SECOND PART
That the Merry Monarch might be very merry indeed, in the merry timeswhen his people were suffering under pestilence and fire, he drank andgambled and flung away among his favourites the money which theParliament had voted for the war. The consequence of this was that thestout-hearted English sailors were merrily starving of want, and dying inthe streets; while the Dutch, under their admirals DE WITT and DE RUYTER,came into the River Thames, and up the River Medway as far as Upnor,burned the guard-ships, silenced the weak batteries, and did what theywould to the English coast for six whole weeks. Most of the Englishships that could have prevented them had neither powder nor shot onboard; in this merry reign, public officers made themselves as merry asthe King did with the public money; and when it was entrusted to them tospend in national defences or preparations, they put it into their ownpockets with the merriest grace in the world.
Lord Clarendon had, by this time, run as long a course as is usuallyallotted to the unscrupulous ministers of bad kings. He was impeached byhis political opponents, but unsuccessfully. The King then commanded himto withdraw from England and retire to France, which he did, afterdefending himself in writing. He was no great loss at home, and diedabroad some seven years afterwards.
There then came into power a ministry called the Cabal Ministry, becauseit was composed of LORD CLIFFORD, the EARL OF ARLINGTON, the DUKE OFBUCKINGHAM (a great rascal, and the King's most powerful favourite), LORDASHLEY, and the DUKE OF LAUDERDALE, C. A. B. A. L. As the French weremaking conquests in Flanders, the first Cabal proceeding was to make atreaty with the Dutch, for uniting with Spain to oppose the French. Itwas no sooner made than the Merry Monarch, who always wanted to get moneywithout being accountable to a Parliament for his expenditure, apologisedto the King of France for having had anything to do with it, andconcluded a secret treaty with him, making himself his infamous pensionerto the amount of two millions of livres down, and three millions more ayear; and engaging to desert that very Spain, to make war against thosevery Dutch, and to declare himself a Catholic when a convenient timeshould arrive. This religious king had lately been crying to hisCatholic brother on the subject of his strong desire to be a Catholic;and now he merrily concluded this treasonable conspiracy against thecountry he governed, by undertaking to become one as soon as he safelycould. For all of which, though he had had ten merry heads instead ofone, he richly deserved to lose them by the headsman's axe.
As his one merry head might have been far from safe, if these things hadbeen known, they were kept very quiet, and war was declared by France andEngland against the Dutch. But, a very uncommon man, afterwards mostimportant to English history and to the religion and liberty of thisland, arose among them, and for many long years defeated the wholeprojects of France. This was WILLIAM OF NASSAU, PRINCE OF ORANGE, son ofthe last Prince of Orange of the same name, who married the daughter ofCharles the First of England. He was a young man at this time, only justof age; but he was brave, cool, intrepid, and wise. His father had beenso detested that, upon his death, the Dutch had abolished the authorityto which this son would have otherwise succeeded (Stadtholder it wascalled), and placed the chief power in the hands of JOHN DE WITT, whoeducated this young prince. Now, the Prince became very popular, andJohn de Witt's brother CORNELIUS was sentenced to banishment on a falseaccusation of conspiring to kill him. John went to the prison where hewas, to take him away to exile, in his coach; and a great mob whocollected on the occasion, then and there cruelly murdered both thebrothers. This left the government in the hands of the Prince, who wasreally the choice of the nation; and from this time he exercised it withthe greatest vigour, against the whole power of France, under its famousgenerals CONDE and TURENNE, and in support of the Protestant religion. Itwas full seven years before this war ended in a treaty of peace made atNimeguen, and its details would occupy a very considerable space. It isenough to say that William of Orange established a famous character withthe whole world; and that the Merry Monarch, adding to and improving onhis former baseness, bound himself to do everything the King of Franceliked, and nothing the King of France did not like, for a pension of onehundred thousand pounds a year, which was afterwards doubled. Besidesthis, the King of France, by means of his corrupt ambassador--who wroteaccounts of his proceedings in England, which are not always to bebelieved, I think--bought our English members of Parliament, as he wantedthem. So, in point of fact, during a considerable portion of this merryreign, the King of France was the real King of this country.
But there was a better time to come, and it was to come (though his royaluncle little thought so) through that very William, Prince of Orange. Hecame over to England, saw Mary, the elder daughter of the Duke of York,and married her. We shall see by-and-by what came of that marriage, andwhy it is never to be forgotten.
