The Children's Book of London Part 8

Well, when James died his son Charles became King. Charles was then twenty-five years old, and was still delicate and thin, and not very tall. His hair was long, parted in the middle, and falling on each side of his face to his collar. His little neat beard was cut to a point, and his eyes were very sad. He liked better to live quietly than to be a king.

Almost directly after his father's death he married a French Princess.

She was young and gay, and if she had known she was going to marry the only King of England who was ever beheaded, I think she would have stayed in France. She was only just sixteen when she came to London, and all the strange faces and the strange language must have frightened her very much. Charles had never seen her before, and when they met he looked at her as if she was not quite so small as he had expected; and she laughed and showed him the heels of her shoes, which were quite flat, and said: 'Sir, I stand upon mine own feet. I have no helps of art. Thus high I am, and am neither higher nor lower.'

Henrietta Maria was dark, with black eyes and dark-brown hair, and was very quick and bright, and Charles loved her always to the end of his life.

After a time Henrietta was given Somerset House, a magnificent house in the Strand, for herself, and all her French attendants lived there with her. Perhaps Charles felt that the old palace at Whitehall was hardly fit for this bright little French woman, and perhaps it annoyed him to hear all the French people chattering about his own Court. Somerset House had been built by an uncle of Edward VI., the Duke of Somerset, who was such a greedy man that he had pulled down numbers of churches in order to take the stone of which they were built to make his own vast mansion. The Duke never lived there, for before it was finished he was imprisoned in the Tower, and then beheaded. When Henrietta was there the furniture was very magnificent and rich. We are told that one of the bed coverlets, of embroidered satin, was worth 1,000!

This Somerset House was pulled down when George III. was King, and another great house called by the same name was built instead. This one is still standing, and in it there are offices belonging to the Government. In one part are all the wills that people have left when they died, and if anyone wants to see a particular will he can go there and see it if he pays a s.h.i.+lling.

One day when Queen Henrietta Maria lived in old Somerset House, Charles came and told her he was going to send all her French attendants back to France except her lady's-maid and one other, for the French people were saying things against the King and making mischief. Henrietta was much grieved, but she had to obey the King, so she sent them back to France.

Long years after the death of her husband, when her son was King, after many terrible wars, Henrietta once again came back to London and lived at her old home. Not far from Somerset House, close by Charing Cross Station, was another great house in the Strand called York House. I spoke of this before when I told you about the fine old water-gate still standing. That water-gate belonged to a handsome man called the Duke of Buckingham. Buckingham had been a great favourite with the old King, James I., and he had travelled abroad with Charles when he was Prince of Wales. Charles loved him very dearly, though he knew he was an ambitious, selfish man, fond of pleasure. Charles and Henrietta had been married three years, and during that time people had grumbled against Buckingham because he was the King's favourite; but though he was disliked, no one ever guessed what would happen. Buckingham had gone down to Portsmouth to arrange some matters about s.h.i.+pping, and there he was stabbed to the heart by a man named Felton. When Felton was brought to London to answer for his crime, the people followed him with shouts and acclamations, so pleased were they that he had killed the hated Buckingham. But King Charles himself was very sad at the loss of his friend. He was beginning to find out that being a king was not all pleasure.

For one thing, he wanted money, and the Parliament would not give it to him. Then he asked rich people to lend him some, and many refused. Of course, he had a good deal of money; but he had very great expenses, and he wanted more. So he quarrelled with the Parliament, and that was the beginning of a long, sad contest. However, it did not get very serious all at once; but the quarrels between the King and the Parliament gradually grew worse and worse for many years.

Charles and Henrietta had been married about five years when a little son came to them, and they called him Charles after his father. He was not long without a playfellow; for a year after there was a daughter called Mary, and then another son called James. There is still in existence a letter which his mother, the Queen, wrote to Prince Charles when he was a very little boy and was naughty, and would not take his medicine. Here it is:

'CHARLES,

'I am sure that I must begin my first letter by chiding you, because I hear that you will not take physic. I hope it was only for this day, and to-morrow you will do it; for if you will not I must come to you and make you take it, for it is for your health. I have given order to my Lord Newcastle to send me word whether you will or not, therefore I hope you will not give me the pains to go.

'Your affectionate, 'MOTHER.

'To my dear son the Prince.'

