Catherine's hands in audience, to the violent wagging of tongues, the general impression at Court being that it had been brought about by the Duchess of Portsmouth's mediation.[1]
On New Year's Day, 1683, Waller addressed the following lines to Catherine:
What revolutions in the world have been!
How are we changed since first we saw the Queen!
She, like the sun, does still the same appear,
Bright as she was at her arrival here.
Time had commission mortals to impair,
But things celestial is obliged to spare.
May every new year find her still the same
In health and beauty as she hither came.
When Lords and Commons with united voice
The Infanta named, approved the royal choice.
First of our queens whom not the King alone
But the whole nation lifted to the throne.
With like consent and like desert was crowned
The glorious prince who does the Turk confound;[2]
Victorious both, his conduct wins the day,
And her example chases vice away.
Though louder fame attend the martial rage,
'Tis greater glory to reform the age!
The voice of the courtier was dumb on the subject of the Commons who had desired to convict her of treason, and remove her from the King's side, and of the nation, who, after having lifted her to the throne, would have applauded her end on the scaffold!
In June the Court and the country were thrown into agitation by the discovery of the Rye House Plot to assassinate Charles, and the Duke of York, on their way back to town from Newmarket. The meetings of the conspirators were held at Rye, in Hertfordshire, the country seat of Rumbold, one of their number. By the mere accident of a fire breaking out in the King's house in Newmarket, which forced Charles and his brother to return two days before the time appointed, the plot came to nothing; but it was discovered, and many of the plotters went to the scaffold,
