short a time to justify such a display as he had of late appeared disposed to make. On this day of solemn fast, he seemed to have no thought of sackcloth, but showed himself in a summer black bombazin suit, trimmed very nobly with scarlet ribbon; a camlet cloak, lined with scarlet; a prodigious periwig, and a new beaver.
“What news do you bring from the navy-yards?” inquired Dr. Reede. “Is there hope of the ill spirit being allayed, and the defence of the country cared for?”
“In truth, but little,” replied Edmund, "unless it become the custom to pay people their dues. What with the quickness of the enemy, and the slowness of the people to work without their wages, and the chief men running after the shows and pastimes of the court, and others keeping their hands by their sides through want of the most necessary materials, and the waste that comes of wanton idleness,—it is said by certain wise persons that it will be no wonder if our enemies come to our very shores to defy us, and burn our shipping in our own river."
°How is it that you obtain your dues, Edmund? This neat suit would be hardly paid for out of your private fortune."
“It is time for me to go like myself,” said Edmund, conceitedly, “liable as I am to stand before the King or the Duke. I might complain, like the rest, that but little money is to be seen; but, with such as I have, I must do honour to the King’s Majesty, whom I am like to see to-day.”
Mrs. Reede had so strong an apprehension that Edmund would soon be compelled, like others, to forego his salary, that she saw little that was safe and honourable in spending his money on dress as fast as it came in. But that the servants of government were infected with the vanities of the government, they would prepare for the evil days which were evidently coming on, instead of letting their luxury and their poverty grow together.
“So is it ever, whether the vices of government be austere or pleasant,” observed Dr. Reede. “The people must needs look and speak sourly when Oliver grew grave; and now, they have suddenly turned, as it were, into a vast troop of masqueraders, because the court is merry. But there is a difference in the two examples which it behoves discerning men to perceive. In respect of religious gravity, all men stand on the same ground; it is a matter between themselves and their God. But the government has another responsibility, in regard to its extravagance: it is answerable to men; for government does not earn the wealth it spends; and each act of waste is an injury to those who have furnished the means, and an insult to every man who toils hard for scanty bread.”
Government could not be expected to look too closely into these matters, Edmund thought. All governments were more or less extravagant; and he supposed they always would be.
“Because they live by the toil of others? If so, there is a remedy in making the government itself toil.”
“I would fain see it,” cried Mrs. Reede. “I would fain see the King unravelling his perplexed accounts; and the Duke bestirring himself among the ships and in the army, instead of taking the credit of what better men do; and the court ladies ordering their houses discreetly, while their husbands made ready to show what service they had done the nation. Then, my dear, you would preach to a modest, and sober, and thankful people, who, with one heart, would be ready to listen.”
“It is but too far otherwise now,” replied Dr. Reede. "Of my hearers, some harden their hearts in unchristian contempt of all that is not as sad as their own spirits; and others look to see that the cloak hangs from the shoulder in a comely fashion as they stand. At the same time, there is more need of the word the more men’s minds are divided. This is the age when virtue is oppressed, and the selfish make mirth. Of those that pray for the King’s Majesty, how many have given him their children’s bread, and mourn and pine, while the gay whom they feed have no thought for their misery! Edmund himself allows that the shipwrights go home without their wages, while he who works scarce at all disports himself with his bombazin suit and scarlet ribbons. Can I preach to them as effectually as if they were content, and he——" “What?” inquired Edmund.
"In truth, Edmund, I could less find in my heart to admonish these defrauded men for stealing bread from the navy-stores for their hungry children, than you for drawing their envious eyes upon you. The large money that pays your small service, whose is it but theirs,—earned hardly, paid willingly to the King, to be spent in periwigs and silk hose? Shall men who thus injure and feel injury in their worldly labour, listen with one heart and mind to the Sabbath word? Too well I know that, from end to end of this kingdom, there is one tumult of bad passions which set the Scriptures at nought. The lion devours the lamb; the innocent know too well the sting of the asp; and as often as a fleece appears, men spy for the wolf beneath it. What chance hath the word when it falls upon ground so encumbered?"
