As soon as the news of her elevation got abroad, the whole palace was in an uproar. The warm blood of Italy boiled in the veins of the queen. Proud of her youth and of her charms, of her high rank and of her stainless chastity, she could not, without agonies of grief and rage, see herself deserted and insulted for such a rival. Rochester, perhaps remembering how patiently, after a short struggle, Catharine of Braganza had consented to treat the mistresses of Charles with politeness, had expected that, after a little complaining and pouting, Mary of Modena would be equally submissive. It was not so. She did not even attempt to conceal from the eyes of the world the violence of her emotions. Day after day, the courtiers who came to see her dine observed that the dishes were removed untasted from the table. She suffered the tears to stream down her cheeks unconcealed in the presence of the whole circle of courtiers and envoys. To the king she spoke with wild vehemence. "Let me go," she cried. "You have made your woman a countess: make her a queen! Put my crown on her head! Only let me hide myself in some convent, where I may never see her more." Then, more soberly, she asked him how he reconciled his conduct to his religious professions. "You are ready," she said, "to put your kingdom to hazard for the sake of your soul, and yet you are throwing away your soul for the sake of that creature." Father Petre, on bended knees, seconded these remonstrances. his duty to do so; and his duty was not the less strenuously performed because it coincided with his interest. The king went on for a time sinning and repenting. In his hours of remorse his penances were severe. Mary treasured up to the end of her life, and at her death bequeathed to the convent of Chaillot, the scourge with which he had vigorously avenged her wrongs upon his own shoulders. Nothing but Catharine's absence could put an end to this struggle between an ignoble love and an ignoble superstition. James wrote, imploring and commanding her to depart. He owned that he had promised to bid her fare It was well in person. "But I know too well," he added, "the power which you have over me. I have not strength of mind enough to keep my resolution if I see you." He offered her a yacht to convey her with all dignity to Flanders, and threatened that if she did not go quietly she should be sent away by force. She at one time worked on his feelings by pretending to be ill. Then she assumed the airs of a martyr, and impudently proclaimed herself a sufferer for the Protestant religion. Then again she adopted the style of John Hampden. She defied the king to remove her. She would try the right with him. While the Great Charter and the Habeas Corpus Act were the law of the land, she would live where she pleased. "And Flanders," she cried; "never! I have learned one thing from my friend the Duchess of Mazarin, and that is, never to trust myself in a country where there are convents." At length she selected Ireland as the place of her exile, probably because the brother of her patron Rochester was viceroy there. After many delays she departed, leaving the victory to the queen.* The history of this extraordinary intrigue would be imperfect if it were not added that there is still extant a religious meditation, written by the treasurer, with his own hand, on the very same day on which the intelligence of his attempt to govern his master by means of a concubine was dispatched by Bonrepaux to Versailles. No composition of Ken or Leighton breathes a spirit of more fervent and exalted piety than this effusion. Hypocrisy can not be suspected, for the paper was evidently meant only for the writer's own eye, and was not published till he had 19 The chief materials for the history of this intrigue are the dispatches of Barillon and Bonrepaux at the beginning of the year 1686. See Barillon, Jan. 25, Jan. 28, Feb., Feb., Feb. 1, and Bonrepaux under the first four dates; Evelyn's Diary, Jan. 19; Reresby's Memoirs; Burnet, i., 682; Sheridan MS.; Chaillot MS.; Adda's Dispatches, and Feb. 4' Feb. 7 pious, but weak and ignorant man. James's past life. Jan. 22 Jan. 29 1686. Adda writes like a He appears to have known nothing of been more than a century in his grave.* So much is history stranger than fiction, and so true is it that Nature has caprices which Art dares not imitate. A dramatist would scarcely venture to bring on the stage a grave prince, in the decline of life, ready to sacrifice his crown in order to serve the interests of his religion, indefatigable in making proselytes, and yet deserting and insulting a wife who had youth and beauty for the sake of a profligate paramour who had neither. Still less, if possible, would a dramatist venture to introduce a statesman stooping to the wicked and shameful part of a procurer, and calling in his wife to aid him in that dishonorable office, yet, in his moments of leisure, retiring to his closet, and there secretly pouring out his soul to his God in penitent tears and devout ejaculations. The treasurer soon found that, in using scandalous means for the purpose of attaining a laudable end, he had committed, not only a crime, but a folly. The queen was now his enemy. She affected, indeed, to listen with civility while the Hydes excused their recent