Chapters 37
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1 01 - Ch. 1: Prince of Wales, Pt. 1 21:19
Prince of Wales.
The boy who was born to Charles I and Henrietta Maria in St. James' Palace at one o'clock on the afternoon of May 29, 1630, found himself at once a most important person. He was not their first-born. He came to console them for the disappointment of the previous year, when another son, also called Charles, had been, as an old print in the British Museum tells us, born baptized and buried the same day. The most august portents accompanied the event. The whole frame of nature, so runs the new Icon Basilicae, takes notice of sovereign births, and complements them with stars, meteors, flames, thunders, and earthquakes. Such honor have all his anointed. As Charles I rode to St. Paul's to give thanks for the safe delivery of the Queen, All eyes were turned to the planet Venus, which happened to be a morning star near its greatest brilliancy and easily visible in full daylight.
To behold this babe, heaven seemed to open one eye more than usual. The time was one of intense credulity, and philosophers, divines, and lawyers positively battened upon the unusual phenomenon from which most men presaged That that prince should be of high undertakings and of no common glory among kings. Edmund Waller laid it down that this agreement of day and night was a sign that the newcomer was born to reconcile the divided world. The poetasters throughout the kingdom went loose, and 148 printed poems in Greek, Latin, and French testified to the loyalty of Oxford. Cambridge was unfortunately so afflicted with the plague that she took no notice of either the birth or the portents, and thereby gave great offense to the king.
Another token of celestial interest, which was afforded two days later, an almost total eclipse of the sun, was less susceptible of a satisfactory interpretation, and only two effusions are extant to break the judicious silence. The birth of Charles II meant, however, much more than pleasure to his parents or a subject for loyal verse. The great controversy of modes of political and religious thought had already begun in earnest, and in this he had, from the moment of his birth, to take an important, though unconscious, part. In Spain and other Catholic countries, the most extravagant joy was displayed. The fervent Catholicism of Henrietta was well known. And it was believed that without much objection from her husband, her son would be allowed to imbibe the true faith.
And so at Madrid, the king, queen, and all the court were in bravery, nor so much as the young infant of so many months old, but had his feather on his cap, all the town full of masks and music. The heads of the clergy and all the religious houses in the city came to the ambassador to congratulate him, And solemn Masses and prayers were said for his health and prosperity everywhere. Very different was the feeling among foreign Protestants, while to the Puritans at home the disappointment was great and the prospect eminently ungrateful. The prolonged childlessness of Charles I had given them hope that there would eventually be an escape from the steward policy and from the favor shown to Catholicism.
In the succession of the devout and much-loved sister of the king, Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia. God, they said, had already better provided for us than we had deserved, whereas it is uncertain what religion the king's children will follow, being to be brought up under a mother so devoted to the Church of Rome. But that hope was now gone, and they soon had cause to think that their fears were better founded. On the very day of the birth, the King announced that Lady Roxburgh was to be his governess, a Catholic and a Scotchwoman, who had brought about the conversion of the child's grandmother, Anne of Denmark. And it was only in ungracious compliance with the urgent protests of his advisers that he finally appointed Lady Dorset, an Englishwoman and a Protestant.
Amid all these anticipations and searchings of heart, The boy was baptized by Laud on June 27 at the King's Chapel of St. James, the King of France, and the Paul Grave, Catholic and Protestant, and the Queen Mother of France being sponsors. From his mother herself, who in quite a human way was concerned with him, just then as her baby, and not as the hope of Catholicism, we learn what sort of baby he was. Whatever qualities he derived from his parents, He belied the relationship in his looks. The king was a handsome man. The queen was allowed even by the severest detractor of her own sex to have beautiful eyes, a well-shaped nose, and an admirable complexion. In neither of them, if Van Dyke may be trusted, was the hair dark.
But the mother in her fond way testifies frankly to the child's harsh features and southern swarthiness. He seems, indeed, to have been a reversion to a far bygone Provencal type. As soon as she could use the pen, Henrietta thus described him to her former governess, Madame de Motville, he is so ugly that I am ashamed of him, but his size and features supply the want of beauty. I wish you could see the gentleman, for he has no ordinary mean. He is so serious in all that he does. That I cannot help deeming him far wiser than myself. And a little later, he is so fat and so tall that he is taken for a year old and he is only four months. His teeth are already beginning to come. I will send you his portrait as soon as he is a little fairer, for at present he is so dark that I am ashamed of him.
But she had to bear with her black baby, for black he remained, and as for good looks, Odds fish, he himself ejaculated forty years afterwards, when shown his picture, I am an ugly fellow. And if to his father the perfect horseman, and to his mother the beautiful dancer, we may assign much of the dignified ease of carriage which he kept to his death, his charm of voice, and his grace in the ballroom, the peculiar gifts and frailties by which he succeeded where others failed, And failed where others succeeded, were eminently his own. From first to last we find no trace of the fervent religious feeling which gave to Charles I the power to die nobly for a cause. No reserve or sobriety of thought in life, no unselfishness nor high purpose, no regal magnanimity.
But he had other qualities which secured for him, on a lower plane, A life which we feel was as satisfactory to himself as it was, for the most part, ill and wastefully spent. His vigorous constitution and invariable good health allowed him to indulge without physical discomfort, and to the end of his days, in the inordinate pleasures of an Oriental debauchery, his power of imagination, his intuitive perception of character, his faculty of statecraft. enabled him to gauge the strength or weakness of a position, the worthiness or frailty of an adherent, and to slip by difficulties which it was inconvenient to meet. His love of banter never lacked material, and his saving grace of humor enabled him to extract amusement from the most distressful condition.
The graceful familiarity which was natural to him from childhood And the address and tact which served to conceal or to excuse a selfishness which nobler feelings were seldom allowed to violate, and an habitual ingratitude which matched the ingratitude that sacrificed Stratford, were so useful to him that it was a saying that he could send away a person better pleased at receiving nothing than those in the good king his father's time that had requests granted them. So different was father and son in their humor and carriage. How all these varied sources of strength and weakness were fostered and developed by his early training will be seen as the life unfolds. For the moment, we are in the nursery, and still in the presence of portents.
We are told, though the authority is weak for a matter of this importance, that when he was but very young, He had a very strange and unaccountable fondness to a wooden billet, without which in his arms he would never go abroad or lie down in his bed, from which the more observing sort of people gathered that when he came to years of maturity either oppressors or blockheads would be his greatest favorites, or else that when he came to reign he would either be like Jupiter's log for everybody to deride and condemn, or that He would rather choose to command his people with a club than rule them by the sword. But the days of Dahls and the nursery, his official nurse was Mrs. Wyndham, with whom we shall meet again, were soon over.
At his birth he had been declared Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester, and now at eight years of age he was knighted, received into the order of the garter, and installed with the usual ceremonies at Windsor. The King committed his education to William Cavendish, Earl of Newcastle, a favorite of the Queen, and to Brian Duppa, who died Bishop of Winchester shortly after the Restoration. Both appointments were unexceptionable. Newcastle was the most prominent grandee of the kingdom. His fortune was princely, his bearing stately and dignified, his character unstained, his intellect respectable. A very fine gentleman, says Clarendon, active and full of courage, and most accomplished in those qualities of horsemanship, dancing, and fencing, which accompany a good breeding.
Besides that, he was amorous of poetry and music, in which he indulged the greatest part of his time. He loved monarchy, as it was the foundation and support of his own greatness, and the church, as it was well constituted for the splendor and security of the crown. And religion, as it cherished and maintained that order and obedience that was necessary to both. To Brian Duppa was entrusted the more literary side of the boy's training. A man of excellent parts and every way qualified for his function, especially as to the comeliness of his person and gracefulness of his deportment, which rendered him worthy the service of a court, and every way fit to stand before princes. Newcastle, in writing to the boy himself, bore eloquent testimony to his colleague's worth.
Your tutor, sir, wherein you are most happy, since he hath no pedantry in him, his learning he makes right use of neither to trouble himself with it or his friends, reads men as well as books, the purity of his wit doth not spoil the serenity of his judgment, and, in a word, strives as much discreetly to hide the scholar in him, As other men's follies, studies to show it, and is a right gentleman, such a one as man should be. Duppa's temper seems to have been singularly sweet, and while exercising no commanding influence upon Charles, he evidently gained, like Newcastle, the boy's respect and affection. Many years later, when Duppa lay dying at Richmond, Charles, then restored king, knelt at his old tutor's side to ask his blessing.
In the charge of Newcastle and Duppa, and with the two sons of Buckingham, so graciously depicted by Van Dyck, Charles's earliest youth passed pleasantly away. Newcastle's instructions to the boy himself have fortunately been preserved, and they are of extreme interest when compared with the elaborate letter of advice which he felt it his duty to hand to his sovereign on his coming into possession of the crown, and which will be dealt with in its proper place. They run thus in their strange mixture of mature wisdom and limited sympathies, and it may easily be imagined that in their negative aspect at any rate they carried with them their own recommendations to his pupil. For your education, sir, it is fit you should have some languages, though I confess I would rather have you study things than words, matter than language.
For seldom a critic in many languages hath time to study sense for words, and at best he is or can be but a living dictionary. Besides, I would not have you too studious, for too much contemplation spoils action, and virtue consists in that. What you read I would have it history, and the best chosen histories, that so you might compare the dead with the living. For the same humors is now as was then, There is no alteration but in names. For the arts I would have you know them so far as they are of use, and especially those that are most proper for war and use. But whensoever you are too studious, your contemplation will spoil your government, for you cannot be a good contemplative man and a good commonwealth's man.
Therefore take heed of too much book. Charles is to beware of too much devotion for a king, For one may be a good man, but a bad king. And how many will history represent to you that in seeming to gain the kingdom of heaven, have lost their own? And the old saying is, that short prayers pierce the heavens' gates. This subject, however, Newcastle leaves to the Right Reverend, Father in God, Lord Bishop of Chichester, your worthy tutor, contenting himself with pointing out, That if the king does not show a becoming reverence at prayers, his example will encourage irreverence to himself on the part of his less devout subjects, while of the other side, if any be Bible-mad, overmuch burnt with fiery zeal, they may think it a service to God to destroy you, and say the Spirit moved them, and bring some example of a king with a hard name in the Old Testament.
Thus one way you may have a civil war, The other a private treason, and he that cares not for his own life is master of another man's. For books, thus much more, the greatest clerks are not the wisest men, and the great troublers of the world. The greatest captains were not the greatest scholars, neither have I known bookworms great statesmen. But, sir, you are in your own disposition religious, and not very apt to your book. So you need no great labor to persuade you to the one, or long discourses to dissuade you from the other. The things that I have discoursed to you most is to be courteous and civil to everybody. Said to, make difference of cabbages, and believe it, the putting off of your hat and making a leg pleases more than reward or preservation, so much doth it take all kind of people.
Then to speak well of everybody, And when you hear people speak ill of others, reprehend them, and seem to dislike it so much as do not look on them favorably for a few days after, and say something in favor of those that have been spoken against. The other, which is railing, scorn, and jeering, is fitter for porters, watermen, and carmen than for gentlemen. How much more, then, for a prince, whose dislike is death and kills any subject? To lose your dignity and set by your state, I do not advise you to that, but the contrary, for what preserves you kings more than ceremony? The cloth of estates, the distance people are with you, great officers, heralds, drums, trumpeters, rich coaches, rich furniture for horses, guards, marshalmen making room, Disorders to be labored by their staff of office, and cry, Now the king comes.
The king must know at what time to play the king, and when to qualify it, but never put it off. For in all triumphs whatsoever or public showing yourself, you cannot put upon you too much king. Yet even there sometimes a chat or a smile in the right place will advantage you. To women you cannot be too civil. "'Especially to great ones. What hurt were it to send them a dish from your table when you dine with some of your great lords, and to drink their health? Certainly, sir, you cannot lose by courtesy. I mean not you should be so familiar as to bring you to contempt, for I mean you should keep yourself up, prince still, and in all your actions. But I would not have you so seared with majesty as to think that you are not of mankind."
Nor suffer others or yourself to flatter you so much. The incommodities to life, and the sustaining of it, and the same things the meanest do, you must do the like or not live. These things, when you are pleased to think of them, will persuade you that you are of the lump of man and mortal. And the more you repeat these thoughts, the better prince you'll be. I mean not by repeating your mortality to have a death's head set always before you, or to cry every morning that you are mortal, for I would not have you fall into a divine melancholy, to be an anchoret or a capuchin, or, with a philosophical discourse, to be a Diogenes in your tub, but to temper yourself so by this means as to be a brave, noble, and just king, and make your name immortal by your brave acts abroad, And your unspotted justice at home, qualified by your well-temper and mercy.
To take heed of too much book, to beware of too much devotion, to be courteous especially to women, not to be an anchoret or a capuchin or a Diogenes in your tub, these were instructions of easy remembrance and application. For the rest, the brave, noble, and just King, we shall see. Newcastle kept his charge for three years, and in his lordly way performed his duties well. What he had to give he gave the boy, who became, like himself, an adept writer, fencer, and dancer, with a love of music. They were evidently fond of one another, and the relations are pleasantly shown, as are the bonhomie, the gift of banter, the courteous familiarity, and the lightness of touch which served Charles so well through life.
In a few words of copyhand, written between pencil lines, ruled for him by Peter Massanet, his French writing master. The occasion was a critical one. The boy had declined to take his physic, and the gorgeous Earl of Newcastle had been driven to call in the only person of whom Charles seems to have stood in awe. We can imagine the humorous grimace with which he surrendered his caprice to his mother's brief commands. Charles, I am sore that I must begin my first letter with chiding you, because I hear you will not take physic. I hope it was only 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 my lord Newcastle to send me word to-night whether you will or will not.
Therefore I hope you will not give me the pains to go, and so I rest Your affectionate mother, to my dear son, the Prince, Henriette.
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2 02 - Ch. 1: Prince of Wales, Pt. 2 21:03
Prince of Wales. Part Two.
It is probable that the royal messenger was able to report unconditional capitulation. But if ever the child were father to the man, the parentage is shown in his own words. My lord. I would not have you take too much physic, for it doth always make me worse, and I think it will do the like with you. I ride every day and am ready to follow any other directions from you. Make haste to return to him that loves you, Charles P., for my lord of Newcastle." At the end of three years in August, 1641, Newcastle resigned his charge. His successor, William Seymour, Marquess of Hartford was, like himself, a man of great honor, great interest in fortune and estate, and of an universal esteem over the kingdom.
Hartford was, however, and he felt it, singularly unfit for an office which he accepted purely out of obedience to the king, and it was a misfortune that, at eleven years of age, the care of the quick-witted, vigorous boy should have fallen into the hands of a governor Of an age not fit for much activity and fatigue, who loved and was even so much wedded to his ease that he loved his book above all exercises. That book against too much of which, Newcastle, had felt it unnecessary to warn his pupil. Before this change took place, Charles had already made his first public appearance, for on May 11, 1641, he carried his father's letter to the Lords, The last attempt to save Stratford's life. Of all the strange lessons that he was now learning, none could have been stranger than this, that his stately father should be forced to sue and should sue in vain for the life of a servant.
Newcastle was right. No book-lore could match such teaching. During the spring of 1642 he was kept close by his father's side, for it was believed That the Parliament were proposing to take him by force from Theobald's whither the King had gone on his way to Newmarket and York, and thus to frustrate the suspected design of removing him abroad. In May, as war came nearer, he was appointed captain of a troop of horse, the Prince of Wales' own, which was raised as the King's special guard, and it was probable then that Van Dyke's very beautiful portrait of him was painted. As matters grew ever more threatening, Hartford's services were needed to secure the West Country, where his influence was great, and a third governor was chosen for the boy.
The selection was a curious and unfortunate one. Clarendon has difficulty in finding words sufficient to express the contempt in which the Earl of Berkshire was held. His interest and reputation were less than anything but his understanding. He was appointed for no other reason but because he had a mind to it, and his importunity was troublesome. A man of any who bore the name of a gentleman, the most unfit for that province, or any other that required any proportion of wisdom and understanding for the discharge of it. It must not be forgotten when accounting for Charles's later career, that at the most receptive and dangerous time of a boy's life, especially a boy of southern precocity of physical development, and under circumstances in which he could not but be constantly witness of every form of license, he was placed for several years in the nominal charge of a born fool.
For the moment, This was of little importance. The King was careful to keep Charles near his person, and thus he was present at the ominous setting up of the royal standard and in the marching and counter-marching before Edge Hill. Of what actually befell him and his brother James at the battle the accounts are not easily reconciled, although there is no doubt that the boys were in real danger, and apparently more than once. At the beginning of the fighting, the Prince's troop obtained leave to charge in the first line, while he and James were entrusted to Harvey, the celebrated physician. Harvey put them, as he believed, under cover, took a book from his pocket, and was speedily lost to all less interesting matters, until he was aroused by a cannonball grazing the earth beside them, when he judged well to shift his position.
Of a later and critical moment of the battle when Balfour's charge had broken the royal infantry and Lindsay had fallen, we have three eyewitnesses. James described many years afterwards how the old Earl of Dorset, being commanded by the King my father to go and carry the prince and myself up a hill out of the battle, refused to do it, and said he would not be thought a coward, forever a king's son in Christendom. Clarendon, however, then of course plain Mr. Hyde, according to his own account, obeyed the king's command to wait upon them, and not to leave them until they were in safety. On their way the party suddenly fell in with a body of parliamentary horse, whom in the dim evening light they mistook for their own friends, and escaped capture only through the devotion of one of the king's equerries.
And lastly there is Sir John Hinton, Physician in Ordinary to Charles, who, when writing down his reminiscences in 1679, and evidently referring to this incident, relates how your Majesty was unhappily left in a large field, at which time I had the honor to attend your person, and seeing the danger, I did with all earnestness, most humbly but at last somewhat rudely, importune your Highness, At which your Highness was pleased to tell me you feared them not, and drawing pistol resolved to charge them, but I did prevail. But one of those troopers, being excellently mounted, broke his rank and coming full career, I dismounted him in closing, and Mr. Matthews, a gentleman pensioner, rides up and with a pole-axe decides the contest.
It is difficult to believe that all this happened without Hyde's knowledge, but it is equally difficult to believe that Hinton would put down for the King's eye a false relation of circumstance which happened at an age when such things are fixed upon the memory. During the King's abortive march upon London, and through the succeeding eighteen months, Charles remained with the Earl of Berkshire at Oxford. In June 1644, he rode out with his father on that summer's campaign, was present with him at the Battle of Coperty Bridge, and witnessed the consternation which followed the news of the rout of Rupert and his old Tudor Newcastle at Marston Moor. He saw the surrender of Essex's foot at Lostwithiel, and the misconduct of Goring, by which the cavalry was allowed to escape, was by the king's side at the Second Battle of Newbury, and indeed threw out all the hard work of the sixth month's campaign, and returned with him to Oxford at the end of November.
Here he remained for the next three months under the foolish Earl, during which we have but one notice of him of significance, pointing to an interpretation of Newcastle's instructions not to the taste of his dignified father, insomuch that at St. Mary's He did once hit him on the head with his staff when he did observe him to laugh at sermon time upon the ladies who sat against him. And now Charles was witness of the growing dejection, discontent, and jealousies which were already beginning to paralyze the royal cause. He saw, as far as a boy's eyes could see, one side seeming to fight for monarchy with the weapons of confusion, and the other to destroy the king in his government with all the principles and regularity of government.
Before he was fifteen years of age, the doctrine of divine right preached from the Oxford pulpits must have become a mere jingle of words in the face of the practical contradictions to which he saw it every day subjected at the hands of both friend and foe. Nor was his skepticism likely to be lessened when, to unboy him, By putting him into some action and acquaintance with the business out of his own sight, the King sent him, in the beginning of 1645, into the West, in the hope that his presence might cure the factions and animosities which were rife. Nervously anxious that in case of his own death or captivity the heir to the throne should be ready to take his place, his father strictly enjoined that he was to keep his residence in a safe garrison, And on no account to engage in any martial actions or be present in any army.
To support him in his new dignity, his first real entrance into public work, the King gave him a council of the highest character, the Duke of Richmond, the Earl of Southampton, Lords Capple, Hopton, and Culpeper, and Hyde, now Sir Edward, the Chancellor of the Exchequer. With them was associated the Earl of Berkshire. The King had realized the unfitness of this appointment, but he applied two remedies. The one was to lessen the Prince his reverence and esteem for his governor, which, as Clarendon remarks, was not necessary. The other to leave the governor without any more authority than every one of the council had, and so much less as the Prince had a better esteem of every one of them than he had of him.
And so left him without a governor, which would have been a little better if he had been without the Earl of Berkshire, too. Charles was created Duke of Cornwall, General of the Western Association, and to soothe the pride of Rupert who would accept a commission from no less a person, generalissimo of all the King's forces in England and Wales. His journey from Oxford, in an incessant downpour of rain and in great straits for food, was less distressing than the scene of indescribable melancholy at Oxford, or that of warring ambitions among the officers, of undisciplined violence and rapine among the troops, and of unfulfilled promises in which he found himself on his arrival at Bristol. No provision had been made, and he was compelled to borrow money from Lord Hopton to obtain the merest necessaries of life.
Under the tutelage of Hyde, which lasted in much the same form for twenty years, he assumed his place in the council, and learned as far as Hyde would allow him, to take an active part in business, to judge and to speak. But it is clear from remarks made by himself years later that he was subjected to the same kind of judicious repression that is generally considered desirable for a lively schoolboy in the presence of grave men. Charles and the council did their best to carry out the mission of introducing order into chaos in the West, and his cousin Rupert gave him, as always, unselfish and loyal support. But the task was hopeless from the first. Goring and Grenville, the former a drunkard and debauchee, the very type of the Ray Kelly cavalier, thwarted all prudent measures by their insubordination, While they made the country ring with their reckless robbery and outrage, and alienated all sympathy from the royal cause.
In April, Charles summoned the commissioners of the western counties to meet him at Bridgewater. Here the public difficulties were more or less arranged, but here too a new element of anxiety for the prince's counselors was introduced. His official nurse in childhood, Mrs. Windham. was wife of the governor of Bridgewater, and through his extraordinary kindness for this woman he was diverted from all serious application to business, even if he were not encouraged by her in the grosser tastes, in which it is clear from an anecdote repeated by Hyde and from the veiled language of other passages, the boy was already initiated. Being a woman of great rudeness and a country pride, nihil muliebre praeter corpus gerens.
She valued herself much upon the power and familiarity which her neighbors might see she had with the Prince of Wales, and therefore upon all occasions and company would use great boldness towards him, and sometimes in dancing would run the length of the room and kiss him. She omitted no opportunity of trying to weaken his respect for his father, and finding that the council was not amenable to her private designs of benefit for herself and her children, she did her best to harass them by creating an opposite faction among other members of his family, in which effort, with the help of the Earl of Berkshire, she was only too successful. From these influences the council removed the prince as soon as possible by returning to Bristol, where they found fresh distractions caused by the intrigues of Goring, Whose jealousy of Rupert knew no bounds.
After a bitter dispute before the King at Oxford, Rupert's influence backed by the Prince's counsel so far prevailed that Goring, whose ambition was fixed upon securing for himself the chief command of the West, was sent back with his desire nominally unattained. But he bore with him nevertheless letters which gave him admittance to all consultations of the council and other concessions which made him practically independent. These letters were delivered by Goring when the prince, driven from Bristol by the plague, was on his way to Barnstable. The council resolutely opposed his pretensions, while he, in despite of them, assumed absolute freedom of control. Under such circumstances, organized resistance to the parliamentary forces rapidly broke down.
At Barnstaple, Charles heard of the disaster at Naseby, and a month later, after Goring's ruinous defeat by Fairfax at Langport, he was compelled to retire farther west to Lounston. There he received explicit instructions from the King that in case of danger of falling into the rebels' hands, he should at once go to France, Where he was to be under his mother's care in all matters except religion, with which his old tutor Brian Duppa was to deal. Against this order the council, led by Hyde, whose jealousy of French influence was inveterate, warmly protested, and they suggested Ireland or Scotland instead. The feeling that the Prince should not leave British soil was expressed at public meetings at Exeter, when he was there in September.
And a little later in Cornwall, where petitions were presented desiring him under no adverse fortune to go to France. A second time after Rupert's surrender at Bristol, the King declared his wishes, and again the Council refused to endorse them. Pushed ever farther west, Charles reached Truro. There it was resolved to make a great effort for the relief of Exeter, and starting on December 26th, He marched by Bodmin to Tavistock and thence to Totnes. Another letter from his father had previously been sent to him, absolutely forbidding recourse to Scotland or Ireland, but ordering him in necessity to retire to Denmark. And now still a fourth arrived, insisting that he should leave the kingdom at once.
This, however, was the precise point upon which the council did not hesitate to renew their resistance to the king's will. They returned an answer that should the need for flight arise, they would send the prince to Scilly or Jersey, since it was imperative that he should continue within the king's dominions. The time for this came very speedily. All hope of relieving Exeter vanished, and the advance of Fairfax Pushed the disheartened Royalists back into Cornwall. On February 15, 1646, Hopton, who had been placed in command, fought the final action of the war at Torrington, and on the 17th, Charles was driven to the last stronghold, Pendennis Castle. There he remained until a design to kidnap him was discovered, when Hyde and Culpepper, having consulted by letter with the other members of the council, who were at a distance, Determined to send him to Silly, Jersey being rejected on account of its nearness to France.
At ten o'clock on the night of Monday, March 2nd, with Hyde, Culpepper, and Berkshire, Charles went on board the Phoenix frigate, and on the afternoon of Wednesday landed in safety but destitute at St. Mary's. Culpepper was at once sent to Paris to ask for help in men and money from the Queen, while Hyde and Berkshire remained in attendance. It was soon clear that the stay in Scilly could not be prolonged. The place itself was bare of provisions, and during six weeks nothing arrived from Cornwall. Mrs. Fanshawe, the wife of Charles' secretary, gives a vivid picture of the straits to which they were reduced. When we had got to our quarters near the castle where the prince lay, I went immediately to bed, which was so vile that my footman never lay in a bedder.
And again, We were destitute of clothes, and meat and fuel for half the court to serve them a month was not to be had in the whole island, and truly we begged our daily bread of God, for we thought every meal our last. The council sent four provisions to France which served us, but they were bad and a little of them. Charles and his attendants soon wearied, as much of inaction as of discomfort, For there was neither amusement nor occupation to be had on the island, and after the life of excitement which he had passed, the change for an active boy was intolerably irksome. Moreover, it was clearly necessary to seek safer as well as better quarters, for there was imminent danger of capture by the cruisers of the Parliament.
His counsel were as before reluctant to go to Jersey, They feared that the jealousy which would be aroused in England by this proximity to France might be prejudicial to his father's safety, but Charles now produced a letter, which by the king's command he had kept secret for nearly a year, wherein he was ordered to do nothing that might endanger his own person, either to rescue his father or even to save his life. Accordingly with the consent of the whole council except Berkshire, And attended by a retinue of three hundred persons, council, grooms of the bedchamber, gentlemen of the privy chamber, cupbearer, carver, master of the robes, pages of the back stairs, pages of honor, equerries, chaplains, barber, and others not officially connected with the household, the prince embarked on a small frigate, the proud Black Eagle, with two other vessels in attendance, And eluding the parliamentary fleet, arrived safely at Elizabeth Castle on the evening of Friday the 17th.
He was received with respectful sympathy, and since there was no fitting residence on the island itself, continued to live there during his stay.
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3 03 - Ch. 1: Prince of Wales, Pt. 3 17:59
Prince of Wales. Part Three. Jersey was exuberantly loyal and proud that in the time of distress she should have been chosen as a refuge. Sunday, April 26, was a great day in the annals of the island. The prince had announced his intention of coming on that day to St. Helier's to attend divine service, and the whole population was there to greet him. The church was carpeted and strewn with flowers, its pillars were decorated with boughs of trees and garlands, the beach was crowded, and every window and house-stop was filled with spectators. A troop of one hundred cavaliers of the island And a guard of honor of three hundred musketeers, with drums beating and colors flying, formed an escort. Throughout his stay in Jersey, under the careful eye of Hyde, Charles exhibited a devout bearing which won the highest approval of the inhabitants.
He was indeed soon on the best of terms with them. Newcastle himself could have found no fault. He was grandement benin, displaying that easy courtesy of address, That graceful condescension in trifles upon which his old tutor had laid such emphasis. By securing to the ladies of Puritan sympathies the restoration of their confiscated finery, by admitting the loyal islanders to see him when he dined in state with Silver Plate, a doctor in theology to say grace, lords and gentlemen-in-waiting uncovered before him, pages, cup-bearers, and tasters. By the infinite grace with which he accepted their contribution of fifteen hundred pistoles, having not twenty pounds in the world, by the punctiliousness with which he returned their salutes.
In a hundred ways, this boy of sixteen secured their enthusiastic affection, while his attention to his duties in the council, and his activity in looking to the strengthening of the defenses of the island and to the relief of Pendennis, Satisfied even Hyde. The time remaining from ceremonial or business was chiefly passed in indulging that passion for the sea which he had apparently acquired during his short stay in Silly, although fear of capture by the Parliament vessels had forbidden going far from shore. On the voyage to Jersey he had insisted upon steering the frigate himself, remaining at the helm for hours at a time. On June 8th, A beautifully appointed yacht arrived, which was built for him at St.
Malo. She had twelve pairs of oars and two masts. Upon this, in the safe waters of the bay, he passed every vacant moment, and the love of salt water and the interest which he then acquired in the details of boat-building remained to the end of his life. Many years after the restoration, Arlington noted, That twenty leagues by sea were more pleasing to him than two by land, and more than once he commissioned the building of a yacht with his own improvements. If Hyde and those who thought with him had had their way, Charles would have remained at Jersey until his father's fate was definitely settled. But his mother was eager to secure his presence in France. As early as April 5th, she had written to Hyde, Under the impression that Charles was still at Silly, urging the change to Jersey, but intimating that he would find every assistance in France, should he chose to land there first.
Culpepper, returning from his mission to Henrietta, arrived at Jersey immediately after the prince, and Hyde, Capel, and Hopton gathered at once from him that the letter was a blind, and that had Charles landed in France, He would never have been allowed to come to Jersey at all. On May 17, Henrietta communicated a copy of a letter written by the king on April 15, in which he insisted upon his son joining her in France, and bade her send to him their united commands to do so at once. Hyde and his friends fought desperately against this design. They had to contend with the influence of Culpeper, who had been won over by the queen during his stay in Paris, And who privately so wrought upon his highness that he became as averse to remaining in Jersey as he had previously been disinclined to leaving it.
All they could do was to persuade Charles to postpone his departure until Capel and Culpepper had carried their remonstrances to the Queen, with their opinion that in any case, delay was necessary until circumstances had more fully declared themselves. On May 20, Hyde recapitulated his arguments in a long dispatch to the Queen's favorite, Lord German, through whom she transacted all business. The anxiety which would at once occur as to the Prince's religion, the sacrifice of his present security and honorable independence, the jealousy which would be aroused in every country at present favorable to his cause, these and other cogent reasons were pressed home. But Hyde's main contention was that the king could be restored only by the affections of his own people, that these affections would be lost if it were known that Charles had gone to France, and that the help of a French army would be disastrous.
A little later he repeated this last argument. I do more fear a French army than the Presbyterians and Independents. It must be the resurrection of the English courage and loyalty must recover England for the King. A foreign aid, except of arms and money, will never reconcile these hearts to the King in his posterity, without which he has no hope of reigning. Hyde's pleading was in vain. The King had again written to his wife from Newcastle that he considered Charles was not safe in Jersey. In God's name let him stay with thee. Till it is seen what ply my business will take. But this was coupled with the command, that thou wouldst not endeavor to alter him in religion, nor so much as trouble him in that point.
Next, that thou mayst not thyself, nor suffer him to be, engaged in any treaty of marriage, without first having my approbation. The Queen wrote accordingly, commanding Charles to give immediate obedience to his father's wish. Promising on the part of the French court an honorable reception, with full liberty to continue or depart at pleasure. Promising also that she would not oppose his going anywhere in the king's dominions, that all business of state should be conducted through him and the council, as in Jersey, and that she would strictly adhere to the king's limitations of her influence. High politics came to her aid. desired to see Charles nominally under French protection, really, as Hyde saw, in French power.
He might prove to be a useful card in the political game with England. An open offer might have caused a breach with the Parliament. There could, however, be no ground of complaint against the prince's coming to visit his mother, and to make sure of his acquiescence, Mazzarone was careful that a letter should reach the hands of the council, in which it was stated that he had certain intelligence of a plot within Charles's household to deliver him to the Parliament. Henrietta's entreaties and commands were strongly reinforced by the impatience of the boy himself to exchange the narrow round of pleasure and interest which the island afforded, and the control of Hyde, for the freedom and the delights which Paris had to offer to a young prince.
On June 20th, When Cappell and Culpeper returned, accompanied by German, Digby, and others of the Queen's friends, the question was finally settled at a meeting of the Prince's council in which the newcomers took part. Hyde, supported by Cappell and Hopton, pleaded for a postponement of the debate on so crucial a matter. German and Culpeper replied that the main question was already decided. Since it was whether the prince was to obey or to disobey his father and mother, the only debate could be upon details. Charles gave his decision in their favor and ordered everything to be in readiness for the next Tuesday morning. Accidents and contrary winds prevented the departure until Thursday afternoon, and the boy's impatience during the enforced delay is vividly pictured for us by an eyewitness.
From Tuesday morning, That he first intended to go, he stayed with great impatience and would never suffer any of his attendants or train to go out of the castle, lest they might be absent in that article of time when the wind should serve, which he resolved to lay hold of. So that nobody went to bed from that time till they came into France, and ate only such meat as my lady Cartwright could suddenly provide. The lords Capelle in Hopden and the Chancellor of the Exchequer went once a day to kiss his hands, and stayed very little time, there growing every day a visible strangeness between them and the rest, insomuch that they had little speech together, and the last day none. The other lords sitting upon the rock of the waterside, whilst they walked upon the bowling green with the prince, who quickly left them, and they returned.
To the last moment. German and Digby were anxious lest Hyde should regain his influence, and when on Thursday morning, June 24, Charles went on board the frigate, they walked by his side, each taking an arm, presenting thus an actual physical barrier against interference. The contrary wind was so violent that he was forced to land again. His impatience was rendered ungovernable by this delay, and about five of the clock, The wind continuing so contrary, he resolved to try his fortune and suddenly put all his company aboard, and himself went into his chalet, resolving to row over. But within half an hour after he was at sea, the wind came fair and blew a pretty gale, so that he went into the bigger vessel, and by eleven of the clock at night reached the French shore at Côte d'Anville, and lay at anchor till daybreak.
And then he landed with all his retinue. Hyde, Capel, and Hopton declined to accompany an expedition of which they utterly disapproved, and Fanshawe remained with them on the island. Berkshire, even more mortified, went to Holland. The personal differences which appeared in this dispute have to be reckoned with throughout the next years. A continual conflict took place between the Queens or the French faction, in which German and Digby And in a less degree, Culpeper were the most prominent, and the party which followed Hyde, the former councillors of the King, Capelle, Hopton, Ormond, and Nicholas. Between the calmness of judgment, the consistent devotion, and the firmness of political principle of the latter, and the comparative absence of all such virtues in the former party, there was a marked contrast.
There remains one episode to be recorded before we follow Charles and his fortunes in France. We could scarcely expect, when we remember the early maturity of his physical nature, that amid the scenes and influences of the past four years his morals should have remained unscathed. But it is somewhat startling to find that before he left Jersey, when he was barely sixteen, the boy had become a father. The secret was well kept. So well, indeed, that more than twenty years afterwards he was able to inform the general of the Jesuits at Rome that it was known to but two other persons, the Queen of Sweden and Henrietta Maria, and that of them neither was aware of the other's knowledge. Of the mother we know absolutely nothing more than Charles disclosed in the same letter.
The boy was born, he says, of a young lady who was amongst the most distinguished in our kingdom, More from the frailty of our first youth than from any ill intentions or great depravity. With her wrecked life, her motherhood, which was her shame, she passes like a nameless shadow across the page. Of the child we hear more. In 1665 he was in London, and on September 27 of that year Charles gave a written acknowledgment that James Stewart was his natural son, Having lived in France and elsewhere under an assumed name up to that date. Charles further ordered that he should be known as James de la Clache du Bourg de Jarsy, and prohibited him from disclosing his birth until after his own death, when he might present this declaration to Parliament.
The boy then went to Holland to pursue his studies. A year and a half later, February 1667, Charles sent him another paper. Which, like the first, still exists in the archives of the Jesuits, assigning to him, if it pleased his successor in Parliament, five hundred pounds a year, which he was to enjoy so long only as he lived in London and remained a member of the English Church. On April 29, 1667, the young man was reconciled to Rome, and that circumstance led to another meeting with his father, which will appear later in the narrative. Charles landed in France with high hopes, born of the assurances he had received, but he was speedily disillusioned. To play the part of the unwilling host to a self-invited guest was Mazarin's obviously prudent course.
Instead of the reception to which he had looked forward, Charles had to make his way unassisted to his mother at Saint-Germain, where Rupert found him in the middle of July. The French, wrote one of his followers, allow the prince nothing of their great promises, and I think the court wished themselves at Jarzy again. With the same political aim, a pretext was found in a dispute as to his precedence over Louis XIV to delay the formal reception demanded by his relationship until August 14th. When he was acknowledged at Fontainebleau with all the elaborate ceremonial which now became the established practice of the French court, he rode on the same side of the coach as the king, and on his right hand, and no point of honor was forgotten and nothing omitted that could testify the close ties of consanguinity.
For his own bearing we hear that truly the prince behaved himself in the journey so handsomely That he has gotten the love of all that have seen him, both men and women. But while every care was taken to give him all that convention demanded, the purely formal nature of the reception was emphasized by his being allowed to extend his stay over no more than the customary three days of court visits. In the midst of his own troubles, Charles I. did not lose sight of his son. He sent Dr. Stewart to be dean of his chapel, And to advise him in all matters of conscience. He bade him hold fast to the right government of the Church, and never to give up the power of the sword when he should come to be king.
And lastly he wrote, I will end this letter with a negative direction, never to give way to the punishment of any for their faithful service to the Crown, upon whatsoever pretense or for whatsoever cause. There is something exquisitely pathetic in this expression of remorse. From the man who sacrificed Stratford, we shall find his son, who had carried his appeal to the coldly obdurate houses, recalling it more than once in after years, even when he followed only too faithfully the precedent rather than the precept. A certain show of desultory education was kept up, The prince gives good Dr. Earle's leave to read with him an hour a day, and Mr. Hobbes to teach him the mathematics another. What progress he makes I know not, but without doubt he hath a sweetness of nature not easy to be corrupted.
Two hours a day probably did not suffice for other experiences. Under able tuition he soon became initiated into the relaxations of a court. Where intrigue, dueling, and license reigned supreme. Buckingham, his old playfellow, found him enough inclined to receive ill impressions, and having himself got into all the impieties and vices of the age, set himself to corrupt the king, in which he was too successful, being seconded in that wicked design by Lord Percy.
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4 04 - Ch. 1: Prince of Wales, Pt. 4 19:15
PRINCE OF WALES. PART IV. There was little doubt that Charles now became the rake in heart and in practice which he remained through life. To one control, however, he had to submit. The queen, like the mother of Falkland, was of a most masculine understanding, allayed by the passion and infirmities of her sex, and of the masterfulness which had subdued her husband, she gave her son an ample experience. With his vices, indeed, she did not interfere, but in all other matters she kept a tight hand upon his behavior. He dared not come into her presence uncovered, He was allowed no share in business except the signing of documents which he did not read. No information on public matters was given him.
On the ground that it was not fitting that the heir to England should be a pensioner upon the King of France, his mother kept to herself the addition to her pension which was made by the court for his support, and for his scanty pocket-money he was dependent upon her, or more galling still, Upon Lord German. So far as she was able, she kept him from English influences, and he must often have sighed for the time when he was at Jersey like a schoolboy, no distance kept, but all suffered to be as familiar with him as if they were his fellows. But now the English were kept at a great distance, while the French were as familiar with him as could be imagined. In all respects but one, But that the one nearest to her heart, she had her will.
His father's commands that she should not interfere with his religion were so precise and unwavering that she dared not disobey, and he never appeared at that time to give Dr. Stewart or good Dr. Earls any anxiety. Indeed, he aroused much searching of heart by his frequent attendance at Charenton, the headquarters of French Protestantism. Of Presbyterianism, that is, of the sternest type, and Hyde, at a distance, hating Presbyterianism even more than he hated France, was obliged to quiet his own mind and other people's minds by the diplomatic reflection that his going to Charenton is no more countenancing Presbyterianism against episcopacy than the sending an ambassador into Holland is countenancing a republic against monarchy.
But what had the black baby become by this time? Fortunately, we have the testimony of two women. His mother's old friend and governess, Madame de Motville, describes him as very well made, his swarthy complexion agreed well with his large bright eyes, his mouth was exceedingly ugly, his figure extremely fine. He was very tall for his age. He had probably now reached his full stature of over two yards high, and carried himself with grace and dignity, the effect of his birthright and of Newcastle's training. His natural tendency to wit and repartee, of which he gave the first note in his child's letter to Newcastle, was not noticed, for at that time he hesitated and even stammered. A defect observed in his father, and still more in his uncle, Louis XIII.
And Mademoiselle de Montpensier describes him as tall for his age, with a beautiful head, black hair, a swarthy complexion, and a tolerable figure. This very lively young lady had ample opportunity for noting Charles's personal qualities. Cousin to Louis XIV, and through her mother the richest heiress in Europe, The Grand Mademoiselle had been selected by Henrietta Maria even two years ago when the successive proposals for the daughters of the King of Portugal and Prince of Orange fell to the ground as a fitting match for her son. She was clever and conscious of her cleverness, beautiful and vain of her beauty, which, as she stands before her mirror, she lovingly and minutely describes. Fond of her independence, Of her command of wealth and of the power which wealth brings, clear-sighted and shrewd of tongue.
And it is to her own facile and spirited pen that we owe the account of the strange courtship of which, at his mother's bidding, Charles now performed the outward invisible signs. Two great obstacles were in the way. The lady herself had higher views than to be the consort of an exiled and penniless youth. She was as ambitious as she was rich and capable, and she had made up her mind to be the second wife of the Emperor upon the expected death of his first. In the next place, Charles could not speak French. No French had been allowed at his father's court, and even his mother had partly forgotten her own tongue before she returned to Paris, and he was forced, to carry on his courtship in dumb show, Or through Rupert's interpretership.
And this she declared to be unsatisfactory. Charles seems to have performed his part with as much conscientiousness as he ever gave to an uncongenial task. In legitimate lovemaking, indeed, he was as little at home as young Marlowe and she stoops to conquer. But he wore Mademoiselle's colors. He sighed like furnace. He made sheep's eyes at her in default of speech. He held the light while his mother dressed her hair and performed even more intimate mysteries of the toilet. He attended her at every festivity, ready hat in hand to lead her to her coach, and having anticipated her arrival, ready again to hand her out. If only he could have spoken for himself, she intimates, she might have yielded.
But neither the lad of seventeen nor the mature coquette of nineteen had the least heart in the business, while the anxious and tactless Henrietta, by her incessant talk about his love, his virtues, and his agonies of apprehension lest the empress should die, made her object so apparent to the sharp-witted girl, that although she appears to have given some sort of provisional assent, It was clearly with the object of escaping from further insistence. Even Henrietta's simple device of attempting to arouse her jealousy by drawing Charles into a flirtation with one of her maids of honor was not effective. Mademoiselle was indeed a good deal piqued, but that was all. As for Charles, flirtation was a policy which he was quite willing to carry out, but he insisted on his own choice.
and declared himself the servant of the beautiful Mademoiselle de Chatillon. As a matter of fact, the marriage never came within the region of practical considerations. Neither Mademoiselle's father, Gaston d'Orléans, nor, far more important, Mazzarand, had any intention of allowing her vast wealth to leave France. Henrietta was allowed to go on with her schemes, since at any moment It would be easy to stop the farce. No one, we may be sure, was more happy than Charles himself when this extraordinary courtship was interrupted by matters of more immediate moment. Something else, indeed, was needed if the clouds were to be dissipated which hung so thickly above the royal fortunes. Friends must be found, armies must be raised, battles must be fought.
Neither France nor Spain Engaged as they were in an exhausting struggle, would risk the active enmity of the English Parliament, although neither would at present ally herself with an anti-monarchical government. The French court, moreover, with the difficulties of the Fronde opening fast, confronted by a turbulent nobility against which all the resource of Anne of Austria and Mazarin was needed, if they were to hold their own, With the finances at the lowest ebb, was bent on avoiding all external complication. To use the presence of Charles to his advantage in dealing with England was Mazarin's sole aim. If the Parliament grew weak, a show of active assistance to the Prince might obtain advantageous terms.
As, however, they were strong, he could be used equally as a means of conciliating their favor. Thus, in May 1647, an edict was issued forbidding ships with commissions from Charles I or the Prince to sail from French ports, and denouncing their commanders as pirates and robbers. And the Prince himself was made to understand that, as Hyde had foreseen, he was practically a court prisoner of France. So resolved was Mazarin to keep him in his power, That he refused to grant his wish to join the French forces in Flanders on the pretext that it was beneath the dignity of the heir apparent of England to serve in a foreign army. From his brother-in-law, the Prince of Orange, and his sister, Mary, he was indeed secure of hospitality and sympathy.
But they were prevented from promising more, for to the merchant oligarchy, which was stronger than themselves, Commerce was the overwhelming interest, and the parliamentary fleets swept the sea. It soon became clear that Presbyterian Scotland and Catholic Ireland remained the only possible sources from which help might come for the restoration of a monarchy to which Presbyterianism and Catholicism were like abhorrent, and that from neither was help to be expected without unpalatable conditions. Scotland was sharply divided. There was the party led by Argyle, to whom the covenant was the gospel traced by the glowing fingers of Jehovah himself, who hated the English independence, and who was bitterly disappointed at the failure to impose Presbyterianism upon England.
The party ready to fight for the king, if by so doing, they could secure the covenant. But which protested against war without that condition. And there was the party of Hamilton, Lauderdale, and the other engagers, who nominally, adherents of the covenant, and forced to speak its language if they would continue in public life, hoped to use the power it implied to restore the king. In the summer of 1647, the Earl of Dunferman was sent to France by the Presbyterians of London and the Scottish commissioners, who were still there, to urge the dispatch of Charles to Scotland that he might head an army of invasion which would be seconded by a rising in England itself. But Hyde, who was consulted by Henrietta, although still in Jersey, had no desire for a restoration which should place the crown under the heel of the Kirk.
And he insisted that no step should be taken until the Scots had declared their intentions and conditions plainly and finally. Argyle's reply was a protest against war until the King should accept the covenant. But national opinion in Scotland, as distinguished from that of the rigid covenanters, was keen for war. And Hamilton, to whom the parliamentary majority representing this feeling had passed at the beginning of 1648, Although the assembly of the Kirk, in union with Argyle, was absolutely opposed to the engagers, was resolved upon immediate action, while by January 24, 1648, the preliminaries of an English rising had been arranged. The Queen pawned her jewels to raise funds, and it was decided that Charles should go to Calais to be ready for emergencies.
Mazarin, however, forbade a further journey into Holland. Commissions were issued in the Prince's name to Langdale and Lord Byron to command in the north and northwest of England, respectively. He himself was longing for employment, and the engagers were anxious to secure the prestige of his presence. But the disinclination to send him to Scotland was as strong as ever. You shall have him, Hamilton was told. When they know not where else to send him. That moment came very soon. The objections to the alternative plan of Ireland were found to be inseparable. The Queen became an advocate for the journey. Hyde was overruled, and Mazarin gave way. On March 9th, after a heated debate in the Council, the Prince's resolution was taken without more ceremony to come into Scotland.
On the twenty-third his offer was carried to Edinburgh, and on May 1st Hamilton, Lauderdale, and three other lords formally invited him to place himself at their head. On May 30th Charles was inexpressibly desirous of himself and impatient to be amongst you. But it was not until the middle of July, after Hamilton had marched on the ill-fated expedition which ended at Preston, That his messenger returned with Charles's acceptance of the invitation, coupled, however, with the demand that he should be allowed to use the English prayer book in his public devotions, and with other stipulations which cut athwart covenanting feeling. Meanwhile, sure of a welcome from his sister and the Prince of Orange, Charles had been bent upon going to Holland, and he was upheld in his desire by his most disinterested advisers.
They all felt with Nicholas that nothing will do your friends so much good as to see your highness on the wing ready for their assistance, while Hyde, in direct opposition to the German faction, was overjoyed at the prospect of his removal from France. No greater testimony of Hyde's reputation for judgment and integrity could have been given than the urgent and reiterated summons from the queen to come now to Saint-Germain, Although he had consistently opposed her in all that concerned Charles's relations with France. He obeyed without delay, only to find that Charles was already gone to Holland. Mazzarone, reluctant as he was to lose his hold upon the Prince, was not sorry now to be rid of one of the many embarrassments which pressed upon him.
The Fronde had begun in earnest. The provinces were stirring in revolt. The Spanish forces were fast gaining ground. Accordingly, the formal consent of France was at length given, unaccompanied, however, by any money, and it was some weeks before German could raise the small sum necessary. On June 25th, with Rupert, Culpepper, and Hopton, Charles left Saint-Germain. He had intended to join Hamilton as soon as that leader had crossed the border. But tidings that part of the fleet had revolted from the Parliament and was lying off the Dutch coast, that Royalist Risings had taken place in various parts of England, that Diehl, Sundown, and Walmer had been captured, and that Dover was besieged, took him at once to Holland.
On July 9th, he arrived at Helfwitschlaus, where the revolting ships were at anchor. The crews were in a state of the wildest undiscipline. His younger brother James, just escaped from England, was playing at being admiral, while a certain Colonel Bamfield, who had assisted him in his flight, was intriguing with the sailors to declare the Duke their commander and to sail without waiting for Charles. The Prince's first care was to impose discipline, and following his mother's instructions, to secure the Presbyterian element in the fleet, by making Lord Willoughby of Parham vice-admiral. But he was in poor case for an expedition of any moment. From the commercial oligarchy in Holland, he could get no help, for their interest was peace, and the Prince of Orange was able to give him only a small stock of provisions in beer.
Anxious to keep the wild crews together, he nevertheless put to sea on July 17th, having first set James on shore as a check to his presumption, Whereat the young Duke was much troubled and grown melancholy upon it, thus to be used as a prisoner and not trusted with himself. We can imagine Charles's delight when he felt the deck under his feet and watched the receding shores of Holland. It was not so much that he was once more on salt water, nor that action was before him worthy of a disinherited prince. For the first time he was his own master. Free of Hyde and German and Mademoiselle de Montpensier. Free of the council and of the factions in his family. Free, above all, of his mother's imperious control.
On July 24th, the fleet was off Yarmouth, hoping by a timely landing to save Colchester from Fairfax. But the town was staunch to the Parliament, and the fortress was left to its fate while Charles sailed to the Downs. To obtain funds, he seized all merchant vessels making for the Thames, offering to liberate them on payment of twenty thousand pounds by the Common Council. He established a strict blockade at the mouth of the river, where Warwick was lying with the rest of the parliamentary fleet, and he wrote to the House of Lords, urging them to a treaty with his father. He was now joined by Captain Batten, who brought with him the Constant Warwick. One of the best ships in the Parliamentary Service.
He thus had a fleet of eleven ships carrying 274 guns.
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5 05 - Ch. 1: Prince of Wales, Pt. 5 18:54
PRINCE OF WALES. PART V.
On August 10, Lauderdale arrived at the Downs with instructions from the Committee of Estates, issued after Hamilton had begun his march, to induce the Prince to come to Scotland. Charles was desired not to bring with him Rupert, Montrose, Digby, and a few others who were named, or his uncovenanted chaplains, and to promise that he would use the established Presbyterian service. About taking the covenant, there was not a word. To secure the acceptance of these desires, Lauderdale held many private conferences with the prince, and separately with his counselors. Charles pleaded for delay until he could obtain his father's opinion, but Lauderdale, strong in the knowledge of Hamilton's march, insisted upon an immediate decision.
The prince now took his first lesson in the policy of acting along the line of least resistance. On the 16th, Lauderdale was called into the council, and there, to the utter consternation of Rupert, Hopton, and the other cavaliers, received Charles's submission. Lauderdale himself describes the scene, how he was placed next to Rupert, how Hopton, Gerard, and at first Culpeper were irreconcilable, how Percy and Wilmot were extremely right, Willoughby most honest and wholly Scots. On one point only a compromise was effected. Charles made a personal request. That the exclusion of Rupert and Morris should not be verbally insisted on. And Lauderdale, who described how handsomely Prince Rupert carried himself, how willing he was to efface himself rather than embarrass Charles, met him in this.
But Lauderdale knew very well that Charles's submission to the will of the Scots still hung in the balance. The Lord bless our army, he wrote. For all depends upon that under God. He might well say so. A few days later news came of the disaster at Preston. The engagers, from whom alone Charles could hope for tolerable terms, were ruined and helpless. If he now went to Scotland, he would go bound hand and foot to Argyle and the Kirk. Tidings that Colchester had fallen determined him to lead his fleet back to Holland. Whither he advised Lauderdale, who dared not return to Scotland, and who was very tired of wagging at sea, to betake himself and await his arrival. But the sailors, who were bent upon fighting, crowded the upper deck and appealed to Charles to lead them against Warwick, cursing my lord Culpeper openly and my lord Lauderdale, whom they threatened to throw overboard.
Rightly or wrongly, they were under the belief that the Prince meant to go with a single vessel in his suite to Scotland, and they had become violently opposed to concessions to the Scots. Charles himself went among them, pointed out the want of provisions and water, the impossibility of doing anything effective against Warwick, their helplessness if contrary winds arose. But no rhetoric could alter this mad multitude from their design. For they fancied that upon the sight of our ships many of them would come into us, which would destroy Warwick's fleet, and make us absolute masters at sea. Yet for all this we took another resolution for Holland, the prince, for no man else durst, set again upon the seamen to desire their leave, and gave them so kind words, that at length his ship was, after a sort, content to go for Holland.
So we set sail, which the other ships seeing, two of the biggest sailed from us and away, were going for Lee Road as fast as they could, which we perceiving were forced to tack about and steer their course, finding that there was nothing to be done till we had been in Lee Road. So away we went as needs must when the devil drives. On August 29th, They spied Warwick's fleet coming toward us, at which all our cabins were knocked down, every ship cleared and put into a posture for fighting, and every landman had his station and musket, and so we sailed towards him, desiring nothing more than to fight with him. Many years afterwards, Charles related how Sir W. Batten, being in the ship with him and Prince Rupert, did walk up and down with a napkin under his throat to dry up his sweat.
And that Prince Rupert, being a most jealous man, and particularly if Batten, being a Presbyterian, do walk up and down swearing bloodily to the king that Batten had a mind to betray them to-day, and that the napkin was a signal. But by God, says he, if things go ill, the first thing I will do is to shoot him. Charles himself behaved with spirit. When his lords and all his seamen came to desire him to go down into the hold, he would not hear of it, but told them his honor was more to him than his safety, and desired them not to speak of it any more. But the expected fight was prevented by a storm. The sailors were at length persuaded that they must give way, when they found but one bud of beer on the fleet and no water.
And on September 3rd they were at anchor at Gori. Thither Warwick followed, and summoned them to surrender. But the states, who were resolved that no fighting should take place in their waters, ordered Van Tromp—Van Butterbox, the sailors called him—to lie between the hostile fleets. "'Here we are, I thank God,' writes the eyewitness whom we have quoted, "'and if ever they get me into their sea voyages again, I am much mistaken.'" Probably the only person who had really enjoyed himself was Charles. One other incident, very personal to Charles, belongs to this time. On April 9, 1649, the woman named Lucy Walters or Barlow, a beautiful brown and sippid creature, with not much wit, little means and less grace, gave birth at Rotterdam to the future Duke of Monmouth.
Charles at once acknowledged the boy. Proving that whether he were really his own son, or, as is more probable, the son of Robert Sidney, whose mistress she had been, and whom the child greatly resembled, the connection between himself and her must have begun during the week, July 9th through 16th, 1648, before he set out to sea. It is interesting to be assured by grave historians that he was at this time eminent for continence. The brothers now became permanent visitors of the Prince of Orange, the states having limited their hospitality to ten days at the rate of one thousand guilders a day. Charles had ample occupation in the endeavor to appease the quarrels among his followers, especially between Rupert and Culpepper, representing the Scotch and anti-Scotch factions, which went so far that Culpepper was seriously beaten in the street by one of Rupert's adherents.
