but Defoe asserts, "that the number was, at least, one hundred thousand." The lives of numbers were preserved by means of shipping on the Thames, into which the infection did not reach, except in very few instances. The survivors of the dreadful calamity would have perished of famine, but for the bounty of the affluent. The money subscribed is said to have amounted to one hundred thousand pounds a week, to which Charles the Second humanely gave one thousand pounds weekly. In the parish of Cripplegate alone, the disbursements to the poor amounted to seventeen thousand pounds a week. But even when the poor had obtained the money, they feared to lay it out in provisions, lest they should, by some means, catch the infection. If they bought a joint of meat in the market, they would not receive it from the hand of the butcher, but take it off the hooks themselves; the butcher, equally cautious, would not touch the money, but had it dropped into a pot of vinegar, kept for the purpose. Workmen were equally cautious with their masters, and even members of the same family with each other. To return to the subject of this memoir: Henrietta was relieved, but not cured, by the waters of Bourbon; consumption, and a complication of other maladies, slowly, but fatally undermined her constitution. In August, her situation became such, that the four leading physicians in France attended her. In truth, she was in the last stage of consumption, and a too-powerful dose of opium, administered by order of M. D'Aquin, her physician, sent her into a sleep from which she never again woke. The day before her death, she was more cheerful than usual; after partaking of supper she swallowed the opium draught, went to bed, and fell into a calm sleep. At day-break her attendants approached her bed-side, to administer another draught; she made no reply to their reiterated questions; they touched her, and finding that she moved not, became alarmed, and sent for priests and physicians; when they arrived, she slightly breathed but was quite unconscious, The priests prepared the sacrament of extreme unction, and soon afterwards her gentle respirations ceased, and her soul passed to eternity. She died in her sixty-first year, on the morning of the twenty-first of August, 1669, at her favourite residence of Colombe. Couriers were immediately dispatched, with the fatal tidings, to the relations and friends, and the subsequent night her heart was taken out and presented to her convent at Chaillot; whither her body, after being embalmed, was conveyed, previous to the funeral. The royal corpse lay in state at Chaillot, till the second of September. On the evening of that day, immediately darkness had set in, it was carried in grand funeral procession, by torch-light, to the royal tombs, in the Abbey of St. Denis, and there interred with imposing funeral rites. Twentyeight days afterwards, another magnificent service was performed to the memory of the Queen of Charles the First, by the nuns of Chaillot, at which her bereaved daughter, Henrietta Maria, Duchess of Orleans, took a conspicuous part, and Bossuet delivered the renowned funeral oration, which at once stamped his reputation as one of the greatest orators of his times. The courts of France and of England went into deep mourning for the departed Queen. Charles the Second deeply deplored the loss of his mother, and gave the sisterhood of Chaillot two thousand jacobuses, to erect a chapel for the reception of her heart. Henrietta died intestate, but not in debt. According to the then law of France, Louis the Fourteenth was heir to her effects; but he waived his claim in favour of Charles the Second, and Charles presented all her furniture to the nuns of Chaillot, who, on the tenth of every month, said mass for the repose of her soul. Henrietta left but three surviving children, Charles the Second, James, Duke of York, who, on the death of his brother, ascended the throne of Great Britain, and the beautiful Duchess of Orleans. The Duchess survived her but a few months. She died, suddenly, in June, 1670; some say of poison, and others of cholera. KATHERINE OF BRAGANZA, Queen of Charles the Second. CHAPTER I. Katherine's Birth-Parentage-Education-Income-Suitors-Match proposed between her and Charles the Second-Dower-Charles agrees to the match-Futile opposition of Spain-Charles crowned-Marriage treaty signed-Opposition of Lady Castlemaine-Katherine sails to England-Is married to Charles, who is delighted with her person and manners, but continues his amours with CastlemaineEndeavours to make Castlemaine one of the Queen's ladies-Katherine refuses to accept her-Quarrels with him-Clarendon urges her to comply-Temporary reconciliation-The Queen-mother approves her conduct-Her first state visit to London-Lady Castlemaine thrust upon her-The King and courtiers insult her -She accepts the services of Castlemaine-Royal ball-State of