XIV

Defence of James the Second not offered.

was near, and heresy soon to be extirpated. Scarcely any person then living could have foreseen the results to be brought about, after three half-centuries of farther delay, by the nation yielding justice to the persecuted Catholics, so that they might uninterruptedly enjoy the privileges of their own religious faith and ceremonies, whilst loyally obeying the laws and maintaining allegiance to the throne. We know how hard it was to effect this change, and how our third King George resisted it. Even now, it is doubtful whether a gross prejudice of ignorance does not enwrap thousands of professedly-educated men and women, regarding the infamous treatment which the Catholics had been compelled to endure in England, from long before the time of the Spanish Armada, but especially after the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, and until James the Second attempted to atone for some of the cruelties sanctioned by his grandfather James the First. The errors of one brief reign, the last four years of the Stuarts', raised almost insurmountable barriers against obtaining a due recognition of national injustice, and thus Catholic Emancipation became indefinitely postponed.

We venture to believe that the popular ballads here for the first time reprinted, in Vols. IV. and V., may be found trustworthy records of the varying excitements of that important era, 1678-1688. The present volume is wholly devoted to the Duke of Monmouth and his Times, ranging from March, 1681, to the July of '85. Readers must turn back to our preceding volume, viz. to the "Group of Anti-Papal Ballads," especially to those of a date immediately before the Whig Revolution of December, 1688, should they desire to see the natural termination of the besotted folly and headstrong bigotry of James the Second. His inability to read. the character of the time-servers and renegades whom he advanced to highest station, as a reward for their servile compliance with his wishes, found its fitting punishment in his being betrayed by them, whenever they beheld his fall from power to be near at hand. But we have not needed to here bring forward the many records extant of the miserable intrigues, the heartless treachery, and the general dissatisfaction which followed, even among the plotters and forsworn troth-breakers who had secured a Dutch invasion, and thus defrauded the legitimate heir of his birthright-sovereignty. We close our present volume with the failure of what was

Ample variety of subjects in next volume.

XV

rightly called "The Dissenters' Insurrection in the West," and the Execution of "King Monmouth" and his misguided followers.

Our next volume will be entirely devoted to some very different classes of ballads. One group, indeed, will be to a small extent styled "historical," but not political. They are simply Legendary and Romantic Ballads, on more or less renowned characters, such as Whittington, Thomas Stukely, King Lear, Guy of Warwick, Fair Rosamond and Queen Eleanor. Another group gives us "Arthur and the Table Round," The Wandering Jew, and also pious Eneas, "The Wandering Prince of Troy," with Queen Dido; Hero and Leander, Penelope, Constance of Cleaveland, Little Musgrave, Musidorus, The Lady Isabella, Hugh of the Græme, Jephtha, Doctor Faustus, Gerhard's Mistress, Sir William of the West, the Widow of Watling Street, Lord Thomas and Fair Elinor, King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid, the Roman Wife who nourished her own father, Fair Margaret's Misfortune, the Bailiff's Daughter of Islington, the Famous Flower of Serving Men, the Master-piece of Love Songs, and many another fine old ballad that delighted thousands of youths and maidens at the ingle-nook in winter, or under the shady trees in hot summer-time; these are all waiting to be reproduced in our early pages. A Group of Naval Ballads, on seafaring men's adventures, shipwrecks, battles, partings from sweethearts on the shore, encounters with pirates, or release from Algerine slavery, will begin the volume. similar group of Military Ballads will follow, including "The Famous Woman Drummer," "The Loyal British in Flanders"; the Death of Turenne, and of the Duke of Berwick, the "Gallant Grahams of Scotland," and "Clavers with his Hielandmen." We shall not long delay Mistress Arden of Feversham, Johnnie Armstrong, Captain Hind, George Saunders, Captain Johnson, William Gismond, Captain Green, or Mary Carleton "the German Princess," who one and all came under the hands of the public executioner. As for Love-affairs, of happy and disastrous, of idyllic or commonplace, we give abundance. Our Volume Sixth will offer the utmost variety in subject, and it is warranted to cause general satisfaction. We have not told half its treasures. Be in time! Be in time! Walk up, Ladies and Gentlemen, and Pay your Money to the Treasurer!

