“Your Majesty, could you not be content with one mistress? It would be so much more respectable if you could.”

“I am content with each one while I am with her. Content! I am deeply content. One leaves me and another appears, and then I find contentment again.”

“If Your Majesty would but occupy yourself with matters of state you would have less time for women.”

“Matters of state! They are things to dream about. Women! They are to be possessed. One woman in Cologne is worth a million imaginary state papers in Whitehall.”

“Your Majesty is incorrigible.”

“Nay, Edward, merely resigned. I will tell you this: You have enemies here at my mock Court and they would seek to drive a wedge between us were that possible. Yesterday one said to me: ‘Your Majesty, do you know what your respected Chancellor said of you? Most disrespectfully he spoke of you. He declared you are a profligate who fritters his time away in vices of all descriptions.’ And how do you think I answered your calumniator, Edward? I said: ‘It does not surprise me that he should say that once in a way to you, for he says the same of me to myself a hundred times a week!’”

Charles laughed and laid his arm about his Chancellor’s shoulders. “There!” he continued. “That is what I think of you and your honesty. I can appreciate other things … I can love other things … besides beautiful women!”

“Let us talk of state matters,” said Edward Hyde. “It would be better if your sister of Orange did not make her proposed visit to Paris to see your mother.”

Charles nodded. “I see that, Edward.”

“Now that we are entering into negotiations with Spain, and Ormonde has gone on a mission to Madrid, we do not wish Spain to think that the bond between ourselves and France is being strengthened. The Spaniards will know that your mother and sister are being treated with scant courtesy in France; therefore they will be more likely to favor us. Any who is out of favor with France should readily find favor with Spain.”

“I will speak to my sister.”

“You should forbid her to make the journey.”

Charles looked uneasy. “I … forbid Mary!”

“You are the King of England.”

“A King without a kingdom, a man who would often have been without a home but for Mary. What would have happened to us but for her, I cannot think. Holland was our refuge until, with the death of her husband, she lost her influence. Even now we owe the money, on which we live, to her; but for my sister Mary I should not have even this threadbare shirt to cover my shoulders. And you would ask me to forbid her making a journey on which she has set her heart!”

“You are the King.”

“I fear she will think me an ungrateful rogue.”

“It matters not what she thinks of Your Majesty.”

“It matters not! My dear sister to think me an ungrateful oaf? My dear Chancellor, you astonish me! A moment ago you were complaining because the world looks upon me as a libertine; now you say it is a matter of little importance that my sister should find me ungrateful.”

“Your Majesty …”

“I know. I see your point. Ingratitude … intolerance … are minor sins in the eyes of the statesman. If the outcome of these things is beneficial, then it is good statecraft. But to invite a pretty woman to one’s bed … in your eyes, Edward, and in the eyes of Puritans, that is black sin; yet to me—if she be willing—it seems but pleasure. We do not see life through the same eyes, and you would be judged right by the majority, so it is I who am out of step with the world. Perhaps that is why I wait here, frittering away my time with dice and women.”

“I should advise Your Majesty to speak to your sister.”

Charles bowed his head.

“And if I were Your Majesty I would not continue to associate with the woman, Lucy Water, who now calls herself Mistress Barlow.”

“No? But I am fond of Lucy. She has a fine boy who is mine also.”

“She is mistress of others besides Your Majesty.”

“I know it.”

“There are many gentlemen of the Court who share your pleasure in this woman.”

“Lucy has much to give.”

“You are too easygoing.”

“I am content to go where my will carries me. There is no virtue in my easy temper.”

“The woman could be sent to England.”

“To England?”

“Indeed, yes. It would be better so. She could be promised a pension.”

Charles laughed.

“Your Majesty is amused?”

“Only at the idea of such a magnanimous promise from a man in a threadbare shirt.”

“There are some who would help to pay the pension for the sake of ridding Your Majesty of the woman.”

“Poor Lucy!”

“She would enjoy returning to her native land doubtless. If the Spanish project comes to anything, we should leave Cologne. She would not wish to stay here when all her lovers had gone. Have I your permission to put this proposition to her, Your Majesty?”