He had also to make his fleet into a good fighting machine. The ships were in dock, and the guns on shore. The crews were dispersed as far as Rotterdam, rioting and drinking. Some of the ships were carried back by their crews to the Parliament. Others were retaken. Andorra Slouse, the agent of the Parliament, was justified in writing word that nothing serious was to be feared from the fleet. In November, Charles, whose vigorous constitution had enabled him to make a rapid recovery from a severe attack of smallpox, created Rupert, admiral of the vessels that remained in the place of Willoughby, a concession to Cavalier feeling, probably to be laid to Hyde's door. Two or three refused to have any commander but James.
But here they had to deal with Rupert, who restored discipline by the simple process of throwing ringleaders into the sea with his own strong arms. Morris was appointed vice-admiral, and the ships were newly officered. For a time this squadron, the only semblance of royalist strength now in a condition to make itself felt, did useful work by capturing prizes which were sold, though for ridiculously low sums, to replenish Charles's almost empty exchequer. It was intended, however, that as soon as possible, Rupert should sail to cooperate with Ormond in Ireland. Ever since he had landed at Gorry, Charles had had by his side the wise and consistent counsellor to whom he afterwards owed his throne.
We have seen that Hyde, had been summoned in haste by the Queen from Jersey, But had reached Saint-Germain, only to find that the prince had already left. He set off straightway in pursuit with Lord Coddington, an old advisor of Charles I of like mind with himself. Missing their master at Calais, they sailed to Dunkirk, and there heard that he was already at sea. They strove to reach him in a small vessel, but were taken by pirates, and robbed of all they had. Finally reaching the Hague, Destitute and nearly dead with seasickness, a day only before Charles returned. Three weeks later Hyde addressed to the Queen, though it was never actually sent, a remarkable letter, wherein he expressed again with unmistakable distinctness the opinions from which he never swerved throughout all the weary years to follow.
Never, he said, would he consent, still less contribute, To anything that might carry hazard to the full and perfect rights of the Church of England, should either she or the King be inclined under any notions of expedience to injure the Church, and thereby the Crown. He would endeavor all means lawful and possible to prevent it. He had heard that with her approbation the Prince had at Lauderdale's demand put himself into the power and disposition of the Scots. Which I did not expect. The danger was for the moment past through Hamilton's defeat, but she must understand clearly that under no circumstances would he lend himself to such a course, nor would he attend the prince if he should ever decide to go to Scotland.
If after this clear exposition his counsel was still desired, he trusted he might be disposed of, to some other part of her service, When he would, with all imaginable obedience, observe her commands. In these views, although they are nowhere expressed so uncompromisingly, Ormond and Nicholas concurred, while Culpeper, Percy, Long, the prince's secretary, and Dr. Fraser, his physician, were the chief saints in the Presbyterian calendar. For the time, the Scottish plan was as dead as Hyde could wish. It was not until December that Charles had received the letters written to him after Hamilton's rout by the Committee of Estates in Scotland and the Assembly of the Kirk, who were now in harmony. The committee, out of the duty they owed to him as our native prince, urged him at once to repudiate the engagers and to induce his father to agree to the Hampton Court terms, especially as regarded the covenant and the reformation of religion.
The letter from the commissioners of the assembly said the same, but with greater emphasis which was customary with the Kirk. They exhorted the prince to be diligent in reading the holy scriptures, and frequent in prayer for grace and understanding, and trusted that God would not give him over to the counsel of the ungodly. All this and much more led up to the real point. We are persuaded there is not a better means for securing the King's throne than that your royal father and your highness should join in this league and covenant. The replies drafted by Hyde were of a nature to discourage further correspondence for a time. The Prince was made to rejoice over the wishes expressed in these letters to secure the removal of all differences betwixt the King and his subjects, He threw the onus of obtaining this desirable object entirely upon the writers, congratulated them upon their dutiful and pious attitude, and said not a word about the covenant.
It was quite certain that as long as Hyde's advice were listened to, a journey to Scotland would not find favor. But Ireland remained, and Hyde was urgent that Charles should go thither at the first opportunity. It was therefore arranged that the prince should winter in Jersey, whence he might easily sail upon receipt of good news from Ormond. His mother was fain to accompany him to Ireland, but the frond was now in full swing, the French court was compelled to leave Paris, money was not to be had, and she herself, during a winter of extreme severity, was in such distress that she had not a Sioux To get a dinner or a gown, and would have been without even a fire, but for the kind-heartedness of de Retz.
At length the Parliament of Paris gave her a supply for her immediate necessities, and James was sent to her from Holland in the middle of February, after he had dismissed the greater number of his servants, among them Peter Massanet the sublector, who had taught both his brother and himself to write. Charles also reduced his household and took up his residence at Breda, the private patrimony of the Prince of Orange, on the frontier of the Low Countries, where he was maintained in comfort by his brother-in-law. It was now that he received from his father three long letters, giving a detailed account of the proceedings of the Isle of White Treaty. They were the last letters to him from the king, and the second of them concludes with a passage, By what has been said, you see how long we have labored in the search of peace.
Do not you be disheartened to tread in the same steps. Use all worthy ways to restore yourself to your right, but prefer the way of peace. And in this, give belief to our experience. Never to affect more greatness or prerogative than that which is really and intrinsically for the good of subjects, not satisfaction of favorites. And if you thus use it, you will never want means to be a father to all, and a bountiful prince to any you would extraordinarily be gracious unto. You may perceive all men entrust their treasure where it returns them interest. And if princes, like the sea, receive and repay all the fresh streams the rivers entrust with them, they will not grudge but pride themselves to make them up an ocean.
These considerations may make you as great a prince as your father is now a low one, and your state may be so much the more established as mine hath been shaken. For subjects have learned that victories over their prince are but triumphs over themselves. And so will be more unwilling to hearken to changes hereafter. The English nation are a sober people, however at present infatuated. We know not, but this may be the last time we may speak to you or the world publicly. We are sensible into what hands we are fallen, and yet we have these inward refreshments the malice of our enemies cannot perturb. To conclude, If God gives you success, use it humbly and far from revenge. If He restore you to your rights on hard conditions, whatever you promise, keep.
Do not think anything in this world worth the obtaining by foul or unjust means. You are the Son of our Love, and as we direct you to weigh what we have recommended to you, so we assure you we do not more affectionately pray for you Then we do that the ancient glory and renown of this nation be not buried in irreligious or fanatic humor, and that the ancient laws, with the interpretation according to the known practice, may once again be a hedge about our subjects, that you may in due time govern, and they be governed, as in the fear of God. On January 13, 1649, within a month of reading these words, Charles was apprised of his father's danger. On the next day he made a personal appeal to the States.
Even now he was unable to address them in French. By the same vessel that carried their mission of remonstrance, he forwarded to the Council in England that eloquent blank sheet of paper, which may still be seen in the Bodleian Library, bearing nothing but his signature. In order that upon it might be written the conditions of his father's life. On the 18th, he appealed to the young King of France and to Mazarin. On February 5th, he knew that the blow had fallen when Dr. Goff, his chaplain, addressed him as, Your Majesty.
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Prince of Wales. Part Six.
It was not to be expected that the outburst of grief which followed the news should last long. The tie between father and son could never have been close. Charles I was an anxious But scarcely a fond parent. All intimacy with his son had been given up when the boy was eight years of age, and the turmoil of war and the ceremony of royalty had prevented any reforming of the bond. For three years, full of distractions which would efface any lively recollections, they had not met. Under such circumstances, it is difficult to blame him. If the past was soon obscured by the possession of kingship, and by the prospect of a career of adventure more exciting than anything he had hitherto experienced. The tragedy affected him, and for the time deeply, but not as it affected his father's old counselors and friends.
The horror with which it struck them made them well-nigh inarticulate. It was murder. Murder most foul and most unnatural. A band of wicked men had done to death more than their king, more than a good and gracious master, and a man of pure and pious life. In his person they had violated the sacredness of monarchy, the sacredness of the Church, the laws and liberties of England, everything for which his servants had sacrificed home Friends, children, and estates, and for which they had been at any moment willing to give their lives. This drumhead court-martial was not the act of the people of England. It was not an execution, or an incident of warfare. It was murder, which cried for vengeance.
My soul abhors the thought of it, of which no age ever heard the likes as Nicholas. Grenville trusted. That God will revenge it on the heads of the damned authors and contrivers of it. Through all distractions, wrote Hatton, I must enforce myself to action when it may conduce to revenge the blood of that royal and glorious martyr upon those base and inhuman murderers. It is not until the intensity of this feeling is realized that we cease to wonder that the best and noblest of Charles's followers, Hyde, the type of integrity, Ormond, framed to none but gallant ends, were without shame cognizant of plots to assassinate Cromwell, or any such as Dorislaus, who were associated with him in the deed.
There was no chance of bringing the murderers to trial, even such a mockery of trial as that which had been granted to their victim. There was no law by which these bloody reigning villains could be touched. To those who mourned for the slain king and all that he stood for, the destroying by whatever means of Cromwell and all who had acted with him in the inexpiable crime would be a righteous act. The fact that Charles was away from his mother's direct influence at the moment of his nominal accession to the throne Enabled Hyde to secure the selection of a privy council composed of the old friends of Charles I, with the exception of Long, who was in Henrietta's interest. The pressing question before them was that of the King's immediate movements.
The nervous anxiety of the States to avoid provoking Cromwell forbade any prolonged stay in Holland. Especially after the murder of Dorislaus, the agent of the Commonwealth with the States, by some cavalier Bravos. While Charles was resolved not to imperil his newly-tasted liberty by yielding to his mother's urgent desire that he would join her in Paris. In this he was, of course, supported by all of Hyde's way of thinking. I hold, said Lord Hatton from Paris, Lord German's counsels and designs as pernicious and destructive as ever, and his power as vast and exorbitant. His present endeavor is to tie up the king as much as ever his father was to the counsel of the queen. Moreover, Hatton argued it was quite possible that in order to gain the support of the Commonwealth against the Frondeur, the court might urge his renunciation of his title or make their market of him with the English.
There remained once more as a refuge Scotland and Ireland, and there was a choice of three policies—a royalist movement in England, a Catholic movement in Ireland, and a covenanting movement in Scotland. All tidings made it clear that the first of these was for the time impossible. Charles's personal inclination was for Ireland, whither, after granting a full indemnity to the Irish rebels, he had, on January 22nd, received an invitation from Ormond, and where he knew he should find Rupert with the fleet. Subject to the retention of Scottish goodwill, this course was supported by the Queen. Scotland itself was not a fit place unless there was entire union with an absolute and unlimited declaration from them to join with all others of what nation or condition soever to revenge the murder of His Majesty of ever-blessed memory.
Unless, that is, Scotch Covenanters would join with Irish Catholics and English Erastians and sectaries unless vinegar would mix with oil. The Scots soon made their terms clear. On February 7th, Charles had been proclaimed King in Edinburgh, but before being admitted, he was to give satisfaction concerning religion, the union of the kingdoms, and the good and peace of Scotland according to the National Covenant and the Solemn League and Covenant, the damnable covenant in Hyde's brief anathema. If His Majesty, said Bailey, may be moved to join with us in this one point, he will have all Scotland ready to sacrifice their lives for his service. If he refuse or shift this duty, his best and most useful friends, both here and elsewhere, will be cast into inextricable labyrinths, we fear for the ruin of us all.
On February 20th, Sir Joseph Douglas brought an offer from Argyle to send commissioners to arrange for the King's reception in Scotland on condition of his good behavior, strict observance of the covenant, and his entertaining no other persons about him, but such as were godly men and faithful to that obligation. The covenanting Scots were anxious, as the engagers had been, for the prestige of his presence. Since their proclamation of the king had made war certain with the hated sectaries of England. But had an angel from heaven appeared to lead their armies, and had he refused the covenant, there would have been a scant following among those for whom all other attributes of God were obscured by the certainty that he was the prime covenanter.
Charles was not yet reduced to submit himself to the sour tyrannies of the Kirk. There were other Scotchmen besides Argyle and his zealots. His little court was crowded with the ostracized and banished engagers, Hamilton, Lauderdale, and many others, as well as with pure royalists like Napier and Sinclair. Thitherto came Montrose, to confer in secret with Hyde, Montrose, the one purely heroic figure of the time. On February 22nd, Charles privately created him Lieutenant Governor of Scotland and Captain General of all forces there, or brought there out of England or Ireland. That is, at the same moment that he refused to close with Argyle, he gave his approval to a purely Royalist and anti-Covenant undertaking in Covenanting Scotland.
On March 27th, the Commissioners arrived. Charles was in no hurry to meet them. And was taken up by his Easter devotions for some days. On April 11th, however, the long contest fairly began between unyielding Kirk and Debonair Prince. Cassillus and Robert Bailey addressed him for the Parliament and Kirk respectively. He was asked to take the covenants, to assent to acts of Parliament imposing them on England and Ireland, and to dismiss Montrose. Every day, wrote his cousin, the Princess Sophia, they bring some new proposition to the king, full of importunity. They would not have him keep any honest man about him. Playing the double game, which soon became familiar, Charles put off the commissioners on the ground that he expected all their propositions together, while he secretly empowered Montrose to treat with foreign kings and states for help.
A few days later, he was presented with a volume of light reading, the National Covenant, the Solemn League and Covenant, the Confession of Faith, the Directory, and other Presbyterian Gospels, bound together in a book so handsome as we could get them. When, however, the commissioners requested another interview, Charles was abroad hunting. Growing weary of these delays, they demanded a final answer on May 1. After consultation with Montrose, Hamilton, and Lauderdale, the king replied on the nineteenth that he would accept the covenants for Scotland only. The actual meaning of this appears in Hyde's paraphrase to the king of Spain. He deferred the thought of going himself in person into Scotland till the affections of that people be reformed or reduced, which he doubts not will shortly be done by the Marquess of Montrose.
The commissioners returned to Scotland in disappointment and anger, and on the day on which he gave his reply, Charles named Montrose Admiral of Scotland. But Bailey, though baffled for the time, was of good comfort. When the rotten reed of Ireland is broken, he will think better of our propositions. Possessing a good deal of the milk of human kindness, Bailey had been captivated by Charles. Of a very sweet and courteous disposition, it were all the pities in the world, but he were in good company. And again, he is one of the most gentle, innocent, well-inclined princes, so far as yet appears, that lives in the world. A trim person, and of a manly carriage, understands pretty well, speaks not much.
Would God he were amongst us! And while lamenting that he is firm to the tenants his education and company has planted in him, Bailey declares that if God would send him among us, without some of his present counselors, I think he would make by God's blessing as good a king as Britain saw these hundred years. Hatton, from another point of view, writes almost at the same time of his judgment, not inferior to the sweetness of his disposition, Though the latter as yet doth too much prevail to the apprehension of those who do not thoroughly know the former. With his more official advisers also, Charles was acquiring a good character. Nicholas speaks of his insight into business, of his steadfastness when he had once formed a good resolution, and of that discernment of men which was so well expressed in later years.
Where men had chinks. He would see through them as soon as anyone about him. Hyde, somewhat less expansively, describes him as being as hopeful for virtue and judgment as you can expect from one of his years in education. Meanwhile, the course of the negotiation with the Scots and the probability that it would be necessary to renew it had led to the departure of Hyde from the court. His uncompromising opposition to all covenanting schemes, whether from Kirk or Engagers, had caused a deadlock to the council which could only be removed by his absence. At the suggestion of the Prince of Orange, he was therefore sent with his old friend Lord Coddington, a Catholic and a favorite at Madrid, to see if the sorely needed funds could be procured from the Court of Spain.
Hyde was deeply hurt. And pointedly asked the king whether the mission had been manufactured in order to get rid of him. He had also to bear the reproaches of his friends. Sir E. Hyde, says Nicholas, would fain justify his going into Spain, but it is not in the wit of man to do it. God forgive him. The result was apparent at once. The very next day the Scots had a better day of it at council than at any time before. Hyde and Coddington were instructed to promise the Spanish court that Charles would, when restored, protect the Catholics and try to obtain a parliamentary repeal of the penal laws, and to offer as security for a loan the goods of his English subjects in Spain. They were to endeavor to secure peace between France and Spain, When Charles might fairly hope for the combined help of the two crowns, and to gain the goodwill of the Pope's nuncio, and through him of the Pope himself, to whom a special agent, Robert Maynell, was sent with similar promises and requests.
Charles was indeed at his wits' end for money. The small supplies which Montrose had been able to obtain were absorbed in the preparations of his projected expedition. The Dutch refused a request for ships and an advance of twenty thousand pounds. The Prince of Orange had done all he could. A small loan only was obtained by Culpeper from the Tsar. Rupert's prizes were insignificant. From France and her distractions, nothing was to be had. The Queen offered to sell her pawned jewels, but as Hyde pointed out, this was not of much use. Since it would cost more to get them out of pawn than could be raised. Strange items of help indeed reached Henrietta. The old Princess of Condé, a former lover of her father, sent an extraordinarily fat mutton to the Queen as a kind of monster for the fatness of it, and in the belly of the sheep were two thousand crowns.
But Charles's debt soon amounted to thirty thousand pounds. And farther stay in Holland was useless. In June he went to Brussels, cursing the Hollanders, of whom there cannot be ill enough spoken, in order from thence to back his envoy's appeals at Madrid. But all such appeals were useless. Spain had no money to spare, and was very much afraid of those powerful devils at Westminster. She was indignant because Rupert was selling his prizes in the hostile territory of Portugal. She was at war with France, and Charles was about to join his mother on French soil. So long as Rupert was hovering on her coasts, Hyde and Coddington were well treated. But this ceased when Blake came in pursuit, and by Christmas they saw no chance of bread for a month longer.
They lingered on throughout 1650 in wretched plight, as did Maynell in Rome, under alternate hope and despair. Simply because they had not money to pay for their return. In December it was intimated to them that their continued official presence was disagreeable. Coddington was allowed to stay and to die in retirement in Spain. Hyde, supplied with a little money by the Spanish court, left in March 1651, and after a visit to the Queen at Paris, reached Antwerp in November. End. of Section Six.
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Prince of Wales. Part Seven. Meanwhile, Charles had joined his mother and James at St. Germain in July 1649. She soon found that this period of independence had made him a very different person. For some time, it was prophesied, the Queen will govern all, but not long. Henrietta expressed her annoyance that he had filled up his privy council without her advice. He told her bluntly that she must not interfere. The Queen began to confer with the King of his business, in which she found him so reserved, as if he had no mind she should be conversant with it. He made no apologies to her, nor any professions of resigning himself to her advice. He did as good as desire her not to trouble herself in his affairs, and finding her passion strong, he frequently retired from her with some abruptness.
In one matter he was ruled by her wish. He at once took up the interrupted courtship of the Grand Mademoiselle. He had but just emerged from a similar enterprise. His cousin Sophia, the sister of Rupert and Morris, was residing at The Hague during his stay with her mother, Elizabeth of Bohemia, and a flirtation, at least, was but natural. Fortunately, she, too, has left us the story in her own words, for she had a quick eye and a sound judgment, and a sense of humor, which did not spare those whom she loved most, as when she said of her precieuse sister Elizabeth, That all her philosophy did not save her from vexation when her nose was red. She describes how keen was the competition for Charles, what pains the English took to secure her favor when it was expected that he would marry her, how the dowager Princess of Orange, who wanted him for one of her own daughters, laid a deliberate plot to compromise her with her married son, and thereby to ruin her prospects, And how Charles avoided her while the Scotch commissioners were there, since she made no disguise of her hatred of Presbyterianism and of her worship of Montrose.
For a time Sophia owns, she was attracted by her cousin, and flattered by his attentions, but the wooing was cut short somewhat abruptly by his own clumsiness. He never really took the trouble to make love, And he could think of no better compliment to pay her than to say that she was handsomer than Mrs. Barlow. As Mrs. Barlow's reputation was perfectly well known at The Hague, the Princess thought fit to mark her sense of the impropriety, and when next he asked her to walk out with him, she excused herself on the ground that she had a corn on her foot. Besides, she knew that the marriages of great kings are not made in so simple a fashion. And farther, although Charles was richly endowed by nature, he was not sufficiently so by fortune to allow him to think of marriage, especially as there was no money on her side.
But it was not until Charles abandoned Montrose that he lost all chance of retrieving his position in her eyes. With the grande mademoiselle matters went on in their old course. She was, as before, frankly critical. She thought him improved in looks, But his wit and bearing were not conformable. He was still compelled to use an interpreter to convey his formal compliments and his offer of immediate marriage. Moreover, she had her views as to his inherited defects of character.
He seemed to know nothing of his own affairs, and that was unworthy of a youth of his age. Worst of all, his appetite was too robust. Instead of toying with some hortolain, he would throw himself upon a piece of beef and a shoulder of mutton. The poor lad did his best under his mother's eye. He kept up the formal siege for three months. He made set speeches to her in her coach and gave her to understand that he would give up all his irregular love affairs on the day he was married. At length, She came to the rescue herself by raising the barrier of religion. She could not consent to marry a heretic. The leave-taking, when at last he went to Jersey in September, was of a peace with the rest. He managed to express a hope that Lord German had made his views clear, and to stammer out that he was her most obedient servant.
The lady replied in similar words, and all was for the time over. Mademoiselle does not tell us whether the open association of Charles with Mrs. Barlow, whom he had brought with him to Saint-Germain without the least concealment, affected her decision as it had affected his cousins. The story of this woman may as well be finished at once. Whether Charles was implicated in the very mysterious and temporarily successful attempt at the abduction of her boy, Immediately after his birth in April 1649 is not known. He refused to listen to the appeal of Hyde and Ormond that he would break off the vulgar connection. Nor was it, until he returned from Scotland in 1651, that the scandal was finally removed.
Left to her own resources, she had fallen into such irregular ways of supplementing them that very shame forbade further association with her. and she was pensioned with four hundred pounds a year. In 1656 she came to England with her son, and with Thomas Howard, a gentleman of the horse to the Princess of Orange, upon what errand is not known. She so imposed upon many of the royalists there by her assertions that she was married to Charles, that she was received with the greatest reverence and served on bended knee. In July she was arrested and placed in the tower, but was shortly sent back to Flanders as a person without ostensible means of subsistence. After a scene of brutal violence on the part of the king's agent at Brussels, the boy was removed from her control and placed under the care of Lord Crofts in Paris, whose name he bore until after the restoration.
The last thing we hear of her is from Evelyn speaking of Monmouth. His mother was a beautiful strumpet, whom I had often seen in Paris. She died miserably in 1657 without almost anything to bury her, and James puts the last touch to the sordid story when he adds, of the disease common to those of her profession. As long as the possibility remained of using Ireland as the base of enterprise, matters were not in an absolute impasse. On September 17th, Charles went with his brother on board the pinnace of which he had been so fond, and steering her himself, reached Jersey safely with the magnificent sum of four livres and a half in his pocket. Here, while awaiting news from Ormond, he remained contentedly enough.
He was once more away from his mother and from Mademoiselle, and from the wearisome etiquette of the court. He had hunting and shooting, and above all his yacht. But to his more serious followers these times of forced inactivity showed him at his worst. Mrs. Wyndham, the governess who had made him ridiculous at Bridgewater, joined his little court and governed the king and everyone else like a minister of state. And Lord Byron, writing to Ormond on October 12th, says despairingly, Foreign princes begin to look upon him as a person so lazy and careless in his own business that they think it not safe to irritate so potent enemies. His one chance of redeeming himself is to go to Ireland and not be taken here in a nook of the world with his hands in his pockets.
It was not until November 30th that Charles received Orman's report of Cromwell's great campaign and knew that the rotten reed of Ireland This was the opportunity which Bailey had foreseen, the time for the Kirk to have her will. Sir George Winram was at once dispatched from Scotland to Holland to consult with the English Presbyterians who had assembled there, of whom Alderman Bunce was the chief, a good, merry, and honest fellow if any honesty can be in a Presbyterian. Thence, in company with Silas Titus, who had been acting as agent between them and the Queen's faction, he came straight to Jersey, bearing a list of eighty of the principal citizens of London who were favorable to a restoration, and a message that if Charles would agree with the Scots, he should want neither men nor money.
The saving clause was emphatic. If, wrote Winram, he thinks to have any service of us without ifs and ands, he must come up. And that shortly to our demands. Not only the disaster in Ireland, but Charles's utter poverty gave Winram hope. Now is the time to pray that the Lord would prevent the King with his tender mercies, for indeed he is brought very low, when he wants bread both for himself and his servants, and betwixt him and his brother not one English shilling. Was it the abundance of the sense of humor, or the total want of it, Which induced him to add, I am confident no ingenuous spirit will take advantage of his necessities. His case, Winram goes on, is very deplorable, being in prison where he is, living in penury surrounded by his enemies, not able to live anywhere else in the world.
Yet his pernicious and devilish counsel will suffer him to starve before they will suffer him to take the solemn league in covenant. The king's attitude, indeed, had not been promising. On October 31st, he had issued a declaration to his friends in England in which no mention was made of any concessions to the Presbyterians. In November, he was complaining to Cristina of Sweden of the unreasonableness of the Scots, and by his more ardent followers, Winram was threatened with personal violence. Nonetheless, Charles knew that the game was up. Almost without exception, his immediate advisers urged him to come to terms with the Scots. In the first days of January 1650, after prolonged and passionate debate, in which the King expressed such moderation, patience, and judgment, as was admirable in a person of his years, and such truly as I little expected of him, Repressing by his excellent temper those heats and animosities which otherwise would certainly have destroyed the business, it was decided to treat with the Scots upon honorable terms.
Nicholas, adding a proviso for himself that this phrase implied, a treaty without prejudice to His Majesty's affairs under the Marquis of Ormond or the Marquis of Montrose. Winram was sent back with Charles's offer to meet commissioners from Scotland at Breda on March 15, expecting them to be guided by a just and prudent moderation. Titus was to press the same lesson upon them through the English Presbyterians, and a separate letter to Robert Douglas, the moderator of the assembly, urged him to do his best to persuade his brethren to limit their demands. To Hamilton, to whom he sent the garter, Charles declared that he would act by his advice. To Rupert, he said that nothing he had done or would do should in the least degree diminish his power or authority and command of the fleet.
And lastly, Montrose, who also had the garter, was to proceed vigorously and effectually, and so either persuade to reasonableness or force it by arms in case of refusal. We will not, Charles wrote, Before or during the treaty, do anything contrary to that power and authority which we have given you by our commission, nor consent to do anything that may bring the least degree of diminution to it. We hope, said Hyde from Madrid, the Marquess of Montrose will advance this treaty better than all the devotion of the Presbyterians. On February 13, Charles left Jersey. On his journey, he turned aside to hold an interview at Beauvais with the Queen. She abjured him never to take the covenant, never to abandon the Irish, never to betray his own followers, and he reached Breda early in March.
To the austere political moralist, it will appear that a consent to treat with the Scots upon terms which were laid before him without concealment, while at the same time he did his best to raise up civil war in their midst, was unpardonable duplicity. Our own judgment is far less severe. The words king and subjects lose their force in circumstances such as those in which he was placed. Charles knew perfectly well that the covenanters needed him quite as much as he needed them, and he knew that they intended to obtain terms from his helplessness, of which but for that helplessness they must have despaired. To the narrow brutality avowed by Winram he opposed a pardonable, if unkingly, deceit. It is not for his treatment of the Scotch Kirkman that he must be condemned.
It is for the cool selfishness with which he repudiated his engagements with Montrose, for his unruffled desertion of his spotless servant, that he owes his first claim upon the execration of all honest men. Montrose had gone to his fate. With one small ship, a few men and a little money, he sailed from Bergen and landed at Kirkwall on March 23. Before that time, the letters which Charles had written to him had somehow reached the hands of the Covenanters, and the situation with which they had to deal was clear. Argyle, indeed, was strong enough to carry a resolution that commissioners should be sent to Breda without delay or question. But the sterner Covenanters insisted that the terms should be nothing less than an absolute and unconditional surrender.
Three of each party were placed on the Parliamentary Commission, while the Kirk sent its own Commission of five. When at length Charles met the Commissioners, he was fairly in the toils. Of all the plans that had been formed for escape, none had any present chance of success. And his supplications for money in every court of Europe had realized only 2,200 pounds and vague promises. On March 25th, he received the Scotch conditions. He had gained little by waiting. Besides confirming the concessions demanded in the previous April, he was called upon to surrender to Parliament and the Assembly of the Kirk, respectively, all future control over civil and ecclesiastical matters. And he was to abandon explicitly Ormond and Montrose, that justly excommunicate rebel James Graham, Irish Catholics and English, and Scotch loyalists, and the Church of England.
And in return, they gave him no shadow of a promise of help. He was to enter Scotland as a puppet and a renegade. For a full month, Charles fought against the detestable necessity Hoping even yet in the possibilities of delay. That he shortly saw what the result must be was, however, made clear when, just as he had sent away Hyde and Coddington a year before, he removed Hopton and Nicholas from the council, and supplied their places by Hamilton, Newcastle, and Buckingham, entrusting to these three the details of the negotiation. This first concession caused consternation among the Royalists. God help us, wrote Hatton, when Hamilton, Long, Newcastle, and Buckingham rule in council. I pray, he went on bitterly, let us know whether the king has deserted my lord Montrose, and that the next bout shall be my lord or Ormond, or whether, according to the finer phrase, for abandoning him, his majesty has commanded him peremptorily into Ireland.
Hyde's view may be seen in his letter to Morley from Madrid. If the Covenanters would give up every position for which they contended, if they would submissively wage war against the English rebels under the leadership of Montrose, then, and not until then, there might have been matter for sad consideration and counsel upon what security these men ought to be trusted. Otherwise, he said, is it a king's condition or even the condition of a gentleman that he can get? Meanwhile, under the new auspices, Matters went briskly on. Acting on the advice of the Prince of Orange, the Duke of Lorraine, and Christina of Sweden, to promise anything, and break the promise when you can, Charles, though with great passion and bitter execration, gave up successively Montrose and the Cavaliers, Hamilton, Lauderdale, and the other engagers, and the Irish Catholics.
Upon this he was formally invited to come to Scotland. And on May 1st, he signed the first draft of the Treaty of Breda. Two days later, he sent orders to Montrose to disband, and on May 12th, he announced that he utterly dissociated himself from his action. Montrose never received the letter, and it may be hoped, never realized the treachery. On April 27th, he fought his last fight at Corbisdale. On May 4th, he was captured. And on May 21st was done to death. Charles reached the extremity of paltriness when he wrote to the Scotch Parliament that he did not regret his champion's defeat. This dastardly betrayal, for which he never expressed a word of regret, leaves him with less hope of successful appeal than the betrayal of Stratford left to his father.
The only possible palliation suggested for him Is that he had perhaps received assurances on Argyle's part that the life of Montrose should be spared. Humiliation followed hard upon the base deed. When the news of Corbisdale arrived, the Scotch stiffened their terms once more. Charles was now to take the oath to the covenants before he set foot in Scotland, and whenever the demand should be made. All treaties and agreements whatsoever with the bloody rebels in Ireland were to be void. Nor was he ever to permit any liberty of the Popish religion in Ireland or any other part of his dominions. The engagers were to give security and satisfaction to the kingdom before they were allowed to return, and nothing in the act of classes, the act by which they were cut off from public life, was to be repealed.
To all these conditions Charles gave way, although he ignored the question of the engagers. And on June 2nd, he embarked at Harslerdyke with Hamilton, Lauderdale, Dumferlin, and Brentford, while of his English following, Buckingham, Wilmot, Henry Seymour, Mr. Rhodes, and his physician, Dr. Frazier, with his two chaplains, also accompanied him. On one point only, he had made a last assumption of independence. From Dr. John Livingston, one of the commissioners of the Kirk, We have the climax to the story of his delinquencies. The Saturday before the king left Breda, we got notice about three or four o'clock in the afternoon that he was to communicate kneeling tomorrow afternoon. We prepared in paper and presented it to him, and both by the paper and by speech showed him the sin of so doing and the provocation to God to procure the blasting of all his designs.
When we went to him after supper, we found him tenaciously resolute to continue his purpose. He said his father used always to communicate at Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide, and so should he. He had already scandalized the Scotch ministers by denying that the scriptures were a perfect rule in matters of controversy, by questions of a painfully skeptical tone, by continuing to use the English service and by bawling and dancing into the early morning. But all this was to come to an end now. The shadow of the kirk and covenant lay drear and heavy upon him. Hearing that Charles and Lord Cassillus were on board one of the ships in the harbour and alone, Livingston and a colleague boarded it, thinking it a pity that the king and Lord Cassillus should be there and none to preach to them.
On the eleventh, off Heligoland, After many futile struggles and appeals, he signed the latest draft of the conditions, and in pursuance of them on June 23, outside the mouth of the Spey, he swore to the covenants, and then only on the 24, but not until he had notable sermons and exhortations made by the ministers to persevere therein, he was allowed to land on Scottish soil. Livingston describes for us the scene of the signing. He heard that the king is minded to speak some words when he swore the covenant, that his oath should not import any infringing of the laws of England. The time for such assumptions was over. Charles was at once told that his oath could not be accepted if a single word was added, and although he pressed much and long that he behoved to do it, it was in vain.
Finally we hear, for the outward part of swearing and subscribing the covenants, The King performed anything that could have been required, yet without any evidence of any real change of heart. So far indeed was it from that, that Livingston expressed the fear that they were taking the plague of God to Scotland. If the King, as had been said before with remarkable prescience, join not with the Scots he is undone, and if he do, they are. What all this meant to those who cared for Charles's honor may be fairly guessed by their words. His mother was deeply hurt. God forbid, she said, that I should have had a hand in persuading him to sacrifice his honor and conscience. She might, she told him, still love him as a son, but she would never again be his advisor.
Hatton was almost incoherent with disgust. Hopton went to Utrecht in despair. Nicholas declared that he could not with any comfort continue where honor and conscience were mockeries. Hyde wrote from Madrid a letter which is a masterpiece of passionate irony. Vitti best expressed his attitude for the moment and for the future in a few private words to the Countess of Morton. They will still live to be ashamed who gave the advice at Breda, which was founded so irrationally, and can succeed only by miracle. But we must all make the best of it now it is done, and pray to God Almighty to give such a temper of mind and courage upon this great alteration, that we may neither be inclined to anything that is not right by any example or concession that is made, nor shaken in our affection or duty to the King, for anything which the necessity of his condition extorts from him.
It was even more important that the Royalists in England were so dissatisfied at the journey into Scotland, on such dishonorable and ridiculous, or rather no conditions, and still more at the abandonment of Montrose, that all hope from them was for the time gone. It may seem beneath the dignity of history to relate how Sophia of Hanover, with whom Charles had been flirting a year before, expressed the disgust which became the sister of Rupert, Or how the sweet Princess Elizabeth, the frail girl of fifteen, who died a month later at Carusbrook, hath wept daily ever since. Charles had then alienated his mother, had disgusted his best friends, had lost the Cavaliers in England and the whole Catholic connection, and had violated his written word to Montrose, Rupert, and Ormond on the chance that he might recover his throne by the help of a Scotch army.
It is here that the disgrace lies. That he had also bound himself to a rule which he detested, and had taken oaths which he meant to break, lies in a different plane of moral reprobation. To call this hypocrisy is, we hold, entirely beside the mark. There can be no hypocrisy when the verbal deceit is recognized on both sides as part of the game. Charles landed in Scotland with lies upon his lips, By virtue, indeed, of those lies. But every covenanter who had brought him there knew, like Livingston, that they were lies, and he, in turn, was aware that they knew it. On either side, the distrust was frankly expressed. They were conscious that they had traded on his dire necessity to induce him to place himself in their power, and they held him by the written word only.
They meant to do their best To see that he kept his bond, while by their very precautions they almost admitted his right to escape from it if he could. They wanted him among them in order that under his name they might exalt the covenant which he abhorred above the sectaries, and they knew that he hated them in all their ways. To bend him to their will was their resolve. To trick them as best he could was his. "'Tis a matter of pleasant observation," wrote a shrewd observer during the negotiations, to see how they endeavor to cheat and cozen each other. The king strokes them till he can get into the saddle, and then he will make them feel his spurs for all their old jade's tricks, and they know it, and therefore will not agree he shall back them with his heels armed.
They hate the thing monarchy, but they must have the name of it. And they care not for the person of the man, but his relations. They must make a property of him. No other will serve to stalk their ends by.
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SCOTLAND. EXILE. AND RESTORATION. PART I.
By Aberdeen, where he looked from his lodging upon the tollbooth, on which was nailed the accusing hand of the dismembered Montrose, and by St. Andrews, where Mr. Rutherford preached to him on the theme, Octum est de regae et re regia. Charles was escorted to the royal residence of Falkland. Here he was made aware of the intentions of the Kirk, rendered more bitter than before by the discovery of his offers to the Pope. Of his household, Buckingham, Wilmot, and Dr. Frazier, all of whom had acquired favor during the negotiations at The Hague, With Henry Seymour and Rhodes, were alone allowed to remain immediately about his person. The engagers had already been dismissed until they should be reconciled to an offended Kirk.
A letter from the King to Hamilton on July 17 expresses his sense of the rigidness and cruelty of this Kirk and state toward his friends and his powerlessness to assist them. Vague hopes of help From the Prince of Orange gave Charles patience for a while. There was, moreover, ample discontent in England, and he trusted by hoodwinking the Presbyterians, and by promising to the Catholics the repeal of the penal laws, to secure a union between both of them and the old Cavalier Party. But meanwhile, it was in Scotland itself that the first blow was to be struck. On July 22nd, Cromwell crossed the border, and fighting took place around Edinburgh before the end of the month. The invasion was met by an army weak from its first purging of engagers and malignants, its best soldiers.
For the present it was not a national conflict, but an ecclesiastical. It was not Scotland fighting an invader, but the Covenanter fighting the sectary. Even so, it was in the army that Charles hoped to find freedom. The natural antipathy between sword and gown led to an invitation from the officers to visit the quarters at Leith, and when he rode into the camp on July 27, he was received by the soldiers with enthusiasm, while numbers of those dismissed by the purging came in to add their greetings. The vigilance of the Kirk was aroused at once. The next day, Charles wrote to Hamilton. The commissioners of the Kirk desired me to retire out of the army, pretending it was for the safety of my person, but indeed it was for fear I should get too great an interest with the soldiers.
He was informed that if he did not at once comply, the committee would not act, nor the ministers pray for the army. Charles was therefore forced to retire to Dunferlin, where he reported himself narrowly watched by the serious Christians. A fresh purging was put in force, and so far did the insanity go that with Cromwell at their gates, no fewer than eighty officers and three thousand soldiers were dismissed. It is difficult after this lapse of time to realize the intensity of the conviction that inspired the dominant Kirk. To her, malignancy was a sin against the Holy Ghost. It was better for her to fight her enemies with a handful of godly and elect people than with mighty arms loaden with that sin.
And so, instead of these experienced soldiers, there were placed in command ministers' sons, clerks, and other such sanctified creatures, who hardly ever saw or heard of any other sword than that of the Spirit. While, had it been thought lawful to have suffered the King and all gentlemen, even accepting those accepted by name and the two first classes, to have stayed, the Isle of Britain saw not such an army these hundred years. Charles was as yet only at the beginning of his troubles. To justify themselves for maintaining the cause of a King, who by his mere existence represented all the sins of malignancy, and in whose name Papists were in arms in Ireland, the assembly called upon him to sign a declaration in which he was to bewail the sins of his father and mother, and upon his refusal declared that they fought merely upon their former grounds and principles, and that they would not own the king nor his interest, otherwise than so far as he owns and prosecutes the cause of God, and disclaims his and his father's opposition to the work of God and to the covenant.
Charles realized that if the army, his only hope, were to be held together, he must once more give way. Covering his retreat by a request that the assembly would first send some of their number to satisfy him on points of conscience, he signed the declaration on August 16th. This was a very slight strain upon the faculty for dissimilation which the Kirk was fostering. On the part of the Kirk itself, the whole proceeding was a monumental piece of folly. Now, and in all their subsequent actions, the severer Covenanters made it clear that they knew the impossibility of trusting him, and that, sore with that knowledge, They were determined to drag him through every humiliation which the ingenuity of bigotry could suggest.
It was something they felt to degrade him in his own eyes, by forcing him to use language which it was not credible that he could seriously mean. Austere men who would have died sooner than deny their own faith were willing that their prince should stand before them steeped in falsehood. They little guessed That there were covenanters yet unborn who would perish in loathsome prisons when Rothson Sharp should misrule the land, and on many a hillside by the carbines of Claverhouse's troopers, and under the ruthless chase of Greer of Lag, because, in their grim fanaticism, their fathers had caused the very name of the covenant to be abhorred by their king. Charles then submitted to declare himself desirous of being humbled and afflicted because of his father's hearkening unto evil counsels and because of his mother's idolatry.
He bewailed the sins of his father's house and all his own guiltiness. He avowed that he had not sworn to the covenants and entered into the oath of God with his people upon any sinister intention and crooked design for attaining his own ends. That he would prosecute to the utmost of his power all the ends thereof, that he would have no enemies but the enemies of the covenant, that he would not tolerate any popery or prelacy or error, but would endeavor their extirpation. The exceeding sinfulness and unlawfulness of that treaty in peace with the bloody Irish rebels was duly emphasized, and Charles bound himself to establish Presbyterianism in England. It will always be a mystery, except on the grounds we have stated a few lines back, how sane men could have imagined that such documents were worth the paper they covered.
In a private letter written shortly afterwards to Lord Beecham, Charles describes the declaration as forced upon him, and therefore utterly meaningless, while Ormond was told in his name that he was constant as ever to the Irish peace which it condemned. But the Kirk was not satisfied yet. Since Charles desired to be humbled, he should have his wish. A day was decreed by the assembly on which the king and his house and the whole land should keep a solemn public humiliation for the sins of the royal family and his own, all of which were lamented under twelve heads. And then they purged the army once more. No officers were for the future to entertain malignants or engagers, even to drink or converse with them, on pain of being cashiered.
This was on September 1, when Cromwell's position at Dunbar appeared desperate. The insensate bigotry now bore its legitimate fruit. Two days later, the emasculated army was crushed beyond hope by a leader who knew how to unite in his men Religious fervor with iron discipline and military skill. To Charles himself the disaster was very welcome, for his desire to escape from persecution was greater than that of seeing Cromwell beaten, though his habits were not so devotional as to warrant the belief that he fell on his knees and thanked God that he was so fairly rid of his enemies. He remembered himself in time to assure Argyle, who brought him the news, that in spite of the disaster he would be constant in his loyalty to the covenant, and in his letter to the Committee of Estates he showed how perfectly he had caught the style of his persecutors.
We cannot but acknowledge that the stroke in trial is very hard to be borne, and would be impossible for us and you in human strength. But in the Lord's we are bold and confident. Our ancestors had only the honor and civil liberties of the land to defend. But we have with you religion, the gospel, and the covenant, against which hell shall be. not prevail, much less a number of sectaries stirred up by it. We shall strive to be humbled, that the Lord may be appeased, and that he may return to the thousands of his people. To the Kirk, The defeat at Dunbar meant a fiercer fire of covenanting zeal, the need for more prayer, more purging, more preaching, and more harassment for Charles. It was enough to account for the evil days which God had permitted to fall upon his elect that a most malignant and profane guard of horse had been allowed to remain about the king's person.
A fast was proclaimed, and on the Sunday following the battle, A sermon was preached before Charles at Stirling, in which it was declared that if His Majesty's heart were as upright as David's, God would no more pardon the sins of his father's house than he did the sins of the house of Judah for the goodness of holy Josiah. The extreme fanatics of the western counties were formed into a separate command. The fourteen causes of solemn public humiliation to be kept throughout all the congregations of Scotland were drawn up by the Assembly. A fresh declaration was issued in which once more Charles was urged to repent of his own sins and the sins of his father's house, the nobles to look to their steps, the officers not to think lightly of the ministers, and the ministers to show no backsliding.
While neither with sectaries nor malignants was there to be any compromise. The King was now subjected to every form of personal annoyance. At the council at which he nominally presided, he was forced to remain silent while Johnston of Wueriston, laying up a debt which was cleared many years later on the scaffold at the Cross of Edinburgh, poured forth the bitterest denunciations of himself and his father. His household was once more sifted. He was allowed as little knowledge of the business transacted as he had been in his mother's court three years before. He was indeed outwardly served and waited on, with all fitting ceremony due to a king, but in his liberty, not much above a prisoner, sentinels being set every night about the lodging, few daring to speak freely or privately to him, and spies set on his words and actions.
His very bedchamber was not free to himself, the ministers almost daily thrusting in upon him to catechize and instruct him, and, I believe, to exact repetitions from him. John Livingston, who had preached to him and Cassillus on board ship, was sorely exercised at being hindered one day from improving the occasion just when he had got his mouth opened in ain reasonable long discourse. The poor king, who had nothing of it but the name, thus his condition was summed up by an onlooker, and he himself wrote in bitterness of heart of his masters. Assuredly the lad paid a high price for his grinning honor. He wrought himself, says Burnett, into as grave a deportment as he could. He heard many prayers and sermons, some of great length.
I remember in one day there were six sermons preached without intermission. I was there myself, and not a little weary of so tedious a service. A Sunday walk was out of the question. Dancing and playing at cards were visited with severe reproof.
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9 09 - Ch. 2: Scotland, Exile, and Restoration, Pt. 2 17:40
Scotland, Exile and Restoration.
Golf, indeed, not being of the nature of vanity, was sanctioned, and a special guard was detailed to attend the king on the links. Nor is the authority altogether to be rejected, which hints that other imperious lusts of the flesh were recognized. We cannot indeed vouch for Hume's story of familiarities, of the committee of ministers appointed to reprove Charles for behavior so unbecoming a covenanted monarch, and of the exhortations of Robert Douglas upon the advisability of Drawing the curtains over the windows whenever His Majesty was disposed to amuse himself. But elsewhere we learn with greater certainty of truth that having in the year 1650, to the many fornications and adulteries which he then committed, added the perpetration of an attempt upon a modest and virtuous lady, he had incurred the general dissatisfaction of his best friends.
General dissatisfaction for the grossest indulgence of lust, but insult and humiliation and the assurance of all the terrors of hell for any levity on the subject of the covenants. In spite of these legalized distractions, Charles' life was a burden to him. He believed himself, moreover, in personal danger. It was quite possible that the Western enthusiasts would endeavor to seize him and give him up to Cromwell. For a long time he had been planning a bold bid for liberty. He knew that a large number of nobles, gentlemen, and soldiers, driven out of the army, were ready to welcome him among them. On Thursday, October 3, a mixed body of engagers and cavalier royalists were gathered at the Bridge of Urne, and he had promised to be with them on that day.
Newburgh's regiment of guards were to join them. St. Johnston's was to be taken, and the Committee of Estates secured. At the same time, Middleton and other noblemen had raised forces in different places to join in the uprising of Scottish, as distinguished from covenanting feeling. The prospect was a fair one, and it was ruined for the time only by Charles's imprudence. Among those who had been allowed to stay with him were Buckingham and Wilmot, who had been won over by Argyle long before, and who practically were spies upon their master. On Wednesday evening, Charles confided his hopes for the morrow to them. They induced him to relinquish the design for the moment, and Dr. Frazier was dispatched with the intelligence to his friends at the Bridge of Urne.
The reports which Frazier brought back and the news that his household was to be dismissed en bloc, and that his guard of horse was to undergo further purging, once more decided Charles, and on October 4th, under pretense of hunting, he rode out of the town, crossed the Tay of the ferry, met Lauderdale near Dundee, and thence went on to the house of the Earl of Ailey. Next morning he rode on seven miles to Clova in the glen of the South Esk, Hoping to meet Huntley and the Aberdeen men. Here, however, he was found in a helpless situation by Colonel Montgomery, who had followed with six hundred horse, and who induced him to return without more ado. This he did willingly enough, since assurances had previously reached him from the committee.
On October 6th, he was back at Perth, and the ill-advised and ill-executed start was at an end. An interview with the committee was followed by his declaration as a Christian that he had been surprised and deluded by evil counsel, and that when he went first out he had no mind to depart, and trusted in God that with the assistance of their prayers it would be a lesson to him all the days of his life. The committee dared not go farther. They were beginning to be seriously alarmed, And Charles's escapade had been a warning to them. The little leaven of common sense left in the army was beginning to work. The opinion was expressed and supported, both by Leslie and Argyle, that it might not be altogether displeasing to God if engagers, who had become reconciled to the Kirk, were again employed.
When Leslie was sent against the insurgents, Middleton met him with a bond signed by their principal chiefs. A plea for national unity in face of the invader and the issue of an act of indemnity meant the substitution of the national for the covenanting cause. Against all this, the Western enthusiasts, three thousand men led by Colonels Carr and Strachan, fiercely protested. They refused to fight for the king until he had given evidence of repentance and had abandoned the malignants. The Committee of Estates, now informed with the national feeling, but as in 1648, without the concurrence of the Assembly, formally condemned their remonstrance. More active measures were rendered unnecessary by Cromwell, who, wishing to have but one enemy before him, sent Lambert against Carr and Strachan.
Lambert defeated them at Hamilton, and all Scotland, south of the Fourth and Clyde, was thus in Cromwell's power, except Edinburgh Castle, which held out until December 4th. Once set in motion, the national sentiment rapidly gathered strength and speed. The ostracized Royalists were readmitted into the army upon verbal consent to the Covenants, and by December 13th the Kirk itself had given way. But the well-worn forms and style were sedulously observed. When Charles opened Parliament at Perth on November 26th, he claimed God's favor on the ground, that he had moved him to enter into a covenant with his people, a favor no other king could claim, while Parliament, as a concession to the Assembly, gladly acknowledged its members guilty of every sin charged against them.
Fast days were appointed, and the nation was solemnly called upon to humble itself before God. Charles himself had again to mourn publicly for his own sins and those of his father and grandfather. He took his part in the farce with jaded but serene resignation. I think he said, I ought to repent, too, that ever I was born. At length on January 1, 1651, the long-deferred coronation took place. A sermon of interminable length from Robert Douglas on the limitation of the kingly power with the usual excursus upon the sins of Charles's family, was listened to with becoming reverence. Once more, kneeling and lifting up his right hand, the king swore to whatever they chose to demand. To a running accompaniment of exhortations from Robert Douglas, Argyle placed the crown upon his head.
The Earl of Crawford and Lindsay gave him the scepter, and then the practiced actor Closed this Judaic ceremony by begging the ministers that if, in any time coming, they did hear or see him breaking the covenant, they would tell him of it and put him in mind of his oath. The situation was perfectly defined when Middleton the malignant was allowed to do penance in sackcloth at the same time that Strachan the protester was excommunicated and delivered over to the devil. Hamilton returned to the court. And Argyle retired to the Highlands. Argyle's hope of retaining his power by inducing Charles to marry his daughter Anne Campbell was dissipated by the very decided negative of the Queen, to whom Charles had referred the matter, and from the repeal of the Act of Classes in June.
His influence completely disappeared. Meanwhile, Charles was rejoicing in his new freedom, and was busily employed in collecting an army. Fortifying the Fourth, and consolidating the national feeling, which ever since Dunbar he had cleverly manipulated. In April, with Leslie and Middleton as lieutenants, he was at the head of twenty thousand men, a number largely increased by June. Admirably active and intelligent in all his great affairs, but too forward to hazard his person in any attempt against the rebels, was the character he rapidly acquired. It is unnecessary to relate the strategy by which Cromwell so outmaneuvered the Scottish forces that the desperate scheme of invading England, leaving the enemy in the rear, was the only one which offered a possibility of success.
Hamilton, although delighted that all the rogues have left us, Argyle and all of his party having refused to join the march, that all his majesty are such as will not dispute his commands, Sorrowfully admitted that their one stout argument was despair. But the knowledge that he was leaving Scotland, the country where he had led so intolerable a life, a life of dreary repression of everything that was consonant with his nature, sent Charles over the border with a light heart. Three months later, when he landed in France, he told the Duke of Orléans that he would rather be hanged. Then ever again set foot in that hated land. In the vain hope that Lancashire would rally to his cause, Charles led his army southward by the western route.
Cromwell followed hard on the east of the Pennine chain. Harrison hung upon his flank, and Lambert, with his cavalry, harassed his rear. The Earl of Darby alone joined him with a small force, while his own folly in ostentatiously lodging in the houses of Catholic adherents caused grave discontent among his ranks. At Shrewsbury, he was defied by the parliamentary commander, who addressed his refusal to surrender, not to the king, but to the commander-in-chief of the Scottish army. On August 22nd, he reached Worcester in desperate plight with but 16,000 wearied men. He forthwith issued a manifesto in which he offered to settle religion according to the covenant, promised arrears of pay to all who would desert from Cromwell, an act of oblivion to all except the regicides and members of the High Court of Justice, and the retirement of the Scots after the victory.
He hoped by this to appeal at once to Presbyterians, to any discontented men among the enemy, and to the purely English feeling. But it was as great a failure as was the order of a levy of all persons between the ages of sixteen and sixty. Two days later, Cromwell was upon him with nearly thirty thousand seasoned and disciplined troops. On September 3rd, the town was attacked. The issue was never in doubt, and the only point of interest for us is how Charles bore himself. Burnett, after his manner, cast doubts upon his personal courage, and Buckingham, who was always untrustworthy, afterwards did the same. But all evidence of value goes far to refute them. We hear that descending from the cathedral tower, he placed himself at the head of his troops and, with conspicuous gallantry, fell upon the ranks of the enemy.
"'Shoot me dead!' he is reported to have cried. Rather than let me live to see the sad consequences of this day. An eye-witness of the fight, whose account must indeed be taken with the admission that it was reviewed and perfected on this side of the water, speaks of him as charging several times in person and with great success. Certainly a braver prince never lived, having in the day of the fight hazarded his person much more than any officer of his army Riding from regiment to regiment, and leading them on upon service with all the encouragement, calling every officer by his name, which the example and exhortation of a magnanimous general could afford. Showing so much steadiness and undaunted courage in such continued danger, that had not God covered his head and wonderfully preserved his sacred person, he must in all human reason needs have perished that day.
It was not until dusk was falling and all was lost that the King made his way out of the North Gate, with Buckingham, Darby, Lauderdale, and Wilmot, and separating himself from the general route with some sixty men, rode with all speed into the night. And then followed that wonderful flight of six weeks through a country swarming with soldiers, eager to earn the reward of a thousand pounds, offered for the capture. Of the tall man, above two yards high, with dark brown hair scarcely to be distinguished from black. As a story of loyalty and devotion, of incessant danger and almost inexplicable escapes, it is one of intense interest, but it has so often been told in detail that it may well be left here, except to point out that, amid all privations, Charles's buoyant humor never deserted him.
Whatever were his risks and escapes, we may be sure that fatigue, exposure, hunger, and the fear of the hunted animal were preferable to safety with the chance of another sermon from Robert Douglas. More than once, his habitual lightheartedness brought him close to capture, and on each occasion his ready wit and self-possession served him well. Thus we hear from Colonel Gunter, who was present, How, when Charles was mistaken for a roundhead, his hair having been cropped close by the pendrels, he clinched the fortunate mistake by gravely rebuking his discoverer for his untoward habit of occasional swearing. At Bridgeport, where he acted as groom to Colonel Windham, the Ostler accosted him with, "'You are welcome.
I know you very well.' "'Where did you know me?' answered Charles. "'At Exeter.' I lived two years in an inn there. With memory created by need, and so did I, said Charles, in the service of Master Porter. I am glad to have met with a countryman, but I see you are so busy that you have no time to drink with me. When I come back from London, we'll talk of old stories." On another occasion, when his horse had cast a shoe, and he had taken the animal to a forge, he asked the blacksmith for news. There is no news, replied the man, since the good news of the beating the rogues the Scotch, but, he added, he had not heard that that rogue Charles Stewart had been taken. If that rogue, said Charles unconcernedly, were taken, he deserves to be hanged more than the rest for bringing in the Scots.
You speak like an honest man, was the satisfactory reply. At the inn at Long Marston, Charles, in his character of servant, Went to the kitchen where he was at once set to wind the jack. What countryman are you, said the maid, when he showed his ignorance of the art, that you know not how to wind up a jack? Only a poor tenant son of Colonel Lane in Staffordshire, said Charles. We seldom have roast meat, and then we don't use a jack. Another incident deserves record, for it was singularly recalled to Charles's memory. When he was on his deathbed, while he lay concealed in Moseley Hall, a secular priest called John Huddleston, afterwards a Benedictine monk who had been instrumental in effecting his concealment, placed in his hands a manuscript entitled, A Short and Plain Way to the Faith and Church, which he read attentively and with apparent conviction.
