The Three Crowns epub (28 page)

“Your Highness … a visitor to the Palace … They came to the stables searching for you. I told them you had gone out with your horse.”

“Well? And who wished to see me?”

“A very great personage, Your Highness. Mynheer de Witte.”

William did not show that his heart had begun to beat faster. He leaped to the ground and when the groom took his horse left the stables and without hurrying walked into the palace.

A page who was evidently on the lookout for him saw him approaching and ran out to him.

“Your Highness,” he stammered.

“I know,” said William, subconsciously measuring the height of the page—about his own, he reckoned, and the boy younger. “I have a visitor. Take me to him.”

The man who was waiting for the young Prince stood, hands behind his back looking out of the window across the gardens. He turned as William entered the room.

William caught his breath and for a few seconds his habitual calm left him. The man who stood before him was the most talked of, the most influential in Holland; John de Witte, the Grand Pensionary, who more than any had been responsible for the abolition of the Stadtholdership.

John de Witte and his brother Cornelius were names which the Prince had learned to abhor. These two men, brilliant and humane, believed that they could best serve their country by freeing it from hereditary rule; and because the Prince of Holland had died before his son was born they had seen their opportunity to abolish the Stadtholdership which set up one man, the Stadtholder, as supreme ruler. They had affected this because there was no one to defend the title.

Now John de Witte and the deprived Prince of Orange were face to face.

“Your Highness,” said de Witte, coming forward and bowing, “I have tragic news to impart to you, so I have come to do this in person and to convey my deep sympathies. There has been an outbreak of smallpox at the English Court and …”

William, who had been staring at this man, thinking of him as the great enemy, now tried to grasp the importance of what he was trying to tell him. It came to him before the Grand Pensionary could tell him. There was one reason which would bring de Witte to the Palace in the Wood. Smallpox! And his mother at the English Court.

John de Witte’s expression was one of compassion as he went on gently: “Your Highness, it is with sorrow that I have to tell you. Your mother died of the smallpox on the twenty-fourth day of December.”

William did not speak. He stood, a small pathetic figure, trying to realize what this would mean. His father had died before his birth, and his death was merely something that he had heard talked of. True, it meant to him the loss of the Stadtholderate, but this was different. This was the loss of his mother whom he would never see again.

A great sense of loneliness came over him in that moment. It stayed with him for a very long time.

That was indeed
a turning point. William was ten years old when his mother died; he had lost his greatest ally, but he had others in his uncles across the sea, for the King of England and the Duke of York let him know that they did not forget him. The Stuarts were a united family; and although he was a Dutchman, he was also English on his mother’s side; he was half-Stuart and the Stuarts’ days of obscurity were over; they were back in favor and they would not forget their own.

He became more reserved than ever; his life seemed governed by one purpose. He was going to regain the Stadtholderate and show the world that a great spirit could burn within a meager frame. He realized quickly that those about him were uncertain of him and that this worked to his advantage. He was no ordinary boy; it was not that his tutors found him brilliant; apart from a natural aptitude for languages he did not excel in the schoolroom. His great strength was in his ability to hide what he was feeling; that almost unnatural calm which appeared to hide a deep profundity of thought. He was not interested in sports; he considered them a waste of time apart from hunting, which was, he believed, necessary to his manhood, and in this he showed that especial equestrian skill in which even he could not hide his pleasure. On a horse he was more, so his attendants said, like a human man than at any other time.

De Witte selected his tutors and watched his progress uneasily, realizing that the people would never forget the magic name of Orange. William the Silent would always be one of their greatest national heroes; and this young Prince bore the same name and was of the same heroic branch.

Throughout Holland the people talked of the young Prince and all they heard of him was to his advantage. When he was seen—on horseback—they cheered him, and as he passed into adolescence he became so popular that de Witte realized that sooner or later something would have to be done for him.

Meanwhile William became more and more reserved with the years, keeping his own counsel, never forgetting for a moment his intention to show the world that diminutive William of Orange was one of the greatest figures of the time.

He had his eyes on his uncles across the water! Charles, the King, who would help him one day when he was of an age to fight for his rights, and Uncle James, the great Admiral.

When William was sixteen a plot was made to restore him to the Stadtholderate. William could not be blamed for taking part in it but John de Witte, seeing the direction in which public opinion was turning, decided it was wise to admit him to the Council of State.

In his quiet manner William distinguished himself, and his popularity was growing.

William was nineteen years of age when his uncle invited him to pay a visit to the English Court.

