And if they dare thus insult (adds the writer) over the daughter, sister, and wife of so great kings, what slavery would they not make us, the people, to undergo *!"

One of the articles in the contract of marriage was, that the queen should have a chapel at St. James's, to be built and consecrated by her French bishop; the priests became very importunate, declaring that without a chapel mass could not be performed with the state it ought before a queen. The king's answer is not that of a man inclined to popery. "If the queen's closet, where they now say mass, is not large enough, let them have it in the great chamber; and, if the great chamber is not wide enough, they might use the garden; and, if the garden would not serve their turn, then was the park the fittest place."

The French priests and the whole party feeling themselves slighted, and sometimes worse treated, were breeding perpetual quarrels among themselves, grew weary of England, and wished themselves away; but many having purchased

* Mr. Pory to Mr. Mead, July, 1626. Harl. MSS. No. 383. The answer of the king's council to the complaints of Bassompierre is both copious and detailed in Vol. III. p. 166, of the "Ambassades" of this Marshal.

their places with all their fortune, would have been ruined by the breaking up of the establishment. Bassompierre alludes to the broils and clamours of these French strangers, which exposed them to the laughter of the English court; and one cannot but smile in observing, in one of the despatches of this great mediator between two kings and a queen, addressed to the minister, that one of the greatest obstacles which he had found in this difficult negotiation arose from the bedchamber women! The French king being desirous of having two additional women to attend the English queen, his sister, the ambassador declares, that " it would be more expedient rather to diminish than to increase the number; for they all live so ill together, with such rancorous jealousies and enmities, that I have more trouble to make them agree than I shall find to accommodate the differences between the two kings. Their continual bickerings, and often their vituperative language, occasion the English to entertain the most contemptible and ridiculous opinions of our nation. I shall not, therefore, insist on this point, unless it shall please his majesty to renew it."

The French bishop was under the age of thirty, and his authority was imagined to have been but irreverently treated by two beautiful viragos in

that civil war of words which was raging; one of whom, Madame St. George, was in high favour, and most intolerably hated by the English. Yet such was English gallantry, that the king presented this lady on her dismission with several thousand pounds and jewels. There was something inconceivably ludicrous in the notions of the English, of a bishop hardly of age, and the gravity of whose character was probably tarnished by French gesture and vivacity. This French establishment was daily growing in expense and number; a manuscript letter of the times states that it cost the king 2401. a day, and had increased from threescore persons to four hundred and forty, besides children!

It was one evening that the king suddenly appeared, and, summoning the French household, commanded them to take their instant departurethe carriages were prepared for their removal. In doing this, Charles had to resist the warmest intreaties, and even the vehement anger of the queen, who is said in her rage to have broken several panes of the window of the apartment to which the king dragged her, and confined her from them *.

* A letter from Mr. Pory to Mr. Mead contains a full account of this transaction. Harl. MSS. 383.

The scene which took place among the French people, at the sudden announcement of the king's determination, was remarkably indecorous. They instantly flew to take possession of all the queen's wardrobe and jewels; they did not leave her, it appears, a change of linen, since it was with difficulty she procured one as a favour, according to some manuscript letters of the times. One of their extraordinary expedients was that of inventing bills, for which they pretended they had engaged themselves on account of the queen, to the amount of 10,000l. which the queen at first owned to, but afterwards acknowledged the debts were fictitious ones. Among these items was one of 4007. for necessaries for her majesty; an apothecary's bill for drugs of 800l.; and another of 1501. for "the bishop's unholy water," as the writer expresses it. The young French bishop attempted by all sorts of delays to avoid this ignominious expulsion; till the king was forced to send his yeomen of the guards to turn them out from Somerset-house, where the juvenile French bishop, at once protesting against it, and mounting the steps of the coach, took his departure "head and shoulders." It appears that to pay the debts and the pensions, besides sending the French troops free home, cost 50,000%.

In a long procession of nearly forty coaches, after four days tedious travelling they reached Dover; but the spectacle of these impatient foreigners so reluctantly quitting England, gesticulating their sorrows or their quarrels, exposed them to the derision and stirred up the prejudices of the common people. As Madame George, whose vivacity is always described extravagantly French, was stepping into the boat, one of the mob could not resist the satisfaction of flinging a stone at her French cap; an English courtier, who was conducting her, instantly quitted his charge, ran the fellow through the body, and quietly returned to the boat. The man died on the spot; but no farther notice appears to have been taken of the inconsiderate gallantry of this English courtier.

But Charles did not show his kingly firmness only on this occasion: it did not forsake him when the French Marshal Bassompierre was instantly sent over to awe the king; Charles sternly offered the alternative of war, rather than permit a French faction to trouble an English court. Bassompierre makes a curious observation in a letter to the French Bishop of Mende, he who had been just sent away from England; and which serves as the most positive evidence of the firm refusal of Charles I. The French marshal, after stating the