h, his breaking
his word to the Infanta of Spain, that the poor Hiberno-Spaniard bit his
glove at Cadiz; and it was his notorious bad faith which eventually cost
him his head; for the Republicans would gladly have spared him, provided
they could have put the slightest confidence in any promise, however
solemn, which he might have made to them. Of them, it would be difficult
to say whether they most hated or despised him. Religion he had none.
One day he favoured Popery; the next, on hearing certain clamours of the
people, he sent his wife's domestics back packing to France, because they
were Papists. Papists, however, should make him a saint, for he was
certainly the cause of the taking of Rochelle.

His son, Charles the Second, though he passed his youth in the school of
adversity, learned no other lesson from it than the following one--take
care of yourself, and never do an action, either good or bad, which is
likely to bring you into any great difficulty; and this maxim he acted up
to as soon as he came to the throne. He was a Papist, but took especial
care not to acknowledge his religion, at which he frequently scoffed,
till just before his last gasp, when he knew that he could lose nothing,
and hoped to gain everything by it. He was always in want of money, but
took care not to tax the country beyond all endurable bounds; preferring,
to such a bold and dangerous course, to become the secret pensioner of
Louis, to whom, in return for his gold, he sacrificed the honour and
interests of Britain. He was too lazy and sensual to delight in playing
the part of a tyrant himself; but he never checked tyranny in others,
save in one instance. He permitted beastly butchers to commit
unmentionable horrors on the feeble, unarmed, and disunited Covenanters
of Scotland, but checked them when they would fain have endeavoured to
play the same game on the numerous, united, dogged, and warlike
Independents of England. To show his filial piety, he bade the hangman
dishonour the corpses of some of his father's judges, before whom, when
alive, he ran like a screaming hare; but permitted those who had lost
their all in supporting his father's cause, to pine in misery and want.
He would give to a painted harlot a thousand pounds for a loathsome
embrace, and to a player or buffoon a hundred for a trumpery pun, but
would refuse a penny to the widow or orphan of an old Royalist soldier.
He was the personification of selfishness; and as