Charles II. had so long lived an out-at-elbows life, from hand to mouth, as it were, that the inheritance to which he had at last succeeded and the fifty thousand “gold pieces” voted by Parliament must have seemed for the time being inexhaustible, and a character like his would set no bounds to his careless extravagance.[[153]] His ideas were naturally lavish and picturesque, and there were always plenty of people about him quite willing—and more than willing—to minister to these; many hands in his pockets, moreover, as well as his own.
[153]. “Royalty Restored.” J. F. Molloy.
This state of things was, too, for a time at any rate, not unacceptable to the people at large. Through the grim years of the Civil War, and during the severe rule of the Commonwealth, they had been condemned to a lack of beauty in life, to sad-coloured raiment, to stern repression, to an absence of all the amusement and colour which had pervaded England in the joyous, if strenuous, Elizabethan age and the first years of the succeeding century.
It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that the commonalty, wearied and fretted by their Puritan taskmasters, should be dazzled by the vision of a gracious young king, easy of access, genial of speech, surrounded moreover by splendour, beauty and gaiety.
We know now what underlay the vision. We know what was destined to become a headlong race of folly—and worse, but it was all at first, at least, very seductive.
And in the midst of it all now moved the new Duchess of York, for a few months, at least, the first lady in the kingdom, until the King should find himself a bride.
We have seen that Anne’s father participated in some of the state which surrounded her; the dignities conferred on him, fully as his long-tried service had merited them, being as much for his daughter’s honour as for his own.
Pepys gives us a glimpse, now and then, of the doings at Court during the spring of 1661. Early in April he is in St James’s Park to watch the Duke of York play at “Pele-mele, the first time that ever I saw the sport.”[[154]] James, like all his family, was very active in body, loving sport and games of every kind. He was passionately devoted to hunting, and this continued to the end. Long afterwards, along the grassy rides of the forests of Saint Germain or Marly, the banished King of England would sweep down with his train, forgetting for a few exhilarating moments the pain of loss and exile and the green glades of Windsor which he would never see again. It may be remembered, moreover, that when Prince George of Denmark testified some alarm at his own tendency to fat, Charles II. gave him promptly the advice: “Walk with me, and hunt with my brother.”
[154]. “Diary.” 1st April 1661.
The Duke was also very fond of tennis, but here he was excelled by his cousin Prince Rupert, the best player in England. The Prince Palatine had not accompanied the King at the time of the Restoration, but had arrived in England in September of the same year, after the death of the Duke of Gloucester, when he came armed with a commission to ask for the hand of the Princess Henrietta on behalf of the Emperor Leopold. We have seen that this overture was useless, the queen-mother being unwilling to consider anything which could clash with the claims of her nephew the Duke of Orleans.[[155]]