Clarendon, in noticing the temper and spirit of that time, observes, “Whoever reflects upon all this composition of contradictory wishes and expectations, must confess that the king was not yet the master of the kingdom, nor his authority and security such as the general noise and acclamation, the bells and the bonfires, proclaimed it to be.”—“The first mortification the king met with as soon as he arrived at Canterbury, within three hours after he landed at Dover.” Clarendon then relates how many the king found there, who, while they waited with joy to kiss his hand, also came with importunate solicitations for themselves; forced him to give them present audience, in which they reckoned up the insupportable losses undergone by themselves or their fathers; demanding some grant, or promise of such or such offices; some even for more! “pressing for two or three with such confidence and importunity, and with such tedious discourses, that the king was extremely nauseated with their suits, though his modesty knew not how to break from them; that he no sooner got into his chamber, which for some hours he was not able to do, than he lamented the condition to which he found he must be subject; and did, in truth, from that minute, contract such a prejudice against some of those persons.” But a greater mortification was to follow, and one which had nearly thrown the king into despair.
General Monk had from the beginning to this instant acted very mysteriously, never corresponding with nor answering a letter of the king’s, so that his majesty was frequently doubtful whether the general designed to act for himself or for the king: an ambiguous conduct which I attribute to the power his wife had over him, who was in the opposite interest. The general, in his rough way, presented him a large paper, with about seventy names for his privy council, of which not more than two were acceptable. “The king,” says Clarendon, “was in more than ordinary confusion, for he knew not well what to think of the general, in whose absolute power he was—so that at this moment his majesty was almost alarmed at the demand and appearance of things.” The general afterwards undid this unfavourable appearance, by acknowledging that the list was drawn up by his wife, who had made him promise to present it; but he permitted his majesty to act as he thought proper. At that moment General Monk was more king than Charles.
We have not yet concluded. When Charles met the army at Blackheath, 50,000 strong, “he knew well the ill constitution of the army, the distemper and murmuring that was in it, and how many diseases and convulsions their infant loyalty was subject to; that how united soever their inclinations and acclamations seemed to be at Blackheath, their affections were not the same—and the very countenances there of many officers, as well as soldiers, did sufficiently manifest that they were drawn thither to a service they were not delighted in. The old soldiers had little regard for their new officers; and it quickly appeared, by the select and affected mixtures of sullen and melancholic parties of officers and soldiers.”—And then the chancellor of human nature adds, “And in this melancholic and perplexed condition the king and all his hopes stood, when he appeared most gay and exalted, and wore a pleasantness in his face that became him, and looked like as full an assurance of his security as was possible to put on.” It is imagined that Louis the Eighteenth would be the ablest commentator on this piece of secret history, and add another twin to Pierre de Saint Julien’s “Gemelles ou Pareiles,” an old French treatise of histories which resemble one another: a volume so scarce, that I have never met with it.
Burnet informs us, that when Queen Mary held the administration of government during the absence of William, it was imagined by some, that as “every woman of sense loved to be meddling, they concluded that she had but a small portion of it, because she lived so abstracted from all affairs.” He praises her exemplary behaviour; “regular in her devotions, much in her closet, read a great deal, was often busy at work, and seemed to employ her time and thoughts in anything rather than matters of state. Her conversation was lively and obliging; everything in her was easy and natural. The king told the Earl of Shrewsbury, that though he could not hit on the right way of pleasing England, he was confident she would, and that we should all be very happy under her.” Such is the miniature of the queen which Burnet offers; we see nothing but her tranquillity, her simplicity, and her carelessness, amidst the important transactions passing under her eye; but I lift the curtain from a larger picture. The distracted state amidst which the queen lived, the vexations, the secret sorrows, the agonies and the despair of Mary in the absence of William, nowhere appear in history! and as we see, escaped the ken of the Scotch bishop! They were reserved for the curiosity and instruction of posterity; and were found by Dalrymple, in the letters of Mary to her husband, in King William’s cabinet. It will be well to place under the eye of the reader the suppressed cries of this afflicted queen at the time when “everything in her was so easy and natural, employing her time and thoughts in anything rather than matters of state—often busy at work!”
I shall not dwell on the pangs of the queen for the fate of William—or her deadly suspicions that many were unfaithful about her; a battle lost might have been fatal; a conspiracy might have undone what even a victory had obtained; the continual terrors she endured were such, that we might be at a loss to determine who suffered most, those who had been expelled from, or those who had ascended the throne.
