So now, as he walked through his garden, his cynical smile expanded. He must keep disaster at bay and enjoy life.

But even in this matter of enjoyment life had changed. He was heartily tired of Barbara Castlemaine. In the first years of their relationship he had found her tantrums amusing; he no longer did so. Why did he not banish her from the kingdom? Her amours were notorious. He could not bring himself to do it. She would storm and rage; and he had formed a habit, long ago, of avoiding Barbara’s storms and rages. It was simpler to let her alone, to avoid her, to let her continue with her love affairs. They said of him, in the language of the card tables: “His Majesty never discards; he adds to his hand.” It was true. Discarding was such an unpleasant affair; you could keep the uninteresting cards in your hands even though you rarely used them. It was much the more peaceable method.

Frances Stuart had bitterly disappointed him. Silly little Frances, with her child’s mind and her incomparably beautiful face and figure. In spite of her simplicity, he would have married Frances if he had been free to do so, for her beauty had been such that it haunted him day and night. But Frances had run away and married that sot Richmond. Much good had this done her. Now poor Frances was a victim of the smallpox, and had lost her beauty and with it her power to torment the King.

Then there was Catherine, his wife—poor Catherine, with her dusky looks and her rabbits’ teeth and her overwhelming desire to please him. Why had his own wife to fall in love with him? It was a situation which the wits of his Court regarded as extremely piquant. Piquant it might have been, but he was a man of some sensibility and if there was one thing he hated more than having to refuse something that was asked, it was to see a woman distressed. He must live continually with Catherine’s distress. She had been brought up in the strict Court of Portugal. He hated hurting her, yet he could no more help doing so than he could help being himself. He must saunter with his mistresses; his mistresses were more important to him than his crown. He was a deeply sensual man and his sexual appetite was voracious so that the desire to appease it surmounted all other desires.

Therefore with his countless mistresses he must displease his queen who had had the childish folly to fall in love with him.

He was beset by women. By far the more satisfactory mistresses were those who could be called upon when desired and made few demands. It was small wonder that the Dutch had made cartoons of him, clinging to his crown as he ran, pursued by women.

He it was who had brought change to England. Less than ten years ago there had been strict puritanism everywhere; he liked to think that he had brought back laughter to England; but it was often laughter of a satirical kind.

The conversation of the people had changed; they now openly discussed subjects which, ten years ago, they would have blushed to speak of and would have pretended did not even exist. Throughout the country the King’s example was followed, and men took mistresses as naturally as previously they had taken walks in the sunshine. The poets jeered at chastity. Maidens were warned of flying time, of the churlishness of holding out against their lovers; the plays were frankly bawdy and concerned mainly with one subject—sexual adventure.

The King had brought French manners to England, and in France a King’s mistress—not the Queen whom he had married for expedience—ruled with him in his Court.

The men of letters who surrounded him—and his greatest friends, and those who received his favors, were the witty men of letters—were, almost every one of them, rakes and libertines. Buckingham had recently been involved in a brawl with Henry Killigrew in the Duke’s Theater, where they had bounded from their boxes to fight in the pit while the play was in progress; and the cause of this was Lady Shrewsbury, that lady whose reputation for taking a string of lovers matched that of the King’s own mistress, Castlemaine. Killigrew, himself a rake and a notorious liar, had fled to France.

Henry Bulkeley had fought a duel with Lord Ossory and had been involved in a tavern brawl with George Etherege. Lord Buckhurst had recently been making merry at Epsom in the company of Sedley and an actress from the King’s own theater. Rochester, the best of the poets and the greatest wit and libertine, possessed of the most handsome face at Court, had abducted a young heiress, Elizabeth Malet. It had been deemed necessary to imprison him in the Tower for a spell—though not for long, as Charles liked to have the gay fellow at his side. There was not another who could write a lampoon to compare with his; and if they were most scurrilous and that scurrility was often directed against the King himself, they were the most pointed, the most witty to be found in the kingdom. Rochester, the most impudent and arrogant of men, had since married the very willing Elizabeth Malet, confounded her family, and taken charge of her great fortune.

All these happenings were characteristic of life at the Court.

