Page:Catherine of Bragança, infanta of Portugal, & queen-consort of England.djvu/275

1667] lists of her salary from the Exchequer expenses do not begin to compare with what was granted to the Duchess of Portsmouth and Lady Castlemaine. She was faithful to old friendship, and constantly repaid old kindnesses. In their straits she generously helped Lee, Otway, and Butler, with money. It was she who coaxed Charles to found Chelsea Hospital for the disabled soldiers, who then were begging about the streets. She herself gave the ground for the site, from lands granted to her in Chelsea, and her name was long remembered with gratitude at the hospital, and her health always drunk on the King's birth- day. A tavern close by bore her head as a sign, and people ran cheering after her coach when she drove out. One day, driving up Ludgate Hill, she saw an unfortunate clergyman being haled to Newgate for debt—by no means a unique sight in those days. She at once called to her servants to halt, and inquired into the cause. Finding, from witnesses he brought forward, that he was of good character, and his debts had not been incurred by his own fault, she paid what was owing on the spot, and soon afterwards presented him with a living.

The year 1667 saw the downfall of Clarendon, and removed from Catherine one of the few men who was concerned with her interests. He was overthrown by Court intrigue, banished in this year, and died at Rouen four years later. Buckingham, now rising on the stepping-stone of the fallen Lord Chancellor, took every opportunity of repeating his arguments to Charles for a divorce from Catherine. Burnet says Buckingham actually suggested to Charles to allow him to kidnap Catherine, and send her fo a plantation in America, where she should be taken care of, but never heard of again, and that it might then be proclaimed that she had deserted her husband, which would give quite sufficient grounds for a divorce. This wild story, as Miss Strickland remarks, might be discounted as coming from so notoriously false a witness