conduct as well as they could, and she occasionally pretended to use her influence in their favor, but she must have been more or less than woman if she had really forgiven the conspiracy which had been formed against her dignity and her domestic happiness by the family of her husband's first wife. The Jesuits strongly represented to the king the danger which he had so narrowly escaped. His reputation, they # Jan. 25 The meditation bears date 1685. Bonrepaux, in his dispatch of the same day, says, "L'intrigue avoit été conduite par Milord Rochester et sa femme.... Leur projet étoit de faire gouverner le Roy d'Angleterre par la nouvelle comtesse. Ils s'étoient assurés d'elle." While Bonrepaux was writing thus, Rochester was writing as follows: "O God, teach me so to number my days that I may apply my heart unto wisdom. Teach me to number the days that I have spent in vanity and idleness, and teach me to number those that I have spent in sin and wickedness. O God, teach me to number the days of my affliction too, and to give thanks for all that is come to me from thy hand. Teach me likewise to number the days of this world's greatness, of which I have so great a share; and teach me to look upon them as vanity and vexation of spirit." said, his peace, his soul, had been put in peril by the machinations of his prime minister. The nuncio, who would gladly have counteracted the influence of the violent party, and co-operated with the moderate members of the cabinet, could not honestly or decently separate himself on this occasion from Father Petre. James himself, when parted by the sea from the charms which had so strongly fascinated him, could not but regard with resentment and contempt those who had sought to govern him by means of his vices. What had passed must have had the effect of raising his own Church in his esteem, and of lowering the Church of England. The Jesuits, whom it was the fashion to represent as the most unsafe of spiritual guides, as sophists who refined away the whole system of evangelical morality, as sycophants who owed their influence chiefly to the indulgence with which they treated the sins of the great, had reclaimed him from a life of guilt by rebukes as sharp and bold as those which David had heard from Nathan and Herod from the Baptist. On the other hand, zealous Protestants, whose favorite theme was the laxity of popish casuists, and the wickedness of doing evil that good might come, had attempted to obtain advantages for their own Church in a way which all Christians regarded as highly criminal. The victory of the cabal of evil counselors was therefore complete. The king looked coldly on Rochester. The courtiers and foreign ministers soon perceived that the lord treasurer was prime minister only in name. He continued to offer his advice daily, and had the mortification to find it daily rejected; yet he could not prevail on himself to relinquish the outward show of power, and the emoluments which he directly and indirectly derived from his great place. He did his best, therefore, to conceal his vexations from the public eye; but his violent passions and his intemperate habits disqualified him for the part of a dissembler. His gloomy looks when he came out of the council chamber showed how little he was pleased with what had passed at the board; and, when the bottle had gone round freely, words escaped him which betrayed his un easiness.* He might, indeed, well be uneasy. Indiscreet and unpopular measures followed each other in rapid succession. All thought of returning to the policy of the Triple Alliance was abandoned. The king explicitly avowed to the ministers of those Continental powers with which he had lately intended to ally himself, that all his views had undergone a change, and that England was still to be, as she had been under his grandfather, his father, and his brother, of no account in Europe. "I am in no condition," he said to the Spanish embassador, "to trouble myself about what passes abroad. It is my resolution to let foreign affairs take their course, to establish my authority at home, and to do something for my religion." A few days later he announced the same intentions to the StatesGeneral. From that time to the close of his ignominious reign, he made no serious effort to escape from vassalage, though, to the last, he could never hear, without transports of rage, that men called him a vassal. The two events which proved to the public that Sunderland and Sunderland's party were victorious were the prorogation of the Parliament from February to May, and the departure of Castlemaine for Rome with the appointments of an embassador of the highest rank.‡ Hitherto all the business of the English government at the papal court had been transacted by John Caryll. This gentleman was known to his cotemporaries as a man of fortune and fashion, and as the author of two successful plays a tragedy in rhyme, which had been made popular by the action and recitation of Betterton, and a comedy, which owes all its value to scenes borrowed from Mo "Je vis Milord Rochester comme il sortoit du conseil fort chagrin; et, sur la fin du souper, il lui en échappa quelque chose."-Bonrepaux, Feb. 18 1686. See, also, Barillon, March 281 London Gazette, Feb. 11, 168; Luttrell's Diary, Feb. 8; Leeuwen, Feb. |