This daughter was a Protestant, but her mother died a Catholic. She andher sister ANNE, also a Protestant, were the only survivors of eightchildren. Anne afterwards married GEORGE, PRINCE OF DENMARK, brother tothe King of that country.
Lest you should do the Merry Monarch the injustice of supposing that hewas even good humoured (except when he had everything his own way), orthat he was high spirited and honourable, I will mention here what wasdone to a member of the House of Commons, SIR JOHN COVENTRY. He made aremark in a debate about taxing the theatres, which gave the Kingoffence. The King agreed with his illegitimate son, who had been bornabroad, and whom he had made DUKE OF MONMOUTH, to take the followingmerry vengeance. To waylay him at night, fifteen armed men to one, andto slit his nose with a penknife. Like master, like man. The King'sfavourite, the Duke of Buckingham, was strongly suspected of setting onan assassin to murder the DUKE OF ORMOND as he was returning home from adinner; and that Duke's spirited son, LORD OSSORY, was so persuaded ofhis guilt, that he said to him at Court, even as he stood beside theKing, 'My lord, I know very well that you are at the bottom of this lateattempt upon my father. But I give you warning, if he ever come to aviolent end, his blood shall be upon you, and wherever I meet you I willpistol you! I will do so, though I find you standing behind the King'schair; and I tell you this in his Majesty's presence, that you may bequite sure of my doing what I threaten.' Those were merry times indeed.
There was a fellow named BLOOD, who was seized for making, with twocompanions, an audacious attempt to steal the crown, the globe, andsceptre, from the place where the jewels were kept in the Tower. Thisrobber, who was a swaggering ruffian, being taken, declared that he wasthe man who had endeavoured to kill the Duke of Ormond, and that he hadmeant to kill the King too, but was overawed by the majesty of hisappearance, when he might otherwise have done it, as he was bathing atBattersea. The King being but an ill-looking fellow, I don't believe aword of this. Whether he was flattered, or whether he knew thatBuckingham had really set Blood on to murder the Duke, is uncertain. Butit is quite certain that he pardoned this thief, gave him an estate offive hundred a year in Ireland (which had had the honour of giving himbirth), and presented him at Court to the debauched lords and theshameless ladies, who made a great deal of him--as I have no doubt theywould have made of the Devil himself, if the King had introduced him.
Infamously pensioned as he was, the King still wanted money, andconsequently was obliged to call Parliaments. In these, the great objectof the Protestants was to thwart the Catholic Duke of York, who married asecond time; his new wife being a young lady only fifteen years old, theCatholic sister of the DUKE OF MODENA. In this they were seconded by theProtestant Dissenters, though to their own disadvantage: since, toexclude Catholics from power, they were even willing to excludethemselves. The King's object was to pretend to be a Protestant, whilehe was really a Catholic; to swear to the bishops that he was devoutlyattached to the English Church, while he knew he had bargained it away tothe King of France; and by cheating and deceiving them, and all who wereattached to royalty, to become despotic and be powerful enough to confesswhat a rascal he was. Meantime, the King of France, knowing his merrypensioner well, intrigued with the King's opponents in Parliament, aswell as with the King and his friends.
The fears that the country had of the Catholic religion being restored,if the Duke of York should come to the throne, and the low cunning of theKing in pretending to share their alarms, led to some very terribleresults. A certain DR. TONGE, a dull clergyman in the City, fell intothe hands of a certain TITUS OATES, a most infamous character, whopretended to have acquired among the Jesuits abroad a knowledge of agreat plot for the murder of the King, and the re-establishment if theCatholic religion. Titus Oates, being produced by this unlucky Dr. Tongeand solemnly examined before the council, contradicted himself in athousand ways, told the most ridiculous and improbable stories, andimplicated COLEMAN, the Secretary of the Duchess of York. Now, althoughwhat he charged against Coleman was not true, and although you and I knowvery well that the real dangerous Catholic plot was that one with theKing of France of which the Merry Monarch was himself the head, therehappened to be found among Coleman's papers, some letters, in which hedid praise the days of Bloody Queen Mary, and abuse the Protestantreligion. This was great good fortune for Titus, as it seemed to confirmhim; but better still was in store. SIR EDMUNDBURY GODFREY, themagistrate who had first examined him, being unexpectedly found dead nearPrimrose Hill, was confidently believed to have been killed by theCatholics. I think there is no doubt that he had been melancholy mad,and that he killed himself; but he had a great Protestant funeral, andTitus was called the Saver of the Nation, and received a pension oftwelve hundred pounds a year.
