I could not help showing my pleasure and relief and he looked at me with that impatience I knew so well.

I closed my eyes. I did not want to ask any more questions. My father was coming to me. I would prefer to hear what had happened from him.


* * *

WHAT A JOY IT WAS TO SEE HIM! We embraced and clung together; we could not bear to let each other go.

“I have been so concerned about you,” said my father; and Mary Beatrice stood by, watching with tears in her eyes.

I noticed how they had changed, both of them. My father looked strained and tired. Mary Beatrice had lost the first glow of youth; she was only a few years older than I was, but she looked at least ten.

She had lost her children, as I had, but mine had not been born and hers had lived, if only for a short while; she had come to a new country, as I had, but the people had not welcomed her as the Dutch people had welcomed me. But my father had been a loving husband, although an unfaithful one.

Our positions were not dissimilar and because of this we could understand each other.

My father was bitter and sad.

I said: “I cannot be kept in ignorance any longer. I must know what has happened.”

“Do you learn nothing then?” answered my father. “There are many here who are no friends of mine. Surely they would spread the news.”

“I learn very little and I must know.”

“We have been asked to leave. Even my brother said it was necessary.”

Mary Beatrice went on: “He appeared to be very grieved when we left. Yet it was he who ordered it. I told him so. I could not stop myself. It was all so false. I said to him: ‘What, sir, are you grieved? But it is you who are sending us into exile. Of course we must go. You are the King and have ordained it.’ ”

I thought she would burst into tears and my father put his hand over hers.

“It was no fault of my brother, my dear,” he said. “He had to do it. It was what the people wanted. It is due to that scoundrel Oates.”

“I know,” she said. “I am sorry I spoke thus. He is ever kind. He understands. He showed me by his looks that he did.”

“Exile?” I said. “How can you be exiled?”

“You do not know what has happened in England. This man, Titus Oates ... he is at the root of it all. He has stirred up such trouble that it has brought us to this.”

“I have heard that man’s name mentioned,” I said.

“I should have thought the Prince of Orange would be deeply interested in what is taking place.”

“He does not talk much to me of state affairs.”

My father looked grim. His feelings toward William had not changed and he had hated the match from the beginning. I knew that, whatever they showed on the surface, there was deep animosity between them.

“This man Oates is a scoundrel. That much is obvious, but the people cannot see it — or won’t.”

“They believe because they want to believe,” said Mary Beatrice.

“He has accomplices. William Bedloe and Israel Tonge and others. Oates claims to have been a clergyman — a Catholic at one time. He professes to have joined the Jesuits and it is because of this that he claims to have knowledge of this plot.”

“What is the plot exactly?” I asked.

“To kill the King, set up a Catholic ministry and massacre the English Protestants.”

“And you?” I said.

“The government thought it wise that I should leave the country for a while, and my brother was obliged to agree with them.”

“It will pass,” I said.

“I do not know,” replied my father seriously. “This is no ordinary plot to be proved false — as it undoubtedly is — and forgotten. He is rousing the whole country.”

I began to grasp the situation. The anti-Catholic feeling was great throughout England and, fomented by this outrageous Titus Oates, it was not safe for my father to remain there. I was very anxious.

I learned that this visit to The Hague was, as he had said of that earlier one made by Mary Beatrice and Anne, “very incognito.” The situation was too delicate for it to be a state visit. William was, in a way, involved in English affairs; no one could be unaware of what the refusal of the English to accept a Catholic monarch would mean to him. If my father had a son now he would be taken from him and given a Protestant upbringing, but child rulers usually caused trouble, and at The Hague was one of the most staunch Protestants, married to the present heir to the throne — if my father should be rejected.


* * *

WHEN I WAS ALONE with Mary Beatrice I realized how troubled she was.

She told me that she had been happier in her first years in England than ever before and now it had all changed.

“I often think,” she said, “that, had your father been a Protestant, we should still be enjoying that happy life. The people were fond of him once, as they are of the King. They both have what is called the Stuart charm in good measure. The King is clever and determined to keep his crown; but the fact is that your father is too honest to deny his faith and for that we must suffer.”

She told me of how they had had to leave.

“We wanted to bring your sister with us, of course, and she was delighted at the prospect of seeing you, but when it was known that she was coming there was an outcry. The people thought your father might seek to make a Catholic of her, and so she was not allowed to go with us.”

“How I should have loved to see her!”

“She said she must come soon. Perhaps it can be arranged.”

“What troubles there are in life!”

“You too?” she asked.

“I miss my home — you, my father, my sister, my uncle ... the ones I loved.”

“You have your husband.” She looked at me intently, questioningly, and I did not answer.

She went on: “The Prince received us well when we arrived in Holland. He had a guard of honor waiting to greet us. Your father was gratified, but he did explain immediately that this was not a state visit and it would be better for him to remain incognito. We went to Brussels and shall return there when we leave here, for, dear Lemon, we must not stay long — we shall have the house which your uncle had during his exile. I think so much of the early years when we were all together, getting to know each other. How happy it was! Who would have dreamed then that all this would happen?”

Poor Mary Beatrice! My poor father! How different everything might have been!

I asked about Isabella and her face lit up with pleasure. Then it was sad again.

“I wanted to bring her with us. She is such a beautiful child. But it was not permitted. Your father is going to write to the King imploring him to allow Isabella to come to us. Perhaps we can persuade him to allow Anne to accompany her.”

“I thought the people did not want them to go with you.”

“I know, but the King would be happy for them to. He understands. But it will, I suppose, depend on the people. The King will never do anything to offend them.”

“He is wise,” I said.

“Wise and determined never to go wandering again.”

“Yet my father will do what he thinks right, no matter what the consequences.”

“Everything is wrong,” she went on. “Wherever we look, there is trouble ... Monmouth . . .”

“What of Jemmy?” I cried.

“He has grown ambitious. This horrible plot delights him. He mingles with the people. Monmouth, the Protestant. One would think he were heir to the throne. I do believe he sees himself as such. He is the King’s son and he wants everyone to remember it and, above all, he is a Protestant.”

“Jemmy cannot think . . .”

“I tell you, he is an ambitious young man. He wants the people on his side. I believe he thinks that one day the crown could be his.”

“That is impossible.”

I thought of my bright and amusing cousin, whose visits Anne and I had looked forward to — and now he had become my father’s enemy! What a lot of trouble could have been avoided if my father had not flaunted his religion. It was not the first time that I had felt a touch of impatience with him. The King kept his counsel and all went well with him. If only my father could have been as wise.

I felt ashamed of these critical thoughts. It was disloyal. I brushed them aside and talked about Isabella.

Their stay was brief. They had come to see me, my father told me. They had been so alarmed to hear of my illness, but because of the circumstances they could not prolong their stay.

The encounter had been beneficial to me and my health visibly improved. And then they returned to Brussels.


* * *

MY FATHER WAS CONTINUALLY IN MY THOUGHTS and I greatly pitied not only him and Mary Beatrice but Queen Catherine as well. It appeared that she was in acute danger, for these villainous men were accusing her of being involved in the plot to murder the King, and therefore of treason, for which the punishment was death. This was sheer nonsense, and I was sure my uncle would protect her from her malicious enemies. But what must the poor woman be suffering now?

The King should never have married a Catholic. My grandfather, Charles the Martyr, had married one, too; the stormy Henrietta Maria had been fiercely religious and was blamed for the troubles of that reign which had ended in such tragedy.

Catholics brought trouble wherever they were and that was at the very heart of the popish plot.

I would always maintain my father’s honesty, but he really was acting in a reckless, foolish manner, and was causing misery to a great many people.