The Town Part 44

"In compliance with your asking, now shall you accept my poor accounte of rich doings. I came here a day or two before the Danish King came, and from the day he did come till this hour, I have been well nigh overwhelmed with carousal and sports of all kinds. The sports began each day in such manner and such sorte, as well nigh persuaded me of Mahomet's paradise. We had women, and indeed wine too, of such plenty, as would have astonished each beholder. Our feasts were magnificent, and the two royal guests did most lovingly embrace each other at table.

I think the Dane hath strangely wrought on our good English n.o.bles; for those whom I could never get to taste good liquor, now follow the fas.h.i.+on, and wallow in beastly delights. The ladies abandon their sobriety, and are seen to roll about in intoxication. In good sooth, the parliament did kindly to provide his Majestie so seasonably with money, for there have been no lack of good livinge, shews, sights, and banquetings from morn to eve.

"One day a great feast was held, and after dinner the representation of Solomon, his temple, and the coming of the Queen of Sheba was made, or (as I may better say) was meant to have been made before their Majesties, by device of the Earl of Salisbury and others. But, alas! as all earthly things do fail to poor mortals in enjoyment, so did prove our presentment thereof. The lady who did play the Queen's part did carry most precious gifts to both their Majesties; but forgetting the steppes arising to the canopy, overset her caskets into his Danish Majestie's lap, and fell at his feet, though I think it was rather in his face. Much was the hurry and confusion; cloths and napkins were at hand to make all clean. His Majestie then got up, and would dance with the Queen of Sheba; but he fell down and humbled himself before her, and was carried to an inner chamber, and laid on a bed of state, which was not a little defiled with the presents of the Queen, which had been bestowed on his garments; such as wine, cream, jelly, beverage, cakes, spices, and other good matters. The entertainment and show went forward, and most of the presenters went backward or fell down; wine did so occupy their upper chambers. Now did appear, in rich dress, Hope, Faith, and Charity. Hope did essay to speak, but wine rendered her endeavours so feeble that she withdrew, and hoped the king would excuse her brevity. Faith was then all alone, for I am certain she was not joyned to good works, and left the court in a staggering condition. Charity came to the King's feet, and seemed to cover the mult.i.tude of sins her sisters had committed; in some sorte she made obeyance, and brought giftes, but said she would return home again, as there was no gift which heaven had not already given his Majesty. She then returned to Hope and Faith, who were both sick ... in the lower hall. Next came Victory, in bright armour, and presented a rich sword to the King, who did not accept it, but put it by with his hand; and by a strange medley of versification, did endeavour to make suit to the King. But Victory did not triumph long; for, after much lamentable utterance, she was led away like a silly captive, and laid to sleep in the outer steps of the anti-chamber. Now did Peace make entry, and strive to get foremoste to the King; but I grieve to tell how great wrath she did discover unto those of her attendants; and much contrary to her semblance, made rudely war with her olive-branch, and laid on the pates of those who did oppose her coming."[347]

We suspect that some excuse might be found for James's tendency to drinking, in the same lax and ricketty const.i.tution which made him timid and idle. His love of field sports might indeed have given him strength enough to counteract it, had he been forced into greater economy of living; but the sportsman is seldom famous for eschewing the pleasures of the table; he thinks he has earned, and can afford, excess; and so he can, more than most men. James would have died of idleness and repletion at half the age he did, had he not been a lover of horseback; but when he got to his table he loved it too well; one excess produced another; the nerves required steadying; and the poor disjointed, "ill-contrived" son of Mary (to use a popular, but truly philosophic epithet,) felt himself too stout and valiant by the help of the bottle, not to become overfond of it when he saw it return. All his feelings were of the same incontinent maudlin kind, easily flowing into temptation, and subjecting themselves to a ruler. The bottle governed him; the favourite governed him; his horse and dogs governed him; pedantry governed him; pa.s.sion governed him; and when the fit was over, repentance governed him as absolutely.

Sir Anthony Welldon (a discharged servant of James's for writing a banter upon Scotland, and therefore of doubtful authority concerning him, but credible from collateral evidence, and in some respects manifestly impartial,) says that there was an organised system of buffoonery for the King's amus.e.m.e.nt, at the head of which were Sir Edward Souch, singer and relater of indecent stories, Sir John Finet, composer of ditto, and Sir George Goring, master of the practical jokes! Sir George sometimes brought two fools riding on people's shoulders, and tilting at one another till they fell together by the ears. The same writer says that James was not addicted to drinking; but in this he is contradicted by every other authority, and indeed a different conclusion may be drawn from what Sir Anthony himself subsequently remarks. Sully (Henry the Fourth's Sully, who was at one time amba.s.sador to James, and who tells us that the English monarch usually spent part of the afternoon in bed, "sometimes the whole of it,") says that his custom was "never to mix water with his wine;"[348] and Sir Roger c.o.ke says he was--

