Strafford and Laud were still in the Tower.

Of course the Prince of Orange accepted with alacrity and there was a lull in our unpopularity because of the coming marriage.

Mary’s wedding should have been a wonderful occasion but it was not. Our first daughter to marry—and her husband a petty Prince! But that was not really why we were depressed.

The trial of Strafford had begun and in our hearts we knew that it was really a quarrel between the Throne and the Commons. It was King against Parliament. Charles was wretchedly unhappy. He had always been loyal to his friends and he had loved Strafford who, he knew, had been condemned not for his betrayal of his country but for his loyalty to his King.

Charles had written to him. I had been beside him as he wrote and mingled my tears and prayers with his.

“The misfortune which has fallen upon you,” wrote Charles, “being such that I must lay by the thought of employing you hereafter in my affairs, yet I cannot satisfy myself in honor or conscience without assuring you now in the midst of your troubles, that upon the word of a king you shall not suffer in life, honor or fortune.”

We were both happier when he wrote that, for those wicked men who accused him would do their best to bring him to the scaffold, but it would be the King who would have to sign the death warrant so Strafford could not go to the block unless the King agreed to his death. “And that,” declared Charles, “is something I will never do.”

They had set up a great tribunal in Westminster Hall and the peers and Lord Chancellor on the Woolsack were there with the judges—and also the Commons. How I hated them in their black clothes. Cruel Roundheads, I called them.

I watched, with the King, behind a trellis. I had said that the two elder children should go with us—so Charles and Mary came. I shall never forget the intent look on the face of my serious son. Young Charles was determined to learn how to be a king. Mary was a little apprehensive. I supposed she was thinking of the young bridegroom who would soon be coming to claim his bride.

We sat there throughout the day, and at night returned to Whitehall Palace. We grew more and more depressed as the days passed. I had to do something for I could not endure inactivity.

I wrote again to the Pope. I begged him to let me have five hundred crowns for I believed that if I had this money I could bribe the members of Parliament. It was a wild idea and as soon as I had done it I regretted it and saw the folly of it. But watching those horrible Roundheads in the hall with the cruelty on their stern pale faces and knowing that they were doing their best to hound dear Strafford to his death made me desperate and I was sure that they were such villains that they would be open to bribes.

That was not the height of my stupidity. I knew that Lucy was rather interested in their Puritan doctrines. It was laughable. Lucy a Puritan! Her main preoccupation was with her gowns and her complexion. But Lucy was like that. She favored contrasts, and oddly enough she had become quite friendly with the odious Pym.

I guessed that she was worried about the Earl of Strafford and she must be believing that Pym might help to get him released. How clever of her! Pym carried great weight in the Commons. He was their leader, and of course the best way to serve Strafford was to be friendly with men like Pym, to try to make them understand that in no way could he be called a traitor.

I told Lucy that I too would like to meet some of the Parliamentarians that I might talk to them and attempt to make them see reason.

She said it would have to be in secret.

“Could you bring them to Whitehall?” I asked.

“Well, you know I am talking to Pym quite a lot nowadays.”

“Yes, I know. You are so clever, Lucy. What could you arrange for me?”

Lucy loved intrigue. She said we could use one of the rooms in the palace. One of the ladies was away for a time so why should we not use hers? Lucy would see whom she could bring to the palace.

So there I was creeping through the corridors of Whitehall after dark, lighted by the taper I carried, meeting those men whom Lucy arranged should talk to me. They were astonished; they were overawed although they held their stupid uncurled heads high; they were respectful; they listened; but they did not commit themselves to help Strafford, which was what I wanted them to do.

I did not tell Charles what I was doing. It was unconventional and he liked to do things by order. But after a while I began to see that the operation was useless and told Lucy so. She agreed with me.

So the Strafford trial went on and, listening to it every day behind the trellis, I was certain that those men down there were going to insist on his destruction, no matter what the verdict.

But we held the trump card, I told Charles. He had promised Strafford that he would never sign the death warrant and they could not kill him without the King’s authority.