More than thirty-three years later, the same priest, then one of the Queen's chaplains, was hurriedly conducted up the back stairs at Whitehall to give to the agonizing king the last rites of that church whose tenancy studied for the first time under circumstances so strange. You once saved my body, gasped the dying man, and now you are come to save my soul.
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10 10 - Ch. 2: Scotland, Exile, and Restoration, Pt. 3 16:25
SCOTLAND. EXILE. AND RESTORATION. PART III.
It is only fair to the memory of Charles, laden as it is with the burden of so much ingratitude, to remember that even after the nine years of exile which were to follow, He showed to every one of those who had helped him, from the beautiful mistress Jane Lane, to the yeomen Penderils, a full sense of his debt. It was always so with him. Labor and sacrifices in his service, as ruler of his country, counted for nothing. But strictly personal acts of kindness or fidelity were remembered and generally repaid. It will surprise many to know that there are families now in England who still enjoy the benefits of the devotion shown by those most instrumental in the escape. Some fifteen years after the Restoration, there were granted, in addition to all former gifts, by letters-patent dated July 24, 1675, a series of perpetual pensions descendable for ever To the heirs of the grantees, one hundred pounds a year each to Richard and William Penderill, one hundred marks each to Humphrey, John, and George Penderill, and fifty pounds to Elizabeth Yates, daughter of old William Penderill of Boscowville, and his wife Joan.
A large number of fee farm rents and charges and tithes in half a dozen counties were assigned to trustees for the service of these pensions. The whole of which are still received by the descendants of those who originally enjoyed them. Several of the Penderills held offices about the court, and Humphrey's grandson Richard, who became the Sardinian Marquess Penderill de Boscobel, was the godson of Charles's wife. The entire family, moreover, was exempted by order and counsel from the penal laws against the Catholics, and protected in the days of the popish terror, as were the other members of the Catholic faith who had aided the king. On October 16th, Charles and Wilmot set foot upon French soil at Fecons.
So deplorable was their condition that they narrowly escaped being detained as vagrants, while at Rouen, The people of the inn carefully examined their rooms before they left, to see that nothing had been purloined. They appear to have reached Paris in little better condition, for to German, Charles owed his first clean shirt for some weeks, the first indeed since Huddleston had given him a new Holland shirt of his own at Moseley Hall. For six months Charles lived upon the charity of de Rett's and other friends, And almost literally on the crumbs from his mother's table. When at last a small monthly grant from the French court relieved the pressure, Henrietta insisted that he must henceforth bear half the charges of the evening meal, since she had, she said, enough to do to feed herself and her youngest daughter.
So businesslike indeed was she, that the arrangement was retrospective. And the very first night's supper which the king ate with the queen began the account, so that the first money that was received for the king upon his grant was entirely stopped for the discharge of his majesty's part. His brother James was fairly provided for by his colonelcy in the French army and a small pension from the court. Barely clothed and fed, Charles was in forlorn plight. It was noticed That his high spirits had left him, and that he had become silent in company. But his privations formed the height of luxurious living when compared with those of his servants. I have not been master of a crown these many months, said Hyde.
Am cold for want of clothes and fire, and oh, for all the meat I have eaten these three months. I am so cold, he writes again, I can scarce hold my pen, and have not three sous to buy a faggot. The destitution deepened as time went on. Five or six of us eat together, one meal a day for a pistole a week, and the king himself owes for all he hath eaten since April. In March 1654 Hyde had not received a shilling from the king for more than three years, and was wasted to nothing. In April he wanted shoes and shirts, but he says with thankfulness, I do not know that any man is yet dead for want of bread, which really I wonder at. No possible source of help was left untried. The death of his brother-in-law, the Prince of Orange, had closed the only purse upon which he could reckon.
But we cast many a false dice to win the game," wrote one of his court. It was intimated to the Pope that the King was ready to change his religion, if it were made worth his while, in that he would in any case protect the English and Irish Catholics when restored, if some help were forthcoming. He was met by the suggestion that his conversion should be declared first, and the negotiation, as later in 1655, naturally lapsed. In 1652 he sent Wilmot, created Earl of Rochester for the purpose, to the Diet of Rattisbon to solicit the aid of the German princes who were beyond the fear of Cromwell. Wilmot, though he was frequently drunk and abusive in public, and generally disgraced his master, succeeded in obtaining a vote for two hundred thousand rix dollars, a very little of which came to hand, and from the electors of Treve and Cologne Small sums were received.
But Charles had practically to depend upon the contributions of Royalists in England, and his signature was appended to many a document which bore the following. I do acknowledge to have received the sum of one hundred pounds sterling, which I do promise to repay as soon as I am able. He had another possible resource. His mother saw to it that the courtship of the grand mademoiselle should be taken up once more. His chances were better than before. In spite of the cropping of his rich black curling hair, of a coarsening of the features and a recklessness of expression, the lady found him much improved, and he had about him the halo of the dangers he had passed. He roused her pity by his description of his existence in Scotland, where there was not a woman fit to be seen, and where it was a sin to play the fiddle.
Most important of all, he had somehow learned to speak French since they last met, and was able to assure her in a civilized tongue that he could not regret his defeat at Worcester, since it brought him back to her, that he cared to regain his kingdom now only that he might share it with her. In fact, il faisait toutes les mines que l'on dit que les hommes en font. But at this moment, the possibility of a greater alliance with her cousin, Louis XIV, floated before her. She revolted against the incessant attack kept up by Henrietta and by the two princesses of Orange, who had been brought to Paris for the purpose, and the farce came once more to the only end which Mazarin would have allowed. In other matters, Charles followed Hyde's advice.
He dismissed that father of atheists, Mr. Hobbes, who hath made all the Queen's Court and part of the Duke of York's atheists, and would have done his best to have poisoned the King's Court. He now needed little dissuasion from any longer counterfeiting the presbyter, and in spite of the urgency of Buckingham and all the Presbyterian gang, gave up attendance at the Huguenots services at Charenton with alacrity. Indeed, Hyde's anxiety was soon roused in the opposite direction, for C.S. and his fraternity went to pass away the afternoon at the Jesuits of St. Anthony. The king's assertion of independence caused his relations with his mother, which were never cordial, to become very strained. Necessity, however, compelled them to stay together in Paris until July 1652.
In that month, the capital was in the hands of Condé and Orléans, a prey to fire and massacre, and Charles and Henrietta were allowed to go to Saint-Germain, whence in October they accompanied Louis XIV on his triumphal return. During the whole of this year, the king had been busy with feudal schemes. When war broke out between the States and the Commonwealth, he applied to be allowed to serve in the Dutch fleet. He tried to arrange a marriage between James and the daughter of the Duke of Lorraine, who had an army to dispose of. He proposed to visit the Emperor of Russia and the princes of the Empire, who might give money, to mediate between France and Spain, and so secure the help of both. In June, he commissioned Middleton to command the royalist Scotch nobles and chiefs who were expected to rise in the north.
Meanwhile, Hyde, with Ormond, Nicholas, and Hatton, were bent upon getting Charles out of the power of the juggling cardinal. They were haunted by the fear that, for his own ends, Mazarin would deliver him to Cromwell. So long as the issue of the war between England and the States was doubtful, Mazzarone kept him carefully in sight by the simple process of curtailing supplies. But by August 1653, England was absolute mistress of the sea, and it became advisable to conciliate the Commonwealth. An obvious step was to withdraw all protection from Charles, and in January 1654, Cromwell was informed that if he would ally himself with France, The king should be dismissed. This crown, wrote Hyde in February, longs to be rid of us, that it may proceed briskly in their treaty with Cromwell.
So the king hath sent them word that he will be gone within ten days after they have paid the money which they have promised. But Charles had to solace himself with billiards and tennis, visits to the Jesuits, and facile amours until July. When the political situation was clear, his destination was easily settled. The states were closed to him by the treaty with England of April 1654. The kings of France and Spain take it for a principle, that the king's interest is none of theirs, and each counts Cromwell for a no-no-quaiat. Germany, however, was open, and on condition that Charles went there, Mazarin found the necessary funds. He left Paris on July 8th, and after a month's stay at Spa with his widowed sister, an excellent princess, if she had not the natural imperfection of her family and unwillingness to put herself to think of business, passed on to Aix-la-Chapelle, where he spent another month, and thence in November to Cologne, receiving an exuberant welcome.
Ormond, the ornament of the court, and Nicolas, now appointed secretary, remained in attendance, While Hyde, free of immediate business, took up his residence at Breda. The rivalry between the Queen's friends and the triumvirate who represented his father's old servants, Hyde, Ormond, and Nicholas, had been settled in dramatic fashion before Charles left France. Hyde, as most in his confidence, was the mark of every attack. An impudent accusation of holding communication with Cromwell, supported with detail of time and place, brought matters to a head. Hyde at once challenged an investigation before the king to the utter discomfiture of the conspirators. It pleased his majesty to declare that he never heard so frivolous an accusation in his life, and wondered that such trash should ever come from such persons.
So absolutely did this confirm Hyde's position. That his friends laughingly declared that he must have hired his assailants to bring their charge. To Hyde, earnest, hard-working, and of unimpeachable morals, Charles's character began to give no little uneasiness. The natural imperfection of his family was more pronounced in him than in any of the others. I do not forget the letters the king should write, but he never sets himself to that work but on Fridays. And he elsewhere adds, by no means always then. Whenever anything is to be done by the king's own hand, we must sometimes be content to wait, he being brought very unwillingly to the work, which vexes me exceedingly. Nicholas again emphasized his shrewd perception of character, but lamented that, so excellent in understanding and judgment in affairs, should be combined with such luxury and neglect of business and so little secrecy.
Hyde did not confine his feelings to letters to his friends. He lectured Charles, now as he had lectured him at Bristol and Jersey, pressing upon him, that it was his Majesty's misfortune to be thought, by many, not to be active enough toward his own redemption, and to love his ease too much, both for his age and fortune. The fact that he held a far higher opinion of James, a most glorious young prince, who was in honorable service under Turenne, did not, however, cause Hyde to swerve from his loyal reserve an invariable practice. When all is done, we have lamented and advised as we ought to do. We must to others make the best of it, and put all the fair glosses and interpretations of innocent mirth upon it.
In the term innocent mirth, we must, we fear, include drink and the incontinence, which was already a scandal. Poor as was his court, wine and women were easily come by. As regards drinking, he kept it this time within bounds. It is especially noted that on a hunting expedition, he and Tom Elliott, his gentlemen of the bedchamber, were the only two who returned sober. But the graver vice was notorious. Elsewhere we read of his seventeenth mistress abroad, while Hyde himself had been employed by the Queen, for the removal of a young lady out of the Louvre, who had procured a lodging there without Her Majesty's consent. A most amusing anecdote, related at first hand by St. Evremont, shows that even during the perils of the flight after Worcester, Charles had not been able to refrain from indulging his passions.
The tuition of Mrs. Wyndham, carried out by Percy, and especially by Buckingham, the most worthless of a worthless crew, had borne ample fruit.
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11 11 - Ch. 2: Scotland, Exile, and Restoration, Pt. 4 17:19
SCOTLAND. EXILE. AND RESTORATION. PART IV.
In extreme poverty, harassed by the importunity of friends in England and the petitions of penniless cavaliers who found their way to Cologne, Every design at once known in London through Cromwell's spies and through the skill of Dr. Wallace in deciphering his intercepted letters, his court so torn by private factions that Thurlow reported the confusion to be as great as ever was in the Tower of Babylon, Charles nevertheless kept a light heart. Hyde might tutor him, Ormond might speak of his affairs as utterly broken, Mazarin might deride our misery. His business was to make life as pleasant as he could. Madame de Motteville declares that he bore the ills of poverty and exile with reckless nonchalance, snatching at whatever pleasures came in his way even those of the most degraded kind.
Although Hyde asserts that he betook himself with great cheerfulness to compose his mind to misfortune, and with a marvelous contentedness prescribed so many hours a day to the study of both the Italian and French languages. He hunted every day when the weather allowed, and at night he tells us himself, we dance and play as if we had taken the plate fleet. He had a small fiddler that does not play ill on the fiddle, and he was eager to obtain the music for new corrents and sarabands and other little dances. In the meantime, he says, We must be content with those that make no difference between a hymn and a coranto. Dancing, then, as always, was his chief delight indoors, but the consideration of the new clothes and the sword, the latter wholly unsatisfactory, which Henry Bennett had forwarded to him, the two beaver hats, six pairs of shoes of the parish shoemaker, and six more made by Dyke, Three pairs, black and the others colored, helped to pass the impracticable hours.
In August 1655, he went incognito with his sister Mary to the great fair at Frankfurt, was splendidly entertained by the elector of Mentz for three days, and at Königstein met Kristina, the wild queen of Sweden, the atheistical madwoman, who had shortly before renounced her crown, and who was scandalizing Europe with her excesses. On another occasion he visited the Count Palatine of Neuberg at Dusseldorf, and probably then acquired the distaste for German women which he afterwards crystallized into the verdict. Ad's fish, they are all foggy. The absence of sympathy between him and his mother has already been dwelt upon. But an open and long-abiding breach was now caused by her sustained attempt, in violation of many pledges, to secure the conversion of her youngest son, Henry of Gloucester, a conversion upon which the Catholics built great hopes.
Henry IX, they said, was to repair what Henry VIII had ruined. Charles, when appealed to by Hatton and other royalists in Paris, resolved to frustrate the scheme. The struggle was conducted by Henrietta with cajolery, deceit, and extraordinary harshness, and continued from the moment that Charles left Paris until the following November, when he wrote letters to his mother and to James, Lord German, and Henry himself, which admitted of no dispute, and sent Ormond with instructions to bring the boy away from Paris without delay. Henry left France in December, and in February, 1655, was in his sister's safe custody at The Hague. But he was driven thence in virtue of the treaty with Cromwell, and joined the court at Cologne in May.
Hyde declares that he had never seen the king so awakened as in this affair. The motives for this energy need not be exalted to the plane of conscience, They probably resided solely in the need of impressing a certainty of his steadfastness to the faith upon the cavaliers in England, whom he would have lost had he been believed to be a consenting party to his brother's conversion. When, however, Henry was once out of France, and he could point to this victory, Charles lost no time in endeavoring to satisfy his Catholic friends. By sending Lord Toph to the nuncio to explain and lament the necessity under which he had found himself, and to express his complete readiness to change his own religion if he could thereby secure advantages sufficient to make the step worth his while.
All this followed on a letter written to the ministers of the Scotch Kirk some weeks previously, in which he appealed to their memory of his life with them, and bade them to rest assured of his resolve to walk as in the sight of the Most High, though they would recognize that he was compelled to make friends of all sorts of men. Even greater matters called for decision. Ever since the autumn of 1649, a Royalist committee had been in existence in England to prepare for a revolt. Toward the beginning of 1654, it was dissolved. And succeeded by a more energetic body called the Sealed Knot, which at once grew busy. Encouraged by Hyde and Ormond, the Knot began to organize a widespread insurrection during the spring of 1654, and this conjointly with the movements of Middleton and Glencairn in the Highlands would, it was hoped, shake Cromwell's power to its base.
At the same time, the royalist Henshaw came to Paris with a scheme for the assassination of Cromwell. Charles refused to see him, and by the advice of Hyde and Ormond, discouraged any attempt until the sealed knot was prepared to follow it up at once by open insurrection. On the other hand, Lord Gerard, Rupert, who had quarreled with both Charles and Hyde, and Sir Edward Herbert, the keeper of the seals, who was sore at the failure of the attack upon Hyde in 1653, in which he had been prominent, urged the pursuance of the scheme, and did not hesitate to express their opinion of the superiority of James over his brother as a man of action and judgment. This brought matters to a crisis. Charles steadfastly supported Hyde and Ormond, with the result that Rupert was compelled to leave the court.
and Herbert to give up the great seal. On May 3rd, there was published the famous proclamation in which Charles was made to offer a full pardon, five hundred pounds a year, and a colonelcy to anyone who would kill Cromwell. The absurdity of ascribing it to the King has been fully shown, and internal evidence has fixed it upon Herbert, that Hyde and Charles, with Ormond and Nicholas, Were perfectly cognizant of later plots, especially that of Sexby in 1655 and 1656, and that the celebrated pamphlet, Killing No Murder, which is only to show the lawfulness and conveniency that he be presently killed, had their entire approval. These things do not admit of question. On the limits of the moral reprobation to be attached to such complicity, we have already expressed our view.
And that view is strengthened when we remember that a price had been put upon the capture of Charles himself as a traitor, that Cromwell had sanctioned atrocious cruelty in Ireland, and that at this very time, Monk was offering rewards in Scotland for the capture or death of the leaders of the royal forces in the Highlands. Moreover, if accounts of the most circumstantial nature which reached Charles at any foundation, Assassination plots were not all on one side, for in May 1657 news was sent from England of his intended murder with names and details of the conspirators. The impatience of the English loyalists now brought disaster upon the cause. In February 1655 they were resolved to rise in many parts of the country Although the sealed knot, in whom alone there is any authority from the King, declared absolutely and sharply against the madness of those people that are resolved to begin.
Urgent warnings from Charles and Hyde led to nothing but invectives against the knot and against the King himself for his apathy. At length he was forced by the remonstrances of the over-eager men to dispatch Rochester to command in the North, And Wagstaff in the west, while he himself went to Middleburg to be ready for an immediate voyage. But there was no call upon Charles's presence in England. In March, a premature revolt at Salisbury was easily suppressed. Other isolated risings in west and north burned out for want of support and coherence, and the result was to settle more firmly the damned Oliver, the Beast and the Revelations.
Cromwell's French alliance and his attack upon Spain naturally opened up a new prospect for Charles. The delays, for which Spanish diplomacy was famous, the Spanish method, prevented anything definite until the spring of 1656, when he went incognito to Brussels to confer with the ministers Fuenzaldana and Alonso de Cardenas. A draft treaty was then drawn up and ratified in the summer, by which Charles agreed to suspend and, if possible, secure the parliamentary revocation of all penal laws, and to maintain the treaty with the Irish Catholics, in return for a monthly allowance of three thousand crowns to himself and fifteen hundred to James. The opening of the Spanish port for royalist privateers and the promise of armed help to recover his kingdom.
But there was an immediate condition of far greater import. He was to call out all the English and Irish soldiers in the French army to be formed into regiments in the service of Spain. This condition led to a serious family quarrel. The Duke of York had served with much credit under Turenne, to whom he was deeply attached. By an arrangement with Cromwell, who wished to keep the brothers in opposition, Mazzarone had offered him the command of the forces in Italy, and James was bitterly disappointed when he received instructions from the king to resign his commission, to join him at once at Bruges, where he had now taken up his residence, and to take the oath to Spain. Through a skillful intrigue of Mazzarone, James failed to secure even the command of the new regiments.
and his ill-humour was completed by a further order to dismiss his confidant, Sir John Barclay, who, under Cromwell's instructions, was inciting him to resistance. In a fit of sullen resentment, James left Flanders to follow his friend to Holland. Charles was deeply incensed at this unimaginable sally, while Cromwell noted with satisfaction That that fire kindled between them will not ask Bellows to blow it to keep it burning. Hyde's sagacity saved the situation. He urged that the very excess of James's actions made his reduction to his duty sure, and that no compliance with the Duke's weakness should be omitted, so that by it he may be got again to Bruges. Ormond was sent after the runaway. For he was the invariable messenger in family matters requiring firm and tactful handling.
On condition that the past should be forgotten, that his household should not be interfered with, and that Barclay should be made a peer, James returned somewhat sulkily to his duty. In May he was in command of the regiments, brave and as little troublesome as any prince can be. while Gloucester served as a volunteer with Caracena, and in June a final reconciliation took place between the brothers, in which Charles was relieved of serious embarrassment by James's promise to hold no further communication with the Queen or Lord German upon public affairs. Other causes of friction arose in the matter of the regiments. What the incident was, Which drew the following letter on December 28 from Charles to Don Alonso is not known, but it is worthy of transcription as evidence of one of the four or five known occasions upon which he allowed anger to disturb his usual easy temper.
I have seen your letter to the Chancellor, and am so full of indignation at the affront that is put upon me, that I have scarce patience to write this letter. I send this bearer expressly to let you know that before I suffer this affront to be upon my regiment, which was never yet offered to any private colonel whatsoever, I will break the regiment a thousand times over. I command you to tell Don Juan this from me. Let me have without delay a positive answer of what I may trust to, for I cannot nor will not any longer Be it the charges and trouble I am at. During the negotiations with Spain, curious pieces of by-play had gone on, in which but for Hyde's controlling hand, a fatal mistake might easily have been made.
In June, the Levellers and other extreme Republicans in England, who were Cromwell's most formidable enemies, made proposals to Charles through Sexby. To which, however, he was advised by Langdale not to listen, since they were incapable of carrying them out, and since the king, ought not to build the foundations of your councils upon any that have been in blood against your majesty or your royal father. Sexby, moreover, worked hard to induce the Spanish court to give its active assistance to the levelers in the projected insurrection, on the promise of the surrender of Dunkirk. And to Spanish help Langdale had no objection. Strangers, he said, are the most fit instruments for your Majesty to act in England withal, and these are not your friends, or do not understand England, that will persuade your Majesty that strangers will not be welcome to your friends in England.
To such a suggestion Hyde would not, of course, listen for a moment, although he was as anxious as Langdale to come to some agreement with Spain, And although he at once took the steps which resulted in the Treaty of 1656. Meanwhile, a busy Irish priest of indifferent character, Peter Talbot, who had acted as the intermediary between Sexby and the Spanish ministers, had been using the occasion to urge Charles to enter the Catholic Church. If Spain were to help, the king should renounce the French faction and become a Roman Catholic, yet so secretly. That no living creature should know of it but Fuensaldana, Don Alonso, the Archduke, and Father Talbot. The secret should be kept, if he wished, all his life.
If he would promise this, but not otherwise, Fuensaldana would have him come to Brussels at once, and in that case the Pope and the King of Spain would see that by God's assistance he was restored in six months. Talbot added in another letter, Only want of information can alienate a person of your Majesty's great wit and judgment from our communion.
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12 12 - Ch. 2: Scotland, Exile, and Restoration, Pt. 5 17:34
Scotland. Exile and Restoration. Part Five.
The indignation with which Hyde received this letter, and which Burns in every word of his measured reply, is easily explained. If Charles were under any temptation, To lapse from Protestantism, he could never return to England. Thurlow had roundly asserted, and it had been printed in Holland, that he had privately become a Catholic. The mystery of the King's religion is so insoluble that it is impossible to affirm or deny with certainty. The undoubted fact that he attended Mass is no evidence one way or the other. But with Hyde, The mere fact that suspicion was openly expressed was enough to call forth the most vehement protest. Hyde's incessant care that his master should make no false step is admirably illustrated by his letter to Ormond, who had undertaken a mission to England to ascertain how matters really stood with the king's friends.
He insisted that a conjunction between the Levellers and the Cavaliers Must be a first condition of any agreement with the former. That particular promises might be made to particular men, but no general concessions. That Ormond could not extol too highly the privileges of Magna Carta or the power of free parliaments. When they are obstinate to insist on any unreasonable propositions, let your consent be with this clause. If a free Parliament shall think fit to ask the same of His Majesty, and let that clause, with an if, be rather inserted to several unreasonable propositions than one general clause consented to. Through all the dreary days that were to follow, Hyde was immovable from this position.
To the Levellers, Charles had already written at his suggestion Promising pardon to all but those who sat and voted for his father's murder, and binding himself to govern by the known laws of the land and by successive parliaments. The cloud of poverty which had been somewhat raised by the treaty with Spain soon settled down more hopelessly than ever, as the inability or unwillingness of Spain to keep her bargain increased. God send us health and some money, wrote Hyde, who was suffering from poor man's gout, while Ormond answered Hyde's complaint of not receiving letters with the question what in the world he thought there was to write about except the want of money that makes us mad. Of Charles's own straits, Hyde said, if he has not a very speedy supply, He must take horse and tell Don Juan he is plainly run away from starving and from seeing his servants beg in the streets or be hauled to prison.
That this was no exaggeration is shown by two other entries. If Monsieur Onyat do not this day prevent it, poor Barton will be cast into prison for what he owes his landlord, while poor Dick Harding hath pawned every little thing he hath. The cup which the prince gave him, and every spoon, and hath not a shirt to his back, and yet will not importune his master. Hyde and Charles were themselves no better off than Dick Harding. On September 5, 1657, after referring to his great necessities, which you know I never call so till there is nothing left upon for bread, Hyde described how, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, He had looked over the state of the debts, and found that every bit of meat, every drop of drink, all the fire, and all the candles that hath been spent since the King's coming hither is entirely owed for, and how to get credit for a week more is no easy matter.
There was no money with which to pay the men of the newly formed regiments, and every day Hyde had before his eyes the sad spectacle of naked soldiers. The court, wrote one of Thurlow's correspondents with malicious pleasure, is scattered and so retired that they are scarce visible, and Dorothy Chiffinch could not get four livres a day to pay for the whole washing of the king's household. As late as the end of 1659, Hyde was complaining that we every day omit the doing of somewhat, for want of twenty or thirty pounds, That is of extraordinary moment. How Charles was able to pay for his blacks when he went into mourning for Ferdinand III was a puzzle to Thurlow's correspondent. We feel that we are in the regions of Bathos when we read that, compelled by dire necessity, the king hath been long without a chaplain.
Youth, high spirits, and a splendid constitution Reinforced by a happy facility for ignoring other people's privations, carried Charles gaily through it all. The insouciance, which developed later into a fixed cynicism, never failed him, while the mixture of familiarity and affectionate banter with which he wrote to Hyde and Ormond reminds us of the child's letter to Newcastle and shows that he felt absolutely safe in their patient loyalty. The gravity with which he trusted that Hyde, who had piteously described how shrunken he had become, will recover his accustomed greatness. The hurried note which bade him at a time when the poor man's gout was particularly aggressive, make as much haste as your gouty feet will give you leave.
The summons to Ormond, the Grand Signior, put your lazy bones to it, for we know not what to say till you come. The petulant, I would you were, the royal tongue has a touch of coarseness here, for not letting me have a copy of your book of inscriptions, subscriptions, and superscriptions. Such utterances as these are sufficient to show the relations, and we can easily imagine the magisterial gravity of Hyde when he wrote, in answer to Charles's letter telling how he had lost his keys while watching the procession on Good Friday, You do very well in letting what you intend to lose be always by itself, and unentangled with what you desire to keep. This is the more interesting, because neither Hyde nor Ormond were persons with whom liberties could safely be taken, and this Charles sometimes discovered for himself.
There is a letter extant which shows that Ormond preserved the spirit which he showed as a mere boy, when he caused Stratford, then in the height of his power, to be told that if he called upon him to give up his sword, he should have it through his body. He now had reason to feel aggrieved at some slight passed upon him, apparently by James, and he wrote forthwith to Charles himself. All this not being to be suffered with dissimilation, but with great meanness, the most moderate resentment I can have of it, Is to demand full satisfaction from your Majesty, most humbly beseeching you to believe that no greater misfortune can befall me than that of being reduced to take this means, hoping that in this occasion your Majesty will oblige me never to depart from that true and sincere passion I have always had to manifest myself, etc.
Idle poverty and recklessness are sure companions. To the infinite regret of his wise and loyal advisers, Charles permitted himself and his followers even more license in Flanders than in Cologne. From one of his spies at Bruges, Thurlow received the following. There is now a company of French comedians at Bruges, who are very punctually attended by Charles Stuart in his court, and all the ladies there. Their most solemn day of acting, it is the Lord's Day. I think I may truly say that greater abominations were never practiced among people than at this day in Charles Stewart's court. Fornication, drunkenness, and adultery are esteemed no sins among them. Accounts such as this, must, it is true, be read with discrimination.
We do not expect austere morality from a tramp, but neither is it probable that the Spanish government would have allowed any very open scandal without protest, and it must be borne in mind that the more lurid the reports, the better would Cromwell and Thurlow be pleased. They were carefully published in England, and undoubtedly injured the prospects of Charles by preventing sober men, especially Presbyterians, from expressing sympathy with him. Indeed, they were largely responsible for the carrying of the Act of November 1656, by which all title of either of the three brothers, or their descendants, was absolutely extinguished. Pleasure and debauchery did indeed promise to be the leaden clogs which will, in the end, make them stick.
Charles had arrived at Bruges on April 22, 1656. and for a few weeks lodged at the house of the Irish Viscount Terra in the street of the old Burg. On June 3rd, he occupied permanent quarters in the first house on the right-hand side of the high street as one walks from the Burg. Here he remained until February 7th, 1658, when he went to Brussels. One or two interesting notices of his stay are to be found in the records of the two societies of St. George and St. Sebastian, Composed of crossbowmen and archers, respectively. On June 11, 1656, he was present with his brother Henry at the Festival of the Former. He aimed first at the bird of honor, suspended from a mast, and struck it. It was finally brought down by a wine merchant, round whose neck Charles hung the prize, a golden bird.
On June 25, he did a like honor to the rival society. Under the dates of August 3rd and 6th, there are records in its registers of promises from Charles of 1,000 crowns of gold after his death, and from Henry of 300 crowns due from his heirs. Strange to say, Charles was better than his word. In 1662 he paid to the Society of St. George 650 livres de gros, Flemish silver, and to that of Saint-Sebastian, Thirty-six hundred florins. To the end of his reign, he retained a grateful memory of the Flemings, whom he described as the most honest and true-hearted race of people that he had met with. The outlook of the exiles had been brightened by the treaty with Spain, but having secured four good regiments from Charles's English and Irish followers to fight her battles, Spain had no intention of wasting them upon his.
The reiterated demands of the king as to the causes of delay—the king of I don't know what, as the Marquis de Leyda called him—brought little satisfaction, and he was driven to put off his projected descent upon England until the winter of 1657. He was deeply hurt at this scurvy usage. If I were with Don Juan, he wrote to Hyde, I should follow your counsel and swear two or three round oaths. But though I am in ill-humor— Methinks you are in worse. Hyde was, he admits, weary of his life. God give you a better temper, exclaimed Lord Bristol. The relations were still more strained when Don Juan, Don Devil he had become now, refused to allow Charles to join his brothers at the front. The difficulty was at length smoothed over, and very shortly Hyde was lecturing him on his want of consideration for his subjects.
in recklessly and uselessly exposing his person, though none of those who think that you are like to recover your three kingdoms without being in danger of your life. It is evident that the service was of real danger, and that there was no shirking on the part of the brothers, for at this very time Charles was requested by Bristol to remonstrate with James on the same score, while in an attempt to recover Mardyke, Ormond had his horse shot under him when riding at the king's side. Once more the king claimed the fulfillment of the Spanish promises. His friends in England were at length ready to move, and arms and provisions were stored at Newport and Ostend. But Don Jeanne replied that he would risk no troops until some trustworthy informant could satisfy him of the actual facts.
The extraordinary confidence in which Ormond was held is shown by the acceptance of his offer, already mentioned, to go to England and ascertain the state of parties. Charles pawned his George to pay the expenses of the journey. Cromwell's spies were successfully deceived by the report that he was leaving on a mission to the Diet, and he landed in Essex in the beginning of January 1658. He remained a month in disguise in England, consulted the sealed knot and other leading royalists, and returned with a report so hopeless that all designs had to be postponed. His presence in England was duly notified to Cromwell by Sir Richard Willis, the traitor of the knot, who, however playing the double game, gave warning to Ormond himself at the same time so that he was able to leave the country unscathed.
While still in England, in hourly danger of liberty and life, he managed to send a notable and beautiful letter to Hyde, which shows with what discriminating loyalty these two dealt with their master. I must now freely confess to you that what you have written of the king's unseasonable impatience at his stay at Bruges is a greater damp to my hopes of his recovery than the strength of his enemies or the weakness and backwardness of those who profess him friendship. Modesty, courage, and many accidents may overcome those enemies and unite and fix those friends. But I fear his immoderate delight in empty, effeminate, and vulgar conversations is become an irresistible part of his nature, and will never suffer him to animate his own designs and others' actions.
With that spirit which is requisite for his quality and much more to his fortune. This to any but to you or him, from any, unless a very few, but from me, or from me at any other time, were too bold a lamentation, for so God knows it is. May God bless him and fit him for his work. It is letters such as these that show That Charles was restored in spite of himself. While Ormond was thus risking his life in England, Charles was at Antwerp with his sister Mary. His first governor, the magnificent Newcastle, was there also, and for many days all troubles were forgotten in the entertainments which he provided. But the prospects grew dark month by month throughout that year. The Spanish pensions were not paid.
Complaints of robbery and outrage by the starving men of the regiments were frequent. The broken officers thronged the court with importunate clamor. On March 1st, English frigates destroyed the ships at Ostend, in which Charles hoped to make his voyage, and next winter was once more the earliest moment for the enterprise. On June 8th, the prospects of Spain, and with them his own, vanished at the Battle of the Dunes. When the four Irish and English regiments under James gave way before the charge of the Ironsides. Once more, conversion was put before Charles as his best chance of help, but he himself reported on June 28th. I find Don Alonso reasonable enough in the point of my conversion, and does think the best way to that is to do all that is possible to set me in England again and leave the rest to God.
The last five words Formed the diplomatic phrase for indefinite postponement. Spain no more cared about Charles's conversion than did Louis XIV in later years at the Treaty of Dover.
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13 13 - Ch. 2: Scotland, Exile, and Restoration, Pt. 6 17:13
SCOTLAND. EXILE. AND RESTORATION. PART VI.
At length, for a brief interval, Hope flared high. Charles was playing tennis when Sir Stephen Fox called him from his game with great news. It had pleased God, out of his infinite goodness, to do that which he would not allow any man the honor of doing. The powerful devil was dead. For a moment, all was exaltation, delirious, inarticulate. German wrote from France the assurance that the engagements with the dead monster expire suddenly. Culpeper reported that Amsterdam was mad with joy. No man is at leisure to buy or sell. The young fry dance in the streets at noonday. The devil is dead is the language at every turn. But German was not in the councils of Mazzarone, nor the young fry in those of John de Witt.
Lockhart kept the cardinal firm, although Dick Cromwell sate like an ape on horseback, while in a few days Culpeper wrote again that the states Now bent all their thoughts on renewing the treaty with the new Protector, hoping to edge in that which they could never obtain from the Crafty Fox his father, the Maritime Treaty. Charles's wiser friends kept their heads. Hyde's voice was heard at once. I hope the King will not be prevailed upon to do any sudden thing. We shall have advantages offered if we do not hurt ourselves with projects. Meanwhile, all friends should get into Parliament as soon as possible. Wait till they quarrel, added Culpepper, and then the weaker part will be glad of our help.
Culpepper's very able letter contained one fruitful piece of advice, which could not, however, be fully acted upon for nearly another year. The key of the situation was held by George Monk, who had the army of occupation in Scotland at his disposal. The aim should therefore be to satisfy him that his personal interests would be best secured by a restoration, and his own way of declaring himself should be accepted without demur. The way to deal with him is by some fit person, to show him plainly and to give him all imaginable security for it, that he shall better find all his ends—those of honor, power, profit, safety—with the king than in any other way he can take. Neither are we to Boggle at any way he shall propose in declaring himself, let it at the first be presbytery, be king in parliament, be a third party, or what he will.
So it oppose the present power, it will at last do the king's business, and after a little time he will and must alone fall into the track we would have him to go in. When he is engaged, past the retreat, he will want you as much as you will want him. And you may mold him into what form you please. To prepare the ground, to be ready to take advantage of the recriminations and quarrels already breaking out between Presbyterians and Republicans in England, to prevent all divisions among themselves, to frustrate especially the intrigues of Father Talbot and his like, who were endeavoring to set up the interest of James against that of the king, And to conciliate every possible source of support.
This was the course laid down by Hyde, who now as Lord Chancellor had more authority than ever. An obvious and a necessary step was to reassure all good Protestants, especially Presbyterians, of the King's firmness to the faith. If his Scottish experience had sickened him of all religion, it had at least taught him the value of a severation, and on November 7th, Letters were dispatched to the ministers of the English Presbyterian Churches in Holland, expressing his undying zeal for the Protestant religion, the propagation whereof we shall endeavor with our utmost power. In the beginning of March, 1659, the Levellers renewed their offer to help Charles to regain his crown, Upon conditions which meant nothing less than pure republicanism veiled under monarchical phrases.
But Hyde kept steadily before him the idea of a restoration subject to such conditions only as did not imply a nerveless monarchy or a new church. For this he trusted to time. Meanwhile he pleaded incessantly with Mordent, Broderick, and other eager friends in England for the avoidance of hasty action. They were pressing for a restoration on any terms, confident that the restrictions imposed will be suddenly taken off by Your Majesty's sweetness of disposition and temper. But Three Kingdoms, Hyde felt, are too considerable to venture upon a slight account. Against all proposals to rise in arms, he protested most earnestly, and especially warned his friends against Buckingham, then in England.
Who will be glad to merit by setting any ridiculous plot on foot? He would not, if he could help it, allow Charles to send a line to his friends without his endorsement. It was he who held the pen when the King authorized his agents in England to make what promises they thought fitting and engaged to make them good. But not to such as were possessed of church or crowned lands, Or the lands taken from our faithful subjects. Or when Charles wrote directly, saying, I do avoid making large promises to you because I am told it would not be acceptable, and that you are swayed by other thoughts, yet cannot but tell you, you shall never repent any offices you shall do me. Of all promises actually made, Hyde kept a careful register, and they were scrupulously redeemed.
By May 1659, the outlook had again altered. On the 4th, Charles heard that his adherents were ready to rise in the Midlands and in the North, and on the same day the army restored the long Parliament and dismissed Richard Cromwell. Chaos, he was told, is a perfection in comparison with our order and government. The parties are like floating islands, sometimes joining and appearing like a continent, When the next flood or ebb separates them, that it can hardly be known where they are next. In the beginning of June, all was in good posture, and Hyde was urging rather than restraining, while Charles adjured from England that he must hazard his own person if success were to be hoped for, promised that in case of a rising he would come with two thousand men at least.
France and Spain, he added, would doubtless help him. Since a temporary cessation of arms had been arranged. Charles might promise two thousand men, but he could not possibly move while Ostend was closely watched, for it was the only port where he had ships. But the man who next to Monk held the issues in his hands was Admiral Montague, a perfect hater of the men who now rule, though devoted to old Knoll his countrymen. Montague was in command of the fleet at the Sound, and it was intimated to him that if he would bring his vessels to embark Charles's regiments, there would be practically no limit to what he might ask and receive. Without waiting for the result of these advances, Charles wrote to England that he and James would set out on July 21st in the hope that his friends would be ready for him.
He expressed his anxiety, or hides, That the English nation may be the means of removing the misery without owning those great obligations to foreign princes which they seldom yield without some advantage to their own interest and impairing their neighbors. In a few days, however, he received a letter from Mordent and Titus, warning him that arrangements were still unmatured, and imploring him not to expose his person to danger. At the beginning of August it was understood That all was at length in train. The proposals were that Massey should seize Gloucester, Lord Willoughby, Lynn, and Sir G. Booth Chester, while Plymouth, Bristol, Shrewsbury, and Exeter were to be attacked. Montague was to bring the fleet from the Sound.
Gloucester was then to sail from Ostend for the east coast with the Irish regiments. Turenne had promised to convey James with his troops and artillery from Boulogne. On the fifteenth, Charles had started for Calais. Thence he went in disguise to St. Malo in Brittany, and was about to sail on September 8th, when Ormond overtook him with news of disaster. The whole scheme of the insurrection had been betrayed to the government by Willis, and when Booth rose in Cheshire he was easily crushed. Montague, who had come to the mouth of the Thames, had fortunately not yet declared himself and by desperate lying managed to escape death or imprisonment. On the 26th, Charles was told that he must look for no more risings of his friends, and the bitter truth was pressed upon him that the Spaniard uses you, the French betray you, the Dutch are already declared against you.
One chance remained. Mazarin and Don Luis de Haro had met at Fontterrabia in Spain, after the cessation of arms to discuss the future settlement, and thither Charles went in the hope that he might induce the two crowns to help him, and in particular that the army of Condé, which with his own would make sixteen thousand men, would be put at his disposal. He met with nothing but disappointment. Mazzarone was resolved not to break with the existing government in England, so long as there was a possibility of renewed war with Spain. Spain was still less in a condition to entangle herself, and her interest in Charles was limited to the desire for the restoration of Jamaica, which had been captured by the English, and of Dunkirk, which had fallen to them after the Battle of the Dunes.
In his suggestions to Mazzarone, Charles included a proposal of marriage with his niece Hortense, but the Cardinal gracefully declined the honor by insisting that as long as a cousin of his own remained unmarried, he must not stoop to think of a simple demoiselle. The hope of securing Condé's forces vanished through the vigilance of Lockhart, who obtained a clause in the treaty for their immediate disbandment. Nothing was left for Charles but to return as cheerily as he could to Brussels, with next winter once more upon his tongue. On the journey, He went out of his way to Colum to visit the queen, and mother and son were reconciled. At this visit, also, was formed that romantic attachment to his younger sister, which will deserve much notice later.
No sooner had he left than there began the series of letters for Dear Dear Sister, which, with her proudly affectionate answers, can scarcely now be read without emotion. It was the one untainted spot in Charles's life. At Fontarabia, Charles acquired distinct reputation. He has behaved himself here as if he had been bred more years in Spain than in France, wrote O'Neill. The French were equally impressed, and all his counsel could not deliver his business better, nor add a syllable to what he says. Even from Hyde fell unaccustomed words of praise. His dexterity and composedness hath removed the fatal misfortune of not being believed. For till the king be thought to understand his own business and be able to conduct it, all our striving is against the stream.
And towards that good reputation, an opinion of his industry is as necessary as of his conception. The usual hot report that he had turned papist was, of course, spread, with circumstantial evidence, after his Spanish visit. And your master is utterly ruined, if this be true," wrote Mordent. There were doubtless suspicious circumstances. He had gone to Mass, and Bristol had been converted. The fact that Charles had at once dismissed Bristol from his counsel did not affect the conclusions which were drawn. It is worthwhile to turn aside from the narrative for a few moments to notice one delightful passage from Hyde which puts in the strongest light. Charles's appreciation of his own limitations and his dislike of clumsy flattery.
A certain Dr. Creighton had sent to Hyde for criticism the proof-sheets of a book upon the Council of Florence with an epistle dedicatory to Charles, couched in the high-flown language of a courtly divine. Hyde thus replied, In the next place, you must remember that though our Master hath taken great pains, and with excellent success, In the modern languages, yet in Latin he is too unskillful, by the inexcusable negligence of those who should have laid that foundation, so that when this book shall be presented to him, there is no question but that he will command that the epistle dedicatory be translated for him into English. And I must tell you that as there is no prince this day in Europe who deserves greater commendation, So his modesty is so predominant over all his virtues, that no gentleman is sooner out of countenance with being overcommended.
I have not in my lifetime seen him more displeased and more angry than in some few encounters of that kind, and I dare swear he will be put to many blushes upon the reading of your epistle, and wish some expressions were away. You have not, nor you cannot say, too much of the candor of his mind, of the justice and gentleness of his nature, of his affection and zeal to the Protestant religion. But I beseech you, allay those other expressions, which he will believe belong not to him, which relate to his conduct and perfection in war, and to such extraordinary ability as can be got only by experience, Above all, I beseech you review and allay those two hyperbolical expressions of the modesty and severity of our court, where, God knows, the fabricii nor the camilli can be found, and these encomiums may possibly call on some reproaches upon us which we do as little deserve.
It is easy to imagine the contemptuous odds fishy is a fool with which Charles would have read the praise of his Latin, his military skill, and the chastity of his court. Nothing remained for the exiles but to fall back upon their accustomed diet of patience. They were now in worse plight than ever. The king's clothes were threadbare, and he was obliged to dismiss his servants and to pawn his remaining plate. Monk's brother, who had been sent on the mission to that impenetrable man, had returned with no word, comfortable or adverse. We know now that he had heard Charles's communication read to him, although he would not take it into his hands, that a letter from him to the Speaker had been drafted in which he demanded a free Parliament, that on receipt of the news of Booth's defeat this letter had been torn up, and that all who knew of it had been sworn to secrecy.
It was not until October that Monk showed his hand. Hearing of the expulsion of the rump by Lambert, and grasping the fact that the traditional feeling of the average Englishman was the exact opposite of the army doctrine, he made Scotland secure, and having received from the former Committee of Safety a commission to command all the forces in England and Scotland, prepared to march against Lambert.
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14 14 - Ch. 2: Scotland, Exile, and Restoration, Pt. 7 24:29
SCOTLAND. EXILE. AND RESTORATION. PART VII.
At Brussels it was felt that the confusions of England tended but one way, a sensibility of miseries and a thought of no way to have them redressed but by monarchy, And that, in the right line, begins to creep into most men's thoughts. The shifting scene of parties in England in December is admirably described by Broderick, who pertinently asked, Will a bone often dislocated thereby acquire firmness in the socket? And ever as the prospect of a conflict between Monk and Lambert became clearer was heard Hyde's reiterated advice to have a little patience, To sit still till they are in blood. The restoration of the Rump Parliament on December 26th gave small hope, since one of its first acts was to vote a new and most comprehensive abjuration of kingship and of the family of Stuart.
But Charles had taken a fruitful step, when, by Hyde's advice, he had declared that he would confirm all the privileges of the city, and give still farther concessions, Since he wished to own his restoration to the courage and devotion of the citizens only. The most powerful organization in the country was thus secured, while at the same time he gained the willing concurrence of Manchester, Northumberland, Ansley, Prynne, and many other leading Presbyterians. As Presbyterians they regarded Hyde as their salvation, since he was the only man that hath and will keep out popery. And as men of substance they saw in him one who understood the law and would preserve property. Hope in the possible virtues of Charles had also much to do with the Presbyterian favor, and his friends were not left without ample assurance of these virtues.
He hates not the vicious, but abominates their vices. He hates not the drunkard, but his drunkenness. He is the perfect pattern of piety, but more of patience. A perfect enemy to all debauchedness. So wrote the author of Three Royal Cedars. And the need which was felt to keep up the farce is shown in the grumble of one impatient royalist. We are all commanded to be plaguey godly. On January 1, 1660, Monk crossed the Tweed, and, unopposed by Lambert, whose forces melted away as he marched, entered London on February 3. What would he do? Once more, said Hyde, we can but wait God Almighty's time. The various episodes of that interval of hope and anxiety do not need repetition, and we may pass to the middle of March, when the controversy begins now to be rather upon what terms than whether the King shall be restored.
The Presbyterian nobles demanded the Isle of White Conditions, which would have established a dominant aristocracy, Rather than a monarchy. The city demanded the immediate recall of the king with an amnesty, satisfaction to the army, and settlement of religion by a council of divines. And underlying all politics, careless of terms or no terms was the longing of men, and still more of women, for peace, for social peace. I pray God, wrote Penelope Denton to Sir Ralph Verney on March 8th, Send me my life to see peace in our days, and that friends may live to rejoice each other. On April 15th, when the exchange was crowded, there came a fellow with a ladder upon his shoulders and a pot of paint in his hand, and set the ladder in the place where the last king's statue had stood, and then went up and wiped out that inscription, Exit Tyrannus, and as soon as he had done it, threw up his cap and cried, God bless King Charles II, in which the whole exchange joined with the greatest shout you can imagine, and immediately caused a huge bonfire to be made, which the neighbors of Cornhill and Cheapside imitated with three or four more, and so that action passed.
This melodramatic prophecy was followed hard by its fulfillment. Monk had at last made up his mind. He put nothing on paper. But Bernard Grenville committed the conditions to memory and carried them to the King. They were less onerous than those of the Presbyterians of the city, but they especially urged the departure of Charles from Flanders into Dutch territory, that all fear of Spanish interference might be avoided. At the same time, a paper of advice reached Charles from Lenthal the Speaker. He must be wary of the army and of the Presbyterians. He must yield to nothing prejudicial to his rights, must temporize regarding the power of the sword, tolerate Catholics and all other religious parties, keep his friends from boasting, bind himself to nothing lest he be a mere doge of Venice.
Morley, afterwards Bishop of Winchester, had been employed to hoodwink the Presbyterians. The most unreserved testimonials to Charles' orthodoxy had been secured from the Protestant congregations in Holland, France, and elsewhere on the continent, while James Sharp, who came from the moderate Scotch Presbyterians, clearly saw his account in assuring himself that Presbytery would be safe. But probably the most convincing evidence was afforded by the deputation of London ministers headed by Mr. Case. The story is indeed derived from a source so scurrilous that were it not entirely consistent with Charles's humor, we should hesitate to accept it. Mr. Case, coming where the King lay, was carried up into the chamber next or very near the King's closet, but told withal that the King was busy at his devotions, and that till he had done they must be contented to stay.
Being thus left alone, and hearing a sound of groaning piety, Such was the curiosity of Mr. Case that he would needs go and lay his ear to the closet door. But heavens, how was the good old man ravished to hear the pious ejaculations that fell from the king's lips? Lord, since thou art pleased to restore me to the throne of my ancestors, grant me a heart constant in the exercise and protection of thy true Protestant religion. Never may I seek the oppression of those who, out of tenderness of their consciences, are not free to conform to outward and indifferent ceremonies, with a great deal more of the same cant. All this in face of the reports which were spread by the king's enemies, of his devotion to prelacy and even to Catholicism, was, it was felt, but a pardonable ruse to guerre.
Another subject had now to be evaded as well as might be. The longing impatience to know whether His Majesty will condemn or save his blessed father's murderers. I answer all parties that his grandfather never questioned the executioners of his mother. But descending to particulars, some members of the rump were content their fellows should be hanged, they reciprocally of the same mind. To every attempt to bind Charles to definite engagements came Hyde's steady and invariable reply. No man is so tender of the nation as the king is, and will do all he can to preserve it, except it be to offer violence to his conscience or honor, and they who believe he will buy his crown upon such conditions as would make him ashamed of wearing it will be deceived.
Hyde's reward was now very near. On April 25th, the Free Parliament met with a Royalist majority. On May 1st, Letters were read from the king to both houses, to the army, the city, and Monk. They were dated from Breda, whither he had made a hurried flitting from Flanders, according to Monk's wish. Barely in time indeed, for the Spaniards would have kept him until they had extorted promises regarding Jamaica and Dunkirk. On May 9, Charles was proclaimed king, unfettered by any written condition. Three weeks later, he entered his kingdom without the help of a single foreign soldier, and except for the promise to Spain to endeavor to repeal the penal laws against the Catholics, without a pledge to a single foreign prince.
Hyde's triumph was complete. Nonetheless, both he and Charles knew that conditions did exist. The failure to fulfill which would probably have relegated him once more to a wandering life among the courts of Europe. That this was so arose from the all-important fact that, speaking roughly, he was restored by those who had overthrown his father and who were responsible for his own exile. The fleet, the army, the fortresses were in Presbyterian hands. England had, it is true, shaken off at length the military despotism by which Cromwell had cut right athwart the most cherished traditions of English life. Like an unstrung bow, she had fallen back upon her old ways of life. She had restored her parliament, and then parliament and monarchy being coordinated in the English mind, she had restored her king.
This government was as natural to them as their food or raiment, And naked Indians dressing themselves in French fashion were no more absurd than Englishmen without a parliament and a king. But having thrown off first the despotism of Charles I, and then the despotism of military force, the country had no thought of bending to another. The new reign must take account of the feelings which had grown up during the overthrow and abeyance of monarchy. That Charles fully recognized the position was seen in his own words some months later to the House of Lords, when he spoke of those who brought or permitted us to come here. The people might, it was hoped, be deceived by the professions made, but made they must be.
The Declaration of Breda, a monument to Hyde's legal subtlety and clear perception of the whole field of strategy, was admirably suited to the object in view. By the most careful expression of deference to the authority of the Parliament, he trusted to lull suspicion until the King should be steady enough upon the throne to use his constitutional power of dissolution at a favorable moment, when he would be able to secure a Parliament more to his wishes. The foremost question in men's minds was how far retaliation would be allowed free play. Had the Restoration been the work of a victorious royalist movement, the passions aroused would have been quenched, the accumulated injuries of years avenged in torrents of blood.
But it was primarily the re-establishment of parliamentary government, and thus it was, that the Declaration granted a general pardon to all who by any open act returned to loyalty and obedience within forty days, Accepting only such persons as shall hereafter be accepted by Parliament. It contained no demand even for vengeance upon the murderers of Charles I. A significant hint, however, was given in the letter to the Speaker which accompanied the Declaration. If there be a crying sin for which the nation may be involved in the infamy which attends it, we cannot doubt The question of the Church was treated under the same conditions. The Presbyterians were looking forward with eager anxiety. The Anglican churchmen with exultant hope.
To quiet the one, but in terms which might afterwards leave the field clear to the other, Charles proclaimed on his own account a complete liberty to tender consciences, declaring himself ready, "...to consent to such an act of Parliament as upon mature deliberation shall be offered to us for the full granting that indulgence." The resettlement of the land was next dealt with. During the wars many estates had changed hands. The crowned lands and those of church dignitaries had been confiscated by the commonwealth and sold. About them, nothing was said in the Declaration. As to private estates, either granted away by the Commonwealth or sold by distressed Royalists, the decision was left absolutely in the hands of Parliament.
In another matter, the Declaration expressed how completely the Restoration was one of sufferance. It concluded with a promise to consent to any act of Parliament, For the full satisfaction of all arrears due to the officers and soldiers of the army under the command of General Monk, and to receive them into the royal service upon as good pay and conditions as they now enjoy. The recognition of the absolute authority of Parliament in questions regarding the Church and the land, the complete waving of a desire for personal vengeance, the satisfaction of Monk's army, These were the conditions under which Charles was allowed to return to England. At The Hague, whither he had gone on the invitation of the States, Charles tasted the first intoxicating delights of the astounding change which had in a moment translated him from the penniless vagrancy of a princely outcast to the glories of a throne.
They came to him first in the altered attitude of the powers which had alternately fed or starved him, exalted or humiliated. Mazarin was foremost with his congratulations and the offer of either of his well-dowered nieces. But the position of Fontarabia was now reversed. Unstinted hospitality and a purse of six thousand pounds marked the change in the States, who, in fear of Cromwell, had dismissed him from their territory. Whoever is King of England, they said, were it the devil himself? We must be friends with him. Money flowed in from all sides. Fifty thousand pounds came from the Parliament, with large presents for James and Gloucester, and Pepys describes the naive delight with which, on May 16, Charles called his sister Mary to come and gaze upon the money while it lay in the portmanteau.
It was as if a starving tramp had picked up a half-crown. Foreign ambassadors, English royalists, who had done much for him, and many who were hoping to reap from soil where they had not sown, those who had everything to hope, and those who had much to fear, parliamentary deputations, church divines and Presbyterian ministers, crowded the Hague. Schooled by Hyde, and aided by his own natural and acquired powers, the king performed his part with all due observance. From occasional outbreaks of his peculiar humor, however, he could not be stopped. When a body of persons who had done nothing but shout with the crowd claimed audience, he called for wine to be brought, drank their healths with all imaginable courtesy, and dismissed them with the remark that he was now even with them, having, as he thought, done as much for them as they had done for him.
And in the midst of it all, He found time and heart to send the letter to dear, dear sister, the sweet young girl to whom he had given all the love of which he was capable. No absence, he said, nor any other cause could alter that love, and none who were with him could ever share it. He thanked her for the song she had sent him, though he did not know whether it was pretty, as Jean-Ledin had not yet learned it, and commissioned her to choose the trimming and feathers for his summer clothes. On May 23, surrounded by his relatives, with every circumstance of florid pomp and with infinite shooting off of guns, Charles went on board the Naseby, rechristened after dinner by him with his own name. The mere fact of being afloat, as the anchor was weighed and with a fresh gale and most happy weather we set sail for England, was enough to exhilarate the lover of the sea, who had not been on salt water since he had landed at Fecont.
A worn, haggard, and hunted man nine years before. All that evening he walked the deck incessantly and told his eager listeners the story of the wonderful escape, and it was long after Peep's usual bedtime before he released his audience. At daybreak on the next day but one, the Royal Charles was close in Shore at Dover. Charles behaved like the philosopher he was. He knew he had a hard day before him. He sent for his brothers from their ships, and the three sat down to peas and pork and boiled beef, with the robust appetite which had shocked the Grand Mademoiselle when, years before, he had thrown himself upon the shoulder of mutton instead of trifling with the unsatisfying Hortelon. It was not until past noon that, attended by his brothers in Montagu, he rowed ashore in the ship's barge.
