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HISTORY OF KING CHARLES THE SECOND OF ENGLAND. 

BY JACOB ABBOTT. 

PREFACE. 

The author of this series has made it his special object to confinehimself very strictly, even in the most minute details which he records, to historic truth. The narratives are not tales founded upon history, but history itself, without any embellishment or any deviations fromthe strict truth, so far as it can now be discovered by an attentiveexamination of the annals written at the time when the events themselvesoccurred. In writing the narratives, the author has endeavored to availhimself of the best sources of information which this country affords;and though, of course, there must be in these volumes, as in allhistorical accounts, more or less of imperfection and error, there isno intentional embellishment. Nothing is stated, not even the mostminute and apparently imaginary details, without what was deemed goodhistorical authority. The readers, therefore, may rely upon the recordas the truth, and nothing but the truth, so far as an honest purposeand a careful examination have been effectual in ascertaining it. 

CONTENTS. 

Chapter

 I. INFANCY

 II. PRINCE CHARLES'S MOTHER

 III. QUEEN HENRIETTA'S FLIGHT

 IV. ESCAPE OF THE CHILDREN

 V. THE PRINCE'S RECEPTION AT PARIS

 VI. NEGOTIATIONS WITH ANNE MARIA

 VII. THE ROYAL OAK OF BOSCOBEL

VIII. THE KING'S ESCAPE TO FRANCE

 IX. THE RESTORATION

 X. THE MARRIAGE

 XI. CHARACTER AND REIGN

 XII. CONCLUSION

CHAPTER I. 

INFANCY. 

King Charles the Second was the son and successor of King Charles theFirst. These two are the only kings of the name of Charles that haveappeared, thus far, in the line of English sovereigns. Nor is it veryprobable that there will soon be another. The reigns of both thesemonarchs were stained and tarnished with many vices and crimes, anddarkened by national disasters of every kind, and the name is thusconnected with so many painful associations in the minds of men, thatit seems to have been dropped, by common consent, in all branches ofthe royal family. 

The reign of Charles the First, as will be seen by the history of hislife in this series, was characterized by a long and obstinate contestbetween the king and the people, which brought on, at last, a civilwar, in which the king was defeated and taken prisoner, and in the endbeheaded on a block, before one of his own palaces. During the laststages of this terrible contest, and before Charles way himself takenprisoner, he was, as it were, a fugitive and an outlaw in his owndominions. His wife and family were scattered in various foreign lands, his cities and castles were in the hands of his enemies, and his oldestson, the prince Charles, was the object of special hostility. Theprince incurred, therefore, a great many dangers, and suffered manyheavy calamities in his early years. He lived to see these calamitiespass away, and, after they were gone, he enjoyed, so far as his ownpersonal safety and welfare were concerned, a tranquil and prosperouslife. The storm, however, of trial and suffering which enveloped theevening of his father's days, darkened the morning of his own. Thelife of Charles the First was a river rising gently, from quiet springs, in a scene of verdure and sunshine, and flowing gradually into ruggedand gloomy regions, where at last it falls into a terrific abyss, enveloped in darkness and storms. That of Charles the Second, on theother hand, rising in the wild and rugged mountains where the parentstream was engulfed, commences its course by leaping frightfully fromprecipice to precipice, with turbid and foaming waters, but emergesat last into a smooth and smiling land, and flows through itprosperously to the sea. 

Prince Charles's mother, the wife of Charles the First, was a Frenchprincess. Her name was Henrietta Maria. She was unaccomplished, beautiful, and very spirited woman. She was a Catholic, and the Englishpeople, who were very decided in their hostility to the Catholic faith, were extremely jealous of her. They watched all her movements with theutmost suspicion. They were very unwilling that an heir to the crownshould arise in her family. The animosity which they felt against herhusband the king, which was becoming every day more and more bitter, seemed to be doubly inveterate and intense toward her. They publishedpamphlets, in which they called her a daughter of Heth, a Canaanite, and an idolatress, and expressed hopes that from such a worse thanpagan stock no progeny should ever spring. 

Henrietta was at this time--1630--twenty-one years of age, and hadbeen married about four years. She had had one son, who had died a fewdays after his birth. Of course, she did not lead a very happy lifein England. Her husband the king, like the majority of the Englishpeople, was a Protestant, and the difference was a far more importantcircumstance in those days than it would be now; though even now adifference in religious faith, on points _which either party deemsessential_, is, in married life, an obstacle to domestic happiness, which comes to no termination, and admits of no cure. If it werepossible for reason and reflection to control the impetuous impulsesof youthful hearts, such differences of religious faith would beregarded, where they exist, as an insurmountable objection to amatrimonial union. 

The queen, made thus unhappy by religious dissensions with her husband, and by the public odium of which she was the object, lived inconsiderable retirement and seclusion at St. James's Palace, inWestminster, which is the western part of London. Here her second son, the subject of this history, was born, in May, 1630, which was tenyears after the landing of the pilgrims on the Plymouth rock. The babewas very far from being pretty, though he grew up at last to be quitea handsome man. King Charles was very much pleased at the birth of hisson. He rode into London the next morning at the head of a long trainof guards and noble attendants, to the great cathedral church of St. Paul's, to render thanks publicly to God for the birth of his childand the safety of the queen. While this procession was going throughthe streets, all London being out to gaze upon it, the attention ofthe vast crowd was attracted to the appearance of a star glimmeringfaintly in the sky at midday. This is an occurrence not very uncommon, though it seldom, perhaps, occurs when it has so many observers towitness it. The star was doubtless Venus, which, in certaincircumstances, is often bright enough to be seen when the sun is abovethe horizon. The populace of London, however, who were not in thosedays very profound astronomers, regarded the shining of the star asa supernatural occurrence altogether, and as portending the futuregreatness and glory of the prince whose natal day it thus unexpectedlyadorned. 

Preparations were made for the baptism of the young prince in July. The baptism of a prince is an important affair, and there was onecircumstance which gave a peculiar interest to that of the infantCharles. The Reformation had not been long established in England, andthis happened to be the first occasion on which an heir to the Englishcrown had been baptized since the Liturgy of the English Church hadbeen arranged. There is a chapel connected with the palace of St. James, as is usual with royal palaces in Europe, and even, in fact, with the private castles and mansions of the higher nobility. Thebaptism took place there. On such occasions it is usual for certainpersons to appear as sponsors, as they are called, who undertake toanswer for the safe and careful instruction of the child in theprinciples of the Christian faith. This is, of course, mainly a form, the real function of the sponsors being confined, as it would appear, to making magnificent presents to their young godchild, inacknowledgment of the distinguished honor conferred upon them by theirdesignation to the office which they hold. The sponsors, on thisoccasion, were certain royal personages in France, the relatives ofthe queen. They could not appear personally, and so they appointedproxies from among the higher nobility of England, who appeared at thebaptism in their stead, and made the presents to the child. One ofthese proxies was a duchess, whose gift was a jewel valued at a sumin English money equal to thirty thousand dollars. 

The oldest son of a king of England receives the title of Prince ofWales; and there was an ancient custom of the realm, that an infantprince of Wales should be under the care, in his earliest years, ofa Welsh nurse, so that the first words which he should learn to speakmight be the vernacular language of his principality. Such a nurse wasprovided for Charles. Rockers for his cradle were appointed, and manyother officers of his household, all the arrangements being made ina very magnificent and sumptuous manner. It is the custom in Englandto pay fees to the servants by which a lady or gentleman is attended, even when a guest in private dwellings; and some idea may be formedof the scale on which the pageantry of this occasion was conducted, from the fact that one of the lady sponsors who rode to the palace inthe queen's carriage, which was sent for her on this occasion, paida sum equal to fifty dollars each to six running footmen who attendedthe carriage, and a hundred dollars to the coachman; while a numberof knights who came on horseback and in armor to attend upon thecarriage, as it moved to the palace, received each a gratuity of twohundred and fifty dollars. The state dresses on the occasion of thisbaptism were very costly and splendid, being of white satin trimmedwith crimson. 

The little prince was thus an object of great attention at the verycommencement of his days, His mother had his portrait painted, andsent it to _her_ mother in France. She did not, however, in the letterswhich accompanied the picture, though his mother, praise the beautyof her child. She said, in fact, that he was so ugly that she wasashamed of him, though his size and plumpness, she added, atoned forthe want of beauty. And then he was so comically serious and grave inthe expression of his countenance! the queen said she verily believedthat he was wiser than herself. 

As the young prince advanced in years, the religious and politicaldifficulties in the English nation increased, and by the time that hehad arrived at an age when he could begin to receive impressions fromthe conversation and intercourse of those around him, the Parliamentbegan to be very jealous of the influence which his mother might exert. They were extremely anxious that he should be educated a Protestant, and were very much afraid that his mother would contrive to initiatehim secretly into the ideas and practices of the Catholic faith. 

She insisted that she did not attempt to do this, and perhaps she didnot; but in those days it was often considered right to make falsepretensions and to deceive, so far as this was necessary to promotethe cause of true religion. The queen did certainly make some effortsto instill Catholic principles into the minds of some of her children;for she had other children after the birth of Charles. She gave adaughter a crucifix one day, which is a little image of Christ uponthe cross, made usually of ivory, or silver, or gold, and also a rosary, which is a string of beads, by means of which the Catholics are assistedto count their prayers. Henrietta gave these things to her daughtersecretly, and told her to hide them in her pocket, and taught her howto use them. The Parliament considered such attempts to influence theminds of the royal children as very heinous sins, and they made sucharrangements for secluding the young prince Charles from his mother, and putting the others under the guidance of Protestant teachers andgovernors, as very much interfered with Henrietta's desires to enjoythe society of her children. Since England was a Protestant realm, aCatholic lady, in marrying an English king, ought not to have expected, perhaps, to have been allowed to bring up her children in her ownfaith; still, it must have been very hard for a mother to be forbiddento teach her own children what she undoubtedly believed was the onlypossible means of securing for them the favor and protection of Heaven. 

There is in London a vast storehouse of books, manuscripts, relics, curiosities, pictures, and other memorials of by-gone days, called theBritish Museum. Among the old records here preserved are various letterswritten by Henrietta, and one or two by Charles, the young prince, during his childhood. Here is one, for instance, written by Henriettato her child, when the little prince was but eight years of age, chidinghim for not being willing to take his medicine. He was at that timeunder the charge of Lord Newcastle. 

"CHARLES, --I am sorry that I must begin my first letter with chidingyou, because I hear that you will not take phisicke, I hope it wasonlie for this day, and that to-morrow you will do it for if you willnot, I must come to you, and _make_ you take it, for it is for yourhealth. I have given order to mi Lord of Newcastle to send mi wordto-night whether you will or not. Therefore I hope you will not giveme the paines to goe; and so I rest, your affectionate mother, HENRIETTE MARIE. "

The letter was addressed

"To MI DEARE SONNE the Prince. "

The queen must have taken special pains with this her first letter toher son, for, with all its faults of orthography, it is very much morecorrect than most of the epistles which she attempted to write inEnglish. She was very imperfectly acquainted with the English language, using, as she almost always did, in her domestic intercourse, her ownnative tongue. 

Time passed on, and the difficulties and contests between King Charlesand his people and Parliament became more and more exciting andalarming. One after another of the king's most devoted and faithfulministers was arrested, tried, condemned, and beheaded, notwithstandingall the efforts which their sovereign master could make to save them. Parties were formed, and party spirit ran very high. Tumults werecontinually breaking out about the palaces, which threatened thepersonal safety of the king and queen. Henrietta herself was a specialobject of the hatred which these outbreaks expressed. The king himselfwas half distracted by the overwhelming difficulties of his position. Bad as it was in England, it was still worse in Scotland. There wasan actual rebellion there, and the urgency of the danger in that quarterwas so great that Charles concluded to go there, leaving the poor queenat home to take care of herself and her little ones as well as shecould, with the few remaining means of protection yet left at herdisposal. 

There was an ancient mansion, called Oatlands, not very far from London, where the queen generally resided during the absence of her husband. It was a lonely place, on low and level ground, and surrounded by moatsfilled with water, over which those who wished to enter passed by drawbridges. Henrietta chose this place for her residence because shethought she should be safer there from mobs and violence. She kept thechildren all there except the Prince of Wales, who was not allowed tobe wholly under her care. He, how ever, often visited his mother, andshe sometimes visited him. 

During the absence of her husband, Queen Henrietta was subjected tomany severe and heavy trials. Her communications with him were ofteninterrupted and broken. She felt a very warm interest in the prosperityand success of his expedition, and sometimes the tidings she receivedfrom him encouraged her to hope that all might yet be well. Here, forinstance, is a note which she addressed one day to an officer who hadsent her a letter from the king, that had come enclosed to him. It iswritten in a broken English, which shows how imperfectly the foreignlady had learned the language of her adopted country. They whounderstand the French language will be interested in observing thatmost of the errors which the writer falls into are those which resultnaturally from the usages of her mother tongue. 

_Queen Henrietta to Sir Edward Nicholas_. 

"MAISTRE NICHOLAS, --I have reseaved your letter, and that you send mefrom the king, which writes me word he as been vere well reseaved inScotland; that both the armi and the people have shewed a creat joyto see the king, and such that theay say was never seen before. PrayGod it may continue. Your friend, HENRIETTE MARIE R. "

At one time during the king's absence in Scotland the Parliamentthreatened to take the queen's children all away from her, for fear, as they said, that she would make papists of them. This danger alarmedand distressed the queen exceedingly. She declared that she did notintend or desire to bring up her children in the Catholic faith. Sheknew this was contrary to the wish of the king her husband, as wellas of the people of England. In order to diminish the danger that thechildren would be taken away, she left Oatlands herself, and went toreside at other palaces, only going occasionally to visit her children. Though she was thus absent from them in person, her heart was withthem all the time, and she was watching with great solicitude andanxiety for any indications of a design on the part of her enemies tocome and take them away. 

At last she received intelligence that an armed force was ordered toassemble one night in the vicinity of Oatlands to seize her children, under the pretext that the queen was herself forming plans for removingthem out of the country and taking them to France. Henrietta was alady of great spirit and energy, and this threatened danger to herchildren aroused all her powers. She sent immediately to all the friendsabout her on whom she could rely, and asked them to come, armed andequipped, and with as many followers as they could muster, to the parkat Oatlands that night. There were also then in and near London anumber of officers of the army, absent from their posts on furlough. She sent similar orders to these. All obeyed the summons with eageralacrity. The queen mustered and armed her own household, too, downto the lowest servants of the kitchen. By these means quite a littlearmy was collected in the park at Oatlands, the separate parties comingin, one after another, in the evening and night. This guard patrolledthe grounds till morning, the queen herself animating them by herpresence and energy. The children, whom the excited mother was thusguarding, like a lioness defending her young, were all the time withinthe mansion, awaiting in infantile terror some dreadful calamity, theyscarcely knew what, which all this excitement seemed to portend. 

The names and ages of the queen's children at this time were as follows:

Charles, prince of Wales, the subject of this story, eleven. 

Mary, ten. Young as she was, she was already married, having beenespoused a short time before to William, prince of Orange, who was oneyear older than herself. 

James, duke of York, seven. He became afterward King James II. 

Elizabeth, six. 

Henry, an infant only a few months old. 

The night passed away without any attack, though a considerable forceassembled in the vicinity, which was, however, soon after disbanded. The queen's fears were, nevertheless, not allayed. She began to makearrangements for escaping from the kingdom in ease it should becomenecessary to do so. She sent a certain faithful friend and servant toPortsmouth with orders to get some vessels ready, so that she couldfly there with her children and embark at a moment's notice, if thesedangers and alarms should continue. 

She did not, however, have occasion to avail herself of thesepreparations. Affairs seemed to take a more favorable turn. The kingcame back from Scotland. He was received by his people, on his arrival, with apparent cordiality and good will. The queen was, of course, rejoiced to welcome him home, and she felt relieved and protected byhis presence. The city of London, which had been the main seat ofdisaffection and hostility to the royal family, began to show symptomsof returning loyalty and friendly regard. In reciprocation for this, the king determined on making a grand entry into the city, to pay asort of visit to the authorities. He rode, on this occasion, in asplendid chariot of state, with the little prince by his side. QueenHenrietta came next, in an open carriage of her own, and the otherchildren, with other carriages, followed in the train. A long cortegeof guards and attendants, richly dressed and magnificently mounted, preceded and followed the royal family, while the streets were linedwith thousands of spectators, who waved handkerchiefs and banners, andshouted God save the king! In the midst of this scene of excitementand triumph, Henrietta rode quietly along, her anxieties relieved, hersorrows and trials ended, and her heart bounding with happiness andhope. She was once more, as she conceived, reunited to her husband andher children, and reconciled to the people of her realm. She thoughther troubles were over Alas! they had, on the contrary, scarcely begun. 

CHAPTER II. 

PRINCE CHARLES'S MOTHER. 

The indications and promises of returning peace and happiness whichgave Prince Charles's mother so much animation and hope after thereturn of her husband from Scotland were all very superficial andfallacious. The real grounds of the quarrel between the king and hisParliament, and of the feelings of alienation and ill will cherishedtoward the queen, were all, unfortunately, as deep and extensive asever; and the storm, which lulled treacherously for a little time, broke forth soon afterward anew, with a frightful violence which itwas evident that nothing could withstand. This new onset of disasterand calamity was produced in such a way that Henrietta had to reproachherself with being the cause of its coming. 

She had often represented to the king that, in her opinion, one maincause of the difficulties he had suffered was that he did not actefficiently and decidedly, and like a man, in putting down theopposition manifested against him on the part of his subjects; andnow, soon after his return from Scotland, on some new spirit ofdisaffection showing itself in Parliament, she urged him to act atonce energetically and promptly against it. She proposed to him totake an armed force with him, and proceed boldly to the halls wherethe Parliament was assembled, and arrest the leaders of the party whowere opposed to him. There were five of them who were speciallyprominent. The queen believed that if these five men were seized andimprisoned in the Tower, the rest would be intimidated and overawed, and the monarch's lost authority and power would be restored again. 

The king was persuaded, partly by the dictates of his own judgment, and partly by the urgency of the queen, to make the attempt. Thecircumstances of this case, so far as the action of the king wasconcerned in them, are fully related in the history of Charles theFirst. Here we have only to speak of the queen, who was left in a stateof great suspense and anxiety in her palace at Whitehall while herhusband was gone on his dangerous mission. 

The plan of the king to make this irruption into the great legislativeassembly of the nation had been kept, so they supposed, a very profoundsecret, lest the members whom he was going to arrest should receivewarning of their danger and fly. When the time arrived, the king badeHenrietta farewell, saying that she might wait there an hour, and ifshe received no ill news from him during that time, she might be surethat he had been successful, and that he was once more master of hiskingdom. The queen remained in the apartment where the king had lefther, looking continually at the watch which she held before her, andcounting the minutes impatiently as the hands moved slowly on. She hadwith her one confidential friend, the Lady Carlisle, who sat with herand seemed to share her solicitude, though she had not been entrustedwith the secret. The time passed on. No ill tidings came; and at lengththe hour fully expired, and Henrietta, able to contain herself nolonger, exclaimed with exultation, "Rejoice with me; the hour is gone. From this time my husband is master of his realm. His enemies inParliament are all arrested before this time, and his kingdom ishenceforth his own. "

It certainly is possible for kings and queens to have faithful friends, but there are so many motives and inducements to falsehood and treacheryin court, that it is _not_ possible, generally, for them to distinguishfalse friends from true. The Lady Carlisle was a confederate with someof the very men whom Charles had gone to arrest. On receiving thisintimation of their danger, she sent immediately to the houses ofParliament, which were very near at hand, and the obnoxious membersreceived warning in time to fly. The hour had indeed elapsed, but theking had met with several unexpected delays, both in his preparationsfor going, and on his way to the House of Commons, so that when atlast he entered, the members were gone. His attempt, however, unsuccessful as it was, evoked a general storm of indignation andanger, producing thus all the exasperation which was to have beenexpected from the measure, without in any degree accomplishing itsend. The poor queen was overwhelmed with confusion and dismay when shelearned the result. She had urged her husband forward to an extremelydangerous and desperate measure, and then by her thoughtlessindiscretion had completely defeated the end. A universal and utterlyuncontrollable excitement burst like a clap of thunder upon the countryas this outrage, as they termed it, of the king became known, and thequeen was utterly appalled at the extent and magnitude of the mischiefshe had done. 

The mischief was irremediable. The spirit of resentment and indignationwhich the king's action had aroused, expressed itself in such tumultuousand riotous proceedings as to render the continuance of the royalfamily in London no longer safe. They accordingly removed up the riverto Hampton Court, a famous palace on the Thames, not many miles fromthe city. There they remained but a very short time. The dangers whichbeset them were evidently increasing. It was manifest that the kingmust either give up what he deemed the just rights and prerogativesof the crown, or prepare to maintain them by war. The queen urged himto choose the latter alternative. To raise the means for doing this, she proposed that she should herself leave the country, taking withher, her jewels, and such other articles of great value as could beeasily carried away, and by means of them and her personal exertions, raise funds and forces to aid her husband in the approaching struggle. 

The king yielded to the necessity which seemed to compel the adoptionof this plan. He accordingly set off to accompany Henrietta to theshore. She took with her the young Princess Mary; in fact, theostensible object of her journey was to convey her to her young husband, the Prince of Orange, in Holland. In such infantile marriages as theirs, it is not customary, though the marriage ceremony be performed, forthe wedded pair to live together till they arrive at years a littlemore mature. 

The queen was to embark at Dover. Dover was in those days the greatport of egress from England to the Continent. There was, and is still, a great castle on the cliffs to guard the harbor and the town. Thesecliffs are picturesque and high, falling off abruptly in chalkyprecipices to the sea. Among them at one place is a sort of dell, bywhich there is a gradual descent to the water. King Charles stood uponthe shore when Henrietta sailed away, watching the ship as it recededfrom his view, with tears in his eyes. With all the faults, characteristic of her nation, which Henrietta possessed, she was nowhis best and truest friend, and when she was gone he felt that he wasleft desolate and alone in the midst of the appalling dangers by whichhe was environed. 

The king went back to Hampton Court. Parliament sent him a requestthat he would come and reside nearer to the capital, and enjoined uponhim particularly not to remove the young Prince of Wales. In the meantime they began to gather together their forces, and to providemunitions of war. The king did the same. He sent the young prince tothe western part of the kingdom, and retired himself to the northward, to the city of York, which he made his head-quarters. In a word, bothparties prepared for war. 

In the mean time, Queen Henrietta was very successful in her attemptsto obtain aid for her husband in Holland. Her misfortunes awakenedpity, with which, through her beauty, and the graces of her conversationand address, there was mingled a feeling analogous to love. Then, besides, there was something in her spirit of earnest and courageousdevotion to her husband in the hours of his calamity that won for hera strong degree of admiration and respect. 

There are no efforts which are so efficient and powerful in theaccomplishment of their end as those which a faithful wife makes torescue and save her husband. The heart, generally so timid, seems tobe inspired on such occasions with a preternatural courage, and thearm, at other times so feeble and helpless, is nerved with unexpectedstrength. Every one is ready to second and help such efforts, and shewho makes them is surprised at her success, and wonders at the extentand efficiency of the powers which she finds herself so unexpectedlyable to wield. 

The queen interested all classes in Holland in her plans, and by herpersonal credit, and the security of her diamonds and rubies, sheborrowed large sums of money from the government, from the banks, andfrom private merchants. The sums which she thus raised amounted to twomillions of pounds sterling, equal to nearly ten millions of dollars. While these negotiations were going on she remained in Holland, withher little daughter, the bride, under her care, whose education shewas carrying forward all the time with the help of suitable masters;for, though married, Mary was yet a child. The little husband was goingon at the same time with his studies too. 

Henrietta remained in Holland a year. She expended a part of her moneyin purchasing military stores and supplies for her husband, and thenset sail with them, and with the money not expended, to join the king. The voyage was a very extraordinary one. A great gale of wind beganto blow from the northeast soon after the ships left the port, whichincreased in violence for nine days, until at length the sea was lashedto such a state of fury that the company lost all hope of ever reachingthe land. The queen had with her a large train of attendants, bothladies and gentlemen; and there were also in her suit a number ofCatholic priests, who always accompanied her as the chaplains andconfessors of her household. These persons had all been extremely sick, and had been tied into their beds on account of the excessive rollingof the ship, and their own exhaustion and helplessness. The dangerincreased, until at last it became so extremely imminent that all theself-possession of the passengers was entirely gone. In such protractedstorms, the surges of the sea strike the ship with terrific force, andvast volumes of water fall heavily upon the decks, threatening instantdestruction--the ship plunging awfully after the shock, as if sinkingto rise no more. At such moments, the noble ladies who accompanied thequeen on this voyage would be overwhelmed with terror, and they filledthe cabins with their shrieks of dismay. All this time the queen herselfwas quiet and composed. She told the ladies not to fear, for "queensof England were never drowned. "

At one time, when the storm was at its height, the whole party wereentirely overwhelmed with consternation and terror. Two of the shipswere engulfed and lost. The queen's company thought that their own wassinking. They came crowding into the cabin where the priests werelying, sick and helpless, and began all together to confess their sinsto them, in the Catholic mode, eager in these their last moments, asthey supposed, to relieve their consciences in any way from the burdensof guilt which oppressed them. The queen herself did not participatein these fears. She ridiculed the absurd confessions, and rebuked thesenseless panic to which the terrified penitents were yielding; andwhenever any mitigation of the violence of the gale made it possibleto do any thing to divert the minds of her company, she tried to makeamusement out of the odd and strange dilemmas in which they werecontinually placed, and the ludicrous disasters and accidents whichwere always befalling her servants and officers of state, in theirattempts to continue the etiquette and ceremony proper in attendanceupon a queen, and from which even the violence of such a storm, andthe imminence of such danger, could not excuse them. After a fortnightof danger, terror, and distress, the ships that remained of the littlesquadron succeeded in getting back to the port from which they hadsailed. 

The queen, however, did not despair. After a few days of rest andrefreshment she set sail again, though it was now in the dead of winter. The result of this second attempt was a prosperous voyage, and thelittle fleet arrived in due time at Burlington, on the English coast, where the queen landed her money and her stores. She had, however, after all, a very narrow escape, for she was very closely pursued onher voyage by an English squadron. They came into port the night aftershe had landed, and the next morning she was awakened by the crashingof cannon balls and the bursting of bomb shells in the houses aroundher, and found, on hastily rising, that the village was under abombardment from the ships of her enemies. She hurried on some sortof dress, and sallied forth with her attendants to escape into thefields. This incident is related fully in the history of her husband, Charles the First; but there is one circumstance, not there detailed, which illustrates very strikingly that strange combination of mentalgreatness and energy worthy of a queen, with a simplicity of affectionsand tastes which we should scarcely expect in a child, that markedHenrietta's character. She had a small dog. Its name was Mike. Theysay it was an ugly little animal, too, in all eyes but her own. Thisdog accompanied her on the voyage, and landed with her on the Englishshore. On the morning, however, when she fled from her bed to escapefrom the balls and bomb shells of the English ships, she recollected, after getting a short distance from the house, that Mike was leftbehind. She immediately returned, ran up to her chamber again, seizedMike, who was sleeping unconsciously upon her bed, and bore the littlepet away from the scene of ruin which the balls and bursting shellswere making, all astonished, no doubt, at so hurried and violent anabduction. The party gained the open fields, and seeking shelter ina dry trench, which ran along the margin of a field, they crouchedthere together till the commander of the ships was tired of firing. 

The queen's destination was York, the great and ancient capital of thenorth of England York was the head quarters of King Charles's army, though he himself was not there at this time. As soon as news of thequeen's arrival reached York, the general in command there sent downto the coast a detachment of two thousand men to escort the heroine, and the stores and money which she had brought, to her husband'scapital. At the head of this force she marched in triumph across thecountry, with a long train of ordnance and baggage wagons loaded withsupplies. There were six pieces of cannon, and two hundred and fiftywagons loaded with the money which she had obtained in Holland. Thewhole country was excited with enthusiasm at the spectacle. Theenthusiasm was increased by the air and bearing of the queen, who, proud and happy at this successful result of all her dangers and toils, rode on horseback at the head of her army like a general, spoke franklyto the soldiers, sought no shelter from the sun and rain, and ate hermeals, like the rest of the army, in a bivouac in the open field. Shehad been the means, in some degree, of leading the king into hisdifficulties, by the too vigorous measures she had urged him to takein the case of the attempted parliamentary arrest. She seems to havebeen determined to make that spirit of resolution and energy in her, which caused the mischief then, atone for it by its efficient usefulnessnow. She stopped on her march to summon and _take_ a town, which hadbeen hitherto in the hands of her husband's enemies, adding thus theglory of a conquest to the other triumphs of the day. 

In fact, the queen's heart was filled with pride and pleasure at thisconclusion of her enterprise, as is very manifest from the frequentletters which she wrote to her husband at the time. The king's causerevived. They gradually approached each other in the operations whichthey severally conducted, until at last the king, after a great andsuccessful battle, set off at the head of a large escort to come andmeet his wife. They met in the vale of Keynton, near Edgehill, whichis on the southern borders of Warwickshire, near the center of theisland. The meeting was, of course, one of the greatest excitement andpleasure. Charles praised the high courage and faithful affection ofhis devoted wife, and she was filled with happiness in enjoying thelove and gratitude of her husband. 

The pressure of outward misfortune and calamity has always the samestrong tendency as was manifest in this case to invigorate anew allthe ties of conjugal and domestic affection, and thus to create thehappiness which it seems to the world to destroy. In the early partof Charles and Henrietta's married life, while every thing externalwent smoothly and prosperously with them, they were very far from beinghappy. They destroyed each other's peace by petty disputes and jarsabout things of little consequence, in which they each had scarcelyany interest except a desire to carry the point and triumph over theother. King Charles himself preserved a record of one of these disputes. The queen had received, at the time of her marriage, certain estates, consisting of houses and lands, the income of which was to be at herdisposal, and she wished to appoint certain treasurers to take chargeof this property. She had made out a list of these officers inconsultation with her mother. She gave this list to Charles one night, after he was himself in bed. He said he would look at it in the morning, but that she must remember that, by the marriage treaty, _he_ was toappoint those officers. She said, in reply, that a part of those whomshe had named were English. The king said that he would look at thepaper in the morning, and such of the English names as he approved hewould confirm, but that he could not appoint any Frenchmen. The queenanswered that she and her mother had selected the men whom she hadnamed, and she would not have any body else. Charles rejoined that thebusiness was not either in her power or her mother's, and if she reliedon such an influence to effect her wishes, he would not appoint _anybody_ that she recommended. The queen was very much hurt at this, andbegan to be angry. She said that if she could not put in whom shechose, to have the care of her property, she would not have any suchproperty. He might take back her houses and lands, and allow her whathe pleased in money in its stead. Charles replied by telling her toremember whom she was speaking to; that he could not be treated inthat manner; and then the queen, giving way to lamentations and tears, said she was wretched and miserable; every thing that she wanted wasdenied her, and whatever she recommended was refused on the very accountof her recommendation. Charles tried to speak, but she would not hear;she went on with her lamentations and complaints, interrupted only byher own sobs of passion and grief. 

