Ah! thought Charles, and drew a deep breath as they came into the courtyard which led to the chapel. Another hundred yards and I’m safe!

At that moment Buckingham, who had given his place to others, caught up with him again. “Sire,” he began. “May I present—”

Charles threw a quick comical glance at Lauderdale. “How is it,” he murmured, “that every one of my friends keeps a tame knave?”

But he turned back with a smile to hear the man out, and stopped just at the chapel doors with the courtiers clustered around him. But the ladies were going in, and his eyes wandered. Frances Stewart came along with her waiting-woman and gave him a wave of her hand. Charles grinned broadly and made a quick move to follow her, but remembered that he was listening to a petition and checked himself.

“Yes,” he interrupted. “I appreciate your position, sir. Believe me, I’ll give it serious thought.”

“But, Sire—” protested the man, holding out his hands. “As I told you, it’s most urgent! I must know soon or—”

“Oh, yes,” said Charles, who had not been listening at all. “So it is. Very well, then. I think you may.”

Gratefully the man started to drop to his knees, but the King gave him an impatient signal not to, for he was eager to get away. And then, just before he entered the great carved oak doors he turned and said over his shoulder, “As far as I’m concerned, you may have your wish. But you’d best make sure the Chancellor has no other plans on that score.”

The man opened his mouth again, the smile disappearing in a sudden look of dismay, but it was too late. The King was gone. “Catch him as he comes out,” whispered Buckingham, and went on himself.

The chapel was already well filled and the music of the great organ thundered in the walls. Charles did not like going to church and sermons bored him, but he did contrive to please himself while there with some of the finest music to be had. And, much to the scandal of the conservative, he had introduced violins, which he loved better than any other instrument.

He sat alone in the Royal Closet in the gallery—Catherine attended her own Catholic mass—looking down over the chapel. Curtains at either side closed off the portion of the gallery where the ladies sat, though he knew that Frances was there just beside him, so close that he could whisper to her. The young clergyman who was to speak for the day had taken his place and was mopping his perspiring cheeks and forehead with his black-gloved hands, until as the dye came off he looked more like a chimney-sweep than a divine. Titters went up here and there and the young man looked more wretchedly uncomfortable than ever, wondering why they had begun to laugh before he had spoken so much as one word.

It was almost as difficult to preach to the Court as it was to act to it. The King invariably went to sleep, sitting bolt upright and facing the pulpit, as soon as the subject of the sermon had been announced. The Maids of Honour whispered among themselves, waved their fans at the men below, giggled and tried on one another’s jewellery and ribbons. The gallants craned their necks back up at the ladies’ gallery and compared notes on the previous night’s activities or pointed out the pretty women present. The politicians leaned their heads together and murmured in undertones, keeping their eyes ahead as though no one could guess what they were doing. Most of the older ladies and gentlemen, relics of the Court of the first Charles, sat soberly in their pews and listened with satisfaction to the warnings repeatedly given by the pulpit to a careless age; but even their good intentions often ended in noisy snores.

At last the young chaplain, newly preferred to his place by an influential relative, proclaimed the subject of his first sermon before the King and Court. “Behold!” he announced, giving another swipe of his black glove along his cheek, “I am fearfully and wonderfully made!”

Instantly the chapel was filled with laughter, and while the bewildered frightened young man looked out over his congregation, tears starting into his eyes, even the King had to clear his throat and bend over to examine his shoe-lace to conceal a smile. A finger poked him gleefully through the curtains, and Charles knew that it was Frances whom he could hear gasping with laughter. But the chapel finally grew quiet again, the terrified clergyman forced himself to go on, and Charles composed himself to sleep.


Frances Stewart had replaced Barbara Palmer as the most popular and successful hostess at Whitehall. The suppers she gave in her apartments overlooking the river were crowded with all the powerful and clever men and pretty women of the Court. Both Buckingham and Arlington were trying to enlist her support for their own projects, for they were convinced as was everyone else that the King could be led through a woman.