I do not know where Henrietta was when she wrote that letter; perhaps she was staying away at one of the palaces in the country. In London King Charles still lived in Whitehall Palace, though he had another, of which you have heard, called St. James's Palace, in St. James's Park, quite near. In either of these he was not far from the Houses of Parliament, and it was to the members of Parliament he applied for money. When they would not give him any more he dissolved Parliament, and sent all the members away; but when he found he could not get money any other way, he called them together again.

After these wretched quarrels it must have been a pleasure to him to go back to the royal nursery, and forget about being a king for a time in playing with his children. When little Charles was five years old there came another little daughter, Elizabeth, and she, as she grew up, was the favourite of her sad, gentle father.

Mary was a good girl, affectionate and warm-hearted; but she was not clever like Elizabeth. I think Charles must have been a nice boy; but his brother James was such a horrid man when he came to be King years afterwards that he cannot ever have been nice at all, even as a boy.

When Mary was ten a great event happened: she was married to a boy prince, the Prince of Orange, who lived in Holland. She still lived with her father and mother; but she knew when she grew up she would be Princess of Orange--would have to go to live in Holland with her husband. Her son, who married his cousin Mary, daughter of James II., became King of England, as William III., many years after.

It was not very long after this that the quarrels between King and Parliament grew so bad that Charles was afraid, and had to fly for his life. Little Charles, Prince of Wales, was twelve, and Elizabeth, the younger girl, was seven, and there was a younger boy, Henry, Duke of Gloucester, only four years old. Henry was far the nicest of the boys, and it was a pity he could not be King; but you shall hear more of him afterwards.

Henrietta, the Queen, fled to France and afterwards to Holland, where she sold her jewels to raise money to pay soldiers to fight for the King her husband. The two eldest boys were sent over to France too. Princess Mary went to her husband's family in Holland, and little Elizabeth and Henry were taken prisoners by the Parliament.

The story of the battles between Charles and the Parliament can be read in history, and does not belong particularly to London. The end was very sad. The King was taken prisoner by the Parliamentarians, who were now led by a man called Oliver Cromwell.

Queen Henrietta had gone back to France, leaving a little baby named after herself in England. When this baby was two years old the Countess of Dorset, who had charge of her, wanted to take her over to her mother in France, and she was afraid that the little Princess would be recognised and seized by Cromwell's men, so she dressed her in a coa.r.s.e stuff frock instead of the pretty laces and ribbons she had been accustomed to wear. But when they started on the journey the little child carefully explained, in her lisping, baby way, to everyone who spoke to her that she was generally dressed very differently, and the poor Countess was much afraid that people would find out she was a little princess. In spite of this they got safely over to France. When Henrietta grew up she was a gay, frivolous girl, very fond of clothes, as one might judge she would be from this story; and she married a Frenchman.

To return to Charles and his two younger children, Elizabeth and Henry, who were now left in London. The King was taken to Westminster, and then for many days there was what the Parliamentarians called a 'trial.' They accused their King of breaking laws, of trying to hinder the liberty of the people, and of many other things. Through it all Charles was patient and gentle, and even at the end, when they condemned him to death, he showed no fear or horror. Some day you can go to Westminster and walk into that great hall where this mock trial took place, and imagine the scene. It is all bare now, a great empty place with a stone floor and stone walls and no seats, and it is not used for anything; but when the King was there it was filled with eager, bustling crowds all gone mad for a time, and willing to kill their King. Then Charles was told to prepare for death, but told also that he might see his children once again to bid them good-bye.

These two children had been taken from one place to another by their enemies, and not treated at all like a prince and princess. Elizabeth was now fourteen and Henry ten. They had been called plain Master and Miss instead of Prince and Princess, and had lived very plainly in the houses of persons who were supposed to take care of them.

When they saw their father and heard what he had to tell them, they were very unhappy. Charles said to his little boy: 'Sweetheart, now they will cut off thy father's head. Mark, child, what I say--they will cut off my head, and perhaps make thee King; but mark what I say, you must not be a king so long as your brothers Charles and James do live, for they will cut off your brothers' heads (if they can catch them), and cut off thy head, too, at the last; and therefore I charge you, do not be made a king by them.' At which the child, sighing, said: 'I will be torn in pieces first.'

Charles thought that the Parliamentarians might make Henry King because he was a little boy, and they could force him to do as they liked; but they did not do that.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE CENOTAPH, WHITEHALL.]