The reader may perhaps imagine that this must have been an extreme andunusual instance of dissension between this royal pair; but it wasnot. Cases of far greater excitement and violence sometimes occurred. The French servants and attendants, whom the queen very naturallypreferred, and upon whom the king was as naturally inclined to lookwith suspicion and ill will, were a continual source of disagreementbetween them. At last, one afternoon, the king, happening to come intothat part of the palace at Whitehall where the queen's apartments weresituated, and which was called "the queen's side", found there a numberof her gentlemen and lady attendants in a great frolic, capering anddancing in a way which the gay Frenchmen probably considered nothingextraordinary, but which King Charles regarded as very irreverent andunsuitable conduct to be witnessed in the presence of an English queen. He was very much displeased. He advanced to Henrietta, took her by thearm, conducted her sternly to his own side of the palace, brought herinto one of his own apartments, and locked the door. He then sent anofficer to direct all the French servants and attendants in the queen'sapartments to leave the palace immediately, and repair to SomersetHouse, which was not far distant, and remain there till they receivedfurther orders. The officer executed these commands in a very roughmanner. The French women shrieked and cried, and filled the court yardof the palace with their clamor; but the officer paid no regard tothis noise. He turned them all out of the apartments, and locked thedoors after them. 

The queen was rendered quite frantic with vexation and rage at theseproceedings. She flew to the windows to see and to bid farewell to herfriends, and to offer them expressions of her sympathy. The king pulledher away, telling her to be quiet and submit, for he was determinedthat they should go. The queen was determined that she would not submit. She attempted to open the windows; the king held them down. Excitednow to a perfect frenzy in the struggle, she began to break out thepanes with her fist, while Charles exerted all his force to restrainand confine her, by grasping her wrists and endeavoring to force heraway. What a contrast between the low and sordid selfishness andjealousy evinced in such dissensions as these, and the lofty and heroicdevotedness and fidelity which this wife afterward evinced for herhusband in the harassing cares the stormy voyages, and the martialexposures and fatigues which she endured for his sake! And yet, notwithstanding this great apparent contrast, and the wide differencein the estimation which mankind form of the conduct of the actor inthese different scenes, still we can see that it is, after all, theimpulse of the same lofty and indomitable spirit which acted in both. The soul itself of the queen was not altered, nor even the characterof her action. The change was in the object and aim. In the one caseshe was contending against the authority of a husband, to gain pettyand useless victories in domestic strife; in the other, the same spiritand energy were expended in encountering the storms and tempests ofoutward adversity to sustain her husband and protect her children. Thus the change was a change of circumstances rather than of character. 

The change was, however, none the less important on that account inits influence on the king. It restored to him the affection and sympathyof his wife, and filled his heart with inward happiness. It was ajoyous change to him, though it was produced by sufferings and sorrows;for it was the very pressure of outward calamity that made his wifehis friend again, and restored his domestic peace. In how many thousandinstances is the same effect produced in a still more striking manner, though on a less conspicuous stage, than in the case of this royalpair! And how many thousands of outwardly prosperous families thereare, from which domestic peace and happiness are gone, and nothing butthe pressure from without of affliction or calamity can ever restorethem!

In consequence, in a great measure, of Henrietta's efficient help, theking's affairs greatly improved, and, for a time, it seemed as if hewould gain an ultimate and final victory over his enemies, and recoverhis lost dominion. He advanced to Oxford, and made his head quartersthere, and commenced the preparations for once more getting possessionof the palaces and fortresses of London. He called together a Parliamentat Oxford; some members came, and were regularly organized in the twohouses of Lords and Commons, while the rest remained at London andcontinued their sittings there. Thus there were two governments, twoParliaments, and two capitals in England, and the whole realm was rentand distracted by the respective claims of these contending powersover the allegiance of the subjects and the government of the realm. 

CHAPTER III. 

QUEEN HENRIETTA'S FLIGHT. 

The brightening of the prospects in King Charles's affairs which wasproduced, for a time, by the queen's vigorous and energetic action, proved to be only a temporary gleam after all. The clouds and darknesssoon returned again, and brooded over his horizon more gloomily thanever. The Parliament raised and organized new and more powerful armies. The great Republican general, Oliver Cromwell, who afterward becameso celebrated as the Protector in the time of the Commonwealth, cameinto the field, and was very successful in all his military plans. Other Republican generals appeared in all parts of the kingdom, andfought with great determination and great success, driving the armiesof the king before them wherever they moved, and reducing town aftertown, and castle after castle, until it began to appear evident thatthe whole kingdom would soon fall into their hands. 

In the mean time, the family of the queen were very much separatedfrom each other, the children having been left in various places, exposed each to different privations and dangers. Two or three of themwere in London in the hands of their father's enemies. Mary, the youngbride of the Prince of Orange, was in Holland. Prince Charles, theoldest son, who was now about fourteen years of age, was at the headof one of his father's armies in the west of England. Of course, sucha boy could not be expected to accomplish any thing as a general, oreven to exercise any real military command. He, however, had his placeat the head of a considerable force, and though there were generalswith him to conduct all the operations, and to direct the soldiery, they were nominally the lieutenants of the prince, and acted, in allcases, in their young commander's name. Their great duty was, however, after all, to take care of their charge; and the army which accompaniedCharles was thus rather an escort and a guard, to secure his safety, than a force from which any aid was to be expected in the recovery ofthe kingdom. 

The queen did every thing in her power to sustain the sinking fortunesof her husband, but in vain. At length, in June, 1644, she found herselfunable to continue any longer such warlike and masculine exposures andtoils. It became necessary for her to seek some place of retreat, whereshe could enjoy, for a time at least, the quiet and repose now essentialto the preservation of her life. Oxford was no longer a place of safety. The Parliament had ordered her impeachment on account of her havingbrought in arms and munitions of war from foreign lands, to disturb, as they said, the peace of the kingdom. The Parliamentary armies wereadvancing toward Oxford, and she was threatened with being shut up andbesieged there. She accordingly left Oxford, and went down to the sea-coast to Exeter, a strongly fortified place, on a hill surrounded inpart by other hills, and very near the sea. There was a palace withinthe walls, where the queen thought she could enjoy, for a time atleast, the needed seclusion and repose. The king accompanied her fora few miles on her journey, to a place called Abingdon, which is inthe neighborhood of Oxford, and there the unhappy pair bade each otherfarewell, with much grief and many tears. They never met again. 

Henrietta continued her sorrowful journey alone. She reached the sea-coast in the south-western part of England, where Exeter is situated, and shut herself up in the place of her retreat. She was in a stateof great destitution, for Charles's circumstances were now so reducedthat he could afford her very little aid. She sent across the Channelto her friends in France, asking them to help her. They sent immediatelythe supplies that she needed--articles of clothing, a considerable sumof money, and a nurse. She retained the clothing and the nurse, anda little of the money; the rest she sent to Charles. She was, however, now herself tolerably provided for in her new home, and here, a fewweeks afterward, her sixth child was born. It was a daughter. 

The queen's long continued exertions and exposures had seriouslyimpaired her health, and she lay, feeble and low, in her sick chamberfor about ten days, when she learned to her dismay that one of theParliamentary generals was advancing at the head of his army to attackthe town which she had made her refuge. This general's name was Essex. The queen sent a messenger out to meet Essex, asking him to allow herto withdraw from the town before he should invest it with his armies. She said that she was very weak and feeble, and unable to endure theprivations and alarms which the inhabitants of a besieged town havenecessarily to bear; and she asked his permission, therefore, to retireto Bristol, till her health should be restored. Essex replied that hecould not give her permission to retire from Exeter; that, in fact, the object of his coming there was to escort her to London, to bringher before Parliament, to answer to the charge of treason. 

The queen perceived immediately that nothing but the most prompt andresolute action could enable her to escape the impending danger. Shehad but little bodily strength remaining, but that little was stimulatedand renewed by the mental resolution and energy which, as is usual intemperaments like hers, burned all the brighter in proportion to theurgency of the danger which called it into action. She rose from hersick bed, and began to concert measures for making her escape. Sheconfided her plan to three trusty friends, one gentleman, one lady, and her confessor, who, as her spiritual teacher and guide, was herconstant companion. She disguised herself and these her attendants, and succeeded in getting through the gates of Exeter without attractingany observation. This was before Essex arrived. She found, however, before she went far, that the van of the army was approaching, and shehad to seek refuge in a hut till her enemies had passed. She concealedherself among some straw, her attendants seeking such other hidingplaces as were at hand. It was two days before the bodies of soldieryhad all passed so as to make it safe for the queen to come out of herretreat. The hut would seem to have been uninhabited, as the accountsstate that she remained all this time without food, though this seemsto be an almost incredible degree of privation and exposure for anEnglish queen. At any rate, she remained during all this time in astate of great mental anxiety and alarm, for there were parties ofsoldiery constantly going by, with a tumult and noise which kept herin continual terror. Their harsh and dissonant voices, heard sometimesin angry quarrels and sometimes in mirth, were always frightful. Infact, for a helpless woman in a situation like that of the queen, themood of reckless and brutal mirth in such savages was perhaps more tobe dreaded than that of their anger. 

At one time the queen overheard a party of these soldiers talking about_her_. They knew that to get possession of the papist queen was theobject of their expedition. They spoke of getting her head and carryingit to London, saying that Parliament had offered a reward of fiftythousand crowns for it, and expressed the savage pleasure which itwould give them to secure this prize, by imprecations and oaths. 

They did not, however, discover their intended victim. After the wholearmy passed, the queen ventured cautiously forth from her retreat; thelittle party got together again, and, still retaining their disguises, moved on over the road by which the soldiers had come, and which wasin the shocking condition that a road and a country always exhibitwhere an army has been marching. Faint and exhausted with sickness, abstinence, and the effects of long continued anxiety and fear, thequeen had scarcely strength to go on. She persevered, however, and atlength found a second refuge in a cabin in a wood. She was going toPlymouth, which is forty or fifty miles from Exeter, to the south-west, and is the great port and naval station of the English, in that quarterof the island. 

She stopped at this cabin for a little time to rest, and to wait forsome other friends and members of her household from the palace inExeter to join her. Those friends were to wait until they found thatthe queen succeeded in making her escape, and then they were to follow, each in a different way, and all assuming such disguises as would mosteffectually help to conceal them. There was one of the party whom itmust have been somewhat difficult to disguise. It was a dwarf, namedGeoffrey Hudson, who had been a long time in the service of Henriettaas a personal attendant and messenger. It was the fancy of queens andprincesses in those days to have such personages in their train. Theoddity of the idea pleased them, and the smaller the dimensions ofsuch a servitor, the greater was his value. In modern times all thisis changed. Tall footmen now, in the families of the great, receivesalaries in proportion to the number of inches in their stature, andthe dwarfs go to the museums, to be exhibited, for a price, to thecommon wonder of mankind. 

The manner in which Sir Geoffrey Hudson was introduced into the serviceof the queen was as odd as his figure. It was just after she wasmarried, and when she was about eighteen years old. She had two dwarfsthen already, a gentleman and a lady, or, as they termed it then, a_cavalier_ and a _dame_, and, to carry out the whimsical idea, she hadarranged a match between these two, and had them married. Now therewas in her court at that time a wild and thoughtless nobleman, a greatfriend and constant companion of her husband Charles the First, namedBuckingham. An account of his various exploits is given in our historyof Charles the First. Buckingham happened to hear of this GeoffreyHudson, who was then a boy of seven or eight years of age, living withhis parents somewhere in the interior of England. He sent for him, andhad him brought secretly to his house, and made an arrangement to havehim enter the service of the queen, without, however, saying any thingof his design to her. He then invited the queen and her husband tovisit him at his palace; and when the time for luncheon arrived, oneday, he conducted the party into the dining saloon to partake of somerefreshment. There was upon the table, among other viands, what appearedto be a large venison pie. The company gathered around the table, anda servant proceeded to cut the pie, and on his breaking and raisinga piece of the crust, out stepped the young dwarf upon the table, splendidly dressed and armed, and, advancing toward the queen, hekneeled before her, and begged to be received into her train. Hermajesty was very much pleased with the addition itself thus made toher household, as well as diverted by the odd manner in which her newattendant was introduced into her service. 

The youthful dwarf was then only eighteen inches high, and he continuedso until he was thirty years of age, when, to every body's surprise, he began to grow. He grew quite rapidly, and, for a time, there wasa prospect that he would be entirely spoiled, as his whole value hadconsisted thus far in his littleness. He attained the height of threefeet and a half, and there the mysterious principle of organicexpansion, the most mysterious and inexplicable, perhaps, that isexhibited in all the phenomena of life, seemed to be finally exhausted, and, though he lived to be nearly seventy years of age, he grew nomore. 

Notwithstanding the bodily infirmity, whatever it may have been, whichprevented his growth, the dwarf possessed a considerable degree ofmental capacity and courage. He did not bear, however, very good-naturedly, the jests and gibes of which he was the continual object, from the unfeeling courtiers, who often took pleasure in teasing himand in getting him into all sorts of absurd and ridiculous situations. At last his patience was entirely exhausted, and he challenged one ofhis tormentors, whose name was Crofts, to a duel. Crofts accepted thechallenge, and, being determined to persevere in his fun to the end, appeared on the battle ground armed only with a squirt. This raiseda laugh, of course, but it did not tend much to cool the injuredLilliputian's anger. He sternly insisted on another meeting, and withreal weapons. Crofts had expected to have turned off the whole affairin a joke, but he found this could not be done; and public opinionamong the courtiers around him compelled him finally to accept thechallenge in earnest. The parties met on horseback, to put them morenearly on an equality. They fought with pistols. Crofts was killedupon the spot. 

After this Hudson was treated with more respect. He was entrusted bythe queen with many commissions, and sometimes business was committedto him which required no little capacity, judgment, and courage. Hewas now, at the time of the queen's escape from Exeter, of his fullstature, but as this was only three and a half feet, he encounteredgreat danger in attempting to find his way out of the city and throughthe advancing columns of the army to rejoin the queen. He persevered, however, and reached her safely at last in the cabin in the wood. Thebabe, not yet two weeks old, was necessarily left behind. She was leftin charge of Lady Morton, whom the queen appointed her governess. LadyMorton was young and beautiful. She was possessed of great strengthand energy of character, and she devoted herself with her whole soulto preserving the life and securing the safety of her little charge. 

The queen and her party had to traverse a wild and desolate forest, many miles in extent, on the way to Plymouth. The name of it wasDartmoor Forest. Lonely as it was, however, the party was safer in itthan in the open and inhabited country, which was all disturbed andin commotion, as every country necessarily is in time of civil war. As the queen drew near to Plymouth, she found that, for some reason, it would not be safe to enter that town, and so the whole party wenton, continuing their journey farther to the westward still. 

Now there is one important sea-port to the westward of Plymouth whichis called Falmouth, and near it, on a high promontory jutting into thesea, is a large and strong castle, called Pendennis Castle. This castlewas, at the time of the queen's escape, in the hands of the king'sfriends, and she determined, accordingly, to seek refuge there. Thewhole party arrived here safely on the 29th of June. They were allcompletely worn out and exhausted by the fatigues, privations, andexposures of their terrible journey. 

The queen had determined to make her escape as soon as possible toFrance. She could no longer be of any service to the king in England;her resources were exhausted, and her personal health was so feeblethat she must have been a burden to his cause, and not a help, if shehad remained. There was a ship from Holland in the harbor. The Princeof Orange, it will be recollected, who had married the queen's oldestdaughter, was a prince of Holland, and this vessel was under hisdirection. Some writers say it was sent to Falmouth by him to be readyfor his mother-in-law, in case she should wish to make her escape fromEngland. Others speak of it as being there accidentally at this time. However this may be, it was immediately placed at Queen Henrietta'sdisposal, and she determined to embark in it on the following morning. She knew very well that, as soon as Essex should have heard of herescape, parties would be scouring the country in all directions inpursuit of her, and that, although the castle where she had found atemporary refuge was strong, it was not best to incur the risk of beingshut up and besieged in it. 

She accordingly embarked, with all her company, on board the Dutchship on the very morning after her arrival, and immediately put tosea. They made all sail for the coast of France, intending to land atDieppe. Dieppe is almost precisely east of Falmouth, two or threehundred miles from it, up the English Channel. As it is on the otherside of the Channel, it would lie to the south of Falmouth, were itnot that both the French and English coasts trend here to the northward. 

Some time before they arrived at their port, they perceived some shipsin the offing that seemed to be pursuing them. They endeavored toescape, but their pursuers gained rapidly upon them, and at lengthfired a gun as a signal for the queen's vessel to stop. The ball camebounding over the water toward them, but did no harm. Of course therewas a scene of universal commotion and panic on board the queen's ship. Some wanted to fire back upon the pursuers, some wished to stop andsurrender, and others shrieked and cried, and were overwhelmed withuncontrollable emotions of terror. 

In the midst of this dreadful scene of confusion, the queen, as wasusual with her in such emergencies, retained all her self-possession, and though weak and helpless before, felt a fresh strength and energynow, which the imminence itself of the danger seemed to inspire. Shewas excited, it is true, as well as the rest, but it was, in her case, the excitement of courage and resolution, and not of senseless terrorand despair. She ascended to the deck; she took the direct command ofthe ship; she gave instructions to the pilot how to steer; and, thoughthere was a storm coming on, she ordered every sail to be set, thatthe ship might be driven as rapidly as possible through the water. Sheforbade the captain to fire back upon their pursuers, fearing thatsuch firing would occasion delay; and she gave distinct and positiveorders to the captain, that so soon as it should appear that all hopeof escape was gone, and that they must inevitably fall into the handsof their enemies, he was to set fire to the magazine of gunpowder, inorder that they might all be destroyed by the explosion. 

In the mean time all the ships, pursuers and pursued, were rapidlynearing the French coast. The fugitives were hoping to reach theirport. They were also hoping every moment to see some friendly Frenchships appear in sight to rescue them. To balance this double hope, there was a double fear. There were their pursuers behind them, whoseshots were continually booming over the water, threatening them withdestruction, and there was a storm arising which, with the great pressof sail that they were carrying, brought with it a danger, perhaps, more imminent still. 

It happened that these hopes and fears were all realized, and nearlyat the same time. A shot struck the ship, producing a great shock, andthrowing all on board into terrible consternation. It damaged therigging, bringing down the rent sails and broken cordage to the deck, and thus stopped the vessel's way. At the same moment some Frenchvessels came in sight, and, as soon as they understood the case, boredown full sail to rescue the disabled vessel. The pursuers, changingsuddenly their pursuit to flight, altered their course and moved slowlyaway. The storm, however, increased, and, preventing them from makingthe harbor of Dieppe, drove them along the shore, threatening everymoment to dash them upon the rocks and breakers. At length the queen'svessel succeeded in getting into a rocky cove, where they were shelteredfrom the winds and waves, and found a chance to land. The queen orderedout the boat, and was set ashore with her attendants on the rocks. Sheclimbed over them, wet as they were with the dashing spray, and slipperywith sea weed. The little party, drenched with the rain, and exhaustedand forlorn, wandered along the shore till they came to a little villageof fishermen's huts. The queen went into the first wretched cabin whichoffered itself, and lay down upon the straw in the corner for rest andsleep. 

The tidings immediately spread all over the region that the Queen ofEngland had landed on the coast, and produced, of course, universalexcitement. The gentry in the neighborhood flocked down the nextmorning, in their carriages, to offer Henrietta their aid. They suppliedher wants, invited her to their houses, and offered her their equipagesto take her wherever she should decide to go. What she wanted wasseclusion and rest. They accordingly conveyed her, at her request, tothe Baths of Bourbon, where she remained some time, until, in fact, her health and strength were in some measure restored. Great personagesof state were sent to her here from Paris, with money and all othernecessary supplies, and in due time she was escorted in state to thecity, and established in great magnificence and splendor in the Louvre, which was then one of the principal palaces of the capital. 

Notwithstanding the outward change which was thus made in thecircumstances of the exiled queen, she was very unhappy. As theexcitement of her danger and her efforts to escape it passed away, herspirits sunk, her beauty faded, and her countenance assumed the wanand haggard expression of despair. She mourned over the ruin of herhusband's hopes, and her separation from him and from her children, with perpetual tears. She called to mind continually the image of thelittle babe, not yet three weeks old, whom she had left so defenselessin the very midst of her enemies. She longed to get some tidings ofthe child, and reproached herself sometimes for having thus, as itwere, abandoned her. 

The localities which were the scenes of these events have been madevery famous by them, and traditional tales of Queen Henrietta'sresidence in Exeter, and of her romantic escape from it, have beenhanded down there, from generation to generation, to the present day. They caused her portrait to be painted too, and hung it up in the cityhall of Exeter as a memorial of their royal visitor. The palace wherethe little infant was born has long since passed away, but the portraithangs in the Guildhall still. 

CHAPTER IV. 

ESCAPE OF THE CHILDREN. 

We left the mother of Prince Charles, at the close of the last chapter, in the palace of the Louvre in Paris. Though all her wants were nowsupplied, and though she lived in royal state in a magnificent palaceon the banks of the Seine, still she was disconsolate and unhappy. Shehad, indeed, succeeded in effecting her own escape from the terribledangers which had threatened her family in England, but she had lefther husband and children behind, and she could not really enjoy herselfthe shelter which she had found from the storm, as long as those whomshe so ardently loved were still out, exposed to all its fury. She hadsix children. Prince Charles, the oldest, was in the western part ofEngland, in camp, acting nominally as the commander of an army, andfighting for his father's throne. He was now fourteen years of age. Next to him was Mary, the wife of the Prince of Orange, who was safein Holland. She was one year younger than Charles. James, the thirdchild, whose title was now Duke of York, was about ten. He had beenleft in Oxford when that city was surrendered, and had been takencaptive there by the Republican army. The general in command sent himto London a prisoner. It was hard for such a child to be a captive, but then there was one solace in his lot. By being sent to London herejoined his little sister Elizabeth and his brother Henry, who hadremained there all the time. Henry was three years old and Elizabethwas six. These children, being too young, as was supposed, to attemptan escape, were not very closely confined. They were entrusted to thecharge of some of the nobility, and lived in one of the London palaces. James was a very thoughtful and considerate boy, and had been enoughwith his father in his campaigns to understand something of the terribledangers with which the family were surrounded. The other children weretoo young to know or care about them, and played blindman's buff andhide and go seek in the great saloons of the palace with as muchinfantile glee as if their father and mother were as safe and happyas ever. 

Though they felt thus no uneasiness and anxiety for themselves, theirexiled mother mourned for them, and was oppressed by the most forebodingfears for their personal safety. She thought, however, still morefrequently of the babe, and felt a still greater solicitude for her, left as she had been, at so exceedingly tender an age, in a situationof the most extreme and imminent danger. She felt somewhat guilty inhaving yielded her reluctant consent, for political reasons, to haveher other children educated in what she believed a false system ofreligious faith, and she now prayed earnestly to God to spare the lifeof this her last and dearest child, and vowed in her anguish that, ifthe babe were ever restored to her, she would break through allrestrictions, and bring her up a true believer. This vow she afterwardearnestly fulfilled. 

The child, it will be recollected, was left, when Henrietta escapedfrom Exeter, in the care of the Countess of Morton, a young andbeautiful, and also a very intelligent and energetic lady. The childhad a visit from its father soon after its mother left it. King Charles, as soon as he heard that Essex was advancing to besiege Exeter, wherehe knew that the queen had sought refuge, and was, of course, exposedto fall into his power, hastened with an army to her rescue. He arrivedin time to prevent Essex from getting possession of the place. He, infact, drove the besieger away from the town, and entered it himselfin triumph. The queen was gone, but he found the child. 

The king gazed upon the little stranger with a mixture of joy andsorrow. He caused it to be baptized, and named it Henrietta Anne. Thename Henrietta was from the mother; Anne was the name of Henrietta'ssister-in-law in Paris, who had been very kind to her in all hertroubles. The king made ample arrangements for supplying Lady Mortonwith money out of the revenues of the town of Exeter, and, thinkingthat the child would be as safe in Exeter as any where, left her there, and went away to resume again his desperate conflicts with his politicalfoes. 

Lady Morton remained for some time at Exeter, but the king's causeevery where declined. His armies were conquered, his towns were taken, and he was compelled at last to give himself up a prisoner. Exeter, as well as all the other strongholds in the kingdom, fell into thehands of the parliamentary armies. They sent Lady Morton and the littleHenrietta to London, and soon afterward provided them with a home inthe mansion at Oatlands, where the queen herself and her other childrenhad lived before. It was a quiet and safe retreat, but Lady Morton wasvery little satisfied with the plan of remaining there. She wishedvery much to get the babe back to its mother again in Paris. She heard, at length, of rumors that a plan was forming by the Parliament to takethe child out of her charge, and she then resolved to attempt an escapeat all hazards. 

Henrietta Anne was now two years old, and was beginning to talk alittle. When asked what was her name, they had taught her to attemptto reply _princess_, though she did not succeed in uttering more thanthe first letters of the word, her answer being, in fact, _prah_. LadyMorton conceived the idea of making her escape across the country inthe disguise of a beggar woman, changing, at the same time, the princessinto a boy. She was herself very tall, and graceful, and beautiful, and it was hard for her to make herself look old and ugly. She, however, made a hump for her back out of a bundle of linen, and stooped in hergait to counterfeit age. She dressed herself in soiled and raggedclothes, disfigured her face by reversing the contrivances with whichladies in very fashionable life are said sometimes to produce artificialyouth and beauty, and with the child in a bundle on her back, and astaff in her hand, she watched for a favorable opportunity to escapestealthily from the palace, in the forlorn hope of walking in that wayundetected to Dover, a march of fifty miles, through a country filledwith enemies. 

Little Henrietta was to be a boy, and as people on the way might askthe child its name, Lady Morton was obliged to select one for her whichwould fit, in some degree, her usual reply to such a question. Shechose the name Pierre, which sounds, at least, as much like _prah_ asprincess does. The poor child, though not old enough to speakdistinctly, was still old enough to talk a great deal. She was veryindignant at the vile dress which she was compelled to wear, and atbeing called a beggar boy. She persisted in telling every body whomshe met that she was not a boy, nor a beggar, nor Pierre, but the_princess_ saying it all, however, very fortunately, in such anunintelligible way, that it only alarmed Lady Morton, without, however, attracting the attention of those who heard it, or giving them anyinformation. 

Contrary to every reasonable expectation, Lady Morton succeeded in herwild and romantic attempt. She reached Dover in safety. She madearrangements for crossing in the packet boat, which then, as now, pliedfrom Dover to Calais. She landed at length safely on the French coast, where she threw off her disguise, resumed her natural grace and beauty, made known her true name and character, and traveled in ease and safetyto Paris. The excitement and the intoxicating joy which Henriettaexperienced when she got her darling child once more in her arms, canbe imagined, perhaps, even by the most sedate American mother; but thewild and frantic violence of her expressions of it, none but those whoare conversant with the French character and French manners can know. 

It was not very far from the time of little Henrietta's escape fromher father's enemies in London, though, in fact, before it, that PrinceCharles made his escape from the island too. His father, finding thathis cause was becoming desperate, gave orders to those who had chargeof his son to retreat to the southwestern coast of the island, and ifthe Republican armies should press hard upon him there, he was to makehis escape, if necessary, by sea. 

The southwestern part of England is a long, mountainous promontory, constituting the county of Cornwall. It is a wild and secluded region, and the range which forms it seems to extend for twenty or thirty milesunder the sea, where it rises again to the surface, forming a littlegroup of islands, more wild and rugged even than the land. These arethe Scilly Isles. They lie secluded and solitary, and are known chieflyto mankind through the ships that seek shelter among them in storms. Prince Charles retreated from post to post through Cornwall, the dangerbecoming more and more imminent every day, till at last it becamenecessary to fly from the country altogether. He embarked on board avessel, and went first to the Scilly Isles. 

From Scilly he sailed eastward toward the coast of France. He landedfirst at the island of Jersey, which, though it is very near the Frenchcoast, and is inhabited by a French population, is under the Englishgovernment. Here the prince met with a very cordial reception, as theauthorities were strongly attached to his father's cause. Jersey isa beautiful isle and, far enough south to enjoy a genial climate, whereflowers bloom and fruits ripen in the warm sunbeams, which are hereno longer intercepted by the driving mists and rains which sweep almostperceptibly along the hill sides and fields of England. 

Prince Charles did not, however, remain long in Jersey. His destinationwas Paris. He passed, therefore, across to the main land, and traveledto the capital. He was received with great honors at his mother's newhome, in the palace of the Louvre, as a royal prince, and heir apparentto the British crown. He was now sixteen. The adventures which he metwith on his arrival will be the subject of the next chapter. 

James, the Duke of York, remained still in London. He continued therefor two years, during which time his father's affairs went totally toruin. The unfortunate king, after his armies were all defeated, andhis cause was finally given up by his friends, and he had surrenderedhimself a prisoner to his enemies, was taken from castle to castle, every where strongly guarded and very closely confined. At length, worn down with privations and sufferings, and despairing of all hopeof relief, he was taken to London to be tried for his life. James, inthe mean time, with his brother, the little Duke of Gloucester, andhis sister Elizabeth, were kept in St. James's Palace, as has alreadybeen stated, under the care of an officer to whom they had been givenin charge. 

The queen was particularly anxious to have James make his escape. Hewas older than the others, and in case of the death of Charles, wouldbe, of course, the next heir to the crown. He did, in fact, live tillafter the close of his brother's reign, and succeeded him, under thetitle of James the Second. His being thus in the direct line ofsuccession made his father and mother very desirous of effecting hisrescue, while the Parliament were strongly desirous, for the samereason, of keeping him safely. His governor received, therefore, aspecial charge to take the most effectual precautions to prevent hisescape, and, for this purpose, not to allow of his having anycommunication whatever with his parents or his absent friends. Thegovernor took all necessary measures to prevent such intercourse, and, as an additional precaution, made James _promise_ that he would notreceive any letter from any person unless it came through him. 

James's mother, however, not knowing these circumstances, wrote aletter to him, and sent it by a trusty messenger, directing him towatch for some opportunity to deliver it unobserved. Now there is acertain game of ball, called _tennis_, which was formerly a favoriteamusement in England and on the Continent of Europe, and which, infact, continues to be played there still. It requires an oblongenclosure, surrounded by high walls, against which the balls rebound. Such an enclosure is called a tennis court. It was customary to buildsuch tennis courts in most of the royal palaces. There was one at St. James's Palace, where the young James, it seems, used sometimes toplay. [Footnote: It was to such a tennis court at Versailles that thegreat National Assembly of France adjourned when the king excludedthem from their hall, at the commencement of the great Revolution, andwhere they took the famous oath not to separate till they hadestablished a constitution, which has been so celebrated in historyas the Oath of the Tennis Court. ] Strangers had the opportunity ofseeing the young prince in his coming and going to and from this placeof amusement, and the queen's messenger determined to offer him theletter there. He accordingly tendered it to him stealthily, as he waspassing, saying, "Take this; it is from your mother. "

James drew back, replying, "I can not take it. I have promised thatI will not. "

The messenger reported to the queen that he offered the letter toJames, and that he refused to receive it. His mother was very muchdispleased, and wondered what such a strange refusal could mean. 

