0205m
ambassador, her godfather, felt called upon to remind her of her duties as queen and wife.
King Charles was the most witty, fascinating prince in Europe, thoroughly good-natured, brave, reckless, devoted to pleasure, and devoid of religious and moral principles. The free and easy manners of his court shocked the innocent, virtuous little queen to such a degree that she would have preferred not to appear in public at all. But hernaiveteamused her husband, who devised all sorts of pleasures for her entertainment.
But Catharine's dream of happiness was soon to end in a rude awakening, when her tender, loving husband became unkind and unreasonable. There was a very bad woman at the English court, named Lady Castlemaine, whose husband was living in France This woman had managed by her wicked intrigues to gain great influence over the king, and she was universally despised by everybody excepting his majesty. The queen-mother in Portugal had heard of this creature, and warned her daughter to have no communication with her whatever. Therefore, when Charles, most unreasonably, presented her name, at the head of the list of ladies whom he recommended for appointments in the royal household, the queen crossed it off. Charles remonstrated, but Catharine was firm; thereupon Charles asserted his authority as king and husband. Catharine became excessively indignant, and passionately refused to have Lady Castlemaine among her ladies. The matter was dropped for the moment; but the king assumed an injured air, and made himself disagreeable for a few days after; without the slightest warning he introduced the objectionable party to the queen before her whole court. He knew that he was wrong, and, like many a man before and since, felt angry with his wife because such was the case. He reproached her with being stubborn and undutiful, andused threats that he never meant to put into execution. She burst into tears, told him that he was tyrannical and unkind, and declared that she would go back to Portugal.
One would suppose that the sight of a young, pretty woman in distress would have moved the sympathies of the gay, light-hearted king; but he was not accustomed to being ruled in that way, so he merely replied: "That she would do well first to learn whether her mother would receive her, and he would soon give her an opportunity for knowing, for he would forthwith send home all her Portuguese servants, who had, he knew, encouraged her in her perverseness."
Everybody at court knew that the king and queen had quarrelled, for they scarcely looked at each other. If Catharine had known how to manage her husband she might have won him; but she was too honest to flatter him more than he deserved, and loved him too well to let him suppose she could justify his conduct when she knew how much he had been to blame. She spent hours at a time in her room weeping, while he amused himself with his friends and treated his wife with indifference. He was more deeply offended at her wishing to leave him than at any of her angry reproaches, and sent Lord Clarendon to talk to her in his behalf. She was very penitent, but insisted that she ought to have the privilege of selecting her own servants, and would on no account consent to the presence of an objectionable person.
After that King Charles brutally upbraided her with the non-performance of the marriage treaty with regard to her dowry,—though she was not to blame for it,—and insulted the Portuguese ambassador on her account. Diego Silvas was thrown into prison because he was unable to complete arrangements for paying the sum of money which was, in reality, not yet due. Catharine knew that these indignitieswere aimed at herself, and felt very unhappy that others should be made to suffer on her account.
A temporary reconciliation was effected between the royal couple by the visit of Queen Henrietta, who declared that she had come to England with the express intention of offering her congratulations on their marriage. She set up her court at Greenwich Palace, and on the day after her arrival the young couple paid their first state visit together. Queen Henrietta awaited them at the first door of the palace after they ascended the stairs; and when she took the poor, neglected, almost heart-broken Catharine in her arms, and folded her in a motherly embrace, the young woman must have felt that she had found a friend at last. The queen-mother could speak no Spanish, and Catharine little English, but the king and the Duke of York acted as interpreters. It is probable that Queen Henrietta meant to intimate to her son, and to all the courtiers present, the respect due the young queen when she said: "That she should never have come to England again, except for the pleasure of seeing her, to love her as a daughter, and serve her as a queen." Catharine replied with gratified pleasure, "That in love and obedience, neither the king nor any of her children should exceed her." This visit lasted four hours, and seems to have had a good effect, for on their return to Hampton Court the king and queen supped in public, much to the delight of their court; and the next evening, when the king returned from a trip to London, her majesty went some distance on the road with her household to meet him.
Queen Henrietta returned the visit of the royal couple, and spent nearly a month at Hampton Court, going back to London on the 23d of August, the day appointed for Catharine to make her first public entrance into the metropolis.This was done with great magnificence; crowds of people gathering to the banks of the Thames to view the array of boats that floated in attendance upon the royal barges. At six o'clock in the evening the king and queen, with their attendants, landed at Whitehall Bridge, where the queen-mother, with her whole court, all in rich attire, waited to receive them.
