The Duke of Buckingham, that dissolute son of a father whom I had always believed to be evil, fell headlong in love with her. My dear child was a little bewildered at first and then appeared to enjoy the attentions of the young man. It was only a light flirtation, Buckingham having a wife and she being betrothed, and in any case she was a princess and he was only a duke so I did not attempt to reprove her. When I thought of the way she had been treated at the Court of France at one time, I thought it would do her no harm to realize that she was growing into a very attractive young woman.
Mary arrived and it was good to see her and we were for once in complete agreement for she was incensed when she heard about James’s marriage to Anne Hyde. I could not resist reminding her that she was the one who had allowed this folly to begin by making the upstart young woman a member of her household.
“How much better it would have been if you had taken my advice then,” I said.
She did not exactly agree, but she refused to receive Anne Hyde and the woman would have been very miserable indeed if Charles had not gone out of his way to be gracious to her.
The weeks began to fly past—very pleasant weeks. If only I could forget Henry’s death and Charles’s thinly veiled criticism of my treatment of him, and the fact that James had made this monstrous marriage, I could have been happy.
Anne Hyde’s child was a boy but a weakling and it did not look as though the child’s chances of survival would be great.
“James should have waited awhile,” I said. “Then the child might not have been a reason for the marriage.”
I was delighted when Sir Charles Berkeley declared that he had been Anne’s lover and that he knew of several other gentlemen who had shared her favors and that it was therefore by no means certain that the father of the child was James.
I wanted to confront James with that evidence, but he had already heard it and was so upset that he became quite ill and went down with a fever. We were all afraid that he might be another victim of small pox.
Anne Hyde was completely ostracized now. Her father was upset and even he railed against her, and she had no friends at Court at all. I wanted Charles to dismiss her father—who was now the Earl of Clarendon—but he would not do so. Clarendon was an excellent Chancellor, he said, and was not to be blamed for his daughter’s affairs.
Christmas was almost upon us. Charles had insisted that we stay for the festivities and I was nothing loath. I was delighted to be on better terms with Mary and it was wonderful to see Henriette blossoming, leading the dancing and amusing herself with the Duke of Buckingham.
Then about five days before Christmas Mary became ill. She had been feeling unwell for some days and thought this was due to some minor cause. My distress was great when the doctors reported that she was suffering from small pox.
Charles said I was to leave Whitehall at once with Henriette. “Take her to St. James’s,” he said, “and stay there with her.”
“Henriette shall go to St. James’s,” I declared, “but I shall stay and nurse Mary.”
“You must not go to the sick room,” Charles retorted firmly.
“My dear Charles,” I replied, “King you may be, but you are my son and this is my daughter. If she is sick I must be with her.”
“Do you realize that you could catch the disease?”
“Of course I know what small pox is. I want to be with my daughter. She will need me.”
“Mam,” he said slowly, “this is no time for deathbed conversions. Mary is ill. She is too sick to be troubled with your views on what will happen to her soul.”
“I want to nurse her.”
“How could you do that? Go back to Henriette. You would never forgive yourself if you caught the disease and passed it on to her.”
That really did frighten me. The thought of anything happening to my precious child made me waver. On the other hand Mary was my daughter too. Henry had just died, a heretic. Mary might die one too, if nothing was done.
Charles said quietly: “It would be dangerous. Besides, I forbid it.”
So I went to St. James’s and told Henriette that her sister was gravely ill, and we prayed for her recovery adding that if she were destined to die let her come to an understanding of the truth that she might not, like her brother Henry, die a heretic.
Alas our prayers were not answered and on Christmas Eve Mary passed away. She was only twenty-nine years old.
Charles was with her at the end. He was very shaken. He was very fond of his family, particularly his sisters.
I was in tears. “It seems as though God has determined to punish me,” I cried. “Is there a blight on my family? Elizabeth…then Henry…now Mary. Why? Why?”
“Who can say?” answered Charles. “But there is something I wish to tell you. When she was dying Mary was very concerned about one matter.”
I turned to him, my eyes shining.
“No…no…” he went on a little impatiently, “it is nothing to do with religion. It was Anne Hyde. Mary had a good deal on her conscience.”
“I know,” I said. “If she had not taken that woman into her household…. I told her she was wrong at the time.”
“No, Mam,” said Charles. “She did not mean that. She was upset because she had maligned Anne. She said she had helped to spread the gossip about her when in her heart she did not believe that it was true. She believed that James loved Anne and Anne truly loved James and that James had given her a promise of marriage before she became his mistress.”
“She was delirious.”
“She was quite clear in her head. She thought that there were people who had fabricated those stories about Anne because they knew it was an unpopular marriage. Mary blamed herself most bitterly. She wanted Anne to come to her that she might beg her forgiveness. I could not allow Anne, with a new baby, to come to the sick bed.”
“I should think not….”
“The infectious nature of the disease prevented that,” he went on firmly. “But I shall go to Anne and tell her that the Princess Mary craved her pardon and that I give it on her behalf.”
“I never heard such nonsense.”
He just smiled at me and said no more.
Our next concern was James. He was becoming very ill.
“That woman is a witch,” I said to Henriette. “First she lured him into marriage and now because he disowns her she is willing him to die.”
Henriette did not answer. I could not understand Henriette. The quiet girl who had been so thin—Louis had referred to her as the Bones of the Holy Innocents—now in clothes which were worthy of her had blossomed into a beauty. Her fragility had become fashionable and ladies of the Court were trying to suppress those protuberances which at one time they had been at great pains to display. Henriette was at the center of all the entertainments, with Buckingham in attendance. In fact there was some scandalous gossip about them. I had to make sure that nothing dangerous could come of that. Charles doted on her and was making as much of her as he did of his favorite mistress Barbara Castlemaine, and knowing his insatiable sexuality, some even dared hint at the most objectionable slander about his relationship with Henriette.
It was a situation to be watched closely and I told myself that as soon as we reached France Henriette must be married to Philippe, who was now the Duc d’Orléans on the death of my brother Gaston. His death did not affect me greatly because, although we had been close as children in the nursery, his involvement in the Fronde had turned me against him.
James’s health began to give us cause for alarm. He was not, fortunately, suffering from the small pox, but I really believed he was so upset because he was regretting his marriage to that woman and was now realizing in what an unsavory involvement he had become entangled.