Charles II. gave Sir Richard his portrait framed in diamonds, and sent
him first on an embassy to Portugal to negotiate his marriage, and
then appointed him to the still more important post of Ambassador to
Spain. On June 26, 1666, he died at Madrid of fever at the age of
fifty-eight.

The England to which his wife brought his body had not fulfilled the
high hopes and dreams of the Restoration. The vice, and laxity of
morals into which it was sinking, would certainly have been repugnant
to the clean-living, high-souled statesman, and we can hardly think
him unhappy in the time of his death.

He was buried with much pomp in the Church of St. Mary at Ware, and
his monument stands in a side chapel near the chancel. There, thirteen
years later, his loyal lady and sprightly biographer was laid beside
him in the vault and beneath the monument which she says: "Cost me two
hundred pounds; and here if God pleases I intend to lie myself."

An unfinished sentence gives a pathetic close to these pages, so full
of touches of humour, keen observation and racy anecdote. It would
seem as if the hand which wielded so descriptive and ready a pen had
wearied of its task; as if, at last, the sunny nature was overcast and
the merry heart saddened. But surely not another word is needed to
make the narrative more perfect. Those who first become acquainted
with it in this reprint will meet with many things less familiar than
Lady Fanshawe's moving account of her leave-taking from Charles I. at
Hampton Court, which has been quoted hundreds of times. They will be
thrilled by at least three stories of the supernatural told with the
elan and consummate simplicity that exceeds art, and they will be
charmed with the ingenuousness of the writer when she writes about