As soon as Oates's wickedness had met with this success, up startedanother villain, named WILLIAM BEDLOE, who, attracted by a reward of fivehundred pounds offered for the apprehension of the murderers of Godfrey,came forward and charged two Jesuits and some other persons with havingcommitted it at the Queen's desire. Oates, going into partnership withthis new informer, had the audacity to accuse the poor Queen herself ofhigh treason. Then appeared a third informer, as bad as either of thetwo, and accused a Catholic banker named STAYLEY of having said that theKing was the greatest rogue in the world (which would not have been farfrom the truth), and that he would kill him with his own hand. Thisbanker, being at once tried and executed, Coleman and two others weretried and executed. Then, a miserable wretch named PRANCE, a Catholicsilversmith, being accused by Bedloe, was tortured into confessing thathe had taken part in Godfrey's murder, and into accusing three other menof having committed it. Then, five Jesuits were accused by Oates,Bedloe, and Prance together, and were all found guilty, and executed onthe same kind of contradictory and absurd evidence. The Queen'sphysician and three monks were next put on their trial; but Oates andBedloe had for the time gone far enough and these four were acquitted.The public mind, however, was so full of a Catholic plot, and so strongagainst the Duke of York, that James consented to obey a written orderfrom his brother, and to go with his family to Brussels, provided thathis rights should never be sacrificed in his absence to the Duke ofMonmouth. The House of Commons, not satisfied with this as the Kinghoped, passed a bill to exclude the Duke from ever succeeding to thethrone. In return, the King dissolved the Parliament. He had desertedhis old favourite, the Duke of Buckingham, who was now in the opposition.
To give any sufficient idea of the miseries of Scotland in this merryreign, would occupy a hundred pages. Because the people would not havebishops, and were resolved to stand by their solemn League and Covenant,such cruelties were inflicted upon them as make the blood run cold.Ferocious dragoons galloped through the country to punish the peasantsfor deserting the churches; sons were hanged up at their fathers' doorsfor refusing to disclose where their fathers were concealed; wives weretortured to death for not betraying their husbands; people were taken outof their fields and gardens, and shot on the public roads without trial;lighted matches were tied to the fingers of prisoners, and a mosthorrible torment called the Boot was invented, and constantly applied,which ground and mashed the victims' legs with iron wedges. Witnesseswere tortured as well as prisoners. All the prisons were full; all thegibbets were heavy with bodies; murder and plunder devastated the wholecountry. In spite of all, the Covenanters were by no means to be draggedinto the churches, and persisted in worshipping God as they thoughtright. A body of ferocious Highlanders, turned upon them from themountains of their own country, had no greater effect than the Englishdragoons under GRAHAME OF CLAVERHOUSE, the most cruel and rapacious ofall their enemies, whose name will ever be cursed through the length andbreadth of Scotland. Archbishop Sharp had ever aided and abetted allthese outrages. But he fell at last; for, when the injuries of theScottish people were at their height, he was seen, in his coach-and-sixcoming across a moor, by a body of men, headed by one JOHN BALFOUR, whowere waiting for another of their oppressors. Upon this they cried outthat Heaven had delivered him into their hands, and killed him with manywounds. If ever a man deserved such a death, I think Archbishop Sharpdid.
It made a great noise directly, and the Merry Monarch--strongly suspectedof having goaded the Scottish people on, that he might have an excuse fora greater army than the Parliament were willing to give him--sent downhis son, the Duke of Monmouth, as commander-in-chief, with instructionsto attack the Scottish rebels, or Whigs as they were called, whenever hecame up with them. Marching with ten thousand men from Edinburgh, hefound them, in number four or five thousand, drawn up at Bothwell Bridge,by the Clyde. They were soon dispersed; and Monmouth showed a morehumane character towards them, than he had shown towards that Member ofParliament whose nose he had caused to be slit with a penknife. But theDuke of Lauderdale was their bitter foe, and sent Claverhouse to finishthem.
