From that time this abandoned woman
exercised an influence over the king which wholly disgraced his
court, and almost ruined his kingdom.
Another prominent figure, whose history is inseparable from the
king's, was that of his majesty's brother, James, Duke of York--a
man of greater ambition and lesser talents than the merry
monarch, but one whose amorous disposition equalled the monarch's
withal. At an early period of his life the Duke of York was
witness of the strife which divided his unhappy father's kingdom.
When only eight years old he was sent for by Charles I. to York,
but was forbidden by the Parliament to leave St. James's Palace.
Despite its commands he was, however, carried to the king by the
gallant Marquis of Hereford. That same year the boy witnessed
the refusal of Sir John Hotham, Governor of Hull, to admit his
majesty within the gates; and James was subsequently present at
the siege of Bristol, and the famous battle of Edgehill, when his
life at one period of the engagement was in imminent peril.
Until 1646 he continued under the guardianship of his father,
when, on the entrance of Fairfax into Oxford, the young duke was
found among the prisoners, and by Cromwell's orders committed to
the charge of Sir George Ratcliffe. A few months later he was
removed to St. James's Palace, when in company with his brother,
the Duke of Gloucester, and his sister, the Princess Elizabeth,
he was placed under the care of Lord Northumberland, who had
joined the Republican cause.
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