He bit his lip, admitting
himself in check.
But anon--no doubt in obedience to the overbearing suasion of my
Lady Castlemaine--he returned to the attack, and sent the
Chancellor his orders in a letter demanding unquestioning
obedience.
"Use your best endeavours," wrote Charles, "to facilitate what I
am sure my honour is so much concerned in. And whosoever I find
to be my Lady Castlemaine's enemy in this matter, I do promise
upon my word to be his enemy so long as I live."
My Lord Clarendon had few illusions on the score of mankind. He
knew his world from froth to dregs--having studied it under a
variety of conditions. Yet that letter from his King was a bitter
draught. All that Charles possessed and was he owed to Clarendon.
Yet in such a contest as this, Charles did not hesitate to pen
that bitter, threatening line: "Whosoever I find to be my Lady
Castlemaine's enemy in this matter, I do promise upon my word to
be his enemy so long as I live."
All that Clarendon had done in the past was to count for nothing
unless he also did the unworthy thing that Charles now demanded.
All that he had accomplished in the service of his King was to be
swept into oblivion by the breath of a spiteful wanton.
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