For a moment she continued to regard him skeptically, and then at last she smiled. “What a crafty knave you are, George Villiers.” She took a candle from the table and going to the cold fireplace tossed into it those letters which she held in her hand. Then she turned to him. “Give me the other one.”
He handed it to her and she tossed it too on the heap. The candle-flame touched one corner and in a moment the slow fire began to creep up the paper, making it curl as it turned black. And then suddenly they broke into a bright blaze which burned for a moment or two, the sealing-wax crackling and hissing, and began to die out. Barbara looked up over her shoulder at Buckingham and found him staring into the low fire, a thoughtful enigmatic smile on his handsome face. She had a quick moment of misgiving, wondering what he could be thinking; but it soon passed and she got to her feet again, relieved to have the troublesome letters safe at last.
About a week later most of the Court went to the opening performance of John Dryden’s new play, “The Maiden Queen.”
The house was full when the Court party arrived and there was a great buzzing and scraping as the fops in the pit climbed onto their benches to stare, while the women hung over the balconies above. One of them impudently dropped her fan as the King passed beneath and it landed squarely on top of his head. It began to slide off and Charles caught it and presented it with a smile to the giggling blushing girl above, as a spattering of handclaps ran over the theatre.
The King, York, and the young Duke of Monmouth were all in royal mourning—long purple cloaks—for the Duchess of Savoy.
Monmouth, the King’s fourteen-year-old bastard by an early love affair, had come to England in the train of Queen Henrietta Maria a year and a half before. Some said he was not really the King’s son, but at least he looked like a Stuart and there could be no doubt that Charles thought he was one. Almost since the day of the boy’s arrival he had shown him the most conspicuous affection and as a result of the title conferred upon him by his father he took precedence over all but York and Prince Rupert. The year before, his Majesty had married him to Anne Scott, eleven years old and one of the richest heiresses in Britain. Now the boy was appearing publicly in royal mourning—to the scandal of all who reverenced the ancient proprieties or who believed that blood was not royal unless it was also legitimate.
Down in Fop Corner one of the sparks commented: “By God, if his Majesty isn’t as fond of the boy as if he were of his own begetting.”
“It runs through the galleries he intends to declare him legitimate and make him his heir now it’s been proved the Queen’s barren.”
“Who proved it?”
“Gad, Tom, where d’ye keep yourself? My Lord Bristol sent a couple of priests to Lisbon to prove that Clarendon had something given her to make her barren just before she sailed for England.”
“A pox on that Clarendon’s old mouldy chops! And will you have a look at his mealy-mouthed daughter up there—as smug and formal as if she was
“And so she may be one day—if it’s true what they say about her Majesty.”
Another fop, catching the last phrase, perked up. “What’s that? What about her Majesty?”
All over the theatre the gossip went on, hissing and murmuring, while the royal party found its seats. Charles took the one in the center, with Catherine on his right and York on his left. Anne Hyde was beside her husband, and Castlemaine at the opposite end of the row next the Queen. Around and all about them were the Maids of Honour, both her Highness’s and the Queen’s. They were a group of pretty, eager, laughing girls, white-skinned, blue-eyed, with shining golden curls, their satin and taffeta skirts making a rustle as they arranged the folds and fluttered their fans, whispering and giggling together over the men down in the pit. They had arrived at Court during the past year and almost all of them were lovely—as though nature herself had sought to please the King by creating a generation of beautiful women.
On Barbara’s right sat one of the Queen’s Maids, Mrs. Boynton, a lively little minx who liked to affect an air of great languor and who grew faint three or four times a day when there were gentlemen about. Now Barbara spoke to her in an undertone which was nevertheless loud enough for Frances Stewart, just behind them, to overhear.
“Mrs. Stewart is looking wretchedly today, have you noticed? I would swear her complexion has a greenish cast.”
It was a well-known fact that Frances had been suffering from jealousy over the sensation created by the recent arrival at Court of Mrs. Jennings, a fifteen-year-old blonde who was currently being admired by all gentlemen and criticized by all ladies. Barbara was delighted that someone had come to catch interest from Frances Stewart, since that was what had happened to her the year before when Frances appeared.
