I told her I realized that and if only Charles would stop worrying about the troubles of the country and those wretched Protestants—and worse still Puritans—I could be completely happy.
“It appears there is always trouble for rulers, but you have done well and I believe even the Holy Father is pleased with you.”
“How is Madame St. George? Have you heard?”
“I haven’t seen her since I left France, of course. I think she is happy with that little tyrant. Gaston dotes on his daughter. It is a pity he could not get a son. Little Mademoiselle de Montpensier is very rich, for Gaston’s wife, as you know, left everything to her when she died. It is a pity it did not go to Gaston. It is a mistake, in my opinion, for young people to inherit large fortunes.”
“She will find it easy to get a husband.”
“My dear child, they are waiting to pounce. Gaston will have to be careful. I should be there to make sure no mistakes are made. Well, perhaps soon…according to the prophets….”
I was a little sad at the thought of Louis’s dying. After all, he was my brother and although I had seen very little of him and I did think of him more as the King of France than a relation, the bond was still there. My mother was so sure that he was going to die and I couldn’t help feeling a little horrified that she seemed to be looking forward to the event.
Power! I thought. How people crave for it! I didn’t think I did. What I really wanted was to be with my husband and family in a peaceful country where there were no troubles—but of course that must be a country which had turned to the Catholic Faith.
My mother was saying: “I could have returned to Florence.”
“Oh, my dear lady, that would have been wonderful,” I replied. “You could have gone back to your family.”
“Oh yes. The Medicis would have welcomed me. They have a strong family feeling. It would have been strange to be in Florence again, to stroll along the Arno and to live in the old palace. But think how I should have gone back. A queen yes, but one who had been turned out of her adopted country by her own son and a cardinal. No, I could not do that.” For a moment the mask of optimism slipped from her face and I glimpsed a rather fearful old woman. Fleetingly I wondered how much she really believed in those prophecies. She added slowly: “I could not go back to Florence…a failure.” Then the mask was back again. “One day, I shall be very busy. If I have to return to France—I am sure the message will come before long—then I shall be fully engaged with affairs in Paris.”
While she was waiting for all that, she concerned herself with affairs in England.
The children were very interested in her and I was delighted to see how well they got on. She wanted to take charge of the nurseries. Charles, oddly enough for such a precocious child, had always taken a wooden toy to bed with him. He had had it when he was about two years old, had formed an attachment to it and his nurses told me that he would not go to sleep without it.
“Nonsense,” said my mother. “Of course he must give it up. It is not becoming in the Prince of Wales to need toys to go to bed with.”
She talked to Charles very seriously and somehow made him see that it was childish and not worthy of a future King.
When that argument was put to him he allowed them to take the toy away. He was very interested in the fact that he would one day be King and was already talking now and then of what he would do, and it was only this which made him relinquish his toy.
He was a shrewd, often devious little boy. We were amused by the incident of the physic, but at the same time it did show that he had a clever, if crafty, nature. The fact was that he had refused to take some physic which his Governor, Lord Newcastle, thought he needed and Newcastle had complained to me, so I wrote to Charles telling him that I had heard he had refused to take his physic and if he persisted I should have to come and make him take it as it was for his health’s sake. I added that I had told Lord Newcastle to let me know whether or not he had taken his medicine and I hoped he was not going to disappoint me.
Lord Newcastle visited me next day with a note which he said the Prince had sent him.
“My Lord,” Charles had written in his still-childish script and on ruled lines to keep the writing straight, “I would not take too much physic for it doth always make me worse and I think it will do the like for you. I ride every day and am ready to follow any other direction from you. Charles P.”
I could not help laughing and was so impressed by the wit of my son that I told Lord Newcastle that we would not impose the physic for a day or so and if the boy was well enough without it he deserved to escape.
How could I help being proud of such a boy? And I was sure that even my mother could not succeed in getting the better of him.
My mother was complaining now that Mary ate too much at breakfast and must expect to be sick if in addition to manchets of bread and beef and mutton she took chicken as well. Also she drank too much ale.
It was true that when her rather large meals were curtailed Mary did seem better.
My mother was not popular. People thought she was too extravagant and that too much money was being spent on her entourage and entertainment. It was true that she expected to live like a queen—but then she was a queen.
The weather had changed as soon as she arrived, and the southern half of the country was engulfed in storms and gales which caused a great deal of damage. The people, always superstitious, said it was a sign and meant that the Queen Mother was going to be a menace to the country. It was very upsetting and I was afraid my mother would hear these rumors. But if she did, she brushed them aside. I had forgotten her capacity to accept only what she wanted to happen.
Whenever the weather was bad during my mother’s stay in England, the Thames watermen would shout to each other that this was more of the weather the Queen Mother had brought to England, as though she used some malicious influence in the heavens to make us uncomfortable.
As a queen she looked upon luxury as her natural right and maintaining her household was a drain on the exchequer. She did not, however, see why the people of England should not pay for it. They did, and complained bitterly about her in the streets and now and then I overheard unflattering comments. It was said that she was a trouble-bringer and there was never tranquility when she was nearby. There was grumbling about the people of England being taxed to pay for her “shaggrags”—by which I presume they meant her household.
Charles grew worried and told me he had sent a message to King Louis urging him to invite his mother back to France. “It is the best way,” he said. “She pines for the old life in Paris. I know that she has entered into intrigues in the past, but I feel sure she would promise not to if you would only have her back.”
Charles explained to me that, apart from the expense of keeping her in England, her presence was an irritation to the people and that was something he wanted to avoid because he was growing more and more uneasy about the state of the country.
I hated to see him worried so I made no protest, but Louis wrote back to the effect that however much his mother promised not to meddle she would be unable to prevent herself doing so because she was a meddler by nature; and he would not give her permission to return to France. He was sorry for his brother-in-law but he must be as firm as Louis himself was and explain to Queen Marie that her presence was no longer wanted in England.