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CHAP.
I.
22 THE RESTORATION IN ENGLAND. 1663
a devoted royalist, Sir Richard Fanshawe, who went on a special
mission to Lisbon for the purpose. Fanshawe was also instructed
to make careful observations of Portuguese trade, to
oppose any claim of the Dutch to equal privileges with the
English, and to suggest that if Portugal had any difficulty in
defending Goa, that place might well be handed over as well
as Bombay. For "the principal advantages we*propose to
ourself by this entire conjunction with Portugal is the advancement
of the trade of this nation and the enlargement of our
own territories and dominions ". 1
In April, 1662, Catharine and her ladies embarked under
the convoy of Sandwich and his fleet, and reached Portsmouth
on May 13. There she had to wait a week until Charles, after
sanctioning the uniformity and licensing acts, could find time
to go down to Portsmouth and welcome his bride. On
the 21 st they were married, first in strict secrecy by Romish
rites and then publicly by Bishop Sheldon in the form prescribed
in the Prayer Book. From Portsmouth the royal
couple proceeded to Hampton Court, where their supposed
honeymoon was spent before their formal entry to Whitehall
on August 23. A good deal of this time was employed by
Charles in overcoming with cynical brutality his unfortunate
wife's reluctance to admit Lady Castlemaine as one of the
ladies of her bed-chamber. The lesson was well learned and
Catharine became the most docile of wives. She exercised no
influence in politics, and had little amusement except dancing
and card-playing, but she may have consoled herself in her
many moments of acute humiliation by the thought that her
sacrifice had saved her beloved country. The auxiliaries sent
by England sufficed to turn the scale against Spain, and in
1668 the independence of Portugal was formally acknowledged
after a quarter of a century of strife.
With the Portuguese alliance is intimately associated another
transaction of 1662 which was regarded with far greater
resentment by public opinion. Now that England was in
occupation of Tangier, which required a garrison to defend the
town against the Moors and a mole to protect the harbour
from storms, it was quite impossible to defray the heavy annual
expense of the maintenance of Dunkirk. Spain, from whom
1 J. M. Heathcote's MSS. (Hist. MSS. Commission), p. 17.