[I] Brit. Mus. Harleian MS. No. 2428. [J] From MS. collection of the late Dawson Turner, Esq. of Yarmouth. [K] From MSS. Badminton. [* 26] Clarendon, Vol. ii. p. 201. [L] One of the King’s attendants, who had formerly accompanied him to Spain. Clayton’s Charles II. Vol. i. p. 136. 1859. [M] Cal. of State Papers, Dom. Series, 1660–61. Edited by Mrs. M. A. E. Green, 8vo. 1860. [N] Cal. State Papers, Dom. Series, Charles II. 1660–1661, Vol. xxviii. p. 466. [79] Peterborough. [O] Henry Somerset. [P] From MSS. Badminton. CHAPTER XV. HIS PROSPECTS AT THE PERIOD OF THE RESTORATION--PROCEEDINGS IN PARLIAMENT RESPECTING THE PATENT TO CREATE HIM DUKE OF SOMERSET--RECOVERY OF ESTATES, ETC.--PARLIAMENTARY DUTIES. Charles the Second was only thirty years of age when he ascended the throne, the Marquis was verging on sixty. Charles, gay, lively, accomplished, and fascinating in his manners, well knew from bitter experience the pain of leading a courtly life on straitened means; and the Marquis had been too closely associated with him on the continent, not to be aware of his exact position then, and his now brilliant change of circumstances. The Marquis of Worcester too, was one of those happily constituted men who do not grow misanthropic on every fresh instance of the world’s ingratitude. His own nobleness and goodness of heart found a thousand excuses for the cold, callous, calculating society around him; and with his enlarged views, and greatness and purity of mind, he never despaired that the day would arrive, when he should be able to move at least in ease, if not in plenty. As regarded his Majesty, he enjoyed the fullest confidence in his behaving towards him with more than ordinary consideration; he might not be able to be magnificent, but at the very least he dared not to doubt that the word of the King would be realized, who had written to inform him[A]--“I am truly sensible of your great merit and sufferings in the service of the King my father, and _I never shall be wanting_ to reward and encourage as well that kindness to his person as that zeal to his service which you have expressed in all your actions.” But he was then only nineteen years of age, unseared by the eleven years of profligacy, the expiration of which found him on the throne of his ancestors. The Marquis’s political position had been unpopular, making him many enemies, which even altered times could not wholly obliterate. It was not merely a question whether he was justified in acting in concert with the late King, but it was manifestly imprudent and unwise, to say the least, his becoming the champion of his church in so dangerous an enterprise as that in which he engaged in Ireland. Consequently he found comparatively few who sincerely sympathised in his sufferings, amidst the crowd of suffering humanity distinguishing those unhappy times.