While Pepys, with a dog which the king loved, was able to land at the same moment and see all that went on. He saw the greeting with Monk, which showed that the successful soldier of fortune had placed his sheathed sword in Charles's hand. He saw the mayor give up and receive back again the sign of his office, token that the civil power knew its lawful king. He saw the solemn presentation of a very rich Bible, Which, with the ease born of his Scotch experiences, the King declared to be the thing he loved above all things in the world. And so into a stately coach, there set for him, and so away through the town towards Canterbury. And for the present Pepys saw him no more. Through shouting multitudes, through diverse gallant troops of horse, in which the meanest rider was some gentleman of note, Through the foot-regiments of Kentish men, he passed over Barham down to Canterbury.
Slowly he rode along streets, loud with music amid civic ceremonies and gifts, to Lord Camden's house. And there he sat down and wrote to his child-sister thus, I was so tormented with business at The Hague that I could not write to you before my departure. He had forgotten the letter we have quoted. But I left orders with my sister to send you a small present from me, which I hope you will soon receive. My head is so dreadfully stunned with the acclamations of the people and the vast amount of business that I know not whether I am writing sense or nonsense. Therefore pardon me if I say no more than that I am entirely yours for my dear sister. And the next day and the next, from Canterbury to Rochester, from Rochester to London, Through garlanded streets, through the somber regiments, through bands of proper maids, clad all alike in white garments with scarves about them, who strewed his path with flowers, past conduits running wine, amid all the civic glories of the ancient city, amid the blare of trumpets and the blaze of color and the thundering of guns, the wanderer of a month back rode to Whitehall at seven on the evening of the twenty-ninth.
And received through the Houses of Parliament the allegiance of the kingdom to which Hyde's Prudence and Cromwell's Major Generals and the force of old associations had, after more than fourteen years of exile, at length brought him. When Manchester, in the name of the Peers of England, gave welcome to the desire of three kingdoms, the King excused himself for making an inadequate reply. So disordered by my journey and with the noise still sounding in my ears, but bade all be confident that next to the honor of God I shall study the welfare of my people, and shall not only be a true defender of the faith, but a just asserter of the laws and liberties of my subjects. England had become England again.
A thing had happened never read of in history, that when monarchy was laid aside at the expense of so much blood, It should return again without the shedding of one drop. And Evelyn was but one of thousands who stood in the strand and beheld it, and blessed God. It was the Lord's doing, for such a restoration was never mentioned in any history ancient or modern since the return of the Jews from Babylonish captivity. Another besides Charles entered upon a kingdom that night. There were those about him who studied his well-known tastes. After the receptions were over and the feasting done, the restored monarch, to whom the honor of God stood first, retired to rest, whether in the bedchamber at Whitehall or whether in the house of Samuel Moreland across the water, in the exultant arms of Barbara Palmer.
This abandoned woman came of good stock. She was the only child of William Villiers, second Viscount Grandison, who gave his life for the steward cause. Her mother was daughter of Lord Baining. Barbara Villiers was one of those happily rare women for whom unchastity has invincible attractions. Before she was sixteen years of age, she had given herself with zest and without the slightest reserve to Philip Stanhope, the second Earl of Chesterfield, and apparently not to him alone. In April 1659 she married Roger Palmer, a student at the Temple. who carried messages from England to Charles in February 1660. A little later we shall find him accepting an empty title as the price of his wife's public dishonor.
But poor creature as he was, and suspicious as are many of the circumstances, there is no evidence that he was in the first instance privy to his preferment. It is noticeable that Chesterfield, who was still Barbara's lover, came with the King and the Royal Charles. It was probably through his good offices that she secured the dominion which she kept almost unimpaired for ten years. The finest woman of her age, as she is described by one who did not love her, with the form and carriage of a goddess, an exquisite and petulant beauty which carried conquest in every mood, and the triumphant freshness of youth and of buoyant physical health. She established from that moment an unquestioned despotism over the debauchee of Southern blood for whom she was indeed a fitting mate, a despotism which suffered no weakening as every day she increasingly betrayed a coarseness of tongue, a vulgarity of hate, an insatiable rapacity, and a promiscuity of vice which might have revolted the most fallen of her sex.
A despotism which was certain to fail when the attractiveness of her person began to wane, but which failed only then.
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15 15 - Ch. 3: Charles and Clarendon, Pt. 1 18:28
Charles and Clarendon. Since the grandfather of Charles received the crown from Elizabeth, a change had come over the meaning of the word monarchy, which was amply illustrated by the declaration from Breda. The old phrases might be used in parliamentary addresses, the absence of all conditions imposed by the houses might be dwelt upon by exalting royalists, but everyone knew that there were conditions, and that the phrases merely veiled a profoundly altered set of relations. Nominally, the prerogative remained what it was before thirty years of strife had taught their lessons, but nonetheless it was clear that prerogative and parliament Executive and legislative were terms which had received new interpretations in men's minds, and must now undergo in practical application a serious and frank revision if the English monarchy, the English parliament, and the English people were to live in harmony during the reign which opened in such a delirium of satisfaction.
Even more pressing was the question, what was the new church to be? How were the lessons of the last generation to be applied to her? There was no place in England for another Stratford. Was there a place for another Laud? Was the Church to return to her old powers, her old possessions? Was she to be the Erastian Church of Elizabeth, the Anglican Church of Charles I? Was Presbyterianism to be bowed to, or comprehended, or tolerated, or hounded out of her borders? What was to become of tender consciences, of independents, of Anabaptists, of the thousand sects which had sprung up? How were the promises made by Charles to the Catholics to be redeemed, when it was remembered that the mere report of his conversion had been enough to imperil his return?
What, in fact, was to become of the first part of the great inheritance left by Cromwell? Toleration. But it was not these comprehensive issues which for the moment pressed most heavily. The problems which called for solution without a day's unnecessary delay were those of life and property, and of freedom from the rule of the sword. That the regicides should suffer was understood by all. But how much farther was vengeance to be carried? It was not disputed That the church and crowned lands which had been confiscated and sold by the Commonwealth should revert to the church and crown. But were men who had paid hard cash and fair bargain for the lands of necessitous royalists to be robbed because they had been on the wrong side?
And lastly, what was to be done with the army? that army which had destroyed in turn the monarchy and the parliament, and which even now might in a moment throw all into confusion. Neither monarchy nor parliament could breathe freely until it was gone, and when it was gone, who would occupy the vacant field of force? Who was to enter into the second part of Cromwell's legacy, the power of the sword? Such were some of the questions which at this particular phase of the great controversy that had opened out when James I came to the throne, and in its essentials closed when James II left it, demanded skilful and in some cases immediate reply. And of what sort was the king upon whom that reply rested?
The preceding pages will indeed have been written in vain if this is doubtful. For they are a record, however slight, of his life, and he was what his life had made him. Before he was thirteen years old, he had learned that there was no divinity that hedged a king. And after four years of confusion and defeat, of the noise of the captains and the shouting, he had begun his long exile. Once, indeed, with a foreign army, he had again entered the land he hoped to rule. and had been chased out of it with a price upon his head. In France he had been taught the same lesson as in England, the lesson of war between king and subjects. During nine years he had remained almost ignorant of the opinions of English people upon the matters that were of chief importance to them, and while thoroughly English in his physical vigor, his love of the sea and of all forms of active sport, he was politically A foreigner to his country.
He knew more of France and Spain, of the Flemings and the Dutch, far more of Scotland than he did of England. No less was he the slave of circumstance in his personal habits. Separated from the father whose private life was beyond reproach, fretting under the control of a mother with whom there was no sympathy, he had learned under the tuition of Buckingham Every evil lesson that that most despicable man could teach. From the age of sixteen he had given the reign to his animal passions. He was without love, save for his child sister, without friendships. Too healthy and too indolent to be ill-humored, he concealed under the easy good temper which so fascinated little minds an inveterate selfishness and an oriental ingratitude.
He had acquired patience, but it was that ignoble form of patience which consists in waiting for difficulties to conquer themselves. He had grown accustomed to beg with effrontery, and to betray without shame. In France and in Flanders, he had learned that religion was a matter of gorgeous ceremonies and easy morals. In Scotland, he had learned that it was an austere and hateful tyranny. For the rest he had a cool head, much astuteness, considerable insight into character, adaptability and imagination, a certain curious individuality of view and of action, and a sense of humor. It was not a king of this temper, a king who, though not wicked on the grand scale, had no worthier standard of right and wrong than his own way and his own ease, Who could understand the proud boast of Elizabeth?
Words which, after more than three centuries, make every string of patriotism vibrate. Nothing, no worldly thing under the sun, is so dear to me as the love and goodwill of my subjects. His father's last utterance from the Isle of Wight, the abjuration of Newcastle, that he should strive to be a brave, just, and noble king, were to him decent but unpractical verbiage. He did not come to conduct a mighty people, nor did he mean to risk reviving that people's enmity to the point of danger. He had reached the haven of long-deferred hope. To maintain himself there, to go no more on his travels, he was prepared to palter with truth, and soon to lie downright, to make base subservience to opposition or unworthy inducement, To trick and to cajole.
A hostage in France, a puppet in Scotland, a mendicant in a dupe in Flanders, he had conceived no ambition to lead, no will to oppose greatly, no grace to yield to a people's desires in any way as to command enduring respect. It was indeed fortunate that being such as he was, Charles had hide with him. If the restoration was a personal triumph for the chancellor, no less its safe passage through its early difficulties was due more to him than to any other man or men. His industry, honesty, firmness and knowledge of men and parties, and his familiarity with constitutional law eminently fitted him to deal first with the pressing difficulties of the moment, and then with the restoration of the old parliamentary monarchy, in conjunction with the Anglican Church, under such modifications as the last twenty years had rendered necessary, to bring back the country to the broad lines of a constitution which he loved.
The immediate objects before him were to limit the demand for vengeance, to uphold the sanctity of private contracts, to get rid of the menace of the army, already muttering discontent at having been jockeed into the king's service, and to keep in play a house of commons largely composed of Presbyterians until Presbyterianism could be safely attacked. The nature of his restoration had been pressed upon Charles before he reached Whitehall. Within three hours of his landing, he was besieged almost beyond his good temper, By the importunities of those who had suffered in the service of his father or himself. At Canterbury he realized that it was still Monk and not he who was master, so long as the army existed, and that it was still the Presbyterians and not the old Royalists who held the Parliament, when the General presented him with a list of some seventy recommendations for the Privy Council, in which there were those of only two of his zealous adherents.
Hyde, however, undertook explanations which resulted in an acceptable modification. For the astute soldier of fortune had no idea of risking the stake for which he had so skillfully played the game. And so, with the dukedom, the garter, the command of all the forces, the mastership of the horse, a place in the bedchamber, and vast rewards in money and estates, Monk entered the council, Bringing with him his friend Morris and the slippery humor of Ashley Cooper, but consenting to the omission of a large number of those whose names he had perforce officially suggested. Out of this Privy Council, a small committee was formed, nominally for foreign affairs, in which was vested the whole executive power.
Hyde, now Earl of Clarendon, Lord Chancellor, Ormond, Lord Stuart, Nicholas, secretary, Southampton, lord treasurer. These projected into the reign of Charles II the high-toned virtues of the old cavalier stock, and represented legitimacy in its purest form, while Monk, Morris, who became the second secretary, and Manchester, lord Chamberlain, stood for the other elements of the compromise. For practical purposes, the whole internal policy in England rested upon Clarendon. Middleton, the Scotch Cavalier in full possession of Clarendon's favor, was sent as High Commissioner to inaugurate the drunken administration in Scotland, while Robarts, a Presbyterian who had fought for the Parliament, was placed as Monk's deputy in the command of Ireland until Ormond, shortly afterwards, reassumed the Lord-Lieftenancy.
One most interesting source of counsel must not be unnoticed. Twenty-two years ago, Charles had received from Newcastle the scheme for his education which was freely quoted in its place, and now his old governor put into his hands another lengthy letter of advice as to how he should bear himself as king. It is Polonius advising Laertes. King James and King Charles, always about Michaelmas, went to Royston in stable-time, both for hunting and hawking. Both at the field and at the river. This would not only refresh your majesty with a sweet air and wholesome exercise, but unbend your more serious thoughts from the weight of business that you would have in London. This, sir, will maintain healthy and long life better than physic.
But the king must think of other people besides himself. On his return to Whitehall he must prepare masks for Twelfth Tide, at which Italians make the scenes best. He should invite everyone by tickets from the Lord Chamberlain, and the Lord Chamberlain to be very careful that none else enter but those who are invited. The second time the play is given, the inns of court alone should be asked. The third time, the Lord Mayor, Sheriffs, Aldermen, with the principal merchants and no others. A handsome banquet, every time. And Your Majesty to drink their welcome, which would infinitely please them. At other times he must give balls and invite the young ladies, give them a banquet, and drink their welcome with thanks.
Charles is to ride his horses of Manage twice a week, which will encourage noblemen to do the like. To wait of you, and to make matches with your noblemen, so many aside to run at the ring for a supper or a play or some little jewel. Besides this, To be in the Tilt-yard publicly. Upon Coronation Day there should be tilting and other horse feats to make your lords good horsemen and to keep good horses. Your Majesty's father of blessed memory was the best man-at-arms, I vow to God, that I ever saw, both for grace and sureness. If objection is raised on the score of expense, copper lace is very cheap and will make as good a show for one day as the best. All Queen Elizabeth's day she had it, and King James.
For gaming, certain times your Majesty will set down, as also for tennis and pall-mall. Goff and other recreations will do for winter. At Lent the King is to go to Newmarket, the sweetest place in the world and the best air. No place like it for hunting, hawking, and coursing, and horse-races. He is to invite the northern lords and gentry that hath the best horses and hounds, and to hold hound races with colored ribbons. Newmarket, it is added parenthetically, with delicious, if unconscious, humor, is especially suitable because while there the university will entertain you and send most excellent preachers every Sunday. At Easter he must be careful to send venisons to the lords and powerful men, or better, to the ladies.
For, as Sir E. Cook said, the Night Crow is powerful, and the Grey Mare is the better horse. Whatever else he attends to, the king should amuse the people, Panem at Kirkenses. Newcastle then passes to the less important phases of kingship. He trusts that his pupil will govern by love, but love mingled with fear. He must remember, as in former days, That the great study and learning for kings is not to read books, but men. He advises no change in Scotland. The Scots will soon petition for a change themselves. On Irish matters, Newcastle is a little vague, but would have Charles bear in mind Chichester's words to James I, they are a very scurvy people, Your Majesty, and have been as scurvily used.
He should keep clear of Rome. For though they say the Pope is chosen by the Holy Ghost, if it were so I dare say the French King or the King of Spain would offer him a bribe on either side. As regards foreign politics, Newcastle's advice is very clean-cut. I should humbly advise Your Majesty to have a war with one of those great kings, and I think it would be best to begin with France. When that is over, have one with Spain, and by sea, too. The French will give you money for this. At home, Charles should bear in mind that London is the great Leviathan, that England has a head too big for its body. Master that, and you master the whole kingdom. Disarm it totally and arm yourself, but hide your forces, for the people loves not the cudgel.
As to the church, Newcastle expresses the old Tudor view. Remember, you are both king and pope. The universities need purging and contain too many scholars, but that which hath done most hurt is the abundance of grammar schools and inns of court. Newcastle urges that the grammar schools should be cut down to one half, since, it might be a school board election in the twentieth century, they only teach boys to become clerks instead of farm laborers and mechanics. Charles is to give titles of honor to hinder parliament from attacking his ministers, to entrust the government to none but well-trained statesmen, to keep a bounteous table, say, eighty thousand pounds a year. Finally, and most impressively, your royal father always wanted money.
Put money in your purse and keep it and avoid parliaments. When you are rich and call a parliament, your majesty is then master of the fields. We have often wondered whether the royal Laertes ever read the words of Polonius. It is certain that in almost every detail, Charles acted very closely in accordance with them. One marked exception there was. He tried, indeed, very hard to put money in his purse, but Newcastle had forgotten one adjunct of royalty as Charles understood it. He had forgotten the expenses of a harem.
of section 15.
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16 16 - Ch. 3: Charles and Clarendon, Pt. 2 19:00
CHARLES AND CLARENDON. PART II.
In one part at least of the partial fulfillment of the Declaration of Breda, Charles took an important and creditable share. There was great danger, growing greater as the days passed, That in spite of the composite character of the House of Commons, the spirit of retaliation might even there secure a bloody satisfaction. But a far more savage temper reigned in the Lord's. The bill sent up from the Commons in consequence of an urgent message from the King accepted only eight of the King's judges for life in a state, and some twenty more for pains and penalties not extending to life. The lords resolved that all who had signed the warrant should die, then all who were concerned in the murder. Again Charles intervened.
He insisted upon drawing a broad line between the regicides and all others. But for his promise, he told the lords plainly, neither he nor they would have been there. His own honor and the public security alike demanded an indemnity for all except those Immediately guilty of the crying sin. In the conferences between the houses, the Lords actually demanded the death of four members of Cromwell's High Court of Justice, in revenge for the death of four of their own number condemned by that court, the victims to be chosen by the relatives of the slain men. They even proposed to bring to the scaffold All who had sat upon any court of justice by which royalists had been tried. But Charles and Clarendon supported the Commons' resistance with their whole influence, hoping that their lordships would not have the sacrifice of the King's blood to be mingled with any other blood.
And so, at the price of some twenty lives, the universal fear was removed. It should not be forgotten that it was principally owing to Charles and Clarendon, that after a civil war which had its roots in the deepest feelings which can stir men's minds, after a despotism which had been established in blood and held in its place, amid the ruins of the Constitution, by the sword and only by the sword, the restoration of the old order was accomplished with slaughter which When compared with the wrongs which seemed to call for vengeance, it was well-nigh insignificant. And when, a few months later, a new house met, the composition of which showed that a parliamentary movement had become a royalist rebel, and that there was a serious prospect of some tampering with the primary condition of the Restoration settlement, Charles's earliest message was a distinct refusal to pass any bill whatsoever.
Until this act was placed beyond dispute. It was not only in his public utterances that the King showed his distaste for severity. One day in July 1661, when he was in council, a question arose as to whether another batch of prisoners should be brought to trial. On a scrap of paper which he passed to Clarendon, Charles wrote, I must confess that I am weary of hanging. Except, on new offenses, let it sleep. You know that I cannot pardon them. The prisoners little guessed that to these careless words they owed their lives, as little as Vane knew two years later, that in spite of the King's promise, he stood upon the scaffold because with equal flippancy Charles had written to Clarendon that it would be well to put him away if it can be honestly done.
Nevertheless, there was hanging and quartering enough to satisfy the man in the street. On October 13, 1660, Pepys, who had seen Charles I killed, had a great treat. He saw the first blood shed in revenge. I went out to Charing Cross to see Major General Harrison hanged, drawn, and quartered, which was done there, he looking as cheerful as any man could in that condition. He was presently cut down, and his head and heart shone to the people, at which there was great shouts of joy. Evelyn, a few days later, was unfortunate enough to miss the actual doing to death of four others in the presence of Charles. He had to content himself with meeting their quarters, mangled and cut and reeking, as they were brought from the gallows and baskets on the hurdle.
And when we remember that the only exclamation which this sight drew from one so gentle, so refined, was, Oh, the miraculous providence of God, it is not easy to overestimate the value of the firmness with which Charles and Clarendon stood in the path of those who sought for blood. It was only when the religious question was seriously taken up, That the difference between the views of Charles and those of his old advisor began to make itself felt. Clarendon held that the restoration of monarchy meant the restoration of the church for which the monarchy had fallen. He detested the Presbyterians now, as he had always detested them, with a whole heart, and he was resolved that they should lie under the heel of the victorious church.
But Charles had a very different object. He could not be expected, since he was a boy when he left England, to realize at first the strength of Anglican feeling. He, too, hated Presbyterianism, with the hatred born of his Scotch experiences. At any rate, it was not the religion for a gentleman. But on the other hand, He wanted in all earnest to redeem his pledges to the Catholics, who had been among his father's most faithful adherents, had helped him to escape after Worcester, had found him funds during his exile, and had been, more than others, the mark for fine imprisonment and confiscation. Rebel for rebel, he scribbled to Clarendon, I had rather trust a papist rebel than a Presbyterian. If Clarendon and the bishops were to have their way and the Church were to be restored to her full supremacy, all hope of toleration would be gone.
For the moment, the most obvious plan was the emasculation of the Church by forcing upon her a compromise with Presbyterianism. That Clarendon never meant this to take place if he could prevent it, we do not for a moment believe. How far Charles himself was sincere it would be hard to say, but in the present state of the House of Commons all pointed to the feasibility of the plan. Charles took his part in what turned out to be an elaborate farce by making ten of the leading Presbyterian ministers royal chaplains. He even attended their sermons. He was then desired by the Commons to select a number of divines of both persuasions to debate the conditions of compromise. To this meeting on October 23rd, he submitted the draft of a declaration which he wished to issue.
Repudiating the many oaths he had taken in Scotland to the covenants on the ground of constraint, and declaring his preference for the Anglican Church, As the best fence God hath yet raised against popery in the world, he nevertheless upheld the claims of the Presbyterians to favorable treatment. The Declaration went on to create an Episcopal system so modified, as with the promise of a revision of the prayer book, to secure an acceptance by many of the leading Presbyterians, one of whom accepted a bishopric on the faith of it. So far, All had gone smoothly. And then suddenly, before he had been six months on the throne, came the cleavage on one side of which stood Charles alone, on the other, the two great religious parties which possessed political power.
A petition having been read from the Independents and Anabaptists praying for freedom of religious worship, Charles thought his opportunity was come. He proposed toleration for all, So long as the public peace were not disturbed, a toleration even greater than Cromwell would have allowed, whose inheritance he was claiming. A cold silence fell upon the conference, broken at length not by the Episcopalians but by Baxter. Without reserve, he said, that there could be toleration neither for those as denied the Trinity nor for Papists. Not a voice was heard in support of the King's view, and the declaration was published without this clause. The King was thanked for it by Parliament, and a bill was brought in by Sir Matthew Hale to turn it into law.
But now Clarendon took part in the drama. He had no intention of balking the Church of her rights, of seeing even a partial triumph of Presbyterianism. He had been busy in securing a majority against any compromise. The Declaration had done its work in gaining time, and Hales's bill was rejected by 183 to 157. Parliament was at once dissolved. Even before the new House met, the mask had been thrown off by the issue of an order to the Justices to see that the full liturgy of the Church was restored. In April 1661, another conference was held in the Savoy Palace, which failed because Clarendon and the Episcopalian members, at any rate, intended it to fail. The field was again free for the full play of the vengeful passions of the Church, and Charles, at the very threshold, had received his first lesson on the limits of his power.
The extent of the reaction which followed the Restoration was disclosed. When the new Parliament met in May of 1661, in a house of more than five hundred members, scarcely one in ten was of the old majority. It was a Parliament full of lewd young men, chosen by a furious people in spite to the Puritans, whose severity had distasted them. They were of loyal families, but young men for the most part, which being told the King, He replied that was no great fault, for he could keep them till they got beards. The great majority were prepared to go any lengths in favor of the Church. The sacrament was imposed upon all members according to the prescribed liturgy. The bishops were restored to their seats in the Lords, in spite of Charles's personal opposition.
The Corporation Act, demanding an oath which Presbyterians would not take, As a condition of membership of a municipal body, swept away at a blow their whole political influence in the corporations where they were the strongest, and thus destroyed Presbyterianism in the state. The act of uniformity destroyed it in the Church. No one might hold a living unless he had before St. Bartholomew's day, August 24, 1662, Publicly read the service from the new prayer book, which had been revised by convocation in the sense most objectionable to the Presbyterians, and had declared his unfeigned assent and consent to everything therein. Finally, all incumbents, holders of university offices, schoolmasters, and private tutors, were to take the oath of the Corporation Act, renounce the covenant, and promised to conform to the liturgy and endeavor no change or alteration of government either in church or state.
The Presbyterians, for the most part, refused the terms of uniformity. On Sunday, August 17, farewell sermons were preached to crowded and sympathetic congregations, and two thousand clergymen retired into voluntary poverty and professional exile. Henceforward, Presbyterianism was the mode of thought not of a large part of the English Church, but of a dissenting sect. The Church of England had taken the shape which it holds to this day. The King was soon to learn how completely he was within the grasp of the Church. He had already become conscious of very galling constraint. The resolve of the Commons to bring in the uniformity bill Had been the firmer because it was known that he was opposed to stringency.
In the midst of the Royalist riot, they had been careful to give him such a revenue only as should keep him poor, because, in Marvel's gravely ironical words, "'tis good to leave something to give hereafter." And his financial difficulties gave them the complete control of the situation. They used their power to wring from him a personal declaration of allegiance to the Church. On March 1, 1662, he complained to the House of the unworthy suspicions against him, declared that he was zealous for the Church and in love with the Book of Common Prayer, and expressed his desire for the act of uniformity. He was supplied with money and was then called upon to fulfill his part of the bargain. But the act having been passed, and Parliament prorogued, Charles began his running fight for the prerogative by announcing his intention of suspending execution.
And when Clarendon opposed so unconstitutional an assumption of power, he induced him to give way on the grounds that his honor was pledged to this cause. At the back of Clarendon, however, stood the bishops, and their resistance, led by Sheldon, A mighty stout man, a man of a brave high spirit, who represented with great ability the irreconcilable section of the Church, speedily convinced Charles of the imprudence of the steppe. Foiled in this first attempt to snatch the suspensory power, he was now to have still more emphatic evidence of the limits to his independent action. The Commons had separated in May 1662, Gratified by their triumph over the Presbyterians in the Corporation and Uniformity Acts, they met again in February 1663 to find themselves confronted by an enemy whom they feared and detested with a still keener hate and terror.
The dominant factor in the feverish politics of this reign is to be found in the feeling of the ordinary English mind regarding popery. Churchmen might despise and persecute the Presbyterians. The Presbyterians, as in Scotland, might regard the independent sects as the advocates of the devil. But in all of them, hatred of potpourri was the master impulse. Fox's Book of Martyrs was favored reading, and the fires of Smithfield were in the English imagination ready to burst into flame. Another armada seemed to hang like a dark cloud upon our shores. And a fresh gunpowder plot might at any moment come to light. There was no atrocity which was not held to be natural to the Papists. The very debauchery of the court was laid to their charge, and the cry which greeted the early Christians in Rome, Christianos ad Leones, never rang more pitilessly than the execrations which, when the panic rose to its height, were hurled at the bloody Papists.
To the Englishman, then, it was the first duty of the king to hate and combat this last and insolentist attempt on the credulity of mankind. But first, to his astonishment, and then to his indignant fury, he found, or thought he found, that Charles was of altogether another mind. For during the recess the king had again deliberately challenged this ingrained feeling of the nation. On December 26, 1662, he had issued a declaration expressing his intention of doing his best to induce Parliament to mitigate the rigor of the act of uniformity, and to concur with him in making some act for that purpose, as may enable him to exercise, with a more universal satisfaction, that power of dispensing, which he conceived to be inherent in him.
The very claim which, under the pressure of the bishops, he had for the moment relinquished. This declaration drew from Sheldon a letter in which the iniquity of the proposal, as tending to set up that most damnable and heretical doctrine of the Church of Rome, whore of Babylon, was set before him in the plainest language. Undeterred by this fulmination, The King met Parliament on February 18th with a speech in which he declared himself, in nature, an enemy to all severity for religion and conscience. And while disclaiming any intention of favoring the Papists, and desiring that laws might be made to hinder the spread of their doctrines, he asked for such a power of indulgence, to use upon occasions, as might not needlessly force the dissenters out of the Kingdom, or give them cause to conspire against its peace.
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17 17 - Ch. 3: Charles and Clarendon, Pt. 3 19:30
Charles and Clarendon. Part Three.
So astute was the evasion that no one could have guessed that Charles was at this very time in secret communication with the Pope Alexander the Seventh for a reconstitution of the English Church Whereby, while retaining her national and independent character, she should nominally acknowledge the Holy See as her head. Nevertheless, before the words were well out of the King's mouth, all men saw before them in tangible shape the enemy they dreaded most. They had kept out the fox, said William Coventry. Were they now to let the wolf into the fold? They did not know whether Charles was himself a Catholic. But there was much going on to cause suspicion, and in every place where he wrote dissent, the English mind read Pope of Rome.
He did not remain long in ignorance of the feelings he had aroused. Within a week, the commons answered his appeal by a remonstrance of the boldest character, wherein they put before him clearly the conditions on which he might expect to enjoy his throne. At all hazards, popery was to be kept out of the kingdom by the maintenance of a state church. Charles was given to understand that supply would depend upon the immediate issue of a proclamation banishing all Catholic priests, and he yielded at once. But he was anxious to keep the future treatment of the whole question as far as possible in his own hands, and he evaded farther pressure by a prorogation. By the time the houses reassembled, Protestant, rather than Catholic descent, again claimed their attention.
The act of uniformity had led to unauthorized religious meetings or conventicles against which the Anglican clergy and the commons invade as hotbeds of schism and sedition. Charles had already learned to abandon resistance where attack was persistent. And he was anxious for a farther supply. He therefore gave his assent to the first conventical act. This iniquitous measure absolutely forbade under crushing penalties all meetings of more than four persons besides the household for religious services other than those allowed by the Church. Upon the Quakers the blow fell with special weight, for the novelty of their doctrines Peeps relates how he saw several being dragged through the streets, and his only comment is, they go like lambs without any resistance.
I would to God they would conform, or be more wise and not be catched. The appetite for persecution grew, and before long an act still more cruel and drastic was carried in the Commons without a division. During the desolation of the plague, many of the clergy had fled from London. The deposed Presbyterian ministers stepped into their pulpits without authorization and once more gathered eager congregations. But the vigilance of the Anglican Church was not relaxed. The old cry was raised of schism and rebellion. At the October session at Oxford in 1665, It was determined to prepare a shibboleth, a test to distinguish among those who will be peaceable and give hopes of future conformity, and who, of malice and evil disposition, remain obdurate.
And once more, the pressing need of supplies compelled Charles to give way. The Five Mile Act laid down that no nonconformist minister was henceforth to teach in schools or to come within five miles of any city, corporate town, or parliamentary borough, unless he had previously subscribed an oath denying the lawfulness of taking arms under any circumstances against the King or those commissioned by him, and, as in the act of uniformity, had declared that he would not at any time endeavor any alteration of government in church or state. The machinery of persecution was now complete. The Corporation and Uniformity Acts had eliminated Presbyterianism from State and Church. By the Conventicle and Five Mile Acts, Parliament answered the claim of dissent to tolerable existence.
These concessions to the blind rancor of Anglicanism, which put Charles's hope of favoring Catholics every day farther out of sight, Formed, then, the price which he paid for parliamentary grants. He would fain have carried out Newcastle's advice to put money in his purse. But the revenue settled upon him by Parliament was quite inadequate to the various calls of government, the payment of debts incurred abroad, the satisfaction of royalist demands, and the expenses of his more disreputable pleasures. Still less was it sufficient to enable him to gratify the desire, fitfully entertained for many years, of ruling as Louis XIV ruled, of establishing an intelligent despotism, founded upon armed force and the sympathy of dissent, and independent of Parliament.
He resolved, therefore, to secure his freedom from control by other means, and this resolve is the explanation of his foreign policy throughout the reign. His first application had been to the Dutch, and from them, as the price of an alliance, he had demanded two millions. The renewal, however, of the Navigation Act of 1651, by which their carrying trade had in a great measure been destroyed, formed an insuperable obstacle to union. Charles had plenty of alternatives. For Spain, France, and Portugal were approaching him with rival offers. In September 1660, he let the Spaniards understand that his active friendship was merely a question of price. They offered him whatever money he might want, but they coupled with this offer the inadmissible demand that Jamaica and Dunkirk should be restored to them.
France stepped into the vacant place. A close understanding between the two crowns was a natural one from the dynastic and personal points of view, for Charles was more than half French by blood, and had received much kindness from his cousin. French statecraft pointed the way. Louis and Mazarin had indeed ample reasons for desiring not merely to form an immediate compact, but to secure a permanent influence at Charles's court. They hoped to do this by finding him a rich, beautiful, and clever wife. They had her, they thought, to their hand. Hortense Mancini, then in the full pride of her rich southern beauty, was still unmarried, and she was now offered to Charles with a dowry of four million francs.
But Charles had not yet forgotten the refusal at Font d'Arabia, and he curtly remarked that when he married, It would be to please himself. His choice, however, was limited. The available Protestant princesses were Germans, and they were all foggy. And so it came to pass that, after all, he married not to please himself, but to please Louis XIV. At the Peace of the Pyrenees, Louis had bound himself to give no aid to Portugal, then engaged in her war of independence with Spain. And he now saw the means of evading this engagement. The marriage of Charles with the Infanta Catherine was a signal victory for French influence. Portugal gave a magnificent dowry, Tangier and Bombay, freedom of commerce in Brazil and the East Indies, religious liberty for English subjects in all Portuguese territories, and half a million sterling.
Charles, in return, bound himself, while avoiding any declaration of war upon Spain, to assist Portugal with a force of three thousand men and one thousand horses, and to put eight frigates at her disposal. To enable him to carry out these terms, Louis made him a present of eighty thousand pounds. A little later, against the earnest opposition of Clarendon, Dunkirk was sold to the French for two hundred thousand pounds. The marriage was entirely consonant with the Cromwellian policy of making us in Dryden's magnificent phrase, freemen of the continent, for it secured vast commercial advantages and implied an active interest in continental politics. The sale of Dunkirk, on the other hand, however advisable as an economic measure, was as absolute a negation of that policy and spread dismay among the Protestant powers.
For this, Charles cared little. He looked to the money to provide himself with the army, which should some day make him independent of Parliament. In one respect, Louis had missed his aim. It soon became evident that he could not obtain, through the Queen, that personal control which he had hoped to secure over Charles. Not even the cleverest of women could have guided the descendant of Henry IV, If she were not possessed of physical charm. Catherine was neither well-favored nor clever. Even the portraits of the court painters can go no farther than to bear out Pepys's indulgent verdict. Nothing charming, yet she hath a good, modest, innocent look. Probably not even Henry VIII, when he first saw Anne of Cleves, was more chagrined than Charles when he met his wife.
The ungraceful dress and the grotesquely unbecoming method of wearing the hair which prevailed in Portugal added to her unattractiveness. He thought they had brought him a bat instead of a woman, but it was too late to find fault, and he must make the best he could of a bad matter. Writing privately to Clarendon of his first interview, the letter is a trifle too frank for complete insertion, he declared generously, That there was nothing in her face that can, in the least, shame one. Brought up in a monastery, says Rearsby, her education was so different from his, that she had nothing visible about her capable to make the king forget his inclination to the Countess of Castlemaine. Here was the rub.
On the one side the wife, ignorant and bigoted, as only women of her country in training could be, awkward in manner, Unversed in female arts or graces, of short, broad figure, her teeth wronging her mouth by sticking a little too far out, with nauseous distempers, and at the best with nothing absolutely displeasing in her face, on the other side the mistress, the finest woman of her age, radiant in health and beauty, with everything in face and form, in self-abandonment and effrontery. Two other marriages had already taken place in the King's family. In 1655, at Aix-la-Chapelle, Clarendon's daughter Anne Hyde had been placed in the service of Mary of Orange as maid of honor and had remained with her to the restoration.
James fell in love with her when on a visit to his sister, promised her marriage, and seduced her. At the restoration, she returned to her father, and finding herself with child, appealed to James, who married her at Clarendon's residence on September 3, 1660, in time to legitimate the boy who was born in October. Hitherto, the story is sufficiently commonplace. But then, James appears to have behaved like a cur. Clarendon's statement that he denied the marriage In spite of the injured woman's asseverations and her pangs, is indeed incredible. For there were witnesses to the ceremony, and one of them was Ossery, Ormond's gallant son, who was no more likely to give his name to a lie than was his father.
But that James listened to the groundless assertion of his blackguard friend, Charles Barkley, that his wife had had criminal relations with other men, with Barkley himself indeed, is certain, and it is equally certain that he sought on the strength of this to have the marriage declared invalid. Charles, to his credit, refused to countenance the fraud, and was justified when Barclay confessed his own infamy. In spite of the passionate opposition of the Queen Mother, who came over with her daughters to stop the union of her son with one of such modest birth, the marriage which gave two queens to England was publicly owned before the end of the year. Another alliance for which the Queen Mother came to ask, not Charles's refusal, but his sanction as head of his family, was that of his sister Henrietta, with Philip of Orléans, brother of Louis XIV.
Born amid the din and the turmoil of a beleaguered city, carried as a peasant's infant through hostile armies by her intrepid governess, Lady Dahlkeith, a sweet and courteous child, Rearsby gives us a delightful picture of her, beautiful among the fairest of the French court, and clever as she was beautiful, admired by poets, dramatists, soldiers, and divines, by her cousin Louis most of all, deeply wronged by a worthless husband, sometimes indiscreet yet always pure. It is not all this which gives to Henrietta a special interest, nor is it that she became the political confidant of Louis and Charles, nor is it the pitiful tragedy of her death. It is, as has been said before, that she was the only woman whom Charles ever loved.
A single relic of her visit remains upon one of the hasty notes which passed across the council table. I would willingly writes Charles. Make a visit to my sister at Tumbridge. When can I best spare the time? I suppose, rejoins Clarendon, you will go with a light train. I intend to take nothing but my night bag. You will not go without forty or fifty horse. I count that part of my night bag. We must now deal somewhat more closely with Charles himself and the court for which he was responsible. And indeed, it was a sorry sight, although its color and glitter of movement have attracted and will forever attract the indulgent interest of those who do not know or do not care to realize the truth. The keynote of the King's way of looking at life and kingship was struck on the day after his entry into London.
To the great edification of the righteous, of Pepys and the fleet especially, He issued a proclamation against swearing and drinking. Four days later he was himself drinking to excess in the Mulberry Gardens till two in the morning, and on June 28th the Earl of Sandwich could not get to bed before five as he had been supping with the King. Charles understood the art of devolution. There is ample testimony that he was an excellent, if somewhat unconventional, committee man. But on the whole, Business was left to the Earl of Clarendon, and the king, as he was of an age and vigor for it, followed his pleasures, and if amongst those love prevailed with him more than others, he was thus far excusable, besides that his complexion led him to it, the women seemed to be the aggressors, and I have since heard the king say did sometimes offer themselves to his embraces.
The two dukes, his brothers, were no less lovers of the sex than himself. In other words, Charles gave the signal for idleness and debauchery, and by the middle of 1661, the lewdness and beggary of the court, the drinking, swearing, and loose amours were too notorious for silence. To much of Newcastle's advice, Charles gave sedulous attention. For gaming, certain times your majesty will set down. The twelfth-night gaming tables were in full swing in 1662. Evelyn tells us that according to custom, His Majesty, who does not appear to have gambled farther than in this formal way, opened the revels of that night by throwing the dice himself in the privy chamber, where was a table set on purpose, and lost his one hundred pounds.
The ladies also played very deep. I came away when the Duke of Ormond had won about a thousand pounds. At other tables, both there and at the groom-porters, observing the wicked folly and monstrous excess of passion among some losers, sorry I am that such a wretched custom as play to that excess should be countenanced in a court which ought to be an example of virtue to the rest of the kingdom. On the last day of the year, Whitehall was crammed with fine ladies, the prettiest at the court, who were well able to appreciate the delicate humor of the king when he called for the first country dance, which was, says he, Cockhold's All-Ary, the old dance of England. Dancing with fiddlers all night almost at Lady Castlemaine's, and suppers such as those reported to us by de Comang, with the most illustrious libertines of the kingdom.
at which took place scenes of license which would lose by transcription. Such occupations would stand for a good many dates in the royal diary.
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18 18 - Ch. 3: Charles and Clarendon, Pt. 4 21:10
CHARLES AND CLARENDON. PART IV.
These were the more innocent relaxations of the court. To try to describe the darker side, to throw open fully the doors of that temple of unabashed wickedness, Where Lady Castlemaine sat enthroned, triumphant goddess of lust, is forbidden by the reticence of modern life. The passage of sorrowful eloquence in which Clarendon describes the moral and social disintegration, the destruction of all family ties, the loss of individual honor in men and women alike, which had resulted from the political upheaval of the past thirty years is well known. In such loose soil every base character grew unchecked to rankness—the Barclays and the Bennets, the Buckinghams and the Sedleys, the Chiffinches and the Babmays among men, the Castlemains and their like among women, while austere men like Clarendon and high-souled men like Ormond and cultured men like Evelyn, and, bitterest condemnation and shame of all, Purient bourgeois-like peeps looked on at the burning lusts, the profane and abominable lives with sorrow and contempt, and there are a few pure women also, who gaze shuddering or hide their faces in very shame.
The committee to get Mrs. Stewart for the King, Francis Stewart, with whom he was besotted, but who managed, after all, to rise so far above her sisters, As to leave her virtue an open question, and to become, as Duchess of Richmond, an honest woman. Charles, when she escaped him, furious as a satyr who has missed his clutch at a wood-nymph, his sottish slavery, a jest to every boy in the street. Factions high between him and James, and all the bestial court in an uproar with their loose amours. Sedley and Buckhurst running naked through the streets, beaten by the watch, and locked up all night, the king taking their parts, Charles too drunk to give audience to Arlington on his way to Newmarket, and making the fiddlers at Thetford sing all the obscene songs they could think of, Lady Castlemaine declaring that her little daughter will be the first maid in the court that will be married, Flaunting forty thousand pounds of jewels upon her dress, and receiving the bold petition of the poor whores of London, swearing that the king should own her child, and that she would have it christened in the chapel at Whitehall to proclaim his assent, or she would bring it to the gallery and dash the brains of it out before his face.
The maids of honor at the royal chapel breaking out an unrestrained mirth when the chaplain discoursed on marriage and continence. The king's friends whipped up from the taverns and brothels of Westminster to vote against some obnoxious measure. Charles, robbed and kidnapped in a disreputable house at Newmarket, and obliged to disclose his identity before he was set free. Or at supper at the rooms of his bastard son's young wife with his usual associates, all mad in hunting a poor moth, while the Dutch guns could be heard roaring in the Thames, and London lay in ruins. All this and a thousand times more would be needed before we could duly gauge the riot of recklessness and sin in which the court was steeped.
With one anecdote, we will close the record of shame. And we choose it because a historical writer of repute, who has given special attention to this time, has gravely stated that Charles was free of the vice of drinking. The king and his brother with a chosen band were out hunting when they came to Sir George Carteret's house at Cranbourne, and there they were entertained, and all made drunk, and being drunk, Armorer did come to the king and swore to him, By God, sir, says he, You are not so kind to the Duke of York as late you used to be. Not I, says the king. Why so? Why, says he, if you are, let us drink his health. Why, let us, says the king. Then he fell on his knees and drank it, and having done, the king began to drink it.
Nay, sir, says Armorer, by God, you must do it on your knees. So he did, and all the company, and having done it, All fell a-crying for joy, being all maudlin and kissing one another, the King and the Duke of York, and the Duke of York and the King, and in such a maudlin pickle as never people were, and so passed the day. So that men were constrained to say, Of all places, if there be hell, it is here. No faith, no truth, no love, nor any agreement between man and wife or friends. Make what excuses we may, and they reside only in the earlier pages of this book. Of all this the memory of Charles must rightly bear the shame. Blush, O heavens, so speaks an anonymous writer, and be astonished, O earth.
A people loved of God and so often saved by his wonderful providence are become the Tyre and Sidon, the Sodom and Gomorrah of the world. Let us repent in dust and ashes. Let us turn to God from the bottom of our hearts, with fervent love and good works of our martyred ancestors, or their life and death will rise up in judgment against us, and God will yet suffer their and our enemies to swallow us up quick. We must, however, guard against the impression that the vice of Whitehall was reflected in the homes of the country gentlemen. The Vernies, the Isshams, the Norths, the Harleys, and their like, or that it passed without protest from them. The private family correspondence of the time abounds with expressions of dismay at the State of London, that wicked town, and with hopes that the younger members who have to go there will remain pure in the general profanity of London.
Sin, writes Sir E. Harley, every day grows high and impudent. The Lord, I trust, will graciously provide a hiding place for his poor children. My children, said Lady Fitzjames, are in no heart to marry, and I believe if they do not marry till they can have religious men they never will. I think they will not be in the worst condition if they never do, unless men were better than as the world goes now. To leave Charles with no farther comment, no saving clause, would, however, be false to fact. His character was curiously multiple. There never lived a king who more openly, though in his own peculiar fashion, declared his admiration for honesty, purity, and loftiness of mind, and while he led the devil's dance of drunkenness and prostitution, he never concealed his contempt for his followers.
Sedley was good enough to drink with, And Buckingham made a rare fool. We know them all very well, these shameless men and women, and we are apt to think that none other were in the court. It is but right to lay emphasis upon the Ormans and the Anselys, the Evelyns, the Mertays, and the Marvels. Charles' intellectual tastes, moreover, were keen, like his insight into character and his business aptitude, Until all fell together into the dreary decadence which attends upon unbridled self-indulgence, he could talk, and talk admirably, upon naval architecture with Pepys and Petty and Evelyn, and the new yacht built for him in 1663 was fitted with navigating contrivances of his own. He spent many long days in his laboratory with Robert Murdey, who had been president of the Royal Society.
and was certainly the ablest Scotchman of his day. He could discuss theology with an austere divine or a pretty Quakeress, politics with his sister, music and painting with all comers. And at any rate, and here we think maybe found one key to his popularity then as now, there was no pretense in him. Clarendon knew him well, when, as we saw at an earlier page, He advised Dr. Creighton to suppress his dedication, and we have already quoted his exclamation upon seeing his portrait, odds fish, I'm an ugly fellow. He was genially ready to accept the official censure of those whose claims to give it he admitted. I am going to hear little Ken tell me of my faults, he would say with gay resignation. Occasionally there was a gentle deprecation of what appeared to him Hypercriticism, and he was no doubt sincere in believing that God would not damn a man for a little irregular pleasure.
When compelled to listen to remonstrance, he made two provisos. It should be presented to him in good taste, and he must not be expected to alter his ways. Tell Dr. Frampton, he said to a gentleman of his bedchamber when that divine had preached before him upon the sin of adultery, That I am not angry to be told of my faults, but I would have it done in a gentlemanlike manner. And he read Burnett's letter of remonstrance twice before he threw it into the fire. His patience under the preachers to whom he was bound to listen was exemplary, whether it were a young man playing the fool upon the doctrine of purgatory, or a royal chaplain who preached an unnecessary sermon upon original sin. One source of his strength has lately been given to the world.
We have, he says, in a delightful letter to his sister at Paris, the same disease of sermons that you complain of there, but I hope you have the same convenience that the rest of the family has, of sleeping out most of the time, which is a great ease to those who are bound to hear them. The urbane nonchalance of Charles was but seldom ruffled, and the storm was soon over. About matters of state he was never more than annoyed. It was only when some offense of a specially personal nature was committed that he lost his natural mildness and command over his anger, which never transported him beyond an innocent puff and spitting. We have already quoted the letter to de Cardenas before the Restoration.
An attempt to thwart his favor for a disreputable companion, or a blunder of his attendant, In shutting the door of his room against someone whose admission he had sanctioned, would throw him into a tempest of anger for the moment, and at the close of his life, Monmouth was the cause of the most vehement fit of wrath that Bruce had ever witnessed. But the most detailed and striking instance of a loss of self-control was when Henry Saville, one of his gentlemen, voted for the address against Lauderdale in the House of Commons in 1678. The king was mightily displeased against him, and to so high a degree, that when he was late that night going to bed, and Savile coming in after his ordinary way, the king upon the first sight of him fell into such a passion that his face and lips became as pale almost as death.
His cheeks and arms trembled, and then he said to Savile, You villain! How dare you have the impudence to come into my presence when you are guilty of such baseness as you have shown this day! I do now and from henceforth discharge you from my service, commanding you never to come any more into my presence, nor to any place where I shall happen to be. It surprised no one to hear that Savile was in attendance again in a few days. His magnificent constitution and his active habits enabled Charles to defy the effects of unrestrained debauchery for more than thirty years. Here again he reminds us of his ancestor Henry IV. It was seldom that he passed a day without visiting the tennis court as early as there was light enough to see clearly.
In summer, he was there at five in the morning. On October 5, 1660, at eight, he told Clarendon at Council, I am now going to take my usual physic at tennis. It was in the tennis court that grave interviews were granted. When the lords of the Hamilton party came in 1678 to press their cause against Lauderdale, they kissed hands in the lobby of the court. And it was in 1679 that he had his first serious illness from the chill which he caught after a hard game by sauntering along the waterside in St. James's Park. He was devoted to every form of open-air sport, especially hunting, and a chief attraction of England to him was that there was no country where a man could be abroad so many months in the year or so many hours in the day.
When not hunting, he generally walked three or four hours a day, which he did commonly so fast, that as it was really an exercise to himself, so it was a trouble to all about him to hold up with him. He would ride fourteen miles to dine with one of his court, or to Bansted Down or Epson to see a foot race, returning the same evening, and we hear how the king tired all their horses and comes home with not above two or three able to keep pace with him. On another day he covered sixty miles, rising at dawn on a summer day and reaching home to consult with Murray at midnight. His early habits were a sore trial to those who had business with him. This morning I went to wait upon the king, but he was gone by five o'clock to Hampton Court.
Entries like this are frequent. And when the baffled visitor returned in the evening for the promised interview, Charles had been hunting all the day and was very sleepy, and so appointed the bishop to attend tomorrow morning. Long after eleven o'clock at night on March 7, 1669, He sat writing to his sister, so sleepy as I hope you will pardon the shortness of it, and at three in the morning was on his horse for Audley End, where he used to stay for the races until fitting lodgings were arranged for him at Newmarket. Excelling in every form of physical exercise, Charles was especially noted for his horsemanship in the widest sense of the word. This was the gift of Newcastle, himself a noted horseman and breeder of horses, who relates with pride how he had the honor to be the first to sate him on horseback and did instruct him in the art of horsemanship.
While quite a boy, Charles acquired an intimate knowledge of horses and the power to make the most of them. Newcastle notes how he saw that His Majesty made my horse go better than any Italian or French riders who had often rid them would do, and to hear him say that there are very few who know horses, which was knowingly said, and wisely judged of his majesty, it being very certain that all men undertake to ride them, but few know them or can tell what they are good for. It is not to be wondered at that horse breeding and racing should, as Newcastle had advised, be sedulously patronized, and that even though Britons fell, Newmarket's glories should rise. There is not, we imagine, a noted racehorse of the present day which does not trace its pedigree to the eastern blood imported into England by Charles.
Racing in a formal sense with its spring and autumn meetings began with the institution of the Twelve Stone Plate in 1665, though the King's first personal visit was not until March 1666. From that time he rarely missed a meeting, sometimes indeed being at Newmarket thrice in the year, and since the whole court usually accompanied him, the little town became accustomed to the gay wickedness of Whitehall, which was made even gayer and more wicked by the absence of the usual formalities and ceremonial. Business was seldom allowed to intrude upon these holidays, and ministers and ambassadors attended him in vain. There was nothing but hunting and horse-racing to be spoken of. Most excellent preachers, indeed, as Newcastle had promised, came for Sundays from Cambridge, and in 1673 Charles administered a severe rebuke to them for wearing their hair and wigs unbecomingly long, and bade them, possibly in the hope of effecting a curtailment there also, to deliver their sermons for the future by memory.
A letter from Sir Nicholas Armorer, who had put two guineas on Lord Thalman's thumps for the great race in 1668 on behalf of the owner, gives a glimpse of Newmarket existence. Thy Armorer brings for you and himself two guineas which was improved on Thump's victory, one but a yard and so straight the entire six miles. The king is highly pleased with all his Newmarket recreations. By candlelight yesterday morning and this morning hunting the hare. This afternoon he hawks and courses with greyhounds. To Norwich to-morrow, on Monday here again. The cup rid for here next week before the Queen. As thou prizes earthly paradise, bring a maid of honour behind thee next week. All kinds of sporting feats, professional and amateur, were arranged for Charles's pleasure.
And we need not fear the charge of degeneracy in these days when we read how on October 10, 1670, Lord Digby, who was then quite young, bet fifty pounds that he could walk five miles within the hour on Newmarket Heath, and lost the match by half a minute, although the king and all his nobles attended to see him do it stark naked and barefoot. One chronicler does indeed add a loincloth. It was at these times that Charles was best able to carry out Newcastle's admonition to put off King. On Tuesday, the King and the jockeys met at supper at Ned Griffin's, when there were made six horse matches for 500 pounds a match, to be run at Newmarket next meeting. Charles himself does not appear to have betted, except a guinea or two upon a cockfight, nor, for all records to the contrary, Did he run horses of his own until the autumn meeting of 1671?
But he then put his horsemanship to practical use by becoming a gentleman rider. On October 12th, there was a match between his horse Woodcock and Tom Elliott's Flatfoot, in which Woodcock was beaten. According to the old Newmarket calendar, this race was run with owners up, though Evelyn, who was there, does not say so when he mentions it. But it is certain that two days later Charles rode the winner, not named, for the plate against Monmouth Elliott and Thomas Thin. In October 1672 he rode two heats, being, we presume, beaten in the second, since he was not named in the coarse or deciding heat when the Duke of Albemarle's horse fell and broke his neck. It was in the spring of 1675 that after riding several races he won his last and greatest success on the turf.
Yesterday, we read in a private letter of March 21, His Majesty rode three heats in a course on his topping horse, Bluecap, and won the plate. All four were hard and near ridden, and I do assure you the King won by good horsemanship. Bluecap. Tanket, Dragon, a famous animal which he bought from Mr. May after seeing him run on March 17, 1680, with cork, roan, mouse, and postboy, were the most noted of Charles's stud.
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19 19 - Ch. 3: Charles and Clarendon, Pt. 5 25:50
Charles and Clarendon. Part V.
In the midst of the wild rout of the court, there remained one infinitely pathetic figure, such as we have seen her, possessing no quality of mind or person which could attract him, Charles's wife was for a short time free from absolute insult. It amused him to teach her to say a few words like a parrot. You lie was her first English to him when, with delicate raillery, he had laughed at her for thinking herself with child. It was not long, however, before he began the breaking-in process, by forcing upon her the insolent presence of the reigning prostitute As lady of her bedchamber. That Clarendon should have yielded at length to Charles's passionate insistence, and consented to take his part in this brutality, comes upon us as a shock at the end of his honorable career.
Insignificant and helpless as Catherine was, she had the feelings of an honest woman, and the scene which took place, a scene to which Balzac alone could have done justice, was perhaps the most disgraceful of Charles's private life. But after that, though she has spirit enough, yet seeing that she did no good by taking notice of it, she forbears it in policy. And then the real pathos of the situation is felt. The queen begins to be brisk and play like other ladies, and as quite another woman. It may make the king like her better and forsake his other mistresses. She rapidly adapted herself to the situation, cutting her dress immodestly low and indulging in unseemly frolics in the streets. She even aspired to lead fashion by wearing the skirts short to show the feet and ankles.
And the other day, Charles wrote to his sister, my wife made my lord Aubigny and two others of her chaplains dance country dances in her bedchamber. Her excessive bigotry gave him an opportunity for a piece of careless indulgence. Pray send me—it is as if he were speaking of a child whose whims should be consulted or disregarded as best suits the convenience of the elders—some images to put in prayer-books. They are for my wife, who can get none here. I assure you it will be a great present to her, and she will look upon them often. For she is not only content to say the great office in the breviary every day, but likewise that of Our Lady, too, and this is beside going to chapel where she makes use of none of these.
He even seems to have acquired some tolerant affection for her, for when she was seriously ill, he wept by her bedside, a strange but not unfrequent instance of his Southern descent. But he supped, none the less, with Madame de Castlemaine, and had his usual talk with Mademoiselle Stewart. On May 19th, 1664, and farther than this we do not remember that he permitted his usual habits to be disarranged, Charles wrote, I have been all this afternoon playing the good husband, having been abroad with my wife, and tis now past twelve o'clock and I am very sleepy. While the Anglican Church was exacting the vengeance she deemed her right for the injuries of twenty years, the country was reeling under the stress of a great naval war.
England and the Dutch Republic were engaged in the second part of that tremendous contest for the commercial supremacy of the world, of which the first had been fought out between Trump and Blake. Long before any declaration of war was issued, And while all the forms of amity were preserved between the governments, the nations themselves had been actually in fierce and incessant strife in every quarter of the globe, in the East and West Indies, in America, in the Mediterranean, and all along the African shore. Naval engagements on a large scale had taken place. Fleets of merchantmen had been captured on both sides. And ships of each nation which were lying in the ports of the other had been seized as prizes.
