ABSTRACT
whose affection for his " dearest Minette" is a pleasing feature in a character which does not present many points for admiration. We all know the sad and pretty story of her babyhood, which made such an impression on her own generation that it was mentioned by Bossuet in his funeral oration, how her unfortunate motber, flying for ber life, bad to leave her four weeks old infant under the tender care of Lady Dalkeitb, afterwards Countess of Morton. Scarcely a fortnight later, Cbarles I. and his eldest son visited Exeter, and the king saw for the first and only time his little daughter. A ,month later the Prince of Wales, then a fine high-spirited lad, showing no sign of tbe faults which developed in him later, again visited his little sister, remaining with her a month, and the affection which the boy conceived for bis baby sister remained undiminished until her death. Not long after, Exeter fell into the hands of the Parliament, and witb it tbe little princess and her devoted governess, and the two were sent to Oatlands, wbere they remained till the child wa!3 two years old. It was then that, dissatisfied with the treatment of tbe Parliament, Lady Dalkeith resolved to convey her cbarge to the Queen, ber mother, in France, and disguising herself as a beggar woman, and the child in the ragged clothes of a beggar boy, they set off on their perilous journey, ren'dered more perilous by the child's disgust at her shabby clothing, and her efforts to inform everyone she met that she was not Pierre but princess. Tbe journey, however, was successfully accomplished, and on August 17, 1646, Sir Richard Browne, Evelyn'S father-in-law, writes: "I was yesterday at St. Germain to kiss the sweet little Princess Henrietta's hands. The manner of Lady Dalkeith's bringing her highness from Oatlands is a pretty romance." We all know, too, how a few years later, in consequence of her deep poverty, the Queen was obliged to keep her child one cold winter's day in bed, being unable to procure firing. They had indeed fallen on evil times. The news of the king's death had reached them, and flying for consolation to religion, Henrietta Maria, in spite of the remonstrances of her eldest son and of Clarendon, not
