Can it be believed that throughout a career so rapid and so brilliant, the powerful Minister was sighing for repose, and retirement to the old home in Cornwall? Evelyn[156] assures us that such was the case with his 'deare friend,' at any rate, during the brief years of his happy married life. But Margaret—his well-beloved Margaret—had died in giving birth to Francis, their only son.
And now that we have seen her illustrious husband reach the pinnacle of his ambition, we may turn for a while to the story of his wife. She was descended from a good family out of Norfolk,[157] and her father was a Colonel Blagge, Groom of the Bedchamber to Charles I. and II. She was born on 2nd August, 1652, and reluctantly came to the court of the then Duchess of York—Anne Hyde—when only about fifteen years of age, leaving it for that of the Queen on the death of the Duchess in 1671. She was always of a pious and retiring—not to say melancholy—disposition, and would have infinitely preferred the quiet innocence of a country house to the tumult and dissipation of such a Court as that to which she was now introduced. As an instance of the almost morbid tendency of her mind, Evelyn's description of her attitude in the portrait which she gave him may be cited:
'She would be drawne in a lugubrous posture, sitting upon a Tomb stone adorned with a Sepulcher Urne.'
An engraving of this picture is prefixed to the edition of Evelyn to which I have just referred. It quite embodies the spirit of Tennyson's lines to another Margaret:
'O sweet pale Margaret,
O rare pale Margaret,
What lit your eyes with tearful power,
Like moonlight on a falling shower?
Who lent you, love, your mortal dower
Of pensive thought and aspect pale,
Your melancholy sweet and frail
As perfume of the cuckoo flower?
From the westward-winding flood,
From the evening-lighted wood,
From all things outward you have won
A tearful grace, as tho' you stood
Between the rainbow and the sun.
The very smile before you speak
That dimples your transparent cheek,
Encircles all the heart, and feedeth
The senses with a still delight
Of dainty sorrow without sound,
Like the tender amber round
Which the moon about her spreadeth,
Moving through a fleecy night.'
It may be easily imagined that with such a temperament she bent her mind with extreme difficulty to what she considered her duty—namely, to be in the Court, and yet not of the Court—faithfully discharging all the duties allotted to her, and preserving a cheerful face, though her heart was aching at the recklessness and sensuality with which she was surrounded. And yet, says Evelyn, 'Arethusa pass'd thro' all those turbulent waters without soe much as the least staine or tincture in her christall; with her Piety grew up her Witt, which was soe sparkling, accompanyed with a Judgment and Eloquence soe exterordnary, a Beauty and Ayre soe charmeing and lovely, in a word, an Address soe universally takeing, that after few years, the Court never saw or had seen such a Constellation of perfections amongst all their splendid Circles.'
But her release from her uncongenial duties was at length, with difficulty, obtained; and she retired to her friends, Lord and Lady Berkeley (relatives of her future husband), at Berkeley House.[158] Evelyn, writing in his usual rapturous way whenever he had anything to say of his exquisite Margaret, gives the following pretty picture of her flight from the Court:
'You will easyly figure to your selfe how buissy the young Saint was the next morning in makeing upp her little carriage to quitt her prison; and when you have fancied the conflagration of a certain Citty the Scripture speaks of, imagine this Lady trussing upp her little fardle like the two daughters whom the angell hast'ned and conducted; butt the similitude goes no futher, for this holy Virgin went to Zoar, they to the cave of Folly and Intemperence; there was no danger of her lookeing back and becomeing a statue for sorrow of what she left behind. All her household stuffe, besides a Bible and a bundle of Prayerbookes, was packed upp in a very little compass, for she lived soe farr from superfluitye, that she carryed all that was vallueable in her person; and tho' she had a courtly wardrobe, she affected it not, because every thing became her that she putt on, and she became every thing was putt upon her.'
She afterwards moved to lodgings which Evelyn himself built for her, 'over against his Majestie's wood-yard in Scotland Yard,' at Whitehall; settling here, as he says, 'with that pretty and discreete oeconomye soe naturall to her; and never was there such an household of faith, never Lady more worthy of the blessings she was entering into, who was soe thankfull to God for them.' Her housekeeping and the mode in which she kept her faultless accompts are all lovingly dwelt upon; and, indeed, she seems to have been a bright example of the Wordsworthian line, of