As the Duke of York became more and more unpopular, the Duke of Monmouthbecame more and more popular. It would have been decent in the latternot to have voted in favour of the renewed bill for the exclusion ofJames from the throne; but he did so, much to the King's amusement, whoused to sit in the House of Lords by the fire, hearing the debates, whichhe said were as good as a play. The House of Commons passed the bill bya large majority, and it was carried up to the House of Lords by LORDRUSSELL, one of the best of the leaders on the Protestant side. It wasrejected there, chiefly because the bishops helped the King to get rid ofit; and the fear of Catholic plots revived again. There had been anothergot up, by a fellow out of Newgate, named DANGERFIELD, which is morefamous than it deserves to be, under the name of the MEAL-TUB PLOT. Thisjail-bird having been got out of Newgate by a MRS. CELLIER, a Catholicnurse, had turned Catholic himself, and pretended that he knew of a plotamong the Presbyterians against the King's life. This was very pleasantto the Duke of York, who hated the Presbyterians, who returned thecompliment. He gave Dangerfield twenty guineas, and sent him to the Kinghis brother. But Dangerfield, breaking down altogether in his charge,and being sent back to Newgate, almost astonished the Duke out of hisfive senses by suddenly swearing that the Catholic nurse had put thatfalse design into his head, and that what he really knew about, was, aCatholic plot against the King; the evidence of which would be found insome papers, concealed in a meal-tub in Mrs. Cellier's house. There theywere, of course--for he had put them there himself--and so the tub gavethe name to the plot. But, the nurse was acquitted on her trial, and itcame to nothing.
Lord Ashley, of the Cabal, was now Lord Shaftesbury, and was strongagainst the succession of the Duke of York. The House of Commons,aggravated to the utmost extent, as we may well suppose, by suspicions ofthe King's conspiracy with the King of France, made a desperate point ofthe exclusion, still, and were bitter against the Catholics generally. Sounjustly bitter were they, I grieve to say, that they impeached thevenerable Lord Stafford, a Catholic nobleman seventy years old, of adesign to kill the King. The witnesses were that atrocious Oates and twoother birds of the same feather. He was found guilty, on evidence quiteas foolish as it was false, and was beheaded on Tower Hill. The peoplewere opposed to him when he first appeared upon the scaffold; but, whenhe had addressed them and shown them how innocent he was and how wickedlyhe was sent there, their better nature was aroused, and they said, 'Webelieve you, my Lord. God bless you, my Lord!'
The House of Commons refused to let the King have any money until heshould consent to the Exclusion Bill; but, as he could get it and did getit from his master the King of France, he could afford to hold them verycheap. He called a Parliament at Oxford, to which he went down with agreat show of being armed and protected as if he were in danger of hislife, and to which the opposition members also went armed and protected,alleging that they were in fear of the Papists, who were numerous amongthe King's guards. However, they went on with the Exclusion Bill, andwere so earnest upon it that they would have carried it again, if theKing had not popped his crown and state robes into a sedan-chair, bundledhimself into it along with them, hurried down to the chamber where theHouse of Lords met, and dissolved the Parliament. After which hescampered home, and the members of Parliament scampered home too, as fastas their legs could carry them.
The Duke of York, then residing in Scotland, had, under the law whichexcluded Catholics from public trust, no right whatever to publicemployment. Nevertheless, he was openly employed as the King'srepresentative in Scotland, and there gratified his sullen and cruelnature to his heart's content by directing the dreadful cruelties againstthe Covenanters. There were two ministers named CARGILL and CAMERON whohad escaped from the battle of Bothwell Bridge, and who returned toScotland, and raised the miserable but still brave and unsubduedCovenanters afresh, under the name of Cameronians. As Cameron publiclyposted a declaration that the King was a forsworn tyrant, no mercy wasshown to his unhappy followers after he was slain in battle. The Duke ofYork, who was particularly fond of the Boot and derived great pleasurefrom having it applied, offered their lives to some of these people, ifthey would cry on the scaffold 'God save the King!' But their relations,friends, and countrymen, had been so barbarously tortured and murdered inthis merry reign, that they preferred to die, and did die. The Duke thenobtained his merry brother's permission to hold a Parliament in Scotland,which first, with most shameless deceit, confirmed the laws for securingthe Protestant religion against Popery, and then declared that nothingmust or should prevent the succession of the Popish Duke. After thisdouble-faced beginning, it established an oath which no human being couldunderstand, but which everybody was to take, as a proof that his religionwas the lawful religion. The Earl of Argyle, taking it with theexplanation that he did not consider it to prevent him from favouring anyalteration either in the Church or State which was not inconsistent withthe Protestant religion or with his loyalty, was tried for high treasonbefore a Scottish jury of which the MARQUIS OF MONTROSE was foreman, andwas found guilty. He escaped the scaffold, for that time, by gettingaway, in the disguise of a page, in the train of his daughter, LADYSOPHIA LINDSAY. It was absolutely proposed, by certain members of theScottish Council, that this lady should be whipped through the streets ofEdinburgh. But this was too much even for the Duke, who had themanliness then (he had very little at most times) to remark thatEnglishmen were not accustomed to treat ladies in that manner. In thosemerry times nothing could equal the brutal servility of the Scottishfawners, but the conduct of similar degraded beings in England.
