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The great anterooms, I knew, where the company would be, must lie on the further side of the bedchamber. I suppose it would be about five minutes after Mr. Chiffinch had left me that Her Majesty came. The first I knew of it was a great murmur of voices and footsteps without the door.
Chiffinch when I came out into the little anteroom, except that I was sent on a message by His Majesty; and he stared on me as if I were mad. Then I was out again by the private way, through the closet and the rooms beyond, and down the staircase. At the door of Her Grace's lodgings there stood a sentry who lowered his pike as I came up, to bar my way. "Out of the way, man!" I cried at him.
Chiffinch every least incident so soon as it happened; and on three occasions in the following year having a long discourse with His Majesty. But against the former danger I had only my wits to protect me. The best thing, therefore, that I can do is to relate a few of the events that happened to me. The first meeting of the conspirators to which I was admitted was in January.
It was full three hours after their departure, that Chiffinch lounged into the room in which they had supped, in a brocade nightgown, and green velvet cap, turned up with the most costly Brussels lace. He seemed but half awake; and it was with drowsy voice that he called for a cup of cold small beer.
Oates appeared before the Council to give his testimony; and it was to the same effect as was that which I had heard Mr. Chiffinch relate before, as to the Jesuit plot to murder the King, and if need be, the Duke too, and to establish Catholic domination in England. I went into a gallery in the Council room for a little, to confirm with my own eyes whether it were Dr.
And, if they try my Lord, they will certainly condemn him. There is no question of that. To acquit him would cause a yet greater uproar than to refuse to hear the case at all." "And His Majesty?" Mr. Chiffinch eyed me gravely. "His Majesty will never prefer his private feelings before the public utility." "And this is to the public utility?" "Why yes; or the country-party thinks it is.
The hold which such an arrangement gave a man like Chiffinch, used as he well knew how to use it, made him of too much consequence to be slighted even by the first persons in the state, unless they stood aloof from all manner of politics and Court intrigue.
He however obtained some hints, through the intervention of Castel Melhor, from a Portuguese ecclesiastic, and, thus instructed, was brought up the back stairs by Chiffinch, a confidential servant, who, if the satires of that age are to be credited, had often introduced visitors of a very different description by the same entrance.
Chiffinch: of the two beyond I could recognize only my Lord Bath whose face looked this way: the other I supposed to be my Lord Feversham. The Duke was not within sight. He was kneeling, I suppose, out of my sight, beyond the bed. Then I heard His Majesty's voice very plain, though very weak and slow. "Ah!" said he, "you that saved my body is now come to save my soul."
At the end of the table that was opposite me, sat His Majesty, tilting his chair back a little as if he were weary of the talk; but his face was flushed as if with anger. Upon his right sat the Duke, with his periwig pushed a little back, and his face more flushed even than the King's. Chiffinch, very eager-looking, and lean, talking at a great speed, with his hands clasped upon the table.
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