CHAPTER VIIITHE END

Asone writes these two simple words “The End” across the heading of this final chapter, one is reminded to pause and reflect upon them.

The end—of what? Of a brief but splendid pageant—of a heavy burden of sorrow—of a life of resolute, indomitable pride?

Respice finem—Consider the end. Surely, of all who have attained to high places, or have longed after them, Anne Hyde should have taken for her own this motto, should have read and marked and inwardly digested it.

And yet, would it have availed anything? Does it ever avail?

When our eyes are dazzled by the light that for the moment seems all-pervading, they cannot see the shadows that lie beyond, nor would they even if they could.

Here, then, we look on at the removal of a figure, concrete enough in her own time and to her own contemporaries, but to us curiously elusive, even visionary. It is strange, becausefor one occupying the position she did for ten years of English history, Anne, Duchess of York, had left personally a very slight impression on that position. The place that knew her was so soon content to know her no more, the gap she left was so quickly filled.

It is not to her but to her children that we must look for any consideration of her life as important. No doubt in the early days in Flanders Edward Hyde watched the unfolding of his daughter’s keen intelligence with hope and confidence as a factor in her future. It was afterwards that her “vaulting ambition” was destined to “o’erleap itself,” and so weigh her down under “the burthen of an honour into which she was not born.”

It does not need much reflection to point the moral here, it is obvious enough and sorrowful enough.

During the summer of the year 1670, the same year which saw the Duchess of York’s conversion to the Church of Rome, the King’s only remaining sister, the Duchesse d’Orléans, paid what proved to be her last and also her most momentous visit to her native country, a visit that might have been fraught with such disastrous consequences to England. It is notquite apparent whether Henrietta herself fully appreciated all that her mission entailed—the mission she accepted so light-heartedly at the hands of her magnificent brother-in-law, the French king. She had never displayed any great aptitude for diplomacy, nor indeed much interest in such questions, but had been content to float on the surface of life like an airy butterfly, a creature of sun and shower. This being so, it was a very easy task indeed for Louis to use her as his tool and complaisant go-between. Madame and her elder brother, we know, loved each other very deeply; he—Louis XIV.—probably loved nobody at all, at least this is the conclusion which seems forced upon us, therefore he stood in the far stronger position. Madame believed, as it was easy to make her believe, that in carrying out King Louis’ instructions she was doing great things for France; that for her sake Charles II. must agree to proposals of which possibly she did not fully grasp the magnitude, but which tended to place England under the heel of her neighbour. It must also be here borne in mind that Henrietta was to all intents and purposes a Frenchwoman. She had been brought up from infancy in France, and that country commanded all her sympathiesand prejudices. Most likely she regarded England as an alien country, which had slain her father and driven her family into exile for years, and which would be all the better for drastic treatment, if it happened to be inflicted. Moreover, it was the excuse for a welcome excursion, a visit to her brothers, a short respite from the society of Monsieur, which was now always an infliction, a fact which can scarcely be wondered at. Therefore Madame started on her journey in high spirits, in consonance with the season of summer which was just now flinging its gifts over the earth and shedding beauty in its path, the beauty of serene skies, of waving grass, of radiant flowers.

This visit of Madame’s was, it is true, to be but a flying one. She was not even to come to London at all, and a plea was put forth for this marked abstention which carries us back to the year of the Restoration, and her mother’s bitter attitude towards the marriage of the Duke of York. It seemed very evident that even now, at the distance of ten years after that marriage, the haughty Stuart princess could not bring herself to meet her English sister-in-law on equal terms. It was clearly impossible, so we are told, that Madame should now come to London,“for she will not yeild ye place to ye Dutchesse of Yorke, nor can it be allowed that the Dutchesse of York should yeild it unto her.”[260]It was the question fought for years before, to be revived anew, it is hard to see why, on this occasion. However, on consideration a compromise was finally arranged by certain wise counsellors, the method adopted being that of transferring the place of meeting to Dover, where, fortunately, it seemed that matters of precedence might, in a measure, be conveniently waived, to the satisfaction of all parties therein concerned. It was furthermore settled for the nonce by the decision that the Duchess of York should yield the “pas” to Madame in “this Kingdome,” because it was remembered that the Duke of Orleans had always taken care to give it to his cousin the Duke of York when in France.

260.“Verney Memoirs.”

