when he doth not ride abroad; and when he doth ride abroad, he is on horseback by break of day, and most commonly back before noon."[1]
He was a keen tennis-player, as was his brother James. Pepys notes the servility with which their playing was applauded, and how well it deserved praise: "but such open flattery is beastly."
However much Charles might be flattered, no one thought it necessary to flatter his poor wife in her strange Portuguese garments, or the wonderful women she brought with her, six ladies, "old, ugly, and proud," said the severe Lord Chancellor Clarendon, "and incapable of any conversation with persons of quality and a liberal education;" but even they were not above suspicion, from the miserable Pepys at any rate, of the gravest scandal. Catherine soon found that she stood second in the King's affections to Barbara Palmer, Countess of Castlemaine, and the long struggle which ended in the Queen's being compelled to receive the mistress as one of her bedchamber women is one of the saddest stories of the dissolute court. Yet for some while the King and Queen lived happily together, and idly; for even Pepys censured their carelessness. "This I take to be as bad a juncture as ever Iobserved. The King and Queen minding their pleasures at Hampton Court: all people discontented."
The return of the King's mother, Henrietta Maria,
- ↑ Mr. Law quotes this from the (Appendix to) Fifth Report on Historical MSS. (Duke of Sutherland's MSS.).
