Introduction
In 1683, some of Gilbert Burnet’s friends were executed for complicity the Rye House Plot, and when James II came to the throne in 1685 he emigrated to Holland, a country he knew well and admired for its religious tolerance. Meanwhile, Burnet, a Scottish clergyman and distinguished scholar, had jotted down his impressions of James’s elder brother King Charles II, some of which are given here.
THE King [Charles II] is civil rather to an excess and has a softeness and gentleness with him, both in his air and expressions that has a charm in it.
The King has a vast deal of wit, and a great deal of judgement, when he thinks fitt to employ it; he has the greatest art of concealing himselfe of any man alive, so that those about him cannot tell, when he is ill or well pleased.
He is very affable not only in publick but in private, only he talks too much and runns out too long and too farr; he has a very ill opinion both of men and of women, and so is infinitely distrustfull, he thinks the world is governed wholly by interests, and indeed he has known so much of the baseness of mankind, that no wonder if he has hard thoughts of them.*
His love of pleasure and his vast expence with his women together with the great influence they have had in all his affaires both at home and abroad is the chief load that will lay on him.* For not only the women themselves have great power, but his court is full of pimps and bauds,* and all matters, in which one desires to succeed, must be put in their hands.
* Charles was still only eighteen when in January 1649 his father Charles I was tried before a biased Parliamentary tribunal and executed: see Charles I and his Parliament. Young Charles then had to lead the losing fight for the English crown, and in 1652 was driven abroad in a romantic but frightening man hunt: see The Royal Oak. On his return in 1660, he had to decide how to deal with dozens of noblemen and government officials who had been complicit in the murder of his father and the policies of Oliver Cromwell’s republican military junta, and were now anxious to swear they had always supported him really. These were experiences likely to breed scepticism in the most trusting of natures.
* Charles, who in 1662 married Catherine of Braganza (1638-1705), daughter of John IV of Portugal, kept several mistresses over his lifetime. Some were of the Quality, such as Barbara Palmer, 1st Duchess of Cleveland (1640-1709) and Louise de Kérouaille, Duchess of Portsmouth (1649-1734); others were commoners, such as his first love Lucy Walter (?1630-1658) and the actresses Nell Gwyn (?1650-1687) and Moll Davis (1648-1708). He may have had as many as fourteen mistresses in all. He is known to have fathered eleven children, none of them by his wife Catherine.
* A pimp is a man who supplies prostitutes to clients; a bawd is a now archaic word for a woman who runs a brothel, a ‘madam’.
Précis
In 1683, Gilbert Burnet set down his impressions of King Charles II. He saw in him a man both charming and quick-witted, but very difficult to read, and his tumultuous life had taught him to be profoundly suspicious. Charles found comfort in the arms of a procession of women, and those who supplied them exercised tremendous power at court. (59 / 60 words)
In 1683, Gilbert Burnet set down his impressions of King Charles II. He saw in him a man both charming and quick-witted, but very difficult to read, and his tumultuous life had taught him to be profoundly suspicious. Charles found comfort in the arms of a procession of women, and those who supplied them exercised tremendous power at court.
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