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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of History of King Charles II of England
+by Jacob Abbott
+
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+Title: History of King Charles II of England
+
+Author: Jacob Abbott
+
+Release Date: October, 2004  [EBook #6659]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on January 10, 2003]
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+Edition: 10
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+Language: English
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+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, HISTORY OF KING CHARLES II OF ENGLAND ***
+
+
+
+
+Mary Wampler, Tiffany Vergon, Charles Aldarondo, Charles Franks and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+HISTORY OF KING CHARLES THE SECOND OF ENGLAND.
+
+BY JACOB ABBOTT.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+
+The author of this series has made it his special object to confine
+himself very strictly, even in the most minute details which he records,
+to historic truth. The narratives are not tales founded upon history,
+but history itself, without any embellishment or any deviations from
+the strict truth, so far as it can now be discovered by an attentive
+examination of the annals written at the time when the events themselves
+occurred. In writing the narratives, the author has endeavored to avail
+himself of the best sources of information which this country affords;
+and though, of course, there must be in these volumes, as in all
+historical accounts, more or less of imperfection and error, there is
+no intentional embellishment. Nothing is stated, not even the most
+minute and apparently imaginary details, without what was deemed good
+historical authority. The readers, therefore, may rely upon the record
+as the truth, and nothing but the truth, so far as an honest purpose
+and a careful examination have been effectual in ascertaining it.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+
+Chapter
+
+   I. INFANCY
+
+  II. PRINCE CHARLES'S MOTHER
+
+ III. QUEEN HENRIETTA'S FLIGHT
+
+  IV. ESCAPE OF THE CHILDREN
+
+   V. THE PRINCE'S RECEPTION AT PARIS
+
+  VI. NEGOTIATIONS WITH ANNE MARIA
+
+ VII. THE ROYAL OAK OF BOSCOBEL
+
+VIII. THE KING'S ESCAPE TO FRANCE
+
+  IX. THE RESTORATION
+
+   X. THE MARRIAGE
+
+  XI. CHARACTER AND REIGN
+
+ XII. CONCLUSION
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+INFANCY.
+
+
+
+King Charles the Second was the son and successor of King Charles the
+First. These two are the only kings of the name of Charles that have
+appeared, thus far, in the line of English sovereigns. Nor is it very
+probable that there will soon be another. The reigns of both these
+monarchs were stained and tarnished with many vices and crimes, and
+darkened by national disasters of every kind, and the name is thus
+connected with so many painful associations in the minds of men, that
+it seems to have been dropped, by common consent, in all branches of
+the royal family.
+
+The reign of Charles the First, as will be seen by the history of his
+life in this series, was characterized by a long and obstinate contest
+between the king and the people, which brought on, at last, a civil
+war, in which the king was defeated and taken prisoner, and in the end
+beheaded on a block, before one of his own palaces. During the last
+stages of this terrible contest, and before Charles way himself taken
+prisoner, he was, as it were, a fugitive and an outlaw in his own
+dominions. His wife and family were scattered in various foreign lands,
+his cities and castles were in the hands of his enemies, and his oldest
+son, the prince Charles, was the object of special hostility. The
+prince incurred, therefore, a great many dangers, and suffered many
+heavy calamities in his early years. He lived to see these calamities
+pass away, and, after they were gone, he enjoyed, so far as his own
+personal safety and welfare were concerned, a tranquil and prosperous
+life. The storm, however, of trial and suffering which enveloped the
+evening of his father's days, darkened the morning of his own. The
+life of Charles the First was a river rising gently, from quiet springs,
+in a scene of verdure and sunshine, and flowing gradually into rugged
+and gloomy regions, where at last it falls into a terrific abyss,
+enveloped in darkness and storms. That of Charles the Second, on the
+other hand, rising in the wild and rugged mountains where the parent
+stream was engulfed, commences its course by leaping frightfully from
+precipice to precipice, with turbid and foaming waters, but emerges
+at last into a smooth and smiling land, and flows through it
+prosperously to the sea.
+
+Prince Charles's mother, the wife of Charles the First, was a French
+princess. Her name was Henrietta Maria. She was unaccomplished,
+beautiful, and very spirited woman. She was a Catholic, and the English
+people, who were very decided in their hostility to the Catholic faith,
+were extremely jealous of her. They watched all her movements with the
+utmost suspicion. They were very unwilling that an heir to the crown
+should arise in her family. The animosity which they felt against her
+husband the king, which was becoming every day more and more bitter,
+seemed to be doubly inveterate and intense toward her. They published
+pamphlets, in which they called her a daughter of Heth, a Canaanite,
+and an idolatress, and expressed hopes that from such a worse than
+pagan stock no progeny should ever spring.
+
+Henrietta was at this time--1630--twenty-one years of age, and had
+been married about four years. She had had one son, who had died a few
+days after his birth. Of course, she did not lead a very happy life
+in England. Her husband the king, like the majority of the English
+people, was a Protestant, and the difference was a far more important
+circumstance in those days than it would be now; though even now a
+difference in religious faith, on points _which either party deems
+essential_, is, in married life, an obstacle to domestic happiness,
+which comes to no termination, and admits of no cure. If it were
+possible for reason and reflection to control the impetuous impulses
+of youthful hearts, such differences of religious faith would be
+regarded, where they exist, as an insurmountable objection to a
+matrimonial union.
+
+The queen, made thus unhappy by religious dissensions with her husband,
+and by the public odium of which she was the object, lived in
+considerable retirement and seclusion at St. James's Palace, in
+Westminster, which is the western part of London. Here her second son,
+the subject of this history, was born, in May, 1630, which was ten
+years after the landing of the pilgrims on the Plymouth rock. The babe
+was very far from being pretty, though he grew up at last to be quite
+a handsome man. King Charles was very much pleased at the birth of his
+son. He rode into London the next morning at the head of a long train
+of guards and noble attendants, to the great cathedral church of St.
+Paul's, to render thanks publicly to God for the birth of his child
+and the safety of the queen. While this procession was going through
+the streets, all London being out to gaze upon it, the attention of
+the vast crowd was attracted to the appearance of a star glimmering
+faintly in the sky at midday. This is an occurrence not very uncommon,
+though it seldom, perhaps, occurs when it has so many observers to
+witness it. The star was doubtless Venus, which, in certain
+circumstances, is often bright enough to be seen when the sun is above
+the horizon. The populace of London, however, who were not in those
+days very profound astronomers, regarded the shining of the star as
+a supernatural occurrence altogether, and as portending the future
+greatness and glory of the prince whose natal day it thus unexpectedly
+adorned.
+
+Preparations were made for the baptism of the young prince in July.
+The baptism of a prince is an important affair, and there was one
+circumstance which gave a peculiar interest to that of the infant
+Charles. The Reformation had not been long established in England, and
+this happened to be the first occasion on which an heir to the English
+crown had been baptized since the Liturgy of the English Church had
+been arranged. There is a chapel connected with the palace of St.
+James, as is usual with royal palaces in Europe, and even, in fact,
+with the private castles and mansions of the higher nobility. The
+baptism took place there. On such occasions it is usual for certain
+persons to appear as sponsors, as they are called, who undertake to
+answer for the safe and careful instruction of the child in the
+principles of the Christian faith. This is, of course, mainly a form,
+the real function of the sponsors being confined, as it would appear,
+to making magnificent presents to their young godchild, in
+acknowledgment of the distinguished honor conferred upon them by their
+designation to the office which they hold. The sponsors, on this
+occasion, were certain royal personages in France, the relatives of
+the queen. They could not appear personally, and so they appointed
+proxies from among the higher nobility of England, who appeared at the
+baptism in their stead, and made the presents to the child. One of
+these proxies was a duchess, whose gift was a jewel valued at a sum
+in English money equal to thirty thousand dollars.
+
+The oldest son of a king of England receives the title of Prince of
+Wales; and there was an ancient custom of the realm, that an infant
+prince of Wales should be under the care, in his earliest years, of
+a Welsh nurse, so that the first words which he should learn to speak
+might be the vernacular language of his principality. Such a nurse was
+provided for Charles. Rockers for his cradle were appointed, and many
+other officers of his household, all the arrangements being made in
+a very magnificent and sumptuous manner. It is the custom in England
+to pay fees to the servants by which a lady or gentleman is attended,
+even when a guest in private dwellings; and some idea may be formed
+of the scale on which the pageantry of this occasion was conducted,
+from the fact that one of the lady sponsors who rode to the palace in
+the queen's carriage, which was sent for her on this occasion, paid
+a sum equal to fifty dollars each to six running footmen who attended
+the carriage, and a hundred dollars to the coachman; while a number
+of knights who came on horseback and in armor to attend upon the
+carriage, as it moved to the palace, received each a gratuity of two
+hundred and fifty dollars. The state dresses on the occasion of this
+baptism were very costly and splendid, being of white satin trimmed
+with crimson.
+
+The little prince was thus an object of great attention at the very
+commencement of his days, His mother had his portrait painted, and
+sent it to _her_ mother in France. She did not, however, in the letters
+which accompanied the picture, though his mother, praise the beauty
+of her child. She said, in fact, that he was so ugly that she was
+ashamed of him, though his size and plumpness, she added, atoned for
+the want of beauty. And then he was so comically serious and grave in
+the expression of his countenance! the queen said she verily believed
+that he was wiser than herself.
+
+As the young prince advanced in years, the religious and political
+difficulties in the English nation increased, and by the time that he
+had arrived at an age when he could begin to receive impressions from
+the conversation and intercourse of those around him, the Parliament
+began to be very jealous of the influence which his mother might exert.
+They were extremely anxious that he should be educated a Protestant,
+and were very much afraid that his mother would contrive to initiate
+him secretly into the ideas and practices of the Catholic faith.
+
+She insisted that she did not attempt to do this, and perhaps she did
+not; but in those days it was often considered right to make false
+pretensions and to deceive, so far as this was necessary to promote
+the cause of true religion. The queen did certainly make some efforts
+to instill Catholic principles into the minds of some of her children;
+for she had other children after the birth of Charles. She gave a
+daughter a crucifix one day, which is a little image of Christ upon
+the cross, made usually of ivory, or silver, or gold, and also a rosary,
+which is a string of beads, by means of which the Catholics are assisted
+to count their prayers. Henrietta gave these things to her daughter
+secretly, and told her to hide them in her pocket, and taught her how
+to use them. The Parliament considered such attempts to influence the
+minds of the royal children as very heinous sins, and they made such
+arrangements for secluding the young prince Charles from his mother,
+and putting the others under the guidance of Protestant teachers and
+governors, as very much interfered with Henrietta's desires to enjoy
+the society of her children. Since England was a Protestant realm, a
+Catholic lady, in marrying an English king, ought not to have expected,
+perhaps, to have been allowed to bring up her children in her own
+faith; still, it must have been very hard for a mother to be forbidden
+to teach her own children what she undoubtedly believed was the only
+possible means of securing for them the favor and protection of Heaven.
+
+There is in London a vast storehouse of books, manuscripts, relics,
+curiosities, pictures, and other memorials of by-gone days, called the
+British Museum. Among the old records here preserved are various letters
+written by Henrietta, and one or two by Charles, the young prince,
+during his childhood. Here is one, for instance, written by Henrietta
+to her child, when the little prince was but eight years of age, chiding
+him for not being willing to take his medicine. He was at that time
+under the charge of Lord Newcastle.
+
+"CHARLES,--I am sorry that I must begin my first letter with chiding
+you, because I hear that you will not take phisicke, I hope it was
+onlie for this day, and that to-morrow you will do it for if you will
+not, I must come to you, and _make_ you take it, for it is for your
+health. I have given order to mi Lord of Newcastle to send mi word
+to-night whether you will or not. Therefore I hope you will not give
+me the paines to goe; and so I rest, your affectionate mother,
+                                       HENRIETTE MARIE."
+
+The letter was addressed
+
+"To MI DEARE SONNE the Prince."
+
+The queen must have taken special pains with this her first letter to
+her son, for, with all its faults of orthography, it is very much more
+correct than most of the epistles which she attempted to write in
+English. She was very imperfectly acquainted with the English language,
+using, as she almost always did, in her domestic intercourse, her own
+native tongue.
+
+Time passed on, and the difficulties and contests between King Charles
+and his people and Parliament became more and more exciting and
+alarming. One after another of the king's most devoted and faithful
+ministers was arrested, tried, condemned, and beheaded, notwithstanding
+all the efforts which their sovereign master could make to save them.
+Parties were formed, and party spirit ran very high. Tumults were
+continually breaking out about the palaces, which threatened the
+personal safety of the king and queen. Henrietta herself was a special
+object of the hatred which these outbreaks expressed. The king himself
+was half distracted by the overwhelming difficulties of his position.
+Bad as it was in England, it was still worse in Scotland. There was
+an actual rebellion there, and the urgency of the danger in that quarter
+was so great that Charles concluded to go there, leaving the poor queen
+at home to take care of herself and her little ones as well as she
+could, with the few remaining means of protection yet left at her
+disposal.
+
+There was an ancient mansion, called Oatlands, not very far from London,
+where the queen generally resided during the absence of her husband.
+It was a lonely place, on low and level ground, and surrounded by moats
+filled with water, over which those who wished to enter passed by draw
+bridges. Henrietta chose this place for her residence because she
+thought she should be safer there from mobs and violence. She kept the
+children all there except the Prince of Wales, who was not allowed to
+be wholly under her care. He, how ever, often visited his mother, and
+she sometimes visited him.
+
+During the absence of her husband, Queen Henrietta was subjected to
+many severe and heavy trials. Her communications with him were often
+interrupted and broken. She felt a very warm interest in the prosperity
+and success of his expedition, and sometimes the tidings she received
+from him encouraged her to hope that all might yet be well. Here, for
+instance, is a note which she addressed one day to an officer who had
+sent her a letter from the king, that had come enclosed to him. It is
+written in a broken English, which shows how imperfectly the foreign
+lady had learned the language of her adopted country. They who
+understand the French language will be interested in observing that
+most of the errors which the writer falls into are those which result
+naturally from the usages of her mother tongue.
+
+_Queen Henrietta to Sir Edward Nicholas_.
+
+"MAISTRE NICHOLAS,--I have reseaved your letter, and that you send me
+from the king, which writes me word he as been vere well reseaved in
+Scotland; that both the armi and the people have shewed a creat joy
+to see the king, and such that theay say was never seen before. Pray
+God it may continue.
+                                   Your friend, HENRIETTE MARIE R."
+
+At one time during the king's absence in Scotland the Parliament
+threatened to take the queen's children all away from her, for fear,
+as they said, that she would make papists of them. This danger alarmed
+and distressed the queen exceedingly. She declared that she did not
+intend or desire to bring up her children in the Catholic faith. She
+knew this was contrary to the wish of the king her husband, as well
+as of the people of England. In order to diminish the danger that the
+children would be taken away, she left Oatlands herself, and went to
+reside at other palaces, only going occasionally to visit her children.
+Though she was thus absent from them in person, her heart was with
+them all the time, and she was watching with great solicitude and
+anxiety for any indications of a design on the part of her enemies to
+come and take them away.
+
+At last she received intelligence that an armed force was ordered to
+assemble one night in the vicinity of Oatlands to seize her children,
+under the pretext that the queen was herself forming plans for removing
+them out of the country and taking them to France. Henrietta was a
+lady of great spirit and energy, and this threatened danger to her
+children aroused all her powers. She sent immediately to all the friends
+about her on whom she could rely, and asked them to come, armed and
+equipped, and with as many followers as they could muster, to the park
+at Oatlands that night. There were also then in and near London a
+number of officers of the army, absent from their posts on furlough.
+She sent similar orders to these. All obeyed the summons with eager
+alacrity. The queen mustered and armed her own household, too, down
+to the lowest servants of the kitchen. By these means quite a little
+army was collected in the park at Oatlands, the separate parties coming
+in, one after another, in the evening and night. This guard patrolled
+the grounds till morning, the queen herself animating them by her
+presence and energy. The children, whom the excited mother was thus
+guarding, like a lioness defending her young, were all the time within
+the mansion, awaiting in infantile terror some dreadful calamity, they
+scarcely knew what, which all this excitement seemed to portend.
+
+The names and ages of the queen's children at this time were as follows:
+
+Charles, prince of Wales, the subject of this story, eleven.
+
+Mary, ten. Young as she was, she was already married, having been
+espoused a short time before to William, prince of Orange, who was one
+year older than herself.
+
+James, duke of York, seven. He became afterward King James II.
+
+Elizabeth, six.
+
+Henry, an infant only a few months old.
+
+The night passed away without any attack, though a considerable force
+assembled in the vicinity, which was, however, soon after disbanded.
+The queen's fears were, nevertheless, not allayed. She began to make
+arrangements for escaping from the kingdom in ease it should become
+necessary to do so. She sent a certain faithful friend and servant to
+Portsmouth with orders to get some vessels ready, so that she could
+fly there with her children and embark at a moment's notice, if these
+dangers and alarms should continue.
+
+She did not, however, have occasion to avail herself of these
+preparations. Affairs seemed to take a more favorable turn. The king
+came back from Scotland. He was received by his people, on his arrival,
+with apparent cordiality and good will. The queen was, of course,
+rejoiced to welcome him home, and she felt relieved and protected by
+his presence. The city of London, which had been the main seat of
+disaffection and hostility to the royal family, began to show symptoms
+of returning loyalty and friendly regard. In reciprocation for this,
+the king determined on making a grand entry into the city, to pay a
+sort of visit to the authorities. He rode, on this occasion, in a
+splendid chariot of state, with the little prince by his side. Queen
+Henrietta came next, in an open carriage of her own, and the other
+children, with other carriages, followed in the train. A long cortege
+of guards and attendants, richly dressed and magnificently mounted,
+preceded and followed the royal family, while the streets were lined
+with thousands of spectators, who waved handkerchiefs and banners, and
+shouted God save the king! In the midst of this scene of excitement
+and triumph, Henrietta rode quietly along, her anxieties relieved, her
+sorrows and trials ended, and her heart bounding with happiness and
+hope. She was once more, as she conceived, reunited to her husband and
+her children, and reconciled to the people of her realm. She thought
+her troubles were over Alas! they had, on the contrary, scarcely begun.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+PRINCE CHARLES'S MOTHER.
+
+
+
+The indications and promises of returning peace and happiness which
+gave Prince Charles's mother so much animation and hope after the
+return of her husband from Scotland were all very superficial and
+fallacious. The real grounds of the quarrel between the king and his
+Parliament, and of the feelings of alienation and ill will cherished
+toward the queen, were all, unfortunately, as deep and extensive as
+ever; and the storm, which lulled treacherously for a little time,
+broke forth soon afterward anew, with a frightful violence which it
+was evident that nothing could withstand. This new onset of disaster
+and calamity was produced in such a way that Henrietta had to reproach
+herself with being the cause of its coming.
+
+She had often represented to the king that, in her opinion, one main
+cause of the difficulties he had suffered was that he did not act
+efficiently and decidedly, and like a man, in putting down the
+opposition manifested against him on the part of his subjects; and
+now, soon after his return from Scotland, on some new spirit of
+disaffection showing itself in Parliament, she urged him to act at
+once energetically and promptly against it. She proposed to him to
+take an armed force with him, and proceed boldly to the halls where
+the Parliament was assembled, and arrest the leaders of the party who
+were opposed to him. There were five of them who were specially
+prominent. The queen believed that if these five men were seized and
+imprisoned in the Tower, the rest would be intimidated and overawed,
+and the monarch's lost authority and power would be restored again.
+
+The king was persuaded, partly by the dictates of his own judgment,
+and partly by the urgency of the queen, to make the attempt. The
+circumstances of this case, so far as the action of the king was
+concerned in them, are fully related in the history of Charles the
+First. Here we have only to speak of the queen, who was left in a state
+of great suspense and anxiety in her palace at Whitehall while her
+husband was gone on his dangerous mission.
+
+The plan of the king to make this irruption into the great legislative
+assembly of the nation had been kept, so they supposed, a very profound
+secret, lest the members whom he was going to arrest should receive
+warning of their danger and fly. When the time arrived, the king bade
+Henrietta farewell, saying that she might wait there an hour, and if
+she received no ill news from him during that time, she might be sure
+that he had been successful, and that he was once more master of his
+kingdom. The queen remained in the apartment where the king had left
+her, looking continually at the watch which she held before her, and
+counting the minutes impatiently as the hands moved slowly on. She had
+with her one confidential friend, the Lady Carlisle, who sat with her
+and seemed to share her solicitude, though she had not been entrusted
+with the secret. The time passed on. No ill tidings came; and at length
+the hour fully expired, and Henrietta, able to contain herself no
+longer, exclaimed with exultation, "Rejoice with me; the hour is gone.
+From this time my husband is master of his realm. His enemies in
+Parliament are all arrested before this time, and his kingdom is
+henceforth his own."
+
+It certainly is possible for kings and queens to have faithful friends,
+but there are so many motives and inducements to falsehood and treachery
+in court, that it is _not_ possible, generally, for them to distinguish
+false friends from true. The Lady Carlisle was a confederate with some
+of the very men whom Charles had gone to arrest. On receiving this
+intimation of their danger, she sent immediately to the houses of
+Parliament, which were very near at hand, and the obnoxious members
+received warning in time to fly. The hour had indeed elapsed, but the
+king had met with several unexpected delays, both in his preparations
+for going, and on his way to the House of Commons, so that when at
+last he entered, the members were gone. His attempt, however,
+unsuccessful as it was, evoked a general storm of indignation and
+anger, producing thus all the exasperation which was to have been
+expected from the measure, without in any degree accomplishing its
+end. The poor queen was overwhelmed with confusion and dismay when she
+learned the result. She had urged her husband forward to an extremely
+dangerous and desperate measure, and then by her thoughtless
+indiscretion had completely defeated the end. A universal and utterly
+uncontrollable excitement burst like a clap of thunder upon the country
+as this outrage, as they termed it, of the king became known, and the
+queen was utterly appalled at the extent and magnitude of the mischief
+she had done.
+
+The mischief was irremediable. The spirit of resentment and indignation
+which the king's action had aroused, expressed itself in such tumultuous
+and riotous proceedings as to render the continuance of the royal
+family in London no longer safe. They accordingly removed up the river
+to Hampton Court, a famous palace on the Thames, not many miles from
+the city. There they remained but a very short time. The dangers which
+beset them were evidently increasing. It was manifest that the king
+must either give up what he deemed the just rights and prerogatives
+of the crown, or prepare to maintain them by war. The queen urged him
+to choose the latter alternative. To raise the means for doing this,
+she proposed that she should herself leave the country, taking with
+her, her jewels, and such other articles of great value as could be
+easily carried away, and by means of them and her personal exertions,
+raise funds and forces to aid her husband in the approaching struggle.
+
+The king yielded to the necessity which seemed to compel the adoption
+of this plan. He accordingly set off to accompany Henrietta to the
+shore. She took with her the young Princess Mary; in fact, the
+ostensible object of her journey was to convey her to her young husband,
+the Prince of Orange, in Holland. In such infantile marriages as theirs,
+it is not customary, though the marriage ceremony be performed, for
+the wedded pair to live together till they arrive at years a little
+more mature.
+
+The queen was to embark at Dover. Dover was in those days the great
+port of egress from England to the Continent. There was, and is still,
+a great castle on the cliffs to guard the harbor and the town. These
+cliffs are picturesque and high, falling off abruptly in chalky
+precipices to the sea. Among them at one place is a sort of dell, by
+which there is a gradual descent to the water. King Charles stood upon
+the shore when Henrietta sailed away, watching the ship as it receded
+from his view, with tears in his eyes. With all the faults,
+characteristic of her nation, which Henrietta possessed, she was now
+his best and truest friend, and when she was gone he felt that he was
+left desolate and alone in the midst of the appalling dangers by which
+he was environed.
+
+The king went back to Hampton Court. Parliament sent him a request
+that he would come and reside nearer to the capital, and enjoined upon
+him particularly not to remove the young Prince of Wales. In the mean
+time they began to gather together their forces, and to provide
+munitions of war. The king did the same. He sent the young prince to
+the western part of the kingdom, and retired himself to the northward,
+to the city of York, which he made his head-quarters. In a word, both
+parties prepared for war.
+
+In the mean time, Queen Henrietta was very successful in her attempts
+to obtain aid for her husband in Holland. Her misfortunes awakened
+pity, with which, through her beauty, and the graces of her conversation
+and address, there was mingled a feeling analogous to love. Then,
+besides, there was something in her spirit of earnest and courageous
+devotion to her husband in the hours of his calamity that won for her
+a strong degree of admiration and respect.
+
+There are no efforts which are so efficient and powerful in the
+accomplishment of their end as those which a faithful wife makes to
+rescue and save her husband. The heart, generally so timid, seems to
+be inspired on such occasions with a preternatural courage, and the
+arm, at other times so feeble and helpless, is nerved with unexpected
+strength. Every one is ready to second and help such efforts, and she
+who makes them is surprised at her success, and wonders at the extent
+and efficiency of the powers which she finds herself so unexpectedly
+able to wield.
+
+The queen interested all classes in Holland in her plans, and by her
+personal credit, and the security of her diamonds and rubies, she
+borrowed large sums of money from the government, from the banks, and
+from private merchants. The sums which she thus raised amounted to two
+millions of pounds sterling, equal to nearly ten millions of dollars.
+While these negotiations were going on she remained in Holland, with
+her little daughter, the bride, under her care, whose education she
+was carrying forward all the time with the help of suitable masters;
+for, though married, Mary was yet a child. The little husband was going
+on at the same time with his studies too.
+
+Henrietta remained in Holland a year. She expended a part of her money
+in purchasing military stores and supplies for her husband, and then
+set sail with them, and with the money not expended, to join the king.
+The voyage was a very extraordinary one. A great gale of wind began
+to blow from the northeast soon after the ships left the port, which
+increased in violence for nine days, until at length the sea was lashed
+to such a state of fury that the company lost all hope of ever reaching
+the land. The queen had with her a large train of attendants, both
+ladies and gentlemen; and there were also in her suit a number of
+Catholic priests, who always accompanied her as the chaplains and
+confessors of her household. These persons had all been extremely sick,
+and had been tied into their beds on account of the excessive rolling
+of the ship, and their own exhaustion and helplessness. The danger
+increased, until at last it became so extremely imminent that all the
+self-possession of the passengers was entirely gone. In such protracted
+storms, the surges of the sea strike the ship with terrific force, and
+vast volumes of water fall heavily upon the decks, threatening instant
+destruction--the ship plunging awfully after the shock, as if sinking
+to rise no more. At such moments, the noble ladies who accompanied the
+queen on this voyage would be overwhelmed with terror, and they filled
+the cabins with their shrieks of dismay. All this time the queen herself
+was quiet and composed. She told the ladies not to fear, for "queens
+of England were never drowned."
+
+At one time, when the storm was at its height, the whole party were
+entirely overwhelmed with consternation and terror. Two of the ships
+were engulfed and lost. The queen's company thought that their own was
+sinking. They came crowding into the cabin where the priests were
+lying, sick and helpless, and began all together to confess their sins
+to them, in the Catholic mode, eager in these their last moments, as
+they supposed, to relieve their consciences in any way from the burdens
+of guilt which oppressed them. The queen herself did not participate
+in these fears. She ridiculed the absurd confessions, and rebuked the
+senseless panic to which the terrified penitents were yielding; and
+whenever any mitigation of the violence of the gale made it possible
+to do any thing to divert the minds of her company, she tried to make
+amusement out of the odd and strange dilemmas in which they were
+continually placed, and the ludicrous disasters and accidents which
+were always befalling her servants and officers of state, in their
+attempts to continue the etiquette and ceremony proper in attendance
+upon a queen, and from which even the violence of such a storm, and
+the imminence of such danger, could not excuse them. After a fortnight
+of danger, terror, and distress, the ships that remained of the little
+squadron succeeded in getting back to the port from which they had
+sailed.
+
+The queen, however, did not despair. After a few days of rest and
+refreshment she set sail again, though it was now in the dead of winter.
+The result of this second attempt was a prosperous voyage, and the
+little fleet arrived in due time at Burlington, on the English coast,
+where the queen landed her money and her stores. She had, however,
+after all, a very narrow escape, for she was very closely pursued on
+her voyage by an English squadron. They came into port the night after
+she had landed, and the next morning she was awakened by the crashing
+of cannon balls and the bursting of bomb shells in the houses around
+her, and found, on hastily rising, that the village was under a
+bombardment from the ships of her enemies. She hurried on some sort
+of dress, and sallied forth with her attendants to escape into the
+fields. This incident is related fully in the history of her husband,
+Charles the First; but there is one circumstance, not there detailed,
+which illustrates very strikingly that strange combination of mental
+greatness and energy worthy of a queen, with a simplicity of affections
+and tastes which we should scarcely expect in a child, that marked
+Henrietta's character. She had a small dog. Its name was Mike. They
+say it was an ugly little animal, too, in all eyes but her own. This
+dog accompanied her on the voyage, and landed with her on the English
+shore. On the morning, however, when she fled from her bed to escape
+from the balls and bomb shells of the English ships, she recollected,
+after getting a short distance from the house, that Mike was left
+behind. She immediately returned, ran up to her chamber again, seized
+Mike, who was sleeping unconsciously upon her bed, and bore the little
+pet away from the scene of ruin which the balls and bursting shells
+were making, all astonished, no doubt, at so hurried and violent an
+abduction. The party gained the open fields, and seeking shelter in
+a dry trench, which ran along the margin of a field, they crouched
+there together till the commander of the ships was tired of firing.
+
+The queen's destination was York, the great and ancient capital of the
+north of England York was the head quarters of King Charles's army,
+though he himself was not there at this time. As soon as news of the
+queen's arrival reached York, the general in command there sent down
+to the coast a detachment of two thousand men to escort the heroine,
+and the stores and money which she had brought, to her husband's
+capital. At the head of this force she marched in triumph across the
+country, with a long train of ordnance and baggage wagons loaded with
+supplies. There were six pieces of cannon, and two hundred and fifty
+wagons loaded with the money which she had obtained in Holland. The
+whole country was excited with enthusiasm at the spectacle. The
+enthusiasm was increased by the air and bearing of the queen, who,
+proud and happy at this successful result of all her dangers and toils,
+rode on horseback at the head of her army like a general, spoke frankly
+to the soldiers, sought no shelter from the sun and rain, and ate her
+meals, like the rest of the army, in a bivouac in the open field. She
+had been the means, in some degree, of leading the king into his
+difficulties, by the too vigorous measures she had urged him to take
+in the case of the attempted parliamentary arrest. She seems to have
+been determined to make that spirit of resolution and energy in her,
+which caused the mischief then, atone for it by its efficient usefulness
+now. She stopped on her march to summon and _take_ a town, which had
+been hitherto in the hands of her husband's enemies, adding thus the
+glory of a conquest to the other triumphs of the day.
+
+In fact, the queen's heart was filled with pride and pleasure at this
+conclusion of her enterprise, as is very manifest from the frequent
+letters which she wrote to her husband at the time. The king's cause
+revived. They gradually approached each other in the operations which
+they severally conducted, until at last the king, after a great and
+successful battle, set off at the head of a large escort to come and
+meet his wife. They met in the vale of Keynton, near Edgehill, which
+is on the southern borders of Warwickshire, near the center of the
+island. The meeting was, of course, one of the greatest excitement and
+pleasure. Charles praised the high courage and faithful affection of
+his devoted wife, and she was filled with happiness in enjoying the
+love and gratitude of her husband.
+
+The pressure of outward misfortune and calamity has always the same
+strong tendency as was manifest in this case to invigorate anew all
+the ties of conjugal and domestic affection, and thus to create the
+happiness which it seems to the world to destroy. In the early part
+of Charles and Henrietta's married life, while every thing external
+went smoothly and prosperously with them, they were very far from being
+happy. They destroyed each other's peace by petty disputes and jars
+about things of little consequence, in which they each had scarcely
+any interest except a desire to carry the point and triumph over the
+other. King Charles himself preserved a record of one of these disputes.
+The queen had received, at the time of her marriage, certain estates,
+consisting of houses and lands, the income of which was to be at her
+disposal, and she wished to appoint certain treasurers to take charge
+of this property. She had made out a list of these officers in
+consultation with her mother. She gave this list to Charles one night,
+after he was himself in bed. He said he would look at it in the morning,
+but that she must remember that, by the marriage treaty, _he_ was to
+appoint those officers. She said, in reply, that a part of those whom
+she had named were English. The king said that he would look at the
+paper in the morning, and such of the English names as he approved he
+would confirm, but that he could not appoint any Frenchmen. The queen
+answered that she and her mother had selected the men whom she had
+named, and she would not have any body else. Charles rejoined that the
+business was not either in her power or her mother's, and if she relied
+on such an influence to effect her wishes, he would not appoint _any
+body_ that she recommended. The queen was very much hurt at this, and
+began to be angry. She said that if she could not put in whom she
+chose, to have the care of her property, she would not have any such
+property. He might take back her houses and lands, and allow her what
+he pleased in money in its stead. Charles replied by telling her to
+remember whom she was speaking to; that he could not be treated in
+that manner; and then the queen, giving way to lamentations and tears,
+said she was wretched and miserable; every thing that she wanted was
+denied her, and whatever she recommended was refused on the very account
+of her recommendation. Charles tried to speak, but she would not hear;
+she went on with her lamentations and complaints, interrupted only by
+her own sobs of passion and grief.