As the King walked through his gardens he saw coming towards him a young man; and as he gazed at the tall and handsome figure, the cynicism dropped from his face. For this young man, who was by no means possessed of the wit the King loved, had the King’s love as no other had at Court.

“Why, Jemmy!” he called. “You’re early abroad.”

“Following Your Majesty’s customs,” said the young man.

He came and stood before the King without ceremony, and Charles put his arm about the young man’s shoulders.

“I had thought, after your revelry of last night, that you would have lain longer abed.”

“I doubt my revelry equaled that of Your Majesty.”

“I am accustomed to combining revelry and early rising—a habit few of my friends care to adopt.”

“I would follow you in all things, Father.”

“You would do better to follow a course of your own, my boy.”

“Nay, the people love you. Thus would I be loved.”

Charles was alert. James’ words were more than flattery. James was looking ahead to a time when he might wear the crown; he was seeing himself riding through the Capital, smiling at the acclaim of the people, letting his eyes rest on the prettiest of the women in the balconies.

Charles drew his son towards him with an affectionate gesture.

He said: “Fortunate James, you will never be in the public eye as I am. You can enjoy the pleasures of the Court without suffering its more irksome responsibilities.”

James did not answer; he was too young and not clever enough to hide the sullen pout of his lips.

“Come, Jemmy,” said Charles, “be content with your lot. ’Tis a good one and might have been not good at all. You are more fortunate than you know. Do not seek what can never be yours, my son. That way can disaster lie—disaster and tragedy. Come, let us make our way back to the Palace. We’ll go through my physic garden. I want to show you how my herbs are progressing.”

They walked arm-in-arm. James was conscious of the King’s display of affection. Charles knew he was glancing towards the Palace, hoping that many would see him walking thus with the King. Alas, thought Charles, his desire to have my arm through his is not for love of me; it is for love of my royalty. He is not thinking of my fatherly affection but implying: See, how the King loves me! Am I not his son? Does he not lack a legitimate heir? Will that rabbit-toothed woman ever give him one? He is rarely with her. With what passion could such a woman inspire a man like my father? See how he scatters his seed among the women around him. He has many children, but not one by Rabbit teeth to call his legitimate son and heir to the throne. I am his son. I am strong and healthy; and he loves me dearly. He has recognized me; he has made me Baron Tyndale, Earl of Doncaster, and Duke of Monmouth. I have precedence over all Dukes except those of the royal blood. I am empowered to assume the royal arms—with the bar sinister, alas—and all this shows how the King delights to honor me. Why should he not make me his legitimate heir, since it is clear that the Portuguese woman will never give him one?

Ah, Jemmy, thought Charles, I would it were possible.

But had he, in his affection, showered too much favor on this impetuous boy who was not twenty yet, and because of the love the King had for him was fawned upon and flattered by all?

How often did Charles see his mother in him! Lucy with the big brown eyes; Lucy who had seemed the perfect mistress to the young man Charles had been in those days of exile. Those were the days before he had suffered the defeat at Worcester. He had loved Lucy—for a little while, but she had deceived him. Poor Lucy! How could he blame her, when he understood so well how easy it was to deceive? Even in those days he had understood. And out of that relationship had come this handsome boy.

He was glad he had loved Lucy. He would long ago have forgotten her, for there had been so many mistresses, but how could he ever forget her when she lived in this handsome boy?

James had inherited his mother’s beauty and, alas, her brains. Poor Jemmy! He could never pit his wits against such as Rochester, Mulgrave, Buckingham, and the rest. He excelled in vaulting, leaping, dancing; and had already given a good account of himself with the ladies.

Now Charles thought it necessary to remind James of his lowly mother, that his hopes might not soar too high.

“It was on such a day as this that Ann Hill brought you to me, Jemmy,” he said. “That was long before I regained my kingdom, as you know. There was I, a poor exile confronted with a son only a few years old. A bold little fellow you were, and I was proud of you. I wished that your mother was a woman I could have married, and that you could have been my legitimate son. Alas, it was not so. Your mother died in poverty in Paris, Jemmy, and you were with her. What would have happened to you, had good Ann Hill not brought you and your sister Mary to me, I know not.”