So in the sunshine of spring, an English spring with the laburnums and lilacs ablow, with the air scented with the breath of flowers, alive with the singing of birds, the King came “to his own again.” Thanksgivings had been offered in the glorious cathedral of Canterbury, Rochester had added to the welcome, and now on Restoration Day a gallant train rode slowly over Blackheath on its triumphant way to London. Blare of trumpet and ring of bridle-chains and a riot of colour were all combined, while the people who lined the way could, some of them, scarcely see, for their blinding tears, the dark-faced King, thirty years old to-day, glancing quickly around him, the saturnine mouth relaxed in a smile, as he bowed to right and left. No wonder that he could remark with easy cynicism that no doubt it must be his own fault that his coming had been so long delayed, since everyone was so glad to see him.
Just behind the King came his brothers, side by side.
As James, Duke of York, reined his fretting horse with practised skill, he looked in his costly attire a very comely prince in the eyes of his brother’s lieges. Yellow ribbons were fluttering from his shoulders, fleecy white plumes waved from his hat over the long brown curls which framed the proud and handsome face. He was now twenty-six, already a soldier of tried capacity, and as one of the Intelligencers of London had already said of him, “cried up for the most accomplished gentleman both in arms and courtesie that graces the French Court.”[[90]] So people wrote and thought, yet this reputation was for the most part left behind him when he crossed the Channel.
[90]. “Queen Anne and her Court,” P. F. Williams Ryan. “The Duke of York, besides being an able Captain and successful administrator, was a man of many accomplishments, acquired by association with the most polished society of Western Europe.”
It was the fate of James Stuart, as it has often been the fate of obscure persons, just to miss the appreciation which in some measure he really deserved. His elder brother’s careless good humour and the grace of manner which concealed so much selfish indifference won for Charles II. from his people, weary of long repression and smarting under unwelcome conditions, an amount of real affection which was certainly both unreasonable and undeserved, but which nevertheless lasted for his lifetime, and made him one of the most popular sovereigns of his country.
James, on the other hand, because he lacked just those superficial attributes was, to the bitter end, mistrusted and misunderstood. He was not clever in any sense, possessing none of the brilliant gifts which Charles misused and flung away with absolute recklessness; but as Buckingham, with his rapid, mordant apprehension, once said of the brothers: “The King (Charles II.) could see things if he would, and the Duke would see things if he could.”[[91]]
[91]. Bishop Burnet’s “History of My Own Time.”
If he could—there was the key of the whole position. When the supreme moment of his life arrived, James proved absolutely blind to the issues involved—he could not see.
As to his better qualities, Bishop Burnet, as already mentioned at no time a friend to the Duke of York, was forced to admit his personal courage. “He was very brave in youth, and so much magnified by Marshal Turenne, that till his marriage he really clouded the King, and passed for the superior genius.” Also it is acknowledged that he was “a firm friend till affairs and his religion wore out all his first principles and inclinations.”
That same grace of constancy in friendship is endorsed by all his biographers, and unhappily it was in many cases to prove his undoing. He could not withdraw his confidence once given, and he was utterly blind to the faults of his friends, clinging to them through good and evil report, and in this respect he must be cleared of the charge of fickleness.