ously mutilated, and imbedded in great masses of childish fiction, well deserve to be attentively studied. [1]
The rich plate of the Chapel Royal had been deposited at Wild House, near Lincoln's Inn Fields, the residence of the Spanish ambassador Ronquillo. Ronquillo, conscious that he and his court had not deserved ill of the English nation, had thought it unnecessary to ask for soldiers: but the mob was not in a mood to make nice distinctions. The name of Spain had long been associated in the public mind with the Inquisition and the Armada, with the cruelties of Mary and the plots against Elizabeth. Ronquillo had also made himself many enemies among the common people by availing himself of his privilege to avoid the necessity of paying his debts. His house was therefore sacked without mercy; and a noble library, which he had collected, perished in the flames. His only comfort was that the host in his chapel was rescued from the same fate.[2]
- ↑ I take this opportunity of giving an explanation which well informed persons may think superfluous. Several critics have complained that I treat the Saint Germain's Life of James the Second sometimes as a work of the highest authority, and sometimes as a mere romance. They seem to imagine that the book is all from the same hand, and ought either to be uniformly quoted with respect or uniformly thrown aside with contempt. The truth is that part of the Life is of the very highest authority, and that the rest if the work of an ignorant and silly compiler, and is of no more value than any common Jacobite pamphlet. Those passages which were copied from the Memoirs written by James, and those passages which were carefully revised by his son, are among the most useful materials for history. They contain the testimony of witnesses, who were undoubtedly under a strong bias, and for whose bias large allowance ought to be made, but who had the best opportunity of learning the truth. The interstices between these precious portions of the narrative are sometimes filled with trash. Whoever will take the trouble to examine the references in my notes will see that I have constantly borne in mind the distinction which I have now pointed out. Surely I may cite, as of high authority, an account of the last moments of Charles the Second, which was written by his brother, or an account of the plottings of Penn, of Dartmouth, and of Churchill, which was corrected by the hand of the Pretender, and yet may, with perfect consistency, reject the fables of a nameless scribbler who makes Argyle, with all his cavalry, swim across the Clyde at a place where the Clyde is more than four miles wide. (1857.)
- ↑ London Gazette, Dec. 13, 1688; Barillon, Dec. 14/24.; Citters, same date; Luttrell's Diary; Clarke's Life of James, ii. 256. Orig. Mem; Ellis Correspondence, Dec. 13.; Consultation of the Spanish Council of State, Jan. 19/29, 1689. It appears that Ronquillo complained bitterly to his government of his losses; "Sirviendole solo de consuelo el haber tenido prevencion de poder consumir El Santisimo."