A series of entertainments succeeded; and King Charles, once having introduced Lady Castlemaine at court, insisted upon her presence always, though his conscience often pricked him for doing what he knew to be wrong. The fact was that he was surrounded by people who recognized no law but their own desires; and whenever they saw Charles disposed to yield to his wife's just opposition to the woman who entertained them, and who was one of them in dissipation, they jeered at him. He, on the other hand, had not the moral courage to do right in spite of his friends. It was not because he respected Catharine less, but that he loved pleasure more. We must not suppose that all his statesmen approved of his conduct; on the contrary, Lord Clarendon and others took him to task as much as they dared, and considered the queen an ill-used wife.
Charles had threatened to send all the Portuguese attendants back home, and at the expiration of four months after their arrival in England he determined to carry the threat into execution.
This was a sore trial to her, particularly as the king fixed upon a day for their departure without naming any reward for their services, or sending a letter to the Queen of Portugal to explain his reason for dismissing them. Catharine would have remunerated them herself, but she had no money, and so could not afford to be generous. She begged her husband to permit her to retain a few of them, and as a great favor he consented to the old Countess of Penalva,two or three of the cooks, and the priests who officiated in her majesty's chapel.
Now, as we have said, the king's conduct was not approved by all the statesmen; there were some among the most faithful of them who were so pained at the course he was pursuing that they ventured to censure him for it. But he paid little heed to their wise counsel, and the party of which they were the representatives grew daily in numbers and power. Had Queen Catharine not been a most sensible and magnanimous woman, she might well have united herself to this party in opposition to her husband, and created no end of disturbance; but she loved King Charles devotedly, and was willing to make any sacrifice to obtain his affection in return. She was wrong; for, while she opposed him, he could not but respect her, because he knew that she was prompted by a sense of right, and it would have been better for her and for him if she had remained firm.
She yielded at last, perhaps under bad advice, and suddenly treated Lady Castlemaine with such courtesy as to surprise the whole court, King Charles included. It is barely possible that her principal reason for this concession was a desire to retain the king's support for her native land, which was just then greatly needed. Be this as it may, Charles misunderstood his wife, and attributed her former refusal to grant his request to perversity and hypocrisy, and congratulated himself upon his perseverence and decision. This, no doubt, colored his conduct later in life.
A.D. 1662.
The New Year opened with a series of balls, receptions, and feasts; but poor Catharine felt little pleasure in them, for her husband neglected her and spent his time in dissipation of the worst character. His associates in vice endeavored to justify his treatment of the queen by ridiculing and depreciating her in every possible way. They could not appreciate her honesty or her piety, so they termed the one lack of brains and the other bigotry. Even her personal appearance was caricatured; but although she smarted under the stings of these worthless creatures she bore them uncomplainingly; no wound rankled in her breast as those inflicted by her husband's indifference and undignified behavior.
One source of trouble to Catharine during the first year of her marriage was poverty. She did not receive half the amount that the marriage treaty allowed her, and was forced to practice the most rigid economy to avoid falling into debt. This she did so successfully that the financiers of the government could not help applauding her for it.
When she was ill one summer, her physician recommended the medicinal waters of Tunbridge Wells; but neither she nor her officers had any money to pay the expenses of such a trip, and it required at least two months before it could be raised.
A.D. 1663.Previous to Catharine's departure for the wells, she received the good news from her native land that she had eagerly hoped for.
0213m
The combined troops of Portugal and England had defeated the Spanish army with great loss; and as the battle took place very near Lisbon, it had been desperately contested by the Portuguese, while the Queen of England awaited the result with breathless anxiety. Colonel Hunt commanded the English forces; and when he led them up a steep hill to attack the troops underDon John of Austria, the Portuguese general exclaimed in ecstasy: "These heretics are better to us than all our saints!"
Queen Catharine was so ill the following autumn that it was universally believed she could not recover. The king repented of his unkindness when he thought she was going to die, and passed many hours at her bedside, bestowing the most loving attentions upon his sick wife, which had so good an effect that she recovered. Her convalescence was very slow, and almost before she was pronounced out of danger she was called upon to receive the French ambassador and another gentleman from the court of Louis XIV., who brought messages of condolence from that monarch on account of the royal lady's illness.
