supported the project with all his weight. Accordingly, when the Queen afterwards disappointed the country in its hopes of an heir, Clarendon, as is well known, was accused of having been in the secret of her being physically incapable of becoming a mother; and consequently of having recommended her to the King as an eligible consort, in hopes of ensuring the succession to the throne of his own grandchildren, the offspring of the Duchess of York. That Catherine, however, was enceinte, at least on two different occasions, there cannot be the slightest question. The first time was in 1666, and is mentioned both by Clarendon and Pepys. The second occasion occurred in 1669. On the 1st of June in that year, Lord Arlington writes to Sir William Temple,-"I cannot end this letter without telling you that the Queen is very well, and gives us every day cause to rejoice more and more, in the hopes of her being with child." But their expectations were destined to be frustrated; King James informing us in his Memoirs, that she miscarried in the commencement of the very month in which Lord Arlington writes. "Buckingham," he says, "attempted to deny it, and spread a report that she was incapable of bearing children." Pepys incidentally mentions that she miscarried on both occasions. To give birth to a child;-to beguile her dreary grandeur by sharing the joys and solicitudes of a mother's love; to become of importance in the eyes of her husband and of his subjects by presenting them with an heir to the throne,-appears to have been the one secret but vainly-cherished hope of the unfortunate Catherine. Accordingly, during a dangerous illness, by which she was attacked in the month of October, 1663, we find her thoughts centering in this all-engrossing subject, and her wandering mind impressed with the notion that heaven at last had listened to her prayers. Among other morbid fancies to which she gave language in her delirium, she expressed her wonder that she should have been delivered without pain, and seemed to have been especially distressed at the imaginary ugliness of her offspring. Charles, who was standing by, insisted, with a view of soothing her, that it was a very pretty boy. "Ah!" she replied, "if it were like you it would be a fine boy indeed, and I should be well pleased." The compliments which she had so often heard paid to the extraordinary beauty of the King's natural son, the Duke of Monmouth, had probably made a painful impression on her mind. Charles, who by nature was far from being of an unfeeling disposition, is said to have been deeply affected as she grew worse, and even to have wept over his injured wife. Waller, in his verses to the Queen on her recovery, alludes to the unexpected sympathy of her husband in the following pleasing lines: "He that was never known to mourn, So many kingdoms from him torn, His tears reserved for you: more dear, More prized than all those kingdoms were. When cordials and elixirs failed, On your pale cheek he dropped the shower, The Count de Comminges, the French Ambassador, in his despatches to his own Court, describes Charles as apparently "fort affligé,"* and Pepys observes: "The King is most fondly disconsolate, and weeps by her, which makes her weep." During her sickness, and in the belief that her days * Pepys' Diary, vol. v. p. 433. were numbered, the Queen affectionately appealed to her husband's feelings, imploring him to give his support to her native country in its contest with Spain, and, when she should be no more, to allow her body to be interred among her own relatives and in her own land. Charles, at this moment, is said to have fallen on his knees, and, bathing his wife's hands with his tears, to have begged her to "live for his sake."* Notwithstanding his affliction, however, he persisted in his course of libertinism, and, during the Queen's illness, his toyings with Frances Stewart, and his suppers in the apartments of the Duchess of Cleveland, appear to have been nightly continued.† In 1679, Titus Oates, one of the most consummate scoundrels that ever disgraced humanity, not only endeavoured to implicate the unoffending Queen as having been an accessory to the famous Popish Plot, but actually accused. her of being engaged in a conspiracy to poison Charles. He even affirmed before the Privy Council that he had overheard her plotting on the subject at Somerset House; but, subsequently, being conducted thither in order to point out the spot from whence he had listened to the conversation, his evident ignorance of the locality afforded the clearest proof of the Queen's innocence. According to the Stuart Papers, Oates "directed them first to the guard-room, then to the privy-chamber, out of which he said he went up a pair of back stairs into a great room; but unfortunately for him, there was neither any such stairs thereabout, nor any large room in that story." Many years afterwards, when Catherine was on her death-bed at Lisbon, she assured an English physician who attended *Letter from Lord Arlington to the Duke of Ormond, in Brown's Miscellanea Aulica. Letter from the Count de Comminges to Louis XIV.-Pepys, vol. v. p. 433. her, that she had on no occasion intrigued for the restoration of Popery in England; adding, that she had never desired nor demanded any greater favour for those of her own religion, than what was secured by the marriage articles.* Catherine, notwithstanding the neglect and repeated adulteries of her libertine husband, appears to have maintained a strong affection for him to the last. We have evidence that she was deeply affected by his death. She received the addresses of condolence, in an apartment lighted with tapers, and covered with black even to the foot-cloth. From this period she resided principally either at Somerset House or Hammersmith. She was fond of music, and in London had regular concerts, though in other respects she lived in great privacy. Catherine was residing in England during the whole of the Revolution of 1688, but, with the exception of the arrest of her chamberlain, Lord Feversham,† for his adherence to the cause of James, she escaped without annoyance or inquiry. William the Third paid her an early visit after his arrival in London, and subsequently treated her with civility if not with marked kindness. Among other questions, he inquired of her how she employed her time, and whether she continued to play her favourite game of basset? Catherine, very good-naturedly, put in a word for Lord Feversham. "She had not played the game," she said, "since the absence of her chamberlain, who * Oldmixon; History of the Stuarts, p. 618. Louis Duras, Marquess of Blanquefort in France, was naturalised in England, by Act of Parliament, in 1665; created Baron Duras of Holdenby 19th January 1672, and Earl of Feversham 8th April 1676. He was a nephew of Marshal Turenne, and commanded the royal forces at the battle of Sedgemoor. From his intimacy with the Queen-dowager, and having the management of her affairs, he was commonly called the "King-dowager." He died in 1709. used to keep the bank." * William took the hint, and, assuring her that he would by no means interrupt her Majesty's diversions, ordered Feversham to be released on the following day. In a letter dated 31st July, 1688, "The Queen-dowager," says the writer, "begins to be weary of the town, and would have a good country-house to pass some time of the summer in: her Majesty is said to have a mind to go to Chatsworth, the Earl of Devon's, or else will lay out a sum to build her one of her own." In a letter dated in August following, Knowle is mentioned as the probable scene of her retirement, ‡ and again on the 8th of September, 1688, she is spoken of as thinking of going to live retiredly, and to receive no visits but from the Royal family." § In Oldys' MS. Notes to Langbaine, there is a curious picture of Catherine's person, as she appeared towards the close of her life. "The Lady Viscountess de Longueville (grandmother to the Earl of Sussex), who died in 1763 near one hundred, was a living chronicle, and retained the most perfect memory to the very last. She was daughter of Sir John Talbot, and had been Maid of Honour to Queen Anne, when Princess of Denmark, before the Revolution. She was wont to tell many anecdotes of Queen Catherine, whom she described as a little ungraceful woman, so short-legged, that when * Horace Walpole writes to Sir Horace Mann, 14th July, 1748 :"I truly and seriously this winter won and was paid a mille-leva at pharoah; literally received a thousand and twenty-three sixpences for one: an event that never happened in the annals of pharoah, but to Charles the Second's Queen-dowager: ever since I have treated myself as Queen-dowager, and have some thoughts of being drawn so.' Walpole's Letters, vol. ii. p. 226. Ed. 1840. Echard, vol. iii. p. 947. Ellis's Correspondence, vol. ii. pp. 85 and 129. § Ellis's Original Letters, vol. iv. p. 123, 2nd Series. |