pablic matters. ATHERINE OF |at this time, had the command of the BRAGANZA, the army; and, being seconded in his views well intentioned, by the patriotic spirit of the nation, he but ill-used Queen of hastened to Lisbon, where he caused Charles the Second, himself to be proclaimed King, by the first saw the light at title of John the Fourth. The Spanish the delightful palace guards were attacked and routed, and of Villa Viçosa, in the chief partisans of the government Portugal, on the twenty-fifth of Novem- put to death by the populace. All the ber, 1638, the very day of the year-an principal towns followed the example of auspicious day for Portugal-on which the capital, and shortly afterwards, all her father, John, Duke of Braganza, the foreign settlements. From that era, instigated by the ambition of her mo- the twenty-fifth of November, 1640, ther, Donna Luiza, the daughter of the Portugal became an independent soveDuke of Medina Sidonia, undertook to reignty, after having been for sixty emancipate his bleeding country from years an appanage of Spain. the yoke of tyrannic Spain, or die in the Immediately after John the Fourth attempt. This important revolution had defeated the Spanish forces in 1640, was effected with ease and celerity. Charles the First recognized him as soThe people were disgusted with the ri-vereign of Portugal, a service refused gorous and impolitic administration of to him by the Pope, and by all the Olivarez. Duke John was a descendant Catholic courts of Europe, excepting of the ancient Kings of Portugal; he, France, and which emboldened him to she met her other attendants, who had escaped by stratagem out of Exeter; the whole party then proceeded to Pendennis castle, and the next day embarked for France. Meanwhile, Charles, aware of the danger of his "beloved wife," courageously fought his way to Exeter. He entered that city only a few days after Henrietta had sailed, took the little Princess, which the ill-starred Queen had, on her flight, left to the care of Lady Mortimer, and fondly kissing her, blessed her, and had her baptized Henrietta-Maria. The Queen encountered many perils before she reached France. A parliamentary cruiser, commanded by Captain Batte, chased the vessel in which she embarked, fired at it, and disabled it, when Henrietta hastened on deck, took the command into her own hands, and with the false courage of an heroine of ancient Rome, charged the captain not to strike, but in the event of it being impossible to hold out any longer, to fire the powder magazine and blow them all up in the face of the foe. However, at the moment when all on board, save the Queen, gave themselves over for lost, six vessels hastened to their protection, out of the harbour of Dieppe, and forced the foe to make a hasty retreat. They then made for Dieppe, and were about entering the haven, when a storm arose and drove them to Chastel, near Brest, in Brittany, where having with difficulty effected a landing, they traversed the rocky coast on foot, till they disco of the Royalists. When the powerful parliamentary forces approached that city in hostile array, Charles escorted "his wife," as he emphatically called his beloved Henrietta, to Abingdon, for safety. They parted in tears on the third of April, 1644, and never again met on earth. The prospect before the Queen was gloomy and forbidding; and, to add to her bodily sufferings, she was far advanced in pregnancy, and suffering from the torments of a rheumatic fever. To cure this malady she went to Bath; but in a brief time, circumstances forced her, ill as she was, to seek refuge at Bedford House, in the loyal city of Exeter. Here, in poverty, and in daily expectation that the city would be besieged, she wrote to the King's physician, Dr. Mayerne, earnestly requesting his professional aid; and about the same time, Charles wrote, "Mayerne, For the love of me, go to my wife." The faithful physician, although he deemed her Majesty's religion the chief cause of the troubles in England, hastened to her presence; and about a fortnight afterwards she brought a healthy daughter into the world, at Bedford House, Exeter, on the sixteenth of June. This event had taken place but a few days, when Essex, at the head of hostile forces, advanced to besiege the city; Henrietta, in alarm, sent to him for a passport to go to Bath or Bristol for the recovery of her health; but he insultingly answered, he intended himself to conduct her to London, where she had been impeached of high treason, for levelling war upon England. Delivered a rude village, when the fatigued cate as she yet was from the effects of her confinement, she summoned all her energy and resolution, and in the dead of that same night rose from her sick bed, disguised herself, and with her confessor, and a lady and a gentleman, escaped to a hut, three miles out of Exeter, where she lay without food, under a heap of rubbish, for