King Charles II by Fraser Antonia

Author:Fraser, Antonia [Fraser, Antonia]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781780220680
Publisher: Orion
Published: 2011-06-15T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

A Very Near Alliance

‘I do believe we are not so tied, as if we received satisfaction over the principal matter of the sea, there is scope sufficient for a very near alliance.’

Charles II to Madame in 1668, on the subject of France

At some point late in 1668 King Charles decided formally to pursue an alliance with his cousin Louis XIV by any means that might prove useful (not necessarily of the most honourable or open). As has been mentioned, Charles II had veered towards France since the beginning of his reign, just as he had backed away from the Dutch. He had hoped for French neutrality during the Dutch War. But this decision represented something new.

His cynicism towards his own Parliament was growing, and the French initiative cannot altogether be separated from it. The secret feelings of such a wary character as Charles II must always be analysed with care; nevertheless, the distinct impression is gained that he saw in the French alliance, from the first, one solution to his domestic insecurity. Charles the politician was taking unto himself the maxim of Machiavelli: ‘Every government, whether it be republican or of the princely type, should consider beforehand what adverse times may befall and on what people it may have to rely in times of adversity….’ It was a precept which King Charles I, unassisted in his hour of tribulation by any major power, should have heeded. His son intended to be warier.

The character of Louis XIV also exercised a baleful fascination over Charles II – as indeed it did over the whole of Europe. The two monarchs, who had of course known each other in youth, were not destined to meet after that abortive encounter at Fuenterrabia in 1659. Yet the personality and reputation of Louis XIV represented the living challenge to Charles II, much as that of Oliver Cromwell represented the dead. Critics detecting weakness in Charles were quick to point out strength in Louis – Buckingham was a notable example. Pepys reports a conversation round the dinner table in November 1668 in which ‘the greatness of the King of France’ was the subject of much favourable comment: ‘his being fallen into the right way of making that Kingdom great, which none of his Ancestors did before’.1 There is evidence that King Charles did not care for this atmosphere of odious comparison.

Rationally he was aware that his cousin of France enjoyed the perquisites of absolute monarchy, while he himself had to jog along with something the French Ambassador had critically described in 1664 as ‘at the bottom … very far from being a monarchy’. Charles II would have been less than human not to have resented the contemporary admiration for Louis XIV in view of his considerable efforts to make his own kingdom great. The incident of the Persian Vest, which shows up King Charles for once in a slightly foolish light, is only explicable in terms of his obsession with King Louis.2

Fashion as such never much interested Charles II after 1660.

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