Now they emerged into the hot July sunshine and had to squint their eyes till they had accustomed themselves to the glare. They started off across the Privy Gardens toward the Tennis Court, passing several men and women who were strolling there or standing talking, and the King greeted many of them with a smile or a wave of the hand. Sometimes he paused to talk for a moment or called out a friendly greeting. Buckingham did not like these interruptions.
“Oh, I don’t imagine she was in any great danger,” said Charles. “Anyway, she’s safely back now.”
“But another time, Sire, she might not return safely.”
Charles gave a burst of laughter. “Sure, now, George—you don’t think anyone considers me rich enough to make it worth their while to kidnap my wife?”
“It wasn’t ransom I had in mind. Has it never occurred to you, Sire, that her Majesty might be kidnapped and sent to a desert island and never heard from again?”
“I must confess, I haven’t worried a great deal at the prospect.” Charles waved his arm at a couple of pretty women sitting several yards away on the lawn, and they laughed and nudged each other, fluttering their fans at him in return.
“There are many such islands,” continued Buckingham, ignoring the interruption, “located in the West Indies. There is no reason why one of them could not be supplied with every possible comfort. A woman might live out the rest of her days at ease in such a place.”
A quick scowl crossed Charles’s face and he looked sharply at the Duke. “Do I misunderstand you, Villiers, or are you suggesting that I get rid of my wife by having her kidnapped?”
“The idea is by no means impracticable, your Majesty. I had given it considerable thought, in fact—even to the point of locating a suitable island on the map—long before her Majesty took to this indiscreet new pastime of masquerading.”
Charles made a sound of disgust. “You’re a scoundrel, George Villiers! I don’t deny that I desperately need an heir—but I’ll never get one by any such means as that! And let me tell you one thing more: If her Majesty is ever harmed or molested—if she ever disappears—I’ll know where to lay the blame. And you won’t wear a head so long as an hour! Good-day!”
He gave Buckingham a brief dark look of anger and then walked swiftly away from him into the building which housed the tennis-courts. The Duke turned on his heel and went off in the other direction, muttering beneath his breath.
But that had by no means been the first, nor was it to be the last, of the schemes presented to Charles for getting Catherine out of the way so that he could marry again and produce a legitimate heir. Half the men at Court were busy plotting schemes, giving them to the King, then starting out to plot another as each in turn was rejected. The only persons of any influence who did not want Catherine to be replaced were York, Anne Hyde, their few adherents—and the King’s mistresses.
Annoyed with the King, Buckingham avoided Whitehall for several days and spent his time with the rich City men he knew. But he soon grew bored with that too. He had nothing but contempt for these fat credulous men who believed whatever he told them, and because it was almost second nature to him he began to hatch another plot.
For the past few years the Duke had been hiring several different lodgings scattered about in various parts of the town, and he went to one or another as the mood took him. It was for greater convenience and secrecy in his political machinations, that he kept a trunkful of disguises and rented a dozen different apartments.
In Idle Lane, just off Thames Street and hard by the Tower, a lodging-house had been left standing after the Fire had swept through. It now had for company three others, still in the process of building, another completed the year before and rented out to an ale-house keeper to entertain the workmen, and one other which had collapsed when half built because of bad mortar and bricks. (This was a common occurrence all over the City where new houses were going up.) The busy Thames ran nearby, close enough that the shouts of the bargemen and the girls hawking oysters in the street could be heard. Buckingham had rented three rooms on the fourth floor, using one of the fictitious names which it amused him to invent; this time he was Er Illingworth.
The Duke, wearing a Turkish dressing-gown and turban, a pair of slippers with turned-up toes, lay stretched out sound asleep on the long straight-backed settle near the fireplace where sea-coals had burnt down to a glowing red. There was no air in the room and very little light, for it was after dark and he had been asleep since mid-day.
A knock sounded at the door and then was repeated as Buckingham’s snore continued to rattle through the room. At the fourth knock he sat up with a start, his face flushed and swollen with sleep, gave his head a shake and got up. But he did not throw back the bolt before he had asked who it was.
A fat short red-faced priest stood in the doorway, dressed in robe and sandals, a cowl over his tonsured head, a prayerbook in his hands.
“Good evening to you, Father Scroope.”
“Good evening, sir.” The priest was out of breath from hurrying up the stairs. “I came with all haste—but I was at her Majesty’s evening devotions when I got the message.” His eyes looked over the Duke’s shoulder and into the half-lighted bedroom beyond. “Where is the patient? There is no time to be lost—”
Behind him Buckingham closed the door, quietly turned the key in the lock and slipped it into the pocket of his dressing-gown. “There is no one sick here, Father Scroope.”
The priest turned and looked at him in surprise. “No one sick? But I was told—the messenger told me that a man was dying—”
He sat down in a high-backed chair while the Duke poured two glassfuls of canary wine, handed one to his guest, and then pulled up another chair so that they sat face to face.
“I wanted you to come as quickly as possible—so I sent a message that there was sickness. Don’t you know me now, Father?”
Father Scroope, who had already drunk down his wine and was holding the glass in his pudgy pink hands, peered closely at Buckingham, and slow recognition came to his face.
“Why—your Grace!”
“None other.”
“Forgive me, sir! I vow you’re so altered by your undress I didn’t recognize you—and the light, of course, is dim—” he added apologetically.
Buckingham smiled, reached for the wine-bottle and filled both their glasses again. “You say you’ve just come from her Majesty’s devotions?”
“Yes, your Grace. Her Majesty has learnt a great many new habits, but never to retire without evening prayers—for which God be thanked,” he added, with a pious roll of his eyes.
“You hear her Majesty’s confessions, as well, if I’m not mistaken?”
“Sometimes, yes, your Grace.”
Buckingham laughed shortly. “Much she can have to confess, I imagine! What could her sins be—coveting a new gown or gambling on Sunday? Or perhaps wishing that his Majesty’s child was in her own belly and not in some other woman’s?”
“Ah, well, my lord—poor lady. That’s but a venial sin. And I fear we all of us commit it with her.” Father Scroope drained his glass again, and again the Duke filled it.
“But wishing won’t cure the matter. The fact remains she’s barren—and always will be.”
“She’s been with child, I’m convinced. But there’s somewhat amiss keeps her from carrying to term.”
“And always will. His Majesty will never have a legitimate heir by Catherine of Braganza. And if the throne goes to York the country’s ruined.” Father Scroope widened his popped blue eyes at this, for York’s Catholic sympathies were notorious, and Buckingham was well known for his hatred of the Church. But the Duke said quickly, “Not because of his religion, Father. The case is more serious far than that. His Highness has not the means to govern the country. It would fall into civil war again within six months if he came to the throne.” The Duke’s face was passionately serious. He leaned forward, the hand holding his wine-glass clutched on his knee, pointing with the forefinger of the other at Father Scroope’s bewildered round face. “It’s your duty, Father, as you love England and the Stuarts, to lend me aid in what I propose—and I may as well tell you frankly that his Majesty is behind me in this but prefers, for obvious reasons, to remain out of it altogether.”