London was already awash with ugly rumours. The notion that the King might divorce the Queen – and thus at a stroke defeat the Duke of York’s Popish plans – was once more publicly discussed.13 More talk was heard on the subject of the King’s favourite son, the Duke of Monmouth. The ‘Revolting Darling’, as a popular ballad described him – flattery was intended – was now twenty-three; his marriage to Anne, the heiress of Buccleuch, had presented him with a solid base of money and estates. The Catholicism of his youth (he had been educated at one point at the Oratory in Paris at the orders of Henrietta Maria) was a thing of the past; Monmouth had been quick to see the advantages of a Protestant position.
Delay for Charles II did not mean irresolution, nor the desertion of the Duke of York. It was Parliament the King hoped to outwit, not his brother. Shaftesbury in particular was showing his hand in a way which was ominous in such an adroit politician. He was sympathetic to the Dutch, rather than actually working with them. But his marked hostility to the Duke of York made it unlikely that the King could preserve both men within the same regime, even if he wanted to. Shaftesbury showed his hand even more publicly when he suggested in Council that the King should divorce Catharine and marry a Protestant. In addition, Charles suspected Shaftesbury of stirring up trouble for Lauderdale in Scotland. He was probably wrong. But even if this particular charge was unjust, Charles had had enough of Shaftesbury.
To know Shaftesbury and his ‘slippery humour’ was not necessarily to love him. He has been immortalized as Dryden’s Achitophel:
Restless, unfixed in principles and place,
In power unpleas’d, impatient of disgrace….
While Charles II did not match Dryden in venom, he did not subscribe to the view that Shaftesbury’s various changes in ‘principles and place’ sprang from a deep concern for the common weal. As Clarendon expressed it, ‘Few men knew Lord Ashley [Shaftesbury] better than the King himself did, and had a worse opinion of his integrity.’ Charles for once did not trouble to hide his opinion. On one occasion at the theatre, observing the swarthy appearance of the Murderers in Macbeth, he enquired rhetorically, ‘Pray, what is the meaning that we never see a Rogue in a Play, but, Godsfish! they always clap him on a black Periwig? When, it is well known one of the greatest Rogues in England always wears a fair one …’ – an allusion to Shaftesbury’s florid looks, as well as, no doubt, to the King’s own dark ones.14
In general, the estimates of Shaftesbury’s own contemporaries are much less favourable than those of a later age, influenced by the success of his principles – or at least some of them. The younger Whigs came to consider him a dangerous opportunist.15 King Charles II was to be counted amongst those who had reason to remember his conduct under the Commonwealth and on the eve of the Restoration. As men today cannot altogether elude the stigma of a bad war record, Shaftesbury’s ‘integrity’ was suspect in his own day for historical reasons.
It was a nerve-racking time for the King. Outwardly, he remained steady. But for once his inner confidence seems to have been shaken, since he took the unusual step of consulting the eminent astrologer, Elias Ashmole, on the subject of the House of Commons. Very likely the step was taken at the suggestion of Clifford, who was interested in astrology and in touch with Ashmole. Nevertheless, King Charles in better days showed praiseworthy disregard for the superstition which obsessed so many of his contemporaries. In exile he had joked about Lord Bristol: he hoped ‘the stars’ would permit Bristol to stay in Brussels till he got there; and then, if ‘Taurus be as successful to him as Aries has been … I hope he will think a little more of terrestrial things.’ He made the point that a comet visible in 1664 interested him for scientific reasons and not for its ‘prophecies’ (although, if it portended anything, he joked, he hoped it might be an English victory). When a ‘prophet’ or fortune-teller came to the Court, Charles told Madame that he gave little credit to ‘such kind of cattle’. He added even more definitely, ‘The less you do it the better, for if they could tell anything ’tis inconvenient to know one’s fortune beforehand, whether good or bad.’16
It is a valuable indication of the atmosphere of tension in late October 1673 that Charles II should have gone against his own instincts to the extent of letting Ashmole set up a chart. In so doing, Ashmole combined the time of the King’s address to the House of Commons following the short prorogation with that of his nativity. The ensuing predictions should justly have sent the King back to his original sceptical position. Ashmole was infinitely calming, as prophets are wont to be with princes, even those as merciful as Charles II. He foresaw ‘a notable harmony and unity between the King and Parliament’ within a few days; that the King would be able to dispose of and control the House of Commons, which ‘in all things, shall please him’.17
In fact, Parliament when it did meet proved itself horribly vociferous on the subject of Popery, royal absolutism and royal money. The King saw no other course but to prorogue it once more till after Christmas.fn2
It was in November that the King finally got rid of Shaftesbury. Although he continued to sit on one council, that of Trade and Plantations, till the following March, he was dismissed as Chancellor. When Mary Beatrice finally arrived at Dover towards the end of the month, the atmosphere was still so strained that hardly anyone dared make the ride out to meet her. Yet Charles II had in the end demonstrably preferred the interests of his brother’s marriage to those of ‘harmony and unity’, in Ashmole’s optimistic phrase, with Parliament. The politicians, including Shaftesbury, who would stir up the powerful movement to exclude James from the succession five years later, should perhaps have remembered the fact.