After the settlement of these little affairs, the Duke returned toEngland, and soon resumed his place at the Council, and his office ofHigh Admiral--all this by his brother's favour, and in open defiance ofthe law. It would have been no loss to the country, if he had beendrowned when his ship, in going to Scotland to fetch his family, struckon a sand-bank, and was lost with two hundred souls on board. But heescaped in a boat with some friends; and the sailors were so brave andunselfish, that, when they saw him rowing away, they gave three cheers,while they themselves were going down for ever.
The Merry Monarch, having got rid of his Parliament, went to work to makehimself despotic, with all speed. Having had the villainy to order theexecution of OLIVER PLUNKET, BISHOP OF ARMAGH, falsely accused of a plotto establish Popery in that country by means of a French army--the verything this royal traitor was himself trying to do at home--and havingtried to ruin Lord Shaftesbury, and failed--he turned his hand tocontrolling the corporations all over the country; because, if he couldonly do that, he could get what juries he chose, to bring in perjuredverdicts, and could get what members he chose returned to Parliament.These merry times produced, and made Chief Justice of the Court of King'sBench, a drunken ruffian of the name of JEFFREYS; a red-faced, swollen,bloated, horrible creature, with a bullying, roaring voice, and a moresavage nature perhaps than was ever lodged in any human breast. Thismonster was the Merry Monarch's especial favourite, and he testified hisadmiration of him by giving him a ring from his own finger, which thepeople used to call Judge Jeffreys's Bloodstone. Him the King employedto go about and bully the corporations, beginning with London; or, asJeffreys himself elegantly called it, 'to give them a lick with the roughside of his tongue.' And he did it so thoroughly, that they soon becamethe basest and most sycophantic bodies in the kingdom--except theUniversity of Oxford, which, in that respect, was quite pre-eminent andunapproachable.
Lord Shaftesbury (who died soon after the King's failure against him),LORD WILLIAM RUSSELL, the Duke of Monmouth, LORD HOWARD, LORD JERSEY,ALGERNON SIDNEY, JOHN HAMPDEN (grandson of the great Hampden), and someothers, used to hold a council together after the dissolution of theParliament, arranging what it might be necessary to do, if the Kingcarried his Popish plot to the utmost height. Lord Shaftesbury havingbeen much the most violent of this party, brought two violent men intotheir secrets--RUMSEY, who had been a soldier in the Republican army; andWEST, a lawyer. These two knew an old officer of CROMWELL'S, calledRUMBOLD, who had married a maltster's widow, and so had come intopossession of a solitary dwelling called the Rye House, near Hoddesdon,in Hertfordshire. Rumbold said to them what a capital place this houseof his would be from which to shoot at the King, who often passed theregoing to and fro from Newmarket. They liked the idea, and entertainedit. But, one of their body gave information; and they, together withSHEPHERD a wine merchant, Lord Russell, Algernon Sidney, LORD ESSEX, LORDHOWARD, and Hampden, were all arrested.
Lord Russell might have easily escaped, but scorned to do so, beinginnocent of any wrong; Lord Essex might have easily escaped, but scornedto do so, lest his flight should prejudice Lord Russell. But it weighedupon his mind that he had brought into their council, Lord Howard--whonow turned a miserable traitor--against a great dislike Lord Russell hadalways had of him. He could not bear the reflection, and destroyedhimself before Lord Russell was brought to trial at the Old Bailey.
