Chapter 12

April the 18th was a beautiful day; the sun, which had hidden behind massed clouds of low driven rain for so many weary months, blazed down upon the little town of Abingdon, a few miles beyond Oxford, and the air was full of the bright scent of an English Spring. On the outskirts of the town, a train of carriages was moving slowly down the road to the Vale of the White Horse, escorted by a company of armed men under the command of Harry Jermyn, the Queen’s staunch friend.

Jermyn was taking her first to Bath, where it was hoped that the curative waters would help her health, and then to the stronghold of Exeter, where her child would be born. Charles had said good-bye to her in private, wrapping rugs round her in the heavy coach because she complained of the cold, settling the cushions behind her head, kissing her limp hands and trying to warm them between his own.

She was so ill that he hoped the full significance of their parting had escaped her; she was wracked with pain, her limbs were swollen, and she cried continually. For a moment he held her and said the word which he had dreaded saying for so long, and when he said it, he stammered pitifully.

“Farewell, farewell, my dearest love …”

Her hands clung to him, suddenly strong, and twisted round his neck, and he heard her sobbing and felt her tears wet on his face.

“Farewell …”

Her ladies came crowding round the carriage and Charles stepped back, holding his head down to hide the anguish which reflected the hysterical cries coming from the coach. He spoke to Lady Newport as she climbed into it.

“If you love me, care for the Queen.”

He went back to the small company of Cavaliers who waited a little distance from the procession, and mounted his horse. His two sons, the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York, had come with him from Oxford; they had said good-bye to their mother the evening before. Charles had wanted to part with her in a privacy that excluded even their children. As he watched, the carriages and their escorts began to move forward down the westward road, raising a screen of dust. He had seen her for the first time on a Spring morning nineteen years ago, a little, dark, pretty child of fifteen who was already his wife by proxy, and now, with a lifetime of experience and a family of children he had taken leave of her, and he watched the procession growing smaller until all trace of it was lost down the long road and nothing but the settling dust remained.

He turned his horse’s head, and without speaking, rode slowly back to threatened Oxford.

On July 2nd, the two largest armies to be seen in England since the days of the Wars of the Roses, faced each other outside the City of York at a place called Marston Moor. Twenty-seven thousand Parliament troops, of which fourteen thousand were Scots Covenanters, confronted the eighteen thousand men who fought for the King that day, and by the end of it, when a full moon rose over the battlefield, four thousand of the King’s men had fallen and the rest had fled or been taken prisoner. Oliver Cromwell’s cavalry had charged headlong against Rupert, and for the first and last time in the war, Rupert had met his master. Nothing held before that charge; the Royalist horsemen wheeled and galloped back in hopeless confusion, and nothing Rupert could do by personal example rallied them again. By ten o’clock that night, the sound of a great hymn of thanksgiving rose over the silent ground, and from his tent at the rear, Oliver Cromwell stood up and sang in triumph with his men.

He had been shot in the neck, and the dirty bandage round his throat was soaked with blood; he seemed unconscious of pain, his heavy face was streaked with grime and sweat, and there were powder burns above his eyes where the shot which had wounded him had exploded within inches of his face. His Commander, the Earl of Manchester, was with him, so was the Covenant Commander, David Leslie, and they sang with him. God had smitten the unbeliever; Jehovah’s wrath had levelled them like chaff, and lo—how were the mighty fallen! Thousands of fanatics sang the victorious psalm of the armies of Israel, and the powerful voice of Cromwell filled the tent. Manchester did not finish the hymn. He was an obstinate and rather stupid man and displaying his emotions embarrassed him. He admired Cromwell, and secretly feared him; but in moments like this, when the great General roared out his vulgar hymns, he felt able to despise him a little. Gentlemen did not behave like that. Gentlemen did not rejoice so crudely over the defeat of a brave enemy, Manchester had seen their bravery close to that day, and whatever he thought of Rupert, the Prince had fought like a madman among his flying cavalry, barely escaping capture.

There was something a little indecent about the ugly, dishevelled man, with his bloody neck and scorched face, exulting over the fallen at the top of his voice. And it was not a musical voice either; Manchester had an appreciative ear, and he winced. He glanced at Leslie who grimaced in sympathy.

“See how our armies rejoice!” Cromwell exclaimed. “Did you ever hear soldiers show such a spirit at the end of such fighting? By God, my Lord, if we gave the word now, they’d march on to Worcester and rout the King himself.”

“Let us hope that won’t be necessary,” Manchester said. “After this defeat, with the North of England lost to him, the King will undoubtedly negotiate for peace.”

“Negotiate!” Cromwell’s face darkened, and he pulled at the sodden rag round his neck. “Negotiate on what grounds? After a victory like this, are we going to waste time making proposals to a defeated man, instead of pushing forward to annihilate what forces he has left and insisting on complete surrender! Come now, my Lord, you’ll discourage Leslie here with such talk as this … Tapworth,” he shouted, “Tapworth, we’re thirsty, bring some beer! His personal servant came into the tent with a jug and some mugs and Cromwell took the first one and drank it down. In moments of excitement, he showed very bad manners towards his superiors in rank.

“The King will never surrender unconditionally,” Leslie spoke for the first time. “And we in Scotland would not wish to see him do so. We have always said, sir, that misguided as he is, he’s still the King. If he were killed or forced to flee abroad, there could be no government without him, only anarchy. We have joined you to secure a right settlement, but that settlement includes King Charles.”

“Your settlement includes much else that makes a mockery of what my men have done today,” Cromwell said angrily. “We are fighting the King for liberty and freedom of conscience. There are many in this camp tonight who neither want his Church nor the Church as it stands in Scotland … what of them, what place is there for them in your scheme of governing with the King after he’s been defeated?”

“No place,” Manchester said curtly. “Whatever we make of this kingdom, there is no place for these sectaries and independants of yours, General, preaching every man’s right to worship as he pleases. That is anarchy, and it’s as unthinkable as the King’s Roman leanings at their worst.”

“I heartily agree with Manchester,” Leslie said. “We came into this war to force the King to govern justly, and establish the true form of worship, under Parliament’s control. You speak as if you hoped to destroy the King completely. That is not our wish.”

“It is not the wish of the English people either,” Manchester added. “You talk of the King’s surrender as if he were an ordinary foe in battle. Let me tell you this, sir, if we beat the King ninety and nine times, he is still the King and so will his posterity be after him. If he beats us, we will all be hanged and our posterity will be slaves. That is the difference!”