It seems cruel that Catharine should have been disturbed with such ceremonies before she was strong enough to endure them; but we must not forget that she lived in an age when privacy was a luxury unknown to royalty.
When she thought her death was at hand, she made her will, and gave orders for many domestic arrangements. Her only requests to the king were, "that her body might be sent to Portugal for interment in the tomb of her ancestors, and that he would remember the obligation into which he had entered, never to separate his interests from those of the king, her brother, and to continue his protection to her distressed people." Charles promised to obey; but by her recovery his wife spared him the test.
In the last reign we told all about the Roundheads, and the origin of their name. Of course theirs ceased to be the popular party when the Restoration took place; consequently, with a desire to avoid the sneers of the courtiers, they adopted wigs, which after awhile became so fashionable that even those whose long locks had been a subject of vanity to their possessors, had the folly to clip them off
0215m
and replace them with wigs or periwigs, as they were called. King Charles fell in with the prevailing style when he found himself growing gray, likewise the Duke of York, whose hair was far too beautiful to be concealed.
The necessity for economy that forced itself upon the queen soon begot for her the reputation of stinginess, though it was rather a matter of prudence than otherwise. She was obliged to save because she seldom received her full income. Fortunately, her tastes were simple compared with those of her royal spouse; for while her bedroom furniture at Whitehall was of the plainest description, the only ornaments being sacred pictures and relics, the king's apartments were fitted up with all the extravagance and luxury of an Oriental nabob.
A.D. 1664.The summer after her recovery, Queen Catharine appeared in a silver lace gown, and walked through the park to St. James's Chapel, attended by her maids-of-honor, one bright, sunshiny morning, all in the same glittering material. Parasols had not then been introduced into England, so the courtly dames shaded their faces from the bright rays of the sun with gigantic green fans,—a Moorish fashion introduced by Catharine of Braganza at her court. Masks were often worn at that period to protect the complexion, but they were too warm in summer, and the shading fans were by far more comfortable. The trade with India, opened to the English by the queen's marriage treaty, filled the fancy shops with all sorts of gay and beautiful fans, which were put to another use besides that of sunshades. Ladies found them very convenient for screens when carrying on a little flirtation; for a whispered conversation with a courtier behind one, or a bit of court scandal thus imparted, seemed improved by this spicy addition to the secrecy. Addison gives a pretty playful description of the use of the fan in several copies of the "Spectator,"with which the belles of the present day are no doubt familiar.
Trade with other countries had increased in England, and her merchants were anxious to push it still further; but Holland proved such a formidable rival in this matter that, notwithstanding the friendly relations that had so long existed between the two countries, Charles saw the necessity for preparing his navy for hostilities.
Lord Sandwich was ordered to sea, and Queen Catharine was so anxious to see the departure of the fleet that she and Queen Henrietta accompanied the king to Chatham for that purpose.
Shortly after this the Spanish ambassador aroused the queen's indignation by demanding the return of Tangier to his government. Of course Charles peremptorily refused; and the queen, out of a feeling of spite, pretended that she could not speak any language but Portuguese and French when addressed by that dignitary. As he knew only his native tongue, she thus spared herself the necessity of a prolonged conversation with her enemy.
Once, on the occasion of a launch at Woolwich, Catharine played her husband a sly trick. She went down from Whitehall with her ladies in her barge; but the water was so rough that they were all dreadfully sea-sick, excepting herself. The king, the Duke of York, the French ambassador, and the attendants went down in carriages by land. After the two parties met on ship-board, a violent rain and hail-storm detained them for a long time. As soon as it abated, the queen stole ashore with her ladies, took possession of the carriages, in which they returned home; leaving all the gentlemen to make the best of a very rough trip by water.
A.D. 1665.The following year one of England's greatest naval victories was won by the fleet under the Duke of York's command.The rejoicings occasioned thereby were cut short by the breaking out of the most terrible visitation of the plague ever known in England. Death, sorrow, and poverty spread from house to house, until the exceptions were those that did not bear a red cross in token of the existence of disease within. The queen-mother quitted the country, and, as the epidemic increased, the court was removed to Salisbury.
