KING CHARLES II. AND NELL GWYN
One might classify the kings of England in many ways. John wasundoubtedly the most unpopular. The impetuous yet far-seeing Henry II.,with the other two great warriors, Edward I. and Edward III., andWilliam of Orange, did most for the foundation and development ofEngland's constitutional law. Some monarchs, such as Edward II. and thewomanish Henry VI., have been contemptible. Hard-working, useful kingshave been Henry VII., the Georges, William IV., and especially the lastEdward.
If we consider those monarchs who have in some curious way touched thepopular fancy without reference to their virtues we must go back toRichard of the Lion Heart, who saw but little of England, yet was thebest essentially English king, and to Henry V., gallant soldier andconqueror of France. Even Henry VIII. had a warm place in the affectionof his countrymen, few of whom saw him near at hand, but most of whommade him a sort of regal incarnation of John Bull--wrestling andtilting and boxing, eating great joints of beef, and staying his thirstwith flagons of ale--a big, healthy, masterful animal, in fact, whogratified the national love of splendor and stood up manfully in hisstruggle with the Pope.
But if you look for something more than ordinary popularity--somethingthat belongs to sentiment and makes men willing to become martyrs for aroyal cause--we must find these among the Stuart kings. It is odd,indeed, that even at this day there are Englishmen and Englishwomen whobelieve their lawful sovereign to be a minor Bavarian princess in whoseveins there runs the Stuart blood. Prayers are said for her at Englishshrines, and toasts are drunk to her in rare old wine.
Of course, to-day this cult of the Stuarts is nothing but a fad. No oneever expects to see a Stuart on the English throne. But it issignificant of the deep strain of romance which the six Stuarts whoreigned in England have implanted in the English heart. The oldJacobite ballads still have power to thrill. Queen Victoria herselfused to have the pipers file out before her at Balmoral to the"skirling" of "Bonnie Dundee," "Over the Water to Charlie," and "Wha'llBe King but Charlie!" It is a sentiment that has never died. Her latemajesty used to say that when she heard these tunes she became for themoment a Jacobite; just as the Empress Eugenie at the height of herpower used pertly to remark that she herself was the only Legitimistleft in France.
It may be suggested that the Stuarts are still loved by many Englishmenbecause they were unfortunate; yet this is hardly true, after all. Manyof them were fortunate enough. The first of them, King James, an absurdcreature, speaking broad Scotch, timid, foolishly fond of favorites,and having none of the dignity of a monarch, lived out a lengthy reign.The two royal women of the family--Anne and Mary--had no misfortunes ofa public nature. Charles II. reigned for more than a quarter of acentury, lapped in every kind of luxury, and died a king.
The first Charles was beheaded and afterward styled a "saint"; yet themajority of the English people were against his arrogance, or else hewould have won his great struggle against Parliament. The second Jameswas not popular at all. Nevertheless, no sooner had he been expelled,and been succeeded by a Dutchman gnawing asparagus and reeking ofcheeses, than there was already a Stuart legend. Even had there been nopretenders to carry on the cult, the Stuarts would still have passedinto history as much loved by the people.
It only shows how very little in former days the people expected of aregnant king. Many monarchs have had just a few popular traits, andthese have stood out brilliantly against the darkness of the background.
No one could have cared greatly for the first James, but Charles I. wasindeed a kingly personage when viewed afar. He was handsome, as a man,fully equaling the French princess who became his wife. He had nopersonal vices. He was brave, and good to look upon, and had a kinglymien. Hence, although he sought to make his rule over England atyranny, there were many fine old cavaliers to ride afield for him whenhe raised his standard, and who, when he died, mourned for him as a"martyr."
Many hardships they underwent while Cromwell ruled with his iron hand;and when that iron hand was relaxed in death, and poor, feeble RichardCromwell slunk away to his country-seat, what wonder is it that youngCharles came back to England and caracoled through the streets ofLondon with a smile for every one and a happy laugh upon his lips? Whatwonder is it that the cannon in the Tower thundered a loud welcome, andthat all over England, at one season or another, maypoles rose andChristmas fires blazed? For Englishmen at heart are not onlymonarchists, but they are lovers of good cheer and merrymaking and allsorts of mirth.
Charles II. might well at first have seemed a worthier and wisersuccessor to his splendid father. As a child, even, he had shownhimself to be no faint-hearted creature. When the great Civil War brokeout he had joined his father's army. It met with disaster at Edgehill,and was finally shattered by the crushing defeat of Naseby, whichafterward inspired Macaulay's most stirring ballad.
Charles was then only a child of twelve, and so his followers didwisely in hurrying him out of England, through the Scilly isles andJersey to his mother's place of exile. Of course, a child so very youngcould be of no value as a leader, though his presence might prove aninspiration.