A

XVI

Charles the Second beloved and vindicated.

—for without performance of such a scandalously-neglected duty our Ballad Society's condition will be worse than that of the old woman who could not get water to quench the fire, or fire to burn the stick, or stick to beat the dog, and who (like a certain Ballad Editor with his final volume) almost despaired of "getting home to-night."

It follows inevitably that, in the midst of the forthcoming Miscellaneous and Romantic Ballads, we shall have to relinquish the society of the Merry Monarch, whom, with his courtiers, minions and foes, we have encountered so often in this volume and previously. We shall bring forward, it is true, no small store of racy ballads on Goodfellowship, displaying the tavern life and the improvidence of revellers. As a counter-balance to these, we furnish many pious moralizations, godly warnings, and apocryphal "miracles" (Kentish and Suffolk): such as were accepted unhesitatingly by the before-mentioned "True Blue Protestants," who had scorned golden legends of medieval saints, but swallowed greedily the impostures of Teddington Drummers and of Gibbie Burnet's Groaning-board. Incidents of humble life also find reflection in these ballads, but we shall miss the figure of him who had long been the national favourite, despite certain acknowledged vices and shortcomings. His good qualities deservedly won affection, such as we admit ourselves to feel regarding him. It is absolutely sickening to observe the commonplace rant and foul abuse lavished against him, on pretence of morality, patriotism and liberalism, by the herd of periodical essayists in our day. Sheer ignorance and the spitefulness natural to small minds are the only excuses for them. We confess, without reserve, that his errors were neither few nor trivial; but he was a much better man than most of those who rail at him. Take this careful estimate by one of the most judicious of contemporary observers and statesmen, Sir William Temple: we may be sure that he better knew the truth regarding Charles the Second than the men who now prate glibly about his heartlessness, irreligion, tyranny, or sensuality. Rightly considered, the words here quoted show us faithfully a sad portraiture of one who might easily have been our best king, had he only been true to his better self.

"At my arrival [in England, from Nimeguen, in July, 1677], the King ask'd me many questions about my Journey, about the Congress, Draping us [=bantering,

Sir William Temple's Character of Charles II. XVII

or chiding jocularly] for spending him so much Money, and doing nothing; and about Sir Lionel [Jenkins], asking me how I had bred him, and how he pass'd among the Ambassadors there; and other pleasantries upon that subject. After a good deal of this kind of conversation, he told me I knew for what he had sent for me over, and that 'twas what he had long intended, and I was not to thank him, because he did not know anybody else to bring into that place. I told his Majesty, That 'twas too great a compliment for me, but was a very ill one to my Country, and which I thought it did not deserve: That I believ'd there were a great many in it fit for that, or any other place he had to give; and I could name Two in a breath, that I would undertake shou'd make better Secretaries of State than I. The King said, Go, get you gone to Sheen! we shall have no good of you till you have been there, and when you have rested yourself, come up again.'

"I never saw him in better humour, nor ever knew a more agreeable Conversation when he was so; and when he was pleas'd to be familiar, great quickness of Conception, great pleasantness of Wit, with great variety of Knowledge, more observation and truer judgment of men, than one wou'd have imagin'd by so careless and easy a Manner as was natural to him in all he said or did. From his own Temper he desir'd nothing but to be easy himself, and that every body else shou'd be so; and wou'd have been glad to see the least of his Subjects pleas'd, and to refuse no man what he ask'd. But this softness of temper made him apt to fall into the persuasions of whoever had his kindness and confidence for the time, how different soever [they might counsel] from the opinions he was of before; and he was very easy to change Hands when those he employ'd seem'd to have engag'd him in any Difficulties: So as nothing look'd steady in the Conduct of his Affairs, nor aim'd at any certain End. Yet sure no Prince has more qualities to make him lov'd, with a great many to make him esteem'd, and all without a grain of Pride or Vanity in his whole constitution. Nor can he suffer Flattery in any kind, growing uneasy upon the first approaches of it, and turning it off to something else. But this Humour has made him lose many great Occasions of Glory to himself, and greatness to his Crown, which the conjunctures of his Reign conspir'd to put into his hand; and have made way for the aspiring thoughts and designs of a Neighbour Prince, which wou'd not have appear'd, or cou'd not have succeeded in the World, without the applications and arts employ'd to manage this easy and inglorious humour of the King."-Sir William Temple's Memoirs, the Third Part, from the Peace concluded, 1679, to the time of the Author's Retirement from Publick Business: Edition 1720, vol. i. p. 449, folio. [By the "neighbour Prince" Temple indicates Lewis XIV., but the duplicity and self-seeking were practised no less by William of Orange.]