Many people attributed the plague to the appearance of a comet that had been observed a few months before. We of the present day laugh at such an absurd superstition; but in the seventeenth century a visit from one of those heavenly bodies was always contemplated with awe by the ignorant, who were unfortunately in the majority. King Charles was not of the number, for he had a taste for astronomy, and was delighted to have an opportunity of studying the comet in its different phases. For this purpose he spent several nights at the observatory at Greenwich, a building that he had founded, and Queen Catharine stayed with him twice until she saw the curiosity also. She was not gratified the first time, because astronomical calculations were not so accurate as they are at present.
The king opened parliament in the autumn, when they voted him supplies to carry on the Dutch war, which he greatly needed; for he was at that time paying a thousand pounds weekly out of his own private purse to relieve the sufferings caused by the plague.
A.Dr 1666.The following year opened sadly for Catharine, because it brought news of the death of her beloved mother, the Queen-regent of Portugal. All the court put on the deepest mourning, and were directed "to wear their hair plain, and to appear without spots on their faces." This referred to the patches of black plaster that disfigured the court ladies of that period. A few months later Catharineremoved with her ladies to Tunbridge Wells again for the summer. This was a favorite resort for the fashionables during the seventeenth century, Queen Catharine having made it so by her patronage. There, under the shadow of spreading trees, the gay company would promenade in the morning while drinking of the waters. On one side of the avenue, formed by the trees, were little shops filled with toys and all sorts of fancy articles; on the other was a market. Neat-looking cottages, built here and there over a mile and a half of ground that surrounded the wells, formed the dwelling-places of the visitors, who would assemble on the green in the evening just before sunset for a dance. After dark they would adjourn to the queen's palace, where all sorts of amusements were indulged in for several hours. Catharine dispensed with ceremony at this watering-place, and endeavored to enhance the enjoyment of everybody by so doing. As a surprise to the king she sent for some actors, who performed comedies for the entertainment of the court. One member of this company was the celebrated Nell Gwynne, a beautiful actress, who afterwards became a lady of the queen's bed-chamber.
While the king and queen, surrounded by their court, were thus engaged making pleasure the business of their lives, the aspect of public affairs was most gloomy. The poverty caused by the ravages of the plague had rendered it impossible to collect taxes, consequently the supplies voted by parliament for the carrying on of the war were not forthcoming. France had formed an alliance with Holland, and England was at war with both powers. Added to these troubles was this: the country was filled with hirelings of exiled Roundheads, who, while pretending to be patriots, were really spies, dishonorably intriguing to raise an insurrection in England.
On the second of September a fire broke out in a baker
0221m
shop, at the corner of Thames street, and spread with frightful rapidity. It raged for four days, and the air was filled with the shrieks and lamentations of the men, women, and children, who rushed from one place to another after being obliged to desert their homes, knowing not whither to turn in order to save themselves from the devouring flames and the tottering churches and dwellings. The king and the Duke of York worked with the firemen, commanding, encouraging, and rewarding them; and it was the presence of mind of the latter that stopped the fire at last, by blowing up several houses. This precaution saved the old Temple Church, the Tower, and Westminster Abbey. It was in seasons of danger and disaster that King Charles II. always appeared to the greatest advantage, by displaying a paternal care for the welfare of his subjects. After the fire he caused tents and huts to be erected in the vicinity of London for those who were left homeless, and provided them with food and fuel. He was, besides, remarkably lenient to those who could not pay taxes, because of the poverty occasioned by the plague, though he was thereby deprived of the means to pay his seamen, and obliged to order the ships to lay-by.
If Charles had been as faithful to his wife as he was to his subjects she would have been a very happy woman; but about this time he was imitating Henry VIII. by contemplating a divorce, because he had fallen in love with Frances Stuart, a maid-of-honor, and one of the most beautiful women of her day. This was a cause of great anxiety to the queen, but fortunately not for a long time, because her rival married the Duke of Richmond and went to Denmark to live. That put an end to the divorce question; but Lord Clarendon brought down the king's vengeance on his head by favoring Frances Stuart's marriage, and even using his efforts to bring it about. Charles never forgave his chancellor for that offence.