The countries necessarily drifted into formal war. The declaration of war on March 17, 1665, was a notable event in the reign, for it marked the only occasion upon which Charles was in complete harmony with his people. The landed gentry and the merchants were alike eager for the struggle, While the Parliament men would pawn their estates, it came to their shirts later, to maintain a war, and supported their words with the unheard of grant of £2,500,000. When Charles wrote that he found himself the only man in his kingdom who did not desire war, his words were intended for Louis XIV, and need not be taken seriously. Everything, indeed, led him to favor war. His private and family feelings were enlisted against the Dutch.
He bore them deep and lasting resentment for their treatment both of himself and of his sister Mary during his exile, while a constant flow of lampoons and caricatures in Holland since his restoration, and especially one in which he was represented between two women with his pockets turned inside out, added keenness to his longing for retaliation. He was anxious to restore the young Prince of Orange, his nephew, to the Stadtholderate. His honor, he thought, demanded that he should be hostile where Cromwell had been an alliance, and he hoped that a war would unite parties at home, and that he would be able to fill his purse with the liberal supplies given by Parliament. Nor was he likely to be deterred by the remonstrances of the Dutch ambassador, Who, with a plentiful lack of humor, represented that the prayers put up for him in Holland would have to cease.
He replied that he was not much interested in the prayers of a country which permitted the publication of lampoons. There is no doubt that the attraction which everything connected with salt water possessed for Charles had much to do with his pleasure at the prospect of watching a naval war. On November 5th he took de Comange the French ambassador with him to Chirnès to see the launch of a man-of-war of twelve hundred tons burden, and he then carried out a joke of the kind in which his soul most delighted. An excellent lunch was served on the royal yacht. Charles drank the health of Louis, and de Comange that of Charles. Both were honored with so many guns and so much noise that the weather changed.
While we were thus carousing, the sea became rough and completed what the wine had begun. The queen, who was on the river with the ladies, escaped the sickness. All the rest were less lucky, as was only too apparent. The queen went home with the coaches prepared for the king, but he, who was greatly amused at seeing the others discomposed, did not care to allow us to do the same. Not content with this, He made the miserable de Comange get up at five in the morning to go with him to Chatham, to see six vessels, or rather six war machines, the finest and largest to be seen at sea. Charles had but one anxiety. He knew that by a treaty of 1662, Louis was engaged to help the Dutch if hostilities broke out and if they were the attacked party, and he was anxious to avoid this complication.
Louis was equally desirous to avoid being compelled to waste the strength which he was storing up for his intended attack upon the Spanish Low Countries, upon a war for which he had no heart. For the success of that attack, he knew he must neutralize the certain opposition of the English nation, and to that end he must secure the friendship and the personal cooperation of the English king. Already before December 1664, Charles had offered to refrain from all hindrance to his design if he would throw over his treaty and refuse to help the Dutch on the ground that they, and not England, were the aggressors. In reading the letters which passed at this time between Charles and his sister Henrietta, who was the confidential secretary of both monarchs, It is not easy to settle whether questions of imperial policy such as these, or the new fashion of Westkitz, lately introduced into France, occupied the chief place in Charles's mind.
Louis did his utmost, first to induce Charles to stop short of hostilities, and then to avoid his treaty obligations. When he failed in both efforts, he declared war against England in January 1666. But the conduct of the French showed how little their sympathies lay with their nominal allies. The troops which Louis sent to help the Dutch against Charles's strange and picturesque ally, Bernard van Gallen, Bishop of Münster, a prelate in his naturals, rather made for the sword than the cross, behaved as if they were in a hostile country. They pillaged the people and insulted their religion. They openly cursed the Dutch cause, and they drank publicly in the marketplace of Meistericht to the house of the King of England and the Bishop of Munster.
At sea, the squadrons of Louis were carefully kept back from assisting the Dutch fleets, and it was evident that at the first opportunity the two crowns would come to a perfect understanding. This opportunity, we must here anticipate for a moment, came at the beginning of 1667, when England, torn, bleeding, and utterly weary of the war, prayed Charles, in the Speaker's address on January 18th, to make peace. In February, he secretly sent Lord St. Albans, the German of former years, to conclude an engagement on the basis that England should form no connection with the House of Austria during that year, While Louis was to support all Charles's designs in or out of the kingdom. The final form which the agreement took was a mutual pledge not to enter into any alliance contrary to the others' interests for a year, an engagement by Louis to keep his fleets in harbor, and the promise of Charles to allow him a free hand in the Spanish Low Countries.
This was the first of those private arrangements with France which represent Charles's personal share in foreign policy to the end of his reign. It was kept from the knowledge of his ministers and was contained only in autograph letters from both monarchs to Henrietta Maria. England had entered upon the great contest with a light heart and full assurance of success. Even Admiral Lawson asserted, that according to an eye of reason, and of God says amen to it, the Dutch are not able to deal with our master, the King of England. In the beginning of May 1665, in spite of chaos in the Admiralty, a fleet such as had never before been gathered together, one hundred and nine large vessels with thirty of smaller size, manned by twenty-one thousand men, armed with forty-two hundred guns, and largely commanded by old Commonwealth captains who had learned the art of sea warfare with Blake, sailed under the command of James.
Rupert was to have led them, but he was accounted an unlucky man. On June 3rd took place the first battle, off Lowestoft, resulting in a victory for England which might well have seemed crushing. But an unexpected ally appeared to sustain the Dutch. Four days later came the hottest day in London that Pepys had ever known, and the Red Cross was on the doors. That week there died 112 of the plague, the next 700. By September 20th the official weekly mortality showed more than tenfold that number. There was no heart for farther effort, and the Dutch again asserted their supremacy. A fresh fleet sailed from Holland in the midst of the stormy season, To challenge their foes wherever they might be found, the challenge was not taken up.
London was panic-stricken by her affliction, and sixty ships lay inside the Thames in sullen inactivity. The Dutch returned to their own shores without firing a gun. By May 1666, the country had rallied sufficiently to send out another fleet. This time Monk and Rupert confronted De Reiter and Tromp. And a terrific battle which lasted for four days began on June 14th off the dunes. The blockhead Albemarle, who hath strange luck to be loved, though he be the heaviest man in the world, but stout and honest to his country, was a picturesque figure as he walked his quarter-deck in the hottest of the fight, phlegmatically chewing tobacco. Rupert continued to earn his epithet. The victory of the Dutch was signalized by the slaughter of 5,000 English.
Eight ships of the line were sunk, and nine more, with 3,000 prisoners taken. But on August 4th, another long day of carnage off the Norfolk coast gave Monk his revenge, and a few days later the daring act of a single English frigate and five fireships destroyed in one fell conflagration one hundred and sixty merchantmen which were riding at anchor in apparent safety at Flea in the entrance to the Zeider Zee. A month later happened the second great national disaster to England, and London Fuit. Once more de Witt sent out a fleet to seek Rupert at the mouth of the Thames, and once more he found no foe. For this Charles was directly responsible. Two more grants had been voted by Parliament of sums unheard of before the Restoration, And yet the treasury was empty.
On the whole, Charles had had considerably more than five million pounds for the war. He now retrenched expenses in his own way. His women never wanted money. At one gift, Lady Castlemaine had thirty thousand pounds. But he starved the navy to such an extent that England was obliged to act strictly on the defensive. The sole office of her warships being to creep along the coast, convoying colliers from Newcastle to London. The country was indeed, as soon appeared, defenseless. The enemy can come and cut our throats when he likes, wrote one well-informed country gentleman to another. Peace was clearly a necessity. We must have a peace, for we cannot have a fleet. If the war continued, declared Sir Roger Burgoyne, Which, God forbid, I am sad to think what will become of us next year.
May it prove happy to all, and let not a sixty-six come these hundred years again. But sixty-seven saw greater national humiliation yet. In May, a conference opened at Breda. For a long time it was found impossible to come to terms. For neither nation had so exhausted the other as to gain the commercial advantages upon which each was bent, and Charles had gone into the conference strong in his secret treaty with Louis. In the end, de Witt resolved upon a stroke which should extort peace. On June 7th, the sound of guns in the Thames was suddenly heard in London. Sixty-one Dutch men of war under de Reiter and Cornelius de Witt were avenging the insult at Flea. Driving the English vessels before them, they took Sheerness and ascended the river to Gravesend, sailed up the Medway to Rochester, burned three English men-of-war, and captured the Royal Charles, the noble vessel which de Comange had seen launched.
On July 31st, the Treaty of Breda was signed. Its terms were the terms of a drawn battle. The great struggle for the command of the sea and the commerce of the world was over for the time, only because the combatants, exhausted and bleeding, needed repose. It had decided nothing and left behind it hatred and mistrust. Though this may end in peace, wrote the sagacious Temple, yet I doubt it will be with so much unkindness between the nations that it will be wisdom on both sides to think of another. And meanwhile, The King's government, as he understood it best, had to be carried on. The King is always with Mrs. Stewart and sees Lady Castlemaine only once a week. Monmouth is spending his time most viciously and idly.
Mrs. Stewart has her locks done up in puffs. The King is mad with Mrs. Stewart, who has married the Duke of Richmond and sent him back his presents. Lady Castlemaine has consequently resumed her sway. The King, who minds nothing but his lust, hath taken ten times more care and pains in making friends between my Lady Castlemaine and Mrs. Stewart, when they have fallen out, than ever he did to save his kingdom. And to sum up the whole matter, there is a lazy prince, no counsel, no money, no reputation at home or abroad, so that it is strange how everybody do now reflect upon Oliver. and commend him what brave things he did, and made all the neighbor princes fear him, while here a prince, come in with all the love and prayers and good liking of his people, hath lost all so soon, that it is a miracle what way a man could devise to lose so much in so little time.
But there was a compensation for Charles and for all the town. The new Westkits had arrived from Paris. And little Nellie at the King's Playhouse, pretty witty Nell, had been discovered, and was bewitching all beholders with the piquancy of her acting. Charles had been every day realizing how narrow were the limits of his freedom except in the domain of pleasure. His Parliament had been showing itself imbued with precisely the same views as the long Parliament of his father, except that whereas That had been Puritan, this was Anglican. Its enemies were the same, potpourri, military force, and an uncontrolled use of the purse by the crown, and upon all three points the action of Charles had excited keen suspicion and discontent.
It was largely through that suspicion and discontent, aided by the base desertion of the king, a desertion less notorious than his father's desertion of Stratford, Only because the circumstances were less tragic and the personages less grandiose that Clarendon was now struck down. During the years of exile, Clarendon had maintained his place practically unchallenged because he was indispensable. He was equally indispensable and equally unchallenged during the Restoration settlement. All business, as we have seen, was left by Charles to him, Or, as he himself modestly says, to their natural course of God's providence. For the present, though many do endeavor to undermine him, the king, though he loves him not in the way of a companion as he does these young gallants that can amuse him in his pleasures, yet cannot be without him for his policy and service.
But Clarendon himself had no illusions. He knew that in time he would have to yield to the lewd instruments who had only a scurrilous kind of wit to procure laughter, and whose skill in mimicry was the best faculty in wit many of them had. He had enemies at court, said Evelyn bitterly, especially the buffoons and ladies of pleasure. It was not indeed until 1666. That he began to find himself in direct antagonism with the Commons. He then incurred their displeasure by opposing, as an improper limitation upon the prerogative of the Crown, the proviso that the supply of £1,250,000 should be strictly applied to the war. He incurred it even more when, upon offering another still larger grant, they demanded a public inspection of accounts.
His view of the Constitution in this respect was precisely what it had been when he served Charles I, despite the lessons of the last twenty years. He declared that this was an encroachment, as had no bottom, and that the scars were yet too fresh and green of those wounds which had been inflicted upon the kingdom with such usurpations. His counsel to dissolve Parliament and thus put an end to the antagonism was of farther grievance, but it was the knowledge that he was responsible, not only for raising troops, but for exacting money from the counties for paying them without parliamentary sanction, which created so strong a feeling that it was certain that when Parliament met in the autumn of 1667, he would be impeached.
It was not the first time that he had excited jealousy on this score. After Vener's plot it was supposed that he was making that event an excuse for raising an army. But the House did, in very open terms, say they were grown too wise to be fooled again into another army, and said they had found how that man that hath the command of an army is not beholden to anybody to make him king. Throughout these years Clarendon was surrounded by enemies. Lady Castlemaine hated him with the hatred of disappointed vanity and avarice. Not only had he steadfastly declined to court her favor, he would not even permit his wife to visit her, but he had frequently refused to pass grants for her from the king. It was at her house that those nightly meetings were held, at which a knot of young political adventurers To whose rise the all-absorbing power of the Chancellor was an obstacle, met to plan his overthrow.
Ashley Lauderdale, William Coventry, and Henry Bennett, better known as the Earl of Arlington, who was now Secretary of State in the place of Nicholas. Barclay, who helped Bennett to provide for the more intimate pleasures of the King, and Buckingham, for whom Clarendon had never concealed his contempt. Each had good reasons for wishing his fall. With these were many like Clifford and Osborne, not yet famous, who followed the fortunes of one or other of them. The disappointed Cavaliers owed him a deep grudge for the Indemnity Bill and the Bill of Sales, which had balked them of their revenge. The Catholics hated him as the representative of that Anglican triumph which was the chief obstacle of their recognition.
The Presbyterians and other dissenting sects laid their persecution at his door. He was disliked by the courtiers for the decency of his private life and for the integrity of his public conduct. His daughter's marriage with the presumptive heir to the throne awoke the jealousy of the nobility, while the report was industriously spread that he had knowingly chosen for the king A wife whom he knew to be incapable of bearing children. The citizens of London were alienated by his haughty reserve. He was envied for his wealth. He was denounced as the author of the surrender of Dunkirk, and as the man who had secured most benefit from its sale, and all the failures of the war, the subject on which he had practically no influence with Charles, were laid to his account.
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20 20 - Ch. 3: Charles and Clarendon, Pt. 6 20:46
CHARLES AND CLARENDON. PART VI.
The peculiarity of Clarendon's personal relations to the king must not be forgotten. Charles had grown up under his governance. He had been tutored by him in England twenty years before, lectured and controlled by him in exile, and Clarendon could not throw off the Domine, merely because his pupil was king. Charles himself declared that his Lord Chancellor would barely let him speak in council, now any more than when he was a boy at Bristol, and he was certainly kept to his work with scant ceremony. One of the notes which passed between the two at Council runs thus. I doubt you do not think enough of the business of Scotland. Another, when Charles wants his dinner. This debate is worth three dinners.
I beseech you be not weary of it, but attend it with all patience. Will your Majesty never put an end to this business? The business will not do itself, and so forth. Clarendon remonstrated boldly with Charles on the license of his life, and took whatever line he thought right, without much reference to his wishes. Instead of waiting upon the king, he made the king trot every day to him, although he was well enough to visit his cousin. For a long time, Charles took it all good-humoredly enough. When he was told by Lord Gerard that Clarendon had said openly that he was a lazy person and not fit to govern, he laughingly replied that that was no news, for he hath told me so twenty times, and but the other day he told me so.
But at length he grew annoyed at hearing on every side that so long as his minister was in power he was but half a king. The situation and Clarendon grew tiresome, and to be tiresome could have but one ending with Charles. The truth is, he wrote to Ormond, who on hearing of the King's intention to dismiss his old comrade dispatched from Ireland a very beautiful letter of remonstrance, his behavior and humor were grown so insupportable to myself and all the world else that I could no longer endure it, and it was impossible for me to live with it. When to all this it is added, that Clarendon opposed him directly in many matters upon which his mind was bent, and that in especial the king believed him to have been the author of the marriage of Francis Stewart, which robbed him of a much-desired accession to his establishment, there were reasons enough and to spare for a Stewart and a Bourbon to show a want of generous feeling.
Which was a flower that did never grow naturally in the heart of either of the families. Finally, and this was with Charles throughout life the most potent argument, it was easier, in the presence of popular clamor, to abandon than to support him. On August 30, 1667, orders were sent to him, ill as he then was and mourning the death of his wife. to deliver up the great seal. Three days before this, when he had had his last interview with the King, Lady Castlemaine had sprung from her bed and run out in her smock into her aviary looking over Whitehall Gardens, where she stood blessing herself at the old man's going away. As soon as Secretary Morris brought the great seal from my Lord Chancellor, Bad May fell upon his knees and catched the King about the legs and joined him, and said that this was the first time that ever he could call him King of England.
So it was, that strong in the gratified hate of a harlot, and unshamed by the congratulations of a pimp, Charles abandoned the wise old man to whom he owed his throne. Did he remember his father's last injunction, never to give way to the punishment of any for their faithful service to the crown? Upon whatsoever pretense or for whatsoever cause? Whether it were so or not, he seems to have heartily enjoyed Jacob Hall's robe-dancing on that day, unconscious that he was watching a rival in the affections of the mistress on Titre. It may well be doubted whether had neither Parliament attacked nor Charles betrayed him, Clarendon could have long maintained his position. He did not instinctively feel, and therefore could not guide, as Pym had guided, and Shaftesbury was to some extent to guide, the desires of his generation.
His essentially negative views had not stood in the way, had rather been advantageous at the Restoration itself. But when his task of restoring the parliamentary monarchy in strict alliance with the old Anglican Church had been completed, The weakness of a position based upon negations showed itself. He had neither the keenness to discern a coming change, nor the elasticity of mind to adapt himself to it when it came. Had it been otherwise, he might have died Prime Minister, for no one contested his usefulness. But then he would not have written the great epic of the rebellion. The Treaty of Breda, we have said, had left behind it Hatred and mistrust. But hatred and mistrust yield to a common danger.
Even before peace was made, Louis XIV had begun his war of aggression upon the Spanish Low Countries, which he claimed in right of his wife. Giving out that he was going to travel in her inheritance, he suddenly crossed the frontier, and in less than two months was master of all the southern towns. To both English and Dutch, The prospect was full of alarm, and it was this alarm and all the accretions of distrust which Charles's conduct allowed to gather round it, which formed the key to the events of the next ten years. Flanders had for centuries been connected by the closest commercial bonds with England, and it was indeed regarded as a kind of continental annex. While the Dutch dreaded to see themselves become a maritime province of France, even as faint-hearted Englishmen a century ago dreaded to see England.
It happened that at this moment the English resident in Brussels was Sir William Temple, the most cultured of our public servants, whose dispatches and memoirs can still be read with the fullest pleasure for their vivacity and literary grace. A keen opponent of French aggression, He had anticipated the action of Louis, and had already sketched the plan of a close alliance between England and the Republic, which should compel that monarch to hold his hand. John de Witt, acting in accord with Temple, now approached Charles with such an agreement in view, while Louis strained every nerve to secure the king's neutrality or active help. Ruvigny, a personal friend of Clarendon, was sent hastily to England, with ample funds to enforce his arguments, and with instructions to offer to Charles himself the promise of French help against his own subjects.
Before he reached London, Clarendon had fallen, and he had to deal with Buckingham and Arlington, who were attempting to fill the vacant place. It is interesting to watch Charles in his first serious essay in foreign politics. He received Rouvigny with perfect frankness, and expressed the warmest personal regard for Louis, but declared that Parliament would never assent to an alliance with France under such circumstances. Nevertheless, he made it clear that this did not close matters on his own part. Concealing the active negotiations which were at the moment going on with de Witt, he hinted that a large supply of ready money A part of the French conquests in the Low Countries and important commercial concessions might move him in the required direction.
Louis at once instructed Rouvigny to promise the money, increased facilities for trade with France and the Low Countries, and assistance in ships and supplies wherewith to conquer the Spanish possessions in the West Indies. The contest between France and the Republic for Charles's alliance was accentuated by the personal rivalry of Buckingham and Arlington. Buckingham was, on the whole, the most worthless of all the men who claim attention in this reign. His person was extremely graceful, Rearsby held them to be the finest gentlemen in the land, and he was naturally quick of understanding. He was, for a time, probably the richest subject of the king. He had a sort of insolent ease of speech, was regarded by his dependence as a wit, and had attained considerable power of mimicry, the lowest form of intellectual exercise, and there panegyric must cease.
He was essentially a trifler, heeding nothing but the fancy of the moment, and so inordinately vain and selfish, that he was at once the easiest and the most satisfactory of dupes. His profligacy was such as to give him an evil preeminence even in the court of Charles. His outrages upon religion were of vulgar indecency, while to men of honor and steadfastness he was the object of alternate contempt and distrust, which he repaid as best he could by insolent ridicule or dishonorable intrigue. He could not even claim that which in popular esteem will always cover a multitude of vices, A reputation for personal courage. The story of his life does not record a single honorable action, and Charles rated him at his real worth.
He drank with him and drabbed with him, but he never gave him office or command of any moment, and he duped him relentlessly when he essayed to be a politician. At the present moment, Buckingham was wholly in the French interest. For his whim at the time was the command of an English contingent in the service of Louis. In this he was steadily opposed by Arlington, who, unscrupulous as he was, a foe-ob in politics, had acquired the principal direction of foreign affairs by his evident capacity for business and coolness of judgment, and by the fact that he alone among Charles's ministers was able to converse easily with the foreign ambassadors in their own tongues. Arlington perfectly understood the temper of the English people, did not play entirely for his own hand, and, having married a lady from Holland, was inclined to the Dutch rather than the French connection.
The opportunity which was now offered of thwarting Buckingham drew him in the same direction. While, therefore, engaged in apparent concert with his foolish rival, in preliminaries with Rouvigny, he busied himself with Charles' sanction, but without Buckingham's knowledge, in direct negotiations with de Witt. At the same time, a lively illustration of diplomatic honor, Charles was offering to Spain also his act of alliance. His terms were, as always, ready money and commercial privileges. The poverty and the pride of Spain forbade their acceptance. The choice, therefore, lay between France and the Republic, and in the face of the rising clamor of Parliament, the policy of the line of least resistance claimed its votary.
Early in January 1668, Temple was sent in haste to The Hague. Charles threw himself into the matter with zeal, even to the correcting of the wording of Temple's dispatches, For the undecency of the word force, I would willingly have left it out," he writes in the margin of one. And by January 13, Temple had finished a brilliant piece of diplomatic work by the Triple Alliance, so-called from the later accession of Sweden. England and the Republic bound themselves to assist each other, if attacked in Europe with specified forces, to restore peace between France and Spain upon clearly expressed conditions, and finally, to compel both parties, if necessary, to make peace. This last provision was kept secret.
If France were recalcitrant, the war upon her should not cease until she had been reduced to the limits imposed by the peace of the Pyrenees. The Triple Alliance was the first formal expression of European resistance to the aggressions of Louis. But on the part of Charles himself, it was a piece of gross political knavery, surpassed only by what shortly followed. His hopes were, in reality, fixed upon France. On the very day upon which the treaties were signed, he wrote both to his sister and to Louis himself, pointing out that the effect of it is to bring Spain to consent to the peace, so as I have done nothing to prejudice France in this agreement. Emphasizing his desire to execute it with every possible regard to your satisfaction, and explaining his action as forced upon him by his subjects.
The secret article, of course, he carefully concealed for the time. But by this secret article, whenever he thought fit to disclose it, he knew that he had fatally compromised the Dutch before Louis, and had thus secured their isolation. When he should himself desire to attack them again. That this was no distant prospect is seen from the exclamations of the fiery Clifford, who was in his confidence. On the very day when London was blazing with bonfires for the conclusion of the Peace of Breda, Clifford was heard to declare that for all the rejoicing there must soon be another war. Louis bowed before the Triple Alliance, and the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle was concluded at the end of May 1668. Temple had no hope in the permanence of a peace which both France and Spain come to so unwillingly, and which both England and Holland promote upon conditions which both dislike.
Even before it was ratified, the disintegrating forces were at work. It was not likely that Louis would contentedly accept his rebuff at the hands of the Dutch. As Republicans, as traitors, and as Protestants, they were the objects of his haughty contempt. The arrogance of speech in which they were unwisely indulging, their fanfaronade de pécheur, the medal in which France was represented as the sun stayed in his course by the Republic, these and other grievances so rankled in his mind. That he never, he says, entered his council without thinking how he might make them pay dearly for the great role they had assumed. But before attacking, he set himself to remove from them all possible sources of support, to destroy the coalition limb by limb, and he began with England.
Since stinking Dutchman was the best appellation that Charles could find for his friends, success did not seem improbable. The ties which bound him to France, his French blood, his love for his sister, his admiration for Louis XIV and the system of personal rule which he had inaugurated, no less than his desire to be revenged for the Chatham disaster and the caricatures, all tended in the same direction. He had already betrayed his nominal allies to Louis by informing him of the secret article. Charles had shown that he intended in pale imitation of Louis, to be his own foreign minister. He now made this clearer. Buckingham might be allowed to play at statesmanship and to believe himself the confidant of Charles, Louis, and Henrietta of Orléans.
Arlington needed humoring, for he had openly expressed the opinion that Louis' wings must be clipped. He was a useful secretary and could be trusted to conduct formal negotiations with ability. But neither of them had any real influence of a direct kind. One thing, wrote Charles to his sister, I desire you to take as much as you can out of the King of France's head, that my ministers are anything but what I will have them. And a little later, whatsoever opinion my ministers had been of, I would and do always follow my own judgment. And if they take any other measures than that, they will see themselves mistaken in the end. They were used, tricked, allowed to trick one another, and repudiated, as was most convenient, and Charles enjoyed no part of the business more.
It would be a grave mistake to regard the king in what followed as making a surrender of himself to Louis. He was, for the time, master of his own game, and he exacted his own terms. But the game was not an easy one to play. He was to break off an alliance upon which his people were earnestly bent. He was to enter into fellowship with the representative of European aggression and Catholic despotism, and these were what his people most dreaded. Scarcely a week had passed after the signature of the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, before Charles signified his wish for a strict union with France and asked to be met halfway. The guarded reply of Louis called forth his private assurance through Rouvigny that he would willingly make treaty with you as between gentlemen and gentlemen, and that he preferred your word to all the parchment in the world.
But Charles made two conditions, one of his own, that he should be assisted, since his people thought differently from himself. The other suggested by Arlington that Louis must speak first. Because if he made proposals and they were not accepted, but became known to the Hollanders, he would suffer. Louis accepted the situation without demur, and replaced the Protestant Rouvigny by the more wily Colbert de Croissy, a Catholic, without, however, letting the new ambassador know the length and breadth of his designs. At Colbert's first audience, Charles told him plainly that he himself was the only man in his dominions who wanted the French alliance, and that there were two difficulties in the way.
France had been developing her trade and increasing her navy. This must stop. Trade was the idol of England, and sea power her only effective claim to consideration. These interests, at any rate the second, must be secured if dealings were to proceed. More than once he held the same language. The only thing which can give any impediment is the matter of the sea, which is so essential a point to us here, as in union upon any other security can never be lasting. Nor can I be answerable to my kingdoms, if I should enter into an alliance wherein their present and future security were not fully provided for. The second obstacle he mentioned with his tongue in his cheek. The other difficulty is the treatise I am entered into of late, which I am sure the king, my brother, would not have me violate upon any terms, since he has given me the good example of being a martyr to his words.
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21 21 - Ch. 3: Charles and Clarendon, Pt. 7 22:33
CHARLES AND CLARENDON. PART VII.
Louis at once instructed Colbert to set on foot a commercial treaty which would give no ground for suspicion Prolonging the negotiations while the preliminaries of a more practical alliance were carried on. Charles entered willingly into this scheme, and amused himself in duping both Buckingham and Colbert, by setting them with every circumstance of mystery to work upon it as if it were the only matter in hand. But he again expressed his extreme jealousy of the growth of the French Navy. At the same time, he thanked his sister for the gloves, which are as good as is possible to smell, and for the petticoat, which is the finest I ever saw. He needed, however, assistance of a more solid kind than gloves and petticoats.
Economies had been made in his expenses, chiefly by diminishing pensions, but economy was an exotic at court, and he was very soon sorely put to it for money. Secrecy was essential if the intrigue was to proceed without hindrance, and we have an interesting example of the manner in which this secrecy was maintained. I had written thus far, he wrote to his sister Henrietta, when I received yours by the Italian whose name and capacity you do not know, and he delivered your letter to me in a passage where it was so dark as I do not know his face again if I see him. So as the man is likely to succeed when his recommendation and reception are so suitable to one another. In prolonged negotiations, however, it was impossible to maintain such secrecy for any length of time, and Arlington and Colbert were successively admitted to just so much confidence as was necessary to keep them at work.
Arlington, who shrewdly suspected what was going on, Soon gave evidence of his readiness to help to the farthest extent. His change of front was probably due not only to his warm attachment to Catholic views, but especially to the fact that James had already declared his conversion, and with all a convert's ardor, had been urging his brother to the same course. It was not, however, until May 1669 that Charles reported Arlington as entirely mine. It was six months later before Colbert was entrusted with the whole secret. Buckingham, as a Protestant and a babbler, never knew it at all. On January 25, 1669, Charles announced to James, Clifford, Arlington, and Arendelle in the strictest confidence his desire to be a Catholic.
The political aspect of Catholicism was as convincing as the religious. Only under a Catholic constitution, he said, might a King of England hope to become absolute. In the previous August, if the documents in the archives of the Jesuits can be regarded as genuine, he had sent to the General of the Order a request that the son of his Jersey boyhood might be sent to him in order that he might practice with him in secret the mysteries of the Catholic religion, without giving a shade of suspicion that we are Catholic. But the hope that he might be received into the Catholic Church while he outwardly appeared a Protestant was destroyed by the uncompromising statement of the Pope in the case of James, who had made the same request, that even the head of the Church himself had no power to grant such a dispensation.
The formal conversion was therefore left until his alliance with Louis should make him strong enough to brave the country, and there it remained. Until the imminence of death set him free. Out of the poor parley with Louis, two main ideas now definitely shape themselves. In return for large subsidies and a share in the spoils, Charles was to join in the invasion of Holland, and he was to make a public confession of Catholicism, receiving for this also a generous supply from Louis, with additional help in men and money, In case of trouble with his own subjects. It would be tedious to enter into the labyrinth of negotiations that now went on. Charles, Louis, and Henrietta alone seeing the whole matter clearly.
The agents working in such dim light as was vouchsafed them. The episode of the Abbe Preniani is, however, too characteristic of the time, and of all concerned, to be omitted. The frequent journeys of messengers between England and France and the conferences between Charles and Colbert were arousing public suspicion. It was openly declared in the streets that a compact was already concluded, and the price was named for which English honor had been bought and sold. To avoid this public attention, the Abbe Prignani, an Italian monk, Who had acquired a reputation among the ladies of Paris for his pretensions to astrology, the fashionable nonsense of the day, was sent over by Louis under pretense of helping Charles in his favorite chemical experiments, but really in order that, favored by the privacy of the laboratory, he might act as a go-between for Charles and Colbert without any initiative of his own.
The arrangement for a time worked well. Incidentally, we learned to what extent Charles believed in astrology. You may be sure, he said to Henrietta, that I will keep the secret of your prophet. I give little credit to such kind of cattle, and the less you do it, the better. For if they could tell anything, it is inconvenient to know one's fortune beforehand, whether good or bad. And so, my dearest sister, good night. This letter was written very late in the night of March 7, 1669. At three next morning, Charles had dragged Preniani out of bed to ride with him to Audley End, and on the 12th he wrote in malicious delight how he had made him trot hard from Audley End to Newmarket to see a foot race, and had completely tired him out.
On his return to London, He related with infinite satisfaction how the foolish Abbe, not content with the safe telling of remote fortunes, had lost his money upon confidence that the stars could tell which horse would win, for he had the ill luck to foretell three times wrong together, and James, Monmouth, believed him so much as he lost his money upon the same score. There was clearly nothing to be done in a sporting country through an agent who proved himself an unreliable tipster, and Louis at once recalled him. Charles had a softer heart. I find the poor Abbe Preniani very much troubled, for fear that the railleries about foretelling the horse matches may have done him some prejudice with you, which I hope it has not done, for he was only trying new tricks, which he had read of in books, and gave them as little credit as we did.
The man has wit enough, and is as much your servant as is possible, which makes me love him. On June 6th, a very important letter reached Henrietta, in which Charles detailed the preparations which he was making to meet the dangers that he foresaw. I am securing all the principal ports of this country, not only by fortifying them, But likewise the keeping them in such hands as I am sure will be faithful to me on all occasions, and this will secure the fleet, because the chief places where the ships lie are Chatham and Portsmouth. There is all the reason in the world to join profit with honor, when it may be done honestly, and the King will find me as forward to do Holland a good turn as he can desire.
And I am sure we shall never be satisfied till we have had our revenge. And I am willing to enter into an agreement upon that matter whensoever the King pleases. Arlington, he added, will be as forward in the matter as I am, and farther assurance you cannot expect from an honest man in his post, nor ought you to trust him if he should make any other professions than to be for what his master is for. Elsewhere he told how he was cautiously increasing the number of his troops. Which was done by adding insensibly more men to a troop or company, and then more troops or companies to a regiment. Until in 1673 there were 18,000 men encamped at Blackheath, while Lauderdale, his vizier in Scotland, had formed an army of 22,000 men, bound by act of parliament to march where and whither he pleased in his dominions.
Ireland was in good hands under Barclay, and he had every confidence that Ormond would support him. He would proclaim his conversion as soon as he felt perfectly secure, and he had no doubt that he should easily be able to satisfy the holders of the lands which in pre-Reformation days had belonged to the Church, which would, of course, if Catholicism were established, revert to her. Finally, we are told by James The rigorous Church of England men were let loose and encouraged underhand to prosecute according to the law the nonconformists, to the end, that these might be more sensible of the ease they should have when the Catholics prevailed. It is easy to rate Charles's words about his preparations too highly.
That floating ideas of force passed before him is more than probable. But a fixed resolve was foreign to his nature. And day by day as his character deteriorated under continual debauchery, he grew less capable of sustained effort. Often we see him forming great designs and proceeding with them just so long as they do not meet with formidable resistance. Careless as he always appeared of public opinion, he never deceived himself for long as to the facts of his position. He did not forget his father's fate. Nor had he any intention of again going on his travels. As to the Church Lands, no one knew better than Charles that to move Olympus would be an easier task than to oust their possessors. While the idea that Ormond would be a party to the subjection of the country to military force, or to a betrayal of English Protestantism, sounds no less absurd to all who remember who and what Ormond was.
An amusing game of fence now took place upon the question whether the English declaration of war against the Republic should precede or follow the announcement of Charles's conversion. The object of Louis was to attack at the earliest moment, and he cared very little about the king's religion. Charles, on the other hand, was in no haste to bind himself to the cost and risk of a great war a moment sooner than necessary. Upon the religious question, he said, repeating the theory expressed by James, he could reckon upon the neutrality, if not the active support of the dissenters, for they hated the Church more than they hated Catholicism. With his troops and fortresses, he should be strong enough to carry the matter through, and he could then begin the war.
Colbert, in reply, laid stress upon the fact, That the Dutch would in this case stand before Europe as the champions of Protestantism, while the difficulties which would arise at home would impair the King's strength for the joint enterprise. But if, sustained by the commercial jealousy of his own people, he declared war first, he would have a ground for demanding large supplies from Parliament, and with the troops and ships thus provided, He would find it easy at the close of a successful conflict to secure a quiet acquiescence to his conversion. To Charles's next suggestion, that Louis should first begin hostilities, and that he himself should then carry out both parts of his scheme simultaneously, Louis replied with an absolute refusal to enter upon the war without the explicit concurrence of England.
The French monarch had been well served by the English Parliament in the session which began on October 19, 1669. In asking for a generous supply, Charles had prided himself upon being the happy instrument which had secured the Triple Alliance and the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. He had used language which, though not verbally mendacious, was intended to lead to the belief that the Triple Alliance stood firm. Temple had been sent as ambassador to the Hague, and had more than once been allowed, all unconscious of the deceit, to pledge his master's honor to the Dutch. It is indeed possible that Charles might even yet have kept faith if Parliament had given money with a free hand. But the Commons had voted him a sum quite inadequate even to strengthen his hands in the negotiations.
He was thus compelled to meet Louis halfway, but it was not until January 1670 that he proposed terms which show that he was in earnest. It was characteristic of him that while acceding to the main position of the French monarch, precedence for the war, he insisted upon one provision which showed how well he knew the temper of his people. He told Louis bluntly, That no English captain would take orders from a French admiral. If, therefore, the fleets were united, they must sail under English command. Once more his reconciliation with Parliament in the session of February 10, 1670, with its practical result of a large supply, enabled Charles to call the game. He began to hang back and to raise his terms, and on every point, Commercial advantages, the command and number of the fleets, the payment of subsidies in hard cash and not in letters of exchange, even his demand that in the powers given to the commissioners he should be styled King of France, Louis found himself compelled to yield.
The few remaining difficulties were left to be overcome by Charles's sister, dear, dear sister, through whose hands All the confidential letters had passed, and who now paid a long-promised visit. With a suite of two hundred and fifty-seven persons, among whom was a young girl named Louise de Quirouaille, she reached Dover on May 5, and Charles, with his old boyish eagerness, rode far out to sea to meet the squadron. On June 1, 1670, Colbert for France, And Arlington, Clifford, Arendelle, and Bellingsford, England, signed the Treaty of Dover, the Traité de Madame. On the 12th, Henrietta returned to France, leaving behind her an impression of beauty, goodness, and charm, which is reflected in the correspondence of faraway country homes.
On the 29th, she was dead. By the famous compact, Louis secured his immediate object. But Charles was, except for honor, no loser, nor he might claim was England. He was indeed bound to declare his conversion, but the date was left absolutely to himself, while he was at once to receive one hundred and fifty thousand pounds to aid him in any difficulties which might arise upon that score. For the war he was to have two hundred and twenty-five thousand pounds a year, And the command of the coasts of Zeiland was to be his share of the spoil. One of the conditions acknowledged the supremacy of England at sea. The French fleet, of thirty vessels only, was to be regarded as auxiliary, and the whole was to be under the command of an English admiral.
And now followed one of the most curious pieces of by-play in history, one exactly in consonance with Charles's genius. It was impossible to show the treaty as it stood to the king's Protestant servants, to Buckingham, Lauderdale, Ashley, Ormond, or Rupert. It was equally impossible to keep from them for any length of time the fact that a treaty had been made. With Buckingham's frothy egotism to play upon, the matter was, however, very simple. He was allowed to negotiate, believing the suggestion to be his own, a fresh treaty. The traité simulée. Stimulated by the flattery of Louis, and still more by the feigned hesitation of Arlington and Colbert, while Charles looked on with infinite amusement, he labored zealously in preparing a draft differing from the original one in only two important respects.
All mention of the conversion was omitted. The subsidy offered for that purpose being now added to that to be given for the war. and the commander of the English land contingent was to take precedence of all the lieutenant-generals of France. This latter condition was inserted in order still farther to quicken Buckingham's zeal, since he hoped to have the post. It led a little later to a scene described by Colbert in a letter to Louis on November 9, 1671, which aptly illustrates Charles's tone with his servants, And his regard for Buckingham in particular. The King had by that time induced Louis to waive the demand for the troops, and Buckingham complained in sulky petulance to his master of what he regarded as a personal grievance.
Charles replied that it was folly to imagine he could put in competition the interest the Duke had in commanding a body of troops with that of the public, and added angrily, That on such occasions he considered him no more than his dog. The Traite Simule was duly signed by Buckingham, Lauderdale, and Ashley in the beginning of 1671. Among all the immediate servants of the Crown there was thus scarcely one whose hand was not given to this shameless betrayal of an alliance which England had herself sought. The treaty being made, Charles had good reasons for desiring an early war. He must engage the country beyond recall before Parliament should meet again, and his abandonment of toleration and his duplicity had placed him for the moment in possession of ample funds.
On October 24, 1670, he had opened Parliament with a speech in which he had carried deception regarding foreign affairs to the farthest point short of absolute falsehood. The necessity of raising the navy to a strength which might challenge both France and the Dutch was dwelt upon. Not a hint was dropped that the Triple Alliance was in danger. The first of Temple's treaties, indeed, which bound England and the Republic to mutual defense in case of attack was specially mentioned. Completely deceived, the Commons answered the demand for a supply by a vote of 800,000 pounds. To avoid being afterwards confronted with the proof of his falseness, Charles took the unusual step of forbidding the Lord Keeper's speech to be printed.
It was not until long afterwards that Andrew Marvel, when writing his great pamphlet upon the growth of popery and arbitrary government, was able with much labor to recover a written copy, and it is to his diligence alone that we owe our knowledge of the trickery. The importance of the Treaty of Dover can scarcely be overrated. Charles had entered upon a course of subservience to France, or rather of parallelism with Louis, which placed it henceforth in the power of the French king to neutralize the opinion of free and Protestant England, and even to enlist her material support in the interests of despotism and Catholicism. This political profligacy, this dissociation of the king from his people, was responsible for the miseries to which Europe was subjected for more than a generation.
Without the support of Charles, Louis would not have dared to attack the Dutch, for their fleets would have swept his commerce from the seas, while the union of the two great naval powers would have stood like a wall against all schemes of aggression. Had England, at this moment, possessed a king of lofty temper, proud to lead or apt to control the current of national feeling, the chapter of bloodshed and desolation which began at Dover and ended at Utrecht would probably never have been written.
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22 22 - Ch. 4: Charles, Louis, and Parliament, Pt. 1 16:06
CHARLES, LOUIS, AND PARLIAMENT. PART I.
Had Charles been asked to justify the deception which he had practiced upon his people, he would probably have answered that foreign alliances and questions of peace and war That he was, as he had said, the only man in his dominions who was in the interest of France, was a matter of regret, but could not be supposed in any way to effect his decision. If, therefore, he had reason to believe that his people would forsake their proper province and oppose his designs, should they become aware of them, Secrecy and deception were, he would hold, at once legitimate and necessary. But in domestic affairs such deception had been impossible, and to illustrate this we must now briefly retrace our steps.
The dismissal of Clarendon had removed an obstacle to the fulfillment of the king's purpose of resting his power upon the goodwill and gratitude of dissent. Buckingham and Arlington. The successors to Clarendon's place, though not to his authority, hating one another mortally, still pecking one at the other, were for a time united by their common antagonism to the fallen Chancellor and their common fear that he might return. Their private inclinations, moreover, led them toward toleration. Buckingham posed as the patron of Protestant descent, Arlington sympathized with the Catholics. So long as the recess lasted, they had their way. The penal statutes were ignored. The prisons were opened. The meeting houses were again thronged.
The Presbyterians received ostentatious favor, and many old Commonwealth men, like Wildman, showed themselves again in public. A bill for comprehension was drafted to which it was confidently hoped. That Parliament, rendered tractable by the Triple Alliance and by its success over Clarendon, would give its consent. And the speech from the throne, February 10th, contained a request that the Commons would seriously think of some course to beget a better union and composure in the minds of my Protestant subjects in matters of religion. All mention of Catholics was carefully avoided. But Charles was at once undeceived. His intentions had leaked out before the houses met, and the country gentlemen, already angry at the mismanagement of the last war, were in a state of excessive irritation.
The King was straightway petitioned to proclaim the suppression of all unlawful assemblies, whether Papist or Protestant. He knew that any hesitation would mean a refusal of supplies, and the short-lived hopes of the dissenters came to an end. The Commons then threw aside the proposal that Charles should be asked to hold a Conference of Divines, and in May 1668 passed a bill for continuing the Conventicle Acts. There was clearly nothing to be done with the House and its present humor, and Charles wanted freedom for his negotiations with Louis. Taking advantage of a deadlock which had arisen between Lords and Commons, he postponed any further meeting of Parliament for nearly eighteen months, until October 19, 1669, when money was again absolutely necessary.
Had he been careful to maintain at least a moderate execution of former acts, it is possible that the Commons might have accepted some indulgence for Protestant dissent. As it was, they came together possessed more than ever with the doctrine that an overwhelming and exclusive Anglican ascendancy was the only weapon with which to fight their arch-enemy, Catholicism. Sheldon had collected ex parte information as to the character of the Conventicles, and even before the meeting of Parliament had carried it to Charles and compelled him to issue a fresh proclamation to enforce the law. The Commons at once made it clear that they would support the primate, and on December 11, 1669, Charles again closed the session.
When Parliament reassembled, on February 14, 1670, an unusual scene was witnessed. For the first time in English history, the Sovereign was attended to the House of Lords with military pomp. It can hardly be doubted That the design was to accustom the people to the idea of a standing army. Charles met the houses with confidence begotten by the dealings with Louis which had been described, and addressed them stilo meniche et imperatorio. He had another reason for this attitude. In the interval between the sessions, he had taken the lessons of the past to heart. For once, His speech did not contain a word about toleration. He had cynically determined to offer to Parliament the one condition necessary to secure an unstinted supply, a supply which he intended to use for the objects most distasteful to the members.
The Commons understood that they might have their swing of persecution, and they showed their instant recognition of the fact By voting a supply of 300,000 pounds a year for eight years. We are all venal cowards except some few, was the bitter comment of an honest man. Charles then left them without demur to settle down to their favorite work. On April 11, 1670, he gave his assent to the second and more pitiless Conventicle Act. Sheldon hounded on the bishops. And so severely was the act executed that a trustworthy witness declared soon afterwards that there was scarcely a conventicle to be heard of throughout England. We are told of violent arrests in churches, even during sermon time, nay, of one taken out betwixt the bread and the cup in receiving the sacrament.
So successful was this policy that in Marvel's words, the King was never since his coming in. Nay, all things considered, no king since the conquest, so absolutely powerful at home. Protestant descent being now out of the way, the commons attacked the other wing of the forces hostile to Anglican supremacy. On March 10, 1671, they made a series of demands which implied a denial of the right of Catholics even to dwell in peace. To the cry for the banishment of priests and Jesuits and for the enforcement of the penal laws, Charles yielded at once with but slight reservations. For this second surrender, he received a farther supply, and then, taking advantage of a fresh conflict between the Houses, he again used the weapon of prorogation.
Parliament did not meet again for business until February 4th, 1672. Before we deal with that session, certain domestic matters claim attention which were of more absorbing interest in Charles's eyes, and one of which at any rate was of real political importance as well. Hitherto, Lady Castle main sway had been undisputed. The ladies who were introduced to Charles's casual notice by Babmey, Chiffinch, Arlington, and his other purveyors were but creatures of a day. Suddenly, however, she awoke to the fact that poor Olinda was growing old, and that she had two rivals whose appointment seemed likely to be permanent. Nellie Gwynne, then just nineteen years old, was sent for by the King, in the winter of 1669, and remained his playmate to his death.
She had already been mistress successively to Charles Hart, her fellow-actor, and to Charles, Lord Buckhurst, with whom she kept Merry House at Epsom. But while Lady Castlemaine, under the king's very eyes, ranged from peer to rope-dancer in the bestowal of her favors, Nellie Gwynne, having reached the height of ambition, was, for all evidence to the contrary, faithful to her Charles III, as she dubbed him for more than fifteen years. Captivating in looks, she must have been to attract the King, although her portraits show none of that regular beauty which in Lady Castlemaine and Francis Stewart defies criticism. But it was clearly the frank recklessness of the Latin Quarter, the fearlessness of her banter, her irrepressible gaiety, the spontaneousness of her practical jokes, Her camaraderie and unfailing goodness of temper which made her hold on him secure.
She was a true child of the London streets, apt of wit and shrewd of tongue, and her very honesty of vice, her want of reticence, her buoyant indiscretion, her refusal to take herself seriously or to regard herself as anything but what she was, have, strangely enough, secured for her a sort of positive affection in the respectable England of today, as they did during her joyous, irresponsible life. Nobody ever thought of kissing Nellie's hand as they kissed the hand of the mistress on Tite. Her regular wages were comparatively insignificant, a bare four thousand pounds a year, while the Duchess of Portsmouth was receiving many times that amount. For politics, she cared nothing. Politicians might indeed meet an intrigue at her lodgings, but Nellie and her merry gang were not politicians, and she neither made ministers nor appointed to Bishoprix.
She was, as we have said, Charles's playmate, and his dying words, don't let poor Nellie starve, aptly express the relations between them. Very different. were the birth, character, ambitions, and functions of Louise René de Carroailles de Penancoy, the daughter of two noble Breton houses, who, in just twenty years of age, came in the train of Henrietta of Orléans to Dover. On the eve of his sister's departure, when presenting her with some choice jewels, Charles prayed her to leave one of her own with him. She bade Louise fetch the casket and told her brother to make his choice. Charles thereupon asked with a smile that her maid of honor might remain in England, for that was the only jewel which he coveted.
There is no reason to suppose that Henrietta had brought the girl over for the purpose. Indeed, she utterly refused Charles's request. But after her death, Louis, who was constantly informed of all details of this nature in Charles's court, saw the opportunity thus afforded for supplying the place which had been left in his affections, and for thereby securing that influence over him and French interests, which the Queen, from ignorance, and Lady Castlemaine, from vulgarity, were unable to exercise. Louise was instructed to accept the King's urgent invitation to return to England as Maid of honor to the Queen, and was doubtless well aware of what that meant. It will be seen how far she succeeded in the political role assigned to her.
But from the very first, she began with the sweet languor of her girlish face, and the refined charm of manner which was a new experience for Charles, to weave around him the meshes of the net, and to introduce into the anarchy of the harem Something, at least, of female reticence and grace. Alone among Charles's mistresses, she had a conception of la haute politique. She alone in that ignoble court could command the respect and cooperation of statesmen and ambassadors. She met the vulgar furies of Lady Castlemaine and the banter of Nellie with quiet disdain. She held her own with a certain dignity against the anger of the commons. The hatred of the people, the attacks of politicians, and the waywardness of Charles, and for many years she was virtual Queen of England.
A curious scene followed her arrival. Furious with jealousy, Lady Castlemaine prepared for war. Nellie was boisterous in her defiance, and the other ladies were proportionately aggressive. Louise adopted a behavior of piquant reserve. Month after month, She strengthened her hold upon Charles by a gentle but effectual resistance to his importunities. Her progress was eagerly watched from France. The ministers of Louis began to fear that she was overacting her part, and she received hints to that effect. Still she held out. At length, Lady Arlington was deputed by Colbert to put the case plainly to the girl. She must lay aside her scruples without delay. Or retire to a French convent. At a dinner given by Colbert to Charles, it was arranged that she should accompany Lady Arlington to Euston where the King could join them from Newmarket, and that there the last resistance should be overcome.
The revels of that night, the mock marriage and the rest, are told by Evelyn. On October 9, 1671, she became Charles's acknowledged mistress. Of all the strange scenes in this abandoned reign, perhaps the strangest to modernize is the audience which she gave on November 2nd to Colbert, who came to tender her the formal congratulations of Louis XIV. Her advancement was rapid. Countess, Baroness, Duchess, and quick succession. It is said that she even aspired to share Charles's throne should the expected death of the Queen take place. Barbara Palmer, Nellie Gwynne, and Louise de Quiroil typify, as they contented, the three sides of Charles's nature. The first had held him by the purely animal passions, the lustfulness of his southern blood.
Nellie was a bohemian like himself and would have been as good a comrade had they both been strolling actors. But when he wanted refinement, charm of conversation and delicacy, and it is a mistake to forget this side of his nature, he retired to the apartments of Louise de Quirouaille.
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23 23 - Ch. 4: Charles, Louis, and Parliament, Pt. 2 19:10
Charles, Louis, and Parliament. Part Two.
Upon these three women the treasure of the country was squandered in wanton profusion. The supplies voted by Parliament, the subsidies of Louis, ran like water through their hands. Pensions, patents, monopolies, crown lands, reversions of lucrative posts were showered upon them and their bastards. Louise had before long, besides casual gifts, an annual income of 40,000 pounds, and it is computed that in 1681 the enormous sum of 136,000 pounds passed through her hands. It was clear that the empire of the older woman over Charles's affections had gone, but he had been too long her slave to relegate her to insignificance or poverty, and he dared not allow her rancorous tongue to be unbridled. In August 1670 she was created a duchess, and her children were ennobled.
Wealth was given her as much as her hands could hold. The farmers of the customs have signed and sealed £10,000 a year more to the Duchess of Cleveland, who has likewise near £10,000 a year out of the new farm of the county excise of beer and ale, £5,000 a year out of the post office, and they say the reversion of all places in the customs house, the green wax, and indeed what not. All promotions, spiritual and temporal, pass under her cognizance. The privy purse was shaken into her lap, and the Irish Treasury was plundered for her. Charles actually gave her a grant of the Phoenix Park, and the design was abandoned only when Essex, the Lord Lieutenant, one of the few honest men who held office, protested against this outrage with petitionary vehemence as one of the unseemliest things I have ever known, a thing so indecent.
Offering, however, to find concealed lands of as good a value as the park, or to induce the Irish Parliament to give a small tax to reprieve it. The idea of a tax being raised upon a whole nation to satisfy the harlot's needs is as edifying as the sight of dignitaries of the Church seeking promotion at her hands. We are, says Hallam, in one of his few moments of irony, Much indebted to the memory of Barbara, Duchess of Cleveland, Louise, Duchess of Portsmouth, and Mrs. Eleanor Gwynne, we owe a tribute of gratitude to the Mays, the Killigrews, the Chiffinches, and the Gromants. They played a serviceable part in ridding the kingdom of its besotted loyalty. They saved our forefathers from the Star Chamber and the High Commission Court, They labored in their vocation against standing armies and corruption.
They pressed forward the great ultimate security of English freedom, the expulsion of the House of Stuart. It is difficult to associate with these scenes of extravagance and effrontery the self-control, the serious purposes, and the austere reticence which distinguished William of Orange from childhood. In the late autumn of 1670, The prince paid a visit to England when the court was apparently thinking of nothing but Newmarket, with the first suggestion of future marriage with Mary, the eldest daughter of James. Evelyn describes him as having a manly, courageous, wise countenance, resembling his mother and the Duke of Gloucester. A very personable and hopeful prince, says Rearsby. From him, as from everyone else, Charles managed to extract sport.
He made him drink very hard one night at a supper given by the Duke of Buckingham. The Prince did not naturally love it, but being once entered was more frolic and merry than the rest of the company. Amongst other expressions of it, he broke the windows of the chamber of the Maids of Honor and had got into some of their apartments had they not been timely rescued. I suppose, adds Rearsby, his mistress did not less approve of him for that vigor. By his prorogation in the spring of 1671, Charles had set himself free from the control of Parliament in order, as Marvel put it, that the architects of our ruin might be so long free from their busy and odious inspection. The manner in which he used his liberty led to the first great crisis of his reign.
We have seen from his letters to Henrietta in what light he regarded his ministers. They were merely the exponents of his personal will, without initiative and without any collective responsibility or any necessary harmony of opinion. It had been the custom to form within the Privy Council a small committee or cabal, a term at least as old as the reign of James I, to which were referred not only foreign affairs but other matters of importance and secrecy. This committee represented the Crown, neither existing nor ceasing to exist, with any direct reference to Parliament and people. Each member held his place purely at the King's will. He gave his advice, but his duty then was to support whatever decision the King might adopt.
Satisfy yourself, said Arlington in 1672, that you do your duty of serving the King according to his direction. It was, in fact, the antithesis of the modern cabinet. The logical sequence of this aspect of ministerial responsibility to the king alone was that the minister should not suffer for his obedience, and in 1679 we find Danby taking up with respect to his own impeachment the position that in no case ought a minister of state to be made a sacrifice of state to the will of the people. The doctrine under which Buckingham Had been attacked and Stratford had been struck down was explicitly denied. The cabal at the time of the Treaty of Dover consisted of Clifford, Arlington, Buckingham, Ashley, and Lauderdale, though Bridgeman, Ormond, Rupert, and others were at times included.
Among these five there was, besides the guilty knowledge of one or other of the Treaties of Dover, but one bond of union. Buckingham hated Arlington. Arlington was jealous of Clifford. Clifford was bitterly opposed to Ashley, and Lauderdale had no English responsibility at all. But all of them, though from widely different motives, were in favor of toleration. Of Arlington, astute and useful, with the very pedantic carriage of a true penman, and of Buckingham, flashy in vain, much has already been heard. Of the other three, men in a far higher plane, some notice must here be given. Sir Thomas Clifford was perhaps the most picturesque figure of the cabal, a valiant, incorrupt gentleman, ambitious, not covetous, passionate, a most constant, sincere friend, says Evelyn, boisterous, overbearing, and dangerous are Bolingbroke's epithets.
An ardent Catholic in sympathies, if not by actual conversion, he was as ardent an advocate of an uncontrolled monarchy. He saw salvation for the state only in the combination of religious freedom and royal despotism. So irritated was he at the idea of parliamentary control that he told Charles that it was better to pay dependence to a great and generous king Then to five hundred of his own insolent subjects. And in judging the king, such an utterance as this, coming from an Englishman of ancient traditions, deserves attention. Clifford's temper was vehement, his eloquence striking, his personal courage conspicuous. The story is well known how during the former war, when on a visit to Arlington at Euston in Suffolk, he and Ormond's son, Ossery, Hearing the guns off Harwich, mounted their horses in haste, galloped to the coast, and put off in an open boat to join the fleet and serve as volunteers through one of the bloodiest days in English naval warfare.