Edmund pleaded that, though he had done little yet to merit his public salary, he meant to do a great deal. This very day, the King had appointed some confidential person to confer with him on an affair in which his exertions would be required. Things had come to such a pass now in the management of the army and navy, that something must be done to satisfy the people; and Edmund hoped, that if he put on the appearance of a rising young man, he might soon prove to be so, and gain honour in proportion to the profit he was already taking by anticipation.
It must be something very pressing that was wanted of Edmund, if no day would serve but that of this solemn fast. It did not occur to the Reedes that it must be a day of ennui to Charles and his court, at any rate, and that there would be an economy of mirth in transacting at such a time business which must be done.
There was a something in Edmund’s countenance and gait as he went to worship this morning which made his sister fear that, during the service, he must be thinking more of the expected interview at the palace than of her husband’s eloquent exposition of how the sins of the government were the sins of the nation, and how both merited the chastisement which it was the object of this day’s penitence to avert.
The sermon was a bold one; but the nation was growing bold under a sense of injury, and of the inconsistency of the government. The time was past when plain speakers could be sent off to the wars, for the purpose of being impoverished, made captive, or slain. Dr. Reede knew, and bore in mind, the fate of a certain ancestor of his, and returned thanks in his heart for such an advance in the recognition of social rights as allowed him to be as honest as his forefathers, with greater impunity. He resolved now to do a bolder thing than he had ever yet meditated,—to take advantage of Edmund’s going to the palace to endeavour to obtain an interview with the King, and intercede for the Presbyterian clergy, who must, in a few days, vacate their livings, or violate their consciences, unless Charles should be pleased to remember, before it was too late, that he had passed his royal word in their favour. Charles was not difficult of access, particularly on a fast-day; the experiment was worth trying.
The streets were dull and empty as the brothers proceeded to the riverside to take boat for the palace. There was a little more bustle by the stairs whence they meant to embark, the watermen having had abundance of time this day to drink and quarrel. The contention for the present Godsend of passengers would have run high, if Edmund had not known how to put on the manner of a personage of great importance; a manner which he sincerely thought himself entitled to assume, it being a mighty pleasure, as he declared to his companion, to feel himself a greater man in the world than he could once have expected for himself, or any of his friends for him. He felt as if he was lord of the Thames, while, with his arms folded in his cloak, and his beaver nicely poised, he looked abroad, and saw not another vessel in motion on the surface of the broad river.
This solitude did not last very long. Dr. Reede had not finished contemplating the distant church of St. Paul’s, which Wren, the artist, had been engaged to repair. He was speculating on the probable effect of a cupola (a strange form described, but not yet witnessed, in England); he was wondering what induced Oliver to take the choir for horsebarracks, when so many other buildings in the neighbourhood might have served the purpose better; he was inwardly congratulating his accomplished young friend on his noble task of restoring,—not only to beauty, that which was dilapidated,—but to sanctity that which was desecrated. Dr. Reede was thinking of these things, rather than listening to the watermen’s account of a singular new vessel, called a yacht, which the Dutch East India Company had presented to the King, when a barge was perceived to be coming up the river with so much haste as to excite Edmund’s attention and stop the boatman’s description.
"It is Palmer, bringing news, I am sure,—what mighty haste!" observed Edmund, turning to order the boatmen to make for the barge. "News from sea,—mighty good or bad, I am certain. We will catch them on their way."
“Palmer, the King’s messenger! He will not tell his news to us, Edmund.”
“He will, knowing me, and finding where I am going.”
Palmer did tell his news. His Majesty had sustained a signal defeat abroad. The doubt was where to find the King or the Duke, there being a rumour that they were somewhere on the river. Palmer had witnessed a sailing-match between two royal boats, some way below Greenwich, but he could not make out that any royal personages were on board.
“Here they are, if they be on the river!” exclaimed Edmund, inquiring of the watermen if the extraordinary vessel just coming in sight was not the yacht they had described. It was, and the King must be on board, as no one else would dream of taking pleasure on the river this day.
