Hello everyone and welcome back to the history of England, episode 441, The Jewelist.

Last week we heard about the conclusion of the second Anglo-Dutch War,

which came to an end, I think it's fair to say, on something of a downer.

Well, for the English.

And actually for the Dutch in a way,

because the French are coming out of that closet, they are beginning to look threatening,

and that will have consequences for us here in, oh, 20 years or so. And I then ended by leaving

you with a bit of a cliffhanger.

Someone must take away the sins of the monarch.

And you have all been talking about who that might be, I'm sure of it.

And by the end of this episode, you will know who that was.

This week is a bit of an odd one if you're looking forward to some good, solid, honest politics, I'm afraid.

Sadly, I decided to focus on some digressions about the story of Britannia, the end of a long career,

and then I'm going to talk about a very significant bit of aristocratic culture, the jewel.

But you'll then get to hear something about the cabal and Charles's strategy to get monarchy back on track. Majestic monarchy is back. So 1667 had been a dodgy year for Charles so

far because there are other things going on in his life which had also given him

the hump. One of them involved affairs of the heart and what for Charles was a very unusual

experience, the experience of rejection. None of us like it, Charles in particular, I suspect.

Our Charlie boy had been besotted with a very beautiful young woman,

I mean, girl we should say really, this was Francis Stewart, sent over as a maid of honour

by Queen Henrietta from France in 1663 when she was just 15. Charles had immediately set

his cap at her and expected a quick result, after all.

...