Charles, in the House of Lords, patiently pointed out that what they asked of him was illegal. He assured them that he intended to take great care of himself and his people.
It was pointed out to him that laws could always be changed in emergency.
“If that is your conscience,” said Charles, “it is far from mine. I assure you that I love my life so well that I will take all the care in the world to keep it with honor. But I do not think it is of such great value after fifty to be preserved with the forfeiture of my honor, my conscience, and the law of the land.”
Monmouth was present and Charles watched the young man as he spoke. He saw the bitter look in Monmouth’s face; and he thought: I was a fool to think he loved me. What did he ever love but my crown?
The King won the day. But Shaftesbury would not give in. He had gone so far he could not draw back and he knew he had proved himself to be such an enemy to the Duke of York that he must at all cost prevent his coming to the throne. He now tried to bring a new bill to force Charles to divorce the Queen. Charles retaliated with his old gambit: the dissolution of Parliament.
Louise meanwhile had been in constant touch with the new French ambassador, Barrillon, who had replaced Courtin. She believed she saw a chance to reinstate herself with Charles.
She had made herself aware, during the recent years of terror, of every twist and turn in the complicated policy of the King and Parliament. Now that Danby was a prisoner in the Tower she had turned her attention to Lord Sunderland, one of the most important men in the country. She had used all her wits to save herself and had found it convenient to turn to anyone who she thought could be of the slightest use to her. She even helped Shaftesbury to reinstate himself; she made friendly overtures to Monmouth, though she secretly hoped that her son, the Duke of Richmond, might be legitimized and named heir to the throne; but she said nothing of this to Monmouth.
Louise was desperate and, being full of crawling as well, she began to sidle back to the King, and her ability to discuss with intelligence any new political move made him seek her company. He was visiting her every day, although he was spending his nights with Nell. Louise did not greatly care that this should be so, because she was beginning to realize that if she were clever enough both Louis and Charles could come to look upon her as a person important to the policies they wished to pursue. For Charles she was that one to whom he could confide what he wished for from the King of France; to Louis she was the person who wielded an influence over the King of England which she could use as he bade her.
She sought out the King very soon after the dissolution of Parliament and, seeing that she wished to speak with him alone, he allowed her to dismiss all those about them.
One of his little dogs leaped into his lap, and he fondled its ears as they talked.
“What great good fortune,” said Louise, “if it were never necessary to reassemble Parliament!”
“I agree with all my heart,” said Charles. “But alas, it will be necessary ere long to do so.”
She had moved nearer to him. “For what reason, Charles?”
“Money,” he said. “I must have money. The country needs it. I need it. The Parliament must assemble and grant it to me.”
“Charles, what if there were other means of filling your exchequer … would you then think it necessary to call the Parliament?”
He raised his eyebrows and smiled at her, but he was alert.
“If I could make certain promises to Louis …” she began.
“There have been promises.”
“Yes, and the Dutch marriage and your failure to confess yourself a Catholic angered Louis.”
Charles shrugged lightly. “I was forced into the first,” he said. “The people wished it. As for the second—that is something my people would not tolerate.”
“And you yourself, Charles?”
“I am an irreligious fellow. I cannot conform, you know. I think that the Catholic Faith is more befitting to a gentleman than gloomy Presbyterianism certainly. But I am my grandfather again. England is worth a principle, as Paris was with him.”
“In the Treaty of Dover you promised to proclaim yourself a Catholic.”
“At the appropriate time,” said Charles quickly.
“And that will be …?”
“When my people will accept a Catholic King.”
“You mean … never as long as you live.”
“Who can say? Who can say?”
Louise was silent for a while. Religion, as with his grandfather who had saved France from the disaster into which religious conflict was plunging the nation, would always be for Charles a matter of expediency. She must shelve the great desire to fulfill that part of her duty to France. But she must seek to bind Charles closer to the country of her birth, not only to please the French King, but to make her own position secure.
“If you had money,” she said, “if you had, say, four million livres over three years you would be able to manage your affairs without calling Parliament.”
“You think Louis would pay …”
“On conditions which me might arrange …”
Charles put down the lapdog and held out his hand. “Louise, my ministering angel,” he said, “let us talk of those conditions.”
Before the next Parliament was called Charles was to receive £200,000 a year for a promise of neutrality towards Louis’ Continental adventures. Charles saw his chance to rule without a Parliament, which in the past he had needed merely to vote him the money he required for governing the country.
When the new Parliament met, the King’s expression was inscrutable.
He called to the Lord Chancellor to do his bidding, and the Lord Chancellor declared that the Parliament was dissolved.
Charles left the chamber, where everyone was too astonished to protest. When he called to his valet to help him change, Charles was laughing. “You are a better man than you were a quarter of an hour since,” he said. “It is better to have one King than five hundred.”
He continued in high good humor. “For,” he said, “I will have no more Parliaments, unless it be for some necessary acts that are temporary only, or to make new ones for the general good of the nation; for, God be praised, my affairs are now in so good a position that I have no occasion to ask my Parliament to vote me supplies.”
Thus Charles, true ruler of his country through the French King’s bribes, determined not to call a Parliament for as long as he lived. Nor did he.
Now he began to deal with the terror. Shaftesbury was sent to the Tower. Oates was arrested for slander. Monmouth was arrested and, although he was soon released, and Shaftesbury escaped to Holland, gradually there was a return to peaceful living.
TEN
In a house not far from Whitehall a little group of men sat I huddled about a table. They spoke in whispers and every now and then one of their number would creep to the door and open it silently and sharply, to make sure there was no one listening outside. At the head of the table sat a tall handsome young man whose brilliant eyes were now alight with ambition. Monmouth believed that before the year was out he would be King of England.
He listened to the talk of “Slavery” and “Popery,” from which these men were swearing England should be freed forever. Popery and Slavery had special meanings; one referred to the Duke of York, the other to the King.
Monmouth was uneasy. He hated Popery. But Slavery? He could not stop thinking of eyes which shone with a special affection for him, and he pretended to misunderstand when they talked about the annihilation of Slavery.
Rumbold, one of the chief conspirators, was saying: “There could not be a spot more suited to our purpose. My farm—the Rye House—is as strong as a castle. It is close to the road where it narrows so that only one carriage can pass at a time. When Slavery and Popery ride past on their way to London from the Newmarket races we will block the way.”