University of Virginia Library

7. CHAPTER VII.
WHITEHALL; A DOUBLE MARRIAGE.

It scarcely need be stated that Rosamond Bellarmyne's letter,
which, as we have seen, caused so much grief and anxiety to
stout old Sir Reginald, was composed and sent off on the very

morning following the commission of the outrage on Blackheath;
and before the agitated girl had recovered from the consternation
and excitement into which this, not unprecedented, violence
had thrown her, and before she had, indeed, learned anything
accurate concerning the situation of her own affairs, or the
intentions of the king.

All, in fact, that she had heard when she wrote wore an
adverse aspect. The very outrageousness of such an attempt in
the very presence, and almost under the eyes of the king,
seemed to carry conviction with it, that the attempt, if not
made under his direct sanction, was felt by its perpetrator to be
one which would not, at the worst, provoke his anger to evil
consequences.

To this consideration De Grammont's long and insolent importunities,
the king's undeniable allowance and indulgence of
them, until within the last few weeks, were naturally added;
and the helplessness of her own isolated and friendless condition
recurred with tenfold strength.

She had heard nothing, when she wrote, of the Chevalier de
Grammont's honorary exile from the court of England; but she
had heard, so much more quickly does ill news at all times
speed than good, of Major Bellarmyne's imprisonment in Newgate,
for breach of privilege; and to this intelligence was added
the heart-rending information that the penalty of his offence
was no less than mutilation, by the loss of his right hand, and
that in his case there was little prospect of any relaxation, since
in addition to the offence of drawing his sword, constructively,
in the king's presence, he had gone so far as to strike a nobleman
high in the favor of the crown.

Harassed by these feelings, reports, and imaginations, the poor
girl wrote, as may be imagined, a letter which would have
harassed almost to madness a father even less loving and less

irritable than the broken-spirited and failing cavalier. And
little she imagined, as she wrote, that the superb chevalier,
whom she pictured to herself as flushed with triumph, burning
with brilliant hope, ready for new aggression, and backed by
the favor of obsequious majesty, was actually at the moment
when she was penning her doleful ditty travelling, as hard as
post-horses would carry him, towards Calais, without the least
idea whither he should next betake himself; since he well knew
that so far from wishing his presence, Louis XIV. was much
more likely to commit him to the Bastile than to welcome him
to Paris; while the king, whom she supposed the devoted confidant
of De Grammont's pleasures, was in reality plotting
against him the bitterest pleasantry of which that easy, laughter-loving
prince was ever guilty.

Tired in body, for, having no mind to encounter the pleasantries
much less the mock condolences of his fellow-courtiers, he
had taken horse at daybreak on the morning following the
stag-hunt, and ridden post without dismounting, except to
change horses, discomfited in his projects, vexed with himself,
and angry with the world, De Grammont had reached the
Crown Inn at Dover late in the evening, had refused all offers
of supper, had drunk deeply, contrary to his custom, and retired
to bed, with the intent to forget his cares in a good night's
rest.

But even in this reasonable hope the unfortunate Frenchman
was frustrated; for, before he had been in bed two hours, a
prodigious clatter of hoofs in the court-yard awakened him,
and the inn was in a bustle, as it seemed to him, until it was
almost morning.

At length he fell asleep; and scarce were his eyes closed
before his celebrated valet, Termes, the greatest thief, the most
impudent liar, but the best valet de chambre living, entered

his chamber with the announcement that two gentlemen were
below stairs, who had ridden post from London, in order to
have the honor of paying him their compliments before sailing;
and that they desired the pleasure of his company, so soon as
he had made his toilet.

No further information could be obtained from Termes,
although De Grammont could perceive by a single glance at
the queer grimaces into which that paragon of servants was
delighting himself by contorting his nut-cracking nose and
chin, that he was thoroughly aware what was in the wind; and
moreover, he shrewdly suspected that it boded himself no good.

