Assassination: The Royal Family's 1000-Year Curse (34 page)

Perhaps Charles’s friendship with the French should have been no surprise; he was after all half-French and half-Scottish, he had lived in exile in France, and the English had killed his father. The treaty was signed, but Charles’s conversion was put on hold when Minette died three weeks later, said to have been poisoned by her husband’s long-time lover, the Chevalier de Lorraine.

To cheer Charles up, Louis sent him a lady-in-waiting, Louise de Kerouaille, to be his next mistress; and the descendants of their illegitimate son, Charles Lennox Duke of Richmond would include the past and present wives of the current Prince Charles and Prince Andrew: Diana, Camilla and Sarah; so when the present Prince William becomes king, he will be the first descendent of Charles II to do so. Suitably cheered, Charles was ready to deal with his treaty obligations. Without consulting Parliament, Charles issued a Declaration of Indulgence, allowing Catholics to worship in private and allowing Dissenters (Protestants who had separated from the Church of England) to worship together if they obtained a licence. Two days later, he declared war on the Netherlands, foreign affairs still being a royal prerogative. Taxation to provide funds for war was for Parliament, but ever since Charles signed the secret Treaty of Dover, Parliament had agreed to his periodic requests for money to enlarge the army and the navy in ignorance of the true purpose.

War with the Netherlands had mixed results. The English Navy was comprehensively defeated by the Dutch. However, the French Army drove into Dutch territory. In desperation, the Dutch opened their dykes to flood the countryside so as to halt the French advance, and they gave leadership of the provinces to William of Orange, Charles’s nephew.

The politicians were angry. Charles’s war had been a failure, the English now favoured the Protestant Netherlands not Catholic France, and the revocation of statutes relating to religion was for Parliament, not the King.

“I am resolved to stick to my Declaration,” was Charles’s defiant response. In retaliation, Parliament refused to supply Charles with more money. He withdrew the Declaration.

That encouraged Parliament to go further. They passed a Test Act; every holder of office under the Crown had to confirm acceptance of the beliefs of the Anglican Church. Several members of the Council had to resign; so did Charles’s brother James (a recent convert to Catholicism), who was also the heir to the throne and Lord High Admiral.

Still Charles kept the Treaty of Dover a secret. He told Parliament: “I assure you, there is no … treaty with France not already printed ...” It was concealed for 140 years.

Without sufficient money, Charles had to abandon the war against the Netherlands, so breaking his promise to Louis. He then dissolved Parliament. Charles’s stupidity and duplicity brought England to the verge of another civil war. Like father, like son. At least he did not abandon London and raise his standard.

Instead, Charles put Thomas Osborne (later to be the Earl of Danby) in charge of the Council, and Danby succeeded in managing the country and the economy with a combination of intelligence and bribery. The bribery gave him control of Parliament, such that his supporters became the court party insultingly called ‘Tories’ by their opponents, a contraction of ‘Toraidhes’ – the name given to Irish thieves. The opposition formed their own party, insultingly called ‘Whigs’ by their opponents – the name given to Scottish outlaws. The Whigs wanted to exclude Catholic heirs to the throne; the Tories were against exclusion. Even though staunchly Protestant, the Tory gentry disliked anything that upset the accepted rules of heredity. They had gained their titles and wealth by those rules, and they feared anything that might challenge them.

In late 1677, William III of Orange, champion of the Protestants, arrived in England to a hero’s welcome. Charles humoured his people with what he thought was a small gesture; he gave his 15-year-old niece Mary (his brother James’s daughter, but a Protestant) to his nephew William (therefore Mary’s cousin) in marriage.

By mid-1678 the mood in the country was extremely nervous. Would France attack? Who would be the next monarch? Despite all the illegitimate children with mistresses, Charles had no children with Queen Catherine; and now that Charles had venereal disease, he could never produce an heir. His Catholic brother, James, was next in line. Could he be excluded? Charles was determined not to allow it. The country was on the edge.