[A.D. 1667.]Shortly after this marriage there was a masked ball at court, at which the king and queen danced together. On St. George's Day Charles celebrated the festival of the Garter with all the ceremonies as they were originally observed when that order was founded. Offerings were made at the altar by the sovereign and his knights, after which they partook of a feast at the Palace of Whitehall. The king sat at a table on a dais alone, and part of the time the queen stood at his left hand as a spectator. The knights sat at a table ranged the whole length of the room to the right of the king, and at the middle of the feast they all arose and drank his health, whereupon the trumpets sounded and the Tower guns were fired. At the conclusion of the feast all the provisions that were left over were distributed among the crowd, that always assembled at the end of the hall, near the door, on such occasions. It was the custom in olden times, even to the end of the Stuart dynasty, for the kings and queens of England to dine in public; and any well-behaved, decent-looking person was free to take his stand in the dining-room to watch the proceedings. Charles II. was so good-natured that he would often hand a taste of some delicacy to one of the spectators on such an occasion, and won many hearts by his gracious manners. He would converse freely, too, with those who happened to stand near enough. A well-known wit told him one day while he was dining "that matters were in a bad state, but there was a way to mend all." The king looked at him inquiringly, and he continued: "There is an honest, able man I could name, that if your majesty would employ and command to see things well-executed, all things would soon be mended, and that is one Charles Stuart, who now spends his time as if he had no employment; but if you would give him employment, he were the fittest man in the world to perform it."After Lord Clarendon fell into disfavor with the king, he was replaced by Buckingham, a very bad, witty man, who had great influence with Charles. He was an enemy to Catharine, and proposed to his sovereign several plans for ridding himself of her; but they were all too absurd and too revolting for even Charles II. to consider, unprincipled as he was.
A.D. 1668.Seven years had elapsed since the marriage of Catharine of Braganza, and still the promised half of her marriage-portion had not been paid. Civil wars in Portugal succeeded the death of the queen-regent and exhausted the treasury. At last news arrived in England that the king had been deposed, and his younger brother, Don Pedro, placed on the throne instead. Everything connected with her family and her native land interested Queen Catharine very much, and it distressed her to hear of the struggle that had been going on there for so many months.
A.D. 1669.The king sympathized with her and treated her with a great deal of consideration in her anxiety. She had an opportunity of reciprocating not very long after; for Henrietta, the Duchess of Orleans, made a short visit at the English court, and died three weeks after her return to France. She and Catharine then met for the first time, and formed a warm attachment for each other; so her death was a source of real sorrow to the queen. Charles gave vent to the most passionate grief when he heard the startling news, for he was warmly attached to his only sister, who had befriended him during his exile.
After the court took off mourning for the Duchess of Orleans, Queen Catharine indulged her fondness for dancing by giving balls and masquerades; the latter becoming so much the rage as to resemble in some respects a carnival.
Separate parties would be formed by the king and queen,with the ladies and gentlemen of the court; and so disguised as not to be recognized by their most intimate friends, they would go about in search of adventure. On such occasions they would enter any house where a party was going on, mingle with the invited guests, and commit some of the wildest pranks imaginable, only taking care that their rank should not be suspected. Once the queen got separated from her party, and by some mistake was left quite alone. She was a long way from home, and did not dare to announce who she was. In great alarm she stood in the street until a hack came along, when she summoned it and was driven to Whitehall. Whether or no she took the driver into her confidence has not been recorded.
During such escapades, of course, both their majesties were subjected to liberties from their subjects, which they bore most good naturedly. The king, especially, seldom resented even the most caustic sarcasms from his courtiers, though he generally returned a spicy repartee.
The Earl of Rochester once wrote upon Charles's chamber door:—
"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."
"Very true," returned King Charles, after reading the lines. "My doings are those of my ministers, but my sayings are my own."
A.D. 1671.Once when Queen Catharine was at her palace in Suffolk, with her court, she determined to have a little frolic; and for that purpose took the Duchesses of Richmond and Buckingham into her confidence. This was her plan: A fair was being held at the neighboring town of Saffron Walden, and there her majesty meant to go in disguise. So the three ladies dressed themselves like
0227m
country girls, in short, red petticoats, intending to mingle with the crowd, fondly hoping that they would not be recognized. Catharine was sensible enough to select for her cavalier Sir Bernard Gascoigne, a brave old gentleman, loved and respected by all who knew him; and a warm personal friend to the king. Mounted behind this cavalier, on an old cart-horse, and followed by the other ladies, each riding in the same primitive fashion with her escort, the party set out. But they had copied their costumes, not from those of the peasants, but from the representation of them at the theatres. So as soon as they arrived on the fair-grounds they were mistaken for a company of strolling players; and supposing that they would soon begin to perform, the rustics followed them in crowds. When the queen entered one of the booths to buy "a pair of yellow stockings for her beau," a man who had seen her at one of the public state dinners recognized her, and, proud of his superior knowledge, announced his sovereign's presence at once. The information spread like wildfire, and the court party returned home, followed by a motley crowd.