"Excessively addicted to hunting and drinking, not ordinary French and Spanish wines, but strong Greek wines; and though he would _divide_ his hunting from drinking those wines (that is to say, have set times for them, apart), yet he would _compound_ his hunting with drinking those wines; and to that purpose he was attended with a special officer, who was, as much as could be, always at hand to fill the King's cup in his hunting when he called for it. I have heard my father say that, being hunting with the King, after the King had drank of the wine, he also drank of it, and though he was young and of a healthful const.i.tution, it so disordered his head that it spoiled his pleasure, and disordered him for three days after.

Whether it was from drinking these wines, or from some other cause, the King became so lazy and unwieldy, that he was thrust on horseback, and as he was set, so he would ride, without otherwise poising himself on his saddle; nay, when his hat was set on his head, he would not take the pains to alter it, but it sat as it was upon him."[349]

Perhaps Sir Anthony was fond of the bottle himself, and thought the King drank no more than a gentleman should. It is curious, that Churchill, in his long and laboured invective against James,[350] does not even allude to this propensity. The poet drank himself; probably wrote the very invective with the bottle at his side. However, it is strange, nevertheless, he did not turn the habit itself against the Scottish monarch, as a virtue which failed to redeem him and make him a good fellow.

Sir Anthony Welldon's account of James's person and demeanour is so well painted that we must not omit it. It carries with it its own proofs of authenticity, and is one of those animal likenesses which, in certain people, convey the best evidence of the likeness moral:--

"He was of a middle stature, more corpulent through his clothes than in his body, yet fat enough, his clothes being made large and easie, the doublets quilted for steletto proofe, his breeches in great pleits and full stuffed. He was naturally of a timorous disposition, which was the reason of his quilted doublets; his eyes large, ever rolling after any stranger that came in his presence, insomuch as many for shame have left the roome, as being out of countenance; his beard was very thin; his tongue too large for his mouth, which ever made him speak full in the mouth, and made him drink very uncomely, as if eating his drink, which came out into the cup of each side of his mouth; his skin was as soft as taffeta sarsnet, which felt so because he never washt his hands, onely rubb'd his fingers'

ends slightly with the wet end of a napkin; his legs were very weake, having had (as was thought) some foul play in his youth, or rather before he was born, that he was not able to stand at seven years of age, that weaknesse made him ever leaning on other men's shoulders. His walke was ever circular, his fingers ever in that walke fiddling about."--"In his dyet, apparell, and journeys, he was very constant; in his apparell so constant, as by his good-will he would never change his clothes, until worn out to ragges; his fas.h.i.+on never--insomuch, as one bringing to him a hat of a Spanish block, he cast it from him, swearing he neither loved them nor their fas.h.i.+ons.

Another time, bringing him roses on his shooes, he asked, If they would make him a ruffe-footed dove? One yard of sixpenny ribbon served that turn. His diet and journeys were so constant, that the best observing courtier of our time was wont to say, were he asleep seven yeares, and then awakened, he would tell where the King every day had been, and every dish he had had at his table."[351]

Sir Anthony tells us, that James could be as pleasant in speech, and "witty," as any man, though with a grave face; and that he never forsook a favourite, not even Somerset, till the "poisoning" stories about the latter forced him. It may be added, that he did not even then forsake Somerset, as far as he could abide by him; for he gave a pardon to him and his wife for the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury, though he hanged their agents. This is the greatest blot on James's character; for though it was a very mean thing in him to put Raleigh to death, we really believe Raleigh "frightened" him; and as to his discountenance of the "mourning" for Queen Elizabeth, it appears to us, that, instead of telling against him, and being a thing "ungrateful," it was the least evidence he could give of something like a feeling for his own mother whom Elizabeth had put to death.

James owed no "grat.i.tude" to Elizabeth. She would manifestly have hindered him from succeeding her, could she in common policy, or regal feeling, have helped it; and she kept him, or tried to keep him, in doubt of his succession to the last.