No; Monsieur Termes knew nothing about it. He had not
seen the gentlemen; only the waiter of the hotel. He did not
give their names, in fact he did not know them; they had
ridden post, and brought no domestic with them. But apparemment
they were friends of Monsieur le Comte; otherwise why
should they have ridden so far to have the honor of paying
their compliments? What suit would it please the count to
wear—the maroon riding-dress with purple trimmings—or the
blue and silver? If it would please the chevalier to bestir himself,
for the gentlemen were waiting.

So the chevalier consigned Termes to perdition, and did
bestir himself. He put on his blue and silver suit, and his best
riding peruke, and his jack-boots and spurs; and so descending
to the breakfast-parlor, found there waiting him his dear
friend, Count Antony Hamilton, the witty author of his memoirs,
and his brother George, both, like himself, booted and
spurred, with their riding-swords at their sides; but, unlike
him, each with a pair of long-barrelled pistols at his belt.

“Good-morrow to you, chevalier,” they both exclaimed in a
breath, as he entered, making him profound congees; “Have
you not forgotten something in London?”

“Excuse me, gentlemen,” replied the imperturbable Frenchman,
with a low bow. “I have forgotten—to marry your
sister. So lead on, and let us finish that affair. But I fancy
it must be finished in the Tower; for our old friend, Rowley,
is sure to send me thither, as soon as he learns that I have
returned to London, in the teeth of his gentle hint at honorable
exile.”

“By no means, count,” answered Antony, with a smile and
a bow; “in that case we could not have allowed you to return,
in spite of your anxiety to do us and our sister this
honor. We have a license with us from his majesty for your
return and reception at court.” And with the words he handed
to the count a parchment, which was thus inscribed:

Whereupon they breakfasted together, each with what appetite
he might; and then rode back to London, with much less
velocity and bustle than they had ridden down.

Of this, however, Rosamond Bellarmyne knew nothing; much
less did she suspect that the genuine, honest-hearted old London
merchant had been closeted nearly three hours tête-à-tête
with the king, much to the wonder of the courtiers, on matters
closely connected with herself, though this was the king's

secret; and that thereafter he had gone to Newgate, provided
with a document bearing the sign-manual, on the exhibition of
which Major Bellarmyne was immediately discharged, his
sword being duly restored to him; whereupon he took horse
within half an hour, having his pockets filled with a voluminous
epistle, as long as a modern title-deed to an estate, and a fat
purse, and was riding, when last seen, followed by a couple of
stout serving men, at the deliberate pace of an old traveller who
has a long journey before him, out of town by the great North
Road.

For the benefit of those whose imaginations are not lively
enough to forebode what ensued, it may be necessary to state,
that before Sir Reginald Bellarmyne's touching letter arrived
at the house of Nicholas in the Minories, the emperor's young
soldier, now the king's officer, Armytage Bellarmyne, had
alighted at the gates of the old abbey, well furnished with credentials,
not from his father only, but from the Majesty of
England, backing his suit for the fair hand of the maid-of-honor.

To these also it may be necessary to say, that the old chevalier
was too implicit a believer in the doctrine of passive obedience,
to dream of disputing the will of the king; that the good
Dowager of Throckmorton was already in London, when the
old baronet, cured of his gout by the best of all remedies, a
dose of unexpected happiness, dismounted at the palace-gates,
to claim the brief possession of his fair child, whom he was
soon to give away for ever—that the two kinsmen, so long and
unnecessarily estranged, were never estranged more; and that
on the festive and joyous day when two marriages were celebrated
in the chapel of Whitehall, if the first and most famous
was that of the notorious Count de Grammont with the beautiful
Miss Hamilton, the most interesting, and, as after days

proved, the happiest, was that of Major Armytage Bellarmyne
to Rosamond, the no less beautiful daughter of Reginald, first
Viscount of Bellarmyne.

To the world, who have heard only of the recklessness, the
heartlessness, the worldly coldness, ill redeemed by his facile
and frivolous good-nature, of the Second Charles of England, it
may appear surprising; but the tenants of the old house, so
happily reinstated, of Bellarmyne, as well as the restored avenue
and the redeemed acres, truthful although mute witnesses, still
tell this simple tale of “The King's Gratitude.”