The Audacious Crimes of Colonel Blood Read Online Free Page B

effectively banned Catholics from public office, she lost her position as lady of the bedchamber and Charles dropped her as his favourite mistress, taking Louise de Keroualle as her successor. In 1705 her husband died and she married Major General Robert Fielding, whom she later prosecuted for bigamy.
    Villiers, George, Second Duke of Buckingham (1628–87). Son of First Duke of Buckingham, favourite of James I and Charles I, who was assassinated by stabbing in a Portsmouth tavern in August 1628 when his son was just seven months old. After Restoration, Buckingham was effectively debarred from reaching high office by the lord chancellor and chief minister, Edward Hyde, First Earl of Clarendon , who despised him as a schemer and conspirator. Always with ties to the radical nonconformist movement and associating with known rebels, the duke was accused of treasonable intrigues in 1667 and of casting the king’s horoscope – predicting the monarch’s death had been treason since Tudor times. His arrest was ordered on 26 February, but he evaded capture until surrendering on 27 June and was sent to the Tower. Buckingham was free by 19 July and restored to favour. However, his affair with the Countess of Shrewsbury led to a duel with her husband in January 1668 in which the Earl of Shrewsbury was fatally wounded. The comfortable installation of the widow in his own house caused great public offence. In January 1674 Buckingham was attacked in Parliament. The Lords complained that Buckingham continued his affair with the countess and that their son had been buried in Westminster Abbey under the title of Earl of Coventry. The duke and his mistress were forced to apologise and offer sureties totalling £10,000 not to continue to cohabit. In the Commons, he came under fire as the promoter both of a French alliance and of popery in England and the House petitioned the king to remove Buckingham not only from his presence but from royal employment for ever. Charles promptly agreed. After the accession of James II , the old intriguer returned briefly to public life, but because of ill-health and his financial troubles, retired to his small estate at Helmsley, Yorkshire. He lived there quietly for eighteen months and died on 16 April 1687, supposedly from a chill caught while out hunting, at the home of one of his tenants in Kirkbymoorside.
    CHARLES II’S GOVERNMENT
    Bennet, Henry, First Earl of Arlington (1618–85). Second son of Sir John Bennet, of Harlington, Middlesex. Fought in Civil War as a Royalist volunteer in a skirmish at Andover, Hampshire in 1644. In exile,appointed secretary to James, Duke of York, and later served in a diplomatic post in Madrid. Returned to London in April 1661 and appointed keeper of the king’s privy purse. Replaced Sir Edward Nicholas as secretary of state in October 1662 and was appointed postmaster general, 1666–77. Created First Earl of Arlington, 14 March 1665. Rival to George Villiers , Second Duke of Buckingham. Sold his secretaryship to Sir Joseph Williamson for £6,000 in September 1674 and became lord chamberlain of the royal household. He hid his Catholic beliefs during his lifetime, only calling for a priest on his deathbed while stipulating that his conversion should be kept secret until after his death.
    Hyde, Edward, First Earl of Clarendon (1608–74). Appointed chancellor of the Exchequer by Charles I in 1645 and guardian to the Prince of Wales (later Charles II) , accompanying him when he fled to the Channel Island of Jersey in 1646. While in exile, appointed lord chancellor in 1658 and negotiated with Presbyterians in England who supported the return of Charles as king. Hyde played a major role in the creation in the ‘Declaration of Breda’ in 1660 – the manifesto for the restoration of the monarchy. On the restoration, appointed first lord of the Treasury and continued as lord chancellor, in practice, the chief minister of Charles