Edmund managed so well to put himself in the way of being observed while Palmer made his inquiries, that both were summoned on board the yacht.
The clergyman looked so unlike anybody that the lords and gentlemen within had commonly to do with, that he was not allowed to remain behind. They seemed to have some curiosity to see whether a presbyterian parson could eat like other men, for they pressed him to sit down to table with them,—a table steaming with the good meats which had been furnished from the kitchen-boat which always followed in the rear of the yacht. Dr. Reede simply observed that it was a fast day; and could not be made to perceive that being on the water and in high company absolved him from the observances of the day. Every body else seemed of a different opinion; for, not content with the usual regale of fine music which attended the royal excursions, the lords and gentlemen present had made the fiddlers drunk, and set them in that state to sing all the foul songs with which their professional memories could furnish them.
Abundance of punch was preparing, and there was some Canary of incomparable goodness which had been carried to and from the Indies. Two of the company were too deeply interested in what they were about to care for either music or Canary at the moment. Charles and the Duke of Ormond were rattling the dice-box, having staked 1000_l._ on the cast.
It was of some consequence to the King to win it, as he had, since morning, lost 23,000_l._ in bets with the Duke of York and others about the sailing match which they had carried on while the rest of the nation were at church, deprecating God’s judgments.
Having lost his 1000_l._, he turned gaily to the strangers, as if expecting some new amusement from them. He made a sign to Edmund (whom he knew in virtue of his office), that he would hold discourse with him presently in private, and then asked Dr. Reede what the clergy had discovered of the reasons for the heavy judgment with which the kingdom was afflicted.
Dr. Reede believed the clergy were more anxious to obtain God’s mercy than to account for his judgments.
“You are deceived, friend. Our reverend dean of Windsor has been preaching that it is our supineness in leaving the heads of the regicides on their shoulders that has brought these visitations on our people. He discoursed largely of the matter of the Gibeonites, and exhorted us to quick vengeance.”
Dr. Reede could not remember any text which taught that wreaking vengeance on man was the way to propitiate God. He could not suppose that this disastrous defeat abroad would have been averted by butchering the regicides in celebration of the King’s marriage, as had been proposed.
The King had not yet had time to comprehend the news of this defeat. On hearing of it, he seemed in a transient state of consternation; marvelled, as his subjects were wont to do, what was to become of the kingdom at this rate; and signified his wish to be left with the messenger, the Duke of York alone remaining to help him to collect all the particulars. The company accordingly withdrew to curse the enemy, wonder who was killed and who wounded, and straightway amuse themselves, the ladies with the dice-box, the gentlemen with betting on their play, and all with the feats of a juggler of rare accomplishments, who was at present under the patronage of one of the King’s favourites.
When Palmer had told his story and was dismissed, Edmund was called in, and, at his own request, was attended by his brother-in-law,—the discreet gentleman of excellent learning, who might aid the project to be now discoursed of. The King did, at length, look grave. He supposed Edmund knew the purpose for which his presence was required.
“To receive his Highness the Duke’s pleasure respecting the navy accounts that are to be laid before Parliament.”
“That is my brother’s affair,” replied the King. "I desire from you,—your parts having been well commended to me,—some discreet composure which shall bring our government into less disfavour with our people than it hath been of late."
Edmund did not doubt that this could easily be done.
"It must be done; for in our present straits we cannot altogether so do without the people as for our ease we could desire. But as for the ease,—there is but little of it where the people are so changeable. They have forgot the flatteries with which they hailed us, some short while since, and give us only murmurs instead. It is much to be wished that they should be satisfied in respect of their duty to us, without which we cannot satisfy them in the carrying on of the war."
The Duke of York thought that his Majesty troubled himself needlessly about the way in which supplies were to be obtained from the people.
Money must be had, and speedily, or defeat would follow defeat; for never were the army and navy in a more wretched condition than now. But if his Majesty would only exert his prerogative, and levy supplies for his occasions as his ancestors had done, all might yet be retrieved without the trouble of propitiating the nation. The King persisted however in his design of making his government popular by means of a pamphlet which should flatter the people with the notion that they kept their affairs in their own hands. It was the shortest way to begin by satisfying the people’s minds.
