Charles was fit to be the head of his court, for he was among the wittiest there. He was a good teller of a story, and fond of exhibiting his talent. Walpole proposed to make a collection of his witty sayings, and Peter Cunningham carried out this idea in “The Story of Nell Gwyn.”
Curiously enough, Pepys held a very poor opinion of the King’s power in this respect. On one occasion he says Charles’s stories were good, although “he tells them but meanly.”[249] At another time he alludes to “the silly discourse of the King.”[250]
The Diarist must surely have been prejudiced, for the general opinion on this point, and the stories that have come down to us, are against him. That was a happy distinction made by Charles when he said of Godolphin, then a page at court, that he was never in the way, and never out of the way. Of the King’s natural abilities there can be no doubt. He took an intelligent interest in the formation of the Royal Society, and passed many hours in his own laboratory. Pepys visited this place on January 15th, 1668–69, and was much pleased with it. He saw there “a great many chymical glasses and things, but understood none of them.”
The King was fond of seeing and making dissections,[251] and the very month he died he was engaged in some experiments on the production of mercury.
His greatest fault was want of faith, for he believed neither in the honour of man nor the virtue of woman; and, as a consequence, he lived down to his debased views. His religion always sat lightly upon him, but such as it was it was not that of a Protestant. James II. told Pepys, in a private conversation, that Charles had been a Roman Catholic some long time before his death.[252]
Charles’s relations with women were singularly heartless. His conduct towards his wife was abominable, although when in her company he was usually polite. On the occasion of her serious illness, when she was like to die, he conjured her to live for his sake, and Grammont hints that he was disappointed when she took him at his word.
The Queen, although not beautiful, was pleasing in appearance, and the King appears to have been satisfied with her when she arrived in England, for he wrote to Clarendon, that her eyes were excellent and her voice agreeable, adding, “If I have any skill in physiognomy, which I think I have, she must be as good a woman as ever was born.” A few days after he wrote to the Chancellor in these words, “My brother will tell you of all that passes here, which I hope will be to your satisfaction. I am sure ’tis so much to mine that I cannot easily tell you how happy I think myself, and I must be the worst man living (which I hope I am not) if I be not a good husband. I am confident never two humors were better fitted together than ours are.”[253] Yet shortly after writing thus, he thrust his abandoned mistress, Lady Castlemaine, upon this virtuous wife; so that from his own mouth we can condemn him. Pepys reports a sharp answer (“a wipe,” he calls it) which the Queen made to the favourite. Lady Castlemaine came in and found the Queen under the dresser’s hand, which she had been for a long time. “I wonder your Majesty,” says she, “can have the patience to sit so long adressing?”—“I have so much reason to use patience,” says the Queen, “that I can very well bear with it.”[254]
Clarendon was charged with choosing Katherine because he knew that she could not bear children to the King, but this was a most foul calumny. She was naturally most anxious to be a mother, and in her delirium she fancied that she had given birth to a boy, but was troubled because he was ugly. The King, being by, said, “No, it is a very pretty boy.” “Nay,” says she, “if it be like you it is a fine boy indeed, and I would be very well pleased with it.”[255]
The Duke of York was pre-eminently a man of business, and there remains little to be added here to what has been already said in the [chapter on the Navy]. He did not shine at Court, and his conduct there is amusingly described in the Grammont “Memoirs,” apropos of his fancy for “la belle Hamilton:”—“As hunting was his favourite diversion, that sport employed him one part of the day, and he came home generally much fatigued; but Miss Hamilton’s presence revived him, when he found her either with the Queen or the Duchess. There it was that, not daring to tell her what lay heavy on his heart, he entertained her with what he had in his head: telling her miracles of the cunning of foxes and the mettle of horses; giving her accounts of broken legs and arms, dislocated shoulders and other curious and entertaining adventures; after which, his eyes told her the rest, till such time as sleep interrupted their conversation; for these tender interpreters could not help sometimes composing themselves in the midst of their ogling.”
It is not necessary to enter fully into the history of the Duke’s amours, but one curious incident in his life may be noticed here. In the year 1673 he had a passion for Susan, Lady Bellasys, widow of Sir Henry Bellasys, K.B. (who fell in a foolish duel with Tom Porter,[256]), and, although she was a Protestant, he gave her a promise of marriage, after having tried in vain to convert her to the Roman Catholic faith. When her father-in-law, John, Lord Bellasys, who was a Roman Catholic, heard of this, he, fearing that she would convert the Duke, and thus spoil all hope of introducing the Roman Catholic religion into England, went to the King and told him of his brother’s matrimonial intentions. Charles thereupon prohibited the marriage.[257]