But Shaftesbury and his colleagues were not to be baffled; they had determined on the ruin of the Duke of York, and never rested until they had forced the king to agree to his banishment once more. They wanted the sea to separate him from England, but Charles compromised in his usual way, and notified his royal highness that he was to return to Scotland. The duke was sorely grieved, for he believed that even his brother had turned against him; and that his banishment to Scotland would be followed up by something worse. He was the more convinced of this when, in order to protect himself against the machinations of his powerful enemies, he demanded of the king a general pardon, under the great seal, for any offence that might be charged against him, and his majesty refused. He gave as his reason that it would be injurious to a man of the duke's exalted rank to have such a document drawn up; but James became so enraged that he swore "that if he were pushed to extremity, and saw himself likely to be entirely ruined by his enemies, he would throw himself into the arms of Louis XIV. for protection." Of course such a threat was treasonable, and only to be excused on account of excessive indignation, for the duke was burning under the sense of wrong and ingratitude from a king and a country in whose service he had risked his life so often. Poor Mary Beatrice was called upon to part with her little Isabel again, and this separation was the last, for the mother never more beheld her only child.
The following beautiful lines by the poet Dryden were written to commemorate the embarkation of the Duke and Duchess of York, which occurred on the eighteenth of October:—
"Go, injured hero! while propitious gales,
Soft as thy consort's breath, inspire thy sails;
Well may she trust her beauties on a flood
Where thy triumphant fleets so oft have rode.
Safe on thy breast reclined, her rest be deep,
Rocked like a Nereid by the waves asleep;
While happiest dreams her fancy entertain,
And to Elysian fields convert the main.