Although James thus failed to receive his communication, he was allowedat length, once or twice, to have an interview with his father, andin these interviews the king recommended to him to make his escape, if he could, and to join his mother in France. James determined toobey this injunction, and immediately set to work to plan his escape. He was fifteen years of age, and, of course, old enough to exercisesome little invention. 

He was accustomed, as we have already stated, to join the youngerchildren in games of hide and go seek. He began now to search for themost recondite hiding places, where he could not be found, and whenhe had concealed himself in such a place, he would remain there fora very long time, until his playmates had given up the search indespair. Then, at length, after having been missing for half an hour, he would reappear of his own accord. He thought that by this plan heshould get the children and the attendants accustomed to his being fora long time out of sight, so that, when at length he should finallydisappear, their attention would not be seriously attracted to thecircumstance until he should have had time to get well set out uponhis journey. 

He had, like his mother, a little dog, but, unlike her, he was not sostrongly attached to it as to be willing to endanger his life to avoida separation. When the time arrived, therefore, to set out on hissecret journey, he locked the dog up in his room, to prevent itsfollowing him, and thus increasing the probability of his beingrecognized and brought back. He then engaged his brother and sisterand his other playmates in the palace in a game of hide and go seek. He went off ostensibly to hide, but, instead of doing so, he stole outof the palace gates in company with a friend named Banfield, and afootman. It was in the rear of the palace that he made his exit, ata sort of postern gate, which opened upon an extensive park. Aftercrossing the park, the party hurried on through London, and thendirected their course down the River Thames toward Gravesend, a portnear the mouth of the river, where they intended to embark for Holland. They had taken the precaution to disguise themselves. James wore awig, which, changing the color and appearance of his hair, seemed togive a totally new expression to his face. He substituted other clothes, too, for those which he was usually accustomed to wear. The whole partysucceeded thus in traversing the country without detection. They reachedGravesend, embarked on board a vessel there, and sailed to Holland, where James joined the Prince of Orange and his sister, and sent wordto his mother that he had arrived there in safety. 

His little brother and sister were left behind. They were too youngto fly themselves, and too old to be conveyed away, as little Henriettahad been, in the arms of another. They had, however, the mournfulsatisfaction of seeing their father just before his execution, and ofbidding him a last farewell. The king, when he was condemned to die, begged to be allowed to see these children. They were brought to visithim in the chamber where he was confined. His parting interview withthem, and the messages of affection and farewell which he sent to theirbrothers and sisters, and to their mother, constitute one of the mostaffecting scenes which the telescope of history brings to our view, in that long and distant vista of the past, which it enables us sofully to explore. The little Gloucester was too young to understandthe sorrows of the hour, but Elizabeth felt them in all their intensity. She was twelve years old. When brought to her father, she burst intotears, and wept long and bitterly. Her little brother, sympathizingin his sister's sorrow, though not comprehending its cause, weptbitterly too. Elizabeth was thoughtful enough to write an account ofwhat took place at this most solemn farewell as soon as it was over. Her account is as follows:

"_What the king said to me on the 29th of January, 1648, the last timeI had the happiness to see him_. 

"He told me that he was glad I was come, for, though he had not timeto say much, yet somewhat he wished to say to me, which he could notto another, and he had feared 'the cruelty' was too great to permithis writing. 'But, darling, ' he added, 'thou wilt forget what I tellthee. ' Then, shedding an abundance of tears, I told him that I wouldwrite down all he said to me. 'He wished me, ' he said, 'not to grieveand torment myself for him, for it was a glorious death he should die, it being for the laws and religion of the land. ' He told me what booksto read against popery. He said 'that he had forgiven all his enemies, and he hoped God would forgive them also;' and he commanded us, andall the rest of my brothers and sisters, to forgive them too. Aboveall, he bade me tell my mother 'that his thoughts had never strayedfrom her, and that his love for her would be the same to the last;'withal, he commanded me (and my brother) to love her and be obedientto her. He desired me 'not to grieve for him, for he should die amartyr, and that he doubted not but God would restore the throne tohis son, and that then we should be all happier than we could possiblyhave been if he had lived. '

"Then taking my brother Gloucester on his knee, he said, 'Dear boy, nowwill they cut off thy father's head. ' Upon which the child looked verysteadfastly upon him. 'Heed, my child, what I say; they will cut offmy head, and perhaps make thee a king; but, mark what I say! You mustnot be a king as long as your brothers Charles and James live;therefore, I charge you, do not be made a king by them. ' At which thechild, sighing deeply, replied, 'I will be torn in pieces first. ' Andthese words, coining so unexpectedly from so young a child, rejoicedmy father exceedingly. And his majesty spoke to him of the welfare ofhis soul, and to keep his religion, commanding him to fear God, andhe would provide for him; all which the young child earnestly promisedto do. "

After the king's death the Parliament kept these children in custodyfor some time, and at last they became somewhat perplexed to know whatto do with them. It was even proposed, when Cromwell's Republicangovernment had become fully established, to bind them out apprentices, to learn some useful trade. This plan was, however, not carried intoeffect. They were held as prisoners, and sent at last to CarisbrookeCastle, where their father had been confined. Little Henry, too youngto understand his sorrows, grew in strength and stature, like any otherboy; but Elizabeth pined and sunk under the burden of her woes. Shemourned incessantly her father's cruel death, her mother's and herbrother's exile, and her own wearisome and hopeless captivity. "LittleHarry", as she called him, and a Bible, which her father gave her inhis last interview with her, were her only companions. She lingeredalong for two years after her father's death, until at length thehectic flush, the signal of approaching dissolution, appeared upon hercheek, and an unnatural brilliancy brightened in her eyes. They senther father's physician to see if he could save her. His prescriptionsdid no good. One day the attendants came into her apartment and foundher sitting in her chair, with her cheek resting upon the Bible whichshe had been reading, and which she had placed for a sort of pillowon the table, to rest her weary head upon when her reading was done. She was motionless. They would have thought her asleep, but her eyeswere not closed. She was dead. The poor child's sorrows and sufferingswere ended forever. 

The stern Republicans who now held dominion over England, men of ironas they were, could not but be touched with the unhappy fate of thistheir beautiful and innocent victim; and they so far relented from theseverity of the policy which they had pursued toward the ill-fatedfamily as to send the little Gloucester, after his sister's death, home to his mother. 

CHAPTER V. 

THE PRINCE'S RECEPTION AT PARIS. 

So complicated a story as that of the family of Charles can not berelated, in all its parts, in the exact order of time; and having nowshown under what circumstances the various members of the family madetheir escape from the dangers which threatened them in England, wereturn to follow the adventures of Prince Charles during his residenceon the Continent, and, more particularly in this chapter, to describehis reception by the royal family of France. He was one of the firstof the children that escaped, having arrived in France in 1646. Hisfather was not beheaded until two years afterward. 

In order that the reader may understand distinctly the situation inwhich Charles found himself on his arrival at Paris, we must firstdescribe the condition of the royal family of France at this time. They resided sometimes at Fontainebleau, a splendid palace in the midstof a magnificent park about forty miles from the city. Henrietta, itwill be recollected, was the sister of a king of France. This king wasLouis XIII. He died, however, not far from the time of Queen Henrietta'sarrival in the country, leaving his little son Louis, then five yearsold, heir to the crown. The little Louis of course became kingimmediately, in name, as Louis XIV. , and in the later periods of hislife he attained to so high a degree of prosperity and power, that hehas been, ever since his day, considered one of the most renowned ofall the French kings. He was, of course, Prince Charles's cousin. Atthe period of Prince Charles's arrival, however, he was a mere child, being then about eight years old. Of course, he was too young reallyto exercise any of the powers of the government. His mother, Anne ofAustria, was made regent, and authorized to govern the country untilthe young king should arrive at a suitable age to exercise hishereditary powers in his own name. Anne of Austria had been alwaysvery kind to Henrietta, and had always rendered her assistance whenevershe had been reduced to any special extremity of distress. It was shewho had sent the supplies of money and clothing to Henrietta when shefled, sick and destitute, to Exeter, vainly hoping to find repose andthe means of restoration there. 

Besides King Louis XIII. , who had died, Henrietta had another brother, whose name was Gaston, duke of Orleans. The Duke of Orleans had adaughter, who was styled the Duchess of Montpensier, deriving the titlefrom her mother. She was, of course, also a cousin of Prince Charles. Her father, being brother of the late king, and uncle of the presentone, was made lieutenant general of the kingdom, having thus the secondplace, that is, the place next to the queen, in the management of theaffairs of the realm. Thus the little king commenced his reign byhaving in his court his mother as queen regent, his uncle lieutenantgeneral, and his aunt, an exiled queen from a sister realm, his guest. He had also in his household his brother Philip, younger than himself, his cousin the young Duchess of Montpensier, and his cousin the PrinceCharles. The family relationship of all these individuals will be mademore clear by being presented in a tabular form, as follows:

ROYAL FAMILY OF FRANCE IN THE TIME OF LOUIS XIV. 

 Louis XIII. Louis XIV. Anne of Austria. Philip, 8 years old. 

HENRY IV Gaston, duke of Orleans. Duchess of MontpensierDuchess of Montpensier. 

 Henrietta Maria. Prince Charles, 16. King Charles I. 

In the above table, the first column contains the name of Henry IV. , the second those of three of his children, with the persons whom theyrespectively married, and the third the four grandchildren, who, ascousins, now found themselves domesticated together in the royal palacesof France. 

The young king was, as has already been said, about eight years oldat the time of Prince Charles's arrival. The palace in which he residedwhen in the city was the Palace Royal, which was then, and has beenever since, one of the most celebrated buildings in the world. It wasbuilt at an enormous expense, during a previous reign, by a powerfulminister of state, who was, in ecclesiastical rank, a cardinal, andhis mansion was named, accordingly, the Palace Cardinal. It had, however, been recently taken as a royal residence, and its name changedto Palace Royal. Here the queen regent had her grand apartments ofstate, every thing being as rich as the most lavish expenditure couldmake it. She had one apartment, called an oratory, a sort of closetfor prayer, which was lighted by a large window, the sash of which wasmade of silver. The interior of the room was ornamented with the mostcostly paintings and furniture, and was enriched with a profusion ofsilver and gold. The little king had his range of apartments too, witha whole household of officers and attendants as little as himself. These children were occupied continually with ceremonies, and pageants, and mock military parades, in which they figured in miniature arms andbadges of authority, and with dresses made to imitate those of realmonarchs and ministers of state. Every thing was regulated with theutmost regard to etiquette and punctilio, and without any limits orbounds to the expense. Thus, though the youthful officers of the littlemonarch's household exercised no real power, they displayed all theforms and appearances of royalty with more than usual pomp and splendor. It was a species of child's play, it is true, but it was probably themost grand and magnificent child's play that the world has everwitnessed. It was into this extraordinary scene that Prince Charlesfound himself ushered on his arrival in France. 

At the time of the prince's arrival the court happened to be residing, not at Paris, but at Fontainebleau. Fontainebleau, as has already beenstated, is about forty miles from Paris, to the southward. There isa very splendid palace and castle there, built originally in veryancient times. There is a town near, both the castle and the town beingin the midst of a vast park and forest, one of the most extended andmagnificent royal domains in Europe. This forest has been reserved asa hunting ground for the French kings from a very early age. It coversan area of forty thousand acres, being thus many miles in extent. Theroyal family were at this palace at the time of Prince Charles'sarrival, celebrating the festivities of a marriage. The princeaccordingly, as we shall presently see, went there to join them. 

There were two persons who were anticipating the prince's arrival inFrance with special interest, his mother, and his young cousin, theDuchess of Montpensier. Her Christian name was Anne Marie Louisa. [Footnote: She is commonly called, in the annals of the day in whichshe lived, _Mademoiselle_, as she was, _par eminence_, the young ladyof the court. In history she is commonly called Mademoiselle deMontpensier; we shall call her, in this narrative, simply Anne Maria, as that is, for our purpose, the most convenient designation. ] She wasa gay, frivolous, and coquettish girl, of about nineteen, immenselyrich, being the heiress of the vast estates of her mother, who was notliving. Her father, though he was the lieutenant general of the realm, and the former king's brother, was not rich. His wife, when she died, had bequeathed all her vast estates to her daughter Anne Maria wasnaturally haughty and vain, and; as her father was accustomed to comeoccasionally to her to get supplies of money, she was made vainer andmore self-conceited still by his dependence upon her. Several matcheshad been proposed to her, and among them the Emperor of Germany hadbeen named. He was a widower. His first wife, who had been Anne Maria'saunt, had just died. As the emperor was a potentate of great importance, the young belle thought she should prefer him to any of the others whohad been proposed, and she made no secret of this her choice. It istrue that he had made no proposal to her, but she presumed that hewould do so after a suitable time had elapsed from the death of hisfirst wife, and Anne Maria was contented to wait, considering the loftyelevation to which she would attain on becoming his bride. 

But Queen Henrietta Maria had another plan. She was very desirous toobtain Anne Maria for the wife of her son Charles. There were manyreasons for this. The young lady was a princess of the royal familyof France; she possessed, too, an immense fortune, and was young andbeautiful withal, though not quite so young as Charles himself. He wassixteen, and she was about nineteen. It is true that Charles was now, in some sense, a fugitive and an exile, destitute of property, andwithout a home. Still he was a prince. He was the heir apparent of thekingdoms of England and Scotland. He was young and accomplished. Thesehigh qualifications, somewhat exaggerated, perhaps, by maternalpartiality, seemed quite sufficient to Henrietta to induce the proudduchess to become the prince's bride. 

All this, it must be remembered, took place before the execution ofKing Charles the First, and when, of course, the fortunes of the familywere not so desperate as they afterward became. Queen Henrietta hada great many conversations with Anne Maria before the prince arrived, in which she praised very highly his person and his accomplishments. She narrated to the duchess the various extraordinary adventures andthe narrow escapes which the prince had met with in the course of hiswanderings in England; she told her how dutiful and kind he had beento her as a son, and how efficient and courageous in his father's causeas a soldier. She described his appearance and his manners, and foretoldhow he would act, what tastes and preferences he would form, and howhe would be regarded in the French court. The young duchess listenedto all this with an appearance of indifference and unconcern, whichwas partly real and partly only assumed. She could not help feelingsome curiosity to see her cousin, but her head was too full of thegrander destination of being the wife of the emperor to think much ofthe pretensions of this wandering and homeless exile. 

Prince Charles, on his arrival, went first to Paris, where he foundhis mother. There was an invitation for them here to proceed toFontainebleau, where, as has already been stated, the young king andhis court were now residing. They went there accordingly, and werereceived with every mark of attention and honor. The queen regent tookthe young king into the carriage of state, and rode some miles alongthe avenue, through the forest, to meet the prince and his mother whenthey were coming. They were attended with the usual cortege of carriagesand horsemen, and they moved with all the etiquette and ceremony properto be observed in the reception of royal visitors. 

When the carriages met in the forest, they stopped, and thedistinguished personages contained in them alighted. Queen Henriettaintroduced her son to the queen regent and to Louis, the French king, and also to other personages of distinction who were in their train. Among them was Anne Maria. The queen regent took Henrietta and theprince into the carriage with her and the young king, and they proceededthus together back to the palace. Prince Charles was somewhatembarrassed in making all these new acquaintances, in circumstances, too, of so much ceremony and parade, and the more so, as his knowledgeof the French language was imperfect. He could understand it whenspoken, but could not speak it well himself, and he appeared, accordingly, somewhat awkward and confused. He seemed particularly ata loss in his intercourse with Anne Maria. She was a little older thanhimself, and, being perfectly at home, both in the ceremonies of theoccasion and in the language of the company, she felt entirely at herease herself; and yet, from her natural temperament and character, sheassumed such an air and bearing as would tend to prevent the princefrom being so. In a word, it happened then as it has often happenedsince on similar occasions, that the beau was afraid of the belle. 

The party returned to the palace. On alighting, the little king gavehis hand to his aunt, the Queen of England, while Prince Charles gavehis to the queen regent, and thus the two matrons were gallanted intothe hall. The prince had a seat assigned him on the following day inthe queen regent's drawing room, and was thus regularly instated asan inmate of the royal household. He remained here several days, andat length the whole party returned to Paris. 

Anne Maria, in after years, wrote reminiscences of her early life, which were published after her death. In this journal she gives anaccount of her introduction to the young prince, and of her firstacquaintance with him. It is expressed as follows:

"He was only sixteen or seventeen years of age, rather tall, with afine head, black hair, a dark complexion, and a tolerably agreeablecountenance. But he neither spoke nor understood French, which wasvery inconvenient. Nevertheless, every thing was done to amuse him, and, during the three days that he remained at Fontainebleau, therewere hunts and every other sport which could be commanded in thatseason. He paid his respects to all the princesses, and I discoveredimmediately that the Queen of England wished to persuade me that hehad fallen in love with me. She told me that he talked of meincessantly; that, were she not to prevent it, he would be in myapartment [Footnote: This means at her residence. The whole suite ofrooms occupied by a family is called, in France, their _apartment_. ]at all hours; that he found me quite to his taste, and that he was indespair on account of the death of the empress, for he was afraid thatthey would seek to marry me to the emperor. I listened to all she saidas became me, but it did not have as much effect upon me as probablyshe wished. "

After spending a few days at Fontainebleau, the whole party returnedto Paris, and Queen Henrietta and the prince took up their abode againin the Palace Royal, or, as it is now more commonly called, the PalaisRoyal. Charles was much impressed with the pomp and splendor of theFrench court, so different from the rough mode of life to which he hadbeen accustomed in his campaigns and wanderings in England. Theetiquette and formality, however, were extreme, every thing, even theminutest motions, being regulated by nice rules, which made socialintercourse and enjoyment one perpetual ceremony. But, notwithstandingall this pomp and splendor, and the multitude of officers and attendantswho were constantly on service, there seems to have been, in the resultsobtained, a strange mixture of grand parade with discomfort anddisorder. At one time at Fontainebleau, at a great entertainment, whereall the princes and potentates that had been drawn there by the weddingwere assembled, the cooks quarreled in the kitchen, and one of thecourses of the supper failed entirely in consequence of theirdissensions; and at another time, as a large party of visitors werepassing out through a suite of rooms in great state, to descend a grandstaircase, where some illustrious foreigners, who were present, wereto take their leave, they found the apartments through which they wereto pass all dark. The servants had neglected or forgotten to lightthem. 

These and similar incidents show that there may be regal luxury andstate without order or comfort, as there may be regal wealth and powerwithout any substantial happiness. Notwithstanding this, however, Prince Charles soon became strongly interested in the modes of lifeto which he was introduced at Paris and at Fontainebleau. There wereballs, parties, festivities, and excursions of pleasure without number, his interest in these all being heightened by the presence of AnneMaria, whom he soon began to regard with a strong degree of thatpeculiar kind of interest which princesses and heiresses inspire. InAnne Maria's memoirs of her early life, we have a vivid descriptionof many of the scenes in which both she herself and Charles were suchprominent actors. She wrote always with great freedom, and in a verygraphic manner, so that the tale which she tells of this period of herlife forms a very entertaining narrative. 

Anne Maria gives a very minute account of what took place betweenherself and Charles on several occasions in the course of theiracquaintance, and describes particularly various balls, and parties, and excursions of pleasure on which she was attended by the youngprince. Her vanity was obviously gratified by the interest which Charlesseemed to take in her, but she was probably incapable of any feelingsof deep and disinterested love, and Charles made no impression uponher heart. She reserved herself for the emperor. 

For example, they were all one night invited to a grand ball by theDuchess de Choisy. This lady lived in a magnificent mansion, calledthe Hotel de Choisy. Just before the time came for the party of visitorsto go, the Queen of England came over with Charles to the apartmentsof Anne Maria. The queen came ostensibly to give the last touches tothe adjustment of the young lady's dress, and to the arrangement ofher hair, but really, without doubt, in pursuance of her policy oftaking every occasion to bring the young people together. 

"She came, " says Anne Maria, in her narrative, "to dress me and arrangemy hair herself. She came for this purpose to my apartments, and tookthe utmost pains to set me off to the best advantage, and the Princeof Wales held the flambeau near me to light my toilet the whole time. I wore black, white, and carnation; and my jewelry was fastened byribbons of the same colors. I wore a plume of the same kind; all thesehad been selected and ordered by my aunt Henrietta. The queen regent, who knew that I was in my aunt Henrietta's hands, sent for me to comeand see her when I was all ready, before going to the ball. Iaccordingly went, and this gave the prince an opportunity to go atonce to the Hotel de Choisy, and be ready there to receive me when Ishould arrive I found him there at the door, ready to hand me from mycoach. I stopped in a chamber to readjust my hair, and the Prince ofWales again held a flambeau for me. This time, too, he brought hiscousin, Prince Rupert, as an interpreter between us; for, believe itwho will, though he could understand every word I said to him, he couldnot reply the least sentence to me in French. When the ball was finishedand we retired, the prince followed me to the porter's lodge of myhotel, [Footnote: In all the great houses in Paris, the principalbuildings of the edifice stand back from the street, surrounding acourt yard, which has sometimes shrubbery and flowers and a fountainin the center. The entrance to this court yard is by a great gate andarchway on the street, with the apartments occupied by the _porter_, that is, the keeper of the gate, on one side. The entrance to theporter's lodge is from under the archway. ] and lingered till I entered, and then went his way. 

"There was another occasion on which his gallantry to me attracted agreat deal of attention. It was at a great fete celebrated at thePalais Royal. There was a play acted, with scenery and music, and thena ball. It took three whole days to arrange my ornaments for thisnight. The Queen of England would dress me on this occasion, also, with her own hands. My robe was all figured with diamonds, withcarnation trimmings. I wore the jewels of the crown of France, and, to add to them, the Queen of England lent me some fine ones of herown, which she had not then sold. The queen praised the fine turn ofmy shape, my air, the beauty of my complexion, and the brightness ofmy light hair. I had a conspicuous seat in the middle of the ballroom, with the young King of France and the Prince of Wales at my feet I didnot feel the least embarrassed, for, as I had an idea of marrying theemperor, I regarded the Prince of Wales only as an object of pity. "

Things went on in this way for a time, until at last some politicaldifficulties occurred at Paris which broke in upon the ordinary routineof the royal family, and drove them, for a time, out of the city. Before these troubles were over, Henrietta and her son were struckdown, as by a blow, by the tidings, which came upon them like athunderbolt, that their husband and father had been beheaded. Thisdreadful event put a stop for a time to every thing like festivepleasures. The queen left her children, her palace, and all the gaycircle of her friends, and retired to a convent, to mourn, in solitudeand undisturbed, her irreparable loss. 

CHAPTER VI. 

NEGOTIATIONS WITH ANNE MARIA. 

Our Prince Charles now becomes, by the death of his father, King Charlesthe Second, both of England and of Scotland. That is, he becomes soin theory, according to the principles of the English Constitution, though, in fact, he is a fugitive and an exile still. Notwithstandinghis exclusion, however, from the exercise of what he considered hisright to reign, he was acknowledged as king by all true Royalists inEngland, and by all the continental powers. They would not aid him torecover his throne, but in the courts and royal palaces which he visitedhe was regarded as a king, and was treated, in form at least, with allthe consideration and honor which belonged to royalty. Queen Henriettawas overwhelmed with grief and despair when she learned the dreadfultidings of the execution of her husband. At the time when these tidingscame to her, she was involved, also, in many other sufferings andtrials. As was intimated in the last chapter, serious difficulties hadoccurred between the royal family of France and the government andpeople of the city of Paris, from which a sort of insurrection hadresulted, and the young king and his mother, together with all theprincipal personages of the court, had been compelled to fly from thecity, in the night, to save their lives. They went in a train of twentyor thirty carriages, by torch light, having kept their plan a profoundsecret until the moment of their departure. The young king was asleepin his bed until the time arrived, when they took him up and put himinto the carriage. Anne Maria, whose rank and wealth gave her a greatdeal of influence and power, took sides, in some degree, with theParisians in this contest, so that her aunt, the queen regent, considered her as an enemy rather than a friend. She, however, tookher with them in their flight; but Anne Maria, being very much out ofhumor, did all she could to tease and torment the party all the way. When they awoke her and informed her of their proposed escape fromParis, she was, as she says in her memoirs, very much delighted, forshe knew that the movement was very unwise, and would get her aunt, the queen regent, and all their friends, into serious difficulties. 

She dressed herself as quick as she could, came down stairs, andproceeded to enter the queen regent's coach, saying that she wantedto have one or the other of certain seats--naming the best places--asshe had no idea, she said, of being exposed to cold, or ridinguncomfortably on such a night. The queen told her that those seatswere for herself and another lady of high rank who was with her, towhich Anne Maria replied, "Oh, very well; I suppose young ladies oughtto give up to _old_ people. "

In the course of conversation, as they were preparing to ride away, the queen asked Anne Maria if she was not surprised at being calledup to go on such an expedition. "Oh no, " said she; "my father" (thatis, Gaston, the duke of Orleans) "told me all about it beforehand. "This was not true, as she says herself in her own account of thesetransactions. She knew nothing about the plan until she was calledfrom her bed. She said this, therefore, only to tease her aunt by thefalse pretension that the secret had been confided to her. Her aunt, however, did not believe her, and said, "Then why did you go to bed, if you knew what was going on?" "Oh, " replied Anne Maria, "I thoughtit would be a good plan to get some sleep, as I did not know whetherI should even have a bed to lie upon to-morrow night. "

The party of fugitives exhibited a scene of great terror and confusion, as they were assembling and crowding into their carriages, before theyleft the court of the Palais Royal. It was past midnight, in the monthof January, and there was no moon. Called up suddenly as they werefrom their beds, and frightened with imaginary dangers, they all pressedforward, eager to go; and so hurried was their departure, that theytook with them very scanty supplies, even for their most ordinarywants. At length they drove away. They passed rapidly out of the city. They proceeded to an ancient palace and castle called St. Germain's, about ten miles northeast of Paris. Anne Maria amused herself with thefears, and difficulties, and privations which the others suffered, andshe gives an account of the first night they spent in the place oftheir retreat, which, as it illustrates her temperament and character, the reader will like perhaps, to see. 

"I slept in a very handsome room, well painted, well gilded, and large, with very little fire, and no windows, [Footnote: That is, with noglass to the windows. ] which is not very agreeable in the month ofJanuary. I slept on mattresses, which were laid upon the floor, andmy sister, who had no bed, slept with me. I was obliged to sing to gether to sleep, and then her slumber did not last long, so that shedisturbed mine. She tossed about, felt me near her, woke up, andexclaimed that she saw the beast, so I was obliged to sing again toput her to sleep, and in that way I passed the night. Judge whetherthis was an agreeable situation for one who had had little or no sleepthe night before, and who had been ill all winter with colds. However, the fatigue and exposure of this expedition cured me. 

"In a short time my father gave me his room, but as nobody knew I wasthere, I was awoke in the night by a noise. I drew back my curtain, and was astonished to find my chamber filled with men in large buffskin collars, and who appeared surprised to see me, and knew me aslittle as I did them. I had no change of linen, and when I wanted anything washed, it was done in the night, while I was in bed. I had nowomen to arrange my hair and dress me, which is very inconvenient. Still I did not lose my gayety, and they were in admiration at mymaking no complaint; and it is true that I am a creature that can makethe most of every thing, and am greatly above trifles. "

To feel any commiseration for this young lady, on account of the alarmwhich she may be supposed to have experienced at seeing all thosestrange men in her chamber, would be sympathy thrown away, for hernerves were not of a sensibility to be affected much by such acircumstance as that. In fact, as the difficulties between the youngking's government and the Parisians increased, Anne Maria played quitethe part of a heroine. She went back and forth to Paris in her carriage, through the mob, when nobody else dared to go. She sometimes headedtroops, and escorted ladies and gentlemen when they were afraid to goalone. Once she relieved a town, and once she took the command of thecannon of the Bastille, and issued her orders to fire with it upon thetroops, with a composure which would have done honor to any veteranofficer of artillery. We can not go into all these things here indetail, as they would lead us too far away from the subject of thisnarrative. We only allude to them, to give our readers some distinctidea of the temperament and character of the rich and blooming beautywhom young King Charles was wishing so ardently to make his bride. 

During the time that these difficulties continued in Paris, QueenHenrietta's situation was extremely unhappy. She was shut up in thepalace of the Louvre, which became now her prison rather than her home. She was separated from the royal family; her son, the king, wasgenerally absent in Holland or in Jersey, and her palace was oftensurrounded by mobs; whenever she ventured out in her carriage, she wasthreatened with violence and outrage by the populace in such a manneras to make her retreat as soon as possible to the protection of thepalace walls. Her pecuniary means, too, were exhausted. She sold herjewels, from time to time, as long as they lasted, and then contracteddebts which her creditors were continually pressing her to pay. Herfriends at St. Germain's could not help her otherwise than by askingher to come to them. This she at last concluded to do, and she madeher escape from Paris, under the escort of Anne Maria, who came to thecity for the purpose of conducting her, and who succeeded, though withinfinite difficulty, in securing a safe passage for Henrietta throughthe crowds of creditors and political foes who threatened to preventher journey. These troubles were all, however, at last settled, andin the autumn (1649) the whole party returned again to Paris. 

In the mean time the young King Charles was contriving schemes forgetting possession of his realm. It will be recollected that his sisterMary, who married the Prince of Orange, was at this time residing atthe Hague, a city in Holland, near the sea. Charles went often there. It was a sort of rendezvous for those who had been obliged to leaveEngland on account of their attachment to his father's fortunes, andwho, now that the father was dead, transferred their loyalty to theson. They felt a very strong desire that Charles's plans for gettingpossession of his kingdom should succeed, and they were willing to doevery thing in their power to promote his success. It must not besupposed, however, that they were governed in this by a disinterestedprinciple of fidelity to Charles himself personally, or to the justiceof his cause. Their own re-establishment in wealth and power was atstake as well as his, and they were ready to make common cause withhim, knowing that they could save themselves from ruin only byreinstating him. 

Charles had his privy council and a sort of court at the Hague, andhe arranged channels of communication, centering there, for collectingintelligence from England and Scotland, and through these he watchedin every way for the opening of an opportunity to assert his rightsto the British crown. He went, too, to Jersey, where the authoritiesand the inhabitants were on his side, and both there and at the Haguehe busied himself with plans for raising funds and levying troops, andsecuring co-operation from those of the people of England who stillremained loyal. Ireland was generally in his favor too, and he seriouslymeditated an expedition there. His mother was unwilling to have himengage in these schemes. She was afraid he would, sooner or later, involve himself in dangers from which he could not extricate himself, and that he would end by being plunged into the same pit of destructionthat had engulfed his father. 

Amid all these political schemes, however, Charles did not forget AnneMaria. He was sager to secure her for his bride; for her fortune, andthe power and influence of her connections, would aid him very muchin recovering his throne. Her hope of marrying the Emperor of Germany, too, was gone, for that potentate had chosen another wife. Charlestherefore continued his attentions to the young lady. She would notgive him any distinct and decisive answer, but kept the subject in astate of perpetual negotiation. She was, in fact, growing more andmore discontented and unhappy in disposition all the time. Her favoriteplan of marrying the emperor had been thwarted, in part, by thedifficulties which her friends--her father and her aunt especially--hadcontrived secretly to throw in the way, while outwardly and ostensiblythey appeared to be doing all in their power to promote her wishes. They did not wish to have her married at all, as by this event themanagement of her vast fortune would pass out of their hands. Shediscovered this, their double dealing, when it was too late, and shewas overwhelmed with vexation and chagrin. 