+
+The reader may perhaps imagine that this must have been an extreme and
+unusual instance of dissension between this royal pair; but it was
+not. Cases of far greater excitement and violence sometimes occurred.
+The French servants and attendants, whom the queen very naturally
+preferred, and upon whom the king was as naturally inclined to look
+with suspicion and ill will, were a continual source of disagreement
+between them. At last, one afternoon, the king, happening to come into
+that part of the palace at Whitehall where the queen's apartments were
+situated, and which was called "the queen's side", found there a number
+of her gentlemen and lady attendants in a great frolic, capering and
+dancing in a way which the gay Frenchmen probably considered nothing
+extraordinary, but which King Charles regarded as very irreverent and
+unsuitable conduct to be witnessed in the presence of an English queen.
+He was very much displeased. He advanced to Henrietta, took her by the
+arm, conducted her sternly to his own side of the palace, brought her
+into one of his own apartments, and locked the door. He then sent an
+officer to direct all the French servants and attendants in the queen's
+apartments to leave the palace immediately, and repair to Somerset
+House, which was not far distant, and remain there till they received
+further orders. The officer executed these commands in a very rough
+manner. The French women shrieked and cried, and filled the court yard
+of the palace with their clamor; but the officer paid no regard to
+this noise. He turned them all out of the apartments, and locked the
+doors after them.
+
+The queen was rendered quite frantic with vexation and rage at these
+proceedings. She flew to the windows to see and to bid farewell to her
+friends, and to offer them expressions of her sympathy. The king pulled
+her away, telling her to be quiet and submit, for he was determined
+that they should go. The queen was determined that she would not submit.
+She attempted to open the windows; the king held them down. Excited
+now to a perfect frenzy in the struggle, she began to break out the
+panes with her fist, while Charles exerted all his force to restrain
+and confine her, by grasping her wrists and endeavoring to force her
+away. What a contrast between the low and sordid selfishness and
+jealousy evinced in such dissensions as these, and the lofty and heroic
+devotedness and fidelity which this wife afterward evinced for her
+husband in the harassing cares the stormy voyages, and the martial
+exposures and fatigues which she endured for his sake! And yet,
+notwithstanding this great apparent contrast, and the wide difference
+in the estimation which mankind form of the conduct of the actor in
+these different scenes, still we can see that it is, after all, the
+impulse of the same lofty and indomitable spirit which acted in both.
+The soul itself of the queen was not altered, nor even the character
+of her action. The change was in the object and aim. In the one case
+she was contending against the authority of a husband, to gain petty
+and useless victories in domestic strife; in the other, the same spirit
+and energy were expended in encountering the storms and tempests of
+outward adversity to sustain her husband and protect her children.
+Thus the change was a change of circumstances rather than of character.
+
+The change was, however, none the less important on that account in
+its influence on the king. It restored to him the affection and sympathy
+of his wife, and filled his heart with inward happiness. It was a
+joyous change to him, though it was produced by sufferings and sorrows;
+for it was the very pressure of outward calamity that made his wife
+his friend again, and restored his domestic peace. In how many thousand
+instances is the same effect produced in a still more striking manner,
+though on a less conspicuous stage, than in the case of this royal
+pair! And how many thousands of outwardly prosperous families there
+are, from which domestic peace and happiness are gone, and nothing but
+the pressure from without of affliction or calamity can ever restore
+them!
+
+In consequence, in a great measure, of Henrietta's efficient help, the
+king's affairs greatly improved, and, for a time, it seemed as if he
+would gain an ultimate and final victory over his enemies, and recover
+his lost dominion. He advanced to Oxford, and made his head quarters
+there, and commenced the preparations for once more getting possession
+of the palaces and fortresses of London. He called together a Parliament
+at Oxford; some members came, and were regularly organized in the two
+houses of Lords and Commons, while the rest remained at London and
+continued their sittings there. Thus there were two governments, two
+Parliaments, and two capitals in England, and the whole realm was rent
+and distracted by the respective claims of these contending powers
+over the allegiance of the subjects and the government of the realm.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+QUEEN HENRIETTA'S FLIGHT.
+
+
+
+The brightening of the prospects in King Charles's affairs which was
+produced, for a time, by the queen's vigorous and energetic action,
+proved to be only a temporary gleam after all. The clouds and darkness
+soon returned again, and brooded over his horizon more gloomily than
+ever. The Parliament raised and organized new and more powerful armies.
+The great Republican general, Oliver Cromwell, who afterward became
+so celebrated as the Protector in the time of the Commonwealth, came
+into the field, and was very successful in all his military plans.
+Other Republican generals appeared in all parts of the kingdom, and
+fought with great determination and great success, driving the armies
+of the king before them wherever they moved, and reducing town after
+town, and castle after castle, until it began to appear evident that
+the whole kingdom would soon fall into their hands.
+
+In the mean time, the family of the queen were very much separated
+from each other, the children having been left in various places,
+exposed each to different privations and dangers. Two or three of them
+were in London in the hands of their father's enemies. Mary, the young
+bride of the Prince of Orange, was in Holland. Prince Charles, the
+oldest son, who was now about fourteen years of age, was at the head
+of one of his father's armies in the west of England. Of course, such
+a boy could not be expected to accomplish any thing as a general, or
+even to exercise any real military command. He, however, had his place
+at the head of a considerable force, and though there were generals
+with him to conduct all the operations, and to direct the soldiery,
+they were nominally the lieutenants of the prince, and acted, in all
+cases, in their young commander's name. Their great duty was, however,
+after all, to take care of their charge; and the army which accompanied
+Charles was thus rather an escort and a guard, to secure his safety,
+than a force from which any aid was to be expected in the recovery of
+the kingdom.
+
+The queen did every thing in her power to sustain the sinking fortunes
+of her husband, but in vain. At length, in June, 1644, she found herself
+unable to continue any longer such warlike and masculine exposures and
+toils. It became necessary for her to seek some place of retreat, where
+she could enjoy, for a time at least, the quiet and repose now essential
+to the preservation of her life. Oxford was no longer a place of safety.
+The Parliament had ordered her impeachment on account of her having
+brought in arms and munitions of war from foreign lands, to disturb,
+as they said, the peace of the kingdom. The Parliamentary armies were
+advancing toward Oxford, and she was threatened with being shut up and
+besieged there. She accordingly left Oxford, and went down to the sea-
+coast to Exeter, a strongly fortified place, on a hill surrounded in
+part by other hills, and very near the sea. There was a palace within
+the walls, where the queen thought she could enjoy, for a time at
+least, the needed seclusion and repose. The king accompanied her for
+a few miles on her journey, to a place called Abingdon, which is in
+the neighborhood of Oxford, and there the unhappy pair bade each other
+farewell, with much grief and many tears. They never met again.
+
+Henrietta continued her sorrowful journey alone. She reached the sea-
+coast in the south-western part of England, where Exeter is situated,
+and shut herself up in the place of her retreat. She was in a state
+of great destitution, for Charles's circumstances were now so reduced
+that he could afford her very little aid. She sent across the Channel
+to her friends in France, asking them to help her. They sent immediately
+the supplies that she needed--articles of clothing, a considerable sum
+of money, and a nurse. She retained the clothing and the nurse, and
+a little of the money; the rest she sent to Charles. She was, however,
+now herself tolerably provided for in her new home, and here, a few
+weeks afterward, her sixth child was born. It was a daughter.
+
+The queen's long continued exertions and exposures had seriously
+impaired her health, and she lay, feeble and low, in her sick chamber
+for about ten days, when she learned to her dismay that one of the
+Parliamentary generals was advancing at the head of his army to attack
+the town which she had made her refuge. This general's name was Essex.
+The queen sent a messenger out to meet Essex, asking him to allow her
+to withdraw from the town before he should invest it with his armies.
+She said that she was very weak and feeble, and unable to endure the
+privations and alarms which the inhabitants of a besieged town have
+necessarily to bear; and she asked his permission, therefore, to retire
+to Bristol, till her health should be restored. Essex replied that he
+could not give her permission to retire from Exeter; that, in fact,
+the object of his coming there was to escort her to London, to bring
+her before Parliament, to answer to the charge of treason.
+
+The queen perceived immediately that nothing but the most prompt and
+resolute action could enable her to escape the impending danger. She
+had but little bodily strength remaining, but that little was stimulated
+and renewed by the mental resolution and energy which, as is usual in
+temperaments like hers, burned all the brighter in proportion to the
+urgency of the danger which called it into action. She rose from her
+sick bed, and began to concert measures for making her escape. She
+confided her plan to three trusty friends, one gentleman, one lady,
+and her confessor, who, as her spiritual teacher and guide, was her
+constant companion. She disguised herself and these her attendants,
+and succeeded in getting through the gates of Exeter without attracting
+any observation. This was before Essex arrived. She found, however,
+before she went far, that the van of the army was approaching, and she
+had to seek refuge in a hut till her enemies had passed. She concealed
+herself among some straw, her attendants seeking such other hiding
+places as were at hand. It was two days before the bodies of soldiery
+had all passed so as to make it safe for the queen to come out of her
+retreat. The hut would seem to have been uninhabited, as the accounts
+state that she remained all this time without food, though this seems
+to be an almost incredible degree of privation and exposure for an
+English queen. At any rate, she remained during all this time in a
+state of great mental anxiety and alarm, for there were parties of
+soldiery constantly going by, with a tumult and noise which kept her
+in continual terror. Their harsh and dissonant voices, heard sometimes
+in angry quarrels and sometimes in mirth, were always frightful. In
+fact, for a helpless woman in a situation like that of the queen, the
+mood of reckless and brutal mirth in such savages was perhaps more to
+be dreaded than that of their anger.
+
+At one time the queen overheard a party of these soldiers talking about
+_her_. They knew that to get possession of the papist queen was the
+object of their expedition. They spoke of getting her head and carrying
+it to London, saying that Parliament had offered a reward of fifty
+thousand crowns for it, and expressed the savage pleasure which it
+would give them to secure this prize, by imprecations and oaths.
+
+They did not, however, discover their intended victim. After the whole
+army passed, the queen ventured cautiously forth from her retreat; the
+little party got together again, and, still retaining their disguises,
+moved on over the road by which the soldiers had come, and which was
+in the shocking condition that a road and a country always exhibit
+where an army has been marching. Faint and exhausted with sickness,
+abstinence, and the effects of long continued anxiety and fear, the
+queen had scarcely strength to go on. She persevered, however, and at
+length found a second refuge in a cabin in a wood. She was going to
+Plymouth, which is forty or fifty miles from Exeter, to the south-west,
+and is the great port and naval station of the English, in that quarter
+of the island.
+
+She stopped at this cabin for a little time to rest, and to wait for
+some other friends and members of her household from the palace in
+Exeter to join her. Those friends were to wait until they found that
+the queen succeeded in making her escape, and then they were to follow,
+each in a different way, and all assuming such disguises as would most
+effectually help to conceal them. There was one of the party whom it
+must have been somewhat difficult to disguise. It was a dwarf, named
+Geoffrey Hudson, who had been a long time in the service of Henrietta
+as a personal attendant and messenger. It was the fancy of queens and
+princesses in those days to have such personages in their train. The
+oddity of the idea pleased them, and the smaller the dimensions of
+such a servitor, the greater was his value. In modern times all this
+is changed. Tall footmen now, in the families of the great, receive
+salaries in proportion to the number of inches in their stature, and
+the dwarfs go to the museums, to be exhibited, for a price, to the
+common wonder of mankind.
+
+The manner in which Sir Geoffrey Hudson was introduced into the service
+of the queen was as odd as his figure. It was just after she was
+married, and when she was about eighteen years old. She had two dwarfs
+then already, a gentleman and a lady, or, as they termed it then, a
+_cavalier_ and a _dame_, and, to carry out the whimsical idea, she had
+arranged a match between these two, and had them married. Now there
+was in her court at that time a wild and thoughtless nobleman, a great
+friend and constant companion of her husband Charles the First, named
+Buckingham. An account of his various exploits is given in our history
+of Charles the First. Buckingham happened to hear of this Geoffrey
+Hudson, who was then a boy of seven or eight years of age, living with
+his parents somewhere in the interior of England. He sent for him, and
+had him brought secretly to his house, and made an arrangement to have
+him enter the service of the queen, without, however, saying any thing
+of his design to her. He then invited the queen and her husband to
+visit him at his palace; and when the time for luncheon arrived, one
+day, he conducted the party into the dining saloon to partake of some
+refreshment. There was upon the table, among other viands, what appeared
+to be a large venison pie. The company gathered around the table, and
+a servant proceeded to cut the pie, and on his breaking and raising
+a piece of the crust, out stepped the young dwarf upon the table,
+splendidly dressed and armed, and, advancing toward the queen, he
+kneeled before her, and begged to be received into her train. Her
+majesty was very much pleased with the addition itself thus made to
+her household, as well as diverted by the odd manner in which her new
+attendant was introduced into her service.
+
+The youthful dwarf was then only eighteen inches high, and he continued
+so until he was thirty years of age, when, to every body's surprise,
+he began to grow. He grew quite rapidly, and, for a time, there was
+a prospect that he would be entirely spoiled, as his whole value had
+consisted thus far in his littleness. He attained the height of three
+feet and a half, and there the mysterious principle of organic
+expansion, the most mysterious and inexplicable, perhaps, that is
+exhibited in all the phenomena of life, seemed to be finally exhausted,
+and, though he lived to be nearly seventy years of age, he grew no
+more.
+
+Notwithstanding the bodily infirmity, whatever it may have been, which
+prevented his growth, the dwarf possessed a considerable degree of
+mental capacity and courage. He did not bear, however, very good-
+naturedly, the jests and gibes of which he was the continual object,
+from the unfeeling courtiers, who often took pleasure in teasing him
+and in getting him into all sorts of absurd and ridiculous situations.
+At last his patience was entirely exhausted, and he challenged one of
+his tormentors, whose name was Crofts, to a duel. Crofts accepted the
+challenge, and, being determined to persevere in his fun to the end,
+appeared on the battle ground armed only with a squirt. This raised
+a laugh, of course, but it did not tend much to cool the injured
+Lilliputian's anger. He sternly insisted on another meeting, and with
+real weapons. Crofts had expected to have turned off the whole affair
+in a joke, but he found this could not be done; and public opinion
+among the courtiers around him compelled him finally to accept the
+challenge in earnest. The parties met on horseback, to put them more
+nearly on an equality. They fought with pistols. Crofts was killed
+upon the spot.
+
+After this Hudson was treated with more respect. He was entrusted by
+the queen with many commissions, and sometimes business was committed
+to him which required no little capacity, judgment, and courage. He
+was now, at the time of the queen's escape from Exeter, of his full
+stature, but as this was only three and a half feet, he encountered
+great danger in attempting to find his way out of the city and through
+the advancing columns of the army to rejoin the queen. He persevered,
+however, and reached her safely at last in the cabin in the wood. The
+babe, not yet two weeks old, was necessarily left behind. She was left
+in charge of Lady Morton, whom the queen appointed her governess. Lady
+Morton was young and beautiful. She was possessed of great strength
+and energy of character, and she devoted herself with her whole soul
+to preserving the life and securing the safety of her little charge.
+
+The queen and her party had to traverse a wild and desolate forest,
+many miles in extent, on the way to Plymouth. The name of it was
+Dartmoor Forest. Lonely as it was, however, the party was safer in it
+than in the open and inhabited country, which was all disturbed and
+in commotion, as every country necessarily is in time of civil war.
+As the queen drew near to Plymouth, she found that, for some reason,
+it would not be safe to enter that town, and so the whole party went
+on, continuing their journey farther to the westward still.
+
+Now there is one important sea-port to the westward of Plymouth which
+is called Falmouth, and near it, on a high promontory jutting into the
+sea, is a large and strong castle, called Pendennis Castle. This castle
+was, at the time of the queen's escape, in the hands of the king's
+friends, and she determined, accordingly, to seek refuge there. The
+whole party arrived here safely on the 29th of June. They were all
+completely worn out and exhausted by the fatigues, privations, and
+exposures of their terrible journey.
+
+The queen had determined to make her escape as soon as possible to
+France. She could no longer be of any service to the king in England;
+her resources were exhausted, and her personal health was so feeble
+that she must have been a burden to his cause, and not a help, if she
+had remained. There was a ship from Holland in the harbor. The Prince
+of Orange, it will be recollected, who had married the queen's oldest
+daughter, was a prince of Holland, and this vessel was under his
+direction. Some writers say it was sent to Falmouth by him to be ready
+for his mother-in-law, in case she should wish to make her escape from
+England. Others speak of it as being there accidentally at this time.
+However this may be, it was immediately placed at Queen Henrietta's
+disposal, and she determined to embark in it on the following morning.
+She knew very well that, as soon as Essex should have heard of her
+escape, parties would be scouring the country in all directions in
+pursuit of her, and that, although the castle where she had found a
+temporary refuge was strong, it was not best to incur the risk of being
+shut up and besieged in it.
+
+She accordingly embarked, with all her company, on board the Dutch
+ship on the very morning after her arrival, and immediately put to
+sea. They made all sail for the coast of France, intending to land at
+Dieppe. Dieppe is almost precisely east of Falmouth, two or three
+hundred miles from it, up the English Channel. As it is on the other
+side of the Channel, it would lie to the south of Falmouth, were it
+not that both the French and English coasts trend here to the northward.
+
+Some time before they arrived at their port, they perceived some ships
+in the offing that seemed to be pursuing them. They endeavored to
+escape, but their pursuers gained rapidly upon them, and at length
+fired a gun as a signal for the queen's vessel to stop. The ball came
+bounding over the water toward them, but did no harm. Of course there
+was a scene of universal commotion and panic on board the queen's ship.
+Some wanted to fire back upon the pursuers, some wished to stop and
+surrender, and others shrieked and cried, and were overwhelmed with
+uncontrollable emotions of terror.
+
+In the midst of this dreadful scene of confusion, the queen, as was
+usual with her in such emergencies, retained all her self-possession,
+and though weak and helpless before, felt a fresh strength and energy
+now, which the imminence itself of the danger seemed to inspire. She
+was excited, it is true, as well as the rest, but it was, in her case,
+the excitement of courage and resolution, and not of senseless terror
+and despair. She ascended to the deck; she took the direct command of
+the ship; she gave instructions to the pilot how to steer; and, though
+there was a storm coming on, she ordered every sail to be set, that
+the ship might be driven as rapidly as possible through the water. She
+forbade the captain to fire back upon their pursuers, fearing that
+such firing would occasion delay; and she gave distinct and positive
+orders to the captain, that so soon as it should appear that all hope
+of escape was gone, and that they must inevitably fall into the hands
+of their enemies, he was to set fire to the magazine of gunpowder, in
+order that they might all be destroyed by the explosion.
+
+In the mean time all the ships, pursuers and pursued, were rapidly
+nearing the French coast. The fugitives were hoping to reach their
+port. They were also hoping every moment to see some friendly French
+ships appear in sight to rescue them. To balance this double hope,
+there was a double fear. There were their pursuers behind them, whose
+shots were continually booming over the water, threatening them with
+destruction, and there was a storm arising which, with the great press
+of sail that they were carrying, brought with it a danger, perhaps,
+more imminent still.
+
+It happened that these hopes and fears were all realized, and nearly
+at the same time. A shot struck the ship, producing a great shock, and
+throwing all on board into terrible consternation. It damaged the
+rigging, bringing down the rent sails and broken cordage to the deck,
+and thus stopped the vessel's way. At the same moment some French
+vessels came in sight, and, as soon as they understood the case, bore
+down full sail to rescue the disabled vessel. The pursuers, changing
+suddenly their pursuit to flight, altered their course and moved slowly
+away. The storm, however, increased, and, preventing them from making
+the harbor of Dieppe, drove them along the shore, threatening every
+moment to dash them upon the rocks and breakers. At length the queen's
+vessel succeeded in getting into a rocky cove, where they were sheltered
+from the winds and waves, and found a chance to land. The queen ordered
+out the boat, and was set ashore with her attendants on the rocks. She
+climbed over them, wet as they were with the dashing spray, and slippery
+with sea weed. The little party, drenched with the rain, and exhausted
+and forlorn, wandered along the shore till they came to a little village
+of fishermen's huts. The queen went into the first wretched cabin which
+offered itself, and lay down upon the straw in the corner for rest and
+sleep.
+
+The tidings immediately spread all over the region that the Queen of
+England had landed on the coast, and produced, of course, universal
+excitement. The gentry in the neighborhood flocked down the next
+morning, in their carriages, to offer Henrietta their aid. They supplied
+her wants, invited her to their houses, and offered her their equipages
+to take her wherever she should decide to go. What she wanted was
+seclusion and rest. They accordingly conveyed her, at her request, to
+the Baths of Bourbon, where she remained some time, until, in fact,
+her health and strength were in some measure restored. Great personages
+of state were sent to her here from Paris, with money and all other
+necessary supplies, and in due time she was escorted in state to the
+city, and established in great magnificence and splendor in the Louvre,
+which was then one of the principal palaces of the capital.
+
+Notwithstanding the outward change which was thus made in the
+circumstances of the exiled queen, she was very unhappy. As the
+excitement of her danger and her efforts to escape it passed away, her
+spirits sunk, her beauty faded, and her countenance assumed the wan
+and haggard expression of despair. She mourned over the ruin of her
+husband's hopes, and her separation from him and from her children,
+with perpetual tears. She called to mind continually the image of the
+little babe, not yet three weeks old, whom she had left so defenseless
+in the very midst of her enemies. She longed to get some tidings of
+the child, and reproached herself sometimes for having thus, as it
+were, abandoned her.
+
+The localities which were the scenes of these events have been made
+very famous by them, and traditional tales of Queen Henrietta's
+residence in Exeter, and of her romantic escape from it, have been
+handed down there, from generation to generation, to the present day.
+They caused her portrait to be painted too, and hung it up in the city
+hall of Exeter as a memorial of their royal visitor. The palace where
+the little infant was born has long since passed away, but the portrait
+hangs in the Guildhall still.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+ESCAPE OF THE CHILDREN.
+
+
+
+We left the mother of Prince Charles, at the close of the last chapter,
+in the palace of the Louvre in Paris. Though all her wants were now
+supplied, and though she lived in royal state in a magnificent palace
+on the banks of the Seine, still she was disconsolate and unhappy. She
+had, indeed, succeeded in effecting her own escape from the terrible
+dangers which had threatened her family in England, but she had left
+her husband and children behind, and she could not really enjoy herself
+the shelter which she had found from the storm, as long as those whom
+she so ardently loved were still out, exposed to all its fury. She had
+six children. Prince Charles, the oldest, was in the western part of
+England, in camp, acting nominally as the commander of an army, and
+fighting for his father's throne. He was now fourteen years of age.
+Next to him was Mary, the wife of the Prince of Orange, who was safe
+in Holland. She was one year younger than Charles. James, the third
+child, whose title was now Duke of York, was about ten. He had been
+left in Oxford when that city was surrendered, and had been taken
+captive there by the Republican army. The general in command sent him
+to London a prisoner. It was hard for such a child to be a captive,
+but then there was one solace in his lot. By being sent to London he
+rejoined his little sister Elizabeth and his brother Henry, who had
+remained there all the time. Henry was three years old and Elizabeth
+was six. These children, being too young, as was supposed, to attempt
+an escape, were not very closely confined. They were entrusted to the
+charge of some of the nobility, and lived in one of the London palaces.
+James was a very thoughtful and considerate boy, and had been enough
+with his father in his campaigns to understand something of the terrible
+dangers with which the family were surrounded. The other children were
+too young to know or care about them, and played blindman's buff and
+hide and go seek in the great saloons of the palace with as much
+infantile glee as if their father and mother were as safe and happy
+as ever.
+
+Though they felt thus no uneasiness and anxiety for themselves, their
+exiled mother mourned for them, and was oppressed by the most foreboding
+fears for their personal safety. She thought, however, still more
+frequently of the babe, and felt a still greater solicitude for her,
+left as she had been, at so exceedingly tender an age, in a situation
+of the most extreme and imminent danger. She felt somewhat guilty in
+having yielded her reluctant consent, for political reasons, to have
+her other children educated in what she believed a false system of
+religious faith, and she now prayed earnestly to God to spare the life
+of this her last and dearest child, and vowed in her anguish that, if
+the babe were ever restored to her, she would break through all
+restrictions, and bring her up a true believer. This vow she afterward
+earnestly fulfilled.
+
+The child, it will be recollected, was left, when Henrietta escaped
+from Exeter, in the care of the Countess of Morton, a young and
+beautiful, and also a very intelligent and energetic lady. The child
+had a visit from its father soon after its mother left it. King Charles,
+as soon as he heard that Essex was advancing to besiege Exeter, where
+he knew that the queen had sought refuge, and was, of course, exposed
+to fall into his power, hastened with an army to her rescue. He arrived
+in time to prevent Essex from getting possession of the place. He, in
+fact, drove the besieger away from the town, and entered it himself
+in triumph. The queen was gone, but he found the child.
+
+The king gazed upon the little stranger with a mixture of joy and
+sorrow. He caused it to be baptized, and named it Henrietta Anne. The
+name Henrietta was from the mother; Anne was the name of Henrietta's
+sister-in-law in Paris, who had been very kind to her in all her
+troubles. The king made ample arrangements for supplying Lady Morton
+with money out of the revenues of the town of Exeter, and, thinking
+that the child would be as safe in Exeter as any where, left her there,
+and went away to resume again his desperate conflicts with his political
+foes.
+
+Lady Morton remained for some time at Exeter, but the king's cause
+every where declined. His armies were conquered, his towns were taken,
+and he was compelled at last to give himself up a prisoner. Exeter,
+as well as all the other strongholds in the kingdom, fell into the
+hands of the parliamentary armies. They sent Lady Morton and the little
+Henrietta to London, and soon afterward provided them with a home in
+the mansion at Oatlands, where the queen herself and her other children
+had lived before. It was a quiet and safe retreat, but Lady Morton was
+very little satisfied with the plan of remaining there. She wished
+very much to get the babe back to its mother again in Paris. She heard,
+at length, of rumors that a plan was forming by the Parliament to take
+the child out of her charge, and she then resolved to attempt an escape
+at all hazards.
+
+Henrietta Anne was now two years old, and was beginning to talk a
+little. When asked what was her name, they had taught her to attempt
+to reply _princess_, though she did not succeed in uttering more than
+the first letters of the word, her answer being, in fact, _prah_. Lady
+Morton conceived the idea of making her escape across the country in
+the disguise of a beggar woman, changing, at the same time, the princess
+into a boy. She was herself very tall, and graceful, and beautiful,
+and it was hard for her to make herself look old and ugly. She, however,
+made a hump for her back out of a bundle of linen, and stooped in her
+gait to counterfeit age. She dressed herself in soiled and ragged
+clothes, disfigured her face by reversing the contrivances with which
+ladies in very fashionable life are said sometimes to produce artificial
+youth and beauty, and with the child in a bundle on her back, and a
+staff in her hand, she watched for a favorable opportunity to escape
+stealthily from the palace, in the forlorn hope of walking in that way
+undetected to Dover, a march of fifty miles, through a country filled
+with enemies.
+
+Little Henrietta was to be a boy, and as people on the way might ask
+the child its name, Lady Morton was obliged to select one for her which
+would fit, in some degree, her usual reply to such a question. She
+chose the name Pierre, which sounds, at least, as much like _prah_ as
+princess does. The poor child, though not old enough to speak
+distinctly, was still old enough to talk a great deal. She was very
+indignant at the vile dress which she was compelled to wear, and at
+being called a beggar boy. She persisted in telling every body whom
+she met that she was not a boy, nor a beggar, nor Pierre, but the
+_princess_ saying it all, however, very fortunately, in such an
+unintelligible way, that it only alarmed Lady Morton, without, however,
+attracting the attention of those who heard it, or giving them any
+information.
+
+Contrary to every reasonable expectation, Lady Morton succeeded in her
+wild and romantic attempt. She reached Dover in safety. She made
+arrangements for crossing in the packet boat, which then, as now, plied
+from Dover to Calais. She landed at length safely on the French coast,
+where she threw off her disguise, resumed her natural grace and beauty,
+made known her true name and character, and traveled in ease and safety
+to Paris. The excitement and the intoxicating joy which Henrietta
+experienced when she got her darling child once more in her arms, can
+be imagined, perhaps, even by the most sedate American mother; but the
+wild and frantic violence of her expressions of it, none but those who
+are conversant with the French character and French manners can know.
+
+It was not very far from the time of little Henrietta's escape from
+her father's enemies in London, though, in fact, before it, that Prince
+Charles made his escape from the island too. His father, finding that
+his cause was becoming desperate, gave orders to those who had charge
+of his son to retreat to the southwestern coast of the island, and if
+the Republican armies should press hard upon him there, he was to make
+his escape, if necessary, by sea.
+
+The southwestern part of England is a long, mountainous promontory,
+constituting the county of Cornwall. It is a wild and secluded region,
+and the range which forms it seems to extend for twenty or thirty miles
+under the sea, where it rises again to the surface, forming a little
+group of islands, more wild and rugged even than the land. These are
+the Scilly Isles. They lie secluded and solitary, and are known chiefly
+to mankind through the ships that seek shelter among them in storms.
+Prince Charles retreated from post to post through Cornwall, the danger
+becoming more and more imminent every day, till at last it became
+necessary to fly from the country altogether. He embarked on board a
+vessel, and went first to the Scilly Isles.
+
+From Scilly he sailed eastward toward the coast of France. He landed
+first at the island of Jersey, which, though it is very near the French
+coast, and is inhabited by a French population, is under the English
+government. Here the prince met with a very cordial reception, as the
+authorities were strongly attached to his father's cause. Jersey is
+a beautiful isle and, far enough south to enjoy a genial climate, where
+flowers bloom and fruits ripen in the warm sunbeams, which are here
+no longer intercepted by the driving mists and rains which sweep almost
+perceptibly along the hill sides and fields of England.
+
+Prince Charles did not, however, remain long in Jersey. His destination
+was Paris. He passed, therefore, across to the main land, and traveled
+to the capital. He was received with great honors at his mother's new
+home, in the palace of the Louvre, as a royal prince, and heir apparent
+to the British crown. He was now sixteen. The adventures which he met
+with on his arrival will be the subject of the next chapter.
+
+James, the Duke of York, remained still in London. He continued there
+for two years, during which time his father's affairs went totally to
+ruin. The unfortunate king, after his armies were all defeated, and
+his cause was finally given up by his friends, and he had surrendered
+himself a prisoner to his enemies, was taken from castle to castle,
+every where strongly guarded and very closely confined. At length,
+worn down with privations and sufferings, and despairing of all hope
+of relief, he was taken to London to be tried for his life. James, in
+the mean time, with his brother, the little Duke of Gloucester, and
+his sister Elizabeth, were kept in St. James's Palace, as has already
+been stated, under the care of an officer to whom they had been given
+in charge.
+
+The queen was particularly anxious to have James make his escape. He
+was older than the others, and in case of the death of Charles, would
+be, of course, the next heir to the crown. He did, in fact, live till
+after the close of his brother's reign, and succeeded him, under the
+title of James the Second. His being thus in the direct line of
+succession made his father and mother very desirous of effecting his
+rescue, while the Parliament were strongly desirous, for the same
+reason, of keeping him safely. His governor received, therefore, a
+special charge to take the most effectual precautions to prevent his
+escape, and, for this purpose, not to allow of his having any
+communication whatever with his parents or his absent friends. The
+governor took all necessary measures to prevent such intercourse, and,
+as an additional precaution, made James _promise_ that he would not
+receive any letter from any person unless it came through him.
+
+James's mother, however, not knowing these circumstances, wrote a
+letter to him, and sent it by a trusty messenger, directing him to
+watch for some opportunity to deliver it unobserved. Now there is a
+certain game of ball, called _tennis_, which was formerly a favorite
+amusement in England and on the Continent of Europe, and which, in
+fact, continues to be played there still. It requires an oblong
+enclosure, surrounded by high walls, against which the balls rebound.
+Such an enclosure is called a tennis court. It was customary to build
+such tennis courts in most of the royal palaces. There was one at St.
+James's Palace, where the young James, it seems, used sometimes to
+play. [Footnote: It was to such a tennis court at Versailles that the
+great National Assembly of France adjourned when the king excluded
+them from their hall, at the commencement of the great Revolution, and
+where they took the famous oath not to separate till they had
+established a constitution, which has been so celebrated in history
+as the Oath of the Tennis Court.] Strangers had the opportunity of
+seeing the young prince in his coming and going to and from this place
+of amusement, and the queen's messenger determined to offer him the
+letter there. He accordingly tendered it to him stealthily, as he was
+passing, saying, "Take this; it is from your mother."
