Charles was touched and very soon these two gentlemen were as much in evidence as ever, though I did believe they saw how useless it was to try to shift the King’s trust in his Treasurer.

It was soon after that that the second trouble arose.

I noticed that Eleanor Villiers had been looking a little strained lately and it gradually dawned on me that she was in a certain condition which I myself had been in more than once so I was very much aware of the signs.

I called her to me one day, making sure that we were alone and I said: “Eleanor, are you feeling quite well?”

She looked startled and then blushed a fiery red, so I knew I had not been mistaken.

“Who?” I asked.

She would not say at first and I thought I could not press her…just yet.

“How soon?” I asked.

“Five months,” she replied.

“Well, Eleanor,” I went on, “it is a good thing I know. Your marriage will have to take place without delay.”

She was silent and I feared the worst.

“He is married?” I asked.

She shook her head.

“Then that is good. There must be no delay. Why did you wait so long?”

“He does not want to marry.”

“Does not want to marry! But he will have to keep his promise.”

“He made no promise.”

“You mean that you…a lady of the Court…without a promise of marriage….”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

I said angrily: “Who is this man?”

And then she told me. “Henry Jermyn.”

“Oh, the rogue,” I cried. “Leave this to me. The King will be most put out. You know what a high standard of morality he sets upon the Court. I will speak to Jermyn at once. Go and leave this to me.”

I sent for Henry. He looked as jaunty as ever—not in the least like a man who was heading for trouble. He took my hand and kissed it.

I said: “I have just been talking to Eleanor Villiers.”

Even then he did not look in the least disturbed.

I went on: “She had some distressing news to tell me. I think you must know what it is.”

He put his head on one side in an amusing way he had and regarded me with earnestness. I said severely: “It is no use assuming innocence. You know what you have been doing. You have got the poor girl with child.”

“Most careless,” he said.

“I agree with that. There is nothing you can do but marry her.”

“That I cannot do.”

“What do you mean? You cannot marry her! You are a bachelor, are you not?”

“A very impoverished one.”

“I cannot see that that should prevent your marriage.”

“Alas, the lady is also impoverished and now that her uncle is dead and blessings have ceased to flow on the family, she is as poor as I am and such poverty should always be a bar to marriage.”

“You are a wicked man,” I said.

“Who sometimes amuses Your Majesty. If I can do that I must be content.”

“The King will hear of it and be most displeased.”

“I regret that.”

“He may well order you to marry the lady.”

“I do not think the King would step outside his rights.”

“No. He always does what is right. Well, Henry, there will be trouble over this. She is after all a lady of the Court and a member of the Buckingham family at that.”

“I know,” he said mournfully.

“You should marry her.”

“It would not be a good marriage for either of us. She is a charming girl…but penniless, and I am a rogue as you say and not worthy of her.”

In spite of his light manner I could see that his mind was made up.

The King was most distressed. “I will not have this immorality in my Court,” he said.

“You cannot make them marry though. Do you think Eleanor Villiers would want to marry a man who did not want to marry her?”

“As there is to be a child, yes.”

“But I do see Henry’s point. If he marries her he will have no chance of retrieving his fortunes.”

“If he doesn’t what chance has she of making a happy marriage?”

I looked at him helplessly and thought again how fortunate I was in my happy marriage.

I flung my arms round him and told him so. He smiled quietly and indulgently at my demonstrative behavior, which was so unlike his own; he patted me and said that he would consider the matter and decide what should be done.

The King saw both Eleanor Villiers and Henry separately.

He was determined then that Henry should marry Eleanor. He said he must have promised marriage before she agreed to intimacy with him but Eleanor, who was a very honest girl, said there had been no talk of marriage.

The King was horrified, but she said; “I loved him too much.”

Charles was touched and that made him all the more angry with Henry. He said that as there had been no promise of marriage he could not insist on it, but he would not for one moment give his approval to what Henry Jermyn had done. He did not demand that there should be a marriage but he said that Henry would not be welcome at Court until there was one.

