That November, a year and five months after the birth of my swarthy gentleman, I produced a daughter. We decided to call her Mary and like her brother she was baptized in St. James’s Chapel by Bishop Laud.

A few weeks after her birth my daughter became very ill, and Charles and I spent an anxious time during the days which followed. I had been so happy to have a pretty baby and now reproached myself that I had ever complained about my son’s lack of good looks. Healthy children were what we wanted; beauty could take second place.

The Countess of Roxburgh had been chosen as little Mary’s governess and Mrs. Bennet was her nurse; the child had the usual dry nurse, watchers, rockers, a gentleman usher, two grooms of the backstairs as well as a seamstress and a laundress and other menial servants which were the requisites of a royal infant. I greatly feared during those first days of her life that she was not going to need them.

Prayers were said in my private chapel but not all over the country because we did not want the people to know that we feared for the baby’s life.

But in a week or two Mrs. Bennet came to me beaming with delight. “My lady Princess is demanding nourishment, Your Majesty. It is a good sign. She is coming through this.”

And she did.

Charles and I were so happy then. We went to the nurseries and he held young Charles, and I my frail little Mary, and Charles said with that faint stammer which was there when he was overemotional or very shy that he would be the happiest man in Christendom if this little girl lived and I continued to love him.

Dr. Mayerne, the Court physician, was soon declaring in his rather somber way that Mary would live, and I expressed my overwhelming gratitude to him, and Charles did so more quietly but nonetheless sincerely.

It was not long after when, one night, as Charles was disrobed in our bedchamber that I noticed some spots on his chest. I was not alarmed at the time, but in the morning I remembered and looking at them again I saw that they had multiplied and were spreading up to his neck.

Dr. Mayerne was sent for and diagnosed small pox, which threw us into a panic. He told me to remove myself at once while he looked at everyone in the palace to make sure none was suffering from the dreaded disease.

“But,” I said, “it is my place to look after my husband.”

Dr. Mayerne gave me one of his withering looks. I often laughed with Lucy about him for he was no respecter of persons and always treated me as though I were not only a child but a somewhat stupid one. Strangely enough he was French, having been born at Mayerne near Geneva of Protestant parents, and his real name was Sir Theodore Turquet de Mayerne. Ever since he had practiced he had been a pioneer and had invented several cures, and he considered his work more important than anything else on Earth and did not care whom he offended in practicing it. Charles’s father, King James, had thought so highly of him that he had made him Court physician and Mayerne had looked after Charles ever since he was a boy.

“Anyone who goes into the sick chamber is liable to risk his or her life,” he said.

“He is my husband,” I replied, “and I shall allow no one else to look after him.”

“You are too fond of drama,” he told me. “This is not to be confused with playacting.”

“I assure you I do not think of it as playacting,” I cried indignantly. “I am deeply concerned for my husband and I shall be with him in case he needs me.”

Mayerne shook his head but I did see a gleam of something in his eyes which I could not exactly construe. It might have been a faint glimmer of approval.

Charles did not feel very ill, which was unusual in such cases, and tried to persuade me to leave him, but I stood firmly and refused.

He said: “You are a stubborn woman.”

“I am…where I love, and I can tell you, Charles Stuart, that no one is going to tear me from this room while you need me.”

He was deeply moved and turned away so that I might not see the tears in his eyes. All the same, he kept urging me to go.

I would not and I was the only one who nursed him through those days. Fortunately it was only a mild attack that he suffered; we spent the time playing games together, and but for my anxiety about him I could have been completely contented for within a few weeks he was well again. I suffered nothing, although all through his illness I had been in his bedchamber and had even slept in the same bed.

Mayerne said it was a miracle and implied that I did not deserve such good fortune since I was capable of such folly. But I think he admired me, although he considered me foolish. As for Charles, he loved me more than ever. He said he was the luckiest of men and no matter what happened to him in the future everything would be worthwhile because life had brought me to him. For a man who was not inclined to talk extravagantly that was saying a good deal and I told Lucy that I was happier than I had ever been in my life.

