any thing to bestow on others, and gives a little subsistence, but no more, to his bastards.  He told me the whole story of Mrs. Stewart’s going away from Court, he knowing her well; and believes her, up to her leaving the Court, to be as virtuous as any woman in the world:  and told me, from a Lord that she told it to but yesterday, with her own mouth, and a sober man, that when the Duke of Richmond did make love to her, she did ask the King, and he did the like also; and that the King did not deny it, and [she] told this Lord that she was come to that pass as to resolve to have married any gentleman of L1500 a-year that would have had her in honour; for it was come to that pass, that she could not longer continue at Court without prostituting herself to the King,

[Even at a much later time Mrs. Godolphin well resolved “not to talk foolishly to men, more especially the king,”—­“be sure never to talk to the king” ("Life,” by Evelyn).  These expressions speak volumes as to Charles’s character.—­B.]

whom she had so long kept off, though he had liberty more than any other had, or he ought to have, as to dalliance.

     [Evelyn evidently believed the Duchess of Richmond to be innocent;
     and his testimony, coupled with her own declaration, ought to weigh
     down all the scandal which Pepys reports from other sources.—­B.]

She told this Lord that she had reflected upon the occasion she had given the world to think her a bad woman, and that she had no way but to marry and leave the Court, rather in this way of discontent than otherwise, that the world might see that she sought not any thing but her honour; and that she will never come to live at Court more than when she comes to town to come to kiss the Queene her Mistress’s hand:  and hopes, though she hath little reason to hope, she can please her Lord so as to reclaim him, that they may yet live comfortably in the country on his estate.  She told this Lord that all the jewells she ever had given her at Court, or any other presents, more than the King’s allowance of L700 per annum out of the Privypurse for her clothes, were, at her first coming the King did give her a necklace of pearl of about L1100 and afterwards, about seven months since, when the King had hopes to have obtained some courtesy of her, the King did give her some jewells, I have forgot what, and I think a pair of pendants.  The Duke of York, being once her Valentine, did give her a jewell of about L800; and my Lord Mandeville, her Valentine this year, a ring of about L300; and the King of France would have had her mother, who, he says, is one of the most cunning women in the world, to have let her stay in France, saying that he loved her not as a mistress, but as one that he could marry as well as any lady in France; and that, if she might stay, for the honour of his Court he would take care she should not repent.  But her mother, by command