Palace Queen Henrietta Maria and all the household had been waiting to receive her.
“And not the least of all my pleasure that, day,” she recalled with candour, “was seeing that Castlemaine woman waiting uncomfortably with the-rest of the crowd trying in vain to catch Charles’s unwilling eye.”
But that had been weeks ago. And gradually, insidiously, the ill-bred creature had pushed her way into every Court function, holding him by reproachful tears to his misguided promise to make her a member of the Queen’s household, so that now Catherine was obliged to put up with her hateful presence in her private apartments and to hear her boasting to the other women about the progress of her fine new baby.
Both for her own and for her husband’s sake Catherine would have given anything to find herself pregnant, “But how can he expect me to bear him sons when I am kept in such agitation and distress of mind?” she raged, all unaware that this was the very burden of both his mother’s and his Chancellor’s arguments with the half-shamed, harassed King.
Above everything in those days Catherine hated being dressed before the quizzing gaze of her husband’s mistress; for Barbara, off-shoot of the handsome Villiers family, had been born so fatally faultless of form and features that she would probably have looked just as beautiful in the bundly garments of a washer-woman as in the jewels the King bestowed upon her; whereas Catherine’s beauty depended much upon time and mood and, most of all, upon happy animation. She was only too painfully aware that in order to make the best of herself — much more to compete with this Court full of beautiful women — she needed to take thought and care. “I marvel that your Majesty can have the patience to spend so long a-dressing!” Barbara would say with every outward show of deference when Catherine, preparing to meet Charles, caused her frisseur to change the style of her curls for a second or even a third time.
Catherine could have risen from her dressing stool like a Tagus fishwife and scratched the mocking eyes out with her comb. But did she not pray particularly every morning of her life for patience? And had she not lifted herself above the level of her tormentor by keeping her promise to milord Chancellor to make no more angry scenes? “I have vast need of patience, milady Castlemaine,” she would manage to say with a kind of spirited dignity.
But, in spite of her rival’s presence, life was easier at Whitehall than at Hampton. There was always something going on to interest or distract. The teeming life of London pulsed about her so that she was intoxicated by its vigour. The City wharves were always full of shipping, foreign delegates sought audiences of the King, and discoverers of new, undreamed of countries brought strange gifts and stranger stories to the palace. So that Catherine felt herself to be living at the hub of the world. By the conversation of those around her she was introduced to a new appreciation of art and science, of which she was lamentably ignorant. Sometimes she would drive with her ladies to see the exquisite workmanship of famous craftsmen in Goldsmiths’ Row or through the noisy, congested chaffering of East Cheap. Or Charles would show her his amusing rare waterfowl in St. James’s Park, or take her to see some great East Indian merchantman come in. And wherever she went with him on such informal occasions she marvelled at the way in which he would recognise some old soldier who had fought for his father, or stop and watch some gunsmith or mason at work. “How can you know so much about their lives?” she would ask, remembering how Alphonso would scarcely notice them at all.
“It is having once been poor and honest myself!” Charles would say, in that pleasant, indolent way of his.
But however full and pleasant the days, the winter evenings were still long and empty for Catherine. Because she would not play for high stakes or
“And not the least of all my pleasure that, day,” she recalled with candour, “was seeing that Castlemaine woman waiting uncomfortably with the-rest of the crowd trying in vain to catch Charles’s unwilling eye.”
But that had been weeks ago. And gradually, insidiously, the ill-bred creature had pushed her way into every Court function, holding him by reproachful tears to his misguided promise to make her a member of the Queen’s household, so that now Catherine was obliged to put up with her hateful presence in her private apartments and to hear her boasting to the other women about the progress of her fine new baby.
Both for her own and for her husband’s sake Catherine would have given anything to find herself pregnant, “But how can he expect me to bear him sons when I am kept in such agitation and distress of mind?” she raged, all unaware that this was the very burden of both his mother’s and his Chancellor’s arguments with the half-shamed, harassed King.
Above everything in those days Catherine hated being dressed before the quizzing gaze of her husband’s mistress; for Barbara, off-shoot of the handsome Villiers family, had been born so fatally faultless of form and features that she would probably have looked just as beautiful in the bundly garments of a washer-woman as in the jewels the King bestowed upon her; whereas Catherine’s beauty depended much upon time and mood and, most of all, upon happy animation. She was only too painfully aware that in order to make the best of herself — much more to compete with this Court full of beautiful women — she needed to take thought and care. “I marvel that your Majesty can have the patience to spend so long a-dressing!” Barbara would say with every outward show of deference when Catherine, preparing to meet Charles, caused her frisseur to change the style of her curls for a second or even a third time.
Catherine could have risen from her dressing stool like a Tagus fishwife and scratched the mocking eyes out with her comb. But did she not pray particularly every morning of her life for patience? And had she not lifted herself above the level of her tormentor by keeping her promise to milord Chancellor to make no more angry scenes? “I have vast need of patience, milady Castlemaine,” she would manage to say with a kind of spirited dignity.
But, in spite of her rival’s presence, life was easier at Whitehall than at Hampton. There was always something going on to interest or distract. The teeming life of London pulsed about her so that she was intoxicated by its vigour. The City wharves were always full of shipping, foreign delegates sought audiences of the King, and discoverers of new, undreamed of countries brought strange gifts and stranger stories to the palace. So that Catherine felt herself to be living at the hub of the world. By the conversation of those around her she was introduced to a new appreciation of art and science, of which she was lamentably ignorant. Sometimes she would drive with her ladies to see the exquisite workmanship of famous craftsmen in Goldsmiths’ Row or through the noisy, congested chaffering of East Cheap. Or Charles would show her his amusing rare waterfowl in St. James’s Park, or take her to see some great East Indian merchantman come in. And wherever she went with him on such informal occasions she marvelled at the way in which he would recognise some old soldier who had fought for his father, or stop and watch some gunsmith or mason at work. “How can you know so much about their lives?” she would ask, remembering how Alphonso would scarcely notice them at all.
“It is having once been poor and honest myself!” Charles would say, in that pleasant, indolent way of his.
But however full and pleasant the days, the winter evenings were still long and empty for Catherine. Because she would not play for high stakes or
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