Things being in this state, Charles sent a special messenger, at onetime, from the Hague, with instructions to make a formal proposal toAnne Maria, and to see if he could not bring the affair to a close. The name of this messenger was Lord Germain. 

The queen regent and her father urged Anne Maria now to consent to theproposal. They told her that Charles's prospects were brightening--thatthey themselves were going to render him powerful protection--that hehad already acquired several allies--that there were whole provincesin England that were in his favor; and that all Ireland, which was, as it were, a kingdom in itself, was on his side. Whether they seriouslydesired that Anne Maria would consent to Charles's proposals, or onlyurged, for effect, what they knew very well she would persist inrefusing, it is impossible to ascertain. If this latter were theirdesign, it seemed likely to fail, for Anne Maria appeared to yield. She was sorry, she said, that the situation of affairs in Paris wasnot such as to allow of the French government giving Charles effectualhelp in gaining possession of the throne; but still, not withstandingthat, she was ready to do what ever they might think best to command. 

Lord Germain then said that he should proceed directly to Holland andescort Charles to France, and he wanted Anne Maria to give him a directand positive reply; for if she would really accept his proposal, hewould come at once to court and claim her as his bride; otherwise hemust proceed to Ireland, for the state of his affairs demanded hispresence there. But if she would accept his proposal, he wouldimmediately come to Paris, and have the marriage ceremony performed, and then he would remain afterward some days with her, that she mightenjoy the honors and distinctions to which she would become entitledas the queen consort of a mighty realm. He would then, if she likedthe plan, take her to Saint Germain's, where his mother, her aunt, wasthen residing, and establish her there while he was recovering hiskingdom; or, if she preferred it, she might take up her residence inParis, where she had been accustomed to live. 

To this the young lady replied that the last mentioned plan, that is, that she should continue to live at Paris after being married toCharles, was one that she could not think of. She should feel altogetherunwilling to remain and enjoy the gayeties and festivities of Pariswhile her husband was at the head of his armies, exposed to all thedangers and privations of a camp; nor should she consider it right togo on incurring the expenses which a lady of her rank and positionmust necessarily bear in such a city, while he was perhaps embarrassedand distressed with the difficulties of providing funds for his ownand his followers' necessities. She should feel, in fact, bound, ifshe were to become his wife, to do all in her power to assist him; andit would end, she foresaw, in her having to dispose of all her property, and expend the avails in aiding him to recover his kingdom. This, shesaid, she confessed alarmed her. It was a great sacrifice for her tomake, reared as she had been in opulence and luxury. Lord Germainreplied that all this was doubtless true, but then, on the other hand, he would venture to remind her that there was no other suitable matchfor her in Europe. He then went on to name the principal personages. The Emperor of Germany and the King of Spain were both married. Someother monarch was just about to espouse a Spanish princess. Otherswhom he named were too young; others, again, too old; and a certainprince whom he mentioned had been married, he said, these ten years, and his wife was in excellent health, so that every species of hopeseemed to be cut off in that quarter. 

This conversation leading to no decisive result, Lord Germain renewedthe subject after a few days, and pressed Anne Maria for a final answer. She said, now, that she had a very high regard for Queen Henrietta, and, indeed, a very strong affection for her; so strong that she shouldbe willing to waive, for Henrietta's sake, all her objections to thedisadvantages of Charles's position; but there was one objection whichshe felt that she could not surmount, and that was his religion. Hewas a Protestant, while she was a Catholic. Charles must remove thisdifficulty himself, which, if he had any regard for her, he certainlywould be willing to do, since she would have to make so many sacrificesfor him. Lord Germain, however, immediately discouraged this idea. Hesaid that the position of Charles in respect to his kingdom was suchas to render it impossible for him to change his religious faith. Infact, if he were to do so, he would be compelled to give up, at once, all hope of ever getting possession of his throne. Anne Maria knewthis very well. The plea, however, made an excellent excuse to defendherself with from Lord Germain's importunities. She adhered to it, therefore, pertinaciously; the negotiation was broken off, and LordGermain went away. 

Young adventurers like Charles, who wish to marry great heiresses, have always to exercise a great deal of patience, and to submit to agreat many postponements and delays, even though they are successfulin the end; and sovereign princes are not excepted, any more than othermen, from this necessity. Dependent as woman is during all the earlierand all the later years of her life, and subjected as she is to thecontrol, and too often, alas! to the caprice and injustice of man, there is a period--brief, it is true--when she is herself in power;and such characters as Anne Maria like to exercise their authority, while they feel that they possess it, with a pretty high hand. Charlesseems to have felt the necessity of submitting to the inconvenienceof Anne Maria's capricious delays, and, as long as she only continuedto make excuses and objections instead of giving him a direct andpositive refusal, he was led to persevere. Accordingly, not long afterthe conversations which his messenger had held with the lady as alreadydescribed, he determined to come himself to France, and see if he couldnot accomplish something by his own personal exertions. He accordinglyadvanced to Peronne, which was not far from the frontier, and sentforward a courier to announce his approach. The royal family concludedto go out in their carriages to meet him. They were at this time ata famous royal resort a few leagues from Paris, called Compiegne. Charles was to dine at Compiegne, and then to proceed on toward Paris, where he had business to transact connected with his political plans. 

Anne Maria gives a minute account of the ride of the royal family tomeet Charles on his approach to Compiegne, and of the interview withhim, on her part, which attended it. She dressed herself in the morning, she says, with great care, and had her hair curled, which she seldomdid except on very special occasions. When she entered the carriageto go out to meet the king, the queen regent, observing her appearance, said archly, "How easy it is to tell when young ladies expect to meettheir lovers. " Anne Maria says that she had a great mind to tell her, in reply, that it _was_ easy, for those who had had a great deal ofexperience in preparing to meet lovers themselves. She did not, however, say this, and the forbearance seems to show that there was, after all, the latent element of discretion and respect for superiors in hercharacter, though it showed itself so seldom in action. 

They rode out several miles to meet the coming king; and when the twoparties met, they all alighted, and saluted each other by the roadside, the ladies and gentlemen that accompanied them standing around. Anne Maria noticed that Charles addressed the king and queen regentfirst, and then her. After a short delay they got into their carriagesagain--King Charles entering the carriage with their majesties andAnne Maria--and they rode together thus back to Compiegne. 

Anne Maria, however, does not seem to have been in a mood to be pleased. She says that Charles began to talk with the king--Louis XIV. --who wasnow twelve years old, about the dogs and horses, and the hunting customsin the country of the Prince of Orange. He talked on these subjectsfluently enough in the French language, but when afterward the queenregent, who would naturally be interested in a different class oftopics, asked him about the affairs of his own kingdom and his plansfor recovering it, he excused himself by saying that he did not speakFrench well enough to give her the information. Anne Maria says shedetermined from that moment not to conclude the marriage, "for Iconceived a very poor opinion of him, being a king, and at his age, to have no knowledge of his affairs. " Such minds as Anne Maria's areseldom very logical; but such an inference as this, that he was ignorantof his own affairs because he declined explaining plans whose successdepended on secrecy in such a company as that, and in a language withwhich, though he could talk about dogs and horses in it, he was stillvery imperfectly acquainted, is far too great a jump from premises toconclusion to be honestly made. It is very evident that Anne Maria wasnot disposed to be pleased. 

They arrived at Compiegne. As the king was going on that evening, dinner was served soon after they arrived. Anne Maria says he ate noortolans, a very expensive and rare dish of little birds, which hadbeen prepared expressly for this dinner in honor of the royal guest, [Footnote: The ortolan is a very small bird, which is fattened in lamplighted rooms at great expense, because it is found to be of a moredelicate flavor when excluded from the daylight. They come from theisland of Cyprus, and have been famous in every age of the world asan article of royal luxury. ] "but flung himself upon a piece of beefand a shoulder of mutton, as if there had been nothing else at table. After dinner, when we were in the drawing room, the queen amused herselfwith the other ladies and gentlemen, and left him with me. He was aquarter of an hour without speaking a word; but I am willing to believethat his silence was the result of respect rather than any want ofpassion, though on this occasion, I frankly confess, I could havewished it less plainly exhibited. After a while, getting tired of histediousness, I called another lady to my side, to see if she could notmake him talk. She succeeded. Presently one of the gentlemen of theparty came to me and said, 'He kept looking at you all dinner time, and is looking at you still. ' To which I replied, 'He has plenty oftime to look at me before he will please me, if he does not speak. 'The gentleman rejoined, 'Oh, he has said tender things enough to you, no doubt, only you don't like to admit it. ' To which I answered, 'Comeand seat yourself by me the next time he is at my side, and hear foryourself how he talks about it. " She says she then went and addressedthe king herself, asking him various questions about persons who werein his suite, and that he answered them all with an air of mere commonpoliteness, without any gallantry at all. 

Finally, the hour for the departure of Charles and his party arrived, and the carriages came to the door. The French king, together with hismother and Anne Maria, and the usual attendants, accompanied them somemiles into the forest on their way, and then, all alighting, as theyhad done when they met in the morning, they took leave of each otherwith the usual ceremonies of such occasions. Charles, after biddingKing Louis farewell, advanced with Lord Germain, who was present inhis suite at that time, to Anne Maria, and she gives the followingrather petulant account of what passed: "'I believe, ' said Charles, 'that my Lord Germain, who speaks French better than I do, has explainedto you my sentiments and my intention. I am your very obedient servant. 'I answered that I was equally his obedient servant. Germain paid mea great number of compliments, the king standing by. After they wereover, the king bowed and departed. "

Charles, who had been all his life living roughly in camps, feltnaturally ill at ease in the brilliant scenes of ceremony and splendorwhich the French court presented; and this embarrassment was greatlyincreased by the haughty air and manner, and the ill concealed railleryof the lady whose favorable regard he was so anxious to secure. Hisimperfect knowledge of the language, and his sense of the gloomyuncertainty of his own prospects in life, tended strongly to increasehis distrust of himself and his timidity. We should have wished thathe could have experienced somewhat kinder treatment from the objectof his regard, were it not that his character, and especially hissubsequent history, show that he was entirely mercenary and selfishhimself in seeking her hand. If we can ever, in any instance, pardonthe caprice and wanton cruelty of a coquette, it is when these qualitiesare exercised in thwarting the designs of a heartless speculator, whois endeavoring to fill his coffers with money by offering in exchangefor it a mere worthless counterfeit of love. 

Charles seems to have been totally discouraged by the result of thisunfortunate dinner party at Compiegne. He went to Paris, and from Parishe went to St. Germain's, where he remained for several months withhis mother, revolving in his mind his fallen fortunes, and formingalmost hopeless schemes for seeking to restore them. In the mean time, the wife whom the Emperor of Germany had married instead of Anne Maria, died, and the young belle sprang immediately into the excitement ofa new hope of attaining the great object of her ambition after all. The emperor was fifty years of age, and had four children, but he wasthe Emperor of Germany, and that made amends for all. Anne Mariaimmediately began to lay her trains again for becoming his bride. Whather plans were, and how they succeeded, we shall, perhaps, have occasionhereafter to describe. 

Though her heart was thus set upon having the emperor for her husband, she did not like, in the mean time, quite to give up her younger andmore agreeable beau. Besides, her plans of marrying the emperor mightfail, and Charles might succeed in recovering his kingdom. It was best, therefore, not to bring the negotiation with him to too absolute aclose. When the time arrived, therefore, for Charles to take hisdeparture, she thought she would just ride out to St. Germain's andpay her respects to Queen Henrietta, and bid the young king good-by. 

Neither Queen Henrietta nor her son attempted to renew the negotiationof his suite on the occasion of this visit. The queen told Anne Maria, on the other hand, that she supposed she ought to congratulate her onthe death of the Empress of Germany, for, though the negotiation forher marriage with him had failed on a former occasion, she had no doubtit would be resumed now, and would be successful. Anne Maria replied, with an air of indifference, that she did not know or think any thingabout it. The queen then said that she knew of a young man, not veryfar from them, who thought that a king of nineteen years of age wasbetter for a husband than a man of fifty, a widower with four children, even if he was an emperor. "However, " said she, "we do not know whatturn things may take. My son may succeed in recovering his kingdom, and then, perhaps, if you should be in a situation to do so, you maylisten more favorably to his addresses. "

Anne Maria was not to return directly back to Paris. She was going tovisit her sisters, who lived at a little distance beyond. The Duke ofYork, that is, Henrietta's son James, then fourteen or fifteen yearsold, proposed to accompany her. She consented. Charles then proposedto go too. Anne Maria objected to this, saying that it was not quiteproper. She had no objection to James's going, as he was a mere youth. Queen Henrietta removed her objection by offering to join the partyherself; so they all went together. Anne Maria says that Charles treatedher with great politeness and attention all the way, and paid her manycompliments, but made no attempt to bring up again, in any way, thequestion of his suit. She was very glad he did not, she says, for hermind being now occupied with the plan of marrying the emperor, nothingthat he could have said would have done any good. 

Thus the question was considered as virtually settled, and King Charles, soon after, turned his thoughts toward executing the plans which hehad been long revolving for the recovery of his kingdom. 

CHAPTER VII

THE ROYAL OAK OF BOSCOBEL. 

It was in June, 1650, about eighteen months after the decapitation ofhis father, that Charles was ready to set out on his expedition toattempt the recovery of his rights to the English throne. He was buttwenty years of age. He took with him no army, no supplies, noresources. He had a small number of attendants and followers, personallyinterested themselves in his success, and animated also, probably, bysome degree of disinterested attachment to him. It was, however, onthe whole, a desperate enterprise. Queen Henrietta, in her retirementat the Louvre, felt very anxious about the result of it. Charleshimself, too, notwithstanding his own buoyant and sanguine temperament, and the natural confidence and hope pertaining to his years, must havefelt many forebodings. But his condition on the Continent was gettingevery month more and more destitute and forlorn. He was a mere guestwherever he went, and destitute of means as he was, he found himselfcontinually sinking in public consideration. Money as well as rank isvery essentially necessary to make a relative a welcome guest, for anylong time, in aristocratic circles. Charles concluded, therefore, that, all things considered, it was best for him to make a desperate effortto recover his kingdoms. 

His kingdoms were three, England, Scotland, and Ireland. Ireland wasa conquered kingdom, Scotland, like England, had descended to him fromhis ancestors; for his grandfather, James VI. , was king of Scotland, and being on his mothers side a descendant of an English king, he was, of course, one of the heirs of the English crown; and on the failureof the other heirs, he succeeded to that crown, retaining still hisown. Thus both kingdoms descended to Charles. 

It was only the English kingdom that had really rebelled against, andput to death King Charles's father. There had been a great deal ofdifficulty in Scotland, it is true, and the republican spirit hadspread quite extensively in that country. Still, affairs had notproceeded to such extremities there. The Scotch had, in some degree, joined with the English in resisting Charles the First, but it was nottheir wish to throw off the royal authority altogether. They abhorredepiscopacy in the Church, but were well enough contented with monarchyin the state. Accordingly, soon after the death of the father, theyhad opened negotiations with the son, and had manifested theirwillingness to acknowledge him as their king, on certain conditionswhich they undertook to prescribe to him. It is very hard for a kingto hold his scepter on conditions prescribed by his people. Charlestried every possible means to avoid submitting to this necessity. Hefound, however, that the only possible avenue of access to England wasby first getting some sort of possession of Scotland; and so, signifyinghis willingness to comply with the Scotch demands, he set sail fromHolland with his court, moved north ward with his little squadron overthe waters of the German Ocean, and at length made port In the Frithof Cromarty, in the north of Scotland. 

The Scotch government, having but little faith in the royal word ofsuch a youth as Charles would not allow him to land until he hadformally signed their covenant, by which he bound himself to theconditions which they had thought it necessary to impose. He thenlanded. But he found his situation very far from such as comportedwith his ideas of royal authority and state. Charles was a gay, dissipated, reckless young man. The men whom he had to deal with werestern, sedate, and rigid religionists. They were scandalized at thelooseness and irregularity of his character and manners. He was vexedand tormented by what he considered their ascetic bigotry, by therestraints which they were disposed to put upon his conduct, and thelimits with which they insisted on bounding his authority. Longnegotiations and debates ensued, each party becoming more and moreirritated against the other. At last, on one occasion, Charles losthis patience entirely, and made his escape into the mountains, in hopesto raise an army there among the clans of wild Highlanders, who, accustomed from infancy to the most implicit obedience to theirchieftains, are always very loyal to their king. The Scotch nobles, however, not wishing to drive him to extremities, sent for him to comeback, and both parties becoming after this somewhat more considerateand accommodating, they at length came to an agreement, and proceedingtogether to Scone, a village some miles north of Edinburgh, they crownedCharles King of Scotland in a venerable abbey there, the ancient placeof coronation for all the monarchs of the Scottish line. 

In the mean time, Cromwell, who was at the head of the republicangovernment of England, knowing very well that Charles's plan would beto march into England as soon as he could mature his arrangements forsuch an enterprise, determined to anticipate this design by declaringwar himself against Scotland, and marching an army there. 

Charles felt comparatively little interest in what became of Scotland. His aim was England. He knew, or supposed that there was a very largeportion of the English people who secretly favored his cause, and hebelieved that if he could once cross the frontier, even with a smallarmy, these his secret friends would all rise at once and flock to hisstandard. Still he attempted for a time to resist Cromwell in Scotland, but without success. Cromwell penetrated to the heart of the country, and actually passed the army of Charles. In these circumstances, Charlesresolved to leave Scotland to its fate, and boldly to cross the Englishfrontier, to see what he could do by raising his standard in hissouthern kingdom. The army acceded to this plan with acclamations. Theking accordingly put his forces in motion, crossed the frontier, issuedhis manifestoes, and sent around couriers and heralds, announcing tothe whole population that their king had come, and summoning all hissubjects to arm themselves and hasten to his aid. This was in thesummer of 1651, the year after his landing in Scotland. 

It certainly was a very bold and almost desperate measure, and thereader, whether Monarchist or Republican, can hardly help wishing theyoung adventurer success. The romantic enterprise was, however, destinedto fail. The people of England were not yet prepared to return toroyalty. Some few of the ancient noble families and country gentlemenadhered to the king's cause, but they came in to join his ranks veryslowly. Those who were in favor of the king were called _Cavaliers_. The other party were called _Roundheads_. Queen Henrietta Maria hadgiven them the name, on account of their manner of wearing their hair, cut short and close to their heads all around, while the gay Cavalierscultivated their locks, which hung in long curls down upon theirshoulders. The Cavaliers, it turned out, were few, while the Roundheadsfilled the land. 

It was, however, impossible for Charles to retreat, since Cromwell wasbehind him; for Cromwell, as soon as he found that his enemy hadactually gone into England, paused only long enough to recover fromhis surprise, and then made all haste to follow him. The two armiesthus moved down through the very heart of England, carrying everywhere, as they went, universal terror, confusion, and dismay. The wholecountry was thrown into extreme excitement. Every body was called uponto take sides, and thousands were perplexed and undecided which sideto take. Families were divided, brothers separated, fathers and sonswere ready to fight each other in their insane zeal, the latter forthe Parliament, the former for the king. The whole country was filledwith rumors, messengers, parties of soldiers going to and fro, andtroops of horsemen, with robberies, plunderings, murders, and otherdeeds of violence without number, and all the other elements ofconfusion and misery which arouse the whole population of a countryto terror and distress, and mar the very face of nature in time ofcivil war. What dreadful struggles man will make to gain the pleasureof ruling his fellow man! Along the frontiers of England and Walesthere flows the beautiful River Severn, which widens majestically atits mouth, and passes by the Bristol Channel to the sea. One of thelargest towns upon this river is Worcester. It was in those daysstrongly fortified. It stands on the eastern side of the river, witha great bridge opposite one of the gates leading across the Severn inthe direction toward Wales. There are other bridges on the stream, both above and below, and many towns and villages in the vicinity, thewhole presenting, at ordinary times, a delightful scene of industryand peace. 

Worcester is, perhaps, three hundred miles from the frontiers ofScotland, on the way to London, though somewhat to the westward of thedirect route. Charles's destination was the capital. He pushed on, notwithstanding the difficulties and disappointments which embarrassedhis march, until at last, when he reached the banks of the Severn, hefound he could go no further. His troops and his officers were wearied, faint, and discouraged. His hopes had not been realized, and while itwas obviously dangerous to stop, it seemed still more dangerous to goon. However, as the authorities of Worcester were disposed to takesides with the king, Charles determined to stop there for a littletime, at all events, to refresh his army, and consider what to do. 

He was received in the city with all due honors. He was proclaimedking on the following day, with great parade and loud acclamations. He established a camp in the neighborhood of the city. He issued greatproclamations, calling upon all the people of the surrounding countryto come and espouse his cause. He established his court, organized hisprivy council, and, in a word, perfected, on a somewhat humble scaleit is true, all the arrangements proper to the condition of a monarchin his capital. He began, perhaps, in fact, to imagine himself reallya king. If he did so, however, the illusion was soon dispelled. In oneshort week Cromwell's army came on, filling all the avenues of approachto the city, and exhibiting a force far too great, apparently, eitherfor Charles to meet in battle, or to defend himself from in a siege. 

Charles's forces fought several preliminary battles and skirmishes inresisting the attempts of Cromwell's columns to get possession of thebridges and fords by which they were to cross the river. These contestsresulted always in the same way. The detachments which Charles hadsent forward to defend these points were one after another driven in, while Charles, with his council of war around him, watched from thetop of the tower of a church within the city this gradual andirresistible advance of his determined enemy, with an anxiety whichgradually deepened into dismay. 

The king, finding his situation now desperate, determined to make onefinal attempt to retrieve his fallen fortunes. He formed his troopsin array, and marched out to give the advancing army battle. He puthimself at the head of a troop of Highlanders, and fought in personwith the courage and recklessness of despair. The officers knew fullwell that it was a question of victory or death; for if they did notconquer, they must die, either by wounds on the field of battle, orelse, if taken prisoners, by being hung as traitors, or beheaded inthe Tower. All possibility of escape, entrapped and surrounded as theywere in the very heart of the country, hundreds of miles from thefrontiers, seemed utterly hopeless. They fought, therefore, withreckless and desperate fury, but all was in vain. They were repulsedand driven in on all sides, and the soldiers fled at length, carryingthe officers with them, in tumult and disorder, back through the gatesinto the city. 

An army flying in confusion to seek refuge in a city can not shut thegates behind them against their pursuers. In fact, in such a scene ofterror and dismay, there is no order, no obedience, no composure. Atthe gate where Charles endeavored to get back into the city, he foundthe way choked up by a heavy ammunition cart which had been entangledthere, one of the oxen that had been drawing it being killed. Thethrongs of men &and horsemen were stopped by this disaster. The kingdismounted, abandoned his horse, and made his way through and over theobstruction as he could. When he got into the city, he found all inconfusion there. His men were throwing away their arms, and pressingonward in their flight. He lightened his own burdens by laying asidethe heaviest of his armor, procured another horse, and rode up anddown among his men, urging and entreating them to form again and facethe enemy. He plead the justice of his cause, their duty to be faithfulto their rightful sovereign, and every other argument which was capableof being expressed in the shouts and vociferations which, in such ascene, constitute the only kind of communication possible with panicstricken men; and when he found that all was in vain he said, indespair, that he would rather they would shoot him on the spot thanlet him live to witness such an abandonment of his cause by the onlyfriends and followers that had been left to him. 

The powerful influence which these expostulations would otherwise havehad, was lost and overborne in the torrent of confusion and terrorwhich was spreading through all the streets of the city. The army ofCromwell forced their passage in, and fought their way from street tostreet, wherever they found any remaining resistance. Some of theking's troops were hemmed up in corners, and cut to pieces. Others, somewhat more fortunate, sought protection in towers and bastions, where they could make some sort of conditions with their victoriousenemy before surrendering. Charles himself, finding that all was lost, made his escape at last from the city, at six o'clock in the evening, at the head of a troop of horse. He could not, however, endure thethought of giving up the contest, after all. Again and again, as heslowly retreated, he stopped to face about, and to urge his men toconsent to turn back again and encounter the enemy. Their last haltwas upon a bridge half a mile from the city. Here the king held aconsultation with the few remaining counselors and officers that werewith him, surveying, with them, the routed and flying bodies of men, who were now throwing away their arms and dispersing in all directions, in a state of hopeless disorganization and despair. The king saw plainlythat his cause was irretrievably ruined, and they all agreed thatnothing now remained for them but to make their escape back to Scotland, if by any possibility that could now be done. 

But how should they accomplish this end? To follow the multitude ofdefeated soldiers would be to share the certain capture and death whichawaited them, and they were themselves all strangers to the country. To go on inquiring all the way would only expose them to equally certaindiscovery and capture. The first thing, however, obviously was to getaway from the crowd. Charles and his attendants, therefore, turnedaside from the high road--there were with the king fifty or sixtyofficers and noblemen, all mounted men--and moved along in such secludedby-paths as they could find. The king wished to diminish even thisnumber of followers, but he could not get any of them to leave him. He complained afterward, in the account which he gave of theseadventures, that, though they would not fight for him when battle wasto be given, he could not get rid of them when the time came for flight. 

There was a servant of one of the gentlemen in the company who pretendedto know the way, and he accordingly undertook to guide the party; butas soon as it became dark he got confused and lost, and did not knowwhat to do. They contrived, however, to get another guide They wentten miles, attracting no particular attention, for at such a time ofcivil war a country is full of parties of men, armed and unarmed, goingto and fro, who are allowed generally to move without molestation, asthe inhabitants are only anxious to have as little as possible to sayto them, that they may the sooner be gone. The royal party assumed theair and manner of one of these bands as long as daylight lasted, andwhen that was gone they went more securely and at their ease. Afterproceeding ten miles, they stopped at an obscure inn, where they tooksome drink and a little bread, and then resumed their journey, consulting with one another as they went as to what it was best to do. 

About ten or twelve miles further on there was a somewhat wild andsequestered region, in which there were two very secluded dwellings, about half a mile from each other. One of these residences was namedBoscobel. The name had been given to it by a guest of the proprietor, at an entertainment which the latter had given, from the Italian words_bosco bello_, which mean beautiful grove. It was in or near a wood, and away from all high roads, having been built, probably, like manyother of the dwellings reared in those days, as a place of retreat. In the preceding reigns of Charles and Elizabeth, the Catholics, whowere called _popish recusants_, on account of their _refusing_ to takean oath acknowledging the supremacy of the British sovereign over theEnglish Church, had to resort to all possible modes of escape fromProtestant persecution. They built these retreats in retired andsecluded places, and constructed all sorts of concealed and securehiding places within them, in the partitions and walls, where men whoselives were in danger might be concealed for many days. Boscobel wassuch a mansion. In fact, one of the king's generals, the Earl of Derby, had been concealed in it but a short time before. The king inquiredparticularly about it, and was induced himself to seek refuge there. 

This house belonged to a family of Giffards, one of whom was in thesuite of King Charles at this time. There was another mansion abouthalf a mile distant. This other place had been originally, in theCatholic days, a convent, and the nuns who inhabited it dressed inwhite. They were called, accordingly, the _white ladies_, and the placeitself received the same name, which it retained after the sisterswere gone. Mr. Giffard recommended going to the White Ladies' first. He wanted, in fact, to contrive some way to relieve the king of theencumbrance of so large a troop before going to Boscobel. 

They went, accordingly, to the White Ladies'. Neither of the houseswas occupied at this time by the proprietors, but were in charge ofhousekeepers and servants. Among the tenants upon the estate therewere several brothers of the name of Penderel. They were woodmen andfarm servants, living at different places in the neighborhood, andhaving charge, some of them, of the houses above described. One of thePenderels was at the White Ladies'. He let the fugitives in, tired, exhausted, and hungry as they were, with the fatigue of marching nearlyall the night. They sent immediately for Richard Penderel, who livedin a farm house nearby, and for another brother, who was at Boscobel. They took the king into an inner room, and immediately commenced thework of effectually disguising him. 

They gave him clothes belonging to some of the servants of the family, and destroyed his own. The king had about his person a watch and somecostly decorations, such as orders of knighthood set in jewels, whichwould betray his rank if found in his possession. These the kingdistributed among his friends, intrusting them to the charge of suchas he judged most likely to effect their escape. They then cut off hishair short all over, thus making him a Roundhead instead of a Cavalier. They rubbed soot from the fire place over his face, to change theexpression of his features and complexion. They gave him thus, in allrespects, as nearly as possible, the guise of a squalid peasant andlaborer of the humblest class, accustomed to the privations and to thehabits of poverty. 

In the mean time Richard Penderel arrived. Perhaps an intimation hadbeen given him of the wishes of the king to be relieved of his companyof followers; at any rate, he urged the whole retinue, as soon as hecame to the house to press forward without any delay, as there was adetachment of Cromwell's forces, he said, at three miles' distance, who might be expected at any moment to come in pursuit of them Giffardbrought Penderel then into the inner room to which the king had retired. "This is the king, " said he. "I commit him to your charge. Take careof him. "

Richard undertook the trust. He told the king that he must immediatelyleave that place, and he conducted him secretly, all disguised as hewas, out of a postern door, without making known his design to any ofhis followers, except the two or three who were in immediate attendanceupon him. He led him away about half a mile into a wood, and, concealinghim there, left him alone, saying he would go and see what intelligencehe could obtain, and presently return again. The troop of followers, in the mean time, from whom the king had been so desirous to get free, when they found that he was gone, mounted their horses and rode away, to escape the danger with which Richard had threatened them. But, alasfor the unhappy fugitives, they did not get far in their flight; theywere overtaken, attacked, conquered, captured, and treated as traitors. Some were shot, one was beheaded, and others were shut up in prisons, where they pined in hopeless privation and suffering for many years. There was, however, one of the king's followers who did not go awaywith the rest. It was Lord Wilmot, an influential nobleman, whoconcealed himself in the vicinity, and kept near the king in all hissubsequent wanderings. 

But we must return to the king in the wood. It was about sunrise whenhe was left there, the morning after the battle. It rained. The kingtried in vain to find a shelter under the trees of the forest. Thetrees themselves were soon thoroughly saturated, and they received thedriving rain from the skies only to let the water fall in heavier dropsupon the poor fugitive's defenseless head. Richard borrowed a blanketat a cottage near, thinking that it would afford some protection, andbrought it to his charge. The king folded it up to make a cushion tosit upon; for, worn out as he was with hard fighting all the day before, and hard riding all the night, he could not stand; so he chose to usehis blanket as a protection from the wet ground beneath him, and totake the rain upon his head as it fell. 

Richard sent a peasant's wife to him presently with some food. Charles, who never had any great respect for the female sex, was alarmed tofind that a woman had been entrusted with such a secret. 

"My good woman, " said he, "can you be faithful to a distressedCavalier?"

"Yes, sir, " said she; "I will die rather than betray you. "

Charles had, in fact, no occasion to fear. Woman is, indeed, communicative and confiding, and often, in unguarded hours, revealsindiscreetly what it would have been better to have withheld; but inall cases where real and important trusts are committed to her keeping, there is no human fidelity which can be more safely relied upon thanhers. 