Buckingham strummed his guitar for her and sang songs, mimicked Clarendon and Arlington, played with her at her favourite game of building card-castles, and flattered himself that she was falling in love with him. The Baron had no such social tricks at his command, but he did unbend enough to talk to her with a certain air of gracious condescension which was the best he could do toward charming a woman. And when Louis XIV sent his new minister, Courtin, to try to persuade Charles to call off the Dutch War, the merry little Frenchman immediately applied himself to Mrs. Stewart.

“Oh, heavens!” she said one evening to Charles, when he had finally maneuvered her into a corner alone. “My head’s awhirl with all this talk of politics! One tells me this and another that and a third something else—” She stopped, looked up at him and then gave a sudden mischievous little burst of laughter. “And I don’t remember any of it! If they only guessed how little I listen to their prittle-prattle I warrant you they’d all be mightily out of sorts with me.”

Charles watched her, his eyes glowing with passionate admiration, for he still thought that she was the most perfectly lovely thing he had ever seen. “Thank God you don’t listen,” he said. “A woman has no business meddling in politics. I think perhaps that’s one reason why I love you, Frances. You never trouble me with petitions—your own or anyone else’s. I see asking faces everywhere I look—and I’m glad yours doesn’t ask.” His voice dropped lower. “But I’d give you anything you want, Frances—anything you could ask for. You know that, don’t you?”

(Across the room one young man, watching them, said to another: “His Majesty’s been in love with her for two years and she’s still a virgin. I tell you, it’s beyond credence!”)

Frances smiled, a gentle wistful smile so young and artless that it clutched at his heart. “I know that you’re very generous, Sire. But truly, there’s nothing I want but to live an honourable life.”

A look of quick impatience crossed his face and his eyebrows twisted with a kind of whimsical anger. But then he smiled. “Frances, my dear, an honourable life is exactly what he who lives it thinks it to be. After all, honour is only a word.”

“I don’t know what you mean, Sire. To me, I assure you, honour is much more than a word.”

“But nevertheless it must be one or several qualities you associate with a certain word. His Grace of Buckingham, for instance, over there at the card-table, has quite another definition from your own.”

Frances laughed at that, somewhat relieved that she could, for she did not like serious conversations and felt uneasy in the presence of an abstraction. “I don’t doubt that, your Majesty. I think that’s one subject where his Grace and I think no more alike than you and I do.”

“Oh?” said the King, with an air of mild and amused interest. “And has Buckingham been trying to persuade you over to his interpretation?”

Frances blushed and tapped her fan on her knee. “Oh, that wasn’t what I meant!”

“Wasn’t it? I think it was. But don’t trouble yourself about it, my dear. It’s an old habit of the Duke’s—falling in love along with me.”

Frances looked offended. “Falling in love along with you! Heavens, Sire! You sound as if you’ve been in love mighty often!”

“If I tried to pretend I’d never noticed a woman until you came along—well, Frances, after all—”

“Just the same you needn’t speak as though it’s a common everyday occurrence!” She tilted her chin and turned a haughty profile to him.

Charles laughed. “I almost think you’re prettiest when you’re just a little—just ever so little—angry with me. You have the loveliest nose in the world—”

“Oh, have I, Sire?” She turned eagerly and smiled at him, unable to resist the compliment.

But suddenly the King glanced across the room and muttered in annoyance, “Good Lord! Here comes Courtin to lecture me about the war again! Quick! Let’s go in here!”

He took her arm and though she started to protest he swiftly ushered her through the door and closed it. The room was dark but for the moonlight reflecting off the water, but he led her across it and into another beyond.

“There!” he said, closing the second door. “He’ll never dare follow us in here!”

“But he’s such a nice little man. Why don’t you want to talk to him?”

“What’s the use? I’ve told him a thousand times. England and Holland are at war and that’s all there is to it. The fleet’s at sea—I can’t very well call it back for all the nice little men in France. Come here—”

Frances glanced at him dubiously, for each time they were alone the same thing happened. But after a moment of hesitation she walked to the window and stood beside him. White swans were floating there close to shore in the early spring dusk, and the reeds grew so tall the tips of them touched the glass. The water looked dark and cold and a brisk wind had whipped up the waves. He slipped one arm about her waist and for a minute or more they stood silently, looking out. And then slowly he turned, drew her close against him, and kissed her mouth.