DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.51519#0024
X
editor’s introduction.
managed that it could bring nothing* but disgrace. The govern-
ment was deeply in debt; and the King’ was distressed for want of
money; yet he dared not to call a parliament to vote supplies.
At the same time, he loved too much his ease and his pleasures to
take any decisive steps to make himself independent of his parlia-
ment, and he was continually vacillating between different counsels.
Sometimes he was determined to send away Lady Castlemaine
with a pension, and to conciliate the parliament; at others, his
turbulent mistress hectored him into obedience to, and his heartless
courtiers laughed him into acquiescence in, worse advice. The
sacrifice which he pretended to make to the parliament, but which
in reality arose from other feelings, the disgrace of the Lord
Chancellor, only served to render himself contemptible. Yet amid
all this public dissatisfaction, and much public misery, the King
was still (C merry.” Pepys, the valuable and amusing commentator
on this reign, tells us a story in September, 1667, cc how merry
the King and Duke of York and court were the other day, when
they were abroad a-hunting. They came to Sir G. Carteret’s
house at Cranbourne, and there were entertain’d, and all made
drunk; and being all drunk, Armerer did come to the King, and
swore to him by G—, ‘ Sir,’ says he, e you are not so kind to the
Duke of York of late as you used to be.’—‘ Not I ?’ says the King,
‘ why so ‘ Why,’ says he,c if you are, let us drink his health.’—
( Why let us,’ says the King. Then he fell on his knees and
drank it; and having done, the King began to drink it. ‘ Nay,
sir/ says Armerer, ‘ by G—, you must do it on your knees !’ So
he did, and then all the company: and having done it, all fell
a-crying for joy, being all maudlin and kissing one another, the
King the Duke of York, and the Duke of York the King; and in
such a maudlin pickle as never people were: and so passed the
day.”*
Up to this period, the public advisers of the King had been
constantly changing for the worse ; and at the time of Clarendon’s
impeachment, even Arlington and Coventry had fallen into some
* Pepys, vol. iii. pp. 362, 363.
editor’s introduction.
managed that it could bring nothing* but disgrace. The govern-
ment was deeply in debt; and the King’ was distressed for want of
money; yet he dared not to call a parliament to vote supplies.
At the same time, he loved too much his ease and his pleasures to
take any decisive steps to make himself independent of his parlia-
ment, and he was continually vacillating between different counsels.
Sometimes he was determined to send away Lady Castlemaine
with a pension, and to conciliate the parliament; at others, his
turbulent mistress hectored him into obedience to, and his heartless
courtiers laughed him into acquiescence in, worse advice. The
sacrifice which he pretended to make to the parliament, but which
in reality arose from other feelings, the disgrace of the Lord
Chancellor, only served to render himself contemptible. Yet amid
all this public dissatisfaction, and much public misery, the King
was still (C merry.” Pepys, the valuable and amusing commentator
on this reign, tells us a story in September, 1667, cc how merry
the King and Duke of York and court were the other day, when
they were abroad a-hunting. They came to Sir G. Carteret’s
house at Cranbourne, and there were entertain’d, and all made
drunk; and being all drunk, Armerer did come to the King, and
swore to him by G—, ‘ Sir,’ says he, e you are not so kind to the
Duke of York of late as you used to be.’—‘ Not I ?’ says the King,
‘ why so ‘ Why,’ says he,c if you are, let us drink his health.’—
( Why let us,’ says the King. Then he fell on his knees and
drank it; and having done, the King began to drink it. ‘ Nay,
sir/ says Armerer, ‘ by G—, you must do it on your knees !’ So
he did, and then all the company: and having done it, all fell
a-crying for joy, being all maudlin and kissing one another, the
King the Duke of York, and the Duke of York the King; and in
such a maudlin pickle as never people were: and so passed the
day.”*
Up to this period, the public advisers of the King had been
constantly changing for the worse ; and at the time of Clarendon’s
impeachment, even Arlington and Coventry had fallen into some
* Pepys, vol. iii. pp. 362, 363.