Alas, there was one of whom I was fond who was less fortunate. Poor Lucy retired to her rooms in great distress. The dreaded plague had struck her and for a woman like her, one of the beauties of the Court, it was the greatest blow which could befall a woman, for even if she survived, the chances of her being disfigured far outdistanced those of her immunity.

Lucy was not only one of the beauties of the Court, she was chief of them all. Edmund Waller and the poets said I was, but I think some of the beauty attributed to me was homage to royalty. To be honest, I had never been classically beautiful; my nose was too large, so was my mouth; of course I did have magnificent dark eyes and because of my nature, which so many thought frivolous, they sparkled with more vitality than most people’s. My features were rarely ever in repose long enough for people to notice the length of my nose; so I gave the impression of charm, which may have been mistaken for beauty. But Lucy Hay was beautiful by any standards. Poets wrote verses to her, and she was lively and intelligent and liked to dabble in politics. She was rightly considered to be the most attractive woman at Court.

The thought of all that beauty being dimmed by the aftermath of the small pox cast a shadow over the Court. I was delighted when I heard that she was recovering, but she refused to admit anyone to her chamber; and only her closest attendants were allowed to see her, so I feared the worst.

For some time she would not emerge from her bedchamber and we all waited in trepidation for her to appear. Some of the poets were disconsolate. I believe they thought they had lost their main source of inspiration.

Then she sent word to me that that night she intended to join the company in the great hall for the evening’s entertainment. I was planning some special celebration to give thanks for Charles’s recovery. I was not sure whether Lucy’s was going to be a cause for rejoicing or not.

I remember that occasion so well. I was wearing a dress of white satin with a large collar trimmed with points. It is strange that when I remember certain occasions I see my clothes clearly. I suppose it is because in those days I paid great attention to them. I had a slight curvature of the spine which had to be disguised by clever dressmaking. I hated anyone to know of this and often had large collars made which hung over my dresses like shawls. Because my dresses were like that it became one of the highest fashions. This was a charming dress and I remember it in detail because it was one of my favorites and that was such an outstanding evening. I often wonder whether it is good to remember so clearly. Such memories come back and back again and I can project myself into those times and relive them. Whether it is a clever thing to do I cannot say. Sometimes the sorrow such recollections bring is greater than the joy.

There was a hushed silence when Lucy appeared. She was magnificently dressed and she had a superb figure, and that was certainly unaltered except perhaps she was a little thinner, which only made her look more elegant.

She was masked and we feared the worst. The mask was black velvet and it covered the whole of her face; through the slits, her eyes glittered. She walked up to Charles and me and bowed low.

I put my arms about her. I knew it was indecorous but I couldn’t help it. I was so distressed. My beautiful Lucy, the shining light of our Court and forced to wear a mask!

I fancied I sensed despair in her. I tried words of comfort. I kept saying: “Lucy …dear Lucy” again and again.

Then she stepped back and said in a voice which everyone could hear because there was such silence: “Your Majesties, have I your permission to unmask?”

“Only if you wish, Lucy,” I said.

She replied: “I do. It is well for all to see.”

Then dramatically she threw off the mask. There was a gasp. Lucy was revealed, her skin dazzling pink and white, completely unmarred.

There was a rustling throughout the room and then everyone was rushing up to look at her and congratulate her.

That scene was typical of Lucy Hay.

I said that we must celebrate the King’s recovery—and Lucy’s—and the manner in which we should do so would be by having a play or a masque performed. I wanted one written specially for the occasion so I summoned a writer whose work we liked. This was Ben Jonson, an aging man but one who had a light touch, and I had engaged him on several occasions to write a masque for me; and the best of our designers of scenery could work with him; this was an architect called Inigo Jones. Before I came to England the banqueting hall in Whitehall Palace had been destroyed by fire, and it was Inigo Jones who had designed the new one. He was the only son of a cloth-maker but he had done very well and there was evidence of the fine quality of his work throughout the capital. Unfortunately he and Ben Jonson did not like each other and were constantly quarreling. Jonson had once said that if he wanted to name a villain in one of his plays he thought it would be a good idea to call him Inigo. I should have known better than to engage the two of them to work on the same production. It was not long before they were refusing to work with each other because Jonson had put his own name before that of Inigo Jones on the title page of the work.