It was 13th August 1678, and Charles was taking his daily walk in St James’s Park. Christopher Kirkby, a man who was known to the King, came up to Charles, “Sire, your enemies have a design against your life … you may be in danger in this very walk.”

“How may that be?” asked Charles. “By being shot at,” was the reply. Charles waved the man away and continued his walk. With all the Stuart failings, cowardice was not one of them. Nothing happened.

Kirkby had been put up to it by two men, Israel Tonge and Titus Oates. Tonge was a biologist and a cleric, a man devoted to discovering supposed Catholic plots. Oates was a perjurer, a man willing to give false evidence at a price, having been expelled from two Cambridge colleges, falsely claimed a degree, been ordained a Protestant priest, then imprisoned for perjury and escaping, later appointed a naval chaplain and been expelled for buggery, converted to Catholicism, then expelled from two Jesuit colleges, now once more a Protestant.

These two scoundrels had decided to invent the story of a Catholic conspiracy to murder Charles following which his Catholic brother James would take the throne. As it was exactly what much of the country feared, people readily believed it, even though it was wholly untrue.

Rebuffed by Charles, they took their lies to the anti-Catholic Earl of Danby, who took them seriously. He put the two liars in front of the Council, where in the presence of the King they disclosed the names of the principal Catholic conspirators. They included the Pope, King Louis, the General of the Jesuits, the Archbishop of Dublin and five leading Catholic lords. Charles was to be seized by Irish thugs and stabbed by Jesuits, Oates later claiming that Charles would also be shot with silver bullets (said to make healing impossible) or poisoned by the Queen’s doctor. Next, Catholics would murder thousands of Protestants in London and then burn the city to the ground. Charles treated it as a joke and left for Newmarket.

Two very real events now occurred, and they gave Oates’s story credibility. The secretary of James’s wife (whose name was on Oates’s list of conspirators) was found to have written in code to prominent Catholics in France seeking funds and looking forward to the time when power would be in the hands of James and the English Catholics. Next, the magistrate to whom Tonge and Oates had given their evidence was found murdered on Primrose Hill. Londoners took fright. Catholic homes were ransacked, Catholic books were burned, Catholic priests were sent to prison. Oates was now the saviour of the nation, and he was given a troop of soldiers with which to arrest Catholics.

There is a story that one blameless Catholic confessed under torture to involvement in the plot. Forced to name his non-existent accomplices, he cried out “Greenberry Hill!” – Primrose Hill had formerly been called Greenberry Hill. The story goes on to say that in Somerset House (where the Queen had a Catholic chapel) there were three Catholic servants named Green, Berry and Hill. Although completely innocent, they were arrested and hanged.

Many Catholics were executed in the lust for blood. Charles knew that it was nonsense, but he signed the death warrants nonetheless. “Let the blood lie on those that condemn them,” was his lame defence.

However, when the Commons started to debate the exclusion of James as his successor, Charles fought back. He dissolved Parliament. So the country found a Protestant hero who might take the crown: the Duke of Monmouth. Dashing, ambitious and son of the King, even if he was illegitimate. But the nobility and the gentry opposed him; if an illegitimate son could inherit the crown, who might turn up to claim their inheritances?

Charles was tireless in his opposition to the Exclusionists. Then Oates overstepped the mark and denounced James as a traitor. Oates was sent to prison for sedition (undermining the authority or peace of the state), and the anti-Catholic hysteria calmed down.

The calm did not last very long. In June 1683, Charles was at Newmarket, enjoying his horses and the racing. The entertainment was halted when a fire destroyed many of the buildings, including Charles’s house. As a result, he returned to London early, travelling with his brother James.

