The Forest - Edward Rutherfurd [228]
But to her surprise the king now addressed her earnestly. ‘I’d have you know’, he said, ‘that you will have no cause to fear trouble from me on that account. It is Parliament that makes these rules, not I. Indeed, within a year or two I hope, Madam, to give you and your good friends liberty to worship as you please, so long as all Christians may have equal dispensation.’ He smiled. ‘You may have meeting houses at Lymington, Ringwood, Fordingbridge and I shall be glad of it.’
‘The Catholics, too, might worship?’
‘Yes. But if all faiths are free, is that so bad?’
‘Truly, Sire’ – she hesitated – ‘I do not know.’
‘Think on it, Dame Alice,’ he said and gave her a look which, at another time and place, might almost have charmed even her. ‘You may trust me.’
In his desire for religious freedom, so that the Catholics might have their churches again, Charles II was entirely sincere. For the time being. That he had also, that very summer, signed a secret treaty with his cousin Louis XIV promising to adopt the Roman Catholic faith and enforce it in England as soon as possible was a fact of which neither Alice, nor Parliament, nor even the king’s close council had the slightest inkling. In return for this Charles was to receive from Louis a handsome yearly income. Whether the king was serious and really meant to betray his Protestant English subjects, or whether he was duping his French cousin to get some more money will never be known, except to God. Since, like so many of the Stuarts, the merry monarch was a habitual liar, he probably didn’t know himself.
So while the idea of trusting the king would have caused hilarity in any courtier, Alice had no reason to suppose that, for her dissenting friends, he might not be offering a genuine hope.
‘And now, Dame Alice,’ he said, ‘do not forget that you came here to ask me for a favour.’
Alice was very brief and straightforward. She explained the lawsuit with the Duke of York and assured the king: ‘I’m sure the duke believes I am hiding money and there is nothing I can say to persuade him otherwise. I come to you, Sire, with this little girl’ – she indicated Betty – ‘whose interests I am bound to protect, to ask for help. The matter is as simple and as plain as that.’
‘You ask me to believe my brother is mistaken?’
‘He is bound to hate me, Sire.’
‘As am I. And that you are honest?’ To this Alice could only bow her head. The king nodded. ‘I believe you are honest, Madam,’ he concluded. ‘Although whether I can help you remains to be seen.’
He was just turning back to the ladies when Alice caught sight of a solitary rider out on the heath. He was coming towards them at a trot. She supposed that it must be one of the forest keepers but as he drew closer she observed that it was a youngish man, in his middle twenties she guessed, whom she had never seen before. He was tall, with dark good looks. A very handsome young man indeed. Betty was staring at him open-mouthed. Alice observed the king turn to Howard enquiringly and saw Howard murmur something to him. She noticed that the king looked, just for a moment, a little awkward, but that he quickly recovered himself.
Who, she wondered, could the young man be?
Thomas Penruddock did not often come to the Forest. When his cousins at Hale, whom he was visiting the previous day, had told him that the king was to be at Bolderwood he had hesitated to go there. He was a proud young man and had no wish to risk further humiliation. It was only after his cousins had begged him to go that he had finally set out, with some misgivings, in the direction of the royal party.
Although the Penruddocks had managed to hold on to the house and part of the estate at Compton Chamberlayne, the years since his father’s death had been hard. There had been no fine clothes for young Thomas; the horses were mostly sold; nor were there any tutors. Side by side with his mother, the boy had worked to keep the family going. If there were lawyers to see in Sarum, which always particularly distressed her, he would accompany her. Often he would work in the fields; he