+
+James drew back, replying, "I can not take it. I have promised that
+I will not."
+
+The messenger reported to the queen that he offered the letter to
+James, and that he refused to receive it. His mother was very much
+displeased, and wondered what such a strange refusal could mean.
+
+Although James thus failed to receive his communication, he was allowed
+at length, once or twice, to have an interview with his father, and
+in these interviews the king recommended to him to make his escape,
+if he could, and to join his mother in France. James determined to
+obey this injunction, and immediately set to work to plan his escape.
+He was fifteen years of age, and, of course, old enough to exercise
+some little invention.
+
+He was accustomed, as we have already stated, to join the younger
+children in games of hide and go seek. He began now to search for the
+most recondite hiding places, where he could not be found, and when
+he had concealed himself in such a place, he would remain there for
+a very long time, until his playmates had given up the search in
+despair. Then, at length, after having been missing for half an hour,
+he would reappear of his own accord. He thought that by this plan he
+should get the children and the attendants accustomed to his being for
+a long time out of sight, so that, when at length he should finally
+disappear, their attention would not be seriously attracted to the
+circumstance until he should have had time to get well set out upon
+his journey.
+
+He had, like his mother, a little dog, but, unlike her, he was not so
+strongly attached to it as to be willing to endanger his life to avoid
+a separation. When the time arrived, therefore, to set out on his
+secret journey, he locked the dog up in his room, to prevent its
+following him, and thus increasing the probability of his being
+recognized and brought back. He then engaged his brother and sister
+and his other playmates in the palace in a game of hide and go seek.
+He went off ostensibly to hide, but, instead of doing so, he stole out
+of the palace gates in company with a friend named Banfield, and a
+footman. It was in the rear of the palace that he made his exit, at
+a sort of postern gate, which opened upon an extensive park. After
+crossing the park, the party hurried on through London, and then
+directed their course down the River Thames toward Gravesend, a port
+near the mouth of the river, where they intended to embark for Holland.
+They had taken the precaution to disguise themselves. James wore a
+wig, which, changing the color and appearance of his hair, seemed to
+give a totally new expression to his face. He substituted other clothes,
+too, for those which he was usually accustomed to wear. The whole party
+succeeded thus in traversing the country without detection. They reached
+Gravesend, embarked on board a vessel there, and sailed to Holland,
+where James joined the Prince of Orange and his sister, and sent word
+to his mother that he had arrived there in safety.
+
+His little brother and sister were left behind. They were too young
+to fly themselves, and too old to be conveyed away, as little Henrietta
+had been, in the arms of another. They had, however, the mournful
+satisfaction of seeing their father just before his execution, and of
+bidding him a last farewell. The king, when he was condemned to die,
+begged to be allowed to see these children. They were brought to visit
+him in the chamber where he was confined. His parting interview with
+them, and the messages of affection and farewell which he sent to their
+brothers and sisters, and to their mother, constitute one of the most
+affecting scenes which the telescope of history brings to our view,
+in that long and distant vista of the past, which it enables us so
+fully to explore. The little Gloucester was too young to understand
+the sorrows of the hour, but Elizabeth felt them in all their intensity.
+She was twelve years old. When brought to her father, she burst into
+tears, and wept long and bitterly. Her little brother, sympathizing
+in his sister's sorrow, though not comprehending its cause, wept
+bitterly too. Elizabeth was thoughtful enough to write an account of
+what took place at this most solemn farewell as soon as it was over.
+Her account is as follows:
+
+"_What the king said to me on the 29th of January, 1648, the last time
+I had the happiness to see him_.
+
+"He told me that he was glad I was come, for, though he had not time
+to say much, yet somewhat he wished to say to me, which he could not
+to another, and he had feared 'the cruelty' was too great to permit
+his writing. 'But, darling,' he added, 'thou wilt forget what I tell
+thee.' Then, shedding an abundance of tears, I told him that I would
+write down all he said to me. 'He wished me,' he said, 'not to grieve
+and torment myself for him, for it was a glorious death he should die,
+it being for the laws and religion of the land.' He told me what books
+to read against popery. He said 'that he had forgiven all his enemies,
+and he hoped God would forgive them also;' and he commanded us, and
+all the rest of my brothers and sisters, to forgive them too. Above
+all, he bade me tell my mother 'that his thoughts had never strayed
+from her, and that his love for her would be the same to the last;'
+withal, he commanded me (and my brother) to love her and be obedient
+to her. He desired me 'not to grieve for him, for he should die a
+martyr, and that he doubted not but God would restore the throne to
+his son, and that then we should be all happier than we could possibly
+have been if he had lived.'
+
+"Then taking my brother Gloucester on his knee, he said, 'Dear boy, now
+will they cut off thy father's head.' Upon which the child looked very
+steadfastly upon him. 'Heed, my child, what I say; they will cut off
+my head, and perhaps make thee a king; but, mark what I say! You must
+not be a king as long as your brothers Charles and James live;
+therefore, I charge you, do not be made a king by them.' At which the
+child, sighing deeply, replied, 'I will be torn in pieces first.' And
+these words, coining so unexpectedly from so young a child, rejoiced
+my father exceedingly. And his majesty spoke to him of the welfare of
+his soul, and to keep his religion, commanding him to fear God, and
+he would provide for him; all which the young child earnestly promised
+to do."
+
+After the king's death the Parliament kept these children in custody
+for some time, and at last they became somewhat perplexed to know what
+to do with them. It was even proposed, when Cromwell's Republican
+government had become fully established, to bind them out apprentices,
+to learn some useful trade. This plan was, however, not carried into
+effect. They were held as prisoners, and sent at last to Carisbrooke
+Castle, where their father had been confined. Little Henry, too young
+to understand his sorrows, grew in strength and stature, like any other
+boy; but Elizabeth pined and sunk under the burden of her woes. She
+mourned incessantly her father's cruel death, her mother's and her
+brother's exile, and her own wearisome and hopeless captivity. "Little
+Harry", as she called him, and a Bible, which her father gave her in
+his last interview with her, were her only companions. She lingered
+along for two years after her father's death, until at length the
+hectic flush, the signal of approaching dissolution, appeared upon her
+cheek, and an unnatural brilliancy brightened in her eyes. They sent
+her father's physician to see if he could save her. His prescriptions
+did no good. One day the attendants came into her apartment and found
+her sitting in her chair, with her cheek resting upon the Bible which
+she had been reading, and which she had placed for a sort of pillow
+on the table, to rest her weary head upon when her reading was done.
+She was motionless. They would have thought her asleep, but her eyes
+were not closed. She was dead. The poor child's sorrows and sufferings
+were ended forever.
+
+The stern Republicans who now held dominion over England, men of iron
+as they were, could not but be touched with the unhappy fate of this
+their beautiful and innocent victim; and they so far relented from the
+severity of the policy which they had pursued toward the ill-fated
+family as to send the little Gloucester, after his sister's death,
+home to his mother.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE PRINCE'S RECEPTION AT PARIS.
+
+
+
+So complicated a story as that of the family of Charles can not be
+related, in all its parts, in the exact order of time; and having now
+shown under what circumstances the various members of the family made
+their escape from the dangers which threatened them in England, we
+return to follow the adventures of Prince Charles during his residence
+on the Continent, and, more particularly in this chapter, to describe
+his reception by the royal family of France. He was one of the first
+of the children that escaped, having arrived in France in 1646. His
+father was not beheaded until two years afterward.
+
+In order that the reader may understand distinctly the situation in
+which Charles found himself on his arrival at Paris, we must first
+describe the condition of the royal family of France at this time.
+They resided sometimes at Fontainebleau, a splendid palace in the midst
+of a magnificent park about forty miles from the city. Henrietta, it
+will be recollected, was the sister of a king of France. This king was
+Louis XIII. He died, however, not far from the time of Queen Henrietta's
+arrival in the country, leaving his little son Louis, then five years
+old, heir to the crown. The little Louis of course became king
+immediately, in name, as Louis XIV., and in the later periods of his
+life he attained to so high a degree of prosperity and power, that he
+has been, ever since his day, considered one of the most renowned of
+all the French kings. He was, of course, Prince Charles's cousin. At
+the period of Prince Charles's arrival, however, he was a mere child,
+being then about eight years old. Of course, he was too young really
+to exercise any of the powers of the government. His mother, Anne of
+Austria, was made regent, and authorized to govern the country until
+the young king should arrive at a suitable age to exercise his
+hereditary powers in his own name. Anne of Austria had been always
+very kind to Henrietta, and had always rendered her assistance whenever
+she had been reduced to any special extremity of distress. It was she
+who had sent the supplies of money and clothing to Henrietta when she
+fled, sick and destitute, to Exeter, vainly hoping to find repose and
+the means of restoration there.
+
+Besides King Louis XIII., who had died, Henrietta had another brother,
+whose name was Gaston, duke of Orleans. The Duke of Orleans had a
+daughter, who was styled the Duchess of Montpensier, deriving the title
+from her mother. She was, of course, also a cousin of Prince Charles.
+Her father, being brother of the late king, and uncle of the present
+one, was made lieutenant general of the kingdom, having thus the second
+place, that is, the place next to the queen, in the management of the
+affairs of the realm. Thus the little king commenced his reign by
+having in his court his mother as queen regent, his uncle lieutenant
+general, and his aunt, an exiled queen from a sister realm, his guest.
+He had also in his household his brother Philip, younger than himself,
+his cousin the young Duchess of Montpensier, and his cousin the Prince
+Charles. The family relationship of all these individuals will be made
+more clear by being presented in a tabular form, as follows:
+
+
+ROYAL FAMILY OF FRANCE IN THE TIME OF LOUIS XIV.
+
+          Louis XIII.                   Louis XIV.
+          Anne of Austria.              Philip, 8 years old.
+
+HENRY IV  Gaston, duke of Orleans.      Duchess of Montpensier
+Duchess of Montpensier.
+
+          Henrietta Maria.              Prince Charles, 16.
+          King Charles I.
+
+
+In the above table, the first column contains the name of Henry IV.,
+the second those of three of his children, with the persons whom they
+respectively married, and the third the four grandchildren, who, as
+cousins, now found themselves domesticated together in the royal palaces
+of France.
+
+The young king was, as has already been said, about eight years old
+at the time of Prince Charles's arrival. The palace in which he resided
+when in the city was the Palace Royal, which was then, and has been
+ever since, one of the most celebrated buildings in the world. It was
+built at an enormous expense, during a previous reign, by a powerful
+minister of state, who was, in ecclesiastical rank, a cardinal, and
+his mansion was named, accordingly, the Palace Cardinal. It had,
+however, been recently taken as a royal residence, and its name changed
+to Palace Royal. Here the queen regent had her grand apartments of
+state, every thing being as rich as the most lavish expenditure could
+make it. She had one apartment, called an oratory, a sort of closet
+for prayer, which was lighted by a large window, the sash of which was
+made of silver. The interior of the room was ornamented with the most
+costly paintings and furniture, and was enriched with a profusion of
+silver and gold. The little king had his range of apartments too, with
+a whole household of officers and attendants as little as himself.
+These children were occupied continually with ceremonies, and pageants,
+and mock military parades, in which they figured in miniature arms and
+badges of authority, and with dresses made to imitate those of real
+monarchs and ministers of state. Every thing was regulated with the
+utmost regard to etiquette and punctilio, and without any limits or
+bounds to the expense. Thus, though the youthful officers of the little
+monarch's household exercised no real power, they displayed all the
+forms and appearances of royalty with more than usual pomp and splendor.
+It was a species of child's play, it is true, but it was probably the
+most grand and magnificent child's play that the world has ever
+witnessed. It was into this extraordinary scene that Prince Charles
+found himself ushered on his arrival in France.
+
+At the time of the prince's arrival the court happened to be residing,
+not at Paris, but at Fontainebleau. Fontainebleau, as has already been
+stated, is about forty miles from Paris, to the southward. There is
+a very splendid palace and castle there, built originally in very
+ancient times. There is a town near, both the castle and the town being
+in the midst of a vast park and forest, one of the most extended and
+magnificent royal domains in Europe. This forest has been reserved as
+a hunting ground for the French kings from a very early age. It covers
+an area of forty thousand acres, being thus many miles in extent. The
+royal family were at this palace at the time of Prince Charles's
+arrival, celebrating the festivities of a marriage. The prince
+accordingly, as we shall presently see, went there to join them.
+
+There were two persons who were anticipating the prince's arrival in
+France with special interest, his mother, and his young cousin, the
+Duchess of Montpensier. Her Christian name was Anne Marie Louisa.
+[Footnote: She is commonly called, in the annals of the day in which
+she lived, _Mademoiselle_, as she was, _par eminence_, the young lady
+of the court. In history she is commonly called Mademoiselle de
+Montpensier; we shall call her, in this narrative, simply Anne Maria,
+as that is, for our purpose, the most convenient designation.] She was
+a gay, frivolous, and coquettish girl, of about nineteen, immensely
+rich, being the heiress of the vast estates of her mother, who was not
+living. Her father, though he was the lieutenant general of the realm,
+and the former king's brother, was not rich. His wife, when she died,
+had bequeathed all her vast estates to her daughter Anne Maria was
+naturally haughty and vain, and; as her father was accustomed to come
+occasionally to her to get supplies of money, she was made vainer and
+more self-conceited still by his dependence upon her. Several matches
+had been proposed to her, and among them the Emperor of Germany had
+been named. He was a widower. His first wife, who had been Anne Maria's
+aunt, had just died. As the emperor was a potentate of great importance,
+the young belle thought she should prefer him to any of the others who
+had been proposed, and she made no secret of this her choice. It is
+true that he had made no proposal to her, but she presumed that he
+would do so after a suitable time had elapsed from the death of his
+first wife, and Anne Maria was contented to wait, considering the lofty
+elevation to which she would attain on becoming his bride.
+
+But Queen Henrietta Maria had another plan. She was very desirous to
+obtain Anne Maria for the wife of her son Charles. There were many
+reasons for this. The young lady was a princess of the royal family
+of France; she possessed, too, an immense fortune, and was young and
+beautiful withal, though not quite so young as Charles himself. He was
+sixteen, and she was about nineteen. It is true that Charles was now,
+in some sense, a fugitive and an exile, destitute of property, and
+without a home. Still he was a prince. He was the heir apparent of the
+kingdoms of England and Scotland. He was young and accomplished. These
+high qualifications, somewhat exaggerated, perhaps, by maternal
+partiality, seemed quite sufficient to Henrietta to induce the proud
+duchess to become the prince's bride.
+
+All this, it must be remembered, took place before the execution of
+King Charles the First, and when, of course, the fortunes of the family
+were not so desperate as they afterward became. Queen Henrietta had
+a great many conversations with Anne Maria before the prince arrived,
+in which she praised very highly his person and his accomplishments.
+She narrated to the duchess the various extraordinary adventures and
+the narrow escapes which the prince had met with in the course of his
+wanderings in England; she told her how dutiful and kind he had been
+to her as a son, and how efficient and courageous in his father's cause
+as a soldier. She described his appearance and his manners, and foretold
+how he would act, what tastes and preferences he would form, and how
+he would be regarded in the French court. The young duchess listened
+to all this with an appearance of indifference and unconcern, which
+was partly real and partly only assumed. She could not help feeling
+some curiosity to see her cousin, but her head was too full of the
+grander destination of being the wife of the emperor to think much of
+the pretensions of this wandering and homeless exile.
+
+Prince Charles, on his arrival, went first to Paris, where he found
+his mother. There was an invitation for them here to proceed to
+Fontainebleau, where, as has already been stated, the young king and
+his court were now residing. They went there accordingly, and were
+received with every mark of attention and honor. The queen regent took
+the young king into the carriage of state, and rode some miles along
+the avenue, through the forest, to meet the prince and his mother when
+they were coming. They were attended with the usual cortege of carriages
+and horsemen, and they moved with all the etiquette and ceremony proper
+to be observed in the reception of royal visitors.
+
+When the carriages met in the forest, they stopped, and the
+distinguished personages contained in them alighted. Queen Henrietta
+introduced her son to the queen regent and to Louis, the French king,
+and also to other personages of distinction who were in their train.
+Among them was Anne Maria. The queen regent took Henrietta and the
+prince into the carriage with her and the young king, and they proceeded
+thus together back to the palace. Prince Charles was somewhat
+embarrassed in making all these new acquaintances, in circumstances,
+too, of so much ceremony and parade, and the more so, as his knowledge
+of the French language was imperfect. He could understand it when
+spoken, but could not speak it well himself, and he appeared,
+accordingly, somewhat awkward and confused. He seemed particularly at
+a loss in his intercourse with Anne Maria. She was a little older than
+himself, and, being perfectly at home, both in the ceremonies of the
+occasion and in the language of the company, she felt entirely at her
+ease herself; and yet, from her natural temperament and character, she
+assumed such an air and bearing as would tend to prevent the prince
+from being so. In a word, it happened then as it has often happened
+since on similar occasions, that the beau was afraid of the belle.
+
+The party returned to the palace. On alighting, the little king gave
+his hand to his aunt, the Queen of England, while Prince Charles gave
+his to the queen regent, and thus the two matrons were gallanted into
+the hall. The prince had a seat assigned him on the following day in
+the queen regent's drawing room, and was thus regularly instated as
+an inmate of the royal household. He remained here several days, and
+at length the whole party returned to Paris.
+
+Anne Maria, in after years, wrote reminiscences of her early life,
+which were published after her death. In this journal she gives an
+account of her introduction to the young prince, and of her first
+acquaintance with him. It is expressed as follows:
+
+"He was only sixteen or seventeen years of age, rather tall, with a
+fine head, black hair, a dark complexion, and a tolerably agreeable
+countenance. But he neither spoke nor understood French, which was
+very inconvenient. Nevertheless, every thing was done to amuse him,
+and, during the three days that he remained at Fontainebleau, there
+were hunts and every other sport which could be commanded in that
+season. He paid his respects to all the princesses, and I discovered
+immediately that the Queen of England wished to persuade me that he
+had fallen in love with me. She told me that he talked of me
+incessantly; that, were she not to prevent it, he would be in my
+apartment [Footnote: This means at her residence. The whole suite of
+rooms occupied by a family is called, in France, their _apartment_.]
+at all hours; that he found me quite to his taste, and that he was in
+despair on account of the death of the empress, for he was afraid that
+they would seek to marry me to the emperor. I listened to all she said
+as became me, but it did not have as much effect upon me as probably
+she wished."
+
+After spending a few days at Fontainebleau, the whole party returned
+to Paris, and Queen Henrietta and the prince took up their abode again
+in the Palace Royal, or, as it is now more commonly called, the Palais
+Royal. Charles was much impressed with the pomp and splendor of the
+French court, so different from the rough mode of life to which he had
+been accustomed in his campaigns and wanderings in England. The
+etiquette and formality, however, were extreme, every thing, even the
+minutest motions, being regulated by nice rules, which made social
+intercourse and enjoyment one perpetual ceremony. But, notwithstanding
+all this pomp and splendor, and the multitude of officers and attendants
+who were constantly on service, there seems to have been, in the results
+obtained, a strange mixture of grand parade with discomfort and
+disorder. At one time at Fontainebleau, at a great entertainment, where
+all the princes and potentates that had been drawn there by the wedding
+were assembled, the cooks quarreled in the kitchen, and one of the
+courses of the supper failed entirely in consequence of their
+dissensions; and at another time, as a large party of visitors were
+passing out through a suite of rooms in great state, to descend a grand
+staircase, where some illustrious foreigners, who were present, were
+to take their leave, they found the apartments through which they were
+to pass all dark. The servants had neglected or forgotten to light
+them.
+
+These and similar incidents show that there may be regal luxury and
+state without order or comfort, as there may be regal wealth and power
+without any substantial happiness. Notwithstanding this, however,
+Prince Charles soon became strongly interested in the modes of life
+to which he was introduced at Paris and at Fontainebleau. There were
+balls, parties, festivities, and excursions of pleasure without number,
+his interest in these all being heightened by the presence of Anne
+Maria, whom he soon began to regard with a strong degree of that
+peculiar kind of interest which princesses and heiresses inspire. In
+Anne Maria's memoirs of her early life, we have a vivid description
+of many of the scenes in which both she herself and Charles were such
+prominent actors. She wrote always with great freedom, and in a very
+graphic manner, so that the tale which she tells of this period of her
+life forms a very entertaining narrative.
+
+Anne Maria gives a very minute account of what took place between
+herself and Charles on several occasions in the course of their
+acquaintance, and describes particularly various balls, and parties,
+and excursions of pleasure on which she was attended by the young
+prince. Her vanity was obviously gratified by the interest which Charles
+seemed to take in her, but she was probably incapable of any feelings
+of deep and disinterested love, and Charles made no impression upon
+her heart. She reserved herself for the emperor.
+
+For example, they were all one night invited to a grand ball by the
+Duchess de Choisy. This lady lived in a magnificent mansion, called
+the Hotel de Choisy. Just before the time came for the party of visitors
+to go, the Queen of England came over with Charles to the apartments
+of Anne Maria. The queen came ostensibly to give the last touches to
+the adjustment of the young lady's dress, and to the arrangement of
+her hair, but really, without doubt, in pursuance of her policy of
+taking every occasion to bring the young people together.
+
+"She came," says Anne Maria, in her narrative, "to dress me and arrange
+my hair herself. She came for this purpose to my apartments, and took
+the utmost pains to set me off to the best advantage, and the Prince
+of Wales held the flambeau near me to light my toilet the whole time.
+I wore black, white, and carnation; and my jewelry was fastened by
+ribbons of the same colors. I wore a plume of the same kind; all these
+had been selected and ordered by my aunt Henrietta. The queen regent,
+who knew that I was in my aunt Henrietta's hands, sent for me to come
+and see her when I was all ready, before going to the ball. I
+accordingly went, and this gave the prince an opportunity to go at
+once to the Hotel de Choisy, and be ready there to receive me when I
+should arrive I found him there at the door, ready to hand me from my
+coach. I stopped in a chamber to readjust my hair, and the Prince of
+Wales again held a flambeau for me. This time, too, he brought his
+cousin, Prince Rupert, as an interpreter between us; for, believe it
+who will, though he could understand every word I said to him, he could
+not reply the least sentence to me in French. When the ball was finished
+and we retired, the prince followed me to the porter's lodge of my
+hotel, [Footnote: In all the great houses in Paris, the principal
+buildings of the edifice stand back from the street, surrounding a
+court yard, which has sometimes shrubbery and flowers and a fountain
+in the center. The entrance to this court yard is by a great gate and
+archway on the street, with the apartments occupied by the _porter_,
+that is, the keeper of the gate, on one side. The entrance to the
+porter's lodge is from under the archway.] and lingered till I entered,
+and then went his way.
+
+"There was another occasion on which his gallantry to me attracted a
+great deal of attention. It was at a great fete celebrated at the
+Palais Royal. There was a play acted, with scenery and music, and then
+a ball. It took three whole days to arrange my ornaments for this
+night. The Queen of England would dress me on this occasion, also,
+with her own hands. My robe was all figured with diamonds, with
+carnation trimmings. I wore the jewels of the crown of France, and,
+to add to them, the Queen of England lent me some fine ones of her
+own, which she had not then sold. The queen praised the fine turn of
+my shape, my air, the beauty of my complexion, and the brightness of
+my light hair. I had a conspicuous seat in the middle of the ballroom,
+with the young King of France and the Prince of Wales at my feet I did
+not feel the least embarrassed, for, as I had an idea of marrying the
+emperor, I regarded the Prince of Wales only as an object of pity."
+
+Things went on in this way for a time, until at last some political
+difficulties occurred at Paris which broke in upon the ordinary routine
+of the royal family, and drove them, for a time, out of the city.
+Before these troubles were over, Henrietta and her son were struck
+down, as by a blow, by the tidings, which came upon them like a
+thunderbolt, that their husband and father had been beheaded. This
+dreadful event put a stop for a time to every thing like festive
+pleasures. The queen left her children, her palace, and all the gay
+circle of her friends, and retired to a convent, to mourn, in solitude
+and undisturbed, her irreparable loss.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+NEGOTIATIONS WITH ANNE MARIA.
+
+
+
+Our Prince Charles now becomes, by the death of his father, King Charles
+the Second, both of England and of Scotland. That is, he becomes so
+in theory, according to the principles of the English Constitution,
+though, in fact, he is a fugitive and an exile still. Notwithstanding
+his exclusion, however, from the exercise of what he considered his
+right to reign, he was acknowledged as king by all true Royalists in
+England, and by all the continental powers. They would not aid him to
+recover his throne, but in the courts and royal palaces which he visited
+he was regarded as a king, and was treated, in form at least, with all
+the consideration and honor which belonged to royalty. Queen Henrietta
+was overwhelmed with grief and despair when she learned the dreadful
+tidings of the execution of her husband. At the time when these tidings
+came to her, she was involved, also, in many other sufferings and
+trials. As was intimated in the last chapter, serious difficulties had
+occurred between the royal family of France and the government and
+people of the city of Paris, from which a sort of insurrection had
+resulted, and the young king and his mother, together with all the
+principal personages of the court, had been compelled to fly from the
+city, in the night, to save their lives. They went in a train of twenty
+or thirty carriages, by torch light, having kept their plan a profound
+secret until the moment of their departure. The young king was asleep
+in his bed until the time arrived, when they took him up and put him
+into the carriage. Anne Maria, whose rank and wealth gave her a great
+deal of influence and power, took sides, in some degree, with the
+Parisians in this contest, so that her aunt, the queen regent,
+considered her as an enemy rather than a friend. She, however, took
+her with them in their flight; but Anne Maria, being very much out of
+humor, did all she could to tease and torment the party all the way.
+When they awoke her and informed her of their proposed escape from
+Paris, she was, as she says in her memoirs, very much delighted, for
+she knew that the movement was very unwise, and would get her aunt,
+the queen regent, and all their friends, into serious difficulties.
+
+She dressed herself as quick as she could, came down stairs, and
+proceeded to enter the queen regent's coach, saying that she wanted
+to have one or the other of certain seats--naming the best places--as
+she had no idea, she said, of being exposed to cold, or riding
+uncomfortably on such a night. The queen told her that those seats
+were for herself and another lady of high rank who was with her, to
+which Anne Maria replied, "Oh, very well; I suppose young ladies ought
+to give up to _old_ people."
+
+In the course of conversation, as they were preparing to ride away,
+the queen asked Anne Maria if she was not surprised at being called
+up to go on such an expedition. "Oh no," said she; "my father" (that
+is, Gaston, the duke of Orleans) "told me all about it beforehand."
+This was not true, as she says herself in her own account of these
+transactions. She knew nothing about the plan until she was called
+from her bed. She said this, therefore, only to tease her aunt by the
+false pretension that the secret had been confided to her. Her aunt,
+however, did not believe her, and said, "Then why did you go to bed,
+if you knew what was going on?" "Oh," replied Anne Maria, "I thought
+it would be a good plan to get some sleep, as I did not know whether
+I should even have a bed to lie upon to-morrow night."
+
+The party of fugitives exhibited a scene of great terror and confusion,
+as they were assembling and crowding into their carriages, before they
+left the court of the Palais Royal. It was past midnight, in the month
+of January, and there was no moon. Called up suddenly as they were
+from their beds, and frightened with imaginary dangers, they all pressed
+forward, eager to go; and so hurried was their departure, that they
+took with them very scanty supplies, even for their most ordinary
+wants. At length they drove away. They passed rapidly out of the city.
+They proceeded to an ancient palace and castle called St. Germain's,
+about ten miles northeast of Paris. Anne Maria amused herself with the
+fears, and difficulties, and privations which the others suffered, and
+she gives an account of the first night they spent in the place of
+their retreat, which, as it illustrates her temperament and character,
+the reader will like perhaps, to see.
+
+"I slept in a very handsome room, well painted, well gilded, and large,
+with very little fire, and no windows, [Footnote: That is, with no
+glass to the windows.] which is not very agreeable in the month of
+January. I slept on mattresses, which were laid upon the floor, and
+my sister, who had no bed, slept with me. I was obliged to sing to get
+her to sleep, and then her slumber did not last long, so that she
+disturbed mine. She tossed about, felt me near her, woke up, and
+exclaimed that she saw the beast, so I was obliged to sing again to
+put her to sleep, and in that way I passed the night. Judge whether
+this was an agreeable situation for one who had had little or no sleep
+the night before, and who had been ill all winter with colds. However,
+the fatigue and exposure of this expedition cured me.
+
+"In a short time my father gave me his room, but as nobody knew I was
+there, I was awoke in the night by a noise. I drew back my curtain,
+and was astonished to find my chamber filled with men in large buff
+skin collars, and who appeared surprised to see me, and knew me as
+little as I did them. I had no change of linen, and when I wanted any
+thing washed, it was done in the night, while I was in bed. I had no
+women to arrange my hair and dress me, which is very inconvenient.
+Still I did not lose my gayety, and they were in admiration at my
+making no complaint; and it is true that I am a creature that can make
+the most of every thing, and am greatly above trifles."
+
+To feel any commiseration for this young lady, on account of the alarm
+which she may be supposed to have experienced at seeing all those
+strange men in her chamber, would be sympathy thrown away, for her
+nerves were not of a sensibility to be affected much by such a
+circumstance as that. In fact, as the difficulties between the young
+king's government and the Parisians increased, Anne Maria played quite
+the part of a heroine. She went back and forth to Paris in her carriage,
+through the mob, when nobody else dared to go. She sometimes headed
+troops, and escorted ladies and gentlemen when they were afraid to go
+alone. Once she relieved a town, and once she took the command of the
+cannon of the Bastille, and issued her orders to fire with it upon the
+troops, with a composure which would have done honor to any veteran
+officer of artillery. We can not go into all these things here in
+detail, as they would lead us too far away from the subject of this
+narrative. We only allude to them, to give our readers some distinct
+idea of the temperament and character of the rich and blooming beauty
+whom young King Charles was wishing so ardently to make his bride.
+
+During the time that these difficulties continued in Paris, Queen
+Henrietta's situation was extremely unhappy. She was shut up in the
+palace of the Louvre, which became now her prison rather than her home.
+She was separated from the royal family; her son, the king, was
+generally absent in Holland or in Jersey, and her palace was often
+surrounded by mobs; whenever she ventured out in her carriage, she was
+threatened with violence and outrage by the populace in such a manner
+as to make her retreat as soon as possible to the protection of the
+palace walls. Her pecuniary means, too, were exhausted. She sold her
+jewels, from time to time, as long as they lasted, and then contracted
+debts which her creditors were continually pressing her to pay. Her
+friends at St. Germain's could not help her otherwise than by asking
+her to come to them. This she at last concluded to do, and she made
+her escape from Paris, under the escort of Anne Maria, who came to the
+city for the purpose of conducting her, and who succeeded, though with
+infinite difficulty, in securing a safe passage for Henrietta through
+the crowds of creditors and political foes who threatened to prevent
+her journey. These troubles were all, however, at last settled, and
+in the autumn (1649) the whole party returned again to Paris.
+
+In the mean time the young King Charles was contriving schemes for
+getting possession of his realm. It will be recollected that his sister
+Mary, who married the Prince of Orange, was at this time residing at
+the Hague, a city in Holland, near the sea. Charles went often there.
+It was a sort of rendezvous for those who had been obliged to leave
+England on account of their attachment to his father's fortunes, and
+who, now that the father was dead, transferred their loyalty to the
+son. They felt a very strong desire that Charles's plans for getting
+possession of his kingdom should succeed, and they were willing to do
+every thing in their power to promote his success. It must not be
+supposed, however, that they were governed in this by a disinterested
+principle of fidelity to Charles himself personally, or to the justice
+of his cause. Their own re-establishment in wealth and power was at
+stake as well as his, and they were ready to make common cause with
+him, knowing that they could save themselves from ruin only by
+reinstating him.
+
+Charles had his privy council and a sort of court at the Hague, and
+he arranged channels of communication, centering there, for collecting
+intelligence from England and Scotland, and through these he watched
+in every way for the opening of an opportunity to assert his rights
+to the British crown. He went, too, to Jersey, where the authorities
+and the inhabitants were on his side, and both there and at the Hague
+he busied himself with plans for raising funds and levying troops, and
+securing co-operation from those of the people of England who still
+remained loyal. Ireland was generally in his favor too, and he seriously
+meditated an expedition there. His mother was unwilling to have him
+engage in these schemes. She was afraid he would, sooner or later,
+involve himself in dangers from which he could not extricate himself,
+and that he would end by being plunged into the same pit of destruction
+that had engulfed his father.
+
+Amid all these political schemes, however, Charles did not forget Anne
+Maria. He was sager to secure her for his bride; for her fortune, and
+the power and influence of her connections, would aid him very much
+in recovering his throne. Her hope of marrying the Emperor of Germany,
+too, was gone, for that potentate had chosen another wife. Charles
+therefore continued his attentions to the young lady. She would not
+give him any distinct and decisive answer, but kept the subject in a
+state of perpetual negotiation. She was, in fact, growing more and
+more discontented and unhappy in disposition all the time. Her favorite
+plan of marrying the emperor had been thwarted, in part, by the
+difficulties which her friends--her father and her aunt especially--had
+contrived secretly to throw in the way, while outwardly and ostensibly
+they appeared to be doing all in their power to promote her wishes.