He knew very well that he had nothing to hope, having always been manfulin the Protestant cause against the two false brothers, the one on thethrone, and the other standing next to it. He had a wife, one of thenoblest and best of women, who acted as his secretary on his trial, whocomforted him in his prison, who supped with him on the night before hedied, and whose love and virtue and devotion have made her nameimperishable. Of course, he was found guilty, and was sentenced to bebeheaded in Lincoln's Inn-fields, not many yards from his own house. Whenhe had parted from his children on the evening before his death, his wifestill stayed with him until ten o'clock at night; and when their finalseparation in this world was over, and he had kissed her many times, hestill sat for a long while in his prison, talking of her goodness.Hearing the rain fall fast at that time, he calmly said, 'Such a rain to-morrow will spoil a great show, which is a dull thing on a rainy day.' Atmidnight he went to bed, and slept till four; even when his servantcalled him, he fell asleep again while his clothes were being made ready.He rode to the scaffold in his own carriage, attended by two famousclergymen, TILLOTSON and BURNET, and sang a psalm to himself very softly,as he went along. He was as quiet and as steady as if he had been goingout for an ordinary ride. After saying that he was surprised to see sogreat a crowd, he laid down his head upon the block, as if upon thepillow of his bed, and had it struck off at the second blow. His noblewife was busy for him even then; for that true-hearted lady printed andwidely circulated his last words, of which he had given her a copy. Theymade the blood of all the honest men in England boil.
The University of Oxford distinguished itself on the very same day bypretending to believe that the accusation against Lord Russell was true,and by calling the King, in a written paper, the Breath of their Nostrilsand the Anointed of the Lord. This paper the Parliament afterwardscaused to be burned by the common hangman; which I am sorry for, as Iwish it had been framed and glazed and hung up in some public place, as amonument of baseness for the scorn of mankind.
Next, came the trial of Algernon Sidney, at which Jeffreys presided, likea great crimson toad, sweltering and swelling with rage. 'I pray God,Mr. Sidney,' said this Chief Justice of a merry reign, after passingsentence, 'to work in you a temper fit to go to the other world, for Isee you are not fit for this.' 'My lord,' said the prisoner, composedlyholding out his arm, 'feel my pulse, and see if I be disordered. I thankHeaven I never was in better temper than I am now.' Algernon Sidney wasexecuted on Tower Hill, on the seventh of December, one thousand sixhundred and eighty-three. He died a hero, and died, in his own words,'For that good old cause in which he had been engaged from his youth, andfor which God had so often and so wonderfully declared himself.'
The Duke of Monmouth had been making his uncle, the Duke of York, veryjealous, by going about the country in a royal sort of way, playing atthe people's games, becoming godfather to their children, and eventouching for the King's evil, or stroking the faces of the sick to curethem--though, for the matter of that, I should say he did them about asmuch good as any crowned king could have done. His father had got him towrite a letter, confessing his having had a part in the conspiracy, forwhich Lord Russell had been beheaded; but he was ever a weak man, and assoon as he had written it, he was ashamed of it and got it back again.For this, he was banished to the Netherlands; but he soon returned andhad an interview with his father, unknown to his uncle. It would seemthat he was coming into the Merry Monarch's favour again, and that theDuke of York was sliding out of it, when Death appeared to the merrygalleries at Whitehall, and astonished the debauched lords and gentlemen,and the shameless ladies, very considerably.
On Monday, the second of February, one thousand six hundred and eighty-five, the merry pensioner and servant of the King of France fell down ina fit of apoplexy. By the Wednesday his case was hopeless, and on theThursday he was told so. As he made a difficulty about taking thesacrament from the Protestant Bishop of Bath, the Duke of York got allwho were present away from the bed, and asked his brother, in a whisper,if he should send for a Catholic priest? The King replied, 'For God'ssake, brother, do!' The Duke smuggled in, up the back stairs, disguisedin a wig and gown, a priest named HUDDLESTON, who had saved the King'slife after the battle of Worcester: telling him that this worthy man inthe wig had once saved his body, and was now come to save his soul.
The Merry Monarch lived through that night, and died before noon on thenext day, which was Friday, the sixth. Two of the last things he saidwere of a human sort, and your remembrance will give him the full benefitof them. When the Queen sent to say she was too unwell to attend him andto ask his pardon, he said, 'Alas! poor woman, _she_ beg _my_ pardon! Ibeg hers with all my heart. Take back that answer to her.' And he alsosaid, in reference to Nell Gwyn, 'Do not let poor Nelly starve.'
He died in the fifty-fifth year of his age, and the twenty-fifth of hisreign.