Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 3.djvu/439

] The Swedish ambassador, Brahé, being just about to arrive, he prepared to take the lead of the French ambassador in the procession on his landing, and to assert it by force. Destrades, the French ambassador, prepared also to maintain the ascendant. He called on all the French in London to attend him on the occasion, and support the honour of their country. He sent for reinforcements firm Boulogne, and appeared on the tower wharf, where Brahé was to land, followed by a hundred of Ids countrymen on foot, and forty on horseback, armed with carbines and pistols. Vatteville, at the same time, appeared in his carriage attended by only about forty Spaniards in livery, but he had taken a precaution of the most vital consequence to success. He had had substitute<l for ordinary traces to his carriage iron chains, so that they could not be cut, and covered them with leather. The moment that the Swedish ambassador entered his carriage, the rival ambassadors dashed forward to secure the place next to him. The crowd, who entered zealously into the contest, hurried loudly at the sight; the two parties came into violent contact, each fought desperately for the victory, and men fell dead on each side; but the Spaniards cut the traces of the French ambassador, and as his follower's found they could not effect the expected retaliation, the Spaniard secured the precedence. But the French, superior in numbers, returned to the charge again and again, as the procession drove through the streets. The Spaniards, with whom the people took part, probably as being the least in number, gallantly defended themselves, and maintained their place. Fifty people were killed or wounded in this extraordinary conflict, and Louis XIV., extremely chagrined at the result, instantly ordered Fuensaldegna, the Spanish ambassador at Paris, from the kingdom, and threatened Philip of Spain with war, and was not appeased till Philip recalled Vatteville from England, made suitable apologies, and promised that his ambassadors should always absent themselves from public ceremonies where they might be likely to come into collision with his own. Then Louis, in the true spirit of French gasconade, pretended to glory in the affair, declaring that nothing more glorious to France had ever happened; that it was a kind of homage that must convince even their enemies that the French crown was the first in Christendom. That the tumult in London was a misfortune, but that it would have been a misfortune if it had not happened. C'etoit au mallueur que ce tumulte de Londres; ce seruit maintenant un mallieur qu'il ne ful pas arrivé.

On the 13th of May the Portuguese princess arrived at Spithead; Charles was not there to receive her, pretending pressure of parliamentary business, but he sent to request of her that the marriage ceremony after the catholic form, which he had promised, might be waived. Catherine would not consent. On the 20th, Charles having arrived at Portsmouth, they were, therefore, married in private by Catherine's almoner, Stuart D'Aubigny, in the presence of Philip, afterwards cardinal Howard, and five other witnesses, and afterwards publicly by the bishop of London.

On the journey to Hampton Court, and for a few days afterwards, Charles appeared extremely pleased with his wife, who, though she could not compete in person with the dazzling lady Castlemaine, and has been described by some contemporaries as a homely person, as "a little swarthy body, proud, and ill-favoured," is stated by others to have been "a most pretty woman." According to Lely's portrait of her, she is a very pleasing brunette beauty, and by all accounts she was extremely amiable; but the misfortune was, that she had been brought up as in a convent, completely secluded from society, and therefore was little calculated, by the amount of her information, or the graces of her manners, to fascinate a person of Charles worldly and volatile character. Thomas Maynard, who was at the court of Portugal, says in his report to Charles secretary of state, Nicholas, "She is as sweet a dispositioned princess as ever was born, a lady of excellent parts, but lived hugely retired. She hath hardly been ten times out of the palace in her life. For five years she was not out of doors until she heard of his majesty's intention to make her queen of Great Britain."

How was such a woman to support her influence with such a man against the beauty and determined temper of lady Castlemaine, a woman as dissolute and unprincipled as she was handsome. In her fits of passion she often threatened the king to tear their children to pieces, and set his palace on fire; and when she was in these tempers, a contemporary says, "she resembled Medusa less than one of her dragons." Charles was the perfect slave of her charms and her passions. She had wrung from him a promise that his marriage should not cause him to withdraw himself from her, and having born him a son a few days after his marriage, she only awaited her convalescence to take her place as one of the queen's own ladies. Catherine had heard of his amour before coming to England, for it was the talk of all Europe, and her mother had bade her never to allow her name to be mentioned in her presence. But very soon the king presented her a list of the ladies of her household, and the first on the list she saw, to her astonishment, was lady Castlemaine. She at once struck it out, and notwithstanding the king's remonstrances, declared that sooner than submit to such an indignity, she would return to Portugal But she was not long in learning that no regard to her feelings was to be expected from this sensual and unfeeling monster. He brought the obnoxious woman into her own chamber, leading her by the hand, and presenting her before the assembled court. Such a scandalous offence to public decorum, such a brutal insult to a young wife in a strange land, was perhaps never perpetrated before. Catherine, who did not recognise the name uttered by the king, received her graciously, and permitted her to kiss her hand: but a whisper from one of the Portuguese ladies made her aware of the outrage. She burst into tears, the blood gushed from her nostrils in the violent effort to subdue her feelings, and she fell senseless into the arms of her attendants. Instead of feeling any compunction for the pain thus inflicted on his wife, the demoralised reprobate was enraged at her for thus, as he called it, casting a slur on the reputation of the fair lady. He abused the queen for her obstinacy and perversity, and vowed that she should receive her as a lady of her bedchamber, as a due reparation for this public insult. It was in vain, however, that he stormed at his unhappy wife, she remained firm in her resolve, either to be freed from the pollution of the mistress's presence, or to