further preparations, going about to give it him, he raised himself up, and said, 'Let me meet my heavenly Lord in a better posture than lying on my bed.' But being desired not to discompose himself, he repeated the act of contrition, and then received with great piety and devotion; after which, Father Huddlestone making him a short exhortation, left him in so much peace of mind that he looked approaching death in the face with all imaginable tranquillity and Christian resolution."

While receiving the sacrament, the host stuck in the king's throat, which compelled those in the apartment to send for a glass of water. After he had communicated, the dying monarch appeared far more resigned and happy; to Huddlestone (alluding to the share which he had had in his escape after the battle of Worcester) he said, with something of his former humour, "You have saved me twice, first my body, and now my soul." But even Burnet allows that "he went through the agonies of death with a calm and constancy that amazed all who were about him."

Huddlestone's own account, though it scarcely differs from that of James, is too curious to be altogether omitted. "Upon Thursday," he says, "the 5th of February, 1685, between seven and eight o'clock in the evening, I was sent for in haste to the queen's back stairs at Whitehall, and desired to bring with me all things necessary for a

dying person. Accordingly I came, and was ordered not to stir from there till further notice." Huddlestone then describes his being admitted to the king's chamber; on entering which, he approached the sick monarch, and, kneeling down by the bedside, commenced his exhortation. The king, he says, having repeated a short act of contrition, he gave him absolution, and then inquired of his Majesty if he should proceed to the sacrament of extreme unction. To this the king replied, "With all my heart." "I then entreated his Majesty," adds Huddlestone, "that he would prepare and dispose himself to receive. At this the king, raising up himself, said, 'Let me meet my heavenly Father in a better posture than in my bed;' but I humbly begged his Majesty to repose himself. God Almighty, who saw his heart, would accept of his good intention." The sacrament was then administered, and Huddlestone withdrew.

The account is thus continued in the Stuart Papers: "The company being again called in, his Majesty expressed the greatest kindness and tenderness for the duke that could possibly be conceived. He owned in the most public manner the sense he had of his brotherly affection during the whole course of his life, and particularly in this last action; he commended his great submission and constant obedience to all his commands, and asked him pardon aloud for the rigorous treatment he had so long exercised his patience with.

All which he said in so affectionate a manner, as drew floods of tears from all that were present." He spoke tenderly to the queen, we are told, and left nothing unsaid or undone, that so short a time would allow.

CHAPTER XIX.

CHARLES II.

Dying Injunctions of Charles-Grief of the Queen - Affecting Descriptions of the King's Last Moments-His Piety and Resolution - His Death-Neglect Shown to His Remains

- His Funeral in Westminster Abbey - Reasons for Believing Him to Have Been Poisoned - Anecdotes Illustrating the Supposition - Extraordinary Story Related by the Duchess of Portsmouth - Evelyn's Reflections on the Death of Charles -Description of the King's Person- His Loss Lamented by the Lower Orders - His Illegitimate Children.

A SHORT time before his death Charles gave his keys to the Duke of York, who is described as kneeling by his bedside and in tears. He recommended to his care all his natural children, except the Duke of Monmouth, with whom he was on bad terms. He begged him also to be kind to the Duchess of Cleveland, and especially to the Duchess of Portsmouth, and that "Nelly might not starve." I

'The Viscountess de Longueville says that Charles's dying request to his brother was "to take care of Carewell (so the English pronounced Quérouaille), and not let poor Nelly starve." Charles Fox, alluding to the dying requests of Charles, makes the following remarks: "The king's recommendation of the

Charles, almost as soon as he had recovered from his first fit, had sent for the queen, who appears to have remained with him till within a few hours of his death. At last the scene became too painful for her, and, being seized with convulsions, she was compelled to withdraw. She sent, however, a message to him from her chamber, praying him to forgive her absence, and to pardon her if she had ever offended him. "Alas! poor woman," he replied, "she beg my pardon! I beg hers with all my heart." Such is the account of the Rev. Francis Roper, chaplain of the Bishop of Ely, who was admitted to the sick-chamber. And yet Burnet tells us that Charles "said nothing of the queen, nor any one word of his people, nor his servants; nor did he speak one word of religion." But the bishop, in his account of the king's last moments, is too often either egregiously misinformed, or has himself wilfully misrepresented the real facts. Roper is far from being the only authority for asserting that the queen attended the

Duchess of Portsmouth and Mrs. Gwynn upon his death-bed to his successor is much to his honour, and those who censure it seem, in their zeal to show themselves strict moralists, to have suffered their notions of vice and virtue to have fallen into strange confusion. Charles's connection with these ladies might be vicious, but at a moment when that connection was upon the point of being finally and irrevocably dissolved, to concern himself about their future welfare, and to recommend them to his brother with earnest tenderness, was virtue. It is not for the interest of morality that the good and evil actions even of bad men should be confounded."