All the King’s Women

Thus wrote the satirist John Ayloffe, whose utter contempt for the Frenchified tone of Charles’ court and politics led him later into treason and a traitor’s death. The arrival of Louise de Keroualle at Whitehall marked a change in the household and government of the British king, or perhaps it would be better to say that it accelerated a change that was already under way. For pictorial evidence of this we may compare the portraits of fashionable beauties before and after 1670. The voluptuous languor of Barbara Villiers, who set the mode in the early days of the reign, gives place to a new look in the 1670s. Masses of curls replace loose hair and ringlets; heads no longer rest wearily on hands; eyes are alert, intelligent, questioning instead of heavy-lidded and bed-ready; more use is made of allegorical props and backgrounds. Paris had come to London in the person of the king’s new woman. A decade before, Pepys had disapproved of Princess Henrietta’s coiffure – ‘her dressing of herself with her hair frizzed short up to her ears, did make her seem so much the less to me’⁵² – but now all ladies of the haut monde rushed to embrace the hairstyle and dress that the king obviously found so appealing.

Louise was to have an influence which went far beyond the world of fashion and that makes it important to understand the circumstances which brought her to the Stuart court in the first place. The jewel box story has all the appearance of a popular, romantic myth created or embroidered after the event to explain Louise’s appearance as a result of the king’s readiness to become infatuated with every pretty woman who came within his ken. It is part of the killjoy historian’s lot to cast doubt on such simple and attractive explanations of momentous events. Louise was the elder daughter of Guillaume de Penancoet, comte de Keroualle, whose estates were in the region of Brest. He had court connections, and Sir Richard Browne, who was English resident in Paris from 1641 to 1660, knew the family well and thought highly of them. Browne’s son-in-law, John Evelyn, who met Louise’s parents in 1675, was also impressed: ‘He seemed a soldierly person and a good fellow, as the Bretons generally are. His lady had been very handsome and seems a shrewd, understanding woman.’⁵³ For the Keroualles it was an important achievement getting their girl placed in the Orléans household and this was a major step towards securing for her a wealthy marriage or, possibly, the position of mistress to some prince of the blood. The likelihood is that Louise had had affairs before her entry into English history and her name was linked by gossips with various noble scions.

She was back in England within three months of her mistress’s death but exactly who instigated the move is not altogether clear. Burnet attributed the whole scheme to Buckingham who had noticed Charles’ interest in the woman and thought that he could use her in the same way that he had tried to use La Belle Stuart – to displace Lady Castlemaine. According to this version, the duke suggested to Charles that it would be a kindness to take care of some of Henrietta’s servants. He then went to Louis and convinced him that ‘he could never reckon himself sure of the king but by giving him a mistress that should be true to his interests’.⁵⁴ The same story was going the rounds of the diplomatic corps in Paris. The Duke of Savoy’s ambassador reported, ‘it is thought that the plan is to make her mistress to the King of Great Britain. [Buckingham] would like to dethrone Lady Castlemaine, who is his enemy and his most Christian majesty would not be sorry to see the position filled by one of his subjects, for it is said the ladies have great influence over the mind of the King of England.’⁵⁵ It was even being said that Buckingham still had ambitions to replace Queen Catherine and had selected Louise for this honour.

There is no doubt that the duke was the executive agent in this business but that need not mean that he was its originator. When he was sent over to France in the wake of Henrietta’s death it was to negotiate a ‘bogus’ treaty with Louis. As the chief minister not trusted with the secret Treaty of Dover he was made to go through the charade of reaching an Anglo-French accord which, with the exception of the religious clause, was identical to the one already concluded. The king, his Catholic ministers and Louis were all highly amused to have Buckingham supposedly engaged in hard bargaining with his French counterpart over a treaty whose details had already been agreed. May it not be that he was also duped into believing that he had ‘discovered’ Louise de Keroualle and that it had already been arranged that she was to develop further that close relationship between the two kings begun by Minette? Some contemporaries believed that it was Henrietta’s dying wish that Charles should invite Louise to join his household and that theory certainly fits better with the continuity of close relations between the courts in London and Paris. It also disposes of the problem presented by the ill-feeling between Louise and Buckingham. Had the lady been beholden to the duke as her sponsor she might have been expected to use her influence in his interests. As it was, she loathed him and the enmity was heartily reciprocated. It may even be that the duke went cold on the matchmaking mission before it was concluded. Having been appointed to convey Louise across the Channel, he abandoned her at Dieppe and caught the first available ship to England by himself. Louise was left stranded until Ralph Montagu sent word to London and Arlington despatched a barge to collect her.

Another possible explanation is that the stratagem originated entirely in the Louvre and that Louise was designated as the Trojan horse which would ensure that Charles kept the French alliance at the centre of his political thinking. Louis knew that his brother monarch was a slippery customer who needed closer supervision than his diplomats or pensioned English officials could provide. Lady Castlemaine had very limited value. She helped Louis’ ambassadors only when it was in her own interests to do so and, in any case, her long reign seemed to be coming to an end. The glaringly obvious solution, if it could be managed, would be to replace the countess with someone whose loyalty to the French Crown was not in question. When, in the days immediately following her return, Henrietta had her regular meetings with Louis, when they discussed in great detail the situation in England, would they not have considered the placing of a close confidante at Whitehall who could report directly to Madame? And after Madame’s sudden and unexpected death would it not have seemed sensible to stick, in essence, to the same plan?

In support of this interpretation we have Charles’ own conduct. He certainly did not behave as though Mile de Keroualle was the new mistress he had been excitedly expecting for several weeks. Louise’s arrival as a new maid of honour for the queen made an immediate impact. When Evelyn saw her for the first time on 4 November she was already ‘that famed beauty’, though he was immune to her charms, her ‘childish simple and baby face’ not appealing to him.⁵⁶ Others were not so impervious and Louise was turning many heads about the court. However, the king was not, as yet, pursuing her very ardently. Although he often spent time with the young beauty, several months passed before eager eyes observed him going to her room. Colbert, the French ambassador, was disappointed that she was being slow in flaunting her charms and delighted when he was able to report to his master, in September 1671, that the lady had been overcome with an attack of nausea at an embassy function. The war minister, Louvois, was less inclined to clutch at straws and urged Colbert to be cautious in his interpretation of Louise’s indisposition. King Louis, he remarked in his reply, was very surprised at the news because ‘her conduct while she was here and since she has been in England gave no grounds for belief that such good fortune would befall her so soon’. The ambassador was charged to keep an even closer eye on the relationship between Charles and Louise.⁵⁷ The minister was right to be sceptical; Mile de Keroualle was not pregnant. And one very good reason for that was that Charles was a very mediocre lover. If women did not thrust themselves into his arms or were not thrust there by one of his pimps he found it difficult to make the running by himself.

And Louise, for her part, was not a ‘pushover’. She was a proud young woman with a great deal of self-respect. Belonging as she did to a family that had come down in the world it is not surprising that one of the commonest criticisms of her alluded to her haughtiness. She was conscious of her noble lineage and often referred to her kinship with several of the noble houses of France. She also made the grand assumption that she represented the superior culture of a magnificent superpower. It was not only in elegance that Paris led the world. In 1667 a notorious French publication had calmly asserted Louis’ right to large swathes of European territory, ‘the patrimony and former heritage of French princes … possessed by Charlemagne as King of France’. Louis’ court claimed to represent the summit of Christian civilisation, and who, visiting the incomparable spectacle of Versailles, still a-building with total disregard for cost, could doubt that this was so?

And lovemaking, as Louise had become familiar with it, was as intricate and elaborate an art form as the designing of the great palace’s parterres and watercourses or its glittering mirrored salons.

The courtier, male and female, dresses up everything, from their bodies to their ways of speech, and sexuality is no exception; for them love-making is a ritual with tactical moves, progressive phases, fulfilment, and retreat. This explains why one of La Rochefoucauld’s maxims asserts that nobody would fall in love if one hadn’t heard about it. Obviously, the sexual impulse as such needs no previous notice to make its demands; its plain urge marks its distinction from love, which means whatever a period may fancy to embellish lust.⁵⁸

The mores of the English court must have come as something of a shock to this creature raised in the rarefied atmosphere of Bourbon palaces and is enough in itself to explain the slow pace of her surrender to King Charles.