So, this point being finally decided, the King and his brother set out for Dover, there to meet their sister, and they were followed thither later by the Queen and the Duchess of York.

All the town proceeded there as well; that is, everybody who was anybody. The wits and the beaux, the beauties of the Court, “theKing’s musicke” and the Duke’s players, “all the bravery that could be got on such a sudden,”[261]grave statesmen and people who had nothing grave about them, besides those who went frankly for amusement and no more. The Dover road, the most famous road in the kingdom, which had known through the far-back centuries the possessors of the most honoured names passing in long procession to and fro, which had seen the victors and vanquished of the hundred years’ war, was alive with travellers of all conditions. Coaches, horsemen, pack-horses, waggons with provisions, waggons with fine clothes, tramping beggars, itinerant musicians, broken soldiers ready for any fray or wrangling for a groat. It was a seventeenth-century Canterbury pilgrimage which yet lacked a Chaucer for its worthy chronicler.

261.“Verney Memoirs.”

Although Monsieur could not be said to display at this time any overweening attachment to his wife, he apparently entirely disapproved of this visit to England, the real object of which was concealed from him, as he could not be trusted with any matter of importance, and it was afterwards remembered that he said tosome of his intimate friends that he did not think the Duchess would live very long. Moreover an astrologer is reported to have said that he (d’Orléans) would have several wives, which prophecy was probably highly agreeable to him. He accompanied Henrietta for part of her journey, however, joining her before Dunkirk, from which port she embarked on the 24th May.[262]It is pleasant to record that when Madame did meet the despised sister-in-law at Dover, she was kind to her, in spite of the difficulty as to precedence before noticed.[263]

262.Madame—Julia Cartwright (Mrs Ady).

263.Ibid.

Many plans of pleasure were set on foot, possibly to divert attention from the political business which was the real reason for Madame’s visit.

One day King Charles took his sister for an expedition to Canterbury, where they saw a ballet and comedy, and were entertained at a collation in the hall of St Augustine’s Abbey. Other diversions followed in due course, helped by the radiant summer season which shed its own influence on such merry meetings.[264]

264.Ibid.

To many it was, no doubt, a halcyon time.The pomp and splendour, the sparkle and gaiety of Whitehall were transferred to the ancient castle on the beetling white cliff for the moment, and the centre and core of everything, the chief luminary among many stars, was the fair princess whose short life, even now drawing swiftly to its close, had known such strange vicissitudes. Cradled in the very vortex of civil strife during Essex’s siege of Exeter; brought up as a child, for a time, at any rate, in grinding poverty, when she shared her mother’s dreary life of exile; then, in early youth, the supreme jewel of the most brilliant Court in Europe, its splendid king at her feet, she was now, though none could have foreseen it, at the very threshold of her mysterious doom. Only a few days in England, a few happy days to be remembered hereafter fondly and regretfully by those who saw her then, and, her mission fulfilled, the mission which, as has been said, she possibly did not fully comprehend, Madame set sail on her return.[265]For the lasttime, if either could have known it, she bade farewell to the brother whose affection for her was perhaps the strongest and purest feeling of his cynical, careless, insouciant nature. The letters he wrote to her testify to this fact, invested as they are with a charm all their own, and endorsed with a certain pathos, for “my deare, deare sister.” This final parting off Dover was a sorrowful one to both. The King and the Duke of York sailed for some distance with their sister before they could summon resolution to tear themselves away, and when the moment of farewell could no longer be delayed, the King held Henrietta long in his arms, embracing her again and again, while she clung to him, weeping passionately.[266]Alas for them! Only a week or two are to pass, and she, the beloved princess, the English rose, as she might well be termed, is cut down in her prime of beauty. The sombre picture of that scene unveils itself before us, dark and portentous. Out of the agonised death chamber at St Cloud comes the great Bossuet, who has borne the Last Sacraments to the dying girl, and exhorted her to the very end. As he sweeps past the shrinking, horror-struck crowd without, hesurveys them with unsparing contempt, but his funeral sermon in the Chapel Royal rings down the centuries: “O nuit désastreuse, O nuit effroyable, où retentit tout-à-coup comme un éclat de tonnerre, cette étonnante nouvelle: Madame se meurt! Madame est morte!”[267]The suspicion of poison always raised in those days on the occasion of an unexpected death may be unfounded in this case; we cannot tell, but the attendant circumstances were sad and ominous enough without that. The crass stupidity of the doctors, the callous indifference of Monsieur, the decorous sorrow of King Louis—once it would have been something more—all make up the setting of a grim tragedy, only relieved by the courage and resignation of Henrietta herself.[268]Over in England there was deep and bitter grief at the news: Charles himself broke down into passionate tears, but after a while the memory of Madame remained only as a fair dream in the recollection of thosewho had known her. Nevertheless she had performed the work which King Louis had given her to do in England, and the secret treaty was concluded.[269]

