A Royal Love Match Read online

  She was always disparaging her and finding fault with everything she did, but fortunately Alissia’s father did not listen to her.

  That his daughter looked so like his first wife made her perfect in his eyes in whatever she did or said.

  So he merely ignored the sharp remarks which his new wife contributed to the conversation.

  Alissia was, of course, only a schoolgirl.

  She was still receiving lessons from her various teachers, so it was natural to leave her behind when they went to parties and it was only when her father insisted that she accompanied them.

  *

  Then suddenly in 1658, when Alissia was only just sixteen, everything changed.

  At first no one in Pershore was that interested when they discovered that Oliver Cromwell, the Lord Protector of England, was in ill health.

  They heard various reports of his illness, but even when these became increasingly frequent, no one seemed much concerned.

  Then at the end of August an extraordinary gale hit the country.

  It swept across England and the locals believed it was a warning from God.

  Trees, even huge oaks, were uprooted and the roofs were blown from houses and ships were sunk at sea.

  Church steeples fell, crashing down into the streets and people were swept off their feet and characteristically the English saw the havoc of this gale as a warning of still more disasters yet to come.

  “Ye mark me words,” an old man in Pershore said, “there be real trouble after this. Hell on earth, I shouldn’t wonder!”

  Alissia felt sad when her favourite lilac and acacia trees crashed to the ground. Some big oaks fell across the drive and had to be cut up with a great deal of trouble and expense.

  Oliver Cromwell died on the 3rd September 1658 and his successor as Lord Protector of England, his son Richard Cromwell, became known as ‘Tumbledown Dick’ and was described by everyone as totally unfit to rule in his father’s place.

  He was summarily dismissed from his office by the Army after only six months and an arrangement was made to settle his debts on condition he left England for Paris.

  Just as soon as he had departed, the Army dissolved Parliament and a Committee of Safety was established to control the country.

  But the situation in London became unstable.

  Finally General Monck, who was in command of the Army in Scotland, made up his mind to come South to end the disorder and summon a new Parliament.

  It was immediately and inevitably decided to recall Prince Charles from exile.

  He had been crowned King Charles II in Scotland in 1651, and was now declared King at Westminster early in May 1660.

  On his birthday, 29th May, King Charles arrived in London.

  The Army brandished their swords and shouted out with inexpressible joy.

  His way was strewn with flowers.

  Bells rang and the streets were hung with tapestries.

  Fountains ran with wine.

  The Lord Mayor, Aldermen and Members of the City Companies wearing their fine liveries with chains of gold, together with most of the Nobility, greeted him.

  Music was heard in all the streets and many stood in the Strand and blessed God.

  Without a single drop of blood being shed, the very Army that had rebelled against him was now welcoming him back in a fantastic manner that took his breath away.

  It was a Restoration that had never been witnessed in history before.

  And it opened a new life not only for King Charles II but for all the people over whom he reigned.

  CHAPTER TWO

  When the news reached Pershore, the Abbey bells were rung with enormous gusto.

  People then covered their windows and doors with pieces of coloured paper or material.

  Flags appeared in the streets.

  It was then that Alissia’s stepmother, Lady Hester, firmly declared,

  “At least we can now go back to London where we belong.”

  Her husband looked at her in surprise.

  “London?” he queried.

  “Yes, of course, Bruce. Don’t be so stupid,” Lady Hester replied. “Nancy is nineteen and has had no chance until now of meeting anyone of importance, you can hardly want her to be an old maid.”

  “Which is not very likely at nineteen,” he answered her somewhat feebly.

  “Well I have no intention of staying here, Bruce, when after all these years everything exciting is happening in London.”

  “But we have nowhere to live when we arrive there, my dearest.”

  “I will soon find somewhere. If you would like to stay here and arrange for someone else to manage the farm, I will go ahead myself to London and do all the dirty work of finding somewhere for us to live.”

  Bruce replied rather limply that it would be all too much for her – and of course she should not travel alone.

  But Lady Hester was insistent.

  The whole house was turned topsy-turvy while she decided what she and Nancy would take with them – and what would have to be left behind.

  “Naturally you can bring us whatever else we may require later, but I intend to take quite a number of items with me I know I shall need and the sooner I can find a really comfortable house in a fashionable part of London the better.”

  It was obvious that she was not including Alissia in her plans, but her father had no intention of leaving his adored daughter behind.

  It was several more days before he realised that his wife had now decided it was perfectly safe for them to reassume his ancestral title – the Earldom of Dalwaynnie.

  She had already informed the servants that in future they were to address him as ‘my Lord’.

  Bruce had learnt with sorrow only a year ago that his father had died and now his elder brother, of whom he was particularly fond, had been killed while fighting in the Scottish Army.

  “In point of fact to be honest with you I am rather ashamed of myself,” he murmured to Alissia. “I was safe and happy here in our lovely home, but after your darling mother died I suppose I should have become a Scot again.”

