Sovereign and great King, my dearest brother Louis, may God bless you more in honor.

I am writing to you on the last day of April, and I congratulate you, Honorable Silibre, by the grace of God, when I hear that you have a strong and beautiful heir!

I have probably already replied to what you asked me last time, and although there was a difference of opinion in the Parliament, at my insistence, they were willing to consult with the emissaries you had sent concerning Dunkirk, only concerning the marriage of your brother, Philippe, Duke of Orleans, and my sister, Princess Henrietta...... They seem to be courting the marriage of Leopold I or Don Juan José, who met you in Dunkirk, and what kind of young man do you think he is?

I would certainly like to expect Henrietta to be named Bourbon, but the question is, if you insist on what you have proposed, will you be able to put up with a younger brother and sister with a small dowry? Here's the point, because the royal land was auctioned off at that time, and I now rely almost entirely on Parliament for my finances, and they set up a so-called royal fee project for me and all the royal family, and every grant needs to be signed by them, and you are also the king, you know how terrible our expenses and the royal family's expenses are, so Henrietta's dowry is only unsatisfactory.

But if you don't care about that, Your Majesty, I may try to get it to Parliament once more, many of whom are enemies of France, but I am a friend of France, and the help you gave me in my wounds I have never forgotten and always engraved—I mean, if you really need Dunkirk, I will do my best to bring it about.

And, Mr. Munch, I mean, Duke of Albimar, advised me to forgive the traitors as much as I could, and though I thought countless times of erecting numerous gallows on the way from Dover (where Charles II landed at the port of his return) to London, and then hanging these vicious fellows one by one, as Vlad III (the Archduke of Impalation), I at last accepted his advice, yes, I generously repaid my supporters, and then treated those who deserved hell with leniency— I only signed a death sentence with nine names on it, and each one of them had signed the death sentence of my father, their king, and it was a kind of reward, as the messenger of God said, a tooth for a tooth, and blood for a blood.

Then there is Richard Cromwell, who has fled, and in this we can see that he lacks the courage and audacity of his father, and in the same way, for the sake of the future, I have decided not to pursue him unless he returns to England.

Now let's get to the point, my dear brother, Louis, there is something about Oliver Cromwell, and it is fortunate that before I return, he died, and was buried in Westminster Abbey in the name of the Lord Protector, under the curse of the people, and it is said that when his body was laid on the stone platform, the only one willing to cry for him was a dog, and of course, everyone hated him. I dug him out of the grave, whipped his body with an iron whip, then cut off his head, tied it with wire, and hung it on the cross of the cathedral, and I hope that you will also witness this scene with your own eyes, because I know that you hate rebellion as much as I do, but it is not easy to do so, so I ordered my painter to sketch this scene for you.

Now I have to talk about my marriage, and perhaps you have heard that they have found me a Portuguese wife, Catherine, the daughter of João III, who will bring me a dowry of 800,000 pounds, and two cities, Tangier and Bombay, I don't know how this person is, but I hope it will be as good as your wife, Your Majesty, I am eight years older than you, and I should have had an official heir.

By the way, I have also heard that you have rebuilt Paris, which is enviable, it is like a great project like the construction of the walls of the great king of Rome, Hadrian, and I am equally troubled by the dampness and squalor of London, and if possible, send a few credible men, and let me see if there is a place to follow suit.

Also, do you know that Cromwell (Oliver) had conspired with the Spaniards to cooperate in order to win over Calais?

Finally, there are two important things that we are going to face together, Dunkirk and Henrietta, and I hope that you will seriously consider them, and I would like to express my sincere gratitude to you, and I will pray for you with my mother and my sister.

May God bless you.

Written in London on April 30, 1661, your dearest friend, Charles.

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The royal brother Philip read the last sentence aloud before putting down the letter, although there were two mentions of his marriage in this letter, as a young man who should have attached great importance to his marriage and longed for it, Philip didn't care, but since Louis and Teresa's marriage was also more responsible than emotional, he had nothing to say about it, and according to the situation when Henrietta was still in Paris, the two got along, and it was good that they didn't hate each other.

Louis had to remind Philippe that the marriage was very likely.

"But you can't ask me to love her. Philip replied to him with a straight face.

"But you have to respect her," said Louis, "and if a lady is not loved and respected by her husband in marriage, her life will become extremely miserable, and I hope that you will treat her well, even if it is out of pity." ”

"I will, Brother Wang. Philip said, and then he read again the letter from Charles II to the King of France, from which it was evident that Charles II was in fact very earnest in the marriage, "because he was now in a dangerous and awkward position." "Louis asked Philip to sit next to him, and of course Philip wouldn't be allowed to have spies, so there were a lot of things he didn't understand— For example, there were fifty-seven people who signed Charles I's death sentence, and by the time Charles II was restored, one-third of them had already died and one-third had gone into exile, and Charles I had put to death eleven people, not nine, as he claimed, because two of them had been subjected to terrible capital punishment, and the one that Louis now knew, John Cook, had been sentenced to the penal code of five horses, and the pieces of their bodies were thrown in the market to be trampled on- Cromwell's head was hung from the top of Westminster Abbey, and his body was whipped and hung from the gallows of the tyborne, making it the best sign to warn the traitors and the object of ridicule.

