Little Arthur's history of England

by Lady Maria Callcott

This was near the end of the war. The English, Dutch, and French were equally glad to make peace.

The plague now broke out, first in Holland, then in England. Hundreds of people died every day, and it seemed shocking to be killing more men when so many were dying of that dreadful disorder.

Often when people did not know they had the plague they dropped down dead in the streets. Sometimes a friend would be talking to another and seem quite well and merry, and in a minute he would feel sick, and die before he could get home. Sometimes everybody in a house would die, and then the grave diggers had to go and get the dead out of the house, and put them in a cart at night, and carry them to a place near London, where a great grave was dug, so big that many hundred people were buried there together. Sometimes a poor mother would follow the dead-cart crying because all her children were in it, and she had nobody left alive to love. And often little children were found almost starved, because their fathers and mothers were dead and there was nobody to feed them. There was one lady whose name was North, who had a very little baby; that baby caught the plague. The mother sent all her other children, and her servants, and everybody else into the country, and stayed by herself with the baby and nursed him, and would not fear the plague while she was watching her sick child; and it pleased God to save her and the child too. I have read what he says of his dear mother’s love to him, in a book he wrote when he was an oldish man; and I think that the love he always kept for his mother, and the remembrance of her kindness, made him a good man all his life.

This sad plague was put an end to by a dreadful fire, which burnt down a great part of London. It lasted for four days; and though everybody tried to put an end to it, it still burned on, for there was a strong wind, which blew the flames from one house to another. At that time the streets were very narrow, and most of the houses were built of wood, so no wonder they burned fiercely.

But good arose from this evil: when London was built again the streets were made wider, and the houses were built of brick and stone, so they were not so apt to burn, and they could be kept cleaner; and as the plague seldom comes to clean places, it has never been in London since the fire.

But now we must think about the king. Though he was a very merry man, he was far from being a good one. In the first part of his reign he listened to good advice, especially that given to him by Lord Clarendon, who had stayed with him all the time he was unhappy and poor, and while he was forced to live out of England. But it was not long before he neglected all the good and old friends of his father or of the people, and began to keep company with a number of gay men, who were always laughing and making jokes when they were seen; but they gave the king bad advice in secret, and when they were trusted by him they behaved so ill to the people, that if it had not been for fear of another civil war, they would have tried to send Charles out of England again.

The Duke of Lauderdale, one of Charles’s greatest friends, was sent to Scotland to govern it for Charles. Perhaps there never was so cruel and wicked a governor anywhere before. He ordered everybody to use the English prayer-book, and to leave off their own ways of worshipping God, and to change their prayers. And when he found any persons who did not, he had them shot or hanged at their own doors; and what was worse, if anybody would not tell where the people he wanted to shoot or to hang were to be found, he would put them in prison, or torture them by putting their legs in wooden cases, and then hammering them so tight that the bones were broken; and this he did to children for saving their fathers and mothers, or to grown people for saving their children, or brothers, or sisters. I am sorry to say that another Scotchman, John Graham of Claverhouse, was his helper in all this wickedness.

Scotland was therefore very miserable under Charles, and you will read in larger histories that the Scotch rebelled, and fought against the king.

Ireland was treated, if possible, worse; and as to England, several parts were ready to rebel, especially when it came to be known that Charles and his four chief friends were so mean as to take money from the King of France to pay Charles for letting him conquer several other countries that England ought to have saved from him.

The king’s brother, James, Duke of York, was known to approve of all the king’s cruel and wicked actions; so that the English people found, after all they had suffered in hopes of getting back their freedom, that Charles the Second wished as much to take it away as his father and grandfather did.