er's
"Epithalamion," and in the century that followed inspired "John
Anderson, my jo' John." Charles himself, "the old goat," set an example
which hardly needed the authority of the Lord's anointed to become
attractive. Without honor or virtue himself, and denying their
existence in others, he made a fitting leader of the society about him.
His mistresses insulted the queen by their splendor and arrogance, and
insulted him by amours with servants and mountebanks. So destitute of
dignity or principle as to share the Duchess of Cleveland with the
world, he coolly asked a courtier who was reputed to be on too intimate
terms with the queen, how his "mistress" did. While the gaming-tables
at court were nightly covered with gold, and Lady Castlemaine gambled
away thousands of pounds at a sitting, the exchequer was closed amid a
widespread ruin, and the menial servants about the court were in want
of bread. So openly was the king's coarse licentiousness pursued, that
"the very sentrys speak of it," that the queen rarely entered her
dressing-rooms without first being assured that the king was not there
with one of his women. Such an example had a powerful influence upon
all the rank and fashion of the time, already predisposed to a similar
course. The extent of the prevailing reverence for royalty is admirably
illustrated by the scene in which the Earl of Arlington advised Miss
Stewart concerning her conduct as mistress of the king, to which
position "it had pleased God and her virtue to raise her." Thus from
the popular dislike of Puritanism, and the example of a profligate
court, began that reign of social and political corruption which for a
hundred years demoralized the manners and sullied the literature of the
English people. The vice which became so engrafted on the habits of
private life as to make decency seem an affectation, invaded religion
and politics. To religion it brought about a general indifference,
which in the higher ranks of the clergy took effect in disregard of
their duties and in a shameless scramble for lucrative posts, and in
the lower ranks produced poverty and social degradation. In politics
are to be dated from this reign the gross corruption which enabled
every public officer, however high or however low, to use his position
for the purpose of private plunder, and the habit of bribing members of
Parliament which soon converted them into tools of the crown's
ministers.

While the men found their gre