European Genealogy and History
HISTORY OF KING CHARLES THE SECOND OF
BY JACOB ABBOTT.
PREFACE.
The author of this
series has made it his special object to confine
himself very
strictly, even in the most minute details which he records,
to historic truth.
The narratives are not tales founded upon history,
but history itself,
without any embellishment or any deviations from
the strict truth,
so far as it can now be discovered by an attentive
examination of the
annals written at the time when the events themselves
occurred. In
writing the narratives, the author has endeavored to avail
himself of the best
sources of information which this country affords;
and though, of
course, there must be in these volumes, as in all
historical accounts,
more or less of imperfection and error, there is
no intentional
embellishment. Nothing is stated, not even the most
minute and
apparently imaginary details, without what was deemed good
historical
authority. The readers, therefore, may rely upon the record
as the truth, and
nothing but the truth, so far as an honest purpose
and a careful
examination have been effectual in ascertaining it.
CONTENTS.
Chapter
I. INFANCY
II. PRINCE CHARLES'S MOTHER
III. QUEEN HENRIETTA'S FLIGHT
IV. ESCAPE OF THE CHILDREN
V. THE PRINCE'S RECEPTION AT PARIS
VI. NEGOTIATIONS WITH ANNE MARIA
VII. THE ROYAL OAK OF BOSCOBEL
VIII. THE KING'S
ESCAPE TO FRANCE
IX. THE RESTORATION
X. THE MARRIAGE
XI. CHARACTER AND REIGN
XII. CONCLUSION
CHAPTER I.
INFANCY.
King Charles the
Second was the son and successor of King Charles the
First. These two
are the only kings of the name of Charles that have
appeared, thus far,
in the line of English sovereigns. Nor is it very
probable that there
will soon be another. The reigns of both these
monarchs were
stained and tarnished with many vices and crimes, and
darkened by
national disasters of every kind, and the name is thus
connected with so
many painful associations in the minds of men, that
it seems to have
been dropped, by common consent, in all branches of
the royal family.
The reign of
Charles the First, as will be seen by the history of his
life in this
series, was characterized by a long and obstinate contest
between the king
and the people, which brought on, at last, a civil
war, in which the
king was defeated and taken prisoner, and in the end
beheaded on a
block, before one of his own palaces. During the last
stages of this
terrible contest, and before Charles way himself taken
prisoner, he was,
as it were, a fugitive and an outlaw in his own
dominions. His wife
and family were scattered in various foreign lands,
his cities and
castles were in the hands of his enemies, and his oldest
son, the prince
Charles, was the object of special hostility. The
prince incurred,
therefore, a great many dangers, and suffered many
heavy calamities in
his early years. He lived to see these calamities
pass away, and,
after they were gone, he enjoyed, so far as his own
personal safety and
welfare were concerned, a tranquil and prosperous
life. The storm,
however, of trial and suffering which enveloped the
evening of his
father's days, darkened the morning of his own. The
life of Charles the
First was a river rising gently, from quiet springs,
in a scene of
verdure and sunshine, and flowing gradually into rugged
and gloomy regions,
where at last it falls into a terrific abyss,
enveloped in
darkness and storms. That of Charles the Second, on the
other hand, rising
in the wild and rugged mountains where the parent
stream was
engulfed, commences its course by leaping frightfully from
precipice to
precipice, with turbid and foaming waters, but emerges
at last into a
smooth and smiling land, and flows through it
prosperously to the
sea.
Prince Charles's
mother, the wife of Charles the First, was a French
princess. Her name
was Henrietta Maria. She was unaccomplished,
beautiful, and very
spirited woman. She was a Catholic, and the English
people, who were
very decided in their hostility to the Catholic faith,
were extremely
jealous of her. They watched all her movements with the
utmost suspicion.
They were very unwilling that an heir to the crown
should arise in her
family. The animosity which they felt against her
husband the king,
which was becoming every day more and more bitter,
seemed to be doubly
inveterate and intense toward her. They published
pamphlets, in which
they called her a daughter of Heth, a Canaanite,
and an idolatress,
and expressed hopes that from such a worse than
pagan stock no
progeny should ever spring.
Henrietta was at
this time--1630--twenty-one years of age, and had
been married about
four years. She had had one son, who had died a few
days after his
birth. Of course, she did not lead a very happy life
in England. Her
husband the king, like the majority of the English
people, was a
Protestant, and the difference was a far more important
circumstance in
those days than it would be now; though even now a
difference in
religious faith, on points _which either party deems
essential_, is, in
married life, an obstacle to domestic happiness,
which comes to no
termination, and admits of no cure. If it were
possible for reason
and reflection to control the impetuous impulses
of youthful hearts,
such differences of religious faith would be
regarded, where
they exist, as an insurmountable objection to a
matrimonial union.
The queen, made
thus unhappy by religious dissensions with her husband,
and by the public
odium of which she was the object, lived in
considerable
retirement and seclusion at St. James's Palace, in
Westminster, which
is the western part of London. Here her second son,
the subject of this
history, was born, in May, 1630, which was ten
years after the
landing of the pilgrims on the Plymouth rock. The babe
was very far from
being pretty, though he grew up at last to be quite
a handsome man.
King Charles was very much pleased at the birth of his
son. He rode into
London the next morning at the head of a long train
of guards and noble
attendants, to the great cathedral church of St.