Charles remained in the wood all the day, exposed to the pelting ofthe storm. There was a road in sight, a sort of by-way leading acrossthe country, and the monarch beguiled the weary hours as well as hecould by watching this road from under the trees, to see if any soldierscame along. There was one troop that appeared, but it passed directlyby, marching heavily through the mud and rain, the men intent, apparently, only on reaching their journey's end. When night came on, Richard Penderel returned, approaching cautiously, and, finding allsafe, took the king into the house with him. They brought him to thefire, changed and dried his clothes, and gave him supper. The homelessmonarch once more enjoyed the luxuries of warmth and shelter. 

During all the day, while he had been alone in the wood, he had beenrevolving in his mind the strange circumstances of his situation, vainly endeavoring, for many hours, to realize what seemed at firstlike a dreadful dream. Could it be really true that he, the monarchof three kingdoms, so recently at the head of a victorious army, andsurrounded by generals and officers of state, was now a friendless andsolitary fugitive, without even a place to hide his head from the coldautumnal storm? It seemed at first a dream; but it soon became areality, and he began to ponder, in every form, the question what heshould do. He looked east, west, north, and south, but could not see, in any quarter, any hope of succor, or any reasonable prospect ofescape. He, however, arrived at the conclusion, before night came on, that it would be, on the whole, the best plan for him to attempt toescape into Wales. 

He was very near the frontier of that country. There was no difficultyto be apprehended on the road thither, excepting in the crossing ofthe Severn, which, as has already been remarked, flows from north tosouth not far from the line of the frontier. He thought, too, that ifhe could once succeed in getting into Wales, he could find secureretreats among the mountains there until he should be able to make hisway to some sea-port on the coast trading with France, and so find hisway back across the Channel. He proposed this plan to Richard in theevening, and asked him to accompany him as his guide. Richard readilyconsented, and the arrangements for the journey were made. They adjustedthe king's dress again to complete his disguise, and Richard gave hima bill-hook--a sort of woodman's tool--to carry in his hand. It wasagreed, also, that his name should be Will Jones so far as there shouldbe any necessity for designating him by a name in the progress of thejourney. 

They set out at nine o'clock that same night, in the darkness and rain. They wished to get to Madely, a town near the river, before the morning. Richard knew a Mr. Woolf there, a friend of the Royalist cause, whohe thought would shelter them, and aid them in getting across theriver. They went on very well for some time, until they came to astream, a branch of the Severn, where there was a bridge, and on theother side a mill. The miller happened to be watching that night athis door. At such times everybody is on the alert, suspecting mischiefor danger in every unusual sight or sound. 

Hearing the footsteps, he called out, "Who goes there?"

"Neighbors, " replied Richard. The king was silent. He had beenpreviously charged by Richard not to speak, except when it could notpossibly be avoided, as he had not the accent of the country. 

"Stop, then, " said the miller, "if you be neighbors. " The travelersonly pressed forward the faster for this challenge. "Stop!" repeatedthe miller, "if you be neighbors, or I will knock you down;" and heran out in pursuit of them, armed apparently with the means of executinghis threat. Richard fled, the king closely following him. They turnedinto a lane, and ran a long distance, the way being in many places sodark that the king, in following Richard, was guided only by the soundof his footsteps, and the creaking of the leather dress which suchpeasants were accustomed in those days to wear. They crept along, however, as silently, and yet as rapidly as possible, until at lengthRichard turned suddenly aside, leaped over a sort of gap in the hedge, and crouched down in the trench on the other side. Here they remainedfor some time, listening to ascertain whether they were pursued. Whenthey found that all was still, they crept forth from their hidingplaces, regained the road, and went on their way. 

At length they arrived at the town. Richard left the king concealedin an obscure corner of the street, while he went to the house of Mr. Woolf to see if he could obtain admission. All was dark and still. Heknocked till he had aroused some of the family, and finally broughtMr. Woolf to the door. 

He told Mr. Woolf that he came to ask shelter for a gentleman who waswishing to get into Wales, and who could not safely travel by day. Mr. Woolf hesitated, and began to ask for further information in respectto the stranger. Richard said that he was an officer who had made hisescape from the battle of Worcester, "Then, " said Mr. Woolf, "I shouldhazard my life by concealing him, which I should not be willing to dofor any body, unless it were the king. " Richard then told him that it_was_ his majesty. On hearing this, Mr. Woolf decided at once to admitand conceal the travelers, and Richard went back to bring the king. 

When they arrived at the house, they found Mr. Woolf making preparationsfor their reception. They placed the king by the fire to warm and dryhis clothes, and they gave him such food as could be provided on sosudden an emergency. As the morning was now approaching, it wasnecessary to adopt some plan of concealment for the day, and Mr. Woolfdecided upon concealing his guests in his barn. He said that therewere holes and hiding places built in his house, but that they had allbeen discovered on some previous search, and, in case of any suspicionor alarm, the officers would go directly to them all. He took thetravelers, accordingly, to the barn, and concealed them there amongthe hay. He said that he would himself, during the day, make inquiriesin respect to the practicability of their going on upon their journey, and come and report to them in the evening. 

Accordingly, when the evening came, Mr. Woolf returned, relieved themfrom their confinement, and took them back again to the house. Hisreport, however, in respect to the continuance of their journey, wasvery unfavorable. He thought it would be impossible, he said, for themto cross the Severn. The Republican forces had stationed guards at allthe bridges, ferries, and fords, and at every other practicable placeof crossing, and no one was allowed to pass without a strictexamination. The country was greatly excited, too, with the intelligenceof the king's escape; rewards were offered for his apprehension, andheavy penalties denounced upon all who should harbor or conceal him. Under these circumstances, Mr. Woolf recommended that Charles shouldgo back to Boscobel, and conceal himself as securely as possible there, until some plan could be devised for effecting his escape from thecountry. 

The king had no alternative but to accede to this plan. He waited atMr. Woolf's house till midnight, in order that the movement in thestreets of the town might have time entirely to subside, and then, disappointed and discouraged by the failure of his hopes, he preparedto set out upon his return. Mr. Woolf made some changes in his disguise, and bathed his face in a decoction of walnut leaves, which he hadprepared during the day, to alter his complexion, which was naturallyvery dark and peculiar, and thus exposed him to danger of discovery. When all was ready, the two travelers bade their kind host farewell, and crept forth again through the silent streets, to return, by theway they came, back to Boscobel. 

They went on very well till they began to approach the branch streamwhere they had met with their adventure with the miller. They couldnot cross this stream by the bridge without going by the mill again, which they were both afraid to do. The king proposed that they shouldgo a little way below, and ford the stream. Richard was afraid toattempt this, as he could not swim; and as the night was dark, and thecurrent rapid, there would be imminent danger of their getting beyondtheir depth. Charles said that _he_ could swim, and that he would, accordingly, go first and try the water. They groped their way down, therefore, to the bank, and Charles, leaving his guide upon the land, waded in, and soon disappeared from view as he receded from the shore. He returned, however, after a short time, in safety, and reported thepassage practicable, as the water was only three or four feet deep;so, taking Richard by the hand, he led him into the stream. It was adismal and dangerous undertaking, wading thus through a deep and rapidcurrent in darkness and cold, but they succeeded in passing safelyover. 

They reached Boscobel before the morning dawned, and Richard, whenthey arrived, left the king in the wood while he went toward the houseto reconnoiter, and see if all was safe. He found within an officerof the king's army, a certain Colonel Carlis, who had fled fromWorcester some time after the king had left the field, and, beingacquainted with the situation of Boscobel, had sought refuge there;William Penderel, who had remained in charge of Boscobel, havingreceived and secreted him when he arrived. 

Richard and William brought Colonel Carlis out into the wood to seethe king. They found him sitting upon the ground at the foot of a tree, entirely exhausted. He was worn out with hardship and fatigue. Theytook him to the house. They brought him to the fire, and gave him somefood. The colonel drew off his majesty's heavy peasant shoes and coarsestockings. They were soaked with water and full of gravel. The colonelbathed his feet, which were sadly swollen and blistered, and, as therewere no other shoes in the house which would answer for him to wear, Dame Penderel warmed and dried those which the colonel had taken off, by filling them with hot ashes from the fire, and then put them onagain. 

The king continued to enjoy such sort of comforts as these during thenight, but when the morning drew near it became necessary to look outfor some place of concealment. The Penderels thought that no placewithin the house would be safe, for there was danger every hour of thearrival of a band of soldiers, who would not fail to search the mansionmost effectually in every part. There was the wood near by, which wasvery secluded and solitary; but still they feared that, in case of asearch, the wood would be explored as effectually as the dwelling. Under these circumstances, Carlis was looking around, perplexed anduncertain, not knowing what to do, when he perceived some scatteredoaks standing by themselves in a field not far from the house, one ofwhich seemed to be so full and dense in its foliage as to afford somehope of concealment there. The tree, it seems, had been headed downonce or twice, and this pruning had had the effect, usual in suchcases, of making the branches spread and grow very thick and full. Thecolonel thought that though, in making a search for fugitives, menmight very naturally explore a thicket or a grove, they would notprobably think of examining a detached and solitary tree; he proposed, accordingly, that the king and himself should climb up into thisspreading oak, and conceal themselves for the day among its branches. 

The king consented to this plan. They took some provisions, therefore, as soon as the day began to dawn, and something to answer the purposeof a cushion, and proceeded to the tree. By the help of William andRichard the king and the colonel climbed up, and established themselvesin the top. The colonel placed the cushion for the king on the bestsupport among the limbs that he could find. The bread and cheese, anda small bottle of beer, which Richard and William had brought for theirday's supplies, they suspended to a branch within their reach. Thecolonel then seated himself a little above the king, in such a mannerthat the monarch's head could rest conveniently in his lap, and in aseasy a position as it was possible, under such circumstances, to attain. Richard and William, then, after surveying the place of retreat allaround from below, in order to be sure that the concealment affordedby the foliage was every where complete, went away, promising to keepfaithful watch during the day and to return in the evening. All thingsbeing thus arranged in the oak, the colonel bade his majesty to closehis eyes and go to sleep, saying that he would take good care that hedid not fall. The king followed his directions, and slept safely formany hours. 

In the course of the day the king and Carlis saw, by means of theopenings between the leaves, through which, as through loop holes ina tower, they continually reconnoitered the surrounding fields, menpassing to and fro, some of whom they imagined to be soldiers searchingthe wood. They were not, however, themselves molested. They passed theday undisturbed, except by the incessant anxiety and alarm which theynecessarily suffered, and the fatigue and pain, which must have becomealmost intolerable before night, from their constrained and comfortlessposition. Night, however, came at last, and relieved them from theirduress. They descended from the tree and stole back cautiously to thehouse, the king resolving that he could not bear such hardship anotherday, and that they must, accordingly, find some other hiding place forhim on the morrow. We can scarcely be surprised at this decision. Awild beast could hardly have endured a second day in such a lair. 

Other plans of concealment for the king were accordingly formed thatnight, and measures were soon concerted, as we shall see in the nextchapter, to effect his escape from the country. The old tree, however, which had sheltered him so safely, was not forgotten. In after years, when the monarch was restored to his throne, and the story of hisdangers and his escape was made known throughout the kingdom, thousandsof visitors came to look upon the faithful tree which had thus affordedhis majesty its unconscious but effectual protection. Every one tookaway a leaf or a sprig for a souvenir, and when, at last, the proprietorfound that there was danger that the whole tree would be carried awayunless he interposed, he fenced it in and tilled the ground around it, to defend it from further mutilation. It has borne the name of theRoyal Oak from that time to the present day, and has been the themeof narrators and poets without number, who have celebrated its praisesin every conceivable form of composition. There is, however, probablyno one of them all who has done more for the wide extension of itsfame among all the ranks and gradations of society than the unknownauthor of the humble distich, "The royal oak, it was the tree, That saved his royal majesty. "

CHAPTER VIII. 

THE KING'S ESCAPE TO FRANCE. 

When the king and Carlis came into the house again, on the eveningafter their wearisome day's confinement in the tree, Dame Penderel hadsome chickens prepared for his majesty's supper, which he enjoyed asa great and unexpected luxury. They showed him, too, the hiding hole, built in the walls, where the Earl of Derby had been concealed, andwhere they proposed that he should be lodged for the night. There wasroom in it to lay down a small straw pallet for a bed. The king thoughtit would be very secure, and was confirmed in his determination notto go again to the oak. Before his majesty retired, Carlis asked himwhat he would like to have to eat on the morrow. He said that he shouldlike some mutton. Carlis assented, and, bidding his master good night, he left him to his repose. 

There was no mutton in the house, and Richard and William both agreedthat it would be unsafe for either of them to procure any, since, asthey were not accustomed to purchase such food, their doing so nowwould awaken suspicion that they had some unusual guest to providefor. The colonel, accordingly, undertook himself to obtain the supply. 

Getting the necessary directions, therefore, from Richard and William, he went to the house of a farmer at some little distance--a tenant, he was, on the Boscobel estate--and groped his way to the sheep-cote. He selected an animal, such as he thought suitable for his purpose, and butchered it with his dagger. He then went back to the house, andsent William Penderel to bring the plunder home. William dressed a legof the mutton, and sent it in the morning into the room which they hadassigned to the king, near his hiding hole. The king was overjoyed atthe prospect of this feast He called for a carving knife and a fryingpan. He cut off some callops from the joint, and then, after fryingthe meat with Carlis's assistance, they ate it together. 

The king, becoming now somewhat accustomed to his situation, began togrow a little more bold. He walked in a little gallery which openedfrom his room. There was a window in this gallery which commanded aview of the road. The king kept watch carefully at this window as hewalked to and fro, that he might observe the first appearance of anyenemy's approach. It was observed, too, that he apparently spent sometime here in exercises of devotion, imploring, probably, the protectionof Heaven, in this his hour of danger and distress. The vows andpromises which he doubtless made were, however, all forgotten, as usualin such cases, when safety and prosperity came again. 

There was a little garden, too, near the house, with an eminence atthe further end of it, where there was an arbor, with a stone table, and seats about it. It was retired, and yet, being in an elevatedposition, it answered, like the window of the gallery in the house, the double purpose of a hiding place and a watch tower. It was farmore comfortable, and probably much more safe, than the wretched nestin the tree of the day before; for, were the king discovered in thearbor, there would be some chances of escape from detection stillremaining, but to have been found in the tree would have been certaindestruction. 

In the mean time, the Penderels had had messengers out during theSaturday and Sunday, communicating with certain known friends of theking in the neighboring towns, and endeavoring to concert some planfor his escape. They were successful in these consultations, and before Sunday night a plan was formed. It seems there was a certainColonel Lane, whose wife had obtained a pass from the authorities ofthe Republican army to go to Bristol, on the occasion of the sicknessof a relative, and to take with her a man servant. Bristol was a hundredmiles to the southward, near the mouth of the Severn. It was thoughtthat if the king should reach this place, he could, perhaps, succeedafterward in making his way to the southern coast of England, andembarking there, at some sea-port, for France. The plan was accordinglyformed for Mrs. Lane to go, as she had designed, on this journey, andto take the king along with her in the guise of her servant. Thearrangements were all made, and the king was to be met in a wood fiveor six miles from Boscobel, early on Monday morning, by some trustyfriends, who were afterward to conceal him for a time in their houses, until all things should be ready for the journey. 

The king found, however, when the morning approached, that his feetwere in such a condition that he could not walk. They accordinglyprocured a horse belonging to one of the Penderels, and put him uponit. The brothers all accompanied him as he went away. They were armedwith concealed weapons, intending, if they we're attacked by any smallparty, to defend the king with their lives. They, however, went onwithout any molestation. It was a dark and rainy night. Nights areseldom otherwise in England in September. The brothers Penderel, sixof them in all, guided the king along through the darkness and rain, until they were within a mile or two of the appointed place of meeting, where the king dismounted, for the purpose of walking the rest of way, for greater safety, and three of the brothers, taking the horse withthem, returned. The rest went on, and, after delivering the king safelyinto the hands of his friends, who were waiting at the appointed placeto receive him, bade his majesty farewell, and, expressing their goodwishes for the safe accomplishment of his escape, they returned toBoscobel. 

They now altered the king's disguise in some degree, to accommodatethe change in his assumed character from that of a peasant of the woodsto a respectable farmer's son, such as would be a suitable travelingattendant for an English dame, and they gave him the new name of WilliamJackson in the place of Will Jones. Mrs. Lane's sister's husband wasto go with them a part of the way, and there was another gentleman andlady also of the party, so they were five in all. The horses werebrought to the door when all was ready, just in the edge of the evening, the pretended attendant standing respectfully by, with his hat underhis arm. He was to ride upon the same horse with Mrs. Lane, the ladybeing seated on a pillion behind him. The family assembled to bid theparty farewell, none, either of the travelers or of the spectators, except Mrs. Lane and her brother-in-law, having any idea that the meeklooking William Jackson was any other than what he seemed. 

They traveled on day after day, meeting with various adventures, andapparently with narrow escapes. At one time a shoe was off from thehorse's foot, and the king stopped at a blacksmith's to have itreplaced. While the smith was busy at the work, the king, standing by, asked him what news. "No news, " said the smith, "that I know of, sincethe grand news of beating the rogues, the Scots, at Worcester. " Theking asked if any of the English officers who were with the Scots hadbeen taken since the battle. "Some had been captured, " the smithreplied, "but he could not learn that the rogue Charles Stuart hadbeen taken. " The king then told him that if that rogue were taken, hedeserved to be hanged more than all the rest, for bringing the Scotsin. "You speak like an honest man, " said the smith. Soon after, thework was done, and Charles led the horse away. 

At another time, when the party had stopped for the night, the king, in accordance with his assumed character, went to the kitchen. Theywere roasting some meat with a jack, a machine used much in those daysto keep meat, while roasting, in slow rotation before the fire, Thejack had run down. They asked the pretended William Jackson to windit up. In trying to do it, he attempted to wind it the wrong way. Thecook, in ridiculing, his awkwardness, asked him what country he camefrom, that he did not know how to wind up a jack. The king meeklyreplied that he was the son of a poor tenant of Colonel Lane's, andthat they seldom had meat to roast at home, and that, when they hadit, they did not roast it with a jack. The party at length arrivedsafely at their place of destination, which was at the house of a Mrs. Norton, at a place called Leigh, about three miles from Bristol. Herethe whole party were received, and, in order to seclude the king asmuch as possible from observation, Mrs. Lane pretended that he was invery feeble health, and he was, accordingly, a good deal confined tohis room. The disease which they selected for him was an intermittentfever, which came on only at intervals. This would account for hisbeing sometimes apparently pretty well, and allowed him occasionally, when tired of being shut up in his room, to come down and join theother servants, and hear their conversation. 

There was an old servant of the family, named Pope, a butler, to whosecare the pretended William Jackson was specially confided. On thefollowing morning after his arrival, Charles, feeling, notwithstandinghis fever, a good appetite after the fatigues of his journey, wentdown to get his breakfast, and, while there, some men came in, friendsof the servants, and Pope brought out a luncheon of bread and ale, andplaced it before them. While they were eating it, they began to talkabout the battle of Worcester, and one of the men described it soaccurately, that the king perceived that he must have been there. Onquestioning him more particularly, the man said that he was a soldierin the king's army, and he began to describe the person and appearanceof the king. Charles was alarmed, and very soon rose and went away. Pope, who had had, it seems, his suspicions before, was now confirmedin them. He went to Mrs. Lane, and told her that he knew very wellthat their stranger guest was the king. She denied most positivelythat it was so, but she immediately took measures to communicate theconversation to Charles. The result of their consultations, and oftheir inquiries about the character of Pope for prudence and fidelity, was to admit him to their confidence, and endeavor to secure his aid. He was faithful in keeping the secret, and he rendered the kingafterward a great deal of very efficient aid. 

There was a certain Colonel Wyndham, whose name has become immortalizedby his connection with the king's escape, who lived at a place calledTrent, not far from the southern coast of England. After muchdeliberation and many inquiries, it was decided that the king shouldproceed there while arrangements should be made for his embarkation. When this plan was formed, Mrs. Lane received a pretended letter fromhome, saying that her father was taken suddenly and dangerously sick, and urging her immediate return. They set out accordingly, Williamhaving so far recovered from his fever as to be able to travel again!

During all this time, Lord Wilmot, who has already been mentioned asa fellow fugitive with Charles from the battle of Worcester, hadfollowed the party of the king in his progress through the country, under various disguises, and by different modes of travel, keepingnear his royal master all the way, and obtaining stolen interviewswith him, from time to time, for consultation. In this way each renderedthe other very essential aid. The two friends arrived at last at ColonelWyndham's together. Mrs. Lane and her party here took leave of theking, and returned northward toward her home. 

Colonel Wyndham was a personal acquaintance of the king. He had beenan officer under Charles I. , in the civil wars preceding that monarch'scaptivity and death, and Charles, who, as Prince of Wales, had madea campaign as will be recollected, in the west of England before hewent to France, had had frequent intercourse with Wyndham, and badgreat confidence in his fidelity. The colonel had been at last shutup in a castle, and had finally surrendered on such conditions assecured his own liberty and safety. He had, consequently, since beenallowed to live quietly at his own estate in Trent, though he waswatched and suspected by the government as a known friend of the king's. Charles had, of course, great confidence in him. He was very cordiallyreceived into his house, and very securely secreted there. 

It would be dangerous for Wyndham himself to do any thing openly inrespect to finding a vessel to convey the king to France. He accordinglyengaged a trusty friend to go down to the sea-port on the coast whichwas nearest to his residence, and see what he could do. This sea-portwas Lyme, or Lyme-Regis, as it is sometimes called. It was abouttwenty-five miles from Trent, where Wyndham resided, toward thesouthwest, and about the same distance to the eastward of Exeter, whereCharles's mother had some years before sought refuge from her husband'senemies. 

Colonel Wyndham's messenger went to Lyme. He found there, pretty soon, the master of a small vessel, which was accustomed to ply back andforth to one of the ports on the coast of France, to carry merchandise. The messenger, after making inquiries, and finding that the captain, if captain he may be called, was the right sort of man for such anenterprise, obtained an interview with him and introduced conversationby asking when he expected to go back to France. The captain repliedthat it would probably be some time before he should be able to makeup another cargo. "How should you like to take some passengers?" saidthe messenger. "Passengers?" inquired the captain. "Yes, " rejoined theother; "there are two gentlemen here who wish to cross the Channelprivately, and they are willing to pay fifty pounds to be landed atany port on the other side. Will you take them?"

The captain perceived that it was a serious business. There was aproclamation out, offering a reward for the apprehension of the king, or Charles Stuart as they called him, and also for other of the leadersat the battle of Worcester. All persons, too, were strictly prohibitedfrom taking any one across the Channel; and to conceal the king, orto connive in any way at his escape, was death. The captain, however, at length agreed to the proposal, influenced as the colonel's messengersupposed, partly by the amount of his pay, and partly by his interestin the Royal cause. He agreed to make his little vessel ready withoutdelay. 

They did not think it prudent for the king to attempt to embark atLyme, but there was, a few miles to the eastward of it, along theshore, a small village named Charmouth, where there was a creek juttingup from the sea, and a little pier, sufficient for the landing of sosmall a vessel as the one they had engaged. It was agreed that, on anappointed day, the king and Lord Wilmot were to come down to Charmouth, and take up their lodgings at the inn; that in the night the captainwas to sail out of the port of Lyme, in the most private mannerpossible, and come to Charmouth; and that the king and Wilmot, whowould, in the mean time, be watching from the inn, when they saw thelight of the approaching vessel, should come down to the pier andembark, and the captain then immediately sail away. 

The messenger accordingly went back to Colonel Wyndham's withintelligence of the plan that he had formed, while the captain of thevessel went to work as privately as possible to lay in his stores andmake his other preparations for sea. He did this with the utmostprecaution and secrecy, and succeeded in deceiving every body but hiswife. Wives have the opportunity to perceive indications of theconcealed existence of matters of moment and weight which others donot enjoy, in studying the countenances of their husbands. A man caneasily, through the day, when surrounded by the world, assume anunconcerned and careless air, though oppressed with a very considerablemental burden; but when he comes home at night, he instinctively throwsoff half his disguise, and conjugal watchfulness and solicitude easilypenetrate the remainder. At least it was so in this case. The captain'sdame perceived that her husband was thoughtful and absent minded. Shewatched him. She observed some indications that he was makingpreparations for sea. She asked him what it meant. He said he did notknow how soon he might have a cargo, and he wanted to be all ready inseason. His wife, however, was not satisfied. She watched him moreclosely still, and when the appointed night came on which he had agreedto sail, finding that it was impossible for him to elude her vigilance, he told her plainly, that he was going across the Channel on privatebusiness, but that he should immediately return. 

She declared positively that he should not go. She knew, she said, that the business was something which would end in ruining him and hisfamily, and she was determined that he should not risk her safety andhis own life in any such desperate and treasonable plans. She lockedthe door upon him, and when he insisted on being released, she declaredthat if he did attempt to go, she would immediately give warning tothe authorities, and have him arrested and confined. So the discomfitedcaptain was compelled to give up his design, and break his appointmentat the Charmouth pier. 

In the mean time, the king and Lord Wilmot came down, as had beenagreed upon, to Charmouth, and put up, with many other travelers, atthe inn. There was great excitement all over that part of the country, every one talking about the battle of Worcester, the escape of theking, and especially about an expedition which Cromwell had beenorganizing, which was then assembling on the southern coast. Itsdestination was the island of Jersey, which had thus far adhered tothe Royalist cause, and which Cromwell was now intending to reduce tosubjection to him. The bustle and movement which all these causescombined to create, made the king and Lord Wilmot very anxious anduneasy. There were assemblies convened in the villages which theypassed through, and men were haranguing the populace on the victorieswhich had been gained, and on the future measures to be pursued. Inone place the bells were ringing, and bonfires were burning incelebration of the death of the king, it being rumored and believedthat he had been shot. 

Our two fugitives, however, arrived safely at the inn, put up theirhorses, and began to watch anxiously for the light of the approachingvessel. They watched, of course, in vain. Midnight came, but no vessel. They waited hour after hour, till at last morning dawned, and theyfound that all hope of accomplishing their enterprise must be abandoned. They could not remain where they were, however, another day, withoutsuspicion; so they prepared to move on and seek temporary refuge insome other neighboring town, while they could send one of the attendantswho came with them back to Colonel Wyndham's, to see if he couldascertain the cause of the failure. One or two days were spent ininquiries, negotiations, and delays. The result was, that all hope ofembarking at Lyme had to be abandoned, and it was concluded that thefugitives should proceed on to the eastward, along the coast, to thecare of another Royalist, a certain Colonel Gunter, who might perhapsfind means to send them away from some port in that part of the country. At any rate, they would, by this plan, escape the excitements anddangers which seemed to environ them in the neighborhood of Lyme. 

It was fortunate that they went away from Charmouth when they did; bydoing so they narrowly escaped apprehension; for that night, while theking's horse was in the stable, a smith was sent for to set a shoeupon the horse of one of the other travelers. After finishing his work, he began to examine the feet of the other horses in the stalls, andwhen he came to the one which the king had rode, his attention wasparticularly attracted to the condition and appearance of the shoes, and he remarked to those who were with him that that horse had comea long journey, and that of the four shoes, he would warrant that notwo had been made in the same county. This remark was quoted the nextday, and the mysterious circumstance, trifling as it was, wassufficient, in the highly excitable state of the public mind, to awakenattention. People came to see the horse, and to inquire for the owner, but they found that both had disappeared. They immediately determinedthat the stranger must have been the king, or at least somedistinguished personage in disguise, and they sent in search of theparty in every direction; but the travelers had taken such effectualprecautions to blind all pursuit that their track could not be followed. 

In the mean time, the king journeyed secretly on from the residenceof one faithful adherent to another, encountering many perplexities, and escaping narrowly many dangers, until he came at last to theneighborhood of Shoreham, a town upon the coast of Sussex. ColonelGunter had provided a vessel here. It was a small vessel, bound, witha load of coal, along the coast, to the westward, to a port calledPool, beyond the Isle of Wight. Colonel Gunter had arranged it withthe master to deviate from his voyage, by crossing over to the coastof France, and leaving his passengers there. He was then to return, and proceed to his original destination. Both the owner of the vesseland the master who commanded it were Royalists, but they had not beentold that it was the king whom they were going to convey. In the bargainwhich had been made with them, the passengers had been designatedsimply as two gentlemen of rank who had escaped from the battle ofWorcester. When, however, the master of the vessel saw the king, heimmediately recognized him, having seen him before in his campaignsunder his father. This, however, seemed to make no difference in hisreadiness to convey the passengers away. He said that hews perfectlywilling to risk his life to save that of his sovereign, and thearrangements for the embarkation proceeded. 

The little vessel--its burden was about sixty tons--was brought intoa small cove at Brighthelmstone, a few miles to the eastward fromShoreham, and run upon the beach, where it was left stranded when thetide went down. The king and Lord Wilmot went to it by night, ascendedits side by a ladder, went down immediately into the cabin, andconcealed themselves there. When the rising tide had lifted the vessel, with its precious burden, gently from the sand, the master made easysail, and coasted along the English shore toward the Isle of Wight, which was the direction of the voyage which he had originally intendedto make. He did not wish the people at Shoreham to observe anyalteration of his course, since that might have awakened suspicion, and possibly invited pursuit; so they went on for a time to thewestward, which was a course that rather increased than diminishedtheir distance from their place of destination. 

It was seven o'clock in the morning when they sailed. There was agentle October breeze from the north, which carried them slowly alongthe shore, and in the afternoon the Isle of Wight came fully into view. There were four men and a boy on board the ship, constituting the crew. The master came to the king in the cabin, and proposed to him, as ameasure of additional security, and to prevent the possibility of anyopposition on the part of the sailors to the proposed change in theircourse which it would now soon be necessary to make, that the king andLord Wilmot should propose the plan of going to France to them, askingtheir interest with the captain in obtaining his consent, as it hadnot yet been mentioned to the captain at all; for the sailors had ofcourse understood that the voyage was only the usual coastwise tripto the port of Pool, and that these strangers were ordinary travelers, going on that voyage. The master, therefore, thought that there wouldbe less danger of difficulty if the king were first to gain the sailorsover himself, by promises or rewards, and then all come together togain the captain's consent, which could then, at last, with apparentreluctance, be accorded. 

This plan was pursued. The two travelers went to the sailors upon theforecastle, and told them, with an air of honest confidence, that theywere not what they seemed. They were merchants, they said, and wereunfortunately a little in debt, and under the necessity of leavingEngland for a time. They had some money due to them in Rouen, in France, and they wanted very much to be taken across the Channel to Dieppe, or some port near Rouen. They made known their condition to the sailors, they said, because they wanted their intercession with the captain totake them over, and they gave the sailors a good generous present inmoney for them to spend in drink; not so generous, however, as to castsuspicion upon their story of being traders in distress. 

Sailors are easily persuaded by arguments that are enforced by smallpresents of money. They consented to the plan, and then the king andLord Wilmot went to express their wishes to the captain. He made manyobjections. It would delay him on his voyage, and lead to manyinconveniences. The passengers, however, urged their request, thesailors seconding them. The wind was fair, and they could easily runacross the Channel, and then, after they landed, the captain couldpursue his course to the place of his destination. The captain finallyconsented; the helm was altered, the sails were trimmed, and the littlevessel bore away toward its new destination on the coast of France. 

