And would he not be certain to remember the gentlemen and ladies who had called upon him in his time of troubles? Would he not reward those who had invited him to visit, stretching his parole in lengthy jaunts around the island, sent him game from their estates, fruit from their forcing houses? Would he not repay those favored few who had ridden with him in the enormous lumbering royal coach which had been shipped with such trouble, to block the narrow lanes of the island? When he was Charles the king again, would he not be obliged to remember those who had treated him with the most obsequious respect when he had been Charles the prisoner?

Mr. Hopkins’s house was as easy to enter as the royal court had been in the grand old days in London, when any wealthy man might walk in to gaze on his monarch and the royal family. The king believed that his dinner table should be on view in his dining hall, as an altar should be on view in church. There was divinity in both. Here in Newport, although there was a brace of guards on each door, they did not challenge anyone: if a man was richly dressed, he could enter. The king was free to come and go as he wished, bound only by his given word not to leave the island. The street outside was crowded all the day with gorgeously dressed well-wishers, parading up and down the freshly swept cobbles, remarking loudly on the simplicity of the town and the poverty of the buildings, besieged by common people wanting a glimpse of a man who claimed to be semidivine, constantly circled by beggars and the sick. King Charles was famous for the healing powers of his long white fingers. A sick man or woman could kneel before him and be restored with one light touch of the hand and a whispered blessing. No one was refused access to the king’s powers. Already a young woman was claiming that he had cured her blindness with his divine grace. Everyone knew that the king was not a mortal man. He had the holy oil on his sacred breast, he was the descendant of ordained kings, he was only one step down from the angels.

James took care to keep the boys away from the sickly paupers, and paid a guard a small coin to allow them to stand below the window where, they were assured, the king was studying papers sent from parliament. Everyone said that the parliamentary commissioners would arrive within the week and they would work through the many clauses of an agreement with the king so that he might return to his throne and rule with the consent of the houses of parliament. Now the Scots were defeated, the king and parliament would have to agree: he had lost his last gamble. He would always be king, but no longer could he impose his will on the people. Finally, he would have to come to an accord. Peace—after two civil wars—would come to the country and the court.