Page:The Queens of England.djvu/508

 460 THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. as Sir Philip Warwick calls her, "who had changed her gallant from Strafford to Air. Pym, to whom it was discovered in time for him to effect his escape. Upon the failure of this attempt, although ruined by herself, the queen fell into a rage and called Charles 'poltronn,' yet he expressed no reproach; but, as, she feelingly allowed, made her do penance for her oversight by her own repentance." As popular fury grew more exasperated, it was resolved that the queen should quit Hampton for Dover, whither the king was to accompany her, in order to secure her safe and speedy transit to the States of Holland — her ostensible mission being to convey thither the princess royal, who had some time previously been betrothed to the Prince of Orange. With mournful tenderness at this, the first painful season of lengthened separation, Charles watched along the shore "for four leagues" the receding vessel, feeling that he now stood alone in a realm over which his authority, though nominally acknowledged, had no real and substantial sway from the loy- alty of attachment. With her usual self-command, however, the queen, notwith- standing the pressure of domestic grief, immediately upon her arrival in Holland, where her reception was most cordial, exhibited all those powers of diplomacy which her extraordi- nary fascinations so strongly seconded. Her chief object was to effect a loan upon the crown jewels, which she carried with her, and upon those belonging to herself ; but the tact with which she won over to her cause the burgomasters, who, inex- perienced in the rules of common courtesy, received her with- out any external mark of respect, appears little short of the marvelous. So efficiently did they co-operate with her that in little more than a year she raised two millions of pounds, and sailed from Scheveling for England with eleven transports, her fleet being conveyed by the famous Dutch admiral, Van Tromp. Upon this voyage she experienced all the horrors of death, and was obliged to put back, in the strangest condition of personal discomfort, to a little port near The Hague, whence, a fortnight after, she reached England, under so close a pursuit by the parliamentary vessels that their shot awoke her as she lay asleep in her bed the next morning. A remarkable anecdote is here told of her heroism : She had an ugly but favorite lap-dog. and upon her quitting the cottage during the hottest of the enemy's fire she suddenly remembered that her pet had been deserted ; without a moment's hesitation she returned, brought it awav from within reach of the cannon, and then went to con-