James's style of evincing his regard for his favourites was of a maudlin and doating description, not necessary to be dwelt upon; and it was traceable perhaps to the same causes as his other morbid imperfections; but the horrible injustice which he would allow these favourites to perpetrate, and his open violation of his own solemn oaths and imprecations of himself to the contrary, deepen the suffocating shadow which is thrown over this part of the history of Whitehall by the perfumes of effeminacy and the poisons of murderous incontinence. James's lavish bestowal of other people's money upon his favourites (for it was all money of the State which he gave away, not his own; though, indeed, he might have bestowed it in a less generous style upon himself) was the fault of those who let him give it. There was something hearty and open in the character of Buckingham, though he was a "man of violence" after his fas.h.i.+on, and made Whitehall the scene of his "abductions." But the sternest and most formidable testimony we know against the spirit of this prince's favouritism, and the horrors with which it became mixed up, probably against his will, but still with a connivance most weak and guilty, is in the verses ent.i.tled the "Five Senses," the production of his countryman, admirer, and panegyrist, and one of the most loyal of men to his house--Drummond of Hawthornden, who had formerly written a beautiful eulogium upon him, in a poem which Ben Jonson wished had been his own, the "River of Forth Feasting." It is clear by these verses that Drummond believed in the worst stories related of Somerset and the Court. The history of that unhappy favourite is well known. The Countess of Ess.e.x, the young and beautiful wife of the subsequent parliamentary general, fell in love with him, and got divorced from her husband under circ.u.mstances of the most revolting indelicacy. Sir Thomas Overbury, an agent of Somerset's, and one of those natures that puzzle us by the extreme inconsistency of a fine and tender genius, combined with a violent worldliness (with such at least is he charged), was to be got rid of for stopping short in his furtherance of their connection after the divorce. He was poisoned, and Somerset and his new wife were tried for the murder. Somerset denied it, but was found guilty; the Countess confessed it; yet both were pardoned, while other agents of theirs were hung. There is no rescuing James, after this, from the imputation of the last degree of criminal weakness, to say the least of it. It is said that the other guilty parties (the victims, most likely, of a bad bringing-up,) grew at last as hateful to one another, as they had been the reverse--the dreadfulest punishment of affections dest.i.tute of all real regard, and furthered by hateful means.

We gladly escape from these subjects into the poetical atmosphere of the Masque, the only glory of King James's reign, and the greatest glory of Whitehall.

But the Masque, in which James's Queen was a performer, reminds us that we must first say a word or two of herself and the other princely inmates of Whitehall during this reign. The Queen, Anne of Denmark, has been represented by some as a woman given to love intrigues, and by others to intrigues political. We take her to have been a common-place woman, given as much perhaps to both as her position and the surrounding example induced;--the good-natured wife (after her fas.h.i.+on) of a good-natured husband, sympathising with him in his pleasures of the table, and dying of a dropsy. She danced and performed in the Masques at court, not, we should guess, with any exquisite grace. Her daughter Elizabeth, who married the Elector Palatine, afterwards struggling King of Bohemia, and who has found an agreeable biographer and panegyrist in the late Miss Benger, appears to have partaken of her good nature, with more levity, and was very popular with the gentry for her affable manners and her misfortunes.

When she accompanied the Elector to the altar, in the chapel at Whitehall, she could not help laughing out loud, at something which struck her fancy. Her brother Henry, Prince of Wales, who died in the flower of his youth, and who, like all princes who die early, has been extolled as a person of wonderful promise, obtained admiration in his day for frequenting the tilt-yard while his father was lying in bed, and for announcing himself as the opponent of his anti-warlike disposition. There was probably quite as much of the opposition of heirs apparent in this, as anything more substantial; for Henry seems to have exhibited his father's levity and inconsistency of character.

He was thought to be no adorer of the fair s.e.x, yet has the credit of an intrigue with the Countess of Ess.e.x; and though he reprobated his father's swearing, made no scruple of taunting his brother Charles for his priestly education, and "quizzing" him for not being straight in the legs. As to poor Charles ("Baby Charles," as his father called him, for he was a fond parent, though not a wise one), he became at once the ornament of his family, and the most unfortunate of its members; but he seems from an early age to have partaken of the weakness of character, and the consequent mixture of easiness and obstinacy, common to the family. Buckingham lorded it over him like a petulant elder brother. He once rebuked him publicly, in language unbefitting a gentleman; and at another time, threatened to give him a knock on the head.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BANQUETING HOUSE, WHITEHALL.]

We have seen court mummeries in the time of Henry the Eighth, and pageants in that of Elizabeth. In the time of James, the masquings of the one, and the gorgeous shows of the other, combined to produce the Masque, in its latest and best acceptation; that is, a dramatic exhibition of some brief fable or allegory, uniting the most fanciful poetry and scenery, and generally heightened with a contrast of humour, or an anti-masque. Ben Jonson was their great poetical master in the court of James; and Inigo Jones claimed to be their no less masterly and important setter-forth in scene and show. The poet and artist had a quarrel upon this issue, and Inigo's memory suffers from divers biting libels in the works of his adversary. The n.o.ble Banqueting-house remains to show that the architect might have had some right to dispute pretensions, even with the author of the "Alchemist" and the "Sad Shepherd;" for it is a piece of the very music of his art (if we may so speak)--the harmony of proportion.

