The Lion's Whelp

"I look for measureless wrath and vain babble, and threats heard far and wide," said Doctor Verity. "The people have been given what they wanted, and twenty to one they will now nay-say all they have roared for. That would be like the rest of their ways."

For once Doctor Verity was wrong. This master-stroke of Cromwell's went straight to the heart of London. "Not a dog barked against it," said Cromwell to his friends, and he was to all intents and purposes right. Those who called it "usurpation" confessed that it was an usurpation of capability, in place of one of incapability. Even the lampoons of the day were not adverse to Cromwell, while some of them gave him a grim kind of pleasure.

Thus, one morning, Cluny Neville passing the Parliament House noticed placards on its walls, and going close enough to read them, found they advertised "This house to let; unfurnished." And when he told this to Cromwell, that faculty in the man which sometimes made for a rude kind of mirth, was aroused, and he burst into an uproarious enjoyment of the joke. "I wish," he cried, "I wish I knew the wag who did it. I would give him a crown or two, I would indeed, and gladly."

There had been a little uncertainty about the navy, for Sir Harry Vane had shown it great favour. But Admiral Robert Blake was as great and as unselfish a man in his office as was Oliver Cromwell. He accepted the change without dissent, telling his fleet simply —

"It is not the business of seamen to mind state affairs. Our business is to keep foreigners from fooling us, and to find the Dutch ships, fight them, and sink them."

And yet the feeling which led to Mrs. Swaffham's little burst of temper was not particular to herself. Many women felt precisely as Martha Swaffham did, and Cromwell did not take this element into his consideration. Yet it was one that worked steadily towards its reckoning, for men do not finally withstand the ceaseless dropping fire of their own hearthstones. Mrs. Fleetwood's and Mrs. Lambert's ill-feeling about precedence was indefinitely multiplied, and Mrs. Swaffham's more intimate rejection of the Cromwell women was a stone thrown into water and circling near and far. The Lord General Cromwell, men and women alike, could accept; he had fought his way to honour, and they could give him what he had won. But the Cromwell women had done nothing, and suffered nothing beyond the ordinary lot; it was a much harder thing to render homage unto them. In these days, Mrs. Swaffham, though ignoring the late King, was distinctly royal and loyal where Queen Henrietta Maria was concerned.

But it was, after all, a grand time in old England. Adventures and victories were the news of every day. Nothing was too strange to happen; people expected romances and impossibilities; and because they expected them, they came. The big city was always astir with news; it flew from lip to lip, like wild fire, was rung out from every steeple, and flashed in bonfires from one high place to another. This formidable man in black and gray was at the helm of affairs, and England felt that she might now trade and sow and marry and be happy to her heart's desire. The shutting of the Parliament House affected nothing; the machinery of Government went on without let or hindrance. A new Parliament was quickly summoned, one hundred and forty Puritan notables "fearing God and of approved fidelity and honesty," and it was to begin its sittings on the ensuing fourth of July. Meantime, Robert Blake was wiping out of existence the Dutch navy and the Dutch commerce. In the month of June, he took eleven Dutch men-of-war and one thousand three hundred and fifty prisoners; the church bells rang joyously from one end of England to the other, and London gathered at St. Paul's to sing Te Deums for the victory.

Thus to the echoes of trumpets and cannon the business of living and loving went on. The great national events were only chorus to the dramas and tragedies of the highest and the humblest homes. While Cromwell was issuing writs for a new Parliament and holding the reins of Government tightly in his strong hands, his wife and daughters were happily busy about the marriage of young Harry Cromwell to Elizabeth Russel; and Sir Peter Lely was painting their portraits, and Lady Mary Cromwell had her first lover; and Mrs. Swaffham was making the cowslip wine; and the Fermor and Heneage girls off to Bath for trifling and bathing and idle diversions; and Jane sewing the sweetest and tenderest thoughts into the fine linen and cambric which she was fashioning into garments for her own marriage. In every family circle it was the same thing: the little comedies of life went on, whether Parliament sat or not, whether Blake brought in prizes, or lay watching in the Channel; for, after all, what the people really wanted was peace and leisure to attend to their own affairs.