Yes, for many people, Oliver Cromwell is a hero, but for the commoners who are threatened and restricted by his harsh laws, he is a brutal puppet king, before Charles II ridiculed in his letter that Cromwell died with only one dog to cry for him, this sentence may not be too exaggerated - since Charles II returned to the throne, he has banned all Cromwell-related laws at once, gambling, dog racing, ball parties, The fine decorations and fine costumes, fine food and wine have once again returned to people's lives, and he even holds banquets every night, all night long, as if to regain all the happiness and enjoyment lost in the previous ten years in one day.

This made him win the support of most of the common people, as Louis commented, people are pleasure-loving, averse to labor and rules, Oliver Cromwell could have been a devout and hard-working churchman, and perhaps some would praise him, but he could not ask others to do the same, his officials and army, as soon as he died, immediately fell to Charles II, not without reason, not to mention these people, even Richard Cromwell, who had run away to the Netherlands, had a good life, singing night after night, and had several lovers, obviously he was also very hard to restrain him.

"In addition to these," said Louis, "there is also the present situation of Charles II." ”

"Is there a second Oliver Cromwell?" asked Philip.

"One Oliver Cromwell has set the worst example. Louis kept the next sentence - this arrogant man, who tore off the mask of glory that the king had worn on his face for a thousand years, and he showed the common people that the king could die too—was condemned and put to death by some lowly men, and when his head rolled to the ground, no angel came down to the earth to punish the great rebels with thunder, it is hard to say, no, it should be said, that there will be a king or queen who will be guillotined and wait for the executioner to swing his sword. Cromwell broke people's perceptions and broke the rules, which is what Louis was most angry about - after all, he was now king, and if possible, his son and grandson would also be king, and Cromwell was dead, but the seeds of malice had spread and planted in people's hearts.

Philip did not have a correct understanding of this, although Louis had been learning from him, he was not a king after all, he simply hated Henrietta, although their enmity was only from the defense of the two queen mothers - he said that after the first riot, Henry I's queen mother intended to facilitate the marriage of Princess Henrietta and Louis, and her sister-in-law Queen Mother Anne tried to sabotage it, but the young man and woman were left with only a strong hatred for each other.

"Let's take a look at this. Louis didn't let Philip think too much, pointing to a secret report, and Philip could be said to have opened the scroll hesitantly, and after reading the contents, he couldn't help but feel pity for the current Charles II. It is no wonder that Charles II's letter to Louis was so humble, and now Louis could hold all the power of the imperial harem, and the company that belonged to the king alone included the Guards, Dragoons and Musketeers, although they were not many in number, but they were all elite, and in addition to them, there were also the troops of the Prince of Condé, Tyrrenne and Friedrich Schaumberg, and in Versailles, 10,000 men who were half army and half civilian, and these people were loyal to the king— There are also the Orleans forces in Philippe's hands, and the armies in the territory controlled by the Duchess of Montpensier.

Now Charles II, although he is king, he can only hold the army of the Guards and a few scattered soldiers who remain elsewhere, and it is no wonder that he is not willing to give Princess Henrietta enough dowry, but also looks forward to the 800,000 pounds brought by his future wife, and tries to get the deal of Dunkirk.

Everyone knows that it costs a lot more money to feed a strong army than it does to rebuild a city.

"But the British envoys were reluctant to give up Dunkirk, and they offered a ransom of half a million pounds...... "Philip said, adding that Louis might be able to support it, but the price would have been far greater than his budget.

"Then let the people of Dunkirk move. "Why did the king have a ceremony to enter the city at that time? It was precisely because of the desire to emphasize the ownership of the French to Dunkirk, and in the subsequent negotiations there were the Prince of Condé and the Viscount of Tyrrenne, who, although he was in the Middle World, signed an agreement with the British, as the king had intended, that is, a thousand French garrisons in Dunkirk. The agreement was denied today by the British Parliament and the Crown because it was with Cromwell's son-in-law, but the 1,000 garrisons of Dunkirk never let their guard down - they knew that the king had no intention of abandoning Dunkirk in the first place.

It is especially worth mentioning that the British garrison in Dunkirk is now a new model army, which means that for Charles II, they are all traitors, although Charles II declared that they will not be pursued, but they are inevitably panicked, so on the night of Louis's order, Dunkirk quietly changed hands - now, no matter how Britain negotiated with France, the actual ownership of Dunkirk was already in Louis's hands - it was in vain for him.

Perhaps not only the British Parliament, but Charles II was also furious and heartbroken, but the subsequent negotiations were completely reduced to the English doing their best to make their expulsion appear more graceful and calm, and the French envoys, contrary to their previous eagerness, looked at the joke on the other side of the strait with pleasure - if it were not for the king's order to arrive at Dunkirk for the second time - and finally the ransom for Dunkirk was reduced from 500,000 pounds to 100,000 pounds, which was almost equal to a free gift.