"The passion and noise
of the night reached too many ears to be a secret the next day,"
says the chancellor, "and the whole court was full of that which
ought to have been known to nobody."
When the royal pair met next morning, they neither looked at nor
spoke to each other. Days passed full of depression and gloom
for the young wife, who spent most of her time in seclusion,
whilst the king sought distraction in the society of his
courtiers. The chancellor, after his second interview with the
queen, absented himself from court, not wishing to be furthermore
drawn into a quarrel which he saw himself powerless to heal.
During his absence the king wrote him a letter which evinced
determination to carry out his design. This epistle, preserved
in the library of the British Museum, runs as follows:
"HAMPTON COURT, THURSDAY MORNING.
"I forgot when you were here last to desire you to give Broderich
good council not to meddle any more with what concerns my Lady
Castlemaine, and to let him have a care how he is the author of
any scandalous reports; for if I find him guilty of any such
thing, I will make him repent it to the last moment of his life.
"And now I am entered on this matter, I think it very necessary
to give you a little good council in it, lest you may think that
by making a farther stir in the business you may divert me from
my resolution, which all the world shall never do; and I wish I
may be unhappy in this world and in the world to come, if I fail
in the least degree of what I have resolved, which is of making
my Lady Castlemaine of my wife's bedchamber.
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