One lovely morning in this jubilant English spring, Jane sat at the open window writing to Matilda de Wick. All the sweet fresh things of the earth and the air were around her, but she was the sweetest and freshest of all. There was a pleasant smile on her lips as her fingers moved across the white paper. She was telling her friend about Harry Cromwell's marriage in the old church at Kensington; about the dresses and the wedding feast, and the delightful way in which the Lord General had taken his new daughter to his heart. "And what now will Mistress Dorothy Osborne do?" she asked. "To be sure, she is said to be greatly taken with Sir William Temple, who is of her own way of thinking – which Harry Cromwell is not, though Mrs. Hutchinson has spoken of him everywhere as a 'debauched, ungodly cavalier;' but Mrs. Hutchinson has a Presbyterian hatred of the Cromwells. And I must also tell you that the Lords Chandos and Arundel have been tried before the Upper Bench for the killing of Mr. Compton in a duel. The crime was found manslaughter, and they were sentenced to be burned in the hand which was done to them both, but very favourably. And the Earl of Leicester said he was glad of it, for it argued a good stiff government to punish men of such high birth; but my father thinks Leicester to be the greatest of levelers, he would abolish all rank and titles but his own. And I must also tell you that General Monk has discovered his marriage to Ann Clarges a market-woman of low birth, no beauty whatever, and a very ill tongue. My mother is sure the General must have been bewitched; however, Mistress Monk has gone to live in Greenwich palace, which has been given to the General for a residence. And the rest of my news is in a nutshell, Matilda. I heard from Tonbert that your brother had been seen at de Wick, but this I discredit. Did he not go with you to France: Cymlin is in Ireland, and sulking at his banishment to so barbarous a country; and so I make an end of this long letter, saying in a word I am your friend entirely and sincerely, Jane Swaffham."

When Matilda received this letter she was in Paris. Her first resting-place had been at The Hague, where she had speedily been made known to the Princess Elizabeth Stuart, the widowed ex-Queen of Bohemia, and the mother of Prince Rupert. In her poverty-stricken Court Matilda found kindred spirits, and she became intimate with the light-hearted Queen and her clever daughters. For in spite of the constant want of money, it was a Court abounding in wit and fun, in running about The Hague in disguise; in private theatricals, singing and dancing, and other "very hilarious amusements," deeply disgusting to the English Puritans.

So, then, while Sir Thomas Jevery was busy about his ships and his merchandise, Lady Jevery and Matilda spent much time with the ex-Queen, her dogs and her monkeys, her sons and her daughters, and the crowd of Cavalier gentlemen who made the house at The Hague a gathering place. Rupert, however, had never been his mother's favourite, yet she was proud of his valour and achievements, and not generally indisposed to talk to Matilda about her "big hero." It pleased her most to describe with melodramatic thrills his baptism in the great old palace of Prague, his ivory cradle embossed with gold and gems, and his wardrobe – "the richest he ever had in his life, poor infant;" – and then she continued, "He was not a lucky child. Misfortune came with him. He was not a year old when the Austrians overran Bohemia, and we were without a Kingdom – a king and a queen without a crown. Well, I have my dogs and my monkeys."

"Which your Majesty greatly prefers to your sons and daughters," said the witty young Princess Sophie.

"They give me fewer heartaches, Sophie," was the answer. "Look, for instance, at your brother Rupert. What an incorrigible he is! What anxieties have I not suffered for him. And Maurice, who must get himself drowned all because of his adoration of Rupert! Oh, the poor Prince Rupert! he is, as I say, most unlucky. I told my august brother Charles the same thing, and he listened not, until everything was lost, and it was too late. The great God only knows what calamities there are in this world."

"But Prince Rupert has been the hope and support of his cousin's Court in the Louvre for three years," said Matilda warmly; "it is not right to make little of what he has done."

"He has done miracles, my dear Lady Matilda," answered Rupert's mother; "but the miracles never pay. We are all of us wretchedly poor. He sells his valour and his blood for nothing worth while."

"He is the greatest soldier and sailor in the world; so much even his enemies admit."

"There are no results," said the ex-Queen, with a gay laugh and a shrug of her shoulders. "And I am told he has learned magic among the Africans, and brought home blackamoors and finer monkeys than my own. I object to nothing, since he assures me of his undying love for myself and the Protestant religion. I assure you, if he did not love the Protestant religion I should find no difficulty in renouncing him."

"He was too well educated in his religion to forget it, madame," said the Princess Louise.

"I am not to blame if it were otherwise. I assure you he knows his Heidelberg Catechism as well as any Doctor of Divinity, and the History of the Reformers is at his tongue's end. I am not in health to go regularly to church, but my children go without omission, and they give me the points of the sermon in writing. I do my duty to them; and of Rupert I had once great hopes, for the first words he ever spoke were 'Praise the Lord,' in the Bohemian tongue. After that, one does not readily think evil of a Prince."

