April 18, 2023 • 43 mins
Before he was King Charles II, Charles was a prince in exile. His relationship with a young woman named Lucy Walter and their subsequent child would have ripple effects through English history.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grimm
and Mild from Aaron Mankie.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Listener discretion advised.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Let's begin our story In Paris sixteen fifty eight. A
woman only twenty eight years old is on her deathbed,
dying of a venereal disease. An English churchman is with
her in her remaining few hours, allowing her to make
a general confession or a Christian prayer of repentance for sins.
(00:46):
An English churchman would know these prayers well, Almighty and
most Merciful Father, we have aired and strayed from thy
ways like lost sheep. We have followed too much the
devices and desires of our own hearts. That's read by
an Anglican congregation and mass during worship. But what did
(01:07):
this woman specifically have to confess? Maybe her cause of
death can provide you with a clue. But the extent
of the words that she would utter to the priest
went far beyond simply the sins of lust. She told
the churchmen that there existed a black box, and inside
(01:29):
of it one could find documentary proof that years earlier
she had married Charles, the second King of England. The
story I just told you of the deathbed confession of
the mysterious Black Box. Proof is likely highly dramatized, but
(01:51):
Lucy Walter, the woman in question, was the very real
mistress of the King of England, and the story of
her alleged confession would have a very real impact on
the country at large. Lucy's confession isn't actually the beginning
of our story, but it's also not the end. A
(02:14):
confession of a secret marriage would be enough to cause
a scandal, but the confession of a marriage while an
acknowledged illegitimate son lived was enough to send the monarchy
into turmoil. The churchman from the tale was also very real,
(02:34):
but John Couson, future Bishop of Durham, would pass in
sixteen seventy two. Dying with him would be the only
chance of finding this infamous black box and proving once
and for all that Lucy's son, James Scott, the Duke
of Monmouth, was not an illegitimate son, but in fact
(02:57):
the King's legitimate, rightful heir to the throne. Notably, the
story of Lucy's death comes from the memoirs of James
the second, younger brother to Lucy's lover, King Charles the
Second and it's a memoir in which she by and
large is portrayed in a rather shameful light. It will
(03:19):
become clearer as to why that might have been the
case later, but it's a good reminder that when it
comes to Lucy's life we could be careful to take
things with a grain of salt. In a real history
is written by the victor's moment, we have to ask,
did Lucy even truly die of a quote disease incident
(03:42):
to her profession, as James the Second put it, or
as James was fighting the Duke of Monmouth foreclaim to
the throne, did he really just want his enemy to
be known as the son of a whore? The story
of Lucy Walter and Charles the Second has all the
makings of a really good scandal. Royalty seduction, bastards, secret marriages,
(04:08):
a quest for a fabled box, and, since this is
the English monarchy, an eventual beheading. As with any scandal,
though no matter how important the participants are, at the
heart of it is a real messy group of people
making real messy decisions. I'm Danish Schwartz and this is
(04:34):
Noble Blood. Now to introduce the players in this scandal
when there's a king involved, I imagine that ladies first
doesn't really apply. So let's start with King Charles the
(04:55):
Second of England. Charles the Second's father, Charles the First
was an infamously stuffy and unlikable man, so unlikable, in fact,
that it cost him his head to very very succinctly
sum up the English Civil War, but his wife, the
French Princess Henrietta Maria, was practically his opposite. Charles the
(05:20):
First was twenty four and she was fifteen at the
time of their vows. He wanted a submissive, traditional queen,
while Henrietta had no such intentions of being one. She
had been raised in the comparatively liberal environment of the
French court. Charles the First was the head of the
(05:43):
Church of England, and Henrietta Maria was a Roman Catholic
at a time when religious strife was particularly contentious. The
couple's biggest similarity at the time of their marriage seemed
to be that both were fairly onely disliked. Parliament and
the English public were very wary when the king announced
(06:06):
that he would be marrying a Roman Catholic woman, and
due to religious restrictions, she was never even formally crowned
in a coronation ceremony. In a situation like this of
two very different parents, odds are that children would take
more after one parent than the other, and in the
(06:28):
young Charles's case, he took after his mother. The Bishop
Burnet once reflected that quote. The Queen Mother, referring to
Henrietta Maria, observed often that the great defects of the
late king's breeding and the stiff roughness that was in him,
by which he disobliged very many and did often prejudice
(06:49):
his affairs very much. So she gave strict orders that
the young princes should be bred to wonderful civility end quote.
Civility may seem a misplaced choice of wording here, but
in this case it's a reference back to its archaic meaning,
which was to be learned in the humanities. And so
(07:12):
the future Charles the second would take after his mother
very much. By design as his mother's favorite, the young
Charles spent a lot of time being doted on by
Henrietta and her courtiers. The excess of Catholicism opposed by
English Puritans around this time was spiritually embodied by Henrietta
(07:36):
who turned the palace into a personal menagerie. She kept
herself surrounded by dwarfs, a sadly common practice among royalty
at the time, dogs of all shapes and sizes, gestures.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
And monkeys.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
The idea was constant entertainment and spectacle. After all, Henrietta's
mother was Ria de Medici, and if you know anything
about that family, you know that extravagance was a prominent
genotype in their Punnett Square. When young Charles was around,
the courtiers devised games and jokes for the enjoyment of
(08:16):
the prince, and in Henrietta's court he received a cultural
education simply through exposure. But he was also exposed to
the other side of a hedonistic leaning circle of wealthy followers.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
As phrased by.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
Derek Wilson in his book All the King's Women, quote, flirtations, affairs,
and gossip about those flirtations and affairs.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Were part of the daily routine.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
And if adulterous liaisons were not officially approved of, everyone
knew they happened.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
End quote.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
It likely took the little prince some time to understand
the full implications of what was going on behind the scenes,
but adultery and that sort of debauchery was a part
of his daily life from a young age. The Queen
(09:18):
and her ladies also took great joy in dressing the
young Charles and his royal siblings in fanciful costumes and
staging masks and dances for the young princes to perform in.
Henrietta was a devoted patroness of the arts, particularly when
(09:38):
it came to masks and plays, even ones that didn't
involve her children. Her husband, Charles the First, for his part,
was a major patron of paintings and visual arts, but
their approaches were different. They both wanted the court to
embrace the Beaumont, but Henrietta was determined to do so
(10:00):
through grand French sensibilities, while her husband was the poster
child for English rigid formality and dignity. To get an
idea of the kind of plays Henrietta was hosting, take
this criticism from lawyer William Prine, a staunch Puritan, in
(10:22):
a paragraph that sounds like it should follow the phrase
this club has everything, Prine admonishes the Court for quote
effeminate mixed dancing, stage plays, lascivious pictures, face painting, health, drinking,
long hair, love, locks, periwigs, women's curling, powdering and cuffing
(10:46):
of their hair, bonfires, new Year's gifts, may day's amorous pastimes, lascivious,
effeminate music, excessive laughter, luxurious, disorderly Christmas keeping mummeries with
sundry such like vanities end quote. Charles the First was
(11:07):
so offended by Prin's accusations that he was not the
moral paragon, that he fancied himself that he had Prin
sentenced to life imprisonment, find five thousand pounds, deprived of
his Oxford degree, and for good measure, liberated of both
his ears. And that was just the initial sentence. But anyway,
(11:30):
back to the sun, there was a third person responsible
for rearing and influencing the young Prince. Charles's nurse, Christabella Wyndham.
