Charles did smuggle out a letter to me in which he stated that he was going to win them over and as soon as he gained power he would hang them all.
Cromwell was too wise a man not to realize this possibility. I had always found it hard to see the enemy’s point of view, but I realized that Cromwell’s intentions were not entirely to gain power for himself—although this is what he did. Some thought him a bad man, but few could deny that he was a brave one. He never spared others, nor did he himself. He was a deeply religious man. He had said he took up arms for civil and religious liberty, but most of us have come to know by now that when people talk of giving the people religious liberty they mean liberty to worship as the oppressors think fit. I am sure my dear Charles did not wish to restrict the religious liberty of his subjects. Cromwell referred to himself as “a mean instrument to do God’s people some good and God service,” but he brought great tragedy to many an English family and more to that of his King and Queen than any other.
I was delighted when my son James escaped to Holland. That was something to enliven the dreary days. He had been placed by the Parliament with his sister Elizabeth and brother Henry at St. James’s, though they were allowed to visit the King at Caversham and later at Hampton Court and Zion House, where he was kept in restraint. I would sit for hours imagining those meetings and longing to be with them.
James had been playing hide and seek with his sister and brothers and during the game had managed to elude the guards and get down to the river where friends were waiting with clothes—those of a girl—and when he was dressed in them he must have been a rather attractive sight for James had always been a pretty child. His brother Charles would never have been able to disguise himself as a girl! They got him across the sea to Middleburg where his sister was waiting to welcome him. Charles was already there and I was sorry to hear that they were soon constantly quarreling with each other.
I wrote to them reminding them that quarrels within the family were something we could not afford. We had enemies enough outside the family. There must be none within.
So that weary year was passing. The King a prisoner, the Parliament wondering what they would do with him. I longed to be with him. I wanted to share his fate whatever it was. If I could join him in his prison and we could spend our last days together, I would ask nothing more.
I wrote appealingly to the French ambassador, begging him to put my request before the Parliament. Let them give me permission to be with my husband. I would willingly join him in his prison. Let them do what they would with me if they would only let me be with him.
I settled down to await an answer. None came. I learned afterward that the French ambassador had presented my letter to the Parliament and that they would not open it.
Good news at last! Charles had escaped from his jailers. He was in the Isle of Wight and had found refuge in Carisbroke Castle.
It was about this time that war broke out in France. I was so immersed in my own affairs that I was taken by surprise when it burst upon us.
Poor Anne, she was distraught and terrified that her son would lose his crown. The war of the Fronde had started. It was really a revolt by certain factions against Mazarin to whom, in her infatuation, Anne had handed over the reins of government. Some people objected to this and it was the same old story: dissatisfaction with the rulers and then war…which is no good to anyone. The nobles were annoyed because there were too many foreigners in high places—Italians mostly, as Mazarin naturally favored his own race. Taxation was oppressive and the Parliament complained that their wishes were overruled by the arrogant Cardinal.
The people were taking up arms and the name Fronde was bestowed on the uprising. It was scarcely a war as the name implied for it was called after a fronde—a kind of catapult used by the street boys of Paris to fight their mock battles with each other.
When the people put up the barricades I went to see Anne. I felt I could be of some use to her, my experiences of discontented subjects being great.
Anne, who had left everything to Mazarin to conduct, was less worried than she had been.
“It is a slight disturbance,” she said.
“My dear sister,” I replied, “the rebellion in England began as a slight disturbance.”
I think she took notice then. She could not ignore that terrible example across the Channel. The Court fled from Paris and took up residence first of all in Ruel and afterward at St. Germain. When the Court left Paris I remained in the Louvre. The insurgents had no quarrel with me. But now I knew what it meant to live in abject poverty. My pension had stopped and because I had sent the bulk of it to help Charles I had nothing left with which to buy food and keep us warm.
My little Henriette could not understand what it was all about. Poor child, she must have thought she had been born into a hostile world. I wished I could have given her a happy childhood…a royal childhood…the sort to which she was entitled. But we were together…I must be thankful for that.
I don’t think I have ever been so miserably uncomfortable as I was that Christmas of 1648. I had suffered much before but now there was bodily discomfort to add to mental torture. I had endured illness but never before had I come near to starvation and, far worse than suffering myself, was to see my child cold and hungry. Her beautiful dark eyes seemed to grow larger every day.
Paris was in chaos. There was a war and to make life more uncomfortable the Seine had burst its banks and flooded the town. From the windows we could see the roads looking like canals whipped up by the bitter winds. That wind whistled through the windows and there was no way of keeping warm.
I could not see how we could continue in this way. My household was sadly in need of food. Even Henry Jermyn had lost his high spirits. What could we do? Where could we go? This was supposed to be our refuge.
It was a dark and gloomy morning; the rooms were full of the cold wintry daylight; outside the clouds scudded by, heavy with snow. My little Henriette was in my bed. I had gathered everything I could…rugs and drapery…to put over the bed and keep her warm. I sat in a chair beside the bed with a counterpane wrapped round me. Henriette watched me with wide eyes. I said: “Why don’t you try to sleep, my darling?”
Her answer wrung my heart with misery. “I’m so hungry, Mam.”
What could I say to that?
“Perhaps there’ll be some soup today,” she went on, her eyes brightening at the thought.
“Perhaps, my love,” I answered, knowing there was nothing in the palace with which to make soup.
At that moment Lady Morton came in carrying a piece of a wooden chest which she put on the fire.
“That’s a little better, dear Anne,” I said.
“It’s the end of the chest, Your Majesty. Tomorrow we shall have to find something else. This will last through the day, and it should give a good blaze.”
“Nothing seems to keep out these biting winds.”
Anne looked pale and thin, poor woman. She had come through that miraculous escape…to this. Was she wishing that she were back in England accepting Roundhead rule? At least she might not be cold and hungry there.
She went to the bed and felt Henriette’s hand.
“It’s warm,” she said.
“I keep it hidden away,” Henriette answered. “When I put it out it freezes. Will there be soup for dinner?”
Anne hesitated. “We shall have to see.”
It was like a miracle for there was soup for dinner after all. How strange life was! I was lifted up one moment and cast down the next. It must have been about an hour later when we had a visitor—none other than the Cardinal de Retz, one of the leaders of the Fronde movement. He had taken it into his head to see how I was faring at the Louvre and when he entered the room he stared in horror to see me huddled in my chair and my little daughter peeping out from under the mass of rugs which I had thrown over her.