And how was this to be done? Dr. Reede presumed to inquire. Charles, thoroughly discomposed by the news he had just heard, in addition to a variety of private perplexities, declared that nothing could be easier than to set forth a true account of the royal poverty. No poor gentleman of all the train to whom he was in debt could be more completely at his wit’s end for money than he. His wardrobeman had this morning lamented that the King had no handkerchiefs, and only three bands to his neck; and how to take up a yard of linen for his Majesty’s service was more than any one knew.
Edmund glanced at his own periwig in the opposite mirror, and observed that it would be very easy to urge this plea, if such was his Majesty’s pleasure.
“Od’s fish! man, you would not tell this beggarly tale in all its particulars! You would not set the loyal housewives in London to offer me their patronage of shirts and neckbands!”
“Besides,” said the Duke, “though it might be very easy to tell the tale of our poverty, it might not be so easy to make men believe it.”
Dr. Reede here giving an involuntary sign of assent, the King would know what was in his mind. Dr. Reede, as usual, spoke his thoughts. The people, being aware what sums had within a few months fallen into the royal treasury, would be slow to suppose that their king was in want of necessary clothing.
“What! the present to the Queen from the Lord Mayor and Aldermen? That was but a paltry thousand pounds.”
Dr. Reede could not let it be supposed that any one expected the King to benefit by gifts to his Queen.
Charles looked up hastily to see if this was intended as a reproach, for he had indeed appropriated every thing that he could lay his hands on of what his dutiful subjects had offered to his Queen, as a compliment on her marriage. The clergyman looked innocent, and the King went on,— "And as for her portion,—twenty such portions would not furnish forth one war, as the people ought to know. And there is my sister’s portion to the Prince of Orleans soon to be paid. If the people did but take the view we would have them take of our affairs at home and abroad, we should not have to borrow of France, and want courage to tell our faithful subjects that we had done so."
Edmund would do his best to give them the desired opinions. Dr. Reede thought it a pity they could not be by the King’s side,—aye, now on board this very boat, to understand and share the King’s views, and thus justify the government. As a burst of admiration at some of the juggler’s tricks made itself heard in the cabin at the very moment this was said, the King again looked up to see whether satire was intended.
Edmund supposed that one object of his projected pamphlet was to communicate gently the fact of a secret loan of 200,000 crowns from France, designed for the support of the war in Portugal, but so immediately swallowed up at home that it appeared to have answered no more purpose than a loan of so many pebbles, while it had subjected the nation to a degradation which the people would not have voluntarily incurred. This communication was indeed to be a part of Edmund’s task; but there was a more important one still to be made. It could not now long remain a secret that Dunkirk was in the hands of the French—— “Dunkirk taken by the French!” exclaimed Dr. Reede, not crediting what he heard. “We are lost indeed, if the French make aggressions like this.”
“Patience, brother!” whispered Edmund. “There is no aggression in the case. The matter is arranged by mutual agreement.”
Dr. Reede looked perplexed, till the Duke carelessly told him that Dunkirk had been sold to the French King. It was a pity the nation must know the fact. They would not like it.
“Like it! Dunkirk sold! Whose property was Dunkirk?” asked Dr. Reede, reverting to the time when Oliver’s acquisition of Dunkirk was celebrated as a national triumph.
“We must conduct the bargains of the nation, you know,” replied the Duke. “In old times, the people desired no better managers of their affairs than their kings.”
“’Tis a marvel then that they troubled themselves to have Parliaments.
Pray God the people may be content with what they shall receive for a conquest which they prized! Some other goodly town, I trust, is secured to us; or some profitable fishing coast; or some fastness which shall give us advantage over the enemy, and spare the blood of our soldiers.”
“It were as well to have retained Dunkirk as taken any of these in exchange,” said the King;—a proposition which Dr. Reede was far from disputing. “Our necessities required another fashion of payment.”
