Hat a Pox d'ye tell me of the Papists' Design? WH Would to God you'd leave talking, and drink off your Wine. Away with your Glass, Sir, and drown all Debate; Let's be loyally merry; ne'er think of the State. The King (Heav'ns bless him!) knows best how to rule; Come, Sir, here's his Health; your Brimmer advance; And by our carousing the Customs augment. Would all mind their Drinking, and proper vocation, We should ha' none of this Bustle and Stir in the Nation. Let the Hero of Poland, and Monarch of France,1 6 [See p. 68. 12 It shall ne'er trouble me: I'm none of those Maggots, 18 Then banish all groundless Suspicion away; The King knows how to govern, let us learn to obey. Let ev'ry Man mind his [own] Bus'ness and Drinking, When the Head's full of Wine, there's no Room left for thinking. That makes Fools run giddy with Notions of State. 24 [By Tom Brown.3] 1 For the deeds of " the Hero of Poland," John Sobieski, see pp. 356 to 376. 2 The Romanists' Chapel was in Lime Street; afterwards wrecked and burnt by the Protestant London 'Prentices and other rabble, 11th December, 1688, along with another chapel in Bucklersbury. Plunder and mischief they loved. 3 We give this later ditty from The Works of Thomas Brown (1709 edit. iv. 1). The Best-Bred Man alive" grown weary. THAT "World, in thy ever-busy mart Would I resume it? Oh no! Four acts are done; the Jest grows stale; The waning lamps burn dim and pale: And Reason asks-Cui bono?" -James Smith's Poem on Chigwell. HAT a great change had taken place in Charles the Second during the last three months of his life was evident to all observers. Still in the vigour of middle age, with a good constitution that had not been impaired by the strain of either excessive abstinence or indulgence, a brisk walker, with a fondness for that busy idleness which is perhaps the best preservative of health, he might have been expected to survive for at least another score of years beyond 1684. But some spring gave way. He lost his cheerful spirit, he forgot even his habitual courtesy: for sadness and languor had seized him. Dalrymple partly accounts for this: "Two years before his death Charles came to know that Louis XIV. in pretending to be his friend, had been intriguing against him with that part of his subjects which opposed him: and perhaps a consciousness that he was [growing] unpopular at home, distrusted by foreigners, and betrayed by that very Prince in whose cause he had suffered, brought on the melancholy which was observed in him towards the end of his reign." 1 That he had grown weary of the incessant intrigues and falsehood around him, the selfishness and greed of courtiers, the fickleness of 1 Dalrymple's Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland, 1773, ii., Appendix, p. 74. Monmouth hopeful of being recalled. 505 mistresses, the irreconcileable factiousness of politicians, sectaries and mock-patriots, the rebellious obstinacy and pride of his own blood-relations, in whose affection it was impossible to trust, is a sufficient explanation. If his Queen Kate had borne him a son, the complication of State-affairs would not have been oppressive. He really loved his children, and provided generously for each of them, although illegitimate. Since none of them could succeed him on the throne, and he had remained firm against all temptations to divorce his Queen for the sake of marrying another, or to deprive his brother James of the hereditary right to his Crown, the bitter feud between Monmouth and York must have caused Charles many a sad hour. Of late he had seen far too much open "worship of the rising-sun." James was still dear to his affections, but had been an ungovernable brother, and continued to rule him tyrannically. Even in his own Court there were numerous Yorkist spies and Monmouthite spies upon the King, ready to inform evil against him. Clear-sighted himself, devoid of the bigotry which he knew would be so dangerous a quality in his successor, he made remonstrances and attempts at reconciliation that were equally unavailing. In the midst of his very plenitude of power he felt himself impotent to controul the future. After the loss of his gaiety, the society of his Court Beauties could yield little enjoyment, and his nobility were heartless enough to show their preference for the more energetic rival from whom future favour was expected. We see no reason to doubt that the Duchess of Portsmouth, despite her insatiable covetousness and reckless profusion, really loved King Charles; so far, at least, as this class of women can love any one beyond self. Her conduct at his death-bed is sufficient proof of this, even after making allowance for her desire to ingratiate herself with the Romish hierarchy by securing a Royal Convert. The wily Sunderland systematically held to the policy of hedging his bets, by double intrigue or falsehood all round. He probably had wrought upon Charles (by means of one fickle ally of York, the Duchess of Portsmouth herself), to admit the Duke of Monmouth to a secret interview, soon after he had arrived from Holland. That Monmouth did thus hurry over, probably with the connivance of the saturnine William of Orange, is established indisputably, not only by Monmouth's own secret note-book record, but by the report of Barillon to the French king. Something was expected to arise from this step. Monmouth, being now more amenable to discipline, would have been soon recalled, publicly; the Duke of York's absence for awhile, either in Scotland or on the Continent, would have been insisted on by his brother Charles; and a closer treaty might have been formed with William of Orange, to combine in resistance against the tyranny of Louis XIV. Monmouth at the Hague was meantime in high spirits, enjoying sports on the ice in 506 Loyal affection for Charles the Second. the daily companionship of his "cousin" Mary. Then all at once. came the news of the King's brief illness, his partial recovery, and his death, with startling suddenness to those who heard of it at a distance. The death of our King Charles the Second occasioned almost universal grief throughout the nation. He had regained popularity when the supposed Popish-Plot denounced by Oates was found to be a delusion, while the