Within these walls, as we now see them, rose, "like a steam of rich distilled perfumes," the elegant lines of Ben Jonson, breathing court flowers,--the clouds and painted columns of Jones--and the fair faces, gorgeous dresses, and dances, of the beauties that dazzled the young eyesight of the Miltons and Wallers. Ben's burly body would then break out, as it were, after his more refined soul, in some burlesque anti-masque, now and then not a little coa.r.s.e; and the sovereign and the poet most probably concluded the night in the same manner, though not at the same table, in filling their skins full of wine.

The Court of Charles I. was decorum and virtue itself in comparison with that of James. Drunkenness disappeared; there were no scandalous favourites; Buckingham alone retained his ascendency as the friend and a.s.sistant; and the King manifested his notions of the royal dignity by a stately reserve. Little remained externally of the old Court but its splendour; and to this a new l.u.s.tre was given by a taste for painting, and the patronage of Rubens and Vand.y.k.e. Charles was a great collector of pictures. He was still fonder of poetry than his father, retained Ben Jonson as his laureate, encouraged Sandys, and May, and Carew, and was a fond reader of Spenser and Shakspeare; the last of whom is styled by Milton (not in reproach, as Warton strangely supposed; for how could a poet reproach a King with loving a poet?) the "closet companion" of the royal "solitudes." Walpole, as Mr. Jesse observes, was of opinion, that--

"The celebrated festivals of Louis XIV. were copied from the shows exhibited at Whitehall, in its time the most polite court in Europe." Ba.s.sompierre, in mentioning his state introduction to Charles and Henrietta, says, "I found the King on a stage raised two steps, the Queen and he on two chairs, who rose on the first bow I made them on coming in. The company was magnificent, and the order exquisite." "I never knew a duller Christmas than we have had this year," writes Mr. Gerrard to the Earl of Strafford: "but one play all the time at Whitehall, and no dancing at all. The Queen had some little infirmity, the bile or some such thing, which made her keep in; only on Twelfth Night she feasted the King at Somerset House, and presented him with a play newly studied, the _Faithful Shepherdess_ (Fletcher's) which the King's players acted in the robes she and her ladies acted their pastoral in last year. I had almost forgot to tell your Lords.h.i.+p, that the dicing night, the King carried away in James Palmer's hat 1,850_l._ The Queen was his help, and brought him that luck; she shared presently 900_l._ There are two masques in hand; first, the Inns of Court, which is to be presented on Candlemas-day; the other, the King presents the Queen with on Shrove Tuesday, at night: high expenses; they speak of 20,000_l._ that it will cost the men of the law."[352]

"Charles was not only well informed," says Mr. Jesse, "in all matters of court etiquette, and in the particular duties of each individual of his household, but enjoined their performance with remarkable strictness. Ferdinand Masham, one of the esquires of his body, has recorded a curious anecdote relative to the King's nice exaction of such observances. 'I remember,' he says, 'that coming to the King's bedchamber door, which was bolted in the inside, the Earl of Bristol, then being in waiting and lying there, he unbolted the door upon my knocking, and asked me "What news?" I told him I had a letter for the King. The earl then demanded the letter of me, which I told him I could deliver to none but to the King himself; upon which the King said, "The esquire is in the right: for he ought not to deliver any letter or message to any but myself, he being at this time the chief officer of my house; and if he had delivered the letter to any other, I should not have thought him fit for his place."' It seems, that after a certain hour, when the guard was set, and the 'all right' served up, the royal household was considered under the sole command of the esquire in waiting. 'The King,' says Lord Clarendon, 'kept state to the full, which made his court very orderly, no man presuming to be seen where he had no pretence to be.'"[353]

