king's life, or of any murder whatever, and that all the evidence he had formerly given was false

[A.D. 1680.] The popish plot closed with the execution of Lord Stafford, a tragedy that ought not to have taken place. But we have one more circumstance to relate, an anti-climax to the popish plot. One Fitzharris appeared upon the scene, and accused the queen and the Duke of York of a design to poison the king.

Charles immediately summoned parliament to meet at Oxford, March 21. Escorted by a troop of horse-guards, and accompanied by the queen, he proceeded to the appointed place, where the royal couple were greeted with enthusiasm by the students of the university, who made a(5dresses of welcome, while the authorities prepared a feast and other rejoicings. Shaftesbury arrived with his party and a crowd of armed retainers, who wore hatbands with the inscription, " No popery ! No slavery! "

King Charles's first parliament sat for eighteen years, and was called the long parliament; this one was to sit for six

days, and ought therefore to have been styled the short parliament. Fitzharris was a member of the church of Rome, and great results were anticipated from his statements. The house of commons wanted the trial managed one way, the lords another, and a furious dispute arose. So, without mentioning his intention to a soul, the king had himself carried in a closely-curtained ^edan chair to the house. He wore his robes of state and carried his crown concealed on his lap. He entered the house of lords unannounced, took his seat on the throne, placed the crown upon his head, and bade the usher summon the commons. The moment they entered he told them " that proceedings which began so ill could not end in good," and commanded the lord chancellor to declare parliament dissolved. Before they had time to recover from their astonishment, the king and queen were on the road to Windsor, escorted by their guard.

If Charles had displayed the same determination and courage at the beginning of the popish plot, how much innocent blood might have been spared, and what misery prevented ! Fitzharris was tried for treason and executed.

[A.D. 1683.] About three years after the popish plot another was formed by some minor conspirators, their object being to kill both the king and the Duke of York, his brother; but Providence interposed to prevent such a foul murder before the plans of the conspirators had been completed. The Duke of Monmouth revealed the plot, which brought several prominent men to the block.

[A.D. 1684.] It was so cold the following winter that the Thames was frozen over, and an ox was roasted whole in a fire built on the ice. This was done while a fair was being held ; the booths for the purpose were stationed along the banks of the river, and there was a great deal of merrymaking, though the winter was a hard one for poor people, because provisions were so high and fuel so scarce.