“Ah,” he said one day, as he looked on the river from his lodgings in the town of Cologne, “it is a mercy that I am a man of low character, for how could one of noble ideals tolerate my position? From which we learn that there is good in all evil. A comforting thought, my friends!”
He smiled at his Chancellor, Edward Hyde, who had joined him in Paris some years ago and had since been his most trusted adviser. He liked Hyde—a grim old man, who did not stoop to flatter the King in case he should one day come into his own.
That amused Charles. “Others,” he said, “wish to ensure their future—not that they have any high hopes that I shall be of much use to them—but flattery costs little. Reproaches cost far more. That is why I will have you with me, Edward, my friend. And if there should come that happy day when I am restored to my own, you shall be well paid for those reproaches you heaped upon me when I was in exile. There! Are you not pleased?”
“I should be better pleased if Your Majesty would not merit these reproaches. I would rather have the pleasure of praising you now, than the hope of rewards in the future.”
“Would all men had your honesty, Chancellor,” said the King lightly. “And would I had a state whose affairs were worthy of your counsel. Alas! How do we pass our days? In vain hopes and wild pleasure. What new songs are there to be sung today? Shall we throw the dice again? Any pretty women whose acquaintance we have not made?”
“Your Majesty, could you not be content with one mistress? It would be so much more respectable if you could.”
“I am content with each one while I am with her. Content! I am deeply content. One leaves me and another appears, and then I find contentment again.”
“If Your Majesty would but occupy yourself with matters of state you would have less time for women.”
“Matters of state! They are things to dream about. Women! They are to be possessed. One woman in Cologne is worth a million imaginary state papers in Whitehall.”
“Your Majesty is incorrigible.”
“Nay, Edward, merely resigned. I will tell you this: You have enemies here at my mock Court and they would seek to drive a wedge between us were that possible. Yesterday one said to me: ‘Your Majesty, do you know what your respected Chancellor said of you? Most disrespectfully he spoke of you. He declared you are a profligate who fritters his time away in vices of all descriptions.’ And how do you think I answered your calumniator, Edward? I said: ‘It does not surprise me that he should say that once in a way to you, for he says the same of me to myself a hundred times a week!’”
Charles laughed and laid his arm about his Chancellor’s shoulders. “There!” he continued. “That is what I think of you and your honesty. I can appreciate other things … I can love other things … besides beautiful women!”
“Let us talk of state matters,” said Edward Hyde. “It would be better if your sister of Orange did not make her proposed visit to Paris to see your mother.”
Charles nodded. “I see that, Edward.”
“Now that we are entering into negotiations with Spain, and Ormonde has gone on a mission to Madrid, we do not wish Spain to think that the bond between ourselves and France is being strengthened. The Spaniards will know that your mother and sister are being treated with scant courtesy in France; therefore they will be more likely to favor us. Any who is out of favor with France should readily find favor with Spain.”
“I will speak to my sister.”
“You should forbid her to make the journey.”
Charles looked uneasy. “I … forbid Mary!”
“You are the King of England.”
“A King without a kingdom, a man who would often have been without a home but for Mary. What would have happened to us but for her, I cannot think. Holland was our refuge until, with the death of her husband, she lost her influence. Even now we owe the money, on which we live, to her; but for my sister Mary I should not have even this threadbare shirt to cover my shoulders. And you would ask me to forbid her making a journey on which she has set her heart!”
“You are the King.”
“I fear she will think me an ungrateful rogue.”
“It matters not what she thinks of Your Majesty.”
“It matters not! My dear sister to think me an ungrateful oaf? My dear Chancellor, you astonish me! A moment ago you were complaining because the world looks upon me as a libertine; now you say it is a matter of little importance that my sister should find me ungrateful.”
“Your Majesty …”
“I know. I see your point. Ingratitude … intolerance … are minor sins in the eyes of the statesman. If the outcome of these things is beneficial, then it is good statecraft. But to invite a pretty woman to one’s bed … in your eyes, Edward, and in the eyes of Puritans, that is black sin; yet to me—if she be willing—it seems but pleasure. We do not see life through the same eyes, and you would be judged right by the majority, so it is I who am out of step with the world. Perhaps that is why I wait here, frittering away my time with dice and women.”
“I should advise Your Majesty to speak to your sister.”
Charles bowed his head.
“And if I were Your Majesty I would not continue to associate with the woman, Lucy Water, who now calls herself Mistress Barlow.”
“No? But I am fond of Lucy. She has a fine boy who is mine also.”
“She is mistress of others besides Your Majesty.”
“I know it.”
“There are many gentlemen of the Court who share your pleasure in this woman.”
“Lucy has much to give.”
“You are too easygoing.”
“I am content to go where my will carries me. There is no virtue in my easy temper.”
“The woman could be sent to England.”
“To England?”
“Indeed, yes. It would be better so. She could be promised a pension.”
Charles laughed.
“Your Majesty is amused?”
“Only at the idea of such a magnanimous promise from a man in a threadbare shirt.”
“There are some who would help to pay the pension for the sake of ridding Your Majesty of the woman.”
“Poor Lucy!”
“She would enjoy returning to her native land doubtless. If the Spanish project comes to anything, we should leave Cologne. She would not wish to stay here when all her lovers had gone. Have I your permission to put this proposition to her, Your Majesty?”
“Put it by all means, but don’t force her to go back to live among Puritans, Edward.”
“Then sign this paper. It is a promise of a pension.”
Charles signed. Poor Lucy! He had ceased to desire her greatly. Occasionally he visited her in indolence or out of kindness. He was not sure which, and he did not care enough to find out. One never knew, when visiting her, whether one would startle her with a lover who might be hiding in a cupboard until the royal visitor had departed. Such situations were not conducive to passion.
But as he signed he was really thinking of Mary, and what he would say to her.
Was it possible that Spain might help him to regain his throne?
There were times when some wild scheme would rouse him from his lethargy, and he would once more be conscious of hope.
Mary, the Princess of Orange, had all the Stuart gaiety. She had lost her husband; she was young and alone in a country which did not greatly love her; she was full of anxieties for her baby son; yet when she was with her brother she could fling aside her cares and laugh, dance and make merry.
She was looking forward to going to France as she had not looked forward to anything for a long time.
“Paris!” she cried. “And all the gaiety I hear is indulged in there! I want to enjoy all that. And most of all, I want to see our mother whom I have not seen for thirteen years, and dear little Henriette whom I have not seen at all. Poor Mother! She was always so tender and loving.”