The Last Struggle BETWEEN York and Monmouth. FOURTH GROUP OF ROXBURGHE BALLADS ON James, Duke of Monmouth. INCORPORATING, IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER, The Accession of James H.; the Secret Conspiracy in ~ FORMING A FINAL GROUP, ON THE Struggle for the Succession between York and Monmouth. Now first Collected, Annotated, and Reprinted for the Ballad Society, VOL. V. 1885. 2 L The Last Struggle for Supremacy between York and Monmouth. "Come, now let's rejoyce and the City Bells ring, For Mercies that we have received of late, The Traps that they laid, and the Snares that they set, "With Wine of all sorts let the conduits run free, We'll pray with our hearts, and fight with our hands, "Old Chiron thus preach'd to his pupil Achilles, To the Siege of Troy; Thence never to return to Greece again, Let not your noble courage be cast down, But, all the while you lie before the Town, Drink, and drive care away! Drink, and be merry! -Walsh's Orpheus Britannicus. "To be wrought on by Rogues, and have my head -B. & F.'s Bloody Brother, Act v. The Accession of King James the Second. "Old Stories of State grow now out of date, Without those wild maggots which Calvin has blown." -Newgate Salutation, 168. OR weal or for woe, whichever it might prove, JAMES Duke of York was now acknowledged King of England, on the death of his brother CHARLES. The anticipations of many pessimist prophets, the evil auguries of the superstitious fanatics, who could tolerate no other. person's superstition or fanaticism, were now to be put to the test. Their utmost endeavours for the Exclusion of James from the throne had failed. By their headstrong opposition they had not only hindered the late monarch from enacting any limitations on the future power of his "Popish Successor" (which antecedent enactments might nevertheless have availed little to curb him, if he desired to over-ride the limitations, in the same manner as he afterwards outraged other existing laws); but they had left an embittered remembrance in the mind of the monarch whom they had vainly sought to destroy. It is true that his first words were full of clemency, with promise to maintain the Church of England and the liberties of the subject, no less than the prerogative of the Crown. He seemed to be desirous, if his nature would allow it, of casting into the waters of oblivion all disagreeable matters of old-time. James the Second could afford to pardon the offences wrought against the Duke of York. But he had never been the man to achieve victories over himself, and it was not likely that he would exert himself strenuously, or succeed gloriously, in the present attempt. Naturam expelles furcâ, tamen usque recurret. It was reported that amid their troubles the shrewd Charles had said to him, "I am too old to begin my travels again; but you 516 Future flight of James, foretold by Charles. may, if you like." The warning slumbered for awhile in people's memories, but the truth of the prediction came forcibly to mind on its fulfilment within four years of James's Accession to the Throne. Two years before his death, Charles the Second said to Sir Richard Bulstrode that he had seen many countries, of which none pleased him so much as that of the Flemings, which were the most honest and true-hearted race of people that he had met with," and then added, "but I am weary of travelling. I am resolved to go abroad no more. But when I am dead and gone, I know not what my Brother will do: I am much afraid that when he comes to the Crown, he will be obliged to travel again. And yet I will take care to leave my kingdoms to him in Peace, wishing he may long keep them so. But this hath all of my fears, little of my hopes, and less of my Reason; and I am much afraid that when my Brother comes to the Crown, he will be obliged to leave his native soil."Bulstrode's Memoirs, p. 425. Probably the first shock given by James to the loyal feelings of the nation was caused by the indecent haste with which he proclaimed that Charles had died in union with the Church of Rome. In earlier years, seditious praters made rash assertions of such reconciliation having been made by both the brothers, at the instigation of their mother, the Queen-Dowager Henrietta Maria; but that while York was imprudent in avowal, Charles held politiely secret the change of creed. Dangerous admissions and promises had certainly been made in the Treaty of Dover, 1670; but such treaty obligations, like others carefully stipulated, were often found to be a dead letter, so soon as one of the signatories found it convenient to explain away the sense of the passage. This trick is not yet obsolete. There is no sufficient reason to believe that King Charles had taken the decisive step of 'conversion' before the death-bed agony reduced his mind and body; when Louise, the Duchess of Portsmouth, consulted with James "to save his soul." 1 1 Great as were the faults of Louise de Quérouaille, her unselfishness and sympathy for the dying King (as mentioned on pp. 505, 517) should be remembered to her credit. One