DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.51519#0342
290
THE DUCHESS OF PORTSMOUTH.
and recall Monmouth.* The duchess listened; always impotent in
mind; facile as she was headstrong1; and without any fixed principle
of conduct; except that of securing1 the King’s affections and her
own power over him, she readily lent herself to Sunderland’s
projects; but in the very commencement of this new intrigue;
Charles was seized with apoplexy.
It must be allowed that the deportment of the Duchess of
Portsmouth; in his last moments; considering her situation and her
tenets of belief, did her some honour. She had often been compared
to Alice Pierce in the lampoons of the day, but her conduct was
very different. It was made a subject of reproach to her, that she
was found seated by the King’s pillow and supporting his head;
where the Queen ought to have been (but where the Queen was
not); and it was considered “ a piece of indecency;” that she had
desired Bishop Kenn to take the Duke of Richmond to his father
to receive his last blessing;f but her solicitude on these points
does not surely deserve so hard a construction. On the second day
of the King’s seizure; Barilion writes that he found the duchess in
her apartment overwhelmed with affliction ; but that instead of
speaking of her own grief or her own affairs, she appeared
extremely anxious for the state of the King’s soul. “Nobody,”
said she, “ tells him of his condition, or speaks to him of God. I
cannot with decency enter the room; the Duke of York thinks
only of his affairs. Go to him, I conjure you, and warn him to
think of what can be done to save the King’s soul; lose no time,
for if it be deferred ever so little, it will be too late !”
She had all along been in the secret of Charles’s real sentiments
* Lord Sunderland’s aim was to ingratiate himself with the Prince of Orange,
whose party was becoming every day stronger in England.
t The good bishop was much blamed for his compliance.—Vide Burnet. This
was the same bishop who, when Charles II. lodged at his house at Winchester,
refused to admit Nell. Gwynn into it. The King put himself into a passion ;
but Nell defended the bishop, observed that he only did his duty, and retired
a oluntarily to another lodging.
THE DUCHESS OF PORTSMOUTH.
and recall Monmouth.* The duchess listened; always impotent in
mind; facile as she was headstrong1; and without any fixed principle
of conduct; except that of securing1 the King’s affections and her
own power over him, she readily lent herself to Sunderland’s
projects; but in the very commencement of this new intrigue;
Charles was seized with apoplexy.
It must be allowed that the deportment of the Duchess of
Portsmouth; in his last moments; considering her situation and her
tenets of belief, did her some honour. She had often been compared
to Alice Pierce in the lampoons of the day, but her conduct was
very different. It was made a subject of reproach to her, that she
was found seated by the King’s pillow and supporting his head;
where the Queen ought to have been (but where the Queen was
not); and it was considered “ a piece of indecency;” that she had
desired Bishop Kenn to take the Duke of Richmond to his father
to receive his last blessing;f but her solicitude on these points
does not surely deserve so hard a construction. On the second day
of the King’s seizure; Barilion writes that he found the duchess in
her apartment overwhelmed with affliction ; but that instead of
speaking of her own grief or her own affairs, she appeared
extremely anxious for the state of the King’s soul. “Nobody,”
said she, “ tells him of his condition, or speaks to him of God. I
cannot with decency enter the room; the Duke of York thinks
only of his affairs. Go to him, I conjure you, and warn him to
think of what can be done to save the King’s soul; lose no time,
for if it be deferred ever so little, it will be too late !”
She had all along been in the secret of Charles’s real sentiments
* Lord Sunderland’s aim was to ingratiate himself with the Prince of Orange,
whose party was becoming every day stronger in England.
t The good bishop was much blamed for his compliance.—Vide Burnet. This
was the same bishop who, when Charles II. lodged at his house at Winchester,
refused to admit Nell. Gwynn into it. The King put himself into a passion ;
but Nell defended the bishop, observed that he only did his duty, and retired
a oluntarily to another lodging.