  “You helped your country when you could, Papa, and I am certain that the secret reports you sent to Scotland were of great use to the Royalists.”

  “I did my best, Alissia, but at the same time I feel rather guilty about using my father’s title only now, when he did everything in his power to bring King Charles back to the throne.”

  “As indeed you did too in your own way,” Alissia chipped in. “Anyway, Papa, it is a mistake to always be looking back. Now we have to look forward. Stepmama is right about that.”

  “Well, you must really enjoy yourself in London at any rate, my darling. You have never been there and I will have a great deal to show you. I was always very fond of it as a City when I was a young man.”

  It became more and more clear that her stepmother was making every effort to leave Alissia behind.

  “Nancy and I will go on ahead,” she persisted, “and find a house. Then, of course, Bruce dearest, you must join us.”

  It was perfectly obvious that she was not including Alissia.

  But after a moment Bruce merely commented,

  “If you take the best carriage, I am wondering what Alissia and I will travel in.”

  “I thought perhaps you would come on horseback,” replied Lady Hester. “I know you would never wish to be parted from your beloved horses.”

  There was a little pause and then she added,

  “Alissia can come later. I am sure we can arrange for someone coming from Pershore to give her a lift.”

  There was silence for a moment before Bruce came back firmly,

  “Either I have a house with all my family in it or I stay here!”

  His eyes met his wife’s.

  She realised that he was serious and it would be a mistake to continue arguing with him.

  “Very well,” she conceded, “so I will be expecting you and Alissia. At the same time you must not come too soon in ca
se I encounter difficulties in finding exactly what I require.”

  Lady Hester and Nancy departed for London in the very best carriage and Alissia and her father were left alone together in the house.

  A week later he was visited by a Scottish lawyer who had travelled South to see him.

  “I was half afraid, my Lord,” he began, “that you would have left here and gone to London, everyone I know is travelling there for the Coronation and I quite expected to find an empty house on my arrival.”

  “I am waiting to hear from my wife when she finds the right accommodation for us,” responded Bruce, “but I imagine that every hole and corner will be filled to watch the King crowned in glory!”

  The lawyer laughed.

  “I bring you good news, my Lord, and you will find it will be easy to afford the accommodation you need now that you can well afford to pay for it.”

  He handed Bruce an account of the assets that had been accumulated by his father over the years.

  When he read it he was absolutely astounded that there was so much money left in his father’s estate – in fact it was more than double his expectations.

  He was now, as the Head of the family, a very rich man indeed.

  “I am very much hoping, my Lord, that you will be coming to Scotland soon,” said his visitor. “There are so many of your Clan who remember you as a boy and who wish to see you again before they leave this world.”

  “And I would like to see them,” agreed Bruce.

  It certainly made life much easier for him now he had so much money.

  So he set in motion the improvements he wished to make on his estate in the country and he realised he could afford what would be considered suitable accommodation for his family in London.

  However, he was a Scot.

  And he thought it would be a mistake to let his wife spend every penny she could take from him on clothes – or on entertaining people who she considered would be useful to them socially at Court.

  However he did recognise that Nancy and Alissia must make new friends and be known to the social world and that was a major obligation the moment King Charles arrived back in London.

  Bruce had heard various stories of the vast amount of entertainment that was already taking place in London and he was certain that his wife and Nancy would want to be in the thick of it.

  Equally he had to think of the future.

  He had already told himself that he was happier in the country than he could ever be in a City and as soon as possible he would return to Pershore.

  Realising that this was what her Papa was thinking, Alissia did not like to disillusion him.

  Nancy and her mother had never for one moment stopped complaining that the country was so dull and that there were no important people to entertain.

  Worcestershire had never been, they pointed out, a County where many aristocrats lived and they quoted the Counties around London with large houses inhabited by ancient families, who had always been a part of London’s social life that extended all the way to the Throne.

  “Now that our King Charles is back,” Lady Hester droned on, “we will stand a chance of meeting our relatives as well as the social figures who have helped to govern our country in the past. They have created the correct Society into which I would hope Nancy will marry successfully.”

  Without her saying so, Alissia knew this meant she wanted a title for her daughter at least as significant as her own.

  One thought often occurred to her, although she had been too tactful to say so.

  It was that Lady Hester would never have married her father if she had not learnt that secretly he was the son of the Earl of Dalwaynnie.

  She had admitted once that he had confided in her because she knew some of his relations.

  Alissia was alert enough to calculate that from that moment Lady Hester clung on to him and finally she lured him into offering her marriage.

  Alissia had to admit, however, that her father was not as lonely or unhappy as he had been at first when her mother died.

  He was undoubtedly very fond of Lady Hester.

  At the same time he was not in love with her as she remembered him being in love with her Mama – their eyes would light up when they saw each other.

