HE decay of the popish plot scheme encouraged the Court party to institute proceedings against Shaftesbury. Six Irish witnesses accused him of having suborned them to give false testimony against the Queen, the Duke of York, the Lord Lieutenant, and the Lord Chancellor of Ireland. He was committed, and, on his road to the Tower, hooted by the same rabble that had before assailed his victims on their way to trial and execution, with hisses and yells. However, the grand jury ignored the bill against him; but the publication of his papers shortly afterwards, exposed his base intentions, and deprived him for ever of all influence and popularity.

Though louder fame attend the martial rage, 'Tis greater glory to reform the age."

Unfortunately, excellent as was the example set by Katherine, it was devoid of the power to "chase vice away" from the licentious Court, or to reform the age, a glory erroneously attributed to it by the high-minded poet. Charles, it is true, had paid great attention to his consort since the shafts of the Popish Plot impostor had been levelled against her; but, alas! for humanity! he still continued to gratify his partiality for his mistresses, with whom he openly toyed and flirted, in public as well as in private. The King's conduct was imitated by his obsequious courtiers, and in the end, despite the worthy example of the despised Queen, virtue was openly reproached at Court as a thing to be despised.

In 1682, the Queen, whose income With the Meal-Tub plot, the Ryesince the death of Charles's mother, House plot, and the various other conHenrietta Maria, amounted to about spiracies, sham and real, set afloat at fifty thousand pounds per year, was this era of popular excitement and degreatly straitened in purse, on account lusion, we have nothing to do, not one of her monies not having been duly paid of them being directed against, nor in to her, as they fell due, by the govern- any way supported by Katherine. The ment. She considered her treasurer Rye-House conspirators intended to greatly at fault in the matter, and even murder the King and the Duke of York had the weakness to institute law pro- as they returned from Newmarket; but ceedings against him for the arrears; but, an accidental fire at the King's mansion of course, he was neither in law nor there, forced the royal brothers to come reason accountable for the deficiencies of to London two days before the apher receipts. pointed time, and thus they escaped the threatened danger. It was for this conspiracy that Lord William Russell and Algernon Sidney were beheaded; the former on the twenty-first of July, the latter on the seventh of December, 1683.

On New Year's Day, 1683, Waller dedicated to the Queen the subjoined complimentary stanzas:—

"What revolutions in the world hath been,

How are we changed since first we saw the

Queen:

She, like the sun, does still the same appear,
Bright as she was at her arrival here;
Time has commission mortals to impair,
But things celestial is obliged to spare.

May every new year find her still the same,
In health and beauty, as she hither came;
When Lords and Commons, with united

voice,

The infanta named, approved the choice; First of our Queens, whom not the King alone,

But the whole nation lifted to the throne."

After alluding to the victories obtained by the Polish King, John Sobieski, over the Turks, the poet thus concludes:"His conduct wins the day, And her example chases vice away;

:

On

This winter a terrible frost occurred. It began in December, 1683, and continued till February, 1684, with such remarkable severity, that the forest trees, and even the oaks, in England, were split by it; most of the hollies were killed, and nearly all the birds perished. the twenty-fourth January, Evelyn writes:-"The frost continuing more and more severe, the Thames, before London, was planted with booths, in formal streets; all sorts of trades and shops furnished and full of commodities, even to a printing press. * * * Coaches plied from Westminster to the Temple, and from several other stairs to

and fro, as in the streets; slides, sliding | ing a feverish and restless night, he with skates, a bull-bating, horse and rose at an early hour. To his attendants coach races, puppet plays and interludes, he appeared to be labouring under an cooks tipling, and other lewd places, affection of the brain; he was drowsy that it seems to be a Bacchanalian tri- and absent, his gait was unsteady, and umph or carnival on the water. [This his speech embarrassed. About eight, as carnival, or fair, was visited by the King he walked across his chamber, he was and Queen, when a whole bullock was seized with a strong fit of apoplexy; roasted on the ice.] London, by reason Lord Aylesbury caught him as he fell, of the excessive coldness of the air and Dr. King, a physician, who had hindering the ascent of the smoke, was practised as a surgeon, being in an adso filled with fuliginous steam of the joining room, hastened to his assistance, sea-coal, that hardly could one see and instantly opened a vein. The blood across the streets, and this filling the flowed freely, and stimulating remedies lungs with its gross particles, exceed- being applied, the royal patient in about ingly obstructed the breast." two hours recovered his faculties. He suffered a relapse in the evening, passed a bad night, but so improved in the course of the next day, that hopes were cherished of his recovery. But in twentyfour hours the King's strength was exhausted. Medicine was administered without effect, and on the fourth evening it became evident that his dissolution was at hand. With all his faults, Charles was deeply beloved by his subjects. "The announcement of his malady spread a gloom over the metropolis; the report of his convalescence, the next day, was received by the citizens with expressions of joy, by the ringing of bells and numerous bonfires. When, at last, the danger became manifest, crowds hastened to the churches to solicit from heaven the health of their sovereign, and we are told, that repeatedly the service was interrupted by the sighs and sobs of the congregation. In the two royal chapels the ministers succeeded each other in rotation, and the prayers were continued every two hours till his death."

