obeyed; whereupon she conformed, against the advice of her women, who continued their opiniatrety, without any one of them receding from their own mode, which exposed them the more to reproach.”—­Continuation of Clarendon’s Life, p. 168.  In a short time after their arrival in England, they were ordered back to Portugal.]

Among the men were Francisco de Melo, brother to the Countess de Panetra; one Taurauvedez, who called himself Don Pedro Francisco Correo de Silva, extremely handsome, but a greater fool than all the Portuguese put together:  he was more vain of his names than of his person; but the Duke of Buckingham, a still greater fool than he, though more addicted to raillery, gave him the additional name of Peter of the Wood.  He was so enraged at this, that, after many fruitless complaints and ineffectual menaces, poor Pedro de Silva was obliged to leave England, while the happy duke kept possession of a Portuguese nymph more hideous than the queen’s maids of honour, whom he had taken from him, as well as two of his names.  Besides these, there were six chaplains, four bakers, a Jew perfumer, and a certain officer, probably without an office, who called himself her highness’s barber.  Katharine de Braganza was far from appearing with splendour in the charming court where she came to reign; however, in the end she was pretty successful.

[Lord Clarendon says, “the queen had beauty and wit enough to make herself agreeable to him (the king); and it is very certain, that, at their first meeting, and for some time after, the King had very good satisfaction in her. . . .  Though she was of years enough to have had more experience of the world, and of as much wit as could be wished, and of a humour very agreeable at some seasons, yet, she had been bred, according to the mode and discipline of her country, in a monastery, where she had only seen the women who attended her, and conversed with the religious who resided there; and, without doubt, in her inclinations, was enough disposed to have been one of that number:  and from this restraint she was called out to be a great queen, and to a free conversation in a court that was to be upon the matter new formed, and reduced from the manners of a licentious age to the old rules and limits which had been observed in better times; to which regular and decent conformity the present disposition of men or women was not enough inclined to submit, nor the king enough disposed to exact.”—­Continuation of Lord Clarendon’s Life, p. 167.  After some struggle, she submitted to the king’s licentious conduct, and from that time lived upon easy terms with him, until his death.  On the 30th March, 1692, she left Somerset-house, her usual residence, and retired to Lisbon, where she died, 31st December, 1705, N. S.]

The Chevalier de Grammont, who had been long known to the royal family, and to most of the gentlemen of the court, had only to get acquainted with the ladies; and for this he wanted no interpreter:  they all spoke French enough to explain themselves, and they all understood it sufficiently to comprehend what he had to say to them.