Then Charles went on to say that the two children must always be Protestants, and never become Roman Catholics. Their mother Henrietta was a Roman Catholic, and he was afraid she might try to make them change their religion. And he was quite right; for afterwards, when Henry went across to France, the Queen did everything in her power to make him change. She was very cruel to him, took away his dinner, and would not let him play or ride, and at last was going to send him to a Roman Catholic school. But Henry's brother Charles, who was still wandering about on the Continent, and had not then regained the throne, wrote to her saying that his brother must come to him, and he would take care of him. So brave little Henry was rescued. He lived to be nineteen, and to see his brother an English King, and then he died of small-pox.

King Charles, after telling both the children they must never be Roman Catholics, turned to Elizabeth, and told her what books she must read so as to understand about the Protestant religion, and very difficult books they were for a little girl of fourteen; and he told her many other things, and that she must give his love to the other children. Then he said: 'Sweetheart, you will forget this?' And she answered: 'No, I shall never forget it while I live.'

It must have been awful for those poor children to tear themselves away, knowing that their father, the King of all England and Scotland and Ireland, was to be killed. However, at last it was over, and Elizabeth and her brother were taken down to be kept in Carisbrooke Castle in the Isle of Wight. Here the little girl pined away, and died when she was only fifteen. She was found kneeling before her open Bible with her head lying on the text 'Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden,' and she had pa.s.sed into her rest.

When King Charles had said good-bye to them, he tried to fix his thoughts on the other world, and to forget all his wicked enemies. He slept that night at St. James's Palace, where our present Prince and Princess of Wales lived with their children until a short time ago. In the morning Charles walked across the Park and Spring Gardens, where, as he pa.s.sed, he pointed out a tree that had been planted by his own elder brother Henry, who had died young. Then he went across to the Banqueting Hall.

Hundreds and hundreds of people were waiting in Whitehall. They cannot all have been wicked, but they must all have been cowards, for not one dared to shout out and say, 'They must not, shall not, do this fearful wrong.' If anyone had, perhaps others would have joined in and helped to save their King. But no, all were silent. Perhaps they felt to the last minute that it could not be true, that something would happen to prevent it.

King Charles walked right through the Banqueting Hall under a beautiful ceiling which he himself had paid a great painter to paint. You can walk there yourself now under the same ceiling, for the place is a museum, and anyone can go to see it.

Then he went through one of the windows upstairs--no one is quite sure which, but it is supposed to be the second one from one end--and when he stepped out on to the scaffold there was the dreadful executioner, with his black mask on and his sharp axe. It was the custom for the executioner to wear a mask, and I think he must have been glad of it that day. The scaffold was all draped in black, and on it was a block, at which the King must kneel, and on which he must rest his head. He said gently the block was very low, and he had expected it to be higher; but they told him it must be so, and he said no more.

Then he took off a beautiful star he wore, the decoration of an order, which he handed to a captain in the army, a friend of his own, in whose family it still remains, and some other things, which he gave to Bishop Juxon, who stood by, and as he did so he said: 'Remember.' No one has ever quite known what he meant by that, for the Bishop never told. It is supposed either he meant that Bishop Juxon was to remember to give these things to his son Prince Charles, or that he was to tell Prince Charles to remember to forgive his father's murderers.

Then King Charles said to the executioner that he would put his head on the block, and when he stretched out his hands he might strike. In a few minutes he finished praying, and stretched out his hands. Down fell the sharp axe, and a deep groan rose up from all the mult.i.tude as King Charles was beheaded. Now every day hundreds of people walk up and down on the pavement before the Banqueting Hall, but hardly one thinks of that awful day when a King's blood was shed on this very place.

The old palace of Whitehall has quite gone. Over the place where it was are houses and gardens; some of the houses are large and some are quite old. Only the Banqueting Hall remains, that part of the magnificent palace that Inigo Jones meant to build for James I.

At the top of Whitehall at Charing Cross there is a statue of King Charles on a horse, as if he were riding down toward the place where he died. On the very spot where it stands, before it was put up, the worst of the men who murdered Charles were themselves executed only a short distance from the place of the King's execution. For after Cromwell's death England realized her wickedness, and Charles's son came back to reign. But never, never can be forgotten the dreadful deed that happened in Whitehall more than two hundred and fifty years ago.