Thanks to the great kindness of a friend, associate in the Council of our Camden Society (the Honble. Harold Dillon, F.S.A.), the Editor is permitted to here print, for the first time, certain letters written by King Charles the Second to his daughter Charlotte, Countess of Lichfield, "a blameless beauty." Easy, unstudied, and affectionate, they show to all unprejudiced readers the King's sincere consideration for others. She was the eldest daughter of Lady Barbara Palmer, Countess of Castlemaine, Duchess of Cleaveland: an evil-rooted thorn, wherefrom this fair grape Charlotte grew. "Whitehall, 22 Oct. [1679].

"I should not have been so long in writing to you, my deare Charlotte, but that I was at Newmarkett, thare too all day about businesse I had little time

VOL. V.

b

XVIII

Hitherto-unprinted Letters from Charles II.

to spare, and though I have very much businesse now, yett I must tell you that I am glad to heare you are with child,' and I hope to see you heare before it be long, that I may have the satisfaction my selfe of telling you how much I love you, and how truly I am your kinde father,

"For my Lady Lichfield."

C. R.

[Note 1.-Charles, the first son of Charlotte and her husband Edward Henry Lee, was born on the 6th of May, 1680. Consequently, if this letter refers to her first pregnancy, as seems probable, the date of the letter may be assumed to be 22nd October, 1679. We return to Newmarket, in a Note, on p. xxii.]

2

"Winchester, 5 Sept. [1682 ?].

"Your excuse for not comming hither is a very lawfull one, tho' I am sorry I shall be so long deprived of seeing my Deare Charlotte: your brother Harry is now heere, and will go in a few dayes to see Holland, and by that time he returnes he will have worn out in some measure the readnesse of his face, so as not to fright the most part of our Ladyes heere; his face is not changed, tho' he will be marked very much [verso]. I will give order for the two hundred pounds for you[r] building, and the reason that you have had it no sooner is the change I have made in the tresury, which now in a little time will be settled again; and so my deare Charlotte be assured that I am your kind father,

3

[Addressed] "For my Deare Charlotte.”

C. R.

[Note 2.-Henry, born in 1663, is Charlotte's second brother, successively Baron of Sudbury, Viscount Ipswich, Earl of Euston, and Duke of Grafton (see our pp. 702, 738), who had recovered from an attack of smallpox. No year is marked, and we have to guess this additionally. The danger of her incurring infection of smallpox, whilst in delicate health, may be the " "alluded to.] [Note 3.-Danby had lost the Treasurership after 1679.]

excuse

"3 April [1682 or 1683].

"I think it a very reasonable thing that other houses should not look into your house without your permission, and this note will be sufficient for the Survaier to builde up your wall as high as you please, and you may shew it to him. The only caution I give you is, not to prejudice the corner house, which you know your sister Sussex is to have, and the building up the wall there will signifie nothing to you [verso], only inconvenience her. I shall be with you on Saturday next, and so deare Charlotte I shall say no more but that I am your kinde father,

66
"For my Lay. Lichfield."

C. R.

[Note 4.-Charlotte's elder sister, Anne Palmer Fitzroy, born at the end of February, 166, became Countess of Sussex, having married Thomas Lennard, fourteenth Lord Dacre. She is mentioned in other pages of our volumes.]

"Whitehall, 2 Oct.

"I have had so much businesse since I came hither that I hope you will not thinke I have neglected writing to you out of want of kindnesse to my deere Charlotte. I am going to New Markett to morrow, and have a great deale of businesse to dispatch to night, therefore I will only tell you now that I have five hundred guinyes for you, weh. shall be ether delivered to your selfe or any who[m] you shall appointe to receave it, and [verso] so my dear Charlotte be assured that I love you with all my harte, being your kinde father

"For my Lady Lichfield."

C. R.