Note 218 — LETTERS TO MADAME DE GRIGNAN[11] FROM 1671 TO 1690. (continued 5)

Charles II. was sixty-five years of age, and had reigned about twenty-five years, reckoning from the restoration of the Stuarts. He received the sacraments agreeably to the rites of the Church of Rome, but more, it is said, in compliance with the entreaties of his brother than the dictates of his conscience. He had some good private qualities. But, as a prince, his character, says the impartial Hume, was “dangerous to his subjects, and dishonorable to himself.” To rid himself of his parliament, he had placed himself in a state of disgraceful independence on Louis XIV. It has been said of him that he never said a foolish thing, and never did a wise one. Judging by the following anecdote, he carried further even than policy required, the practice of dissimulation, which would be, as it is declared, the necessary virtue of kings, if it be true that weakness and indolence are their natural vices. It is said that Charles II. having reproached his minister Shaftesbury with being “the greatest knave in the three kingdoms,” he replied, “Apparently your majesty only includes subjects.”