Upon this there supervened
the agonies of a rough sea passage; and many French lords,
Charles, certainly, among the number, declared they would
rather endure such another defeat than such another sore
trial on shipboard. Charles, indeed, never forgot his
sufferings. Long afterwards, he declared his hatred to a
seafaring life, and willingly yielded to England the empire
of the seas, "because there is danger and loss of life, and
God knows what pity when it storms; and sea-sickness is for
many people hard to bear; and the rough life that must be led
is little suitable for the nobility:" (1) which, of all
babyish utterances that ever fell from any public man, may
surely bear the bell. Scarcely disembarked, he followed his
victor, with such wry face as we may fancy, through the
streets of holiday London. And then the doors closed upon
his last day of garish life for more than a quarter of a
century. After a boyhood passed in the dissipations of a
luxurious court or in the camp of war, his ears still stunned
and his cheeks still burning from his enemies' jubilations;
out of all this ringing of English bells and singing of
English anthems, from among all these shouting citizens in
scarlet cloaks, and beautiful virgins attired in white, he
passed into the silence and solitude of a political prison.
(2)
(1) DEBATE BETWEEN THE HERALDS.
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