. A good king need
have but two virtues, strength and love for his people, but if he would
reign comfortably, these virtues must be supplemented by a strenuous
vice,--sure death to his enemies.

So when my father saw that fidelity to King Charles's hopeless cause
meant hopeless ruin, he took the gout and went to Germany. Absence from
England enabled him to desert the cause he loved, but could not help,
and more, it saved him the humiliation of being compelled to join the
Cromwell forces,--a cause which he could have helped, but hated.
Therefore he saw to it that his gout remained with him during the entire
Cromwell interregnum, and he died at Aix-la-Chapelle just before the
recall of Charles II to the English throne.

I inherited my father's title and a part of his estate; a great portion
of the latter having been granted to the accommodating husband of one of
Charles II's friends.

I returned to England with the king, and, as balm to my wounded estate,
was made Second Gentleman of the Wardrobe in that modern Sodom, Whitehall
Palace, Westminster, where lived Charles II, who was said to have been
appointed and anointed of God, king of our glorious realm. God makes
some curious mistakes, if human opinion is to be accepted.

The name Lot was unknown in Whitehall, but Mesdames Potiphar, Salome, and
Delilah were met at every turn, while Davids and Johns, eager to be
tempted, and Samsons, stooping to be shorn, hedged the king about with
anything save divinity.

That interesting Frenchman, Comte de Grammont, is accredited with saying
that during his residence in England he knew but one woman in Whitehall
who was both beautiful and pure,--Frances Jennings, maid of honor to
her Grace, the Duchess of York, the Duke of York being James, brother of
Charles II, and heir presumptive to the English throne.

I am proud to say that this beautiful Frances Jennings was my mother's
brother's child. In early youth I had lived in her father's house and was
more her elder brother than her cousin.

I suppose De Grammont was wrong in his sweeping assertion, but he was
right in his judgment of Frances, for though she was admittedly the most
beautiful woman--perhaps I should say girl, for she was very young--at
court, she--. But what befell her is a part of George Hamilton's history
and shall be told all in its turn.

* * * * *

Frances Jennings and her younger sister Sarah, who afterwards became the
firs