In 1648, however, when he was eighteen years of age, he gathered afleet of eighteen ships and cruised along the English coast, takingprizes, which he carried to the Dutch ports. When he was at Holland'scapital, during his father's trial, he wrote many messages to theParliamentarians, and even sent them a blank charter, which they mightfill in with any stipulations they desired if only they would save andrestore their king.
When the head of Charles rolled from the velvet-covered block his sonshowed himself to be no loiterer or lover of an easy life. He hastenedto Scotland, skilfully escaping an English force, and was proclaimed asking and crowned at Scone, in 1651. With ten thousand men he dashedinto England, where he knew there were many who would rally at hiscall. But it was then that Cromwell put forth his supreme militarygenius and with his Ironsides crushed the royal troops at Worcester.
Charles knew that for the present all was lost. He showed courage andaddress in covering the flight of his beaten soldiers; but he soonafterward went to France, remaining there and in the Netherlands foreight years as a pensioner of Louis XIV. He knew that time would fightfor him far more surely than infantry and horse. England had not beencalled "Merry England" for nothing; and Cromwell's tyranny was likelyto be far more resented than the heavy hand of one who was born a king.So Charles at Paris and Liege, though he had little money at the time,managed to maintain a royal court, such as it was.
Here there came out another side of his nature. As a child he had bornehardship and privation and had seen the red blood flow upon thebattlefield. Now, as it were, he allowed a certain sensuous,pleasure-loving ease to envelop him. The red blood should become therich red burgundy; the sound of trumpets and kettledrums should giveway to the melody of lutes and viols. He would be a king of pleasure ifhe were to be king at all. And therefore his court, even in exile, wasa court of gallantry and ease. The Pope refused to lend him money, andthe King of France would not increase his pension, but there were manywho foresaw that Charles would not long remain in exile; and so theygave him what he wanted and waited until he could give them what theywould ask for in their turn.
Charles at this time was not handsome, like his father. His complexionwas swarthy, his figure by no means imposing, though always graceful.When he chose he could bear himself with all the dignity of a monarch.He had a singularly pleasant manner, and a word from him could win overthe harshest opponent.
The old cavaliers who accompanied their master in exile were likeNapoleon's veterans in Elba. With their tall, powerful forms theystalked about the courtyards, sniffing their disapproval at theseforeign ways and longing grimly for the time when they could once moresmell the pungent powder of the battle-field. But, as Charles hadhoped, the change was coming. Not merely were his own subjectsbeginning to long for him and to pray in secret for the king, butcontinental monarchs who maintained spies in England began to know ofthis. To them Charles was no long
er a penniless exile. He was a kingwho before long would take possession of his kingdom.
A very wise woman--the Queen Regent of Portugal--was the first to acton this information. Portugal was then very far from being a pettystate. It had wealth at home and rich colonies abroad, while its flagwas seen on every sea. The queen regent, being at odds with Spain, andwishing to secure an ally against that power, made overtures toCharles, asking him whether a match might not be made between him andthe Princess Catharine of Braganza. It was not merely her daughter'shand that she offered, but a splendid dowry. She would pay Charles amillion pounds in gold and cede to England two valuable ports.
The match was not yet made, but by 1659 it had been arranged. TheSpaniards were furious, for Charles's cause began to appear successful.
She was a quaint and rather piteous little figure, she who was destinedto be the wife of the Merry Monarch. Catharine was dark, petite, and byno means beautiful; yet she had a very sweet expression and a heart ofutter innocence. She had been wholly convent-bred. She knew nothing ofthe world. She was told that in marriage she must obey in all things,and that the chief duty of a wife was to make her husband happy.
Poor child! It was a too gracious preparation for a very gracelesshusband. Charles, in exile, had already made more than onediscreditable connection and he was already the father of more than onegrowing son.
First of all, he had been smitten by the bold ways of one Lucy Walters.Her impudence amused the exiled monarch. She was not particularlybeautiful, and when she spoke as others did she was rather tiresome;but her pertness and the inexperience of the king when he went intoexile made her seem attractive. She bore him a son, in the person ofthat brilliant adventurer whom Charles afterward created Duke ofMonmouth. Many persons believe that Charles had married Lucy Walters,just as George IV. may have married Mrs. Fitzherbert; yet there is notthe slightest proof of it, and it must be classed with popular legends.
There was also one Catherine Peg, or Kep, whose son was afterward madeEarl of Plymouth. It must be confessed that in his attachments toEnglish women Charles showed little care for rank or station. LucyWalters and Catherine Peg were very illiterate creatures.
In a way it was precisely this sort of preference that made Charles sopopular among the people. He seemed to make rank of no account, butwould chat in the most familiar and friendly way with any one whom hehappened to meet. His easy, democratic manner, coupled with the graceand prestige of royalty, made friends for him all over England. Thetreasury might be nearly bankrupt; the navy might be routed by theDutch; the king himself might be too much given to dissipation but hispeople forgave him all, because everybody knew that Charles would clapan honest citizen on the back and joke with all who came to see himfeed the swans in Regent's Park.
