similar claims on the ground of services; and as the spoils out of
which they sought to enrich themselves were limited, it was an obvious
point of policy to oppose the demands of others. The few years which
succeeded the Restoration are among the most disgraceful in the annals
of this country; and to the evidence which exists of the want of
principle which characterised the Court of Charles the Second, these
Memoirs are no slight addition. The monarch was heartless and
profligate; his ministers, with very few exceptions, were intent alone
on the promotion of their own interests; and services and sufferings
were nothing in the balance against the influence of the royal
mistresses. In such a state of things, merit availed but little; and
with a host of other zealous adherents of the royal family, at a time
when fidelity was attended with the fearful penalties attached to high
treason, Sir Richard Fanshawe, after thirty years' devotion to his
master, and spending a fortune in his cause, was sacrificed to the
intrigues of his enemies, and probably was only spared by death from
greater mortifications.

To this outline of the lives of Sir Richard and Lady Fanshawe little
remains to be added. The Memoir, though continued to the year 1670,
contains very few facts after her return to England which are
deserving of notice. It is manifest that her hopes were destroyed, and
that her only happiness consisted in reflecting on the past. Her first
object was to reduce her establishment according to her altered
fortune, and the second to educate her family. In 1670 she lost her
excellent father, whose death added heavily to her misfortunes; but
she possessed that resource against human woes which can only be
inspired by a reliance upon Him who never deserts the widow and the
fatherless. Her life had been marked by extreme vicissitudes; and at
its conclusion--dark and cheerless as it was--she wisely looked for