Produced by Al Haines. [Illustration: Cover art] *[Frontispiece: "THEY TOOK REFUGE WITH NURSE PATIENCE" (missing from book)]* *The Queen’s Favourite* A Story of the Restoration BY ELIZA F. POLLARD Author of "The Doctor’s Niece" "The Lady Isobel" "The White Standard" &c. _ILLUSTRATED BY FRANCES EWAN_ BLACKIE AND SON LIMITED LONDON GLASGOW AND BOMBAY 1907 *CONTENTS* CHAP. I. "The King has come in to his own again" II. Newbolt Manor III. Somerset House IV. New Friends V. May-Day VI. A First Parting VII. A King’s Vengeance VIII. Arrested IX. Old Newgate X. A Legend XI. A Brave Woman XII. A Faithful Friend XIII. The Hamlet of St. Mary’s XIV. The Mystery cleared up XV. At Court XVI. Under the Shadow of Newgate XVII. The Great Plague XVIII. Lost XIX. On the Track XX. A Great Sea-Fight XXI. London on Fire XXII. Found XXIII. Home at Last *ILLUSTRATIONS* "They took refuge with Nurse Patience" (missing from book) _Frontis._ "The commander of the company handed him a sheet of parchment" "He drew out the packets" "I will give you your answer to-night," she said *CHAPTER I* *"The king has come in to his own again"* In a large, sombre apartment, in the palace of the Louvre, there was unusual commotion. The Queen Dowager, Henrietta Maria, was seated in a crimson gilt fauteuil, wearing her widow’s black robes, for she had never cast off the mourning she had donned for her murdered husband, Charles I; and indeed she had unwillingly suffered any of her attendants to array themselves in brighter colours. "Until he is avenged," she would say; "until his murderers have suffered what he suffered, if that be possible!" Behind her, leaning on the back of her chair, was her young daughter, a girl of sixteen--that child who had never seen her father’s face, who had been brought over to France by stealth in swaddling clothes, who had suffered all the miseries of exile, and shared all the poverty which her mother’s position had forced upon them. Everybody knows the story of how the queen kept this child in bed in winter, because they could afford no fire in their room. Possibly she did this to shame the king, Louis XIV, who denied the necessaries of existence to the daughter of Henry IV.