  The moment he came into the house after being out in the grounds he used to call out her name and they never spoke to each other without a soft caressing note in their voices.

  Alissia knew this denoted love, a love which came from their hearts and souls and had been blessed by God.

  She was well aware that this note was no longer there when her father spoke to his new wife.

  ‘If only Mama had lived,’ she mused to herself, ‘how different it would all be.’

  But she knew it would be a mistake to say anything to her father.

  She had made no protest when Lady Hester swept off to London in the family’s very best carriage drawn by four magnificent horses with Nancy in her smartest clothes sitting beside her, and with some of the servants following behind in another vehicle.

  Alissia knew there were a great number of items in it which Lady Hester had removed from the house.

  And they actually belonged to her as her mother had left most of them to her in her will.

  But she thought it would be most inappropriate to make a scene about it as it would only upset her father.

  However, she had a suspicion that the collection of miniatures Lady Hester had chosen to take with her were valuable – as were a number of pieces of silver from the safe.

  They and the pearls which her mother had always worn might easily be sold.

  She did try to tell herself that her stepmother was only taking care of them in case there was a burglary, but at the same time she resented anything that had belonged to her mother being removed from the family home.

  As soon as Lady Hester and Nancy had gone, her father began making sure that the estate continued to run the way he wanted when he was to be absent in London.

  Fortunately most of the workers had been with him for many years and they were all men he could trust and who he knew would not stoop to steal from him.

  He commented to Alissia,

  “An estate, like an Army, needs someone to lead it. If I am not present, I am frightened things may go to rack and ruin.”

  “I am sure they will not happen, Papa, although we may have to live in London part of the year, we can always come back here in the spring so that you can organise the planting of the crops.”

  Her father had smiled at her.

  “You are so right, my dearest. That is exactly what we will do, unless, of course, you have fallen in love and married some handsome and charming man who will make you even happier than your poor old father has managed to do.”

  “You have made me very happy, Papa, and I love being here. Like you, I do rather dread starting a new life in London that will be so entirely different from the one we have always loved so much in the country.”

  “How do you know I dread that?” he enquired.

  “I can see it in your eyes and hear it in your voice, Papa, but if London is really disappointing and we are both unhappy, we can come back here. After all the house will be well looked after by the old couple you are putting in as caretakers, and I know that Jason is thought to be the best farmer in the neighbourhood and will be an excellent part-time manager.”

  Yet, when eventually the letter came from London that they were to join her stepmother immediately, Alissia knew that her father was saying goodbye to the country with tears in his eyes.

  Lady Hester of course was now called the Countess of Dalwaynnie and she was correct in asserting that her husband should be in London with her for the Coronation.

  She had written to say with glee that she had met His Majesty the King.

  She had told him how much Bruce had done for him when he had been abroad in exile and of his secret reports to Scotland on the activities of the Cromwellians.

  King Charles wanted to
reward everyone who had supported him and he had therefore offered Lady Hester Apartments in the Palace of Whitehall until she was able to find a house that suited her.

  The Coronation was unusual in that the King paid a great deal of attention to the wishes of the populace.

  On the eve of his Coronation, the King took part in the traditional procession from the Tower of London to Whitehall.

  It was officially described as a ‘spectacle’, pleasing to the people and actually followed the same route as for the mediaeval Kings such as Richard II.

  Needless to say the procession meant an early start and all the dignitaries were told they were to be mustered on Tower Hill at eight o’clock in the morning.

  They were also told, which Alissia found amusing, that their mounts were not to be ‘unruly or stinking.’

  Alissia and her father were delighted by the idea of riding in the Royal procession, but the new Countess of Dalwaynnie and Nancy complained bitterly as neither of them were good riders.

  Alissia in fact enjoyed the Coronation more than anything else.

  As the Foot Guards of the King passed them with their red and white feathers on their heads, she applauded them strenuously.

  She felt perhaps that they had suffered terribly in the last years – more than those who could afford to escape the Cromwellians and avoid suffering under their harsh regime.

  The triumphal arches under which the King passed were intended to represent the Crown emerging from its hiding-place.

  One that delighted Alissia most depicted a woman dressed to represent a rebellion. She wore a crimson robe crawling with snakes and held a blood-stained sword in her hand.

  At every turn on the road it was emphasised that the King stood for stability and for the social order which had been neglected for so long.

  The best arch and the one which thrilled Alissia the most was supported by a woman who addressed the King with the following words,

  “Great Sir, the star which at your happy birth

  Joy’d with his beams at noon, the wandering earth

  Did with auspicious lustre then presage

  The glittering plenty of this golden age – ”

  A great deal of money had been spent on replacing the regalia that was essential to every Coronation – much of it had disappeared or been melted down during the rule of Cromwell. In fact the total cost of replacement was over thirty thousand pounds.