For a moment Cromwell did not answer either of them. He poured out another mug of beer, and for the first time that day, his hand shook. When he did speak, his voice was very quiet.

“If this is so, my Lord, why did we ever take up arms? This is against fighting ever hereafter. If the King remains the King, in victory or defeat, what have we gained from fighting him?”

“A right settlement,” Leslie answered.

“A monarchy under the guidance of Parliament,” Manchester insisted. “And after today, we may see it before the year is out.”

“We may,” Cromwell said; his back was turned to them, and he began unwinding the bandage from his neck. “We may, but I doubt it. If you’ll excuse me now, I’ll have this dressing changed.”

They left him, and for a moment he stood with the bloody bandage in his hands. The tray with the jug of beer and the empty cups was on a stool in front of him, and suddenly he kicked it over.

A Monarchy: the King they had fought so bitterly for two years, would remain King at the end of it, even though he had been beaten to his knees. A King under the control of Parliament. And Cromwell lifted his head and laughed aloud. Parliament; he had sat in Parliament and listened to the clever talkers, and been duped into thinking that here was the means of saving England. But now, after two years’ service in the army, after living and fighting with men who were ready to die for what they believed, Cromwell saw Parliament at its real value. Without realizing the transition, he had begun to think as a soldier and to adopt the contempt of the soldier for the civilian who talks while he fights.

If Parliament faltered and muddled and tried negotiating with the King, the tremendous victory he had won at Marston Moor would be cast away, like Rupert’s triumph at Newark and the feats of his own cavalry in every past engagement. Neither side had won because they lost their opportunities. The King lost because he was poorer and facing armies twice his strength, because he had no Navy, and no central organization to weld his scattered forces into a fighting whole. And his army, the magnificent, fanatical machine he had made out of the few regiments given to him after Edgehill, would have won the battles only to have men like Manchester and that pompous Scot lose the peace.

He called out for his servant, and sat down to wait for the army surgeon to come and wash and dress his neck. Parliament must give up its control of his army. He used the word ‘his’ in his mind, and he meant it. The first thing to do was to oust Manchester and all the members of the Lords from any military command. The army could dispense with the noble Lords who treated the war as if it were some kind of gentlemanly game and came to the battlefield with their carriages and servants and installed themselves in the houses of the local gentry. But it could not dispense with him. And, in the end, the Generals and the army who had won the victory would be the force which dictated the peace.

When the surgeon had bathed his wound and re-bandaged it, Cromwell sat down to write an account of the battle to his brother-in-law; afterwards he knelt for an hour in concentrated prayer. He was up before dawn inspecting his troops.

On June 16th, the Queen gave birth to a daughter at Bedford House in Exeter. Her doctors were not concerned with the baby; it was surprisingly healthy. They gave it into the care of the midwife who had been sent over from France by Henrietta’s sister-in-law, Queen Anne, and did what they could for the mother.

Henrietta was desperately ill; she was feverish and tortured with pains and swellings all over her body, and the doctors were already discussing who should send the King the news that his wife was dead. Even the old English doctor Mayerne, who had travelled all the way from London after a personal letter from the King, thought it unlikely that Henrietta would live for more than a few days. At first most of her symptoms were hysterical; he had written to reassure Charles that there was no need to worry, and at the time he had felt greater pity for the harrassed King fighting his enemies outside Oxford, than for the weeping, ailing woman. He was an old man who seldom practised, but he had fond memories of the King in the brilliant days of Whitehall, and the tragic cry of that letter, “Mayerne, if you have ever loved me, go to my wife,” had brought him out of his retirement and sent him on the long and dangerous journey to the West Country.

But now, five days after the birth, he noted the signs of temperature and the racing pulse, and revised his opinion. By the end of the week it was common knowledge all over the city that Essex was marching on them with a large army to raze Exeter and capture the Queen.

She was propped up on a heap of pillows with a thin covering over her, for she complained of the heat and weight of the bedclothes and her face was flushed and damp with fever. It was a miracle to them all that she was still alive. She looked at the anxious faces round her, and dragged herself upright, catching hold of Mayerne’s sleeve.

“What is it? Has something happened to the King? Mayerne, for the love of God, tell me!”

“Nothing has happened to His Majesty,” the old man said gently. “All the news of him is good, Madam. He has evaded the enemy, and is bringing his army Westwards, towards Exeter.”

“Thank God,” Henrietta leant back and closed her eyes. “All that matters to me is his safety. Why are you all here, Mayerne? Have you come to tell me that I am going to die? I have known it for days and I am not afraid.”

“Madam,” he said at last, “you must prepare yourself. Your health is better than we hoped a few days past and now we cannot keep the news from you a moment longer. The Earl of Essex is marching on Exeter. The City Commander says he cannot hold it against such a force. You must decide what you are going to do, Madam, while there is still time. If you stay here, Exeter will fall and you will be captured. If you fly, you will almost certainly die on the way.”

She did not answer for a moment. Essex was marching on Exeter, where Charles had assured her she would be safe …

“But you said the King was coming?” her voice quivered.

“And so he is, Madam; he knows what is threatening you and he has turned his army to the West to try and head them off. But he won’t be in time. There is no doubt, no doubt at all. Essex will reach you first.”

She lay very still, with her eyes closed, almost as if she were sleeping, and for a few moments they stood round the bed, looking uncomfortably at one another, watched by the sturdy French midwife who did not understand a word of English.

At last Henrietta opened her eyes, and Mayerne was surprised to see them flash with something like her old fiery spirit.

“I will never be captured. I will never live to be held hostage against the King. I will ask that wretch for a safe conduct and if he refuses, I will go without it. How long can I wait?”

“One week, Madam, and not a day longer. Agreed, gentlemen?” The two doctors nodded.

“Then we have a week to prepare. You needn’t warn me that Essex will refuse, Mayerne, I know that already. I’m not counting on anything but flight.”

“You realize what it may mean for you,” he reminded her gently.

“I do. I have no illusions.”

“And you cannot take the child. You will have to travel by night and run the risk of their advance patrols. A new-born baby would betray you. The Princess must be left behind.”

“I know that too;” she turned away, biting at her lips to stop a fresh outburst of tears.