Yet there was another consideration which weighed with her and that was her desire for an ‘honourable estate’. We need not dismiss this as calculating ambition. Louise understood from her years in French court circles that there were two respectable titles which could be held by the king’s women: ‘wife’ and ‘maîtresse en titre’. In 1670 both positions were occupied. There can be little doubt that she would have preferred to have stepped into Catherine’s shoes. In 1673, when the queen fell ill again, Dr Frazier diagnosed (incorrectly, as it turned out) consumption. Colbert reported home in some disgust that Mlle de Keroualle was indelicate enough to go about the court discussing, from morn till night, Catherine’s ‘mortal’ affliction, the wish, presumably, being father to the thought.

There was still the possibility that Charles might find another way of untying his marriage. Divorce was once again in the air. Only a few months earlier Charles had taken a very close personal interest in the passage through parliament of a mould-breaking piece of legislation. John Manners, Baron Roos, brought a private bill into the Lords to enable him to remarry. He had earlier obtained a separation through the ecclesiastical courts but now, having unexpectedly become heir to the Earldom of Rutland, he wanted to be able to sire a legitimate heir. Since all legal opinion up to this point was based on belief in the indissolubility of marriage, the 1670 debate raised fundamental issues and took on the nature of a cause célèbre. Charles, for the first time, became a regular attender of their lordships’ chamber and let it be known that he was on Roos’ side. This clearly had an influence on the outcome and the bill scraped through. This not only opened the way for privileged people to use parliament to escape from unwanted marriages, it also suggested a possible means of providing a legitimate heir to the throne. In 1669 Queen Catherine had suffered what was probably her second miscarriage. Earlier pregnancy hopes had always been dashed and now it became clear that she would never conceive again. Speculation was rife that Charles might find a way to take a new, fertile bride and several advisers, indeed, urged him to do so.

Several courses of action were proposed, some more seriously than others. One was that Catherine might be prevailed upon to retire to a convent. Devout as she was, she had by now become so accustomed to the gaiety of her husband’s court that the prospect of cloistered seclusion had no appeal for her. A much wilder scheme, suggested, apparently, by Buckingham, was that her majesty might simply be abducted and shipped off incognito to one of the Indies plantations where she would live a comfortable life and never be heard of again, it being given out that she had deserted her husband. Whether or not the plan was put forward as a joke, Charles, to his credit, was horrified by it. He said that it would be monstrous for a woman to be so ill used simply because she was his wife and barren. Some of the queen’s attendants seem to have taken the threat of kidnap seriously. Her personal security was tightened and she was advised not to go abroad without a sizeable escort. With such ideas and rumours in circulation, the appearance of another pretty woman in the king’s life encouraged people to put two and two together and make at least five.

Speculation would have added to Louise’s uncertainty. Should she wait until the queen’s fate had been decided or accept that Charles would never be able to bring himself to cast his wife aside unkindly? The possibility of following Lady Castlemaine’s career path had no attractions for her. The model she had in her mind for royal mistress was Francoise-Athénaïs, Marquise de Montespan, the bewitching woman (some believed literally so, for the story was widely believed that she had come by her good fortune as the result of a compact with the devil) who had been Louis XIV’s lover for three years and already borne him two children. Mme de Montespan’s position at court was more conventional than that of Lady Castlemaine in England. She had no need to set herself up in ostentatious rivalry to the queen. The two ladies frequently appeared together on state occasions and habitually shared the same coach. To be sure, brave clergy thundered against this royal bigamy but the Sun King regarded it as just one expression of his superiority over ordinary mortals. And Louis’ mistress possessed a dignity which Barbara Villiers notoriously lacked. She did not gleefully tumble into bed with courtiers, actors and servants. If Louise allowed herself to be groomed for Charles II’s mistress she took time to know exactly what it was she was letting herself in for.

Of course, she was not entirely in charge of her own destiny. As the stalking horse of the pro-French faction she was taken through her paces not only by Colbert but also by Arlington. As the months slipped past and Louis was growing impatient to embroil England in war with the Dutch, her mentors left her in no doubt that if she could not help them to achieve their designs they would find someone who could. Royal mistresses were now attaining greater political significance. Buckingham relied principally on Nell Gwynn to enhance his influence with the king and this obliged Arlington to involve Louise de Keroualle in his own fortunes. He made his position quite clear to Colbert in the autumn of 1671:

although his majesty is not disposed to communicate his affairs to women, nevertheless, as they can on occasion injure those whom they hate and in that way ruin much business, it was better for all good servants of the king that his attraction is to her whose humour is not mischievous and who is a lady, rather than to comediennes and the like on whom no honest man can rely, by whose means the Duke of Buckingham was always trying to entice the king in order to draw him away from all his court and monopolise him …⁵⁹

The tensions and contradictions at the heart of Charles’ government made intrigue inevitable. There was an unresolved and unresolvable conflict between royal and parliamentary power. The king was set on a foreign policy course that was out of sympathy with majority feeling in the country. He had secrets from his ministers and he encouraged their rivalries. Religious rifts widened as a vengeful royalist-Anglican parliamentary majority resisted every attempt to achieve a measure of toleration. Agents from abroad bribed ministers, MPs and courtiers to act in their interest. It was not only France who bought influence; William of Orange was just as determined to activate Protestant and anti-French sentiment. Since the fall of Clarendon and the old guard, government had, ostensibly, been in the hands of the so-called Cabal – Clifford, Arlington, Buckingham, Ashley and Lauderdale – but they were no ‘cabinet’. They were simply those members of the council whom Charles consulted most frequently and, as we have seen, they were more likely to behave as individuals, shifting in and out of alliances and factions, than to act in concert. But the political instability of the 1660s was as nothing compared with that of the years to come – years that would inevitably involve everyone – man or woman – who had influence with the king.

It was Arlington who brought about the installation of his protégée, Louise de Keroualle, as maîtresse en titre. The setting might have been designed specifically for the purpose. In 1666 the earl had bought the Euston estate just south of Thetford, on the Norfolk-Suffolk border, and here he set about building a magnificent mansion in the latest – French – style. The reason for choosing the site was simple. Twice a year, in spring and autumn, king and court went to Newmarket for the racing, and Newmarket was only about twenty-five miles from Euston. Here Arlington could entertain his sovereign in style, for, as John Evelyn observed, his lordship was ‘given to no expensive vice but building and to have all things rich, polite and princely’.⁶⁰ The house was completed in 1670 and the following year its proud owner was ready to receive his master there. During the October race meeting several important guests, including Mlle de Keroualle and, fortunately for us, Evelyn, stayed at Euston. The king spent much of the time at Newmarket with Nell, now heavily pregnant with his second child, but went to Euston

almost every second day with the duke, who commonly returned again to Newmarket. But the king lay often here … It was universally reported that the fair lady was bedded one of these nights and the stocking flung, after the manner of a married bride. I acknowledge she was for the most part in her undress all day and that there was fondness and toying with that young wanton …⁶¹

Going about déshabillé was a sign of social superiority and, together with the mock marriage, indicated, to Louise at least, that she was officially the king’s number two woman. Her position was enhanced when it soon became obvious that she was pregnant. Nine months after their first sexual encounter Louise presented the king with yet another bastard son. Queen Catherine accepted the situation with good grace. Indeed, there was even some suggestion that she had encouraged Louise to submit to Charles before the Newmarket charade. It probably made him easier to live with; Charles’ usual good humour was, doubtless, less in evidence when he was being balked of his prey and Catherine found the Frenchwoman’s company more endurable than Lady Castlemaine’s. The queen and the new mistress actually got on well together, partly because Louise was genuinely devout and also because she did not try to outshine her majesty. The new ménage à trois at the heart of national life was very much à la façon française, according to which each woman understood her role and did not try to upstage the other. Louise may have been a very proud woman but she brought a certain dignity to the royal household which was greatly at variance with the vulgar ostentation of Barbara Villiers. She threw her own, extremely lavish, parties but at court occasions she made no attempt to outshine the queen, unlike Lady Castlemaine, who attended one ball festooned with £40,000 worth of jewellery and had recently taken to going about in a carriage with no fewer than eight horses.