The same year the king and queen made a tour through several counties, and were sumptuously entertained. At its conclusion, Catharine remained quietly at Euston Hall, in Suffolk, with her ladies, while the king attended the Newmarket races, attended by his lively courtiers.
A.D. 1677.The marriage of the king's nephew, William, Prince of Orange, with Princess Mary, eldest daughter of the Duke of York, was celebrated at Whitehall in November; and as the anniversary of the queen's birth occurred the same month, there was occasion for double rejoicing. Catharine had known the young princess almost from the day of her birth, and felt a warm attachment for the motherless girl.
When the time came for her departure for Holland withher husband, she fell on the queen's breast and burst into tears.
Catharine endeavored to soothe her by recounting her own experience in having come to England a perfect stranger, without even having seen the man she was to marry.
But Mary thought no sorrow could equal hers; and replied, between her sobs: "Yes; but, madam, you came into England, and I am leaving England."
If she could have looked into the aching heart of the woman who was offering words of comfort scarcely needed she would have been awed into silence. Poor Catharine's position at that period was worse than ever before. The Earl of Shaftesbury, an ambitious, revengeful, dishonorable man, was her avowed enemy, and bent upon her destruction; so he had influenced the king to absent himself from her in the hope that time and separation would at last induce him to consent to a divorce. He was not successful in this; but he was so in bringing about the popish plot, his intention being to destroy the queen and rob the Duke of York, whom he hated also, of his right of succession.
We do not intend to give all the details of this wicked plot; but it played such an important part of Queen Catharine's life that we will, in as few words as possible, explain the nature of it. We must go back to a year or two after her marriage, for it was then that Catharine made a serious mistake, which caused her name to be connected with this plot nearly fifteen years later. Catharine's anxiety to have the independence of Portugal acknowledged by the pope was so great that soon after she got to England she induced her husband to send Richard Bellings, one of the gentlemen of her household, on a mission to Rome. The object was to promise his holiness that if hewould extend his protection to her native land she would use her utmost endeavors to advance the Catholic cause in England; adding that her desire to accomplish this had been the sole cause of her marriage. Letters of the same purport were sent to several of the cardinals also. Her appeal had the desired effect; but Bellings let out the secret, and the vigilant enemies of Queen Catharine made a note of it, to be used against her when opportunity offered.
A.D. 1678.Titus Oates and Bedloe were the infamous characters selected to swear away the lives of a large number of innocent persons.
Oates was the son of a weaver and preacher, and a villain of the deepest dye. If he had not been so brainless as to swear to a tissue of falsehoods too palpable to gain credence, rivers of blood would have been shed, and the disgraceful scenes that attended the St. Bartholomew massacre in France would have been repeated in England. But when the king questioned him and Bedloe, their statements as to the place and manner that the queen had used for declaring her intention of poisoning his majesty were so absurd that they stood self-convicted.
King Charles never for a moment suspected his wife of any attempt on his life; and he knew, besides, that although the Duke of York, his brother, had become a member of the Catholic church, it had not been through her instrumentality.
But the public mind was aroused to such a pitch by the daily inventions of Oates and his adherents that the business of life was interrupted, and the wildest statements were eagerly accepted as indisputable facts.
Catharine was even accused of having caused the murder of Godfrey, a city magistrate, whose body was found on the highway, pierced with his own sword.It was Shaftesbury who prompted Oates in all he said and did, though he was wily enough to keep himself in the background. It was he who secured from parliament, for the shameless perjurer, a pension of twelve hundred pounds a year for the information he had given, in consequence of which all the Roman Catholic peers were deprived of their seats in that body.
All this time Queen Catharine was surrounded by spies, ready to pounce upon any action of hers that might be perverted into an appearance of guilt; but her honesty and simplicity of character spoke so loudly in her favor that there was not a true-hearted man in the realm who was not assured of her entire innocence.
But she was aware of her danger, and expected nothing less than that she would be brought to the block, as Charles I. had been. She, therefore, sent a messenger, to her brother, Don Pedro, informing him of her situation, and asking his protection in case her life should be in jeopardy. Her adviser was Count Castelmelhor, a noble Portuguese exile, who proved of such service to Queen Catharine that she helped him to retrieve his lost fortune by purchasing a new estate for him, to which he gave the name of Santa Catarina, out of compliment to her.
