Lives of the last four princesses of the royal house of Stuart

34 MARY, PRINCESS-ROYAL. [1648.
Lady Stanhope, complaining of its dulness. " I am as
weary of it," she says, " as ever I was of any place in my
life." * She was then suffering from indigestion, " not
having been so careful in her diet as she ought to have
been." She expresses an anxious desire "to have a
suitable lodging for her brother, the Prince of "Wales,
who was coming to the Hague, and fears that there was
no house there fit for him."| Her generous consort made
everything easy for the royal wanderer and his small
train.
Mean time the English fleet in the narrow seas, had
revolted from the Parliament, raised the cry of " God save
King Charles," turned their Roundhead Admiral Rains-
borough and all his officers into their boats, sent them
back to Dover, and sailed for the Brill in quest of the
Duke of York, who had just arrived from Paris, and
invited him to take the command of the eight ships.J
Though scarcely sixteen, the bold boy promptly obeyed
the summons, and was received on board the fleet with
loyal acclamations. But the Prince of Wales hearing of
the revolt of the fleet, and that his brother, the Duke of
York, was preparing to sail with it as lord admiral,
hastened from Calais and arrived at Helvoetsluys, where
he, Prince William of Orange, and the Princess-royal,
the Duke of York's sister, prevailed on him to resign the
command of the fleet to him, as it was not considered
prudent to venture them both at one time, especially as
the young Henry, Duke of Gloucester, was in the hands
of the Parliament.
The Princess and her consort induced the young Duke
to return with them to the Hague, where the death
of the Stadtholcler, Frederick Henry, occupied the
* Letters of King Charles's family, in the Bodleian Library at Oxford.
•J- Ibid. % Clarendon, Whitelock, Eapin.