Like most dishonest men, the Prince and the favourite complained that the people whom they had deluded [欺骗] were dishonest. They made such misrepresentations of the treachery of the Spaniards in this business of the Spanish match [姻缘], that the English nation became eager for a war with them. Although the gravest [严肃的] Spaniards laughed at the idea of his Sowship in a warlike attitude, the Parliament granted money for the beginning of hostilities, and the treaties with Spain were publicly declared to be at an end. The Spanish ambassador in London - probably with the help of the fallen favourite, the Earl of Somerset - being unable to obtain speech with his Sowship, slipped a paper into his hand, declaring that he was a prisoner in his own house, and was entirely governed by Buckingham and his creatures. The first effect of this letter was that his Sowship began to cry and whine, and took Baby Charles away from Steenie, and went down to Windsor, gabbling [叽里咕噜] all sorts of nonsense. The end of it was that his Sowship hugged his dog and slave [Steenie], and said he was quite satisfied.

He had given the Prince and the favourite almost unlimited power to settle anything with the Pope as to [有关] the Spanish marriage; and he now, with a view to the French one, signed a treaty that all Roman Catholics in England should exercise their religion freely, and should never be required to take any oath contrary thereto [to it]. In return for this, and for other concessions much less to be defended, Henrietta Maria was to [be to表安排] become the Prince's wife, and was to bring him a fortune of eight hundred thousand crowns [货币单位].

His Sowship's eyes were getting red with eagerly looking for the money, when the end of a gluttonous [贪吃的] life came upon him; and, after a fortnight's illness, on Sunday the twenty-seventh of March, one thousand six hundred and twenty-five, he died. He had reigned twenty-two years, and was fifty-nine years old. I know of nothing more abominable [讨厌的] in history than the adulation [吹捧] that was lavished [铺张] on this King, and the vice and corruption that such a barefaced [blatant] habit of lying produced in his court. It is much to be doubted whether one man of honour, and not utterly self-disgraced, kept his place near James the First. Lord Bacon, that able and wise philosopher, as the First Judge in the Kingdom in this reign, became a public spectacle of dishonesty and corruption; and in his base [卑鄙的] flattery of his Sowship, and in his crawling servility to his dog and slave, disgraced himself even more. But, a creature like his Sowship set [put] upon a throne is like the Plague, and everybody receives infection from him.

crawl: be too pleasant or helpful to sb in authority; servile: very eager to obey sb; dog and slave: 唐朝有个宦官对皇帝说：“大家(皇帝)第(但)坐宫中，外事听老奴处决。”

六级/考研单词: princess, delude, eager, grave, parliament, hostile, treaty, ambassador, probable, nonsense, hug, slave, contrary, fortnight, march, reign, vice, corrupt, wise, spectacle, crawl, throne, plague, infect, obey