Royalty,blooms, and births.

After  watching the Trooping of the Colour yesterday, I went into the garden. The 'Lychnis Coronaria'  was in bloom, carmine flowers surrounded by grey silky leaves. Deeply beautiful.

With Royalty and beauty on my mind, I return to the story of Lucy Walter, mistress of the future Charles II. Lucy has become Colonel Robert Sydney's lover and they are in Holland, with the English court, which is in exile:

It was July, 1648. An air of serenity hung over The Hague, finding an echo in Lucy's heart. Robert Sydney pleased her well.

'I have money to spend, servants to command. Civil war may rage in England but it does not concern me one iota', Lucy remarked to her godmother.

The older woman smiled. Evidently, Lucy was blooming. 'I think you might be content to remain in Holland forever, Lucy'.

The following day, when she was dressing, Lucy made her mind up. She had to tell him soon. 

Already, her linen flax dress was pulling tightly against her round little belly. She embraced her body, protecting the new life growing within her. 

 That night, when Lucy was brushing her hair and her lover lolled on a lace pillow watching her, their eyes met.

'Robert, I have something to tell you'.

His heart leapt, but he would not betray his hopes yet. Instead, he asked, teasingly,

'Are you going to say you no longer love me?'

For a moment Lucy did not understand his joke. 'I love you to distraction', she protested, though this was not strictly true, for Lucy was capable of giving and receiving love, while still keeping her heart for herself.    

'Whatever you have to tell me, whisper it in my ear, Lucy, that we two alone will share your secret.'

And so, with her lips pressed against his ear, Robert Sydney learnt that Lucy bore his child, due in the spring of the following year.

Lucy and her loves.

'May I introduce Lucy Walter?'  asked Lady Herbert.

Lucy found herself gazing into a pair of the deepest brown eyes she had ever seen. Whilst she could not claim the man was handsome, yet his presence was compelling. Furthermore, she had felt him watching her every move that evening.

'Robert Sydney at your sevice, Ma'am'.

'Colonel Robert Sydney', added Lady Herbert.

Lucy felt her hand being grasped firmly, her pulse quickening and a faint flush spreading across her cheeks.

Noticing her consternation, her companion extended his arm. 'It is somewhat warm in here. May I suggest we repair to the balcony?'

Casting an apologetic glance in the direction of her godmother, who smiled fondly at her, Lucy allowed her new acquaintance to escort her through the large doors at the far end of the ballroom and outside into the cool evening air.

Candlelight from crystal chandeliers spilled out through the long windows, shining on the canal below.There was just enough light for Lucy to see something was amusing Robert Sydney.

'So. I am in the presence of Lucy Walter. Shame that my brother, Algernon, was forced to put duty to his country before his own pleasure'.

Lucy's heart sank.  It was as she feared. 'Algernon Sydney?' she whispered.

'Aye, the very same Algernon Sydney.'

Seeing Lucy's distress, he pulled her to him, roughly.

'The Algernon Sydney who paid your father fifty broad pieces so that he could own you'.

Lucy bit her lip and lowered her head.

'Don't play the innocent with me', he warned.

 Putting his finger beneath her chin, he forced her face upwards and was about to lower his mouth on hers when instinct came to her rescue. Robert Sydney was too large for her to push away. Instead, she brought her foot down firmly on his toes.

Yelping, he fell back against the wall.  Lucy dare not look for a moment, but when she did she saw that Colonel Sydney was laughing helplessly.

After a while he recovered himself. 'I'll say this for you, Lucy Walter, you are a spirited wench'. 

The Lovely Lucy Walter

When I published my novel about Lucy Walter, my husband asked, 'Do you  think anyone is going to be interested in her?' As it happened, many people were.

Lucy is believed to be the ancestress of Diana, Princess of Wales. Lucy's portrait is in Althrop, the ancestral home of the Spencer family and another portrait of Lucy hangs in Scolton Manor, now a museum, ten miles out of Haverfordwest.

When the book came out, the local bookshop was crowded with people purporting to be related to Lucy. Many of them came from Rosemarket, a village a few miles out of Haverfordwest, where the Walter family spent some time in the  'Great House'. 

I'm sometimes asked how closely have I kept to Lucy's  lifestory.  I have researched in the Record Office, Haverfordwest and in the National Library of Wales and I have read contemporary accounts of her life. My novel follows Lucy's story in chronological order, tying it in with Charles's life as far as I can trace it. Therefore, I call my work 'faction': fiction based on fact. (I have made up intimate conversations, but I follow Lucy and the Court to The Hague, keeping the dates correct, for example).

I have a theory, and facts of a sort, to support my belief that Lucy and Charles were married in Saint Thomas a Beckett Church, Haverfordwest. Why was the Marriage Register for that particular year requisitioned by Parliament and returned with the relevant page missing?  

But problems arise: When Lucy was eighteen, her rogue of a father sold her to the Puritan Colonel, Algernon Sydney, for fifty broad pieces of gold. Before Algernon could claim Lucy he was called away by his regiment and she was passed to his brother, Colonel Robert Sydney.  It could now be argued that Charles and Lucy met and fell in love in The Hague. Later, she gave birth to their son.

Charles acknowledged James as his son and supported Lucy, James and her daughter, Mary, whom she had by another man.

I wanted to write about Lucy. I felt her presence strongly when working on the book. Lucy died in her late twenties, a prostitute, destitute, on the streets of Paris and Charles paid for her funeral.  He had many loves and mistresses, the most famous of whom was Nell Gwynn, the orange seller, but His first love was his Welsh mistress, Lucy Walter,  and I wanted it acknowledged.