"Yet I tell you, my lord, that it is a decision that shall be
revoked."

"By whom, sire?" the Chancellor asked him gravely.

"By her Majesty, of course."

"Under coercion, of which you ask me to be the instrument," said
Clarendon, in the tutorly manner he had used with the King from
the latter's boyhood. "Yourself, sire, at a time when your own
wishes did not warp your judgment, have condemned the very thing
that now you are urging. Yourself, sire, hotly blamed your
cousin, King Louis, for thrusting Mademoiselle de Valliere upon
his queen. You will not have forgotten the things you said then
of King Louis."

Charles remembered those unflattering criticisms which he was now
invited to apply to his own case. He bit his lip, admitting
himself in check.

But anon--no doubt in obedience to the overbearing suasion of my
Lady Castlemaine--he returned to the attack, and sent the
Chancellor his orders in a letter demanding unquestioning
obedience.

"Use your best endeavours," wrote Charles, "to facilitate what I
am sure my honour is so much concerned in. And whosoever I find
to be my Lady Castlemaine's enemy in this matter, I do promise
upon my word to be his enemy so long as I live."