The truth is, that both from greater virtue and a less jovial temperament, Charles carried his improvement upon the levity of his father's court too far. Public opinion had long been quitting the old track of an undiscerning submission; and, though it was the King's interest to avoid scandal, it was not so to provoke dislike. It was on the side of manner in which he failed. His reformations, the more scandalous ones excepted, appear to have been rather external than otherwise. Mrs. Hutchinson, while she speaks of them highly, intimates that there was still a good deal of private licence; and though it is a.s.serted that Charles discountenanced swearing, perhaps even this was only by comparison. It is reported of Charles II., that in answer to a remonstrance made to him on the oaths in which he indulged, he exclaimed in a very irreverent and unfilial manner, "Oaths! why, your Martyr was a greater swearer than I am." It has been questioned also, whether in other respects Charles's private conduct was so "immaculate," to use Mr. Jesse's phrase, as the solemnity of his latter years and his fate has led most people to conclude. Indeed, it is a little surprising how anybody, partisans excepted, could have supposed, that a prince, brought up as he was, and the friend of Buckingham, should be entirely free from the licence of the time. His manners and speeches to women, though not gross for that age, would be thought coa.r.s.e now; and, at all events, were proofs of a habit of thinking quite in unison with custom. But the present age has been far stricter in its judgment on these points than any which preceded it--at least up to the time of George III. It was not the question of his gallantries, or of his freedom with them, that had anything to do with Charles's unpopularity. The people will pardon a hundred gallantries sooner than one want of sympathy. Charles I. would not have been unpopular in the midst of court elegancies, if he had not been stiff and repulsive in his manners. Unfortunately he wanted address; he had a hesitation in his speech; and his consciousness of a delicate organization and of infirmity of purpose, with the addition of a good deal of the will common to most people, and particularly encouraged in princes, made him afraid of being thought weak and easy.

He therefore, in what he thought self-defence, took to an offensive coldness and dryness of behaviour, and gradually became not unwilling even to wreak upon other people the irritability occasioned by it to himself. He got into unseemly pa.s.sions with amba.s.sadors, and neither knew how to refuse a pet.i.tion gracefully, nor to repel an undue a.s.sumption with real superiority. Even his troubles did not teach him wisdom in these respects till the very last. He was riding out one day during the wars, when a "Dr. Wykes, dean of Burian in Cornwall," says Mr. Jesse, "an inveterate punster, happened to be near him, extremely well mounted. 'Doctor,' said the King, 'you have a pretty nag under you; I pray, how old is he?' Wykes, unable to repress, even in the presence of majesty, the indifferent conceit which presented itself, 'If it please your Majesty' he said, 'he is in the second year of his reign' (rein). Charles discovered some displeasure at this unlicensed ribaldry. 'Go,' he replied, 'you are a fool!'" Now that the dean was a fool there can be no doubt; but that this blunt, offensive, and never-to-be-forgotten word was the only one which a king in a state of war with his subjects could find, in order to discountenance his folly, shows a lamentable habit of subjecting the greater consideration to the less.

Unluckily for Charles's dignity in the eyes of his attendants, and for his ultimate welfare with the people, there was a contest of irritability too often going forward between him and his consort Henrietta; in which the latter, by dint perhaps of being really the weaker of the two, generally contrived to remain conqueror. Swift has recorded an extraordinary instance of her violence in his list of _Mean and Great Fortunes_. He says, that one day Charles made a present to his wife of a handsome brooch, and gallantly endeavouring to fix it in her bosom, happened unfortunately to wound the skin, upon which her Majesty, in a fit of pa.s.sion, and in the presence of the whole court, took the brooch out and dashed and trampled it on the floor. The trouble that Charles had to get rid of Henrietta's noisy and meddling French attendants, not long after his marriage, is well known; but not so, that, having contrived to turn the key upon her in order that she might not behold their departure, "she fell into a rage beyond all bounds, tore the hair from her head, and cut her hands severely by das.h.i.+ng them through the gla.s.s windows."[354]

When not offended, however, the Queen's manners were lively and agreeable. We are to imagine the time of the court divided between her Majesty's coquetries, and accomplishments, and Catholic confessors, and the King's books, and huntings, and political anxieties; Buckingham, as long as he lived, being the foremost figure next to himself; and Laud and Strafford domineering after Buckingham. In the morning the ladies embroidered and read huge romances, or practised their music and dancing (the latter sometimes with great noise in the Queen's apartments), or they went forth to steal a visit to a fortune-teller, or to see a picture by Rubens, or to sit for a portrait to Vand.y.k.e, who married one of them. In the evening there was a masque, or a ball, or a concert, or gaming; the Sucklings, the Wallers, and Carews repeated their soft things, or their verses; and "Sacharissa" (Lady Dorothy Sydney) doubted Mr. Waller's love, and glanced towards sincere-looking Henry Spencer; Lady Carlisle flirted with the Riches and Herberts; Lady Morton looked grave; the Queen threw round the circle bright glances and French _mots_; and the King criticised a picture with Vand.y.k.e or Lord Pembroke, or a poem with Mr.

Sandys (who, besides being a poet, was gentleman of his Majesty's chamber); or perhaps he took Hamilton or Strafford into a corner, and talked, not so wisely, against the House of Commons. It was, upon the whole, a grave and a graceful court, not without an under-current of intrigue.