In the subsequent November, Katherine's birth-day was commemorated with unusual magnificence. Bonfires blazed, the bells rung, the tower-guns boomed, and brilliant fireworks, and sham acquatic fights and skirmishes, enlivened the bosom and banks of the Thames. It was a holiday for all London, and the rejoicings at Court closed with a grand ball at Whitehall. The display of fireworks cost one thousand five hundred pounds; they far surpassed any previous attempt of the kind. "The Court," remarks Evelyn, "had not been so brave and richly apparelled since his Majesty's restoration.' But the reign and life of Charles were now fast hastening to a close. With the coming of the new year, his health visibly declined; still he could not find resolution to relinquish his evil ways, or his licentious companions. The evening of February the first, the last Sabbath he lived to look upon, he spent with his dissolute associates, in a manner most unrighteous and unworthy of a Christian King. The courtiers were gambling, with a bank of The King, on recovering his speech, two thousand pounds before them. after the first attack, asked for the Charles was sitting, at the same table, Queen, and found she was by his side. in open dalliance with his lemans, the Instantly, on hearing of his illness, she Duchesses of Portsmouth, Mazarine, and had rushed to his presence, and the Duke Cleveland; whilst a French youth of York had preceded, and the Duchess amused them by singing love songs. of York soon followed her Majesty. From this scene of profanity and disso- Katherine remained speechless for some luteness, the King proceeded to the time, but, after awhile, she called the apartments of the Duchess of Ports- Duchess of York aside, and said to her :-mouth, where, being too unwell to par- "Sister, I beseech you to tell the Duke, take of a substantial supper, he ate two who knows the King's sentiments with or three spoonfuls of soup. After pass-regard to the Catholic religion as well as

I do, to endeavour to take advantage of and kneeling down, whispered in the some good moments." Shortly afterwards, King's ear, "Shall I send for a Catholic the sight of her husband's sufferings priest?" "For God's sake do!" rethrew her into fits, and she was carried plied Charles; "but," added he, "will out of the room. The Duchess of York it not expose you to danger?" "I care took the earliest opportunity to impart not for danger," replied the afflicted the Queen's desires to the Duke, her brother, who, after sending in search of husband, who answered, "I know it, and a priest, turned to the company in the think of nothing else." Interest as well sick chamber, and said aloud, "The King as affection, caused the Duke to remain a requires all present to quit the apartconstant attendant on his death-stricken ment, except the Earls of Bath and brother. The Archbishop of Canter- Feversham." Shortly afterwards, Father bury, and the Bishops of London, Dur-Hudleston-him who, in 1651, had saved ham, Ely, Bath and Wells, were also the King by concealing him-disguised present, and in turn watched during in the costume of a Church of England the night in the King's chamber. On Thursday morning the holy Kenn, Bishop of Bath and Wells, seized a favourable moment to warn the royal sufferer of his danger, and implore him to prepare for death. Charles received the announcement with resignation, and the Bishop proceeded to read the office appointed for the sick and dying. On coming to the rubric, respecting confession, he paused, and asked his Majesty "if he repented of his sins?" The King answered in the affirmative; and the prelate having pronounced the absolu-clared that he was in charity with all tion, from the service for the sick, inquired if he might proceed to the administration of the sacrament? Charles made no reply. Kenn repeated the question in a louder voice, and the reluctant Monarch rejoined in a faint tone, “There will be time enough for that yet." The elements were, however, brought and placed on a table; but when the question was again put to the dying man, he replied:-"I will think of it."