So far was the queen from not “employing her thoughts” on “matters of state,” that every letter, usually written towards evening, chronicles the conflicts of the day; she records not only events, but even dialogues and personal characteristics; hints her suspicions, and multiplies her fears; her attention was incessant—“I never write but what I think others do not;” and her terrors were as ceaseless,—“I pray God send you back quickly, for I see all breaking out into flames.” The queen’s difficulties were not eased by a single confidential intercourse. On one occasion she observes, “As I do not know what I ought to speak, and when not, I am as silent as can be.” “I ever fear not doing well, and trust to what nobody says but you. It seems to me that every one is afraid of themselves.—I am very uneasy in one thing, which is want of somebody to speak my mind freely to, for it’s a great constraint to think and be silent; and there is so much matter, that I am one of Solomon’s fools, who am ready to burst. I must tell you again how Lord Monmouth endeavours to frighten me, and indeed things have but a melancholy prospect.” She had indeed reasons to fear Lord Monmouth, who, it appears, divulged all the secrets of the royal councils to Major Wildman, who was one of our old republicans; and, to spread alarm in the privy council, conveyed in lemon-juice all their secrets to France, often on the very day they had passed in council! They discovered the fact, and every one suspected the other as the traitor! Lord Lincoln even once assured her, that “the Lord President and all in general, who are in trust, were rogues.” Her council was composed of factions, and the queen’s suspicions were rather general than particular: for she observes on them, “Till now I thought you had given me wrong characters of men; but now I see they answer my expectation of being as little of a mind as of a body.”—For a final extract, take this full picture of royal misery—“I must see company on my set days; I must play twice a week; nay, I must laugh and talk, though never so much against my will: I believe I dissemble very ill to those who know me; at least, it is a great constraint to myself, yet I must endure it. All my motions are so watched, and all I do so observed, that if I eat less, or speak less, or look more grave, all is lost in the opinion of the world; so that I have this misery added to that of your absence, that I must grin when my heart is ready to break, and talk when my heart is so oppressed that I can scarce breathe. I go to Kensington as often as I can for air; but then I never can be quite alone, neither can I complain—that would be some ease; but I have nobody whose humour and circumstances agree with mine enough to speak my mind freely to. Besides, I must hear of business, which being a thing I am so new in, and so unfit for, does but break my brains the more, and not ease my heart.”
Thus different from the representation of Burnet was the actual state of Queen Mary: and I suspect that our warm and vehement bishop had but little personal knowledge of her majesty, notwithstanding the elaborate character of the queen which he has given in her funeral eulogium. He must have known that she did not always sympathise with his party-feelings: for the queen writes, “The Bishop of Salisbury has made a long thundering sermon this morning, which he has been with me to desire to print; which I could not refuse, though I should not have ordered it, for reasons which I told him.” Burnet (whom I am very far from calling what an inveterate Tory, Edward Earl of Oxford, does in one of his manuscript notes, “that lying Scot”) unquestionably has told many truths in his garrulous page; but the cause in which he stood so deeply engaged, coupled to his warm sanguine temper, may have sometimes dimmed his sagacity, so as to have caused him to have mistaken, as in the present case, a mask for a face, particularly at a time when almost every individual appears to have worn one!
Both these cases of Charles the Second and Queen Mary show the absolute necessity of researches into secret history, to correct the appearances and the fallacies which so often deceive us in public history.
“The appetite for Remains,” as the noble author whom I have already alluded to calls it, may then be a very wholesome one, if it provide the only materials by which our popular histories can be corrected, and since it often infuses a freshness into a story which, after having been copied from book to book, inspires another to tell it for the tenth time! Thus are the sources of secret history unsuspected by the idler and the superficial, among those masses of untouched manuscripts—that subterraneous history!—which indeed may terrify the indolent, bewilder the inexperienced, and confound the injudicious, if they have not acquired the knowledge which not only decides on facts and opinions, but on the authorities which have furnished them. Popular historians have written to their readers; each with different views, but all alike form the open documents of history; like feed advocates, they declaim, or like special pleaders, they keep only on one side of their case: they are seldom zealous to push on their cross-examination; for they come to gain their cause, and not to hazard it!