It was now five o'clock in the afternoon. The English coast soondisappeared from the horizon, and the next morning, at daylight, theycould see the French shore. They approached the land at a little portcalled Fecamp. The wind, however, failed them before they got quiteto the land, and they had to anchor to wait for a turn of the tide tohelp them in. In this situation, they were soon very much alarmed bythe appearance of a vessel in the offing, which was coming also towardthe shore. They thought it was a Spanish privateer, and its appearancebrought a double apprehension. There was danger that the privateerwould capture them, France and Spain being then at war. There wasdanger, also, that the master of their vessel, afraid himself of beingcaptured, might insist on making all haste back again to the Englishcoast; for the wind, though contrary so long as they wished to go oninto their harbor, was fair for taking them away. The king and LordWilmot consulted together, and came to the conclusion to go ashore inthe little boat. They soon made a bargain with the sailors to row them, and, hastily descending the vessel's side, they entered the boat, andpushed off over the rolling surges of the Channel. 

They were two miles from the shore, but they reached it in safety. Thesailors went back to the vessel. The privateer turned out to be aharmless trader coming into port. The English vessel recrossed theChannel, and went on to its original port of destination; and LordWilmot and the king, relieved now of all their anxieties and fears, walked in their strange English dress up into the village to the inn. 

CHAPTER IX. 

THE RESTORATION. 

As the readers of a tale are generally inclined to sympathize with thehero of it, both in his joys and in his sorrows, whether he is deservingof sympathy or not, they who follow the adventures of Charles in hiswanderings in England after the unfortunate battle of Worcester, feelordinarily quite a strong sensation of pleasure at finding him at lastsafely landed on the French shore. Charles himself doubtless experiencedat first an overwhelming emotion of exultation and joy at having thussaved himself from the desperate dangers of his condition in England. On cool reflection, however, he soon perceived that there was butlittle cause for rejoicing in his condition and prospects. There weredangers and sufferings enough still before him, different, it is true, from those in which he had been involved, but still very dark andthreatening in character. He had now, in fact, ten years of privation, poverty, and exile before him, full of troubles from beginning to end. 

The new series of troubles began to come upon him, too, very soon. When he and his companion went up to the inn, on the morning of theirlanding, dressed as they were in the guise of Englishmen of humblerank, and having been put ashore, too, from a vessel which immediatelyafterward sailed away, they were taken for English thieves, or fugitivesfrom justice, and refused admission to the inn. They sent to somegentlemen of the neighborhood, to whom they made themselves known, sothat this difficulty was removed, their urgent wants were supplied, and they were provided with the means of transportation to Paris. Ofcourse, the mother of the fugitive monarch, yet almost a boy, wasrejoiced to welcome him, but he received no very cordial welcome fromany one else. Now that Charles had finally abandoned England, hisadherents there gave up his cause, of course, as totally lost. TheRepublicans, with Cromwell at their head, established a very firm andefficient government, which the nations of the Continent soon beganto find that it would be incumbent on them to respect. For any foreigncourt to harbor a pretender to the British crown, when there was anestablished government in England based on a determination of thepeople to abrogate royalty altogether, was to incur very considerablepolitical danger. Charles soon found that, under these circumstances, he was not likely to be long a very welcome guest in the French palaces. 

He remained, however, in Paris for a short time, endeavoring to findsome way to retrieve his ruined fortunes. Anne Maria was still there, and he attempted to renew his suit to her. She listened to theentertaining stories which he told of his dangers and escapes inEngland, and for a time, as Charles thought, encouraged his attentions. In fact, at one time he really believed that the affair was all settled, and began to assume that it was so in speaking with her upon thesubject. She, however, at length undeceived him, in a conversationwhich ended with her saying that she thought he had better go back toEngland, and "either get his head broken, or else have a crown uponit. " The fact was, that Anne Maria was now full of a new scheme forbeing married to Louis XIV. Himself, who, though much younger thanshe, had attained now to a marriageable age, and she had no intentionof regarding Charles in any other light than as one of the ordinarycrowd of her admirers. She finally extinguished all his hopes by coollyrequesting him not to visit her so frequently. 

In addition to his other sources of discomfort. Charles disagreed withhis mother. She was a very decided Catholic, and he a Protestant, frompolicy it is true, and not principle, but he was none the less rigidand inflexible on that account. He and his mother disagreed in respectto the education of the younger children. They were both restrictedin their means, too, and subject to a thousand mortifications fromthis cause, in the proud and haughty circle in which they moved. Finally, the king decided to leave Paris altogether, and try to finda more comfortable refuge in Holland. 

His sister and her husband, the Prince of Orange, had always treatedhim, as well as all the rest of the family, with great kindness andattention; but now, to complete the catalogue of his disasters, thePrince of Orange died, the power of the government passed into otherhands, and Mary found herself deprived of influence and honor, andreduced all at once to a private station. She would have been glad tocontinue her protection to her brother, but the new government fearedthe power of Cromwell. Cromwell sent word to them that England wouldconsider their harboring of the fugitive as tantamount to a declarationof war; so they notified Charles that he must leave their dominions, and find, if he could, some other place of retreat. He went up theRhine to the city of Cologne, where it is said he found a widow woman, who received him as a lodger without pay, trusting to his promise torecompense her at some future time. There is generally little risk ingiving credit to European monarchs, expelled by the temporary triumphof Republicanism from their native realms. They are generally prettycertain of being sooner or later restored to their thrones. 

At any rate, Charles was restored, and his restoration was effectedin a manner wholly unexpected to all mankind. In order that thecircumstances may be clearly understood, the reader must recall it tomind that Charles the First had been deposed and beheaded by the actionof a Parliament, and that this Parliament was, of course, at his deaththe depository of sovereign power in England. In a short time, however, the army, with Cromwell at its head, became too strong for theParliament. Cromwell assumed the supreme power under the name of theProtector. He dissolved Parliament, and expelled the members from theirseats. He governed the country as protector for many years, and whenat length he died, his son Richard Cromwell attempted to take hisplace. Richard did not, however, possess the talent and energy of hisfather, and he soon found himself totally inadequate to manage theaffairs of government in such stormy times. He was deposed, and theold Parliament which Cromwell had broken up was restored. 

There followed, then, a new contest between the Parliament and thearmy, with an officer named Lambert at the head of the latter. Thearmy proved the strongest. Lambert stationed guards in the streetsleading to the Parliament House one day when the members were aboutto assemble, and turned the members all back as they came. When thespeaker arrived in his carriage, he ordered his soldiers to take holdof the horses' heads and turn them round, and lead them home again. Thus there was no actual outward violence, but the members of Parliamentwere intimidated, and gave up the attempt to exercise their power, though they still reserved their claim, and their party was busy allover the kingdom in attempting to restore them to their functions. Inthe mean time, the army appointed a sort of council, which they investedwith supreme authority. 

It does not come within the scope and design of this volume to givea full account of the state of public affairs during the interregnumbetween the death of Charles I. And the Restoration of the monarchyunder Charles II. , nor of the points of controversy at issue among thevarious parties formed. The reader, however, must not suppose that, during this period, there was at any time what could, with anypropriety, be called a republic. A true republic exists only where thequestions of government are fairly and honorably submitted to the wholepopulation, with a universal disposition to acquiesce peaceably in thedecision of the majority, when that is ascertained. There probably hasnever been any such state of things as this in any country of Europesince the Christian era. There certainly was no such state of thingsin England in the time of the Commonwealth. There were a great manypersons who wished to have it so, and who called themselves Republicans;but their plan, if that were indeed their plan, was never tried. Verylikely it was not practicable to try it. At any rate, it certainly wasnot tried. The sovereignty taken from the Stuart dynasty in the personof Charles I. _was never vested in the people at large_. It was seizedforcibly by the various powers already existing in the state, as theyfound themselves, one after another, able to seize it. The Parliamenttook, it from Charles. The army took it from Parliament. Then OliverCromwell took it from the army. He found himself strong enough to holdit as long as he lived, and when he died he delivered it to his sonRichard. Richard could not hold it. The Parliament rose to a sort ofsupplementary existence, and took it from Richard, and then the armytook it from Parliament again. Finally, General Monk appeared upon thestage in Scotland, as we shall presently see, marched down throughEngland, and, with the help of thousands and thousands who were tiredof these endless changes, took it from the army and restored it oncemore to the Parliament, on condition of their placing it back againin the hands of the king. Thus there was no republic at all, frombeginning to end. 

Nor is it at all certain that there ought to have been. The difficultiesof really, truly, and honestly laying the national sovereignty in thehands of the whole population of such a realm as England, and of soorganizing the population that its decisions shall actually controlthe legislation of the country and the public administration of itsaffairs, are all but insuperable. The English people found the tyrannyand oppression of royalty intolerable. They arose and set royaltyaside. It devolved, then, on the next strongest power in the state toassume the authority thus divested; this was the Parliament, whogoverned, just as the king had done, by the exercise of their ownsuperior power, keeping the mass of the community just where they werebefore. It is true that many individuals of very low rank rose topositions of great power; but they represented only a party, and thepower they wielded was monarchical power usurped, not Republican powerfairly conferred upon them. Thus, though in the time of the Commonwealththere were plenty of Republicans, there was never a republic. It hasalways been so in all European revolutions. In America, Legislaturesand executive officers of state are only _agents_, through whom thegreat population itself quietly executes its will, the two millionsof votes in the great elections being the real power by which everything is controlled. But Cromwell, Napoleon, Lamartine, Cavaignac, andall the others, whatever formalities of voting may have attended theirinduction into office, have always really held their power by forceof bayonets, not of ballots. There is great danger that it will continueso in Europe for a long time to come. 

But to return. It was in 1659 when the army, with Lambert at its head, expelled the Parliament. All England was now divided into parties, some for the Parliament, some for the army, some for the king. Therewas a distinguished general in Scotland at this time named Monk. Hehad been left there by Cromwell in command of the military forces inthat country. He was a man considerably advanced in life, and of greatcircumspection, prudence, and steadiness of character. All partieswished to gain his influence, but he kept his own counsel, and declaredopenly for neither. 

He, however, began to get together his forces, and to make preparationsto march into England. People asked him what he intended to do, buthe would give no definite answer. He was six weeks getting ready forhis expedition, during which time many deputations were sent to himfrom the various parties, making different propositions to him, eachparty being eager to obtain his adhesion to their cause. He receivedall their deputations, heard what they had to say, made no definitereply to any of them, but went on quietly with his work. He got thevarious divisions of his army at length together, made provisionalarrangements for the government of Scotland during his absence, andset out on his march. 

He entered England in January, 1660, and advanced toward London. TheEnglish army was scattered all over the kingdom; but Monk openednegotiations with the leaders of it, and also with the members ofParliament, and, without committing himself absolutely to either party, he managed to have the Parliament restored. They assembled peaceablyin London, and resumed their functions. A part of the English army wasthere for their protection. Monk, as he approached London, sent wordto Parliament asking that quarters might be provided for him and hisarmy there. Parliament, desirous of conciliating him and securing hisco-operation in sustaining their power, acceded to this request. Theother troops were removed; Monk entered London in triumph, and tookpossession of all the strong holds there, holding them nominally underParliamentary authority Monk still kept his ultimate designs profoundlysecret. No party very strongly opposed him, for no party knew whetherto regard him as an enemy or a friend. The Royalists, however, allover the kingdom, took new courage, and a general expectation beganto pervade the minds of men that the monarchy was to be restored. TheParliament rescinded the votes which had been most decisive againstthe house of Stuart and monarchical rule. The most prominent Republicanswere dismissed from office under various pretexts, and men known tobe loyal were appointed in their place. Finally, the Parliament itselfwas dissolved, and writs were issued for the election of a new one, more in accordance with the ancient forms. 

When at length this new Parliament assembled, the public mind was ina great fever of excitement, there being a vague expectation everywhere that the monarchy was to be restored, while yet the Restorationwas openly spoken of by no one. The first votes which were taken inthe House of Commons indicated a very favorable state of feeling towardmonarchy; and at length, a few days after the opening of the session, it was announced that there was a messenger at the door with acommunication from the king. The announcement was received with thewildest acclamations of joy. The messenger was immediately ordered toenter. The communication was read, the vast assembly listening withbreathless attention. 

It contained, in the first place, a letter, in which the king statedthat, having heard that the people of England had restored theParliament according to the ancient forms, he hoped that now theParliament would go on and complete the good work which had been begun, and heal the distractions of the kingdom by reinstating him as sovereignin the ancient rights and prerogatives of the crown. 

The second part of the king's communication, and by far the mostimportant part, was what was called his Declaration, a document inwhich he announced formally what his intentions were in case he wererestored to the throne. One of these assurances was, that he was readyto forgive and forget the past, so far as he might himself be supposedto have cause of complaint against any of his subjects for the partthey had taken in the late transactions. He professed his readinessto grant a free pardon to all, excepting those who should be expresslyexcluded from such pardon by the Parliament itself. The Declarationalso set forth that, inasmuch as there was prevailing throughout thecountry a great diversity of religious opinion, the king, if restoredto his throne, whatever his own religious views or those of hisgovernment might be, would agree that his subjects should be allowedfull liberty of conscience in all respects, and that nobody should bemolested in any way on account of his religious faith or usages ofworship. 

And, finally, the Declaration contained a covenant on the part of theking, that whereas there had been great changes of property, arisingfrom fines and confiscations for political offenses during the periodof the Revolution, he would not himself disturb the existing titlesto property, but would leave them to be settled on such principles andin such a way as Parliament should direct. 

The letter from the king, and especially the Declaration, gave theutmost satisfaction. The latter disarmed those who would otherwisehave opposed the return of the king, by quieting their fears of beingdisturbed in respect to their liberty or their property. Immediatelyafter these papers were read, they were ordered to be published, andwere sent every where throughout the kingdom, awakening, wherever theywent the greatest demonstrations of joy. The Parliament passed a votethat the ancient Constitution of the kingdom, of government by king, Lords, and Commons, ought to be restored, and they went forth in abody into the public places of the city to proclaim Charles II. King. 

Parliament voted immediately a grant of fifty thousand pounds, a sumequal to more than two hundred thousand dollars, for the king'simmediate use, with large sums besides for the other members of thefamily, and sent a committee of noblemen to Holland to carry the moneyand to invite the king back to his dominions. As soon as tidings ofthese events reached the Continent, every body hastened to pay theircourt to his majesty. From being neglected, destitute, and wretched, he suddenly found himself elevated to the highest pinnacle of prosperityand fame. Every body offered him their aid; his court was thronged, and all were ready to do him honor. The princely mother of one of theyoung ladies who had rejected the offer of his hand in the day of hisadversity, sent him an intimation that the offer would be accepted ifhe would renew it now. 

A fleet crossed the Channel to receive the king and convey him toLondon. His brother James, the Duke, of York, was placed in commandof it as Lord High Admiral of England. The fleet sailed for Dover. General Monk went to Dover to receive the king at his landing. Heescorted him to London, where the monarch, returning from his longexile, arrived on the twenty-ninth of May, the very day when he becamethirty years of age. 

General Monk, whose talent, skill, and consummate management had beenthe means of effecting this great change without violence or bloodshed, was rewarded by being made Duke of Albermarle. This was a very greatreward. In fact, no American imagination can conceive of the imagesof glory and grandeur which are connected in the mind of an Englishmanwith the idea of being made a duke. A duke lives in a palace; he issurrounded by a court; he expends princely revenues; he reigns, infact, often, so far as the pomp and pleasure of reigning are concerned, over quite a little kingdom, and is looked up to by the millions beneathhis grade with a reverence as great, at least, as that with which theancients looked up to their gods. He is deprived of nothing whichpertains to power but the mere toil, and care, and responsibility ofruling, so that he has all the sweetness and fragrance of sovereigntywithout its thorns. In a word, the seat of an English duke, so far asearthly greatness and glory are concerned, is undoubtedly the finestwhich ambition, wealth, and power combined have ever succeeded incarving out for man. It is infinitely better than a throne. 

Some historians maintain that Monk acted on a secret understandingwith Charles from the commencement; that the general was to restorethe king, and was then to receive a dukedom for his reward. Others saythat he acted from a simple sense of duty in all that he did, and thatthe lofty elevation to which he was raised was a very natural andsuitable testimonial of the royal gratitude. The reader will embracethe one or the other of the two theories, according to the degree ofreadiness or of reluctance with which he believes in the existence ofconscientious principles of patriotism and loyalty among the great menwho rule the world. 

CHAPTER X. 

THE MARRIAGE. 

During the period of King Charles's days of adversity he made manyfruitless attempts to obtain a wife. He was rejected by all the youngladies to whom he made proposals. Marriages in that grade of societyare almost always mere transactions of business, being governedaltogether by political and prudential considerations. In all Charles'sproposals he was aiming simply at strengthening his own position bymeans of the wealth or family influence of the bride, supposing as hedid that the honor of being even nominally a queen would be a sufficientequivalent to the lady. The ladies themselves, however, to whom headdressed himself, or their friends, thought that the prospect of hisbeing really restored to his throne was very remote and uncertain, and, in the mean time, the empty name of queen was not worth as muchas a rich and powerful heiress, by becoming his bride, would have topay for it. 

After his restoration, however, all this was changed. There was nolonger any difficulty. He had now only to choose. In fact, one or twowho had refused him when he was a fugitive and an exile thoughtdifferently of the case now that he was a king, and one of them, ashas already been said, gave him intimations, through her friends, thatif he were inclined to renew his suit, he would be more successful. Charles rejected these overtures with indignant disdain. 

The lady whom he ultimately married was a Portuguese princess. Herfather was King of Portugal, but before his accession to the thronehis title had been the Duke of Braganza. The name of his daughter wasCatharine. She is thus known generally in history by the name ofCatharine of Braganza. 

It is said that the plan of this marriage originated with QueenHenrietta Maria, and that a prominent motive with her in promoting themeasure was her desire to secure for Charles a Catholic wife. Catharineof Braganza was a Catholic. Henrietta Maria was deeply interested, andno doubt conscientiously so, in bringing back her own family and theirdescendants, and the realm of England, if possible, to the ancientfaith: and this question of the marriage of her son she justlyconsidered would have a very important bearing on the result. 

Queen Henrietta is said to have laid her arrangements in train foropening the negotiation with the Portuguese princess, at a visit whichshe made to England in 1660, very soon after her son's restoration. The Restoration took place in May. The queen's visit to her son wasin October. Of course, after all the long years of danger, privation, and suffering which this family had endured, the widowed mother feltan intense emotion of joy at finding her children once more restoredto what she considered their just hereditary rights. Charles was onthe English throne. James, the Duke of York, was Lord High Admiral ofEngland, that is, the commander-in-chief of the naval forces of therealm; and her other children, those who were still living, were inpeace and safety. Of course, her heart was full of maternal pride andjoy. 

Her son James, the Lord High Admiral, went across the Channel to Dover, with a fleet of the finest ships that he could select from the wholeBritish navy, to escort his mother to England. The queen was to embarkat Calais. [Footnote: For a view of the famous Calais pier, see Historyof Mary Queen of Scots, page 105. ] The queen came down to the portfrom Paris, attended by many friends, who sympathized with her in thereturn of her prosperity, and were attracted, besides, by the grandspectacle which they thought would be presented by the appearance andmaneuvers of the English ships, and the ceremony of the embarkation. 

The waters of the English Channel are disturbed by almost perpetualagitations, which bleak winds and rapid tides, struggling continuallytogether, combine to raise; and many a traveler, who passes in comfortacross the Atlantic, is made miserable by the incessant restlessnessof this narrow sea. At the time, however, when Henrietta Maria crossedit, the waters for once were calm. The people who assembled upon thepier to witness the embarkation looked over the expanse before them, and saw it lying smooth, every where, as glass, and reflecting thegreat English ships which lay at a little distance from the shore asif it were a mirror. It was a bright and beautiful October morning. The air seemed perfectly motionless. The English ships were adornedwith countless flags in honor of the occasion, but they all hung downperfectly lifeless upon the masts and rigging. Scarcely a ripple rolledupon the beach; and so silent and still was the morning air, that thevoices and echoes came from vast distances along the shore, and thedip of the oars of the boats gliding about in the offing sent its soundfor miles around over the smooth surface of the sea; and when the grandsalute was fired at the embarkation of the queen, the reverberationof the guns was heard distinctly, it was said, at Dover, a distanceof thirty miles. 

Even in such a calm as this, however, uncommon as it is, the atmosphereis not perfectly still. When the royal party were on board the vesselsand the sails were set, the fleet did begin to glide, almostimperceptibly, it is true, away from the shore. In the course of theday they had receded several miles from the land, and when the dinnerhour arrived they found that the lord admiral had provided a mostsumptuous banquet on board. Just before the time, however, for settingdown to the table, the duke found that it was a Catholic fast day, andthat neither his mother nor any of her attendants, being, as they were, all Catholics, could eat any thing but fish; and, unfortunately, asall James's men were Protestants, they had not thought of the fast, and they had no fish on board. They, however, contrived to produce asturgeon for the queen, and they sat down to the table, the queen tothe dish provided for her, and the others to bread and vegetables, andsuch other food as the Catholic ritual allowed, while the duke himselfand his brother officers disposed, as well as they could, of the moreluxurious dainties which they had intended for their guests. 

With a fair wind, three hours is sufficient for the run from Calaisto Dover. It took the Duke of York two days to get his fleet acrossin this calm. At length, however, they arrived. The king was on thepier to receive his mother. Rejoiced as her majesty must have been tobe welcomed by her son under such circumstances, she must have thoughtmournfully of her departed husband at the time of her landing, for itwas here that he had taken leave of her some years before, when thetroubles of her family were beginning. Charles conducted his motherto the castle. All the inhabitants of Dover, and of the country around, had assembled to witness the arrival, and they welcomed the motherback to the land of her husband and her sons with long and loudacclamations. 

There was a great banquet at Dover Castle. Here all the members of theroyal family were present, having been assembled for the occasion. Ofcourse, it was an occasion of great family rejoicing, mingledundoubtedly, on the part of the queen, with many mournful thoughts andbitter recollections. The fast was past, and there was, consequently, no difficulty now about partaking of the food that had been provided;but another difficulty arose, having the same origin, viz. , the questionwhether the divine blessing should be implored upon the food by aCatholic priest or an Episcopal chaplain. Neither party couldconscientiously acquiesce in the performance of the service by theother. They settled the important question, or rather it settled itselfat last, in the following manner: When the guests were ready to taketheir places at table, the king, instead of asking his mother'sspiritual guide to officiate, as both Christian and filial courtesyrequired him to have done, called upon his own chaplain. The chaplainsaid grace. Immediately afterward, the Catholic priest, thinking thatfidelity to his own religious faith required him to act decidedly, repeated the service in the Catholic form, ending with making the signof the cross in a very conspicuous manner over the table. The gentryof Dover, who had been admitted as spectators of this banquet, weregreatly scandalized at this deed. They regarded the gesture as an actof very wicked and vary dangerous idolatry. 

From Dover the queen proceeded with her children to London. Her sonsdid every thing in their power to honor their mother's visit; theyreceived her with great parade and pomp, assigned her a sumptuousresidence, and studied every means of amusing her, and of making hervisit a source of pleasure. But they did not succeed. The queen wasvery unhappy. Every place that she visited recalled to her mind thememory of her husband, and awakened afresh all her sorrows. She wasdistressed, too, by some domestic troubles, which we have not heretime to describe. Then the religious differences between herself andher children, and the questions which were arising out of themcontinually, gave her a great deal of pain; she could not but perceive, moreover, that she was regarded with suspicion and dislike by thepeople of England on account of her Catholic faith. Then, besides, notwithstanding her English husband and her English children, she washerself a French woman still in character, thought, feeling, andlanguage, and she could not feel really at home north of the Channel. After remaining, therefore, a few months in London, and arranging somefamily and business affairs which required her attention, she determinedto return. The king accompanied her to Portsmouth, where she set sail, taking the little princess Henrietta with her, and went back to France. Among the family affairs, however, which she arranged, it is said thatthe marriage of her son, the king, was a special object of herattention, and that she secretly laid the train which resulted in hisespousing Catharine of Braganza. 

According to the accounts given in the chronicles of the times, thenegotiations were opened in the following manner: One day the Portugueseambassador at London came to a certain high officer of the king'shousehold, and introduced the subject of his majesty's marriage, saying, in the course of the conversation, that he thought the PrincessCatharine of Portugal would be a very eligible match, and addingmoreover, that he was authorized to say that, with the lady, veryadvantageous terms could be offered. Charles said he would think ofit. This gave the ambassador sufficient encouragement to induce himto take another step. He obtained an audience of Charles the next day, and proposed the subject directly for his consideration. The ambassadorknew very well that the question would turn, in Charles's mind, on thepecuniary and political advantages of the match; so he stated at oncewhat they would be. He was authorized to offer, he said, the sum offive hundred thousand pounds [Footnote: Equal to two or three millionsof dollars. ] as the princess's portion, and to surrender to the Englishcrown various foreign possessions, which had, till then, belonged tothe Portuguese. One of the principal of these was the island of Bombayin the East Indies. Another was Tangier, a port in Africa. The Englishdid not, at that time, hold any East Indian territories. He likewiseoffered to convey to the English nation the right of trading with thegreat South American country of Brazil, which then pertained to thePortuguese crown. 

Charles was very much pleased with these proposals. He immediatelyconsulted his principal minister of state, Lord Clarendon, thecelebrated historian, and soon afterward called a meeting of his privycouncil and laid the case before them. Clarendon asked him if he hadgiven up all thoughts of a Protestant connection. Charles said thathe did not know where to look for a Protestant wife. It was true, infact, that nearly all the royal families of Europe were Catholics, androyal bridegrooms must always have royal brides. There were, however, Protestant princesses in Germany; this was suggested to his majesty, but he replied, with an expression of contempt, that they were alldull and foggy, and he could not possibly have one of them for a wife. 

The counselors then began to look at the pecuniary and politicaladvantages of the proposed bargain. They got out their maps, and showedCharles where Bombay, and Tangier, and the other places offered withthe lady as her dowry lay. The statesmen were quite pleased with theprospect of these acquisitions, and Charles was particularly gratifiedwith the money item. It was twice as much, they said, as any Englishking had ever before received as the marriage portion of a bride. Ina word, the proposition was unanimously considered as in every respectentirely satisfactory, and Charles authorized his ministers to openthe negotiations for the marriage immediately. All this time Charleshad never seen the lady, and perhaps had never heard of her before. Her own individual qualifications, whether of mind or of person, seemto have been considered a subject not worth inquiring about at all. 

Nor ought we to be at all surprised at this. It was not Charles'sobject, in seeking a wife, to find some one whom he was to cherish andlove, and who was to promote his happiness by making him the objectof her affection in return. His love, so far as such a soul is capableof love, was to be gratified by other means. He had always some femalefavorite, chosen from among the ladies of his court, high in rank, though not high enough to be the wedded wife of the king. Theseattachments were not private in any sense, nor was any attempt madeto conceal them, the king being in the habit of bestowing upon theobjects of them all the public attentions, as well as the privateintimacy which pertain to wedded life. The king's favorite at thepresent time was Lady Castlemaine. She was originally a Mrs. Palmer, but the king had made her husband Lord Castlemaine for the purpose ofgiving a title to the wife. Some years afterward he made her a duchess. She was a prominent lady in the court, being every where received andhonored as the temporary wife of the king. He did not intend, inmarrying the Princess Catharine, to disturb this state of things atall. She was to be in name his wife, but he was to place his affectionswhere he pleased. She was to have her own palace, her own household, and her own pleasures, and he, on the other hand, was to continue tohave his. 

Notwithstanding this, however, Charles seemed to have had someconsideration for the personal appearance of his proposed bride, afterall. The Spanish government, as soon as Charles's plan of espousingCatharine became known, attempted to prevent the match, as it wouldgreatly increase the strength and influence of Portugal by giving tothat country so powerful an ally. Spain had plenty of money, but noprincess in the royal family; and the government therefore proposedto Charles, that if he would be content to take some Protestant ladyfor a wife, they would endow her, and with a portion as great as thatwhich had been offered with Catharine. They, moreover, represented toCharles that Catharine was out of health, and very plain and repulsivein her personal appearance, and that, besides, it would be a greatdeal better for him, for obvious political reasons, to marry aProtestant princess. The other party replied that Catharine was notugly by any means, and they showed Charles her portrait, which, afterlooking at it a few minutes, he said was _not unhandsome_. They remindedhim, also, that Catharine was only the third in succession from thecrown of Portugal, so that the chance of her actually inheriting thatrealm was not at all to be disregarded. Charles thought this a veryimportant consideration, and, on the whole, decided that the affairshould go on; and commissioners were sent to make a formal proposalof marriage at the Portuguese court. Charles wrote letters to themother of the young lady, and to the young lady herself, expressingthe personal interest he felt in obtaining the princess's hand. 

The negotiations thus commenced went on for many months, with no otherobstruction than the complication and intricacy which attend allmatrimonial arrangements where the interests of kingdoms, as well asthe personal happiness of the wedded pair, are involved in the issue. Ambassadors were sent, and contracts and treaties were drawn up, discussed, modified, and finally signed. A formal announcement of theproposed marriage was made to the English Parliament, and addressescongratulatory were voted and presented in reply. Arrangements weremade for transferring the foreign possessions promised to the Britishcrown; and, lastly, the money intended for the dower was collected, tied up in bags, sealed, and deposited safely in the strong room ofthe Castle at Lisbon. In fact, every thing went on prosperously to theend, and when all was thus finally settled, Charles wrote the followingletter to his expected bride. 

"London, 2d of July, 1661. MY LADY AND WIFE, "

"Already the ambassador has set off for Lisbon; for me the signing ofthe marriage has been great happiness; and there is about to bedispatched at this time, after him, one of my servants, charged withwhat would appear necessary, whereby may be declared on my part theinexpressible joy of this felicitous conclusion, which, when received, will hasten the coming of your majesty. "

"I am going to make a short progress into some of my provinces. In themean time, while I am going further from my most sovereign good, yetI do not complain as to whither I go; seeking in vain tranquility inmy restlessness, looking to see the beloved person of your majesty inthese realms already your own; and that with the same anxiety withwhich, after my long banishment, I desired to see myself within them, and my subjects desiring also to behold me among them. The presenceof your serenity is only wanting to unite us, under the protection ofGod, in the health and content I desire. 

"The very faithful husband of her majesty, whose hand he kisses. CHARLES REX. "

The letter was addressed

"To the QUEEN OF GREAT BRITAIN, my wife and lady, whom God preserve. "

Whoever reads this letter attentively will see in it that infalliblecriterion of hypocrisy and pretense in professions of regard, viz. , extravagant ideas feebly and incoherently expressed. When the heartdictates what is said, the thoughts are natural, and the languageplain; but in composition like the above, we see a continual strivingto say something for effect, which the writer invents by his ingenuityas he goes on, without any honest impulses from the heart to guidehim. He soars one minute and breaks down the next, in absurdalternations of the sublime and the ridiculous. How honest Charles wasin such professions, and what was the kind of connubial happiness whichhe was preparing for his bride, is shown by the fact that he was evennow spending all his time with Lady Castlemaine; and, to reconcile herto his marriage with Catharine, he had promised her that he would makeher one of the ladies of the queen's bed chamber as soon as she arrivedin London, which would give him constant opportunities of being in hersociety. 

