Meanwhile, in the beloved Warwickshire glades, herds of swine were routing noisily for acorns, dropped amid withered leaves under branches of the Royal Oaks. They were watched by boys, whose chins would not be past the first callow down of promissory beards when Restoration-day should come with shouts of welcome throughout the land. In 1656 our Charles Stuart was at Bruges, now and then making a visit to Cologne, often getting into difficulties through the misconduct of his unruly followers, and already quite enslaved by Dalilahs, syrens against whom his own shrewd sense was powerless to defend him. For amusement he read his favourite French or Italian authors, not seldom took long walks, and indulged himself in field sports: “_A merry monarch, scandalous and poor_.” For he was only scantily supplied with money, which chiefly came from France, but if he had possessed the purse of Fortunatus it could barely have sufficed to meet demands from those who lived upon him. A year before, the Lady Byron had been spoken of as being his seventeenth Mistress abroad, and there was no deficiency of candidates for any vacant place within his heart. Sooth to say, the place was never vacant, for it yielded at all times unlimited accommodation to every beauty. Music and dances absorbed much of his attention. So long as the faces around him showed signs of happiness, he did not seriously afflict himself because he was in exile, and a little out at elbows. Such was the “Banished Duke” in his Belgian Court; poor substitute for the Forest of Ardennes, not far distant. By all accounts, he felt “the penalty of Adam, the season’s difference,” and in no way relished the discomfort. He did not smile and say, “This is no flattery: these are counsellors That feelingly persuade me what I am.” For, in truth, he much preferred avoiding such counsel, and relished flattery too well to part with it on cheap terms. He never considered the “rural life more sweet than that of painted pomp,” and, if all tales of Cromwell’s machinations be held true, Charles by no means found the home of exile “more free from peril than the envious court.” On the other hand, his own proclamation, dated 3rd May, 1654, offering an annuity of five hundred pounds, a Colonelcy and Knighthood, to any person who should destroy the Usurper (“a certain mechanic fellow, by name Oliver Cromwell!”), took from him all moral right of complaint against reprisals: unless, as we half-believe, this proclamation were one of the many forgeries. As to any sweetness in “the uses of Adversity,” Charles might have pleaded, with a laugh, that he had known sufficient of them already to be cloyed with it. The men around him were of similar opinion. A few, indeed, like Cowley and Crashaw, were loyal hearts, whose devotion was best shown in times of difficulty. Not many proved of such sound metal, but there lived some “faithful found among the faithless”; and