“The child can be hidden here; no one will denounce her. And what happens to me is not important. I would rather die a thousand times than live and be used to harm His Majesty. Thank you, gentlemen. Will you be good enough to leave me for a little while. I’m very tired …”

When they had gone, the midwife came to her; she was a plump, cheerful woman, the most skilled in her profession in the whole of France, and she was shocked by the plight of the Queen of England, who had borne her child in such uncomfortable conditions, with her husband and children far away. She bathed Henrietta’s face with rose water, and gently brushed back the damp hair.

“Bring me the baby,” Henrietta said.

“Not now, Madame,” the midwife protested. “You are exhausted with all these people talking. You must sleep first.”

“I can sleep later. Bring the baby here.”

It was a small child, but the weight of it made her arms ache, she was so weak. She held it, moving the embroidered satin shawl away from its face, and kissed it.

“The King named her Henriette, even before she was born,” she said. “She’s a beautiful child, Péronne, and so healthy, isn’t she? Look at her skin, it’s like a rose …”

“Beautiful indeed, Madame,” Madame Péronne smiled at them both. Few of her noble patients showed as much interest in their children as the Queen of England.

“And exactly like the King,” Henrietta whispered. “Her hair has red lights, and her eyes are the same blue as his. They won’t change, will they … They’re too bright to change …”

The baby kicked in its coverings and began to cry. It was a loud and lusty cry. Henrietta held her tightly for a moment, and when she raised her head the midwife saw that she was crying bitterly.

“Take her,” she said. “And don’t let me see her again. In a week from now I shall be leaving Exeter without her. If I see her or even hear her cry before I go, my heart will break.”

Essex refused a safe conduct. If the Queen fell into his hands, he retorted, he would send her under guard to London to stand trial, where she would be in good company, for the vindictive and victorious Parliament had dragged the ageing and enfeebled Laud out of his prison in the Tower and arraigned him on a charge of treason.

Fifteen days after her child was born, Henrietta gave it into the care of Lady Dalkeith and escaped from Exeter in disguise. She was hardly well enough to walk; her fever continued and she hid for two days without food in a peasant’s hut, under a heap of refuse, while the soldiers of Essex’s army marched down the road outside. A week later she reached Falmouth on the Devon coast, carried in a litter with a little company of faithful ladies and gentlemen who had met her on the way, and on July 14th she embarked on a Dutch ship and sailed through a bombardment of Parliament ships to the safety of France.

Those who had made that frightful journey with her spoke of her survival as a miracle. She had not died on the road, or in the wretched hovels which sheltered her, but her spirit was broken and her health was gone for ever. Her last letter to Charles, explaining why she had left him, reached him at Dartmoor a week later.

The words swam in front of him, distorted by the tears which filled his eyes and fell in drops upon the paper.

“I am giving you the strongest proof of my love that I can give. I am risking my life so that I may not hinder your affairs or prejudice your victory. If I die, believe that you will lose a person who has never been other than entirely yours—” The pen had trembled, blotting the last letters, and then been taken up again in an unsteady hand. “And who by her affection deserves that you should not forget her … Adieu, my love, may God protect you always, ever your faithful and devoted wife …”

Charles folded the letter and put it away in his coat. The Battle of Marston Moor had been lost; Newcastle’s men had been annihilated, and Newcastle himself had fled to Holland. Rupert had been defeated, and his defeat was like an omen. He had marched his weary army into Devonshire in a desperate attempt to save Henrietta, but he had not been in time and she had gone. She had gone to France where she would be safe and well, and now he was free to continue the war without the fear of her death or capture to impede him. His mind was light of that insupportable burden, but now that she had truly left him, his heart was as heavy as if he had suffered the final defeat.

In November of that year, Cromwell rose in the House of Commons, in the place where he had sat silent for so many sessions while the great orators like Pym and Hampden spoke. The atmosphere was hostile, for the members were suspicious of the insignificant squire who had returned as a famous General. His voice filled the Chamber, resonant and full of fire and authority, and it was the voice of a preacher with an inflammatory power that made his words sweep over them like the exhortations of the ancient prophets. He denounced Manchester, and until that moment Manchester had been their favourite. He denounced the muddle and delay which had squandered the victories bought with the blood of thousands of honest men. Let those who sat in Lords and Commons prove their good faith, he demanded, as he was ready to do, and disarm all criticism of the army and the Commons, by resigning their commands. When he had finished, the Self-Denying-Ordinance was passed by a triumphant majority and the career of Manchester and all the moderates was in ruins.

The army was voted an independent force, generalled and officered by men outside the power of Parliament, guaranteed regular pay and identical training. By popular demand, Cromwell was pressed to defer his resignation, and with suitable humility he allowed them to persuade him to keep the power he had wrested from his rivals. Essex had been defeated by the King in Devonshire, and Essex had failed to seize the Queen. Essex retired into the shadows with Manchester and all those who might have wanted to keep the King in power after his defeat. And now the defeat was only a matter of months.

And in his dwindling Court at Oxford Charles waited for the final battle. The West of England still held out for him, and Rupert was in the North, gathering recruits and forming an army to replace the scattered hosts of Marston Moor. The months passed and the new year opened with preparations on both sides for what each knew would be the end for one and the beginning for the other. And in January, 1645, four years after the death of his friend Strafford, the seventy-year-old Archbishop Laud went out alone to die on the scaffold on Tower Hill.

“Your Majesty, Her Majesty the Queen and His Eminence the Cardinal will see you now. If you will be gracious enough to follow me …”

Madame La Flotte was a personal friend of the Queen of France, and she curtsied very low before the Queen of England who had come to beg an audience at the Louvre.

Henrietta was unable to walk without a stick; her spine had been wrenched in childbirth and her shoulders were not quite straight; she was haggard and haunted-looking, with prematurely grey hair. She had once been high-spirited and decidedly frivolous; now she was never seen to smile.

“I hope your health is better, Madam,” the lady-in-waiting ventured to speak to her, presuming on her singular friendship with Queen Anne of France.

“I am as well as I shall ever be,” Henrietta answered. “I owe my life to the care Queen Anne has taken of me since I came here as a miserable fugitive. She has a noble heart.”

“She has suffered a great deal herself,” La Flotte said under her breath. “Only now at last she is finding a little happiness. Two years ago she could not have succoured you, Madam. She had scarcely the right to order a few necessities for herself.”