January 1674 inexorably brought another session of Parliament. Its inception, as usual, was due to the acute royal need for money, and in an effort to secure it, Charles now found it in himself to give Parliament a personal assurance: ‘There is no other treaty with France, either before or since, not already printed, which shall not be made known.’ It is true that he fumbled with his notes as he spoke; but that was probably due to nervousness not shame: he remained a diffident speaker, probably the effect of the lurking family stammer not otherwise evident in his speech.19 The straight lie did not however save him. Both Houses of Parliament voted for a separate peace with the Dutch, a culmination, amongst other things, of the secret intrigues of William of Orange.
Once more Charles II took cover. Abandoning the policy which had secretly obsessed him for the last five years, he gave Parliament another assurance on 11 February: he hoped for ‘a speedy, honourable, and I hope, lasting peace with the Dutch’.20 And his ally, Louis XIV, still bent on securing those lowland dominions on which he had set his heart? The Treaty of Westminster with the Dutch was such a clear public repudiation of the Treaty of Dover that one might imagine Charles II would have had some difficulty in justifying it to the betrayed French King. But Charles, that redoubtable diplomat, who had concluded the Triple Alliance while secretly negotiating with France, was equal to the task. He convinced Louis XIV that he was obliged to adopt this course by lack of money. A year later he would be able to form another secret alliance with Louis XIV, seamed together by further French subsidies.
Yet the interests of the two Kings had diverged. While Louis XIV was determined to make his life ‘a battle and a march’, in the words of Schiller’s Wallenstein, Charles II had perceived at last the impossibility of combining an aggressive foreign policy and a docile Parliament. That did not however leave him without a European role. Between William of Orange and Louis XIV it was surely practical for a man who was the uncle of one and the first cousin of the other to act as mediator. For the next few years Charles would confine his foreign relationships, perforce, to compromise and negotiation. And since Louis XIV remained rich, while Charles remained poor, his role might bring him financial benefits.
At home, the King speedily prorogued Parliament once more. The seats of the MPs, covered in their new green baize and stuffed with their newly bought hay, were
emptied once again. Before this could happen however Parliament also witnessed the final disintegration of the Cabal. Buckingham overreached himself in his criticism of the royal policies. Rash as ever, he appealed in person to the House of Commons, without seeking the permission of the King, or indeed that of the body to which he himself belonged, the House of Lords. He was stripped of his offices, the ultimate humiliation occurring when he was made to surrender his patent as Master of the Horse to that popinjay Monmouth (but the King had to pay Buckingham compensation).
With Shaftesbury and Buckingham out of the way, only Lauderdale and Arlington remained of the original five who had formed the acronym of the Cabal, and Arlington’s star had been eclipsed by that of Danby. Lauderdale was fully occupied trying to hold down Scotland to the royal will – as interpreted by himself. The fact that Shaftesbury would now go to all intents and purposes into opposition (to use the modern phrase), forming the nucleus of the future Whig party, showed how shallow had been the surface unity of the Cabal. Only the common aim of carrying through the King’s policies had brought them together. Now this task was left to Danby alone.
