If Frances was troubled by this show of indifference she concealed it well. But she was by no means the only woman whose position depended upon the King’s favour who had cause for worry.

When Barbara came back from the country at the end of the year she had found the Countess of Danforth occupying her old place and two actresses flaunting his Majesty’s infatuation before all the Town. Moll Davis had left the stage and was occupying a handsome house he had furnished for her, and Nell Gwynne was not secretive about her frequent backstairs visits to the Palace. Barbara let it be known that the King begged her every day to take him back again, but that she scorned him as a man and would have nothing from him but money. In her heart, though, she was sick and afraid; she began to pay her young men great sums.

Charles, hearing of it, smiled a little sadly and shrugged his wide shoulders. “Poor Barbara. She’s growing old.”

But it was not only the women who furnished fodder for gossip. The Duke of Buckingham, too, continued to make himself conspicuous. Early in the new year the Earl of Shrewsbury was finally persuaded by his relatives that he must fight Buckingham and so he did, and was killed. After that the Duke took Lady Shrewsbury home with him to live, and when his patient little wife objected that such an arrangement was intolerable, he called a coach and sent her off to her father.

This amused Charles who said that his Grace could not possibly have devised a scheme to ruin him quicker with the Commons. But Buckingham had temporarily lost interest in the Commons and did not care what they thought of him—he could be faithful to his own plans no longer than to a woman.

Other events, less sensational but of more importance, were happening at the same time. Clarendon, though much against his will, had finally been forced by the King to flee the country, and all his daughter’s enemies took gleeful advantage of his disgrace to slight her. But Anne bore their envious contempt with hauteur and indifference, and managed to hold her own court together by a superior cleverness and determination. She told herself that these fools and their jealous pettifogging could mean nothing to her, for one day a child of hers would sit upon England’s throne—with every passing year the Queen’s barrenness made it more sure that she was right.

When Clarendon had gone his government was replaced by the Cabal, so called because the first letters of their five names spelled the word. It was made up of Sir Thomas Clifford, the one honest gentleman among them and hence suspected of wearing a false front; Arlington, who was his friend but jealous of him; Buckingham, Ashley, and Lauderdale. They shared a common hatred of Clarendon and fear of his possible return to power, and an almost equal hatred of York. Otherwise they were divided among themselves. Each distrusted and was afraid of every other—and the King trusted none of them, but was satisfied that at last he had a government which was completely his tool. He was cleverer than any one of them, or all of them together.

And so they set out to govern the nation.

England signed an alliance with Holland, by means of which Charles succeeded in compromising the Dutch so that when he was ready to fight them again they would have no chance of getting France to help them out. He intended, in fact, to have France on his side in the next war and his correspondence with his sister was now directed toward that end. The Dutch pact, together with secret treaties signed recently with both France and Holland, had given England the balance of power in Europe—and though accomplished by the grossest political chicanery it was typical of the King’s methods. For his charm and easy-going nature were a convenient shield, hiding from all but the most astute the fact that he was a cynical, selfish, and ruthlessly practical opportunist.


It was the Earl of Rochester who said that the three businesses of the age were politics, women, and drinking—and the first two, at least, were never quite separate.

Charles intensely disliked having a woman meddle in state affairs, but he found it impossible to keep them out. Accordingly he accepted, as he usually did, what he could not change. For as soon as a woman had attracted his attention or was known to be his mistress she was besieged on all sides—as the Queen never was—by petitions for help, offers of money in return for bespeaking a favour, proposals to ally herself with one or another of the Court factions. Amber had been involved in a dozen different projects before she was at Whitehall a fortnight. And as the months went by she wound herself tighter and closer into the web.

Buckingham, from the night of her presentation at Court, had seemed friendly—at least he always sided with her against Lady Castlemaine. Amber still mistrusted and despised him, but she took care he should not know it, for though he would make only a dubious friend he was sure to be a dangerous enemy. And she thought it less to her disadvantage to have him as the former. But for several months they made no demands upon each other, and neither made any test of the other’s good faith.