Catherine had by now become the perfect consort – perfect, that is, for a king like Charles. At state occasions she behaved with a fitting dignity. With her husband she received ambassadors, hosted dinners and balls, presided over Garter ceremonies and appeared on all occasions where her presence was expected, except religious worship, which she performed quietly with her own household. It has sometimes been suggested that Charles treated his wife very badly but this is to judge by the standards of a different age. In fact, he held Catherine in high regard and behaved towards her with unfailing courtesy. If we leave aside Charles’ numerous amours, we can say that he cared for Catherine more than many aristocratic husbands of the time cared for their wives. She was simply one of his women and while she could not give him what his more exciting bedfellows gave, she occupied a place in his life that none of them could occupy. He often discussed important matters with her, as when he invited Evelyn into the queen’s bedchamber and together all three of them pored over designs for the rebuilding of London after the fire. The diarist had a less happy interview with Catherine in March 1671 and formed a poor opinion of her taste. Evelyn had discovered an exceptionally talented young Anglo-Dutch wood-carver and was eager to commend him to their majesties. The artist had carved in relief an elaborate crucifix based upon a painting by Tintoretto comprising over a hundred figures and Evelyn arranged for Charles to see it. The king

was astonished at the curiosity of it and, having considered it a long time … he commanded it should be immediately carried to the queen’s side to show her majesty …

Servants, accordingly, manhandled the heavy and awkward piece of sculpture along passages and up stairways and came at last to Catherine’s bedchamber. There, husband and wife admired the piece together and Gibbon was, doubtless, congratulating himself on the prospect of an important sale.

… but when his majesty was gone, a French peddling woman, one Mme de Bordes [one of the queen’s dressers] that used to bring petticoats, and fans, and baubles out of France to the ladies, began to find faults with several things in the work, which she understood no more than an ass or a monkey …

The irritated Evelyn had the piece carried away before it could be made to suffer any more indignities, ‘finding the queen so much governed by an ignorant French woman’. Thus, ‘this incomparable artist had the labour only for his pains’.⁶² Fortunately ‘this incomparable artist’ did not have to wait long for recognition. Grinling Gibbons became the most famous craftsman in wood of that, or any other, age and was patronised by the king and many of the fashionable élite. The fact that the queen was prepared to bow to the opinion of a junior member of her suite indicates not only Catherine’s lack of confidence in things aesthetic, but also the influence – one might almost say the tyranny – of French taste.

Catherine understood her role as ‘mother’ of the court. She left intrigue to the mistresses and no ambassadors pestered her to exercise influence over her husband. In fact, she physically distanced herself from her husband’s gamesome friends. Her own chapel was at St James’s Palace and, when in residence at Whitehall, she daily resorted thither with her suite to hear mass and to celebrate the multitudinous Catholic festivals. Most of her household officials had their quarters at Somerset House, so that she had to spend much of her time there and, as the 1670s wore on, this became increasingly her home. She retained her rooms in Whitehall and never failed to accompany her husband to Newmarket, Windsor and other progress destinations but, in effect, she left Louise de Keroualle to hold sway over the gay life of Whitehall.

By no means did this involve abdication of her position at important social and diplomatic functions, such as the reception and entertainment of her new sister-in-law. Anne, Duchess of York, died in 1671 and James, after a leisurely fashion, began casting around for a replacement. He was determined to have a Catholic princess and the choice eventually narrowed down to the fifteen-year-old Mary of Modena of the House of Este. The girl had several advantages in the duke’s eyes. She was young and reputedly beautiful – excellent stock from which to breed a line of kings. She was devout and had hoped to be allowed to retire into a nunnery. It was the pope who had personally urged her to ‘sacrifice’ herself for the reconversion of England and Scotland. Mary was also the choice of Louis XIV, who saw her as forging yet another link between himself and Charles (Modena was a client state of France and Mary’s mother was a cousin of the late Cardinal Mazarin) and promised a dowry of 400,000 crowns. Supremely indifferent to public opinion, James scrambled the marriage through in September 1673 while parliament lay prorogued and his bride arrived in November. (One of the first actions of the reconvened assembly in October was to call for the proxy marriage to be declared void.) For the final stage of her journey Mary was brought by night from Gravesend to Whitehall stairs shielded from prying eyes by darkness and riverine mist.

There was one person who knew what it was like to leave friends and family and come as a Stuart wife to a hostile, heretic country. Catherine had little cause to love the woman who would probably achieve what she had found impossible, producing an heir to the throne, but she was sympathetic to little Mary and took charge sensitively of her welcome over the ensuing weeks. As part of the court’s Christmas festivities she brought into the country troupes of Italian actors and musicians and introduced to (largely unreceptive) English audiences both Italian opera and the commedia dell’arte, including the celeberated Tiberio Fiorillo, interpreter of the role of Scaramouche. Catherine was mindful, also, of the interests of the stepdaughters of the new Duchess of York and specially commissioned Calisto, or The Chaste Nymph, with parts written for young Mary and Anne. This was nothing less than an attempt to revive the court masque, which had long since fallen out of fashion. Catherine employed one of the minor, but popular dramatists of the day, John Crowne, and gave him precise instructions. The piece was to be written for seven ladies of whom only two were to appear in men’s attire and it was to be a refined entertainment with no hint of bawdry. In this nostalgic harking back to the 1630s the queen was deliberately taking on what she considered the debased taste of her husband’s court and showing that the stage could be used for propagating wholesome morals and elevated ideals.

Though Catherine held aloof from the cruder humour of the court wits and the loutish behaviour of the Whitehall rowdies, she was no dowdy, prudish matron. She continued to set a tone of gaiety and even spontaneity. In the late 1660s masquerading had become all the fashion. The royals and their intimates would go about the town in plain hackney chairs, heavily disguised, and call unannounced on unsuspecting friends who would not know who they were obliged to entertain. On one occasion Catherine’s disguise was so good that her chairman went off without her and she had to make her way back to the palace in a hired coach or, as some versions of the story had it, in a cart. We have seen the entertainments she arranged at Tunbridge Wells and a similar holiday atmosphere pervaded the regular excursions to Newmarket. In October 1670 the queen decided that it would be rather fun to go to a country fair at Audley End, posing as ‘ordinary people’. She and the Duchesses of Buckingham and Richmond with only three gentlemen for escort dressed up in what they thought to be suitably rustic attire and set out riding carthorses. The adventure did not turn out as they had planned.

They had all so overdone it in their disguise and looked so much more like antiques than country folk that, as soon as they came to the fair, the people began to go after them … the queen going to a booth to buy a pair of yellow stockings ‘for her sweetheart’ and Sir Bernard [Gascoign] asking for a pair of gloves stitched with blue ‘for his sweetheart’, they were soon by their gibberish found to be strangers, which drew a bigger flock about them.

When the queen was recognised, the party beat an undignified retreat to their horses but were still followed a long distance by a crowd eager ‘to get as much gape as they could’. ‘Thus,’ a local chronicler reported, ‘was a merry frolic turned into a penance.’⁶³

It was not the relationship between Louise and the queen which excited interest among court commentators. What aroused critics of the regime to anxiety, anger and contempt were the antics of the triumvirate of the king’s mistresses. For Louise soon discovered, as Catherine and Barbara had discovered before her, that Charles had no concept of fidelity. His latest conquest might think of herself as maîtresse en titre and have a clear idea of what she understood that title to imply but Charles played to a different set of rules – ones of his own devising. He continued to have one-night stands with creatures smuggled up the privy stairs by Chiffinch but, publicly and more importantly, he maintained his liaisons with Barbara and Nell. This domestic relationship of the King of England with three bickering, bitchy rival whores was a constant source of comment, ranging from wicked satire to angry denunciation.

Evelyn described a scene which, two centuries later, caught the fancy of a genre painter (Plate 3). As he was walking with the king through St James’s Park, his companion became suddenly distracted by a familiar figure leaning over her garden wall: ‘I both saw and heard a very familiar discourse between [the king] and Mrs Nellie, as they called an impudent comedienne, she looking out of her garden on a terrace at the top of the wall and [he] standing on the green walk under it. I was heartily sorry at this scene. Thence the king walked to the Duchess of Cleveland’s [Barbara’s new title – see here], another lady of pleasure and curse of our nation.’⁶⁴

John Ayloffe was much more biting. In ‘Britannia and Rawleigh’ he depicted Britannia, the spirit of the nation, being roundly abused by her enemies:

The most extraordinary image in that diatribe is ‘a tame spinster’. Charles is not portrayed in the harem as a macho sultan, surrounded by obedient concubines, ready to do his bidding. Rather he has become ‘womanised’ by feminine company. He is a weak crone whose will and energy have been sapped; one who,

(‘Carwell’ was the common way that ‘Keroualle’ was rendered into English by people who could not cope or did not choose to cope with the French pronunciation.) The king’s sexual activity was often seen, not as evidence of masculine vigour, but as submission to lust and the provokers of that lust. Indeed, in bawdy balladry his very potency was not infrequently called in question:

In the eyes of such critics Charles has become emasculated by overindulgence in what Ormonde had called years before, ‘effeminate conversation’. One adjective often used to describe him was ‘easy’. It was a word with many shades of meaning. An easy person was relaxed and approachable but he might also be fond of ease and averse to taking pains. Then again, he could be a pathetic creature, credulous, compliant and easily manipulated or dominated. The full range of the word was applied at various times to the king and it was in his love of female company that many observers detected both the symptom and the cause of his character disease.

