He was in London on the 14th of November, in the very
crisis of the negotiation between Monk and the new Government, but
remained only a fortnight. Till Peace with Spain should be concluded
by some means, his true place was at Dunkirk, for the recovery of
which Spain would now certainly wrestle, while France would also bid
high for the acquisition. He left London for Dunkirk on the 1st of
December, the issue between Monk and the new Government still
undecided.--While Lockhart was on the scene of the great negotiation
between Mazarin and Luis de Haro on the Spanish border, there had
been the surprise of the arrival there of no less a person than
Charles II. himself. In August we left him waiting anxiously at
Calais, ready to embark for England on the due explosion there of the
great pre-arranged insurrection of the old Royalists and new
Royalists. He had lingered about the French coast for some time; but,
when the revolt of Sir George Booth had collapsed, the notion of a
new residence in Brussels after another of his failures had become
disagreeable to him. He did go to Brussels, but only to conceive the
idea of a trip, half of pleasure, half of speculation, to the scene
of the great diplomatic conferences. Might not his interests be
considered in the Treaty? Mazarin, who had no wish to see him at the
conferences, declined to give him a passport; but he risked the
journey _incognito_, with Ormond, the Earl of Bristol, and one
or two other attendants, going by a long and circuitous route, and
finding much amusement by the way. As they approached their
destination, there was an unlucky separation of the party into two,
Ormond going on ahead for inquiries and appointing a place for their
reunion. But for some days Charles and the Earl of Bristol were lost.
Ormond, who had missed them at the appointed place, had gone on to
Fontarabia, a small frontier town of Spain, and the residence of Don
Luis de Haro during the Treaty, just as St. Jean de Luz, two or three
miles off, but in the French territory, was the residence of Mazarin.
Sir Henry Bennet, the Ambassador for Charles at the Spanish Court,
was already there; and he, and Ormond, and Don Luis himself, were in
no small anxiety. At length it appeared that the fugitives, on false
information that the Treaty was already concluded, had gone into
Spain on their own account, bound for Madrid itself, and had got as
far as Saragossa. Fetched back to Fontarabia, they were received w