Meanwhile, Barillion, the French ambassador, at the instance of the Duchess of Portsmouth, took the Duke of York aside, and reminded him of his brother's secret perference of the Catholic worship. The Duke, however, scarcely knew how to act. By law, it was treason to reconcile any one to the church of Rome, and he indulged a hope, that Charles would free him from responsibility, by openly declaring the state of his mind. But being disappointed, he in the evening requested the company to withdraw from the bedside,

clergyman, was led in secret through the Queen's apartments, and introduced through a private door into his Majesty's bed-chamber. The Duke of York introduced him to the King with these words: "Sir, this worthy man once saved your life; he now comes to save your soul." The priest went on his knees by the bed-side, and Charles having welcomed him, told him that "he desired to die in the faith and communion of the holy Roman Catholic church :" made his confession, and de

the world; that with all his heart he pardoned his enemies, and desired pardon of all those whom he had in any wise offended; and that if it pleased God to spare him longer life, he would amend it, detesting all sin. "I then," says Hudleston, "desired him to say with me this little act of contrition :

"Oh! my Lord God, with my whole heart and soul I detest all the sins of my life past, for the love of Thee, whom I love above all things; and I firmly purpose by thy Holy Grace never to offend Thee more. Amen! sweet Jesus, amen! Into Thy hands, sweet Jesus, I commend my soul. Mercy, sweet Jesus, mercy!'

Hudleston then anointed him, administered the eucharist, and withdrew. The excitement caused the King to rally; but, an hour afterwards, he became worse, and the physicians declared that he could not live another twenty-four hours. During the night his sufferings were severe, but he bore them with fortitude and resignation. "He often," remarks a contemporary, "in extremity

o'clock, his consciousness at a quarter past ten, and he calmly expired about noon, on the sixth of February, 1685, in the fifty-fourth year of his age. On the fourteenth of February he was interred, at midnight, in Westminster Abbey; and as he had embraced the proscribed Catholic faith, his funeral was performed with but little pomp or parade.*

Duke of Monmouth, by Lucy Walters;
Charlotte, Countess of Yarmouth, by
Lady Shannon; Charles, Duke of South-
ampton; Henry, Duke of Grafton;
George, Duke of Northumberland;
Charlotte, Countess of Litchfield, by the
Duchess of Cleveland; Charles, Duke of
St. Alban's, by Nell Gwyn; Charles,
Duke of Richmond, by the Duchess of
Portsmouth; and Mary, Countess of
Derwentwater, by Mary Davies.

of pain, would say he suffered, but he thanked God that he did so, and that he suffered patiently. He every now and then would seem to wish for death, and beg the pardon of the standers-by and those that were employed about him, that he gave them so much trouble, saying he was weary of this world, that he had had enough of it, and he was going to a better." The sorely sick Charles, great as were his failings or Queen, being strictly forbidden by her vices as a sovereign and a man, was sinphysicians and her friends, from being cerely beloved by his subjects. During carried into her husband's chamber till the his reign, Chelsea College, the Observaviolence of her grief had subsided, by a tory at Greenwich, and the Royal Somessenger excused her absence, and im- ciety were founded, trade and commerce plored the dying Monarch to pardon her flourished, the arts improved, and the offences. "Alas! poor woman," he said, wealth and the comforts of the people with a faint voice," she beg my pardon! greatly increased. He left no issue by -I beg hers, with all my heart;-take his Queen; and of his numerous illegitiback to her that answer." About two inmate children, he acknowledged James, the morning, he cast his eyes upon the Duke, who was kneeling by his bedside, kissing his hand, and thanked him for having always been the best of brothers and friends; begged his pardon for the trouble which he had given him from time to time, and told him now he freely left him all, and begged of God to bless him with a prosperous reign. He never mentioned the name of the Duke of Monmouth; but sending for his other illegitimate sons, he recommended them to the care of James, and drawing each to him, one by one, on the bed, gave them a father's blessing. The bishops, moved by this sight, urged him as the Lord's anointed, and the father of his country, to bless all present in the name of the whole body of his subjects; every one in the chamber instantly went down on his knees, and Charles, being raised up, pronounced a solemn blessing over them. He then entreated the Duke of York not to let "poor Nelly Gwyn starve," and for his sake to protect the Duchesses of Portsmouth and Cleveland. Afterwards he endeavoured to repose, but his next slumber was to be the sleep of death. Shortly after six in the morning, he complained of an acute pain in the right side, accompanied with a difficulty of breathing; as a remedy, eight ounces of blood were taken from his arm; the relief was but temporary: he continued to sink, his speech failed at eight

Katherine of Braganza deeply mourned the loss of her beloved husband. For several weeks after his death, she confined herself to a chamber of mourning, where the daylight was shut out and tapers kept burning, and where the floor, the walls, the ceiling, the bed she reclined on, and, in fact, every thing the eye could rest upon, was black. James the Second treated her with kindness, and permitted her to remain at Whitehall till the second week in April, when she removed to her own palace, Somerset House, where she resided with the splendour and dignity becoming a Queen Dowager of England.

To the equally unworthy and unfortunate Duke of Monmouth, Katherine behaved with a kindness which he little deserved, but which did credit to her

*It may be observed, that Burnet's account of the death of Charles contains so many misstatements, that it cannot be relied In the above narrative, his errors and falsehoods are carefully avoided.

on.