"In money!—and then the taxes will be somewhat lightened. This will be a welcome relief to the people, although their leave was not asked. There is at least the good of a lifting up of a little portion of their burdens."
“Not so. We cannot at present spare our subjects. This 400,000_l._ come from Dunkirk is all too little for the occasions of our dignity. Our house at Hampton Court is not yet suitably arranged. The tapestries are such that the world can show nothing nobler, yet the ceilings, however finely fretted, are not yet gilt. The canal is not perfected, and the Banqueting House in the Paradise is yet bare.”
“The extraordinary wild fowl in St. James’s Park did not fly over without cost,” observed the Duke.
"Some did. The melancholy water-fowl from Astracan was bestowed by the Russian Ambassador; and certain merchants who came for justice brought us the cranes and the milk-white raven. But the animals that it was needful to put in to make the place answerable to its design,—the antelopes, and the Guinea goats, and the Arabian sheep, and others,—cost nearly their weight of gold. Kings cannot make fair bargains."
“For aught but necessaries,” interposed the divine.
"Or for necessaries. Windsor is exceedingly ragged and ruinous. It will occupy the cost of Dunkirk to restore it——" “According to the taste of the ladies of the court,” interrupted the Duke. “They will have the gallery of horns furnished with beams of the rarest elks and antelopes that there be in the world. Then the hall and stairs must be bright with furniture of arms, in festoons, trophy-like: while the chambers have curious and effeminate pictures, giving a contrast of softness to that which presented only war and horror.”
“Then there is the demolishing of the palace at Greenwich, in order to build a new one. Besides the cost of rearing, we are advised so to make a cut as to let in the Thames like a square bay, which will be chargeable.”
“And this is to be ordered by Parliament? or are the people to be told that a foreign possession of theirs is gone to pay for water-fowl and effeminate pictures?”
“Then there is the army,” continued the King. “I have daily news of a lack of hospitals, so that our maimed soldiers die of the injuries of the air. And this very defeat, with which the city will presently be ringing, was caused by the failure of ammunition. And not unknowingly; for this young clerk had the audacity to forewarn us.”
“Better have sold the troops and their general alive into the hands of the enemy, than send them into the field without a sufficiency of defence,” cried Dr. Reede.
“So his Majesty thinks,” observed the Duke; “and has therefore done wisely in taking a goodly sum from the Dutch to delay the sailing of the fleet for the east till the season is too far gone for action. Nay! is it not a benefit for the King to have the money he so much needs, and for the lives to be saved which must be otherwise lost for want of the due ammunition?”
Dr. Reede was too much affected at this gross bartering away of the national honour to trust himself to speak; Edmund observed that he should insist, in his pamphlet, on the exceeding expensiveness of war in these days, in comparison of the times when men went out, each with his bow and arrow, or his battle-axe, and his provision of food furnished at his own charge. Since gunpowder had been used, and engines of curious workmanship,—since war had become a science, it had grown mightily expensive, and the people must pay accordingly, as he should speedily set forth.
“Setting forth also how the people should therefore be the more consulted, before a strife is entered upon,” said the clergyman.
“Nay,” said the Duke, “I am for making the matter short and easy. An expensive army we must have; and a troublesome Parliament to boot is too much. I am for getting up the army into an honourable condition, and letting down the Parliament. His Majesty will be persuaded thereto in time, when he has had another taste of the discontents of his changeable people.”
Dr. Reede imagined that such an innovation might not be the last change, if the nation should have more liking to be represented by a Parliament than ruled by an army. But the Duke did not conceal his contempt for the new fashion of regarding the people and their representatives. There was no telling what pass things might come to when monarchs were reduced to shifts to get money, and the people fancied that they had a right to sit in judgment on the use that was made of it. He seemed to forget that he had had a father, and what had become of him, while he set up as an example worthy of all imitation the spirited old king, bluff Harry, that put out his hand and took what he pleased, and amused himself with sending grumblers to seek adventures north, south, east, or west. If the King would take his advice, he would show the nation an example of the first duty of a king,—to protect his people from violence,—in such a fashion as should leave the Parliament little to say, even if allowed to meet. Let his Majesty bestow all his paternal care on cherishing his army.