The popular name for him was "Rowley," or "Old Rowley"--a nickname ofmysterious origin, though it is said to have been given him from afancied resemblance to a famous hunter in his stables. Perhaps it isthe very final test of popularity that a ruler should have a nicknameknown to every one.
Cromwell's death roused all England to a frenzy of king-worship. TheRoundhead, General Monk, and his soldiers proclaimed Charles King ofEngland and escorted him to London in splendid state. That was a daywhen national feeling reached a point such as never has been before orsince. Oughtred, the famous mathematician, died of joy when the royalemblems were restored. Urquhart, the translator of Rabelais, died, itis said, of laughter at the people's wild delight--a truly Rabelaisianend.
There was the king once more; and England, breaking through its longperiod of Puritanism, laughed and danced with more vivacity than everthe French had shown. All the pipers and the players and panderers tovice, the mountebanks, the sensual men, and the lawless women pouredinto the presence of the king, who had been too long deprived of thepleasure that his nature craved. Parliament voted seventy thousandpounds for a memorial to Charles's father, but the irresponsible kingspent the whole sum on the women who surrounded him. His severestcounselor, Lord Clarendon, sent him a remonstrance.
"How can I build such a memorial," asked Charles, "when I don't knowwhere my father's remains are buried!"
He took money from the King of France to make war against the Dutch,who had befriended him. It was the French king, too, who sent him thatinsidious, subtle daughter of Brittany, Louise de Keroualle--Duchess ofPortsmouth--a diplomat in petticoats, who won the king's waywardaffections, and spied on what he did and said, and faithfully reportedall of it to Paris. She became the mother of the Duke of Lenox, and shewas feared and hated by the English more than any other of hismistresses. They called her "Madam Carwell," and they seemed to have aninstinct that she was no mere plaything of his idle hours, but was likesome strange exotic serpent, whose poison might in the end sting thehonor of England.
There is a pitiful little episode in the marriage of Charles with hisPortuguese bride, Catharine of Braganza. The royal girl came to himfresh from the cloisters of her convent. There was something about hergrace and innocence that touched the dissolute monarch, who was by nomeans without a heart. For a time he treated her with great respect,and she was happy. At last she began to notice about her strangefaces--faces that were evil, wanton, or overbold. The court became moreand more a seat of reckless revelry.
Finally Catharine was told that the Duchess of Cleveland--that splendidtermagant, Barbara Villiers--had been appointed lady of the bedchamber.She was told at the same time who this vixen was--that she was no fitattendant for a virtuous woman, and that her three sons, the Dukes ofSouthampton, Grafton, and Northumberland, were also the sons of Charles.
Fluttered and frightened and dismayed, the queen hastened to herhusband and begged him not to put this slight upon her. A year or twobefore, she had never dreamed that life contained such things as these;but now it seemed to contain nothing else. Charles spoke sternly to heruntil she burst into tears, and then he petted her and told her thather duty as a queen compelled her to submit to many things which a ladyin private life need not endure.
After a long and poignant struggle with her own emotions the littlePortuguese yielded to the wishes of her lord. She never againreproached him. She even spoke with kindness to his favorites and madehim feel that she studied his happiness alone. Her gentleness affectedhim so that he always spoke to her with courtesy and real friendship.When the Protestant mobs sought to drive her out of England he showedhis courage and manliness by standing by her and refusing to allow herto be molested.
Indeed, had Charles been always at his best he would have had a verydifferent name in history. He could be in every sense a king. He had akeen knowledge of human nature. Though he governed England very badly,he never governed it so badly as to lose his popularity.
The epigram of Rochester, written at the king's own request, wassingularly true of Charles. No man relied upon his word, yet men lovedhim. He never said anything that was foolish, and he very seldom didanything that was wise; yet his easy manners and gracious ways endearedhim to those who met him.
One can find no better picture of his court than that which Sir WalterScott has drawn so vividly in Peveril of the Peak; or, if one wishesfirst-hand evidence, it can be found in the diaries of Evelyn and ofSamuel Pepys. In them we find the rakes and dicers, full of strangeoaths, deep drunkards, vile women and still viler men, all striving forthe royal favor and offering the filthiest lures, amid routs and ballsand noisy entertainments, of which it is recorded that more than oncesome woman gave birth to a child among the crowd of dancers.
No wonder that the little Portuguese queen kept to herself and did notlet herself be drawn into this swirling, roaring, roisteringsaturnalia. She had less influence even than Moll Davis, whom Charlespicked out of a coffee-house, and far less than "Madam Carwell," towhom it is reported that a great English nobleman once presented pearlsto the value of eight thousand pounds in order to secure her influencein a single stroke of political business.