Then, one morning in late March, he paid her an unexpected call. “Well, my lord?” said Amber, somewhat surprised. “What brings you abroad so early?” It was not quite nine, and his Grace was seldom to be seen out of bed before midday.

“Early? This isn’t early for me—it’s late. I’ve not yet been abed. Have you a glass of sack? I’m damned dry.”

Amber sent for some sharp white wine and anchovies and while they waited for it to be brought the Duke flung himself into a chair next the fireplace and began to talk.

“I’ve just come from Moor Fields. Gad, you never saw anything like it! The ’prentices have pulled down a couple of houses, Mother Cresswell is yowling like a woman run mad, and the whores are throwing chamber-pots at the ’prentices’ heads. They say they’re coming next to pull down the biggest whorehouse of ’em all.” He gave a wave of his hand. “Whitehall.”

Amber laughed and poured out a glass of wine for each of them. “And I doubt not they’ll uncover more strumpets here than they’d ever find in Moor Fields.”

Buckingham reached into a coat-pocket and took out a wrinkled sheet of paper. It was printed in careless uneven lines, the fresh black ink was smeared and several thumb-prints showed. He handed it to her.

“Have you seen this?”

Amber read it over hastily.

It bore the title, “Petition of the Poor Whores to my Lady Castlemaine”; and that was what it pretended to be, though judging by the spelling and satirical content it was almost certainly the work of some person living close to the Court. In coarse broad terms it called upon Barbara, as the chief whore in England, to come to the aid of the beleaguered profession she had helped to glorify. Amber realized at once that this must be another of the Duke’s whimsical inventions to plague his cousin, for she knew that they had been quarrelling again, and she was both pleased to have Barbara humiliated and relieved that she herself had escaped.

She smiled at him, handing it back. “Has she seen it yet?”

“If she hasn’t, she soon will. They’re all over London. Vendors are hawking ‘em outside the ’Change and on every street corner. I saw a tiler laugh to read it till he almost fell off the roof he was laying. Now, what kind of sorry devil would plague her Ladyship with such a libel as that?”

Amber gave him a wide-eyed look. “Lord, your Grace! Who, indeed? I can’t think—can you?” She sipped her wine, savouring the salt taste of the anchovies.

For a moment they looked at each other, and then both of them grinned. “Well,” said his Grace, “it’s no matter, now it’s been done. I suppose it’s come to your ears his Majesty is making her a present of Berkshire House?”

Amber’s black eyebrows twisted. “Yes, of course. She makes mighty sure it comes to everyone’s ears, I’ll warrant you. And what’s more, she says he’s going to create a duchy for her.”

“Your Ladyship seems annoyed.”

“Me—annoyed? Oh, no, my lord,” protested Amber with polite sarcasm. “Why should I be annoyed, pray?”

“No reason at all, madame. No reason at all.” He looked expansive and pleased with himself, enjoying the warmth from the fire, the good wine in his stomach, and some private knowledge of his own.

“I’d be much less annoyed if he was giving Berkshire House to me! And as for a duchy—there’s nothing on earth I want so much!”

“Don’t worry. One day you’ll have it—when he wants to get rid of you, as someday he will.”

She looked at him for a moment in silence. “Do you mean to say, my lord—” she began at last.

“I do, madame. She’s through here at Whitehall. She’s done for good and all. I wouldn’t give a fig for the interest she’s got left at Court.”

But Amber was still skeptical. For eight years Barbara had ruled the Palace, interfered in state business, bullied her friends and tormented her enemies. She seemed as permanent and inalterable as the very bricks of the buildings.

“Well,” said Amber. “I hope you’re right. But only last night I saw her in the Drawing-Room and she said that Berkshire House should be proof to all the world his Majesty still loves her.”

Buckingham gave a snort. “Still loves her! He doesn’t even lie with her any more. But of course she hopes we’ll all believe her tale. For if the world thinks the King still loves her—why, that’s as good as if he did, isn’t it? But I know better. I know a thing or two the rest of you don’t.”

Amber did not doubt that, for his Grace had incalculable means of keeping himself well-posted. Little passed at Whitehall, of small or great importance, which escaped his drag-net of spies and informers.