CHAPTER Vll. ROYALTY IN RETREAT IN MERRY ENGLAND.
The months passed on, and nobody of any rank found the times improve. The Court came to know what actual want was. The King and Queen were in debt on all hands, and their devices to pay their adherents daily increased the distresses of their people. The only persons who had any wealth which they dared use, were a class who paid in dishonour, and in suffering from the hatred of society for their pecuniary profit. These were the holders and the agents of monopolies, and the collectors of the king’s taxes, of which shipmoney remained the chief. After Mr. Hampden’s sentence was pronounced, and he had to pay not only the twenty shillings in dispute, but costs to the extent of 2000l, under an interdict to appeal to any other court, the government manifested its triumph by carrying on the levy with extreme violence. The King must have money for the inevitable war with his Scotch subjects; and he made it the test of loyalty to provide him with funds. There was scarcely an article of the commonest need and use which was not made the property of monopolists; so that the citizens found it more and more difficult to live, from the dearness of everything which they ate or drank, wore or used. Trade was almost stopped; for few had wherewith to buy; and there were few commodities which were worth buying. The very money disappeared; and, instead of gold and silver, there were brass counters in men’s purses; but this was going a step too far, as the King’s advisers were soon compelled to inform him. It was hard to part with precious coin actually flowing in; but either it or his cause must go; and the brass money remained only as a topic for seditious speakers. To compensate for the disappointment of the gold and silver, the merchants of the kingdom were preyed upon. When they would not or could not pay the large sums demanded from them, they were cast into prison, where they lay without trial till they died or paid exorbitantly for release. There was not the less business in the law-courts; for the King discovered in the trials of his subjects a source of revenue more lucrative than any other. The judges being his humble friends, they were well disposed to serve him; and the fines they imposed in almost every case that was brought before them afforded a larger revenue than any tax that could be devised. Country gentlemen must pay high for leave to build a new house: merchants must pay high for leave to unlade their ships: in every shop there were purveyors examining and taxing the stock and sales: in every market there were clerks levying dues upon the stalls, and upon everything sold at them: and then there were guards and soldiers to be paid for protecting these collectors from the vengeance of the people. There was little use in the proclamation which forbade all mention of a parliament, for the nation had now no other hope.
As everything at length hung on this question of a parliament, so it was with so small a matter as Henrietta’s remaining at Biggin, or returning home. Mr. Hampden was seldom at home for more than a few hours. At one time he was in Scotland for several weeks; and none of his family, unless it was Lady Carewe, heard more of him than that he was in health, and tenderly mindful of his children. He wrote to them often; but he wrote of their interests and feelings, and not at all of his own business. For many weeks he was journeying all over England, in company sometimes with Mr. Pym, and sometimes with Lord Say, or other friends of the law and the people. There had been plans, more than once, for Henrietta to go to the Knightleys. Margaret and her husband had urged it; and Henrietta was willing: but some obstacle always arose. The country was, in truth, unsafe for travellers: and once, when a sufficient escort was provided by her brother Philip, her uncle discovered that a conference of Roundheads was to be held at Fawsley; and Sir Oliver made it a test of Henrietta’s duty and love to the King and himself that she should not leave him for such company. Let Margaret come to Biggin instead. But Margaret had now an infant whom she could neither leave nor bring so far on a road so disorderly; and the sisters had to be satisfied with correspondence. Going to Hampden was yet more impracticable. Lady Carewe was always there; and, though she and Henrietta could have met in all freedom and affection, she must not be deprived of Harry’s frequent visits. Biggin House became Henrietta’s natural home while the disturbance of the kingdom continued; and she was seldom without the companionship of Helen, or one of Helen’s sisters. Once also, her own sisters, Alice and Lucy, were brought under good escort, and remained for a month. The result of the visit and of some interviews with the Mashams at their home, and with Aunt Cromwell at Ely, was a strange disturbance of mind to Henrietta. The King and Court were spoken of in a way which irritated and shocked her, and when she remonstrated, she was told such stories of the time as made her ask whether she was out of her wits, or whether her relations were. Aunt Cromwell had been happy to return to her native Ely, where she could at once renew the associations of her youth, and be the proud mother of the Lord of the Fens; and her satisfactions made her very; communicative, while they happily enabled her to dispense with answer or comment. As her boast was true, that everybody of Oliver’s kin was safe in these eastern parts, she had no difficulty in summoning Henrietta at short intervals, now that Oliver passed the greater part of his time from home: and she spent hours together in describing what the Fens were like fifty years ago, and repeating everything that Queen Elizabeth and King James had said when entertained by the family in their progresses. The contrast between the complacency of her tone in regard to those sovereigns and the sharp and bitter contempt with which she spoke of the reigning King perplexed Henrietta. What to believe and think she did not know: and when she would consult Sir Oliver, she obtained no satisfaction. He said that everything she heard against the King and Court was, of course, a pack of lies; and that if she was what he thought her, she would never allow such things to pass her lips, or to vex her mind.
When the King had at length, in the extremity of