She was in her mid twenties when she was appointed,
and apparently she was quite beautiful, but one of Charles
the second future courtiers once remarked that there was quote
(11:53):
nothing of woman in her but her body end quote.
Due to her apparent ambitiousness nature, she and her husband,
Sir Edward Wyndham were quickly climbing the social ranks in court,
and they were trusted by the King, Queen, and most
of all, the young Prince, she readily provided the prince
(12:16):
with affection, hugs and kisses that a young royal really
couldn't get anywhere else. In sixteen forty two, when twelve
year old Charles was forced to leave his home for
the first time to join his father fighting in the
(12:37):
First English Civil War, he was separated from his incredibly
comfortable home life, which included his mother's court and his
beloved nurse. Charles's relatively loose education and preferences for an
easy life hadn't prepared him for the battlefield, but nevertheless,
(12:59):
in classic Nepo baby tradition, at age fifteen, he was
given his own command. While teenage Charles wasn't a particularly
effective general, being in the field did give him a
chance to reunite with Christabella, his childhood nurse, for a week.
He was stationed in her hometown of Bridgewater, where she
(13:22):
herself had become quite the warrior for the Royalist cause.
She apparently fired a musket at the Parliamentary General and
then sent her trumpeter to the enemy commander to taunt
that if he were a real courtier, he would return
the compliment with another shot at her. Charles was thrilled
(13:43):
to be reunited with his childhood nurse, but his courtier,
Edward Hyde, was far less thrilled. It was he who
had earlier described her as lacking womanhood, believing that she, Cristabella,
sought to influence and manipulate the young Charles for her
(14:03):
and her husband's own gain, which you know, probably to
some degree was true. Hyde now admonished the way that
she would run across the room to kiss young Charles,
who happily accepted her affection. Hyde feared that his master
harbored quote fondness, if not affection end quote for his
(14:27):
former nurse, which you know you think, sure he probably did.
But some historians have interpreted this to mean that the
relationship between them had evolved into something sexual, but there's
no evidence to corroborate that idea, so the theory is
more likely just a convenient plot point in young Charles's story.
(14:50):
Despite that, Christabella was undoubtedly Charles's first crush, and her
headstrongness would certainly inspire his future taste. Speaking of headstrong women,
let's finally talk about Lucy Walter. There is a definite
(15:14):
lack of information on Lucy's early life compared to Charles,
but after all, she was the daughter of Welsh gentry
and he was the future King of England. Lucy was
born in Pembrokeshire, Wales, the same year as Charles, but
in the later sixteen thirties her parents moved the family
(15:36):
to London. Attracted to high society, Lucy's parents established their
new home in Covent Garden, the most expensive quarter of
the capitol. Their attempt to make a name for themselves
in the city didn't work out as they had hoped,
and by the time Lucy was ten, there was so
(15:58):
much strain on their marriage that the couple divorced. It
was not an easy or simple separation, and it ended
up playing out messily in courts, with claims of infidelity
and unpaid dowries.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
For Lucy.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
This meant she and her siblings would be placed in
the care of her grandfather and brought up at his
house near Exeter. We know that she received no formal education,
but she learned etiquette and.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
That's about it. For her childhood.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
She likely spent time, as many children of divorce do,
bouncing between her grandparents and her parents' respective homes but
by her mid teens we know that she ended up
back in London. We also know that she was charming, spirited,
and a rare beauty, three qualities that she would come
(16:53):
to rely on. The English writer John Evelyn once famously
described her as quote a brown, beautiful, bold, but insipid
creature end quote. After the two shared a carriage later
in her life, and it's believed that she at least
understood her appeal. Lucy was at the age when many
(17:17):
families would begin thinking.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Of marriage for their daughters.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
But Lucy's family was not only fractured, but by this
point out of money. Not only that, but England was
at this point at war with itself, and most of
her potential husband candidates were on the battlefield. It's likely
that during this time, without a husband or father to
(17:43):
protect her in London, she sought a quote protector. This
protector arrangement, which was almost always in exchange for sexual services,
was quite common in seventeenth century London, as it has
been informs throughout history. The man who would take on
(18:06):
this protector role for Lucy was Algernon Sidney, Younger, son
of the Earl of Leicester and bearer of a family
name that pops up quite a lot on this show.
He had been injured in battle and was waiting to
be reinstated when he assumed his parliamentary seat as MP
(18:26):
of Cardiff. That was the summer of sixteen forty six,
and at the same time he entered into an agreement
with Lucy. It said she must have made a considerable impression,
as he paid fifty pounds for her services. He later
complained that he never received them because he was called
(18:48):
back into battle and missed his chance. Shortly after Sidney's departure,
the conclusion of Lucy's parents's long divorce proceeding was fined,
finally reached, and Lucy's father was given custody of Lucy
and her siblings, likely because her mother couldn't afford to
care for them. It's fairly clear that Lucy didn't care
(19:12):
for her father because rather than move in with him,
she chose to flee the country, changing her last name
to Barlow borrowed from a maternal relative, she boarded a
ship to Holland to stay at her uncle's family home.
She wouldn't take much with her except a collection of
(19:32):
letters of recommendation from Algernon Sidney addressed to his younger brother,
Robert Sidney, who had recently become colonel of the English
regiment in the Netherlands. The letters apparently worked, as Lucy
became Robert's mistress by spring sixteen forty seven. Though Robert
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Sidney was married, he was powerful enough that it didn't
matter if he paraded his a newfound relationship around, and
Lucy likely gained inadvertent access to the heart of culture
happening in the Hague.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
On Robert's arm.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
Robert Sidney was, however, not the most important affair that
Lucy would.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
Have in Holland.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
Like Lucy, young Charles also arrived at the Hague seeking refuge.
The First English Civil War ended in sixteen forty six,
with Charles the first surrendering and the prince going into exile,
spending much of it in France with his mother. His
younger brother James, however, was imprisoned in the Palace alongside
(20:56):
their other siblings. By sixteen forty eight, conflict was already renewed,
marking the beginning of the Second English Civil War. James
managed to escape the palace disguised as a girl and
safely arrived in the Hague. To live with his sister
Mary and her husband, William, the second Prince of Orange.