+They did not wish to have her married at all, as by this event the
+management of her vast fortune would pass out of their hands. She
+discovered this, their double dealing, when it was too late, and she
+was overwhelmed with vexation and chagrin.
+
+Things being in this state, Charles sent a special messenger, at one
+time, from the Hague, with instructions to make a formal proposal to
+Anne Maria, and to see if he could not bring the affair to a close.
+The name of this messenger was Lord Germain.
+
+The queen regent and her father urged Anne Maria now to consent to the
+proposal. They told her that Charles's prospects were brightening--that
+they themselves were going to render him powerful protection--that he
+had already acquired several allies--that there were whole provinces
+in England that were in his favor; and that all Ireland, which was,
+as it were, a kingdom in itself, was on his side. Whether they seriously
+desired that Anne Maria would consent to Charles's proposals, or only
+urged, for effect, what they knew very well she would persist in
+refusing, it is impossible to ascertain. If this latter were their
+design, it seemed likely to fail, for Anne Maria appeared to yield.
+She was sorry, she said, that the situation of affairs in Paris was
+not such as to allow of the French government giving Charles effectual
+help in gaining possession of the throne; but still, not withstanding
+that, she was ready to do what ever they might think best to command.
+
+Lord Germain then said that he should proceed directly to Holland and
+escort Charles to France, and he wanted Anne Maria to give him a direct
+and positive reply; for if she would really accept his proposal, he
+would come at once to court and claim her as his bride; otherwise he
+must proceed to Ireland, for the state of his affairs demanded his
+presence there. But if she would accept his proposal, he would
+immediately come to Paris, and have the marriage ceremony performed,
+and then he would remain afterward some days with her, that she might
+enjoy the honors and distinctions to which she would become entitled
+as the queen consort of a mighty realm. He would then, if she liked
+the plan, take her to Saint Germain's, where his mother, her aunt, was
+then residing, and establish her there while he was recovering his
+kingdom; or, if she preferred it, she might take up her residence in
+Paris, where she had been accustomed to live.
+
+To this the young lady replied that the last mentioned plan, that is,
+that she should continue to live at Paris after being married to
+Charles, was one that she could not think of. She should feel altogether
+unwilling to remain and enjoy the gayeties and festivities of Paris
+while her husband was at the head of his armies, exposed to all the
+dangers and privations of a camp; nor should she consider it right to
+go on incurring the expenses which a lady of her rank and position
+must necessarily bear in such a city, while he was perhaps embarrassed
+and distressed with the difficulties of providing funds for his own
+and his followers' necessities. She should feel, in fact, bound, if
+she were to become his wife, to do all in her power to assist him; and
+it would end, she foresaw, in her having to dispose of all her property,
+and expend the avails in aiding him to recover his kingdom. This, she
+said, she confessed alarmed her. It was a great sacrifice for her to
+make, reared as she had been in opulence and luxury. Lord Germain
+replied that all this was doubtless true, but then, on the other hand,
+he would venture to remind her that there was no other suitable match
+for her in Europe. He then went on to name the principal personages.
+The Emperor of Germany and the King of Spain were both married. Some
+other monarch was just about to espouse a Spanish princess. Others
+whom he named were too young; others, again, too old; and a certain
+prince whom he mentioned had been married, he said, these ten years,
+and his wife was in excellent health, so that every species of hope
+seemed to be cut off in that quarter.
+
+This conversation leading to no decisive result, Lord Germain renewed
+the subject after a few days, and pressed Anne Maria for a final answer.
+She said, now, that she had a very high regard for Queen Henrietta,
+and, indeed, a very strong affection for her; so strong that she should
+be willing to waive, for Henrietta's sake, all her objections to the
+disadvantages of Charles's position; but there was one objection which
+she felt that she could not surmount, and that was his religion. He
+was a Protestant, while she was a Catholic. Charles must remove this
+difficulty himself, which, if he had any regard for her, he certainly
+would be willing to do, since she would have to make so many sacrifices
+for him. Lord Germain, however, immediately discouraged this idea. He
+said that the position of Charles in respect to his kingdom was such
+as to render it impossible for him to change his religious faith. In
+fact, if he were to do so, he would be compelled to give up, at once,
+all hope of ever getting possession of his throne. Anne Maria knew
+this very well. The plea, however, made an excellent excuse to defend
+herself with from Lord Germain's importunities. She adhered to it,
+therefore, pertinaciously; the negotiation was broken off, and Lord
+Germain went away.
+
+Young adventurers like Charles, who wish to marry great heiresses,
+have always to exercise a great deal of patience, and to submit to a
+great many postponements and delays, even though they are successful
+in the end; and sovereign princes are not excepted, any more than other
+men, from this necessity. Dependent as woman is during all the earlier
+and all the later years of her life, and subjected as she is to the
+control, and too often, alas! to the caprice and injustice of man,
+there is a period--brief, it is true--when she is herself in power;
+and such characters as Anne Maria like to exercise their authority,
+while they feel that they possess it, with a pretty high hand. Charles
+seems to have felt the necessity of submitting to the inconvenience
+of Anne Maria's capricious delays, and, as long as she only continued
+to make excuses and objections instead of giving him a direct and
+positive refusal, he was led to persevere. Accordingly, not long after
+the conversations which his messenger had held with the lady as already
+described, he determined to come himself to France, and see if he could
+not accomplish something by his own personal exertions. He accordingly
+advanced to Peronne, which was not far from the frontier, and sent
+forward a courier to announce his approach. The royal family concluded
+to go out in their carriages to meet him. They were at this time at
+a famous royal resort a few leagues from Paris, called Compiegne.
+Charles was to dine at Compiegne, and then to proceed on toward Paris,
+where he had business to transact connected with his political plans.
+
+Anne Maria gives a minute account of the ride of the royal family to
+meet Charles on his approach to Compiegne, and of the interview with
+him, on her part, which attended it. She dressed herself in the morning,
+she says, with great care, and had her hair curled, which she seldom
+did except on very special occasions. When she entered the carriage
+to go out to meet the king, the queen regent, observing her appearance,
+said archly, "How easy it is to tell when young ladies expect to meet
+their lovers." Anne Maria says that she had a great mind to tell her,
+in reply, that it _was_ easy, for those who had had a great deal of
+experience in preparing to meet lovers themselves. She did not, however,
+say this, and the forbearance seems to show that there was, after all,
+the latent element of discretion and respect for superiors in her
+character, though it showed itself so seldom in action.
+
+They rode out several miles to meet the coming king; and when the two
+parties met, they all alighted, and saluted each other by the road
+side, the ladies and gentlemen that accompanied them standing around.
+Anne Maria noticed that Charles addressed the king and queen regent
+first, and then her. After a short delay they got into their carriages
+again--King Charles entering the carriage with their majesties and
+Anne Maria--and they rode together thus back to Compiegne.
+
+Anne Maria, however, does not seem to have been in a mood to be pleased.
+She says that Charles began to talk with the king--Louis XIV.--who was
+now twelve years old, about the dogs and horses, and the hunting customs
+in the country of the Prince of Orange. He talked on these subjects
+fluently enough in the French language, but when afterward the queen
+regent, who would naturally be interested in a different class of
+topics, asked him about the affairs of his own kingdom and his plans
+for recovering it, he excused himself by saying that he did not speak
+French well enough to give her the information. Anne Maria says she
+determined from that moment not to conclude the marriage, "for I
+conceived a very poor opinion of him, being a king, and at his age,
+to have no knowledge of his affairs." Such minds as Anne Maria's are
+seldom very logical; but such an inference as this, that he was ignorant
+of his own affairs because he declined explaining plans whose success
+depended on secrecy in such a company as that, and in a language with
+which, though he could talk about dogs and horses in it, he was still
+very imperfectly acquainted, is far too great a jump from premises to
+conclusion to be honestly made. It is very evident that Anne Maria was
+not disposed to be pleased.
+
+They arrived at Compiegne. As the king was going on that evening,
+dinner was served soon after they arrived. Anne Maria says he ate no
+ortolans, a very expensive and rare dish of little birds, which had
+been prepared expressly for this dinner in honor of the royal guest,
+[Footnote: The ortolan is a very small bird, which is fattened in lamp
+lighted rooms at great expense, because it is found to be of a more
+delicate flavor when excluded from the daylight. They come from the
+island of Cyprus, and have been famous in every age of the world as
+an article of royal luxury.] "but flung himself upon a piece of beef
+and a shoulder of mutton, as if there had been nothing else at table.
+After dinner, when we were in the drawing room, the queen amused herself
+with the other ladies and gentlemen, and left him with me. He was a
+quarter of an hour without speaking a word; but I am willing to believe
+that his silence was the result of respect rather than any want of
+passion, though on this occasion, I frankly confess, I could have
+wished it less plainly exhibited. After a while, getting tired of his
+tediousness, I called another lady to my side, to see if she could not
+make him talk. She succeeded. Presently one of the gentlemen of the
+party came to me and said, 'He kept looking at you all dinner time,
+and is looking at you still.' To which I replied, 'He has plenty of
+time to look at me before he will please me, if he does not speak.'
+The gentleman rejoined, 'Oh, he has said tender things enough to you,
+no doubt, only you don't like to admit it.' To which I answered, 'Come
+and seat yourself by me the next time he is at my side, and hear for
+yourself how he talks about it." She says she then went and addressed
+the king herself, asking him various questions about persons who were
+in his suite, and that he answered them all with an air of mere common
+politeness, without any gallantry at all.
+
+Finally, the hour for the departure of Charles and his party arrived,
+and the carriages came to the door. The French king, together with his
+mother and Anne Maria, and the usual attendants, accompanied them some
+miles into the forest on their way, and then, all alighting, as they
+had done when they met in the morning, they took leave of each other
+with the usual ceremonies of such occasions. Charles, after bidding
+King Louis farewell, advanced with Lord Germain, who was present in
+his suite at that time, to Anne Maria, and she gives the following
+rather petulant account of what passed: "'I believe,' said Charles,
+'that my Lord Germain, who speaks French better than I do, has explained
+to you my sentiments and my intention. I am your very obedient servant.'
+I answered that I was equally his obedient servant. Germain paid me
+a great number of compliments, the king standing by. After they were
+over, the king bowed and departed."
+
+Charles, who had been all his life living roughly in camps, felt
+naturally ill at ease in the brilliant scenes of ceremony and splendor
+which the French court presented; and this embarrassment was greatly
+increased by the haughty air and manner, and the ill concealed raillery
+of the lady whose favorable regard he was so anxious to secure. His
+imperfect knowledge of the language, and his sense of the gloomy
+uncertainty of his own prospects in life, tended strongly to increase
+his distrust of himself and his timidity. We should have wished that
+he could have experienced somewhat kinder treatment from the object
+of his regard, were it not that his character, and especially his
+subsequent history, show that he was entirely mercenary and selfish
+himself in seeking her hand. If we can ever, in any instance, pardon
+the caprice and wanton cruelty of a coquette, it is when these qualities
+are exercised in thwarting the designs of a heartless speculator, who
+is endeavoring to fill his coffers with money by offering in exchange
+for it a mere worthless counterfeit of love.
+
+Charles seems to have been totally discouraged by the result of this
+unfortunate dinner party at Compiegne. He went to Paris, and from Paris
+he went to St. Germain's, where he remained for several months with
+his mother, revolving in his mind his fallen fortunes, and forming
+almost hopeless schemes for seeking to restore them. In the mean time,
+the wife whom the Emperor of Germany had married instead of Anne Maria,
+died, and the young belle sprang immediately into the excitement of
+a new hope of attaining the great object of her ambition after all.
+The emperor was fifty years of age, and had four children, but he was
+the Emperor of Germany, and that made amends for all. Anne Maria
+immediately began to lay her trains again for becoming his bride. What
+her plans were, and how they succeeded, we shall, perhaps, have occasion
+hereafter to describe.
+
+Though her heart was thus set upon having the emperor for her husband,
+she did not like, in the mean time, quite to give up her younger and
+more agreeable beau. Besides, her plans of marrying the emperor might
+fail, and Charles might succeed in recovering his kingdom. It was best,
+therefore, not to bring the negotiation with him to too absolute a
+close. When the time arrived, therefore, for Charles to take his
+departure, she thought she would just ride out to St. Germain's and
+pay her respects to Queen Henrietta, and bid the young king good-by.
+
+Neither Queen Henrietta nor her son attempted to renew the negotiation
+of his suite on the occasion of this visit. The queen told Anne Maria,
+on the other hand, that she supposed she ought to congratulate her on
+the death of the Empress of Germany, for, though the negotiation for
+her marriage with him had failed on a former occasion, she had no doubt
+it would be resumed now, and would be successful. Anne Maria replied,
+with an air of indifference, that she did not know or think any thing
+about it. The queen then said that she knew of a young man, not very
+far from them, who thought that a king of nineteen years of age was
+better for a husband than a man of fifty, a widower with four children,
+even if he was an emperor. "However," said she, "we do not know what
+turn things may take. My son may succeed in recovering his kingdom,
+and then, perhaps, if you should be in a situation to do so, you may
+listen more favorably to his addresses."
+
+Anne Maria was not to return directly back to Paris. She was going to
+visit her sisters, who lived at a little distance beyond. The Duke of
+York, that is, Henrietta's son James, then fourteen or fifteen years
+old, proposed to accompany her. She consented. Charles then proposed
+to go too. Anne Maria objected to this, saying that it was not quite
+proper. She had no objection to James's going, as he was a mere youth.
+Queen Henrietta removed her objection by offering to join the party
+herself; so they all went together. Anne Maria says that Charles treated
+her with great politeness and attention all the way, and paid her many
+compliments, but made no attempt to bring up again, in any way, the
+question of his suit. She was very glad he did not, she says, for her
+mind being now occupied with the plan of marrying the emperor, nothing
+that he could have said would have done any good.
+
+Thus the question was considered as virtually settled, and King Charles,
+soon after, turned his thoughts toward executing the plans which he
+had been long revolving for the recovery of his kingdom.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE ROYAL OAK OF BOSCOBEL.
+
+
+
+It was in June, 1650, about eighteen months after the decapitation of
+his father, that Charles was ready to set out on his expedition to
+attempt the recovery of his rights to the English throne. He was but
+twenty years of age. He took with him no army, no supplies, no
+resources. He had a small number of attendants and followers, personally
+interested themselves in his success, and animated also, probably, by
+some degree of disinterested attachment to him. It was, however, on
+the whole, a desperate enterprise. Queen Henrietta, in her retirement
+at the Louvre, felt very anxious about the result of it. Charles
+himself, too, notwithstanding his own buoyant and sanguine temperament,
+and the natural confidence and hope pertaining to his years, must have
+felt many forebodings. But his condition on the Continent was getting
+every month more and more destitute and forlorn. He was a mere guest
+wherever he went, and destitute of means as he was, he found himself
+continually sinking in public consideration. Money as well as rank is
+very essentially necessary to make a relative a welcome guest, for any
+long time, in aristocratic circles. Charles concluded, therefore, that,
+all things considered, it was best for him to make a desperate effort
+to recover his kingdoms.
+
+His kingdoms were three, England, Scotland, and Ireland. Ireland was
+a conquered kingdom, Scotland, like England, had descended to him from
+his ancestors; for his grandfather, James VI., was king of Scotland,
+and being on his mothers side a descendant of an English king, he was,
+of course, one of the heirs of the English crown; and on the failure
+of the other heirs, he succeeded to that crown, retaining still his
+own. Thus both kingdoms descended to Charles.
+
+It was only the English kingdom that had really rebelled against, and
+put to death King Charles's father. There had been a great deal of
+difficulty in Scotland, it is true, and the republican spirit had
+spread quite extensively in that country. Still, affairs had not
+proceeded to such extremities there. The Scotch had, in some degree,
+joined with the English in resisting Charles the First, but it was not
+their wish to throw off the royal authority altogether. They abhorred
+episcopacy in the Church, but were well enough contented with monarchy
+in the state. Accordingly, soon after the death of the father, they
+had opened negotiations with the son, and had manifested their
+willingness to acknowledge him as their king, on certain conditions
+which they undertook to prescribe to him. It is very hard for a king
+to hold his scepter on conditions prescribed by his people. Charles
+tried every possible means to avoid submitting to this necessity. He
+found, however, that the only possible avenue of access to England was
+by first getting some sort of possession of Scotland; and so, signifying
+his willingness to comply with the Scotch demands, he set sail from
+Holland with his court, moved north ward with his little squadron over
+the waters of the German Ocean, and at length made port In the Frith
+of Cromarty, in the north of Scotland.
+
+The Scotch government, having but little faith in the royal word of
+such a youth as Charles would not allow him to land until he had
+formally signed their covenant, by which he bound himself to the
+conditions which they had thought it necessary to impose. He then
+landed. But he found his situation very far from such as comported
+with his ideas of royal authority and state. Charles was a gay,
+dissipated, reckless young man. The men whom he had to deal with were
+stern, sedate, and rigid religionists. They were scandalized at the
+looseness and irregularity of his character and manners. He was vexed
+and tormented by what he considered their ascetic bigotry, by the
+restraints which they were disposed to put upon his conduct, and the
+limits with which they insisted on bounding his authority. Long
+negotiations and debates ensued, each party becoming more and more
+irritated against the other. At last, on one occasion, Charles lost
+his patience entirely, and made his escape into the mountains, in hopes
+to raise an army there among the clans of wild Highlanders, who,
+accustomed from infancy to the most implicit obedience to their
+chieftains, are always very loyal to their king. The Scotch nobles,
+however, not wishing to drive him to extremities, sent for him to come
+back, and both parties becoming after this somewhat more considerate
+and accommodating, they at length came to an agreement, and proceeding
+together to Scone, a village some miles north of Edinburgh, they crowned
+Charles King of Scotland in a venerable abbey there, the ancient place
+of coronation for all the monarchs of the Scottish line.
+
+In the mean time, Cromwell, who was at the head of the republican
+government of England, knowing very well that Charles's plan would be
+to march into England as soon as he could mature his arrangements for
+such an enterprise, determined to anticipate this design by declaring
+war himself against Scotland, and marching an army there.
+
+Charles felt comparatively little interest in what became of Scotland.
+His aim was England. He knew, or supposed that there was a very large
+portion of the English people who secretly favored his cause, and he
+believed that if he could once cross the frontier, even with a small
+army, these his secret friends would all rise at once and flock to his
+standard. Still he attempted for a time to resist Cromwell in Scotland,
+but without success. Cromwell penetrated to the heart of the country,
+and actually passed the army of Charles. In these circumstances, Charles
+resolved to leave Scotland to its fate, and boldly to cross the English
+frontier, to see what he could do by raising his standard in his
+southern kingdom. The army acceded to this plan with acclamations. The
+king accordingly put his forces in motion, crossed the frontier, issued
+his manifestoes, and sent around couriers and heralds, announcing to
+the whole population that their king had come, and summoning all his
+subjects to arm themselves and hasten to his aid. This was in the
+summer of 1651, the year after his landing in Scotland.
+
+It certainly was a very bold and almost desperate measure, and the
+reader, whether Monarchist or Republican, can hardly help wishing the
+young adventurer success. The romantic enterprise was, however, destined
+to fail. The people of England were not yet prepared to return to
+royalty. Some few of the ancient noble families and country gentlemen
+adhered to the king's cause, but they came in to join his ranks very
+slowly. Those who were in favor of the king were called _Cavaliers_.
+The other party were called _Roundheads_. Queen Henrietta Maria had
+given them the name, on account of their manner of wearing their hair,
+cut short and close to their heads all around, while the gay Cavaliers
+cultivated their locks, which hung in long curls down upon their
+shoulders. The Cavaliers, it turned out, were few, while the Roundheads
+filled the land.
+
+It was, however, impossible for Charles to retreat, since Cromwell was
+behind him; for Cromwell, as soon as he found that his enemy had
+actually gone into England, paused only long enough to recover from
+his surprise, and then made all haste to follow him. The two armies
+thus moved down through the very heart of England, carrying every
+where, as they went, universal terror, confusion, and dismay. The whole
+country was thrown into extreme excitement. Every body was called upon
+to take sides, and thousands were perplexed and undecided which side
+to take. Families were divided, brothers separated, fathers and sons
+were ready to fight each other in their insane zeal, the latter for
+the Parliament, the former for the king. The whole country was filled
+with rumors, messengers, parties of soldiers going to and fro, and
+troops of horsemen, with robberies, plunderings, murders, and other
+deeds of violence without number, and all the other elements of
+confusion and misery which arouse the whole population of a country
+to terror and distress, and mar the very face of nature in time of
+civil war. What dreadful struggles man will make to gain the pleasure
+of ruling his fellow man! Along the frontiers of England and Wales
+there flows the beautiful River Severn, which widens majestically at
+its mouth, and passes by the Bristol Channel to the sea. One of the
+largest towns upon this river is Worcester. It was in those days
+strongly fortified. It stands on the eastern side of the river, with
+a great bridge opposite one of the gates leading across the Severn in
+the direction toward Wales. There are other bridges on the stream,
+both above and below, and many towns and villages in the vicinity, the
+whole presenting, at ordinary times, a delightful scene of industry
+and peace.
+
+Worcester is, perhaps, three hundred miles from the frontiers of
+Scotland, on the way to London, though somewhat to the westward of the
+direct route. Charles's destination was the capital. He pushed on,
+notwithstanding the difficulties and disappointments which embarrassed
+his march, until at last, when he reached the banks of the Severn, he
+found he could go no further. His troops and his officers were wearied,
+faint, and discouraged. His hopes had not been realized, and while it
+was obviously dangerous to stop, it seemed still more dangerous to go
+on. However, as the authorities of Worcester were disposed to take
+sides with the king, Charles determined to stop there for a little
+time, at all events, to refresh his army, and consider what to do.
+
+He was received in the city with all due honors. He was proclaimed
+king on the following day, with great parade and loud acclamations.
+He established a camp in the neighborhood of the city. He issued great
+proclamations, calling upon all the people of the surrounding country
+to come and espouse his cause. He established his court, organized his
+privy council, and, in a word, perfected, on a somewhat humble scale
+it is true, all the arrangements proper to the condition of a monarch
+in his capital. He began, perhaps, in fact, to imagine himself really
+a king. If he did so, however, the illusion was soon dispelled. In one
+short week Cromwell's army came on, filling all the avenues of approach
+to the city, and exhibiting a force far too great, apparently, either
+for Charles to meet in battle, or to defend himself from in a siege.
+
+Charles's forces fought several preliminary battles and skirmishes in
+resisting the attempts of Cromwell's columns to get possession of the
+bridges and fords by which they were to cross the river. These contests
+resulted always in the same way. The detachments which Charles had
+sent forward to defend these points were one after another driven in,
+while Charles, with his council of war around him, watched from the
+top of the tower of a church within the city this gradual and
+irresistible advance of his determined enemy, with an anxiety which
+gradually deepened into dismay.
+
+The king, finding his situation now desperate, determined to make one
+final attempt to retrieve his fallen fortunes. He formed his troops
+in array, and marched out to give the advancing army battle. He put
+himself at the head of a troop of Highlanders, and fought in person
+with the courage and recklessness of despair. The officers knew full
+well that it was a question of victory or death; for if they did not
+conquer, they must die, either by wounds on the field of battle, or
+else, if taken prisoners, by being hung as traitors, or beheaded in
+the Tower. All possibility of escape, entrapped and surrounded as they
+were in the very heart of the country, hundreds of miles from the
+frontiers, seemed utterly hopeless. They fought, therefore, with
+reckless and desperate fury, but all was in vain. They were repulsed
+and driven in on all sides, and the soldiers fled at length, carrying
+the officers with them, in tumult and disorder, back through the gates
+into the city.
+
+An army flying in confusion to seek refuge in a city can not shut the
+gates behind them against their pursuers. In fact, in such a scene of
+terror and dismay, there is no order, no obedience, no composure. At
+the gate where Charles endeavored to get back into the city, he found
+the way choked up by a heavy ammunition cart which had been entangled
+there, one of the oxen that had been drawing it being killed. The
+throngs of men &and horsemen were stopped by this disaster. The king
+dismounted, abandoned his horse, and made his way through and over the
+obstruction as he could. When he got into the city, he found all in
+confusion there. His men were throwing away their arms, and pressing
+onward in their flight. He lightened his own burdens by laying aside
+the heaviest of his armor, procured another horse, and rode up and
+down among his men, urging and entreating them to form again and face
+the enemy. He plead the justice of his cause, their duty to be faithful
+to their rightful sovereign, and every other argument which was capable
+of being expressed in the shouts and vociferations which, in such a
+scene, constitute the only kind of communication possible with panic
+stricken men; and when he found that all was in vain he said, in
+despair, that he would rather they would shoot him on the spot than
+let him live to witness such an abandonment of his cause by the only
+friends and followers that had been left to him.
+
+The powerful influence which these expostulations would otherwise have
+had, was lost and overborne in the torrent of confusion and terror
+which was spreading through all the streets of the city. The army of
+Cromwell forced their passage in, and fought their way from street to
+street, wherever they found any remaining resistance. Some of the
+king's troops were hemmed up in corners, and cut to pieces. Others,
+somewhat more fortunate, sought protection in towers and bastions,
+where they could make some sort of conditions with their victorious
+enemy before surrendering. Charles himself, finding that all was lost,
+made his escape at last from the city, at six o'clock in the evening,
+at the head of a troop of horse. He could not, however, endure the
+thought of giving up the contest, after all. Again and again, as he
+slowly retreated, he stopped to face about, and to urge his men to
+consent to turn back again and encounter the enemy. Their last halt
+was upon a bridge half a mile from the city. Here the king held a
+consultation with the few remaining counselors and officers that were
+with him, surveying, with them, the routed and flying bodies of men,
+who were now throwing away their arms and dispersing in all directions,
+in a state of hopeless disorganization and despair. The king saw plainly
+that his cause was irretrievably ruined, and they all agreed that
+nothing now remained for them but to make their escape back to Scotland,
+if by any possibility that could now be done.
+
+But how should they accomplish this end? To follow the multitude of
+defeated soldiers would be to share the certain capture and death which
+awaited them, and they were themselves all strangers to the country.
+To go on inquiring all the way would only expose them to equally certain
+discovery and capture. The first thing, however, obviously was to get
+away from the crowd. Charles and his attendants, therefore, turned
+aside from the high road--there were with the king fifty or sixty
+officers and noblemen, all mounted men--and moved along in such secluded
+by-paths as they could find. The king wished to diminish even this
+number of followers, but he could not get any of them to leave him.
+He complained afterward, in the account which he gave of these
+adventures, that, though they would not fight for him when battle was
+to be given, he could not get rid of them when the time came for flight.
+
+There was a servant of one of the gentlemen in the company who pretended
+to know the way, and he accordingly undertook to guide the party; but
+as soon as it became dark he got confused and lost, and did not know
+what to do. They contrived, however, to get another guide They went
+ten miles, attracting no particular attention, for at such a time of
+civil war a country is full of parties of men, armed and unarmed, going
+to and fro, who are allowed generally to move without molestation, as
+the inhabitants are only anxious to have as little as possible to say
+to them, that they may the sooner be gone. The royal party assumed the
+air and manner of one of these bands as long as daylight lasted, and
+when that was gone they went more securely and at their ease. After
+proceeding ten miles, they stopped at an obscure inn, where they took
+some drink and a little bread, and then resumed their journey,
+consulting with one another as they went as to what it was best to do.
+
+About ten or twelve miles further on there was a somewhat wild and
+sequestered region, in which there were two very secluded dwellings,
+about half a mile from each other. One of these residences was named
+Boscobel. The name had been given to it by a guest of the proprietor,
+at an entertainment which the latter had given, from the Italian words
+_bosco bello_, which mean beautiful grove. It was in or near a wood,
+and away from all high roads, having been built, probably, like many
+other of the dwellings reared in those days, as a place of retreat.
+In the preceding reigns of Charles and Elizabeth, the Catholics, who
+were called _popish recusants_, on account of their _refusing_ to take
+an oath acknowledging the supremacy of the British sovereign over the
+English Church, had to resort to all possible modes of escape from
+Protestant persecution. They built these retreats in retired and
+secluded places, and constructed all sorts of concealed and secure
+hiding places within them, in the partitions and walls, where men whose
+lives were in danger might be concealed for many days. Boscobel was
+such a mansion. In fact, one of the king's generals, the Earl of Derby,
+had been concealed in it but a short time before. The king inquired
+particularly about it, and was induced himself to seek refuge there.
+
+This house belonged to a family of Giffards, one of whom was in the
+suite of King Charles at this time. There was another mansion about
+half a mile distant. This other place had been originally, in the
+Catholic days, a convent, and the nuns who inhabited it dressed in
+white. They were called, accordingly, the _white ladies_, and the place
+itself received the same name, which it retained after the sisters
+were gone. Mr. Giffard recommended going to the White Ladies' first.
+He wanted, in fact, to contrive some way to relieve the king of the
+encumbrance of so large a troop before going to Boscobel.
+
+They went, accordingly, to the White Ladies'. Neither of the houses
+was occupied at this time by the proprietors, but were in charge of
+housekeepers and servants. Among the tenants upon the estate there
+were several brothers of the name of Penderel. They were woodmen and
+farm servants, living at different places in the neighborhood, and
+having charge, some of them, of the houses above described. One of the
+Penderels was at the White Ladies'. He let the fugitives in, tired,
+exhausted, and hungry as they were, with the fatigue of marching nearly
+all the night. They sent immediately for Richard Penderel, who lived
+in a farm house nearby, and for another brother, who was at Boscobel.
+They took the king into an inner room, and immediately commenced the
+work of effectually disguising him.
+
+They gave him clothes belonging to some of the servants of the family,
+and destroyed his own. The king had about his person a watch and some
+costly decorations, such as orders of knighthood set in jewels, which
+would betray his rank if found in his possession. These the king
+distributed among his friends, intrusting them to the charge of such
+as he judged most likely to effect their escape. They then cut off his
+hair short all over, thus making him a Roundhead instead of a Cavalier.
+They rubbed soot from the fire place over his face, to change the
+expression of his features and complexion. They gave him thus, in all
+respects, as nearly as possible, the guise of a squalid peasant and
+laborer of the humblest class, accustomed to the privations and to the
+habits of poverty.
+
+In the mean time Richard Penderel arrived. Perhaps an intimation had
+been given him of the wishes of the king to be relieved of his company
+of followers; at any rate, he urged the whole retinue, as soon as he
+came to the house to press forward without any delay, as there was a
+detachment of Cromwell's forces, he said, at three miles' distance,
+who might be expected at any moment to come in pursuit of them Giffard
+brought Penderel then into the inner room to which the king had retired.
+"This is the king," said he. "I commit him to your charge. Take care
+of him."
+
+Richard undertook the trust. He told the king that he must immediately
+leave that place, and he conducted him secretly, all disguised as he
+was, out of a postern door, without making known his design to any of
+his followers, except the two or three who were in immediate attendance
+upon him. He led him away about half a mile into a wood, and, concealing
+him there, left him alone, saying he would go and see what intelligence
+he could obtain, and presently return again. The troop of followers,
+in the mean time, from whom the king had been so desirous to get free,
+when they found that he was gone, mounted their horses and rode away,
+to escape the danger with which Richard had threatened them. But, alas
+for the unhappy fugitives, they did not get far in their flight; they
+were overtaken, attacked, conquered, captured, and treated as traitors.
+Some were shot, one was beheaded, and others were shut up in prisons,
+where they pined in hopeless privation and suffering for many years.
+There was, however, one of the king's followers who did not go away
+with the rest. It was Lord Wilmot, an influential nobleman, who
+concealed himself in the vicinity, and kept near the king in all his
+subsequent wanderings.
+
+But we must return to the king in the wood. It was about sunrise when
+he was left there, the morning after the battle. It rained. The king
+tried in vain to find a shelter under the trees of the forest. The
+trees themselves were soon thoroughly saturated, and they received the
+driving rain from the skies only to let the water fall in heavier drops
+upon the poor fugitive's defenseless head. Richard borrowed a blanket
+at a cottage near, thinking that it would afford some protection, and
+brought it to his charge. The king folded it up to make a cushion to
+sit upon; for, worn out as he was with hard fighting all the day before,
+and hard riding all the night, he could not stand; so he chose to use
+his blanket as a protection from the wet ground beneath him, and to
+take the rain upon his head as it fell.
+
+Richard sent a peasant's wife to him presently with some food. Charles,
+who never had any great respect for the female sex, was alarmed to
+find that a woman had been entrusted with such a secret.
+
+"My good woman," said he, "can you be faithful to a distressed
+Cavalier?"
+
+"Yes, sir," said she; "I will die rather than betray you."