Every day Matilda adroitly induced such conversations; and once when the mother had talked herself into an enthusiasm, she said, "Come and I will show you some pictures of this Rupert. His sister Louise makes portraits quite equal to those of her master, Honthorst. I may tell you frankly, we have sold her pictures for bread often; they are said to be Honthorst's, but most often they are the work of the Princess Louise. The poor child! she paints and she paints, and forgets that she is a Palatine Princess without a thaler for her wardrobe. Look at this portrait of Rupert! Is he not a big, sturdy boy? He was only four then, but he looks eight. How full of brave wonder are those eyes, as he looks out on the unknown world! And in this picture he is fourteen. He does not appear happy. No, but rather sad and uncertain, as if he had not found the world as pleasant as he expected. In this picture he is seventeen, gallant and handsome and smiling. He has begun to hope again, – perhaps to love. And look now on this face at twenty-nine; he has carried too heavy a burden for his age, done too much, suffered too much."

Matilda knew the latter portrait well, its facsimile lay upon her heart; and though she did not say a word, it was impossible not to notice in all the painted faces that strange, haunting Stuart melancholy, which must have had its root in some sorrowful, unfathomable past.

On another evening they were talking of England, and of recent events there, chiefly of the high-handed dismissal of the Parliament, and the gay-hearted Elizabeth laughed at the affair very complacently. "I am an English Princess," she said, "but I hate Parliaments; so did his late Majesty, my brother Charles. But for the Parliament, my fate might have been different. I adored my husband, that is known, but it was the Parliament who made our marriage. My father, the great and wise King James, did not wish me to marry the Elector Palatine, – it was a poor match for the Princess Royal of England, – but the Parliament thought the Elector would make himself the leader of the Calvinistic princes of the Empire. My dear Lady Matilda, he was sixteen years old, and I was sixteen, and we two children, what could we do with those turbulent Bohemian Protestants? You make a stir about your Oliver Cromwell ordering the English Members of Parliament out of their own House, listen then: the Protestant nobles of Bohemia threw the Emperor's ministers and members out of their Council Chamber windows. It was only their way of telling the Emperor they would not have the Catholic King he supported. The English adore the Law, and will commit any crime in it and for it; the Bohemians are a law unto themselves. They then asked us to come to Prague, and we went and were crowned there, and in the midst of this glory, the Prince Rupert was born. He was a wonder for his great size, even then. And he had for his sponsors the King of Hungary and the Duke of Wurtenburg and the States of Bohemia, Silesia, and Upper and Lower Lusatia. Yet in less than a year we were all fugitives, and the poor child was thrown aside by his frightened nurse, and found lying alone on the floor by Baron d'Hona, who threw him into the last coach leaving the palace; and he fell into the boot and nearly perished. So you see how unfortunate he was from the beginning."

"But, madame, you have a large family; some of them will surely retrieve your misfortunes."

"I do not trouble myself about the day I have never seen. There is a great astrologer in Paris, and he has told me that my daughter Sophia will bear a son, who will become King of England. Sophia gives herself airs on this prediction."

Sophia, who was present, laughed heartily. "Indeed, madame," she said, "and when I am Queen Mother I shall abolish courtesies. Imagine, Lady de Wick, that I cannot eat my dinner without making nine separate courtesies, and on Sundays and Wednesdays, when we have two divines to eat with us, there are extra ones. I shall regulate my Court with the least amount of etiquette that will be decent."

"You perceive, Lady de Wick, what a trial it is to have four clever daughters – not to speak of sons. My daughter, the Princess Elizabeth, is the most learned of women; I think she knows every language under the sun. You have seen the paintings of the Princess Louise. Sophia is witty and pretty, and is to be the mother of an English King; and my fair Henrietta is a beauty, and what is remarkable, she is also amiable, and makes adorable embroideries and confections. So the mother of four such princesses must not complain."

"Especially when she has seventeen dogs and horses; not to speak of monkeys and blackamoors," cried Sophia.

"Sophia is jealous!" said the merry ex-Queen. "So is Rupert. Now, I am never jealous; I think jealousy is selfishness."

Such intimate conversations occurred daily while Matilda frequented the House at The Hague; and when Sir Thomas Jevery was ready to proceed to Paris, the ladies did not leave their pleasant entertainer without tangible, financial proof of their interest in the Palatines. The light-hearted, dependent Elizabeth took the offering with open satisfaction. "It is very welcome," she said gratefully; "and the more so, because it is so sensibly expressed. Some would have thought it best to offer me a jewel, and so put my steward to the trouble of selling it, and me to the loss. Oh!" she sighed, smiling cheerfully at the same time, "it is a sad thing to be poor for want of money; poverty is so transparent. If you have only money, it is a cloak for everything."