transport the expelled foreigners to Dover, in their progress to which town they seem to have everywhere encountered the derision of the populace. As Madame St. George was stepping into the boat, a bystander took an aim at her strange head-dress with a stone. An English gentleman, who was escorting her, instantly quitted her side, and running his sword through the offender's body, killed him on the spot.*

The disgraceful penances which were imposed on Henrietta by her priests are well known. On one particular occasion she is said to have been made to walk on a dirty morning from Somerset House to Tyburn; her father Confessor riding in his coach by her side.† The Queen built a small chapel at Somerset House, after a design by Inigo Jones, in which, under the high altar, was interred the eminent painter, Horatio Gentileschi, to whom we are indebted for one of the most beautiful pictures in the Louvre, an Annunciation. Into the cellars of the present building, beneath the great square, are built five tombs of the Roman Catholic attendants of Henrietta Maria. We must not omit to notice that in Somerset House Inigo Jones breathed his last in 1652.

At Somerset House, Henrietta occasionally entertained her husband and his court with those magnificent Masques, of which Ben Jonson was the author,

* "Cur. of Lit." Ellis's "Orig. Letters."

+ Ellis's "Orig. Letters."

+ Cunningham's "London," Art. Somerset House.

and Inigo Jones the inventor of the decorations. Here also, in 1633, she brought out Fletcher's dramatic pastoral, The Faithful Shepherdess, which had previously met with an unfavourable reception on the public stage. Mr. Garrard writes to the Earl of Strafford on the 9th of January,"On Twelfth night the Queen feasted the King at Somerset House, and presented him with a play, newly studied, The Faithful Shepherdess, which the King's players acted in the robes she and her ladies acted their pastoral in last year. I had almost forgot to tell your Lordship, that on the dicing night the King carried away in James Palmer's hat 1850. The Queen was his half, and brought him that luck; she shared presently 9007."

During the days of the Protectorate, the history of Somerset House presents but little interest. Here, however, in 1656, lay in state the body of the venerable Archbishop Usher, whose private virtues induced Oliver Cromwell to honour him with a public funeral in Westminster Abbey. Here also, from the 26th of September to the 23rd of November 1658, lay in state the remains of the great Protector himself. The ceremony must have been magnificent in the extreme. Passing through a suite of rooms, hung with black, and lined with soldiers, the public were admitted into the apartment which contained the body of the Protector. The ceiling, as well as the walls of this room were covered with black velvet, and ornamented with escutcheons. Innumerable tapers flung a light over

the trappings of woe. Under a canopy of black, and on a couch covered with crimson velvet, lay a waxen image of the deceased, extended on its back. The robes were of purple and crimson velvet, ornamented with ermine and lace of gold. To the side of the effigy was affixed a splendid sword; in one hand was a sceptre, and in the other a globe. On a high stool, covered with gold tissue, lay an imperial crown, and near it a suit of complete armour. At the feet of the figure was placed the crest of the deceased. The whole of this gorgeous pageant was surrounded by railings hung with crimson velvet, which costly material also carpeted the ground. At each corner of the rails stood upright pillars, on the summits of which were lions and dragons, holding streamers in their paws. Banners were fixed on each side of the couch, on which were emblazoned the armorial bearings of the Protector and other devices, and around it were numerous attendants uncovered.

On the 2nd of November 1660, after the restoration of her son, Charles the Second, Henrietta Maria, after an absence of nineteen years, returned to England. She took up her abode at Somerset House, where she had formerly passed so many happy years, and which was again allotted for her residence. On entering it, she observed, that "had she known the temper of the English people some years past, as well as she did then, she had never Under her auspices,

been compelled to quit it."

the old building was beautified with a taste and

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magnificence which called forth the poetical encomiums both of Cowley and Waller.

According to Pepys, the Court of the QueenMother at Somerset House far exceeded in dignity and pomp that of Charles the Second at Whitehall. On the 24th of February 1663-4, he writes: "To the Queen's chapel, where I staid and saw their mass, till a man came and bade me go out or kneel down; and so I did go out. And thence to Somerset House, and there into the chapel, where Monsieur d'Espagne, a Frenchman, used to preach. But now it is made very fine, and was ten times more crowded than the Queen's Chapel at St. James's, which I wonder at. Thence down to the garden at Somerset House, and up and down the new buildings, which, in every respect, will be mighty magnificent and costly."

In January the following year, we find Pepys again paying a visit to Somerset House, when he was shown into the Queen-Mother's chamber and closet, which he says were "most beautiful places for furniture and pictures." From thence, he tells us,-"I went down the great stone-stairs to the garden, and tried the brave echo upon the stairs, which continues a voice so long as the singing three notes, concords, one after another, they all three shall sound in concert together, a good while most pleasantly." The first time that Pepys saw the new Queen, Catherine of Braganza, was at the Court of the Queen-Mother at Somerset House. Meeting," he says, " Mr. Pierce, the chyrurgeon, he

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took me into Somerset House, and there carried me into the Queen-Mother's presence-chamber, where she was with our own Queen sitting on her left hand, whom I did never see before; and though she be not a very charming, she hath a good, modest, and innocent look, which is pleasing. Here I also saw Madame Castlemaine; and, which pleased me most, Mr. Crofts, the King's son,* a most pretty spark of about fifteen years old, who, I perceive, do hang much upon my Lady Castlemaine, and is always with her; and, I hear, the Queens both are mighty kind to him." Charles subsequently entered the presence-chamber in high spirits, and excited a good deal of merriment among the courtiers by insisting to the Queen-Mother that his wife was enceinte, and playfully accusing Catherine of having admitted the fact. Some good-natured badinage followed, to which she at length retorted in plain English, "You lie." As these were the first words she had been heard to utter in that language, the King's mirth was increased, and he endeavoured to make her repeat in English, "Confess and be hanged."

After the death of his mother, Charles granted Somerset House as a residence to his neglected Queen, and here she was allowed the same free exercise of the Roman Catholic religion as had been permitted to her predecessor. Here she was residing during the excitement of the Popish Plot; and it was in Somerset House, on the 17th of * Afterwards Duke of Monmouth.