We have made very little allusion to Catharine herself, thus far, inthe account of these transactions, because she has had, thus far, nothing to do with them. Every thing has been arranged for her by hermother, who was an ambitious and masculine woman, and at this time thequeen regent of Portugal. Catharine had been kept shut up, all herdays, in the most strict seclusion, and in the most rigorous subjectionto her mother's will. It is said that she had hardly been ten timesout of the palace in her life, since her return to it from the conventwhere she had been educated. The innocent and simple hearted maidenlooked forward to her marriage as to a release from a tedious andintolerable bondage. They had shown her King Charles's picture, andhad given her an account of his perilous adventures and romanticescapes, and of the courage and energy which he had sometimes displayed. And that was all she knew. She had her childlike ideas of love and ofconjugal fidelity and happiness, and believed that she was going torealize them. As she looked forward, therefore, to the period of herdeparture for England, she longed impatiently for the time to come, her heart bounding at every thought of the happy hour with eageranticipations of delight. 

An English nobleman--the Earl of Sandwich--was sent with a squadronto bring the bride to England. He was received, when he entered theTagus, with great ceremony. A Portuguese minister went down the riverto meet him in a magnificent barge. The nobleman descended to thelowest step of the ladder which led down the side of the ship, toreceive the minister. They ascended the ladder together, while theship fired a salute of twenty or thirty guns. They went into the cabin, and took seats there, with great ceremony. The minister then rose andmade an address of welcome to the English commander. Lord Sandwichreplied, and there was then another thundering salute of cannon. 

All this parade and ceremony was, in this case, as it often is, notan _expression_ of real cordiality, good will, and good faith, but asubstitute for them. The English commander, who had been speciallyinstructed to bring over the money as well as the bride, found, to hisgreat astonishment and perplexity, that the queen regent had spent aconsiderable portion of the money which had been put away so safelyin the bags, and she wished to pay now a part of the dowry inmerchandise, at such prices as she thought reasonable, and to have ayear's credit for the remainder. There was thus thrown upon LordSandwich the very heavy responsibility of deciding whether to give upthe object of his expedition, and go back to England without the bride, or to take her without the money. After very anxious hesitation andsuspense, he decided to proceed with his enterprise, and thepreparations were made for the princess's embarkation. 

When the day arrived, the queen descended the grand staircase of thepalace, and at the foot of it took leave of her mother. Neither mothernor daughter shed a tear. The princess was conducted through thestreets, accompanied by a long cavalcade and a procession of splendidcarriages, through long lines of soldiers, and under triumphal arches, and over paths strewed with flowers, while bands of music, and groupsof dancers, at various distances along the way, expressed the generalcongratulation and joy. When they reached the pier there was a splendidbrigantine or barge ready to receive the bride and her attendants. TheEarl of Sandwich, and other English officers of high rank belongingto the squadron, entered the barge too. The water was covered withboats, and the shipping in the river was crowded with spectators. Thebarge moved on to the ship which was to convey the bridal party, whoascended to the deck by means of a spacious and beautiful stairconstructed upon its side. Salutes were fired by the English ships, and were echoed by the Portuguese forts on the shore. The princess'sbrother and the ladies who had accompanied her on board, to take leaveof her there, now bade her farewell, and returned by the barge to theshore, while the ships weighed anchor and prepared to put to sea. 

The wind was, however, contrary, and they were compelled to remainthat night in the river; and as soon as the darkness came on, the wholeshore became resplendent with illuminations at the windows in the city, and with rockets, and fire balls, and fireworks of every kind, risingfrom boats upon the water, and from the banks, and heights, and castlebattlements all around upon the land. This gay and splendid spectaclebeguiled the night, but the wind continued unfavorable all the nextday, and confined the squadron still to the river. Catharine's mothersent out a messenger during the day to inquire after her daughter'shealth and welfare. The etiquette of royalty did not allow of hercoming to see her child. 

The fleet, which consisted of fourteen men-of-war, put to sea on thesecond day. After a long and stormy passage, the squadron arrived offthe Isle of Wight; the Duke of York came out to meet it there, withfive other ships, and they all entered the harbor of Portsmouthtogether. As soon as Catharine landed, she wrote immediately to Charlesto notify him of her arrival. The news produced universal excitementin London. The bells were rung, bonfires were made in the streets, andhouses were illuminated. Every body seemed full of joy and pleasureexcept the king himself. He seemed to care little about it. He wassupping that night with Lady Castlemaine. It was five days before heset out to meet his bride, and he supped with Lady Castlemaine thenight before he commenced his journey. 

Some of Charles's best friends were very much grieved at his pursuingsuch a course; others were very indignant; but the majority of thepeople around him at court were like himself in character and manners, and were only led to more open irregularity and vice themselves bythis public example of their sovereign. In the mean time, the kingmoved on to Portsmouth, escorted by a body of his Life Guards. He foundthat his intended bride was confined to her bed with a sort of slowfever. It was the result, they said, of the roughness and discomfortsof the voyage, though we may certainly imagine another cause. Charleswent immediately to the house where she was residing, and was admittedto visit her in her chamber, the many attendants who were present atthe interview watching with great interest every word and look oneither side by which they might judge of the nature of the firstimpression made by the bride and bridegroom upon each other. Catharinewas not considered beautiful, and it was natural that a degree ofcuriosity should be manifested to learn how Charles would regard her. 

There are two apparently contradictory accounts of the impression madeupon Charles by this his first sight of his intended bride. Charleswrote a letter to Lord Clarendon, in which he expressed himself verywell satisfied with her. He admitted that she was no beauty, but hercountenance was agreeable, he said, and "her conversation, " he added, "as far as I can perceive, is very good; for she has wit enough, anda very agreeable voice. You would be surprised to see how well we areacquainted already. In a word, I think myself very happy, and I amconfident that we shall agree very well together. I have not time tosay any more. My lord lieutenant will tell you the rest. " At the sametime, while writing this in his official communication to his minister, he said privately to one of his companions on leaving the presence ofhis bride, that, "upon his word, they had sent him a bat instead ofa woman. "

The royal couple were married the next day, first very privately inthe Catholic form, and afterward more openly, in a great hall, andbefore a large assembly, according to the ritual of the Church ofEngland. The bride was attired in the English style, her dress beingof rose color, trimmed with knots of blue ribbon. These knots were, after the ceremony, detached from the dress, and distributed among thecompany as wedding favors, every lady eagerly pressing forward to geta share. Magnificent presents were made to the groomsmen andbridesmaids, and the company dispersed. The queen, still indisposed, went back to her bed and her supper was served to her there, the kingand other members of the household partaking it with her, seated atthe bedside. 

A day or two afterward the royal party proceeded to London, in a longtrain composed of Life Guards, carriages, horsemen, baggage wagons, and attendants of every grade. The queen's heart was full ofanticipations of happiness. The others, who knew what state of thingsshe was to find on her arrival there, looked forward to scenes oftrouble and woe. 

CHAPTER XI. 

CHARACTER AND REIGN

Some of the traits of character for which King Charles II. Has beenmost noted among mankind are well illustrated by his management of theaffair of Lady Castlemaine, when the queen arrived at her new home inHampton Court. Hampton Court is a very spacious and beautiful palaceon the banks of the Thames, some miles above London, splendidly built, and very pleasantly situated at a graceful bend of the river. It wasmagnificently fitted up and furnished for Catharine's reception. Hersuite of apartments were supplied and adorned in the most sumptuousmanner. Her bed, which was a present to Charles, at the time of hisrestoration, from the States of Holland, was said to have cost, withall the appurtenances, a sum equal to between thirty and forty thousanddollars. The hangings were an embroidery of silver on crimson velvet. The other articles of furniture in the apartment, the mirrors, therichly inlaid cabinets, the toilet service of massive gold, thecanopies, the carved chairs, the curtains, the tapestries, and thepaintings, corresponded in magnificence with the bed, so that Catharine, when she was introduced to the scene, felt that she had attained tothe very summit of human grandeur. 

For a few weeks Catharine neither saw nor heard any thing of LadyCastlemaine. She was confined to her house at the time by the care ofan infant, born a few days after the arrival of the queen. Her husbandhad the child baptized soon after its birth as his son and heir; butthe mother soon afterward had it baptized again as the son of the king, Charles himself standing sponsor on the occasion. A violent quarrelfollowed between Lady Castlemaine and her husband. She left the house, taking with her all her servants and attendants, and all the plate andother valuables which she could carry away. The husband, overwhelmedwith wretchedness and shame, abandoned every thing, and went to France, in voluntary exile. His wife then came and took up her residence atRichmond, which is not far from Hampton Court, so as to be near theking. In all these proceedings the king himself gave her his continuedcountenance, encouragement, and aid. 

Although Catharine, in the confiding simplicity of her character, hadfully believed, in coming to London, that Charles would be to her atrue and faithful husband, still she had heard the name of LadyCastlemaine before she left Lisbon. Her mother had once briefly alludedto the subject, and gave her a warning, charging her to remember thename, and to be on her guard against the lady herself, and never totolerate her in her presence on any pretext. Things were in this state, when, one day, after Catharine had been about six weeks in her newhome, Charles brought in a list of ladies whom he proposed that sheshould make the ladies of her household. Catharine took the list, andthere, to her surprise and indignation, she saw the dreaded name ofLady Castlemaine at the head of it. 

Very much agitated, she began to prick out the name, and to declarethat she could not listen to any such proposition. Charles was angry, and remonstrated. She persisted, and said that he must either yieldto her in that point, or send her back to Lisbon. Charles was determinedto have his way, and Catharine was overwhelmed with anguish and grief. This lasted two days, when Charles made his peace with his wife bysolemnly promising to give up Lady Castlemaine, and to have from thattime forward nothing more to do with her. 

King Charles II. Has always been famed for his good nature. This wasa specimen of it. He never liked to quarrel with any body, and wasalways ready to give up his point, in appearance and form at least, for the sake of peace and good humor. Accordingly, when he found howimmovably averse his wife was to having Lady Castlemaine for an inmateof her family, instead of declaring that she must and should submitto his will, he gave up himself, and said that he would think no moreabout it, without, however, having the remotest idea of keeping hisword. He was only intending, since he found the resistance so decidedon this side of the citadel, to try to find some other approach. 

Accordingly, a short time after this, one evening when the queen washolding a sort of levee in a brilliant saloon, surrounded by herPortuguese ladies, and receiving English ladies, as they were one afteranother presented to her by the king, the company were astonished atseeing Lady Castlemaine appear with the rest, and, as she advanced, the king presented her to the queen. To the surprise of every one, Catharine received her as graciously as the rest, and gave her herhand. The fact was, that Catharine, not being familiar with the soundand pronunciation of English words, had not understood the name. Oneof the Portuguese ladies who stood near her whispered to inquire ifshe knew that that was Lady Castlemaine. Catharine was stunned andstaggered by the words as by a blow. The blood gushed from her nose, she fell over into the arms of her attendants in a fainting fit, andwas borne out of the room. 

There followed, after this scene, a long and dreadful quarrel. Charlesaccused his wife of unreasonable and foolish jealousy, and of puttinga public insult upon one of the ladies of his court, whom she was boundto treat with civility and respect, since he chose to have it so. She, on the other hand, declared that he was cruel and tyrannical in makingsuch demands upon her, and that she would go back to Portugal ratherthan submit to such an intolerable indignity. She criminated Charles, and Charles recriminated and threatened her, and for one night thepalace was filled with the noise and uproar of the quarrel. The ladiesand gentlemen of the household were very glad, they said, that theywere not in London, where there would have been so many more witnessesof the scene. 

Some of Charles's counselors and ministers of state were disposed atfirst to remonstrate with him for laying commands on his wife, withwhich, as they expressed it, flesh and blood could not comply. He, however, peremptorily silenced all their expostulations, and requiredthem, as they valued his favor, to aid him in effecting his purposes. Good natured as he was, his determination was fully aroused, and hewas now resolved to compel the queen to submit. He wrote a letter toLord Clarendon, in which he declared his absolute and unalterabledetermination to make Lady Castlemaine "of the queen's bed chamber, "and hoped he might be miserable in this world and in the world to comeif he failed in the least degree in what he had undertaken; and if anyone of his friends attempted to thwart or impede him in it in any way, he would make him repent of it as long as he lived. The king concludedhis letter with asking Clarendon to show it to some others concerned, that they might all understand distinctly what they were to expect. 

Of course, every body, after this, took sides against the queen, andall who had access to her urged her to comply with the wishes of theking. She begged and prayed to be spared such an indignity. Sheremonstrated, sometimes with impetuous passion, and sometimes withsilent grief and bitter tears. She wanted to go back again to Portugal;but this, of course, could not be. The end of it was, that she wasworn out at last. Lady Castlemaine was admitted, and remained an inmateof her family as long as she retained her place in the king's regard. 

Lady Castlemaine was a proud and imperious beauty, who abused the powerwhich she soon found that she possessed over the king, in a manner tomake her an object of hatred to every one else. She interfered withevery thing, and had a vast influence even over the affairs of state. The king was sometimes out of patience, and attempted resistance, butshe soon reduced him to submission. There was once some question aboutsending a certain nobleman, who was charged with some politicaloffenses, to the Tower. She declared that he should not be sent there. The king rebuked her interference, and they got into a high disputeon the subject, the king telling her, in the end, that she was animpertinent jade, that meddled with things she had nothing to do with. To which she replied that _he_ was a great fool, that let fools havethe management of his affairs, and sent his faithful servants to prison. In the end, the lady gained the victory, and the nobleman went free. Violent quarrels of this kind were very frequent between these highlife lovers, and they always ended in the triumph of Lady Castlemaine. She used to threaten, as a last resort, that if the king came to anopen rupture with her, she would print the letters that he had writtento her, and this always brought him to terms. 

These incidents indicate a very extraordinary freedom and familiarityof manners on the part of Charles, and he probably appears, in allthese transactions, to much greater disadvantage in some respects thanhe otherwise would have done, on account of the extreme openness andfrankness of his character. He lived, in fact, on the most free andfamiliar terms with all around him, jesting continually with everybody, and taking jests, with perfect good nature, from others in return. In fact, his jests, gibes, and frolics kept the whole court continuallyin a condition of frivolous gayety and fun, which would have excitedthe astonishment of all the serious portion of mankind, if the extremeand universal dissipation and vice which prevailed had not awakeneda far deeper emotion. 

In fact, there seemed to be no serious element whatever in the monarch'scharacter. He was, for instance, very fond of dogs, and cultivated aparticular breed, since called King Charles's spaniels, which he keptat one time in great numbers, and in all stages of age and condition, in his palace, and in his very bed chamber, making all the apartmentsaround very disagreeable by the effluvia. Rewards were constantlyoffered for certain of the king's dogs which had escaped. They werealways escaping. He was attended by these dogs wherever he went, andat his meetings with his council, while the gravest and most momentousnational interests were under discussion, he would amuse himself byplaying with them under the table. He read his speeches at Parliament, that is, the brief messages with which the sovereign usually opens thesession, in a ridiculous manner, and at church, instead of attendingto the service, he would play at peep with Lady Castlemaine betweenthe curtains which separated his box from that of the ladies of thehousehold. And yet he pretended to be a firm believer in Christianity;and while he had no objection to any extreme of vice, he discountenancedinfidelity. On one occasion, when a philosophical skeptic had beenenlarging for some time on his objections to the Christian faith, Charles replied by saying, "My lord, I am a great deal older than yourgrace, and have heard more arguments in favor of atheism than you, butI have lived long enough to see that there is nothing in them, and Ihope your grace will. "

Charles spent most of his time, at some periods of his reign, in idleamusements, lounging about his palace, playing at tennis in the tenniscourt like a boy, and then weighing himself afterward to see how muchhe was gaining. In the afternoons and evenings he would loiter in therooms of his favorites while they were finishing their dressing, gambleat cards, and often would get very much intoxicated at wild midnightcarousals. He would ramble in the mall and in the parks, and feed theaquatic birds upon the ponds there, day after day, with all the interestand pleasure of a truant schoolboy. He roamed about thus in the mostfree and careless manner, and accosted people far beneath him in rankin what was considered a undignified way for a king. 

His brother James, the Duke of York, sometimes remonstrated with himon this subject. James was, of course, so long as the queen, Charles'slawful wife, had no children, the next heir to the crown. He spentmost of his life in the court of his brother, and they were generallyvery warm friends to each other. On one of Charles's frolickingexcursions, when he was away far from his palace, without any suitableattendants or guards, James told him that he really thought his lifewas not safe in such exposures. Charles replied by telling James notto give himself any uneasiness. "You may depend upon it, " said he, "that nobody will ever think of killing me to make _you_ king. "

The king was not unwilling, too, to take, himself, such jests as hegave. One day, in conversation with a dissolute member of the court, after they had been joking each other for some time, he said, "Ah!Shaftesbury, I verily believe you are the wickedest dog in mydominions. "

"Yes, " replied Shaftesbury, "for a _subject_, I think I am. "

There was a mischievous and unmanageable goat in one of the palacecourtyards, whose name was Old Rowley, and the courtiers consideredthe beast as affording so just an emblem of the character of the king, that they gave the king his name. Charles, instead of resenting it, entered into the jest; and one day, as he was going into the apartmentof some of the ladies, be heard them singing a song, in which he figuredridiculously as the goat. He knocked at the door. They asked who wasthere. "Only Old Rowley, " said the king. 

The king's repartees were some of them really good, and he obtainedin his day the reputation of being quite a wit, while yet all hisactions, and the whole of his management of his affairs, were so utterlyunwise and so wholly unworthy of his station, that every one was struckwith the contrast. One of the wits of his court one day wrote an epitaphfor him, over his door, as follows:

 "Here lies our sovereign lord the king, Whose word no man relies on, Who never said a foolish thing, And never did a wise one. "

When the king came and saw this inscription, he stopped to read it, and said, "Yes, that is very true; and the reason is, my doings arethose of my ministers, while my sayings are my own. "

Charles had, in fact, very little to do with the public affairs of hiskingdom. He liked to build palaces and ships, and he expended vastsums, not very judiciously, on these plans. Sir Christopher Wren, thefamous architect, planned one of these palaces, and Charles, when hewent to see it, complained that the rooms were too small. SirChristopher walked about with a self-important air, looking up at theceiling, and said that he thought they were _high_ enough. SirChristopher was very small in stature. Charles accordingly squatteddown as well as he could, to get his head in as low a position as thearchitect's, and walked about the room in that ridiculous attitude, looking up in mimicry of Sir Christopher's manner, and then said, "Oh, yes, _now_ I think they are high enough. "

These building plans, and other similar undertakings, together withthe vast amounts which the king lavished upon his numerous femalefavorites, exhausted his resources, and kept him in continual straitsfor money. He was always urging Parliament to make new grants, and tolay more taxes, until, as he said himself, he was ashamed to look hisParliament in the face, he was so continually begging them for supplies. The people caricatured him by the representation of a poverty strickenman, with his pockets turned inside out, and begging money. At anothertime the caricature took the form of a man led along against his willby two women, and threatened by a third, wearing all the time acountenance expressive of helplessness and distress. 

The king bore all these things with the utmost good nature, satisfied, apparently, if he could only enjoy the pleasures of dissipation andvice, and continue, in his palaces, a perpetual round of recklessmerriment and fun. Some of the stories which are gravely told by thehistorians of the day are scarcely credible. For instance, it is saidthat a thief one day found his way, in the guise of a gentleman, intoone of the royal drawing rooms, and contrived to get a gold snuff boxout of the pocket of one of the noblemen there. Just as he hadsuccessfully accomplished his object, unobserved, as he supposed, helooked up, and saw the king's eyes fastened upon him. Knowing hismajesty's character, the thief had the presence of mind to give hima wink, with a sly gesture enjoining secrecy. The king nodded assent, and the thief went away with his prize. When the nobleman missed hissnuff box, the king amused himself some time with his perplexity andsurprise, and then told him that it was of no use for him to searchfor his snuff box, for a thief had gone off with it half an hour ago. "I saw him, " said the king, with a countenance full of fun, "but Icould not do any thing. The rascal made me his confidant, and, ofcourse, you know, I could not betray him. "

Under the government of such a sovereign, it could not be expectedthat the public affairs of the realm would have gone on veryprosperously. Still, however, they might have been conducted withordinary success by his ministers, and perhaps they were, in fact, managed as well as was usual with the governments of Europe in thosedays. It happened, however, that three great public calamities occurred, all of a most marked and signal character, which were, perhaps, notowing at all to causes for which Charles was responsible, but whichhave nevertheless connected such associations in men's minds with thisunfortunate reign, as that Englishmen have since looked back upon itwith very little pleasure. These three calamities were the plague, thefire, and the Dutch invasion. 

There have been a great many seasons of plague in London, allinconceivably dreadful; but as King Charles's fire was first amongconflagrations, so his plague was the greatest pestilence that everravaged the city. London was, in those days, in a condition whichexactly adapted it to be the easy prey of pestilence, famine, and fire. The people were crowded together in vast masses, with no comforts, nocleanliness, no proper organization. The enormous vegetable and animalaccumulations of such a multitude, living more like brutes than men, produced a continual miasma, which prepared the constitutions ofthousands for any infection which might chance to light among them. Pestilence is, in fact, the rude and dreadful remedy which natureprovides for the human misery which man himself can not or will notcure. When the dictates of reason and conscience are neglected ordisobeyed, and the ills which they might have averted sink the socialstate into a condition of degradation and wretchedness so great thatthe denser accumulations of the people become vast and corrupted swarmsof vermin instead of organized communities of men, then plague andfever come in as the last resort--half remedy, half retribution--devisedby that mysterious principle which struggles perpetually for thepreservation of the human race, to thin off the excessive accumulationby destroying a portion of the surplus in so frightful a way as todrive away the rest in terror. 

The great plague of London took place in 1665, one year before thefire. The awful scenes which the whole city presented, no pen candescribe. A hundred thousand persons are said to have died. The houseswhere cases of the plague existed were marked with a red cross andshut up, the inmates being all fastened in, to live or die, at themercy of the infection. Every day carts rolled through the otherwisesilent and desolate streets, men accompanying them to gather up withpitchforks the dead bodies which had been dragged out from thedwellings, and crying "Bring out your dead" as they went along. [Footnote: Sometimes the living were pitched into the cart by mistakeinstead of the dead. There is a piece of sculpture in the TottenhamCourt road in London intended to commemorate the following case. AScotch piper, who had been wandering in homeless misery about thestreets, with nothing but his bagpipes and his dog, got intoxicatedat last, as such men always do, if they can, in times of such extremeand awful danger, and laid down upon the steps of a public buildingand went to sleep. The cart came along in the night, by torchlight, and one of the men who attended it, inserting the point of his forkunder the poor vagabond's belt, tossed him into the cart, bagpipes andall. The dog did all he could to defend his master, but in vain. Thecart went thundering on, the men walking along by its side, examiningthe ways for new additions to their load. The piper, half awakened bythe shock of his precipitation into the cart, and aroused still moreby the joltings of the road, sat up, attempted in vain to rally hisbewildered faculties, looked about him, wondering where he was, andthen instinctively began to play. The men, astonished and terrifiedat such sounds from a cart loaded with the dead, fled in all directions, leaving the cart in the middle of the street alone. 

What a mysterious and inconsistent principle is fear. Here are menbraving, unconcerned and at their ease, the most absolutely appallingof all possible human dangers, and yet terrified out of their sensesat an unexpected sound. ]Thousands went mad with their uncontrollableterror, and roamed about the streets in raving delirium, killingthemselves, and mothers killing their children, in an insane andfrenzied idea of escaping by that means, somehow or other, from thedreadful destroyer. 

Every body whose reason remained to them avoided all possible contactor communication with others. Even in the country, in the exchange ofcommodities, a thousand contrivances were resorted to, to avoid allpersonal connection. In one place there was a stone, where those whohad any thing to sell placed their goods and then retreated, while hewho wished to buy came up, and, depositing his money on the stone inthe place of the merchandise, took what he had thus bought away. 

The great fire took place in 1666, about a year after the plague, andburned a very large part of London. It commenced accidentally in abaker's shop, where a great store of fagots had been collected, andspread so rapidly among the buildings which surrounded the spot thatit was soon entirely beyond control. The city of London was thencomposed of an immense mass of mean buildings, crowded densely together, with very narrow streets intervening, and the wind carried the flames, with inconceivable rapidity, far and wide. The people seemed struckuniversally with a sense of terror and despair, and nothing was to beheard but shrieks, outcries, and wild lamentations. The sky was onevast lurid canopy, like molten brass, day and night, for four days, while the whole city presented a scene of indescribable and awful din;the cracking and thundering of the flames, the frenzied screams of thewomen and children, the terrific falling of spires, towers, walls, andlofty battlements, the frightful explosions of the houses, blown upby gunpowder in the vain hope of stopping the progress of the flames, all formed a scene of grandeur so terrific and dreadful, that they whowitnessed the spectacle were haunted by the recollection of it longafterward, as by a frightful dream. A tall monument was built upon thespot where the baker's shop stood, to commemorate the calamity. Thefire held, in fact, in the estimation of mankind, the rank of thegreatest and most terrible of all conflagrations, until the burningof Moscow, in the time of Napoleon, in some degree eclipsed its fame. 

The Dutch invasion was the third great calamity which signalized KingCharles's unfortunate reign. The ships of the enemy came up the Thamesand the Medway, which is a branch of the Thames; they took possessionof a fort at Sheerness, near the mouth of the river, and, after seizingall the military stores, which had been collected there to an enormousamount, they set fire to the powder magazine, and blew up the wholefortress with a terrific explosion. The way was now open to them toLondon, unless the English could contrive some way to arrest theirprogress. They attempted to do this by sinking some ships in the river, and drawing a strong chain across from one sunken vessel to the other, and fastening the ends to the shores. The Dutch, however, broke throughthis obstruction. They seized an opportunity when the tide was settingstrongly up the river, and a fresh wind was blowing; their ships, impelled thus by a double force, broke through the chains, passedsafely between the sunken ships, and came on in triumph up the river, throwing the city of London into universal consternation. There wereseveral English ships of war, and several Dutch ships, which had beencaptured and brought up the Thames as prizes, lying in the river; thesevessels were all seized by the Dutch, and burned; one of the Englishships which they thus destroyed was called the Royal Oak. 

Of course, there was now a universal scene of confusion and terror inLondon. Every body laid the blame of the calamity upon the king; themoney which he had received for building ships, and other nationaldefenses, he had squandered, they said, upon his guilty pleasures;then the war, which had resulted in this invasion, was caused by thepolitical mismanagement of his reign. While the people, however, thusloudly condemned the conduct of their monarch, they went energeticallyat work to arrest the progress of their invaders; they sunk other shipsin greater numbers, and built platforms, on which they raised batteriesof cannon. At length the further progress of the enemy was stopped, and the ships were finally compelled to retire. 

Among the other events which occurred during the reign of King Charlesthe Second, and which tended to connect unfavorable associations withthe recollection of it in the minds of men, was a very extraordinaryaffair, which is known in history by the name of Titus Oates's PopishPlot. It was the story of a plot, said to have been formed by theCatholics, to put King Charles to death, and place his brother James, who, it will be recollected, was a Catholic, upon the throne in hisstead. The story of this plot was told by a man named Titus Oates, andas it was at first generally believed, it occasioned infinite troubleand difficulty. In after times, however, the whole story came to beregarded as the fabrication of Oates, without there being any foundationfor it whatever; hence the name of Titus Oates's Popish Plot, by whichthe affair has always since been designated in history. Thecircumstances were these:

Among his other various accomplishments, King Charles was quite achemist and philosopher. He had a laboratory where he amused himselfwith experiments, having, of course, several persons associated withhim, and attendant upon him in these researches. Among these was a mannamed Kirby. Mr. Kirby was an intelligent man, of agreeable manners, and of considerable scientific attainments. Charles devoted, at someperiods of his life, a considerable portion of his time to theseresearches in experimental philosophy, and he took, likewise, aninterest in facilitating the progress of others in the same pursuits. There was a small society of philosophers that was accustomed to meetsometimes in Oxford and sometimes in London. The object of this societywas to provide apparatus and other facilities for making experiments, and to communicate to each other at their meetings the result of theirinvestigations. The king took this society under his patronage, andmade it, as it were, his own. He gave it the name of THE ROYAL SOCIETY, and granted it a charter, by which it was incorporated as a permanentorganization, with the most ample powers. This association has sincebecome one of the most celebrated learned societies in the world, andits establishment is one of the very few transactions of King Charles'sreign which have been since remembered with pleasure. 

But to return to Mr. Kirby. One day, when the king was walking in thepark with a party of companions and attendants, who were separatedmore or less from him, as was usual on such occasions, Mr. Kirby cameup to him, and, with a mysterious and earnest air, begged the king notto allow himself to be separated from the company, for his life, hesaid, was in danger. "Keep with your company, sir, " said he, "yourenemies have a design upon your life. You may be suddenly shot on thisvery walk. " Charles was not easily frightened, and he received thisannouncement with great composure. He asked an explanation, however, and Mr. Kirby informed him that a plot had been formed by the Catholicsto destroy him; that two men had been engaged to shoot him; and, tomake the result doubly sure, another arrangement had been made topoison him. The queen's physician was the person, he said, who wascharged with this latter design. Mr. Kirby said, moreover, that therewas a clergyman, Dr. Tong, who was fully acquainted with all theparticulars of the plot, and that, if the king would grant him aninterview that evening, he would make them all known. 

The king agreed to this, and in the evening Dr. Tong was introduced. He had a budget of papers which he began to open and read, but Charleshad not patience to hear them; his mind was full of a plan which hewas contemplating of going to Windsor the next day, to look at somenew decorations which he had ordered for several of the apartments ofthe palace. He did not believe in the existence of any plot. It istrue that plots and conspiracies were very common in those days, butfalse rumors and unfounded tales of plots were more common still. Therewas so much excitement in the minds of the community on the subjectof the Catholic and Protestant faith, and such vastly extended interestsdepended on whether the sovereign belonged to one side or the otheron this question, that every thing relating to the subject was investedwith a mysterious awe, and the most wonderful stories were readilycirculated and believed. The public mind was always particularlysensitive and excitable in such a case as that of Charles and hisbrother James at the time of which we are writing, where the reigningmonarch, Charles, was of one religious faith, and his brother James, the next heir, was of the other. The death of Charles, which might atany time take place, would naturally lead to a religious revolution, and this kept the whole community in an exceedingly excitable andfeverish state. There was a great temptation to form plots on the onehand, and a great eagerness to discover them on the other; and any manwho could tell a story of treasonable schemes, whether his tale wastrue or fabricated, became immediately a personage of great importance. 

Charles was well aware of these things, and was accordingly disposedto pay very little attention to Dr. Tong's papers. He said he had notime to look into them, and so he referred the whole case to the LordTreasurer Danby, an officer of his court, whom he requested to examineinto the affair. Dr. Tong, therefore, laid his papers before Danby, while the king went off the next day to Windsor to examine the newfresco paintings and the other decorations of the palace. 

