an impartial writer, I am obliged to observe, that the most knowing and the most deserving of all his physicians did not only believe him poisoned, but thought himself so too, not long after, for having declared his opinion a little too boldly." On the other hand, Lord Lansdown, who apparently possessed as good means of information as the Duke of Buckingham, arrived at a very different conclusion. "As to the poisoning part of the story," he says, "it was always my opinion, and not ill-grounded neither, that the king hastened his death by his own quackery." It is far from improbable that Charles may have weakened his constitution by the irregularities of his past life; and, moreover, that which still more inclines us to believe that his death was occasioned by natural causes, is the admitted fact that he had for some time been subject to fits, similar to those by which he was attacked in his last illness.

What degree of truth there may be in the strange stories which we have related in connection with the death of Charles, we must leave the reader to form his own opinion. The world is naturally inclined to be captivated by the marvellous, and especially to invest with mystery the last moments of princes. If we take this circumstance into consideration, as well as as the notorious political bigotry of one or two of the writers from whom we have quoted, and the still more notorious fact that stories very rarely fail to be exaggerated

in passing from the lips of one person to another, - we shall probably be far more inclined to adopt the sober opinion of Lord Lansdown, that Charles died a natural death, than that we should arrive at the opposite and much more improbable conclusion. The death of Charles completely changed the aspect of Whitehall. Evelyn, who paid a visit to the palace immediately after the king had breathed his last, speaks affectingly of the striking contrast which the court presented to what he had witnessed but on the Sunday preceding. He had then beheld the gay monarch in the midst of his voluptuous court, toying with his beautiful mistresses, the Duchesses of Cleveland, Portsmouth, and Mazarine, while a French boy was singing lovesongs, and the courtiers were playing at basset for large sums around him. "Six days after," he says, "all was in the dust."

In person, Charles was rather above the common height. In early youth, he is said to have been handsome; but, as he increased in years, he grew thinner, and his features became harsher and more marked. His complexion was dark and muddy, but was relieved by the quick sparkling of his eyes and the profusion of his black and glossy hair. The expression of his countenance was severe, though it lighted up agreeably when he spoke. Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham, styles him an illustrious exception to all the common rules of physiognomy. "With a harsh, saturnine

countenance," says the duke, "he was both of a gay and merciful disposition. His symmetry is said to have been faultless; and his movements, whether in dancing, at tennis, or on horseback, are described as strikingly graceful and easy. Few men, when it pleased him, could either act or look the king better. Burnet admits that he had the finest manners of any person in England, and Rochester has celebrated

"The easiest prince and best bred man alive."

His loss was deeply regretted, at least by the lower orders; heinous as had been his political offences, he had at least been no enemy to them. Probably the lower ranks of the community were never so happy or so prosperous, so free from the oppression of taxes, or from the miseries contingent on a period of war, as during the reign of the "merry monarch. It would be difficult to name any other of our kings whose loss occasioned a more universal sorrow, or whose name was more frequently mentioned with affection than that of the good-humoured Charles.

Charles had no children by his queen. By his mistresses he had, unfortunately, a numerous progeny. Lord Shaftesbury - alluding to their numbers, and at the same time to the low state of the royal treasury-declared that he expected to see the king's children running about the streets like link-boys. Those of whom we have

any notice amounted to fifteen, but there were probably others who died in their infancy. By Lucy Walters, he was the father of the Duke of Monmouth and a daughter married to William Sarsfield, Esq. By the Duchess of Cleveland, he had six children: the Duke of Southampton, the Duke of Grafton, the Duke of Northumberland, the Countess of Sussex, the Countess of Litchfield, and a daughter, Barbara, who became a nun at Pontoise. By the Duchess of Portsmouth he was the father of the Duke of Richmond; by Nell Gwynn, of the Duke of St. Albans and of a son, James Beauclerk, who died young; by Mary Davis, he was the father of Lady Derwentwater; by Lady Shannon, of the Countess of Yarmouth; and by Catherine Peg, of the Earl of Plymouth and of a daughter who died young. It is remarkable that Charles should have been the father of six dukes who were alive at the same time, and that he should have been enabled to endow each of them with a maintenance becoming the ducal rank.

CHAPTER XX.

CATHERINE, QUEEN OF CHARLES II.

The Queen's Uncomfortable Situation at the Court of Charles - Her Lineage- Arrives at Portsmouth- Charles's Description of Her to Lord Clarendon - Her Marriage with the King - Descriptions of Her Person - Her Extraordinary Retinue List of Her Household in 1669- Anecdotes Lady Castlemaine Attempted to Be Forced upon Her as a Lady of the Bedchamber - Indignation of Catherine-Unfeeling Conduct of Charles and Lord Clarendon - The Queen Consents to the Appointment of Her Rival - Alteration in Her Conduct - Encourages Gaiety and Frolic -Fashionable Freaks of the Period - The Queen's Unhappi- Evidences of Her Being Capable of Bearing Children Her Dangerous Illness, and Affliction of Charles - Accused by Titus Oates Her Grief at the Death of Charles-Description of Her Later in Life - Her Death.

ness

ALTHOUGH her position as Queen of Great Britain was a splendid and an envied one, and although few persons, who have attained to the age of threescore years and ten, have passed through life more happily exempt from those domestic afflictions which are the lot of humanity, the story of Catherine of Braganza is nevertheless a melancholy one. Accustomed in her childhood to the strict rules, the rigid discipline, and narrow inter