of the many attacks on her was a licentious novel, extremely rare, and in our possession, entitled The Secret History of the Dutchess of Portsmouth, giving an Account of the Intreagues of the Court, during her Ministry. And of the death of K. C. II. London, Printed for Richard Baldwin, in the Old Baily, 1690 pp. 162. It begins, Francelia was the daughter of a French Merchant of Tron, who having by his own industry got a small estate, retired with it from the tumult and bustle of the great and populous city of Paris to the country," etcetera. Francelia represents the Duchess Louise de Quérouaille. All the other characters are intended for real persons. Sir Edmundus = Sir Edmond Bury Godfrey. The Duke de Bellame carries her to Candia. Chandore is his page. There is also a Marquess and a Courtier Urbirupa. Her mistress the Princess Dorabella is evidently meant for the ill-starred poisoned Duchess of Orleans. Cornelia is Barbara Palmer, Duchess of Cleaveland. Helanda alias Helliana is Nell Gwynne. Villarius George Villiers the second, Duke of Buckingham. The Prince Charles II. Sancti Pater the Grand Prior Vendôme, who excited much jealousy. Tyrannides Louis XIV., and Artabaces figures prominently, the Duke of York not being forgotten. Barillon's account of the death-bed Conversion. 517 M. Barillon's letter to Louis XIV., of "February 18th "(N.S.), =8th, 168, is important, not only for its fullness of detail, but especially from it being evidently trustworthy, the narrative of an eye-witness who had the closest personal contact with the chief individuals concerned. It was copied from the French original, in the depôt at Versailles, and also translated, in the Appendix to Dalrymple's Memoirs, vol. ii. pp. 90 to 98. Barillon held admission at any hour to Whitehall during the fatal illness of Charles, by order of James, who was continually in the King's ante-room, save when he had to give orders upon matters connected with the coming announcement of himself as successor. This he remembered to do. 'As soon as I arrived, the Duke of York said to me, "The physicians think the King in extreme danger. Je vous prie d'assurer votre Maître qu'il aura toujours en moi un serviteur fidéle et reconnoissant." I was five hours in the King's antichamber. The Duke of York made me come into the bed-chamber several times, and spoke to me of what was passing without doors, and of the assurances given him from every quarter that all was very quiet in the town, and that he should be proclaimed King the moment the King his brother was dead. I went out for some time to go to the Dutchess of Portsmouth's apartment. I found her overwhelmed with grief; the physicians having taken all hopes from her. However, instead of speaking to me of her affliction, and the loss she was on the point of sustaining, she went into a small closet and said to me: "Monsieur the Ambassador, I am to tell you the greatest secret in the world, and my head would be in danger if it was known. The King of England at the bottom of his heart is a Catholic; but he is surrounded with Protestant bishops, and nobody tells him his condition, nor speaks to him of God. [Le Roy d'Angleterre dans le fonds de son cœur est catholique, mais il est environe des evesques protestants, et personne ne lui dit l'état ou il est, ni ne lui parle de Dieu. Je ne puis plus avec bienséance r'entrer dans le chamber.] I cannot with decency [re-Jenter the room; besides that the Queen is almost constantly there; the Duke of York thinks of his own affairs, and has too many of them to take the care he ought of the King's conscience; go and tell him I have conjured you to warn him to think of what can be done to save the King's soul. He commands the room, and can turn out whom he will; lose no time, for if it is deferred, ever so little, it will be too late." 'I returned instantly to find the Duke of York, and begged him to make a pretence of going to the Queen [Catharine], who had left the King's room, and who having fainted was just blooded. The room communicated with both apartments; I followed him to the Queen's, and told him what the Dutchess of Portsmouth [had] said to me. He recovered himself as from a deep lethargy, and said, "You are in the right [=vous-avez raison]: there is no time to lose. I will hazard all rather than not do my duty on this occasion." An hour after he returned, under the same pretence of going to the Queen, and told me he had spoken to the King his brother, and found him resolved not to take the sacrament which the Protestant bishops had pressed him to receive; that this had surprised them much; but that one or other of them would remain always in the room if we did not find a pretence to make everybody leave it.'—(2nd ed., 1773.) Soon afterwards Father Huddlestone was brought up secretly by the back-stair, and administered extreme unction to the dying convert. Since ghostly comfort was to be accepted, it was not improbably more welcome from a well-proved faithful loyalist like this, than from the bishops who crowded the bed-chamber. (Compare p. 524.) 1 |