Paul's, to render
thanks publicly to God for the birth of his child
and the safety of
the queen. While this procession was going through
the streets, all
London being out to gaze upon it, the attention of
the vast crowd was
attracted to the appearance of a star glimmering
faintly in the sky
at midday. This is an occurrence not very uncommon,
though it seldom,
perhaps, occurs when it has so many observers to
witness it. The
star was doubtless Venus, which, in certain
circumstances, is
often bright enough to be seen when the sun is above
the horizon. The
populace of London, however, who were not in those
days very profound
astronomers, regarded the shining of the star as
a supernatural
occurrence altogether, and as portending the future
greatness and glory
of the prince whose natal day it thus unexpectedly
adorned.
Preparations were
made for the baptism of the young prince in July.
The baptism of a
prince is an important affair, and there was one
circumstance which
gave a peculiar interest to that of the infant
Charles. The
Reformation had not been long established in England, and
this happened to be
the first occasion on which an heir to the English
crown had been
baptized since the Liturgy of the English Church had
been arranged.
There is a chapel connected with the palace of St.
James, as is usual
with royal palaces in Europe, and even, in fact,
with the private
castles and mansions of the higher nobility. The
baptism took place
there. On such occasions it is usual for certain
persons to appear
as sponsors, as they are called, who undertake to
answer for the safe
and careful instruction of the child in the
principles of the
Christian faith. This is, of course, mainly a form,
the real function
of the sponsors being confined, as it would appear,
to making
magnificent presents to their young godchild, in
acknowledgment of
the distinguished honor conferred upon them by their
designation to the
office which they hold. The sponsors, on this
occasion, were
certain royal personages in France, the relatives of
the queen. They
could not appear personally, and so they appointed
proxies from among
the higher nobility of England, who appeared at the
baptism in their
stead, and made the presents to the child. One of
these proxies was a
duchess, whose gift was a jewel valued at a sum
in English money
equal to thirty thousand dollars.
The oldest son of a
king of England receives the title of Prince of
Wales; and there
was an ancient custom of the realm, that an infant
prince of Wales
should be under the care, in his earliest years, of
a Welsh nurse, so
that the first words which he should learn to speak
might be the
vernacular language of his principality. Such a nurse was
provided for
Charles. Rockers for his cradle were appointed, and many
other officers of
his household, all the arrangements being made in
a very magnificent
and sumptuous manner. It is the custom in England
to pay fees to the
servants by which a lady or gentleman is attended,
even when a guest
in private dwellings; and some idea may be formed
of the scale on
which the pageantry of this occasion was conducted,
from the fact that
one of the lady sponsors who rode to the palace in
the queen's
carriage, which was sent for her on this occasion, paid
a sum equal to
fifty dollars each to six running footmen who attended
the carriage, and a
hundred dollars to the coachman; while a number
of knights who came
on horseback and in armor to attend upon the
carriage, as it
moved to the palace, received each a gratuity of two
hundred and fifty
dollars. The state dresses on the occasion of this
baptism were very
costly and splendid, being of white satin trimmed
with crimson.
The little prince
was thus an object of great attention at the very
commencement of his
days, His mother had his portrait painted, and
sent it to _her_
mother in France. She did not, however, in the letters
which accompanied
the picture, though his mother, praise the beauty
of her child. She
said, in fact, that he was so ugly that she was
ashamed of him,
though his size and plumpness, she added, atoned for
the want of beauty.
And then he was so comically serious and grave in
the expression of
his countenance! the queen said she verily believed
that he was wiser
than herself.
As the young prince
advanced in years, the religious and political
difficulties in the
English nation increased, and by the time that he
had arrived at an
age when he could begin to receive impressions from
the conversation
and intercourse of those around him, the Parliament
began to be very
jealous of the influence which his mother might exert.
They were extremely
anxious that he should be educated a Protestant,
and were very much
afraid that his mother would contrive to initiate
him secretly into
the ideas and practices of the Catholic faith.
She insisted that
she did not attempt to do this, and perhaps she did
not; but in those
days it was often considered right to make false
pretensions and to
deceive, so far as this was necessary to promote
the cause of true
religion. The queen did certainly make some efforts
to instill Catholic
principles into the minds of some of her children;
for she had other
children after the birth of Charles. She gave a
daughter a crucifix
one day, which is a little image of Christ upon
the cross, made
usually of ivory, or silver, or gold, and also a rosary,
which is a string
of beads, by means of which the Catholics are assisted
to count their
prayers. Henrietta gave these things to her daughter
secretly, and told
her to hide them in her pocket, and taught her how
to use them. The
Parliament considered such attempts to influence the
minds of the royal
children as very heinous sins, and they made such
arrangements for
secluding the young prince Charles from his mother,
and putting the
others under the guidance of Protestant teachers and
governors, as very
much interfered with Henrietta's desires to enjoy
the society of her
children. Since England was a Protestant realm, a
Catholic lady, in
marrying an English king, ought not to have expected,
perhaps, to have
been allowed to bring up her children in her own
faith; still, it
must have been very hard for a mother to be forbidden
to teach her own
children what she undoubtedly believed was the only
possible means of
securing for them the favor and protection of Heaven.
There is in London
a vast storehouse of books, manuscripts, relics,
curiosities,
pictures, and other memorials of by-gone days, called the
British Museum.
Among the old records here preserved are various letters
written by
Henrietta, and one or two by Charles, the young prince,
during his
childhood. Here is one, for instance, written by Henrietta
to her child, when
the little prince was but eight years of age, chiding
him for not being
willing to take his medicine. He was at that time
under the charge of
Lord Newcastle.
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