+
+Charles had, in fact, no occasion to fear. Woman is, indeed,
+communicative and confiding, and often, in unguarded hours, reveals
+indiscreetly what it would have been better to have withheld; but in
+all cases where real and important trusts are committed to her keeping,
+there is no human fidelity which can be more safely relied upon than
+hers.
+
+Charles remained in the wood all the day, exposed to the pelting of
+the storm. There was a road in sight, a sort of by-way leading across
+the country, and the monarch beguiled the weary hours as well as he
+could by watching this road from under the trees, to see if any soldiers
+came along. There was one troop that appeared, but it passed directly
+by, marching heavily through the mud and rain, the men intent,
+apparently, only on reaching their journey's end. When night came on,
+Richard Penderel returned, approaching cautiously, and, finding all
+safe, took the king into the house with him. They brought him to the
+fire, changed and dried his clothes, and gave him supper. The homeless
+monarch once more enjoyed the luxuries of warmth and shelter.
+
+During all the day, while he had been alone in the wood, he had been
+revolving in his mind the strange circumstances of his situation,
+vainly endeavoring, for many hours, to realize what seemed at first
+like a dreadful dream. Could it be really true that he, the monarch
+of three kingdoms, so recently at the head of a victorious army, and
+surrounded by generals and officers of state, was now a friendless and
+solitary fugitive, without even a place to hide his head from the cold
+autumnal storm? It seemed at first a dream; but it soon became a
+reality, and he began to ponder, in every form, the question what he
+should do. He looked east, west, north, and south, but could not see,
+in any quarter, any hope of succor, or any reasonable prospect of
+escape. He, however, arrived at the conclusion, before night came on,
+that it would be, on the whole, the best plan for him to attempt to
+escape into Wales.
+
+He was very near the frontier of that country. There was no difficulty
+to be apprehended on the road thither, excepting in the crossing of
+the Severn, which, as has already been remarked, flows from north to
+south not far from the line of the frontier. He thought, too, that if
+he could once succeed in getting into Wales, he could find secure
+retreats among the mountains there until he should be able to make his
+way to some sea-port on the coast trading with France, and so find his
+way back across the Channel. He proposed this plan to Richard in the
+evening, and asked him to accompany him as his guide. Richard readily
+consented, and the arrangements for the journey were made. They adjusted
+the king's dress again to complete his disguise, and Richard gave him
+a bill-hook--a sort of woodman's tool--to carry in his hand. It was
+agreed, also, that his name should be Will Jones so far as there should
+be any necessity for designating him by a name in the progress of the
+journey.
+
+They set out at nine o'clock that same night, in the darkness and rain.
+They wished to get to Madely, a town near the river, before the morning.
+Richard knew a Mr. Woolf there, a friend of the Royalist cause, who
+he thought would shelter them, and aid them in getting across the
+river. They went on very well for some time, until they came to a
+stream, a branch of the Severn, where there was a bridge, and on the
+other side a mill. The miller happened to be watching that night at
+his door. At such times everybody is on the alert, suspecting mischief
+or danger in every unusual sight or sound.
+
+Hearing the footsteps, he called out, "Who goes there?"
+
+"Neighbors," replied Richard. The king was silent. He had been
+previously charged by Richard not to speak, except when it could not
+possibly be avoided, as he had not the accent of the country.
+
+"Stop, then," said the miller, "if you be neighbors." The travelers
+only pressed forward the faster for this challenge. "Stop!" repeated
+the miller, "if you be neighbors, or I will knock you down;" and he
+ran out in pursuit of them, armed apparently with the means of executing
+his threat. Richard fled, the king closely following him. They turned
+into a lane, and ran a long distance, the way being in many places so
+dark that the king, in following Richard, was guided only by the sound
+of his footsteps, and the creaking of the leather dress which such
+peasants were accustomed in those days to wear. They crept along,
+however, as silently, and yet as rapidly as possible, until at length
+Richard turned suddenly aside, leaped over a sort of gap in the hedge,
+and crouched down in the trench on the other side. Here they remained
+for some time, listening to ascertain whether they were pursued. When
+they found that all was still, they crept forth from their hiding
+places, regained the road, and went on their way.
+
+At length they arrived at the town. Richard left the king concealed
+in an obscure corner of the street, while he went to the house of Mr.
+Woolf to see if he could obtain admission. All was dark and still. He
+knocked till he had aroused some of the family, and finally brought
+Mr. Woolf to the door.
+
+He told Mr. Woolf that he came to ask shelter for a gentleman who was
+wishing to get into Wales, and who could not safely travel by day. Mr.
+Woolf hesitated, and began to ask for further information in respect
+to the stranger. Richard said that he was an officer who had made his
+escape from the battle of Worcester, "Then," said Mr. Woolf, "I should
+hazard my life by concealing him, which I should not be willing to do
+for any body, unless it were the king." Richard then told him that it
+_was_ his majesty. On hearing this, Mr. Woolf decided at once to admit
+and conceal the travelers, and Richard went back to bring the king.
+
+When they arrived at the house, they found Mr. Woolf making preparations
+for their reception. They placed the king by the fire to warm and dry
+his clothes, and they gave him such food as could be provided on so
+sudden an emergency. As the morning was now approaching, it was
+necessary to adopt some plan of concealment for the day, and Mr. Woolf
+decided upon concealing his guests in his barn. He said that there
+were holes and hiding places built in his house, but that they had all
+been discovered on some previous search, and, in case of any suspicion
+or alarm, the officers would go directly to them all. He took the
+travelers, accordingly, to the barn, and concealed them there among
+the hay. He said that he would himself, during the day, make inquiries
+in respect to the practicability of their going on upon their journey,
+and come and report to them in the evening.
+
+Accordingly, when the evening came, Mr. Woolf returned, relieved them
+from their confinement, and took them back again to the house. His
+report, however, in respect to the continuance of their journey, was
+very unfavorable. He thought it would be impossible, he said, for them
+to cross the Severn. The Republican forces had stationed guards at all
+the bridges, ferries, and fords, and at every other practicable place
+of crossing, and no one was allowed to pass without a strict
+examination. The country was greatly excited, too, with the intelligence
+of the king's escape; rewards were offered for his apprehension, and
+heavy penalties denounced upon all who should harbor or conceal him.
+Under these circumstances, Mr. Woolf recommended that Charles should
+go back to Boscobel, and conceal himself as securely as possible there,
+until some plan could be devised for effecting his escape from the
+country.
+
+The king had no alternative but to accede to this plan. He waited at
+Mr. Woolf's house till midnight, in order that the movement in the
+streets of the town might have time entirely to subside, and then,
+disappointed and discouraged by the failure of his hopes, he prepared
+to set out upon his return. Mr. Woolf made some changes in his disguise,
+and bathed his face in a decoction of walnut leaves, which he had
+prepared during the day, to alter his complexion, which was naturally
+very dark and peculiar, and thus exposed him to danger of discovery.
+When all was ready, the two travelers bade their kind host farewell,
+and crept forth again through the silent streets, to return, by the
+way they came, back to Boscobel.
+
+They went on very well till they began to approach the branch stream
+where they had met with their adventure with the miller. They could
+not cross this stream by the bridge without going by the mill again,
+which they were both afraid to do. The king proposed that they should
+go a little way below, and ford the stream. Richard was afraid to
+attempt this, as he could not swim; and as the night was dark, and the
+current rapid, there would be imminent danger of their getting beyond
+their depth. Charles said that _he_ could swim, and that he would,
+accordingly, go first and try the water. They groped their way down,
+therefore, to the bank, and Charles, leaving his guide upon the land,
+waded in, and soon disappeared from view as he receded from the shore.
+He returned, however, after a short time, in safety, and reported the
+passage practicable, as the water was only three or four feet deep;
+so, taking Richard by the hand, he led him into the stream. It was a
+dismal and dangerous undertaking, wading thus through a deep and rapid
+current in darkness and cold, but they succeeded in passing safely
+over.
+
+They reached Boscobel before the morning dawned, and Richard, when
+they arrived, left the king in the wood while he went toward the house
+to reconnoiter, and see if all was safe. He found within an officer
+of the king's army, a certain Colonel Carlis, who had fled from
+Worcester some time after the king had left the field, and, being
+acquainted with the situation of Boscobel, had sought refuge there;
+William Penderel, who had remained in charge of Boscobel, having
+received and secreted him when he arrived.
+
+Richard and William brought Colonel Carlis out into the wood to see
+the king. They found him sitting upon the ground at the foot of a tree,
+entirely exhausted. He was worn out with hardship and fatigue. They
+took him to the house. They brought him to the fire, and gave him some
+food. The colonel drew off his majesty's heavy peasant shoes and coarse
+stockings. They were soaked with water and full of gravel. The colonel
+bathed his feet, which were sadly swollen and blistered, and, as there
+were no other shoes in the house which would answer for him to wear,
+Dame Penderel warmed and dried those which the colonel had taken off,
+by filling them with hot ashes from the fire, and then put them on
+again.
+
+The king continued to enjoy such sort of comforts as these during the
+night, but when the morning drew near it became necessary to look out
+for some place of concealment. The Penderels thought that no place
+within the house would be safe, for there was danger every hour of the
+arrival of a band of soldiers, who would not fail to search the mansion
+most effectually in every part. There was the wood near by, which was
+very secluded and solitary; but still they feared that, in case of a
+search, the wood would be explored as effectually as the dwelling.
+Under these circumstances, Carlis was looking around, perplexed and
+uncertain, not knowing what to do, when he perceived some scattered
+oaks standing by themselves in a field not far from the house, one of
+which seemed to be so full and dense in its foliage as to afford some
+hope of concealment there. The tree, it seems, had been headed down
+once or twice, and this pruning had had the effect, usual in such
+cases, of making the branches spread and grow very thick and full. The
+colonel thought that though, in making a search for fugitives, men
+might very naturally explore a thicket or a grove, they would not
+probably think of examining a detached and solitary tree; he proposed,
+accordingly, that the king and himself should climb up into this
+spreading oak, and conceal themselves for the day among its branches.
+
+The king consented to this plan. They took some provisions, therefore,
+as soon as the day began to dawn, and something to answer the purpose
+of a cushion, and proceeded to the tree. By the help of William and
+Richard the king and the colonel climbed up, and established themselves
+in the top. The colonel placed the cushion for the king on the best
+support among the limbs that he could find. The bread and cheese, and
+a small bottle of beer, which Richard and William had brought for their
+day's supplies, they suspended to a branch within their reach. The
+colonel then seated himself a little above the king, in such a manner
+that the monarch's head could rest conveniently in his lap, and in as
+easy a position as it was possible, under such circumstances, to attain.
+Richard and William, then, after surveying the place of retreat all
+around from below, in order to be sure that the concealment afforded
+by the foliage was every where complete, went away, promising to keep
+faithful watch during the day and to return in the evening. All things
+being thus arranged in the oak, the colonel bade his majesty to close
+his eyes and go to sleep, saying that he would take good care that he
+did not fall. The king followed his directions, and slept safely for
+many hours.
+
+In the course of the day the king and Carlis saw, by means of the
+openings between the leaves, through which, as through loop holes in
+a tower, they continually reconnoitered the surrounding fields, men
+passing to and fro, some of whom they imagined to be soldiers searching
+the wood. They were not, however, themselves molested. They passed the
+day undisturbed, except by the incessant anxiety and alarm which they
+necessarily suffered, and the fatigue and pain, which must have become
+almost intolerable before night, from their constrained and comfortless
+position. Night, however, came at last, and relieved them from their
+duress. They descended from the tree and stole back cautiously to the
+house, the king resolving that he could not bear such hardship another
+day, and that they must, accordingly, find some other hiding place for
+him on the morrow. We can scarcely be surprised at this decision. A
+wild beast could hardly have endured a second day in such a lair.
+
+Other plans of concealment for the king were accordingly formed that
+night, and measures were soon concerted, as we shall see in the next
+chapter, to effect his escape from the country. The old tree, however,
+which had sheltered him so safely, was not forgotten. In after years,
+when the monarch was restored to his throne, and the story of his
+dangers and his escape was made known throughout the kingdom, thousands
+of visitors came to look upon the faithful tree which had thus afforded
+his majesty its unconscious but effectual protection. Every one took
+away a leaf or a sprig for a souvenir, and when, at last, the proprietor
+found that there was danger that the whole tree would be carried away
+unless he interposed, he fenced it in and tilled the ground around it,
+to defend it from further mutilation. It has borne the name of the
+Royal Oak from that time to the present day, and has been the theme
+of narrators and poets without number, who have celebrated its praises
+in every conceivable form of composition. There is, however, probably
+no one of them all who has done more for the wide extension of its
+fame among all the ranks and gradations of society than the unknown
+author of the humble distich,
+
+  "The royal oak, it was the tree,
+  That saved his royal majesty."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+THE KING'S ESCAPE TO FRANCE.
+
+
+
+When the king and Carlis came into the house again, on the evening
+after their wearisome day's confinement in the tree, Dame Penderel had
+some chickens prepared for his majesty's supper, which he enjoyed as
+a great and unexpected luxury. They showed him, too, the hiding hole,
+built in the walls, where the Earl of Derby had been concealed, and
+where they proposed that he should be lodged for the night. There was
+room in it to lay down a small straw pallet for a bed. The king thought
+it would be very secure, and was confirmed in his determination not
+to go again to the oak. Before his majesty retired, Carlis asked him
+what he would like to have to eat on the morrow. He said that he should
+like some mutton. Carlis assented, and, bidding his master good night,
+he left him to his repose.
+
+There was no mutton in the house, and Richard and William both agreed
+that it would be unsafe for either of them to procure any, since, as
+they were not accustomed to purchase such food, their doing so now
+would awaken suspicion that they had some unusual guest to provide
+for. The colonel, accordingly, undertook himself to obtain the supply.
+
+Getting the necessary directions, therefore, from Richard and William,
+he went to the house of a farmer at some little distance--a tenant,
+he was, on the Boscobel estate--and groped his way to the sheep-cote.
+He selected an animal, such as he thought suitable for his purpose,
+and butchered it with his dagger. He then went back to the house, and
+sent William Penderel to bring the plunder home. William dressed a leg
+of the mutton, and sent it in the morning into the room which they had
+assigned to the king, near his hiding hole. The king was overjoyed at
+the prospect of this feast He called for a carving knife and a frying
+pan. He cut off some callops from the joint, and then, after frying
+the meat with Carlis's assistance, they ate it together.
+
+The king, becoming now somewhat accustomed to his situation, began to
+grow a little more bold. He walked in a little gallery which opened
+from his room. There was a window in this gallery which commanded a
+view of the road. The king kept watch carefully at this window as he
+walked to and fro, that he might observe the first appearance of any
+enemy's approach. It was observed, too, that he apparently spent some
+time here in exercises of devotion, imploring, probably, the protection
+of Heaven, in this his hour of danger and distress. The vows and
+promises which he doubtless made were, however, all forgotten, as usual
+in such cases, when safety and prosperity came again.
+
+There was a little garden, too, near the house, with an eminence at
+the further end of it, where there was an arbor, with a stone table,
+and seats about it. It was retired, and yet, being in an elevated
+position, it answered, like the window of the gallery in the house,
+the double purpose of a hiding place and a watch tower. It was far
+more comfortable, and probably much more safe, than the wretched nest
+in the tree of the day before; for, were the king discovered in the
+arbor, there would be some chances of escape from detection still
+remaining, but to have been found in the tree would have been certain
+destruction.
+
+In the mean time, the Penderels had had messengers out during the
+Saturday and Sunday, communicating with certain known friends of the
+king in the neighboring towns, and endeavoring to concert some plan
+for his escape. They were successful in these consultations, and be
+fore Sunday night a plan was formed. It seems there was a certain
+Colonel Lane, whose wife had obtained a pass from the authorities of
+the Republican army to go to Bristol, on the occasion of the sickness
+of a relative, and to take with her a man servant. Bristol was a hundred
+miles to the southward, near the mouth of the Severn. It was thought
+that if the king should reach this place, he could, perhaps, succeed
+afterward in making his way to the southern coast of England, and
+embarking there, at some sea-port, for France. The plan was accordingly
+formed for Mrs. Lane to go, as she had designed, on this journey, and
+to take the king along with her in the guise of her servant. The
+arrangements were all made, and the king was to be met in a wood five
+or six miles from Boscobel, early on Monday morning, by some trusty
+friends, who were afterward to conceal him for a time in their houses,
+until all things should be ready for the journey.
+
+The king found, however, when the morning approached, that his feet
+were in such a condition that he could not walk. They accordingly
+procured a horse belonging to one of the Penderels, and put him upon
+it. The brothers all accompanied him as he went away. They were armed
+with concealed weapons, intending, if they we're attacked by any small
+party, to defend the king with their lives. They, however, went on
+without any molestation. It was a dark and rainy night. Nights are
+seldom otherwise in England in September. The brothers Penderel, six
+of them in all, guided the king along through the darkness and rain,
+until they were within a mile or two of the appointed place of meeting,
+where the king dismounted, for the purpose of walking the rest of way,
+for greater safety, and three of the brothers, taking the horse with
+them, returned. The rest went on, and, after delivering the king safely
+into the hands of his friends, who were waiting at the appointed place
+to receive him, bade his majesty farewell, and, expressing their good
+wishes for the safe accomplishment of his escape, they returned to
+Boscobel.
+
+They now altered the king's disguise in some degree, to accommodate
+the change in his assumed character from that of a peasant of the woods
+to a respectable farmer's son, such as would be a suitable traveling
+attendant for an English dame, and they gave him the new name of William
+Jackson in the place of Will Jones. Mrs. Lane's sister's husband was
+to go with them a part of the way, and there was another gentleman and
+lady also of the party, so they were five in all. The horses were
+brought to the door when all was ready, just in the edge of the evening,
+the pretended attendant standing respectfully by, with his hat under
+his arm. He was to ride upon the same horse with Mrs. Lane, the lady
+being seated on a pillion behind him. The family assembled to bid the
+party farewell, none, either of the travelers or of the spectators,
+except Mrs. Lane and her brother-in-law, having any idea that the meek
+looking William Jackson was any other than what he seemed.
+
+They traveled on day after day, meeting with various adventures, and
+apparently with narrow escapes. At one time a shoe was off from the
+horse's foot, and the king stopped at a blacksmith's to have it
+replaced. While the smith was busy at the work, the king, standing by,
+asked him what news. "No news," said the smith, "that I know of, since
+the grand news of beating the rogues, the Scots, at Worcester." The
+king asked if any of the English officers who were with the Scots had
+been taken since the battle. "Some had been captured," the smith
+replied, "but he could not learn that the rogue Charles Stuart had
+been taken." The king then told him that if that rogue were taken, he
+deserved to be hanged more than all the rest, for bringing the Scots
+in. "You speak like an honest man," said the smith. Soon after, the
+work was done, and Charles led the horse away.
+
+At another time, when the party had stopped for the night, the king,
+in accordance with his assumed character, went to the kitchen. They
+were roasting some meat with a jack, a machine used much in those days
+to keep meat, while roasting, in slow rotation before the fire, The
+jack had run down. They asked the pretended William Jackson to wind
+it up. In trying to do it, he attempted to wind it the wrong way. The
+cook, in ridiculing, his awkwardness, asked him what country he came
+from, that he did not know how to wind up a jack. The king meekly
+replied that he was the son of a poor tenant of Colonel Lane's, and
+that they seldom had meat to roast at home, and that, when they had
+it, they did not roast it with a jack. The party at length arrived
+safely at their place of destination, which was at the house of a Mrs.
+Norton, at a place called Leigh, about three miles from Bristol. Here
+the whole party were received, and, in order to seclude the king as
+much as possible from observation, Mrs. Lane pretended that he was in
+very feeble health, and he was, accordingly, a good deal confined to
+his room. The disease which they selected for him was an intermittent
+fever, which came on only at intervals. This would account for his
+being sometimes apparently pretty well, and allowed him occasionally,
+when tired of being shut up in his room, to come down and join the
+other servants, and hear their conversation.
+
+There was an old servant of the family, named Pope, a butler, to whose
+care the pretended William Jackson was specially confided. On the
+following morning after his arrival, Charles, feeling, notwithstanding
+his fever, a good appetite after the fatigues of his journey, went
+down to get his breakfast, and, while there, some men came in, friends
+of the servants, and Pope brought out a luncheon of bread and ale, and
+placed it before them. While they were eating it, they began to talk
+about the battle of Worcester, and one of the men described it so
+accurately, that the king perceived that he must have been there. On
+questioning him more particularly, the man said that he was a soldier
+in the king's army, and he began to describe the person and appearance
+of the king. Charles was alarmed, and very soon rose and went away.
+Pope, who had had, it seems, his suspicions before, was now confirmed
+in them. He went to Mrs. Lane, and told her that he knew very well
+that their stranger guest was the king. She denied most positively
+that it was so, but she immediately took measures to communicate the
+conversation to Charles. The result of their consultations, and of
+their inquiries about the character of Pope for prudence and fidelity,
+was to admit him to their confidence, and endeavor to secure his aid.
+He was faithful in keeping the secret, and he rendered the king
+afterward a great deal of very efficient aid.
+
+There was a certain Colonel Wyndham, whose name has become immortalized
+by his connection with the king's escape, who lived at a place called
+Trent, not far from the southern coast of England. After much
+deliberation and many inquiries, it was decided that the king should
+proceed there while arrangements should be made for his embarkation.
+When this plan was formed, Mrs. Lane received a pretended letter from
+home, saying that her father was taken suddenly and dangerously sick,
+and urging her immediate return. They set out accordingly, William
+having so far recovered from his fever as to be able to travel again!
+
+During all this time, Lord Wilmot, who has already been mentioned as
+a fellow fugitive with Charles from the battle of Worcester, had
+followed the party of the king in his progress through the country,
+under various disguises, and by different modes of travel, keeping
+near his royal master all the way, and obtaining stolen interviews
+with him, from time to time, for consultation. In this way each rendered
+the other very essential aid. The two friends arrived at last at Colonel
+Wyndham's together. Mrs. Lane and her party here took leave of the
+king, and returned northward toward her home.
+
+Colonel Wyndham was a personal acquaintance of the king. He had been
+an officer under Charles I., in the civil wars preceding that monarch's
+captivity and death, and Charles, who, as Prince of Wales, had made
+a campaign as will be recollected, in the west of England before he
+went to France, had had frequent intercourse with Wyndham, and bad
+great confidence in his fidelity. The colonel had been at last shut
+up in a castle, and had finally surrendered on such conditions as
+secured his own liberty and safety. He had, consequently, since been
+allowed to live quietly at his own estate in Trent, though he was
+watched and suspected by the government as a known friend of the king's.
+Charles had, of course, great confidence in him. He was very cordially
+received into his house, and very securely secreted there.
+
+It would be dangerous for Wyndham himself to do any thing openly in
+respect to finding a vessel to convey the king to France. He accordingly
+engaged a trusty friend to go down to the sea-port on the coast which
+was nearest to his residence, and see what he could do. This sea-port
+was Lyme, or Lyme-Regis, as it is sometimes called. It was about
+twenty-five miles from Trent, where Wyndham resided, toward the
+southwest, and about the same distance to the eastward of Exeter, where
+Charles's mother had some years before sought refuge from her husband's
+enemies.
+
+Colonel Wyndham's messenger went to Lyme. He found there, pretty soon,
+the master of a small vessel, which was accustomed to ply back and
+forth to one of the ports on the coast of France, to carry merchandise.
+The messenger, after making inquiries, and finding that the captain,
+if captain he may be called, was the right sort of man for such an
+enterprise, obtained an interview with him and introduced conversation
+by asking when he expected to go back to France. The captain replied
+that it would probably be some time before he should be able to make
+up another cargo. "How should you like to take some passengers?" said
+the messenger. "Passengers?" inquired the captain. "Yes," rejoined the
+other; "there are two gentlemen here who wish to cross the Channel
+privately, and they are willing to pay fifty pounds to be landed at
+any port on the other side. Will you take them?"
+
+The captain perceived that it was a serious business. There was a
+proclamation out, offering a reward for the apprehension of the king,
+or Charles Stuart as they called him, and also for other of the leaders
+at the battle of Worcester. All persons, too, were strictly prohibited
+from taking any one across the Channel; and to conceal the king, or
+to connive in any way at his escape, was death. The captain, however,
+at length agreed to the proposal, influenced as the colonel's messenger
+supposed, partly by the amount of his pay, and partly by his interest
+in the Royal cause. He agreed to make his little vessel ready without
+delay.
+
+They did not think it prudent for the king to attempt to embark at
+Lyme, but there was, a few miles to the eastward of it, along the
+shore, a small village named Charmouth, where there was a creek jutting
+up from the sea, and a little pier, sufficient for the landing of so
+small a vessel as the one they had engaged. It was agreed that, on an
+appointed day, the king and Lord Wilmot were to come down to Charmouth,
+and take up their lodgings at the inn; that in the night the captain
+was to sail out of the port of Lyme, in the most private manner
+possible, and come to Charmouth; and that the king and Wilmot, who
+would, in the mean time, be watching from the inn, when they saw the
+light of the approaching vessel, should come down to the pier and
+embark, and the captain then immediately sail away.
+
+The messenger accordingly went back to Colonel Wyndham's with
+intelligence of the plan that he had formed, while the captain of the
+vessel went to work as privately as possible to lay in his stores and
+make his other preparations for sea. He did this with the utmost
+precaution and secrecy, and succeeded in deceiving every body but his
+wife. Wives have the opportunity to perceive indications of the
+concealed existence of matters of moment and weight which others do
+not enjoy, in studying the countenances of their husbands. A man can
+easily, through the day, when surrounded by the world, assume an
+unconcerned and careless air, though oppressed with a very considerable
+mental burden; but when he comes home at night, he instinctively throws
+off half his disguise, and conjugal watchfulness and solicitude easily
+penetrate the remainder. At least it was so in this case. The captain's
+dame perceived that her husband was thoughtful and absent minded. She
+watched him. She observed some indications that he was making
+preparations for sea. She asked him what it meant. He said he did not
+know how soon he might have a cargo, and he wanted to be all ready in
+season. His wife, however, was not satisfied. She watched him more
+closely still, and when the appointed night came on which he had agreed
+to sail, finding that it was impossible for him to elude her vigilance,
+he told her plainly, that he was going across the Channel on private
+business, but that he should immediately return.
+
+She declared positively that he should not go. She knew, she said,
+that the business was something which would end in ruining him and his
+family, and she was determined that he should not risk her safety and
+his own life in any such desperate and treasonable plans. She locked
+the door upon him, and when he insisted on being released, she declared
+that if he did attempt to go, she would immediately give warning to
+the authorities, and have him arrested and confined. So the discomfited
+captain was compelled to give up his design, and break his appointment
+at the Charmouth pier.
+
+In the mean time, the king and Lord Wilmot came down, as had been
+agreed upon, to Charmouth, and put up, with many other travelers, at
+the inn. There was great excitement all over that part of the country,
+every one talking about the battle of Worcester, the escape of the
+king, and especially about an expedition which Cromwell had been
+organizing, which was then assembling on the southern coast. Its
+destination was the island of Jersey, which had thus far adhered to
+the Royalist cause, and which Cromwell was now intending to reduce to
+subjection to him. The bustle and movement which all these causes
+combined to create, made the king and Lord Wilmot very anxious and
+uneasy. There were assemblies convened in the villages which they
+passed through, and men were haranguing the populace on the victories
+which had been gained, and on the future measures to be pursued. In
+one place the bells were ringing, and bonfires were burning in
+celebration of the death of the king, it being rumored and believed
+that he had been shot.
+
+Our two fugitives, however, arrived safely at the inn, put up their
+horses, and began to watch anxiously for the light of the approaching
+vessel. They watched, of course, in vain. Midnight came, but no vessel.
+They waited hour after hour, till at last morning dawned, and they
+found that all hope of accomplishing their enterprise must be abandoned.
+They could not remain where they were, however, another day, without
+suspicion; so they prepared to move on and seek temporary refuge in
+some other neighboring town, while they could send one of the attendants
+who came with them back to Colonel Wyndham's, to see if he could
+ascertain the cause of the failure. One or two days were spent in
+inquiries, negotiations, and delays. The result was, that all hope of
+embarking at Lyme had to be abandoned, and it was concluded that the
+fugitives should proceed on to the eastward, along the coast, to the
+care of another Royalist, a certain Colonel Gunter, who might perhaps
+find means to send them away from some port in that part of the country.
+At any rate, they would, by this plan, escape the excitements and
+dangers which seemed to environ them in the neighborhood of Lyme.
+
+It was fortunate that they went away from Charmouth when they did; by
+doing so they narrowly escaped apprehension; for that night, while the
+king's horse was in the stable, a smith was sent for to set a shoe
+upon the horse of one of the other travelers. After finishing his work,
+he began to examine the feet of the other horses in the stalls, and
+when he came to the one which the king had rode, his attention was
+particularly attracted to the condition and appearance of the shoes,
+and he remarked to those who were with him that that horse had come
+a long journey, and that of the four shoes, he would warrant that no
+two had been made in the same county. This remark was quoted the next
+day, and the mysterious circumstance, trifling as it was, was
+sufficient, in the highly excitable state of the public mind, to awaken
+attention. People came to see the horse, and to inquire for the owner,
+but they found that both had disappeared. They immediately determined
+that the stranger must have been the king, or at least some
+distinguished personage in disguise, and they sent in search of the
+party in every direction; but the travelers had taken such effectual
+precautions to blind all pursuit that their track could not be followed.
+
+In the mean time, the king journeyed secretly on from the residence
+of one faithful adherent to another, encountering many perplexities,
+and escaping narrowly many dangers, until he came at last to the
+neighborhood of Shoreham, a town upon the coast of Sussex. Colonel
+Gunter had provided a vessel here. It was a small vessel, bound, with
+a load of coal, along the coast, to the westward, to a port called
+Pool, beyond the Isle of Wight. Colonel Gunter had arranged it with
+the master to deviate from his voyage, by crossing over to the coast
+of France, and leaving his passengers there. He was then to return,
+and proceed to his original destination. Both the owner of the vessel
+and the master who commanded it were Royalists, but they had not been
+told that it was the king whom they were going to convey. In the bargain
+which had been made with them, the passengers had been designated
+simply as two gentlemen of rank who had escaped from the battle of
+Worcester. When, however, the master of the vessel saw the king, he
+immediately recognized him, having seen him before in his campaigns
+under his father. This, however, seemed to make no difference in his
+readiness to convey the passengers away. He said that hews perfectly
+willing to risk his life to save that of his sovereign, and the
+arrangements for the embarkation proceeded.
+
+The little vessel--its burden was about sixty tons--was brought into
+a small cove at Brighthelmstone, a few miles to the eastward from
+Shoreham, and run upon the beach, where it was left stranded when the
+tide went down. The king and Lord Wilmot went to it by night, ascended
+its side by a ladder, went down immediately into the cabin, and
+concealed themselves there. When the rising tide had lifted the vessel,
+with its precious burden, gently from the sand, the master made easy
+sail, and coasted along the English shore toward the Isle of Wight,
+which was the direction of the voyage which he had originally intended
+to make. He did not wish the people at Shoreham to observe any
+alteration of his course, since that might have awakened suspicion,
+and possibly invited pursuit; so they went on for a time to the
+westward, which was a course that rather increased than diminished
+their distance from their place of destination.
+
+It was seven o'clock in the morning when they sailed. There was a
+gentle October breeze from the north, which carried them slowly along
+the shore, and in the afternoon the Isle of Wight came fully into view.
+There were four men and a boy on board the ship, constituting the crew.
+The master came to the king in the cabin, and proposed to him, as a
+measure of additional security, and to prevent the possibility of any
+opposition on the part of the sailors to the proposed change in their
+course which it would now soon be necessary to make, that the king and
+Lord Wilmot should propose the plan of going to France to them, asking
+their interest with the captain in obtaining his consent, as it had
+not yet been mentioned to the captain at all; for the sailors had of
+course understood that the voyage was only the usual coastwise trip
+to the port of Pool, and that these strangers were ordinary travelers,
+going on that voyage. The master, therefore, thought that there would
+be less danger of difficulty if the king were first to gain the sailors
+over himself, by promises or rewards, and then all come together to
+gain the captain's consent, which could then, at last, with apparent
+reluctance, be accorded.
+
+This plan was pursued. The two travelers went to the sailors upon the
+forecastle, and told them, with an air of honest confidence, that they
+were not what they seemed. They were merchants, they said, and were
+unfortunately a little in debt, and under the necessity of leaving
+England for a time. They had some money due to them in Rouen, in France,
+and they wanted very much to be taken across the Channel to Dieppe,
+or some port near Rouen. They made known their condition to the sailors,
+they said, because they wanted their intercession with the captain to
+take them over, and they gave the sailors a good generous present in
+money for them to spend in drink; not so generous, however, as to cast
+suspicion upon their story of being traders in distress.
