The empress of ice cream

Carlo

Parmesan ice cream: take six eggs, half a pint of syrup and a pint of cream. Put into a stewpan and boil until it thickens, then rasp three ounces of Parmesan cheese, mix and sieve, and freeze it. This is a rich and nourishing ice cream, well suited to nursing mothers.

The Book of Ices

Louise did not retire for her lying-in until the last possible moment. She could not afford to: they sniggered enough to her face, but behind her back they laughed even more.

‘Oh tell me, where is Carwell?’ Rochester enquired of me one day in the king’s hearing. ‘Has she not whelped yet.^’ For that, at least, he was banished for a few days, it being one thing to denigrate the king’s mistress, quite another to include the king’s unborn child in the joke.

Meanwhile, just as Cassell had predicted. Parliament was tightening its grip. The Declaration of Indulgence was withdrawn and replaced with the Test Act, a law by which anyone holding public office had to swear a Protestant oath. Lord Clifford, the Treasurer, was one those forced from public life: he committed suicide at his country hpme. Lord Arlington, whom Louise knew to be a Catholic, took the oath without demur. The Duke of York hesitated, then stepped down from the post of Admiral of the Navy, effectively confirming to the country that the king’s own brother was indeed a convert.

Once again I had reason to be thankful that no one but I had the secrets of ice cream: it meant there was no Englishman who could replace me, and I went on serving the king and his favourites just as I had done before.

And. yet, if Parliament had thought to restrict the influence of Louise, it was mistaken. Her baby was born in July: by Christmas she was once'again resurgent, and in a way that Nell could not hope to emulate.