CHAPTER XVII

THE GREAT PLAGUE AND FIRE

Of all the awful calamities that have befallen London, there is none more awful than the Great Plague, which happened when Charles II., son of King Charles I., was on the throne. He had been restored to his kingdom for less than five years when it happened. Two people died quite suddenly in Westminster, and men looked grave and said it was the plague. But at first they did not think much of it, for the plague had often visited England before. But this time it was to be far, far worse than anything anyone had ever known. It is said that the infection was brought over from the Continent in some bales of goods that merchants were bringing to sell in London, but this was never known for certain.

All at once two more people died unaccountably, and then it seemed as if the plague leaped out from every corner, and people began dying all over London. There had been a hard frost, and it was when the frost thawed that the plague seemed to gain fresh strength. Everybody began to ask questions. What were they to do? Couldn't they go away at once? What were others doing to stop the spread of the infection? The awful suddenness of it terrified everyone. Persons who had been talking gaily and feeling quite well complained of feeling a swelling on the throat or a little sickness, and in an hour they were dead. Sometimes it began by a swelling that came under the arm (this was a sure sign), and sometimes by swellings on the neck. As the plague grew worse men dropped down in the streets seized with it, and before their friends could be found they were dead. All sorts of odd things were offered in order to keep away the infection. One, that a great many foolish people believed in, was a dried toad strung on a string round the neck--as if that could have made anyone safe!

Very soon all the rich people left London and fled away into the country, though, of course, the country people did not want them, for fear that they had brought the infection. But there were hundreds and hundreds of people who stayed in London and even tried to carry on their business. At first they struggled bravely and pretended nothing was the matter, but very soon this was impossible.

You could not imagine what London looked like then. No one drove in the streets, no one walked there if he could help it; gra.s.s grew up between the cobble-stones, and nearly all the houses had shutters up, showing that their inhabitants had gone away. A nurse would come quickly along holding a little red staff in her hand to show she had been nursing a plague patient, and that other people had better avoid her. Then slowly down the street would come a cart, with a man walking beside the horse, and he would call out: 'Bring out your dead! bring out your dead!' just as if he were shouting to sell coals. And in the cart were the bodies of the people who had died of the plague. It was extraordinary that any man could be found to drive that cart, and he had to have very high wages; and even then he must have been a low sort of man, without any imagination, a man who did not mind much what his work was so long as he had some money to spend in drink. One of these men was sitting on his cart one day when it was noticed that he seemed to be ill, and the next moment he fell off dead, having caught the plague.

When people were dying by hundreds and hundreds there was no time to bury them properly: and yet they had to be buried, or the dead bodies would make it impossible for anyone to live at all. So great pits were dug many yards wide, and into these the bodies of men, women, and children were put in rows and rows, one row on the top of another, and the whole covered in with stuff called quicklime. Whenever anyone began with the plague, it was the duty of the head of the household to see that a red cross was marked on his door as a warning to others to keep away, and it must have been very sad to see these long red crosses on so many doors, with the gra.s.s-grown street in front of the houses, and the slow plague-cart going down the street.

Another rule was that if anyone had a case of the plague within his house, he and all his household must be shut up indoors for forty days for fear of carrying the infection; but many people hated this so much that they used to hide the cases of the plague when they happened, and pretend that everyone was alive and well in their houses. When the police-officers found this out they used to visit the houses, and if they found anyone sick in one of them they would carry him or her off to a hospital called a pest-house, where all the sick could be together. If it is true what we read of these houses, it must have been almost worse to go there than to die. The smells and sights were so awful, and the shrieks of the poor wretches who had been seized with the plague were so terrifying, that there was not much chance of anyone who went there recovering.

The people who were forced to stay in London, either because they had no money to go away or nowhere else to go to, used to meet in St. Paul's Cathedral and ask one another the news. This was not the same cathedral that is standing now, but one that was afterwards burnt in the Great Fire. The long aisle was called Paul's walk, and here in better times there were stalls for the sale of ribbons and laces and many other things, and people laughed and talked and strolled up and down, just as if it were a street and not a church at all. Now, in the plague time most of the stalls were shut, and the people no longer came to buy, but to ask in hushed voices how many had died last week, and if there were any sign that this awful disease was going to stop. It is almost impossible to believe, but it is true, that thieves were very busy then.

They used actually to go into the houses deserted by their owners, or left because someone had died there of the plague, and steal things, without minding the risk of infection.

The country people soon stopped bringing in fresh milk and vegetables, b.u.t.ter and eggs from the country, because they dared not come into the town; and so it was difficult to get these things at all, and those who were in London were worse off than ever, and in danger of starving.