(21:18):
This feels like one of those spoiler alerts that later
in history, probably later in a Noble Blood episode, that
couple comes back. Young Charles, the prince in exile, had
exhausted his options for aid in France, and so he too,
traveled to meet his brother and pitch the Royalist cause
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to Mary and William. Lucy and Charles met almost immediately
upon his arrival in Holland in May sixteen forty eight.
We don't have details about their first meeting, or about
how their affair began, or as to how Lucy broke
off her arrangement with Sidney, but we know that Charles
(22:00):
was infatuated from the moment they met. Madame d'lnoy, the
baroness and French author who actually coined the term fairy
tale for her collection of stories, once wrote that upon
seeing Lucy's beauty for their first meeting, the prince was
quote so charmed and ravished and enamored that, in the
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misfortunes which ran through the first years of his reign,
he knew no other sweetness or joy than to love
her and be loved by her end quote. The couple
were both eighteen, and Lucy was almost certainly Charles's first,
possibly only love, despite his already gained reputation as something
(22:48):
of a cad. Lucy was the first woman Charles began
a relationship with, which explains the buzzy, impassioned language many
historians youth to describe their affair. On Lucy's part, we
don't have any real insight into how reciprocal her feelings
truly were, at least on first glance. It's equally likely
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that Charles was the great love of her life as
it is that she was just seeking out more powerful
quote protection, and positive and negative interpretations of her motives
have ebbed and flowed with history and shifts in historical
schools of thought. What we know for sure, though, is
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that by July Lucy was pregnant, the same month in
which the Prince Charles would return to his position of
command and depart with his fleet back to the seas.
In December, tensions escalated back in England, but the Prince,
still in exile, returned to the Hague for the holidays.
(23:58):
At this point in English history, Christmas had been all
but banned by the Puritan Parliament, associating its festivities too
closely with indulgent Catholicism and arguing that Christmas encouraged drunkenness
and debauchery. In Holland, however, the festive season was in
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full swing, and it can be assumed that pregnant Lucy
joined Charles at court for celebration. Their happy period quickly
came to an end, though by the time their son
James was born in Rotterdam on April ninth, Charles had
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been gone from the Netherlands two months earlier. He had
learned of his father's execution, and he immediately set off
for Jersey, the only one of his father's dominions in
which he was now declared king. His agree that the
death of his father marked a near immediate shift in Charles.
(25:06):
The prince, who had once been described as soft hearted,
had hardened, and will see the consequences of this shift
as our story goes on. Baby James was left in
the care of a wet nurse in Rotterdam, while Lucy
returned to Charles's side months later in either Jersey or
(25:28):
his next destination, Paris, where Charles would reunite with his mother,
Henrietta Marie in court. It seems the Queen mother was
not too fond of the mother of her beloved son's child.
From Hyde, the man who once admonished the way Christavella
(25:49):
showed affection to Charles, we get an account of the
young lady Lucy, who had quote procured a lodging there
without her majesty consent, and with whom her Majesty was
justly offended for the little respect she showed toward her
majesty end quote. Hyde prevailed upon Charles to have this
(26:14):
woman removed from court, and the King ultimately complied. We
don't know actually for sure that this woman was Lucy,
but the timeline matches up, and more specifically regarding Lucy,
Hyde later comment that Lucy resided for quote some years
(26:35):
in France in the King's sight, and at last lost
his Majesty's favor end quote. And so it's believed that
the couple traveled together for periods through the sixteen fifties
as Charles made his way to Belgium and the Netherlands
for negotiations with the Scottish. But the affair between Charles
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and Lucy was ultimately destined to end in the place
where it began. The details we have of the couple's
post relationship interactions and of Lucy's later life at large
are very limited. There's a letter from May sixteen fifty
five from Charles to Viscount Taife, an Irish Royalist officer
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who accompanied Charles into exile, that reads quote, as soon
as I have any money, I will not fail to
send some to missus Barlow. But in the meantime advise her,
both for her sake and mine, that she goes to
some place more private than the Hague for her stay
there is very prejudicial to us both end quote. It's
(27:45):
widely believed that Taife is actually the father of Lucy's
second child, a daughter named Mary, likely born in sixteen
fifty one.
Speaker 3 (27:55):
When it came.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
To Charles's request, Lucy evidently ignored his warnings she was
still in the Hague six months later. This prompted Charles
to issue an allowance to her of five thousand livres
per month, which he promised to raise once he was
formally king. Realizing that he could actually control where she
(28:18):
chose to live, the allowance was directed to be given
at Antwerp quote, or some other place as she shall desire.
Charles wanted Lucy out of the Hague to avoid scandal
in the Court of Orange, but scandal Lucy did find.
An account from court reads that Lucy quote was living
(28:42):
a life so disorderly that the princess's own servant proposed
to banish.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
Her from the place end quote.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
In this case, a disorderly life consisted of having an
affair with a married man, allegedly at tempting to murder
a maid who threatened to reveal the affair, and being
accused by the same maid of having two abortions. Now,
the legitimacy of any of these claims has not been verified,
(29:15):
but for Charles's ye old pr team at the time,
any press was not a good press. Thus Lucy was
apparently persuaded to return to England, where she was imprisoned,
along with the married man with whom she had had
an affair, her maid, and her brother. Historians have widely
(29:37):
theorized about why she was arrested and why she returned
to England in the first place. The most exciting theory
is that she was working for the king as a
Royalist spy. In reality, Lucy claimed that she had returned
to claim the inheritance of fifteen hundred pounds left for
(29:58):
her by her mother, who had recently died. The timing
makes this plausible, but her testimony is riddled with lies,
including the fact that she was the widow of a
Dutchman who was the father of both of her children.
She had been the king's mistress, she explained, but they
had not seen each other for two years and their
(30:20):
child had died. The parliamentary regime would not have treated
her favorably as an active mistress of the king, so
to frame herself instead as a sympathetic widow was likely
a strategic move. Her maid, however, snitched on every detail
of the affair, which the parliamentary regime at the time.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
Was more ready to believe.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
Lucy's arrest covered in the pro Republican newspaper Mercius Politicus,
referred to Lucy as Charles's wife or mistress, and reported
that order is taken forthwith to dispatch the King's quote,
lady of pleasure and the young heir and set them
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on shore in Flanders, which is no ordinary courtesy end quote.
Learning about Charles having a lady of pleasure was a
great boon for Puritans who supported the parliamentary cause, because
that knowledge reinforced the perception that royals were impure and superficial.
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It's not clear when exactly James had returned to Lucy's care,
but we know that they were together in Brussels in
sixteen fifty eight, when an attempt was made by Charles's
regime to physically remove his son from his mother's presence.