Danby was disposed to regard the story in a very different light fromthat in which it had appeared to the king. It is said that there weresome charges about to be brought forward against himself for certainmalpractices in his office, and that he was very much pleased, accordingly, at the prospect of having something come up to attractpublic attention, and turn it away from his own misdemeanors. Helistened, therefore, with great interest to Dr. Tong's account of theplot, and made many minute and careful inquiries. Dr. Tong informedhim that he had himself no personal knowledge of the conspiracy; thatthe papers, which contained all the information that he was possessedof, had been thrown into the hall of his house from the front door, and that he did not certainly know by whom, though he suspected, hesaid, one Titus Oates, who had formerly been a Catholic priest, andwas still so far connected with the Catholics as to have very favorableopportunities to become acquainted with their designs. 

Soon after this Dr. Tong had another interview with the lord treasurer, and informed him that his surmise had proved true; that it was TitusOates who had drawn up the papers, and that he was informed in regardto all the particulars of the plot, but that he did not dare to do anything openly in revealing them, for fear that the conspirators wouldkill him. The lord treasurer communicated the result of his inquiriesto the king, and urged the affair upon his attention as one of theutmost possible importance. The king himself, however, was veryskeptical on the subject. He laughed at the lord treasurer's earnestnessand anxiety. The lord treasurer wished to have a meeting of the councilcalled, that the case might be laid before them, but Charles refused. Nobody should know any thing about it, he said, not even his brother. It would only create excitement and alarm, and perhaps put it intosomebody's head to murder him, though nobody at present had any suchdesign. 

But, notwithstanding the king's determination not to give publicityto the story of the plot, rumors of it gradually transpired, and beganto excite attention. The fact that such stories were in circulationsoon came to the knowledge of the Duke of York, and, of course, immediately arrested his earnest attention. As he was himself aCatholic, and the heir to the crown, any suspicion of a Catholic plotformed to dethrone his brother necessarily implicated him. He demandedan examination into the case. In a short time, vague but exaggeratedrumors on the subject began to circulate through the community atlarge, which awakened, of course, a very general anxiety and alarm. So great was the virulence of both political and religious animositiesin those days, that no one knew to what scenes of persecution or ofmassacre such secret conspiracies might tend Oates, whose only objectwas to bring himself into notice, and to obtain rewards for makingknown the plot which he had pretended to discover, now found, to hisgreat satisfaction, that the fire which he had kindled was beginningto burn. The meeting of the council was called, and he was summonedto attend it. Before the time arrived, however, he went to a justiceof the peace, and laid the evidence before him of the existence of theconspiracy, and of all the details respecting it which he pretendedto have discovered. The name of this justice was Sir EdmondsburyGodfrey. A remarkable circumstance afterward occurred in respect tohim, as will presently be related, which greatly increased and extendedthe popular excitement in relation to the pretended plot. 

The plot, as Oates invented and detailed it, was on the most magnificentscale imaginable. The pope himself was at the head of it. The pope, he said, had laid the subject before a society of learned theologiansat Rome, and they had decided that in such a case as that of England, where the sovereign and a majority of the people had renounced thetrue religion, and given themselves up to avowed and open heresy, themonarch lost all title to his crown, and the realms thus fallen fromthe faith lapsed to the pope, and were to be reclaimed by him by anymode which it seemed to him expedient to adopt. Under thesecircumstances, the pope had assumed the sovereignty over England, andhad commissioned the society of the Jesuits--a very powerful religioussociety, extending over most of the countries of Europe--to takepossession of the realm; that, in the prosecution of this plan, theking was to be assassinated, and that a very large sum of money hadbeen raised and set apart, to be paid to any person who would kill theking; that an offer of ten thousand pounds had been made to the queen'sphysician if he would poison him. The physician had insisted uponfifteen thousand for so great a service, and this demand had finallybeen acceded to; and five thousand had actually been paid him inadvance. Besides the murder of the king, a general assassination ofthe Protestants was to take place. There were twenty thousand Catholicsin London, for instance, who, according to Oates's account of the plan, were to rise on a preconcerted night, and each one was to kill fiveProtestants, which it was thought they could easily do, as theProtestants would be taken wholly by surprise, and would be unarmed. The revolution being thus effected, the crown was to be offered toCharles's brother, the Duke of York, as a gift from the pope, and, ifhe should refuse to accept it on such conditions as the pope might seefit to impose, he was himself to be immediately assassinated, and someother disposal to be made of the kingdom. 

Oates was examined before the council very closely, and he contradictedhimself so much, and made so many misstatements about absent persons, and the places where he pretended that certain transactions had takenplace, as to prove the falseness of his whole story. The public, however, knew little or thought little of these proofs. They hated theCatholics, and were eager to believe and to circulate any thing whichtended to excite the public mind against them. The most extravagantstories were accordingly circulated, and most excessive and universalfears prevailed, increasing continually by the influence of mutualaction and reaction, and of sympathy, until the whole country was ina state of terror. A circumstance now occurred which added tenfold tothe excitement, and produced, in fact, a general consternation. 

This circumstance was the sudden and mysterious death of Sir EdmondsburyGodfrey, the justice who had taken the depositions of Oates in respectto the conspiracy. He had been missing for several days, and at lengthhis body was found in a trench, by the side of a field, in a solitaryplace not far from London. His own sword had been run into his body, and was remaining in the wound. His watch and his money were safe inhis pocket, showing that he had not been killed by robbers. This eventadded greatly to the excitement that prevailed. The story was circulatedthat he had been killed by the Catholics for having aided in publishingthe discovery of their plot. They who wished to believe Oates's storyfound in the justice's death most ample confirmation of it. The bodywas brought forward and exhibited to the public gaze in a grandprocession, which moved through the streets of London; and at thefuneral guards were stationed, one on each side of the preacher, whilehe was delivering the funeral discourse, to impress the people witha sense of the desperate recklessness of Catholic hate, by theimplication that even a minister of the Gospel, in the exercise of themost solemn of his functions, was not safe without an effectual guard. 

From this time the excitement and commotion went on increasing at avery rapid rate. Oates himself, of course, became immediately a manof great importance; and to maintain himself in his new position, heinvented continually new stories, each more terrible than the preceding. New informers, too, began to appear, confirming Oates's statements, and adding new details of their own, that they might share hisdistinctions and rewards. These men became continually more and morebold, in proportion to the increasing readiness of the people to receivetheir inventions for truths. They accused persons of higher and higherrank, until at last they dared to implicate the queen herself in theircharges. They knew that, as she was a Catholic, she was unpopular withthe nation at large, and as Charles had so many other lady favorites, they concluded that he would feel no interest in vindicating her fromfalse aspersions. They accordingly brought forward accusations againstthe queen of having joined in the conspiracy, of having been privy tothe plan of murdering the king, and of having actually arranged anddirected the assassination of the justice, Sir Edmondsbury. Thesecharges produced, of course, great excitement. The people of the countrywere generally predisposed to believe them true. There were variousinvestigations of them, and long protracted examinations of thewitnesses before the council and before judicial commissions appointedto inquire into and decide upon the case. These inquisitions led todebates and disputes, to criminations and recriminations without number, and they threw the whole court and the whole nation into a state ofextreme excitement, some taking sides against, and some in favor ofthe queen. Although the popular sentiment was against her, every fairand candid mind, that attended carefully to the evidence, decidedunhesitatingly in her favor. The stories of the witnesses were utterlyinconsistent with each other, and in many of their details impossible. Still, so great was the public credulity, and so eager the desire tobelieve every thing, however absurd, which would arouse and strengthenthe anti-Catholic feeling, that the queen found herself soon the objectof extreme and universal odium. 

The king, however, much to his credit, refused all belief of theseaccusations against Catharine, and strongly defended her cause. Hetook care to have the witnesses cross examined, and to have theinconsistencies in their testimony, and the utter impossibility thattheir statements could be true, pointed out. He believed, he said, that she was entirely innocent, and that the whole plan was a conspiracyto effect her destruction. "They think, I suppose, " said the king, "that I should like a new wife, but I will not suffer an innocent womanto be wronged. " He also told one of the ministers of state, in speakingof the subject, that, considering how hardly he had treated his wife, and how much reason she had for just complaints against him, it wouldbe an atrocious thing for him to abandon her in such an extremity. 

A volume might be filled with stories of the strange and excitingincidents that grew out of this pretended popish plot. Its consequencesextended disastrously through many years, and involved a vast numberof innocent persons in irretrievable ruin. The true character of Oatesand his accomplices was, however, at length fully proved, and theythemselves suffered the fate at last which they had brought upon others. The whole affair was a disgrace to the age. There is no circumstanceconnected with it which can be looked upon with any pleasure exceptKing Charles's fidelity to his injured wife in refusing to abandonher, though he no longer loved her. His defense of her innocence, involving, as it did, a continuance of the matrimonial tie, which boundthem together when all the world supposed that he wished it sundered, seems to have resulted from a conscientious sense of duty, and impliescertain latent traits of generosity and nobleness in Charles'scharacter, which, though ordinarily overpowered and nullified by theinfluences of folly and vice, still always seem to have maintainedtheir hold, and to come out to view from time to time, in the courseof the gay monarch's life, whenever any emergency occurred sufficientto call them into action. 

The reign of King Charles the Second was signalized by many otheruntoward and disastrous events besides those which we have enumerated. There were unfortunate wars, great defeats in naval battles, unluckynegotiations abroad, and plots and conspiracies, dangerous anddisgraceful, at home. The king, however, took all these things verygood naturedly, and allowed them to interfere very little with his ownpersonal pleasures. Whatever troubles or embarrassments affected thestate, he left the anxiety and care which pertained to them to hisministers and his council, banishing all solicitude from his own mind, and enjoying himself all the time with his experiments, his ladies, his dogs, and his perpetual fun. 

CHAPTER XII. 

THE CONCLUSION. 

Time rolled on, and the gay and pleasure-loving king passed throughone decade after another of his career, until at length he came to beover fifty years of age. His health was firm, and his mental powersvigorous. He looked forward to many years of strength and activity yetto come, and thus, though he had passed the meridian of his life, hemade no preparations to change the pursuits and habits in which he hadindulged himself in his early years. 

He died suddenly at last, at the age of fifty-four. His death wasalmost as sudden as that of his father, though in a widely differentway. The circumstances of his last sickness have strongly attractedthe attention of mankind, on account of the manner in which the dyingking was affected, at last, by remorse at the recollection of his lifeof reckless pleasure and sin, and of the acts to which this remorseled him upon his dying bed. The vices and crimes of monarchs, likethose of other men, may be distinguished into two great types, characterized by the feelings of heart in which they take their origin. Some of these crimes arise from the malignant passions of the soul, others from the irregular and perverted action of the feelings ofkindness and affection. The errors and follies of Charles, ending atlast, as they did, in the most atrocious sins, were of the latterclass. It was in feelings of kindness and good will toward friends ofhis own sex that originated that spirit of favoritism, so unworthy ofa monarch, which he so often evinced; and even his irregular andunhallowed attachments of another kind seem to have been not whollyselfish and sensual. The course of conduct which he pursued throughthe whole course of his life toward his female companions, evinced, in many instances, a sincere attachment to them, and an honest desireto promote their welfare; and in all the wild recklessness of his lifeof pleasure and vice, there was seen coming out continually into viewthe influence of some conscientious sense of duty, and of a desire topromote the happiness of those around him, and to do justice to all. These principle were, indeed, too feeble to withstand the temptationsby which they were assailed on every side; still, they did not ceaseto exist, and occasions were continually occurring when they succeededin making their persuasions heard. In a word, King Charles's errorsand sins, atrocious and inexcusable as they were, sprang fromill-regulated and perverted feelings of love and good will, and notfrom selfishness and hate; from the kindly, and not from the malignantpropensities of the soul. It is very doubtful whether this is reallyany palliation of them, but, at any rate, mankind generally regard itso, judging very leniently, as they always do, the sins and crimeswhich have such an origin. 

It is probable that Charles derived whatever moral principle andsensitiveness of conscience that he possessed from the influence ofhis mother in his early years. She was a faithful and devoted Catholic;she honestly and firmly believed that the rites and usages of theCatholic Church were divinely ordained, and that a careful and honestconformity to them was the only way to please God and to prepare forheaven. She did all in her power to bring up her children in thisfaith, and in the high moral and religious principles of conduct whichwere, in her mind, indissolubly connected with it. She derived thisspirit, in her turn, from _her_ mother, Mary de Medici, who was oneof the most extraordinary characters of ancient or modern times. WhenHenrietta Maria was married to Charles I. And went to England, thisMary de Medici, her mother, wrote her a letter of counsel and offarewell, which we recommend to our readers' careful perusal. It istrue, we go back to the third generation from the hero of this storyto reach the document, but it illustrates so well the manner in whichmaternal influence passes down from age to age, and throws so muchlight on the strange scenes which occurred at Charles's death, and is, moreover, so intrinsically excellent, that it well merits thedigression. 

_The queen-mother, Mary de Medici, to the young Queen of England, Henrietta Maria_. 

1625, June 25. 

MY DAUGHTER, --You separate from me, I can not separate myself fromyou. I retain you in heart and memory and would that this paper couldserve for an eternal memorial to you of what I am; it would then supplymy place, and speak for me to you, when I can no longer speak formyself. I give you it with my last adieu in quitting you, to impressit the more on your mind, and give it to you written with my own hand, in order that it may be the more dear to you, and that it may havemore authority with you in all that regards your conduct toward God, the king your husband, his subjects, your domestics, and yourself. Itell you here sincerely, as in the last hour of our converse, all Ishould say to you in the last hour of my existence, if you should benear me then. I consider, to my great regret, that such can never be, and that the separation now taking place between you and me for a longtime, is too probably an anticipation of that which is to be foreverin this world. 

On this earth you have only God for a father; but, as he is eternal, you can never lose him. It is he who sustains your existence and life;it is he who has given you to a great king; it is he who, at this time, places a crown on your brow, and will establish you in England, whereyou ought to believe that he requires your service, and there he meansto effect your salvation. Remember, my child, every day of your life, that he is your God, who has put you on earth intending you for heaven, who has created you for himself and for his glory. 

The late king, your father, has already passed away; there remains nomore of him but a little dust and ashes, hidden from our eyes. One ofyour brothers has already been taken from us even in his infancy; Godwithdrew him at his own good pleasure. He has retained you in the worldin order to load you with his benefits; but, as he has given you theutmost felicity, it behooves you to render him the utmost gratitude. It is but just that your duties are augmented in proportion as thebenefits and favors you receive are signal. Take heed of abusing them. Think well that the grandeur, goodness, and justice of God are infinite, and employ all the strength of your mind in adoring his supremepuissance, in loving his inviolable goodness; and fear his rigorousequity, which will make all responsible who are unworthy of his benefits. 

Receive, my child, these instructions of my lips; begin and finishevery day in your oratory, [Footnote: An oratory is a little closetfurnished appropriately for prayer and other exercises of devotion. ]with good thoughts and, in your prayers, ask resolution to conductyour life according to the laws of God, and not according to thevanities of this world, which is for all of us but a moment, in whichwe are suspended over eternity, which we shall pass either in theparadise of God, or in hell with the malign spirits who work evil. 

Remember that you are daughter of the Church by baptism, and that thisis, indeed, the first and highest rank which you have or ever willhave, since it is this which will give you entrance into heaven; yourother dignities, coming as they do from the earth, will not go furtherthan the earth; but those which you derive from heaven will ascendagain to their source, and carry you with them there. Render thanksto heaven each day, to God who has made you a Christian; estimate thisfirst of benefits as it deserves, and consider all that you owe to thelabors and precious blood of Jesus our Savior; it ought to be paid forby our sufferings, and even by our blood, if he requires it. Offeryour soul and your life to him who has created you by his puissance, and redeemed you by his goodness and mercy. Pray to him, and prayincessantly to preserve you by the inestimable gift of his grace, andthat it may please him that you sooner lose your life than renouncehim. You are the descendant of St. Louis. I would recall to you, inthis my last adieu, the same instruction that he received from hismother, Queen Blanche, who said to him often 'that she would rathersee him die than to live so as to offend God, in whom we move, and whois the end of our being'. It was with such precepts that he commencedhis holy career; it was this that rendered him worthy of employing hislife and reign for the good of the faith and the exaltation of theChurch. Be, after his example, firm and zealous for religion, whichyou have been taught, for the defense of which he, your royal and holyancestor, exposed his life, and died faithful to him among the infidels. Never listen to, or suffer to be said in your presence, aught incontradiction to your belief in God and his only Son, your Lord andRedeemer. I entreat the Holy Virgin, whose name you bear, to deign tobe the mother of your soul, and in honor of her who is mother of ourLord and Savior, I bid you adieu again and many times. 

I now devote you to God forever and ever; it is what I desire for youfrom the very depth of my heart. 

Your very good and affectionate mother, MARIA. 

From Amiens, the 10th of June, 1625. 

The devout sense of responsibility to Almighty God, and the spirit ofsubmission and obedience to his will, which this letter breathes, descended from the grandmother to the mother, and were even instilled, in some degree, into the heart of the son. They remained, however, latent and dormant through the long years of the monarch's life offrivolity and sin, but they revived and reasserted their dominion whenthe end came. 

The dying scene opened upon the king's vision in a very abrupt andsudden manner. He had been somewhat unwell during a certain day inFebruary, when he was about fifty-four years of age. His illness, however, did not interrupt the ordinary orgies and carousals of hispalace. It was Sunday. In the evening a very gay assembly was convenedin the apartments, engaged in deep gaming, and other dissolute andvicious pleasures. The king mingled in these scenes, though hecomplained of being unwell. His head was giddy--his appetite wasgone--his walk was unsteady. When the party broke up at midnight, hewent into one of the neighboring apartments, and they prepared for himsome light and simple food suitable for a sick man, but he could nottake it. He retired to his bed, but he passed a restless and uneasynight. He arose, however, the next morning, and attempted to dresshimself, but before he finished the work he was suddenly struck bythat grim and terrible messenger and coadjutor of death--apoplexy--asby a blow. Stunned by the stroke, he staggered and fell. 

The dreadful paroxysm of insensibility and seeming death in a case ofapoplexy is supposed to be occasioned by a pressure of blood upon thebrain, and the remedy, according to the practice of those days, wasto bleed the patient immediately to relieve this pressure, and toblister or cauterize the head, to excite a high external action as ameans of subduing the disease within. It was the law of England thatsuch violent remedies could not be resorted to in the case of thesovereign without authority previously obtained from the council. Theywere guilty of high treason who should presume to do so. This was acase, however, which admitted of no delay. The attendants put theirown lives at hazard to serve that of the king. They bled him with apenknife, and heated the iron for the cautery. The alarm was spreadthroughout the palace, producing universal confusion. The queen wassummoned, and came as soon as possible to the scene. She found herhusband sitting senseless in a chair, a basin of blood by his side, his countenance death-like and ghastly, while some of the attendantswere attempting to force the locked jaws apart, that they mightadminister a potion, and others were applying a red hot iron to thepatient's head, in a desperate endeavor to arouse and bring back againinto action the benumbed and stupefied sensibilities. Queen Catharinewas so shocked by the horrid spectacle that she sank down in a fit offainting and convulsions, and was borne immediately away back to herown apartment. 

In two hours the patient's suspended faculties began to return. Helooked wildly about him, and asked for the queen. They sent for her. She was not able to come. She was, however, so far restored as to beable to send a message and an apology, saying that she was very gladto hear that he was better, and was much concerned that she could notcome to see him; she also added, that for whatever she had done in thecourse of her life to displease him, she now asked his pardon, andhoped he would forgive her. The attendants communicated this messageto the king. "Poor lady!" said Charles, "she beg my pardon! I am sureI beg hers, with all my heart. "

Apoplexy fulfills the dread behest of its terrible master Death bydealing its blow once with a fatal energy, and then retiring from thefield, leaving the stunned and senseless patient to recover in somedegree from the first effect of the stroke, but only to sink down anddie at last under the permanent and irretrievable injuries which almostinvariably follow. 

Things took this course in the case of Charles. He revived from thestupor and insensibility of the first attack, and lay afterward forseveral days upon his bed, wandering in mind, helpless in body, fullof restlessness and pain, and yet conscious of his condition. He saw, dimly and obscurely indeed, but yet with awful certainty, that histies to earth had been suddenly sundered, and that there only remainedto him now a brief and troubled interval of mental bewilderment andbodily distress, to last for a few more hours or days, and then hemust appear before that dread tribunal where his last account was tobe rendered; and the vast work of preparation for the solemn judgmentwas yet to be made. How was this to be done?

Of course, the great palace of Whitehall, where the royal patient waslying, was all in confusion. Attendants were hurrying to and fro. Councils of physicians were deliberating in solemn assemblies on thecase, and ordaining prescriptions with the formality which royaletiquette required. The courtiers were thunderstruck and confoundedat the prospect of the total revolution which was about to ensue, andin which all their hopes and prospects might be totally ruined. James, the Duke of York, seeing himself about to be suddenly summoned to thethrone, was full of eager interest in the preliminary arrangements tosecure his safe and ready accession. He was engaged night and day inselecting officers, signing documents, and stationing guards. Catharinemourned in her own sick chamber the approaching blow, which was toseparate her forever from her husband, deprive her of her consequenceand her rank, and consign her, for the rest of her days to the painsand sorrows, and the dreadful solitude of heart which pertains towidowhood. The king's other female intimates, too, of whom there werethree still remaining in his court and in his palace, were distractedwith real grief. They may have loved him sincerely; they certainlygave every indication of true affection for him in this his hour ofextremity. They could not appear at his bedside except at sudden andstolen interviews, which were quickly terminated by their being requiredto withdraw; but they hovered near with anxious inquiries, or elsemourned in their apartments with bitter grief. Without the palace theeffects were scarcely less decisive. The tidings spread every wherethroughout the kingdom, arresting universal attention, and awakeningan anxiety so widely diffused and so intense as almost to amount toa terror. A Catholic monarch was about to ascend the throne, and noone knew what national calamities were impending. 

In the mean time, the dying monarch lay helpless upon his bed, in thealcove of his apartment, distressed and wretched. To look back uponthe past filled him with remorse, and the dread futurity, now closeat hand, was full of images of terror and dismay. He thought of hiswife, and of the now utterly irreparable injuries which he had doneher. He thought of his other intimates and their numerous children, and of the condition in which they would be left by his death. If hehad been more entirely sensual and selfish in his attachments, he wouldhave suffered less; but he could not dismiss these now wretchedparticipators in his sins from his mind. He could do very little nowto promote their future welfare, or to atone for the injury which hehad done them; but his anxiety to do so, as well as his utterhelplessness in accomplishing his desire, was evinced by his saying, in his last charge to his brother James, just before he died, that hehoped he would be kind to his children, and especially not let poorNelly starve. [Footnote: Eleanor Gwyn. She was an actress when Charlesfirst became acquainted with her. ]

Troubled and distressed with these thoughts, and still more anxiousand wretched at the prospect of his own approaching summons before thebar of God, the fallen monarch lay upon his dying bed, earnestlydesiring, but not daring to ask for, the only possible relief whichwas now left to him, the privilege of seeking refuge in the religioushopes and consolations which his mother, in years now long gone by, had vainly attempted to teach him to love. The way of salvation throughthe ministrations and observances of the Catholic service was the onlyway of salvation that he could possibly see. It is true that he hadbeen all his life a Protestant, but Protestantism was to him only a_political_ faith, it had nothing to do with moral accountability orpreparation for heaven. The spiritual views of acceptance with God bysimple personal penitence and faith in the atoning sacrifice of hisSon, which lie at the foundation of the system of the Church of England, he never conceived of. The Church of England was to him a mere emptyform; it was the service of the ancient Catholic faith, disrobed ofits sanctions, despoiled of its authority, and deprived of all itsspirit and soul. It was the mere idle form of godless and heartlessmen of the world, empty and vain. It had answered his purpose as apart of the pageantry of state during his life of pomp and pleasure, but it seemed a mockery to him now, as a means of leading his wretchedand ruined soul to a reconciliation with his Maker. Every thing thatwas sincere, and earnest, and truly devout, in the duties of pietywere associated in his mind with the memory of his mother; and as deathdrew nigh, he longed to return to her fold, and to have a priest, whowas clothed with the authority to which her spirit had been accustomedto bow, come and be the mediator between himself and his Maker, andsecure and confirm the reconciliation. 

But how could this be done? It was worse than treason to aid or abetthe tainting of the soul of an English Protestant king with theabominations of popery. The king knew this very well, and was awarethat if he were to make his wishes known, whoever should assist himin attaining the object of his desire would hazard his life by theact. Knowing, too, in what abhorrence the Catholic faith was held, henaturally shrank from avowing his convictions; and thus deterred bythe difficulties which surrounded him, he gave himself up to despair, and let the hours move silently on which were drawing him so rapidlytoward the grave. There were, among the other attendants and courtierswho crowded around his bedside, several high dignitaries of the Church. At one time five bishops were in his chamber. They proposed repeatedlythat the king should partake of the sacrament. This was a customaryrite to be performed upon the dying, it being considered the symboland seal of a final reconciliation with God and preparation for heaven. Whenever the proposal was made, the king declined or evaded it. Hesaid he was "too weak, " or "not now, " or "there will be time enoughyet;" and thus day after day moved on. 

In the mean time, the anxious and unhappy queen had so far recoveredthat she came to see the king, and was often at his bedside, watchinghis symptoms and mourning over his approaching fate. These interviewswere, however, all public, for the large apartment in which the kingwas lying was always full. There were ladies of the court, too, whoclaimed the privilege which royal etiquette accorded them of alwaysaccompanying the queen on these visits to the bedside of her dyinghusband. She could say nothing in private; and then, besides, heragitation and distress were so extreme, that she was incapable of anything like calm and considerate action. 

Among the favorite intimates of the king, perhaps the most prominentwas the Duchess of Portsmouth. The king himself had raised her to thatrank. She was a French girl, who came over, originally, from theContinent with a party of visitors from the French court. Her beauty, her wit, and her accomplishments soon made her a great favorite withthe king, and for many years of his life she had exerted an unboundedand a guilty influence over him. She was a Catholic. Though not allowedto come to his bedside, she remained in her apartment overwhelmed withgrief at the approaching death of her lover, and, strange as it mayseem, she was earnestly desirous to obtain for him the spiritual succorswhich, as a Catholic, she considered essential to his dying in peace. After repeated and vain endeavors made in other ways to accomplish herobject, she at length sent for the French ambassador to come to herrooms from the king's chamber, and urged him to do something to savethe dying sinner's soul. "He is in heart a Catholic, " said she. "I amsure he wishes to receive the Catholic sacraments. I can not do anything, and the Duke of York is so full of business and excitement thathe does not think of it. But something must be done. "

The ambassador went in pursuit of the Duke of York. He took him aside, and with great caution and secrecy suggested the subject. "You areright, " said the duke, "and there is no time to lose. " The duke wentto the king's chamber. The English clergymen had just been offeringthe king the sacrament once more, and he had declined it again. Jamesasked them to retire from the alcove, as he wished to speak privatelyto his majesty. They did so, supposing that he wished to communicatewith him on some business of state. 

"Sire, " said the duke to his dying brother, "you decline the sacramentsof the Protestant Church, will you receive those of the Catholic?"

The countenance of the dying man evinced a faint though immediateexpression of returning animation and pleasure at this suggestion. "Yes, " said he, "I would give every thing in the world to see a priest. "

"I will bring you one, " said James. 

"Do, " said the king, "for God's sake, do; but shall you not exposeyourself to danger by it?"

"I will bring you one, though it cost me my life, " replied the duke. 

This conversation was held in a whisper, to prevent its being overheardby the various groups in the room. The duke afterward said that he hadto repeat his words several times to make the king comprehend them, his sense of hearing having obviously begun to fail. 

There was great difficulty in procuring a priest. The French and Spanishpriests about the court, who were attached to the service of theambassadors and of the queen, excused themselves on various pretexts. They were, in fact, afraid of the consequences to themselves whichmight follow from an act so strictly prohibited by law. At last anEnglish priest was found. His name was Huddleston. He had, at one time, concealed the king in his house during his adventures and wanderingsafter the battle of Worcester. On account of this service, he had beenprotected by the government of the king, ever since that time, fromthe pains and penalties which had driven most of the Catholic priestsfrom the kingdom. 

They sent for Father Huddleston to come to the palace. He arrived aboutseven o'clock in the evening. They disguised him with a wig and cassock, which was the usual dress of a clergyman of the Church of England. Asthe illegal ceremony about to be performed required the most absolutesecrecy, it became necessary to remove all the company from the room. The duke accordingly informed them that the king wished to be alonefor a short period, and he therefore requested that they would withdrawinto the ante-room. When they had done so, Father Huddleston was broughtin by a little door near the head of the bed, which opened directlyinto the alcove where the bed was laid. There was a narrow space oralley by the side of the bed, within the alcove, called the _ruelle_;[Footnote: _Ruelle_ is a French word, meaning little street or alley. This way to the bed was the one so often referred to in the historiesof those times by the phrase "the back stairs". ] with this the privatedoor communicated directly, and the party attending the priest, entering, stationed themselves there, to perform in secrecy and dangerthe last solemn rites of Catholic preparation for heaven. It was anextraordinary scene; the mighty monarch of a mighty realm, hiding fromthe vigilance of his own laws, that he might steal an opportunity toescape the consequences of having violated the laws of heaven. 

They performed over the now helpless monarch the rites which theCatholic Church prescribes for the salvation of the dying sinner. Theserites, though empty and unmeaning ceremonies to those who have noreligious faith in them, are full of the most profound impressivenessand solemnity for those who have. The priest, having laid aside hisProtestant disguise, administered the sacrament of the mass, whichwas, according to the Catholic views, a true and actual re-enactingof the sacrifice of Christ, to inure to the special benefit of theindividual soul for which it was offered. The priest then received thepenitent's confession of sin, expressed in a faint and feeble assentto the words of contrition which the Church prescribes, and this wasfollowed by a pardon--a true and actual pardon, as the sinner supposed, granted and declared by a commissioner fully empowered by authorityfrom heaven both to grant and declare it. Then came the "extremeunction", or, in other words, the last anointing, in which a littleconsecrated oil was touched to the eyelids, the lips, the ears, andthe hands, as a symbol and a seal of the final purification andsanctification of the senses, which had been through life the meansand instruments of sin. The extreme unction is the last rite. Thisbeing performed, the dying Catholic feels that all is well. His sinshave been atoned for and forgiven, and he has himself been purifiedand sanctified, soul and body. The services in Charles's case occupiedthree quarters of an hour, and then the doors were opened and theattendants and company were admitted again. 

The night passed on, and though the king's mind was relieved, hesuffered much bodily agony. In the morning, when he perceived that itwas light, he asked the attendants to open the curtains, that he mightsee the sun for the last time. It gave him but a momentary pleasure, for he was restless and in great suffering. Some pains which he enduredincreased so much that it was decided to bleed him. The operationrelieved the suffering, but exhausted the sufferer's strength so thathe soon lost the power of speech, and lay afterward helpless and almostinsensible, longing for the relief which now nothing but death couldbring him. This continued till about noon, when he ceased to breathe. 

THE END.