The English Court
. What a scene of vice! Sodom and Gomorrah! thought William.

The manner in which the women painted their faces and exposed their bosoms appalled him; the men he considered to be even worse. Their satins and silks, their laces and scents, their conversation, their boasting of their conquests, their descriptions of their amatory adventures, were all very shocking to a young man who drank little wine, rose early and retired early, rarely laughed, and whose only indulgence was a love of the chase.

And this was the English Court from which he hoped for so much. The King sporting with his mistresses—not one but several; the Duke of York notoriously unfaithful to his wife—she who had shocked his mother so much during that visit which had resulted in her death.

He had come to talk seriously to the King about his prospects, and although Charles greeted him kindly and did not appear to think the less of him because he was so small and his back was not quite straight, he did not appear to wish for serious conversation with his nephew. William began to believe that they had invited him merely to take a look at him; and that because he was not like them—which God forbid—they despised him.

One day Charles invited him to walk with him in the park of St. James’s. William felt a disadvantage walking beside his uncle, who was some six feet tall and in his feathered hat seemed a giant. Charles was kindly though; he seemed to understand William’s feeling for when they had walked a little distance he said, “We will sit a while, nephew. There we can talk at our ease.”

He asked William questions about life at The Hague and talked with affection and humor of the days when he had been an exile there. Occasionally he would ask a shrewd question and William realized that while Charles was discovering what he wanted to know, he, William, had little chance of asking the questions he had had in his mind.

But William was not one to be put off. When his uncle stopped speaking for a while, he began to tell him of the difficulties of his position and how he feared he would never regain his rights while the de Wittes were in power. William believed his uncle would understand the advantages to England of a Holland ruled solely by his own nephew who would be forever grateful for the help he received.

“We are a grateful family, we Stuarts,” said Charles, smiling warmly. “We stand together, which shows that as well as being a united family we are a wise one. Why look, there is Buckingham. Buckingham! Come and amuse the Prince of Orange.”

George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, came languidly to the seat on which the King and his nephew sat. The King signed to him to be seated and he placed himself on the other side of the Prince of Orange.

Between these two William felt immediately at a disadvantage. Buckingham was decidedly handsome; he was arrogant, and not inclined to hide the fact even from the King who seemed to delight in his company and to show no resentment at being treated as an equal. How could the King make a favorite of a man of such a reputation? William asked himself. The scandals concerning this man had reached Holland and William knew that the Earl of Shrewsbury had challenged him to a duel because of his guilty intrigue with his, Shrewsbury’s, wife. Shrewsbury had been wounded and two months later had died; and afterward Buckingham had lived openly with the Countess. And all this the lazy good-natured King had known and shrugged aside. Men must settle their own affairs, was his verdict.

It was no way to rule.

William’s thin lips were drawn up into an expression of disdain as Buckingham took his seat; and both the Duke and the King were aware of this. William did not see the glances which flashed between them. Buckingham’s said: Watch. We’ll have some sport with the Dutch boy.

“Ah, Your Highness,” he said, “and how is The Hague? I remember The Hague. Never shall I forget it. Surely the neatest trimmest town in the world. And the neatest trimmest people. I always felt a little more wicked in The Hague than I did anywhere else. The comparison, you see, Your Highness.”

“Comparisons are odorous,” murmured the King.

“Not in Holland, Sire. In Holland all is scrubbed free of odor. I believe that to be why there is such an abundance of canals?”

“You are mistaken,” began William.

Charles laid his hand on the young man’s arm. “Buckingham intends to joke. It’s a poor joke, my lord. You should try to do better.”

“I stand reproved in the sight of Your Majesty and Your Highness. And I fear my stupidity may spoil my chances of having a favor granted.”

“Well, let us hear what favor you ask before you lose heart,” suggested Charles.

“It was an invitation from some friends for His Highness. A little supper party—which we would try to make worthy of the Prince.”

“I do not attend supper parties …” began William.

But Charles intervened, by tightening his grasp on his nephew’s arm and smiling benignly. “Oh, come, nephew. You must not decline the hand of friendship. Join the revels. You must get to know us. We are friends, are we not? Then we must understand each other’s customs.”

It seemed to William that there was a promise in that.

He turned to Buckingham. “I thank you. I accept your invitation. And … thank you.”

Buckingham inclined his head and as he lifted it, his eyes met those of the King. Charles’s were sardonic. Some little joke was being planned. It would be a good one, since it was Buckingham’s idea. He looked forward to hearing what happened to William at the Duke’s supper party.