Queen Henrietta returned the visit of the royal couple, and spent nearly a month at Hampton Court, going back to London on the 23d of August, the day appointed for Catharine to make her first public entrance into the metropolis. {204}This was done with great magnificence; crowds of people gathering to the banks of the Thames to view the array of boats that floated in attendance upon the royal barges. At six o'clock in the evening the king and queen, with their attendants, landed at Whitehall Bridge, where the queen-mother, with her whole court, all in rich attire, waited to receive them. A series of entertainments succeeded; and King Charles, once having introduced Lady Castlemaine at court, insisted upon her presence always, though his conscience often pricked him for doing what he knew to be wrong. The fact was that he was surrounded by people who recognized no law but their own desires; and whenever they saw Charles disposed to yield to his wife's just opposition to the woman who entertained them, and who was one of them in dissipation, they jeered at him. He, on the other hand, had not the moral courage to do right in spite of his friends. It was not because he respected Catharine less, but that he loved pleasure more. We must not suppose that all his statesmen approved of his conduct; on the contrary, Lord Clarendon and others took him to task as much as they dared, and considered the queen an ill-used wife. Charles had threatened to send all the Portuguese attendants back home, and at the expiration of four months after their arrival in England he determined to carry the threat into execution. This was a sore trial to her, particularly as the king fixed upon a day for their departure without naming any reward for their services, or sending a letter to the Queen of Portugal to explain his reason for dismissing them. Catharine would have remunerated them herself, but she had no money, and so could not afford to be generous. She begged her husband to permit her to retain a few of them, and as a great favor he consented to the old Countess of Penalva, {205}two or three of the cooks, and the priests who officiated in her majesty's chapel.