“Put it by all means, but don’t force her to go back to live among Puritans, Edward.”

“Then sign this paper. It is a promise of a pension.”

Charles signed. Poor Lucy! He had ceased to desire her greatly. Occasionally he visited her in indolence or out of kindness. He was not sure which, and he did not care enough to find out. One never knew, when visiting her, whether one would startle her with a lover who might be hiding in a cupboard until the royal visitor had departed. Such situations were not conducive to passion.

But as he signed he was really thinking of Mary, and what he would say to her.

Was it possible that Spain might help him to regain his throne?

There were times when some wild scheme would rouse him from his lethargy, and he would once more be conscious of hope.

Mary, the Princess of Orange, had all the Stuart gaiety. She had lost her husband; she was young and alone in a country which did not greatly love her; she was full of anxieties for her baby son; yet when she was with her brother she could fling aside her cares and laugh, dance and make merry.

She was looking forward to going to France as she had not looked forward to anything for a long time.

“Paris!” she cried. “And all the gaiety I hear is indulged in there! I want to enjoy all that. And most of all, I want to see our mother whom I have not seen for thirteen years, and dear little Henriette whom I have not seen at all. Poor Mother! She was always so tender and loving.”

“To those who do her commands!”

“Charles, you have grown cynical.”

“Realistic, my dear. The longer I live, and the farther I wander, the greater grows my respect for the truth. Ask poor Henry to tell you of our mother’s tender love!”

“Poor little Henry! His was a sad experience.”

“And entirely our mother’s doing.”

“You must not dislike her because she is a Catholic.”

“It is not her religion that I hate. It is her unkindness to our brother. The boy was heartbroken when Ormonde brought him to me.”

“Well, Charles, you have made up to him for what he suffered at our mother’s hands. He may have been disappointed in her, but he is not so in his brother. He adores his King; and is it not pathetic to see how he tries to model himself on you?”

“It is more than pathetic—it is tragic. And so bad for his morals.”

“You might try to prevent that by leading a more respectable life yourself, brother.”

“I cannot attempt the impossible—even for young Henry.”

Mary laughed. “Now you are looking stern,” she said. “Now you are preparing to pass on Master Hyde’s orders to me. You are going to forbid me to go to Paris.”

“Mary, who am I to forbid you!”

“You are the King and the head of our house.”

“You are the Princess of Orange, mother of the Orange heir. I am your out-at-elbows brother.”

“Oh Charles, dearest Charles, you are not a very good advocate for your cause. You are a profligate, they say, and I know that to be true; you are careless; you are idle; but I love you.”

“If the reward of profligacy is love, then mayhap I am not such a fool after all.”

“Are you forbidding me to go to Paris?”

“I forbid nothing.”

“But you ask me not to go?”

“’Twill offend the Spaniards.”

“Listen to me, Charles. You and our mother have quarreled over Henry. It is a bad thing in any family to quarrel—in ours it might well be disastrous. I wish to right these matters. For years I have longed to see our mother again.”

Charles smiled. “Dear Mary,” he said. “You must please yourself. Go, if that is what you wish.”

“I am sure I am right. I do not believe the Spaniards will help you regain your kingdom. They’ll not fight for you. They are just temporarily friendly with you because, for the moment, the French are not.”

“I think you have the truth there.”

“We must not have these rifts between members of our family. Our mother must love you again. She must love Henry. Oh, Charles, there are so few of us left now. Smile on my journey. I could not enjoy it if you did not.”

“Then if my smile is necessary to your pleasure, you must have it, dear sister. Take a kiss to my dear Minette.”

Mary embraced him warmly.

“Yes, Charles,” she said. “Do you know you’re my favorite brother? I would almost go further and, but for a small person who now resides in Holland, I would say you are my favorite man.”

“I really begin to think,” said the king, “that I am not such a fool as I believed myself to be.”

“You’re the wisest fool on earth. I shall take your Chancellor’s daughter with me as a maid of honor. She is a pleasant girl, Anne Hyde. And I wish her to make herself very agreeable to our mother whom I would like to see reconciled to the girl’s father. She declares Hyde advises you to act against her wishes, you know.”