obligatory. It had been made, they said, by Charles: it might, perhaps,
have been binding on him; but his brother did not think himself bound
by it. The most Christian King might, therefore, without any fear of
opposition from England, proceed to annex Brabant and Hainault to his
empire. [238]

It was at the same time resolved that an extraordinary embassy should be
sent to assure Lewis of the gratitude and affection of James. For this
mission was selected a man who did not as yet occupy a very eminent
position, but whose renown, strangely made up of infamy and glory,
filled at a later period the whole civilized world.

Soon after the Restoration, in the gay and dissolute times which have
been celebrated by the lively pen of Hamilton, James, young and ardent
in the pursuit of pleasure, had been attracted to Arabella Churchill,
one of the maids of honour who waited on his first wife. The young
lady was plain: but the taste of James was not nice: and she became
his avowed mistress. She was the daughter of a poor Cavalier knight who
haunted Whitehall, and made himself ridiculous by publishing a dull and
affected folio, long forgotten, in praise of monarchy and monarchs. The
necessities of the Churchills were pressing: their loyalty was ardent:
and their only feeling about Arabella's seduction seems to have been
joyful surprise that so homely a girl should have attained such high
preferment.

Her interest was indeed of great use to her relations: but none of them
was so fortunate as her eldest brother John, a fine youth, who carried a
pair of colours in the foot guards. He rose fast in the court and in the
army, and was early distinguished as a man of fashion and of pleasure.
His stature was commanding, his face handsome, his address singularly
winning, yet of such dignity that the most impertinent fops never
ventured to take any liberty with him; his temper, even in the most
vexatious and irritating circumstances, always under perfect command.
His education had been so much neglected that he could not spell the
most common words of his own language: but his acute and vigorous
understanding amply supplied the place of book learning. He was not
talkative: but when he was forced to speak in public, his natural
eloquence moved the envy of practiced rhetoricians. [239] His courage
was singularly cool and imperturbable. During many years of anxiety and
peril, he never, in any emergency, lost even for a moment, the perfect
us