Poor little Mary looked with dull eyes at those who crowded into the bedchamber to break bread and drink the posset, and cut her and her husband’s garters.
At last Mary and William were in the great bed together, and the King himself drew the curtains.
He did not look at Mary. He could not trust himself to meet the appeal in the tear-drenched eyes of his little niece.
He glanced at grim William, who looked like a man at a funeral rather than at his own nuptials.
“Now, nephew, to your work!” cried Charles. “St. George for England!”
Charles could no longer deceive Louis. The marriage with Holland was a fact, and the Parliament—Shaftesbury had now been released from the Tower and was back in the House—were demanding that an army be raised to assist Holland. Louis, through Danby and Louise, increased Charles’ pension. Charles, in accepting this, continued to assure Louis that the raising of the army was being effected only to pacify his people and keep secret his friendship with France.
Louis was realizing that, in hoping to work through Charles, he had given himself a more difficult task than he might have had. There were others in England who could be of the utmost use to him. He considered the career of Shaftesbury, he whom Charles had named “Little Sincerity,” and he felt that the leader of the Opposition might be as useful to him as the King. Louis was rich; he offered more bribes, and it was not long before the members of the Opposition—those stern Protestants—were on his pension list.
Thereupon Parliament refused to advance the money necessary for the troops, and there was nothing to be done but disband the army. Charles was forced to pay them out of his own pocket, which again put him in the power of the Parliament, for it was necessary to ask for a further grant of money.
The old struggle between King and Parliament was revived. The Commons made it clear that they wished to control the country’s affairs. Shaftesbury demanded the expulsion of the Duke of York. And Louis, furious at the way in which Danby had made him his dupe, passed over to the Commons Danby’s letters in which he had arranged for Louis’ bribes to be paid to the King.
Now Danby’s enemies were at his throat.
Charles assured the Parliament that all Danby had done had been at his command; and indeed at the bottom of each letter was written in Charles’ hand, “This letter is writ by my order. C.R.” The Commons decided to ignore the King’s part in these communications with Louis. They were out for Danby’s destruction; and his impeachment was imminent.
Nell tore herself from the domestic flurries concerning my lord Bur-ford’s shoelaces and my lord Beauclerk’s cough, and gave way to rejoicing. Danby and Louise had worked together, and she was sure that but for them she would have been a Countess by now, and my lord Burford a Duke.
Louise was afraid for, as Danby and she had worked together, she knew that many of his enemies strove to strike at her through him.
Then throughout the city there were rumors. They penetrated Whitehall.
Plots were afoot to murder the King and set the Duke of York on the throne.
People began to talk of a man named Titus Oates.
NINE
Terror swept over England. No one was safe from the accusations of Titus Oates. The Queen herself was in danger. As for Louise, the lampoons which the Whigs had been accustomed to pass round the coffeehouses were replaced by demands that she be brought to trial or sent back to France.
The King, hating trouble and realizing as few others did that Titus Oates was a rogue and a liar, did all in his power to keep himself aloof from the troubles. He dared not expose Titus; he dared not attempt to prevent the cruel executions which were taking place, for he knew that revolution was in the air and that he was in as dangerous a position as his father had been before he had laid his head on the block.
Louise was now known as the “Catholic whore.” No sin was too black to be imputed to her. She trembled in her apartments and played with the idea of abandoning all she had worked for and slipping back to France.
Nell, on the other hand, was unaware of danger. The King seemed fonder of her than ever before. She wept now and then because Lord Beau-clerk was in France, and thus her happiness could not be complete. Since the birth of her children her thoughts had been occupied with them almost to the exclusion of all else. Nell wanted to have the King and her sons with her, like any cozy family; then she could be happy. Plots whirled about her, but she was scarcely aware of them. Her so-called friend, Lady Harvey, had recently tried to bring to the notice of the King a lovely girl named Jenny Middleton. Lady Harvey—urged by her brother Montague—had sought Nell’s help in bringing this girl to the King’s notice, and Nell, her mind being taken up with her grief in the absence of my lord Beauclerk and the promotion of my lord Burford to a dukedom, had been quite unaware of Lady Harvey’s intention of bringing to the King’s notice one who would turn him from Nell herself.
The Middleton affair had collapsed unexpectedly when Montague, its instigator, who was suspected of being Jenny Middleton’s father, was recalled to England. He was in deep disgrace because he had seduced Anne, Countess of Sussex (the young daughter of the King and Barbara) while they were both in France. As Montague had previously been Barbara’s lover, Barbara was furious with the pair and had lost no time in acquainting the King with Montague’s defection. The resulting disgrace of Montague meant that all connected with him were out of favor; thus the Middletons found it necessary to leave Court in a hurry; and Nell was safe. Only she herself was sublimely ignorant of the danger through which she had passed.
She was a Whig because her friends were Whigs. Buckingham and Rochester had been good to her, and Nell was the sort never to forget a friend. She was fond of Monmouth because he reminded her of her own little Charles, and he was her children’s half-brother. She always felt that she wanted to ruffle that black hair and tell Prince Perkin to enjoy himself and not worry so much about whether he would inherit a crown. He seemed to forget that, if he ever received it, it could only be at the death of that one who, Nell believed, must be as beloved by his son as he was by her—King Charles, the fount of all their bounties.
She enjoyed life as best she could taking into account the absence of little James. She had a bonfire on November 5th, just outside her door in Pall Mall, and there she had a Pope to burn with the longest red nose that had ever been seen. The people rejoiced, calling her the “Protestant whore.” And she was one of the few people at Court who was not in danger from Titus Oates.
Little Charles ran excitedly from the bonfire to his mother. He was throwing fireworks of such beauty that few had seen before.
“Now watch, good people,” cried Nell. “My lord Burford will throw a few crackers.”
So Lord Burford let off his fireworks and threw squibs at the long red nose of the burning Pope, and all the people about Nell’s door that night rejoiced in her position at Court. They remembered that those who were poor had no need to ask help twice from Nell Gwyn. “Long life to Nelly!” they cried.
Nell went into her house that night when the celebrations were over, and as she herself washed the grime from the little Earl’s face, he noticed that she was crying; and to see Nell cry was a rare thing.
He put his arms about her and said: “Mama, why do you cry?”
Then she hugged him. She said: “It has been a good day, has it not, my lord Earl? I was wondering what my lord Beauclerk was doing in the great French capital. And I was crying because he was not here with us.”
Little Lord Burford wiped away his mother’s tears. “I’ll never go,” he said. “Never … never. I’ll never go to France.”