The match was not yet made, but by 1659 it had been arranged.  The Spaniards were furious, for Charles’s cause began to appear successful.

She was a quaint and rather piteous little figure, she who was destined to be the wife of the Merry Monarch.  Catharine was dark, petite, and by no means beautiful; yet she had a very sweet expression and a heart of utter innocence.  She had been wholly convent-bred.  She knew nothing of the world.  She was told that in marriage she must obey in all things, and that the chief duty of a wife was to make her husband happy.

Poor child!  It was a too gracious preparation for a very graceless husband.  Charles, in exile, had already made more than one discreditable connection and he was already the father of more than one growing son.

First of all, he had been smitten by the bold ways of one Lucy Walters.  Her impudence amused the exiled monarch.  She was not particularly beautiful, and when she spoke as others did she was rather tiresome; but her pertness and the inexperience of the king when he went into exile made her seem attractive.  She bore him a son, in the person of that brilliant adventurer whom Charles afterward created Duke of Monmouth.  Many persons believe that Charles had married Lucy Walters, just as George IV. may have married Mrs. Fitzherbert; yet there is not the slightest proof of it, and it must be classed with popular legends.

There was also one Catherine Peg, or Kep, whose son was afterward made Earl of Plymouth.  It must be confessed that in his attachments to English women Charles showed little care for rank or station.  Lucy Walters and Catherine Peg were very illiterate creatures.

In a way it was precisely this sort of preference that made Charles so popular among the people.  He seemed to make rank of no account, but would chat in the most familiar and friendly way with any one whom he happened to meet.  His easy, democratic manner, coupled with the grace and prestige of royalty, made friends for him all over England.  The treasury might be nearly bankrupt; the navy might be routed by the Dutch; the king himself might be too much given to dissipation; but his people forgave him all, because everybody knew that Charles would clap an honest citizen on the back and joke with all who came to see him feed the swans in Regent’s Park.

The popular name for him was “Rowley,” or “Old Rowley”—­a nickname of mysterious origin, though it is said to have been given him from a fancied resemblance to a famous hunter in his stables.  Perhaps it is the very final test of popularity that a ruler should have a nickname known to every one.

Cromwell’s death roused all England to a frenzy of king-worship.  The Roundhead, General Monk, and his soldiers proclaimed Charles King of England and escorted him to London in splendid state.  That was a day when national feeling reached a point such as never has been before or since.  Oughtred, the famous mathematician, died of joy when the royal emblems were restored.  Urquhart, the translator of Rabelais, died, it is said, of laughter at the people’s wild delight—­a truly Rabelaisian end.