Page:Catherine of Bragança, infanta of Portugal, & queen-consort of England.djvu/167

Rh influence of the doctrine of the divine right of Kings.

Opposition has always, in a nature like Charles Stuart's, the worst effect. As soon as people began to condemn Lady Castlemaine and his conduct concerning her, he was set like a rock in her defence. Catherine had taken this hopeless tack. If she had known him better she would have perceived that though he might be led by a silken rope, he could not be driven at the whip's lash. He now regarded himself as "The Lady's" champion and defender, and every instinct of his manhood was called to the front in her defence.

It was, as has just been said, an age of self-seeking, of bowing to the wind that one might take firmer root. Clarendon's position had already been put in peril by his daughter Anne's clandestine marriage with the Duke of York, the heir to the throne. He apparently dared not risk further displeasure from the powers that were. He undertook, with whatever inward reluctance, to carry out the task Charles had set him.

Never, surely, was there task more repellant to a man with the least sense of justice and decency. He had to insist on the reception by a wife of her husband's mistress, and her public acknowledgment. He had to force a bride who was deeply in love with her husband to put a rival into direct and constant intercourse not only with her insulted self, but with the man who had shared himself between them. Clarendon went to his work with some decency of reluctance and confusion of face. He was somewhat at a loss how to begin in opening the ugly subject to the Queen. He prefaced what he had to say by expressing his great regret at the misunderstanding that was palpable between the King and herself. He was, however, clumsy enough to let fall hints that her husband had complained of her to his messenger.