“I know how my sister-in-law was persecuted by my brother King Louis and by Cardinal Richelieu. She has survived her trials with fortitude and now fortune smiles on her as brightly as it once shone on me.”

And not only fortune, but another Cardinal, and a very different Cardinal from the implacable genius who had ruled France for over twenty years until his death. Richelieu was dead, and his successor as Minister and confidant of the Crown was an Italian, Giulio Mazarin. But where Richelieu had been the King’s man, Mazarin was the Queen’s.

And Anne was Regent for her son, Louis XIV, and in a position to alter the outcome of the war which was blazing across the Channel. Kind, generous Anne, who had sent her money and a midwife when she was in such straits at Exeter. As she approached the entrance to Anne’s private apartments Henrietta began to hope as she had not dared to do for months.

The French Queen’s Cabinet was in fact a large room with a high frescoed ceiling, and an abundance of splendid furniture and hangings, and Queen Anne herself was sitting in a velvet chair under a canopy at the far end of it when Henrietta came into the room.

She rose and walked forward to meet her sister-in-law; the two women kissed, and Anne led her by the hand back to the chair. The figure of a man detached itself from the shadow behind that chair and moved down towards Henrietta, his scarlet robes sweeping the floor; they hid his feet and she thought suddenly that he moved as if he were gliding. It was not a man’s approach; it was as smooth as the dark handsome face which bowed over her hand. He had very black eyes and they shone at her with velvety softness. There was no reason in the world why that look should make Henrietta feel suddenly very tired and weak and unsupported, and wish that her green velvet dress were not three seasons out of fashion.

By contrast, the Queen of France was almost too effusive. She held her sister-in-law at arm’s length and exclaimed indignantly at the ravages of travelling and worry that she saw. And under Anne’s examination, Henrietta looked at her with envy. She had always been beautiful; she could remember Buckingham standing rooted in front of Anne at a reception in Paris, and saying out loud that he beheld a goddess rather than a mortal woman. It was a fiery beauty, full of colour and statuesque proportions, and there was not a grey light in her red hair or a line on her smooth and handsome face. And yet she was a cold woman, cold and strained and lacking in natural charm. Henrietta felt grateful to her for her kindnesses, and they were many, but she also sensed reserve. She also imagined that while they were exchanging trivialities about their health and Henrietta’s dreadful experience and escape, that the Queen glanced once or twice towards the Cardinal who stood a few paces behind them and did not speak a word.

“My poor sister,” Anne said, “How terribly you’ve suffered. I can’t bear to think of it. Come, Cardinal, doesn’t it horrify you?” He moved beside her, and to Henrietta’s surprise he put his hand on top of the Queen’s chair. His enormous ruby ring shone in the candlelight.

“Thank God your trials are over, Madam,” he said gently. His French was heavily accented. Henrietta stiffened; this was her opportunity, and she knew by instinct that unless she came to the point, her interview would be over and she would not have been encouraged to say anything. Neither Anne nor the Cardinal had asked for news of Charles.

“My trials have just begun, Eminence,” she said. “I may be safe under your kind protection, but my heart and soul are with my husband. And you must believe me when I say that only my love for him brings me to beg still greater favours from you.”

“My dear sister,” Anne said uncertainly, “what can we do?”

“Send money and men to England!” Henrietta begged her. “The King is in desperate need of help. In his last letter he told me that the rebels have reorganized their army, and that it outnumbers him by two or three to one. He has no resources left, he has pawned and borrowed on everything he possessed and I haven’t a jewel left to sell for him. Madam, I beg of you, think of his position! How can he arm and feed and pay his troops without money.”

“Has no one subscribed for him?” Mazarin asked gently.

“Everyone,” Henrietta spoke up sharply in defence of the hundreds of loyal peers and gentlemen who had beggared themselves to help the King.

“Everyone has given to him with the utmost generosity. Lord Newcastle alone gave him three million pounds since the beginning of the war. There’s nothing left to give.”

“Wars are expensive,” the Cardinal remarked. “As we know to our cost, having just fought one with Spain. Our own finances are sadly low. I cannot help feeling that the King of England would be wise to treat with his Parliament if he is really as hard pressed as you say.”

“That’s good advice,” Queen Anne interrupted quickly before Henrietta had time to answer. “After three years of war, both sides must be ready to compromise.”

“The King will never compromise,” Henrietta’s voice trembled; she was afraid that she was going to demean herself by bursting into tears in front of them. “If he loses, God only knows what will be done with him … Madam, Madam, I beseech you, think if your own son were in peril from a treacherous revolt, bereft of men and money, separated even from those who love him best in the world—think if it were him and yourself, and give me one word of hope to send to my husband!”

“What use are words?” Anne said slowly.

She avoided the strained and desperate face of the unhappy woman and looked up at Mazarin for guidance. He had warned her to delay seeing Henrietta, impressing upon her in his gentle yet insistent way how awkward it would be to refuse her pleas for help. Because she was certain to make them, and it was cruel to disillusion her by explaining that France had no intention of wasting men and money to put back on his throne a King who was incapable of keeping it—as incapable as he was of winning this extremely foolish war. He had made Charles seem so inept and ridiculous that she had lost her sympathy for him; now it had returned and to her miserable embarrassment, the proud and noble Henrietta, daughter of Henri le Grand, Princess of the Blood and Queen of the three Kingdoms over the Channel, left her chair and fell on her knees in front of her and Mazarin.

“I kneel and implore you both,” Henrietta was weeping as she tried to speak. “Send help to my husband before it is too late. If he is defeated he will never run away. And if they capture him, they will kill him. I ask you, my Lord Cardinal, use your influence with the Queen and her Council, in the name of a brave and noble King!”

Anne rose from her chair and whispered quickly to him. “Giulio, Giulio, can’t we do something …” Out of sight of the Queen of England, who remained on her knees, Mazarin put out his hand and pressed Anne’s shoulder. “No,” he murmured. “You have promised to trust me … I know what is best …”

Courteously he lifted Henrietta to her feet.

“Hope, Madam, and pray to the Almighty Power. It is unfortunate that you come to France at a time when we are in no position to help you or the King of England. France is impoverished by many wars and unstable after the misgovernment of the late Cardinal. Believe me, my heart bleeds for you and his Majesty King Charles. And now, if you will pardon us, Her Majesty is expected in Council.”

