t have suffered as much as
any woman wedded to a sultan in any country where the seraglio is not a
natural and proper institution.

If Clarendon could not be said to have brought about the marriage, at
least he had given it his suffrages when proposed by Portugal, which was
anxious to establish an alliance with England as some protection against
the predatory designs of Spain. He had been influenced by the dowry
offered--five hundred thousand pounds in money, Tangier, which would
give England a commanding position on the Mediterranean, and the Island
of Bombay. Without yet foreseeing that the possession of Bombay, and the
freedom to trade in the East Indies--which Portugal had hitherto kept
jealously to herself--were to enable England to build up her great
Indian Empire, yet the commercial advantages alone were obvious enough
to make the match desirable.

Catherine of Braganza sailed for England, and on the lath of May, 1662,
Charles, attended by a splendid following, went to meet his bride at
Portsmouth. He was himself a very personable man, tall--he stood a full
six feet high--lean and elegantly vigorous. The ugliness of his drawn,
harsh-featured face was mitigated by the glory of full, low-ridded,
dark eyes, and his smile could be irresistibly captivating. He was
as graceful in manner as in person, felicitous of speech, and of an
indolent good temper that found expression in a charming urbanity.

Good temper and urbanity alike suffered rudely when he beheld the wife
they brought him. Catherine, who was in her twenty-fifth year, was of
an absurdly low stature, so long in the body and short in the legs that,
dressed as she was in an outlandish, full-skirted farthingale, she had
the appearance of being on her knees when she stood before him. Her
complexion was sallow, and though her eyes, like his own, were fine,
they were not fine enough to redeem the dull plainness of her face. Her
black hair was grotesquely dressed, with a long fore-top and two great
ribbon bows standing out, one on each side of her head, like a pair of
miniature wings.

It is little wonder that the Merry Monarch, the fastidious voluptuary,
with his nice discernment in women, should have checked in his long
stride, and halted a moment in consternation.

"Lord!" was his wry comment to Etheredge, who was beside him. "They've
brought me a bat, not a woman."

But if she lacked beauty, she was well cowered, and Charles was in
desperate need of mone