It seems ridiculous to talk of the court of Oliver Cromwell, who had so many severe matters to attend to in order to keep himself on his throne; but he had a court, nevertheless; and, however jealously it was watched by the most influential of his adherents, it grew more courtly as his protectorate advanced; and it must always have been attended with a respect which Charles knew not sufficiently how to insure, and James not at all. Its dinners were not very luxurious, and the dishes appear to have been brought in by the heavy gentlemen of his guard. In April, 1654, we read of the "grey coats" of these gentlemen, with "black velvet collars, and silver lace and tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs"--a very sober effort at elegance. Here his daughters would pay him visits of a morning, fluttering betwixt pride and anxiety; and his mother sit with greater feelings of both, starting whenever she heard a noise: flocks of officers came to a daily table, at which he would cheerfully converse; and now and then amba.s.sadors or the Parliament were feasted; and in the evening, perhaps after a portion of a sermon from his Highness, there would be the consciousness of a princely presence, and something like a courtly joy. In the circle Waller himself was to be found (making good the doubts of "Sacharissa"), and Lord Broghill, the friend of Suckling, who refused to join him; and Lady Carlisle, growing old, but still setting her beauty-spots at the saints; and Richard Cromwell, heir-apparent, whom d.i.c.k Ingoldsby is forcing to die with laughter, though severe Fleetwood is looking that way; and the future author of Paradise Lost talking Italian with the envoys from the Apennines; and Marvel, his brother secretary, chuckling to hear from the Swedish amba.s.sador the proposal of a visit from Queen Christina; and young Dryden, bashfully venturing in under the wing of his uncle Sir Gilbert Pickering, the chamberlain. There was sometimes even a concert; Cromwell's love of music prevailing against the un-angelical denouncements of it from the pulpit. The Protector would also talk of his morning's princely diversion of hunting; or converse with his daughters and the foreign amba.s.sadors, some of which latter had that day paid their respects to the former, as to royal personages, on their arrival in England; or if the evening were that of a christening or a marriage, or other festive solemnity, his Highness, not choosing to forget the rough pleasures of his youth, and combining, perhaps, with the recollection something of an hysterical sense of his present wondrous condition, would think it not unbecoming his dignity to recall the days of King James, and bedaub the ladies with sweetmeats, or pelt the heads of his brother generals with the chair cus.h.i.+ons. Nevertheless, he could resume his state with an air that inspired the pencil of Peter Lely beyond its fopperies; and Mazarin at Paris trembled in his chair to think of it.

But how shall we speak of the court of Charles II.? of that unblus.h.i.+ng seminary for the misdirection of young ladies, which, occupying the ground now inhabited by all which is proper, rendered the ma.s.s of buildings by the water's side, from Charing Cross to the Parliament, one vast--what are we to call it?--

"Chi mi dara le voci e le parole Convenienti a s n.o.bil soggetto?"

Let Mr. Pepys explain. Let Clarendon explain. Let all the world explain, who equally reprobate the place and its master, and yet somehow are so willing to hear it reprobated, that they read endless accounts of it, old and new, from the not very bashful _expose_ of the Count de Grammont, down to the blus.h.i.+ng deprecations of Mrs. Jameson.

Mr. Jesse himself begins with emphatically observing, that "a professed apology either for the character or conduct of Charles II.

might almost be considered as an insult to public rect.i.tude and female virtue;" yet he proceeds to say, that there is a charm nevertheless in "all that concerns the 'merry monarch,' which has served to rescue him from entire reprobation;" and accordingly he proceeds to devote to him the largest portion given to any of his princes, not omitting particulars of all his natural children; and winding up with separate memoirs of the maids of honour, the mistresses, and those confidential gentlemen--Messrs. Chiffinch, Prodgers, and Brouncker.

Upon the reason of this apparent contradiction between the morals and toleration of the reading world, we have touched before; and we think it will not be expected of us to enter further into its metaphysics.

The court is before us, and we must paint it, whatever we may think of the matter. We shall only observe in the outset, that the "merry monarch," besides not being handsome, had the most serious face, perhaps, of any man in his dominions. It was as full of hard lines as it was swarthy. If the a.s.sembled world could have called out to have a specimen of a "man of pleasure" brought before it, and Charles could have been presented, we know not which would have been greater, the laughter or the groans. However, "merry monarch" he is called; and merry doubtless he was, as far as his numerous cares and headaches would let him be. Nor should it be forgotten that cares, necessities, and bad example, conspired, from early youth, to make him the man he was. We know not which did him the more harm--the jovial despair of his fellow exiles, or the sour and repulsive reputation which morals and good conduct had acquired from the gloominess of the Puritans.

Charles was of good height as well as figure, and not ungraceful.