Colonel Arthur Slingsby attempted to detain Lucy in a city
(31:58):
prison while he abducted her son, but this apparently failed
spectacularly and publicly. Lucy resisted loudly as he attempted to
drag her away, which drew a crowd of spectators who
were allegedly scandalized at the violence of the colonel, and
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they were moved by the actions of a mother trying
to protect her son. This turned into a diplomatic incident.
The Spanish ambassador, governor of the Spanish Netherlands, and the
local town council all got involved to protect Lucy, believing
that the colonel was not acting on Charles's authority. The
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colonel actually was, but he had been ordered to carry
out his task quietly, which gave room for the king
to now pin the blame on him. Still, Charles wanted
his son in custody, which prompted one of Charles's chief
advisers to explain to the Spanish ambassador that it was
(33:00):
in the father and the mother's best interests to have
baby James collected. Quote, it will be a great charity
to the child, the adviser wrote, as in the conclusion
to the mother, if she shall now at length retire
herself into such a way of living as may redeem
(33:21):
in some measure the reproach her past ways have brought
upon her. Basically, if she didn't have the burden of
an illegitimate baby hanging over her head, she could start
living as an honest woman. If Lucy was to continue
to live in, as the ambassador put it, mad disobedience
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to his pleasure, the King would be forced to disown
both Lucy and their son. Lucy, learning of the King's
plans to have baby James placed in the care of
a chosen guardian, countered with her own plan that she
would be allowed to live in the home of the
chosen guardian, and she would have a say in the
(34:05):
choice of said guardian. If King Charles didn't agree to
these terms, she threatened she would publish a collection of
his letters that she had in her possession. For a
short period of time, it seemed that Charles would comply
with these terms, but by the spring of sixteen fifty eight,
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a second mission to remove James from Lucy's care was
successfully completed, and the now nine year old bastard prince
was placed in Paris. Charles's agent warned that James was
not yet safe quote from his mother's intrigues, but they
justified the abduction by noting that he observed that Lucy
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had not been properly educating her son. The letters that
Lucy had blackmailed the king with were also dealt with
the same Spanish authorities who had once protected Lucy now
complied with Charles's orders to search and seize any papers
that they found. The tragic and ironic aftermath of James's
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forced removal from his mother's care is that she would
die that same year. The next account that we have
of Lucy catches us up to where our story began,
with her deathbed confession to John Coussen. The assertion that
she had actually married Charles legally, and that proof was out.
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There would be a quiet whisper for years before it
escalated into a roar. England restored the monarchy and invited
Charles the Second to claim his throne in sixteen sixty two,
(36:00):
years after Lucy died. When their son James was nearly fourteen,
he was brought to England to live in the restored
Stuart Court, where Charles took an instant liking to him.
James was legitimized as the Duke of Monmouth. He became
popular among the people for his Protestantism, especially since Charles's
(36:24):
younger brother James had openly converted to Catholicism. The exclusion
crisis and the Popish plot would need dedicated episodes to
be completely explained, and I think they probably eventually will
get them. But know that in sixteen seventy nine, Charles
the Second would have to make no fewer than three
(36:47):
public claims that he had only been married once, and
it was in sixteen sixty two, and it was to
his Queen Catherine. This was because his wife had given
him no legitimate heirs, and there was a grit g
owing faction in England who wanted to name Protestant James
the illegitimate son with Lucy as the successor to the
(37:08):
throne instead of Catholic.
Speaker 3 (37:10):
James, who was King.
Speaker 1 (37:11):
Charles the second brother and this faction were encouraged by
the rumor that James of Monmouth, Protestant illegitimate son was
secretly a legitimate heir. Charles's denial did not have the
effectiveness that he had hoped for, because after his passing,
(37:32):
Lucy's mythologized confession that the two had been legally married
would fan the flames of the Monmouth Rebellion, an epic
battle of James versus James that would ultimately cost Lucy's
son his head. Neither the contents of the mysterious black
(37:53):
box she confessed, nor the box itself wherever found, but they,
and by extension, Lucy, had a profound impact on a
pivotal moment in English history. Charles the Second would go
on to have eleven more illegitimate children from mistresses, but
(38:14):
historians conclude that his affair with Lucy in the days
before he had the weight of the crown on his shoulders,
was the only true love he knew. That's the story
(38:34):
of Lucy Walter and her illegitimate possibly legitimate son James.
But keep listening after a brief sponsor break to hear
a little bit more about that mysterious box. The truth
(38:56):
of the Black Box still evades us, but recently discovered
documentation may shed some new light unto the truth.
Speaker 2 (39:04):
Of its existence.
Speaker 1 (39:06):
Historians have found a deposition dated April nineteenth, sixteen forty
nine by a sixteen year old named Edward Fenn, who
spoke on behalf of the honorable Miss Lucy Barlow, also
now staying here in the Hague. Fenn testified that he
had accompanied his master, a naval Captain Robert Killigrew, on
(39:31):
a trip with Lucy from the Hague to Rotterdam. The
contents of the testimony detail that Lucy had with her
in her possession a small cabinet or box, which, by
Killigrew's orders, Fenn was in charge of keeping safe in
the inns where they stayed. Fen was consistently urged by
(39:54):
his captain to get his hands on the contents of
the box, with him, going so as to purchase lead
to replace the box's minted silver, even ordering Fenn to
drop the box in the water and remember the spot
where he did so. Fenn reasonably confident that he would
(40:15):
in fact not be able to retrieve the box after
dropping it in the water. Refused, Killigrew then took matters
into his own hands, and Fenn spied him with the
box under his cloak, taking out quote the papers and
counting the coins of minted gold. Fenn's deposition concludes with
(40:38):
him explaining that he didn't know if the captain ever
put the money back, but that the box was now
once again in the hands of its rightful owner, Lucy Barlow.
Based on the captain's earlier orders to Fenn, we can
assume that Killigrew was really only after the money that
(40:59):
Lucy had stored in box. But what about the papers.
It's unclear as to why this testimony was being recorded
in the first place, and all we know is that
it was requested by Lucy only a few days after
her son's birth. Was she seeking to document proof that
Kilgrew had tried to steal from her despite no further
(41:21):
record of legal action it's plausible, or was she instead
documenting proof that this cabinet was in her possession? In
a search for answers, we are unfortunately left with only
more questions. But maybe the fabled box really was nothing
more than a fairy Tale. Noble Blood is a production
(41:55):
of iHeartRadio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Mankie. Noble
Blood is created and hosted by me Dana Schwartz, with
additional writing and researching by Hannah Johnston, Hanna Zwick, Mira Hayward,
Courtney Sender, and Lori Goodman. The show is edited and
produced by Noemi Griffin and rima il Kaali, with supervising
(42:19):
producer Josh Fain and executive producers Aaron Manke, Alex Williams,
and Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite show.
Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grimm
and Mild from Aaron Mankie.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Listener discretion advised.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Let's begin our story In Paris sixteen fifty eight. A
woman only twenty eight years old is on her deathbed,
dying of a venereal disease. An English churchman is with
her in her remaining few hours, allowing her to make
a general confession or a Christian prayer of repentance for sins.
(00:46):
An English churchman would know these prayers well, Almighty and
most Merciful Father, we have aired and strayed from thy
ways like lost sheep. We have followed too much the
devices and desires of our own hearts. That's read by
an Anglican congregation and mass during worship. But what did
(01:07):
this woman specifically have to confess? Maybe her cause of
death can provide you with a clue. But the extent
of the words that she would utter to the priest
went far beyond simply the sins of lust. She told
the churchmen that there existed a black box, and inside
(01:29):
of it one could find documentary proof that years earlier
she had married Charles, the second King of England. The
story I just told you of the deathbed confession of
the mysterious Black Box. Proof is likely highly dramatized, but
(01:51):
Lucy Walter, the woman in question, was the very real
mistress of the King of England, and the story of
her alleged confession would have a very real impact on
the country at large. Lucy's confession isn't actually the beginning
of our story, but it's also not the end. A
(02:14):
confession of a secret marriage would be enough to cause
a scandal, but the confession of a marriage while an
acknowledged illegitimate son lived was enough to send the monarchy
into turmoil. The churchman from the tale was also very real,
(02:34):
but John Couson, future Bishop of Durham, would pass in
sixteen seventy two. Dying with him would be the only
chance of finding this infamous black box and proving once
and for all that Lucy's son, James Scott, the Duke
of Monmouth, was not an illegitimate son, but in fact
(02:57):
the King's legitimate, rightful heir to the throne. Notably, the
story of Lucy's death comes from the memoirs of James
the second, younger brother to Lucy's lover, King Charles the
Second and it's a memoir in which she by and
large is portrayed in a rather shameful light. It will
(03:19):
become clearer as to why that might have been the
case later, but it's a good reminder that when it
comes to Lucy's life we could be careful to take
things with a grain of salt. In a real history
is written by the victor's moment, we have to ask,
did Lucy even truly die of a quote disease incident
(03:42):
to her profession, as James the Second put it, or
as James was fighting the Duke of Monmouth foreclaim to
the throne, did he really just want his enemy to
be known as the son of a whore? The story
of Lucy Walter and Charles the Second has all the
makings of a really good scandal. Royalty seduction, bastards, secret marriages,
(04:08):
a quest for a fabled box, and, since this is
the English monarchy, an eventual beheading. As with any scandal,
though no matter how important the participants are, at the
heart of it is a real messy group of people
making real messy decisions. I'm Danish Schwartz and this is
(04:34):
Noble Blood. Now to introduce the players in this scandal
when there's a king involved, I imagine that ladies first
doesn't really apply. So let's start with King Charles the
(04:55):
Second of England. Charles the Second's father, Charles the First
was an infamously stuffy and unlikable man, so unlikable, in fact,
that it cost him his head to very very succinctly
sum up the English Civil War, but his wife, the
French Princess Henrietta Maria, was practically his opposite. Charles the
(05:20):
First was twenty four and she was fifteen at the
time of their vows. He wanted a submissive, traditional queen,
while Henrietta had no such intentions of being one. She
had been raised in the comparatively liberal environment of the
French court. Charles the First was the head of the
(05:43):
Church of England, and Henrietta Maria was a Roman Catholic
at a time when religious strife was particularly contentious. The
couple's biggest similarity at the time of their marriage seemed
to be that both were fairly onely disliked. Parliament and
the English public were very wary when the king announced
(06:06):
that he would be marrying a Roman Catholic woman, and
due to religious restrictions, she was never even formally crowned
in a coronation ceremony. In a situation like this of
two very different parents, odds are that children would take
more after one parent than the other, and in the
(06:28):
young Charles's case, he took after his mother. The Bishop
Burnet once reflected that quote. The Queen Mother, referring to
Henrietta Maria, observed often that the great defects of the
late king's breeding and the stiff roughness that was in him,
by which he disobliged very many and did often prejudice
(06:49):
his affairs very much. So she gave strict orders that
the young princes should be bred to wonderful civility end quote.
Civility may seem a misplaced choice of wording here, but
in this case it's a reference back to its archaic meaning,
which was to be learned in the humanities. And so
(07:12):
the future Charles the second would take after his mother
very much. By design as his mother's favorite, the young
Charles spent a lot of time being doted on by
Henrietta and her courtiers. The excess of Catholicism opposed by
English Puritans around this time was spiritually embodied by Henrietta
(07:36):
who turned the palace into a personal menagerie. She kept
herself surrounded by dwarfs, a sadly common practice among royalty
at the time, dogs of all shapes and sizes, gestures.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
And monkeys.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
The idea was constant entertainment and spectacle. After all, Henrietta's
mother was Ria de Medici, and if you know anything
about that family, you know that extravagance was a prominent
genotype in their Punnett Square. When young Charles was around,
the courtiers devised games and jokes for the enjoyment of
(08:16):
the prince, and in Henrietta's court he received a cultural
education simply through exposure. But he was also exposed to
the other side of a hedonistic leaning circle of wealthy followers.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
As phrased by.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
Derek Wilson in his book All the King's Women, quote, flirtations, affairs,
and gossip about those flirtations and affairs.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Were part of the daily routine.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
And if adulterous liaisons were not officially approved of, everyone
knew they happened.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
End quote.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
It likely took the little prince some time to understand
the full implications of what was going on behind the scenes,
but adultery and that sort of debauchery was a part
of his daily life from a young age. The Queen
(09:18):
and her ladies also took great joy in dressing the
young Charles and his royal siblings in fanciful costumes and
staging masks and dances for the young princes to perform in.
Henrietta was a devoted patroness of the arts, particularly when
(09:38):
it came to masks and plays, even ones that didn't
involve her children. Her husband, Charles the First, for his part,
was a major patron of paintings and visual arts, but
their approaches were different. They both wanted the court to
embrace the Beaumont, but Henrietta was determined to do so
(10:00):
through grand French sensibilities, while her husband was the poster
child for English rigid formality and dignity. To get an
idea of the kind of plays Henrietta was hosting, take
this criticism from lawyer William Prine, a staunch Puritan, in
(10:22):
a paragraph that sounds like it should follow the phrase
this club has everything, Prine admonishes the Court for quote
effeminate mixed dancing, stage plays, lascivious pictures, face painting, health, drinking,
long hair, love, locks, periwigs, women's curling, powdering and cuffing
(10:46):
of their hair, bonfires, new Year's gifts, may day's amorous pastimes, lascivious,
effeminate music, excessive laughter, luxurious, disorderly Christmas keeping mummeries with
sundry such like vanities end quote. Charles the First was
(11:07):
so offended by Prin's accusations that he was not the
moral paragon, that he fancied himself that he had Prin
sentenced to life imprisonment, find five thousand pounds, deprived of
his Oxford degree, and for good measure, liberated of both
his ears. And that was just the initial sentence. But anyway,
(11:30):
back to the sun, there was a third person responsible
for rearing and influencing the young Prince. Charles's nurse, Christabella Wyndham.