Henrietta stood in front of them, and her sad pinched face was suddenly hard. She glanced at the tall, handsome woman in her rich blue dress, diamonds worth millions of livres sparkling round her neck and wrists, and, as she looked at her, the Queen of France avoided her eyes and turned away. She was ashamed and embarrassed, but there was nothing she could do. It was suddenly obvious to Henrietta that Mazarin and not Anne had been conducting the audience. And as she looked at them both, her instincts, sharpened by suffering and anxiety to an abnormal pitch of sensitivity, told her that they were lovers. She straightened, and without speaking to Mazarin she turned to her sister-in-law. The reproach and the contempt in her eyes made Queen Anne flush to the roots of her fiery hair.

“I understand, Madam,” Henrietta said. “I thank you for the shelter you have given me and all the proofs of your kindness. Forgive me for asking that you should extend your generosity to the person who is dearest to me in the whole world. I will take the Cardinal’s advice and go and pray that God may help him in his mortal need. I see only too plainly that he has nothing to expect from France.”

It was a very hot day a heat haze shimmered over the flat plain of Broad Moor which stretched below the Royalist Army, and further still, drawn up in order of battle on rising ground, the sun set the armoured hosts of Parliament on fire. Seven thousand troops, mounted and on foot were waiting to fight for the King on that boiling June day in 1645, and fourteen thousand soldiers of Cromwell’s New Model Army prepared to meet them across the baked and dusty plain.

Charles, mounted on his white horse, wiped the sweat from his face and stood in his saddle to watch Rupert’s cavalry on his left flank, for Rupert was about to lead the attack.

The King had dined with his nephew the night before, after leaving Market Harborough with only a few hours to spare before the enemy caught up with them, and Rupert had chosen this spot, a few miles beyond the little town of Naseby, to halt and accept Cromwell’s challenge. In spite of everything, Charles felt a resurgence of hope that morning. No aid was coming from France; Henrietta had admitted that, in a letter full of anguished apologies, but he had not expected any. His armies were depleted and undisciplined, but the hard core of loyalists and officers were with him still, and over the border Montrose had at last raised the Royal Standard in the Highlands and was routing the Covenanters of Argyll. If he could win today, with the genius of Rupert to help him, all was not yet lost. And now the battle was beginning. A shout rose, as it had done at Edgehill and Marston Moor and many other places where Englishmen had shed their blood over the past three years, and the word of command was taken up and passed down the troops of cavalry, and though there were only two thousand of them left, Rupert’s horsemen stood in the saddle and yelled their battle-cry, and the roll and rumble of hundreds of horses hooves made the ground tremble.

Charles had chosen the word for the day, the day on which he knew he would either be finally defeated or restored to power. And because his rough Englishmen could not pronounce Henrietta’s name in full, he had shortened and anglicized the last part of it. His army advanced upon Cromwell with the battle cry “Queen Mary!”

Rupert’s big black horse was galloping ahead, flying over the rough ground, and behind him, racing in line abreast, the famous Cavalry rode down into the hollow of Broad Moor and passed up the hill like a wave. And like a wave, with the shocking impact of a mighty tide of steel and muscle, they smashed into Ireton’s horses on the brow of the hill. Rupert himself killed and ran down so many men that he reined in to wait for the rest of his forces, and recognizing the commander of the retreating enemy, yelled to his men to capture and not kill him. For a moment Rupert paused, looking down on the dishevelled soldier in his breastplate and scarlet coat. Blood was seeping from beneath his steel helmet, and two of Rupert’s cavalrymen were binding his arms behind his back.

“Your name,” the Prince shouted at him.

“Colonel Ireton, Commander in the Parliament Army,” the prisoner answered. Rupert levelled his sabre and brought it against the man’s throat; Ireton remained standing where he was, and Rupert surprised him by laughing and putting his weapon up.

“I know your name and your fame,” he said. “You’re also a brave man, sir, and for that reason I’ll not cut you down as you have done to prisoners taken from me. Content yourself; you’ll see your general before the day is out, and in the same sorry case as yourself. Unless he meets with me, because I’ll surely kill him.” He spurred his horse and in leaping forward, it knocked the helpless Ireton to the ground.

“Forward,” Rupert’s shout rallied his men from their business of riding down the fleeing stragglers. “Forward to Naseby!”

As the King’s cavalry chased down the hidden side of the hill in pursuit of the enemy’s baggage train, the Royalist infantry locked in a fierce struggle with the foot-soldiers of Thomas Fairfax. Sir Jacob Astley, the veteran of Edgehill, had been made a peer by Charles, and he fought the last battle of his life with the tactics used at Leipzig so many years ago, his pikemen in the centre, his musketeers supporting them on either side. He was sixty-six, and he led his forces into battle, crying the name of the Queen he had never liked, and by the miracle of courage and example, he thrust Fairfax back on his reserves. From his place on the hilltop, Charles turned excitedly to Lord Carnworth, a Scot and a professional soldier, and pointed to the wavering, retreating line of the enemy.

“God be praised,” he said, and he thrust his glasses on him. “Look for yourself! Rupert has broken through, and Astley is pushing their infantry back. We’re going to win, Carnworth, we’re going to win the battle and the war!”

As he spoke, and the Scot focused the glass upon the confusion below them, the dark and glittering mass of Cromwell’s cavalry detached itself from the right flank of the enemy, and began to trot down the hill. The trot became a canter, and as they approached the rise behind which the Royalist, Sir Marmaduke Langdale, and his horses waited, the canter broke into a furious gallop. It was a terrifying sight. They were not scattered or uneven like the best of Rupert’s horses. They rode side by side in unbroken lines, perfectly disciplined, the sun blazing down upon their polished breastplates, racing across the uneven ground and breasting the hill in a most unnerving silence, and from that distance it was impossible to see if the great General Cromwell was riding in the first line of them or not. As Charles snatched the viewing glass back and strained to see through the thick dust, Cromwell’s Ironsides met with Langdale’s men, and broke through them as if they had burst a paper hoop. The sounds of fighting were all about Charles; his horse began to tremble and curvet nervously from side to side; he calmed it gently.

“Who is it, Sire?” Carnworth demanded. “Who’s leading them? They’ve ridden Langdale into the ground …”

“General Cromwell,” the King said, but the noise of shouts and firing was so close that the Scot could not hear him. “Cromwell,” he repeated. “For the moment I had forgotten he was here in person.”

