perversity of woman in wicked ways, but as indicating the natural
effect of the lowering of the esteem in which the sex was held by the
evil living of men in the higher circles of society. Yet not all the
indictments which are brought forward by Clarendon would be considered
to-day as of a serious nature. He comments: "The young women conversed
without any circumspection of modesty, and frequently met at taverns
and common eating-houses; they who were stricter and more severe in
their comportment became the wives of the seditious preachers or of
officers of the army. The daughters of noble and illustrious families
bestowed themselves upon the divines of the time, or other low
and unequal matches. Parents had no manner of authority over their
children, nor children any obedience or submission to their parents,
but every one did that which was good in his own eyes."

That the change in the feminine character was not simply due to the
unsettled state of society from the Civil War, which undoubtedly did
affect the standard of the times, but was attributable more largely
to the imported French manners with which Charles made the nation
familiar, is beyond doubt. Peter Heylin, who had travelled in France
and published an account of his observations, and who was led to pass
severe strictures upon the conduct of the French women, modified his
gratulatory expressions with regard to English women as follows: "Our
English women, at that time, were of a more retired behaviour than
they have been since, which made the confident carriage of the French
damsels seem more strange to me; whereas of late the garb of our women
is so altered, and they have in them so much of the mode of France,
as easily might take off those misapprehensions with which I was
possessed at my first coming thither."

It was not until after the death of the king, which occurred on
February 6, 1685, that the nation recovered from the spell of
debauchery through which it had passed, and assumed its wonted
sobriety. Seven days prior, Evelyn wrote in his _Diary_: "I saw this
evening such a scene of profuse gaming, and the king in the midst of
his three concubines, as I had never before seen, luxurious dallying
and profaneness." After the death of Charles and the proclamation
of James II., he reverted again to that scene and said: "I can never
forget the inexpressible luxury and profaneness, gaming and all
dissoluteness, and, as it were, total forgetfulness of Go