He shrugged. “Well, a man must serve his King—and pimping’s often the high-road to power and riches. However, it all came to nothing. She’s a cunning slut, if I’ve ever seen one.”

“Well,” said Barbara, beginning to pout. “If it had it might have undone me for good and all. I thought you and I were pledged to a common cause, Buckingham.” She referred to their mutual hatred of Chancellor Clarendon.

“We are, my dear. We are. It’s my fondest wish to see that old man turned away in disgrace—or better yet to see his head on a pole over London Bridge. It’s time the young men have a swing at governing the country.” He smiled at her, a friendly ingratiating smile, all malice and scorn gone from his face. “I can’t think why we’re so often at odds, Barbara. Perhaps it’s because we both have Villiers blood in our veins. But, come—let’s be friends again—And if you’ll do your part I’ll try what luck I can have to bring you back into his Majesty’s favour again.”

“Oh, Buckingham, if only you would! I swear since her Majesty’s recovery he’s done nothing but trail after that simpering sugar-sop, Frances Stewart! I’ve been half-distracted with worry!”

“Have you? I’d understood there were several gentlemen who’d undertaken to console you—Colonel Hamilton and Berkeley and Henry Jermyn and—”

“Never mind! I thought we were going to be friends again—but that doesn’t give you leave to slander my reputation to my face!”

He made her a bow. “My humblest apologies, madame. I assure you it was but an idle jest.”

They had similarly quarrelled and made friends a dozen times or more, but both of them were too fickle, too mercurial, too determinedly selfish to make good partners in any venture. Now, however, because she wanted his help she gave him a flirtatious smile and was instantly forgiving.

“Gossip will travel here at Whitehall, be a woman never so innocent,” she informed him.

“I’m sure that’s your case to a cow’s thumb.”

“Buckingham—what about the letters? You know I’m but a simple creature, and you’re so clever. Tell me what I shall do.”

“Why, when you ask so prettily of course I’ll tell you. And yet it’s so simple I’m half ashamed to say it: Burn ’em up.”

“Burn them! Oh, come now, d’you take me for a fool?”

“Not at all. What could be more logical? As long as they exist he can take them from you. But once they’re burned he can turn the Palace upside down and never find ’em—and all the while you’re laughing in your fist.”

For a moment she continued to regard him skeptically, and then at last she smiled. “What a crafty knave you are, George Villiers.” She took a candle from the table and going to the cold fireplace tossed into it those letters which she held in her hand. Then she turned to him. “Give me the other one.”

He handed it to her and she tossed it too on the heap. The candle-flame touched one corner and in a moment the slow fire began to creep up the paper, making it curl as it turned black. And then suddenly they broke into a bright blaze which burned for a moment or two, the sealing-wax crackling and hissing, and began to die out. Barbara looked up over her shoulder at Buckingham and found him staring into the low fire, a thoughtful enigmatic smile on his handsome face. She had a quick moment of misgiving, wondering what he could be thinking; but it soon passed and she got to her feet again, relieved to have the troublesome letters safe at last.


About a week later most of the Court went to the opening performance of John Dryden’s new play, “The Maiden Queen.”

The house was full when the Court party arrived and there was a great buzzing and scraping as the fops in the pit climbed onto their benches to stare, while the women hung over the balconies above. One of them impudently dropped her fan as the King passed beneath and it landed squarely on top of his head. It began to slide off and Charles caught it and presented it with a smile to the giggling blushing girl above, as a spattering of handclaps ran over the theatre.

The King, York, and the young Duke of Monmouth were all in royal mourning—long purple cloaks—for the Duchess of Savoy.

Monmouth, the King’s fourteen-year-old bastard by an early love affair, had come to England in the train of Queen Henrietta Maria a year and a half before. Some said he was not really the King’s son, but at least he looked like a Stuart and there could be no doubt that Charles thought he was one. Almost since the day of the boy’s arrival he had shown him the most conspicuous affection and as a result of the title conferred upon him by his father he took precedence over all but York and Prince Rupert. The year before, his Majesty had married him to Anne Scott, eleven years old and one of the richest heiresses in Britain. Now the boy was appearing publicly in royal mourning—to the scandal of all who reverenced the ancient proprieties or who believed that blood was not royal unless it was also legitimate.