265.“Histoire de Madame Henriette d’Angleterre,” par Marie de la Vergne, Comtesse de la Fayette. “Madame étoit revenue d’Angleterre avec toute la gloire et le plaisir que peut donner un voyage causé par l’amitié et suivi d’un bon succés dans les affaires.”

266.“Charles II. and his Court.” A. G. A. Brett.

267.“Madame de Brinvilliers.” Hugh Stokes.

268.“Histoire de Madame Henriette d’Angleterre,” par Dame Marie de la Vergne, Comtesse de la Fayette, 1742. “Dieu aveugloit les Médecins . . . on la voyoit dans des souffrances cruelles, sans néanmoins qu’elle parût agitée. . . . Le Roi voyant que selon les apparences il n’y avoit rien a esperer, lui dit adieu en pleurant.”

269.“Histoire de Madame Henriette d’Angleterre,” par Marie de la Vergne, Comtesse de la Fayette. “Elle se voyoit à vingt-six ans le lien des deux plus grands Rois de ce siècle . . . . Le plaisir et la considération que donnent les affaires se joignent en elle aux agrémens que donnent la jeunesse et la beauté.”

Charles was, when expedient, to profess the Roman Communion; he was to join France, when so required, in a war against the United Provinces, and for these services he would receive two million livres, and six thousand men in case of any insurrection at home. Here, then, was the kernel of the matter. Money was always lacking, the hunger for it altogether unsated; even the portion of Zealand which was promised out of the future conquest of the Dutch was little in comparison, and the English King might have been induced to make further promises for a corresponding amount of hard cash.

The tragic death of the Duchess of Orleans was also destined at the time to affect the family of her brother the Duke of York in quite another direction.

HENRIETTA, DUCHESS OF ORLEANS

Duchess Anne has been accused, among other failings, of the unlovely propensity of eating too much, and this habit was certainly inherited by her younger daughter and namesake.[270]Whether from this, or from some other cause, the Lady Anne of York very early contracted a weakness of the eyes, a complaint, moreover, which lasted to the end of her life. For the cure of this disorder the parents had taken the precaution of sending the child to France, to the care of her grandmother the queen-mother, who was then at Colombes.

270.“Lives of the Queens of England.” Agnes Strickland.

Henrietta Maria, however, died there on 10th September 1669,[271]to the deep grief of Madame her daughter, to whose family her young niece was next transferred; and she remained with her for many months. Anne was still at St Cloud at the time of her aunt’s sudden and tragic death, but the small English princess became, on this event, a somewhat inconvenient visitor in the disorganised household of Monsieur. She was therefore sent back to England, after spending a considerable time in France, a visit which was kept more or less a secret athome, on account of the strong prejudices which existed in England against all French influences. The experiment does not seem to have materially benefited the child’s health, but at any rate back she came. Her parents despatched Colonel Villiers and his wife to bring home their little daughter, and the pair accordingly embarked at Rye for Dieppe on 2nd July, thereafter reaching the former port on their return journey on the 23rd of the same month, but whether the weather was unfavourable or not, the party did not land on English shore till the 28th.[272]There is a piece of information which reads oddly in the light of subsequent events: “Lady Anne was presented on her departure from France with a pair of bracelets set with great diamonds, valued at ten thousand crowns, by the French King.” One can fancy the child bridling over her magnificent ornaments, and thinking how kind and splendid was the stately, gracious King, with the long, dark eyes and perfect manner, who clasped them onher chubby wrists as if she were a woman grown.

271.Madame—Julia Cartwright (Mrs Ady). Macpherson’s “Original Papers.”

272.“Calendar of Domestic State Papers.” 27th June 1670: “Their Royal Highnesses have sent Col. Villiers and his lady to France to fetch their daughter.” Colonel Villiers was of the Duke’s bedchamber, and his wife governess to the children.

