Whilst a small body of the Guards were hotly engaged on the shores of Africa, heroically defending against the Moors the fortress of Tangier—the profitless dowry of the Queen of Charles II.—the main body of the Grenadiers and Coldstreams, or, as they were then called, the First and Second Regiments of Guards, were employed at home sustaining the tottering throne of the monarch. Failing to profit by the lessons which a recent adversity were so well fitted to teach, Charles, like the rest of his unhappy race, devoted to his own indulgence, plunged heedlessly into all the excesses of folly and passion. Casting aside or neglecting the cares of his kingdom, so far at least as they interfered with his own gratification, he consigned to creatures of his pleasure, to the bigotry of fawning Jesuits, or the blind fanaticism of a cruel brother (the Duke of York) the interests, the business, and the duties of royalty. Amid such dissoluteness and misrule, the Guards, whilst fulfilling their duty, must ofttimes have been forced to witness the dark intrigues of a licentious court; nay, more, they were frequently called to obey officers who had obtained commissions from their having ministered discreditably to the passionate appetites of superiors, or as being the fruit of some unhallowed intercourse. Their duty, too, required they should guard not merely the Sovereign of a great nation, but his _seraglio_—the abandoned crowd who, dishonouring themselves, dishonoured their sex, preyed upon the honour of the nation, with undisguised effrontery daily glittered in finery, and disgraced the palaces of royalty by their presence. Gladly might the brave and honourable soldier welcome a respite from such irksome duties and the influences of such evil examples on the field of battle; but these were times of comparative peace. It was not until Charles had sunk into the grave, the victim of his own indulgence, and his brother, the Duke of York, had ascended the throne as James II., that the peace was disturbed—and then but for a moment—by the pretensions and rebellion of Monmouth, speedily terminated by the battle of Sedgemoor, in 1685. During the reign of James II., who departed not from the evil ways of his brother, but added injustice and cruelty to the lengthy catalogue of royal iniquities, only one incident would we notice as belonging to the history of the Coldstreams, and as emphatically declaring how far even these stood apart from the sins of the age. James had committed to the Tower the Archbishop of Canterbury and other six bishops, who dared respectfully to remonstrate with the King on behalf of their Protestant brethren, injured by the pretensions of the Roman Catholics. Faithful to their duty, the Coldstreams nevertheless received these martyrs to their ancient faith with every token of respect and reverence. From the heart of many a soldier ascended the prayer, and from his eye dropped the dewy tear, as he guarded the gloomy dungeons of their prison.