little Jermyn,"
were also notable as figuring in court intrigues. The earl was member
of the privy council to his majesty, and moreover held a still closer
connection to the queen mother; for, according to Sir John Reresby,
Madame Buviere, and others, her majesty had privately married his
lordship abroad--an act of condescension he repaid with inhumanity.
Madame Buviere says he never gave the queen a good word; and when
she spoke to him he used to say, "Que me veut cette femme?" The same
authority adds, he treated her majesty in an extremely ill manner,
"so that whilst she had not a faggot to warm herself, he had in
his apartments a good fire and a sumptuous table." [This testimony
concerning the queen's poverty is borne out by Cardinal de Retz. In his
interesting Memoirs he tells of a visit he paid the queen mother, then
an exile in Paris. He found her with her youngest daughter, Henrietta,
in the chamber of the latter. "At my coming in," says the Cardinal, "she
(the queen) said, 'You see, I am come to keep Henrietta company; the
poor child could not rise to-day for want of a fire.' The truth is, that
the Cardinal (Mazarin) for six months together had not ordered her any
money towards her pension; that no tradespeople would trust her for
anything and there was not at her lodgings a single billet. You will do
me the justice to think that the princess of England did not keep her
bed the next day for want of a faggot... Posterity will hardly believe
that a princess of England, grand-daughter to Henry the Great, hath
wanted a faggot in the month of January, in the Louvre, and in the eyes
of the French court."] Pepys records that the marriage of her majesty
to the earl was commonly talked of at the restoration; and he likewise
mentions it was rumoured "that they had a daughter between them in
France. How true," says this gossip, "God knows."

The earl's nephew, Henry Jermyn, is described as having a big head and
little legs, an affected carriage, and a wit consisting "in expressions
learned by rote, which he occasionally employed either in raillery or
love." For all that, he being a man of amorous disposition, the number
of his intrigues was no less remarkable than the rank of those who
shared them. Most notable amongst his conquests was the king's eldest
sister, widow of the Prince of Orange--a lady possessing in no small
degree natural affections for which her illustrious family were
notorious. During the exile of Charle