GENERAL MONK AND HIS WIFE.

FROM the MS. collection of Sir Thomas Browne, I shall rescue an anecdote, which has a tendency to show that it is not advisable to permit ladies to remain at home, when political plots are to be secretly discussed. And while it displays the treachery of Monk's wife, it will also appear that, like other great revolutionists, it was ambition that first induced him to become the reformer he pretended to be.

"Monk gave fair promises to the Rump, but last agreed with the French Ambassador to take the government on himself; by whom he had a promise from Mazarin of assistance from France. This bargain was struck late at night: but not so secretly but that Monk's wife, who had posted herself conveniently behind the hangings, finding what was resolved upon, sent her brother Clarges away immediately with notice of it to Sir A. A. She had promised to watch her husband, and inform Sir A. how matters went. Sir A. caused the Council of state, whereof he was a member, to be summoned, and charged Monk that he was playing false. The general insisted that he was true to his principles, and firm to what he had promised, and that he was ready to give them all satisfaction. Sir A. told him if he were sincere he might remove all scruples, and should instantly take away their commissions from such and such men in his army, and appoint others, and that before he left the room. Monk consented; a great

part of the commissions of his officers were changed, and Sir Edward Harley, a member of the council, and then present, was made governor of Dunkirk, in the room of Sir William Lockhart; the army ceased to be at Monk's devotion; the ambassador was recalled, and broke his heart."

Such were the effects of the infidelity of the wife of General Monk!

PHILIP AND MARY.

HOUSSAIE in his Memoires, vol. i. p. 261, has given the following curious particulars of this singular union :

"The second wife of Philip was Mary Queen of England; a virtuous princess (Houssaie was a good catholic), but who had neither youth nor beauty. This marriage was as little happy for the one as for the other. The husband did not like his wife, although she doted on him; and the English hated Philip still more than he hated them. Silhon says, that the rigour which he exercised in England against heretics partly hindered Prince Carlos from succeeding to that crown, and for which purpose Mary had invited him in case she died childless!—But no historian speaks of this pretended inclination, and is it probable that Mary ever thought proper to call to the succession of the English throne the son of the Spanish Monarch? This marriage had made her nation detest her, and in the last years of her life she could be little satisfied with him from his

marked indifference for her. She well knew that the Parliament would never consent to exclude her sister Elizabeth, whom the nobility loved for being more friendly to the new religion, and more hostile to the house of Austria."

In the Cottonian library, Vespasian F. III. is preserved a note of instructions in the hand-writing of Queen Mary, of which the following is a copy. It was, probably, written when Philip was just seated on the English throne.

"Instructions for my lorde Previsel.

"Firste, to tell the Kinge the whole state of this realme, w all things appartay nyng to the same, as myche as ye knowe to be trewe.

"Seconde, to obey his commandment in all thyngs.

66

Thyrdly, in all things he shall aske your aduyse to declare your opinion as becometh a faythfull conceyllour to do.

"Mary the Quene.”

Houssaie proceeds: "After the death of Mary, Philip sought Elizabeth in marriage; and she, who was yet unfixed at the beginning of her reign, amused him at first with hopes. But as soon as she unmasked herself to the pope, she laughed at Philip, telling the Duke of Feria, his ambassador, that her conscience would not permit her to marry the husband of her sister."

This monarch, however, had no such scruples. Incest

appears to have had in his eyes peculiar charms; for he offered himself three times to three different sisters-inlaw. He seems also to have known the secret of getting quit of his wives when they became inconvenient. In state matters he spared no one whom he feared; to them he sacrificed his only son, his brother, and a great number of princes and ministers.

It is said of Philip, that before he died he advised his son to make peace with England, and war with the other powers. Pacem cum Anglo, bellum cum reliquis. Queen Elizabeth, and the ruin of his invincible fleet, physicked his frenzy into health, and taught him to fear and respect that country which he thought he could have made a province of Spain!

On his death-bed he did every thing he could for salvation. The following protestation, a curious morsel of bigotry, he sent to his confessor a few days before he died :

"Father confessor! as you occupy the place of God, I protest to you that I will do every thing you shall say to be necessary for my being saved; so that what I omit doing will be placed to your account, as I am ready to acquit myself of all that shall be ordered to me."

Is there, in the records of history, a more glaring instance of the idea which a good Catholic attaches to the power of a confessor than the present authentic example? The most licentious philosophy seems not more dangerous than a religion whose votary believes that

the accumulation of crimes can be dissipated by the breath of a few orisons, and which, considering a venal priest to " occupy the place of God," can traffic with the divine power at a very moderate price.

After his death a Spanish grandee wrote with a coal on the chimney-piece of his chamber the following epitaph, which ingeniously paints his character in four

verses:

Siendo moço luxurioso ;]
Siendo hombre, fue cruel;
Siendo viejo, codicioso;
Que se puede esperar del?

In youth he was luxurious;
In manhood he was cruel;

In old age he was avaricious;
What could be hoped from him?

END OF VOL. II.

Bradbury and Evans (late T. Davison), Whitefriars.