son of Eleanor Gwynn, 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 loved 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 that 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 ask my pardon, poor woman!" cried Charles;
"I ask hers with all my heart."

The morning light began to peep through the windows of Whitehall; and
Charles desired the attendants to pull aside the curtains, that he might
have one more look at the day. He remarked that it was time to wind up
a clock which stood near his bed. These little circumstances were long
remembered because they proved beyond dispute that, when he declared
himself a Roman Catholic, he was in full possession of his faculties.
He apologised to those who had stood round him all night for the trouble
which he had caused. He had been, he said, a most unconscionable time
dying; but he hoped that they would excuse it. This was the last glimpse
of the exquisite urbanity, so often found potent to charm away the
resentment of a justly incensed nation. Soon after dawn the speech of
the dying man failed. Before ten his senses were gone. Great numbers had
repaired to the churches at the hour of morning service. When the prayer
for the King was read, loud groans and sobs showed how deeply his people
felt for him. At noon on Friday, the sixth of February, he passed away
without a struggle. [220]

At that time the common people throughout Europe, and nowhere more
than in England, were in the habit of attributing the death of princes,
especially when the prince was popular and the death unexpected, to the
foulest and darkest kind of assassination. Thus James the First had
been accused of poisoning Prince Henry. Thus Charles the First had been
accused of poisoning James the First. Thus when, in the time of the
Commonwealth, the Princess Elizabeth died at Carisbrook, it was loudly
asserted that Cromwell had stooped to the senseless and dastardly
wickedness of mixing noxious drugs with t