There was no doubt about it now; officers passed him running for their lives, and as they passed, they shouted to him to ride off. Rupert had won, and old Lord Astley had driven Fairfax back, but Cromwell had driven his men down upon the cavalry protecting the King and his reserves, and having scattered them, he wheeled his troops and fell upon the infantry. The Royal Horseguards surrounded Charles; they were picked and seasoned cavalry, every man of whom was trained to fight to the death for the King. He turned to the commanders of the troop.

“There is the enemy! Follow me!” Carnworth heard him, and as Charles called out, he sprang forward and pulled his horse’s head round.

“Will you go to your death?” he shouted. “Ride back, Sire, ride for your life!” He lashed the white horse with his own crop and the animal sprang forward away from Cromwell’s advancing troopers, and as the King turned, struggling with his frantic mount, the Horseguards wheeled and followed him into retreat.

When Rupert returned with his cavalry, he found the Royalist army broken and fleeing, and the King carried away into the rear. Astley was captured and his infantry, including Rupert’s famous Bluecoats, perished as bravely as the vanished host at Marston Moor. By the afternoon five thousand men were prisoners of the Parliament, and the King and what was left of his officers were fugitives. Cromwell declared that God’s triumph was complete when he welcomed his friend Ireton back into his camp.

The King’s camp was at their mercy, and Cromwell and Fairfax led their men in to take possession of it. It was deserted except for a few sentries who were quickly taken, and Cromwell stood in the middle of the King’s tent, watching Ireton and two other officers opening the boxes of letters and secret correspondence which the King had left behind. Colonel John Oakey, who had commanded the dragoons that morning, interrupted the General to tell him that numbers of women had been discovered in the camp and waiting in carriages outside it.

“We have no orders, General. What is to be done with them?”

Cromwell looked up at him and frowned. “Make haste with those boxes,” he told Ireton. “They must be sent back to London for examination. Of what degree are these women, Oakey?”

“Prostitutes mostly. I think they must be Irish, General; no one can understand a word they speak. There are some Englishwomen of the same sort, and others are gentlewomen—wives and daughters of the officers. What must we do with them?”

“What is it Oliver?” Fairfax looked up from some of the papers he was reading and putting in order.

“Camp-followers,” Cromwell explained. “We might have expected something of this sort in such a place. I’ll deal with it; there’s no need to disturb yourself.”

Fairfax went back to his reading without further interest. He had found a letter from Henrietta to the King promising to ask for French troops. He did not even trouble to listen to Cromwell’s orders concerning a few hundred useless women.

Cromwell turned to Oakey.

“This was the Lord’s victory, and it must not be profaned by tolerating evil, in whatever shape it dwells. Have the Irish whores put to the sword and cut the noses off the rest. Then turn them loose. We’ve no provisions to waste on them.”

For several hours on that bright afternoon Cromwell and Fairfax and their officers were disturbed at their business of collecting the King’s private papers by the shrieks of the women their men were killing and mutilating with Godly fervour. The wretched Irishwomen, among whom were many Welsh, were murdered without exception, and by the evening the English whores and the ladies of rank who had followed their husbands to the battle were driven out into the empty countryside to die of their frightful wounds. Contented, exalted by the customary prayers and psalms of thanksgiving, Cromwell and his Commanding General Fairfax dined quietly and soberly in their quarters that evening.

Naseby had been the King’s last battle. That little village in the heart of Midland England had given its name to the final encounter between Charles and his Parliament, and Charles had lost for ever. They stood and drank a toast to their victory, and Cromwell said slowly, “When I saw the enemy draw up and march in gallant order towards us today, and we a company of poor ignorant men …” He paused and his eyes shone with holy joy, fanatical, triumphant, prouder in its humility than the unforgivable sin of Lucifer. “Then,” he went on, “then I had a great assurance of victory, because God would, by things which are not, bring to naught things that are. And God did it.”

The Louvre was unoccupied that hot and baking summer a year after Naseby; the French Court had left Paris and gone to St. Germain to escape the heat, leaving behind them the Queen of England with a diminishing retinue of friends and refugees from England. Her quarters were sumptuous, but the splendid rooms were bare of furniture and the sound of her footsteps echoing in the vast Palace drove her to hide in a small portion of it where the sense of isolation was less painful. Her allowance was considered generous by the Cardinal, who frequently remarked that it would have to be cut down. France could not afford to support the homeless, bickering English nobility who came crowding across the Channel to live off the bounty of their exiled Queen. It was difficult enough to meet the expenses of Henrietta herself, without encouraging a tribe of foreign beggars. For a few months she had lived in the style due to her rank, with footmen and servants and lords and ladies in attendance, but now her household was a miserable collection of those who were too loyal to leave her and those who had no better place to go.

It was a sad little gathering in the middle of so much splendour and security, and the French nobility avoided it. And then, during the endless stifling weeks, made more unbearable by the total absence of news from England, Henrietta heard that her son, the Prince of Wales, had escaped and was on his way to join her in Paris.

It was nearly three years since she had seen him; when he came into the room, she hardly recognized the lank, sallow boy who hesitated shyly, staring at his mother as if she were a stranger. She had aged and she seemed even smaller than his memory of her; a little, thin woman in a bright red dress that was as old as their last meeting.

“My son!”

She ran to him with a cry, and falling on his knees he put his arms around her, and for a moment they embraced and Henrietta felt him tremble.

“You are not to do that,” she said quickly, as if he were still the child she had left behind. “Princes do not weep. Get up, my son, and let me look at you.”

He was very tall, and she searched in vain for anything that reminded her of Charles. It was difficult to believe that this dark-skinned, black-eyed youth with his irregular features and silent air was the son of the being she loved best in all the world. She had waited for him in a fever of excitement, imagining that some part of Charles would be restored to her through their eldest son, and she stepped back from him in disappointment.

“You have grown,” she said. “You are a man now. Come and sit with me and let me present my household to you.”

Harry Jermyn, the faithful steward, still as fat and cheerful as ever, and Mademoiselle Orpe, a new confidante whom the Prince had never seen before, saluted him and then withdrew. Mother and son were alone.

“Where is your father? I have been without news for nearly two months and I am almost out of my mind with anxiety!”

She had not asked him anything about himself; his news, his journey, even the dangers which might have threatened his escape to France—none of these things interested his mother, and he had not expected that they would. She had always loved his father best, and his father had always loved her. Their children had grown up with the feeling that their presence was almost accidental.

