h as a cock, newly-killed, split down the back and
applied all reeking hot to the soles of his feet. Raleigh from his
prison sent him a cordial, which the old hero's enemies of course
pretended was poison. However after it had been duly tested, the prince
was allowed to take it, and it gave him temporary relief. But nothing
availed. He grew worse and worse. His faithful friend, Archbishop Abbot,
came to him and prayed with him. The fever increased in violence. And
on the fifth of November, the anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot, the
archbishop told the prince of his extreme danger, and asked him if he
should die, "whether or no he was well pleased to submit himself to the
will of God?" To which the prince replied, "with all his heart."

A few hours later the end was near. Henry was past speaking; and the
archbishop, leaning over him, called upon him to believe, to hope and
trust only in Christ. He then spoke louder:

Sir, hear you me? hear you me? hear you me? If you hear me,
in certain sign of your faith and hope in the blessed
resurrection, give us, for our comfort, a sign by lifting up
your hands. This the prince did, lifting up both his hands
together.

And the archbishop with bitter tears, poured out by his Highness's
bedside, a most pathetic prayer. At a quarter before eight that evening
the hopes of the country were gone. Henry, Prince of Wales, was dead,
who, had he lived, might have changed the whole course of events in
English history during the seventeenth century. And the heir to the
crown was Charles, Duke of York, destined within forty years to die upon
the scaffold.

While our gallant young prince lay dying, the king showed himself as
selfish and indifferent as we might expect. He came once to visit his
son: but fearing that the fever might be contagious, he went away
without seeing him, and retired to Theobalds, Lord Salisbury's estate.
The Princess Elizabeth was kept away from the prince for the same
reason. But she tried her best to see him, coming disguised in the
evening to St. James's and endeavoring to gain access, but in vain, to
her dearly-loved brother, who asked for her constantly during his
illness--almost his last intelligible words being, "Where is my dear
sister?"

But if his father showed want of feeling, the whole English nation
mourned their young prince. He was buried at Westminster Abbey on the
seventh of December, with all possible pomp. Prince Charles and the