Nor was it only in the coffee-houses and gossip alleys of the capital that the king’s subjects spoke of him with scorn as a weakling under the thumb of his womenfolk. There is a pleasant story of Louise being waylaid in her coach near Bagshot by Old Mobb, a notorious highwayman. Glowering from the window at the blackguard who was waving a pistol at her, she tried to bluff it out. ‘Do you know who I am?’ she demanded haughtily. ‘Yes, Madam,’ the bandit replied. ‘I know you to be the greatest whore in the kingdom and that you are maintained at the public charge … and that the king himself is your slave. But … a gentleman collector is a greater man upon the road and much more absolute than his majesty is at court. You may say now, Madam, that a single highwayman has exercised his authority where Charles the Second of England has often begged a favour and thought himself fortunate to obtain it at the expense of his treasure.’⁶⁷

For four years the king divided most of his attention between his wife and his three mistresses. Only very gradually did Louise raise her profile at Whitehall. She would not compete with the queen and she disdained to be seen in open competition with Barbara Villiers. She concentrated on becoming the fashion guru of the age, the arbiter of style. Her allotted quarters at the end of the Stone Gallery, between the queen’s apartments and the privy garden, were much closer to the heart of the palace than Lady Castlemaine’s accommodation. In the 1670s there was a considerable amount of rebuilding at Whitehall and Louise seems to have profited from each rearrangement. Eventually, she occupied some forty rooms, all furnished and furbished by the king at considerable expense. She delighted to show off her exquisitely appointed chambers to visitors. Even Evelyn allowed himself to be impressed with their luxurious appurtenances, all in the latest fashion, such as large Gobelins tapestries representing Louis XIV’s principal residences, ebulliently lacquered cabinets and screens displaying the current fascination with orientalia, sconces and candelabra of massy silver and some of the finest paintings from the royal collection. But he could not forbear to draw a moral: ‘Lord, what contentment can there be in the riches and splendour of this world, purchased with vice and dishonour?’⁶⁸

Yet, for all Louise de Keroualle’s emerging eminence at court, beyond the walls of Whitehall Barbara Villiers continued to dominate the social scene. She was the leading celebrity of the day; the wicked but fascinating woman who never failed to draw a crowd whenever she ventured forth in her magnificent equipage and it was her liaisons and extravagant behaviour that attracted the attention of London gossips. She certainly gave them plenty to chatter about. But fascinated as people were, their assessment of Lady Castlemaine was increasingly hostile. It was in the aftermath of the Bawdy House Riots and the attendant canards and lampoons that Charles came to appreciate just how much of a PR liability Lady Castlemaine was. Somehow she had to be distanced from the day-to-day life of the palace. There was, of course, no chance that she would go quietly. She could only be induced to accept a change in her status by bribes – massive bribes. The extent of the pay-off she received over the next four years is truly breathtaking. In 1668 Charles borrowed £8,000 from his banker to acquire Berkshire House, recently vacated by Clarendon, and made a present of it to his mistress. This fine mansion close by St James’s Palace had extensive grounds running northwards to Piccadilly. Whether it would have been in itself a sufficient inducement for Barbara to take the hint and give up her palace apartments we cannot know but the opportunity to rub Hyde’s nose publicly in his defeat could not be resisted. She moved into her attractive new residence straight away but did not stay there for long. Such a prime site in the heart of the fashionable part of town offered excellent opportunities for speculative building. Within two years she demolished the mansion, sold off what she could for construction materials, divided part of the grounds into individual plots, and with some of the profit built for herself a new abode, Cleveland House.

The name drew constant attention to the new title she acquired in 1670. On 3 August, when the king had barely recovered from the death of Henrietta, and doubtless after much badgering, he raised Barbara to the dignities of Duchess of Cleveland, Countess of Southampton and Baroness Nonsuch. To support her new style he gave her, in addition to various cash grants, the palace and park of Nonsuch in Surrey. This Renaissance extravaganza set amidst elaborate groves, fountains, walks and bowers, and surrounded by 2,000 acres of parkland, had been begun (but never finished) by Henry VIII regardless of cost. Latterly it had belonged to Henrietta Maria. Now, following her death, it had reverted to the Crown. Barbara lost no time in asset-stripping her latest acquisition. The pleasure grounds and deer park were let out as farmland and everything from the building that could be sold was sold (for around £7,000). The remaining shell was left to the mercies of time. The duchess has often been condemned for this piece of ‘vandalism’, which smacks more of 1970s ruthless property speculation than of 1670s estate building, but, in truth, Nonsuch was doomed before Lady Cleveland got her rapacious hands on it. Loathed and threatened with demolition by Mary Tudor but loved by Elizabeth, it had had a chequered history. To the Stuarts it had been nothing but an antiquated white elephant and James had built himself a smaller lodge in the park for his hunting expeditions. His grandson had no use for it and was probably glad to be rid of it. It could have had a worse ultimate fate than being part of the pay-off of a superannuated mistress.

It would be tedious to trawl through all the booty Barbara accumulated over the years and impossible to come up with a definitive figure. Her biographer offers the following list, which is not inclusive of the steady flow of income from rents in Surrey, Cornwall, Gloucestershire, Huntingdonshire and Ireland, the sale of offices and douceurs from ambassadors and ministers:

Timber and Building materials from Nonsuch	£7,000
From the Customs	£10,000	p.a
From the excise on beer and ale	£10,000	p.a
From the Post Office	£4,700	p.a
From the Excise	£15,000	p.a
,, ,, ,,	£7,000
From wine licences	£5,500	p.a
From Sir Henry Wood’s estate	£40,000
,, ,, ,, ,, ,,	£4,000⁶⁹

Impressive it may be; adequate for the needs of this impulsive, obsessive creature it was not. Every penny she received trickled through her fingers like sand. Her two commanding vices were gambling and men. Most evenings found her at the tables and she was reputed to have lost as much as £20,000 at a sitting.

Her sexuality could never be curbed. What began as a net to ensnare wealthy lovers ended up entrapping her entirely. Lurid, gross and scandalous though many of the rhymes about her were, it was difficult for them to exaggerate her insatiable lasciviousness.

In 1671 she added to the list an up-and-coming playwright who was also one of the handsomest men in London. William Wycherley, currently studying at the Inner Temple, had just scored a hit with his first play, Love in a Wood, which had introduced to the King’s Theatre a new level of indelicacy. Barbara was taken with it and with its author and eager to discover whether the libidinous impulses he committed to paper were ones he surrendered to in real life. According to the oft-told tale, she called some suggestive remark to him as their carriages passed in the street and he responded by turning round and pursuing her to suggest they meet at the theatre that afternoon. Beyond this, the story of their relationship is obscured by salacious anecdotes: they share a fantasy relationship in which she steals to his lodgings disguised as a country maid, wearing a straw hat and wooden pattens. Early one morning the king, acting on information received, comes to a house in Pall Mall where the couple have spent the night. He passes Wycherley on the staircase and, going into the bedroom, discovers the duchess. He asks what she is doing there and she replies that she is at her Lenten devotions. To this Charles quickly responds, ‘Ah, yes, I’ve just bumped into your confessor.’

Perhaps Wycherley was recalling Barbara’s frenzied lovemaking in a scene from The Plain Dealer, in which the lusty Olivia, in her darkened chamber, thrusts herself upon Fidelia (masquerading as a man), her rival for the love of Captain Manly, who, unknown to her, is concealed in the gloom:

OLIVIA:	Where are thy lips? Here, take the dumb and best welcomes – kisses and embraces. ’Tis not a time for idle words … Come, we are alone! Now the word is only satisfaction, and defend not thyself.
MANLY:	How’s this? Wuh! She makes love like a devil in a play, and in this darkness which conceals her angel’s face, if I were apt to be afraid, I should think her a devil. [Fidelia avoids Olivia]
OLIVIA:	Nay, you are a coward. What, are you afraid of the fierceness of my love?
FIDELIA:	Yes, Madam, lest its violence might presage its change and I must needs be afraid you would leave me quickly who could desert so brave a gentleman as Manly.
OLIVIA:	Oh, name not his name, for in a time of stolen joys, as this is, the filthy name of husband were not a more allaying sound.⁷¹

What is beyond doubt is that Barbara’s support helped to launch the dramatist’s career. She was generous to him and it was thanks to her that he produced three other notable plays between 1672 and 1676. She provided him with an entrée to the court and to the world of aristocratic wits. Charles took to Wycherley and offered him a post as tutor to one of his sons but before he could assume his duties he became enamoured of a rich nobleman’s widow. Had the rest of his life followed upon this fortunate beginning, he would have lived at ease and probably given the stage more proof of his talent. Sadly, ill health and debts subsequently overwhelmed him. By that time his doting patroness was no longer on hand to rescue him.

