“Louis was fond of her, I know,” said Charles. “He would have done anything to help her.”
“He was very sad when he learned of her death, Your Majesty. He said a courier must be sent to England immediately.”
“It was good of him,” said Charles.
“Monsieur Valot is now a very unhappy man, for it was he who prescribed the grains to make Her Majesty sleep.”
“She was always averse to taking such things,” commented Charles. “And Dr. Mayerne, who attended her when she was here, agreed with her that such aids to sleep could be dangerous. Tell me, how was she before she died?”
“She suffered a cough, Sire.”
“Had she taken to her bed?”
“Oh no, Your Majesty. She was at supper as usual. She talked and laughed. She took her grains and went to sleep at once, her ladies said. When one of them went in to awaken her she could not do so and the doctor came. They said she was not dead but some vapor had touched her brain and prevented her from speaking. However, the priest had the ceremony of extreme unction performed. They said she revived a little but only for a few moments, and then she expired. There is great sadness at the court of France, Your Majesty. The King deeply mourns his beloved aunt, and the Princess Henriette is prostrate with grief.”
“My poor Henriette…she would be,” murmured Charles. “The Queen loved her more than any of us…even James.”
I felt as though I had lost a friend. I had not seen a great deal of her but there had sprung up a warm relationship between us.
I could grieve with them.
THE COURT WENT INTO MOURNING and Charles seemed a little closer to me then. I think he wanted to talk about his mother and he could do that with me more easily than with Lady Castlemaine or one of his actresses.
“Dear Mam,” he said. “I was never a favorite with her. She was disappointed in me from the day I was born. ‘What an ugly child!’ she said. ‘Can it belong to me and my handsome Charles?’”
“They say you were very like her father and she admired him greatly, I believe.”
“Like him in my ways…at least in the worst of them.” He looked at me with that half-amused, half-apologetic smile. “He was a great king, that Henri — one of the best the French have had. I should do well to emulate him in that respect…instead of others. I think of my dearest sister, Henriette. I would I could be with her. She was the closest to Mam. She is more French than English. She was only a child when she ran away from this country, and Mam…she was all French…she would never be anything else. That is why the English did not like her. They blame her for my father’s death.”
“The people must always blame someone.”
“Oh yes, it is comforting to pick a scapegoat. But I fear my dear Mam may not have helped matters. In the first place they did not like her religion.”
I flinched and he put a hand over mine.
“You are not like her. Mam made her opinions known and she believed she was always right. I think that was where she went wrong. She was indiscreet; she talked when she should have been silent. She went marching through life…blundering, you might say…taking action when she should have been passive…bringing disaster to her husband whom she wanted to help more than anything on earth. That was Mam, quick to rage…effusive in her affections…everything she did was done with the utmost enthusiasm. Perhaps that was why we loved her. I wish I could see my little sister.”
“You love her best of all your family, I think,” I said.
“Little Minette. Yes, she was my favorite. It is sad that we never meet. I do not think she is happy over there. The French court is different from ours. Perhaps what people here resent about our court is that it is too like the French, but, as I say, the difference is there. It is as free as ours…but shall I say less blatant. Our characters differ. I am half French, Catherine, so I know. Perhaps that is my misfortune.”
“Your misfortune! The people love you. They will forgive you anything.”
He smiled at me. “There is a strong puritanical influence in the country. You do not see it at court, but it is there. The stern rules of Cromwell and his followers are not easily forgotten. The country must become prosperous. There must be an end to these wars. We have to be friendly with our neighbors. It is not enough to give people pageants and playhouses. There has to be security too.”
“I know that you have your anxieties and that when people hear scandals they believe that you are more interested in pleasure than in duty.”
He took my hand and pressed it. I thought he was trying to explain to me, to ask forgiveness for his weakness. Then he shrugged his shoulders. “Poor Mam,” he said. “She could not help what she was, any more than the rest of us can. And now she is gone…”
QUEEN HENRIETTA MARIA was buried on the twelfth of September, nearly two weeks after her death; and she was laid to rest beside her ancestors in the Abbey of Saint Denis.
There were a great many rumors about her death, as there usually are about royal people who die before they are expected to.
Dr. Valot, I believe, had an uncomfortable time defending the “grains” he had subscribed. He declared he had given her these because she could not sleep, and so effective had they been that she had failed to wake up.
In England we mourned her. People ceased to talk of the part she had played in the Civil War and remembered the good things about her: her stoical attitude toward physical pain; her goodness; her care for her servants. I knew how warm-hearted she could be and I believed there had been much that was good in Henrietta Maria.
And then Frances Stuart, now Duchess of Richmond and Lennox, returned to court and I was deeply concerned as to what effect this would have on Charles.
She had changed. She was still beautiful, but she had lost just a little of that innocence…that childish outlook on life; but she was not subtle enough to hide the fact that the marriage was not a success.
Charles received her in a friendly but somewhat aloof manner. I was relieved by this, although it was no longer of vital importance to me; the Duchess of Richmond and Lennox could not be the threat that plain Miss Stuart had been.
Moreover, he was becoming more involved with the play actress Nell Gwynne who, I had heard, was expecting his child.
Poor Frances, she was not a happy woman.
I sent for her one day and dismissed everyone else, so that we could be alone together.
“Frances,” I said, “are you happy?”
She raised those beautiful eyes to my face and there was a mournful expression in them.
“It is not what I expected it would be, Your Majesty.”
“Oh,” I replied. “You thought there was something divine about marriage…did you, Frances? And now you find…”
“I was happier before,” she said.
I saw the regret in her eyes. It was natural that she should have been fascinated by the King, for, apart from that aura, he was attractive to men and women alike. His very ugliness — if it could be called that — was appealing; his tall lean figure moved with exceptional grace, but it was in his expression and smile that one recognized that easy tolerance, that sympathy, that acceptance of life and the determination to make it a pleasure for others as well as himself. He had a rare kindliness which drew people to him. So naturally Frances would have been attracted by him and would doubtless have preferred him to her drunken duke.
She had had the choice — as someone in my position would never have had. If Charles had been free to marry, most certainly she would have married him. But she had selected the way of morality and insisted on marriage, and she was regretting that.