84 A HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH TURF. 



was on the crested wave of an almost similar ( reaction, for he had come into his 

 kingdom after a period of dull though perilous exile, and he had brought with him 

 the flower of the English nobility, who were rejoicing to be back again at home. 

 Unfortunately the rapidity with which he could get through business that was really 

 pressing, tempted him, too often, to put off all serious affairs till they had become 

 urgent in the extreme. But by what the State lost, the Turf benefited, or as Pope 

 expressed it : 



" Then Peers grew proud in horsemanship t'excell, 

 Newmarket's glory rose, as Britain's fell." 



and by no class should the follies even the faults of Charles the Second be more 

 readily forgiven than by the modern racing man. The amount of State papers which 

 are dated from Newmarket during this reign would alone show that he was not idle 

 there the whole time ; and the first Lord Godolphin, " who was never in the way, 

 and never out of it," as his Royal master said, was particularly successful in carrying 

 such business through, wherever the Court might be at the moment. The fact that 

 men were often present so famous in far different fields of action as General Monk, 

 Duke of Albemarle, or Sir Stephen Fox, Lord Treasurer, the ancestor of the famous 

 Charles James Fox who was to appear at Newmarket under such brilliant auspices less 

 than a century afterwards, or the handsome young soldier, who was afterwards to be 

 the famous Duke of Marlborough, is also an indication that a man may be a thorough 

 lover of horse-racing and do his duty elsewhere at the same time. We have seen it 

 in our days in more than one famous soldier and sailor, in more than one repre- 

 sentative of the highest legal talent, in more than one Prime Minister. And New- 

 market, which had been famous in a previous reign for visits from Rubens, which 

 were as valuable to foreign diplomacy as they were to the world's art, was to see in 

 the reign of Charles II. more important negotiations even carried through, in the 

 shape of the engagement of William, Prince of Orange, to the Princess Mary of 

 York, presumptive heiress of Great Britain, an occurrence which was to have an 

 effect upon the history of this country and of the world which has not ceased to this 

 day. 



Occasionally, of course, Charles II. was very far from decorous in his proceedings. 

 Pepys betrays the fact that he was very drunk one night at Saxhain, a country house 

 near Newmarket, and that this was known to be the reason why he could not see 

 Lord Arlington on important business. Sedley and Buckhurst were his evil spirits 

 in such orgies. But it must, on the whole, have been a healthy life that was induced 



