“I’ll get even with him!” she cried. “A nice thing if I should print his letters! Why, these Hollanders would have something to make pamphlets of then, would they not!”

Mrs. Sarah warned her. She must not forget that although Charles had been lenient with her, he was yet the King. It might be that he would forbid her not only the Court but the country; such things had happened.

“It is monstrous!” cried Barbara. “I have loved him long. It is six years since he came home, and I have loved him all that time.”

“Others have been his rivals in your affections, and fellow guests in your bedchamber,” Mrs. Sarah reminded her.

“And what of his affection and his bedchamber, eh?”

“He is the King. I wonder at his tenderness towards you.”

“Be silent, you hag! I shall send for my furniture. Do not imagine I shall allow my treasures to remain at Whitehall.”

“Send a messenger to the King,” suggested Mrs. Sarah, “and first ask his permission to remove your possessions.”

“Ask his permission! He is a fool. Any man is a fool who chases that simpering ninny, who stands and holds cards for her card houses, who allows himself so far to forget his rank as to play blind man’s buff with an idiot.”

“He might not grant that permission,” suggested Mrs. Sarah.

“If he should refuse to let me have what is mine …”

“He might because he does not wish you to leave.”

“You dolt! He has banished me.”

“For your insolence before the Queen and her ladies. He may be regretting that now. You know how he comes back again and again to you. You know that no one will ever be quite the same as you are to him. Send that messenger, Madam.”

Barbara gazed steadily at Mrs. Sarah. “Sarah, there are times when I think those who serve me are not all as doltish as I once thought them to be.”

So she took Sarah’s advice and asked the King’s permission to withdraw her goods; the answer she had hoped for came to her: If she wished to take her goods away she must come and fetch them herself.

So, with her hair exquisitely curled, and adorned by a most becoming hat with a sweeping green feather, and looking her most handsome, she took barge to Whitehall. And when she was there she saw the King; and, taking one look at her, and feeling, as Mrs. Sarah had said he did, that no one was quite like Barbara, he admitted that her insolence at an awkward moment had made him a little hasty.

Barbara consented to remain at Whitehall. And that night the King supped in her apartments, and it was only just before the Palace was stirring to the activities of a new day that he left her and walked through the privy gardens to his own apartments.

All that summer the fear of plague was in the hearts of the citizens of London; the heat of the previous summer was remembered, and the dreadful toll which had been taken of the population. Through the narrow streets of wooden houses, the gables of which almost met over the dark streets, the people walked wearily and there was the haunting fear on their faces. From the foul gutters rose the stink of putrefying rubbish; and it was remembered that two or three times in every hundred years over the centuries the grim visitor would appear like a legendary dragon, demanding its sacrifice and then, having taken its fill of victims, retreat before the cold weather only to strike again, none knew when.

Catherine found this time a particularly anxious one. She was worried about her brother Alphonso who she knew was unfit to wear the crown; she knew that Pedro, her younger brother, coveted it; and now that the restraining hand of her mother would not be there to guide them, she wondered continually about the fate of her native country.

The condition of her adopted country was none too happy at this time. She knew of Charles’ anxieties. She knew too that he was beginning to despair of her ever giving him an heir. Again her hopes had been disappointed. Why was it that so many Queens found it hard to give their husbands sons, while those same Kings’ mistresses bore them as a matter of course? Barbara had borne yet another child—this time a handsome boy, whom she called George Fitzroy. Barbara had, as well as her voluptuous person, a nursery full of children who might be the King’s.

In June of the year which followed that of the great plague the Dutch and English fleets met. De Ruyter and Van Tromp were in charge of the Dutchmen, and the English Fleet was under Albemarle. There were ninety Dutch ships opposed to fifty English, and when the battle had been in progress for more than a day, the Dutch were joined by sixteen sail. Fortunately Prince Rupert joined the Duke of York and a mighty battle was the result; both sides fought so doggedly and so valiantly that neither was victorious; but, although the English sank fifteen Dutch ships and the Dutch but ten English, the Dutch had invented chain shot with which they ruined the rigging of many more of the English ships; and all the latter had to retire into harbor for refitting.