+
+Sailors are easily persuaded by arguments that are enforced by small
+presents of money. They consented to the plan, and then the king and
+Lord Wilmot went to express their wishes to the captain. He made many
+objections. It would delay him on his voyage, and lead to many
+inconveniences. The passengers, however, urged their request, the
+sailors seconding them. The wind was fair, and they could easily run
+across the Channel, and then, after they landed, the captain could
+pursue his course to the place of his destination. The captain finally
+consented; the helm was altered, the sails were trimmed, and the little
+vessel bore away toward its new destination on the coast of France.
+
+It was now five o'clock in the afternoon. The English coast soon
+disappeared from the horizon, and the next morning, at daylight, they
+could see the French shore. They approached the land at a little port
+called Fecamp. The wind, however, failed them before they got quite
+to the land, and they had to anchor to wait for a turn of the tide to
+help them in. In this situation, they were soon very much alarmed by
+the appearance of a vessel in the offing, which was coming also toward
+the shore. They thought it was a Spanish privateer, and its appearance
+brought a double apprehension. There was danger that the privateer
+would capture them, France and Spain being then at war. There was
+danger, also, that the master of their vessel, afraid himself of being
+captured, might insist on making all haste back again to the English
+coast; for the wind, though contrary so long as they wished to go on
+into their harbor, was fair for taking them away. The king and Lord
+Wilmot consulted together, and came to the conclusion to go ashore in
+the little boat. They soon made a bargain with the sailors to row them,
+and, hastily descending the vessel's side, they entered the boat, and
+pushed off over the rolling surges of the Channel.
+
+They were two miles from the shore, but they reached it in safety. The
+sailors went back to the vessel. The privateer turned out to be a
+harmless trader coming into port. The English vessel recrossed the
+Channel, and went on to its original port of destination; and Lord
+Wilmot and the king, relieved now of all their anxieties and fears,
+walked in their strange English dress up into the village to the inn.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+THE RESTORATION.
+
+
+
+As the readers of a tale are generally inclined to sympathize with the
+hero of it, both in his joys and in his sorrows, whether he is deserving
+of sympathy or not, they who follow the adventures of Charles in his
+wanderings in England after the unfortunate battle of Worcester, feel
+ordinarily quite a strong sensation of pleasure at finding him at last
+safely landed on the French shore. Charles himself doubtless experienced
+at first an overwhelming emotion of exultation and joy at having thus
+saved himself from the desperate dangers of his condition in England.
+On cool reflection, however, he soon perceived that there was but
+little cause for rejoicing in his condition and prospects. There were
+dangers and sufferings enough still before him, different, it is true,
+from those in which he had been involved, but still very dark and
+threatening in character. He had now, in fact, ten years of privation,
+poverty, and exile before him, full of troubles from beginning to end.
+
+The new series of troubles began to come upon him, too, very soon.
+When he and his companion went up to the inn, on the morning of their
+landing, dressed as they were in the guise of Englishmen of humble
+rank, and having been put ashore, too, from a vessel which immediately
+afterward sailed away, they were taken for English thieves, or fugitives
+from justice, and refused admission to the inn. They sent to some
+gentlemen of the neighborhood, to whom they made themselves known, so
+that this difficulty was removed, their urgent wants were supplied,
+and they were provided with the means of transportation to Paris. Of
+course, the mother of the fugitive monarch, yet almost a boy, was
+rejoiced to welcome him, but he received no very cordial welcome from
+any one else. Now that Charles had finally abandoned England, his
+adherents there gave up his cause, of course, as totally lost. The
+Republicans, with Cromwell at their head, established a very firm and
+efficient government, which the nations of the Continent soon began
+to find that it would be incumbent on them to respect. For any foreign
+court to harbor a pretender to the British crown, when there was an
+established government in England based on a determination of the
+people to abrogate royalty altogether, was to incur very considerable
+political danger. Charles soon found that, under these circumstances,
+he was not likely to be long a very welcome guest in the French palaces.
+
+He remained, however, in Paris for a short time, endeavoring to find
+some way to retrieve his ruined fortunes. Anne Maria was still there,
+and he attempted to renew his suit to her. She listened to the
+entertaining stories which he told of his dangers and escapes in
+England, and for a time, as Charles thought, encouraged his attentions.
+In fact, at one time he really believed that the affair was all settled,
+and began to assume that it was so in speaking with her upon the
+subject. She, however, at length undeceived him, in a conversation
+which ended with her saying that she thought he had better go back to
+England, and "either get his head broken, or else have a crown upon
+it." The fact was, that Anne Maria was now full of a new scheme for
+being married to Louis XIV. himself, who, though much younger than
+she, had attained now to a marriageable age, and she had no intention
+of regarding Charles in any other light than as one of the ordinary
+crowd of her admirers. She finally extinguished all his hopes by coolly
+requesting him not to visit her so frequently.
+
+In addition to his other sources of discomfort. Charles disagreed with
+his mother. She was a very decided Catholic, and he a Protestant, from
+policy it is true, and not principle, but he was none the less rigid
+and inflexible on that account. He and his mother disagreed in respect
+to the education of the younger children. They were both restricted
+in their means, too, and subject to a thousand mortifications from
+this cause, in the proud and haughty circle in which they moved.
+Finally, the king decided to leave Paris altogether, and try to find
+a more comfortable refuge in Holland.
+
+His sister and her husband, the Prince of Orange, had always treated
+him, as well as all the rest of the family, with great kindness and
+attention; but now, to complete the catalogue of his disasters, the
+Prince of Orange died, the power of the government passed into other
+hands, and Mary found herself deprived of influence and honor, and
+reduced all at once to a private station. She would have been glad to
+continue her protection to her brother, but the new government feared
+the power of Cromwell. Cromwell sent word to them that England would
+consider their harboring of the fugitive as tantamount to a declaration
+of war; so they notified Charles that he must leave their dominions,
+and find, if he could, some other place of retreat. He went up the
+Rhine to the city of Cologne, where it is said he found a widow woman,
+who received him as a lodger without pay, trusting to his promise to
+recompense her at some future time. There is generally little risk in
+giving credit to European monarchs, expelled by the temporary triumph
+of Republicanism from their native realms. They are generally pretty
+certain of being sooner or later restored to their thrones.
+
+At any rate, Charles was restored, and his restoration was effected
+in a manner wholly unexpected to all mankind. In order that the
+circumstances may be clearly understood, the reader must recall it to
+mind that Charles the First had been deposed and beheaded by the action
+of a Parliament, and that this Parliament was, of course, at his death
+the depository of sovereign power in England. In a short time, however,
+the army, with Cromwell at its head, became too strong for the
+Parliament. Cromwell assumed the supreme power under the name of the
+Protector. He dissolved Parliament, and expelled the members from their
+seats. He governed the country as protector for many years, and when
+at length he died, his son Richard Cromwell attempted to take his
+place. Richard did not, however, possess the talent and energy of his
+father, and he soon found himself totally inadequate to manage the
+affairs of government in such stormy times. He was deposed, and the
+old Parliament which Cromwell had broken up was restored.
+
+There followed, then, a new contest between the Parliament and the
+army, with an officer named Lambert at the head of the latter. The
+army proved the strongest. Lambert stationed guards in the streets
+leading to the Parliament House one day when the members were about
+to assemble, and turned the members all back as they came. When the
+speaker arrived in his carriage, he ordered his soldiers to take hold
+of the horses' heads and turn them round, and lead them home again.
+Thus there was no actual outward violence, but the members of Parliament
+were intimidated, and gave up the attempt to exercise their power,
+though they still reserved their claim, and their party was busy all
+over the kingdom in attempting to restore them to their functions. In
+the mean time, the army appointed a sort of council, which they invested
+with supreme authority.
+
+It does not come within the scope and design of this volume to give
+a full account of the state of public affairs during the interregnum
+between the death of Charles I. and the Restoration of the monarchy
+under Charles II., nor of the points of controversy at issue among the
+various parties formed. The reader, however, must not suppose that,
+during this period, there was at any time what could, with any
+propriety, be called a republic. A true republic exists only where the
+questions of government are fairly and honorably submitted to the whole
+population, with a universal disposition to acquiesce peaceably in the
+decision of the majority, when that is ascertained. There probably has
+never been any such state of things as this in any country of Europe
+since the Christian era. There certainly was no such state of things
+in England in the time of the Commonwealth. There were a great many
+persons who wished to have it so, and who called themselves Republicans;
+but their plan, if that were indeed their plan, was never tried. Very
+likely it was not practicable to try it. At any rate, it certainly was
+not tried. The sovereignty taken from the Stuart dynasty in the person
+of Charles I. _was never vested in the people at large_. It was seized
+forcibly by the various powers already existing in the state, as they
+found themselves, one after another, able to seize it. The Parliament
+took, it from Charles. The army took it from Parliament. Then Oliver
+Cromwell took it from the army. He found himself strong enough to hold
+it as long as he lived, and when he died he delivered it to his son
+Richard. Richard could not hold it. The Parliament rose to a sort of
+supplementary existence, and took it from Richard, and then the army
+took it from Parliament again. Finally, General Monk appeared upon the
+stage in Scotland, as we shall presently see, marched down through
+England, and, with the help of thousands and thousands who were tired
+of these endless changes, took it from the army and restored it once
+more to the Parliament, on condition of their placing it back again
+in the hands of the king. Thus there was no republic at all, from
+beginning to end.
+
+Nor is it at all certain that there ought to have been. The difficulties
+of really, truly, and honestly laying the national sovereignty in the
+hands of the whole population of such a realm as England, and of so
+organizing the population that its decisions shall actually control
+the legislation of the country and the public administration of its
+affairs, are all but insuperable. The English people found the tyranny
+and oppression of royalty intolerable. They arose and set royalty
+aside. It devolved, then, on the next strongest power in the state to
+assume the authority thus divested; this was the Parliament, who
+governed, just as the king had done, by the exercise of their own
+superior power, keeping the mass of the community just where they were
+before. It is true that many individuals of very low rank rose to
+positions of great power; but they represented only a party, and the
+power they wielded was monarchical power usurped, not Republican power
+fairly conferred upon them. Thus, though in the time of the Commonwealth
+there were plenty of Republicans, there was never a republic. It has
+always been so in all European revolutions. In America, Legislatures
+and executive officers of state are only _agents_, through whom the
+great population itself quietly executes its will, the two millions
+of votes in the great elections being the real power by which every
+thing is controlled. But Cromwell, Napoleon, Lamartine, Cavaignac, and
+all the others, whatever formalities of voting may have attended their
+induction into office, have always really held their power by force
+of bayonets, not of ballots. There is great danger that it will continue
+so in Europe for a long time to come.
+
+But to return. It was in 1659 when the army, with Lambert at its head,
+expelled the Parliament. All England was now divided into parties,
+some for the Parliament, some for the army, some for the king. There
+was a distinguished general in Scotland at this time named Monk. He
+had been left there by Cromwell in command of the military forces in
+that country. He was a man considerably advanced in life, and of great
+circumspection, prudence, and steadiness of character. All parties
+wished to gain his influence, but he kept his own counsel, and declared
+openly for neither.
+
+He, however, began to get together his forces, and to make preparations
+to march into England. People asked him what he intended to do, but
+he would give no definite answer. He was six weeks getting ready for
+his expedition, during which time many deputations were sent to him
+from the various parties, making different propositions to him, each
+party being eager to obtain his adhesion to their cause. He received
+all their deputations, heard what they had to say, made no definite
+reply to any of them, but went on quietly with his work. He got the
+various divisions of his army at length together, made provisional
+arrangements for the government of Scotland during his absence, and
+set out on his march.
+
+He entered England in January, 1660, and advanced toward London. The
+English army was scattered all over the kingdom; but Monk opened
+negotiations with the leaders of it, and also with the members of
+Parliament, and, without committing himself absolutely to either party,
+he managed to have the Parliament restored. They assembled peaceably
+in London, and resumed their functions. A part of the English army was
+there for their protection. Monk, as he approached London, sent word
+to Parliament asking that quarters might be provided for him and his
+army there. Parliament, desirous of conciliating him and securing his
+co-operation in sustaining their power, acceded to this request. The
+other troops were removed; Monk entered London in triumph, and took
+possession of all the strong holds there, holding them nominally under
+Parliamentary authority Monk still kept his ultimate designs profoundly
+secret. No party very strongly opposed him, for no party knew whether
+to regard him as an enemy or a friend. The Royalists, however, all
+over the kingdom, took new courage, and a general expectation began
+to pervade the minds of men that the monarchy was to be restored. The
+Parliament rescinded the votes which had been most decisive against
+the house of Stuart and monarchical rule. The most prominent Republicans
+were dismissed from office under various pretexts, and men known to
+be loyal were appointed in their place. Finally, the Parliament itself
+was dissolved, and writs were issued for the election of a new one,
+more in accordance with the ancient forms.
+
+When at length this new Parliament assembled, the public mind was in
+a great fever of excitement, there being a vague expectation every
+where that the monarchy was to be restored, while yet the Restoration
+was openly spoken of by no one. The first votes which were taken in
+the House of Commons indicated a very favorable state of feeling toward
+monarchy; and at length, a few days after the opening of the session,
+it was announced that there was a messenger at the door with a
+communication from the king. The announcement was received with the
+wildest acclamations of joy. The messenger was immediately ordered to
+enter. The communication was read, the vast assembly listening with
+breathless attention.
+
+It contained, in the first place, a letter, in which the king stated
+that, having heard that the people of England had restored the
+Parliament according to the ancient forms, he hoped that now the
+Parliament would go on and complete the good work which had been begun,
+and heal the distractions of the kingdom by reinstating him as sovereign
+in the ancient rights and prerogatives of the crown.
+
+The second part of the king's communication, and by far the most
+important part, was what was called his Declaration, a document in
+which he announced formally what his intentions were in case he were
+restored to the throne. One of these assurances was, that he was ready
+to forgive and forget the past, so far as he might himself be supposed
+to have cause of complaint against any of his subjects for the part
+they had taken in the late transactions. He professed his readiness
+to grant a free pardon to all, excepting those who should be expressly
+excluded from such pardon by the Parliament itself. The Declaration
+also set forth that, inasmuch as there was prevailing throughout the
+country a great diversity of religious opinion, the king, if restored
+to his throne, whatever his own religious views or those of his
+government might be, would agree that his subjects should be allowed
+full liberty of conscience in all respects, and that nobody should be
+molested in any way on account of his religious faith or usages of
+worship.
+
+And, finally, the Declaration contained a covenant on the part of the
+king, that whereas there had been great changes of property, arising
+from fines and confiscations for political offenses during the period
+of the Revolution, he would not himself disturb the existing titles
+to property, but would leave them to be settled on such principles and
+in such a way as Parliament should direct.
+
+The letter from the king, and especially the Declaration, gave the
+utmost satisfaction. The latter disarmed those who would otherwise
+have opposed the return of the king, by quieting their fears of being
+disturbed in respect to their liberty or their property. Immediately
+after these papers were read, they were ordered to be published, and
+were sent every where throughout the kingdom, awakening, wherever they
+went the greatest demonstrations of joy. The Parliament passed a vote
+that the ancient Constitution of the kingdom, of government by king,
+Lords, and Commons, ought to be restored, and they went forth in a
+body into the public places of the city to proclaim Charles II. king.
+
+Parliament voted immediately a grant of fifty thousand pounds, a sum
+equal to more than two hundred thousand dollars, for the king's
+immediate use, with large sums besides for the other members of the
+family, and sent a committee of noblemen to Holland to carry the money
+and to invite the king back to his dominions. As soon as tidings of
+these events reached the Continent, every body hastened to pay their
+court to his majesty. From being neglected, destitute, and wretched,
+he suddenly found himself elevated to the highest pinnacle of prosperity
+and fame. Every body offered him their aid; his court was thronged,
+and all were ready to do him honor. The princely mother of one of the
+young ladies who had rejected the offer of his hand in the day of his
+adversity, sent him an intimation that the offer would be accepted if
+he would renew it now.
+
+A fleet crossed the Channel to receive the king and convey him to
+London. His brother James, the Duke, of York, was placed in command
+of it as Lord High Admiral of England. The fleet sailed for Dover.
+General Monk went to Dover to receive the king at his landing. He
+escorted him to London, where the monarch, returning from his long
+exile, arrived on the twenty-ninth of May, the very day when he became
+thirty years of age.
+
+General Monk, whose talent, skill, and consummate management had been
+the means of effecting this great change without violence or bloodshed,
+was rewarded by being made Duke of Albermarle. This was a very great
+reward. In fact, no American imagination can conceive of the images
+of glory and grandeur which are connected in the mind of an Englishman
+with the idea of being made a duke. A duke lives in a palace; he is
+surrounded by a court; he expends princely revenues; he reigns, in
+fact, often, so far as the pomp and pleasure of reigning are concerned,
+over quite a little kingdom, and is looked up to by the millions beneath
+his grade with a reverence as great, at least, as that with which the
+ancients looked up to their gods. He is deprived of nothing which
+pertains to power but the mere toil, and care, and responsibility of
+ruling, so that he has all the sweetness and fragrance of sovereignty
+without its thorns. In a word, the seat of an English duke, so far as
+earthly greatness and glory are concerned, is undoubtedly the finest
+which ambition, wealth, and power combined have ever succeeded in
+carving out for man. It is infinitely better than a throne.
+
+Some historians maintain that Monk acted on a secret understanding
+with Charles from the commencement; that the general was to restore
+the king, and was then to receive a dukedom for his reward. Others say
+that he acted from a simple sense of duty in all that he did, and that
+the lofty elevation to which he was raised was a very natural and
+suitable testimonial of the royal gratitude. The reader will embrace
+the one or the other of the two theories, according to the degree of
+readiness or of reluctance with which he believes in the existence of
+conscientious principles of patriotism and loyalty among the great men
+who rule the world.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+THE MARRIAGE.
+
+
+
+During the period of King Charles's days of adversity he made many
+fruitless attempts to obtain a wife. He was rejected by all the young
+ladies to whom he made proposals. Marriages in that grade of society
+are almost always mere transactions of business, being governed
+altogether by political and prudential considerations. In all Charles's
+proposals he was aiming simply at strengthening his own position by
+means of the wealth or family influence of the bride, supposing as he
+did that the honor of being even nominally a queen would be a sufficient
+equivalent to the lady. The ladies themselves, however, to whom he
+addressed himself, or their friends, thought that the prospect of his
+being really restored to his throne was very remote and uncertain,
+and, in the mean time, the empty name of queen was not worth as much
+as a rich and powerful heiress, by becoming his bride, would have to
+pay for it.
+
+After his restoration, however, all this was changed. There was no
+longer any difficulty. He had now only to choose. In fact, one or two
+who had refused him when he was a fugitive and an exile thought
+differently of the case now that he was a king, and one of them, as
+has already been said, gave him intimations, through her friends, that
+if he were inclined to renew his suit, he would be more successful.
+Charles rejected these overtures with indignant disdain.
+
+The lady whom he ultimately married was a Portuguese princess. Her
+father was King of Portugal, but before his accession to the throne
+his title had been the Duke of Braganza. The name of his daughter was
+Catharine. She is thus known generally in history by the name of
+Catharine of Braganza.
+
+It is said that the plan of this marriage originated with Queen
+Henrietta Maria, and that a prominent motive with her in promoting the
+measure was her desire to secure for Charles a Catholic wife. Catharine
+of Braganza was a Catholic. Henrietta Maria was deeply interested, and
+no doubt conscientiously so, in bringing back her own family and their
+descendants, and the realm of England, if possible, to the ancient
+faith: and this question of the marriage of her son she justly
+considered would have a very important bearing on the result.
+
+Queen Henrietta is said to have laid her arrangements in train for
+opening the negotiation with the Portuguese princess, at a visit which
+she made to England in 1660, very soon after her son's restoration.
+The Restoration took place in May. The queen's visit to her son was
+in October. Of course, after all the long years of danger, privation,
+and suffering which this family had endured, the widowed mother felt
+an intense emotion of joy at finding her children once more restored
+to what she considered their just hereditary rights. Charles was on
+the English throne. James, the Duke of York, was Lord High Admiral of
+England, that is, the commander-in-chief of the naval forces of the
+realm; and her other children, those who were still living, were in
+peace and safety. Of course, her heart was full of maternal pride and
+joy.
+
+Her son James, the Lord High Admiral, went across the Channel to Dover,
+with a fleet of the finest ships that he could select from the whole
+British navy, to escort his mother to England. The queen was to embark
+at Calais. [Footnote: For a view of the famous Calais pier, see History
+of Mary Queen of Scots, page 105.] The queen came down to the port
+from Paris, attended by many friends, who sympathized with her in the
+return of her prosperity, and were attracted, besides, by the grand
+spectacle which they thought would be presented by the appearance and
+maneuvers of the English ships, and the ceremony of the embarkation.
+
+The waters of the English Channel are disturbed by almost perpetual
+agitations, which bleak winds and rapid tides, struggling continually
+together, combine to raise; and many a traveler, who passes in comfort
+across the Atlantic, is made miserable by the incessant restlessness
+of this narrow sea. At the time, however, when Henrietta Maria crossed
+it, the waters for once were calm. The people who assembled upon the
+pier to witness the embarkation looked over the expanse before them,
+and saw it lying smooth, every where, as glass, and reflecting the
+great English ships which lay at a little distance from the shore as
+if it were a mirror. It was a bright and beautiful October morning.
+The air seemed perfectly motionless. The English ships were adorned
+with countless flags in honor of the occasion, but they all hung down
+perfectly lifeless upon the masts and rigging. Scarcely a ripple rolled
+upon the beach; and so silent and still was the morning air, that the
+voices and echoes came from vast distances along the shore, and the
+dip of the oars of the boats gliding about in the offing sent its sound
+for miles around over the smooth surface of the sea; and when the grand
+salute was fired at the embarkation of the queen, the reverberation
+of the guns was heard distinctly, it was said, at Dover, a distance
+of thirty miles.
+
+Even in such a calm as this, however, uncommon as it is, the atmosphere
+is not perfectly still. When the royal party were on board the vessels
+and the sails were set, the fleet did begin to glide, almost
+imperceptibly, it is true, away from the shore. In the course of the
+day they had receded several miles from the land, and when the dinner
+hour arrived they found that the lord admiral had provided a most
+sumptuous banquet on board. Just before the time, however, for setting
+down to the table, the duke found that it was a Catholic fast day, and
+that neither his mother nor any of her attendants, being, as they were,
+all Catholics, could eat any thing but fish; and, unfortunately, as
+all James's men were Protestants, they had not thought of the fast,
+and they had no fish on board. They, however, contrived to produce a
+sturgeon for the queen, and they sat down to the table, the queen to
+the dish provided for her, and the others to bread and vegetables, and
+such other food as the Catholic ritual allowed, while the duke himself
+and his brother officers disposed, as well as they could, of the more
+luxurious dainties which they had intended for their guests.
+
+With a fair wind, three hours is sufficient for the run from Calais
+to Dover. It took the Duke of York two days to get his fleet across
+in this calm. At length, however, they arrived. The king was on the
+pier to receive his mother. Rejoiced as her majesty must have been to
+be welcomed by her son under such circumstances, she must have thought
+mournfully of her departed husband at the time of her landing, for it
+was here that he had taken leave of her some years before, when the
+troubles of her family were beginning. Charles conducted his mother
+to the castle. All the inhabitants of Dover, and of the country around,
+had assembled to witness the arrival, and they welcomed the mother
+back to the land of her husband and her sons with long and loud
+acclamations.
+
+There was a great banquet at Dover Castle. Here all the members of the
+royal family were present, having been assembled for the occasion. Of
+course, it was an occasion of great family rejoicing, mingled
+undoubtedly, on the part of the queen, with many mournful thoughts and
+bitter recollections. The fast was past, and there was, consequently,
+no difficulty now about partaking of the food that had been provided;
+but another difficulty arose, having the same origin, viz., the question
+whether the divine blessing should be implored upon the food by a
+Catholic priest or an Episcopal chaplain. Neither party could
+conscientiously acquiesce in the performance of the service by the
+other. They settled the important question, or rather it settled itself
+at last, in the following manner: When the guests were ready to take
+their places at table, the king, instead of asking his mother's
+spiritual guide to officiate, as both Christian and filial courtesy
+required him to have done, called upon his own chaplain. The chaplain
+said grace. Immediately afterward, the Catholic priest, thinking that
+fidelity to his own religious faith required him to act decidedly,
+repeated the service in the Catholic form, ending with making the sign
+of the cross in a very conspicuous manner over the table. The gentry
+of Dover, who had been admitted as spectators of this banquet, were
+greatly scandalized at this deed. They regarded the gesture as an act
+of very wicked and vary dangerous idolatry.
+
+From Dover the queen proceeded with her children to London. Her sons
+did every thing in their power to honor their mother's visit; they
+received her with great parade and pomp, assigned her a sumptuous
+residence, and studied every means of amusing her, and of making her
+visit a source of pleasure. But they did not succeed. The queen was
+very unhappy. Every place that she visited recalled to her mind the
+memory of her husband, and awakened afresh all her sorrows. She was
+distressed, too, by some domestic troubles, which we have not here
+time to describe. Then the religious differences between herself and
+her children, and the questions which were arising out of them
+continually, gave her a great deal of pain; she could not but perceive,
+moreover, that she was regarded with suspicion and dislike by the
+people of England on account of her Catholic faith. Then, besides,
+notwithstanding her English husband and her English children, she was
+herself a French woman still in character, thought, feeling, and
+language, and she could not feel really at home north of the Channel.
+After remaining, therefore, a few months in London, and arranging some
+family and business affairs which required her attention, she determined
+to return. The king accompanied her to Portsmouth, where she set sail,
+taking the little princess Henrietta with her, and went back to France.
+Among the family affairs, however, which she arranged, it is said that
+the marriage of her son, the king, was a special object of her
+attention, and that she secretly laid the train which resulted in his
+espousing Catharine of Braganza.
+
+According to the accounts given in the chronicles of the times, the
+negotiations were opened in the following manner: One day the Portuguese
+ambassador at London came to a certain high officer of the king's
+household, and introduced the subject of his majesty's marriage, saying,
+in the course of the conversation, that he thought the Princess
+Catharine of Portugal would be a very eligible match, and adding
+moreover, that he was authorized to say that, with the lady, very
+advantageous terms could be offered. Charles said he would think of
+it. This gave the ambassador sufficient encouragement to induce him
+to take another step. He obtained an audience of Charles the next day,
+and proposed the subject directly for his consideration. The ambassador
+knew very well that the question would turn, in Charles's mind, on the
+pecuniary and political advantages of the match; so he stated at once
+what they would be. He was authorized to offer, he said, the sum of
+five hundred thousand pounds [Footnote: Equal to two or three millions
+of dollars.] as the princess's portion, and to surrender to the English
+crown various foreign possessions, which had, till then, belonged to
+the Portuguese. One of the principal of these was the island of Bombay
+in the East Indies. Another was Tangier, a port in Africa. The English
+did not, at that time, hold any East Indian territories. He likewise
+offered to convey to the English nation the right of trading with the
+great South American country of Brazil, which then pertained to the
+Portuguese crown.
+
+Charles was very much pleased with these proposals. He immediately
+consulted his principal minister of state, Lord Clarendon, the
+celebrated historian, and soon afterward called a meeting of his privy
+council and laid the case before them. Clarendon asked him if he had
+given up all thoughts of a Protestant connection. Charles said that
+he did not know where to look for a Protestant wife. It was true, in
+fact, that nearly all the royal families of Europe were Catholics, and
+royal bridegrooms must always have royal brides. There were, however,
+Protestant princesses in Germany; this was suggested to his majesty,
+but he replied, with an expression of contempt, that they were all
+dull and foggy, and he could not possibly have one of them for a wife.
+
+The counselors then began to look at the pecuniary and political
+advantages of the proposed bargain. They got out their maps, and showed
+Charles where Bombay, and Tangier, and the other places offered with
+the lady as her dowry lay. The statesmen were quite pleased with the
+prospect of these acquisitions, and Charles was particularly gratified
+with the money item. It was twice as much, they said, as any English
+king had ever before received as the marriage portion of a bride. In
+a word, the proposition was unanimously considered as in every respect
+entirely satisfactory, and Charles authorized his ministers to open
+the negotiations for the marriage immediately. All this time Charles
+had never seen the lady, and perhaps had never heard of her before.
+Her own individual qualifications, whether of mind or of person, seem
+to have been considered a subject not worth inquiring about at all.
+
+Nor ought we to be at all surprised at this. It was not Charles's
+object, in seeking a wife, to find some one whom he was to cherish and
+love, and who was to promote his happiness by making him the object
+of her affection in return. His love, so far as such a soul is capable
+of love, was to be gratified by other means. He had always some female
+favorite, chosen from among the ladies of his court, high in rank,
+though not high enough to be the wedded wife of the king. These
+attachments were not private in any sense, nor was any attempt made
+to conceal them, the king being in the habit of bestowing upon the
+objects of them all the public attentions, as well as the private
+intimacy which pertain to wedded life. The king's favorite at the
+present time was Lady Castlemaine. She was originally a Mrs. Palmer,
+but the king had made her husband Lord Castlemaine for the purpose of
+giving a title to the wife. Some years afterward he made her a duchess.
+She was a prominent lady in the court, being every where received and
+honored as the temporary wife of the king. He did not intend, in
+marrying the Princess Catharine, to disturb this state of things at
+all. She was to be in name his wife, but he was to place his affections
+where he pleased. She was to have her own palace, her own household,
+and her own pleasures, and he, on the other hand, was to continue to
+have his.
+
+Notwithstanding this, however, Charles seemed to have had some
+consideration for the personal appearance of his proposed bride, after
+all. The Spanish government, as soon as Charles's plan of espousing
+Catharine became known, attempted to prevent the match, as it would
+greatly increase the strength and influence of Portugal by giving to
+that country so powerful an ally. Spain had plenty of money, but no
+princess in the royal family; and the government therefore proposed
+to Charles, that if he would be content to take some Protestant lady
+for a wife, they would endow her, and with a portion as great as that
+which had been offered with Catharine. They, moreover, represented to
+Charles that Catharine was out of health, and very plain and repulsive
+in her personal appearance, and that, besides, it would be a great
+deal better for him, for obvious political reasons, to marry a
+Protestant princess. The other party replied that Catharine was not
+ugly by any means, and they showed Charles her portrait, which, after
+looking at it a few minutes, he said was _not unhandsome_. They reminded
+him, also, that Catharine was only the third in succession from the
+crown of Portugal, so that the chance of her actually inheriting that
+realm was not at all to be disregarded. Charles thought this a very
+important consideration, and, on the whole, decided that the affair
+should go on; and commissioners were sent to make a formal proposal
+of marriage at the Portuguese court. Charles wrote letters to the
+mother of the young lady, and to the young lady herself, expressing
+the personal interest he felt in obtaining the princess's hand.
+
+The negotiations thus commenced went on for many months, with no other
+obstruction than the complication and intricacy which attend all
+matrimonial arrangements where the interests of kingdoms, as well as
+the personal happiness of the wedded pair, are involved in the issue.
+Ambassadors were sent, and contracts and treaties were drawn up,
+discussed, modified, and finally signed. A formal announcement of the
+proposed marriage was made to the English Parliament, and addresses
+congratulatory were voted and presented in reply. Arrangements were
+made for transferring the foreign possessions promised to the British
+crown; and, lastly, the money intended for the dower was collected,
+tied up in bags, sealed, and deposited safely in the strong room of
+the Castle at Lisbon. In fact, every thing went on prosperously to the
+end, and when all was thus finally settled, Charles wrote the following
+letter to his expected bride.
+
+"London, 2d of July, 1661. MY LADY AND WIFE,"
+
+"Already the ambassador has set off for Lisbon; for me the signing of
+the marriage has been great happiness; and there is about to be
+dispatched at this time, after him, one of my servants, charged with
+what would appear necessary, whereby may be declared on my part the
+inexpressible joy of this felicitous conclusion, which, when received,
+will hasten the coming of your majesty."
+
+"I am going to make a short progress into some of my provinces. In the
+mean time, while I am going further from my most sovereign good, yet
+I do not complain as to whither I go; seeking in vain tranquility in
+my restlessness, looking to see the beloved person of your majesty in
+these realms already your own; and that with the same anxiety with
+which, after my long banishment, I desired to see myself within them,
+and my subjects desiring also to behold me among them. The presence
+of your serenity is only wanting to unite us, under the protection of
+God, in the health and content I desire.
+
+"The very faithful husband of her majesty, whose hand he kisses.
+                        CHARLES REX."
+
+The letter was addressed
+
+"To the QUEEN OF GREAT BRITAIN, my wife and lady, whom God preserve."
+
+Whoever reads this letter attentively will see in it that infallible
+criterion of hypocrisy and pretense in professions of regard, viz.,
+extravagant ideas feebly and incoherently expressed. When the heart
+dictates what is said, the thoughts are natural, and the language
+plain; but in composition like the above, we see a continual striving
+to say something for effect, which the writer invents by his ingenuity
+as he goes on, without any honest impulses from the heart to guide
+him. He soars one minute and breaks down the next, in absurd
+alternations of the sublime and the ridiculous. How honest Charles was
+in such professions, and what was the kind of connubial happiness which
+he was preparing for his bride, is shown by the fact that he was even
+now spending all his time with Lady Castlemaine; and, to reconcile her
+to his marriage with Catharine, he had promised her that he would make
+her one of the ladies of the queen's bed chamber as soon as she arrived
+in London, which would give him constant opportunities of being in her
+society.
