Katherine, fourth daughter to Charles the First and Queen Mary, was
born at Whitehall (the Queen mother then being at St. James), and
survived not above half an hour after her baptizing; so that it is
charity to mention her, whose memory is likely to be lost, so short
her continuance in this life,--the rather because her name is not
entered, as it ought, into the register of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields;
as indeed none of the King's children, save Prince Charles, though
they were born in that parish. And hereupon a story depends.
I am credibly informed that at the birth of every child of kings born
at Whitehall or St. James's, full five pounds were ever faithfully
paid to some unfaithful receivers thereof, to record the names of such
children in the register of St. Martin's. But the money being
embezzled (we know by some, God knows by whom), no memorial is entered
of them. Sad that bounty should betray any to baseness, and that which
was intended to make them the more solemnly remembered should occasion
that they should be more silently forgotten! Say not, "Let the
children of mean persons be written down in registers: kings' children
are registers to themselves;" or, "All England is a register to them;"
for sure I am, this common confidence hath been the cause that we have
been so often at a loss about the nativities and other properties of
those of royal extraction.