Yet a few weeks later they were in action once more, and this resulted in victory for the English, with few English losses and the destruction of twenty Dutch men-of-war.

When the news reached England, the bells rang out in every town and hamlet and there was general rejoicing in London which, but a year ago, had been like a dead and desolate city.

These celebrations took place on the 14th of August. Hopes were high that ere long these proud and insolent Dutchmen would realize who would rule the sea.

It was less than two weeks later when, in the house of Mr. Farryner, the King’s baker, who lived in Pudding Lane, fire broke out in the early morning; and as there was a strong east wind blowing and the baker’s house was made of wood, as were those of his neighbors, in a few hours all Pudding Lane and Fish Street were ablaze and the streets were filled with shouting people who, certain that their efforts to quench the raging furnace were in vain while the high wind persisted, merely dragged out their goods from those houses which were in danger of being caught by the flames, wringing their hands, and declaring that the vengeance of God was turned upon the City.

Through the night, made light as day by the fires, people shouted to each other to come forth and flee. The streets were filled with those whose one object was to salvage as many of their household goods as was possible; and the wind grew fiercer as house after house fell victim to the flames. People with blackened faces called to each other that this was the end of the world. God had called vengeance on London, cried some, for the profligate ways of its people. Last year the plague and the Dutch wars, and now they were all to be destroyed by fire!

Showers of sparks shot into the air and fell like burning rain when a warehouse containing barrels of pitch and tar sent the blaze roaring to the sky. The river had suddenly become jammed with small craft, as frantic householders gathered as many as possible of their goods together and sought the green fields beyond the City for safety. Many poor people stood regarding their houses with the utmost despair, their arms grasping homely bundles, both to leave their homes until the very last minute. Pigeons, which habitually sheltered in the lofts of these houses, hovered piteously near their old refuge and many were lying dead and dying on the cobbles below, their wings burned, their bodies scorched.

And all through the night the wind raged, and the fire raged with it.

Early next morning Mr. Samuel Pepys, Secretary of the Navy, reached Whitehall and asked for an audience with the King; he told him all that was happening in the City, and begged him to give instant orders that houses be demolished, for only thus could such a mighty conflagration be brought to a halt. The King agreed that the houses which stood in the way of the fire must be pulled down, as only by making such gaps could the conflagration be halted, and gave orders that this should be done.

Pepys hurried back to the City and found the Lord Mayor in Cannon Street from where he was watching the fire and shouting in vain to the crowds, imploring them to listen to him, and try to fight the fire.

“What can I do?” he cried. “People will not obey me. I have been up all night. I shall surely faint if I stay here. What can I do? What can any do in such a raging wind?”

The Secretary, thinking the man was more like a fainting woman than a Lord Mayor, repeated the King’s order.

“I have tried pulling down houses,” wailed the Lord Mayor. “But the fire overtakes us faster than we can work.”

They stood together, watching the flames which, in some places, seemed to creep stealthily at first, as tongues of fire licked the buildings and then suddenly, with a mighty roar, would appear to capture yet another; the sound of falling roofs and walls was everywhere; the flames ran swiftly and lightly along the thatches; now many streets were avenues of flame. People screamed as the fire drops caught them; flames spread like an arch from one side of London Bridge to the other; the air was filled with the crackling sound of burning and the crash of collapsing houses. It was almost impossible to breathe the dense smoke-filled air.

On Tuesday morning the fire was still raging, and the King decided that he dared no longer leave the defense of his capital to the Lord Mayor and the City Fathers.

Fleet Street, the Old Bailey, Ludgate Hill, Warwick Lane, Newgate, Paul’s Chain and Watling Street were all ablaze. The heat was so fierce that none could approach near the fire, and when a roof fell in, great showers of sparks would fly out from the burning mass to alight on other dwellings and so start many minor fires.