After we had feasted, the King said there would be a small personal ceremony of marriage. We were married it was true, but only by proxy and he wished to be present at his own ceremony. It would be quiet and quick…but nevertheless a ceremony of marriage.

So this was performed in the great hall of the city and everyone could be satisfied that we had taken our vows to each other personally.

I was appalled by the state of my apartments and the bed was certainly no better than the one I had slept in on the previous night. How strange that was, for this was my marriage bed which I was to share with the King. Were the English savages? How should I ever grow accustomed to living in such conditions?

Mamie helped me undress and dismissed the rest of the women so that we could be alone. I could see she was still shaken by the incident in the coach.

“It was wrong,” she said. “You should not have insisted.”

“I do insist and I shall go on insisting that you ride in the carriage with me as you did in France.”

“We are not in France now,” she reminded me. “When you live in a country you must conform to that country’s customs…particularly if you are its Queen.”

“I shall conform to none…but my own. I will tell you what is wrong with these people. They are heretics…and that means they are little better than savages.”

“Be careful,” said Mamie.

“Am I the Queen or am I not?”

“You are the King’s consort, which makes you a queen, but your title comes through him.”

“You talk as though you are on their side.”

“I am always on your side. You know that well enough.”

Then we fell into each other’s arms and hugged each other.

She was very serious. “You know that tonight you will share the King’s bed,” she reminded me. “You know what is expected of you?”

I nodded.

I saw the worry in her eyes. “You know you have to love your husband,” she said.

“I am not sure that I am going to do that. This afternoon in the coach I hated him.”

“Oh, my little Queen, I can see trouble for you if you do not control your rages.”

“My rage worked well today did it not? You rode in the carriage because I insisted.”

“I think it would have been better if I had quietly alighted and murmured apologies about not understanding the English customs. The King would have understood and that would have been an end to the matter.”

“The matter ended in triumph for me.”

“Let us hope that we have seen the end of it.”

“What is wrong with you? Why are you different today? You would have laughed in the old days.”

“These are not the old days. Try to remember that we are in a new country…and remember, too, that from now on it is our country.”

“I shall change it.”

“You talk like a child.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Do I? My mother and the Pope himself have told me that I must change it. Are they children?”

“Oh take care, dear child, take care.”

I could not shake her out of her gravity, which was so unusual with her. I should have been quite angry with her if I hadn’t known that the change in her was due to her concern for me.

But she could not rob me of my triumph over the carriage incident. I had won. There was no denying that. I did realize though that my own mother would have taken a very different view of my tantrums. I should have been lectured, punished and denied what I had demanded if that incident had taken place in France.

Now I had the night ahead to think of.

How different this from the royal coucher at the Louvre. The King was undressed by only two of his gentlemen which would have been considered very odd indeed and quite unroyal by the standards prevailing in France.

He came to me in that shabby old room and looked round it. At first I thought he was going to comment on its shabbiness—and perhaps apologize for it—but it seemed he was only making sure that we were alone.

Then he went to the door and locked it.

He looked different in his night attire—not nearly so formidable as he had in the carriage. He seemed to have forgotten all that now and in any case he had not appeared to be displeased with me but with Mamie, which struck me as very unfair.

He lay down on the bed and made me lie beside him; then he put his arms about me and began to tell me how happy he was that I was there and how my appearance pleased him and that it was our duty to have children.

I listened and waited.

I was passive in his embrace and found I was able to endure what followed with a certain fortitude for I knew that it was part of the duties which were required of me.

I lay bewildered afterward and wondered what people like Madame de Chevreuse, Buckingham and Holland found so exciting about it.

The King seemed rather pleased. I was tired out by all the emotions of the day and fell asleep quickly.

In the morning when I awoke the King had already left the bed and the door was unlocked. My ladies came in to help me with my toilette and Mamie looked at me questioningly.

I nodded. “Yes. It happened.”

“And you…?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “It was no worse than I expected.”

Mamie said: “I knew the King was kindly.”

But she continued to look uneasy and I guessed she was remembering the incident in the coach.

I burst out: “I don’t like England. I don’t like the King. I want to go home.”

“Hush,” said Mamie. “Don’t let anyone hear you say that.”

Then I threw myself at her and refused to let go; she rocked me as she might a baby. I wanted to tell her how only she made it bearable here, how I was tired of being the Queen of England and wanted to go back to being merely a Princess of France.

“I want to go home!” I cried.

“Hush,” she said. “Don’t be a baby.”

We spent another night in Canterbury which was very like the first and I was glad to leave the dingy old apartments for the fresh country air. I had to admit that the landscape was very beautiful with green meadows and majestic trees. I felt better when we were riding away from Canterbury and although I did not like my husband very much, I hoped I should not have to see a great deal of him. During the days I would be with Mamie and my ladies and we could dance and sing together and share our jokes and contempt for our new country while we talked nostalgically about the one we had left. Yes, I thought I could bear that.