Unaware of that early return, supporters of Monmouth had gathered at a property owned by Richard Rumbold, a former officer in Cromwell’s New Model Army. It was known as the Rye House, in Hoddesden in Hertfordshire, located on the road from Newmarket to London. The plan was to conceal 100 men in the grounds of the Rye House, overturn a cart on the road so as to halt the royal carriage and then ambush the royal party, killing Charles and James, after which the Duke of Monmouth would be proclaimed as king. They prepared the cart, and then they waited and waited; still the look-outs did not report the approach of the royal party. The Newmarket fire had saved both Charles and James from being murdered. They had travelled past the Rye House before the would-be assassins had blocked the road.

The conspirators were worried; were their names known to Charles’s spymasters? They rushed to be the first to inform on their colleagues so as to save their skins. Some left the country, some were arrested, and several were executed. Monmouth, no stranger to the plot, fled to the Netherlands, as did Rumbold.

Now the only problems for Charles were the rift with his son, Monmouth, and ensuring the succession of the Catholic James. Then a bigger problem arrived. On the morning of Monday 2nd February 1685, Charles suffered a fit and collapsed. Two days of medical treatment, mainly bleedings and potions, led to a gradual deterioration in the King’s condition. It was clear that death was approaching.

James was at his brother’s side. Charles sent James to find a Catholic priest (or perhaps James did it of his own volition). He brought Father Huddleston, who had been given a position in the Queen’s household as reward for helping Charles in his escape after the Battle of Worcester.

Huddleston heard Charles’s confession and reconciled him to the Roman Church. On Friday morning, 6th February 1685, Charles died a converted Catholic. The suddeness of his death led to allegations of poison; although a kidney dysfunction is now considered more likely.

The Rye House Plot, not Titus Oates’s evil lies, had been the real conspiracy to murder Charles and James; but the nearest Charles came to a violent death was at the Battle of Worcester. As they waited in Hoddesden, the Rye House assassins would not have known that just down the road (four miles away) in Cheshunt, lived a man in constant fear of assassination. He used the name John Clarke. It was in fact Richard Cromwell, for a short time Lord Protector of the country, who had returned to England in 1680. Richard Cromwell lived on another 27 years, dying in 1712 at the age of 85; the longest-lived ruler England ever had.
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Imprisoned with his brother Henry and sister Elizabeth after the fall of Oxford, Royalists helped the 14-year-old James escape to the Netherlands dressed as a girl. He was taken to the court of his mother and older brother in Paris.

After years of exile, James achieved his ambition to attain high military rank. He was commissioned in the army of the King of France, fighting against the Spanish. James acquitted himself well, earning promotion to Lieutenant-General. Then, in 1655, Cromwell agreed to send some of his Ironsides to assist the French. One of the terms of the agreement was that Prince Charles, James and seventeen other prominent Royalists were to be expelled from France. James’s response was to change sides and join the Spanish Army.

Now James fought against the French in Spain’s attempt to relieve the siege of Dunkirk. Almost 18,000 French troops and 2,000 Ironsides faced a Spanish army that included 2,000 English and Irish Royalists, hoped by many to be the core of an army that would invade England and restore the monarchy. The French attacked in what would be known as the Battle of the Dunes because of the fierce assault by one of the Ironside regiments up a 50 metre-high sand dune.

James led his troop of horse, charging several times, but they were outnumbered and endured heavy casualties. In the melee, the French singled out James as the leader of the cavalry. He was struck with blows that would have killed most men, but the attempts to kill him failed. James was saved by the high quality of his armour. The Spanish were defeated. Only 700 of the Royalists survived, and that ended the prospect of an invasion of England.

After his brother was crowned King Charles II, James returned to England. James was a strict, dour man; his interests being confined to warfare, hunting and women. In 1660, to general disapproval, James married the pregnant Anne Hyde
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, daughter of the Chancellor. Disapproval, because Anne was a commoner and James was, for the time being at least, heir to the throne. Soon after the child was born, a wave of smallpox struck London, and the baby died as did James’s brother Henry and his sister Mary.