A Gambling Man: Charles II's Restoration Game by Jenny Uglow Read Free Book Online

his Days
    In running to Plays
    When in his Shop he shou’d be poreing;
    And wasts all his Nights
    In his constant delights
    Of Revelling, Drinking and Whoreing.
    ANON ., ‘Upon his Majesties being made free of the Citty’
    IN 1668 MAY DAY was foul and cold. The ribbons on the maypoles flapped in the rain, and the dancers’ feet were muddy. Only a few bedraggled coaches took part in the annual procession round the ring at Hyde Park. People could not even shelter in the playhouse, at least not in the Theatre Royal, where the rain came spitting into the pit through the badly glazed cupola. The only place to take refuge was in the tavern or the coffee-house.
    On 9 May Charles dissolved parliament for the summer, signing off, said Pepys, with a ‘short silly speech’. 1 He seemed restless and distracted. At Whitehall he ordered a new range of rooms, which became known as the Volary Buildings since they were built on the site of the old aviary. His new apartments, with fine river views from their novel sash-windows, were near the queen’s, so that people could come and see him more informally when they visited her. They also had a private entrance which was handy for more private meetings, organised by the invaluable and slightly sinister William Chiffinch. William had taken over when his older brother, Thomas Chiffinch, Keeper of the King’s Closet, died suddenly in 1666, and his wife Barbara also became laundress to the queen. The couple arranged everything from meetings with ministers in the Bedchamber to a rota for walking the royal dogs. Their apartment was next to Charles’s rooms, opening onto the back stairs down to the river, a route taken by visitors who did not want to be seen, like French ambassadors – and young, ambitious actresses.
    As if the pent-up energy which he controlled so carefully in his public life had to find release, Charles was more mobile and unsettled this summer than ever before. He hunted at Windsor, Bagshot and in the New Forest; he visited the ports and sailed his fast yachts; he stayed at Audley End (which he soon bought from the bankrupt Earl of Suffolk), to be near Newmarket. The excuses that he gave to Minette for not answering her letters were often of this kind: he has just come back from the sea, he has been hunting all day, he is off to the races next week.
    Thousands flocked to Newmarket for the race-meetings and from now on Charles went regularly in summer and autumn. His father had a hunting lodge there, but this had been almost completely demolished by the regicide Colonel Okey, and Charles had not bothered with repairs, apart from rebuilding the stables. This year he bought an old timber-framed house, with bays overhanging the High Street, and commissioned the architect William Samwell to convert it. The small courtyard behind was surrounded by unpretentious but comfortable suites of rooms for Charles and Catherine, the Yorks and Monmouth. 2 The Lord Chamberlain’s office was next door, and many of the court had lodgings nearby, including the Chiffinches. When Evelyn visited the house on a trip to East Anglia in July 1670, he was disappointed. Not only was it full of awkward angles, low ceilings and poky rooms but it was ‘placed in a dirty Streete; without any Court or avenue, like a common Burger’s: whereas it might & ought to have been built at either end of the Towne, upon the very Carpet where the Sports are Celebrated’. 3
    The stables, Evelyn thought, were far more impressive, with many fine horses kept ‘at vast expense, with all the art & tendernesse Imaginable’. Racing, like sailing, became one of Charles’s passions. He employed four jockeys, expanded his stables and set up a stud. He also improved the race-course (moving the site of the summer course, because the sun got in his eyes), introduced the idea of racing in silk colours, and gave purses and trophies. In the early mornings he could be seen watching the training, and when the races began he often