That meant banishment. Henry went abroad and once more I was deprived of his company.

In the meantime I had become pregnant again. I often thought that Buckingham must have laid a spell on me because during the time of his ascendancy over Charles, I remained barren; and no sooner was he dead than I became as fertile as any woman in England.

When I told Charles that I was expecting another child he was overjoyed.

“We must go to Scotland soon,” he said, “for you will not be able to travel when your pregnancy is advanced.”

“Scotland!” I cried in dismay. I had never liked what I heard about the place. It was cold and the people were dour, so said my informants. I thought some of them in our own Court were solemn enough so I did not relish going among those who were more so.

“It is time I was crowned there,” said Charles. “The people expect it.”

I was immediately apprehensive. I had refused to be crowned with the King in England. How could I possibly be in Scotland? I was in a very difficult position as my French advisers had pointed out. For a Queen not to be crowned was to place herself in a position which could be dangerous. On the other hand, how could I, a fervent Catholic, bow to the doctrines and customs of the Protestant Church?

“I cannot do it,” I said. “I should hate myself if I did. It would be wrong. I cannot deny my Faith.”

Charles tried to explain patiently that there was no question of denying my Faith. All I had to do was stand beside him and be crowned. But I knew there was that in the coronation ceremony which obligated the sovereign to swear to live in the Reformed Faith. I knew what that meant. It was flouting the Holy Church, and I could not do it.

In the old days there would have been a quarrel. There was none now.

Charles looked at me sadly and tenderly; he said that he understood the depth of my feelings and would do nothing to distress me.

So he went to Scotland without me and I stayed at home to await the birth of my next child.

When I look back in the light of hindsight, and perhaps because I have become wiser than I was, I think perhaps the first seeds of disaster were sown during that visit to Scotland. I now understand the character of my husband as I never did then. Then I loved him for his concern for me, his devotion and the knowledge that he was one of the few faithful husbands at Court and because he made me feel cherished and beautiful. Now I can love him for his many sterling qualities and at the same time for the weaknesses which would destroy him.

I thought then—and I think now—that Charles was one of the most noble and virtuous men ever to sit on the throne of England; he was a good man, but to be a good man is not necessarily to be a good King; some of the greatest Kings who ever lived have been far from good in their private lives. I see now that the two lives are different and one cannot be judged against the other. We do not judge a man but a king. As a man Charles was noble and good; as a king he was often blind, often foolish, unable to see beyond his own vision, which was misted over by the firm belief that Kings are chosen by God and rule by the Divine Right.

I can see all this now; but I could not see it then. In fact I did not give much thought to it. If I had been asked I should have said that of course we should go on living as we were, raising our children, and in due course my eldest son would take the crown. There were outcries about taxes and Charles said the exchequer was in a sorry state but that had often happened before and as it never made any difference to my way of life, I ignored it.

Now I look back at Charles and try to see him as he was—a smallish man, fastidious and very reserved; he took a long time to make friends, but when he did he became devoted to them, as I had seen through Buckingham and, once he had really grown to love, with me. He was the sort of man whose friendship was to be completely trusted. He was very steadfast in his opinions, and if he liked or disliked a person it was hard to shake either his trust or his suspicion. He loved art in any form and once told me how he would have enjoyed being able to paint, write verses, or compose music; he lacked the talent of performance yet that did not mean he was not a good judge and he did a great deal to encourage painters, musicians and writers at our Court.

“I want a cultivated Court,” he once said to me.

I enjoyed these things, too, so that was an added bond between us.

Dear Charles! He could not make friends easily and he never really understood the people whom he was so anxious to govern well. Later I read a great deal about Queen Elizabeth. This was when I was trying to understand what had gone wrong. I remembered those pilgrimages she made through the country—getting to know the people, always pleasing the people; she had been much more careful in her treatment of them than she was of her intimate friends. Oh, she was a clever woman—a great Queen and a great ruler…but she lacked the noble personal character of my Charles.