On 16 July 1672, two weeks before Louise’s baby was born, the Duchess of Cleveland gave birth to her last child, a daughter christened Barbara. This time there could be no question of claiming royal paternity for the bastard. The father was the latest of the duchess’s virile young bravos, a soldier by the name of John Churchill, better known to history by his later title of Duke of Marlborough. Churchill, nine years his mistress’s junior, was already a dedicated soldier with battle honours to his credit and Barbara found it thrilling to be escorted by this brave, already well known, martial figure. He was the latest in her collection of celebrities, which included aristocrats, courtiers, an actor, a popular entertainer, a playwright and, of course, a king. However, in Churchill she seems to have met her match. This fearless soldier was not a whit in awe of her. Though personable and charming, he remained firmly in charge of their relationship. He came to her in wintertime, between campaigning seasons and he did not come fawning, pleading for favours. She had to wait for him. It was for her, perhaps, a novel experience. Churchill was mentally as well as physically strong; more of a man than most of her other lovers, including the king, and she was bowled over by him. He took from her whatever she had to give and offered little in return. But Barbara thrived on it. There was nothing she would not have done for her brave soldier. She showered him with gifts, including a cash payment of £5,000. Her other associates would have frittered away such a sum in a matter of days. The prudent Churchill invested it to purchase an annuity. It provided the basis for the immense fortune he would build up.

Barbara was also looking to the future. She had six children to provide for and she set about her task with her usual energy and lack of scruple. She was determined that her sons and daughters should not have to fend for themselves as she had had to do when little more than a child. The memory of her own early insecurity was still vivid; in all probability it haunted her. Barbara Villiers had inherited a famous name and little else. She would see to it that her offspring would become a formidable dynasty with titles, money to support them and assured places in society. Before her children reached puberty their futures were being planned. The five whom Charles acknowledged as his own (Henry was added to the list in 1672) all received peerages and the boys were in time elevated to the highest rank of nobility (here I give their ultimate titles). Henry, Duke of Grafton, was at the age of nine married to Arlington’s only child, the five-year-old Isabella. George received the extinct title of Northumberland and his mother tried for years to have him married to Betty, the infant daughter of the last Percy duke and the richest heiress in England. At the age of twenty-one he selected his own bride – the daughter of a provincial poulterer. Anne was eleven when plans were set afoot to marry her to Thomas, Lord Dacre, created Earl of Sussex for the purpose and provided by the king with a dowry of £20,000. At the same time (1673) nine-year-old Charlotte was allocated Sir Edward Lee, who now became Earl of Lichfield and was similarly recompensed. Only little Barbara was unable to benefit from this gushing royal bounty. She bore the name of Fitzroy but, since she was manifestly not his daughter, Charles declined to provide for her. The Duchess of Cleveland lacked the resources to see the child set up in the same style as her siblings but she could undoubtedly have done better for her than the £1,000 she set aside for her youngest daughter. This money was used to place her in a French convent where she grew up as Sister Benedicta and eventually became Prioress of Pontoise. The holy regimen could not, however, totally eradicate the effect of Villiers genes; she bore an illegitimate child in 1691.

It was in the shameless intrigue surrounding the matrimonial negotiations for her eldest son, Charles, Duke of Southampton, that Barbara’s skills and temper are seen in the clearest light. Sir Henry Wood, a lifelong Stuart servant and one-time treasurer to Henrietta Maria, had by a combination of manipulation and frugality amassed a considerable fortune. At the age of sixty-seven he sired his only child, a daughter called Mary, who became sole heiress to his extensive Suffolk estate. Lady Cleveland coveted the £4,000 annual income from the Wood lands, not just for her son at some future date, but for herself in the present. Thus, a marriage contract was drawn up on behalf of little Charles and Mary (aged eight and seven respectively). Its principal object was to tie the Lee fortune to the house of Villiers. Mary was pledged to marry either Charles or George Fitzroy at the age of sixteen, at which time the king would dower her with estates worth an extra £2,000 p.a. If Mary, at that time, rejected the arrangement £2,000 was to be paid to the disappointed suitor. Meanwhile, after her seventy-four-year-old father’s death Mary was to be brought up by her own family. As an inducement Barbara pledged her influence to support the candidacy of Sir Henry’s brother, Thomas, to the bishopric of Lichfield and Coventry and he was duly ‘elected’. (He was later suspended from office by the archbishop for dereliction of duty.) It all seemed, by the standards of the day, a fair and equitable arrangement. But anyone who imagined that the Duchess of Cleveland would wait upon the whim of a teenage girl did not know the lady. As soon as Sir Henry died, she had Mary snatched and immediately married to her eldest son. Then she claimed administration of the estate in his name. And when Mary’s aunt protested at the sheer effrontery of Lady Cleveland’s behaviour she was met with the haughty rebuff, ‘I wonder that so inconsiderable a person as you will contend with a lady of my quality.’ The Woods began litigation and the complexities of the case kept lawyers happily engaged for over a generation but, as a peeress in her own right and someone close to the king, Barbara was, for all practical purposes, above the law.⁷²

Louise de Keroualle was not prepared to stand idly by while all these goodies were being handed out to her rival. When her son was born in July 1672 he was named Charles Lennox because the king was not eager to acknowledge the boy as his. If ever he listened to his choristers when they sang the daily offices he will have heard them, on the twenty-seventh evening of the month, intone the words from Psalm 127,

But he may well have felt that his own quiver was, by now, quite full enough. He gave Louise a £10,000 pension and probably hoped that she would be satisfied. Barbara was clamouring incessantly for privileges for her children. It was enough to give a man a headache. But, of course, Louise could not allow herself to be outfaced by Barbara, either for her own sake or for the sake of her son. Nothing less than a ducal coronet would do for her, too. Her technique was not to pester the king and rant at him. Instead, she demonstrated, on every possible occasion, the nobility and refinement of her own person, which contrasted so markedly with Lady Cleveland’s brashness and vulgarity. However unpopular ‘Carwell’ was in the outside world, she brought a fresh, sophisticated but lively contribution to the life of the court. Her entertainments, whether private dinners and suppers or large guest-list affairs, were talked of for weeks afterwards. In July 1673 she excelled herself with a Thameside ball. Crowds flocked to see the gaily dressed ladies and gentlemen dancing beneath the ‘fairy’ lights glowing in the trees and a large contingent of privileged guests enjoyed a sumptuous banquet served in barges moored on the water.

It may be no coincidence that, less than a month after this, Louise was appointed as lady of the bedchamber (without Catherine’s prior agreement) and at the same time raised to the peerage as Baroness Petersfield, Countess of Fareham and Duchess of Portsmouth. Since she was a French subject Charles had to apply to Louis for permission to enable her to change her nationality – permission which was, of course, readily given. But the connection with France was not broken. When, in 1675, Charles Lennox, his royal parentage by now acknowledged, was similarly ennobled, he received both British and French titles. In fact, the honours bestowed on the king’s youngest son indicated dramatically the esteem in which he and his mother were now held. He was created Duke of Richmond and also Duke of Lennox in the Scottish peerage. At the same time Louis XIV was persuaded to confer on him the title of duc d’Aubigny. All these dukedoms were entitlements of the Stuart family, having last been carried by Charles Stuart, Duke of Richmond. The young man who had eloped with the delectable Frances in 1667 had died while on embassy in Denmark in December 1672. There was, therefore, a great deal of significance, emotional and otherwise, to the honours selected for Louise’s son.

She also scored a victory over the Duchess of Cleveland in the matter of precedence. It became a matter of great personal pride to both women which of the sons was highest on the list of royal dukes. Both sent word to the lord treasurer, who had to sign the dockets approving the issue of patents, requesting him to process their applications first. The poor man was in a quandary, knowing that whatever he did would bring down upon his head the wrath of one of the mistresses. He hurried to the king for advice. Charles, who was no more eager than his official to assume responsibility, advised the man to work on the principle of first come, first served. Louise, who had the good fortune to be on hand, won the race, which meant that the Duke of Richmond would always take precedence over Barbara’s boys. The treasurer completed the formalities – and then rushed off to Bath before the storm broke.

