Her own little day of life was nearing its setting. She died at a fitting time. The son was not the father. The rebound from Puritanism and religious hypocrisy o’erleaped itself. The licence of Court life soon came to be a scandal and a grief to many of Charles II.’s most loyal servants, as assuredly it might have made the stately martyred King turn in his grave. To the Mistress Nellys and my Lady Castlemaynes nothing was sacred; and when these frail “beauties” had contrived to humble their Queen in her own presence-chamber, or to secure a Clarendon’s downfall, they were well pleased with their day’s work. With some prescience of this, the Countess of Derby, no longer compelled to remain in London, spent much of her time at Knowsley. Chancellor Clarendon, who had been negotiating arrangements for the restitution of her pension, had left England in disgust at the indifference of the Court and the ingratitude of the King, who was prone to make a hand-clasp and a “God bless you, my old friend,” do duty for more substantial repayments to impoverished Royalists. On 6th February 1663 the Countess was ill, and writes thus:— “If the winter is as bitter where you are as it is here, it is a miracle to think your health has improved. Mine has been very indifferent for more than a month; but God has preserved it for me. I pray Him to enable me to use it to better account than I have done in the past, and it is that which impels me to hasten to tell you that it has pleased his Royal Highness to give to your nephew Stanley the post of first and sole gentleman of the bedchamber, which is a very desirable one, and, what is of more importance, that it is the voluntary act of his Highness, to whom, and to the Duchess, he owes all the obligation. His youngest brother has a cornetcy in the King’s Guards. His Majesty has done him the honour to tell him that this is only a commencement. Therefore I have hope.... All that I have to add is that I pray God to give you many long and happy years, with all the content you can desire. Permit me to say also as much to my brother.” Here the Countess of Derby lays down her pen for ever. On the 31st March 1664 she died. The chaplain of Knowsley, after inscribing her name in his death register, wrote after it: “_Post funera virtus_”; and her memory and her works will live on in the hearts of the English people. This noble friend, true wife and mother, loyal subject, Charlotte de la Trémoille, was the embodiment of all the significance of the motto of her house, “_Je maintiendrai_.” --------------------------------------------------------- PRINTED BY NEILL AND CO., LTD., EDINBURGH. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Dryden House Memoirs.