“He is in Newcastle,” the Prince said. “He asked refuge of the Scottish army.” He saw his mother’s face flush and an expression of incredulous alarm crossed it, turning quickly to suspicion that her son must be mistaken.

“Refuge with the Scots! Refuge from what, in the name of God! I wish you wouldn’t talk so wildly, Charles. Make yourself plain and don’t distress me …”

“Refuge from the Army of the Parliament, Madam. After Naseby, Oxford was surrounded—our forces were defeated and scattered—all our strongholds reduced or surrendered. The King escaped from Oxford disguised as a servant with Ashburnham and Ollens to accompany him. He was fortunate to reach Newcastle and the Scots army, rather than fall into the hands of Cromwell. I myself left England for the same reason, at his express command.”

For a moment Henrietta did not answer him; she was unaware of the dark, unhappy eyes of her son, or of the slight movement he made to take her trembling hands in his own and try and comfort her. He did not exist for her as a personality, only as a messenger of her beloved’s shattering misfortune and increasing danger.

“What will they do with him,” she said at last. “Is he a prisoner? Who is with him? Oh, my God, my God, why must we be separated now…?”

She walked up and down, weeping and exclaiming to herself, and her son sat with his head bent, unwilling to watch her futile, lonely grief, suffering himself because he had never been allowed to come close enough to her to offer what help and sympathy he could. He would have been just as useless to his father.

“What was the last you heard?” she said at last.

“I had a message from Ashburnham,” the Prince answered. “He assured me that the King was well and treated with all honour by the Scots, and that he would soon be able to write to you direct as the Lords of the Commission were coming straight from Edinburgh to negotiate with him. Ashburnham said they’d ask him to swear to the Covenant, and if he did that, he’d be allowed to return with them to Scotland as a King in his full power again.”

Henrietta came to him and stopped in front of his chair. “If your father takes their miserable Covenant oath, they will restore him? Is that what Ashburnham thinks?”

“Yes, Madam. And he must know; he was with the King day and night at Newcastle when some of the first of the Commissioners arrived.”

“Then all is not lost!” she exclaimed. “Thank God, he has this chance at least!”

“Mother—” He came towards her and Henrietta looked at him in surprise.

“Mother, listen to me before you raise your hopes too high. Ashburnham said all that and more, but he also said my father had refused.”

She stared at him and she seemed to shrink before his eyes; she looked so white and haggard that he pulled a chair up and put her into it.

“Refused?” It was a whisper, and the Prince knelt beside her and took one of her hands in his; in her confusion and collapse she felt a clumsy kiss upon it.

“He won’t abandon the English Church and make it Presbyterian,” the boy said. “That’s what he told Lord Lothian who came to see him first. He’ll do anything they wish except deny his faith. You know the King, you know he will never betray his religion, even to save himself …”

“Betray his religion!”

From agony she turned suddenly to blind and shaking rage; rage with the man she loved so desperately who was throwing his life and freedom away for what seemed to her a worthless quibble. “Religion! One form of heresy against another, that’s all it is! And he sacrifices everything for that! His throne, our re-union, your inheritance … Merciful God, is there not one honest friend to tell him what he’s doing?”

The Prince released her and said slowly, “It’s not heresy to him, Madam. The King believes in his Church as strongly as you do in yours. He will not abandon it.”

“And you,” Henrietta said fiercely, “does it mean so much to you, that you can talk so glibly while your father puts himself in mortal danger!”

“No,” her son answered. “I believe in nothing; not even God, when I think of how some men interpret Him. But I am not my father. I only wish I were.”

“Oh, what is the use of talking to you,” Henrietta turned away from him in despair. “You’re only a child, how can you judge … I must talk to Jermyn; I must write to the King at once … Ring for Jermyn and go to your rooms. You must be tired, my son. Orpe will take you and see that you have everything you need. I will send for you later.”

The Prince bowed and she kissed him absently on the cheek; he could sense that she was impatient at his presence in the room. And suddenly he was impatient too; so impatient and so hurt and angry that he could not wait to get away from her. She loved his father but she did not understand him in that fundamental which was obvious even to his children, with whom he had never been intimate. She would sit down and write a long impassioned letter, urging him to do the one thing of which he was incapable, as she had urged him years ago to sacrifice Strafford to his enemies.

But this time, Charles would not yield. He was alone and defeated. He was a prisoner of the Covenanters without any resource but the bargaining power of his own person, and without any strength but the strength of his own convictions. Henrietta had overcome them once when she persuaded him to abandon Strafford. She would not prevail again, though the consequence was the loss of his own life. His son knew it, though she did not, and when they met again that evening, there was a coolness between them which was to last for the rest of their lives.

“It is not our intention to force Your Majesty.” The Earls of Lauderdale, Lothian and Hamilton were standing in the King’s presence in the old City fortress at Newcastle. They had made many visits to that room in the months which had passed since he first came among them, and not one of them had ever seen him less serene than he was then. Lothian was their spokesman; he was a cold, aggressive man who had begun the negotiation with a violent prejudice against the King whose form of religion he detested and whose word he regarded as worthless. He was less arrogant and less hostile now in the face of that gentle, yet unswerving resistance to the demands he had made day after day without success. The King had never lost his temper or his patience; if Lothian had been less convinced of his sovereign’s religious heresy, he would have described him as sustained by truly Christian fortitude.

“I repeat,” he said, “that the Commissioners are not trying to force you. But if you refuse to sign the Covenant and declare yourself in agreement with the faith of your Scottish people, there is nothing we can do to help you.”

“I understand your difficulty,” Charles said quietly. “But you must also appreciate mine. I have no wish to dictate the terms of conscience to any man, but I reserve the right of freedom for my own.”

“And what of the Prayer Book,” Lauderdale interrupted angrily. “What was that, Sire, but an attempt to interfere with the conscience of the nation!”

“I recognize that,” the King answered. “And if it was a mistake, and I admit it, then you must also grant that I have paid for it. Paid dearly, if you consider my position now.”

“Recriminations are no use at this time,” Hamilton said quickly. “You put yourself under our protection, Sire, and we have given it. Now the time has come when that protection can’t continue. The English Parliament has paid us the subsidy they promised for our troops and they are demanding our withdrawal. Our armies cannot stay another day on English soil without the risk of war. And they are demanding you, Sire, with the same threat.”

