He had an acknowledged family of nine or ten; he did what he could for them, raising them to the peerage, settling money on them, keeping his eyes open for profitable marriages. Oh, yes, he was indeed fond of his children.
And now little Nell was to provide him with another.
It was interesting; he would be eager to see the child when it put in an appearance; but meanwhile there was much elsewhere with which to occupy himself.
He was faintly worried once more by the shadows cast over his throne by his son Monmouth, and his own brother, the Duke of York.
Monmouth was turning out to be a rake. In the sexual field, it was said, he would one day rival his father. Charles could only shrug his shoulders tolerantly at this. He would not have had young Jemmy otherwise—nor could he have expected it with such a father and such a mother.
He wished though that his son did not indulge in so much street-fighting. Charles had given him a troop of horse, and when he had inspected fortifications at Harwich recently it was reported that he and his friends had had a right merry time debauching the women of the countryside.
It would be churlish of me to deny him the pleasure in which I myself have taken such delight, the King told himself. Yet he would have preferred young Jemmy to have had a more serious side to his character. It was true that the King’s friends indulged in like pleasures; but these were men of wit; they were rogues and libertines, but they were interested in the things of the mind as well as those of the body—even as Charles was himself. So far it seemed to him that his son Jemmy had taken on himself all the vices of the Restoration and none of its virtues.
Jemmy was growing more arrogant, more speculative every day. He was providing the biggest shadow over the crown. Brother James also caused anxieties. He was very different from young Jemmy. James had his mistresses—many of them—and he visited them and got them with child whenever he could escape from Anne Hyde. James was not a bad sort; James was merely a fool. James had a perfect genius for doing that which would bring trouble—mainly on himself. “Ah,” Charles would murmur often, “protect me from la sottise de mon frère. But most of all, protect my brother from it.”
Now James was having trouble with Buckingham. There was another who was doomed to make trouble for others and chiefly for himself. Two troublemakers; if they could but put their heads together and make one brewing of trouble ‘twould be easier, mused Charles. But they must busy themselves with their separate brews and give me double trouble.
Buckingham—by far the cleverer of the two—had decided that James should be his friend. He made advances to the Duke, suggesting that they sink their differences and work together. Buckingham wished to rid himself of his greatest rival in the Cabal, my lord Arlington, and had solicited James’ help to this end.
James, with sturdy self-righteousness, had set himself apart from their schemes. He intimated that he considered it beneath him to enter into such Cabals; he was resolved to serve the King in his own way.
More tact should have been used when dealing with the wild and reckless Buckingham.
Buckingham now saw James as an enemy; and how could such an ambitious man tolerate an enemy who was also heir presumptive to the crown?
Buckingham raged, and mad schemes filled his imaginative brain. The King must get legitimate children; the Duke of York must never be allowed to mount the throne.
So now it was that Buckingham brought out his wild plans for a divorce between the King—that mighty stallion, who had proved many times that he was capable of getting children with a variety of women—and sterile Catherine, whose inability to perform her duties as Queen could plunge the country into a desperate situation.
Charles had declined Buckingham’s efforts on his behalf, which had ranged from the divorcing of Catherine to the kidnapping of her and carrying her off to some plantation where she would never be heard of again.
Moreover Charles had sought out James.
“My lord Buckingham’s wild mind teems with wild plans,” he said. “And the very essence of these plans is that you shall never follow me. Do not laugh at them, James. Buckingham is a dangerous fellow.”
Buckingham was looking to Monmouth. What wild seeds could he sow in that wild mind?
So the shadows deepened about the throne, and the King had little time to think of the child which Nell would soon be bringing into the world.
There was not a breath of air in the room. Hangings had been drawn across the windows to shut out the light; candles burned in the chamber. Nell lay on her bed and thought her last hour had come. So many women died in childbirth.
Rose was with her, and she was glad of Rose’s company.
“Nelly,” whispered Rose, “should you not be walking up and down the chamber? ’Twill make an easier birth, they say.”
“No more, Rosy. No more,” moaned Nell. “I have walked enough, and these pains seem fit to kill me.”
Her mother sat by the bed; Nell saw through half-closed eyes that she had brought her gin bottle with her.
She was crying already. Nell heard her talking of her beautiful daughter who had captivated the King. Her mother’s voice, high-pitched and shrill, seemed to fill the bedchamber.
“That little bastard my girl Nell is bearing the King’s son. Who’d have thought it … of my little Nell!”
It is a long way, thought Nell, from a bawdy-house in Cole-yard to childbed of the King’s bastard.
And where was the King this day? He was not in London. He was riding to Dover to greet visitors from overseas. “Matters of state,” he would murmur. “Matters of state. That is why I cannot be at hand at the birth of our child, sweet Nell.”
He would say such things to have her believe that the child she was bearing was as important to him as those borne by his lady mistresses. Actress or Duchess … it was the same to him. That’s what he would imply. If he had been beside her and said it, she would have believed him.
“I always said,” Mrs. Gwyn was croaking to Mary Knepp and Peg Hughes, who had come into the chamber to swell the crowds and see Mrs. Nelly brought to bed of the King’s bastard, “I always said that my Nell was too little a one to bear children.”
Then Nell suddenly sat up in bed and cried aloud: “Have done with your caterwauling, Ma. I’m not a corpse yet. Nor do I intend to be. I’ll live, and so will the King’s bastard.”
That was so typical of Nell that everyone fell to laughing; and Nell herself kept them in fits of laughter until the pain grew worse and she called to Rose and the midwife.
Not long after that Nell lay back exhausted, with the King’s son in her arms.
There was a fluffy dark down on his head.
The women bending over him cried: “He’s a Stuart! Yes, you can see the royal stallion in Nelly’s brat.”