Page:Diary of the times of Charles II Vol. I.djvu/253

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THE TIMES OF CHARLES THE SECOND.
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varia, for, if the Elector should marry a daughter of the Duke of Neuburgh, he would have an interest from the Alps to Holland. He would be glad if the Elector Palatine would marry again, and thinks of my Lady Anne. He told me how this Freeman writ of his negotiations, and I find he writes many lies, as that my Lords Halifax and Essex and two more had writ to the Duke to come over.[1]

  1. Mr. Freeman told no lie in this instance, at all events. Sir William Temple gives the following account of this transaction.
    "Next day I went to Windsor, and the first man I met was Lord Halifax, coming down from Court on foot, and with a face full of trouble, and as soon as he saw me with hands lift up two or three times; upon which I stopt, and alighting, asked what was the matter: he told me I knew as well as he that the Duke was come, that every body was amazed—he bid me go on to Court before the King went out, and said he was going to his lodging to sit and think over this new world."
    "I soon found out the whole secret; which was that, upon the King's first illness, the Lords Essex and Halifax being about him thought his danger great and their own so too, and that if anything happened to the King's life, the Duke of Monmouth would be at the head of the nation, in opposition to the Duke upon pretence of Popery, and in conjunction with Lord Shaftesbury, who had threatened to have their heads upon the prorogation of the last Parliament, had proposed to the King the sending immediately for the Duke. For my part, though I was glad of any mortification that happened to the Duke of Monmouth and Lord Shaftesbury, whose designs had run the kingdom into such incurable divisions and distractions, at a time that our union was so necessary to the