The Venetian Ambassador gives an interesting portrait of Charles as he appeared to a foreign observer in 1674. ‘The King lives from day to day,’ he wrote disapprovingly, but ‘This knot will again return to the teeth of the comb and never disentangle itself unless the King takes courage to combat the licence of Parliament.’ Unfortunately, he was not likely to do so. The Ambassador continued, ‘The King is intent on enjoying life, has no heirs and always hesitates to raise a finger for fear of a relapse into the miseries and perplexities of youth.’21
The last part of this analysis certainly rings true: a relapse – not only for himself but for the monarchy as a whole – into the aptly termed ‘miseries and perplexities’ of his youth was exactly what Charles II did fear. Whether he enjoyed life in this confused period may be doubted. Still more it may be doubted whether his best course was to tug valiantly at the Knot in the Comb represented by the licence of Parliament. Courage was one thing, cunning another. Courage would lead to a confrontation which he might well lose. Cunning suggested skirting round the whole subject of the licence of Parliament, until Danby had established the monarchy on a more solid basis, both economically and politically.
In the economic sphere at least, Danby scored an early success. He raised the royal revenues considerably, an increase which joined with a natural upswing in trade in the early seventies to provide new affluence. Danby also took retrenchment extremely seriously and, under his guidance, some kind of austerity was once more introduced into the conduct of the royal household and finances. He aimed at disbanding the new regiments of the Army, for instance, and ended by saving £97,000 by cutting the Army to its normal peacetime complement of six thousand men. The Navy alone was costing £1,500 a day at the date when Danby became Lord Treasurer: this kind of disbursement Danby realized was simply not within the King’s power to keep up, if he was to be left with any resources of his own.22
Some of Danby’s expedients have an odd air to modern economists. For example, he added to the annual rent received from the farming of the Excise the sum which farmers would have normally dispensed in pensions, and undertook that the King would pay them himself, where they were justified. The idea, a laudable one, was to increase the King’s cash flow. The result was to add a whole new list of financial dependents to the monarchy, already cursed with far too many. But in an age when the practice of economics was barely understood – remember that desperate, unhappy measure the Stop and the equally desperate situation it sought to cure – Danby passed for a genius because he actually brought about a positive improvement. Expenditure on the Household, Wardrobe, Chamber and Privy Purse, which had risen to over £250,000 a year, from an average of £185,000 between 1660 and 1669, was brought down sharply in 1675.23
The trouble was that it was impossible to divorce the economics of the period from the politics – and the Court intrigues. Unquestionably the King’s expenditure on his mistresses, not perceptibly extravagant by the standards of the time in the 1660s, had moved into a more lavish sphere. And it would expand still further as the 1670s wore on. Where women were concerned, the King was weak, not only in the bed-chamber, at the sight of their tears, but in the counting-house. Louise Duchess of Portsmouth, as has been seen, regarded a large income as one of the unalterable prerequisites of a royal mistress; Nelly Gwynn was equally mercenary, if not equally successful; Barbara Duchess of Cleveland – mother of five children by the King – was still on his payroll; Hortense Duchesse de Mazarin would prove another expensive luxury.
The economic demands of Louise Duchess of Portsmouth – what has been aptly termed ‘harem finance’ – did the King far more real damage than her alleged Catholic influence. For Danby, good husbandman as he might be, flinched from quarrelling with the reigning mistress. The result was that the annual household expenditure rose once again after 1675 to £210,000. There were other ‘extraordinary’ expenses for the ladies – of vast, if ultimately unknowable, proportions, since much of this was found from French money: the Secret Service account. Where knowable expenditure is concerned, it has been pointed out that the Treasury records in the 1670s show permanent grants of more than £45,000 a year to Barbara, Louise and their children alone.24
The controversy concerning the extravagance of Charles II persists – did he contribute to his own problems or was he kept permanently short by Parliament? Whatever the force of the latter view, it is surely impossible to acquit the King altogether of extravagance, or rather weakness, where his mistresses were concerned, in the last ten years of his reign. A King must keep state, ceremonies are demanded by the populace which then criticizes the cost of them, and so forth – all these arguments have been advanced in Chapter 12, discussing his Restoration. In those days Goethe might have been quoted on the subject: ‘Ein Mächtiger, der für die Seinen nicht/Zu sorgen weiss, wird von dem Volke selbst/Getadelt’ (‘A man of power, who cannot look after the interests of his own favourites, will be blamed even by the people’). The mood changed as the reign progressed. Such a saying would not have been applied to the immoral panoply of Charles II’s later Court by a nation grown less joyous. It was a difference in degree, but it was a significant difference.