Neither he nor any one else could have foreseen the fierce struggle of forty years later, when the old feud would be revived, when the armies of each were to be face to face on many a stricken field, when Blenheim and Malplaquet and Ramilies were to bear a bitter significance in French ears, and when the splendid Roi Soleil of these early days of glory would perforce veil his lofty crest before the stubborn, invincible troops of the little stolid English cousin.

It was in the August following Madame’s aforesaid visit to England that the Duchess of York wrote the paper setting forth the reasons for her change of faith which has been previously given, but already it appears that her health was declining. She had never really recovered from the birth of her son Edgar,[273]as far back as 1667, and she gradually became the victim of a complication of disorders. Probably the unwieldy size of which her contemporaries speak was merely one symptom of failing health, as she was only thirty-three. But the malady towhich she finally succumbed was the terrible scourge of cancer, which strangely enough was destined many years later to carry off her successor, Mary of Modena.[274]

273.“Lives of Queens of England,” Agnes Strickland. “Royalty Restored,” J. F. Molloy. “She was ill for fifteen months.”

274.Burnet’s “History of My Own Time,” edit. 1766. “A long decay of health came to a quicker crisis. All on a sudden she fell in agony of death.” Some time during this year James himself was seriously ill.

All through the autumn months of 1670 and the succeeding winter she was ailing, often seriously, but her indomitable will upheld her to the very end. She was, there is no doubt, brave and resolute, and through her “long decay of nature” she contained herself with silent courage, for she was never given to confide in those about her.

Early in the winter a general suspicion of her new religious opinions began to be circulated. She rejected the services of her chaplains[275]without, however, giving any explanation of this conduct, further than the state of her health “and business,” and it was in the month of December, some months, therefore, after her actual reception into the Roman communion,that the King spoke, as we have seen, on this subject to the Duke of York.

275.“Life of James II.,” Rev. J. S. Clarke, from original Stuart MSS. in Carlton House, 1816. “During all her indisposition of which she dyed she had not prayers said to her by any of the chaplains.”

Burnet says that the latter had by this time himself seceded, though not formally, from the Anglican Church,[276]before his wife did so, and that she had “entered into discourse with his priests.” But who these could be is not apparent, and the story is improbable on that account.

276.Burnet’s “History of My Own Time.” (Supplement.) “He [the Duke of York] was bred to believe a mysterious sort of Real Presence in the Sacrament so that he thought he made no great step when he believed Transubstantiation, and there was infused in him very early a great reverence for the Church and a great submission to it; this was done on design to possess him with prejudice against Presbytery.”

And so we come to the last act of a brief drama, when the curtain was to ring down for good. Much had been woven into that fabric, the warp of sorrow and the woof of joy, but the gilded strands were parting asunder now, and there would be no knitting together of them any more.

The autumn after Madame’s untimely death passed over, and in the midst of the growing rumours that the Duchess of York was tending towards Rome, there arose another whisper to the effect that her bodily state was daily growing more and more precarious. MargaretBlagge, as we know, waited on her with tender and unswerving devotion, sorrowfully recognising the lonely and forlorn condition of the proud princess who had achieved so much—and so little.[277]Still, to their chagrin, the chaplains were held at arm’s length by Morley’s once docile and obedient pupil, and the Court wondered and discussed the question with growing relish and excitement.[278]Christmas came and went, but for one at least there could have been little question of the revelry belonging to the season. The month of March drew on to its close, and Anne must have been feeling at any rate somewhat better, for on the 30th we find her dining at Lord Burlington’s house in Piccadilly and enjoying the good cheer there provided for her (poor Anne!), for she “dined heartily,” but after her return home she was taken suddenly and alarmingly ill. It is possible, from the contemporary evidence, that the immediate attack was some form of internal inflammation, but at any rate the gravity of the situation was at once realised.[279]She had spent,as was her custom, some three-quarters of an hour “att her own accustomed devotions,” but in this extremity it seems that she did call for her chaplain, Dr Turner. After a night of agony her director, Blandford, Bishop of Worcester, to whose spiritual care Morley on his own retirement had committed her, was also sent for, but of what really took place during the next few hours the accounts given present many discrepancies. Over from Whitehall came Queen Catherine, timid, gentle and compassionate, and Burnet declares that as she arrived before the bishop, and would not leave the sick room, the latter lacked sufficient courage and presence of mind to begin prayers, and only “spoke little and fearfully.”