seditious excitement which culminated in the Rye-House discovery, involving the proposed insurrection of Argyle in the North, simultaneous with uprisings in the West, was felt to be a threatening reality. The shallow evidence on which men had believed the accusation against the Jesuits was remembered, in contrast to the more solid proofs of desperate men planning the assassination of both Charles and James on their return from Newmarket. Not only an affectionate loyalty to the sovereign followed, but an abhorrence of the conspirators who would gladly have brought back the horrors of Civil-War, such as England had known a quarter of a century before. To hear of the King's illness and danger, next of his being better, and then of a speedy relapse, excited keen anxiety, and earnest prayers were raised for his recovery. Some few Ultra-Protestant dissenters might desire his death, in hope of Monmouth gaining a chance of succession; a larger number of Roman Catholics would hold scarcely dissembled joy in the prospect of James coming to the throne: but the majority of the nation desired the longer life of Charles, whose faculties of mind and body had promised to endure for several years. When news came that he had passed away, the national grief was unfeigned. Even the declaration made by his brother, of their King having become reconciled with the Church of Rome in his last hour, scarcely affected the general estimate. It is the fashion of modern days to see nothing but faults in Charles, and to rave splenetically against him, without forgiveness for his errors or acknowledgement of his numerous good qualities. To him such conduct matters not, but it is an offence against truth. We always regard him as a good King spoilt. Many have been the monarchs inferior to "Old Rowley." It is a striking circumstance that on his death-bed, with kindness shown towards all, a quiet courage in facing the departure, and a frankness in recognizing his own faults and need of forgiveness, Charles expressed no hopes or anxiety concerning Monmouth. The arrogant presumption of the young man, his disobedience, selfishness, and unworthy choice of Associators, even if he were guiltless of their deliberate plots for the overthrow or death of the King and his brother of York, had at last weakened the fondness so often displayed towards him. Whatever might have been possible or planned a few days earlier in his favour, Monmouth was now unmentioned. The tender feelings of pity for Catharine, for Nell Gwynne, for his children left behind in a world full of unkindness, Death-bed thoughts of Charles the Second. 507 temptations, and perils, touched the King's heart deeply; and the love for his brother James, which is one of the redeeming qualities in his misused and wasted life, glowed with undiminished warmth. The account written to Richard Butler, Earl of Arran, by Philip, second Earl of Chesterfield, who was in close attendance on the King at the last, "of which I was a witness, as having watched two whole nights with him and seen him expire," deserves to be given : "He died as a good Christian, asking and praying often for God's and Christ's mercy; as a man of great and undaunted courage in never repining at the loss of life, or for that of three kingdoms: as a good-natured man, in a thousand particulars. When the Queen sent to ask his pardon for anything that she had ever done amiss, he answered that she never had offended him, and therefore needed no pardon, but that he had need of hers, and did hope that she would not refuse it him." "He expressed extraordinary great kindness to the Duke his brother, and asked him often forgiveness for any hardships he had ever put upon him, assuring him of the tenderness of his love, and that he willingly left him all he had; desiring him for his sake to be kind to his poor children when he was gone. Lastly, he asked his subjects' pardon for anything that had been neglected, or acted contrary to the best rules of good government; and told those who stood about his bed, how sorry he was for giving them so much trouble by his being so long a-dieing desiring often Death to make more haste to free him from his pain, and the bystanders from their attendance."-Letters of Philip, Second Earl of Chesterfield, printed in 1837, pp. 278, 279. Also, it is elsewhere related by John Evelyn, that the King "gave his breeches and keys to ye Duke, who was almost continually kneeling by his bed-side, and in teares. He also recommended to him the care of his natural children, all except the Duke of Monmouth, now in Holland, and in his displeasure. He intreated the Queene to pardon him (not without cause), who a little before had sent a Bishop to excuse her not more frequently visiting him in regard of her excessive griefe, and withall, that his Majesty would forgive it if at any time she had offended him. [Alas! poor lady,' exclaimed Charles, she beg my pardon! I beg hers, with all my heart."] He spake to the Duke [of York] to be kind to the Duchesse of Cleaveland, and especially Portsmouth, and that Nelly might not starve."-Diary of John Evelyn, ii. 444. He adds:"It was enjoyn'd that those who put on mourning should wear it as for a father, in ye most solemn manner." His real nature was good, his disposition easy, but his pliability. left him a victim to rapacious women and dishonest statesmen. That his faults were great is conceded, but there were other men a thousand times worse who are still belauded to the echo. We may even now read with profit the address written to him by honest Robert Barclay, in dedicating his Apology for the Quakers to the King: "There is no King in the World who can so experimentally testify of God's Providence and Goodness; neither is there any who rules so many free people, so many true Christians, which thing renders thy Government more honourable, thy self more considerable, than the accession of many nations filled with slavish and superstitious souls. Thou hast tasted of prosperity and adversity; thou knowest what it is to be banished thy native Country; to be over-ruled, as well as to rule and sit upon the Throne: and, being oppressed, thou hast reason to know how hateful the Oppressor is both to God and Man. If after all those warnings |