Soon after Charles I.
had been beheaded, his faithful servitor went abroad; but being
loyal to the Stuart cause, he journeyed with Charles II. to
Scotland, and afterwards fought beside him in the bloody battle
of Worcester. Whilst the monarch was hiding in Boscobel Wood,
the duke betook himself to London, where, donning a wizard's
mask, a jack-pudding coat, a hat adorned with a fox's tail and
cock's feathers, he masqueraded as a mountebank, and discoursed
diverting nonsense from a stage erected at Charing Cross. After
running several risks, he escaped to France. But alas for the
duke, who was born as Madame Dunois avows, doubtless from
experience--"for gallantry and magnificence," he was now
penniless, his great estates being confiscated by Cromwell.
However, conceiving a scheme that might secure him part of his
fortune, he hastened to put it into execution.
It happened that my Lord Fairfax, one of Cromwell's great
generals, had allotted to him by the Protector a portion of the
Buckingham estates that returned five thousand pounds a year.
The general was, moreover, placed in possession of York House,
which had likewise belonged to his grace.
Now it happened Lord Fairfax, a generous-tempered man and brave
soldier, had an only child, a daughter destined to become his
heiress; aware of which the duke resolved to marry her, that he
might in this manner recover portion of his estate. The fact of
the lady never having seen him did not interfere with his plans;
that she would reject his suit seemed an impossibility; that she
would succumb to the fascination he invariably exercised over
woman was a certainty.
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