Nell Gwynne must have had some trying moments. When she fell into a
red-haired woman's rage facing Charles II with clenched hands,
Charles probably stood there looking at her just as he looks at the
few people who from time to time gaze at him in the Westminster Abbey
waxwork show.
Women hate to be looked at like that, whether the man who looks is a
king or is merely someone else's husband. "Now, Nelly!" he seems to
be saying. "Now, Nelly!" Cold, distant, on the apex of his pyramid
of superiority, with his sallow, cynical face framed in its cascade
of curls, how mad he must have made her--and all the others--for
women who permit themselves hysterics do detest having them against a
human granite quarry. That sad, superior Stuart eye, that heavy,
drooping mouth, that thin, supercilious pencil line of a moustache
etched straight over, but a little above, his upper lip. So
contemptuous, so cutting, so sarcastic. You can positively hear the
dead beauties saying, "Charles, I never know what you are _really_
thinking," or "Charles, do smile, just once," or "Charles, dearest,
why do you look at me like that? Have you forgotten...."
Heart-rending for them, but--also attractive, you know!
How many calculated storms must have beaten in vain tears against
that stern rock of a face as he stood there, his Majesty the King,
just waiting for the tempest to abate. It must have been one of the
most useful expressions in history.
* * *
Waxworks? Pooh!
That is what most visitors say as they trail round Westminster Abbey,
wrestling painfully with the past, trying to flog their imaginations
with dates.
How many realize that these waxworks were made by men who saw these
kings and queens in life? They are authentic portraits, less
flattering perhaps than the works of greater artists, and for this
reason more interesting. In fact, I prefer this waxwork of Charles
II to Lely's splendid portrait. I am sure it is more like Charles.
From the time of Henry V till about 1700 every dead monarch was
modelled in wax. This effigy was then dressed in the king's finest
suit, and was carried through the streets of London in his funeral
train. Westminster Abbey was once full of these marvellous
relics--"The Ragged Regiment" they used to be called, or "The Play of
Dead Folks." To-day only eleven are shown, the broken limbs of the
others, the gruesome heads and hands, are locked away from public
sight. Poor Edward I and Eleanor, the third Edward and Philippa,
glorious Hal and Katharine, Henry VII and Elizabeth of York, James
the First and Anne of Denmark, lie all jumbled together; a sight that
would have made Hamlet wince.
Was there ever a more pathetic puppet show?
Enough remained of Queen Elizabeth for a clever restorer to give us a
new idea of her. There she stands covered in jewels, holding her
sceptre, her rich, red, velvet gown falling to a pair of surprisingly
adequate brocade shoes. But this is not the imperious queen we know,
this is not Gloriana, who could put on a Tower of London expression
and whip men with her tongue. This is a sad old woman. She has
uncanny, unhappy eyes; such a lonely face.
William and Mary, who attract every Dutch visitor to London, are a
heavy, homely couple. She wears purple velvet over a brocaded skirt,
and he was so small that some thoughtful person mounted him on a
footstool so that he might match his tall wife. Queen Anne is also
on view, but she, too, is rather heavy and homely. Those are the
royalties.
In a corner is Frances, Duchess of Richmond, who is said to have been
the Britannia of the coinage. Just think of this! Frances Teresa
Stewart in wax looking across at a waxen Charles II! What irony!
She, you remember, was the lady Pepys thought so lovely; and he had a
good eye. What scandal a wax figure can recall. "La Belle Stewart"
never cared for chatter, however, and you can imagine how Charles
looked when he learned that the beautiful scandalous creature, who
might have been Queen of England, had eloped one night from Whitehall
with the Duke of Richmond. It must have been a bad day for everybody
in St. James's Palace. The cook, I should think, was certainly
sacked.
In the next case is Katherine, Duchess of Buckingham, who on her
death-bed developed an enthusiasm for her funeral. She had
previously arranged it in detail with the Garter King-of-Arms, and
she lay there worrying if the trappings would be all right, and
fearing to die before the undertakers sent the canopy for her
approval.
"Why don't they send it," she cried, "even though all the tassels are
not finished?"
Poor lady! Her pomp is ended, and her brocaded robes sadly in need
of the dry-cleaner.
Nelson is there, modelled shortly after death, wearing his uniform,
his neat, thin legs in white kerseymere breeches and silk stockings,
and the Government "hat tax" stamp still to be seen inside his hat.
Full of human interest they are, but Charles is the gem. Time has
been unkind to the fine point lace at his neck and at his wrists. It
is almost black. His jaunty hat, with its drooping ostrich plumes,
would disgrace a brawl; yet I defy you to laugh at him. His Majesty
looks at you from the dust of centuries, and you are inclined to hate
the people who have written their names with diamonds on the plate
glass, including the author of that famous quatrain which ends:
He never said a foolish thing,
Nor ever did a wise one.
Still he has an air with him, and when he entered a room, his
melancholy eyes burning in that sallow, set face, just think how the
ostrich plumes swept the dust, and how the lovely naughtiness of his
day curtseyed in gold brocade....