Of all the women who surrounded Charles there was only one who caredanything
for him or for England. The rest were all either selfish ortreacherous or base. This one exception has been so greatly written of,both in fiction and in history, as to make it seem almost unnecessaryto add another word; yet it may well be worth while to separate thefiction from the fact and to see how much of the legend of Eleanor Gwynis true.
The fanciful story of her birthplace is most surely quite unfounded.She was not the daughter of a Welsh officer, but of two petty hucksterswho had their booth in the lowest precincts of London. In those daysthe Strand was partly open country, and as it neared the city it showedthe mansions of the gentry set in their green-walled parks. At one endof the Strand, however, was Drury Lane, then the haunt of criminals andevery kind of wretch, while nearer still was the notorious Coal Yard,where no citizen dared go unarmed.
Within this dreadful place children were kidnapped and trained tovarious forms of vice. It was a school for murderers and robbers andprostitutes; and every night when the torches flared it vomited forthits deadly spawn. Here was the earliest home of Eleanor Gwyn, and outof this den of iniquity she came at night to sell oranges at theentrance to the theaters. She was stage-struck, and endeavored to geteven a minor part in a play; but Betterton, the famous actor, thrusther aside when she ventured to apply to him.
It must be said that in everything that was external, except herbeauty, she fell short of a fastidious taste. She was intenselyignorant even for that time. She spoke in a broad Cockney dialect. Shehad lived the life of the Coal Yard, and, like Zola's Nana, she couldnever remember the time when she had known the meaning of chastity.
Nell Gwyn was, in fact, a product of the vilest slums of London andprecisely because she was this we must set her down as intrinsically agood woman--one of the truest, frankest, and most right-minded of whomthe history of such women has anything to tell. All that externalcircumstances could do to push her down into the mire was done; yet shewas not pushed down, but emerged as one of those rare souls who have intheir natures an uncontaminated spring of goodness and honesty. UnlikeBarbara Villiers or Lucy Walters or Louise de Keroualle, she wasneither a harpy nor a foe to England.
Charles is said first to have met her when he, incognito, with anotherfriend, was making the rounds of the theaters at night. The king spiedher glowing, nut-brown face in one of the boxes, and, forgetting hisincognito, went up and joined her. She was with her protector of thetime, Lord Buckhurst, who, of course, recognized his majesty.
Presently the whole party went out to a neighboring coffee-house, wherethey drank and ate together. When it came time to pay the reckoning theking found that he had no money, nor had his friend. Lord Buckhurst,therefore, paid the bill, while Mistress Nell jeered at the other two,saying that this was the most poverty-stricken party that she had evermet.
Charles did not lose sight of her. Her frankness and honest mannerpleased him. There came a time when she was known to be a mistress ofthe king, and she bore a son, who was ennobled as the Duke of St.Albans, but who did not live to middle age. Nell Gwyn was much withCharles; and after his tempestuous scenes with Barbara Villiers, andthe feeling of dishonor which the Duchess of Portsmouth made himexperience, the girl's good English bluntness was a pleasure far morerare than sentiment.
Somehow, just as the people had come to mistrust "Madam Carwell," sothey came to like Nell Gwyn. She saw enough of Charles, and she likedhim well enough, to wish that he might do his duty by his people; andshe alone had the boldness to speak out what she thought. One day shefound him lolling in an arm-chair and complaining that the people werenot satisfied.
"You can very easily satisfy them," said Nell Gwyn. "Dismiss your womenand attend to the proper business of a king."
Again, her heart was touched at the misfortunes of the old soldiers whohad fought for Charles and for his father during the Civil War, and whowere now neglected, while the treasury was emptied for Frenchfavorites, and while the policy of England itself was bought and soldin France. Many and many a time, when other women of her kind usedtheir lures to get jewels or titles or estates or actual heaps ofmoney, Nell Gwyn besought the king to aid these needy veterans. Becauseof her efforts Chelsea Hospital was founded. Such money as she had sheshared with the poor and with those who had fought for her royal lover.
As I have said, she is a historical type of the woman who loses herphysical purity, yet who retains a sense of honor and of honesty whichnothing can take from her. There are not many such examples, andtherefore this one is worth remembering.
Of anecdotes concerning her there are many, but not often has theirreal import been detected. If she could twine her arms about themonarch's neck and transport him in a delirium of passion, this wasonly part of what she did. She tried to keep him right and true andworthy of his rank; and after he had ceased to care much for her as alover he remembered that she had been faithful in many other things.
Then there came the death-bed scene, when Charles, in his inimitablemanner, apologized to those about him because he was so long in dying.A far sincerer sentence was that which came from his heart, as he criedout, in the very pangs of death:
"Do not let poor Nelly starve!"