She was in her mid twenties when she was appointed,
and apparently she was quite beautiful, but one of Charles
the second future courtiers once remarked that there was quote
(11:53):
nothing of woman in her but her body end quote.
Due to her apparent ambitiousness nature, she and her husband,
Sir Edward Wyndham were quickly climbing the social ranks in court,
and they were trusted by the King, Queen, and most
of all, the young Prince, she readily provided the prince
(12:16):
with affection, hugs and kisses that a young royal really
couldn't get anywhere else. In sixteen forty two, when twelve
year old Charles was forced to leave his home for
the first time to join his father fighting in the
(12:37):
First English Civil War, he was separated from his incredibly
comfortable home life, which included his mother's court and his
beloved nurse. Charles's relatively loose education and preferences for an
easy life hadn't prepared him for the battlefield, but nevertheless,
(12:59):
in classic Nepo baby tradition, at age fifteen, he was
given his own command. While teenage Charles wasn't a particularly
effective general, being in the field did give him a
chance to reunite with Christabella, his childhood nurse, for a week.
He was stationed in her hometown of Bridgewater, where she
(13:22):
herself had become quite the warrior for the Royalist cause.
She apparently fired a musket at the Parliamentary General and
then sent her trumpeter to the enemy commander to taunt
that if he were a real courtier, he would return
the compliment with another shot at her. Charles was thrilled
(13:43):
to be reunited with his childhood nurse, but his courtier,
Edward Hyde, was far less thrilled. It was he who
had earlier described her as lacking womanhood, believing that she, Cristabella,
sought to influence and manipulate the young Charles for her
(14:03):
and her husband's own gain, which you know, probably to
some degree was true. Hyde now admonished the way that
she would run across the room to kiss young Charles,
who happily accepted her affection. Hyde feared that his master
harbored quote fondness, if not affection end quote for his
(14:27):
former nurse, which you know you think, sure he probably did.
But some historians have interpreted this to mean that the
relationship between them had evolved into something sexual, but there's
no evidence to corroborate that idea, so the theory is
more likely just a convenient plot point in young Charles's story.
(14:50):
Despite that, Christabella was undoubtedly Charles's first crush, and her
headstrongness would certainly inspire his future taste. Speaking of headstrong women,
let's finally talk about Lucy Walter. There is a definite
(15:14):
lack of information on Lucy's early life compared to Charles,
but after all, she was the daughter of Welsh gentry
and he was the future King of England. Lucy was
born in Pembrokeshire, Wales, the same year as Charles, but
in the later sixteen thirties her parents moved the family
(15:36):
to London. Attracted to high society, Lucy's parents established their
new home in Covent Garden, the most expensive quarter of
the capitol. Their attempt to make a name for themselves
in the city didn't work out as they had hoped,
and by the time Lucy was ten, there was so
(15:58):
much strain on their marriage that the couple divorced. It
was not an easy or simple separation, and it ended
up playing out messily in courts, with claims of infidelity
and unpaid dowries.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
For Lucy.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
This meant she and her siblings would be placed in
the care of her grandfather and brought up at his
house near Exeter. We know that she received no formal education,
but she learned etiquette and.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
That's about it. For her childhood.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
She likely spent time, as many children of divorce do,
bouncing between her grandparents and her parents' respective homes but
by her mid teens we know that she ended up
back in London. We also know that she was charming, spirited,
and a rare beauty, three qualities that she would come
(16:53):
to rely on. The English writer John Evelyn once famously
described her as quote a brown, beautiful, bold, but insipid
creature end quote. After the two shared a carriage later
in her life, and it's believed that she at least
understood her appeal. Lucy was at the age when many
(17:17):
families would begin thinking.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Of marriage for their daughters.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
But Lucy's family was not only fractured, but by this
point out of money. Not only that, but England was
at this point at war with itself, and most of
her potential husband candidates were on the battlefield. It's likely
that during this time, without a husband or father to
(17:43):
protect her in London, she sought a quote protector. This
protector arrangement, which was almost always in exchange for sexual services,
was quite common in seventeenth century London, as it has
been informs throughout history. The man who would take on
(18:06):
this protector role for Lucy was Algernon Sidney, Younger, son
of the Earl of Leicester and bearer of a family
name that pops up quite a lot on this show.
He had been injured in battle and was waiting to
be reinstated when he assumed his parliamentary seat as MP
(18:26):
of Cardiff. That was the summer of sixteen forty six,
and at the same time he entered into an agreement
with Lucy. It said she must have made a considerable impression,
as he paid fifty pounds for her services. He later
complained that he never received them because he was called
(18:48):
back into battle and missed his chance. Shortly after Sidney's departure,
the conclusion of Lucy's parents's long divorce proceeding was fined,
finally reached, and Lucy's father was given custody of Lucy
and her siblings, likely because her mother couldn't afford to
care for them. It's fairly clear that Lucy didn't care
(19:12):
for her father because rather than move in with him,
she chose to flee the country, changing her last name
to Barlow borrowed from a maternal relative, she boarded a
ship to Holland to stay at her uncle's family home.
She wouldn't take much with her except a collection of
(19:32):
letters of recommendation from Algernon Sidney addressed to his younger brother,
Robert Sidney, who had recently become colonel of the English
regiment in the Netherlands. The letters apparently worked, as Lucy
became Robert's mistress by spring sixteen forty seven. Though Robert
(19:54):
Sidney was married, he was powerful enough that it didn't
matter if he paraded his a newfound relationship around, and
Lucy likely gained inadvertent access to the heart of culture
happening in the Hague.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
On Robert's arm.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
Robert Sidney was, however, not the most important affair that
Lucy would.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
Have in Holland.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
Like Lucy, young Charles also arrived at the Hague seeking refuge.
The First English Civil War ended in sixteen forty six,
with Charles the first surrendering and the prince going into exile,
spending much of it in France with his mother. His
younger brother James, however, was imprisoned in the Palace alongside
(20:56):
their other siblings. By sixteen forty eight, conflict was already renewed,
marking the beginning of the Second English Civil War. James
managed to escape the palace disguised as a girl and
safely arrived in the Hague. To live with his sister
Mary and her husband, William, the second Prince of Orange.