We came to Gravesend where we were to stay as the guests of the Countess of Lennox. She was waiting to greet us and paid great homage to the King; then she turned to me and bowed very low. She said she was greatly honored that we should be her guests and added that she had grave news which she thought should be imparted to the King immediately.

He looked very serious and she went on: “It is the plague, Your Majesty. It will be most unsafe for you and the Queen to travel through the streets of London.”

My husband said: “But the people will be expecting us. They will want their processions and all the pageantry which goes with them.”

“Nevertheless that is how it is, my lord. You will hear more of this but I thought I should tell you without delay.”

How serious the King was! He never seemed to laugh spontaneously. Perhaps that was why I found it so hard to like him.

Now instead of the pleasant welcome I had been looking forward to there was great concern and people were gathering round the King deciding what should be done.

I was taken to an apartment to rest and Mamie came with me. While we were there Father Sancy came to us and said he wished to have a word with me, so Mamie retired and left me alone with my confessor, which was the last thing I wanted.

He then began reprimanding me for eating meat in Canterbury and I said what I had prepared myself to say which was that I had only been following the customs of my new country.

“Following the customs of heretics!” he thundered. “That is a fine way to begin! What will you do? Deny the true Faith because it is the custom of savages among whom you live?”

“That is very different from eating meat, Father.”

“You have gone against the laws of Holy Church.”

“I shall not do it again, Father.”

He seemed faintly mollified. His eyes shone with zeal and as he looked round the room his expression changed to one of contempt, although the apartment was an improvement on those I had had at Dover and Canterbury.

“And now,” he went on, “there is consternation about your ride through the streets of London. Plague, they say. Let me tell you, my lady, there is constant plague in this accursed country and there will be until these misguided people come to the Truth. It is God’s way of punishing them. It was a sad day for us when we came to this land.”

“My mother did not seem to think so. Nor did the Holy Father.”

Father Sancy wagged a finger at me. “The Holy Father gave the dispensation most reluctantly, and for a reason.” He brought his face close to mine. “The work must begin without delay. You have been chosen for a great task, my lady, and that is to lead these people back to the true Faith.”

I tried to look solemn. I was longing for him to go. There was so much I had to say to Mamie. I cast down my eyes and folded my hands demurely together. What should I wear for my procession into London? I was asking myself.

“And,” he went on, his voice growing louder, “you will not do it by eating meat on a fast day.”

The simplest way to be rid of him was not to argue although it was hard to resist the temptation to do so. I murmured a prayer with him and he left.

Mamie came running in.

“I have heard that we have to go to London by barge which will prevent our having to go through the plague-ridden streets,” she cried. “And you are to wear green. The King will wear green also. I suppose it must be an emblem of spring.”

Then I dressed and we laughed as I told her about Father Sancy and I added: “If I want to eat meat, I shall eat meat, I shall be ordered by no one, Mamie, neither priest nor husband.”

“You are a wild rebellious creature,” she said, “and,” she added, “you always were.”

“And always will be,” I assured her.

“We shall wait and see,” said Mamie, which made us laugh because that was what she used to say to me when I was very young.

The next morning I went with my husband and our attendants onto the state barge. The river seemed to be crowded with craft of all kinds because many of the nobility who could had come to join the escort into London, and as we stepped on board there was a volley of fifteen hundred shot which was quite deafening.

I enjoyed sailing down the river. The King beside me seemed very benign though still serious. I wondered if he ever laughed out loud. It should be another of my tasks to make him do so, but that appeared to be almost as formidable as turning Protestant England into a Catholic country. I loved the big ships of the Navy which the King pointed out to me with pride as we passed. I had never seen anything like them in France and as we passed them and they fired their ordnance, it was the most thrilling moment that had come to me since my arrival in England.

It was late afternoon when I saw the great Tower of London looming up before us—not beautiful as our buildings are, but formidable and very impressive. The gay flags fluttering from its towers looked rather incongruous and as our barge approached the guns fired so loudly that I almost cried out in half terror, half delight.

The King was amused. He smiled faintly, which was a good deal for him to do; the riverbanks were crowded with people and they were shouting “Long live our little Queen,” which my husband translated for me and which so pleased me that I waved my hand in acknowledgment. They seemed pleased by that, and as the King still wore that rather reluctant smile I guessed I was doing what was right.

As we progressed along the river we came right into the city and here the crowds were even greater. People not only lined the riverbanks but had climbed on ships lying in the river and they were shouting and waving from ships’ hulls and craft of all kinds. There was one event which might have been disastrous and it happened just as we were passing. One of the ships capsized suddenly. I suppose too many people had scrambled onto it. It went down into the water and I heard afterward that there were more than a hundred people on board.

I heard screams and cries of consternation and the attention of the crowd was turned from us to the people struggling in the water. Fortunately there were plenty there to effect a rescue and everyone was eventually brought safely out of the river and all they suffered really was a terrible fright and a dunking.