King Charles offered five hundred pounds for the murderer of Godfrey. Tempted by so large a sum, Bedloe, Oates's colleague, and a discharged convict, swore that the deed had been done by the queen's popish servants; and that he had been offered two thousand guineas to assist in the removal of the body, which he saw lying on the queen's back stairs. When cross-examined, this rascal contradicted himself, and described the portion of the palace where he beheld the corpse so inaccurately as to prove conclusively that he had never been in it at all.
The members of the house of commons were paralyzedwith astonishment at their next session, when Oates advanced to the bar, and, raising his voice, exclaimed: "I, Titus Oates, accuse Catharine, Queen of England, of high treason."
0233m
His partners in villany, taking advantage of those present, who were so surprised as to remain speechless, voted an address to the king, requesting the removal of his wife to the Tower. But the lords refused to admit the testimony of such men as Oates and Bedloe, so appointed a committee to investigate the charges brought against her majesty. Shaftesbury protested, but he was overruled.
King Charles was perfectly conscious of a conspiracy against his wife, and vowed that he would not suffer her to be wronged. His indignation was so great that he began to treat her with such affection and respect as she had not known for many a day at his hands. He had Oates arrested, but was obliged to release him; and then the manwent beyond all bounds. Five Catholic lords were sent to the Tower on account of his accusations against them; thirty thousand Catholics were driven out of London from terror, and arrests and executions were of daily occurrence.
A.D. 1679.Some of the queen's servants were of the number, much to her horror and grief, and the Duke of York frequently assured her that his turn and hers would come next. Although the king feared the popular rage, he absolutely refused to permit the queen to stand a trial when his privy-council proposed it, because he knew it would not be a fair one. Shortly after he went to Newmarket with the queen, and while they were there Bedloe died. In his last confession he swore that so far as he knew both the queen and the Duke of York were innocent of any attempt on the king's life, or of any murder whatever, and that all the evidence he had formerly given was false.
A.D. 1680.The popish plot closed with the execution of Lord Stafford, a tragedy that ought not to have taken place. But we have one more circumstance to relate, an anti-climax to the popish plot. One Fitzharris appeared upon the scene, and accused the queen and the Duke of York of a design to poison the king.
Charles immediately summoned parliament to meet at Oxford, March 21. Escorted by a troop of horse-guards, and accompanied by the queen, he proceeded to the appointed place, where the royal couple were greeted with enthusiasm by the students of the university, who made addresses of welcome, while the authorities prepared a feast and other rejoicings. Shaftesbury arrived with his party and a crowd of armed retainers, who wore hatbands with the inscription, "No popery! No slavery!"
King Charles's first parliament sat for eighteen years, and was called the long parliament; this one was to sit for sixdays, and ought therefore to have been styled the short parliament. Fitzharris was a member of the church of Rome, and great results were anticipated from his statements. The house of commons wanted the trial managed one way, the lords another, and a furious dispute arose. So, without mentioning his intention to a soul, the king had himself carried in a closely-curtained sedan chair to the house. He wore his robes of state and carried his crown concealed on his lap. He entered the house of lords unannounced, took his seat on the throne, placed the crown upon his head, and bade the usher summon the commons. The moment they entered he told them "that proceedings which began so ill could not end in good," and commanded the lord chancellor to declare parliament dissolved. Before they had time to recover from their astonishment, the king and queen were on the road to Windsor, escorted by their guard.
If Charles had displayed the same determination and courage at the beginning of the popish plot, how much innocent blood might have been spared, and what misery prevented! Fitzharris was tried for treason and executed.
A.D. 1683.About three years after the popish plot another was formed by some minor conspirators, their object being to kill both the king and the Duke of York, his brother; but Providence interposed to prevent such a foul murder before the plans of the conspirators had been completed. The Duke of Monmouth revealed the plot, which brought several prominent men to the block.
A.D. 1684.It was so cold the following winter that the Thames was frozen over, and an ox was roasted whole in a fire built on the ice. This was done while a fair was being held; the booths for the purpose were stationed along the banks of the river, and there was a great deal of merrymaking, though the winter was a hard one for poor people, because provisions were so high and fuel so scarce.