SOPHIE, UNCROWNED QUEEN OF HENRY VIII

[Ill.u.s.tration: SOPHIE]

Contemporary history tell us little of Sophie, later chronicles tell us still less, while the present-day historians know nothing whatever about her. It is only owing to concentrated research and indomitable patience that we have succeeded in unearthing a few facts which will serve to distinguish her from that n.o.ble band of unknown heroines who have lived, paid the price, and died, unnoted and unsung!

She was born at Esher. The name of her parents it has been impossible to discover, and as to what part of Esher she first inhabited we are also hopelessly undecided.

As a child some say she was merry and playful, while others describe her as solemn and morose. The reproduction on page 170 is from an old print discovered by some ardent antiquaries hanging upside down in a disused wharf at Wapping.

It was obviously achieved when she was somewhere between the ages of twenty and forty. The unknown artist has caught the fleeting look of ineffable sadness, as though she entertained some inward premonition of her destiny and her spirit was rebelling dumbly against what was inevitable.

Esher in those days was but a tiny hamlet--a few houses cl.u.s.tered here, and a few more cl.u.s.tered there. London, then a graceful city set upon a hill, could be seen on a clear day from the northernmost point of Esher.

On anything but a clear day it was, of course, impossible to see it at all. Esher is now, and always has been, remarkable for its foliage. In those days, when the spring touched the earth with its joyous wand, all the trees round and about the village blossomed forth into a ma.s.s of green. The river wound its way through verdant meadows and pastures. In winter-time--providing that the frost was very strong--it would become covered in ice, thus forming a charming contrast to early spring and late autumn, when the rain was wont to transform it into a swirling torrent, which often, so historians tell us, rose so high that it overflowed its banks and caused much alarm to the inhabitants of Esher proper. We do not use the expression "Esher proper" from any prudish reason, but merely because Little Esher, a mile down the road, might in the reader's mind become a factor to promote muddle if we did not take care to indicate clearly its close proximity.

Esher, owing to its remarkable superabundance of trees, was in summertime famous for its delightful variety of birds: magpies, jackdaws, thrushes and wagtails, in addition to the usual sparrows and tom-t.i.ts, were seen frequently; occasionally a lark or a starling would charm the villagers with its song.

The soil of Esher, contrary to the usual supposition, was not as fertile as one could have wished. Often, unless planted at exactly the right time, fruit and vegetables would refuse to grow at all. The main road through Esher proper, pa.s.sing later through Little Esher, was much used by those desiring to reach Portsmouth or Swanage or any of the Hampshire resorts. Of course, travellers wishing to visit Cromer or Southend or even Felixstowe would naturally leave London by another route entirely.

d.i.c.k Turpin was frequently seen tearing through Esher, with his face m.u.f.fled, and a large hat and a long cloak, riding a horse, at night--there was no mistaking him.

According to Sophie's diary, written by her every day with unfailing regularity for thirty-five years, she always just missed seeing d.i.c.k Turpin. This was apparently a source of great grief to her; often she would pause by the roadside and weep gently at the thought of him. Poor Sophie! One was to ride along that very road who was destined to mean much more to her than bold d.i.c.k Turpin. But we antic.i.p.ate.

It was perhaps early autumn that saw Esher at its best--how brown everything was, and yet, in some cases, how yellow! As a hunting centre it was very little used, though occasionally a stag or wild boar would, like d.i.c.k Turpin, pa.s.s through it.

One evening, when the trees were soughing in the wind and the sun had sunk to rest, Sophie went out with her basket. It was too late to buy anything, but she felt the need of air; not that the basket was necessary in order to obtain this, but somehow she felt she couldn't bear to be without it, such a habit had it become. The darkness was rapidly drawing in. Sophie paused and spoke to a frog she saw in a puddle; it didn't answer, so she pa.s.sed on.

Suddenly she heard from the direction of London the sound of hoofs!

"d.i.c.k Turpin!" her heart cried, and she at once commenced to climb an elm the better to see him pa.s.s; but it was not d.i.c.k Turpin--it was a shorter man with a beard. On seeing the intrepid girl, he reined in his roan chestnut-spotted filly. "Hi!" he cried. Sophie slowly climbed down.

"Who are you?" she asked, after she had dusted the bark from her fichu.

"Henry the Eighth!" cried the man with a ready laugh, and, leaping off his charger, took her in his arms. "Oh, sire!" she said, and would have swooned but that his strength upheld her. History tells us little about that interview. Suffice to say that later on Sophie walked gravely back to Esher proper, alas! without her basket, but carrying proudly in her hand a brooch cunningly wrought into the shape of a raspberry.

It is known as an authentic fact that Sophie never saw her Royal lover again. He rode away that night, perhaps to Woking, perhaps to Virginia Water--who knows?

Sophie lived on in Esher until the age of thirty-nine, when she was taken to London and flung into the Tower, where she remained a closely guarded prisoner for a year. Every one loved her and used to visit her in her cell. She was exceedingly industrious, and managed to get through quite a lot of tatting during her captivity.

