wd again filled the chamber of death.

It was now late in the evening. The King seemed much relieved by what
had passed. His natural children were brought to his bedside--the Dukes
of Grafton, Southampton, and Northumberland, sons of the Duchess of
Cleveland; the Duke of St. Albans, son of Eleanor Gwynne; and the Duke
of Richmond, son of the Duchess of Portsmouth. Charles blessed them all,
but spoke with peculiar tenderness to Richmond. One face, which should
have been there, was wanting. The eldest and best beloved child was an
exile and a wanderer. His name was not once mentioned by his father.

During the night Charles earnestly recommended the Duchess of Portsmouth
and her boy to the care of James; "And do not," he good-naturedly added,
"let poor Nelly starve." The Queen sent excuses for her absence by
Halifax. She said she was too much disordered to resume her post by the
couch, and implored pardon for any offence which she might unwittingly
have given. "She asks my pardon, poor woman!" cried Charles; "I ask hers
with all my heart."

At noon of the next day (Friday, February 6th) he passed away without a
struggle.

As it commonly happens in the sequel of such sudden and mournful events,
the most absurd rumours did not fail to be circulated on the subject of
Charles's death. According to one, the Duchess of Portsmouth had
poisoned the King with a cup of chocolate; another asserted that the
Queen had poisoned him with a jar of preserved pears. Time has done
justice to these ridiculous suspicions; but that which will probably
never be discovered is the exact nature of the unfortunate monarch's
malady, whom a deplorable fatality caused to fall into the hands of
ignorant physicians who, not being able to agree amongst themselves,
tortured the patient haphazard for many hours together.

Hume, at the end of his dissertation upon the hypothesis of the
poisoning of Charles, relates the following anecdote:--"Mr. Henley, of
Hampshire, told me that the Duchess of Portsmouth having come to England
in 1699, he learned that she had caused it to be understood that Charles
II. had been poisoned, and that, being desirous of ascertaining the fact
from the Duchess's own mouth, she told him that she continually urged
the King to place himself at his ease as well as his people, and to live
in perfect understanding with his Parliament; that he had taken the
resolution of sending his brother out of the kingdom, and to convoke a
Parli