DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.51519#0022
viii editor’s introduction.
allow its attention to be given to public business; the money was
ill applied , and; after the King’ had squandered the enormous sum
of 2,390;000Z. amongst his mistresses and favourites^ the war
ended; in 1667; with disgrace. It is recorded; that when the
Dutch fleet was employed in destroying’ the shipping in the Thames
and the Medway, and threatened a still more serious invasion,
Charles was employed with Lady Castlemaine in the interesting
sport of hunting’ a moth !
Much of this waste of resources and ill management; was laid to
the venality of Sir William Coventry; the treasurer of the navy.
Denham; in one of his political poems; describes him as —
“ Cerulian Coventry,
Keeper, or rather chancellor, of the sea
To pay his fees the silver trumpet spends,
And boatswain’s whistle for his place depends;
Pilots in vain repeat their compass o’er,
Until of him they learn that one point more,
The constant magnet to the pole doth hold,
Steel to the magnet, Coventry to gold.
Muscovy sells us pitch, and hemp, and tar ;
Iron and copper, Sweden; Munster, war;
Ashly, prize; Warwick, custom ; Carteret, pay;
But Coventry doth sell the fleet away.”
But the tide of unpopularity; raised by the disadvantageous
peace; after so much money and blood had been expended; fell
heaviest on Lord Clarendon. Lady Castlemaine; who hated him
because he had obstructed some of her extravagant whims; gave
the King* no rest till the Chancellor was dismissed from his office;
and then Charles’s worthless companions congratulated him on
being; at last; his own master.
Pepys has entered in his Diary a conversation with Evelyn in
the spring of this year; (1667;) before the peace and the fall of the
Chancellor; which gives a curious picture of the weak conduct of
the a merry King.”*
* Pepys, vol. iii. p. 201.
allow its attention to be given to public business; the money was
ill applied , and; after the King’ had squandered the enormous sum
of 2,390;000Z. amongst his mistresses and favourites^ the war
ended; in 1667; with disgrace. It is recorded; that when the
Dutch fleet was employed in destroying’ the shipping in the Thames
and the Medway, and threatened a still more serious invasion,
Charles was employed with Lady Castlemaine in the interesting
sport of hunting’ a moth !
Much of this waste of resources and ill management; was laid to
the venality of Sir William Coventry; the treasurer of the navy.
Denham; in one of his political poems; describes him as —
“ Cerulian Coventry,
Keeper, or rather chancellor, of the sea
To pay his fees the silver trumpet spends,
And boatswain’s whistle for his place depends;
Pilots in vain repeat their compass o’er,
Until of him they learn that one point more,
The constant magnet to the pole doth hold,
Steel to the magnet, Coventry to gold.
Muscovy sells us pitch, and hemp, and tar ;
Iron and copper, Sweden; Munster, war;
Ashly, prize; Warwick, custom ; Carteret, pay;
But Coventry doth sell the fleet away.”
But the tide of unpopularity; raised by the disadvantageous
peace; after so much money and blood had been expended; fell
heaviest on Lord Clarendon. Lady Castlemaine; who hated him
because he had obstructed some of her extravagant whims; gave
the King* no rest till the Chancellor was dismissed from his office;
and then Charles’s worthless companions congratulated him on
being; at last; his own master.
Pepys has entered in his Diary a conversation with Evelyn in
the spring of this year; (1667;) before the peace and the fall of the
Chancellor; which gives a curious picture of the weak conduct of
the a merry King.”*
* Pepys, vol. iii. p. 201.