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The French settle six thousand

[B. XIII. the lords to deliver their opinion; who all sat silent, expecting who would begin; there being no fixed rule of the board, but sometimes, according to the nature of the business, he who was first in place begun, at other times he who was last in quality; and when it required some debate before any opinion should be delivered, any man was at liberty to offer what he would. But after a long silence, the king commanded the chancellor of the exchequer to speak first. He said, "it could not be expected, that he would deliver his opinion in a matter that was so much too hard for him, till 'he heard what others thought; at least, till the question was otherwise stated than it yet seemed "to him to be." He said, "he thought the

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council would not be willing to take it upon "them to advise that the duke of York, the next

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I heir to the crown, should go a volunteer into "the French army, and that the exposing himself "to so much danger, should be the effect of their "counsel who ought to have all possible tenderness for the safety of every branch of the royal family; but if the duke of York, out of his own princely courage, and to attain experience in the art of "war, of which there was like to be so great use, "had taken a resolution to visit the army, and to spend that campaign in it, and that the question only was, whether the king should restrain him from that expedition, he was ready to declare "his opinion, that his majesty should not; there "being great difference between the king's ad"vising him to go, which implies an approbation, "and barely suffering him to do what his own genius inclined him to." The king and queen

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1652.] livres per month upon the king.

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liked the stating of the question, as suiting best with the tenderness they ought to have; and the duke was as well pleased with it, since it left him at the liberty he desired; and the lords thought it safest for them: and so all were pleased; and much of the prejudice which the duke had entertained towards the chancellor was abated: and his royal highness, with the good liking of the French court, went to the army; where he was received by the marshal of Turenne, with all possible demonstration of respect; where, in a short time, he got the reputation of a prince of very signal courage, and to be universally beloved of the whole army by his affable behaviour.

The insupportable necessities of the king were now grown so notorious, that the French court was compelled to take notice of them; and thereupon, with some dry compliments for the smallness of the assignation in respect of the ill condition of their affairs, which indeed were not in any good posture, they settled an assignation of six thousand livres by the month upon the king, payable out of such a gabel; which, beginning six months after the king came thither, found too great a debt contracted to be easily satisfied out of such a monthly receipt, though it had been punctually complied with; which it never was. The queen, at his majesty's first arrival, had declared, "that she was not able to bear the charge "of the king's diet, but that he must pay one half "of the expense of her table, where both their "majesties eat, with the duke of York, and the "princess Henrietta," (which two were at the queen's charge till the king came thither, but from

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How money sent to the king from [B. XIII.

that time, the duke of York was upon the king's account,) and the very first night's supper which the king eat with the queen, begun the account; and a moiety thereof was charged to the king: so that the first money that was received for the king upon his grant, was entirely stopped by sir Harry Wood, the queen's treasurer, for the discharge of his majesty's part of the queen's table, (which expense was first satisfied, as often as money could be procured,) and the rest for the payment of other debts contracted, at his first coming, for clothes and other necessaries, there being great care taken that nothing should be left to be distributed amongst his servants; the marquis of Ormond himself being compelled to put himself in pension, with the chancellor and some other gentlemen, with a poor English woman, the wife of one of the king's servants, at a pistole a week for his diet, and to walk the streets on foot, which was no honourable custom in Paris; whilst the lord Jermyn kept an excellent table for those who courted him, and had a coach of his own, and all other accommodations incident to the most full fortune; and if the king had the most urgent occasion for the use but of twenty pistoles, as sometimes he had, he could not find credit to borrow it; which he often had experiment of. Yet if there had not been as much care to take that from him which was his own, as to hinder him from receiving the supply assigned by the king of France, his necessities would not have been so extraordinary. For when the king went to Jersey in order to his journey into Ireland, and at the same time that he sent the chancellor of the exchequer into Spain, he sent likewise the lord

1652.] Moscow and Poland was disposed of. 5

Colepepper into Moscow, to borrow money of that duke; and into Poland he sent Mr. Crofts upon the same errand. The former returned whilst the king was in Scotland; and the latter about the time that his majesty made his escape from Worcester. And both of them succeeded so well in their journey, that he who received least for his majesty's service had above ten thousand pounds over and above the expense of their journeys.

But, as if the king had been out of all possible danger to want money, the lord Jermyn had sent an express into Scotland, as soon as he knew what success the lord Colepepper had at Moscow, and found there were no less hopes from Mr. Crofts, and procured from the king (who could with more ease grant, than deny) warrants under his hand to both those ambassadors, to pay the monies they had received to several persons; whereof a considerable sum was made a present to the queen, more to the lord Jermyn, upon pretence of debts due to him, which were not diminished by that receipt, and all disposed of according to the modesty of the askers; whereof Dr. Goffe had eight hundred pounds for services he had performed, and, within few days after the receipt of it, changed his religion, and became one of the fathers of the oratory: so that, when the king returned in all that distress to Paris, he never received five hundred pistoles from the proceed of both those embassies; nor did any of those who were supplied by his bounty seem sensible of the obligation, or the more disposed to do him any service upon their own expense; of which the king was sensible enough, but resolved to bear

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The king is pressed to go [B. XIII. that and more, rather than, by entering into any expostulation with those who were faulty, to give any trouble to the queen.

The lord Jermyn, who, in his own judgment, was very indifferent in all matters relating to religion, was always of some faction that regarded it. He had been much addicted to the presbyterians from the time that there had been any treaties with the Scots, in which he had too much privity. And now, upon the king's return into France, he had a great design to persuade his majesty to go to the congregation at Charenton, to the end that he might keep up his interest in the presbyterian party; which he had no reason to believe would ever be able to do the king service, or willing, if they were able, without such odious conditions as they had hitherto insisted upon in all their overtures. The queen did not, in the least degree, oppose this, but rather seemed to countenance it, as the best expedient that might incline him, by degrees, to prefer the religion of the church of Rome. For though the queen had never, to this time, by herself, or by others with her advice, used the least means to persuade the king to change his religion, as well out of observation of the injunction laid upon her by the deceased king, as out of the conformity of her own judgment, which could not but persuade her that the change of his religion would infallibly make all his hopes of recovering England desperate; yet it is as true, that, from the king's return from Worcester, she did really despair of his being restored by the affections of his own subjects; and believed that it could never be brought to pass without a conjunction of catholic

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