[A.D. 1667.] {218}Shortly after this marriage there was a masked ball at court, at which the king and queen danced together. On St. George's Day Charles celebrated the festival of the Garter with all the ceremonies as they were originally observed when that order was founded. Offerings were made at the altar by the sovereign and his knights, after which they partook of a feast at the Palace of Whitehall. The king sat at a table on a dais alone, and part of the time the queen stood at his left hand as a spectator. The knights sat at a table ranged the whole length of the room to the right of the king, and at the middle of the feast they all arose and drank his health, whereupon the trumpets sounded and the Tower guns were fired. At the conclusion of the feast all the provisions that were left over were distributed among the crowd, that always assembled at the end of the hall, near the door, on such occasions. It was the custom in olden times, even to the end of the Stuart dynasty, for the kings and queens of England to dine in public; and any well-behaved, decent-looking person was free to take his stand in the dining-room to watch the proceedings. Charles II. was so good-natured that he would often hand a taste of some delicacy to one of the spectators on such an occasion, and won many hearts by his gracious manners. He would converse freely, too, with those who happened to stand near enough. A well-known wit told him one day while he was dining "that matters were in a bad state, but there was a way to mend all." The king looked at him inquiringly, and he continued: "There is an honest, able man I could name, that if your majesty would employ and command to see things well-executed, all things would soon be mended, and that is one Charles Stuart, who now spends his time as if he had no employment; but if you would give him employment, he were the fittest man in the world to perform it." {219}After Lord Clarendon fell into disfavor with the king, he was replaced by Buckingham, a very bad, witty man, who had great influence with Charles. He was an enemy to Catharine, and proposed to his sovereign several plans for ridding himself of her; but they were all too absurd and too revolting for even Charles II. to consider, unprincipled as he was. [[A.D. 1668.]] Seven years had elapsed since the marriage of Catharine of Braganza, and still the promised half of her marriage-portion had not been paid. Civil wars in Portugal succeeded the death of the queen-regent and exhausted the treasury. At last news arrived in England that the king had been deposed, and his younger brother, Don Pedro, placed on the throne instead. Everything connected with her family and her native land interested Queen Catharine very much, and it distressed her to hear of the struggle that had been going on there for so many months.