277.“Life of Mrs Godolphin.” John Evelyn, edit. by E. W. Harcourt, 1888.

278.Macpherson’s “Original Papers,” 1772.

279.Arlington, writing to the English Ambassador in Spain, said she was afflicted with a complication of disorders.

In the ante-room without, the Duke of York had awaited the bishop, and there alone with him confided to his ears the secret so long concealed. His wife, he said, had been reconciled to the Church of Rome, and had entreated of him, that if any bishops should come to her in her extremity, they would not disturb her with controversy.[280]

280.“Memoirs of the Court of England during the Reign of the Stuarts,” John Heneage Jesse. “Life of James II.,” Rev. J. S. Clarke, from original Stuart MSS. in Carlton House, 1816. “During all her great indisposition of which she dyed, she had not prayers said to her by either of the chaplains.”

Blandford can scarcely have been surprised at the announcement, considering the surmises which had for so long been afloat, and the manner in which he himself and his colleagues had been kept at a distance, but he collected himself to answer gravely and compassionately. He said that he believed the Duchess, in spite of what had occurred, to be in the fair way of salvation, seeing she had not changed her religion for any hope of worldly gain nor advantage, but from honest conviction. After these words, with the Duke’s permission, the bishop passed quietly into the stately, beautiful room, where amid the pomp of royalty, with brocaded curtains round her bed, the flicker of wax lights in silver sconces only throwing the figures of the Gobelin hangings on the walls into darker relief, lay Duchess Anne. By her side sat Catherine the Queen, the golden beads of her rosary slipping one by one through her shaking fingers, tears slowly stealing down her cheeks.[281]Beyond stood Lady Cranmer, and leaning over the dying woman, ready with the draught for thefevered lips, was Margaret Blagge, her beautiful face alight with infinite love and pity. Bishop Blandford drew near, and stood for a moment silent. Then as Anne’s dark eyes, unclosing, met his, he said gently but distinctly:

“I hope you continue still in truth?”

281.Burnet’s “History of His Own Time.”

Possibly only the one word reached her failing senses, but she answered brokenly with Pilate’s question:

“What is truth?”

“And then,” so the chronicle continues, “her agony increasing, she repeated the word ‘Truth, truth, truth’ often.”[282]In that wild March morning, when the wind beat and clamoured round the ancient palace of the kings, those hoarse whispers fell awfully on the ears of the watchers, though most likely she herself was unconscious of them. Of her own kindred only her younger brother, Lord Rochester, came to bid her his last farewell, refusing to believe in her change of faith, but the elder, Cornbury, unable to forgive her apostasy, remained away. Of her sister Frances there is at this time no record.

282.Burnet further says that the Queen stayed in the room of the Duchess to prevent the prayers of the Church of England being read, but this is improbable.

But she who lay there was past all such things now, and the presence or absence of kinsfolk was alike of little matter.

Blandford “made her a short Christian exhortation suitable to the condition she was in, and so departed.”[283]

283.“Memoirs of the Court of England under the Reign of the Stuarts.” J. H. Jesse.

Perhaps she received the last rites of Rome from Father Hunt, the Franciscan, who a few months back had admitted her into that fold, but even this is uncertain.[284]Another authority declares that there was “noe Preest,” but that Father Howard and Father Patrick, who had come to St James’s in attendance on the Queen,[285]were waiting in the ante-room without, and they were probably praying for the parting soul.

284.James himself declares: “She died with great resignation, having received all the Sacraments of the Catholic Church.”

285.“Verney Memoirs.” Sir William Denton to Sir Ralph Verney.

Out of consideration for the King’s wishes, and in deference to public opinion, the Duke of York, to whom it is impossible to deny some amount of sympathy in this supreme moment, and the difficult part he had to play, sent for the Bishop of Oxford, though by the timethe latter arrived, the Duchess was already unconscious.

But in the interval there had been a last appeal, not indeed of controversy, but of human affection, a spark from the fading embers of the old, half extinguished fire, the love which had dared and risked so much in other days. From the ante-room where throughout those dark hours he had perforce to interview one and another, English bishop and Roman priest, courtier and emissary of state, to answer inquiry, to dictate fitting replies, James came quietly in once more, and mounting the dais, stood looking down on the face which had once—yes, once—been so dear to him, the face for which he had braved his mother’s wrath, his brother’s arguments, the scorn of his followers. Anne’s eyes were closed, the long dark tresses tangled over the laced pillow. The world was slipping silently away, or rather it was she who was drifting out upon the waves of death. The long-drawn breaths were growing fainter. A great longing came over him, a longing for at least a final recognition—a word, a look. He stooped over her, and spoke in hushed, unsteady accents from dry lips.