+
+We have made very little allusion to Catharine herself, thus far, in
+the account of these transactions, because she has had, thus far,
+nothing to do with them. Every thing has been arranged for her by her
+mother, who was an ambitious and masculine woman, and at this time the
+queen regent of Portugal. Catharine had been kept shut up, all her
+days, in the most strict seclusion, and in the most rigorous subjection
+to her mother's will. It is said that she had hardly been ten times
+out of the palace in her life, since her return to it from the convent
+where she had been educated. The innocent and simple hearted maiden
+looked forward to her marriage as to a release from a tedious and
+intolerable bondage. They had shown her King Charles's picture, and
+had given her an account of his perilous adventures and romantic
+escapes, and of the courage and energy which he had sometimes displayed.
+And that was all she knew. She had her childlike ideas of love and of
+conjugal fidelity and happiness, and believed that she was going to
+realize them. As she looked forward, therefore, to the period of her
+departure for England, she longed impatiently for the time to come,
+her heart bounding at every thought of the happy hour with eager
+anticipations of delight.
+
+An English nobleman--the Earl of Sandwich--was sent with a squadron
+to bring the bride to England. He was received, when he entered the
+Tagus, with great ceremony. A Portuguese minister went down the river
+to meet him in a magnificent barge. The nobleman descended to the
+lowest step of the ladder which led down the side of the ship, to
+receive the minister. They ascended the ladder together, while the
+ship fired a salute of twenty or thirty guns. They went into the cabin,
+and took seats there, with great ceremony. The minister then rose and
+made an address of welcome to the English commander. Lord Sandwich
+replied, and there was then another thundering salute of cannon.
+
+All this parade and ceremony was, in this case, as it often is, not
+an _expression_ of real cordiality, good will, and good faith, but a
+substitute for them. The English commander, who had been specially
+instructed to bring over the money as well as the bride, found, to his
+great astonishment and perplexity, that the queen regent had spent a
+considerable portion of the money which had been put away so safely
+in the bags, and she wished to pay now a part of the dowry in
+merchandise, at such prices as she thought reasonable, and to have a
+year's credit for the remainder. There was thus thrown upon Lord
+Sandwich the very heavy responsibility of deciding whether to give up
+the object of his expedition, and go back to England without the bride,
+or to take her without the money. After very anxious hesitation and
+suspense, he decided to proceed with his enterprise, and the
+preparations were made for the princess's embarkation.
+
+When the day arrived, the queen descended the grand staircase of the
+palace, and at the foot of it took leave of her mother. Neither mother
+nor daughter shed a tear. The princess was conducted through the
+streets, accompanied by a long cavalcade and a procession of splendid
+carriages, through long lines of soldiers, and under triumphal arches,
+and over paths strewed with flowers, while bands of music, and groups
+of dancers, at various distances along the way, expressed the general
+congratulation and joy. When they reached the pier there was a splendid
+brigantine or barge ready to receive the bride and her attendants. The
+Earl of Sandwich, and other English officers of high rank belonging
+to the squadron, entered the barge too. The water was covered with
+boats, and the shipping in the river was crowded with spectators. The
+barge moved on to the ship which was to convey the bridal party, who
+ascended to the deck by means of a spacious and beautiful stair
+constructed upon its side. Salutes were fired by the English ships,
+and were echoed by the Portuguese forts on the shore. The princess's
+brother and the ladies who had accompanied her on board, to take leave
+of her there, now bade her farewell, and returned by the barge to the
+shore, while the ships weighed anchor and prepared to put to sea.
+
+The wind was, however, contrary, and they were compelled to remain
+that night in the river; and as soon as the darkness came on, the whole
+shore became resplendent with illuminations at the windows in the city,
+and with rockets, and fire balls, and fireworks of every kind, rising
+from boats upon the water, and from the banks, and heights, and castle
+battlements all around upon the land. This gay and splendid spectacle
+beguiled the night, but the wind continued unfavorable all the next
+day, and confined the squadron still to the river. Catharine's mother
+sent out a messenger during the day to inquire after her daughter's
+health and welfare. The etiquette of royalty did not allow of her
+coming to see her child.
+
+The fleet, which consisted of fourteen men-of-war, put to sea on the
+second day. After a long and stormy passage, the squadron arrived off
+the Isle of Wight; the Duke of York came out to meet it there, with
+five other ships, and they all entered the harbor of Portsmouth
+together. As soon as Catharine landed, she wrote immediately to Charles
+to notify him of her arrival. The news produced universal excitement
+in London. The bells were rung, bonfires were made in the streets, and
+houses were illuminated. Every body seemed full of joy and pleasure
+except the king himself. He seemed to care little about it. He was
+supping that night with Lady Castlemaine. It was five days before he
+set out to meet his bride, and he supped with Lady Castlemaine the
+night before he commenced his journey.
+
+Some of Charles's best friends were very much grieved at his pursuing
+such a course; others were very indignant; but the majority of the
+people around him at court were like himself in character and manners,
+and were only led to more open irregularity and vice themselves by
+this public example of their sovereign. In the mean time, the king
+moved on to Portsmouth, escorted by a body of his Life Guards. He found
+that his intended bride was confined to her bed with a sort of slow
+fever. It was the result, they said, of the roughness and discomforts
+of the voyage, though we may certainly imagine another cause. Charles
+went immediately to the house where she was residing, and was admitted
+to visit her in her chamber, the many attendants who were present at
+the interview watching with great interest every word and look on
+either side by which they might judge of the nature of the first
+impression made by the bride and bridegroom upon each other. Catharine
+was not considered beautiful, and it was natural that a degree of
+curiosity should be manifested to learn how Charles would regard her.
+
+There are two apparently contradictory accounts of the impression made
+upon Charles by this his first sight of his intended bride. Charles
+wrote a letter to Lord Clarendon, in which he expressed himself very
+well satisfied with her. He admitted that she was no beauty, but her
+countenance was agreeable, he said, and "her conversation," he added,
+"as far as I can perceive, is very good; for she has wit enough, and
+a very agreeable voice. You would be surprised to see how well we are
+acquainted already. In a word, I think myself very happy, and I am
+confident that we shall agree very well together. I have not time to
+say any more. My lord lieutenant will tell you the rest." At the same
+time, while writing this in his official communication to his minister,
+he said privately to one of his companions on leaving the presence of
+his bride, that, "upon his word, they had sent him a bat instead of
+a woman."
+
+The royal couple were married the next day, first very privately in
+the Catholic form, and afterward more openly, in a great hall, and
+before a large assembly, according to the ritual of the Church of
+England. The bride was attired in the English style, her dress being
+of rose color, trimmed with knots of blue ribbon. These knots were,
+after the ceremony, detached from the dress, and distributed among the
+company as wedding favors, every lady eagerly pressing forward to get
+a share. Magnificent presents were made to the groomsmen and
+bridesmaids, and the company dispersed. The queen, still indisposed,
+went back to her bed and her supper was served to her there, the king
+and other members of the household partaking it with her, seated at
+the bedside.
+
+A day or two afterward the royal party proceeded to London, in a long
+train composed of Life Guards, carriages, horsemen, baggage wagons,
+and attendants of every grade. The queen's heart was full of
+anticipations of happiness. The others, who knew what state of things
+she was to find on her arrival there, looked forward to scenes of
+trouble and woe.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+CHARACTER AND REIGN
+
+
+
+Some of the traits of character for which King Charles II. has been
+most noted among mankind are well illustrated by his management of the
+affair of Lady Castlemaine, when the queen arrived at her new home in
+Hampton Court. Hampton Court is a very spacious and beautiful palace
+on the banks of the Thames, some miles above London, splendidly built,
+and very pleasantly situated at a graceful bend of the river. It was
+magnificently fitted up and furnished for Catharine's reception. Her
+suite of apartments were supplied and adorned in the most sumptuous
+manner. Her bed, which was a present to Charles, at the time of his
+restoration, from the States of Holland, was said to have cost, with
+all the appurtenances, a sum equal to between thirty and forty thousand
+dollars. The hangings were an embroidery of silver on crimson velvet.
+The other articles of furniture in the apartment, the mirrors, the
+richly inlaid cabinets, the toilet service of massive gold, the
+canopies, the carved chairs, the curtains, the tapestries, and the
+paintings, corresponded in magnificence with the bed, so that Catharine,
+when she was introduced to the scene, felt that she had attained to
+the very summit of human grandeur.
+
+For a few weeks Catharine neither saw nor heard any thing of Lady
+Castlemaine. She was confined to her house at the time by the care of
+an infant, born a few days after the arrival of the queen. Her husband
+had the child baptized soon after its birth as his son and heir; but
+the mother soon afterward had it baptized again as the son of the king,
+Charles himself standing sponsor on the occasion. A violent quarrel
+followed between Lady Castlemaine and her husband. She left the house,
+taking with her all her servants and attendants, and all the plate and
+other valuables which she could carry away. The husband, overwhelmed
+with wretchedness and shame, abandoned every thing, and went to France,
+in voluntary exile. His wife then came and took up her residence at
+Richmond, which is not far from Hampton Court, so as to be near the
+king. In all these proceedings the king himself gave her his continued
+countenance, encouragement, and aid.
+
+Although Catharine, in the confiding simplicity of her character, had
+fully believed, in coming to London, that Charles would be to her a
+true and faithful husband, still she had heard the name of Lady
+Castlemaine before she left Lisbon. Her mother had once briefly alluded
+to the subject, and gave her a warning, charging her to remember the
+name, and to be on her guard against the lady herself, and never to
+tolerate her in her presence on any pretext. Things were in this state,
+when, one day, after Catharine had been about six weeks in her new
+home, Charles brought in a list of ladies whom he proposed that she
+should make the ladies of her household. Catharine took the list, and
+there, to her surprise and indignation, she saw the dreaded name of
+Lady Castlemaine at the head of it.
+
+Very much agitated, she began to prick out the name, and to declare
+that she could not listen to any such proposition. Charles was angry,
+and remonstrated. She persisted, and said that he must either yield
+to her in that point, or send her back to Lisbon. Charles was determined
+to have his way, and Catharine was overwhelmed with anguish and grief.
+This lasted two days, when Charles made his peace with his wife by
+solemnly promising to give up Lady Castlemaine, and to have from that
+time forward nothing more to do with her.
+
+King Charles II. has always been famed for his good nature. This was
+a specimen of it. He never liked to quarrel with any body, and was
+always ready to give up his point, in appearance and form at least,
+for the sake of peace and good humor. Accordingly, when he found how
+immovably averse his wife was to having Lady Castlemaine for an inmate
+of her family, instead of declaring that she must and should submit
+to his will, he gave up himself, and said that he would think no more
+about it, without, however, having the remotest idea of keeping his
+word. He was only intending, since he found the resistance so decided
+on this side of the citadel, to try to find some other approach.
+
+Accordingly, a short time after this, one evening when the queen was
+holding a sort of levee in a brilliant saloon, surrounded by her
+Portuguese ladies, and receiving English ladies, as they were one after
+another presented to her by the king, the company were astonished at
+seeing Lady Castlemaine appear with the rest, and, as she advanced,
+the king presented her to the queen. To the surprise of every one,
+Catharine received her as graciously as the rest, and gave her her
+hand. The fact was, that Catharine, not being familiar with the sound
+and pronunciation of English words, had not understood the name. One
+of the Portuguese ladies who stood near her whispered to inquire if
+she knew that that was Lady Castlemaine. Catharine was stunned and
+staggered by the words as by a blow. The blood gushed from her nose,
+she fell over into the arms of her attendants in a fainting fit, and
+was borne out of the room.
+
+There followed, after this scene, a long and dreadful quarrel. Charles
+accused his wife of unreasonable and foolish jealousy, and of putting
+a public insult upon one of the ladies of his court, whom she was bound
+to treat with civility and respect, since he chose to have it so. She,
+on the other hand, declared that he was cruel and tyrannical in making
+such demands upon her, and that she would go back to Portugal rather
+than submit to such an intolerable indignity. She criminated Charles,
+and Charles recriminated and threatened her, and for one night the
+palace was filled with the noise and uproar of the quarrel. The ladies
+and gentlemen of the household were very glad, they said, that they
+were not in London, where there would have been so many more witnesses
+of the scene.
+
+Some of Charles's counselors and ministers of state were disposed at
+first to remonstrate with him for laying commands on his wife, with
+which, as they expressed it, flesh and blood could not comply. He,
+however, peremptorily silenced all their expostulations, and required
+them, as they valued his favor, to aid him in effecting his purposes.
+Good natured as he was, his determination was fully aroused, and he
+was now resolved to compel the queen to submit. He wrote a letter to
+Lord Clarendon, in which he declared his absolute and unalterable
+determination to make Lady Castlemaine "of the queen's bed chamber,"
+and hoped he might be miserable in this world and in the world to come
+if he failed in the least degree in what he had undertaken; and if any
+one of his friends attempted to thwart or impede him in it in any way,
+he would make him repent of it as long as he lived. The king concluded
+his letter with asking Clarendon to show it to some others concerned,
+that they might all understand distinctly what they were to expect.
+
+Of course, every body, after this, took sides against the queen, and
+all who had access to her urged her to comply with the wishes of the
+king. She begged and prayed to be spared such an indignity. She
+remonstrated, sometimes with impetuous passion, and sometimes with
+silent grief and bitter tears. She wanted to go back again to Portugal;
+but this, of course, could not be. The end of it was, that she was
+worn out at last. Lady Castlemaine was admitted, and remained an inmate
+of her family as long as she retained her place in the king's regard.
+
+Lady Castlemaine was a proud and imperious beauty, who abused the power
+which she soon found that she possessed over the king, in a manner to
+make her an object of hatred to every one else. She interfered with
+every thing, and had a vast influence even over the affairs of state.
+The king was sometimes out of patience, and attempted resistance, but
+she soon reduced him to submission. There was once some question about
+sending a certain nobleman, who was charged with some political
+offenses, to the Tower. She declared that he should not be sent there.
+The king rebuked her interference, and they got into a high dispute
+on the subject, the king telling her, in the end, that she was an
+impertinent jade, that meddled with things she had nothing to do with.
+To which she replied that _he_ was a great fool, that let fools have
+the management of his affairs, and sent his faithful servants to prison.
+In the end, the lady gained the victory, and the nobleman went free.
+Violent quarrels of this kind were very frequent between these high
+life lovers, and they always ended in the triumph of Lady Castlemaine.
+She used to threaten, as a last resort, that if the king came to an
+open rupture with her, she would print the letters that he had written
+to her, and this always brought him to terms.
+
+These incidents indicate a very extraordinary freedom and familiarity
+of manners on the part of Charles, and he probably appears, in all
+these transactions, to much greater disadvantage in some respects than
+he otherwise would have done, on account of the extreme openness and
+frankness of his character. He lived, in fact, on the most free and
+familiar terms with all around him, jesting continually with every
+body, and taking jests, with perfect good nature, from others in return.
+In fact, his jests, gibes, and frolics kept the whole court continually
+in a condition of frivolous gayety and fun, which would have excited
+the astonishment of all the serious portion of mankind, if the extreme
+and universal dissipation and vice which prevailed had not awakened
+a far deeper emotion.
+
+In fact, there seemed to be no serious element whatever in the monarch's
+character. He was, for instance, very fond of dogs, and cultivated a
+particular breed, since called King Charles's spaniels, which he kept
+at one time in great numbers, and in all stages of age and condition,
+in his palace, and in his very bed chamber, making all the apartments
+around very disagreeable by the effluvia. Rewards were constantly
+offered for certain of the king's dogs which had escaped. They were
+always escaping. He was attended by these dogs wherever he went, and
+at his meetings with his council, while the gravest and most momentous
+national interests were under discussion, he would amuse himself by
+playing with them under the table. He read his speeches at Parliament,
+that is, the brief messages with which the sovereign usually opens the
+session, in a ridiculous manner, and at church, instead of attending
+to the service, he would play at peep with Lady Castlemaine between
+the curtains which separated his box from that of the ladies of the
+household. And yet he pretended to be a firm believer in Christianity;
+and while he had no objection to any extreme of vice, he discountenanced
+infidelity. On one occasion, when a philosophical skeptic had been
+enlarging for some time on his objections to the Christian faith,
+Charles replied by saying, "My lord, I am a great deal older than your
+grace, and have heard more arguments in favor of atheism than you, but
+I have lived long enough to see that there is nothing in them, and I
+hope your grace will."
+
+Charles spent most of his time, at some periods of his reign, in idle
+amusements, lounging about his palace, playing at tennis in the tennis
+court like a boy, and then weighing himself afterward to see how much
+he was gaining. In the afternoons and evenings he would loiter in the
+rooms of his favorites while they were finishing their dressing, gamble
+at cards, and often would get very much intoxicated at wild midnight
+carousals. He would ramble in the mall and in the parks, and feed the
+aquatic birds upon the ponds there, day after day, with all the interest
+and pleasure of a truant schoolboy. He roamed about thus in the most
+free and careless manner, and accosted people far beneath him in rank
+in what was considered a undignified way for a king.
+
+His brother James, the Duke of York, sometimes remonstrated with him
+on this subject. James was, of course, so long as the queen, Charles's
+lawful wife, had no children, the next heir to the crown. He spent
+most of his life in the court of his brother, and they were generally
+very warm friends to each other. On one of Charles's frolicking
+excursions, when he was away far from his palace, without any suitable
+attendants or guards, James told him that he really thought his life
+was not safe in such exposures. Charles replied by telling James not
+to give himself any uneasiness. "You may depend upon it," said he,
+"that nobody will ever think of killing me to make _you_ king."
+
+The king was not unwilling, too, to take, himself, such jests as he
+gave. One day, in conversation with a dissolute member of the court,
+after they had been joking each other for some time, he said, "Ah!
+Shaftesbury, I verily believe you are the wickedest dog in my
+dominions."
+
+"Yes," replied Shaftesbury, "for a _subject_, I think I am."
+
+There was a mischievous and unmanageable goat in one of the palace
+courtyards, whose name was Old Rowley, and the courtiers considered
+the beast as affording so just an emblem of the character of the king,
+that they gave the king his name. Charles, instead of resenting it,
+entered into the jest; and one day, as he was going into the apartment
+of some of the ladies, be heard them singing a song, in which he figured
+ridiculously as the goat. He knocked at the door. They asked who was
+there. "Only Old Rowley," said the king.
+
+The king's repartees were some of them really good, and he obtained
+in his day the reputation of being quite a wit, while yet all his
+actions, and the whole of his management of his affairs, were so utterly
+unwise and so wholly unworthy of his station, that every one was struck
+with the contrast. One of the wits of his court one day wrote an epitaph
+for him, over his door, as follows:
+
+
+  "Here lies our sovereign lord the king,
+  Whose word no man relies on,
+  Who never said a foolish thing,
+  And never did a wise one."
+
+
+When the king came and saw this inscription, he stopped to read it,
+and said, "Yes, that is very true; and the reason is, my doings are
+those of my ministers, while my sayings are my own."
+
+Charles had, in fact, very little to do with the public affairs of his
+kingdom. He liked to build palaces and ships, and he expended vast
+sums, not very judiciously, on these plans. Sir Christopher Wren, the
+famous architect, planned one of these palaces, and Charles, when he
+went to see it, complained that the rooms were too small. Sir
+Christopher walked about with a self-important air, looking up at the
+ceiling, and said that he thought they were _high_ enough. Sir
+Christopher was very small in stature. Charles accordingly squatted
+down as well as he could, to get his head in as low a position as the
+architect's, and walked about the room in that ridiculous attitude,
+looking up in mimicry of Sir Christopher's manner, and then said, "Oh,
+yes, _now_ I think they are high enough."
+
+These building plans, and other similar undertakings, together with
+the vast amounts which the king lavished upon his numerous female
+favorites, exhausted his resources, and kept him in continual straits
+for money. He was always urging Parliament to make new grants, and to
+lay more taxes, until, as he said himself, he was ashamed to look his
+Parliament in the face, he was so continually begging them for supplies.
+The people caricatured him by the representation of a poverty stricken
+man, with his pockets turned inside out, and begging money. At another
+time the caricature took the form of a man led along against his will
+by two women, and threatened by a third, wearing all the time a
+countenance expressive of helplessness and distress.
+
+The king bore all these things with the utmost good nature, satisfied,
+apparently, if he could only enjoy the pleasures of dissipation and
+vice, and continue, in his palaces, a perpetual round of reckless
+merriment and fun. Some of the stories which are gravely told by the
+historians of the day are scarcely credible. For instance, it is said
+that a thief one day found his way, in the guise of a gentleman, into
+one of the royal drawing rooms, and contrived to get a gold snuff box
+out of the pocket of one of the noblemen there. Just as he had
+successfully accomplished his object, unobserved, as he supposed, he
+looked up, and saw the king's eyes fastened upon him. Knowing his
+majesty's character, the thief had the presence of mind to give him
+a wink, with a sly gesture enjoining secrecy. The king nodded assent,
+and the thief went away with his prize. When the nobleman missed his
+snuff box, the king amused himself some time with his perplexity and
+surprise, and then told him that it was of no use for him to search
+for his snuff box, for a thief had gone off with it half an hour ago.
+"I saw him," said the king, with a countenance full of fun, "but I
+could not do any thing. The rascal made me his confidant, and, of
+course, you know, I could not betray him."
+
+Under the government of such a sovereign, it could not be expected
+that the public affairs of the realm would have gone on very
+prosperously. Still, however, they might have been conducted with
+ordinary success by his ministers, and perhaps they were, in fact,
+managed as well as was usual with the governments of Europe in those
+days. It happened, however, that three great public calamities occurred,
+all of a most marked and signal character, which were, perhaps, not
+owing at all to causes for which Charles was responsible, but which
+have nevertheless connected such associations in men's minds with this
+unfortunate reign, as that Englishmen have since looked back upon it
+with very little pleasure. These three calamities were the plague, the
+fire, and the Dutch invasion.
+
+There have been a great many seasons of plague in London, all
+inconceivably dreadful; but as King Charles's fire was first among
+conflagrations, so his plague was the greatest pestilence that ever
+ravaged the city. London was, in those days, in a condition which
+exactly adapted it to be the easy prey of pestilence, famine, and fire.
+The people were crowded together in vast masses, with no comforts, no
+cleanliness, no proper organization. The enormous vegetable and animal
+accumulations of such a multitude, living more like brutes than men,
+produced a continual miasma, which prepared the constitutions of
+thousands for any infection which might chance to light among them.
+Pestilence is, in fact, the rude and dreadful remedy which nature
+provides for the human misery which man himself can not or will not
+cure. When the dictates of reason and conscience are neglected or
+disobeyed, and the ills which they might have averted sink the social
+state into a condition of degradation and wretchedness so great that
+the denser accumulations of the people become vast and corrupted swarms
+of vermin instead of organized communities of men, then plague and
+fever come in as the last resort--half remedy, half retribution--devised
+by that mysterious principle which struggles perpetually for the
+preservation of the human race, to thin off the excessive accumulation
+by destroying a portion of the surplus in so frightful a way as to
+drive away the rest in terror.
+
+The great plague of London took place in 1665, one year before the
+fire. The awful scenes which the whole city presented, no pen can
+describe. A hundred thousand persons are said to have died. The houses
+where cases of the plague existed were marked with a red cross and
+shut up, the inmates being all fastened in, to live or die, at the
+mercy of the infection. Every day carts rolled through the otherwise
+silent and desolate streets, men accompanying them to gather up with
+pitchforks the dead bodies which had been dragged out from the
+dwellings, and crying "Bring out your dead" as they went along.
+[Footnote: Sometimes the living were pitched into the cart by mistake
+instead of the dead. There is a piece of sculpture in the Tottenham
+Court road in London intended to commemorate the following case. A
+Scotch piper, who had been wandering in homeless misery about the
+streets, with nothing but his bagpipes and his dog, got intoxicated
+at last, as such men always do, if they can, in times of such extreme
+and awful danger, and laid down upon the steps of a public building
+and went to sleep. The cart came along in the night, by torchlight,
+and one of the men who attended it, inserting the point of his fork
+under the poor vagabond's belt, tossed him into the cart, bagpipes and
+all. The dog did all he could to defend his master, but in vain. The
+cart went thundering on, the men walking along by its side, examining
+the ways for new additions to their load. The piper, half awakened by
+the shock of his precipitation into the cart, and aroused still more
+by the joltings of the road, sat up, attempted in vain to rally his
+bewildered faculties, looked about him, wondering where he was, and
+then instinctively began to play. The men, astonished and terrified
+at such sounds from a cart loaded with the dead, fled in all directions,
+leaving the cart in the middle of the street alone.
+
+What a mysterious and inconsistent principle is fear. Here are men
+braving, unconcerned and at their ease, the most absolutely appalling
+of all possible human dangers, and yet terrified out of their senses
+at an unexpected sound.]Thousands went mad with their uncontrollable
+terror, and roamed about the streets in raving delirium, killing
+themselves, and mothers killing their children, in an insane and
+frenzied idea of escaping by that means, somehow or other, from the
+dreadful destroyer.
+
+Every body whose reason remained to them avoided all possible contact
+or communication with others. Even in the country, in the exchange of
+commodities, a thousand contrivances were resorted to, to avoid all
+personal connection. In one place there was a stone, where those who
+had any thing to sell placed their goods and then retreated, while he
+who wished to buy came up, and, depositing his money on the stone in
+the place of the merchandise, took what he had thus bought away.
+
+The great fire took place in 1666, about a year after the plague, and
+burned a very large part of London. It commenced accidentally in a
+baker's shop, where a great store of fagots had been collected, and
+spread so rapidly among the buildings which surrounded the spot that
+it was soon entirely beyond control. The city of London was then
+composed of an immense mass of mean buildings, crowded densely together,
+with very narrow streets intervening, and the wind carried the flames,
+with inconceivable rapidity, far and wide. The people seemed struck
+universally with a sense of terror and despair, and nothing was to be
+heard but shrieks, outcries, and wild lamentations. The sky was one
+vast lurid canopy, like molten brass, day and night, for four days,
+while the whole city presented a scene of indescribable and awful din;
+the cracking and thundering of the flames, the frenzied screams of the
+women and children, the terrific falling of spires, towers, walls, and
+lofty battlements, the frightful explosions of the houses, blown up
+by gunpowder in the vain hope of stopping the progress of the flames,
+all formed a scene of grandeur so terrific and dreadful, that they who
+witnessed the spectacle were haunted by the recollection of it long
+afterward, as by a frightful dream. A tall monument was built upon the
+spot where the baker's shop stood, to commemorate the calamity. The
+fire held, in fact, in the estimation of mankind, the rank of the
+greatest and most terrible of all conflagrations, until the burning
+of Moscow, in the time of Napoleon, in some degree eclipsed its fame.
+
+The Dutch invasion was the third great calamity which signalized King
+Charles's unfortunate reign. The ships of the enemy came up the Thames
+and the Medway, which is a branch of the Thames; they took possession
+of a fort at Sheerness, near the mouth of the river, and, after seizing
+all the military stores, which had been collected there to an enormous
+amount, they set fire to the powder magazine, and blew up the whole
+fortress with a terrific explosion. The way was now open to them to
+London, unless the English could contrive some way to arrest their
+progress. They attempted to do this by sinking some ships in the river,
+and drawing a strong chain across from one sunken vessel to the other,
+and fastening the ends to the shores. The Dutch, however, broke through
+this obstruction. They seized an opportunity when the tide was setting
+strongly up the river, and a fresh wind was blowing; their ships,
+impelled thus by a double force, broke through the chains, passed
+safely between the sunken ships, and came on in triumph up the river,
+throwing the city of London into universal consternation. There were
+several English ships of war, and several Dutch ships, which had been
+captured and brought up the Thames as prizes, lying in the river; these
+vessels were all seized by the Dutch, and burned; one of the English
+ships which they thus destroyed was called the Royal Oak.
+
+Of course, there was now a universal scene of confusion and terror in
+London. Every body laid the blame of the calamity upon the king; the
+money which he had received for building ships, and other national
+defenses, he had squandered, they said, upon his guilty pleasures;
+then the war, which had resulted in this invasion, was caused by the
+political mismanagement of his reign. While the people, however, thus
+loudly condemned the conduct of their monarch, they went energetically
+at work to arrest the progress of their invaders; they sunk other ships
+in greater numbers, and built platforms, on which they raised batteries
+of cannon. At length the further progress of the enemy was stopped,
+and the ships were finally compelled to retire.
+
+Among the other events which occurred during the reign of King Charles
+the Second, and which tended to connect unfavorable associations with
+the recollection of it in the minds of men, was a very extraordinary
+affair, which is known in history by the name of Titus Oates's Popish
+Plot. It was the story of a plot, said to have been formed by the
+Catholics, to put King Charles to death, and place his brother James,
+who, it will be recollected, was a Catholic, upon the throne in his
+stead. The story of this plot was told by a man named Titus Oates, and
+as it was at first generally believed, it occasioned infinite trouble
+and difficulty. In after times, however, the whole story came to be
+regarded as the fabrication of Oates, without there being any foundation
+for it whatever; hence the name of Titus Oates's Popish Plot, by which
+the affair has always since been designated in history. The
+circumstances were these:
+
+Among his other various accomplishments, King Charles was quite a
+chemist and philosopher. He had a laboratory where he amused himself
+with experiments, having, of course, several persons associated with
+him, and attendant upon him in these researches. Among these was a man
+named Kirby. Mr. Kirby was an intelligent man, of agreeable manners,
+and of considerable scientific attainments. Charles devoted, at some
+periods of his life, a considerable portion of his time to these
+researches in experimental philosophy, and he took, likewise, an
+interest in facilitating the progress of others in the same pursuits.
+There was a small society of philosophers that was accustomed to meet
+sometimes in Oxford and sometimes in London. The object of this society
+was to provide apparatus and other facilities for making experiments,
+and to communicate to each other at their meetings the result of their
+investigations. The king took this society under his patronage, and
+made it, as it were, his own. He gave it the name of THE ROYAL SOCIETY,
+and granted it a charter, by which it was incorporated as a permanent
+organization, with the most ample powers. This association has since
+become one of the most celebrated learned societies in the world, and
+its establishment is one of the very few transactions of King Charles's
+reign which have been since remembered with pleasure.
+
+But to return to Mr. Kirby. One day, when the king was walking in the
+park with a party of companions and attendants, who were separated
+more or less from him, as was usual on such occasions, Mr. Kirby came
+up to him, and, with a mysterious and earnest air, begged the king not
+to allow himself to be separated from the company, for his life, he
+said, was in danger. "Keep with your company, sir," said he, "your
+enemies have a design upon your life. You may be suddenly shot on this
+very walk." Charles was not easily frightened, and he received this
+announcement with great composure. He asked an explanation, however,
+and Mr. Kirby informed him that a plot had been formed by the Catholics
+to destroy him; that two men had been engaged to shoot him; and, to
+make the result doubly sure, another arrangement had been made to
+poison him. The queen's physician was the person, he said, who was
+charged with this latter design. Mr. Kirby said, moreover, that there
+was a clergyman, Dr. Tong, who was fully acquainted with all the
+particulars of the plot, and that, if the king would grant him an
+interview that evening, he would make them all known.
+
+The king agreed to this, and in the evening Dr. Tong was introduced.
+He had a budget of papers which he began to open and read, but Charles
+had not patience to hear them; his mind was full of a plan which he
+was contemplating of going to Windsor the next day, to look at some
+new decorations which he had ordered for several of the apartments of
+the palace. He did not believe in the existence of any plot. It is
+true that plots and conspiracies were very common in those days, but
+false rumors and unfounded tales of plots were more common still. There
+was so much excitement in the minds of the community on the subject
+of the Catholic and Protestant faith, and such vastly extended interests
+depended on whether the sovereign belonged to one side or the other
+on this question, that every thing relating to the subject was invested
+with a mysterious awe, and the most wonderful stories were readily
+circulated and believed. The public mind was always particularly
+sensitive and excitable in such a case as that of Charles and his
+brother James at the time of which we are writing, where the reigning
+monarch, Charles, was of one religious faith, and his brother James,
+the next heir, was of the other. The death of Charles, which might at
+any time take place, would naturally lead to a religious revolution,
+and this kept the whole community in an exceedingly excitable and
+feverish state. There was a great temptation to form plots on the one
+hand, and a great eagerness to discover them on the other; and any man
+who could tell a story of treasonable schemes, whether his tale was
+true or fabricated, became immediately a personage of great importance.
+
+Charles was well aware of these things, and was accordingly disposed
+to pay very little attention to Dr. Tong's papers. He said he had no
+time to look into them, and so he referred the whole case to the Lord
+Treasurer Danby, an officer of his court, whom he requested to examine
+into the affair. Dr. Tong, therefore, laid his papers before Danby,
+while the king went off the next day to Windsor to examine the new
+fresco paintings and the other decorations of the palace.
