her entirely into the hands of the Jesuitical cabal.64

The King, stern as was his temper and grave as was his
deportment, was scarcely less under the influence of female
attractions than his more lively and amiable brother had been.
The beauty, indeed, which distinguished the favourite ladies of
Charles was not necessary to James. Barbara Palmer, Eleanor
Gwynn, and Louisa de Querouaille were among the finest women of
their time. James, when young, had surrendered his liberty,
descended below his rank, and incurred the displeasure of his
family for the coarse features of Anne Hyde. He had soon, to the
great diversion of the whole court, been drawn away from his
plain consort by a plainer mistress, Arabella Churchill. His
second wife, though twenty years younger than himself, and of no
unpleasing face or figure, had frequent reason to complain of his
inconstancy. But of all his illicit attachments the strongest was
that which bound him to Catharine Sedley.

This woman was the daughter of Sir Charles Sedley, one of the
most brilliant and profligate wits of the Restoration. The
licentiousness of his writings is not redeemed by much grace or
vivacity; but the charms of his conversation were acknowledged
even by sober men who had no esteem for his character. To sit
near him at the theatre, and to hear his criticisms on a new
play, was regarded as a privilege.65 Dryden had done him the
honour to make him a principal interlocutor in the Dialogue on
Dramatic Poesy. The morals of Sedley were such as, even in that
age, gave great scandal. He on one occasion, after a wild revel,
exhibited himself without a shred of clothing in the balcony of a
tavern near Covent Garden, and harangued the people who were