England under Charles II. from the Restoration to the Treaty of Nimeguen, 1660-1678: English History from Contemporary Writers
Taylor, W. F.
1889
1668.-Attempts to get rid of the Queen.
Burnet: Hist. of his own Times, Oxford, , vol. i, p. 452. | |
The duke of Buckingham pressed the king to own a marriage with the duke of Monmouth's mother [Lucy Walters] and he undertook to get witnesses to attest it. The duke of York told me, in general, that there was much talk about it; but he did not descend to particulars. The earl of Carlisle offered to begin the matter in the House of Lords. The king would not consent to this ; yet he put it in such a manner as made them all conclude that he wished it might be done, but he did not know how to bring it about. These discourses were all carried to the duke of Monmouth, and got fatally into his head. When the duke talked of this matter to me, in the year seventy-three, I asked him if he thought the king had still the same inclinations ? He said he believed not: he thought the duke of Monmouth had not spirit enough to think of it; and he commended the duchess of Monmouth so highly as to say to me that the hopes of a crown could not work on her to do an unjust thing. I thought he gave that matter too much countenance, by calling the duke of Monmouth nephew; but he said it pleased the king. When the party saw they could make nothing of the business of the duke of Monmouth, they tried next by what methods they could get rid of the queen; that so the king might marry another wife, for the king had children by so many different creatures, that they hoped for issue if he had a wife capable of any. Some thought the queen | |
87 | and he were not legally married; but the avowing of a marriage, and the living many years in that state did certainly supply any defect in point of form. Others pretended she was barren from a natural cause. . . . But the king often said he was sure she had once miscarried. This, though not overthrown by such an evidence, could never be proved; unless the having no children was to be concluded barrenness: and the dissolving a marriage on such an account could neither be justified in law nor conscience. Other stories were given out of the queen's person, which were false: for I saw in a letter under the king's own hand, that the marriage was consummated. Others talked of polygamy: and officious persons were ready to thrust themselves into anything that would contribute to their advancement ...... All such propositions would throw us into great convulsions; and entail war upon us if any issue came from a marriage so grounded. |