“I cannot tell you what joy you have brought me!” I replied.

My little daughter’s coming lightened my days considerably. I had two of my children with me now: Charles and Henriette, my eldest and my youngest. It was a comfort to see how those two loved each other. Charles, whose main interest, I had to admit, was in young ladies, still had time to spare for that very small one, his own sister. He bestowed on her the pet name of Minette; as for her, her eyes would light up every time they fell on her big brother.

But naturally we could not be happy for long. How foolish Charles had been to put his hopes on the Scots. I could not believe my ears when I heard that they had sold him to the English. The price had been four hundred thousand pounds.

“Oh, the base treachery!” I cried and was mad with grief.

In my heart I knew that this was indeed the end, but I knew too that I would go on fighting as soon as I had recovered from the shock. I would always fight…even with death and despair staring me in the face.

Charles wrote to me: “I am almost glad of it. I would rather be with those who have bought me so dearly than with the faithless who have sold me so basely.”

Now the Cavaliers were coming to Paris in large numbers. They came to the Louvre and as the royal family was not there and I had almost the whole of the vast palace to myself I lodged them there. Some of the French criticized me for allowing them to have Protestant services in the Louvre and I reminded them that King Charles had never denied me the liberty of worshipping in my own faith and I could at least do the same for those who came to me with the object of furthering his cause. Rupert came. He was disheartened and somewhat resentful against the King who had reviled him after the loss of Bristol and seemed to have forgotten everything he had done in his service.

I placated him. I begged him to understand the state of mind in which the King must be…a prisoner of his enemies in the country which he had been chosen by God to rule.

My son went to Holland in the hope of getting help, and there his sister Mary, now Princess of Orange on the death of her husband’s father, welcomed him warmly. Poor Charles did not have a very happy time for almost immediately he contracted small pox and was laid low for some weeks. I suppose I must be grateful that he recovered but I did at the time find it difficult to be grateful for anything, so weighed down was I by my misfortunes. My thoughts were all with my husband—a prisoner in the hands of his enemies!

Looking back, I wonder whether there might have been a hope even then of saving his crown and his life, for some people seemed to think that he could have come to terms with Cromwell. Now it is clear that he did not understand the people with whom he had to deal. He had some idea that if he offered them peerages they would agree to set him back on the throne. He never could understand men like Cromwell. I can see the situation more clearly now. When it happened I was as blind as he was.

Charles did smuggle out a letter to me in which he stated that he was going to win them over and as soon as he gained power he would hang them all.

Cromwell was too wise a man not to realize this possibility. I had always found it hard to see the enemy’s point of view, but I realized that Cromwell’s intentions were not entirely to gain power for himself—although this is what he did. Some thought him a bad man, but few could deny that he was a brave one. He never spared others, nor did he himself. He was a deeply religious man. He had said he took up arms for civil and religious liberty, but most of us have come to know by now that when people talk of giving the people religious liberty they mean liberty to worship as the oppressors think fit. I am sure my dear Charles did not wish to restrict the religious liberty of his subjects. Cromwell referred to himself as “a mean instrument to do God’s people some good and God service,” but he brought great tragedy to many an English family and more to that of his King and Queen than any other.

I was delighted when my son James escaped to Holland. That was something to enliven the dreary days. He had been placed by the Parliament with his sister Elizabeth and brother Henry at St. James’s, though they were allowed to visit the King at Caversham and later at Hampton Court and Zion House, where he was kept in restraint. I would sit for hours imagining those meetings and longing to be with them.

James had been playing hide and seek with his sister and brothers and during the game had managed to elude the guards and get down to the river where friends were waiting with clothes—those of a girl—and when he was dressed in them he must have been a rather attractive sight for James had always been a pretty child. His brother Charles would never have been able to disguise himself as a girl! They got him across the sea to Middleburg where his sister was waiting to welcome him. Charles was already there and I was sorry to hear that they were soon constantly quarreling with each other.

I wrote to them reminding them that quarrels within the family were something we could not afford. We had enemies enough outside the family. There must be none within.

So that weary year was passing. The King a prisoner, the Parliament wondering what they would do with him. I longed to be with him. I wanted to share his fate whatever it was. If I could join him in his prison and we could spend our last days together, I would ask nothing more.

I wrote appealingly to the French ambassador, begging him to put my request before the Parliament. Let them give me permission to be with my husband. I would willingly join him in his prison. Let them do what they would with me if they would only let me be with him.

I settled down to await an answer. None came. I learned afterward that the French ambassador had presented my letter to the Parliament and that they would not open it.

Good news at last! Charles had escaped from his jailers. He was in the Isle of Wight and had found refuge in Carisbroke Castle.

It was about this time that war broke out in France. I was so immersed in my own affairs that I was taken by surprise when it burst upon us.

Poor Anne, she was distraught and terrified that her son would lose his crown. The war of the Fronde had started. It was really a revolt by certain factions against Mazarin to whom, in her infatuation, Anne had handed over the reins of government. Some people objected to this and it was the same old story: dissatisfaction with the rulers and then war…which is no good to anyone. The nobles were annoyed because there were too many foreigners in high places—Italians mostly, as Mazarin naturally favored his own race. Taxation was oppressive and the Parliament complained that their wishes were overruled by the arrogant Cardinal.

The people were taking up arms and the name Fronde was bestowed on the uprising. It was scarcely a war as the name implied for it was called after a fronde—a kind of catapult used by the street boys of Paris to fight their mock battles with each other.

When the people put up the barricades I went to see Anne. I felt I could be of some use to her, my experiences of discontented subjects being great.

Anne, who had left everything to Mazarin to conduct, was less worried than she had been.

“It is a slight disturbance,” she said.

“My dear sister,” I replied, “the rebellion in England began as a slight disturbance.”

I think she took notice then. She could not ignore that terrible example across the Channel. The Court fled from Paris and took up residence first of all in Ruel and afterward at St. Germain. When the Court left Paris I remained in the Louvre. The insurgents had no quarrel with me. But now I knew what it meant to live in abject poverty. My pension had stopped and because I had sent the bulk of it to help Charles I had nothing left with which to buy food and keep us warm.

My little Henriette could not understand what it was all about. Poor child, she must have thought she had been born into a hostile world. I wished I could have given her a happy childhood…a royal childhood…the sort to which she was entitled. But we were together…I must be thankful for that.

I don’t think I have ever been so miserably uncomfortable as I was that Christmas of 1648. I had suffered much before but now there was bodily discomfort to add to mental torture. I had endured illness but never before had I come near to starvation and, far worse than suffering myself, was to see my child cold and hungry. Her beautiful dark eyes seemed to grow larger every day.

Paris was in chaos. There was a war and to make life more uncomfortable the Seine had burst its banks and flooded the town. From the windows we could see the roads looking like canals whipped up by the bitter winds. That wind whistled through the windows and there was no way of keeping warm.

I could not see how we could continue in this way. My household was sadly in need of food. Even Henry Jermyn had lost his high spirits. What could we do? Where could we go? This was supposed to be our refuge.

It was a dark and gloomy morning; the rooms were full of the cold wintry daylight; outside the clouds scudded by, heavy with snow. My little Henriette was in my bed. I had gathered everything I could…rugs and drapery…to put over the bed and keep her warm. I sat in a chair beside the bed with a counterpane wrapped round me. Henriette watched me with wide eyes. I said: “Why don’t you try to sleep, my darling?”

Her answer wrung my heart with misery. “I’m so hungry, Mam.”

What could I say to that?

“Perhaps there’ll be some soup today,” she went on, her eyes brightening at the thought.