Meanwhile Charles’ basic political dilemma had not changed; it had just become more acute. ‘Can’t live with ’em; can’t live without ’em’, thus he might well have characterised his relationship with both his French allies and his parliament. In foreign affairs he still favoured France and at home he still hoped to spread the blanket of toleration over the fires of religious discord. Neither of these objectives played well in parliament. Unfortunately, the House of Commons and Louis XIV were the twin sources of the income he needed to run his court and government. But neither provided him with sufficient cash to make himself independent of the other. He had to go on wooing both. As with his rival mistresses, he had to listen to their mutual complaints and try to keep them both happy. From time to time they both irritated him. Louis’ territorial aggression made him the pariah of Europe, and an embarrassing ally. As for parliament, whenever they assembled they would insist on imposing restrictions on the monarchy that threatened to make Charles king in name only. The time was long past when he might have stood firm for a consistent programme to strengthen the Crown. He was locked into subterfuge and intrigue.

Early in 1674 the Venetian ambassador gave a concise assessment of the state of royal government: ‘The king calls a cabinet council for the purpose of not listening to it and the ministers hold forth in it so as not to be understood.’⁷³ Even though the Cabal had been a ministry in name rather than fact, its collapse left a vacuum in which the king and his advisers floated freely, their relative positions constantly changing in response to the foreign situation and the demands of parliament. Arlington was a busted flush, thanks to the débâcle of the war at sea and the knives thrust by ‘colleagues’ into his unprotected back. The Test Act removed from office the Duke of York, who resigned his admiralship, and Lord Clifford, who ceased to be lord treasurer and one of Charles’ closest confidants. The latter was a broken man. Enforced retirement into private life following the failure of the Dutch war sent him into a deep depression. Evelyn went to visit him at Tunbridge Wells and found him ‘grieved to the heart … for, though he carried with him music and people to divert him … I found he was struggling in his mind and, being of a rough and ambitious nature, could not long brook the necessity he had brought on himself …’ Within a couple of weeks he was dead. According to popular report a servant found him hanged from the bed tester by his own cravat and, though he cut his master down, the poor man did not long survive. Evelyn heard that Clifford’s last words were, ‘Well, let men say what they will, there is a God, a just God, above.’⁷⁴ Had Charles been prepared to heed it, this might have served as a prophetic warning to seek out some principles and beliefs to which he could adhere and so achieve a measure of dignity even at such a late stage in the reign.

He would also have saved himself much grief if he had considered the judgement of the French ambassador a few weeks later: ‘a discarded minister, who is very ill-conditioned and clever, left perfectly free to act and speak, seems to me much to be feared in this country’.⁷⁵ Colbert was referring to Ashley, now Lord Shaftesbury, whom Charles had ignominiously dismissed from the lord chancellorship. The resentment of the sacked minister was boundless. He set himself to oppose in parliament the policies of the court and to raise a standard around which malcontents could gather. What then appeared no more than the emergence of just another faction had greater historical significance. Shaftesbury’s defection can now be recognised as the beginning of an organised parliamentary opposition party. One of those who associated himself with Shaftesbury was the mercurial Duke of Buckingham. Another figure who was seen entering the crowded political arena was the Duke of Monmouth. Charles was certainly more fond of the young man than he was of his own brother and this encouraged many observers to believe that he might be persuaded to change the arrangements for the succession. The Duke of York’s unpopularity had risen since his marriage to Mary of Modena had threatened the country with the establishment of a papist dynasty. The twenty-four-year-old Duke of Monmouth was meanwhile making a distinguished military career for himself on the continent and his popularity in the country was growing. He was the king’s eldest illegitimate son and he was Protestant. An increasing number of political activists were seriously looking to the future and asking themselves ‘What if?’ Someone else determined to play a part in the shaping of that future was currently awaiting his cue to come on stage. Ralph Montagu, the ambassador to Paris, had just brought off a great matrimonial coup by securing the extremely rich widow of the Earl of Northumberland and was ready to use his new wealth and his French connections to destabilise the government and advance his own interests.

The man appointed to fill the vacancy left by Lord Treasurer Clifford was Sir Thomas Osborne, immediately created Viscount Danby, and, a year later, Earl of Danby. Everyone who knew Osborne assumed that this must be a stopgap measure. He was profoundly cynical, a man ‘never overburdened with principles’,⁷⁶ and was known to be a creature of the out-of-favour Buckingham. But he soon showed himself to be well provided with qualities invaluable to a politician: ‘he had a peculiar way to make his friends depend on him and to believe he was true to them. He was a positive and undertaking man, so he gave the king great ease, by assuring him all things would go according to his mind in the next session of parliament. And when his hopes failed him he had always some excuse ready to put the miscarriage upon.’⁷⁷ Danby speedily attained the position of first minister, although he never enjoyed the freedom of action that Clarendon had assumed. The politics of the 1670s was more complex than that of the early 1660s and was made more so by Charles’ secrecy and duplicity. While he was content to leave most of the bread-and-butter politics to Danby, he never completely took the minister into his confidence and might, at any moment, go behind his back.

The frantic game of musical chairs being played by all Charles’ advisers meant, inevitably, that any man or woman who had a degree of influence over the king was drawn into the political action. That definitely included the royal mistresses. But not, for the time being, Barbara Villiers. She removed herself from the centre of affairs. She was in her mid-thirties and, though her appetites had not faded, her charms had. John Churchill left her in 1675, having delved to the bottom of her purse. Diplomatic gossip reckoned that he had had over £100,000 from her in one way or another. Extravagance and heavy gambling losses ate hungrily into her lifestyle and Charles was no longer prepared to restock her financial larder. When she discovered that she could not keep up Cleveland House or go about in society with her accustomed élan she was faced with a hard decision: she could either proudly strive to keep up appearances or take herself off to some place where her rather reduced circumstances would attract less attention. In the autumn of 1676 she travelled to Paris. It is difficult to imagine Lady Cleveland turning her back on intrigue but, if she tried to, she failed. Intrigue was waiting to confront her in the person of the ambitious and ruthless ambassador, Ralph Montagu (see here).

At Whitehall, meanwhile, Danby lost no time in courting Louise de Keroualle. The easiest way to do this was to ensure that all payments to her from the royal purse were made promptly, something that his predecessor had certainly not regarded as a priority. In return Louise became a conduit to the king for the minister’s ideas and policies. Since it was a cornerstone of Danby’s counsel that Charles would underestimate at his peril the depth of anti-French feeling in the country, Louise would not appear to be an obvious ally. Colbert was certainly unable to understand her Francophobia. Reporting to Paris he opined that she must either be harbouring a grudge or acting out of sheer caprice. Whatever the French ambassador said, the world at large remained convinced that Louise was merely a creature of Louis XIV. The common bruit around the court was that the new mistress was devoid of principles and would, as one shrew remarked, sell anyone for 500 guineas. This was probably true, but it was not the whole truth.

Louise de Keroualle’s besetting sin was pride and that determined her to be her own woman. Just as she sometimes made herself look ridiculous by wearing mourning when some foreign princeling died with whom she claimed kinship, so she determined not to be manipulated by French agents. Her own interests came first and she milked her privileged position assiduously, knowing full well that it might not be permanent. Through her contacts at the French court she was aware of changes in Louis’ domestic arrangements: as the decade wore on, Mme de Montespan was being eased out of her position at the Louvre by Mme de Maintenon, the erstwhile nurse to her children. There was a certain appropriateness about the alliance of Louise and Danby. Both had attained the social and political summit from starting positions well down the mountain. Both possessed the arriviste’s insecurity-based pride. Evelyn, contrasting Danby with Clifford, found him ‘of a more haughty and far less obliging nature … a man of excellent natural parts but nothing generous or grateful’.⁷⁸ Louise, like Danby, was dependent upon, and could not take for granted, the king’s pleasure. Minister and mistress needed each other.

