“Ask Wade,” he replied, “and Battiscombe, and one or two more who think they know best, and they will tell you the exact contrary. But I am tired of contradictory counsels. I am tired of the whole business; and I think I shall throw it up. Yes, I do,” he said, in the mood of a spoiled child, and the more positive the more consternation his followers manifested. “I have been so deceived and misled that I feel myself released from all engagements, and free to please myself. I shall go back to Brussels; and it was not to please myself that I ever left it.”
A dead silence followed, which made Monmouth feel rather awkward and ashamed, till Christopher relieved him by saying,
“If I may speak my mind—”
“Yes, do, Battiscombe!” said Monmouth. “You have no long-conceived plot to take care of,—no trammels of old promises, no consistency to keep up. You are free to see things as they are. Let me therefore hear you speak your mind.”
Christopher smiled as he said his counsel would be simple and brief. He thought that all present,—and his Grace not least—were worn out with the fatigues and excitements of the day. Their judgments might well be clouded and perplexed, and any time spent in discourse worse than wasted. He advised sleep as a better counsellor than any or all of those present.
Nobody was sorry that a conversation so painful and embarrassing should be broken off; so, when the Duke rose to dismiss his council, every man of them was glad to retire.
“Could you have believed it?” Colonel Wade whispered to Christopher, as they went down-stairs.
“I could believe anything of some very brave men who cannot stand fatigue; or of quiet men, suddenly bewildered by hurry and excitement,” Christopher answered. “You are a loyal man: so am I: and loyalty means silence to-night.”
“To-night; and over to-morrow,” replied Colonel Wade. “To-morrow will, I think, decide many things.”
The morrow decided the main point. Monmouth publicly accepted the Golden Flag, which he had declared inadmissible into the procession the morning before,—with its glittering J. R. and the crown above. He was proclaimed in Taunton market-place under the title of James the Second: but the people did not like the name, and called him “King Monmouth” still. He appeared in the finest spirits while the town-crier read at every street-corner the announcement of the prices set on the heads of the usurper and his ministers, and while signing the proclamations dated “From our Camp at Taunton.” Before night he had declared the parliament an unlawful assembly, and had forbidden the people to pay taxes on any demand but his own. By playing at being King he recovered his temper and spirits.
“Battiscombe!” he cried, beckoning Christopher to him, and laying a hand on his shoulder. “You are the best adviser of them all. Your prescription was the right one last night. I can scarcely believe it now. I must have been half asleep.”
“It was a painful dream, your Majesty.”
“O! you bring your lips to pronounce my title at last!” observed Monmouth, smiling. “But I do not forget that I assured your father that a free parliament should decide upon my title. What of last night?”
“It was a painful dream, your Majesty;” and there was a marked emphasis on the word “painful:” “and dreams are fit only to be forgotten.”
“Forget it then, Battiscombe.”
And Christopher bowed low.
To Lord Grey he had another sort of private word to say.
“Have you considered where it will be best for the Lady Henrietta to land? My lord, you start as if the idea were new to you.”
Lord Grey admitted that it was.
“Why, now, what a taskmaster you are! Last night you were offended at my hinting about going to Brussels; and this morning you look no less averse to my bringing Brussels to me.”
Lord Grey conjured his Majesty to wait till he should have a sure throne, and parliament, and palace, before leading the sweetest lady in the world into deadly risks.
“You do not know her, my Lord,” was the reply. “She is as brave as she is sweet; and she will never forgive our defrauding her of the spectacle of my royal progress. I declare to you, I dread describing to her the events of this day,—so loyally will she mourn her absence from my triumph. If you wish to keep up my spirit through good and evil—if you wish me to be a king indeed, you must not hinder Lady Henrietta from joining me—you must assist her coming.”
“Impossible, your Majesty!” Lord Grey replied, in a tone which startled Monmouth; who resumed:
“I thought I was speaking to a safe man, my Lord. I would not have given such a confidence to Battiscombe, for instance, who is as virtuous, doubtless, as St. Anthony. But to your lordship, confessions like mine can be nothing new, or, I should have supposed, displeasing.”
“True, your Majesty. But it is not my opinion that is in question. It is certain that the Protestant part of the nation would not endure—”
“One pays very dear for one’s Protestantism.”
“And for the throne which belongs to it? Will your Majesty say so, even to me?”
“Yes, indeed! If I may not have Lady Henrietta, the crown is not worth the sacrifice.”
“Your Majesty shall have everything on our part, if you will provide but one thing on your own:—and that is, a little patience.”
“Heigho! then you think I may not yet send for Lady Henrietta?”
“I am certain of it,—certain of it, your Majesty.”
Those who were behind the curtain could not but speak to each other of the contrast between the open joy of the people in this rising, and the concealed pain of mind of the leaders.
“Did you hear that?” asked Colonel Wade of Battiscombe, the next day, while on the march to Bridgewater. “Did you hear what those women said of their King Monmouth?”
“Yes; they cannot see in him the blithe and pretty young gentleman who was here five years ago. Very wonderful, truly.”