The day of her execution dawned fair over St. Paul's Cathedral. Sophie in her little cell rose early and turned her fichu. "Why do you do that?" asked the gaoler. "Because I am going to meet my end," Sophie gently replied. The man staggered dumbly away, fighting down the lump which would come in his hardened throat.

When the time came Sophie left her cell with a light step. She walked to Tower Hill amidst a body of Beefeaters. "The way is long," she said bravely. Every Beefeater bowed his head.

There was a dense crowd round the scaffold. Sophie heeded them not; she ran girlishly up the steps to where the executioner was leaning on his axe. "Where do I put my head?" she asked simply. The executioner pointed to the block. "There!" said he. "Where did you think you put it?" Sophie reproved him with a look and knelt down. Then she gazed sweetly at the gaoler, who for a year had stinted her in everything. "The past is buried," she said sweetly. "To you I bequeath my tatting!" With these charitable words still hovering on her lips, she laid her head upon the fatal block; from that trying position she threw the executioner a dumb look. "Do your duty, my friend," she said, and shut her eyes and her mouth.

Mastering his emotion with an effort, the headsman raised his axe; through a mist of tears, it fell.

"LA BIBI"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "LA BIBI"

_From the pastel by Coddle_]

Hortense Poissons--"La Bibi," What memories that name conjures up! The incomparable--the lightsome--the effervescent--her life a rose-coloured smear across the history of France--her smile--tier upon tier of sparkling teeth--her heart, that delicate organ for which kings fought in the streets like common dukes--but enough; let us trace her to her obscure parentage. You all know the Place de la Concorde--she was not born there. You have all visited the Champs Elysees--she was not born there. And there's probably no one who doesn't know of the Faubourg St.

Honore--but she was not born there. Sufficient to say that she was born.

Her mother, poor, honest, _gauche_, an unpretentious seamstress; she seamed and seamed until her death in 1682 or 1683: Bibi, at the age of ten, flung on to the world homeless, motherless, with nothing but her amazing beauty between her and starvation or worse. Who can blame her for what she did--who can question or condemn her motives? She was alone. Then Armand Brochet (who shall be nameless) entered the panorama of her career. What was she to do--refuse the roof he offered her? This waif (later on to be the glory of France), this leaf blown hither and thither by the winds of Destiny--what was she to do? Enough that she did.

Paris, a city of seething vice and corruption--her home, the place wherein she danced her first catoucha, that catoucha which was so soon to be followed by her famous j.a.panese schottische, and later still by her celebrated Peruvian minuet. Voltaire wrote a lot, but he didn't mention her; Jean Jacques Rousseau scribbled hours, but never so much as referred to her; even Moliere was so reticent on the subject of her undoubted charms that no single word about her can be found in any of his works.[29]

Her life with Armand Brochet (who shall still be nameless) three years before she stepped on to the boards--how well we all know it! Her famous epigram at the breakfast table: "Armand, my friend, this egg is not only soft--but d.a.m.n soft." How that remark convulsed Europe!

Her first appearance on the stage was in Paris, 1690, at the Opera.

Bovine writes of her: "This airy, fairy thing danced into our hearts; her movements are those of a gossamer gadfly--she is the embodiment of spring, summer, autumn and winter." By this one can clearly see that in a trice she had Paris at her feet--and what feet! Pierre Dugaz, the celebrated chiropodist, describes them for us. "They were ordinary flesh colour," he tells us, "with blue veins, and toe-nails which, had they not been cut in time, would have grown several yards long and thus interfered with her dancing."

What a sidelight on her character!--gay, bohemian, care-free as a child, not even heeding her feet, her means of livelihood. Oh, Bibi--"Bibi Coeur d'Or," as she was called so frequently by her mult.i.tudinous adorers--would that in these mundane days you could revisit us with your girlish laugh and supple dancing form! Look at the portrait of her, painted by Coddle at the height of her amazing beauty: note the sensitive nostrils, the delicate little mouth, and those eyes--the gayest, merriest eyes that ever charmed a king's heart; and her hair--that "ma.s.s of waving corn," as Bloodworthy describes it in his celebrated book of "International Beauties." But we must follow her through her wonderful life--destined, if not to alter the whole history of France, why not?

After her appearance in Paris she journeyed to Vienna, where she met Herman Veigel: you all know the story of that meeting, so I will not enlarge upon it--enough that they met. It was, of course, before he wrote his "Ode to an Unknown Flower" and "My Gretchen has Large Flat Ears," poems which were destined to live almost forever. Bibi left Vienna and journeyed to London--London, so cold and grim after Paris the Gay and Vienna the Wicked. In her letter to Madame Perrier she says, "My dear--London's awful"; and "Ludgate Circus--I ask you!" But still, despite her dislike of the city itself, she stayed for eight years, her whole being warmed by the love and adulation of the populace. She appeared in the ballet after the opera. "Her dancing," writes Follygob, "is unbelievable, incredible; she takes one completely by surprise--her b.u.t.terfly dance was a revelation." This from Follygob. Then Henry Pidd wrote of her, "She is a woman." This from H. Pidd!