“It is true,” said Dr. Reede, “that a ruler’s first duty is to give security to his people; and in the lowest state in which men herd together, the danger is looked for from without; and the people who at home gather food, each for himself, go out to war, each with his own weapon. Their ruler does no more than call them out, and point the way, and lead them home. Afterwards, when men are settled on lands, and made the property of the rich and strong, they go out to war at the charge of their lords, and the King has still nothing to do but to command them.
Every man is or may be a warrior; and it is for those who furnish forth his blood and sinews, his weapons and his food, to decide about the conduct of the war. But, at a later time, when men intermingle and divide their labour at will, and the time of slavery is over, every man is no longer a warrior, but some fight for hire, while those who hire them stay at their business at home.”
“Or at their pleasures,” observed the Duke, glancing at his brother.
“Under favour, no,” replied Dr. Reede. "It is not, I conceive, the King that hires the army to do his pleasure, but the people who hire it for their defence, the King having the conduct of the enterprises. If the will of the nation be not taken as to their defence,—if they should perchance think they need no armed defence, and lose their passion for conquest, whence must come the hire of their servants,—the soldiery?"
“They must help themselves with it,” replied the Duke, carelessly.
"And if they find a giant at every man’s door,—a lion in the path to every one’s field?" said the divine.
“Thy learning hath perplexed thee, man. These are not the days of enchantment, of wild beasts, and overtopping men.”
“Pardon me; there are no days when men may not be metamorphosed, if the evil influence be but strong enough. There are no days when a man’s household gods will not make a giant of him for the defence of their shrine. There are no days when there are not such roarings in the path of violence as to sink the heart of the spoiler within him.”
“Let but the art of war improve like other arts,” said the Duke, “and our cannon will easily out-roar all your lions, and beat down the giants you speak of.”
“Rather the reverse, I conceive,” said the plain-spoken clergyman. “The expense of improved war is aggravated, not only in the outfit, but in the destruction occasioned. The soldier is a destructive labourer, and, as such, will not be overlong tolerated by an impoverished nation, whose consent to strife is the more necessary the more chargeable such strife becomes to them. Furthermore, men even now look upon blood as something more precious than water, and upon human souls as somewhat of a higher nature than the fiery bubbles that our newly-wise chemists send up into the ether, to wander whither no eye can follow them. Our cannon now knock down a file where before a battle-axe could cleave but a single skull. Men begin already to tremble over their child’s play of human life; and if the day comes when some mighty engine shall be prepared to blow to atoms half an army, there may be found a multitude of stout hearts to face it; but where is he who will be brave enough to fire the touch-hole, even for the sure glory of being God’s arch enemy?”
“Is this brother of thine seeking a patent for some new device of warengines?” inquired Charles of the divine. “Methinks your discourse seems like a preface to such a proposal. Would it were so! for patents aid the exchequer.”
“Would it were so!” said the Duke, “for a king might follow his own will with such an engine in his hand.”
“Would it were so!” said Dr. Reede, “for then would the last days of war be come, and Satan would find much of his occupation gone. Edmund, if thou wilt invent such an engine as may mow down a host at a blow, I will promise thee a triumph on that battle-field, and the intercession of every church in Christendom. Such a deed shall one day be done. War shall one day be ended; but not by you, Edmund. Men must enact the wild beast yet a few centuries longer, to furnish forth a barbarous show to their rulers, till men shall call instead for a long age of fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes.”
“Meantime,” said Edmund, “they call impertinently for certain accounts of the charges of our wars which his Majesty is over gracious in permitting them to demand.”
“Do they think so?”
“They cannot but see,” said the Duke, “by the way his Majesty gave his speech to the Parliament, that he desires no meddling from them.”
“And how did I speak?” asked the King. “Did I not assure the Commons that I would not have asked for their subsidies if I had not had need; and that through no extravagance of my own, but the disorder of the times? And is not that much to say when I am daily told by my gentlemen of the palace, and others who know better still, that my will is above all privilege of Parliament or city, and that I have no need to account to any at all? How did I speak?”