Although a poor man, and although willing to make the fullest use of the corruption of others, his own hands were clean of bribes, and his life was remarkably pure. His horoscope foretold him fame and fortune but an early death. He answered that he did not shrink from an early death if, before he died, he might witness the triumph of the Catholic Church. Antony Ashley Cooper, Lord Ashley, had been in the forefront of political life since childhood. In the days of the Commonwealth, he had striven for religious tolerance against military government, and after the Protector's death, had assisted energetically to break down the despotism of the army. In spite of his present complicity in Charles's counsels, he was still a keen upholder of parliamentary rule.
He was violently anti-Catholic, because, as he expressed it, popery and slavery go ever like two sisters, hand in hand. But he had been a supporter of every attempt to secure toleration for Protestant dissent since the Restoration, and in the Constitution which Locke drew up at his request for the new colony of Carolina, This was a leading feature. He had established a reputation for business power and tact, and although he never affected to censure the prevailing private and public immorality, he shunned debauchery in his own person, and his career, like Clifford's, was free from any well-established charge of personal corruption. Small and slight in stature and of delicate health, he had a soul as ambitious and fiery as that of Clifford himself.
And it was not until the end of his career that his keen political foresight gave way under the excitement of faction and the harassments of ill health. But although he possessed an intuitive perception of those causes which had a great future before them, his conduct was liable to be determined at any moment by the resolve to ride upon the crest of the political wave. And while he was always formidable by reason of his ready and incisive eloquence, His unceasing activity and his skill in party warfare, which in its modern form he may be said to have originated, he is far more often spoken of by other politicians with distrust than with admiration or respect. John Maitland, Earl and afterwards Duke of Lauderdale, held a position so distinct that he deserves a fuller notice.
He can scarcely be regarded, for many years after the Restoration, As an English politician at all, and while his colleagues of the cabal were occupied in manipulating votes of the House of Commons and in overreaching one another, he was ruling a nation. The foundation of his close intimacy with Charles was probably laid down when he brought the terms of the Engagers to the Downs in 1649. It survived the nine years of exile after Worcester. And in April 1660, Charles signed himself, as he did twenty years later, your most affectionate friend. But his fortune was not secured until he obtained the Secretaryship for Scotland, a post which gave him constant access to the King's person and afforded opportunities which he was quick to improve.
From that vantage ground, he overthrew the blundering Middleton and his drunken administration, observed, and at the fitting moment, Brushed away the ambitious schemes of the Duke of Rothies and James Sharp, and in October 1669 went down to Scotland as High Commissioner with far-reaching designs which he carried out with remarkable success. His methods were simple and efficacious. He had in past years made himself agreeable to Charles, he now made himself indispensable. So long as the King chose to busy himself with governing, He posed merely as the devoted servant of his will, to whom his commands were, he assured him, above all human laws. When Charles tired, he relieved him of his burden. For Scotch business he was as useful as Clarendon for English, and, unlike Clarendon, had no scruples about paying court to the royal mistresses.
He had a brutal humor that was to Charles's liking. In drunkenness and filthy lewdness, He could participate as freely as Sedley and Rochester. His buffoonery was as entertaining as Buckingham's. He was a master of strong and caustic language, and his wit, though clumsy, was pungent. Charles loved to have scholars about him. Lauderdale was at home in Latin, Italian, French, and Hebrew. It was soon noticed that my lord Lauderdale is never from the king's ear nor council, and that he is a most cunning fellow. To be ill-affected to the Kirk had meant political outlawry, and Lauderdale's career had therefore been, up to the restoration, a carefully arranged hypocrisy. A veil of decency had been thrown over his earlier life, and he had acquired a complete mastery of the covenanting tongue.
But as the comrade of Charles, he became notorious for the grossest forms of vice. There is a French proverb, Jeune ermite, vieux diable. To Robert Bailey, he had been a pious nobleman, a gracious youth. By the time at which we have arrived, he had become, according to the sorrowful remonstrance of Richard Baxter, that most terrible of all things, a dirty old man. Crippled as he was at the outset in fortune and with signal disadvantages of person, Lauderdale possessed in an eminent degree the qualities best suited to the wear and tear of that strange time. He was of a rougher and more robust type than his English colleagues. He had strength of will, coolness, courage, watchfulness, readiness of resource, and perception of the right moment at which to strike his blows.
He chose his agents and his tools with discernment. He knew, he said, how to make use of a knave as well as another, and he discarded them when they had served his turn, as passion or policy dictated. He was willing to take any oaths. Such had been the discipline of the covenant, a cartload of them, if necessary. A bold and unabashed liar, he was as eloquent against what he called Damned in sippid lies, as Hotspur was against women's oaths. Such was the man who for fifteen years exercised an irresponsible dominion over Scotland. As to what happened there in the way of good or bad government, Charles did not appear to have cared at all, so long as he was not seriously troubled. He was indeed fond of saying, that he understood Scotch affairs better than anyone about him.
And Lauderdale sedulously flattered this boast. But Charles remembered Scotland only with disgust, and he interfered with his viceroy no more than an oriental despot interferes with a pasha of a distant province who knows no law but his master's will and his own enrichment. In October 1669, however, as we have said, Lauderdale was sent to Scotland with a distinct mission which had an important bearing upon the King's wider designs in England. There Charles found himself bound hand and foot by the Church, thwarted and controlled by Parliament, and unable to raise a troop of soldiers without arousing the keenest jealousy. Lauderdale's business was to do for him in Scotland what could not be done at home, and his success was complete.
By a clever and audacious stroke, he secured an alteration of the Articles, which made the Parliament a mere registry of the royal will. It was then easy to carry the Act of Supremacy, whereby the Church of Scotland was robbed of the least shade of independence, and finally he created by Act of Parliament an army of twenty-two thousand men, who were bound to march when and whither the King pleased within his dominions. In a word, wrote Arlington to him, your grace hath played your part well. Nothing but the proverb, la marie est trop belle, can be said against it. The brilliant correspondence between Lauderdale and Robert Moret, whose intimacy with Charles has been already mentioned, and by whose appointment as deputary secretary during his absence Lauderdale preserved his hold upon his master, is deeply interesting, although the notices of the king's habits and ways of speech are unfortunately too much bound up with their context to be inserted.
Charles's participation in the scientific movements of the time is illustrated by the fact that many of More's letters describe conversations in the royal laboratory. We feel from these letters how pleasant must have been the hours there spent with the king. How shrewd, with all his vagabond habits, Charles was in business, and how active and penetrating was his mind! How clearly he saw through the intrigues and jealousies which surrounded him! How bright was his talk! How cheery his companionship! How cleverly he went through disagreeable work which had to be done! How resolute he was to do nothing disagreeable that he could avoid or postpone!
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24 24 - Ch. 4: Charles, Louis, and Parliament, Pt. 3 14:54
Charles, Louis, and Parliament. Part Three. In spite of his incontestable usefulness, and of the social qualities which we have enumerated, it nevertheless astonishes us that the King should have permitted Lauderdale such prolonged intimacy. Charles liked polite manners in society. He wrote, in quite a pained way to his sister, on the want of good breeding in England. Now there is incontestable evidence that Lauderdale picked his ears in the presence chamber and performed other personal duties of the dressing room with unnecessary publicity. Thomas Bruce afterwards, 2nd Earl of Aylesbury, who, as a gentleman of the bedchamber, had excellent opportunities for observation, declares indeed that the king grew quite weary of him, and that he owed his being kept in for some years by reason that the king would not have laws prescribed to him by the House of Commons.
Bruce describes him to have been of a most extraordinary learning and great memory. As disagreeable in his conversation as was his person. His head was towards that of a Saracen fiery face, and his tongue too big for his mouth, and his pronunciation high scotch, no Highlander like him, uttering bald jests for wit and repeating good ones from others, and ever spoiled them in relating them, which delighted the good king much. Then follows an amusing illustration of Charles's methods. Besides tiring the king with his bald jests, he was continually putting his fingers into the king's snuff-box, which obliged him to order one to be made which he wore with a string on his wrist, and did not open, but the snuff came out by shaking.
Bruce finally describes a scene which is truly surprising in the coarseness of its humor. Lauderdale, by way of emphasizing his intimacy with Charles, was in the habit of intruding himself, uninvited, at all parties at which the king was present, and it became necessary to devise a cure. Accordingly, a courtier desired of the king to do him the honor of dining with him, which he accepted, but, said he, we shall be pestered with such an one, meaning Lauderdale. Whereupon that person, the inventor of the scheme, ordered a double syllabub glass, and it was concerted that the king, after having drunk plentifully, should ask the master of the house for a syllabub to refresh him, and by a token the king knew which of the two to take, and commending it greatly the Duke of Lauderdale, he having a great share of confidence, very natural to one of his country, And drinking the other half, which was prepared with unmentionable filth, swore that no person had such a taste as his majesty.
In some little time it worked, as it was natural, and the king, perceiving it, cried out, My Lord Lauderdale is sick! And they carried him away, and the king was never troubled more with him on such diverting occasions. Such were the men, through whom, with Louise de Quirouaille, Charles ruled his dominions. The first work before the cabal was to find money. In August 1671, the king's debts were over three millions. A state of things so desperate, with an expensive war in prospect, suggested desperate remedies. All evidence points to Clifford as the author of the masterful scheme of finance whereby to the permanent ruin of the royal credit, and widespread commercial distress, Charles laid violent hands upon a sum of one million four hundred thousand pounds.
For carrying through the stop of the Exchequer, Clifford was rewarded with a peerage and the Lord Treasurer's staff. Ashley has the credit of the second important measure, the fresh attempt which the King now made to secure the dispensing power, in the hope That at the close of a successful war, he should be in a position to dictate terms to Parliament. On March 15, 1672, Charles published his Declaration of Indulgence, as well for the quieting of our good subjects, as for inviting strangers in this conjuncture to come and live under us, and for a better encouragement of all to a cheerful following of their trades and callings. He claimed, The supreme power in ecclesiastical matters, which is inherent in us, and announced the suspension of all manner of penal laws in matters ecclesiastical against whatsoever sort of nonconformists or recusants.
There was no mistake this time about the challenge to his people. It was taken up in the first instance by one of the king's own ministers, Orlando Bridgeman, keeper of the seals. Bridgman had already raised difficulties regarding the stop of the Exchequer. He now absolutely refused to put the Great Seal to the Declaration. Independence of this kind did not fit in with the King's theory of ministerial duty. Bridgman was removed, and Ashley as Earl of Shaftesbury was made Lord Chancellor. Two days after the issue of the Declaration, war was declared against the Dutch. As early as the spring of 1668, DeWitt had received mysterious warnings of the danger which threatened the Republic. For a long time he could not believe that his work would so soon perish, although Louis concealed his intentions under the thinnest of disguises.
In the spring of 1672, however, it was clear that the blow was about to fall, and that the Dutch were almost defenseless. Against the superb army of 175,000 men, and the fleet of 120 ships, mounted with 5,000 guns, which Louis had collected, they had, through the weakness of their decentralized system, but 50,000 men in the field. Their fortresses were in decay, their commissariat disorganized, their magazines almost empty. If any doubts remained as to what the French preparations meant, they must have been dispelled when, in retort to the medal which had so aroused his anger, Louis caused another to be struck, in which the sun was portrayed dispersing the fogs from a marsh and bearing as its motto, in allusion to the fact that the republic had been created through French assistance, the words, The awakening to the treachery of Charles had been still more painful.
Temple had done his best to sustain the alliance which his master had resolved to betray. As late as September 1670, he was vouching for the king's sincerity, while Charles was privately repudiating his action to Louis. But his uneasiness appears as early as October 1668. If only we were what we have been, What we might be, and God knows why we are not at home. His suspicions gained ground when he was ordered to magnify every trifling difference into a subject of acrimonious dispute. Still more when Henrietta of Orléans went to Dover, and when, after her death, Buckingham was sent to Paris not, DeWitt bitterly surmised, merely to learn the language, and most of all When he himself was suddenly recalled to England in July 1670, he found his reception by the King and his ministers very different from that which had awaited him when he returned with the Triple Alliance.
Arlington, who had hitherto greeted him with open arms, kept him waiting an hour and a half for an audience, and then talked of indifferent matters. Charles asked him half a dozen questions about his journey and the Prince of Orange, And walked on. It was the passionate Clifford who made matters plain. When, after a heated conversation, Temple asked what he could have done more, Clifford retorted, in a great rage, that he would tell me what a man might do more, which was to let the king and all the world know how basely and unworthily the states had used him, and to declare publicly how their ministers were a company of rogues and rascals. And not fit for His Majesty or any other prince to have anything to do with.
An opportunity was afforded by Temple's recall for a wanton insult to the Dutch. The captain of the yacht, sent to bring back Lady Temple, was ordered by Charles to sail through their fleet in the Channel, to insist upon their lowering their flags, and in case of refusal, to take such action as would compel them to fire upon him, And thus appear the aggressors. The scheme was, however, frustrated by the self-restraint of the Dutch Admiral van Gendt. With Charles, as with Louis, De Witt had tried every means of conciliation. Hearing that the King was deeply irritated at the pamphlets, medals, and pictures, which glorified the Chatham achievement, and especially because the captured Royal Charles was made a common show, he had the molds of the medals broken, The pamphlets suppressed, the royal arms removed from the vessel, and her name altered.
These concessions were viewed merely as signs of weakness. In December 1671, Sir George Downing was sent in Temple's place as, Bon acteur est propre à faire Carrel. In the most offensive terms he demanded reparation for the insults of which Charles complained. And specifically insisted upon the acknowledgment of the maritime supremacy of England over all seas, going so far as to require that whole fleets should lower their flags to a single English warship. Even to this insolence, de Witt was willing to give way, provided that England would engage to assist the Republic against France. As late as March 3rd, 1672, he endeavored to conjure away the danger by the offer of a large personal bribe to Charles.
Charles had endeavored to appear as the attacked party. When he found the attempt useless, he began hostilities by an act which Louis himself contemptuously characterized as sheer piracy. The Dutch merchant fleet from Smyrna was lying at anchor off the Isle of Wight. And Admiral Holmes was ordered to attack without warning and to capture the convoy. But the Dutch were prepared, and the fleet escaped with the loss of only two ships. War was declared by England four days later. There is nothing antecedently improbable in Marvel's statement that the council clock was purposely set forward on that day. Lest the compliance of the Dutch before the appointed hour should prevent the declaration of war.
Of the treachery displayed in the inception of this war, a war of pure selfishness on Charles's part, a work of darkness conceived and carried out in face of his people's wishes and against their interests, enough has been said. It was a great crime, and with the exception of his treatment of the Popish terror, It was the most discreditable political act of his reign. The events of the struggle, the desperate appeal to nature whereby de Witt and the men of Holland baffled Louis in the very flush of conquest, the valor with which, under the eye of the indomitable derider, they four times drove back the attacks of fleets, manned by seamen as valiant as themselves and led by Rupert. The murder of the de Witts, who were sacrificed to the need of concentrating power in the hands of one strong man.
The tenacity of purpose with which William of Orange, in whom that power was vested, kept two mighty monarchs at arm's length, and inspired the states to refuse the dishonoring conditions of Louis, and to disregard the arrogant demands and menaces of Charles. All this we must thus briefly pass over. To the disgrace of the war had been added the humiliation of defeat. In not one battle had the English fleet been victorious, nor had a single soldier of the forces so industriously collected been landed upon the Dutch coasts. Charles was forced to bring the barren and inglorious struggle to an end. He was once more in need, which Louis could only partially satisfy. A very bitter feeling had grown up between the crews of his vessels and the French, who were charged with intentional failure to support their allies, and who must either excuse their cowardice by their treachery, or their treachery by their cowardice.
The sailors were utterly weary of the war, and the regiments at Blackheath were showing a mutinous spirit. Moreover, Charles had not anticipated that a war begun against De Vitte would resolve itself Into one against his own nephew. Under the stress of these considerations, and of circumstances still to be related, he yielded to the conditions imposed upon him by Parliament, and in the teeth of his engagements with Louis, made peace on fairly favorable terms with the Dutch. Even this could not be done in the light of day. Temple's services were again called in. He was sent to Holland in haste, And a piece was huddled up without the participation of the mediators, without the knowledge even of Charles's own plenipotentiaries at the Conference of Cologne.
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25 25 - Ch. 4: Charles, Louis, and Parliament, Pt. 4 20:30
Charles, Louis, and Parliament. Part Four.
The Treaty of London, February 19, 1674, closed England's European history so far as active war was concerned. But it gave ample opportunities for a further exhibition of the political profligacy with which we have become familiar. The agents of the King of England remained at Cologne to work for France. The English troops who were serving in Louis' armies were not withdrawn. Charles allowed Louis to recruit in Ireland and Scotland, while at the same time he refused William the like privilege. He continually furnished him with ammunition and guns, gave him the benefit not only of his own observations and experiments in shipbuilding, but also of those of the persons about him most skillful in that art, and betrayed to him the information he received from Temple.
In an interview with Rouvigny and through Lockhart, who was still ambassador at Paris, Charles deprecated his cousin's wrath As he had done at the time of the Triple Alliance. He went even farther. On February 14th, he himself wrote to Louis asking him for pity rather than blame. The reply was full of Fine irony. Je ne puis que je ne compatisse à la peine que vous souffrez, et à la nécessité où vous vous trouvez de faire sans moi une paix que nous devait être commune. Je vous en plains au lieu de mon plaindre. One belated victory was achieved after peace had been declared. In January 1675, a redoubtable antagonist, Tromp, came to England and, among other places, visited Oxford. And Bishop Prudeau tells us how we got a greater victory over Van Tromp here than all your sea captains in London.
He confessing that he was more drunk here than anywhere else since he came to England. Dr. Speed and five or six more as able men as myself were no doubt good drinkers, but we question whether they could have forced Tromp's old rival, Monk, to so ignominious a confession. De Comange thus ends his description of a supper given by the Earl of Oxford, at which that veteran toper was present. Having been warmed by their morning-and-after-dinner doings, each resolved to see his companion aground. The general struck a masterstroke. He presented to each a goblet of the deepest. Some swallowed the contents, and some did not, but all peaceably remained where they were till the following morning, without speaking to each other, though in the same room.
Only the general went to Parliament as usual, with his mind and thoughts nothing impaired. We must now travel back over two years to follow the fortunes of the cabal and of Charles at home. The subsidies of Louis and the stop of the exchequer had enabled him to dispense with Parliament until February 1673. When he at length faced the houses, he was puzzled how to save his own honor to the world and gratify those who can only give him a supply against his enemies. Assuming a tone of confidence, He put lightly aside the question of the standing army of eighteen thousand men, and gave his usual assurances to the Church. Then, trusting to waive all attack upon the Declaration of Indulgence by a strong expression of his personal will, he ended his reference to it with the words, And I will deal plainly with you.
I am resolved to stick to my declaration. The mind of the Commons had been made up before they met. They attacked neither the stop of the Exchequer nor the war, nor individual members of the Cabal. But without hesitation, they took up the challenge thus thrown down. The question at issue was a simple one. Granting that the King had power to pardon crime in individual cases, had he the power to license crime by dispensing with law? The Declaration broke through 40 Acts of Parliament.
The first debate closed with a vote that penal statutes in matters ecclesiastical cannot be suspended but by act of Parliament. The Commons next resolved that no one refusing the oaths or the sacrament according to the Anglican Rites should be capable of holding office under the Crown. And this, although, as Marvel wrote, it appears at first sight, That men ought to enjoy the same propriety and protection in their consciences which they have in their lives, liberties, and estates. Charles appealed to the lords for advice. On March 7th, they joined the Commons in desiring him to give full effect to their vote. Pressed to yield by Arlington and Shaftesbury, by Louis, who saw that without parliamentary supplies the King would be driven to peace, And by the women, whose sources of wealth were endangered by obstinacy, urged, on the other hand, by Buckingham and Lauderdale to stand firm, Charles wavered from day to day.
On Wednesday he had resolved to yield. On the Thursday he was equally determined to dissolve and make peace. On the Friday he had finally given way to the arguments of Colbert. And on March 8 he cancelled the Declaration. To which only a month previously he had declared his fixed resolve to adhere. The Commons pressed hard upon the King's withdrawal and turned it into utter defeat. Three weeks later he gave his assent to the Test Act, which made it impossible for a Catholic to hold any office under the Crown, and then a supply of nearly £1,250,000 was granted without a protest. For at last, the victory had been won, and the conquerors were not inclined to haggle about money. From this moment, Charles abandoned all attempt to secure parliamentary favor for the proscribed creed.
James resigned his post of Lord High Admiral. The second part of Clifford's horoscope was fulfilled. He laid down the treasurer's ship, went into strict retirement, and shortly died. It was reported by his own hand of the disappointment of his hopes. From this moment also, Charles appears to have ceased to take the least interest in domestic politics, except when they assumed a personal aspect. He continued to be his own foreign minister, that is, he continued to depend upon Louis XIV for supplies of money, which were given upon conditions to which he had no objection. But he left all domestic matters to the sole and unquestioned control of Clifford's successor, Thomas Osborne, created Earl of Danby.
Danby had been introduced into public life by Clifford, and had been one of the younger members of the anti-Clarendon gang. He had since attached himself closely to Buckingham. He was a man of clear views, independent character, and marked ability. And through his incontestable usefulness as a financial minister, he secured abiding influence over the king. The commons might triumph. The people might cry out for peace, and that with some earnestness. Lord treasurers might commit suicide. Soldiers might mutiny. Fleets might be defeated. But the world went well with Charles. He spent a good deal of time in devising many pretty projects to enlarge the little park at Filber's and make it more fit for deer.
He was delighted equally with a present of Jack Dawes, and with the gift by Louis of the Duchy of Aubigny to Louise de Queroailles. He had been able to find agreeable lodgings for poor Nellie, who had complained that she had no house of her own. And when Parliament was not sitting, He was able to ignore the test act as he pleased. The truth is, this year the government begins to thrive marvellous well, for it eats and drinks and sleeps as heartily as I have known it, nor doth it vex and disquiet itself with that foolish, idle, impertinent thing called business. Unavoidable vexations only serve to emphasize the generally comfortable aspect of affairs. The Duchess of Cleveland was found to be with child by Mulgrave.
Louise de Quirouaille had requested Charles, for sufficient reasons, to discontinue his visits for a time, and Danby had refused to pass a gift of ten thousand pounds to her. Charles had heard that when Parliament met, one of the bears intended to be brought to the stake at the Great Baiting was his beautiful paramour, his Grace of Lauderdale. Worst of all, Signor Scaramuccio and his band had begged His Majesty's leave to return, their affairs requiring their presence at home. This last anxiety, which after all proved groundless, was forgotten in the great preparation at the Duke's house for an opera. They will have dancers out of France, and Saint André comes over with them, who is to have a pension of the King.
One matter of state was hurriedly concluded during the recess in order that it might be beyond recall when Parliament next met. Ever since the death of Anne Hyde in 1670, James had been looking for a second wife. His choice at length lay between Maria, sister of the Duke of Modena, and daughter of Mazzarone's niece, Laura Martinozzi, and her aunt Leonora, fifteen years older. So doubtful was it which would be chosen that in the instructions to Peterborough, who went as James's proxy, the name was actually left blank, to be filled up by him as circumstances might decide, while each courier from England brought letters which contradicted those last received. The desire of both princesses to become nuns caused delay, and it was not until September 14, 1673, that the urgency of Peterborough, the influence of Louis, the paternal direction of the Pope, and the prospect of aiding in the conversion of England overcame the scruples of Maria, who had been finally selected.
The proxy marriage took place on September 30th, but the arrival of the princess was delayed by illness until November 21st. Maria, then only fifteen, had been educated in the strictest seclusion. So innocently bred that till then she had never heard of such a place as England, nor of such a person as the Duke of York. The descriptions of her person are as various as the describers. Conway struck the mien between Peterborough's enthusiastic admiration of her charms and Mademoiselle de Montpensier's shrewish description of her as une grande créature, melancholique, ni belle, ni laide, fort maigre.
When he wrote, she hath very good eyes, very good features, and a very good complexion, but she wants the air that would set off all this, and having been bred in a monastery, knows not how to set one foot before another with any gracefulness. She was, however, by no means uncultured. She was a good Latin scholar and had studied French as well. And within a year and a half of her marriage, she spoke English with ease. She was simple, pure, charitable, and kind. Her only failing, says that refreshing person, Charlotte Elizabeth in later years, was her extreme piety. To Parliament, the marriage was intensely unpopular, for Maria's devotion to Catholicism was well known. The king had already been twice addressed to prevent the consummation of the proxy marriage, but all classes shared the jealousy.
Should she arrive tonight, November 5th, she would most certainly be martyred, for the common people here, and even those of quality in the country, believe she is the pope's eldest daughter. No congratulations were offered by the courtiers to the duke. Libelous songs were published about the innocent girl. Though it was hoped her sweet carriage would have abated her enemies, her mother was openly insulted by the ladies of the court. The Lord Mayor refrained from paying a civic visit of compliment, nor would the city be brought to make bonfires. The people we read still on all occasions expressed their aversion to this match. She had other lessons to learn. Before she had been two months married, Her husband had already made his visits to Mrs.
Churchill. We hear, however, that she improved rapidly in looks and bearing after a few months, and there is no doubt that before very long she had acquired a complete ascendancy over James's affections, partly no doubt through the fervor of her religious sympathy. His later devotion may be measured by the fact that when he was at the spring meeting at Newmarket in 1680, He rode to London and back on successive days merely to spend the evening in her company. The marriage of James, a marriage known to have been arranged in deference to the personal wishes of Louis, not only opened up the prospect of a long Catholic succession, but expressed in a concrete form the alliance of Charles with France and Catholicism.
It was, however, but one of many causes which accounted for the fighting mood in which Parliament met on October 20, 1673. The open evasion of the Test Act during the recess, and the flaunting of Papists in Whitehall. The dark hovering of the army at Blackheath, commanded by a foreigner and largely officered by Catholics. The fever pitch to which the national jealousy against the French had been aroused by the belief which was sedulously encouraged by Rupert, angry and raging, and by every captain and sailor who came back from the war. That the backwardness of the French squadrons had been due to the desire of Louis to see the two great naval powers destroy one another's strength, the demand of Louis that Catholic churches should be established in the conquered Dutch towns, All these things led to a rising tide of passion against which the ratting of a few leading members of the old opposition availed but little.
When it appeared farther that four hundred thousand pounds had been given away since the last session, of which the Duchesses of Cleveland and Portsmouth had had the greater share, it is not surprising to read that the most influential members of the country party rose in succession to urge a refusal of supplies until grievances were redressed. Here is money asked of us to carry on a war we were never advised about, and what we have given is turned to raising of families, and not to paying the king's debts. The member who declared that the army had not been raised for the war, but the war made for raising an army, Was nearer to the truth than he probably knew. In the end, Sir William Coventry came with his subtle allay to make the votes pass in these words, not to grant any supply, till the eighteen months' tax were expired, unless the obstinacy of the Hollanders should make it necessary, and this at last we were glad to swallow.
Passing then to evil councillors, they had just uttered Lauderdale's name, When they were prorogued until January 7, 1674. Even at that date it was understood that if the King of France furnishes our King with a million of our money besides our salary, then Parliament will not meet. The Commons were not without scandals of their own, which vividly illustrate the laxity of public morals. The Speaker, Edward Seymour, was violently attacked. Sir Thomas Littleton began the assault, Will Harbert seconded it, and accused him of gaining and playing great sums of the public money, as appeared by the marks of the bags. And to make up the matter at night, a mean whore brought a bastard to his door and charged it upon him, which drew five hundred people about his house to learn the matter.
Charles was forced by his necessities to let the houses assemble on January 7th. The appointed day. And this time he did not hesitate to meet them with a gross and deliberate lie. To remove their suspicions, he said he would lay his treaties with France in their completeness before a small committee of both houses, and he added, I assure you there is no other treaty with France either before or since which shall not be made known. The treaty which he showed was, however, the second treaty of Dover. The Traité Simulé, which had been executed afresh in February 1672, in order that Parliament might be the better deceived. The real treaty of June 1, 1670, the Traité de Madame, with the damning article which provided for the announcement of the King's conversion and the subsidy of Louis for that purpose, remained in darkness until unearthed by Dalrymple more than a century later.
We are almost disappointed with Charles when we find him betraying embarrassment, though the presence of Arlington who knew of the real treaty is some explanation. "'I beseech Your Excellency,' wrote Conway to Essex, "'to consider the last part of the King's speech. It was the consultation of many days and nights that produced it. He fumbled in delivering it, and made it worse than in the print. Yet there you may observe, tis incoherent, And all this is for fear of the Duke of York. The fraud availed little. The houses went steadily on with the work which had been interrupted by the prorogation, and they were now under guidance which rendered them doubly formidable. Shaftesbury had during the recess been dismissed, and as Colbert remarked, a discarded minister who was very ill-conditioned and clever, left perfectly free to act and speak.
Seems to me much to be feared in this country. Since the canceling of the Declaration, Shaftesbury's sympathies had never been with the Court. He had already been in close communication with William of Orange. He now did credit to Colbert's remark, by organizing a regular opposition in the Lords, the members of which, Halifax, Hollis, and Buckingham, being the most influential, Met frequently at Hollis' house to arrange the plan of attack. The downfall of Danby and the prevention of the evils of a Catholic succession were their immediate objects.
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26 26 - Ch. 4: Charles, Louis, and Parliament, Pt. 5 20:44
Charles, Louis, and Parliament. Part Five.
In the Commons, evil councillors once more formed the theme. Lauderdale, Buckingham, and Arlington were severally attacked, but on very different grounds. Lauderdale, A man so unprincipled and so arbitrary was practically master of an army of twenty-two thousand men, and he had been heard to say in council, Your Majesty's edicts ought to be obeyed, for Your Majesty's edicts are equal with the laws and ought to be observed in the first place. Aware of the impending blow, he had gone to Scotland with a pardon which covered all his offenses, And there he received letters from both Charles and James, assuring him of safety and of their personal affection. The reply of Charles to the address which was carried against Lauderdale is not on record.
It probably was the same, as to that against Buckingham, that he would take it into his consideration. The attack upon Buckingham was virtually upon other than political matters, although they figured in the accusation. He had succeeded, incredible as it may appear, in outraging the public moral sense. The House of Lords was entertained with a petition against the Duke of Buckingham and My Lady Shrewsbury, setting forth the killing of the late Earl of Shrewsbury, their open and scandalous way of living together, and the public internment of their bastard child in Westminster as Earl of Coventry. And in the Commons, even more heinous crimes were laid to his charge. Upon the political matters, Buckingham defended himself with characteristic impudence.
He threw all the blame upon Arlington, whom he still longed to ruin, and with obvious reference to Charles and James, asserted that hunting was a good diversion, but if a man would hunt with a brace of lobsters, he would have but ill sport. In anticipation of this attack, he had so personally courted all the members in town, the debauchees by drinking with them, the sober by grave and serious discourses, the pious by receiving the sacrament at Westminster, that he believed himself safe. He was twice at church on Christmas Day and received the sacrament, a fact from which knowing people like Titus were sure that Parliament would meet as arranged. Since he would never have taken the trouble to do this, except to conciliate opinion.
To the Lords, he later made a very submissive recantation, acknowledging the miserable and lewd life he had led, and although it was a very heavy burden to lie under the displeasure of the house and the sense of his transgressions, yet he hath reason to give God thanks for it. Since it had opened his eyes and discovered to him the foulness of his past life, which he was resolved for the future to amend. He had previously become a great convert, and to give a public testimony of it, he went with his own lady to St. Martin's to church in the afternoon on Sunday last. He had not indeed left all to the chances of the Lord's relenting on the merits of the case, or to their appreciation of his penitence.
In the meantime, his grace and my lord Shaftesbury are reconciled, and both labor hard to get him fairly quit of my lady Shrewsbury's business. Shaftesbury was never very scrupulous as to the recruits he obtained to help in political schemes. Having disposed of Buckingham and Lauderdale, the Commons next turned upon Arlington as the great conduit pipe of all the previous misdoings of the government. His defense, however, was so able, his friends so numerous and earnest, and the credit which he had gained from the knowledge that he was supporting Monmouth against James so great that he secured a majority. It was at this point that Charles announced that terms had been offered him by the Dutch, which he could accept, and expressed his confident expectation of a generous supply.
He trusted that, having cast this bone before Parliament, he should now find them compliant. He found, instead, that those who thought the French alliance a grievance do now think of peace, nay, a separate peace, to be the greater grievance. Not a farthing would the commons give, since fear of the duke makes them every day fetter the crown. And it was evident that distrust had gone so far that it was hopeless to expect any change of temper for the present. To obtain immediate relief from annoyance, Charles again used the constitutional weapon of prerogative with telling effect. I never saw such consternation as was among the members of both houses. Every man amazed and reproaching one another.
That they had sat so long upon eggs and could hatch nothing. A fear of the King's personal vengeance was added to the disappointment of the country party. It caused many of the guilty commons who had bespoken a large dinner for that day at the Swan Tavern in King Street to leave their provisions to Mr. Dodd and his wife and to haste away, some by coach, some by water, into the city. suspecting themselves insecure in the suburbs. Louis remained Charles's only source of funds. That monarch had been forced to relinquish his enterprise against the Republic without having wrung from her a single concession. But he was now facing the formidable coalition arrayed against him with splendid success. To gratify him, Charles coldly declined the offer of a second visit from William.
He went still farther. In spite of the anger caused by the last prorogation, he determined on a fourth. To eliminate as far as possible all sources of embarrassment, he had forced Arlington, who knew too much, to sell his secretaryship to Sir Joseph Williamson. While Buckingham had been thrown over on the ground of the late vote of the Commons, although soon restored to favor, by Nellie, Middlesex, Rochester, and the Merry Gang. Concealing his intentions even from Danby to the last moment, Charles announced to his silent and astounded counsel that Parliament would not meet for business until April 1675. For this he received from Louis Five hundred thousand crowns. Meanwhile, it occurred to him that he might retain the friendship of both Louis and William by inducing the prince to accept the French monarch's terms and by reviving at the same time the scheme of marrying him to Mary, the eldest daughter of James.
But peace was found impossible upon William's conditions, and as for the marriage, it was this time William's turn for declining the offer. Another child was about to be born to James, and if this were a boy, the eventual advantages to William of such a marriage would be slight, while he was urged by his friends in England to avoid an association with the Duke which must weaken his connection with them. It was probably this rejection at William's hands which accounted for the extreme ill-humour displayed by Charles at the time. His bewilderment is forcibly shown in his being closeted for hours at a time in the morning with Arlington, and in the afternoon of the same day with James, Danby, and Lauderdale, by whom Arlington, as Monmouth's adherent, was bitterly hated.
In this dubious state of affairs, the approaching meeting of Parliament excited the attention of all Europe. For upon its success or failure to force Charles to an anti-French policy would probably depend the issue of that year's campaign. For a while it was doubtful whether it would meet at all, for Louis had promised Charles another subsidy for dissolution or a year's delay, and King says he had rather be a poor king than no king. But here Danby had his way. He was sincerely opposed to the influence of France. He had shaped a bold policy of his own, which might checkmate Shaftesbury and Arlington, a return namely to the ideas of Clarendon, a cordial union of royalism and Anglicanism against all forms of nonconformity and limitation of the constitutional prerogative.
He had induced Charles to make a complete change of front, By publishing a fresh body of edicts framed in conference with the bishops at Lambeth, enforcing the penal laws, and by profuse bribery, he had bought up the votes of so many members of the Commons that he was sanguine of a large supply. Clifford, the first systematic briber, had proceeded on the principle of corrupting the influential men. Danby found that the same money would purchase a larger number of votes If spent on the more obscure members, and at least two hundred of these had good reasons for supporting the government. You were not against me today, said Charles to one of these. No, sir, I was against my conscience today, was the reply.
Charles yielded to Danby's insistence. The only promise he would give Louis was to dissolve Parliament should it prove too aggressive. Louis, in turn, fell back upon bribery of the Commons, and it was now that Parliament justly earned the name of pensionary. English, French, Spanish, and Dutch money jingled in the same pockets. Rouvigny had ten thousand pounds for direct bribery with a large sum for a lavish table. C'est un sale trafic, was his disgusted comment. The Spanish ambassador came with full hands. Van Boeningen took a house in Westminster and exercised splendid hospitality in William's interests, and the Danish resident had a grant from the Republic for the same object. The Shaftesbury opposition was equally ready.
Their leader, following the modern practice, had sounded the immediate note of attack in a letter to Lord Carlyle. Danby was to be overthrown and a dissolution forced upon the king. Danby had meanwhile been trying to put the finances into a decent condition. When these were searched into, it appeared that every year since the king came in, he had exceeded his constant revenue by a million of money, except one year that it was but half so much. Danby insisted that the fleet should be paid off, And that all salaries and pensions should meanwhile be stopped. The clamor that arose among the pensioners might have driven even a bolder man to pause. The scare of a fresh stop of the exchequer caused a rush upon the bankers and destroyed all credit in the city.
Anglesey swore he knew not how to go to market. Keeper grumbled as much as any, and Arlington, who had not then lost the secretaryship, Took it ill, his private intelligence money should not be reckoned upon as an indispensable thing. But Danby had taken care to be safe in one quarter, where opposition would have been really serious. The Duchess of Portsmouth had bought a pearl necklace for eight thousand pounds from a merchant, and a pair of diamond pendants for three thousand guineas from Lady Northumberland, But neither merchant nor pyrrhus would part with their jewels until the price were paid. Between the minister in need of support and the mistress in need of money, it was easy to form the alliance which was suggested by Charles, and thus is explained the sudden coalition between them which so puzzled people at the time.
The only condition made by Danby was that the money should be raised in Ireland. And Charles readily agreed to this farther spoliation of the poorer and more helpless country. Danby's economic measures were soon successful. By September 15, 1674, he had brought the public expenses to £10,000 a week below the revenue, so that probably Parliament will not sit. He was, of course, careful to feather his own nest, laying about him and providing for his family, So that if ever he came to be out with the king, his enemies will maul him. One episode of the understanding between Danby and Louise de Quirouaille deserves record as illustrating the graver anxieties of the king. Louise was anxious to obtain the dukedom of Richmond for her son, while at the same time the Duchess of Cleveland hoped for that of Grafton for hers.
The question of precedence depended, of course, upon the date of creation, and the very foundations of Charles's peace were shaken in the contest. He weakly proposed to make the creations at the same moment. Louise, however, was not inclined to compromise. She forced Danby to receive her agent at midnight, as he was in the act of stepping into his carriage for Bath, and her son's patent was sealed before he set out. The Billingsgate fury of the elder woman may be imagined when she appeared at Danby's office as early as possible next morning, and found herself thus cleverly jockeyed. But even Louise had her troubles. In the spring of 1674, France was deprived of her good offices by an illness of a nature not exactly indicated by the chroniclers, and pursued by the frank laughter of Nellie Gwynne, She was obliged to visit Tunbridge Wells for a cure.
Even there she was not secure from annoyance, for when she haughtily complained that the Marchioness of Worcester, although of inferior rank, had occupied the house which she had wanted, that great dame reminded her that titles gained by prostitution were not yet regarded in England as valid. All that Charles could do to sue the injured pride of his mistress he did, he gave her large presents of money and jewelry, sent an escort of guards to bring her in pomp to Windsor, and placed her in the hands of his own physician. While the situation, political and domestic, had been thus troubled, the court seethed with personal jealousies and intrigues. As in sick bodies, so in sick governments, change is desired.
King sticks very close to Arlington, who hath a fair game to play. I fear Treasurer will not be able to play his part with any success. Arlington had a cruel dispute with Anglesey yesterday and told him that he was a knave, which was too true. Ranella and Bridgeman are laying a plot to divide Arlington and Essex. Ranella is very well with the King and governs Treasurer absolutely. And I think it is Essex, his interest, to keep up the dispute and animosity between Ronnala and Ormond. By May 1674, Treasurer is esteemed the great support of the Crown, Arlington makes his interest among the discontented members of the House of Commons, and Duke and Lauderdale are his mortal enemies. Keeper is now as ill with Arlington as any of the rest.
An English title was conferred upon Lauderdale in June in order that he might be qualified for the privilege of being tried as a peer if the need should arise. Williamson, who was a mere cipher in the government, the poor fool, Saville calls him, is struck in with Treasurer and Lauderdale, or makes them believe so, in that he will abandon Arlington, toward whom the Duke is implacable. He is a creature of Lauderdale's, as he was before of Clifford. Essex, who was not afraid to say that he did not desire the friendship of the Duchess of Portsmouth, or any of that sort, was safe in his Viceroyalty of Ireland when there was a prospect of Parliament, but at the mercy of men like Orrery and Ronnola at other times, although the king was severe upon their dirty tricks.
In July, the Duke governs absolutely, And I think my Lord Treasurer and Duke of Lauderdale derive all their favor from his countenance and will signify no longer than they are subservient to his design. In September, Duke, Treasurer, Lauderdale, govern all. Williamson, though now secretary, was kept waiting more than two hours before being admitted to Danby's presence. Keeper acts fearfully and warily. Lauderdale brags like a madman. At the end of the month there is a great feud between York and Monmouth. The whole court backs Monmouth, and Arlington hath wisely made him head the party, which will give him credit now and in Parliament. In December it is wonderful to see how bold Treasurer is in making enemies, depending wholly on his credit with King, which all people wonder at.
He having seen so many effects of King, his inconstancy. If France sink, Arlington will be too hard for them all. Duke, Treasurer, and Lauderdale are all very busy to persuade King to dissolve this Parliament and call another, but King is fearful. By January 23, 1675, Duke has given over railing at Arlington, Which makes men think that King will not abandon him to Duke. In November we have a frank criticism of Charles himself. Everybody clamors against him extremely for his difficulty of access, and indeed his Buckingham hours are insufferable and destroy his health, like master, like man. On Sunday night last, King being at supper at Treasurer's, Harry Savile, being very drunk, fell so foully on Lord Mulgrave that King commanded Savile to be gone out of his presence.
But Danby hath greater credit with the King than any man ever had, although in open defiance to the whole kingdom. Through the influence of Louise de Quirouaille, and as one condition of the compact between them, his eldest son, Lord Latimer, was admitted to the bedchamber. And it's wonderful to see his good fortune in the marriage of his children and setting his family in order, while his lady drives a secret trade of taking bribes for good offices and not without my lord's knowledge. And over it all was waiting the nemesis of vice. Four years later, Latimer and his wife were both dead from the results of debauchery, while Lord Dunblane II's son, a mere boy, was sent to France to be cured of the same disease, insomuch that their mother passionately wished herself Lady Osborne again, and in the same condition wherein she was in Yorkshire seven years ago.
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27 27 - Ch. 4: Charles, Louis, and Parliament, Pt. 6 16:31
Charles, Louis, and Parliament. Part Six.
It was then, with a frank return to the policy of Clarendon, that Charles and Danby met Parliament on April 13, 1675, and the Lambeth Edicts were quoted in the King's Speech. as an earnest of his intention to regard the Church in its double aspect as a Protestant Church opposed to Popery and an established Church opposed to dissent. But Danby altogether outdid Clarendon in the bid which was made for Cavalier support. Among other Chimeras, they discoursed of none having any beneficial offices but Cavaliers or sons of Cavaliers. But for more pageantry, the old king's statue on horseback of brass was brought out to be set up at Charing Cross, but does not yet see the light. The old king's body was to be taken up to make a perfect resurrection of loyalty and to be reinterred with great magnificence, but that sleeps.
Before they grappled with business, both houses And no one more heartily than Charles himself gave themselves the luxury of a good laugh over another King's speech, which was found scattered about the House of Commons, and which is one of the most precious pieces of contemporary literature. It was ascribed, and with probability, to Andrew Marvel, who was member for Kingston-upon-Hull, the most complete master of prolonged banter that the language owns. It ran thus. April 13, 1675. My Lords and Gentlemen. I told you at our last meeting that the winter was the fittest time for business, and in truth I thought it so till my Lord Treasurer assured me that the spring is the fittest time for salads and subsidies.
I hope, therefore, this April will not prove so unnatural as not to afford plenty of both. Some of you may perhaps think it dangerous to make me too rich, but do not fear it. I promise you faithfully, whatever you give, I will take care to want, and yet in that you may rely on me. I will never break it, although in other things my word may be thought a slender authority. My lords and gentlemen, I can bear my own straits with patience. But my Lord Treasurer doth protest that the revenue as it now stands is too little for us both. One of us must pinch for it, if you do not help us out. I must speak freely to you. I am under encumbrances. For besides my whores in service, my reformato ones lie hard upon me.
I have a pretty good estate, I must confess, but odds fish I have a charge on it. Here is my Lord Treasurer can tell you that all the monies designed for the Summers' guards must of necessity be applied for the next year's cradles and swaddling clothes. What then shall we do for ships? I only hint that to you. That's your business, not mine. I know by experience I can live without them. I lived twenty years abroad without ships and was never in better health in my life. But how well you can live without them you had best try. I leave it to yourselves to judge, and therefore only mention it. I do not intend to insist upon that. There is another thing which I must press more earnestly, which is this.
It seems a good part of my revenue will fail in two or three years, except you will please to continue it. Now I have this to say for it. Why did you give me so much? Except you resolved to give on as fast as I call for it. The nation hates you already for giving so much. I will hate you now if you do not give me more. So that your interest obliges you to stick to me, or you will not have a friend left in England. On the other hand, if you continue the revenue as desired, I shall be able to perform those great things for your religion and liberty, Which I have long had in my thoughts, but cannot affect it without this establishment. Wherefore look to it. If you do not make me rich enough to undo you, it shall be at your doors.
For my part I can with a clear conscience say I have done my best, and shall leave the rest to my successors. But if I may gain your good opinion, The best way is to acquaint you what I have done to deserve it out of my royal care for your religion and property. For the first, my late proclamation is the true picture of my mind. He that cannot, as in a glass, see my zeal for the Church of England doth not deserve any other satisfaction, for I declare him willful, abominable, and not good. You may perhaps cry, How comes this sudden change? To that I reply in a word. I am a changeling. That I think a full answer. But to convince men yet further that I mean as I say, there are these arguments. First, I tell you so, and you know I never break my word.
Second, my Lord Treasurer says so, and he never told lies in his life. Third, my Lord Lauderdale will undertake for me. And I should be loath by any act of mine to forfeit the credit he has with you. If you desire more instances of my zeal, I have them for you. For example, I have converted all my natural sons from potpourri, and I may say without vanity, it was more my work and much more peculiar to me than the getting of them. It would do your hearts good to hear how prettily little George can read already the Psalter, They are all fine children, God bless them, and so like me in their understandings. But as I was saying, I have to please you, given a pension to your favorite, my lord Lauderdale.
Not so much that I thought he wanted it, as I knew you would take it kindly. I have made Carwell a duchess and married her sister to my lord Pembroke. I have made Crewe bishop of Durham. I have at my brother's request Sent my lord Inchequin to settle the Protestant religion at Tangier, and at the first word of my lady Portsmouth, I preferred Priddo to be Bishop of Chichester. I do not know what factious men would have, but this I am sure of, that none of my predecessors did ever anything like this to gain the goodwill of their subjects. So much for religion. I must now acquaint you that by my Lord Treasurer's advice I have made a considerable retrenchment on my expenses in candles and charcoal, and do not intend to stick there, but, with your help, to look into the like embezzlements of my dripping pans and kitchen stuff, of which, by the way, on my conscience neither my Lord Treasurer nor my Lord Lauderdale are guilty.
But if you should find them dabbling in that business, I tell you plainly, I leave them to you, for I would not have the world think I am a man to be cheated. My lords and gentlemen, I would have you believe of me as you always found me, and I do solemnly profess that whatever you give me, it shall be managed with the same thrift, trust, conduct, and prudence and sincerity That I have ever practiced since my happy restoration. The session which had been so anxiously anticipated and so humorously ushered in disappointed the expectations of both sides. Danby failed completely in establishing his cavalier episcopal system. The opposition failed, though barely, to drive Charles from his positions.
Wholesale bribery had practically made the court and country parties even. Votes were lost or carried by a single voice, and passions were so heated that on one occasion swords were drawn, and but for the promptitude of the speaker, blood would have been shed on the floor of the house. But the objects of the country party were clearly defined. The recall of English troops in the French service, The defense of Flanders against Louis, the disbanding the army in England, the suppression of Catholicism, and the refusal to allow men holding office under the crown to sit in Parliament. The Commons were on guard against France, Popery, and Absolutism, and declined to consider any legislation. Their proceedings were watched with eager anxiety by the foreign ambassadors, who personally waited upon members as they came in and out of the House.
So pressed was Charles by his own people, by Spain and by the Republic, to defend the Low Countries and force Louis to peace, that he declared to Rouvigny that he was like a besieged fortress. In June, he once more took the natural way of escaping by proroguing Parliament until October. By that time, Louis needed more than ever to secure the neutrality of England. Turenne had been killed, and Condé had given up his command. The French armies had suffered disaster after disaster, and their allies, the Swedes, had been crushingly defeated by the Dutch. The state of France itself was deplorable. The treasury was exhausted. The peasantry were seething with discontent. Armed revolt had broken out in Brittany and in Bordeaux.
Rouvigny redoubled his efforts to secure a French party, but a French party in the House of Commons he found it impossible to secure. It was clear, indeed, that the next session would be vehemently anti-French, especially as Danby made no secret of his views. Louis was now well served by the fact that there were two oppositions. The opposition in the Commons, the Country Party, and the clique of which Shaftesbury was the leader. The Country Party had causes first in view. Shaftesbury had persons. The one wanted, as has been said, to frustrate the designs of France and the Catholics and to be rid of the fear of military force. The other, while hoping to secure toleration for Protestant dissent, Louis therefore applied to Shaftesbury and his friends.
Their terms were simple. With political immorality which outdid that of Charles himself, they threw over the aspirations of the country party without hesitation. If Louis would help them to destroy Danby, they would withdraw their opposition to his plans. Shaftesbury was closeted with James, and a coalition was established of nonconformists, Catholics, and Louis, a retort to Danby's scheme of cavalier Anglicanism. James received 20,000 pounds from France for distribution at the end of the session on the condition that the English troops were not recalled nor any vote passed hostile to France. Louis had tricked both Charles and the Commons by this intrigue, which was carried out in the profoundest secrecy.
In the same secrecy, he pressed upon Charles, through the potent influence of Louise de Quirouaille, the necessity of being free from the control of Parliament, and in September 1675, by the promise of one hundred thousand pounds a year, drew from him an engagement to decline William's proposed visit to England and to dissolve Parliament if it were still violent against France, or if it refused to provide him with money. Thus he was safe on both sides. Parliament met on October 13, 1675. It gave no supply except to build ships, while Shaftesbury, hopeless of overthrowing Danby so long as the present House of Commons continued, Pressed both there and in the Lords for the dissolution which Louis was urging directly on Charles.
A parliament, he said, elected so many years before, no longer represented the people, especially when a large proportion of the members had offices or pensions. He forgot that a still larger number hoped for them. As Danby said long afterwards, they came about him like so many jackdaws for cheese at the end of every session. There was indeed, we quote Marvel once more, an handful of salt, a sparkle of soul, that hath hitherto preserved this gross body from putrefaction, some gentlemen that are constant, invariable, indeed Englishmen, like Marvel himself. But the handful was growing less, the sparkle dimmer. Shaftesbury was foiled in his principal design, But he succeeded in rendering business impossible by raising the former dispute between the two houses, and Charles was forced to close the session.
Nonetheless, he bitterly disappointed Shaftesbury and his friends. It was certain that a new house would consist of men still more opposed to the prerogative. Instead, therefore, of dissolving, he prorogued, contrary to the desire of most and the expectation of every man, to February, 1677, an interval of fifteen months. He then, with cool audacity, demanded his subsidy from Louis, which had been promised for a dissolution only. To Louis, however, English neutrality was the essential point, and that neutrality was safe for those fifteen months if he could keep Charles dependent on him. After a good deal of haggling and with a clear intimation that he regarded the whole thing as a swindle, he gave way.
He was rewarded when, in spite of all that Danby could do, Charles farther agreed, at the very moment when his representatives were supposed to be acting at Nijmegen as impartial mediators in the negotiations for peace, that neither monarch should listen to any proposition from abroad contrary to the other's welfare, Or make a treaty with the Dutch or any other state except by mutual consent. Danby utterly refused to sign the treaty, declaring that his head would not be safe. Even Lauderdale kept aloof. Charles was obliged to write out and sign the document with his own hands. This he did yesterday morning, February 26th, 1676, after which he lighted a wax candle himself, And affixed his seal to his signature, at the same time saying it was only a seal with his cipher, for that, a little while since, he had lost his seal with his arms, which were engraved on a diamond of King James's grandfather, and which, when the deceased king was on the scaffold, he gave to the Bishop of London to be delivered into his hands.
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28 28 - Ch. 4: Charles, Louis, and Parliament, Pt. 7 18:10
Charles, Louis, and Parliament. Part Seven. The interval of political repose thus secured by Charles was occupied by a serious crisis within the domestic circle. For a long while the empire of Louise de Queruaille had been unquestioned, but she was now threatened by no unworthy rival. In January 1676, Hortense Mancini, Duchess Mazarin, with whom we have met thrice before, was received by Charles and his court with all the curiosity and admiration due to one whose attractions had excited And whose adventures had scandalized every court in Europe. Of precocious beauty at fourteen, she had preserved that beauty unimpaired to thirty, and twenty years later she was able to say, I have never been more beautiful.
The Windsor miniature shows the proud Italian beauty, the superb development of the figure, the lustrous eye, neither blue nor gray nor quite black, The rich blood mantling under his skin which needed no rouge, the silken waves of jet-black hair. In default of becoming a queen, she was married to the son of the Marshal de la Meret. This extraordinary man, created Duc Mazarin, allowed his natural abilities to be ruined by a religious mania which turned him into a driveling monk. He relinquished all his offices and governments as too worldly in their nature. He mutilated valuable statues and pictures because they represented the worship of the creature rather than of the Creator. It is difficult to believe that he forbade the farm-maidens to milk the cows, lest gross thoughts should invade their minds.
And that he wished to have the front teeth extracted from his daughter's mouths, that they might not become vain of their own beauty. Such insanity had its natural result. With another girl-wife of like nature and treatment, Hortense broke the bounds of the convent in which her husband had placed her, dressed herself as a man, and fled, not unaccompanied, to Italy. On her return to France, her husband again caused her to be confined in a religious house, but Louis XIV himself insisted on her being set at liberty. For the next three years she lived with the so-called Abbé Real, one of the most depraved men of the age, and in January 1676, still in male attire, she reached London under pretense of visiting Mary of Modena.
The men raved about her beauty. The women were consumed with jealous anxiety. The Duchess of Cleveland gave up the contest at once and retired to France. Louise de Quirouaille stayed at her post, though ill from a miscarriage, neglected for the time by Charles and conscious of the popular hatred. In April, she was again ill. Her sickness increased by discontent at somebody's visiting the Duchess Mazarin at Lady Harvey's house. Nellie the irrepressible went into deep mourning and mocking sorrow for the Frenchwoman's approaching fall. The whole court rallied to the new adventurists. Arlington and Monmouth hoped to use her against James and Louise. Mary of Modena accorded her the closest intimacy.
Charles, though not yet an acknowledged lover, visited her constantly, and himself supplied the increase of her husband's allowance, which Louis had refused. Louise now despaired of recovering her lost dominion. On August 6th, Courtin described for his master's amusement a visit he had just paid her.
Ces deux filles étaient collées contre la muraille, les yeux baissés. La maîtresse versait un torrent de larmes. Les soupirs et les sanglots coupaient ses paroles. Enfin, jamais spectacle ne m'a paru plus triste ni plus touchant. La scène de la Signora Adolorada, answered le voie, a assez diverti Sa Majesté. But while giving him material for cynical amusement, the matter became politically serious for Louis. The fall of Louise would imply to foreign courts the weakening of French influence with Charles, and this might have a baneful effect upon his prospects at the Congress of Nijmegen. His representatives there were accordingly instructed That both her health and her credit with Charles were unimpaired, although Charles was at that very time visiting Hortense in the apartments of the Countess of Sussex, his own daughter by the Duchess of Cleveland, and although Courtin himself was emphatic as to the newcomer's supremacy.
