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 CHAPTER X.

new king did not want sense. He was naturally clever, witty, and capable of a shewd insight into the natures and purposes of men. He gave a proof of all these qualities in the observation which we have recorded, at the close of the day when he was again replaced in his paternal mansion, that everybody assured him that they had always ardently desired his return, and that if they were to be believed, there was nobody in fault for his not having come back sooner but himself. But with many qualities, which, if united to a fine moral nature, would have made him a most popular monarch, he was utterly destitute of this fine moral nature. He had had much, long, and varied experience of mankind, and had alternately seen their base adulation to royalty in power, and their baser treatment of princes in misfortune. The contempt and neglect which he had experienced when a wandering and penniless refugee, contrasted with the luxury and flattery of a palace in which he had been brought up, must have excited contempt in return; and the sudden reflux to the most fulsome and creeping homage when the crown was again within his reach could only have deepened this feeling. But to a wise and good man this knowledge, whilst it made him prudently distrustful of the professions and fidelity of corn-tiers, would have inspired him with a deep feeling of the sole value of truth and virtue, and that the stability of a throne depended alone on the cultivation of the real interests of a nation. He had not been without abundant examples of the most generous devotion amongst the people. In his flight after the battle of Worcester, he had been concealed, supported, protected, and conveyed out of the kingdom through a thousand dangers, and at the mortal risk of those who performed these services. He had learned, therefore, that beyond the hollow ground of a court, beyond the mob of greedy adventurers and wrestlers for promotion, there existed in the hearts of the people substantial goodness and heroic devotion. So long as he displayed a gallant and a chivalrous spirit in asserting his own rights, the same gallant and chivalrous feeling was kindled in the spirit of the nation, and not only did his own party, but even his enemies, do justice to his merits. His dangers, adventures, and hairbreadth escapes were the theme of song and applause, which long circulated in enthusiastic tones round the firesides of the same England which had punished his father for his treason to the state.

But Charles had not the nobility to benefit by this knowledge. He had familiarised himself with every species of vice and dissipation. He was become thoroughly heartless and degraded. His highest ambition was to live, not for the good and glory of his kingdom, but for mere sensual indulgence. He was habituated to a fife of the basest debauchery, and surrounded by those who were essentially of the same debased and worthless character. To such a man had the nation—after all its glorious struggles and triumphs for the reduction of the lawless pride of royalty, and after the decorous and rigorous administration of the commonwealth—again surrendered its fate and fortunes, and surrendered them without almost any guarantee. The declaration of Breda was the only security which they had, and that was rendered perfectly nugatory by the reservation of all decisions on those questions to a parliament which the court could control and corrupt. Monk, who was a more cautious adventurer, had taken care to stipulate for himself, and received his reward; but he had not bestowed a thought on the nation, and was therefore a traitor of the deepest dye.

Perhaps no country ever presented a more despicable attitude than England at this moment. The country which had pulled down despotic royalty from its pride of place, and given a terrible example to the occupiers of thrones throughout the world; which had shown that the sons of the nation at large could supersede kings, nobles, and all artificial orders, and conduct the affairs of the community with a vigour, justice, and ability which had had no parallel since the days of Alfred; which had made all other nations bow in profound respect before its power and Christian principle, was now, or at least its representatives, crawling at the foot of the throne, at the feet of this crowned debauché, with a servility and almost blasphemy of language, which no slave of an eastern despot ever surpassed.

The nobles, who had shown such utter and contemptible imbecility, who had shrunk before the strong men of the people into a most pitiable and abject spectacle, and had been voted as useless, and extinguished as a body, once more reappeared in their pride, as if they had saved the throne instead of falling headlong with it; bishops, swearing and drinking cavaliers, hosts of greedy adventurers eager to fix themselves like leeches on the fat sides of the nation, pimps, panders, and courtesans in shoals rushed on and filled the palace and all the houses around it. The foreign ambassadors, representatives of kings and countries which had treated Charles in his outcast condition with very little ceremony, and who had paid all homage to Oliver and Richard Cromwell, were now loud in their expressions of congratulation. The lords and commons emulated each other in their professions of veneration and loyalty. The earl of Manchester, formerly lord Kimbolton, whose attempted arrest along with the five commoners had led to the outbreak of what was now styled the rebellion, addressed Charles on behalf of the peers, as a "great and devout king," as the "son of the wise," "a native king," "a son of the ancient kings," and assuring him of his and the national conviction that he would prove one of the greatest, wisest, and best kings that ever reigned. Manchester knew very well what was the confirmed character of the king, new 