"Only as if your wits were with your queen, or some other lady, while the words of your speech lay under your eye. Some words your Commons must needs remember, from the many times they were said over; but further——" “Pshaw!” cried the King, vexed at the description he had himself asked for. “This learned divine knows not what our Parliament is made of.
There are but two seamen and about twenty merchants, and the rest have no scruple in coming drunk to the house, and making a mockery of the country people when they are sober. How matters it how I give my speech to them?”
“They are indeed not the people,” observed Reede; "and I forewarn your Majesty that their consent is not the consent of the people; and that however they may clap the hands at your Majesty’s enterprises and private sales, the people will not be the less employed in looking back upon Oliver——" “And forward to me?” inquired the Duke, laughing.
"And forward to the time when the proud father shall not be liable to see his only son return barefoot and tattered from a war where he has spilled his blood; or a daughter made the victim, first of violence, and then of mockery, through the example of the King’s court; and no justice to be had but by him who brings the heaviest bribe:—forward to the time when drunken cavaliers shall be thought unfitting representatives of a hungering people; and when the money which is raised by the toils of the nation shall be spent for the benefit of the nation; when men shall inquire how Rome fell, and why France is falling; and shall find that decay ensues when that which is a trust is still pertinaciously used as prerogative, and when the profusion in high places is answerable to the destitution below!"
“Nay; I am sure there is destitution in high places,” cried the King, “and luxury in the lower. I see not a few ladies outshining my Queen in gallantry of jewels; and if you like to look in at certain low houses that I could tell you of, you will see what vast heaps of gold are squandered in deep and most prodigious gaming.”
“True; and therein is found the excuse of the court; that whenever the nation is over-given to luxury, the court is prodigious in its extravagance.”
“Hold, man!” cried the King. “Wouldst thou be pilloried for a libel?”
“Such is too common a sight to draw due regard,” coolly replied the divine. “Libels are in some sort the primers of the ignorant multitude, scornfully despised for their ignorance. There are not means wherewith to give the people letters in an orderly way; so that they gape after libels first, and then they gape to see them burned by the hangman; and learn one sort of hardness by flinging stones at a pilloried wretch, and another sort of hardness by watching the faces of traitors who pray confidently on the scaffold, and look cheerfully about them on the hangman’s hellish instruments; and all this hardness, which may chance to peril your Majesty, is not always mollified by such soft things as they may witness at the theatres which profanely give and take from the licentious times. If the people would become wise, such is the instruction that awaits them.”
“Methinks you will provoke us to let the people see how cheerfully you would look on certain things that honest gazers round a scaffold shrink from beholding. It were better for you to pray for me from your pulpit, like a true subject of Christ and your King.”
“Hitherto I have done so; but it pleases your Majesty that from my pulpit I should pray no longer. Alas!” cried he, casting a glance through the window as he perceived that the vessel drew to land, “alas!
what a raging fire! And another! And a third!”
“The bonfires for the victory,” quietly observed Edmund.
Dr. Reede was forbidden to throw any doubts abroad on the English having gained a splendid victory. The King had ordered these bonfires at the close of the fast day. They were lighted, it appeared, somewhat prematurely, as the sun yet glittered along the Thames; but this only showed the impatient joy of the people. The church bells were evidently preparing to ring merry peals as soon as the last hour of humiliation should have expired. The King’s word had gone forth. It suited his purposes to gain a victory just now; and a victory he was determined it should be, to the last moment. When the people should discover the cheat, the favours occasioned by it would be past recall. They could only do what they had done before,—go home and be angry.
This was all that now remained for Dr. Reede, the King’s landing being waited for by a throng of persons whose converse had little affinity with wise counsel. Certain courtiers, deplorably _ennuyés_ by the king’s absence, sauntered about the gardens, and looked abroad upon the river, in hopes of his approach. An importation of French coxcombs from Dunkirk, in fantastical habits, was already here to offend the eyes of the insulted English people. It was not till Edmund (who was not