“The Same to (the Same).
“(1645, November.) My Lord Widdrington in his advice has done as a noble and true affectionate friend would do.
“I do not send to you to-day, for if I do, they will say I pursue you for your affections, for though I love you extremely I never feared my modesty so small as it would give me leave to court any man. If you please to ask the Queen I think it would be well understood. I thank you for the fear you have of my ruin.” Let us hope that this was not written in the same spirit in which people say: “I thank you for the fear you have of my damnation”: but it has rather that look.
In another letter she says: “Saint Germains is a place of much slander, and thinks I send too often to you”. From the next letter it would seem that Newcastle had been a little jealous of Porter; but no courtship would be complete without a lover’s quarrel!
“I hope you are not angry for my advice about Saint Germans. I gave it simply for the best. As for Mr. Porter he was a stranger to me, for before I came to France I never saw him or at least knew him to be Mr. Porter or my Lord Newcastle’s friend. I never speak to any man before they address themselves to me nor look so much in their face as to invite their discourse, and I hope I never was uncivil to any person of whatsoever degree; but to-morrow the Queen comes to Paris and then I hope to justify myself.”
In one letter she seems annoyed at hearing that Newcastle had announced the engagement before it was quite settled:—
“It was said to me you had declared your marriage to Lord Jermyn. I answered it was more than I could do.”
In an earlier chapter, Sir Philip Warwick told us that Newcastle “had the misfortune to have somewhat of the poet in him”. This misfortune impelled him to write poems to Margaret, who replied:—
“Your verses are more like you than your picture, though it resembles you very well”.
From a later letter, she would seem to have been at St. Germains and Newcastle in Paris, and that she feared to go with the Queen to Paris lest she should be supposed to be doing so with the object of flirting with Newcastle:—
“I hear the Queen comes to Paris next week to the solemnities of Princess Mary’s marriage, and I am in a dispute whether I should come with her if I can get leave to stay. My reason is because I think it will stop their discourse of us when they see I do not come. My Lord let your eye limit your poetry.” Possibly Newcastle’s verses may have begun to savour too strongly of the Song of Solomon. The question of the poems crops up again in a later letter, and they would seem to have been the cause of a slight misunderstanding:—
“I am sorry you should bid me keep the verses you sent me, for it looks as though you thought I had flung away those you sent before.”
But perhaps Newcastle may only have been anxious that his verses should be carefully preserved, in order that, at some future date, he might publish them in a book of his “Collected Poems”. Poets are not totally destitute of eyes to business. Anyhow, no maker of verses would like to think that they had been “flung away”. The next letter hints at more troubled waters:—
“I never said any such thing as you mentioned in your letter about your picture, nor even showed it to a creature before yesterday when I gave it to mend; but I find such enemies that whatever is for my disadvantage, though it have but a semblance of truth, is declared.
“It is not usual to give the Queen gloves or anything else, but if you please I will give them to her.”
Presently comes another letter which looks as if, even then, all was not quite smooth between the lovers.
“I am sorry you have metamorphosed my letter and made that masculine which was efemenat. My ambition is to be thought a modest woman, and to leave the title of a gallant man to you.”
Five affectionate letters follow, but they contain nothing of world-wide interest. The last states Margaret’s intention of going to Paris, and in a sixth she says:—
“There is nothing will please me more than to be where you are, and I begin to admire Paris because you are in it.”
Both Newcastle and Margaret were afraid of the Queen, for in the next letter she says:—
“I know not what counsel to give concerning the Queen, but I fear she will take it ill if she be not made acquainted with our intentions. If you please to write a letter to her and send it to me, I will deliver it the day you send for me. I think it no policy to displease the Queen, for though she will do us no good she may do us harm. I send my maid about some business, and she and Lady Brown”—the wife of the English Ambassador—“shall agree about the other thing you spoke of.
“Pray consider that I have enemies.”
From the following letter it would appear that the Queen had been informed of the proposed marriage and that she was very angry. Obviously Margaret was expecting a wigging:—
“I have not been with the Queen yet. I hear she would have me acknowledge myself in a fault and she not to be in any, but it will be hard for me to accuse myself and to make myself guilty of a fault when I am innocent, but if it be the duty of a servant to obey all the commands of a mistress though it be against myself I will do it, if it be but to bring myself to the use of obedience against I am a wife. For the hindrance of our marriage I hope it will not be in their power. I am sure they cannot hinder me from loving.”
From the next missive it is clear that there had been an encounter between the Queen and Margaret and that a truce had been patched up merely for appearance’ sake. It is also pretty evident that the Queen would have stopped the marriage altogether if she had had the power to do so.
“I hope the Queen and I are friends. She saith she will seem so at least, but I find if it had been in her power she would have crossed us. I heard not of the letter, but she said to me that she had it in writing that I prayed you not to make her acquainted with our designs. My Lord since our affections are published, it will not be for our honours to delay our marriage. The Queen intends to come on Monday. I will wait on her to Paris and then I am at your service.”
In another letter she says:—
“I hope the Queen and I shall be very good friends again, and may be the better for the differences we have had. It was reported here that you would be with us before we could be with you, and be assured I will bring none to our wedding but those you please. I find to satisfy the opinion that we are not married already we must be married by one of the priests here, of which I think Cousens is the fittest. We shall not come till Monday.”
The marriage received the approval of Margaret’s mother; for she wrote:—[129]