+
+Danby was disposed to regard the story in a very different light from
+that in which it had appeared to the king. It is said that there were
+some charges about to be brought forward against himself for certain
+malpractices in his office, and that he was very much pleased,
+accordingly, at the prospect of having something come up to attract
+public attention, and turn it away from his own misdemeanors. He
+listened, therefore, with great interest to Dr. Tong's account of the
+plot, and made many minute and careful inquiries. Dr. Tong informed
+him that he had himself no personal knowledge of the conspiracy; that
+the papers, which contained all the information that he was possessed
+of, had been thrown into the hall of his house from the front door,
+and that he did not certainly know by whom, though he suspected, he
+said, one Titus Oates, who had formerly been a Catholic priest, and
+was still so far connected with the Catholics as to have very favorable
+opportunities to become acquainted with their designs.
+
+Soon after this Dr. Tong had another interview with the lord treasurer,
+and informed him that his surmise had proved true; that it was Titus
+Oates who had drawn up the papers, and that he was informed in regard
+to all the particulars of the plot, but that he did not dare to do any
+thing openly in revealing them, for fear that the conspirators would
+kill him. The lord treasurer communicated the result of his inquiries
+to the king, and urged the affair upon his attention as one of the
+utmost possible importance. The king himself, however, was very
+skeptical on the subject. He laughed at the lord treasurer's earnestness
+and anxiety. The lord treasurer wished to have a meeting of the council
+called, that the case might be laid before them, but Charles refused.
+Nobody should know any thing about it, he said, not even his brother.
+It would only create excitement and alarm, and perhaps put it into
+somebody's head to murder him, though nobody at present had any such
+design.
+
+But, notwithstanding the king's determination not to give publicity
+to the story of the plot, rumors of it gradually transpired, and began
+to excite attention. The fact that such stories were in circulation
+soon came to the knowledge of the Duke of York, and, of course,
+immediately arrested his earnest attention. As he was himself a
+Catholic, and the heir to the crown, any suspicion of a Catholic plot
+formed to dethrone his brother necessarily implicated him. He demanded
+an examination into the case. In a short time, vague but exaggerated
+rumors on the subject began to circulate through the community at
+large, which awakened, of course, a very general anxiety and alarm.
+So great was the virulence of both political and religious animosities
+in those days, that no one knew to what scenes of persecution or of
+massacre such secret conspiracies might tend Oates, whose only object
+was to bring himself into notice, and to obtain rewards for making
+known the plot which he had pretended to discover, now found, to his
+great satisfaction, that the fire which he had kindled was beginning
+to burn. The meeting of the council was called, and he was summoned
+to attend it. Before the time arrived, however, he went to a justice
+of the peace, and laid the evidence before him of the existence of the
+conspiracy, and of all the details respecting it which he pretended
+to have discovered. The name of this justice was Sir Edmondsbury
+Godfrey. A remarkable circumstance afterward occurred in respect to
+him, as will presently be related, which greatly increased and extended
+the popular excitement in relation to the pretended plot.
+
+The plot, as Oates invented and detailed it, was on the most magnificent
+scale imaginable. The pope himself was at the head of it. The pope,
+he said, had laid the subject before a society of learned theologians
+at Rome, and they had decided that in such a case as that of England,
+where the sovereign and a majority of the people had renounced the
+true religion, and given themselves up to avowed and open heresy, the
+monarch lost all title to his crown, and the realms thus fallen from
+the faith lapsed to the pope, and were to be reclaimed by him by any
+mode which it seemed to him expedient to adopt. Under these
+circumstances, the pope had assumed the sovereignty over England, and
+had commissioned the society of the Jesuits--a very powerful religious
+society, extending over most of the countries of Europe--to take
+possession of the realm; that, in the prosecution of this plan, the
+king was to be assassinated, and that a very large sum of money had
+been raised and set apart, to be paid to any person who would kill the
+king; that an offer of ten thousand pounds had been made to the queen's
+physician if he would poison him. The physician had insisted upon
+fifteen thousand for so great a service, and this demand had finally
+been acceded to; and five thousand had actually been paid him in
+advance. Besides the murder of the king, a general assassination of
+the Protestants was to take place. There were twenty thousand Catholics
+in London, for instance, who, according to Oates's account of the plan,
+were to rise on a preconcerted night, and each one was to kill five
+Protestants, which it was thought they could easily do, as the
+Protestants would be taken wholly by surprise, and would be unarmed.
+The revolution being thus effected, the crown was to be offered to
+Charles's brother, the Duke of York, as a gift from the pope, and, if
+he should refuse to accept it on such conditions as the pope might see
+fit to impose, he was himself to be immediately assassinated, and some
+other disposal to be made of the kingdom.
+
+Oates was examined before the council very closely, and he contradicted
+himself so much, and made so many misstatements about absent persons,
+and the places where he pretended that certain transactions had taken
+place, as to prove the falseness of his whole story. The public,
+however, knew little or thought little of these proofs. They hated the
+Catholics, and were eager to believe and to circulate any thing which
+tended to excite the public mind against them. The most extravagant
+stories were accordingly circulated, and most excessive and universal
+fears prevailed, increasing continually by the influence of mutual
+action and reaction, and of sympathy, until the whole country was in
+a state of terror. A circumstance now occurred which added tenfold to
+the excitement, and produced, in fact, a general consternation.
+
+This circumstance was the sudden and mysterious death of Sir Edmondsbury
+Godfrey, the justice who had taken the depositions of Oates in respect
+to the conspiracy. He had been missing for several days, and at length
+his body was found in a trench, by the side of a field, in a solitary
+place not far from London. His own sword had been run into his body,
+and was remaining in the wound. His watch and his money were safe in
+his pocket, showing that he had not been killed by robbers. This event
+added greatly to the excitement that prevailed. The story was circulated
+that he had been killed by the Catholics for having aided in publishing
+the discovery of their plot. They who wished to believe Oates's story
+found in the justice's death most ample confirmation of it. The body
+was brought forward and exhibited to the public gaze in a grand
+procession, which moved through the streets of London; and at the
+funeral guards were stationed, one on each side of the preacher, while
+he was delivering the funeral discourse, to impress the people with
+a sense of the desperate recklessness of Catholic hate, by the
+implication that even a minister of the Gospel, in the exercise of the
+most solemn of his functions, was not safe without an effectual guard.
+
+From this time the excitement and commotion went on increasing at a
+very rapid rate. Oates himself, of course, became immediately a man
+of great importance; and to maintain himself in his new position, he
+invented continually new stories, each more terrible than the preceding.
+New informers, too, began to appear, confirming Oates's statements,
+and adding new details of their own, that they might share his
+distinctions and rewards. These men became continually more and more
+bold, in proportion to the increasing readiness of the people to receive
+their inventions for truths. They accused persons of higher and higher
+rank, until at last they dared to implicate the queen herself in their
+charges. They knew that, as she was a Catholic, she was unpopular with
+the nation at large, and as Charles had so many other lady favorites,
+they concluded that he would feel no interest in vindicating her from
+false aspersions. They accordingly brought forward accusations against
+the queen of having joined in the conspiracy, of having been privy to
+the plan of murdering the king, and of having actually arranged and
+directed the assassination of the justice, Sir Edmondsbury. These
+charges produced, of course, great excitement. The people of the country
+were generally predisposed to believe them true. There were various
+investigations of them, and long protracted examinations of the
+witnesses before the council and before judicial commissions appointed
+to inquire into and decide upon the case. These inquisitions led to
+debates and disputes, to criminations and recriminations without number,
+and they threw the whole court and the whole nation into a state of
+extreme excitement, some taking sides against, and some in favor of
+the queen. Although the popular sentiment was against her, every fair
+and candid mind, that attended carefully to the evidence, decided
+unhesitatingly in her favor. The stories of the witnesses were utterly
+inconsistent with each other, and in many of their details impossible.
+Still, so great was the public credulity, and so eager the desire to
+believe every thing, however absurd, which would arouse and strengthen
+the anti-Catholic feeling, that the queen found herself soon the object
+of extreme and universal odium.
+
+The king, however, much to his credit, refused all belief of these
+accusations against Catharine, and strongly defended her cause. He
+took care to have the witnesses cross examined, and to have the
+inconsistencies in their testimony, and the utter impossibility that
+their statements could be true, pointed out. He believed, he said,
+that she was entirely innocent, and that the whole plan was a conspiracy
+to effect her destruction. "They think, I suppose," said the king,
+"that I should like a new wife, but I will not suffer an innocent woman
+to be wronged." He also told one of the ministers of state, in speaking
+of the subject, that, considering how hardly he had treated his wife,
+and how much reason she had for just complaints against him, it would
+be an atrocious thing for him to abandon her in such an extremity.
+
+A volume might be filled with stories of the strange and exciting
+incidents that grew out of this pretended popish plot. Its consequences
+extended disastrously through many years, and involved a vast number
+of innocent persons in irretrievable ruin. The true character of Oates
+and his accomplices was, however, at length fully proved, and they
+themselves suffered the fate at last which they had brought upon others.
+The whole affair was a disgrace to the age. There is no circumstance
+connected with it which can be looked upon with any pleasure except
+King Charles's fidelity to his injured wife in refusing to abandon
+her, though he no longer loved her. His defense of her innocence,
+involving, as it did, a continuance of the matrimonial tie, which bound
+them together when all the world supposed that he wished it sundered,
+seems to have resulted from a conscientious sense of duty, and implies
+certain latent traits of generosity and nobleness in Charles's
+character, which, though ordinarily overpowered and nullified by the
+influences of folly and vice, still always seem to have maintained
+their hold, and to come out to view from time to time, in the course
+of the gay monarch's life, whenever any emergency occurred sufficient
+to call them into action.
+
+The reign of King Charles the Second was signalized by many other
+untoward and disastrous events besides those which we have enumerated.
+There were unfortunate wars, great defeats in naval battles, unlucky
+negotiations abroad, and plots and conspiracies, dangerous and
+disgraceful, at home. The king, however, took all these things very
+good naturedly, and allowed them to interfere very little with his own
+personal pleasures. Whatever troubles or embarrassments affected the
+state, he left the anxiety and care which pertained to them to his
+ministers and his council, banishing all solicitude from his own mind,
+and enjoying himself all the time with his experiments, his ladies,
+his dogs, and his perpetual fun.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+THE CONCLUSION.
+
+
+
+Time rolled on, and the gay and pleasure-loving king passed through
+one decade after another of his career, until at length he came to be
+over fifty years of age. His health was firm, and his mental powers
+vigorous. He looked forward to many years of strength and activity yet
+to come, and thus, though he had passed the meridian of his life, he
+made no preparations to change the pursuits and habits in which he had
+indulged himself in his early years.
+
+He died suddenly at last, at the age of fifty-four. His death was
+almost as sudden as that of his father, though in a widely different
+way. The circumstances of his last sickness have strongly attracted
+the attention of mankind, on account of the manner in which the dying
+king was affected, at last, by remorse at the recollection of his life
+of reckless pleasure and sin, and of the acts to which this remorse
+led him upon his dying bed. The vices and crimes of monarchs, like
+those of other men, may be distinguished into two great types,
+characterized by the feelings of heart in which they take their origin.
+Some of these crimes arise from the malignant passions of the soul,
+others from the irregular and perverted action of the feelings of
+kindness and affection. The errors and follies of Charles, ending at
+last, as they did, in the most atrocious sins, were of the latter
+class. It was in feelings of kindness and good will toward friends of
+his own sex that originated that spirit of favoritism, so unworthy of
+a monarch, which he so often evinced; and even his irregular and
+unhallowed attachments of another kind seem to have been not wholly
+selfish and sensual. The course of conduct which he pursued through
+the whole course of his life toward his female companions, evinced,
+in many instances, a sincere attachment to them, and an honest desire
+to promote their welfare; and in all the wild recklessness of his life
+of pleasure and vice, there was seen coming out continually into view
+the influence of some conscientious sense of duty, and of a desire to
+promote the happiness of those around him, and to do justice to all.
+These principle were, indeed, too feeble to withstand the temptations
+by which they were assailed on every side; still, they did not cease
+to exist, and occasions were continually occurring when they succeeded
+in making their persuasions heard. In a word, King Charles's errors
+and sins, atrocious and inexcusable as they were, sprang from
+ill-regulated and perverted feelings of love and good will, and not
+from selfishness and hate; from the kindly, and not from the malignant
+propensities of the soul. It is very doubtful whether this is really
+any palliation of them, but, at any rate, mankind generally regard it
+so, judging very leniently, as they always do, the sins and crimes
+which have such an origin.
+
+It is probable that Charles derived whatever moral principle and
+sensitiveness of conscience that he possessed from the influence of
+his mother in his early years. She was a faithful and devoted Catholic;
+she honestly and firmly believed that the rites and usages of the
+Catholic Church were divinely ordained, and that a careful and honest
+conformity to them was the only way to please God and to prepare for
+heaven. She did all in her power to bring up her children in this
+faith, and in the high moral and religious principles of conduct which
+were, in her mind, indissolubly connected with it. She derived this
+spirit, in her turn, from _her_ mother, Mary de Medici, who was one
+of the most extraordinary characters of ancient or modern times. When
+Henrietta Maria was married to Charles I. and went to England, this
+Mary de Medici, her mother, wrote her a letter of counsel and of
+farewell, which we recommend to our readers' careful perusal. It is
+true, we go back to the third generation from the hero of this story
+to reach the document, but it illustrates so well the manner in which
+maternal influence passes down from age to age, and throws so much
+light on the strange scenes which occurred at Charles's death, and is,
+moreover, so intrinsically excellent, that it well merits the
+digression.
+
+_The queen-mother, Mary de Medici, to the young Queen of England,
+Henrietta Maria_.
+
+1625, June 25.
+
+MY DAUGHTER,--You separate from me, I can not separate myself from
+you. I retain you in heart and memory and would that this paper could
+serve for an eternal memorial to you of what I am; it would then supply
+my place, and speak for me to you, when I can no longer speak for
+myself. I give you it with my last adieu in quitting you, to impress
+it the more on your mind, and give it to you written with my own hand,
+in order that it may be the more dear to you, and that it may have
+more authority with you in all that regards your conduct toward God,
+the king your husband, his subjects, your domestics, and yourself. I
+tell you here sincerely, as in the last hour of our converse, all I
+should say to you in the last hour of my existence, if you should be
+near me then. I consider, to my great regret, that such can never be,
+and that the separation now taking place between you and me for a long
+time, is too probably an anticipation of that which is to be forever
+in this world.
+
+On this earth you have only God for a father; but, as he is eternal,
+you can never lose him. It is he who sustains your existence and life;
+it is he who has given you to a great king; it is he who, at this time,
+places a crown on your brow, and will establish you in England, where
+you ought to believe that he requires your service, and there he means
+to effect your salvation. Remember, my child, every day of your life,
+that he is your God, who has put you on earth intending you for heaven,
+who has created you for himself and for his glory.
+
+The late king, your father, has already passed away; there remains no
+more of him but a little dust and ashes, hidden from our eyes. One of
+your brothers has already been taken from us even in his infancy; God
+withdrew him at his own good pleasure. He has retained you in the world
+in order to load you with his benefits; but, as he has given you the
+utmost felicity, it behooves you to render him the utmost gratitude.
+It is but just that your duties are augmented in proportion as the
+benefits and favors you receive are signal. Take heed of abusing them.
+Think well that the grandeur, goodness, and justice of God are infinite,
+and employ all the strength of your mind in adoring his supreme
+puissance, in loving his inviolable goodness; and fear his rigorous
+equity, which will make all responsible who are unworthy of his benefits.
+
+Receive, my child, these instructions of my lips; begin and finish
+every day in your oratory, [Footnote: An oratory is a little closet
+furnished appropriately for prayer and other exercises of devotion.]
+with good thoughts and, in your prayers, ask resolution to conduct
+your life according to the laws of God, and not according to the
+vanities of this world, which is for all of us but a moment, in which
+we are suspended over eternity, which we shall pass either in the
+paradise of God, or in hell with the malign spirits who work evil.
+
+Remember that you are daughter of the Church by baptism, and that this
+is, indeed, the first and highest rank which you have or ever will
+have, since it is this which will give you entrance into heaven; your
+other dignities, coming as they do from the earth, will not go further
+than the earth; but those which you derive from heaven will ascend
+again to their source, and carry you with them there. Render thanks
+to heaven each day, to God who has made you a Christian; estimate this
+first of benefits as it deserves, and consider all that you owe to the
+labors and precious blood of Jesus our Savior; it ought to be paid for
+by our sufferings, and even by our blood, if he requires it. Offer
+your soul and your life to him who has created you by his puissance,
+and redeemed you by his goodness and mercy. Pray to him, and pray
+incessantly to preserve you by the inestimable gift of his grace, and
+that it may please him that you sooner lose your life than renounce
+him. You are the descendant of St. Louis. I would recall to you, in
+this my last adieu, the same instruction that he received from his
+mother, Queen Blanche, who said to him often 'that she would rather
+see him die than to live so as to offend God, in whom we move, and who
+is the end of our being'. It was with such precepts that he commenced
+his holy career; it was this that rendered him worthy of employing his
+life and reign for the good of the faith and the exaltation of the
+Church. Be, after his example, firm and zealous for religion, which
+you have been taught, for the defense of which he, your royal and holy
+ancestor, exposed his life, and died faithful to him among the infidels.
+Never listen to, or suffer to be said in your presence, aught in
+contradiction to your belief in God and his only Son, your Lord and
+Redeemer. I entreat the Holy Virgin, whose name you bear, to deign to
+be the mother of your soul, and in honor of her who is mother of our
+Lord and Savior, I bid you adieu again and many times.
+
+I now devote you to God forever and ever; it is what I desire for you
+from the very depth of my heart.
+
+Your very good and affectionate mother, MARIA.
+
+From Amiens, the 10th of June, 1625.
+
+The devout sense of responsibility to Almighty God, and the spirit of
+submission and obedience to his will, which this letter breathes,
+descended from the grandmother to the mother, and were even instilled,
+in some degree, into the heart of the son. They remained, however,
+latent and dormant through the long years of the monarch's life of
+frivolity and sin, but they revived and reasserted their dominion when
+the end came.
+
+The dying scene opened upon the king's vision in a very abrupt and
+sudden manner. He had been somewhat unwell during a certain day in
+February, when he was about fifty-four years of age. His illness,
+however, did not interrupt the ordinary orgies and carousals of his
+palace. It was Sunday. In the evening a very gay assembly was convened
+in the apartments, engaged in deep gaming, and other dissolute and
+vicious pleasures. The king mingled in these scenes, though he
+complained of being unwell. His head was giddy--his appetite was
+gone--his walk was unsteady. When the party broke up at midnight, he
+went into one of the neighboring apartments, and they prepared for him
+some light and simple food suitable for a sick man, but he could not
+take it. He retired to his bed, but he passed a restless and uneasy
+night. He arose, however, the next morning, and attempted to dress
+himself, but before he finished the work he was suddenly struck by
+that grim and terrible messenger and coadjutor of death--apoplexy--as
+by a blow. Stunned by the stroke, he staggered and fell.
+
+The dreadful paroxysm of insensibility and seeming death in a case of
+apoplexy is supposed to be occasioned by a pressure of blood upon the
+brain, and the remedy, according to the practice of those days, was
+to bleed the patient immediately to relieve this pressure, and to
+blister or cauterize the head, to excite a high external action as a
+means of subduing the disease within. It was the law of England that
+such violent remedies could not be resorted to in the case of the
+sovereign without authority previously obtained from the council. They
+were guilty of high treason who should presume to do so. This was a
+case, however, which admitted of no delay. The attendants put their
+own lives at hazard to serve that of the king. They bled him with a
+penknife, and heated the iron for the cautery. The alarm was spread
+throughout the palace, producing universal confusion. The queen was
+summoned, and came as soon as possible to the scene. She found her
+husband sitting senseless in a chair, a basin of blood by his side,
+his countenance death-like and ghastly, while some of the attendants
+were attempting to force the locked jaws apart, that they might
+administer a potion, and others were applying a red hot iron to the
+patient's head, in a desperate endeavor to arouse and bring back again
+into action the benumbed and stupefied sensibilities. Queen Catharine
+was so shocked by the horrid spectacle that she sank down in a fit of
+fainting and convulsions, and was borne immediately away back to her
+own apartment.
+
+In two hours the patient's suspended faculties began to return. He
+looked wildly about him, and asked for the queen. They sent for her.
+She was not able to come. She was, however, so far restored as to be
+able to send a message and an apology, saying that she was very glad
+to hear that he was better, and was much concerned that she could not
+come to see him; she also added, that for whatever she had done in the
+course of her life to displease him, she now asked his pardon, and
+hoped he would forgive her. The attendants communicated this message
+to the king. "Poor lady!" said Charles, "she beg my pardon! I am sure
+I beg hers, with all my heart."
+
+Apoplexy fulfills the dread behest of its terrible master Death by
+dealing its blow once with a fatal energy, and then retiring from the
+field, leaving the stunned and senseless patient to recover in some
+degree from the first effect of the stroke, but only to sink down and
+die at last under the permanent and irretrievable injuries which almost
+invariably follow.
+
+Things took this course in the case of Charles. He revived from the
+stupor and insensibility of the first attack, and lay afterward for
+several days upon his bed, wandering in mind, helpless in body, full
+of restlessness and pain, and yet conscious of his condition. He saw,
+dimly and obscurely indeed, but yet with awful certainty, that his
+ties to earth had been suddenly sundered, and that there only remained
+to him now a brief and troubled interval of mental bewilderment and
+bodily distress, to last for a few more hours or days, and then he
+must appear before that dread tribunal where his last account was to
+be rendered; and the vast work of preparation for the solemn judgment
+was yet to be made. How was this to be done?
+
+Of course, the great palace of Whitehall, where the royal patient was
+lying, was all in confusion. Attendants were hurrying to and fro.
+Councils of physicians were deliberating in solemn assemblies on the
+case, and ordaining prescriptions with the formality which royal
+etiquette required. The courtiers were thunderstruck and confounded
+at the prospect of the total revolution which was about to ensue, and
+in which all their hopes and prospects might be totally ruined. James,
+the Duke of York, seeing himself about to be suddenly summoned to the
+throne, was full of eager interest in the preliminary arrangements to
+secure his safe and ready accession. He was engaged night and day in
+selecting officers, signing documents, and stationing guards. Catharine
+mourned in her own sick chamber the approaching blow, which was to
+separate her forever from her husband, deprive her of her consequence
+and her rank, and consign her, for the rest of her days to the pains
+and sorrows, and the dreadful solitude of heart which pertains to
+widowhood. The king's other female intimates, too, of whom there were
+three still remaining in his court and in his palace, were distracted
+with real grief. They may have loved him sincerely; they certainly
+gave every indication of true affection for him in this his hour of
+extremity. They could not appear at his bedside except at sudden and
+stolen interviews, which were quickly terminated by their being required
+to withdraw; but they hovered near with anxious inquiries, or else
+mourned in their apartments with bitter grief. Without the palace the
+effects were scarcely less decisive. The tidings spread every where
+throughout the kingdom, arresting universal attention, and awakening
+an anxiety so widely diffused and so intense as almost to amount to
+a terror. A Catholic monarch was about to ascend the throne, and no
+one knew what national calamities were impending.
+
+In the mean time, the dying monarch lay helpless upon his bed, in the
+alcove of his apartment, distressed and wretched. To look back upon
+the past filled him with remorse, and the dread futurity, now close
+at hand, was full of images of terror and dismay. He thought of his
+wife, and of the now utterly irreparable injuries which he had done
+her. He thought of his other intimates and their numerous children,
+and of the condition in which they would be left by his death. If he
+had been more entirely sensual and selfish in his attachments, he would
+have suffered less; but he could not dismiss these now wretched
+participators in his sins from his mind. He could do very little now
+to promote their future welfare, or to atone for the injury which he
+had done them; but his anxiety to do so, as well as his utter
+helplessness in accomplishing his desire, was evinced by his saying,
+in his last charge to his brother James, just before he died, that he
+hoped he would be kind to his children, and especially not let poor
+Nelly starve. [Footnote: Eleanor Gwyn. She was an actress when Charles
+first became acquainted with her.]
+
+Troubled and distressed with these thoughts, and still more anxious
+and wretched at the prospect of his own approaching summons before the
+bar of God, the fallen monarch lay upon his dying bed, earnestly
+desiring, but not daring to ask for, the only possible relief which
+was now left to him, the privilege of seeking refuge in the religious
+hopes and consolations which his mother, in years now long gone by,
+had vainly attempted to teach him to love. The way of salvation through
+the ministrations and observances of the Catholic service was the only
+way of salvation that he could possibly see. It is true that he had
+been all his life a Protestant, but Protestantism was to him only a
+_political_ faith, it had nothing to do with moral accountability or
+preparation for heaven. The spiritual views of acceptance with God by
+simple personal penitence and faith in the atoning sacrifice of his
+Son, which lie at the foundation of the system of the Church of England,
+he never conceived of. The Church of England was to him a mere empty
+form; it was the service of the ancient Catholic faith, disrobed of
+its sanctions, despoiled of its authority, and deprived of all its
+spirit and soul. It was the mere idle form of godless and heartless
+men of the world, empty and vain. It had answered his purpose as a
+part of the pageantry of state during his life of pomp and pleasure,
+but it seemed a mockery to him now, as a means of leading his wretched
+and ruined soul to a reconciliation with his Maker. Every thing that
+was sincere, and earnest, and truly devout, in the duties of piety
+were associated in his mind with the memory of his mother; and as death
+drew nigh, he longed to return to her fold, and to have a priest, who
+was clothed with the authority to which her spirit had been accustomed
+to bow, come and be the mediator between himself and his Maker, and
+secure and confirm the reconciliation.
+
+But how could this be done? It was worse than treason to aid or abet
+the tainting of the soul of an English Protestant king with the
+abominations of popery. The king knew this very well, and was aware
+that if he were to make his wishes known, whoever should assist him
+in attaining the object of his desire would hazard his life by the
+act. Knowing, too, in what abhorrence the Catholic faith was held, he
+naturally shrank from avowing his convictions; and thus deterred by
+the difficulties which surrounded him, he gave himself up to despair,
+and let the hours move silently on which were drawing him so rapidly
+toward the grave. There were, among the other attendants and courtiers
+who crowded around his bedside, several high dignitaries of the Church.
+At one time five bishops were in his chamber. They proposed repeatedly
+that the king should partake of the sacrament. This was a customary
+rite to be performed upon the dying, it being considered the symbol
+and seal of a final reconciliation with God and preparation for heaven.
+Whenever the proposal was made, the king declined or evaded it. He
+said he was "too weak," or "not now," or "there will be time enough
+yet;" and thus day after day moved on.
+
+In the mean time, the anxious and unhappy queen had so far recovered
+that she came to see the king, and was often at his bedside, watching
+his symptoms and mourning over his approaching fate. These interviews
+were, however, all public, for the large apartment in which the king
+was lying was always full. There were ladies of the court, too, who
+claimed the privilege which royal etiquette accorded them of always
+accompanying the queen on these visits to the bedside of her dying
+husband. She could say nothing in private; and then, besides, her
+agitation and distress were so extreme, that she was incapable of any
+thing like calm and considerate action.
+
+Among the favorite intimates of the king, perhaps the most prominent
+was the Duchess of Portsmouth. The king himself had raised her to that
+rank. She was a French girl, who came over, originally, from the
+Continent with a party of visitors from the French court. Her beauty,
+her wit, and her accomplishments soon made her a great favorite with
+the king, and for many years of his life she had exerted an unbounded
+and a guilty influence over him. She was a Catholic. Though not allowed
+to come to his bedside, she remained in her apartment overwhelmed with
+grief at the approaching death of her lover, and, strange as it may
+seem, she was earnestly desirous to obtain for him the spiritual succors
+which, as a Catholic, she considered essential to his dying in peace.
+After repeated and vain endeavors made in other ways to accomplish her
+object, she at length sent for the French ambassador to come to her
+rooms from the king's chamber, and urged him to do something to save
+the dying sinner's soul. "He is in heart a Catholic," said she. "I am
+sure he wishes to receive the Catholic sacraments. I can not do any
+thing, and the Duke of York is so full of business and excitement that
+he does not think of it. But something must be done."
+
+The ambassador went in pursuit of the Duke of York. He took him aside,
+and with great caution and secrecy suggested the subject. "You are
+right," said the duke, "and there is no time to lose." The duke went
+to the king's chamber. The English clergymen had just been offering
+the king the sacrament once more, and he had declined it again. James
+asked them to retire from the alcove, as he wished to speak privately
+to his majesty. They did so, supposing that he wished to communicate
+with him on some business of state.
+
+"Sire," said the duke to his dying brother, "you decline the sacraments
+of the Protestant Church, will you receive those of the Catholic?"
+
+The countenance of the dying man evinced a faint though immediate
+expression of returning animation and pleasure at this suggestion.
+"Yes," said he, "I would give every thing in the world to see a priest."
+
+"I will bring you one," said James.
+
+"Do," said the king, "for God's sake, do; but shall you not expose
+yourself to danger by it?"
+
+"I will bring you one, though it cost me my life," replied the duke.
+
+This conversation was held in a whisper, to prevent its being overheard
+by the various groups in the room. The duke afterward said that he had
+to repeat his words several times to make the king comprehend them,
+his sense of hearing having obviously begun to fail.
+
+There was great difficulty in procuring a priest. The French and Spanish
+priests about the court, who were attached to the service of the
+ambassadors and of the queen, excused themselves on various pretexts.
+They were, in fact, afraid of the consequences to themselves which
+might follow from an act so strictly prohibited by law. At last an
+English priest was found. His name was Huddleston. He had, at one time,
+concealed the king in his house during his adventures and wanderings
+after the battle of Worcester. On account of this service, he had been
+protected by the government of the king, ever since that time, from
+the pains and penalties which had driven most of the Catholic priests
+from the kingdom.
+
+They sent for Father Huddleston to come to the palace. He arrived about
+seven o'clock in the evening. They disguised him with a wig and cassock,
+which was the usual dress of a clergyman of the Church of England. As
+the illegal ceremony about to be performed required the most absolute
+secrecy, it became necessary to remove all the company from the room.
+The duke accordingly informed them that the king wished to be alone
+for a short period, and he therefore requested that they would withdraw
+into the ante-room. When they had done so, Father Huddleston was brought
+in by a little door near the head of the bed, which opened directly
+into the alcove where the bed was laid. There was a narrow space or
+alley by the side of the bed, within the alcove, called the _ruelle_;
+[Footnote: _Ruelle_ is a French word, meaning little street or alley.
+This way to the bed was the one so often referred to in the histories
+of those times by the phrase "the back stairs".] with this the private
+door communicated directly, and the party attending the priest,
+entering, stationed themselves there, to perform in secrecy and danger
+the last solemn rites of Catholic preparation for heaven. It was an
+extraordinary scene; the mighty monarch of a mighty realm, hiding from
+the vigilance of his own laws, that he might steal an opportunity to
+escape the consequences of having violated the laws of heaven.
+
+They performed over the now helpless monarch the rites which the
+Catholic Church prescribes for the salvation of the dying sinner. These
+rites, though empty and unmeaning ceremonies to those who have no
+religious faith in them, are full of the most profound impressiveness
+and solemnity for those who have. The priest, having laid aside his
+Protestant disguise, administered the sacrament of the mass, which
+was, according to the Catholic views, a true and actual re-enacting
+of the sacrifice of Christ, to inure to the special benefit of the
+individual soul for which it was offered. The priest then received the
+penitent's confession of sin, expressed in a faint and feeble assent
+to the words of contrition which the Church prescribes, and this was
+followed by a pardon--a true and actual pardon, as the sinner supposed,
+granted and declared by a commissioner fully empowered by authority
+from heaven both to grant and declare it. Then came the "extreme
+unction", or, in other words, the last anointing, in which a little
+consecrated oil was touched to the eyelids, the lips, the ears, and
+the hands, as a symbol and a seal of the final purification and
+sanctification of the senses, which had been through life the means
+and instruments of sin. The extreme unction is the last rite. This
+being performed, the dying Catholic feels that all is well. His sins
+have been atoned for and forgiven, and he has himself been purified
+and sanctified, soul and body. The services in Charles's case occupied
+three quarters of an hour, and then the doors were opened and the
+attendants and company were admitted again.
+
+The night passed on, and though the king's mind was relieved, he
+suffered much bodily agony. In the morning, when he perceived that it
+was light, he asked the attendants to open the curtains, that he might
+see the sun for the last time. It gave him but a momentary pleasure,
+for he was restless and in great suffering. Some pains which he endured
+increased so much that it was decided to bleed him. The operation
+relieved the suffering, but exhausted the sufferer's strength so that
+he soon lost the power of speech, and lay afterward helpless and almost
+insensible, longing for the relief which now nothing but death could
+bring him. This continued till about noon, when he ceased to breathe.
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, HISTORY OF KING CHARLES II OF ENGLAND ***
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