The spending on the royal bastards should not have appeared so irksome: it has been correctly pointed out that the monies laid out on the various dukelings and little ladies was a tithe of what a proper legitimate royal brood would have consumed.25 The King himself was not personally extravagant. He was not lavish over matters like dress; where food and drink were concerned he was positively abstemious. But the planting of trees round his palaces, afforestation generally, was an expensive pastime. The renovation of Windsor, begun in 1674, also cost a pretty penny. The concentration on Windsor – it was the only palace easy to fortify – symbolized the new type of monarchy evolving in the last decade of the King’s reign: embattled but at the same time loftier and more magnificent than the institution restored in 1660. It is here that one can imagine the King as described by Thomas Otway in a long memorial poem: ‘Windsor Castle is a Monument to our Late Sovereign King Charles II’:
Then in his Mind the beauteous Model laid,
Of that Majestic pile, where oft, his Care
A while forgot, he might for Ease repair:
A Seat for sweet Retirement, Health, and Love….
But Windsor was also
Britain’s Olympus, where, like awful Jove
He pleas’d could sit, and his Regards bestow
On the vain, busy, swarming World below.
In 1675 commenced the building of St Paul’s, another Olympus, another symbolic act, since the great new cathedral would come to embrace the ceremonies of state under its powerful dome.
This same summer of 1674 two pathetic little skeletons, believed not implausibly to be those of the vanished ‘striplings’ Edward V and the Duke of York, were turned up by workmen at the
Tower of London. The point is debatable and, as with all evidence pertaining to the controversial life of Richard III, keenly debated. Here we are only concerned with the reaction of Charles II. The find was reported to him by Sir Thomas Chicheley, Master of the Ordnance. The King’s immediate instinct was to command a more reverent burial for these pathetic relics: they were transferred to Westminster Abbey and Sir Christopher Wren was ordered to design a marble urn to encase them. Admittedly, the Royal Warrant, signed by Arlington the following February, hedged its bets by referring to ‘a white Marble Coffin for the supposed bodies of the two Princes …’. Nevertheless, here, in the Abbey, they lie to this day, with a Latin inscription commemorating the action of the Rex Clementissimus – the most merciful King Charles the Second. Moreover, the English inscription beneath declares, in bolder terms than the Royal Warrant, that the bones ‘were deposited here by command of King Charles II, in the firm belief that they were the Bones of King Edward V and Richard Duke of York’.26
Whatever the rights and wrongs of the boys’ death, it was a gesture towards the concept of legitimate monarchy – as represented by the youthful Edward V, in contrast to his usurping uncle Richardus Perfidus, as the Latin inscription had it. The same instinct led to the glorification of the tomb of Charles I at about the same time, another monarch whose life was brought to an unnatural end. Less sceptical perhaps than his minister Arlington in his attitude to the ‘supposed’ remains, Charles II was reaching down for his royal roots.
For the first time, in 1674 the Court spent four months at Windsor during the summer. Within the picturesque fortress both King and Queen had new apartments created by Hugh May. Grinling Gibbons and Antonio Verrio were employed by May to adorn them; May was inspired by the patronage of the King. Charles showed throughout his life a love of the arts quite natural in a boy educated at that legendary, cultured Court of the 1630s who could remember going by barge with his father to visit the studio of Van Dyck. His predilection has however been understandably overshadowed by the supreme artistic taste of King Charles I. Charles II did all that he could to reacquire his father’s great art collection (it has been mentioned that he secured some pictures from the Dutch on the eve of his Restoration) although some masterpieces proved irrecoverable. Of his cabinet of treasures and curiosities, he spoke wistfully that it was not to be compared with his father’s, thirty years before. Charles II may well have been responsible for the collection of drawings by Leonardo da Vinci at Windsor, either by purchase, or by receiving them as gifts.27