Down in Fop Corner one of the sparks commented: “By God, if his Majesty isn’t as fond of the boy as if he were of his own begetting.”

“It runs through the galleries he intends to declare him legitimate and make him his heir now it’s been proved the Queen’s barren.”

“Who proved it?”

“Gad, Tom, where d’ye keep yourself? My Lord Bristol sent a couple of priests to Lisbon to prove that Clarendon had something given her to make her barren just before she sailed for England.”

“A pox on that Clarendon’s old mouldy chops! And will you have a look at his mealy-mouthed daughter up there—as smug and formal as if she was Queen Anne!”

“And so she may be one day—if it’s true what they say about her Majesty.”

Another fop, catching the last phrase, perked up. “What’s that? What about her Majesty?”

All over the theatre the gossip went on, hissing and murmuring, while the royal party found its seats. Charles took the one in the center, with Catherine on his right and York on his left. Anne Hyde was beside her husband, and Castlemaine at the opposite end of the row next the Queen. Around and all about them were the Maids of Honour, both her Highness’s and the Queen’s. They were a group of pretty, eager, laughing girls, white-skinned, blue-eyed, with shining golden curls, their satin and taffeta skirts making a rustle as they arranged the folds and fluttered their fans, whispering and giggling together over the men down in the pit. They had arrived at Court during the past year and almost all of them were lovely—as though nature herself had sought to please the King by creating a generation of beautiful women.

On Barbara’s right sat one of the Queen’s Maids, Mrs. Boynton, a lively little minx who liked to affect an air of great languor and who grew faint three or four times a day when there were gentlemen about. Now Barbara spoke to her in an undertone which was nevertheless loud enough for Frances Stewart, just behind them, to overhear.

“Mrs. Stewart is looking wretchedly today, have you noticed? I would swear her complexion has a greenish cast.”

It was a well-known fact that Frances had been suffering from jealousy over the sensation created by the recent arrival at Court of Mrs. Jennings, a fifteen-year-old blonde who was currently being admired by all gentlemen and criticized by all ladies. Barbara was delighted that someone had come to catch interest from Frances Stewart, since that was what had happened to her the year before when Frances appeared.

Boynton waved her fan lazily, lids half-closed, and drawled, “She doesn’t look green to me. Perhaps it’s something in your Ladyship’s eye.”

Barbara gave her a look that once might have troubled her and turned to talk to Monmouth who leant forward eagerly, obviously much smitten by his father’s flamboyant mistress. He was tall and well-developed for his age, physically precocious as the King had been, and so extraordinarily handsome that grown women were falling in love with him. He had not only the Stuart beauty but also the Stuart charm—a merry gentle lovable disposition, and something in his personality so dazzling that he arrested attention wherever he went.

Boynton glanced around over her shoulder to exchange smiles with Frances, and Frances leaned forward, whispering behind her fan: “I just saw his Highness slip another note into Mrs. Jennings’s hand. Wait a moment and I’ll warrant you she tears it up.”

Jennings had been amusing the Court for some weeks by refusing to become York’s mistress, an office which was generally included in the appointment of Maid of Honour to his wife. She tore up his letters before everyone and scattered the pieces on the floor of her Highness’s Drawing-Room. And now, as Boynton and Frances Stewart watched her, she tore this note into bits and tossed them high in the air so that they drifted onto the Duke’s head and shoulders.

Boynton and Stewart burst into delighted laughter and York, glancing around, saw the scraps on his shoulder. Scowling, he brushed them off, while Mrs. Jennings sat very straight and prim-faced and looked down over his head at the stage, where the play was beginning.

“What!” said Charles, glancing at his brother as he brushed himself, and he laughed outright. “Another rebuff, James? Odsfish! I should think you’d have taken the hint by now.”

“Your Majesty doesn’t always take hints, if I may say so,” muttered the Duke, but Charles merely smiled good-naturedly.

“We Stuarts are a stubborn race, I think.” He leaned closer to James and murmured beneath his breath: “I’ll wager my new Turkish pony against your Barbary mare that I break in that skittish filly before you do.”

York raised a skeptical eyebrow. “It’s a wager, Sire.” The two brothers shook hands and Charles settled down to watch the play.