(21:18):
This feels like one of those spoiler alerts that later
in history, probably later in a Noble Blood episode, that
couple comes back. Young Charles, the prince in exile, had
exhausted his options for aid in France, and so he too,
traveled to meet his brother and pitch the Royalist cause
(21:38):
to Mary and William. Lucy and Charles met almost immediately
upon his arrival in Holland in May sixteen forty eight.
We don't have details about their first meeting, or about
how their affair began, or as to how Lucy broke
off her arrangement with Sidney, but we know that Charles
(22:00):
was infatuated from the moment they met. Madame d'lnoy, the
baroness and French author who actually coined the term fairy
tale for her collection of stories, once wrote that upon
seeing Lucy's beauty for their first meeting, the prince was
quote so charmed and ravished and enamored that, in the
(22:22):
misfortunes which ran through the first years of his reign,
he knew no other sweetness or joy than to love
her and be loved by her end quote. The couple
were both eighteen, and Lucy was almost certainly Charles's first,
possibly only love, despite his already gained reputation as something
(22:48):
of a cad. Lucy was the first woman Charles began
a relationship with, which explains the buzzy, impassioned language many
historians youth to describe their affair. On Lucy's part, we
don't have any real insight into how reciprocal her feelings
truly were, at least on first glance. It's equally likely
(23:13):
that Charles was the great love of her life as
it is that she was just seeking out more powerful
quote protection, and positive and negative interpretations of her motives
have ebbed and flowed with history and shifts in historical
schools of thought. What we know for sure, though, is
(23:36):
that by July Lucy was pregnant, the same month in
which the Prince Charles would return to his position of
command and depart with his fleet back to the seas.
In December, tensions escalated back in England, but the Prince,
still in exile, returned to the Hague for the holidays.
(23:58):
At this point in English history, Christmas had been all
but banned by the Puritan Parliament, associating its festivities too
closely with indulgent Catholicism and arguing that Christmas encouraged drunkenness
and debauchery. In Holland, however, the festive season was in
(24:19):
full swing, and it can be assumed that pregnant Lucy
joined Charles at court for celebration. Their happy period quickly
came to an end, though by the time their son
James was born in Rotterdam on April ninth, Charles had
(24:44):
been gone from the Netherlands two months earlier. He had
learned of his father's execution, and he immediately set off
for Jersey, the only one of his father's dominions in
which he was now declared king. His agree that the
death of his father marked a near immediate shift in Charles.
(25:06):
The prince, who had once been described as soft hearted,
had hardened, and will see the consequences of this shift
as our story goes on. Baby James was left in
the care of a wet nurse in Rotterdam, while Lucy
returned to Charles's side months later in either Jersey or
(25:28):
his next destination, Paris, where Charles would reunite with his mother,
Henrietta Marie in court. It seems the Queen mother was
not too fond of the mother of her beloved son's child.
From Hyde, the man who once admonished the way Christavella
(25:49):
showed affection to Charles, we get an account of the
young lady Lucy, who had quote procured a lodging there
without her majesty consent, and with whom her Majesty was
justly offended for the little respect she showed toward her
majesty end quote. Hyde prevailed upon Charles to have this
(26:14):
woman removed from court, and the King ultimately complied. We
don't know actually for sure that this woman was Lucy,
but the timeline matches up, and more specifically regarding Lucy,
Hyde later comment that Lucy resided for quote some years
(26:35):
in France in the King's sight, and at last lost
his Majesty's favor end quote. And so it's believed that
the couple traveled together for periods through the sixteen fifties
as Charles made his way to Belgium and the Netherlands
for negotiations with the Scottish. But the affair between Charles
(26:57):
and Lucy was ultimately destined to end in the place
where it began. The details we have of the couple's
post relationship interactions and of Lucy's later life at large
are very limited. There's a letter from May sixteen fifty
five from Charles to Viscount Taife, an Irish Royalist officer
(27:22):
who accompanied Charles into exile, that reads quote, as soon
as I have any money, I will not fail to
send some to missus Barlow. But in the meantime advise her,
both for her sake and mine, that she goes to
some place more private than the Hague for her stay
there is very prejudicial to us both end quote. It's
(27:45):
widely believed that Taife is actually the father of Lucy's
second child, a daughter named Mary, likely born in sixteen
fifty one.
Speaker 3 (27:55):
When it came.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
To Charles's request, Lucy evidently ignored his warnings she was
still in the Hague six months later. This prompted Charles
to issue an allowance to her of five thousand livres
per month, which he promised to raise once he was
formally king. Realizing that he could actually control where she
(28:18):
chose to live, the allowance was directed to be given
at Antwerp quote, or some other place as she shall desire.
Charles wanted Lucy out of the Hague to avoid scandal
in the Court of Orange, but scandal Lucy did find.
An account from court reads that Lucy quote was living
(28:42):
a life so disorderly that the princess's own servant proposed
to banish.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
Her from the place end quote.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
In this case, a disorderly life consisted of having an
affair with a married man, allegedly at tempting to murder
a maid who threatened to reveal the affair, and being
accused by the same maid of having two abortions. Now,
the legitimacy of any of these claims has not been verified,
(29:15):
but for Charles's ye old pr team at the time,
any press was not a good press. Thus Lucy was
apparently persuaded to return to England, where she was imprisoned,
along with the married man with whom she had had
an affair, her maid, and her brother. Historians have widely
(29:37):
theorized about why she was arrested and why she returned
to England in the first place. The most exciting theory
is that she was working for the king as a
Royalist spy. In reality, Lucy claimed that she had returned
to claim the inheritance of fifteen hundred pounds left for
(29:58):
her by her mother, who had recently died. The timing
makes this plausible, but her testimony is riddled with lies,
including the fact that she was the widow of a
Dutchman who was the father of both of her children.
She had been the king's mistress, she explained, but they
had not seen each other for two years and their
(30:20):
child had died. The parliamentary regime would not have treated
her favorably as an active mistress of the king, so
to frame herself instead as a sympathetic widow was likely
a strategic move. Her maid, however, snitched on every detail
of the affair, which the parliamentary regime at the time.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
Was more ready to believe.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
Lucy's arrest covered in the pro Republican newspaper Mercius Politicus,
referred to Lucy as Charles's wife or mistress, and reported
that order is taken forthwith to dispatch the King's quote,
lady of pleasure and the young heir and set them
(31:12):
on shore in Flanders, which is no ordinary courtesy end quote.
Learning about Charles having a lady of pleasure was a
great boon for Puritans who supported the parliamentary cause, because
that knowledge reinforced the perception that royals were impure and superficial.
(31:34):
It's not clear when exactly James had returned to Lucy's care,
but we know that they were together in Brussels in
sixteen fifty eight, when an attempt was made by Charles's
regime to physically remove his son from his mother's presence.
