The Three Crowns epub (50 page)

“Enough of this folly. Put on a bright gown. You are dining in public today.”

“But, William, I never do on this day. I spend it in seclusion.”

“Do you mean that you will flout me?”

“William, anything else I will willingly do, but always this has been a day we observed.”

“Let me hear no more of this nonsense. I shall expect to see you differently dressed and ready to dine with me in public.”

He left her and when her women came back they found her silent and bewildered.

“What now?” whispered Anne Trelawny to Mrs. Langford. “What new tyranny is this?”

Mrs. Langford, the wife of a clergyman who had been one of Mary’s devoted servants for a long time, shared Anne Trelawny’s dislike of William.

“He wants to show who is master, that’s all,” she retorted.

“Your Highness,” said Anne, “what has happened?”

“I wish to change my dress. Bring out a blue gown and my diamonds and sapphires.”

“But this is the thirtieth of January, Your Highness.”

“It is the Prince’s wish that I dine in public with him and show no sign of grief for my grandfather.”

Anne Trelawny and Mrs. Langford lifted their shoulders and looked at each other.

What a wretched
meal that was! Mary could eat nothing. William watched her critically as the dishes were placed before her and taken away.

How could he? she was thinking. This was a deliberate insult to their grandfather—his as well as hers. Everyone knew she spent this as a day of mourning and although he had not mourned as she did, he had never before prevented her.

After the meal he told her that they were going to the theater together.

“You are going to the theater, William?” she asked.

“I said we were going together.”

“But you dislike the theater.”

“And you love it.”

“Not on this day.”

“We are going,” he said.

This was significant. He was telling the world that she and he dissociated themselves from that policy of Divine Right, which had lost their grandfather his life, which his son Charles had followed and his brother James was threatening to do.

William wanted the people of England to know that he stood for a Protestant England and an England which was ruled by a Sovereign who worked with his Parliament.

Thus there was no need to feel regret for one who had done the opposite.

Anne Trelawny and
Mrs. Langford were talking of the affair while the Prince and Princess were at the theater.

“I have never known a Princess so shamefully treated,” said Anne.

“He wants to show her that he is master.”

“Why she doesn’t stand up to him
I
can’t imagine.”

“Oh, she’s gentle. She wants him to be a perfect husband. I know my Princess. She pretends he is one—and that she feels is as near as she’ll get.”

“Caliban!
” muttered Anne. “I often wonder what her father would say if he knew the way she was treated.”

“She’s being turned against
him
. It’s unnatural, that’s what it is.”

“I wish there was something we could
do.”

“Who knows, perhaps one day there will be.”

Mary found it
difficult to fall back into the old gaiety after the January day. How could William have behaved as he did? She had been so unhappy. She thought she would never forget the misery of that public meal and afterward going to the theater and sitting there, not listening to the actors, just thinking of her grandfather and all that he had suffered.

It was like dancing on a holy day.

Her father would hear of it. Her father! What had happened to their relationship? She knew that she must love and obey William but there were times when it was very hard.

Monmouth tried to cheer her.

“You take life too seriously,” he told her.

“Don’t you, Jemmy?”

“No, never.”

“There are times when you seem serious now.”

“Ah, I have a feeling that this is the turning point of my life.”

He was looking at her ardently, and although she reminded herself that that was how Jemmy must have looked at so many women, still she was deeply moved.

She tried to smile when they danced a
bransle
together, but she could not raise herself from her melancholy. There was something unreal about the strange turn life had taken, she saw now, and it could not last.

“Jemmy,” she said, “how long shall you stay in Holland?”

“As long as I am welcome, I suppose,” he answered.

“You know how long that will be if
I
have any say.”

“Tell me,” he whispered.

“Forever,” she answered; and turned away, afraid.

On the evening
of the sixteenth of February 1685 Mary was in her apartments playing cards with some of her women when a message was brought to her that she must present herself without delay to the Prince in his cabinet.

She rose at once and as soon as she saw William she knew that he was excited, although his expression was calm as usual. But a nerve twitched in his cheek and when he spoke he found it difficult to control his breath.

“News,” he said, “which should have been brought to us days ago. On account of the ice and snow it has been delayed. Charles, King of England, is dead and your father has now mounted the throne.”

“Uncle Charles dead!” she muttered.

He looked at her forgetting to be exasperated by this habit of repeating his words.

“You realize,” he went on, “the importance of this to … us?”

She did not answer. She was thinking of Charles, her kind dear uncle, with his charming careless smile … dead.

“I have sent for Monmouth,” went on William. “He should be with us soon.”

No one could
doubt the genuine grief of Monmouth. What had he ever had but kindness from the hands of his father? And what would become of him now that his greatest enemy was King of England?

He remained closeted with the Prince of Orange for many hours; then he went back to the Palace of the Mauruitshuis, which William had lent him during his sojourn in Holland, and there gave way to sorrow.

Bevil Skelton, the
new Envoy from England, asked for an audience with the Prince of Orange.

This William granted. He had received a cold, somewhat unfriendly letter from Whitehall which ran:

“I have only time to tell you that it has pleased God Almighty to take out of this world the King my brother. You will from others have an account of what distemper he died of; and that all the usual ceremonies were performed this day in proclaiming me King in the city and other parts. I must end, which I do, with assuring you, you shall find me as kind as you can expect.”

As kind as you can expect. There was an ominous ring in those words.

Great events were about to break and rarely had William felt so excited in the whole of his life.

When Skelton was ushered in he came straight to the point. “His Majesty King James II wishes you to send the Duke of Monmouth back to England without delay.”

William bowed his head. “I shall do as the King of England demands. And now if you will leave me I will have him informed that he is no longer my guest. Then, when that is done, you may make him your prisoner and conduct him to your master.”

Skelton was delighted with his easy victory; but when he was alone William immediately sent a messenger to Monmouth with money, explaining that a plot was afoot to carry him back to England and his only hope was to leave Holland with all speed.

Thus when Skelton went to arrest Monmouth, he had fled.

Gone were the
gay and happy days.

Mary sat with her women thinking of the dances and the skating, wondering what the future would hold.

All through the spring she waited to hear news of Jemmy. There was none.

He will never be able to return to England because my father hates him, she thought.

But in May of that year there was news. Monmouth had left for England.

The tension at The Hague had never been so great. Messengers were arriving at the Palace all day. William was shut up with Bentinck for hours at a time; he hardly seemed to be aware of Mary.

Monmouth was in Somerset. Taunton was greeting him. He had followers in the West of England who would go with him to death if need be for the sake of the Protestant cause.

To William’s surprise there were many to support the King, and his army under Churchill and Feversham was a well-trained force. What chance had the rebels against it?

King Monmouth, they were calling the Duke.
King!
William gritted his teeth and prayed for the victory of his greatest enemy.

It came with Sedgemoor and debacle. Victory for King James. Defeat, utter and complete, for King Monmouth.

In The Hague William secretly rejoiced. Monmouth, you fool! he thought. You deserve to lose your head and you will,
King
Monmouth.

Oh, Jemmy, thought Mary, what will become of you? Why did you do this? Why could you not have stayed with us, dancing, skating. We were so happy. And now what will become of you?

She quickly learned
. Before the end of July Jemmy was dead. He was taken to the scaffold from his prison in the Tower. He went to his death with dignity and he did not flinch when he laid his head on the block.