Nell Gwynn, by contrast, was apolitical and not afflicted with her rival’s hauteur. Part of her attraction to Charles was her relaxed, ‘non PC’ irreverence. When she formed associations with members of the council it was on the basis of personality rather than policy or even self-interest. She was drawn to Buckingham because, like her, he was fun-loving, ebullient and no respecter of persons. Her friendship was very useful to the duke. As someone who found it hard to restrain his passions and who, therefore, was accustomed to finding himself in and out of royal favour, it was valuable for him to have an advocate with ready access to the king. Charles also was pleased to have a go-between, for, though it was frequently necessary for him to distance himself from the scapegrace duke, he maintained warm feelings for his old friend. Nell was never admitted to residence in the palace but Charles often visited her in Pall Mall. She could not throw the glittering parties which were Louise’s speciality but she sometimes entertained the king to dinner or supper and invitations to such intimate occasions were eagerly sought by political aspirants. Just how useful Nell could be to her friends was demonstrated in 1677, when Buckingham found himself in the Tower for his latest indiscretion. Mistress Gwynn interceded on his behalf and then visited the duke in prison to explain the best way of getting back into Charles’ good books. Buckingham took her advice and was set at liberty within days.

Nell was as constant in her animosities as in her friendships. Naturally Louise – ‘Squintabella’ or the ‘weeping willow’ (Louise was often reduced to tears by the rival’s witty barbs) as she called the maîtresse en titre – was her principal target. The irrepressible Nell was utterly merciless in puncturing the Frenchwoman’s pride – no difficult feat, considering Nell’s gift for mimicry and Louise’s widespread unpopularity. No biography of the cockney girl is complete without repetition of the story of the waylaying of Nell’s coach by a group of rowdies who mistook her elegant equipage for that of Louise. She thrust her head out of the window and called to her attackers, ‘Have a care; I’m the Protestant whore!’ Other performances were less spontaneous. The chevalier de Rohan, scion of a very ancient Breton family, fell foul of the French king because of an intrigue involving Hortense, duchesse Mazarin, was stripped of his court offices and exiled to his Normandy estates. There, the disgruntled aristocrat was foolish enough to become involved in a minor rising against the Crown, for which he paid with his head. Hearing the news, Louise, who claimed, with dubious genealogical evidence, to be related to the unfortunate chevalier, went into mourning for him. The following day, Nell appeared at court similarly clothed. When asked why, she made a display of histrionic grief. ‘The Cham of Tartary is dead!’ she wailed, ‘and he was as close to me as the chevalier de Rohan was to the Duchess of Portsmouth.’ Once again, Louise was humiliated and the king was highly amused. It was useless for the victim to demand that Charles control the escapades of his London slut: as he once told a po-faced high-ranking official, he would not deny himself such diversions for any man or woman living.

Such squibs might be considered harmless fun but they often had political overtones. One example occurred in September 1677 when Danby’s career was in the balance. He was genuinely alarmed to hear that when the king dined with Buckingham and his cronies at Mistress Gwynn’s house their hostess kept the company amused with an impersonation of Lady Danby. It was agreed by those in the know that this was a bad omen and the earl took it seriously enough to send a message via an intermediary who was to say that the mistress was behaving badly to someone who had always shown her kindness and was astonished to see her succouring the king’s ‘enemies’.

Louise remained close to Danby as long as he was in power and there is no doubt that she discussed matters of state with Charles on the minister’s behalf. We should be careful not to attach too much significance to this. In his indecision and confusion about his relations with foreign powers and parliament Charles was prepared to listen to almost anyone but he kept his own counsel and he who had secrets from his officials was not likely to be completely open with his women. Halifax went so far as to describe Charles as having three kinds of adviser, ‘ministers of the council, ministers of the cabinet and ministers of the ruelle [or ladies’ salon]’.⁷⁹ By the time Danby came to power the means of gaining the king’s attention was well established. ‘His aversion to formality made him dislike a serious discourse, if very long, except it was mixed with something to entertain him.’⁸⁰ One of the ways of sweetening the pill was to involve the reigning mistress. Lord Danby and Lady Portsmouth slipped very easily into this pattern.

Louise did not master the intricacies of policy; her influence, such as it was, lay in supporting or denigrating individuals. The possibilities for corruption, for selling her intercessory skills, were considerable and Louise, like Barbara, had no hesitation about charging for her services. This does not mean that cupidity was her only motivation in matters political, as her involvement in the career of Arthur Capel, Earl of Essex, demonstrates. In 1672, Capel succeeded Ormonde as lord-lieutenant of Ireland. This notoriously difficult sphere of royal service was rendered more so by the interference of court favourites who habitually regarded the province as a milch cow providing a stream of land grants, commercial revenues and lucrative offices. Essex proved a conscientious deputy who set himself to purge the administration of irregularities and govern in the best interests of the inhabitants. Therefore, he rapidly accumulated enemies at home, enemies who had the king’s ear. His friends urged him to apply to the Duchess of Portsmouth to neutralise the influence of malicious tongues but the earl disdained such backstairs politics. ‘By no means will I fix my reliance and dependence upon little people,’ he responded to his advisers. ‘To make any such [people] friends so as to be useful or a support to me will necessarily oblige me to be assistant to them in finding out money or other advantages for their qualifications and, if once I should begin, there would be no end to it.’⁸¹ It was an accurate assessment but one on which it was politically inept to act.

Essex pursued his high-minded way, among other things balking the Duchess of Cleveland’s claim to Phoenix Park, traditionally the preserve of the king’s representative. Despite his entreaties, his friends at Whitehall worked on his behalf and, for a while, they had the Duchess of Portsmouth’s support, given, it would seem, freely and not in response to massive bribes. No real blame can be attached to her for what happened next. Essex’s main opponent was Richard Price, Earl of Ranelagh, a highly plausible man who had secured the office of chancellor of the Irish exchequer, out of the revenues of which he paid Louise a pension. Ranelagh came up with a gimcrack scheme which would make the province self-financing and provide the king with substantial funds for the renovation of Windsor Castle, on which he embarked in 1674. Essex refused to endorse the project but Charles was blind to anything but the possibility of adding to his revenue. When Ranelagh returned to Ireland the finances soon tumbled into chaos. Essex refused to endorse the accounts. Charles, whom Ranelagh had made sure received his cut, ordered him to do so. Now, the lieutenant-governor’s friends reported that Danby, Louise and Ranelagh had pledged themselves to have Essex removed and replaced by Monmouth. It was a feasible plot. Charles doted on his eldest son and the Irish job would have been a suitably high-profile office for him. However, it seems to have been no more than a rumour, for when Essex was dismissed in 1677, Charles had the good sense to reinstate Ormonde. As for Louise, she had a financial interest in Ranelagh’s success but it is doubtful whether anything she could have said would have swayed Charles one way or the other; he was hoodwinked by the Ranelagh faction.

The most serious outcome of the whole affair was that the king had turned another honest man against him. Essex returned to throw in his lot with Shaftesbury and Buckingham. Ormonde was left to clear up the mess of the Irish finances and an action was eventually brought against Ranelagh and his accomplices for the alleged misappropriation of £76,000. By an order in council, the undertakers were instructed to go to Ireland to answer to the lord-lieutenant and to abide by his ruling, while, at the same time, Danby would take care of any prosecution that was necessary through the English courts.⁸² However, the sordid affair came too close to the king and the case was dropped. Ormonde was no less principled than Essex but he was sufficient of a realist to know that it was advisable to look after the interests of the royal mistresses. When it came to payments to be made out of the Irish revenues he made sure that Barbara, Louise and Nell came well up the pecking order.

But now the royal ladies of pleasure had another rival, and a formidable one at that. At the end of 1675 the most celebrated woman in Europe had ridden into London clad in man’s attire. As the news spread, the capital was agog to see this beautiful, outrageous creature whose notoriety had gone before her, thanks to her own highly coloured published memoirs. Evelyn remarked, ‘all the world knows her story’. No one was more anxious than the king to make the acquaintance of this ravishing siren – or rather to renew acquaintance. For the new centre of attraction was none other than Hortense Mancini, duchesse Mazarin, the lively girl he had wanted for a bride sixteen years before.

Hortense had grown into a remarkable woman in many ways. Far from taming her wild, free spirit, hard experience had added resourcefulness, calculation, cultural awareness and an intelligent inquisitiveness about everything around her. It was not that she deliberately flouted the conventions that society imposed on women; she simply did not recognise them. Other women might dream of the liberty and adventure society only permitted to men:

Hortense lived the dream, her love of cross-dressing an outward sign of her bisexuality. Having escaped from the prison house of her marriage to the crazed, jealous duc Mazarin, she spent eight years wandering southern France and Italy, driven by her needs to keep out of her husband’s clutches, to find lovers to support her lavish lifestyle and to enjoy the sensory and intellectual pleasures of the world around her. In June 1675, her current protector and provider, the duc de Savoie, died and his widow, understandably, was not enthusiastic about continuing to offer hospitality to the shameless Hortense. News of her predicament reached Paris and, specifically, the ears of the ambassador, Ralph Montagu.