Colonel Arthur Slingsby attempted to detain Lucy in a city
(31:58):
prison while he abducted her son, but this apparently failed
spectacularly and publicly. Lucy resisted loudly as he attempted to
drag her away, which drew a crowd of spectators who
were allegedly scandalized at the violence of the colonel, and
(32:18):
they were moved by the actions of a mother trying
to protect her son. This turned into a diplomatic incident.
The Spanish ambassador, governor of the Spanish Netherlands, and the
local town council all got involved to protect Lucy, believing
that the colonel was not acting on Charles's authority. The
(32:40):
colonel actually was, but he had been ordered to carry
out his task quietly, which gave room for the king
to now pin the blame on him. Still, Charles wanted
his son in custody, which prompted one of Charles's chief
advisers to explain to the Spanish ambassador that it was
(33:00):
in the father and the mother's best interests to have
baby James collected. Quote, it will be a great charity
to the child, the adviser wrote, as in the conclusion
to the mother, if she shall now at length retire
herself into such a way of living as may redeem
(33:21):
in some measure the reproach her past ways have brought
upon her. Basically, if she didn't have the burden of
an illegitimate baby hanging over her head, she could start
living as an honest woman. If Lucy was to continue
to live in, as the ambassador put it, mad disobedience
(33:42):
to his pleasure, the King would be forced to disown
both Lucy and their son. Lucy, learning of the King's
plans to have baby James placed in the care of
a chosen guardian, countered with her own plan that she
would be allowed to live in the home of the
chosen guardian, and she would have a say in the
(34:05):
choice of said guardian. If King Charles didn't agree to
these terms, she threatened she would publish a collection of
his letters that she had in her possession. For a
short period of time, it seemed that Charles would comply
with these terms, but by the spring of sixteen fifty eight,
(34:27):
a second mission to remove James from Lucy's care was
successfully completed, and the now nine year old bastard prince
was placed in Paris. Charles's agent warned that James was
not yet safe quote from his mother's intrigues, but they
justified the abduction by noting that he observed that Lucy
(34:50):
had not been properly educating her son. The letters that
Lucy had blackmailed the king with were also dealt with
the same Spanish authorities who had once protected Lucy now
complied with Charles's orders to search and seize any papers
that they found. The tragic and ironic aftermath of James's
(35:16):
forced removal from his mother's care is that she would
die that same year. The next account that we have
of Lucy catches us up to where our story began,
with her deathbed confession to John Coussen. The assertion that
she had actually married Charles legally, and that proof was out.
(35:38):
There would be a quiet whisper for years before it
escalated into a roar. England restored the monarchy and invited
Charles the Second to claim his throne in sixteen sixty two,
(36:00):
years after Lucy died. When their son James was nearly fourteen,
he was brought to England to live in the restored
Stuart Court, where Charles took an instant liking to him.
James was legitimized as the Duke of Monmouth. He became
popular among the people for his Protestantism, especially since Charles's
(36:24):
younger brother James had openly converted to Catholicism. The exclusion
crisis and the Popish plot would need dedicated episodes to
be completely explained, and I think they probably eventually will
get them. But know that in sixteen seventy nine, Charles
the Second would have to make no fewer than three
(36:47):
public claims that he had only been married once, and
it was in sixteen sixty two, and it was to
his Queen Catherine. This was because his wife had given
him no legitimate heirs, and there was a grit g
owing faction in England who wanted to name Protestant James
the illegitimate son with Lucy as the successor to the
(37:08):
throne instead of Catholic.
Speaker 3 (37:10):
James, who was King.
Speaker 1 (37:11):
Charles the second brother and this faction were encouraged by
the rumor that James of Monmouth, Protestant illegitimate son was
secretly a legitimate heir. Charles's denial did not have the
effectiveness that he had hoped for, because after his passing,
(37:32):
Lucy's mythologized confession that the two had been legally married
would fan the flames of the Monmouth Rebellion, an epic
battle of James versus James that would ultimately cost Lucy's
son his head. Neither the contents of the mysterious black
(37:53):
box she confessed, nor the box itself wherever found, but they,
and by extension, Lucy, had a profound impact on a
pivotal moment in English history. Charles the Second would go
on to have eleven more illegitimate children from mistresses, but
(38:14):
historians conclude that his affair with Lucy in the days
before he had the weight of the crown on his shoulders,
was the only true love he knew. That's the story
(38:34):
of Lucy Walter and her illegitimate possibly legitimate son James.
But keep listening after a brief sponsor break to hear
a little bit more about that mysterious box. The truth
(38:56):
of the Black Box still evades us, but recently discovered
documentation may shed some new light unto the truth.
Speaker 2 (39:04):
Of its existence.
Speaker 1 (39:06):
Historians have found a deposition dated April nineteenth, sixteen forty
nine by a sixteen year old named Edward Fenn, who
spoke on behalf of the honorable Miss Lucy Barlow, also
now staying here in the Hague. Fenn testified that he
had accompanied his master, a naval Captain Robert Killigrew, on
(39:31):
a trip with Lucy from the Hague to Rotterdam. The
contents of the testimony detail that Lucy had with her
in her possession a small cabinet or box, which, by
Killigrew's orders, Fenn was in charge of keeping safe in
the inns where they stayed. Fen was consistently urged by
(39:54):
his captain to get his hands on the contents of
the box, with him, going so as to purchase lead
to replace the box's minted silver, even ordering Fenn to
drop the box in the water and remember the spot
where he did so. Fenn reasonably confident that he would
(40:15):
in fact not be able to retrieve the box after
dropping it in the water. Refused, Killigrew then took matters
into his own hands, and Fenn spied him with the
box under his cloak, taking out quote the papers and
counting the coins of minted gold. Fenn's deposition concludes with
(40:38):
him explaining that he didn't know if the captain ever
put the money back, but that the box was now
once again in the hands of its rightful owner, Lucy Barlow.
Based on the captain's earlier orders to Fenn, we can
assume that Killigrew was really only after the money that
(40:59):
Lucy had stored in box. But what about the papers.
It's unclear as to why this testimony was being recorded
in the first place, and all we know is that
it was requested by Lucy only a few days after
her son's birth. Was she seeking to document proof that
Kilgrew had tried to steal from her despite no further
(41:21):
record of legal action it's plausible, or was she instead
documenting proof that this cabinet was in her possession? In
a search for answers, we are unfortunately left with only
more questions. But maybe the fabled box really was nothing
more than a fairy Tale. Noble Blood is a production
(41:55):
of iHeartRadio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Mankie. Noble
Blood is created and hosted by me Dana Schwartz, with
additional writing and researching by Hannah Johnston, Hanna Zwick, Mira Hayward,
Courtney Sender, and Lori Goodman. The show is edited and
produced by Noemi Griffin and rima il Kaali, with supervising
(42:19):
producer Josh Fain and executive producers Aaron Manke, Alex Williams,
and Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite show.
Host
Dana Schwartz
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