“And you are going to give me to them, are you not?”

“No!” Lothian exploded, stung by the truth in that question. “No, never! Sign the Covenant—promise to establish the Presbyterian worship in all your kingdoms and you shall come back with us in triumph. And return with us at the head of an army before the year is out! That is all we ask of you!”

“And all I ask,” Charles said, “is that you will trust me. I cannot sign that Oath without breaking a trust which is not mine to break. I will not promise to enforce upon my people something which I believe to be wrong. But I will promise to allow those who want to worship in this way full freedom to do so without hindrance from their King. And in return I ask of you that you will honour the trust I placed in you when I came here as a fugitive, and not sell me to men who are my enemies and will soon be yours. Cromwell does not want your Church in England, any more than he wants mine. He wants neither Bishops nor Church Assemblies, but licence for all his free thinkers to interpret the Bible as they think fit. You do not want that, my Lords, and nor do I. Nor, I suspect, do most of the people in England at this moment. But I have discussed this with you over and over again, and you must know your own peril as well as you seem to know mine.”

“Your peril has been coming closer every day,” Lothian said. “And now it is upon you. This will be our last meeting before an English garrison enters Newcastle, and then we cannot take you with us even if we would. When we leave, Sire, you will be left behind. That is not a threat, though you have accused me of making it before now. It is a fact. You cannot come back to Scotland with us unless you come on the terms I have laid before you. You cannot expect to come, and have every Catholic rebel in the Highlands marching on Edinburgh to release you.”

“What Catholic rebels?” Charles asked quietly. “I ordered Montrose to disband and exile himself to please you, and he obeyed me. Huntly is in arms, but that is a private quarrel between Catholics and yourselves. I am not a Catholic. I am the Head of the Church of England, and what you are asking is what my Parliament asked before this war began. I give you the same answer as I gave them. I will never abandon my Church or my friends.”

Charles stood up.

“That is your last word, Sire?” Lauderdale asked him.

“It is,” the King said. “Except for one thing. How much are the English paying you?”

In spite of himself, Lauderdale, his implacable enemy and the rudest of his interrogators, hesitated and his heavy face flushed.

“Four hundred thousand pounds, Sire.”

Charles smiled at them; it was a slight, wry smile, and for the first time he permitted his disgust and contempt to show in his eyes as he looked at them one after the other.

“As one Scotsman to another, my Lords, you’ve made a poor bargain. You sold me far too cheap.”

They came and kissed his hand, Lauderdale, Lothian and Hamilton, who had been his friend, indeed his intimate in early years, and he said farewell to them with dignity. It was a dignity that brought tears to Hamilton’s eyes; he tried to stammer an excuse, but Charles merely shook his head and repeated his dismissal. When the door closed, he heard the sentries posted outside saluting the Lords and then the metallic sound of their crossed pikes as they barred the entrance again. The light was fading fast, and he hesitated, wondering whether to ring for Parry, who had followed him to Newcastle, or draw the curtains himself. He went to the window and looked out on to the courtyard below. The rooms allotted to him were high up; too high for anything but a suicidal jump, and the troops marshalling below looked very small, as small as the men he had seen running and falling in battle. And now there would be no more battles.

Oxford had surrendered, and his nephew Rupert, the invincible General with whom he had felt such a sense of love and union, had laid down his arms and been permitted by the enemy to march out of the City with all the honours of war. He had sailed for France, and with him one of the saddest of Charles’ memories, for in the stress and agony of that last year of conflict, he and Rupert had quarrelled, and it was a quarrel which had not really healed. He had quarrelled with Rupert because Rupert had surrendered Bristol, and Bristol was his only seaport and his last remaining stronghold of importance.

The breach which had opened between them had caused him bitter regret and self-reproach, but now they were separated, and it was unlikely that they would ever meet again.

Down below he watched the preparations for the Scots’ departure. They had been taking place for the past week, all during the Christmas celebrations, when a horrible, forced atmosphere of gaiety among his attendants and his captors placed an intolerable strain upon his self-control. But greatest of all was the burden of Henrietta’s letters to him.

For the first time in twenty years he had begun to dread the couriers who carried news from her, because the content of her letters was an unvarying demand that he should perjure himself and take the Covenant oath.

He could not make her understand that what she asked of him was quite impossible, and just before Christmas he had written her an angry, bitter letter, begging her to stop tormenting him. The Prince of Wales was with her, and Rupert had joined her too, and was adding his advice to hers. There was not one person to sustain him, even among those he loved most in the world. And by tomorrow, January 28th of the year 1647, the English troops would enter Newcastle and he would be in the hands of his mortal enemies.

He pulled the curtains, closing out the last of the fading winter daylight, and rang his bell for Parry. When the valet came into the room, he found the King sitting by the fire; his eyes were closed and he was so quiet that Parry thought he was asleep. He began to light the candles, and the room filled with a soft light, a light that threw his moving shadow on the tapestried wall as he removed the King’s papers and set out the table for his supper.

When he turned, Charles was sitting up and smiling at him.

“I thought you were resting, Sire. Forgive me, did I wake you?”

“No, Parry, I was not asleep. What time is it?”

“Almost five o’clock, Sire.”

“It grows dark so early now,” the King said. “When I have supped, I think I’ll go to bed. The nights are cold here. Thank God we will be moving soon.”

“Where will we go, Sire,” Parry asked him.

“Somewhere in England, God knows where. We’ll know more tomorrow when the Parliament garrison arrives.”

Parry came to him, and going down upon one knee he knelt beside his master’s chair.

“Then they are not taking you to Scotland?”

“No,” Charles answered. “Four hunded thousand pounds is worth more to them than the person of their King. By tomorrow the last of them will be gone, and we will have new captors. They tell me Colonel Skippon will be in command.”

“Who is Colonel Skippon?” Parry asked; “do you know him, Sire?”

“I know of him,” Charles said quietly. “He is a personal friend of General Cromwell. Are you afraid, Parry?”

“Only for you,” the valet answered, and his voice quavered. “Oh, God, Sire, if only there was anything that I could do to help you—I’d gladly give my life!”

“I know that,” Charles said gently. “I’m very fortunate to have you Parry; whatever befalls, I know I have one friend. Will you stay with me to the end?”

The valet took his hand and kissed it.

“To the end of my life, Your Majesty!”

“Say rather,” the King said, “To the end of mine. That is enough.”