That thought sustained us during those days.

Toward the end of the month our bridegroom arrived with some pomp, escorted by a fleet of twenty vessels in charge of the famous Dutch Admiral van Tromp. Charles dispatched the Earl of Lindsay to welcome him in his name when they arrived at Gravesend and in due course the Prince rode into London in the carriage Charles had sent for him. As the Prince came close to the Tower one hundred pieces of ordnance were discharged as a welcome, and it was about five o’clock in the evening when they arrived at Whitehall. Charles was worried because of the strange mood of the people, who were overexcited by the trial of Strafford and taking sides with the Parliament against the King.

It would have been disastrous if they should riot and attack our visitors, so he had ordered the guards to be out in full force—which looked like a guard of honor but which was really one of protection.

I liked the look of the young Prince. He was fifteen years old—Mary was only ten—and quite good looking. Moreover it was obvious that he was pleased by the match and it was only natural that he should be. He had the sad state of affairs in England to thank for it; it would never have been made in happier circumstances.

Mary was at Somerset House so she was not present at our first meeting and the Prince immediately asked our leave to visit her there. Charles said that the permission was readily granted and he felt sure that the Prince would want to pay his respects to the Queen Mother at St. James’s before making the journey to Somerset House.

The Prince bowed and said that he would first call on the Queen Mother although I knew he was all impatience to see Mary; but as Charles said to me, he thought we should be there when they met and while William was visiting St. James’s we could go privately and with all speed to Somerset House, which we did; and I was so pleased to see the first meeting between the young couple.

It lifted my spirits for they liked each other on sight and I knew from experience how terrifying it can be to be sent to a bridegroom whom one has never seen.

I said to Charles: “I have one prayer to make at this moment and that is that Mary may find almost as great a happiness with her husband as I have had with mine…. I would say, as great, but my dearest, there can be only one most perfect husband in the world and I have already taken him.”

Charles smiled in that rather embarrassed way he had when face to face with my extravagant words and deeds, but he was greatly moved and he did say that his prayer would be worded in exactly the same way except that he would substitute wife for husband.

Whitehall chapel was prepared for the ceremony and the bridegroom appeared looking very handsome in red velvet, adorned by a collar of Vandyke point lace. Mary looked beautiful. She was somewhat simply dressed in a gown of silver tissue and her jewelry was all pearl. Her hair was tied with silver ribbons so that she gave an impression of absolute purity. I myself had chosen her dress and I was glad that I had insisted on such simplicity for I thought that, standing beside her red velvet–clad bridegroom, she looked elegant, while the poor boy looked overdressed, nouveau riche… and to tell the truth a little crude.

I did not participate in the ceremony. How could I since it was Protestant? I sat with my mother and my daughter Elizabeth in a curtained-off gallery from which we could watch the scene below without taking part in it.

The Bishop of Ely performed the ceremony. Our Archbishop, I was reminded with a pang of fear, was a prisoner in the Tower. The King gave his daughter away and the Prince put the ring on her finger.

Then the entire company proceeded to the great chamber where the banquet was to take place. It was an impressive scene with the magnificent tapestries on which was depicted the defeat of the Spanish Armada lining the walls. How different England had been then! I reflected ruefully. How the brave men rallied to their Queen and fought for their country. And my Charles is such a good man. Queen Elizabeth was not always a good woman. How was it that she had bound men to her when my beloved Charles lacked the power to do so?

There followed the farcical ceremony of putting the bride and groom to bed. There was to be no consummation as Mary was too young and she would not go with her bridegroom when he left for home, but stay a little longer with her family.

My little girl was undressed, put in a night robe and lay down in the beautiful state bed adorned with blue velvet which was in my chamber. Then the Prince of Orange came in. He looked very pleasant in a robe of blue and green satin lined with silver. He was put into the bed where he kissed Mary and the two children lay there together, one at each end of the bed with a considerable distance between them. They stayed there for fifteen minutes then Prince William kissed Mary and left the bed.