Виктория Холт: A Health Unto His Majesty

She went into his presence and knelt before him. She was fully aware that she had lost none of her beauty since they had last met. Rather had she gained in charm. She was magnificently dressed, and her wonderful auburn hair fell about her bare shoulders. The King’s warm eyes glistened as he looked at her.

“It is a pleasure to see you here to greet us,” he said.

“The pleasure is that of Your Majesty’s most loyal subject to see you here.”

“Rise, Mistress Palmer.” He turned to those who stood about him. “The lady was responsible for great goodwill towards me during my exile … great goodwill,” he repeated reminiscently.

“It is the utmost joy to me that Your Majesty should remember my humble service.”

“So well do I remember that I would have you sup with me this night.”

This night! thought Barbara. This very night when the whole of London was shouting its welcome; this first night when he had returned to his capital; this night when he had received the loyal addresses, the right royal welcome, the heartiest welcome that had ever been given to a King of England.

She could hear now the sounds of singing on the river, the shouts of joy.

Long live the King! A health unto His Majesty!

And here was His Majesty, his dark slumberous eyes urgent with passion, unable to think of anything but supping with Barbara Palmer.

“So,” said the King, “you will sup with me this night?”

“It is a command, Your Majesty.”

“I would have it also a pleasure.”

“It will be the greatest pleasure that could befall a woman,” she murmured.

She lifted her eyes and saw one in the King’s entourage who, in spite of her triumph, made her heartbeats quicken.

There was Chesterfield. She hoped he had heard. She hoped he remembered now that he had once laughed at the idea of marrying Barbara Villiers. One day, thought Barbara then, and that day not far distant, Barbara Villiers would be the first lady in the land; for the King was half French by birth and all French in manners; and it was well known that the maîtresse en titre of a King of France was, more often than his Queen, the first Lady in the land.

Chesterfield was going to regret and wonder at his stupidity. He was going to realize he had been a fool to think Mary Fairfax a better match. She wondered too how he was faring in his recent marriages for he had had the temerity to marry again while he was in Holland—marry without consulting her! She wished him all that he deserved. She wondered how the simple little Lady Elizabeth Butler was going to satisfy a man like Chesterfield. If Lady Elizabeth, brought up in the affectionate home of her parents, the Duke and Duchess of Ormond, believed that all marriages were like those of her parents, she was about to be very surprised.

For, thought Barbara, even as she contemplated supping with the King, Chesterfield need not think that Barbara Villiers had finished with him.

The courtiers were looking at her boldly now. The King had brought French manners with him. They did not think it strange that he should openly claim her for his mistress before them all. In France the greatest honor that could befall a woman was to become the King’s mistress.

Charles—and Barbara—would see that that French custom was forthwith adopted at the English Court.

Far into the night the revelry continued. Throughout the Palace of Whitehall, which sprawled for nearly half a mile along the river’s edge, could be heard the shouts of citizens making merry. Music still came from the barges on the river; and the lights of bonfires were reflected in the windows. Ballad singers continued their singing; it was not every day that a monarch came home to his capital.

The King heard the sounds of rejoicing and was gratified. But he gave them no more than a passing thought. He remembered that some of those who were shouting their blessings on him had doubtless called for his father’s blood. Charles did not put any great trust in the acclamations of the mob.

But he was glad to be home, to be a King once more, no longer a wandering exile.

He was in his own Palace of Whitehall, in his own bed; and with him was the most perfect woman to whom it had ever been his lot to make love. Barbara Palmer, beautiful and amorous, unstintingly passionate, the perfect mistress for a perfect homecoming.

From the park of St. James’, beyond the Cockpit, he heard the shouting of midnight revelers.

“A health unto His Majesty….”

But his smile was melancholy until he turned once more to Barbara.

In his early morning walks through the grounds which surrounded his Palace of Whitehall, the King was often a melancholy man during those first few months after his restoration.

He would rise early, for he enjoyed walking in the fresh morning air and at such times he was not averse to being alone, although at all others he liked best to be surrounded by jesting men and beautiful women.

He walked fast; it was a habit unless there was a woman with him; then he never failed to fit his steps to hers.

This was a January morning. There was hoar-frost on the grass and it sparkled on the Palace walls and the buildings which rose from the banks on either side of the river.

January—and seven months a restored King!

He had wandered into the privy gardens where in summer he would set his watch by the sundial; but this day the sheltered bowling green was perhaps more inviting. He would, as was his custom, look in at the small Physic Garden where he cultivated the herbs with which he and Le Febre, his chemist, and Tom Chaffinch, his most trusted servant, experimented.

He was in an unusually pensive mood on this day.

Perhaps it was due to the coming of the new year—his first as King in his own country. Those last months which should have been the happiest of his life were touched with tragedy.

He looked back at the Palace with its buildings of all sizes—past the banqueting hall to the Cockpit. Whitehall was not only his royal Palace, it was the residence of his ministers and servants, the ladies and gentlemen of his Court, for they all had their apartments here. And that was how he would have it. The bigger his Court the better; the more splendid, the more he liked it for it reminded him sharply, whenever he contemplated it, of the change in his fortunes.

The stone gallery separated his royal apartments from those of his subjects; and his bedchamber—he had arranged this—had big windows, which gave him a clear view of the river; it was one of his pleasures to stand at those windows and watch the ships go by, just as, when a small boy at Greenwich, he had lain on the bank and delighted in the ships sailing by.

In the little chamber known as the King’s Closet, to which only he and Tom Chaffinch had keys, he kept the treasures that he had learned to love. He was deeply attracted by beauty in any form—pictures, ornaments and, of course, women, and now that he was no longer a penniless exile he was gathering together pictures by the great artists of his earlier days. He had works by Holbein, Titian and Raphael in his closet; he had cabinets and jewel-encrusted boxes, maps, vases and, perhaps more cherished than any—except his models of ships—his collection of clocks and watches. These he wound himself and often took to pieces that he might have the joy of putting them together again. He loved art and artists, and he intended to make his Court a refuge for them.

He was already restoring his parks to a new magnificence. St. James’ Park was no longer to be the shabby waste ground it had become during the Commonwealth; he would plant new trees; there should be waterworks such as those he had seen in Fontainebleau and Versailles. He wished his Court to be as elegant as that of his cousin Louis Quatorze. And St. James’ Park should be a home for the animals he loved. He himself delighted to feed the ducks on his pond; he had begun to stock the park with deer; he would have goats and sheep there too, and strange animals such as antelopes and elks which would cause the people of London to pause and admire. And all these animals he loved dearly, as he loved the little dogs which followed him whenever they could and had even found their way into the Council Chamber. His melancholy face would soften when he fondled them, and when he spoke to them his voice was as tender and gentle as when he addressed a beautiful woman.