Such was the “Banished Duke” in his Belgian Court; poor substitute for the Forest of Ardennes, not far distant. By all accounts, he felt “the penalty of Adam, the season’s difference,” and in no way relished the discomfort. He did not smile and say,
“This is no flattery: these are counsellors
That feelingly persuade me what I am.”
For, in truth, he much preferred avoiding such counsel, and relished flattery too well to part with it on cheap terms. He never considered the “rural life more sweet than that of painted pomp,” and, if all tales of Cromwell’s machinations be held true, Charles by no means found the home of exile “more free from peril than the envious court.” On the other hand, his own proclamation, dated 3rd May, 1654, offering an annuity of five hundred pounds, a Colonelcy and Knighthood, to any person who should destroy the Usurper (“a certain mechanic fellow, by name Oliver Cromwell!”), took from him all moral right of complaint against reprisals: unless, as we half-believe, this proclamation were one of the many forgeries. As to any sweetness in “the uses of Adversity,” Charles might have pleaded, with a laugh, that he had known sufficient of them already to be cloyed with it.
The men around him were of similar opinion. A few, indeed, like Cowley and Crashaw, were loyal hearts, whose devotion was best shown in times of difficulty. Not many proved of such sound metal, but there lived some “faithful found among the faithless”; and
“He that can endure
To follow with allegiance a fallen lord,
Does conquer him that did his master conquer,
And earns a place in the story.”