DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.51519#0028
xiv editor’s introduction.
On the 28th of the same month, Pepys learned in conversation
with the same person, “ that it is brought almost to effect, the late
endeavours of the Duke of York and Duchesse, the Queene-mother,*
and my Lord St. Albans, together with some of the contrary
faction, as my Lord Arlington, that for a sum of money we shall
enter into a league with the King of France, wherein he says, my
Lord Chancellor! is also concerned; and that he believes that in
the doing hereof, it is meant that he shall come in again, and that
this sum of money will so help the King, as that he will not need
the parliament; and that in that regard, it will be forwarded by
the Duke of Buckingham and his faction, who dread the parlia-
ment. But hereby we must leave the Dutch, and that I doubt
will undo us.”
That Louis XIV. was at this time preparing to make Charles
an instrument of his all-grasping ambition there is no doubt, and
it was not many months after that a secret treaty was entered
into, by which the King and his ministry hoped to make themselves
independent of the parliament. Yet the only thing which Charles
really gained by the alliance was a new mistress, the too celebrated
Duchess of Portsmouth. Besides the prospect it afforded of the
ultimate gratification of their ambition, the English courtiers seem
pretty generally to have filled their pockets with French money,
and a war with Holland was resolved on. The first act of hos-
tilities was an unprovoked and disgraceful aggression on the part
of the King of England. In the beginning of 1672, before any
war had been commenced or proclaimed, the King sent out what
can be considered as no better than a piratical expedition to seize
on the Dutch Smyrna fleet, which was said to be worth a million
and a half of money. The avarice of the King was excited by the
richness of the prize; and so little scrupulous was he or his agents
in the means they employed to effect their purpose, that the Dutch
officers were invited on board the English fleet to a friendly repast,
* Henrietta Maria, who is said to have been secretly married to the Duke of
St. Albans.
f Clarendon, who was living in banishment.,
On the 28th of the same month, Pepys learned in conversation
with the same person, “ that it is brought almost to effect, the late
endeavours of the Duke of York and Duchesse, the Queene-mother,*
and my Lord St. Albans, together with some of the contrary
faction, as my Lord Arlington, that for a sum of money we shall
enter into a league with the King of France, wherein he says, my
Lord Chancellor! is also concerned; and that he believes that in
the doing hereof, it is meant that he shall come in again, and that
this sum of money will so help the King, as that he will not need
the parliament; and that in that regard, it will be forwarded by
the Duke of Buckingham and his faction, who dread the parlia-
ment. But hereby we must leave the Dutch, and that I doubt
will undo us.”
That Louis XIV. was at this time preparing to make Charles
an instrument of his all-grasping ambition there is no doubt, and
it was not many months after that a secret treaty was entered
into, by which the King and his ministry hoped to make themselves
independent of the parliament. Yet the only thing which Charles
really gained by the alliance was a new mistress, the too celebrated
Duchess of Portsmouth. Besides the prospect it afforded of the
ultimate gratification of their ambition, the English courtiers seem
pretty generally to have filled their pockets with French money,
and a war with Holland was resolved on. The first act of hos-
tilities was an unprovoked and disgraceful aggression on the part
of the King of England. In the beginning of 1672, before any
war had been commenced or proclaimed, the King sent out what
can be considered as no better than a piratical expedition to seize
on the Dutch Smyrna fleet, which was said to be worth a million
and a half of money. The avarice of the King was excited by the
richness of the prize; and so little scrupulous was he or his agents
in the means they employed to effect their purpose, that the Dutch
officers were invited on board the English fleet to a friendly repast,
* Henrietta Maria, who is said to have been secretly married to the Duke of
St. Albans.
f Clarendon, who was living in banishment.,