If you had only seen her dancing the fourlain to her guitar, you would at once have espoused her interests. Charles, he added, saw Louise frequently. but only in public. He spent his leisure far more often with Nellie, a fact which that young lady laughingly quoted to Courtin in support of her demand for a present from Louis. But on the eve of the meeting of Parliament, Courtin's address saved the situation. He secured a formal reconciliation between the two sultanas, while Nellie looked on with unrestrained merriment. Charles, who greatly disliked quarrels among his women, encouraged them to actual amity. Louise gave a dinner to her rival, and appeared with her in the same carriage, and peace reigned in the camp of the concubines.
But as always, these domestic complications meant vast expense, and largely through them the financial position was again desperate. Louis was not in a condition to give more than he had bargained for. So strained was French finance that he was himself forced to borrow at ten percent interest. But he regularly paid his quarterly salary to Charles. On February 14, 1677, Courtin wrote, I received the October quarter. It came very apropos, for the King of England wanted money to give to those accustomed to make a noise in order to be better bought. On April 1st, he wrote again, And at the end of each quarter, Louis received from Charles the following holograph form of voucher.
But these supplies were not enough for Charles's needs. So low had the credit of the Crown sunk that it was found impossible to raise a loan in London, and it was an obvious necessity that Parliament should meet. Danby promised Charles that if he would but break with France, He would have supplies far beyond anything that Louis could offer. But although Louis could not prevent Parliament from assembling on February 25, 1677, he could afford 80,000 pounds for bribery, and he strengthened his alliance with the Shaftesbury Coalition. Courten was ordered to give Charles no rest. Every day, he tells us, he was at Whitehall and he never left the court until eleven at night. Berkshire was bribed to create a party in the Lords.
Coleman, James's secretary, was bribed. Lauderdale, though he refused bribes as Arlington had refused them, was secured as Arlington had been through his rapacious wife. All due economy was used in this sale trafic. Very often, Courtin reported a few dozens of champagne, which were less costly than a money bribe, would command a useful vote. A blunder of the Shaftesbury party gave Danby a marked advantage at the outset, by which he was enabled not merely to carry an unconditional vote of 600,000 pounds, but also to rid himself of his most powerful foes for a season. A prorogation without precedent was warranted by an imprisonment without example. That, namely, of Shaftesbury, Buckingham, and Salisbury.
For which an excuse had been given by their assertion that Parliament was ipso facto dissolved by a prorogation of more than a year. Discussion of grievances also was postponed until some broken windows could be mended. For the early March winds were too much for the most ardent member of the country party. But when damages had been repaired, The Commons showed how deeply moved they were by the tidings of the successes of Louis against William and his allies. Both houses addressed the King to recall the troops serving in the French army. Twice they urged him to declare war against France with offers of unlimited support. Louis heard from Courten that the English would give everything for a war with France, even to their shirts.
As William's position grew more and more desperate, the Commons became more aggressive. Charles had already, as we have seen, made an important concession of principle by showing them the traité simulée, even though he lied in doing it. They now told him that they would give no money for alliances which were not first laid before them for discussion. This was a new departure of a very serious kind. Foreign alliances and the decision of peace and war were the choicest flowers of the royal prerogative. The demand implied a violation of the Constitution as it had been understood for centuries, much more marked than that contained in the king's claim to the dispensing power, which had been so bitterly resented.
For Charles to have given way would have been to confess himself utterly worsted in the running fight. The speech of angry contempt in which on May 28th he rejected the demand, and which appears to have thoroughly cowed the House for the moment, is an amplification of his curt answer to von Boeningen, the Ambassador of the States, who had spoken of the sympathy shown by Parliament with the Confederates. Tossing his handkerchief into the air, Charles exclaimed, I care just that for Parliament. In the plainest language he now told the commons to mind their own business. Could I have been silent, I would rather have chosen to do so, than to call to mind things so unfit for you to meddle with, as are contained in some parts of your last addresses.
You do not content yourselves with desiring me to enter into such leagues as may be for the safety of my kingdom, but you tell me what sort of leagues they must be and with whom. Should I suffer this fundamental power of making peace and war to be so far invaded, though but once, as to have the manner and circumstances of leagues prescribed to me by Parliament, it's plain that no prince or state would any longer believe that the sovereignty of England rests in the crown. Nor could I think myself to signify any more to foreign princes than the empty sound of a king. Wherefore you may rest assured that no condition shall make me depart from or lessen so essential a part of the monarchy. He emphasized this rating and the little account he took of his listeners by directing them to adjourn, not to adjourn themselves.
Members rose to protest, but the speaker, without any question put, pronounced the house adjourned and left the chair. Charles added a parting cut of the whip, By ordering his speech to be published in next day's newsbook, while the transactions or addresses of the House were not allowed to be printed or even dispersed in written form. Thus, says the earnest marvel in the bitterness of his heart, were they well rewarded for their itch of perpetual sitting and of acting, the Parliament being grown to that height of contempt as to be gazetted among runaway servants, lost dogs, From May to July, from July to December, from December to April 1678, this Barn of Commons was adjourned with a similar contempt of privilege, though Charles did in fact, for reasons now to be related, summon them to meet in January.
In this manner they were kicked from adjournment to adjournment, as from one stair down to another, And when they were at the bottom, kicked up again, having no mind yet to go out of doors. Charles had spoken and acted boldly. But to anyone who has become familiar with his methods, it is of course been clear that both words and action meant that he had somehow acquired, or that he expected to acquire, the funds which Parliament refused to give. How far he was within his rights by thus meeting an attack upon his prerogative is a question of political casuistry which will be answered less by reason than by feeling. Clifford would have answered it in one way. Andrew Marvel would have answered it in another.
As a matter of fact, he had only to take another step along the familiar road. So long as Louis was at war, he had In the existing temper of Parliament, a saleable article. The meeting or the not-meeting of Parliament. Negotiations had been in progress ever since February. Haggling, worthy of a couple of Jew-peddlers, went on throughout the spring and summer of 1677, in which Charles kept the whip-hand of Louis by adjourning and not proroguing. Danby, to whom the job was thoroughly distasteful, and who drank openly at a public dinner to war with France, proved himself all the more a firm and audacious bargain driver. Louis pleaded poverty but in vain, and on August 5th he was obliged to offer two million livres for Charles's promise that he would not allow Parliament to meet until the end of April 1678.
And that in order to discourage William's allies, they should be informed of his intention. The king was thus able to carry on the ordinary expenses of government, which included the satisfying of the women, while Louis gained the prospect of nine months more of freedom from English interference. The necessary touches of comedy were not wanting. Courtin, who had carried out the negotiation but who was considered scarcely equal to the part yet to be played, was replaced by that strange figure, Paul Barillon d'Amancourt. But his feelings were carefully considered. He was allowed to ask for his recall on the ground that his health was suffering from the London fogs, and Charles considerately advised him in future always to wear Welsh flannel next to his skin.
Barrillon's first business was to deal with a little instance of sharp practice worthy of a stockbroker in a very small way. Charles declared that by two million livres he meant two hundred thousand pounds, which at the existing rate of exchange was higher in value. When Barrillon remonstrated, he immediately interrupted me and said, In the name of God, do not speak of this affair. I am so confused about it that I cannot bear its being spoken of. Go to the treasurer, and do as you and he shall understand the matter. Barillon replied that Danby's attitude was a foregone conclusion. Finally, says Barillon, the king conducted me to the door of the chamber, which he opened himself, and again repeated, I am so ashamed that I cannot speak any more to you.
Go see the treasurer. For he has made known to me such large wants that I cannot believe the king my brother will leave me in this embarrassment. The result was, of course, that Charles and Danby had their way.
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29 29 - Ch. 4: Charles, Louis, and Parliament, Pt. 8 18:36
Charles, Louis, and Parliament. Part Eight. Courten did not overstate the case when he asserted that in all this matter, Charles and James stood absolutely alone against the wishes of the whole kingdom. And yet within three months, We are startled to find the king taking a fresh step in which he had the sympathies of the nation at his back, and which practically, if not verbally, cut right athwart his engagements to Louis. Well might that monarch remark, In September 1677, William of Orange arrived on a visit to Charles at Newmarket, Where, as usual, nothing was ostensibly talked of but dogs and horses, although both his errand and the answer to be made to him were so perfectly understood that he wrote to the States General announcing the step he was about to take.
It was not until he returned with the court to Westminster toward the end of October that he formally asked for the hand of James's eldest daughter Mary. To whose peaceful and domestic disposition Temple had given a strong testimonial. Haste and secrecy were alike necessary if the matter were to be arranged without impediment. Danby alone was consulted, and he, with both Charles and James, avoided all reference to it until the last moment. It was of a special importance that Barillon should be kept in ignorance. Wooing, there was none. And Barillon was not informed by Charles that the marriage was decided upon until bonfires were blazing in the streets of London in satisfaction at the betrothal.
The greatest expressions of joy which I believe were ever in England except at the King's restoration. And on November 5th, no time being thus given to Louis for remonstrance, the marriage took place in the strictest privacy. Charles himself performed the last rites, And the short homily which he delivered upon the duties and privileges of married life, as, after drawing the curtain about the bed, he turned to leave the room, may be read in the diary of Edward Lake, the grave young tutor of Mary and her sister Anne. There can be little doubt that this marriage was the direct work of Danby, and it is one of the many proofs, as it is the strongest. of the remarkable ascendancy which that very able minister had acquired over Charles.
The advantages of the match were indeed obvious to the king. It would remove from his people, he said to Barillon, their incurable jealousy of his designs in favor of the Catholics, the rock against which I must guard myself. While William would now regard the interests of the crown as his own, And would support them against Shaftesbury and his friends. And it is probable that there was yet another, though unexpressed, reason. We believe that Charles, even now, would far rather have obtained his money from Parliament than from Louis, if only he could have arrived at some acceptable arrangement. That he had by no means given up this hope, and that he was a good deal ashamed, or at least uneasy, at the bargain with Louis.
Danby no doubt had his personal object, to strengthen himself against the eager and implacable enemies whom he knew to be straining every nerve for his downfall. But his advice was in entire accord with the principles he had hitherto expressed, and he was assisted by William's clear perception that the close connection with the English royal house must strengthen him against both foreign and domestic trouble. Besides, giving him a hold upon England's foreign policy in the future. James was induced to waive his opposition by the belief that the marriage would enable men to look past himself to the Protestant husband of their future queen, and would thus weaken the objections to his succession.
But probably still more by the clear and unreserved expression of Charles's mind. With that petulant contempt with which he more than once spoke of his brother, when he heard of possible difficulties on his part, he must consent. Louis took the news of this virtual breach of faith in the grand manner, and sent his ceremonial compliments with all punctiliousness. But really, although he had dreaded it for years, he felt it as he would have done the loss of an army. He never forgave Danby. And speedily, as we shall see, he showed his resentment toward both him and his master in a very practical form. Nobody seems to have thought much of the feelings of the little princess of fifteen, upon whom were focused the plans of kings and statesmen, and who was thus suddenly called from childhood into the glare and stress of an alien world.
On October 21st, she heard of her fate from her father. And while it was great joy to all the city and everybody, Lady Mary wept all that afternoon and the following day. She had spent a singularly happy childhood with her sister, her governess, and her tutor. The grief of her father and of her youthful stepmother, to both of whom she was deeply attached, intensified her own, and she wept and would not cease weeping. After the marriage, she refused to go to Whitehall. She clung, as it were, to the protection of her home against the power of the cold and imperious man to whom she had been so unequally mated. Decked out in the jewels he had given her, a ring worth ten thousand pounds, a necklace valued at eight thousand pounds, and with all her mother's jewels, the child appeared at the play alone, for her husband was busy.
Within a week the court began to whisper the prince's sullenness or clownishness, that he took no notice of the princess, nor came to see her at St. James. But if he neglected Mary, he did not neglect what to him were at the time more important matters. His business was to bring Charles to his terms. He was not the boy whom his uncle had made drunk for sport eight years ago. He was, as Charles said, The son of a father and mother whose obstinacy went to extremity, and he liked them. Resolute in action, steadfast in distress, calm and clear in political vision, he in turn gauged the weakness of Charles. "'Was ever anything,' he exclaimed to Temple with a gesture of surprise and contempt, "'so hot and so cold as this court of yours.
Will the king that is so often at sea?' Never learn a word that I shall never forget since my last passage when in a great storm the captain was all night crying out to the man at the helm, steady, steady, steady. The new influence was at once felt. The wavering resolutions of Charles were shaped by the will of the younger man, and on November 23, conditions of peace were secretly proposed to Louis, which would have robbed him. In the very flush of triumph, of that northeastern frontier which had so long been the object of French statesmen. His answer was a haughty refusal, and the discontinuance of the payments provided for in the last treaty. Charles, in turn, regarded that treaty as no longer in force, and summoned Parliament for January instead of at the end of April.
Repenting his haste, Louis once more offered an increased grant to Charles, and a large present to Danby, and went halfway to meet the proposed conditions of peace. Both bribes and offers were refused through Danby's steady conduct, and on January 10, 1678, a treaty was signed at The Hague embodying William's terms and, as in the Triple Alliance, binding England and the Republic to compel the assent of both France and Spain. Ostend was handed over to Charles provisionally as a place of arms on the continent. The King put 12,000 men in readiness, ordered the equipment of 30 ships, and at last recalled his troops from the French service. On February 7th, confident of the concurrence of Parliament, he opened the session with a speech which meant war with France.
And he demanded supplies for ninety ships and forty thousand men. But the Shaftesbury opposition utterly distrusted the honesty of Charles's purpose. The marriage as being Danby's work was regarded by them with suspicion, and they affected to believe that this warlike language was once more assumed only to induce Parliament to give the King an army, which he would straightway use to secure despotic power. To overthrow Danby and to secure liberty of conscience for Protestant descent at home were as before their main objects, and for these, they were ready again to render Louis free of all interference from Charles. In fact, since Danby joined William, they joined Louis. Unable to oppose openly the war policy which had the ready assent of the bulk of the country party, They determined to insist upon conditions of peace so onerous that Louis would be justified in continuing the struggle against the coalition, and at the same time to render Charles powerless to join that coalition.
In the first part of their plan, they succeeded. But farther than this, they could not make head against Danby's pensioners and the moderate men. By a large majority, the men in the ships were voted to support the alliance with the Dutch, And on February 18th, a resolution was agreed upon to raise one million pounds to enable His Majesty to enter into an actual war with the French King. But Louis was less than ever disposed to yield, for he had struck another unexpected blow. He had determined to extort peace, as de Witt had extorted it by the Chatham exploit. During March, by rapid and skillful movements, He made himself master of Ypres and of the great city of Ghent. The effect upon public feeling in England was such that Charles, to keep his people within bounds, was obliged to send troops to Ostend.
But once more, now that William was no longer by his side, his habit of looking to France rendered straightforwardness impossible. He privately assured Barillon that he had no desire for war. and that he would do all in his power to avoid it. He was indeed in a pitiable state of perplexity. Afraid of the popular outcry, but unwilling to commit himself to final measures, he went on with his vain attempts to find a compromise satisfactory both to Louis and to William. His difficulties were increased by the current of popular feeling in the United Provinces. There also the union of William with the English royal family was looked upon with keen suspicion, which was increased by the discovery of a secret article in the Treaty of January, binding Charles and the States General to assist each other against their rebellious subjects, a discovery which prevented its ratification.
Upon the people of the Republic, therefore, the capture of Ghent and Ypres, Had the effect which Louis had intended. Now that their own independence was beyond question, and that he declared himself willing to satisfy one of their essential demands by abandoning to Spain a strong barrier for her low countries, the Dutch merchants thought only of their other great interest, commerce, which through England's freedom from war was every day passing into her hands, and they clamored for peace. Against them were Temple and William, who were supported by the whole body of the Dutch nobility, and who were so successful that all that the Peace Party could do was to secure from Louis the offer of a truce of three months, with the removal of commercial restrictions.
Charles saw in this a welcome excuse for withdrawing from his forced connection with the Republic. He laid the matter before Parliament, April 29th. In a tone of anger that such a step should have been taken without his consent and requested its advice. After several days of eager debate, a resolution of the most uncompromising adherence to a war policy was carried by a narrow majority. To this vote, so different from what he desired, Charles made no reply. But he warned the Commons that unless a supply were speedily given him, He should be forced to lay up his ships and disband his troops. The very step to which the Shaftesbury party, in fulfillment of their pledges to Louis, were now bent upon driving him.
The message raised a tempest in the house, and the belief expressed by Colonel Birch that the whole matter was a work of darkness was fully justified. Charles had been again in secret negotiation with Louis, And after the customary Hagling had agreed that he would do his best to secure peace on terms favorable to Louis within two months, that if unsuccessful, he would remain neutral and would recall and disband his troops except 3,000 to be left in Ostend, and that he would prorogue Parliament for four months. For these services, he was to receive a subsidy of 240,000 pounds a year for three years. This compact was drawn up and signed by Charles alone, for Danby once more refused to imperil his safety by adding his name.
The suspicions of the Commons again tended to reduce Charles to the powerlessness which Louis desired. On the very day of the compact, May 27, they demanded either immediate war with France or immediate disbanding, and they provided money for the latter purpose. They gave him also an additional supply for other uses, tacking the bill to raise funds for disbanding unto that for the supply, so that they must both fall or pass together. Charles, having passed the bill, prorogued the Parliament, July 15th. He found, however, an excuse more than sufficient in his eyes for ignoring the engagement to disband, for the whole aspect of affairs abroad, and with it his intentions, Had again undergone a complete change.
Up to the end of June, peace between France, the Dutch, and Spain had seemed assured, for William himself regarded it as useless to struggle any longer against the cry of the whole commercial class. Only at the last moment, an attempt on the part of Louis to evade his terms threatened an immediate renewal of the war on the part of every nation engaged. In a moment, the provinces were in a blaze, and William regained his ascendancy. Charles underwent the same revulsion of feeling. He refused to ratify his secret treaty with Louis, or to disband his troops in the Spanish Low Countries, declaring that his people would chase him from his kingdom if France were suffered to extend her conquests. He sent off Temple once more July 6th, In haste to make a strict alliance with the Republic.
And on July 26th, a treaty was framed which bound the Dutch to continue the struggle and England to declare war if Louis did not withdraw his pretensions by August 11th. Only one hour before the moment at which negotiations would have ceased, at 11 on the night of August 10th, 1678, France and the Republic signed the treaty. which removed the most important member from the coalition, and which gave the signal for the general peace of Nijmegen, bringing temporary repose at last to Europe from the contest brought upon it by the Treaty of Dover. One country alone, or rather one person, had come out of the struggle with marked discredit. The position of Charles was contemptible. Peace had been made without his concurrence, and at last against his wishes.
He had lived by chicanery, and his chicanery had ended in complete discomfiture. Louis, now neither needing or fearing him, met his appeal, for part at least of the money he claimed, with a contemptuous refusal. In December 1678, the Lords joined the Commons in again insisting on immediate disbanding, a demand which he could no longer find an excuse for evading. And from that moment, baffled in diplomacy and crippled for war, he had no effective voice in continental affairs.
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THE POPISH TERROR AND THE TRIUMPH OF THE COURT. PART ONE. The English nation are a sober people. Such had been the judgment of Charles I after seven years of conflict with them, and when he foresaw his fate at their hands. He would have been obliged to take back his words, had he seen this same people after nearly thirty years of peace. The national outbreak of hysteria, which will probably ever retain the name of the Popish Plot, but which should more properly be called the Popish Terror, is a chapter in our history of which we can still be ashamed. And assuredly, it is one which all apologists for Charles II would willingly forget. In the course of our narrative, we have met with many incidents since the betrayal of Montrose, which, deplorable as they have seemed, have not actually placed Charles outside the pale of personal honor.
That he should choose to trick rather than to lead his people, that he should lightly accept the savage acts of oppression by which the Church signalized her triumph, merely to obtain money which he might pour into the women's laps, That ships should rot and sailors mutiny, and the country suffer one disgrace after another for the same shameful cause. That Clarendon should fall before the hate of the prostitute and the mimicry of the buffoon. That Ireland should be forced to give of her poverty to furnish the brothels of Whitehall. That Scotland should be handed over first to the rapacity of drunken soldiers of fortune and beggared nobles. And the spite of a knavish priest, and then to the ambition of a brutal favorite and the greed of his wicked wife.
All these things, and many like them, have been palliated with varying degrees of failure. But we question whether there is anyone who would care to put his name to an attempt to excuse or to palliate the course of personal dishonor and shame which Charles now followed out. For the outbreak of the terror, for its possibility in a sober nation, Charles and the Anglican Church must share the blame. The resolve of the Church to rebuild herself upon the destruction of the rival temples is intelligible enough. The desire of Charles to prevent the Church from becoming his master, to redeem his promises to the Catholics, and with this object, To maintain Protestant dissent in a state of tolerable comfort surely does not call for blame.
It was when the supremacy of the Church was assured, and when at the same time the belief had become fixed that Charles was a friend of the last and impudentist attempt upon the credulity of mankind, that the rancor of the one and the flippancy of the other Charles had two courses before him. He might have surrendered to the Church, openly and frankly, with whatever reluctance, however strongly expressed, and thus have created a confidence which in time would have begotten indulgence at her hands to the dissenters. He might have refused her terms and taken the consequences. The first would have been painful to his self-esteem, the second would have been perilous but kingly, and we believe successful.
He chose instead a course which united and by union doubled the evils of both. But by dint of extreme baseness he secured that the calamity should fall solely upon those whom he betrayed. He was like an unskillful driver. Who first jerks the reins of a spirited horse to check him, and again lets him take his own pace, until rendered nervous by this alternate caprice, the beast is ready to shy and plunge and stretch into a mad gallop at the sight of a figure by the roadside or a waving bush. By surrender to Parliament during the session, and evasion of his surrender during recess, By acceding to savage laws against the Catholics while he welcomed them at Whitehall and gave them commissions in his regiments, by his alternate alliances, first with the Protestant Republic against the aggressions of Catholic France, and then with France against the Republic, by his Popish mistresses, his Popish queen, his Popish heir, himself nominally Protestant king of a Protestant country, and most of all, By the atmosphere of secrecy and intrigue, in which he concealed both the inception and the performance of his designs, Charles had wrought this sober nation into a state of nervous irritation in which they were ready to lose all self-control and all sense of proportion and fact at the sudden occurrence of any fresh cause for alarm, however trivial or manifestly absurd.
That cause came in the autumn of 1678, when Titus Oates, the wickedest man in English history, with the one exception of Jeffries, gave first to Sir Edmund Barry Godfrey in September, next to the Privy Council, and lastly to Parliament in October, his earliest bundle of lies. The worst and the most natural effect of the conventical acts and the other persecuting measures of the reign had been the growth and the recognition of the infamous trade of informer. And of this pestilent brood, though he had many forerunners and was to have many imitators and comrades, Oates was the worst. But with the story of his vileness and the progress of the terror, we cannot deal here. Our concern is to see in what manner it was used by those who saw political advantage to be secured from it, and chiefly with the conduct of Charles himself.
The only tangible piece of evidence was a bundle of letters in the possession of Coleman, the Duke of York's secretary. They contained the expression of the desire of the more ardent Catholics to do a little of what Charles actually had done. To obtain French help to govern without Parliament and secure toleration. And they stated that James wished to owe the Crown to the help of France, Spain, and the Pope, and then to show favor to the Catholics. For this, Coleman died, the first victim to the terror, and there are few more piteous expressions than his. When urged to make disclosures to save himself, he said that He knew there was enough already known to take away his life, and he did not know enough to save it.
Apart from this, the case is not overstated by James. Such in fine was the prepossession of all ranks of people in favor of the plot that the highest improbabilities, the absurdist contradictions, the most apparent falsities, the asseverations of dying men, The infamy and manifest perjury of the witnesses made not the least impression in behalf of the accused, either upon Parliament, judge, or jury. And sight should never be lost of this fact, that among all who died from Lord Stratford and Archbishop Plunkett down to the lowliest priest or secretary, not one, even in the presence of immediate death or under any inducement, Admitted his guilt. The instances from the state trials of the truth of James's words are too numerous and too familiar for quotation.
But the following is less likely to be known and might we feel have come straight from the hand that wrote Peverell of the Peak. When Thomas Bruce landed from France at Hastings, the mayor with a grave countenance told him there was sad news. Lord, is the king dead? He made slight of that in comparison to what he told me, that the Lord Castlemaine and Sir G. Wakeman were acquitted. I replied, no doubt they were not guilty. Oh, my lord, replied he, if they had not been guilty, they never would have had their trial. There is nothing to show that any leading politician was concerned in the actual inception of Oates's villainy. But no sooner was the game on foot and the scent hot. Then all looked to see how they might utilize the frenzy of the chase for their own ends.
Danby thought he found in it a false trail, which might serve to lead his adversaries off their pursuit of himself. And having induced the king, who would gladly have kept things quiet, not to put off his usual autumn Newmarket meeting, he took care that the hounds should be in full cry before his return. But he had miscalculated both the ability and the unscrupulousness of his enemies. The Earl of Danby thought that he could serve himself of this plot of oats, and accordingly endeavored at it, but it is plain that he had no command of the engine, and instead of his sharing the popularity of nursing it, he found himself so intrigued that it was like a wolf by the ears. He could neither hold it So the earl's favor did but give strength to the creature to worry him.
Herein he failed first in joining to aid a design of which he did not know the bottom, second in thinking that a lord treasurer that had enriched himself and his family Could ever be popular. That Shaftesbury had an interest in fathering the plot is obvious. No more convenient weapon could have been put into his hands for the destruction of Danby and for getting rid of James and the Catholic succession. The cry of exclusion followed naturally upon that of the plot, and Shaftesbury soon went far ahead of Danby in his parental care. His exclamation, Let the treasurer cry never so loud against Popery, and think to put himself at the head of the plot, I will cry a note louder. Rests, we believe, on the authority of James alone, and we may give what credit we will to the statement that he was heard to say, the more nonsensical the better.
If we cannot bring them to swallow worse nonsense than that, we shall never do any good with them. But the authority cannot be rejected, which tells us that Shaftesbury made it his business to procure the evidence of informers, and to hound them on by whatever means of threats or bribery, and Bishop Prudeau had good reason to say two years later, I mightily suspect that old knave hath been guilty of many subornations in the management of the Popish plot. Charles himself complained with great scorn of the imputation of suborning witnesses. He did not wonder that the Earl of Shaftesbury, who was so guilty of those practices, should fasten them on others, and he used upon that a Scotch proverb very pleasantly, a proverb quite in the royal manner, for which Burnett's text may be consulted.
It is deplorable enough that unscrupulous men like Shaftesbury and Danby It is even sadder that men incapable of dishonor like Russell, believing that potpourri is and was breaking in upon us like a flood, should have lent a helping hand to the wickedness, and that, without apparently themselves investigating the truth or the untruth of the allegations, statesmen like Halifax Should have allowed the possible dangers of the future to warp their minds so far from the paths of ordinary rectitude as to declare that the plot must be handled as if it were true, and that the notoriety of the fact as our lawyers have it is evidence enough of the plot. Had the rule of Charles been such as to foster honor in statesmen, such infamy could not have been.
He was responsible for the possibility of the conduct of Danby and Shaftesbury, as he was responsible for the possibility of the terror. It is true that he disliked the agitation, and would gladly, as we have said, have kept it quiet. He was extremely angry when, on his return from Newmarket, he found what Danby had done. And when he opened Parliament on October 21st, and was forced to say something, He merely remarked, I have been informed of a design against my person by the Jesuits, of which I shall forbear any opinions, lest I may seem to say too much or too little, but will leave the matter to the law. But from that point his action can excite nothing but disgust. It is in the first place absolutely certain that he never for one moment gave credit to the evidence of Oates and his associates.
Thomas Bruce, who was in his intimate confidence, says, The good king that had a penetrating judgment never believed one word of all their plot, but dissembled it, and some thinks too much. On October 23rd he told Rearsby he did think it some artifice and did not believe one word of the plot, and yet three days later he gave way without a word of remonstrance to the desires of the commons, which made life A burden to all Catholics. He did not even endeavor, after the fashion of the commons, to convince himself or stifle his own conscience by asseverations such as that of November 1st, when they voted that, there hath been, and still is, a damnable and hellish plot, contrived and carried out by Popish recusants for the assassination and murdering of the King, And for subverting and rooting out and destroying the Protestant religion.
On the contrary, on November 12th, when Rearsby was with him at the Duchess of Portsmouths, he was very free in his discourses concerning the witnesses of the Popish plot, making it clearly appear that several things which they gave an evidence were not only improbable but impossible. And on the 21st, He again said that Bedloe was a rogue and had given false evidence. Nor did time alter his opinion. On April 20, 1681, his discourse was generally of the impossibility of such a thing as the Popish plot, and the contradictions of which it was framed. Like Bruce himself, he regarded Oates's testimony no more than the barking of a dog, and he declared without reserve that he believed That the packet of letters produced by him in tongue had been forged.
But he did not confine his opinions to his private friends. He exposed the arch-impostor unmercifully before the council. Oates had described how Don Juan had in his presence subscribed ten thousand pounds to further the assassination plot. Charles asked him what manner of man Don Juan was. A tall, lean, black man, replied Oates. Whereas Charles, who, as we have seen, had been personally concerned with him in Flanders before the Restoration, knew that he was short, fat, and red-haired, and said so. An interview, Oates said, had taken place in the Jesuit college just by the Louvre. Man, said Charles, the Jesuits have not a college within a mile of the Louvre. And he laughed still more appreciatively when Lord Bellassys was named to him as destined by the conspirators to be the future commander of the popish army, since that nobleman was crippled with gout.
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The Popish Terror and the Triumph of the Court. Part Two. Charles then knew Oates and his fellows to be liars, and did not conceal his knowledge, and yet he permitted him to be lodged in splendor at Whitehall, And gave him a large weekly pension from the Privy Purse. He knew them to be liars, and yet, out of their mouths, he allowed men of whose innocence he was assured to go to mutilation and death without speaking the word which would have saved them. We may well feel baffled before the psychological problem presented at this time by the King. He appears to have had a strange faculty of self-deception. At the moment when he was committing deeds of immeasurable baseness, not a single word escaped him to show that he feared he might be charged with acting any but a worthy part.
It would be inconceivable, if it were not certain, that at this very time he confided to one of his courtiers that he knew he had led a bad life, of which he spoke with some sense, but he was breaking himself of all his faults. And he would never do a base or wicked thing. He looked on falsehood and cruelty as the greatest crimes in the sight of God. He waived all responsibility for what he recognized to be judicial murder, a sacrifice to the wild beast cry for blood, with a plausibility which would have been impudent if it had been fully conscious. In all these affairs, he said, The laws should have their course, and whatever his private opinion was, he should govern himself according to them.
The very laws which he had been endeavoring to evade, administered by a bench which he had corrupted, and from which he knew that justice was not to be had. I cannot pardon him because I dare not, was the frequent and unabashed excuse. Because it is inconvenient is what Charles meant. There is something very Spanish, curiously like the relations between Philip II and his grandees in all this. We have already quoted Bruce on the good king. How completely Charles had debauched the opinion of his courtiers is shown when Rearsby, in like manner, follows up his account of Charles's resolve to leave all to the laws with, indeed, It was a great happiness to his people to live under so just and gracious a prince.
And when an innocent man who was awaiting the hangman's cord and knife appealed to the king, Rearsby again remarks, he could not be so ignorant as not to know that at that time it was not in the king's power to pardon him while the tide went so high. Only when it affected his wife did Charles show the slightest chivalry in his treatment of the plot. On October 29th, James wrote to the Prince of Orange, Yesterday Madame de Mazarin was accused by the same man, and when he will make an end of accusing people, the Lord knows. But Oates then struck at the highest game. On November 24th, He denounced the Queen before Secretary Coventry as privy to the design of poisoning the King. On the 28th, he repeated the accusation before the King himself in council and at the bar of the House of Commons.
An address to Charles was carried in the Commons to remove Catherine from his presence and councils. The Lords refused to agree to it, and against this refusal, Shaftesbury and two others, to their disgrace, signed a protest. As late as December 26, 1680, Oates was repeating the audacious charge. That he should be a guest at the table of gunning, Bishop of Ely, was enough to show at once how far the Church could fall, and what infamous power the wretch had acquired. That he should dare in such society to mouth the lie is still more extraordinary. Fortunately, there was also present an honest gentleman, Sir John Rearsby, and from him Oates received the check, which Gunning was afraid to give. Nobody daring to contradict him, for fear of being made a party to the plot, I at last did undertake to do it, and in such a manner that he left the room in some heat.
The accusation of the Queen was probably a device of Shaftesbury to further the design of securing a divorce. In public, the poor woman bore herself bravely enough. The Queen was brisk and looks well. The Queen shows herself in the park and is very merry. Such was the account, when there was a cry for sending her to the Tower. But yesterday, when she was in private, she ceased not weeping, bewailing her condition. Charles had manhood enough to refuse to be a party to the persecution of his wife. The relations between them had greatly improved with years. A few months previously we hear that the Queen has become a mistress, the passion her spouse has for her is so great. They think, said Charles, I have a mind to a new wife.
But for all that I will not see an innocent woman abused. And Ossery, her chamberlain, whom we have quoted as to her distress, and who was incapable of falsehood, confirms this. The king carries himself most worthily, showing a detestation of what some thought might be acceptable to him. To Bruce, Charles said in words which it is hard to reconcile with the passion mentioned above, that she was a weak woman. And had some disagreeable humors, but was not capable of a wicked thing. And considering his own faultiness to her in some things, he thought it a horrid thing to abandon her. The poor woman actually trusted to him for protection. When Charles was at Newmarket at the spring meeting in 1680, the Queen came hither, pretending she can be nowhere safe but where the King is present to protect her.
This, then, is the sum of what can be claimed for Charles, that he would not desert his wife at the bidding of Titus Oates. While the country party and the commons, like yelling hounds, were running blindly on the hot scent of the plot, and in every hamlet of England men and women were living in vague and senseless terror of outrage, they knew not what, at the hands of the bloody papists, who numbered at the utmost one and two hundred, The cool huntsmen who hallooed on the pack, Shaftesbury and his friends in the Lords and their correspondence in the Commons, were leading them straight to their quarry. They persuaded Barillon that the two objects, the destruction of Danby, for which he was as anxious as themselves, and the putting aside of James, went necessarily together, and he joined eagerly in the scheme.
On Saturday, November 2nd, 1678, Shaftesbury began the attack. Supported by Halifax, Essex, and Barlow, Bishop of London, he demanded that the King should be requested to dismiss James from the council. On the following Monday, an address to the same effect was moved by Russell in the Commons. The Duke, said one member, has houses in the country and loves fox-hunting. I would have him retired to some of them to be out of the influence of these damned Jesuits. But it was reserved for Sacheverell to throw out in the form of a question the pregnant suggestion upon which the conflict turned. He asked whether the King and the Parliament may not dispose of the succession. And here Charles recovers our respect.
He took his line with unwanted clearness of perception, and held it with a constancy of decision foreign to his nature. He told Danby privately that he would be content to pare the nails of a Popish successor, but that he would not suffer his brother to be taken away from him, nor the right line of the succession interrupted. Translated into official language, this resolve was given to the House of Commons on November 9th. And, in a little skirmish outside the lines of the main conflict, the King showed himself at his best. Finding that Sir Joseph Williamson, the secretary, had countersigned commissions to Papists, the Commons ordered him to be sent to the Tower. The next day Charles informed them with perfect temper that though they have committed his servant without acquainting him, yet he intends to deal more freely with them.
and acquaint them with his intentions to release his secretary. Turning from this tone of banter to sterner language, he declared, in almost precisely the same words as those used by his father on the like occasion, that with their proposal that part of the militia should be kept in arms for six weeks, a proposal which would have established a force of sixty thousand men over whom he would not have full control, he would not comply. Though but for half an hour. On December 16th he administered a final rebuff. By arrangement between Barillon and the Shaftesbury opposition, and with the eager concurrence of the country party, the Commons had once more insisted upon the disbanding of the army and had given a supply for the purpose, a supply which to mark their distrust of Danby and the King they had ordered to be lodged, not in the Royal Exchequer, But in the Exchequer of London.
A committee was appointed to wait upon Charles with this decision. They had to tell the House on their return that he had sent out word from the House of Lords that he was very busy and could not see them. The intrigue, by the sudden development of which, as by a bolt from the blue, Danby was now struck down in the plenitude of his power, had two points of special interest. Its success was effected by the first violation of the law of secrecy, which constituted the political honor of statesmen, and it was signalized by one of the most dramatic incidents in the history of the House of Commons. Ralph Montague, who had been our ambassador at Paris, held the originals of letters from Danby, which had been written by the King's command and without the knowledge of the secretaries of state, And he knew that their disclosure would, in the present state of feeling, place the ruin of the treasurer beyond doubt.
Montague had his private grievance against Danby, and he was needy. In concert with Shaftesbury and his party, he approached Louis XIV with an offer to produce these letters to the House of Commons for a sufficient consideration in money. Danby was warned by Rearsby, Montague's cousin, of the impending blow. And resolved to strike first. He obtained a warrant to seize Montague's papers, and Charles himself informed the Commons of the fact. A heated debate at once arose to which Montague listened without interruption until directly appealed to. He then very effectively struck his blow. I believe, he said to the expectant house, That the seizing my cabinet and letters was to get into their hands some letters of great consequence that I have to produce, of the designs of a great minister of state, that I have to produce.
Danby had to deal with craft which more than matched his own. The letters of great consequence had been safely put away in another cabinet entrusted to Montague's friends. Upon the clamorous demand of the House, The cabinet was brought in. It was locked, and the key was in Danby's office. A smith was hurriedly sent for, and the lock was forced. Montague took out some papers and handed them to the Speaker. Amid intense excitement, Seymour read to the House two letters, the second of which was dated March 25, 1678, five days after a large supply had been voted to carry on the war. They bade Montague demand from Louis six million livres yearly in case the French conditions of peace were accepted through Charles's efforts.
He was not to mention one syllable of the money to the secretary. They were both subscribed, Danby, and there was added to each. This letter is written by my order, C.R. For Montague's violation of the only understanding upon which ministerial government could be carried on, there was no excuse, and Charles was deeply offended. Nonetheless, the scheme was completely successful. A passionate debate ended in a resolution to impeach the Treasurer. On December 21st, the Articles were voted, and on the 23rd, Danby made his defense before the Lords in a speech of striking ability. With regard to the main charge, his plea was that the letter was written by the king's command upon the subject of peace and war, wherein His Majesty is at all times sole judge and ought to be obeyed, not only by all ministers of state, but by all subjects.
The secretaries, he said, had in such a case nothing to do with the matter. As to being himself in the French interest, he declared in the king's presence and declared truly, That he had always done his utmost to persuade him to refrain from any political connection with France. Nothing could have more clearly defined the relations of ministers to the Crown. The heated debate which followed in the Lords upon this defense contained the comic element which we have learned to look for in the gravest crises. The Earl of Carnarvon, who had never before spoken in the House, came in drunk. Through the kind offices of Buckingham, and under an engagement to speak upon any subject that offered itself. My lords, he said, I understand but little of Latin, but a good deal of English, and not a little of the English history, from which I have learnt the mischiefs of such kinds of prosecutions as these, and the ill fate of the prosecutors.
I could bring many instances, and those very ancient. But, my lords, I shall go no further back. Then the latter end of Queen Elizabeth's reign, at which time the Earl of Essex was run down by Sir Walter Raleigh. My Lord Bacon, he run down Sir Walter Raleigh, and your lordships know what became of my Lord Bacon. The Duke of Buckingham, he ran down my Lord Bacon, and your lordships know what happened to the Duke of Buckingham. Sir Thomas Wentworth, afterwards Earl of Stratford, ran down the Duke of Buckingham, and you all know what became of him. Sir Harry Vane, he ran down the Earl of Stratford, and your lordships know what became of Sir Harry Vane. Chancellor Hyde, he ran down Sir Harry Vane, and your lordships know what became of the Chancellor.
Sir Thomas Osborne, now Earl of Danby, ran down Chancellor Hyde. But what will become of the Earl of Danby your lordships best can tell. But let me see that man that dare run the Earl of Danby down. And we shall soon see what will become of him. The man is inspired, exclaimed Buckingham, and Claret has done the business. In the end, the Lords, whether moved by this argumentum ad hominem or by graver reasons, refused to accede to the Commons' demand for a committal until they had heard the grounds upon which it was based. The Commons girded themselves to battle with the greatest zest, but once more... Charles fell back upon the Constitution. He did not intend to give up Danby yet. On December 26th, he received the supply for disbanding.
On the 30th, he prorogued. And on January 24th, 1679, declaring that he would not be a mere doge of Venice, he dissolved the Parliament, which had now sat for 18 years. and which for a long time had ceased to represent the constituencies in any direct way.
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32 32 - Ch. 5: The Popish Terror and the Triumph of the Court, Pt. 3 17:36
The Popish Terror and the Triumph of the Court, Part III. The dissolution was a counsel of desperation. The new elections were fought amid intense excitement. Under Shaftesbury's guidance, there was a great circulation of exclusionist literature And the cost of a seat mounted to a figure hitherto unknown. The result reflected the panic of the country. Charles did not appear to concern himself in the contest, and his friends were consequently at a stand whether they should pretend or no. And thus it happened that while in the last House the Court had been able to reckon upon 150 steady votes with an occasional majority, It could now depend upon no more than twenty or thirty. A large number of the new members were Presbyterians, and it was felt that once more the program of Clarendon and Danby was wiped out.
One most important aspect of the change was that from this time, the distinction between the Shaftesbury opposition and the country party disappeared. The term Whig henceforth includes them both. A trifling but suggestive instance of the temper of the country was the omission of, most gracious, before the queen's name when prayers were read at Oxford. Before the assembling of the houses, Charles took one or two measures which he hoped would dull the edge of the attack. An attempt was made pro forma to reconvert James, whose zeal for his creed burned more fiercely than ever under the influence of his confessor and of Mary of Modena. and who told the bishops employed that he would neither be of their religion nor pretend to be of it.
On the eve of the opening of the session he was induced to leave the country, but not before he had received the written order from Charles which he demanded, and the King's declaration rendered necessary by the growing pretensions of Monmouth that he had never been married to anyone but the Queen. Charles had for some while, as we learn from a manuscript diary of Sir Edward Daring, had such a declaration ready. He had shown it to Henniege Finch, the Lord Chancellor, on January 12, and Finch asked Daring, who was dining with him on that day, to remember the fact, in case it might at any time be necessary to produce evidence of its existence. Considering the relations between the brothers, Which varied on Charles's part from boon companion to contemptuous dislike.
The steadfastness of the king to the interests of James is strikingly significant of his purpose. He hates him perfectly, said Shaftesbury, and he knows it. Yet he hath the ascendant over him, and by little acts and importunity doth much with him, and seems to govern all. Barillon reported to Louis that Charles When he talks freely in wine, shows much bitterness and even aversion from his brother. To make the ground still safer, the king began the promised disbandment of the troops and allowed it to be understood that Danby would remain in office only until the next quarter. That even now he either failed to understand the situation or felt confident of his own strength was shown by his promotion of the treasurer to a marquisite.
His friends, wrote a careful observer referring to Danby, do much blame him for drawing by an empty title a greater envy on him. On March 6th, 1679, Charles met his second parliament with a frank and able speech. He mentioned the various measures by which he had sought to remove any stumbling blocks, and declared that he would defend the Protestant religion and the laws with his life. On their side, He trusted to see a disposition to deal with the great concerns of the nation, and not to indulge their private animosities. He himself expected to be defended from calumny and danger. Meanwhile, supplies in no stinted form were absolutely necessary if the Protestant policy at home and abroad was to be maintained.
He had, he added, with a careless ignoring of the anger aroused by the steppe, Made Danby a Marquis. The conflict began with the first formalities of the session. The Commons re-elected Seymour to the chair. Charles rejected him as a personal foe to Danby. When they remonstrated, he replied, Gentlemen, all this is but loss of time, and therefore I command you to go back to your house and do as I have commanded you. Matters were equally unpropitious in the Lords. The Lord Chancellor had spoken of the King supporting by his favor the creatures of his power, and Shaftesbury dissected the phrase in Charles's presence. Shaftesbury then moved for an address on Danby's marquisette. Halifax ironically refused to believe in the fact.
Shaftesbury, he said, must be the victim of a flam report. It was impossible that the king could ever be prevailed upon to do an act so ungrateful to his people. But if it were so, it was not to be borne. This he said, looking straight at the king, who, as was his frequent habit, was in the house, standing by the fireplace. For he was wont to say that a debate in the lords was as amusing as a play. Charles, for once, was moved beyond his customary placidity. "'My God!' he exclaimed. "'How I am ill-treated, and I must bear it and keep silence!' A few days later he summoned the commons and addressed them in words which left no room for doubt. For once he took all responsibility upon himself. The incriminating letters had been written, he said, by his particular order.
So far from Danby concealing the plot, the treasurer had known no more of it than he himself had chosen to tell him. He had given him a free pardon, and he would, if it were necessary, give it him again ten times over. Nevertheless, he intended to relieve him of his office and to forbid him the court. The manner in which the pardon was passed was Charles's own. Finch, the Lord Chancellor, related to the house how the king had arranged it so as to free him of all blame. His Majesty declared he was resolved to pass it with all privacy, and suddenly after commanded the Lord Chancellor to bring the seal from Whitehall, and being there he laid it upon the table. Whereupon His Majesty commanded the seal to be taken out of the bag, which his lordship was obliged to submit unto, it not being in his power to hinder it, and the king wrote his name upon the top of the parchment, and then directed to have it sealed, Whereupon the person that usually carried the purse affixed the seal to it.
Finch himself did not consider that he had custody of the seal while this was done, nor was the pardon entered in any office. Neither the uncompromising character of Charles's speech, nor the recital of this state farce, served to turn the commons from their course. On March 24th they demanded justice upon Danby from the Lords, For they scouted the idea that a pardon could bar an impeachment. Charles was present in the house when the demand arrived. He wrote a hasty note to Danby warning him to leave his lodgings at once, and sent it by his natural son, the Earl of Plymouth, Danby's son-in-law. When the messengers arrived to arrest him, Danby was safe in Whitehall itself. The Lords thereupon passed a bill of banishment against him if he did not appear.
But avoided naming the day. The commons threw it out as too moderate and sent up a bill of attainder to the Lords, which was passed on April 14th to be effective should he not surrender himself up by the 21st. On the 17th, Danby gave himself up, and was straightway committed to the tower where he remained for five years. The king seemed not concerned at his parting thus with his brother and his treasurer, nor what use the Parliament would make of it. Five years later, when Danby was released, Charles received him as though his appearance was an event calling for no special notice. As a matter of fact, Danby had remained perfectly accessible to his friends throughout his imprisonment, And there are many indications that Charles was in frequent communication with him as to his own course.
The perfect coolness of the King during the six frenzied weeks which followed, weeks of what we may call parliamentary expletives in the shape of votes of excessive violence, extorts our admiration. Once more he bided his time, only interposing now and again in the turmoil of passion. On April 30th, He offered expedience of a very drastic character, which would have secured the Protestant religion under a Popish successor, if that Popish successor had been willing to abide by them. But these were at once rejected as a little gilding to cover a poisonous pill. A fresh address for the removal of Lauderdale was met by the reply that he would consider it and return an answer. This attitude served only to increase the hysterical violence of the Commons.
On May 9th, they declared that any Commoner who maintained the validity of Danby's pardon was a betrayer of the liberties of his country. On the 10th, they committed his brother-in-law, Charles Bertie, for unsatisfactory answers as to the expenditure of Secret Service money. On the 11th, a Sunday, they resolved to bring in an exclusion bill. And they passed a vote which offered an alarming prospect, that if the King should come to any violent death at anyone's hands, they will revenge it to the utmost upon the Papists. The bill for exclusion was read the first time on the 15th, and a second time on the 21st. Charles let it go on without further intervention, and there is no doubt that Shaftesbury expected him to give way completely to the pressure.
He was soon undeceived. On May 23rd, Rearsby was surprised to find the king so cheerful amongst so many troubles, but it was not his nature to think much or to perplex himself. He had thought more than Rearsby imagined. On the 26th, he joined the circle of courtiers in the Queen's room. I have just, he said, freed myself from the burden which weighed upon me. How they have deceived themselves if they imagine that want of money would force me to extremities. I shall find means to pay the fleet and manage economically. It will be difficult and uncomfortable for me, but I will submit to anything rather than endure the gentlemen of the Commons any longer. On that day he prorogued, and in July he dissolved a Parliament which had not passed a single act except the habeas corpus act.
Even here, the farcical element will obtrude itself. That act, an act of incalculable importance, passed its third reading in the Lord's because the tellers, in joke, counted one very fat Lord as ten. The disappearance of Danby and the consequent dislocation of the executive had led to an experiment of which Temple claimed the credit. Though there were others who declared themselves his authors. This was the formation of a new Privy Council of such a character that either it would work with Parliament or, by its great strength, would enable the King to dispense with Parliament. It therefore included the chief leaders of the Opposition, and landed wealth since authority followed land was a principal qualification.
So carefully was this attended to that the new council held property and land equal to three-quarters of that of the whole House of Commons. Halifax, Sunderland, and Essex possessed together more than the king. There was no longer to be a sole minister like Danby. No important step was to be taken by the king without the concurrence of the council, and in especial, with obvious reference to Barillon, Foreign ambassadors were to obtain the consent of the council before seeking audience with the king. The new constitution was viewed with very various feelings. While bonfires of joy were lighted in the streets, while the stock of the East India Company rose rapidly and the Dutch displayed increased confidence, Barrio did not conceal his annoyance.
The commons received the announcement with considerable coolness and suspicion. Regarding it as some new juggle of the king, and such of them as had not been included in the council declared that court and country livery could never be worn together. Charles took the whole matter and the engagements it implied with the lightest possible heart. He accepted the list presented to him almost without reservation. His one expressed objection was, as usual, purely personal. It was only after great solicitation from Temple and others that he consented to the admission of Halifax, for he did not forget the insult in the Lord's. But once there, Halifax soon gained ground with the king, who had the same keen sense of humor as himself.
To emphasize his complacency, Charles himself suggested that Shaftesbury should be president, and, as usual, his real views were expressed in private. God's fish, he said to Bruce. They have put a set of men about me, but they shall know nothing, and this keep to yourself. And he noticed the omission of Bruce's father with the remark, He was to be left out because I do love him. All this did not promise a long life to the new experiment. From the formation of this council to the end of the reign, the stage is occupied by a number of actors, each of marked individuality, who changed places with kaleidoscopic effect. There is Shaftesbury, whose sweeping victory at the polls illustrated anew the commanding influence he had secured in the country, and especially in London as leader of the Whigs, but who was so blinded by his hatred of Danby and James, by his love of party warfare, by his ambitions and by his immediate popularity, as to imagine that the English people might be brought to suffer a bastard to mount the ancient throne.
There was Monmouth himself, with the same personal attractions as Buckingham, but with more than Buckingham's folly, posing as the champion of Protestantism against his uncle James, whom he confronted with insolence and insult. Treated with a doting affection by his putative father, and preparing the way for a direct assertion of heirship, By removing the bar sinister from the arms of his coach, and by accepting the title of Royal Highness. There was Halifax, this great lord for indeed considering all, he was the greatest in parts I ever knew, sagacious, temperate, philosophical and cynical, with rare powers of eloquence seldom exercised, who as soon as he realized Shaftesbury's aim, took his line at once against Monmouth and exclusion.
An Essex, honest, able in government and finance, an earnest Protestant, too earnest to cultivate that bantering humor which so smoothed all paths with the king. Of the two last, no one, it was said, can blame them for any action in their whole lives except about the plot. To them must be added the high-souled Russell, informed with an invincible belief in the papist design. Sunderland, son of a famous mother, a true child of the time, brilliant, unscrupulous, dissolute, an inveterate gambler at politics as at the playing tables. Lawrence Hyde, Clarendon's younger son, subtle and astute. Temple, cultured and doctrinaire. Godolphin, pliant and useful, never in the way and never out of it. Louise de Quirouaille and Barillon.
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33 33 - Ch. 5: The Popish Terror and the Triumph of the Court, Pt. 4 15:27
The Popish Terror and the Triumph of the Court. Part Four.
As each fresh question came up for solution, or each emergency had to be met, or each personal quarrel to be fought out, All these persons joined or parted, unguided by the king, like birds wheeling in the air. Thus Sunderland, Essex, Halifax, and Temple acted together to induce the king to dismiss Lauderdale. But when Shaftesbury was brought in, Temple ceased to attend, and at the same time quarreled with Halifax on the genuineness of the plot. Halifax and Shaftesbury united over the plot were hopelessly at issue on the question of Monmouth and exclusion. Bickerings arose between Essex and Shaftesbury over the raising of a troop of guards under Monmouth's command. Halifax, Sunderland, Essex, and Temple advised dissolution and were opposed by Shaftesbury, Russell, and the rest of the council.
Presently, Halifax, Sunderland, and Essex held sway While Shaftesbury and Temple remained away from their deliberations. Then, Sunderland and James joined forces against Shaftesbury, who was dismissed and who refused to come back, when appealed to by Sunderland himself, on any terms except the divorce of Charles and the exclusion of James. Halifax fell ill, Essex resigned his first commissionership of the Treasury, Russell and several more of the country party, asked Charles's leave to resign. Then followed the reign of the Chits, Sunderland, Lawrence Hyde, and Godolphin. But before long, Sunderland and Louise de Quirouaille were seeking an alliance with Shaftesbury against James and Hyde. Louise and Barillon supported Monmouth and his friends and plotted for exclusion, while Charles maintained his brother's cause.
Even Nellie Gwynne was brought into the turmoil and strange association with the grave Essex. And the explanation is that except upon personal points and upon the sanctity of the succession, Charles did not care in the least how matters went among his servants. As for the future, his kingly philosophy led him no farther than it led Louis XV. If I can be well so long as I live... I care little what happens afterwards. His ministers and councillors might intrigue and quarrel as they pleased, but he would do what he wanted, provided it was also the easiest thing to do. Halifax and Rearsby and Danby and the Tower complained of the unsteadiness of the King's temper, that he hearkened to other councils at a back door, which made him wavering and slow to resolve.
While in other eyes this backdoor influence had its merits, since it prevented him from being very long in ill hands. The Duchess of Portsmouth would often make the king break his engagements to others, and his ministers could not be safe under such uncertainties. He would now and then, with that self-deception which was becoming habitual, go out of his way to assure individuals of his constancy. Do not trouble yourself, he said to one. I will stick by you and my old friends, for if I do not, I shall have nobody to stick by me. And Francis North related to his brother how, while he was sitting upon the woolsack, as the king thought pensive, his majesty came and clapped himself down close by him, and, My lord, said he, Be of good comfort.
I will never forsake my friends as my father did, and rose up and went away without saying a word more. One matter he speedily made clear. The new council might take itself as seriously as it would, but its members must give up the idea that his conduct was to be shaped either by their wishes or by his own promises. When Russell denounced Lauderdale after the news of the Bothwell brig rising, sit down, my lord, he said, this is no place for addresses. It was in opposition to almost the whole Council that he dissolved the Parliament on July 10th. He had previously prorogued it without asking their advice. Shaftesbury broke out into passionate exclamations of anger, declaring that those who suggested the dissolution deserved to lose their heads, and he was supported by Russell.
Gentlemen, said Charles Cooley, it is enough. This temper was reflected in his daily habits. Little was done all day, writes one of his suite at this very time, but going a-fishing. At night the Duchess of Portsmouth came. In the morning I was with the King at Mrs. Nell's. Charles's management of the Popish fury was especially characteristic. He knew that it must spend its strength before long and go out like the snuff of a candle, That, as Burnett noted, every execution, like a new bleeding, abated the fever that the nation was in. Men of all classes and professions had been done to death, and in not a single case had a confession been forthcoming to whet the appetite for slaughter. Sober men were growing frankly ashamed.
I much fear, wrote Pridot at the end of July 1679, That this business at last will appear very foul and render us odious and contemptible through all Europe. Charles waited quietly. He knew that the judges, especially Scrogg's, the Lord Chief Justice, were at his beck and call, and that acquittals would replace convictions whenever he chose to give the word. The moment had come, he thought, when Sir George Wakeman, the Queen's physician, was accused by Oates. Scroggs had the hint, and for the first time the indignant informer found his evidence subjected to judicial criticism. Wakeman was acquitted, and his acquittal was the beginning of the end of the madness. A remark of Lord Howard to Scroggs put the case in the fewest possible words.