The clarity with which he saw the possibilities presented by Hortense suggests that he had already devised the strategy by which he planned to attain power: discrediting or undermining those close to the king in order to place himself and his friends about the royal person. Dangling new mistresses before Charles was a proven way for courtiers and politicians to enhance their standing with him and in the duchesse Mazarin Montagu had the perfect bait. She was no fresh, young novelty with whom the king might find a few nights of pleasure. She was an old flame, a mature yet stunning ‘Roman’ beauty, well versed in the arts of the bedroom but, above all, she was a sexual icon about whom men across Europe fantasised. That, Montagu calculated, would make her irresistible to the king. He would want her for his harem and, once there, she would have little difficulty in displacing Louise de Keroualle and those who relied on the influence of the maîtresse en titre.

Hortense’s cover was that she was visiting her distant kinswoman, Mary of Modena. Though it is doubtful whether anyone at court took this at face value, it gave her access to the Duke of York’s establishment and, thus, an entrée to royal society. She struck up a particularly close friendship with Anne, Duchess of Sussex, Charles’ wilful daughter by Barbara Villiers. Anne, expecting her first child, was confined to her rooms (her mother’s old quarters) at Whitehall and there Hortense frequently called upon her. This was very convenient for Charles, who had every good reason for visiting his daughter. Whatever the Duchess of Portsmouth might suspect, she had no grounds for protesting or going into hysterics. By April, royal watchers were convinced that Hortense had got her hooks into the king. The French ambassador reported that, ‘though the affair has been conducted so far with some secrecy, it is likely that this growing passion will take the first place in the heart of that prince’.⁸⁴

Hortense’s primary objective in allowing herself to be manipulated by Montagu (now joined in the intrigue by Arlington, who had hopes of ousting Danby and regaining his former position) was financial. Duc Mazarin had frozen all his wife’s assets, including a pension paid by Louis XIV, and she hoped that Charles would exert pressure on the French king to get her funds released. She threw herself on Charles’ mercy as a damsel in distress and, of course, he succumbed. He dipped deep into his purse for her and he did send messages to his brother monarch on her behalf.

Hortense had no political agenda apart from commending her backers to the king but she could not avoid becoming a political figure. The French ambassador was inevitably concerned about the implications for Anglo-French relations of this new love in the king’s life. The ideal solution, from his point of view, would have been for Hortense to return to France but duc Mazarin’s absolute intransigence in demanding the duchess’s return in abject submission and Louis’ reluctance to intervene between husband and wife rendered this impossible. He urged a reluctant Louis to make some generous gesture towards the duchesse Mazarin, lest she should retaliate by souring Charles’ mind against France. By the summer of 1676 he was very concerned that Louise de Keroualle had been ousted from first place in the king’s heart. In August he reported to Paris on a very affecting encounter:

I went to see Madame de Portsmouth. She opened her heart to me in the presence of two of her maids … [She] explained to me what grief the frequent visits of the King of England to Madame de Sussex cause her every day. The two girls remained propped against the wall with downcast eyes. Their mistress let loose a torrent of tears. Sobs and sighs interrupted her speech. Indeed, I have never beheld a sadder or more touching sight.⁸⁵

Louise was experiencing the distress she had inflicted on Catherine. Now it was her turn to be the ‘little wife’, treated with courtesy and consideration but watching another share with Charles the moments of intimacy and passion that had once been hers.

Well might she be tearful. Everything she had achieved – wealth, social position, the grudging respect of everyone at court, influence – depended on the king’s continued interest in her. Without it, she would be defenceless in a nation where she was thoroughly hated. Her only recourse would be to follow her predecessor into humiliating exile. But there was more to her despondency than that. She was aware that Hortense outshone her in every sphere. Her rival’s pedigree was impeccable. She was obviously an exciting lover. Even in matters of culture and taste the newcomer was a challenge. Hortense could not boast a houseful of elegant furniture and works of art but she had established a salon to which the leaders of fashionable London flocked. The literary lion Charles, sieur de St-Évremond, who had made his home in England since arousing Louis XIV’s displeasure, was devoted to her and regularly brought to her table dramatists, artists, wits and members of the intelligentsia. There they held learned conversations and never failed to enjoy the most sumptuous fare and delicacies brought over from France by Galet, the duchess’s chef. Not only was Hortense wildly unconventional in her private life, she was also highly civilised. To the poet and playwright Aphra Behn it seemed that the duchess represented the possibilities of womanhood in all their fullness. Dedicating her story The History of the Nun or the Fair Vow-breaker to Hortense, she affirmed, ‘how infinitely one of your own sex adores you’. To Louise, who did not adore her, it must have seemed that the infuriating Hortense excelled at everything and was always the centre of attraction. When she was with the court at Newmarket she was invariably up early and trying the fieriest horses over the gallops. On at least one occasion she provided morning strollers in St James’s Park with a rare spectacle. She and the Countess of Sussex went out ‘with drawn swords under their night gowns, which they drew out and made several fine passes with, to the admiration of several men that was lookers on in the park’.⁸⁶

For eighteen months or so London society was diverted by the rivalry between the two ‘French whores’. But what was amusing to courtiers was of growing interest and concern to politicians and diplomats. Honoré de Courtin, the French ambassador, was under instructions to bring the feud to an end lest it should lead to the emergence of serious factions which would provide rallying points for pro- and anti-French activists. Courtin claimed to have effected a rapprochement by means of a simple ruse. With the aid of accomplices he managed to bring both ladies to his supper table without either knowing that the other would be present. He then locked them by themselves in a small room and did not release them until they had begun to be civil to each other. The story is very suspect and, if it did take place, it is unlikely that the truce lasted very long.

In fact, it was entirely due to Hortense’s exotic behaviour that the petticoat combat eventually came to an end. Early in 1667 Charles grew alarmed at the influence Hortense was having on his daughter, Anne. The young countess was completely besotted with her friend and was almost certainly in a lesbian relationship with her. When the Earl of Sussex ordered his wife to come with him to their country estate, she flew into hysterics, vowing that nothing should separate her from the woman she loved. The king insisted that she leave the capital and sulkily Anne went off to Hurstmonceux. Once there, she would do nothing but lie on her pillows repeatedly kissing a portrait miniature of the duchess.

The thought of Hortense in sexual dalliance with his own daughter was an interesting challenge to the broad-minded king. He who had chuckled at the humiliation of outraged fathers and cuckolded husbands when acted out on the stage or the living theatre of the royal court was now confronted with the reality in his own family. Suddenly it may not have seemed quite so funny. But Hortense’s lack of restraint displayed itself in other ways that he found annoying. He had always expected his mistresses to be faithful or, at least, discreet. The duchesse Mazarin was neither. She had never regarded herself as tied to any man and did not intend to make an exception for the King of England. Her husband had failed to imprison her in his own house or in a convent and she would not allow Charles to place her under emotional duress. When he remonstrated with her about her affairs she took no notice. It was inevitable that she would eventually go a lover too far and when she became attached to the young Prince of Monaco, who was on an extended visit to England, Charles’ patience snapped. There was a row and the king even revoked Hortense’s pension, though only for a short while. The grand passion – Charles’ last – came to an end. He and Hortense remained friends – and, doubtless, were occasionally something more than friends. Louise de Keroualle thankfully took up once more the reins of power at Whitehall.

In August 1678 the French and Dutch signed a peace treaty at Nijmegen and this was followed by the cessation of hostilities between Louis and all his other foes. It was a state of affairs Charles had long hoped for and his ministers had worked for. By no means did universal peace solve all the king’s problems but it did help to lessen the tension under which he lived. He was still broke, parliament was still hostile and Louis was still wielding the financial stick and carrot by which he kept Charles dependent on himself. But, for the time being at least, Charles’ problems seemed less pressing and he buried his head in the sand of his pleasures. The court went off for its summer holiday at Windsor and after that there was the prospect of the autumn meeting at Newmarket to look forward to. The king left Danby in charge at Whitehall while he fished and walked and gave himself to rural pursuits. Other men worried about the significance of heavenly omens. In recent months a new comet had been seen and there had been eclipses of both the sun and moon. Andrew Marvell wrote to a friend that there was abroad a widespread sense of foreboding, ‘as if some great, and I hope good thing were to be expected’.⁸⁷ The king did not appear to share this apprehension.

If that was so, he was woefully wrong. Just over the horizon lay slander, forgery, blackmail, perjury, murder and the collapse of the government.

CHAPTER 11

A Changeling King