Then back to Paris--home, the place of her birth. Fresh conquests. In November, 1701, she introduced her world-famed Bavarian fandango, which literally took Paris by storm--it was in her dressing-room afterward that she made her celebrated remark to Maria Pippello (her only rival).

Maria came ostensibly to congratulate her on her success, but in reality to insult her. "_Ma pet.i.te_," she said, sneering, "_l'hibou est-il sur le haie?_" Quick as thought Bibi turned round and replied with a gay toss of her curls, "_Non, mais j'ai la plume de ma tante!_" Oh, witty, sharp-tongued Bibi! A word must be said of the glorious ballets she originated which charmed France for nearly thirty years. There were "Life of a Rain Drop," "Hope Triumphant," and "Angels Visiting Ruined Monastery at Night." This last was an amazing creation for one so uneducated and uncultured as La Jolie Bibi; people flocked to the Opera again and again in order to see it and applaud the ravishing originator.

Then came her meeting with the King in his private box. We are told she curtsied low, and, glancing up at him coyly from between her bent knees, gave forth her world-renowned epigram, "_Comment va, Papa?_" Louis was charmed by this exquisite exhibition of drollery and _diablerie_, and three weeks later she was brought to dance at Versailles. This was a triumph indeed--La Belle Bibi was certainly not one to miss opportunities. A month later she found herself installed at Court--the King's Right Hand. Then began that amazing reign of hers--short lived, but oh, how triumphant, dukes, d.u.c.h.esses, countesses, even princes, paying homage at the feet of La Bibi the dancer, now Hortense, d.u.c.h.esse de Mal-Moulle! Did she abuse her power? Some say she did, some say she didn't; some say she might have, some say she might not have; but there is no denying that her beauty and gaiety won every heart that was brought into contact with her. Every afternoon regularly Louis was wont to visit her by the private staircase to her apartments; together they would pore over the maps and campaigns of war drawn up and submitted by the various generals. Then when Louis was weary Bibi would put the maps in the drawer, draw his head onto her breast, and sing to him songs of her youth, in the attractive cracked voice that was the bequest of her mother who used to sing daily whilst she seamed and seamed. Meanwhile, intrigue was placing its evil fingers upon the strings of her fate.

Lampoons were launched against her, pasquinades were written of her; when she went out driving, fruit and vegetables were often hurled at her. Thus were the fickle hearts of the people she loved turned against their Bibi by the poisonous tongues of those jealous courtiers who so ardently sought her downfall.

You all know the pitiful story of her fall from favour--how the King, enraged by the stories he had heard of her, came to her room just as she was going to bed.

"You've got to go," he said.

"Why?" she answered.

History writes that this ingenuous remark so unmanned him that his eyes filled with tears, and he dashed from the room, closing the door after him in order that her appealing eyes might not cause him to deflect from his purpose.

Poor Bibi--your rose path has come to an end, your day is nearly done.

Back to Paris, back to the squalor and dirt of your early life. Bibi, now in her forty-seventh year, with the memories of her recent splendours still in her heart, decided to return to the stage, to the public who had loved and feted her. Alas! she had returned too late.

Something was missing--the audience laughed every time she came on, and applauded her only when she went off. Oh, Bibi, Bibi Coeur d'Or, even now in this cold age our hearts ache for you. Volauvent writes in the _Journal_ of the period: "Bibi can dance no longer." Veaux caps it by saying "She never could," while S. Kayrille, well known for his wit and kindly humour, reviewed her in the Berlin _Gazette_ of the period by remarking, in his customarily brilliant manner, "She is very plain and no longer in her first youth." This subtle criticism of her dancing, though convulsing the Teutonic capital, was in reality the cause of her leaving the stage and retiring with her one maid to a small house in Montmartre, where history has it she petered out the last years of her eventful career.

Absinthe was her one consolation, together with a miniature of Louis in full regalia. Who is this haggard wretch with still the vestiges of her wondrous beauty discernible in her perfectly moulded features?--not La Belle Bibi! Oh, Fate--Destiny--how cruel are you who guided her straying feet through the mazes of life! Why could she not have died at her zenith--when her portrait was painted?

But still her gay humour was with her to the end. As she lay on her crazy bed, surrounded by priests, she made the supreme and crowning _bon mot_ of her brilliant life. Stretching out her wasted arm to the nearly empty absinthe bottle by her bed, she made a slightly resentful _moue_ and murmured "_Encore une!_"

Oh, brave, witty Bibi!

AH! AH! QUEEN OF THE RUDE ISLANDS

[Ill.u.s.tration: AH! AH! QUEEN OF THE RUDE ISLANDS]