If Oates and Bedloe be not to be believed in all they say, and if the Queen be not a traitor, our business is at an end. Among the dupes of the terror, this action did indeed for the moment rouse the frenzy to a fiercer flame, which was brought to white heat by the exposure of the meal-tub plot. But Charles allowed a heavy batch of priests to be hanged, and the mob settled down again. With Shaftesbury and his friends, the indignation against Scroggs was extreme. Especially when he was formally visited by the Portuguese ambassador, who thanked him for saving the queen's servant. But Charles made him full amends for the baiting he endured. He summoned him to Windsor and was very extraordinarily favorable to him.
They have used me worse, said Charles, and I am resolved we will stand and fall together. The king's treatment of the Lauderdale question illustrates his methods well. Lauderdale's misgovernment of Scotland had produced the revolt of the Western Covenanters, which was looked upon, at least with sympathy, by the English Presbyterians, and the evidence of this was shortly so complete as to make Henry Saville declare, Surely these accidents will at last cure my master of his infinite passion for his beautiful paramour of Lauderdale. But when Lauderdale was formally attacked before the council by the Hamilton party from Scotland, Charles merely remarked that while many damned things had been objected against Lauderdale, nothing had been advanced detrimental to his own service.
In August 1679, an event happened which showed that however coolly Charles might take matters, The prospect was menacing enough in the eyes of sober onlookers. He was suddenly attacked with an illness, which for a few days appeared likely to be fatal. The very cause seems to bring him within touch. Last Wednesday His Majesty played a tennis, and after that he had been in bed and rubbed, he walked a long time by the waterside. A chill and fever ensued. In a moment, The possibilities of the future came forcibly before men's minds. The dread of the designs of Shaftesbury in Monmouth is seen in the almost hysterical exclamations which appear in the private letters of the time. Temple felt that anything which should happen to the king was the end of the world.
Algernon Sidney declared that there was no extremity of disorder to be imagined that the nation might not probably have fallen into. Good God," wrote Henry Savile to his brother Halifax, what a change would such an accident make. The very thought of it frightes me out of my wits. God bless you and deliver us all from such a damnable curse. That all this was not without good ground is shown by Sir Robert Payton's confession to the Privy Council, that if the King had died at Windsor, the Monmouth party was prepared for a coup d'etat, They had arranged to seize the Tower, Dover Castle, and Portsmouth, and to arrest any who should offer to proclaim James. Under the stress of such anxieties, Halifax and Essex, with Charles's assent, secretly summoned James from Brussels.
He reached Windsor on September 2nd and was received by the King with the greatest delight and with the most admirably feigned astonishment. But scarcely had he arrived when Charles rallied so far that it was thought well to quiet popular feeling by sending the duke out of the country again without delay. This time, however, he was allowed to go to Scotland instead of to Brussels, and even this modified exile was sweetened by the dismissal of Monmouth also. At the same time Monmouth was removed from the captain-general ship conferred upon him, when he went in Lauderdale's place to suppress the Whigs at Bothwell Brig. James asked for a comprehensive pardon, but Charles remembered the uproar raised in the case of Danby and refused it.
In spite of all forebodings and the loyalty of his subjects, which was so great that it required the united physical efforts of the Privy Council and the gentlemen of the bedchamber to keep back the crowds who pressed into the room, Charles was soon on his feet again. By September 2nd, he had exchanged water gruels and potions for mutton and partridges, on which he feeds frequently and heartily. And on the 28th, he scouted the opinion of his physician and declared himself able to go to the suite heir of Newmarket. He resumed, indeed, all his old habits, for in a month or two he added a fresh mistress to his suite. But he does not seem to have recovered his full health or spirits. In December, one of the Verney family wrote, The girls tells me the king looked so very ill as it grieved them to see him, and came twice in but spoke to none but my lord Feversum, who came in with him.
They never saw man have more discontent and disorder in the looks than the king had. The new elections had not altered the complexion of the parliament. It should have met in October, but Charles felt himself strong enough to adjourn it until January 1680, and meanwhile to remove Shaftesbury from the Presidentship of the Council. Farther, when Monmouth, the darling of the mob, returned from Holland without leave, Charles refused to see him, dismissed him from his Captaincy of the Guard and all his remaining posts, and insisted on his leaving London at once. Monmouth, who in addition to other differences had a sordid quarrel with his uncle over a woman, now openly espoused exclusion, and the situation was more full of dangerous possibilities than ever.
To the ordinary onlooker, it was a crazy time everywhere. The immediate question was whether Charles would permit the houses to meet in January. The Whig peers made a mistake in tactics when, headed by Rupert and Shaftesbury, They presented a petition to this effect. The King replied that he would take it into consideration and that he wished everyone was as careful for the peace of the nation as himself. A day or two later, he prorogued to November and issued a proclamation denouncing petitions as illegal. He was thereupon bombarded with petitions from all over the country, which had been prepared in accordance with instructions from Shaftesbury's London office. Charles showed himself perfectly equal to the occasion.
His answers were much more effective than his proclamation. "'I look on myself,' he said to the petitioners from London and Westminster, "'as the head of the government, and mean to do what I think best for myself and my people. You would not take it well. I should meddle with your affairs, and I desire you will not meddle with mine,' was all that the Wiltshire deputation had to carry away. Well, to the Berkshire gentleman he said, with that peculiar bon ami which was his most powerful defense, we will argue the matter over a cup of ale when we meet at Windsor, though I wonder my neighbors should meddle with my business. It was quite clear that it was of no use to try to bully Charles. It was equally clear that the petitioners were not the country.
From every side came a flood of counter-addresses declaring confidence in the king's wisdom and abhorrence of the petitioners. The nation was divided between petitioners and abhorrers. The calculations of the Whig leaders were completely upset by the decision shown by Charles, who now felt it safe to call back James to his side. Russell And three other principal Whigs on the council hereupon asked the king's leave to retire. With all my heart, was the cool reply. He had become reconciled to Monmouth, but in April he deprived him of all false hopes by publishing the declaration already mentioned, in which he denied in the most solemn manner that he had ever been married to Lucy Walters or to any woman but the queen.
End. of section thirty three.
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34 34 - Ch. 5: The Popish Terror and the Triumph of the Court, Pt. 5 17:51
The Popish Terror and the Triumph of the Court. Part Five.
A month later, Charles was again ill, with symptoms which looked like apoplexy. He had shown himself sullen and intractable, and lived very privately at this time. There was little resort to him, and he passed his days in fishing or walking in the park, which indeed he loved more than to be in a crowd or in business. But he will keep well if he can be kept from fishing when a dog would not be abroad. Thomas Bruce draws a striking picture of the change which for the time had come over the court, of its comparative melancholy and solitude. He was, he says, put in mind of some manuscript verses that were going about then. Thus have I seen a king at chess, his rooks and knights withdrawn, his queen and bishops in distress, shifting about, growing less and less, with here and there a pawn.
The Whig attack had not yet spent itself. On June 26, 1680, Shaftesbury and 14 other leaders of the party Presented James as a recusant at Westminster Hall. The Court of King's Bench, however, managed to secure the discharge of the jury before the case came on, and the move was a failure. Neither of the brothers seemed troubled. His Highness smiles, dances, makes love, and hunts. Charles, who by this time had recovered his spirit, supported James, out of his genuine resolve to maintain the succession. Or, as ill-natured people said, because it is good to have a successor they like worse than himself. Undoubtedly, James was useful as a first line of defense. The King and Duke seem both in good humor, and if they will be firm, I believe they are safe.
Charles felt he ran no risk in refusing the Whig sheriff selected by the city, in spite of the fact that the Lord Mayor played the devil. Although in what manner we are unfortunately not told in detail. But he sought as before to disarm opposition before the approaching meeting of Parliament, by inducing James and his wife to go to Scotland again, on the express assurance that he would give up neither the Duke's rights nor the control of the sword. He did this with one of his usual jests. Upon proposing it in council, he found that there were seven who supported And Eleven, who objected to the journey. Since he has so many friends for him, said Charles, I see he must go. At length the King met Parliament on October 21, 1680.
He was in ill-humour, having ill things put into his head. Possibly this was because Louise de Quirouaille had openly allied herself to Monmouth and Shaftesbury and declared for exclusion. Personal pique, And the chance of farther enrichment had led her to this decision. She had been slighted by James's wife, and had been offered a heavy bribe by the Whig leaders. Charles followed his former course. He bade the house pursue the plot, at the very time that he was pressing its absurdity upon Rearsby, and with abominable cynicism he threw to them, as it were, the Catholic lords imprisoned in the tower. But nonetheless, he once more made it clear that he would permit no tampering with the succession.
As the Commons had come together under Shapesbury's impulse, and with the ground well prepared by Barillon for exclusion, and nothing short of exclusion, the result was what might be imagined. A detailed account could alone give an adequate idea of the violence of the proceedings. The Commons took their tale of blood, And after a fortnight of uncompromising votes of rejection of those very idle things called expedience, as being like Montebank's tricks in physic, of expulsion of members who dared to stand in the way, of declarations in favor of petitioning, of hysterical declamation, the exclusion bill passed the Commons on November 11th. On the 15th, with a mighty shout, the bill was taken to the Lords by Russell.
Followed by most of the commons. It was significant that he was accompanied by the Lord Mayor and Alderman. Charles stayed in the house for the debate. He heard Shaftesbury's passionate attacks. He heard Monmouth urge exclusion for the King's sake. A Judas kiss, he bitterly said, and listened while Halifax triumphed. Then the violence broke out with heat made fiercer by disappointment. Once more the torrent of expletives burst forth. Addresses, attacks on ministers, impeachments, expulsions, resolutions against the Papists, against James, against the judges, against placemen and pensioners, against prorogations against those who lent money to the Crown, associations, votes that the penal laws should not be executed against the Protestants, the very dispensing power which Charles had claimed in vain.
These were flung out by the Commons day by day. They refused to discuss questions of foreign affairs as court tricks. They started many hairs but catched but few. Their violence was equaled by, was a measure indeed of, their impotence. Charles was quite careless of the fact that everybody was unsatisfied with him. He may, as Dorothy Sidney said, have acted as if he were mad. But he was completely master of the situation. When the commons addressed him against Halifax, whom they now hated more than they had hated Danby, Charles told them in a reply which smothered them with blandness, that he doth not find the grounds in the address of this house to be sufficient to induce him to remove the Earl of Halifax.
He had resolved, as he said to Rearsby, Never to part with any officer at the request of either house. My father, he declared, lost his head by that compliance, but as for me, I will die another way. He was in excellent humor throughout. On December 24th, he spent some time upon the subject of showing the cheat of such as pretended to be more holy and devout than others, and said they were generally the greatest knaves. He was that night two hours putting off his clothes, and it was half past one before he went to bed. He seemed extremely free from trouble or care, though one would have thought he was under a great deal. For everybody guessed that he must either dismiss the Parliament in a few days, or give himself up to what they desired.
All doubts were soon removed. It was apparently by Danby's advice That he prorogued Parliament on January 10, 1681, very suddenly. And when the Lord Mayor and Alderman petitioned that he would allow it, not only to meet at the appointed day, but to continue sitting until it had secured religion and the safety of the King, he put an end to all doubts by a dissolution. The honors of war were with Charles. Upon one matter only had the angry Commons had their way. The Earl of Stafford, despite his seventy years, was brought to trial before his peers. It would seem that he was deliberately chosen from among the five Catholic lords in the Tower because he was old and infirm, least capable of defending himself, and disliked even in his own family.
And he had made his fate certain by bringing charges against Shaftesbury. The trial was a mockery of justice. The king listened throughout, while Louise de Quirouaille, who may go where she will now she is a favorite of the House of Commons, sat in the hall and confirmed her newly acquired popularity by distributing smiles and sweetmeats to the members of the opposition who crowded round her. Stafford disappointed his persecutors by his courage and by the ability of his defense. While his perfect innocency appeared in all his actions and expressions. But his own relatives voted against him. Lauderdale, as his last public act of shame, declared him guilty. Nottingham, who presided, strained the law to the utmost, and seemingly under the grossest error in common justice that ever was known.
Such are the words of Francis North. The poor old man was sentenced to die. Even so, the ferocity of his persecutors was unappeased. A savage protest was raised in the Commons, joined in, one regrets to say, by Russell, when Charles sanctioned the omission of the more revolting of the hideous rights, which by law accompanied an execution for treason. Charles might well show this cheap leniency. The king that heard all the trials seemed extremely concerned at his hard but undeserved fate. He was very uneasy, says another of his trusted courtiers, when it came to sign the death warrant, and did it with the last reluctancy, and it was with the highest difficulty that it was obtained. But the timorous part of the king's council overruled the rest.
Faithful to his cynical policy of Leaving all to the laws, he refused once more to exercise the right of pardon. At the same time after his fashion, he tried to throw responsibility on others. When Anglesey, one of the lords who had declared Stafford guilty, expressed surprise before his face that he should have signed the warrant, then why, my lord, says Charles, did you give your vote against him? Charles had, for the time. Utterly routed the exclusionists, and had preserved the purity of the doctrine of hereditary right. So strong did he seem that it was said that if the king would be advised, it is in his power to make all his opponents tremble. But the aspect of affairs had been very threatening.
Sober men had even anticipated civil war. Halifax had said to Rearsby, If it come to a war, you and I must go together. And Halifax generally measured his words. We know that James had spoken of the probability of war to Barillon, and that the garrisons had been put in readiness. The Duke intended to fight the English Parliament from Scotland and Ireland as of old. He had claimed the help of France, and Louis had promised it when he should feel himself safe in Scotland. Charles could now show his feelings, though this lasted not long. For it was not in his nature to do harsh things long. He dismissed leading exclusionists from the council, among them Sunderland, the secretary who was in close alliance with Louise de Quirouay, Essex, and Temple.
He indeed punished Sunderland with his special severity by not allowing him to receive from his successor any part of the sum which, according to custom, he had paid to Williamson for his office. Charles then announced that the next parliament would be held at Oxford. The sagacity of this step by which the session was removed from London, where Shaftesbury and the Whigs were supreme, was shown by their outspoken anger. Essex, Shaftesbury, and fourteen other peers sought an interview in which they urged their objections. Charles coldly replied that he regarded their petition only as the opinion of so many men. Indirectly, the steppe helped the king in London itself. Tradesmen have other things to think of than exclusion, and the loss of custom in London turns many shopkeepers into courtiers.
There was no doubt that the coming session would be a stormy and critical one. Shaftesbury had again issued special instructions for the constituencies. Exclusion. Limitation of the royal power to prorogue or dissolve at will. The disbanding of the King's guards and all other standing forces, and the refusal of supplies without these safeguards. These were to be the tests for candidates. Under this impulse, a House was returned even more prepared to go to extreme lengths than the last. What Bruce says of Bedfordshire held good for the whole country. The Russell faction was like a spring tide at full moon. The city was enthusiastic in support of Shaftesbury and Monmouth, and Whitehall was beset by crowds of vaporing exclusionists.
It looked indeed like the beginning of civil war, when members came to Oxford, armed with large retinues of horsemen, and with blue bows and ribbons inscribed with, No Popery, No Slavery, in their hats. The king heard that there was an intention to kidnap him in Oxford, Carry him to London and make terms with him there. He was not the man to lose his head in the danger, but he was careful to post Lord Oxford's regiment and detachments along the Windsor Road to secure his retreat if it should prove necessary. Charles entered upon his last contest with Parliament with a clearer determination and a lighter heart than usual, for he had taken measures of the old familiar kind Which would enable him to slip from under their hand whenever he chose.
Ever since the fall of Danby, he had been in poverty, which must almost have recalled to him the days of exile. For the officers of the Crown and household were clamorous for their salaries and wages. There were no stores in the magazines either for sea or land forces. The garrisons were out of repair. The platforms decayed. The cannon unmounted. Parliament gave no supplies, and there was scarce bread for the King's family. In the autumn of 1679, he had nearly come to an agreement with Louis, whereby for a pension of three years he was to promise an intermission of Parliament for that period. This particular intrigue, however, came to nothing at the time through mutual distrust and through the peculiarities of the situation in both countries.
Charles, therefore, threw himself heartily into the cause of the Allies against Louis, and in June 1680 concluded a treaty with Spain for resistance to France. Louis, in his turn, decided to support the Monmouth-Shaftsbury faction by profuse bribery, in which he included not only the parliamentary opposition, but city merchants and the chief Presbyterian preachers. But it was once more made clear that nothing could permanently oppose the course of the national hatred against France, and Louis recognized during the Great Session of 1680 that it was more advisable to support Charles against Parliament than Parliament against Charles. In November, Barillon had opened the subject again with the King.
Charles hung back until just before the dissolution. He then expressed himself willing to listen to proposals. By the time of the Oxford meeting, all had been arranged. Hyde had investigated the finances and had reported that even with the strictest economy, some help was necessary to make the King independent of Parliament. Louis was therefore asked and consented to conclude the compact which had fallen through in 1679. He agreed to pay Charles a subsidy for the next three years, which would enable him to live quietly, while Charles promised to disengage himself gradually from the Spanish alliance and to take care that Parliament should not drive him to measures hostile to France. This agreement was unwritten.
It was known to hide alone. Not even James or Louise de Quirouay, though she had now recovered favor, was allowed to share the secret. And it is a lively illustration of the difficulty of secrecy to read that on one occasion Charles found it necessary to discuss matters with Barillon, not in his own, but in the Queen's bedroom, dans la Ruelle du Lits, the narrow space between the bed and the wall, where at least there would be the width of the bed between them and listeners. As there were no documents, there was, of course, nothing binding, and it was understood that if Charles could come to terms with his Parliament, the agreement would lapse.
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V. The Popish Terror and the Triumph of the Court. Part VI.
On March 21, 1681, began a notable week in the history of Parliament. The Lords were in the Geometry School, The commons in Convocation House. The King took up his residence at Christ Church. He opened the session with by far the best speech he had ever delivered, somewhat minotauri, but clear, dignified, reasonable, and unmistakable. It had been carefully considered, and it was printed and published in London before it was in the hands of the members at Oxford. He had parted, he said, with the last Parliament, because I, who will never use arbitrary government myself, am resolved not to suffer it in others. By his calling them together so soon, they could see that no irregularities in Parliament should make him out of love with them.
He again recommended them to go on with the plot and with the trial of the Lords in the Tower. Then came the passage for which the houses were waiting. Was Charles at last going to surrender? What I have formally, and so often declared touching the succession, I cannot depart from. The succession must be inviolate, but if means can be found that in the case of a Popish succession the administration of the government may remain in Protestant hands, I shall be ready to hearken to any such expedient. It was understood that Charles was willing that after his death the Duke should be king only in name, the kingdom being governed by a protector or the Privy Council, the Prince of Orange through his wife would be the protector.
The temper of the commons was shown in their first action, declaring themselves not inclinable to changes. They elected as Speaker William Williams, who had held the same position in the last House, a lawyer of competent learning, but of a fiery and vicious temper, and subservient to that party and pliant to them as a spaniel dog. They probably thought and hoped that the King would raise preliminary difficulties on an appointment so aggressive, but he shrewdly took it as a matter of course and advised them to get on with business. On the 24th, before formal discussion was begun, Shaftesbury made a singularly ill-advised attempt to shake Charles's resolution. In a conversation in the House of Lords, he pressed the king to declare Monmouth his successor.
Charles replied that nothing should make him do a thing so contrary to law. Shaftesbury rejoined that if he would leave it to himself and his friends, they would see to it, That the law was on his side. Charles closed the conversation thus. My lord, let there be no self-delusion. I will never yield, and will not let myself be intimidated. I have law and reason on my side. Good men will be with me. There is the Church, pointing to the bishops, which will remain united with me. Believe me, my lord, we shall not be divided. On Saturday, March 26th, the discussion took place upon Charles's expedient. It was purely academic, for the Commons, as before, meant the exclusion of James and nothing less, while it can scarcely be doubted that the expedient had been put forward by the King in order that its certain rejection might place him in a stronger position.
God be praised, wrote one of the court who dreaded expedience more than the bill. God has blinded them in so great a measure that they would have all or nothing. The scheme received scant courtesy. Birch, who had a taste for imagery, declared that it was absurd to hope that you could keep water cold in a hot pot, while Harbert improved upon this by saying that expedience deserved the same treatment as cucumber. Dress it, and then throw it away. A resolution was carried to exclude James, but there is little doubt that even more drastic designs had been formed among the Whig leaders, designs which justified the statement that the question was not now whether the Duke should succeed or not, but whether it should be monarchy or a commonwealth.
Charles learned that it was intended to revive a proposal of the previous Parliament, Which would accomplish a complete transference of both the military and civil powers to persons whom the Whigs could trust, and would establish Parliament in continuous session. The preservation of his own prerogative, and the preservation of the succession, now formed one cause. The crisis was undoubtedly serious. The manner in which Charles met it was not exactly Cromwellian, but it served. As so often was the case, Genial trickery formed the basis of his method. On Sunday he busied himself in taking measures to meet the complaint of the Commons that their quarters were too narrow, and that evening he expressed his satisfaction at having been able to arrange for their better comfort.
A great show was made of putting the theatre in readiness for their occupation on the following Tuesday. But in the afternoon, He had held a cabinet council at Merton in the Lord Chancellor's lodgings, where there was not one false or babbling member. During the night his coaches were quietly sent a stage out of Oxford to await his coming with a guard of horse. Early on Monday morning he went to the Lord's, apparently now in the Hall of Christ Church. A closed sedan chair which followed contained his official robes. Hastily putting them on and preventing a hint of his intention from reaching the Commons, by holding one of the peers who evidently had his suspicions in conversation to the last moment, he placed himself on the throne, and without giving the lords time for their customary robing, ordered the lower house to be summoned.
He was evidently enjoying himself thoroughly while he sat waiting their arrival. Noticing Thomas Bruce come in by the door next to the canopy, he gave him a smile of peculiar graciousness, and Bruce, who describes the scene which follows, records that he never saw him look so cheerful. Presently, the commons arrived. The door was extremely narrow, and there were three steps from it down into the body of the hall. This prolonged the entry for many minutes. At length, all were in. And there they stood, crowded together in the greatest discomfort, while the Speaker forced his way to the bar with Russell and Cavendish, representatives of the two greatest Whig families, on his right and left respectively.
The noise resulting from the uneasiness of the throng was such that it was not until the sergeant-at-arms had thrice commanded silence in the King's name that Charles could put the finishing touch to this carefully prepared comedy. He knew that they had come in the belief that under the pressure of his necessities he was about to announce his surrender. "'Gentlemen,' he said, "'that all the world may see to what a point we are come, that we are not likely to have a good end when the divisions at the beginning are such. Therefore, my Lord Chancellor, do as I have commanded you.'" Finch hereupon declared the Parliament dissolved, and Charles at once, Left the throne. As the baffled crowd crushed up the three steps and out at the narrow door, Bruce was witness of their dreadful faces and loud sighs.
He then joined the king in the disrobing chamber, and Charles, with a face radiant with satisfaction, his peculiarly bright black eyes gleaming with amusement, touched him on the shoulder with the remark that it was better to have one king than five hundred. To avoid suspicion, which might have caused inconvenient detentions, the king dined, or rather breakfasted, in public and with music as usual. But he speedily rose from the table, left the room, and went privately down some back stairs. The matter would not be complete without these back stairs, to where Sir Edmund Seymour's coach was standing ready. He had once drove off unattended by any royal guards or footmen to the stage where his own coach was waiting and reached Windsor that night.
At last, then, Charles was free. He had won his final victory over Parliament, and he had saved the succession intact. But if he were free on one side, he was fettered as he never had yet been on the other. He was helpless for foreign action. For he could not live without the French grants. So completely was he bound to Louis, that William, who came over in July to secure the renewed support of England, was forbidden by Charles to attend the Lord Mayor's banquet, lest the opportunity should be taken for a popular demonstration against France. Charles, indeed, went through the form of remonstrating with his cousin upon his aggressions in Europe and upon the persecution which was now beginning to fall upon the Huguenot.
But the first protest was but of form, while the second came with little force, from the man who had allowed scores of Catholics to be done to death under the most shameless travesties of justice, and had thus become, in no small degree, the author Of the very cruelties which he affected to deplore. That this is no exaggeration is shown by the order to Barillon to send to Louis a statement as to the treatment of Catholics in England, that being the model designed for what treatment the English Protestants shall find here. Louis gave way to Charles, from the policy of making his path easier, just as much as he felt disposed to give way, and no more. The most rigid economy barely sufficed to carry on the government.
The old story went on of unpaid public servants, of fortifications and ships in decay, of pensions in arrear. No money could be found to pay the interest on a new loan. Even Louise de Quirouaille received no more than twenty thousand pounds this year, while the state of destitution to which poor Nelly Gwynne was reduced can be dimly imagined. There was another illustrious pensioner whose sufferings began at once. Now that Parliament had disappeared, Charles could give practical form to his opinion of the witnesses to the plot. Not only was Titus Oates degraded from Dr. Oates to Mr. Titus, but his blood money fell straightway from ten pounds a week to two pounds, and after September ceased altogether.
The effect of Charles's coup de théâtre upon home relations was more immediate and more drastic than he could have hoped. It was with the Whigs, as it has been well said, as if a gust of wind had suddenly scattered the leaves from a tree. The basis of constitutional action was cut from the feet of the exclusionists, and the reaction which had long been gaining force could now make itself felt. The tension had been severe and prolonged. Moderate men had been alienated by the excessive violence of the Whigs. The Popish terror was practically extinct, and people stood ashamed at their own folly. The well-to-do classes dreaded another civil war and another commonwealth with government by major generals, while the opposition to the idea of the Monmouth succession had grown day by day.
Charles took the tide on the flood. His clever declaration on April 8th, in which he recounted the evil doings of the Parliament for many years and his own manifold virtues, was, however, scarcely needed, and the anonymous reply, a just and modest vindication of the proceedings of the last two Parliaments, fell absolutely flat. An indecent courting and magnifying of James began. Addresses couched in the most slavish language, In which, for once, Cambridge outstripped Oxford, poured in during the summer from end to end of the country. Cambridge assured the king that he reigned by a fundamental hereditary right of succession, which no religion, no law, no fault can alter or diminish, while the following effusion from the town of Wycombe may be quoted as a type of the country addresses.
The addressers speak of the late defeated politicians. Disappointed of their dark designments by Your Majesty's profound wisdom and divine prevision, and protest that, we have always detested and rejected them, together with their now exploded scanty and forsaken abettors. We have ever inserted our loyal selves among the resolute grave and deliberate persons, and we do most highly applaud the stout Fidelios, the strenuous, brisk, and valiant youth. of this your most undiluted nation. We therefore, your Majesty's most dutiful and most devoted subjects, entirely profess that we will to the utmost stress of our sinews, to the latest gasp of our lives, and the last solitary might in our coffers, adhere to your Majesty.
Many have outstripped us on the wing, but none shall exceed us in their wishes. We envy much their more early apply, But none shall ever appear more faithful. God preserve your majesty from all rebellious machinations. Amen. Hyde put the matter with coarse incisiveness. The petitioners, he said, spit in the king's face, the addressers in the king's mouth. Probably Charles never enjoyed a Newmarket visit more than he did in that September. The secretary, Lord Conway, who had succeeded Sunderland, was in attendance, but unless he was much maligned, he was drunk during much of the time, and the King was not therefore troubled with business. Nellie Gwynne was there brimming over with a frontery. Alderman White of Oxford, a person of eminent respectability, was much scandalized while walking with Charles in the fields at meeting that indiscreet lady.
And Nellie called to the King, Charles, I hope I shall have your company at night. Shall I not?
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THE POPISH TERROR AND THE TRIUMPH OF THE COURT. PART VII.
We have already dealt with Charles's life at Newmarket in earlier days. It is evident from Reersby's account that his enjoyment did not diminish with years. The king was so much pleased with the country, and so great a lover of the diversions which that place did afford, that he let himself down from majesty to the very degree of a country gentleman. He mixed himself amongst the crowd, allowed every man to speak to him that pleased, went a-hawking in the mornings, to cock matches or foot-races in the afternoons, if there were no horse-races, and to plays in the evenings acted in a barn, And by very ordinary Bartlemy Fair comedians. Of his last spring meeting in 1684, we hear again, the diversions of the King followed at Newmarket were these, walking in the morning till ten o'clock, then he went to the cockpit till dinner-time, about three he went to the horse races, at six to the cockpit for an hour, then to the play, though the comedians were very indifferent, so to supper, Next, to the Duchess of Portsmouths, till bedtime, and then to his own apartments to bed.
At all events, Charles knew how to take a holiday. Nor was he careless of other people's comfort. We remember how he advised Cortin to wear Welsh flannel next to his skin. On this occasion, he sealed Rearsby's loyalty by a word of princely solicitude. The weather was very unseasonable and dirty, so that walking in the town with His Majesty, He observed I had but thin shoes, and advised me to get a stronger pair, to prevent getting cold, which I hear mention as an example of that prince's great goodness and care of those persons that came near him, however inconsiderable. After the fire which, as we will see, saved him from the Ryehouse plot, but which left him without lodgings, Charles in a measure deserted Newmarket for Winchester.
He had taken a liking to the place and had usually honored Morley's house with his patronage. The burden of entertaining royalty proved severe, and it was remarked that the family would be glad if the king could distribute his favors. Did he intend, they asked, to make the bishop's house his inn? Charles took the hint, but Morley died in 1684, and Meuse was translated from Bath and Wells. Apparently on the understanding that the king should be assured of a good lodging. Promotions to bishoprics were indeed made on various grounds. One in especial deserves mention. Charles had proposed to raise a palace at Winchester designed by Wren on a magnificent scale, for which it was supposed that the ninety thousand pounds found in his strong box after his death had been destined, and with James in the court, Including, of course, Louise de Quiroil and Nellie, he often came down to inspect progress.
At such times, the houses of the dean and prebenderies were used for their accommodation. On one occasion, Charles met with a refusal of a sort to which he was not accustomed, at any rate, from one of his own chaplains. The harbinger had selected Ken's prebendary house as suitable for Nellie Gwynne, but Ken thought otherwise. A woman of ill repute, he replied, ought not to be endured in the house of a clergyman, least of all in that of the king's chaplain. Nellie was duly provided for at the deanery, and the purity of Ken's house was left intact. A year later, when the sea of Bath and Wells was vacant by the translation of Meuse, Charles had his successor ready. God's fish, he exclaimed, when a crowd of claimants presented themselves.
Who shall have bath and wells but the little black fellow who would not give poor Nellie a night's lodging? In spite of the reaction, Charles saw a reason to be careful. The city was intensely Whig, and until means could be found for converting it, no liberties could be taken. At the Lord Mayor's banquet on October 7th, every little fellow undertook to censure the king and his proceedings at that time. When Shaftesbury was prosecuted, the blow fell in the air, for the Middlesex jury threw out the bill. It is a hard case, remarked Charles, that I am the last man to have law and justice in the whole nation. Charles took the proper precautions. He gave up one more illustrious and innocent victim to the dying spirit of the terror, Plunkett, Archbishop of Armagh.
And we fear that even Essex took part in the initial stages of this infamous affair. If it were so, and if, as is stated on good authority, he afterwards besought Charles to pardon Plunkett, declaring from his own knowledge that the charges were false, he was well repaid when the King replied, Then, my lord, be his blood on your own conscience. You might have saved him if you would. I cannot pardon him, because I dare not. He was no less careful to avoid a revival of the animosity against his brother. James had been continually pressing for permission to come back from Scotland. He was now told that he might do so only if he would conform to the church or at least attend her services, conditions which he unhesitatingly refused to accept.
Charles was not without those who dealt faithfully with him. It was now that Burnett presented him with his very plain letter, in which I set before him his past ill life and the effects it had on the nation, with the judgments of God that lay on him, and that was but a small part of the punishment that he might look for. The letter was a very long one, and the king read it through twice before he threw it into the fire. He was probably more affected by Monmouth's insulting behavior In offering bail for Shaftesbury, then by Burnett's letter, for if he could be hurt, it was by Monmouth. At a launch at Deptford immediately afterwards he was observed to be very serious and more concerned than the greatest business did usually make him.
If Charles were to reap the full fruits of his triumph over the Whigs in Parliament, it was, as has been said, obvious that their stronghold, the City of London, must no longer remain an imperium and imperio, from which his enemies could safely defy him. And this was the more important because the contest which had hitherto been carried on with Parliament was now to be continued in the law courts. The management of the laws was the King's offensive arm. But to ensure Tory verdicts it was necessary to obtain Tory juries, and a London jury then was as little to be depended on to find for the crown against a Whig as a temporary jury in later days for the crown against a moonlighter. The first point, therefore, was to secure the election of Tory sheriffs, since the sheriffs pricked the juries.
At midsummer, 1682, this was accomplished by trickery worthy of parish vestrymen who wished to annoy their vicar. And at the end of October, James could congratulate himself upon the choice of a good and loyal mayor as well as two sheriffs of the same stamp. The effect was instantaneous. From being the leader of a great political party, Shaftesbury fell in a moment to the condition of a hunted man. He knew that there was no chance of another ignoramus from a grand jury or even of a fair trial. Broken in health, angry, disappointed, and overwrought, His attempts at reconciliation with the court, scornfully rejected, and his credit lost with the less elastic section of the Whigs by those very attempts.
His schemes for insurrection and attack upon Whitehall discontenanced by Russell, Essex, and Monmouth. He gave up the game, went into hiding in London, and then, under circumstances which almost suggest connivance on the part of the government, Escaped and disguised to Holland, where he died on January 21, 1683. Shaftesbury must have felt that his life had been a failure. In pursuing objects in themselves, fair matters of controversy, if not actually laudable, he had shown grave errors of judgment and had committed great crimes. That he should have striven for toleration of Protestant descent goes far by itself to redeem his memory. That he should have used his whole political influence, his astuteness in party warfare, his industry, and his eloquence to ruin Danby and to exclude James at least carries no condemnation with it.
But by the secret understanding with Louis XIV for which he was responsible, He betrayed at once his actual principles and the aspirations of those who trusted him, while from the infamy of his management of the Popish terror there is no escape. Nonetheless, had he lived but a few years longer, he would have seen the triumph of whatever was worthy to triumph in his political principles. He would have seen the exclusion of James, the toleration of dissent, and England. King and people together, lending her potent hand to the downfall of France. A scheme of far wider and more permanent character than the election of Tory sheriffs was now carried through. The apparently reasonable doctrine that a charter may be forfeited by abuse became an engine, whereby in a short time the Crown made itself absolute in every important city in the Kingdom.
Court Lawyers on their Promotion And judges who held office at the will of the Crown would indeed have deserved disgrace if they had proved unequal to the demands upon their ingenuity. The Common Council had, it was declared, imposed an illegal tax at the time of rebuilding the city, and in 1680 had sent in a petition against prorogation containing expressions disrespectful to the King. This was sufficient. In June 1683, a judgment of the King's bench declared the forfeiture of the charter, and it was restored by Charles only on conditions which made the city absolutely subservient to the Crown. At last he felt, in the words of Jeffreys, that the King of England is likewise King of London. That which could be done in the capital would be more easily done in the country.
In most cases, voluntary surrenders were made, When this was not the case, the problem was easily soluble. The election of a town clerk at Oxford without the King's Express approbation was held to be an offense grave enough to demand the penalty of forfeiture. On November 29th, Charles asked Rearsby whether he knew of any tangible ground against York. Rearsby could produce none, but it was at length discovered that the Lord Mayor had refused a Monta bank. That had the King's own recommendation, to erect his stage there, and that was made to serve. Nothing can illustrate more forcibly the longing of the country for rest on any terms, or the fictitiousness of much of the agitation of the past years, than this quiet acquiescence in the loss of civil liberties.
The new powers were put into action without delay. All magistrates of the Shaftesbury faction were turned out, and the penal laws against dissent were once more vigorously executed. The prisons were filled. Even men like Richard Baxter were arrested and confined under the Five Mile Act of 1665. The crime of some, the honest impudence of others, and the basest treachery afforded to the court the opportunity for striking a final blow against the discredited cause. in the persons of its noblest advocates. While Russell and Essex, Hampton and Algernon, Sidney, Monmouth, Gray, and Howard of Eskrick were discussing the establishment of an association to demand a free parliament and in other ways to bring constitutional pressure to bear upon the government, certain old fifth monarchy men, soldiers and lawyers with whom Shaftesbury had been closely connected, had formed An entirely independent scheme of a very different kind.
They had resolved to kidnap Charles, or to assassinate him, on his return from Newmarket in June 1683, and he was saved only by the accident of the fire to which illusion has been made, which destroyed his palace there and thus caused him to go back to London a few days earlier than was expected. The trade of informer was not dead. And these latter conspirators were betrayed and arrested. But it was not believed possible that the scheme had been prepared without the connivance, if without the initiative of more important people, and the investigations which followed led to the arrest of Essex, Russell, Hampton, and Sydney. Gray escaped. Monmouth was allowed to hide. Howard, dragged from the chimney in which he had concealed himself, betrayed all that he knew, And more than he knew, of the consultations and objects of his friends.
In the examination of the prisoners before the council, Charles was always present, and according to North, very lenient. But the verdict was certain, for the jury had been carefully packed by the Tory sheriffs, and the King permitted Russell to die, as Russell had permitted Stafford to die, on the testimony of a single witness. Rendered implacable by his refusal to compromise on matters of principle, by his reported declaration that his trial was but a continuance of the Popish plot, by his assertion that a nation might defend its liberties when attacked under semblance of law, and that killing by forms of law was the worst kind of murder, Charles refused all applications for Russell's pardon.
From the Great House of Bedford, From his own courtiers, even from Louise de Quirouaille, who had been offered a large sum for successful intervention. Speaking to Legg, afterwards Earl of Dartmouth, he said in reply to the reasons urged for leniency, All that is true, but it is as true that if I do not take his life, he will soon have mine. On July 21, 1683, Russell went calmly to his death. His last days had been embittered to him by the tragic fate of one of his fellow prisoners. Essex had not awaited trial and execution, but had died by his own hand in the tower. That Charles had contrived his murder was of course suggested, but it is not necessary to discuss a theory so absurd. Wickedness of that kind, even if it could have been serviceable, was utterly foreign to Charles's nature.
Essex had always been of a somber disposition. He believed in the lawfulness of suicide, and the melancholy of his wife's disposition added to his own. And there were considerations which appear to have acted with decisive force upon a temperament thus disposed. Remorse for having introduced the traitor Howard among his friends, the knowledge that if he were condemned, his children would lose a state and rank, and perhaps not least the fact that he was lodged in the room which had been that of his father, Lord Capel, before his execution.
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37 37 - Ch. 5: The Popish Terror and the Triumph of the Court, Pt. 8 28:01
V. The Popish Terror and the Triumph of the Court, Part V. There was other evidence of the perfect triumph of the reaction. The day of Russell's execution saw the publication of The Judgment and Decree of the University of Oxford, Passed in their convocation against certain pernicious books and damnable doctrines destructive to the sacred persons of princes, their state and government, and of all human society. Oxford was resolved that on this occasion, at least, Cambridge should not be first in the field. That civil authority is originally derived from the people, that there is any compact between the prince and his subjects which, if broken by one party, That misgovernment by the prince forfeits his right to govern, these doctrines were utterly condemned.
The teaching of the Church of England was submission to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake, submission, clear, absolute, and without exception of any state or order of men. That these brave words were swallowed by their utterers five years later. Does not affect their meaning or effect at the moment. They were but a prelude to the last legal wickedness of the reign, for one more illustrious victim was to fall. It was natural that Charles should feel peculiar annoyance at finding that Algernon Sidney had been acting with Russell and his friends, since the permission given to him to return to England had been a conditional act of grace. But Sidney's execution, like that of Russell or Stafford, was a judicial murder.
His treatise on government was found in manuscript in his room, and it was decided by Jeffreys, now Lord Chief Justice, that this manuscript might rank as the second witness required. It was pointed out that it could not be criminal for a man to write down his thoughts. The prosecution answered, And we seem to have returned to the days of Thomas Cromwell, that even to think such things was high treason. Once more Charles let the laws take their course, and Sidney died, with the same surliness wherewith he lived, or in Burnett's words, with an unconcernedness that became one who had set up Marcus Brutus for his pattern. By the executions of Russell and Sidney, The story of the running fight between Parliament and prerogative was closed with dramatic emphasis.
The victory of the Crown was notified in language which could not be mistaken, and it was not called in question for the rest of the reign. Had James possessed a little of his brother's shrewdness and imagination, his power to gauge the strength of the forces arrayed against him, And the pliability which results from the absence of any effective religious faith. Had he been able to interpret the lessons of the past, to regard his creed as on sufferance, and to avoid all appearance of aggression, had he in fact even shown ordinary common sense, it is we hold certain that he would have retained his throne unchallenged for his lifetime. The Shapsbury section of the Whig Party had gone, And men of the schools of Danby and Halifax would probably have been willing to accept and to maintain the succession which they had supported when the exclusionist agitation was at its height, and to look past James to his Protestant children.
But that the intense Protestantism with which the nation was informed, represented by the most anti-papal of all forces, the Anglican Church, Would have cast away the verbiage of the Oxford Manifesto and refused to bear any longer with the anomaly of a Popish King, that, we believe, is as little to be doubted. For the remaining criminal there was, of course, different treatment. Monmouth was at least as open to prosecution as Russell or Sidney, though he had opposed any resort to force. He was allowed to remain in hiding while Russell's trial was proceeding. And when he offered to come forward and take his chance by his side, Russell sent word that it would not help him to have his friends die also.
Throughout the summer, Monmouth lurked in England. Then Halifax, in view of the political outlook, took up his cause, and Charles, whose affection for Monmouth was becoming senile, readily pardoned him and restored him to full favor. But to prevent undue encouragement being thus given to the Whig remnant, A statement was demanded from him before the Privy Council which should leave no doubt of the genuineness of the conspiracy. This he gave on condition that it should not be used against his friends, and he then received a comprehensive pardon. Halifax farther prevailed upon him to write a letter to Charles, including the statement he had already made. Scarcely was this done. When stung by the reproaches of his friends, he demanded the paper back.
Charles, in vehement anger, more vehement than Bruce had ever seen, returned it, telling Halifax to bid him go to hell. Monmouth left the country, and henceforth remained as the guest of the Prince of Orange, but Charles's passion, as was ever the case, soon cooled down. During Monmouth's residence abroad, he continually sent him money and affectionate messages, and there is no doubt That in November 1684, Monmouth was in London under the advice of Halifax, and that he had a secret interview with the King. In January 1685, all was being arranged by Charles for his permanent return, and for the dismissal of James once more to Scotland. On February 3rd, Monmouth wrote from abroad, a letter from L.
Halifax, that my business was almost as well as done. but must be so sudden as not to leave room 439's party to counterplot. How he might have exclaimed like Bolingbroke in later years! How does fortune banter us? Even before those words were written, Charles was on his deathbed. There can be little doubt that had the king yielded to the advice of Halifax and Ormond to summon Parliament, While the Rye House plot was fresh in men's minds, he would have secured a House of Commons devoted for the time to the principles of the Oxford and Cambridge Manifesto's. Sunderland, however, and James declared that the time was not yet ripe, and as Charles grew less disposed for business, James was every day becoming the actual reigning monarch.
In the spring of 1684, Danby joined Halifax in urging a Parliament which was now due under the Triennial Act. But Halifax added, and this is the last illustration of the prevailing doctrine of ministerial responsibility, that if the King would not yield to this advice, he would himself find reasons for his breaking his promise. Ever since the Oxford Dissolution, Charles had looked on with apparent indifference While Louis, without letter hindrance from England, was realizing his ambitious projects. In June, he captured Luxembourg, the key to Germany and Holland, and Charles even went the length of congratulating him, while to all remonstrances he replied that his own affairs were in too ill a posture to allow him to intervene.
The return for this complacence was scarcely what he expected. Louis had been long weary of being forced to court the king of England, and now triumphant, he not only declined to give Charles any further grants, but allowed the secret treaty to become known. There is no doubt that the policy of non-intervention and non-parliamentary rule which Charles had adopted, partly from his engagements with Louis, and partly from the indolence which grew more pronounced as the days went on, was for the internal advantage of the country. Freed from all political strife, England was daily growing richer. Trade was never so flourishing. Upon the statue erected to the king in the royal exchange, there is an inscription extolling him as the British emperor, father of his country, conqueror in good and evil fortune, arbitrator for Europe, lord and protector of the sea, all of which Though in no particular true, testifies to the contentment of the merchant class.
And Ranke relates how the elector of Brandenburg commended him as having, in a time of danger for all Christendom, raised his kingdom to the highest pitch of prosperity and established tranquility at home. From the Rye House plot to the end of the reign, Charles practically abdicated all kingly functions. Halifax, Sunderland, Hyde, now Earl of Rochester, Godolphin, Danby, North, and Jenkins, with James and Louise de Quirouaille, somehow carried on the government. With their incessant strivings, their alliances, rivalries, enmities, and reconciliations, we have as little to do as Charles had himself. There is, however, in them one link with the past which, for his sake, we recall with satisfaction.
From the early days of exile, the gallant Ormond, through good and evil repute, had remained untouched in honor and secure of Charles's esteem. There is no unworthy word, no foul or selfish action to stain his fair record. He had cared no more for temporary slights, for the momentary triumphs of despicable men like Buckingham, than for a breath of foul air. The affectionate respect which his character and his services had imposed upon Charles when he first joined him more than thirty years before remained unimpaired in the closing days of the reign. During these last two years of Charles's decadence, amid all the jostlings of rival politicians who were place in power, and throughout the phases of his feelings for Monmouth, which varied from passionate anger to doting fondness, One influence reigned supreme.
The empire of Louise de Querouaille over his affections had been undisturbed since Colbert had brought about the famous reconciliation with the Duchess Mazzarod. It was at any rate so firm that she was now able to impose upon the worn-out Roue all the tortures of a belated jealousy. In 1683, Philippe of Vendôme Second son of the Duke of Vendôme and of Laura, the sister of Duchess Mazarin, visited the court. Louise showed an interest in this new guest so marked as to make Charles sulky and suspicious. But he had no power of revolt in him. He dared not remonstrate with her. He sent Sunderland instead to Philip to forbid his visits. For a few days he was obeyed, but for a few only. Charles then deputed Barillon to request his guest to take himself back to Paris.
Philip demanded an interview, at which the king merely repeated his wish. A few days later, finding that he was still flouted, Charles sent the lieutenant of his guards to inform Philip that if he was not gone in two days, he would be placed on board the packet if necessary by force. After some farther delay, Philip thought well to comply. Leaving Louise a prey to the apprehension that by showing her letters he might cause her serious annoyance, Louis XIV came to her aid. He told Philip in unmistakable terms that any disclosures to the disadvantage of Louise would bring down his resentment, and the king's resentment in the days of the Bastille and of Lettre de Cachet was not to be treated lightly.
It was not, however, until June 1684 that Philip obeyed the positive order of his master to return at once to Versailles, and that his possible indiscretions ceased to be an object of dread to Louise. Louise de Quiroil could have wished for nothing more effective to bind still faster the chains which held Charles. The king was observed to be more than ordinarily pensive. And his fondness to Lady Portsmouth increased much, and broke out in very indecent instances. The King caressed and kissed her in the view of all people, which he had never done on any occasion or to any person formerly. Meantime she performed all the functions of Queen of England. In strict alliance with James and Rochester, she alone dealt with the secrets of state.
She negotiated the marriage of George of Denmark with James's second daughter, Anne, and received superb presents from the King of Denmark in recognition. The Moorish ambassadors had their audience in the apartments whose splendour so astonished Evelyn. It was she who led Charles to concur without murmuring in the capture of Luxembourg by Louis. She calmed the last stirrings of his pride when French fleets entered the Channel without due notice to England, and as the colleague of Barillon, she managed all French interests. Neither Charles II nor Louis himself ever questioned her wishes. In January 1684, the king, at her instance, asked that Louis would make the Aubigny estates a duchy with reversion to her son.
Barillon addressed his master in indignation against such a pretension, but Louis merely replied that the thing would be done as soon as possible. In November, 1684, she was ill. Her condition was the only thing spoken of, and Charles passed his days in the sick room. Louis displayed a lively anxiety that her illness should but increase her credit, and to secure her son in case of her death, Caused letters of naturalization to be made out in order that he might be able to inherit the estates. Such was the real Queen of England. And what of the nominal Queen? Merely this incident. This day the Queen being at dinner, the Duchess of Portsmouth, as a lady of the bedchamber came to wait on her, which was not usual, and put the Queen into that disorder that tears came into her eyes.
Whilst the other laughed and turned it into jest. The pity of it, that even now, after more than twenty years of neglect, relieved by short intervals of comparative affection, this poor woman should retain a sense of insult. That ignorant, insignificant as she might be, she could yet be driven to tears, the tears of the wronged wife in the presence of the triumphant concubine. It was not until death came into the pageant that she had at length her rightful place. We propose to say but little upon the deathbed of Charles. The dramatic incidents of a scene as characteristic of his peculiarities as any act of his life have given full scope to the genius of the great master of descriptive writing in our language, and the sketch which he has drawn, so firm and vivid of outline, so wonderfully true to character, is not to be retouched or tampered with lightly.
But the eyewitnesses whose accounts are quoted by Lord Macaulay do not include one whose invaluable memoirs have but recently come to light. and from whose rugged narrative, every word of which bears the stamp of truth, we are able to picture with fidelity otherwise unattainable the first hours of the final scene. Thomas Bruce Charles, from whose recollections we have already freely quoted, entered upon his last week of waiting on Monday, January 26th. During that week, Charles was for the first time in his life prevented from taking active walking exercise by a small sore on one heel. On the Sunday night, February 1st, he nevertheless displayed his usual robust appetite and ate a goose egg, if not two, A thing very hard of digestion.
After his supper, he went according to his custom to the rooms of Louise de Quiroil to amuse himself with her guests, and Bruce took special notice of his good humor that night. It was Bruce's function to light him to his bedroom. When the king had passed him into the room, he handed the candle to the page of the back stairs. As he did so, the candle was suddenly extinguished. Although a very large waxed candle and without any wind, the days of omens were not over, and Bruce and the page exchanged glances of dismay and shakings of the head. Charles, who had not noticed the incident, undressed and went to bed in the best of tempers. Then followed another incident, which recurred vividly to Bruce's mind a few days later.
The conversation turned upon Charles's chief interest of the last two years, The progress of the palace which he was building at Winchester. He must, he said, show the place I so delight in to Bruce the very next time that he went down, and he added, I shall be so happy this week as to have my house covered with lead. God knows, Bruce adds, that Saturday following he was put into his coffin. The omens were to be soon fulfilled. Nothing can add to the effect of Bruce's own description of what followed, and we therefore give it as it stands. The King always lying in his own bedchamber, we had a bed placed each night to be near him, and when the page of the back stairs lighted us from the rooms where we undressed, on his retiring we shut up the door on the inside with a brass knob and so went to bed.
Several circumstances made the lodging very uneasy. The great-great being filled with Scotch coal that burnt all night, a dozen dogs that came to our bed, and several pendulums that struck at the half, quarter, and all not going alike, it was a continual chiming, the king being constantly used to it, it was habitual. I, sleeping but indifferently, perceived that the king turned himself sometimes, not usual for him. He always called in the morning of himself. I heard his voice, but discovered not any imperfection. We had the liberty to go to his bedside in the morning before anybody came in, and might entertain him with discourse at pleasure and ask of him anything. Unfortunately, a certain modesty possessed me, and besides, we had his ear whenever we pleased.
So I rose and turned back the brass knob, and the under-ones came in to make the fire, and I retired to dress myself in our room. Passing by in the next room to the bedchamber, I found there the physicians and chirurgians that attended to visit his heel. Mr. Robert Howard, a groom of the bedchamber, came to me and asked me how the king had slept, and if quietly. I told him that he had turned sometimes. Lord, said he, that is an ill mark and contrary to his custom, and then told me that at rising, he could not, or would not, say one word. That he was as pale as ashes, and gone to his private closet. On which I came away presently, and sent to Mr. Chiffins the first page of the back stairs and keeper of his closet, for to beg of him to come to his chamber, for a more bitter morning I never felt, and he only in his nightgown.
Mr. Chiffins telling me he minded not what he said, I sent him in again, for no other had that liberty, on which he came out pale and wan. And had not the liberty of his tongue, for the Earl of Craven, Colonel of the Foot Guards, being there to take the word, he showed him the paper where the days of the month were set down with the word, and others spoke to him, but he answered nothing. It being shaving day, his barber told him all was ready. He always sat with his knees against the window, and the barber, having fixed the linen on one side, went behind the chair to do the same on the other, And I, standing close to the chair, he fell into my arms in the most violent fit of apoplexy. Dr. King, that had been a chirurgeon, happened to be in the room of his own accord, the rest having retired before.
I asked him if he had any lancets, and he replied he had. I ordered him to bleed the King without delay, which he did, and perceiving the blood I went to fetch the Duke of York, who came so on the instant That he had one shoe and one slipper. At my return with the Duke of York the King was in bed and in a pretty good state, and going on the contrary side where the Duke was, he perceiving me, took me fast by the hand, saying, I see you love me dying as well as living, and thanked me heartily for the orders I gave Dr. King, who was knighted for that service, to bleed him. As also for sending Mr. Chiffin's to persuade him to come out of his closet, and then told me that he found himself not well, and that he went to take some of his drops, commonly called then the King's drops, and that he walked about hoping to be better, but on my solicitations he came down, for there were three or four steps coming out of the closet, and he said that coming down his head turned round, and he was in danger of falling.
Incidentally, Bruce here refutes, and in a private letter repeats the refutation with exceeding indignation. The statement of Burnett adopted by Lord Macaulay that the Duchess of Portsmouth came now to the king's bedside, taking care of him as a wife of a husband. Bruce was there and saw. When he and James entered the room, they found not the mistress, but the queen, and the imposter says it was the Duchess of Portsmouth. Bruce then describes the visit on the Thursday of Sancroft and the bishops, and how Ken, because his voice was like to a nightingale for the sweetness of it, was desired to be their spokesman. And now the confirmed habit of a lifetime asserted itself. Sancroft and Ken besought him to accept the last rites of their church.
Almost with his dying breath, Charles resorted to that habit of polite evasion which had served him so often in life. The king thanked them very much, and told them it was time enough, or somewhat to that purpose, and modestly waved them, which was in my hearing. And then followed that most dramatic episode when, for the last time, the nation was tricked that a soul might be saved. The drear presence of death and the far past with all its glow of adventure and leaping life were suddenly linked together by the appearance of a priest with the sacred elements. The priest was Huddleston, Who had given Charles the works of Catholic devotion at Mosley Hall during the escape after Worcester, and who had remained under his special protection as one of the priests of the Queen's household throughout the reign.
As soon as the King saw the Father come in, he cried out, You that saved my body is now come to save my soul. This is literally true on a Christian. I have my opinions to myself, but I hate a lie and to impose. The king made a general confession with a most true, hearty, and sincere repentance, weeping and bewailing his sins, and he received what is styled all the rites of the Church, and like a true and hearty penitent, and just at high water and full moon at noon, victim of his own vices, he expired. An endeavor has been made in these pages to trace in necessarily rough and broken outline. The growth and development of the character of Charles II. To illustrate his way of looking at life in many phases.
To emphasize the demoralizing training of his youth, which is his best plea at the bar of history, no less than the lost opportunities of his manhood. To show how far he conceived and how far he fulfilled the duties of kingship. To measure the motives of his actions and the influences to which he bowed. The strength of the temptations which assailed him, and the depth of his fall, setting down naught in malice which may turn aside judgment. We relinquish the task while across the fields there comes the muffled clang of bells, which bears the news that another sovereign of our race has passed from those whom she many times has called, in words which to Charles could have no meaning. My beloved people, she who always sought to have her people with her, passes from a mourning nation, and from every land of all the wide earth, that nation follows her to the grave in the knowledge that her work will endure in the empire, which she leaves proud of the memories called up by her name and governance.
Charles died and was buried. His funeral was very mean. He did not lie in state. No mornings were given. A monarch who has no beloved people will find at his death no mourning nation. He left his country in anxiety, not grief. His people were not multitudes of men and women whose aspirations, whose views of right and wrong, whose whole modes of thought might be ennobled by regal example. His ministers were not taught that loyal service to their country, And loyal service to their sovereign were all one. His court was not a place to enter which, virtue at least, must be stamped upon the passport. His guide was not duty. It was not even ambition. But his guide was self. It was ease and amusement and lust.
The cup of pleasure was filled deep for him, and he grasped it with both hands. But pleasure is not happiness. There is no happiness for him who lives and dies without beliefs, without enthusiasms, and without love. End of section 37, read by Pamela Nagami, M.D., in Encino, California, October 2021. End of Charles II by Osmonderi.