Queen Henrietta returned the visit of the royal couple, and spent nearly a month at Hampton Court, going back to London on the 23d of August, the day appointed for Catharine to make her first public entrance into the metropolis. This was done with great magnificence; crowds of people gathering to the banks of the Thames to view the array of boats that floated in attendance upon the royal barges. At six o'clock in the evening the king and queen, with their attendants, landed at Whitehall Bridge, where the queen-mother, with her whole court, all in rich attire, waited to receive them.
A series of entertainments succeeded; and King Charles, once having introduced Lady Castlemaine at court, insisted upon her presence always, though his conscience often pricked him for doing what he knew to be wrong. The fact was that he was surrounded by people who recognized no law but their own desires; and whenever they saw Charles disposed to yield to his wife's just opposition to the woman who entertained them, and who was one of them in dissipation, they jeered at him. He, on the other hand, had not the moral courage to do right in spite of his friends. It was not because he respected Catharine less, but that he loved pleasure more. We must not suppose that all his statesmen approved of his conduct; on the contrary, Lord Clarendon and others took him to task as much as they dared, and considered the queen an ill-used wife.
Charles had threatened to send all the Portuguese attendants back home, and at the expiration of four months after their arrival in England he determined to carry the threat into execution.
This was a sore trial to her, particularly as the king fixed upon a day for their departure without naming any reward for their services, or sending a letter to the Queen of Portugal to explain his reason for dismissing them. Catharine would have remunerated them herself, but she had no money, and so could not afford to be generous. She begged her husband to permit her to retain a few of them, and as a great favor he consented to the old Countess of Penalva, two or three of the cooks, and the priests who officiated in her majesty's chapel.
Now, as we have said, the king's conduct was not approved by all the statesmen; there were some among the most faithful of them who were so pained at the course he was pursuing that they ventured to censure him for it. But he paid little heed to their wise counsel, and the party of which they were the representatives grew daily in numbers and power. Had Queen Catharine not been a most sensible and magnanimous woman, she might well have united herself to this party in opposition to her husband, and created no end of disturbance; but she loved King Charles devotedly, and was willing to make any sacrifice to obtain his affection in return. She was wrong; for, while she opposed him, he could not but respect her, because he knew that she was prompted by a sense of right, and it would have been better for her and for him if she had remained firm.
She yielded at last, perhaps under bad advice, and suddenly treated Lady Castlemaine with such courtesy as to surprise the whole court, King Charles included. It is barely possible that her principal reason for this concession was a desire to retain the king's support for her native land, which was just then greatly needed. Be this as it may, Charles misunderstood his wife, and attributed her former refusal to grant his request to perversity and hypocrisy, and congratulated himself upon his perseverence and decision. This, no doubt, colored his conduct later in life.
CHAPTER VIII.
A.D. 1662.