to the Queen. The name was, perhaps, imperfectly pronounced, for Catherine at first received her rival without any apparent emotion. Suddenly, however, a bitter consciousness of degradation seemed to flash across her mind; the colour went from her cheek, and she burst into tears. A moment afterwards the blood flowed from her nose, and she fainted. She was carried into another room, and the company retired.

This painful scene, and the disgraceful circumstances which gave rise to it, were much canvassed at the time. It was now evident to the courtiers that it was a contest between the Queen and the favourite sultana; and accordingly the Court waited in anxiety for the result. In addition to the anxiety which he felt to domesticate his beautiful mistress in the royal apartments at Whitehall, Charles had many other motives which induced him to persist in these grievous acts of injustice against his friendless consort. He was alarmed for the reputation of his mistress; he believed his own character for manliness to be at stake; he imagined the world would think he was governed by his wife; and, above all things, he feared the ridicule of his friends. After a short interval, therefore, during which he treated the Queen with all possible kindness, and made use of all those arts which he well knew how to exercise towards women, he again took an opportunitty of reverting to the painful subject. He intimated to her that his honour was at stake: he assured her that his intimacy with her rival had entirely ceased since his marriage; and concluded by solemnly promising her that not only should it never again. oe revived, but that on no occasion whatever should she ever have to reproach him with infidelity. The poor Queen, however, could scarcely hear him to an end all her native jealousy was aroused, and she burst

forth into a fit of uncontrolled agony, even more overpowering than the first.

Charles now applied himself to his Lord Chancellor. He related to him all that had passed between Catherine and himself, and concluded by earnestly desiring him to propitiate the Queen, and to induce her to consent to the discreditable arrangement which he had so much at heart. It was a delicate negotiation, not only for a Lord Chancellor to undertake, but for any man of honour; or indeed for any person possessed even of the commonest feelings of humanity. To Clarendon it must have been especially disagreeable. Not only must it have been a most painful task to persuade a friendless woman and a foreigner to associate with her husband's concubine,— to take advantage of her weakness and ignorance,—to pander for another man,-to have persuasion on his lips, with a lie in his heart,-but, moreover, the Chancellor was unfortunately on the worst terms with Lady Castlemaine. She was at the head of the party who exposed him to daily ridicule; and, indeed, the quarrel had commenced by his forbidding his wife to visit her on account of her indifferent morals. How, therefore, could he conscientiously advise his Queen to associate with an abandoned woman, whom he had himself excluded as a contamination from his own hearth!

Clarendon very honestly and very forcibly laid these objections before the King. He reminded Charles how he himself had formerly blamed a neighbouring monarch, who had been guilty of similar cruelty: he implored him to desist from so dishonourable an act; and, as he himself tells us, expatiated on "the hardheartedness and cruelty in laying such a command upon the Queen, which flesh and blood could not comply with." Charles, though he listened to the Chancellor with

VOL. III.

patience, yet obstinately refused to retract. Clarendon, therefore, should have acted the part of an honest man: it was his bounden duty to have declined to interfere further in the disgraceful negotiation; and, if necessary, he should have thrown up the Chancellor's seals. But no notwithstanding all the canting abhorrence which he professes at the part which he was called upon to play, we find him entering dispassionately on the disgraceful task, and hastening to deceive and mystify the unfortunate and friendless Queen.

There can be no excuse for Lord Clarendon ;—indeed, more cowardly conduct towards an unoffending woman could scarcely have disgraced a man of honour. For Charles, cruel and indefensible as his conduct appears, some slight palliation may be found. He was infatuated with a beautiful woman, who had sacrificed everything for his sake: he was inflamed and hurried on by the passions of youth; he considered his character for manliness at stake, and he was in awe of the ridicule of the world. But these somewhat extenuating circumstances have no application to Lord Clarendon. Moreover, the transaction is not related by his enemies, nor even by an indifferent person, but comprises, in fact, the Chancellor's own deliberate statement of what occurred; apparently intended as a formal apology for his conduct.

During the period that this disgraceful negotiation was continued, three different visits were paid by Clarendon to the Queen. On the first occasion she was so painfully affected at the mere allusion to the subject, that the Chancellor was compelled to withdraw. But his own account of their subsequent interviews affords the most distressing picture of Catherine's wretchedness; a picture, indeed, which might have melted the heart of any other Generally speaking, the Queen was either over

man.

whelmed with grief, or excited to the most furious pitch of jealousy and anger. At other moments she appeared more calm, but at the same time no less decisive and determined. Clarendon's account of these interviews, and of her eloquent appeals to his humanity, is extremely moving. She told him that he was one of the few whom she could call her friends: she spoke pitiably of her defenceless situation, and, though she professed the truest affection towards Charles, and expressed her willingness to submit entirely to his authority in all other matters, yet on the present occasion, she said, she shrank with abhorrence from the gross indignity to which she was threatened to be exposed.

Charles was not naturally of an irritable disposition. So deeply, however, had he the cause of his mistress at heart; so exasperated was he with the Queen's obstinacy, and annoyed by the length to which this miserable domestic negotiation was protracted, that we find him addressing the following extraordinary and indignant appeal to the Chancellor :

"Hampton Court, Thursday morning.

"FOR THE CHANCELLOR,

"I forgot when you were here last to desire you to give Broderick good council not to meddle any more with what concerns my Lady Castlemaine, and to let him have a care how he is the author of any scandalous reports; for if I find him guilty of any such thing, I will make him repent it to the last moment of his life.

"And now I am entered on this matter, I think it very necessary to give you a little good council, lest you may think that by making a farther stir in the business you may divert me from my resolution, which all the world shall never do, and I wish I may be unhappy in this

world, and in the world to come, if I fail in the least degree of what I resolved, which is of making my Lady Castlemaine of my wife's bed-chamber, and whosoever I find endeavouring to hinder this resolution of mine, except it be only to myself, I will be his enemy to the last moment of my life. You know how much a friend I have been to you: if you will oblige me eternally, make this business as easy to me as you can, of what opinion you are of; for I am resolved to go through with this matter, let what will come of it, which again I solemnly swear before Almighty God; wherefore, if you desire to have the continuance of my friendship, meddle no more with this business, except it be to beat down all false and scandalous reports, and to facilitate what I am sure my honour is so much concerned in: and whomsoever I find to be my Lady Castlemaine's enemy in this matter, I do promise upon my word to be his enemy as long as I live. You may show this letter to my Lord Lieutenant, and if you have both a mind to oblige me, carry yourselves like friends to me in this matter. "CHARLES R."

Well may Pepys have observed:-"Strange how the King is bewitched to this pretty Castlemaine!"

In the mean time, Charles had not only altered his demeanour towards his Queen, by treating her with studied coldness and neglect, but he even set her inclinations at open defiance. The mistress was not only lodged in the court, but appeared daily in the presence of the Queen, and in gay and frequent conversation with the King. At these moments, Catherine usually sat alone and unnoticed by the heartless courtiers. At times she could even overhear the insulting and significant whisper; and when, in natural indignation, she arose and retired to