two days, whilst the revolutionary soldiers vainly searched around for her; fifty thousand crowns having been offered by the Parliament for her head. This peril passed, she and her three companions in adversity travelled to a poor cottage, in a wood, between Exeter and Plymouth, where Queen entered a poor fisherman's cabin, and thankfully reposed on a bed of straw. The poor Bretons took her and the people for pirates, but when she made known to them who she really was, the neighbouring gentry thronged to her, offered her their hearty congratulations, and, what was then infinitely more valuable to her, all the assistance in their power, and through their kindness she proceeded to the springs of Bourbon, in search of health and repose. The air and waters of her native land proved only slightly efficacious; indeed, severe mental and bodily trials had destroyed the vigour of her constitution; she was wasted to a skeleton, her beauty was for ever gone, I came so alarmingly ill, that her life was and she bewailed her husband's misfor- despaired of. Charles therefore adtunes and the bereavement of her child- dressed his letters to her confidential ren with such severe and heart-piercing secretary, Lord Jermyn, and requested lamentations and tears, that a return of him, whilst the Queen remained too unthe buoyancy and vigour of youth was well to read the correspondence herself, quite impossible. Her sister-in-law, to impart to her only such portions of Anne of Austria, liberally supplied her it as would be likely to cheer, and not with money for her expenditure;_and trouble her: "Indeed," says the true like a true wife, the affectionate Hen- and tender King, "act with such disrietta exercised a liberal parsimony, and cretion in the matter, that her health, sent every penny she could obtain or in the first case, be cared for, and my save to her distressed husband. Some affairs afterwards." During the summer, authors affirm that Lord Jermyn, who the Queen was restored to convalesretained his post in the Queen's house- cence. The subjoined letter shows the hold through all the reverse of her for- interest she continued to take in her tune, maintained her when in exile. husband's affairs. "This," says Madam de Motteville, "is an error, for she had a large income settled upon her by her generous relations, which she regularly received till the civil war of the Fronde reduced those relatives to the same distressed condition with herself." When Henrietta was sufficiently recovered to leave the baths of Bourbon, she was formally invited to court, and conducted thither in state by the Duke of Orleans and Mademoiselle de Montpensier, in August, 1644. The Queenmother and her son welcomed her to the Louvre in person, and appointed St. Germains for her country seat. To this ancient château she retired in the autumn; and she was honoured with all the respect and deference due to a Princess of France. In gratitude to Heaven for her preservation from shipwreck, she, in September, presented to the chapel of our lady at Liesse one thousand five hundred livres, for a low mass to be said for her on every Saturday in perpetuity. She now made it at once her business and her pleasure to correspond with the King, and form around her a little court of his exiled partizans. Amongst these, were the literary stars, Denham, Cowley, and Waller. The latter was appointed to translate the letters which the royal pair addressed to each other in cypher; and so numerous and lengthy were these affectionate epistles, that for years it fully occupied his time by day, and not unfrequently encroached upon his nights. In the spring of 1645, Henrietta be Queen Henrietta "DEAR HEART, King Charles. "I understand that the commissioners are arrived in London. I have nothing to say, but that you have a care of your honour, and that if you have a peace, it may be such as may hold, and if it fall out otherwise, that you do not abandon those who have served you, for fear they do forsake you in their need; also, I do not see how you can be in safety without a regiment of guards. For myself, I think I cannot be, seeing the malice which they have against me and my religion, of which I hope you will have a care of both; but, in my opinion, religion should be the last thing upon which you should treat for: if you do agree upon strictness against the Catholics, it would discourage them to save you; and if, afterwards, there should be no peace, you could never expect succour, either from Ireland or any Catholic Prince, for they would believe you would abandon them after you had served yourself." On the seventeenth of January, 1645, the anxious Henrietta wrote to her struggling husband as follows: "MY DEAR HEART, "Tom Elliot, two days since, hath brought me much joy and sorrow; the first to know the good estate in which you are, the other, the fear I have that you go to London. I cannot conceive |