§ 2 The Two Courts, in 1656
At this date many a banished or self-exiled Royalist, dwelling in the Low Countries, but whose heart remained in England, drew a melancholy contrast between the remembered past of Whitehall and the gloomy present. With honest Touchstone, he could say, “Now am I in Arden! the more fool I. When I was at home I was in a better place; but travellers must be content.”
Meanwhile, in the beloved Warwickshire glades, herds of swine were routing noisily for acorns, dropped amid withered leaves under branches of the Royal Oaks. They were watched by boys, whose chins would not be past the first callow down of promissory beards when Restoration-day should come with shouts of welcome throughout the land.
In 1656 our Charles Stuart was at Bruges, now and then making a visit to Cologne, often getting into difficulties through the misconduct of his unruly followers, and already quite enslaved by Dalilahs, syrens against whom his own shrewd sense was powerless to defend him. For amusement he read his favourite French or Italian authors, not seldom took long walks, and indulged himself in field sports:
“A merry monarch, scandalous and poor.”
For he was only scantily supplied with money, which chiefly came from France, but if he had possessed the purse of Fortunatus it could barely have sufficed to meet demands from those who lived upon him. A year before, the Lady Byron had been spoken of as being his seventeenth Mistress abroad, and there was no deficiency of candidates for any vacant place within his heart. Sooth to say, the place was never vacant, for it yielded at all times unlimited accommodation to every beauty. Music and dances absorbed much of his attention. So long as the faces around him showed signs of happiness, he did not seriously afflict himself because he was in exile, and a little out at elbows.
Such was the “Banished Duke” in his Belgian Court; poor substitute for the Forest of Ardennes, not far distant. By all accounts, he felt “the penalty of Adam, the season’s difference,” and in no way relished the discomfort. He did not smile and say,
“This is no flattery: these are counsellors
That feelingly persuade me what I am.”
For, in truth, he much preferred avoiding such counsel, and relished flattery too well to part with it on cheap terms. He never considered the “rural life more sweet than that of painted pomp,” and, if all tales of Cromwell’s machinations be held true, Charles by no means found the home of exile “more free from peril than the envious court.” On the other hand, his own proclamation, dated 3rd May, 1654, offering an annuity of five hundred pounds, a Colonelcy and Knighthood, to any person who should destroy the Usurper (“a certain mechanic fellow, by name Oliver Cromwell!”), took from him all moral right of complaint against reprisals: unless, as we half-believe, this proclamation were one of the many forgeries. As to any sweetness in “the uses of Adversity,” Charles might have pleaded, with a laugh, that he had known sufficient of them already to be cloyed with it.
The men around him were of similar opinion. A few, indeed, like Cowley and Crashaw, were loyal hearts, whose devotion was best shown in times of difficulty. Not many proved of such sound metal, but there lived some “faithful found among the faithless”; and
“He that can endure
To follow with allegiance a fallen lord,
Does conquer him that did his master conquer,
And earns a place in the story.”
The Ladies of the party scarcely cared for anything beyond self-adornment, rivalry, languid day-dreams of future greatness, and the encouragement of gallantry.
There was not one among them who for a moment can bear comparison with the Protector’s daughter, Elizabeth Claypole—perhaps the loveliest female character of all recorded in those years. Everything concerning her speaks in praise. She was the good angel of the house. Her father loved her, with something approaching reverence, and feared to forfeit her conscientious approval more than the support of his companions in arms. In worship she shrank from the profane familiarity of the Sectaries, and devotedly held by the Church of England. She is recorded to have always used her powerful influence in behalf of the defeated Cavaliers, to obtain mercy and forbearance. Her name was whispered, with blessing implored upon it, in the prayers of many whom she alone had saved from death.1 No personal ambition, no foolish pride and ostentation marked her short career. The searching glare of Court publicity could betray no flaw in her conduct or disposition; for the heart was sound within, her religion was devoid of all hypocrisy. Her Christian purity was too clearly stainless for detraction to dare raise one murmur. She is said to have warmly pleaded in behalf of Doctor Hewit, who died upon the scaffold with his Royalist companion, Sir Harry Slingsby, the 8th of June, 1658 (although she rejoiced in the defeat of their plot, as her extant letter proves). Cromwell resisted her solicitations, urged to obduracy by his more ruthless Ironsides, who called for terror to be stricken into the minds of all reactionists by wholesale slaughter of conspirators. Soon after this she faded. It was currently reported and believed that on her death-bed, amid the agonies and fever-fits, she bemoaned the blood that had been shed, and spoke reproaches to the father whom she loved, so that his conscience smote him, and the remembrance stayed with him for ever.2 She was only twenty-nine when at Hampton Court she died, on the 6th of August, 1658. Less than a month afterwards stout Oliver’s heart broke. Something had gone from him, which no amount of power and authority could counter-balance. He was not a man to breathe his deeper sorrows into the ear of those political adventurers or sanctified enthusiasts whose glib tongues could rattle off the words of consolation. While she was slowly dying he had still tried to grapple with his serious duties, as though undisturbed. Her prayers and her remonstrances had been powerless of late to make him swerve. But now, when she was gone, the hollow mockery of what power remained stood revealed to him plainly; and the Rest that was so near is not unlikely to have been the boon he most desired. It came to him upon his fatal day, his anniversary of still recurring success and happy fortune; came, as is well known, on September 3rd, 1658. The Destinies had nothing better left to give him, so they brought him death. What could be more welcome? Very few of these who reach the summit of ambition, as of those other who most lamentably failed, and became bankrupt of every hope, can feel much sadness when the messenger is seen who comes to lead them hence,—from a world wherein the jugglers’ tricks have all grown wearisome, and where the tawdry pomp or glare cannot disguise the sadness of Life’s masquerade.
“Naught’s had—all’s spent,
When our desire is got without content:
’Tis safer to be that which we destroy,
Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy.”