Andrew Marvel has at once painted and intimated an excuse for him, in an exordium touching upon the a.s.sociates of his banishment. His allusion to the filial occupation of Saul is very witty:--

"Of a tall stature and a sable hue, Much like the son of Kish, that lofty Jew; Ten years of need he suffer'd in exile, And kept his father's a.s.ses all the while."

He was a rapid and a constant walker, to settle his nerves; talked affably with his subjects; had a parcel of little dogs about him, which did not improve the apartments at Whitehall; hated business; delighted to saunter from one person's rooms at court to another's, in order to pa.s.s the time; was fond of wit, and not without it himself; drank and gamed, and was in constant want of money for his mistresses, which ultimately rendered him a scandalous pensioner upon the King of France; in short, was a selfish man, partly by temperament, and partly from his early experience of others; but was not ill-natured; and, like his grandfather James, would live and let live, provided his pleasures were untouched. His swarthiness he got from the Italian stock of the Medici, and his animal spirits from Italy or France, or both: they were certainly not inherited from his father.

The man thus const.i.tuted was suddenly transferred from an exile full of straits and mortifications into the rich and glorious throne of England. The people, sick of gloom and disappointment, were as mad to receive him as he was to come. It was May, and all England dressed itself in garlands and finery. Crowds shouted at him; music floated around his steps; young females strewed flowers at his feet; gold was poured into his pockets; and clergymen blessed him. He receives the homage of Church and State; and goes the same night to sup with Mrs.

Barbara Palmer, at a house in Lambeth.

Such was the event which, by an epithet that has since acquired a twofold significancy, has been called the "blessed Restoration."

Orthodoxy and loyalty had obtained an awkward champion.

Mrs. Palmer soon restored the King to Whitehall by coming there herself, where she became in due time Countess of Castlemain, d.u.c.h.ess of Cleveland, and mother of three dukes and as many daughters. This was for the benefit of the peerage. But Charles, for the benefit of royalty, was unfortunately compelled to have a wife; though, as an alleviation of the misfortune, his wife, he reflected, would have an establishment, with ladies of the bedchamber; nay, with a pleasing addition of maids of honour. He therefore put what face he could on the matter, and wedded Catharine of Braganza. When Lady Castlemain was presented to her as one of the ladies, the poor Queen burst out a-bleeding at the nose. It took a good while to reconcile the royal lady to the "other lady" (Clarendon's constant term for her), but it was done in time, to the astonishment of most, and disgust of some.

Clarendon was one of the instruments that effected the good work. From thenceforth the Queen was contented to get what amus.e.m.e.nt she could, and was as merry as the rest. She was not an ill-looking woman; was as fond of dancing as her husband; and he used good-naturedly to try to make her talk improper broken English, and would not let her be persecuted.

Whitehall now adjusted itself to the system which prevailed through this reign, and which may be described as follows: we do not paint it at one point of time only, but through the whole period.

Charles walked a good deal in the morning, perhaps played at ball or tennis, chatted with those he met, fed his dogs and his ducks, looked in at the c.o.c.kpit, sometimes did a little business, then sauntered in-doors about Whitehall; chatted in Miss Wells' room, in Miss Price's room, in Miss Stuart's room, or Miss Hamilton's; chatted in Mr.

Chiffinch's room, or with Mr. Prodgers; then dined, and took enough of wine; had a ball or a concert, where he devoted himself to Lady Castlemain, the d.u.c.h.ess of Portsmouth, or whoever the reigning lady was, the Queen talking all the while as fast as she could to some other lady; then, perhaps, played at riddles, or joked with Buckingham and Killigrew, or talked of the intrigues of the court--the great topic of the day. Sometimes the ladies rode out with him in the morning, perhaps in men's hats and feathers; sometimes they went to the play, where the favourite was jealous of the actresses; sometimes an actress is introduced at court and becomes a "madam" herself--Madam Davis, or Madam Eleanor Gwyn. Sometimes the Queen treats them with a cup of the precious and unpurchasable beverage called tea, or even ventures abroad with them in a frolicsome disguise. Sometimes the courtiers are at Hampton, playing at hide-and-seek in a labyrinth; sometimes at Windsor, the ladies sitting half-dressed for Sir Peter Lely's voluptuous portraits.

