The Three Crowns epub (56 page)

Burnet looked at the Princess intently. He was a man who had little restraint and the intimate friendship he had enjoyed with these two had put him into a position he believed where he could speak his mind.

“Your Highness,” he said, “your devotion to the Prince is obvious. Yet I do not think there is always accord between you.”

Mary looked startled and was about to show her displeasure when Burnet said quickly: “If I speak rashly it is because I have your happiness and that of the Prince at heart.”

“I know this,” she said, and moved to the window. Burnet saw that the subject was closed.

But he did not intend to let it rest if he could help it.

Mary said she would pray once more, for the longer the Prince’s absence the greater became her anxiety.

They were on their knees when the sounds below them told them that the Prince was returning to the Palace.

Mary ran to the window. There he was riding at the head of the guards. On horseback it was scarcely visible that he stooped distressingly and that he was so slight.

Mary turned to Burnet. “How can I thank you?” she said.

“By letting me help Your Highness in every way possible,” was the answer.

Burnet was in
higher favor than ever, particularly with the Princess, and, when they were alone together, with habitual temerity he broached the subject of her marriage once more.

This time Mary did not feel she could rebuff the man who had saved her husband from being kidnapped, possibly murdered, so she allowed him to speak.

“I believe the Prince has a great regard for you, but there is something which holds him back from expressing his affection.”

Mary said frankly: “The Prince has never expressed great affection. I do not believe it is in his nature to do so.”

To Elizabeth Villiers? Burnet asked himself, wondering whether to mention that lady and then deciding not to.

“I believe,” said Burnet, “that the Prince is always aware that the crown of Britain would come to you and that in the event you would be the Queen and he merely the Queen’s consort.”

Mary opened her eyes wide. “Surely the Prince knows that I would never put him into a humiliating position.”

Burnet was secretly delighted; he believed that he was going to bring about a deeper understanding between the Prince and Princess of Orange which would be a great advantage when, as he hoped, they came to England to depose James.

“Your Highness,” said
Burnet to the Prince, “in the event of James dying or … some other contingency … and the Princess being acclaimed Queen, has Your Highness considered your own position?”

Even William was unable to hide the depth of his emotion.

This is the secret, thought Burnet; this is at the very heart of the matter.

“You can rest assured,” said William sharply, “that nothing would induce me to act as valet to my wife.”

“Nothing would induce me to believe that she would expect Your Highness to.”

“When greatness comes one cannot always assess the effect it will have.”

“But the Princess …”

William waved a hand. “The Princess has been a docile wife … almost always, and only rarely has she opposed my wishes.”

“Almost.” “Rarely.”
Those were the significant words.

So William was unsure of his wife, and it was a barrier between them. He could not bring himself to ask her what position, if she were Queen of England, she would assign to him; and the ministers of England would accept
her
as their sovereign; they would obey
her
, and if she said William was to be her consort merely, that was all he could hope for. The decision lay with Mary; and he did not fully understand Mary.

It was clear to Burnet that this was a question which burned continually in his mind. He was working toward a goal; he had married Mary in order to reach this goal; and now he did not know whether this meek obliging wife would, in one of her sudden moods of firmness, withhold from him that which had come to be the very meaning of his existence.

“Your Highness, I could put the question to the Princess … with your permission. I could discover what is in her mind.”

William’s pale eyes seemed to take on new life. He gripped Burnet’s arm.

“Do that,” he said.

So once more
Burnet sought Mary.

“Your Highness,” he said, “I have just left the Prince and there is a matter which perplexes him greatly and which I believe is constantly in his mind. Have I your permission to right this matter between Your Highnesses?”

Mary, looking puzzled, implored him to go on.

“It is simply this, Your Highness: should you succeed your father to the Crown, what position do you intend the Prince to hold?”

“I do not understand you. What comes to me, comes to my husband, does it not?”

“That is not so. You will remember that when Mary Tudor came to the throne her husband Philip of Spain was not King of England. Your Highness, I do assure you that a titular kingship is no acceptable thing to a man—particularly when that is his only as long as his wife shall live.”

“What remedy do you propose?” asked Mary.

“Ah, Your Highness, if you would be content to be a wife only and promise to give him the real authority as soon as it comes into your hands, I believe that the differences which are now between you and the Prince would be removed.”

The differences? He would no longer keep a mistress? He would be the perfect husband she had tried to deceive herself into thinking he was? This had been between them, then, this knowledge that she could one day be a Queen and he only assume the title of King if it were her wish? Mary was excited. She knew William and his pride. That was the answer then. He had avoided her because her position could be so much higher than his. He could not endure to be merely a consort to a Queen; his pride was too great; just as it was too great for him to ask her what she intended to do. It had been between them all those years. She, too blind to see it; he, too proud to ask.

And so he had turned to Elizabeth Villiers who to him was merely a woman whom he could love—not a Princess who could one day be a Queen and hold his future in her hands.

Mary, sentimental, idealistic, believed that wrongs could be righted in a moment of illumination.

She turned to Burnet, her expression radiant.

“I pray you bring the Prince to me. I will tell him myself.”

When Burnet brought
him to her, assuring him that she wished to tell him herself the answer to the question, she went to William and taking his hands kissed them.

“I did not know,” she said, “that the laws of England were so contrary to the laws of God. I did not think that the husband was ever to be obedient to the wife.”

William’s heart leaped in exultation, but his expression remained cold. He wanted a definite statement before he committed himself.

“You shall always bear rule, William,” she told him.

Then he smiled slowly.

She added with a joyous laugh: “There is only one thing I would add. You will obey the command: ‘Husbands, love your wives’ as I shall do that of ‘Wives, be obedient to your husbands in all things’.”

“So,” answered William slowly, “if you should attain the crown, you will be Queen of England and I shall be the King?”

“I would never allow it to be otherwise,” she told him lovingly.

“If you once declare your mind,” Burnet reminded Mary, “you must never think of retreating again.”

“I never would.”

“Then,” said Burnet smiling from one to another like a fairy godmother, “this little matter is settled. When James goes, there will be a King
and
Queen of England.”

“And the Queen will be a woman whose one desire will be to obey her husband,” added Mary.

Those were happy
days.

He shared confidences with her; theirs was a happy trinity—Burnet, Mary, and William; and they talked of England as though in a week or so they would all be there. The King and his Queen, who would always see through his eyes and obey him in every way; and Burnet, who would become a Bishop and remain their friend and adviser.

There was only one question that Mary could not bring herself to put to her husband: “Is it finished between you and Elizabeth Villiers?”

It would not have been difficult to find out. She could have had her spies who would soon discover the truth; she could have waited in the early hours of the morning to catch him as she had before. But she would do none of these things; she would only believe that she had attained the perfect marriage for which she had always longed.

William stood in
his mistress’s bedchamber looking down at her lying on her bed.

She grew more attractive with the years, he thought; her wits sharpened and her beauty did not fade, for it was more than skin deep. It was in the strangeness of her eyes, in her sensuous movements, in her low laughter, so indulgent for him.

“She will obey me in all things,” he told her. “She has said I shall always bear the rule. It is what I have waited to ask her for years and now, thanks to Burnet, she has told me herself.”

“And she asks no conditions?”

“She mentions none.”

“I thought there might have been one.”

Elizabeth looked at him passionately for a moment; then she rose and gracefully put herself into his arms.

“To abandon me?” she whispered.

“It is one condition to which I should never agree,” he told her.