One of the most notable frolics of Catherine of Braganza occurred towards the close of September 1671, when the Court was at Audley End, the residence of the Earl and Countess of Suffolk, where she and Charles II. were with much magnificence entertained for several days. While there she took it into her head to visit, disguised, Saffron Walden fair with Frances, Duchess of Richmond, and the Duchess of Buckingham. For this purpose they set forth in the costumes of country girls, in short red petticoats and waistcoats, but it seems that they had so overdone their disguise, that they were apparently taken for a strolling company of comedians, until the Queen, going into a booth to “buy a pair of yellow stockings for her sweetheart,” was discovered to be a foreigner. It was not very long, however, before the mystery was solved, as a person in the crowd, who had seen the Queen at a public State dinner, recognised her, and forthwith proclaimed his knowledge. This soon brought a crowd to get a glimpse of her Majesty and those accompanying her, with the result that the Court party, finding themselves discovered, at once took to their horses as quickly as they could; but “as many of the country people as had horses straightway mounted, with their wives or sweethearts behind them, to get as much gape as they could, and so attended the Queen and her company to the gates of Audley End, greatly to her confusion.”
In the same way Queen Mary and her ladies, disguised by their black masks, often made excursions to St. James’s fair—a practice mentioned in a letter of Lady Cavendish to her lord: “I went but once to the fair; Sir James gallanted us thither, and in so generous a humour, that he presented us all with fairings; the Queen’s fairing almost cost him twenty guineas. On our return we met my lord chamberlain, Lord Nottingham, in the cloisters of St. James’s Palace.”
CHAPTER XI
ROYAL GAMESTERS
Gambling, under one form or another, has always been a fashionable diversion at Court. Plutarch tells a story of Parysatis, mother of Cyrus, who played with the King, her husband, for the slave who had slain her son, and, as she excelled at playing a certain game with dice, she won him. History abounds in anecdotes of this kind, and we know how popular gambling was in the old days of the Roman Empire. Augustus, for instance, had the reputation of being fond of gambling, and Domitian, indeed, like most of the emperors, rarely passed a day without indulging in some gambling game.
Coming down to modern times, we find the practice more or less prevalent in most European Courts, having naturally met with greater patronage from some monarchs than others. Thus Alfonso of Castille tried to prevent gambling by founding orders of chivalry in which it was forbidden; and later, John of Castille, attempted to do the same by edict.
In spite of several lukewarm attempts to prevent it, gambling ever throve in France. Charles VI. lost one day five thousand livres to his brother, and in the reign of that monarch flourished the Hôtel de Nesle, which was notorious for its terrible gambling scandals, where—
“Maint gentilshommes tres haulx
Ont perdu armes et cheveaux,
Argent, honeuret seignourie.”
It is recorded how Philibert de Chalon, Prince d’Orange, who was in command at the siege of Florence, under the Emperor Charles V., actually gambled away the money which had been confided to him for the pay of the soldiers, and “was compelled, after a struggle of eleven months, to capitulate with those whom he might have forced to surrender.” But when so much encouragement was given to gambling by royalty, it is by no means surprising that the vice prevailed almost everywhere, and was not confined to any one country, especially when many of the French kings were said to patronise and applaud well-known cheats at the gaming-table.[82]
The so-called cards of Charles VI., which are now in the Bibliothèque du Roi of Paris, are in all probability the most ancient of any that are preserved in the various public collections of Europe. They are but seventeen, painted on a gold ground, and surrounded by a silver border, in which is a ribbon rolled spirally round done in points.