For this task he selected
Clarendon. But the Chancellor, who had so long and loyally played
Mentor to Charles's Telemachus, sought now to guide him in
matters moral as he had hitherto guided him in matters political.
Clarendon declined the office of mediator, and even expostulated
with Charles upon the unseemliness of the course upon which his
Majesty was bent.
"Surely, sire, it is for her Majesty to say who shall and who
shall not be the ladies of her bedchamber. And I nothing marvel
at her decision in this instance."
"Yet I tell you, my lord, that it is a decision that shall be
revoked."
"By whom, sire?" the Chancellor asked him gravely.
"By her Majesty, of course."
"Under coercion, of which you ask me to be the instrument," said
Clarendon, in the tutorly manner he had used with the King from
the latter's boyhood. "Yourself, sire, at a time when your own
wishes did not warp your judgment, have condemned the very thing
that now you are urging. Yourself, sire, hotly blamed your
cousin, King Louis, for thrusting Mademoiselle de Valliere upon
his queen. You will not have forgotten the things you said then
of King Louis."
Charles remembered those unflattering criticisms which he was now
invited to apply to his own case.
Pages:
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268