“Dame, doe ye knowe me?”

There was no reply at once, and he repeated the appeal more than once before, seemingly, it reached the deafened ears and failing comprehension. At last she collected herself.

With much strivings she said faintly “Aye.” After a little respite she took a little courage, and with what vehemency and tenderness she could, she said: “Duke, Duke, death is terrible—death is very terrible!”[286]

286.“Verney Memoirs.” Dr Denton to Sir Ralph Verney: “By ye best and truest intelligence she did not dy a Papalina, but she made no profession or confession either way.”Cf.“Sir John Reresby: Memoirs,” ed. 1734: “This day dyed Anne, Duchess of York, with her last breath declaring herself a Papist.”

The voice, so greatly beloved in the past, if not in the present, had for the moment summoned her back, but if it was only to utter those last most pitiful words, it surely had been better speechless. The breathing grew shorter—stopped.

Then silence—and so vanished away Anne Hyde.

Margaret Blagge, who as we know had nursed her “with extraordinary sedulity” and had stood by her to the last, has set down this sorrowful, awestruck record: “The Duchess dead, a princess honoured in power, had muchwitt, much money, much esteeme. She was full of unspeakable torture, and died (poore creature) in doubt of her religion, without the Sacrament or divine by her side, like a poore wretch. None remembered her after one weeke, none sorry for her; she was tost and flung about and every one did what they would with that stately carcase.”[287]

287.“Life of Mrs Godolphin,” by John Evelyn, edit, by E. W. Harcourt, 1888.

This irreverent and revolting neglect must be ascribed to the ill conduct of the servants and apothecaries, who according to custom were responsible. Neither the Duke himself nor the ladies of the Duchess can be blamed, for they would at once have left the room.

The foregoing testimony, by the way, would seem to establish the fact that Anne did not receive the consolations of religion from any priest; and for the rest, Margaret’s words “none sorry for her” are borne out by those of Burnet, who says she “died little beloved. Haughtiness gained many enemies” and her “change of religion made her friends think her death a blessing at that time.”

It is a dreary epitaph to place on the tomb of Anne, Duchess of York. Alas for her! Thegoodly fruit which her aspiring hand had plucked so eagerly had long ago turned to ashes in her very grasp, and she had drained to the utmost dregs the cup of disillusion. And thus we leave her, as all must be left, to the infinite mercy of God.

She died on Friday, 31st March 1671, in the thirty-fourth year of her age. On the Sunday following, her body, being embalmed, was privately buried in the vault of Mary Queen of Scots, in Henry the Seventh’s Chapel of Westminster Abbey.[288]

288.“Memoirs of the Court of England during the Reign of the Stuarts.” John Heneage Jesse.

Her little son Edgar, Duke of Cambridge, the last of her boys, followed her on the 8th of June succeeding, and thus of her eight children only Mary and Anne, both destined to be successively Queens of England, survived their childhood.

In the memoirs of his own life, written years subsequently, James II. paid a full and generous tribute of respect to the memory of his first wife, though, as we have seen, the early, passionate, imperious love had so soon died out.

Long afterwards, in the grey, weary days of exile at St Germain, when there remained to him only the luckless heir to a vanished inheritanceand the winsome child Louisa, whom he called with such sad significance his “douce consolatrice,” the thoughts of the banished King must sometimes at least have travelled back to the storied past, to the days of his strenuous if stormy youth, to his English wife, to the fair little brood of children, of whom but two lived on to become the Goneril and Regan of this later Lear.

When his time came, and he, too, lay down to die in the hunting palace of King Louis, the last Stuart king was laid to his rest, unburied, in the Church of the English Benedictines in Paris, in the vain, pathetic hope that some day he might yet repose among his kindred in the England he loved so well.

In the mad upheaval of the French Revolution ninety years later, his bones, like those of the great lines of Valois and Bourbon, were cast out in dishonour, and no man knows the place of his sepulture; but Nan Hyde sleeps undisturbed in Westminster, among the kings to whose company the passion of a prince had raised her.

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