Lady Castlemain, the d.u.c.h.ess of Portsmouth, and Nell Gwyn, all have their respective lodgings in Whitehall, looking out upon gardens, elegant with balconies and trellises. By degrees the little dukes grow bigger, and there is in particular a great romping boy, very handsome, called Master Crofts, afterwards Duke of Monmouth, who is the protege of Lady Castlemain, though his mother was Mrs. Walters, and who takes the most unimaginable liberties in all quarters. He annoys exceedingly the solemn Duke of York, the King's brother, who heavily imitates the reigning gallantries, stupidly following some lady about without uttering a word, and who afterwards cut off the said young gentleman's head. The concerts are French, partly got up by St. Evremond and the d.u.c.h.ess of Mazarin, who come to hear them; and there, in addition to the ladies before mentioned, come also the d.u.c.h.ess of Buckingham, short and thick, (daughter of the old Parliamentary general, Fairfax,) and Lady Ossory, charming and modest, and the Countess of Shrewsbury, who was neither, and Lady Falmouth, with eyes at which Lord Dorset never ceased to look, and the d.u.c.h.ess of York (Clarendon's daughter), eating something, and divine old Lady Fanshawe, who crept out of the cabin in a sea-fight to stand by her husband's side. The Queen has brought her there, grateful for a new set of sarabands, at which Mr.

Waller is expressing his rapture--Waller, the visitor of three courts, and admired and despised in them all. Behind him stands Dryden, with a quiet and somewhat down-looking face, finis.h.i.+ng a couplet of satire. "Handsome Sydney" is among the ladies; and so is Ralph Montague, who loved ugly dogs because n.o.body else would; and Harry Jermyn, who got before all the gallants, because he was in earnest.

Rochester, thin and flushed, is laughing in a corner at Charles's grim looks of fatigue and exhaustion; Clarendon is vainly flattering himself that he is diverting the king's ennui with a long story; Grammont is shrugging his shoulders at not being able to get in a word; and Buckingham is making Sedley and Etherege ready to die of laughter by his mimicry of the poor Chancellor.

The following delicate morceaux from the pages of our friend Pepys will ill.u.s.trate the pa.s.sages respecting my Lady Castlemain and others.

"1660--Sept. 14.--To White Hall Chappell, where one Dr. Crofts made an indifferent sermon, and after it an anthem, ill sung, which made the King laugh. Here I first did see the Princesse Royall since she came into England. Here I also observed, how the Duke of York (James II.) and Mrs. Palmer (Lady Castlemaine) did talk to one another very wantonly through the hangings that part the king's closet and the closet where the ladies sit.

"May 21.--My wife and I to Lord's lodgings, where she and I staid talking in White Hall Garden. And in the Privy-garden saw the finest smocks and linnen petticoats of my Lady Castlemaine's, laced with rich lace at the bottom, that ever I saw; and did me good to look at them. Sarah told me how the King dined at my Lady Castlemaine's, and supped, every day and night the last week; and that the night that the bonfires were made for joy of the Queene's arrival, the King was there; but there was no fire at her door, though at all the rest of the doors almost in the street; which was much observed; and that the King and she did send for a pair of scales and weighed one another; and she being with child, was said to be heaviest. But she is now a most disconsolate creature, and comes not out of doors, since the King's going (to meet his wife).

"August 23d.--Walked to White Hall, and through my Lord's lodgings we got into White Hall Garden, and so to the Bowling-greene, and up to the top of the new Banqueting House there, over the Thames, which was a most pleasant place as any I could have got; and all the show consisted chiefly in the number of boats and barges; and two pageants, one of a king, and the other a queene, with her maydes of honour sitting at her feet very prettily; and they tell me the queene is Sir Richard Ford's daughter. Anon come the King and Queene in a barge under a canopy with 1,000 barges and boats I know, for they could see no water for them, nor discern the King nor Queene. And so they landed at White Hall Bridge, and the great guns on the other side went off. But that which pleased me best was, that my Lady Castlemaine stood over against us upon a piece of White Hall. But methought it was strange to see her lord and her upon the same place walking up and down without taking notice one of another, only at first entry he put off his hat, and she made him a very civil salute, but afterwards took no notice one of another; but both of them now and then would take their child, which the nurse held in her armes, and dandle it. One thing more; there happened a scaffold below to fall, and we feared much hurt, but there was none, but she of all the great ladies only run down among the common rabble to see what hurt was done, and did take care of a child that received some little hurt, which methought was so n.o.ble. Anon, there come one there booted and spurred that she talked long with, and by and by, she being in her haire, she put on his hat, which was but an ordinary one, to keep the wind off. But it become her mightily, as everything else do."

What Pepys thought "n.o.ble" was probably nothing more than the consequence of a habit of doing what she pleased, in spite of appearances. The "hat" is a comment on it, to the same effect.

"December 25th.--Christmas Day.--Had a pleasant walk to White Hall, where I intended to have received the communion with the family, but I come a little too late. So I walked up into the house and spent my time looking over pictures, particularly the s.h.i.+ps in King Henry the VIIIth's Voyage to Bullonn[355], marking the great difference between those built then and now.