The agony was protracted. The king asked that the curtains might be drawn, so that he could see once more the light of day. "I beg your pardon for giving you so much trouble," he said to those who stood around him; "I am a very long time dying." His utterance failed him; at noon on the 6th of February, 1685, King Charles II. expired gently. He was not yet fifty-five years of age. {394} "He had received from nature," says Lord Macaulay, "excellent parts and a happy temper. His education had been such as might have been expected to develop his understanding, and to form him to the practice of every public and private virtue. ... He had been taught by bitter experience how much baseness, perfidy, and ingratitude may lie hid under the obsequious demeanor of courtiers. He had found, on the other hand, in the huts of the poorest, true nobility of soul. ... From such a school it might have been expected that a young man, who wanted neither abilities nor amiable qualities, would have come forth a great and good king. Charles came forth from that school with social habits, with polite and engaging manners, and with some talent for lively conversation, addicted beyond measure to sensual indulgence, fond of sauntering and of frivolous amusements, incapable of self-denial and of exertion, without faith in human virtue or in human attachment, without desire of renown, and without sensibility to reproach. According to him, every person was to be bought, but some people haggled more about their price than others. ... Thinking thus of mankind, Charles naturally cared very little what they thought of him. ... He was a slave without being a dupe. ... He detested business. ... He wished merely to be a king such as Louis XV. of France afterwards was." Without regard for the state of his kingdom, shut up in the selfish circle of his material pleasures, indifferent to all religion, hostile to the Puritans from memory of the past, from contempt for their ridiculous characteristics, and from fear of their austerity; without faith or rule of conduct; absolutely wanting in principles and moral sense, he had worn out the respect of the nation without completely exhausting its affection, for he was sagacious, prudent, little addicted to hazardous enterprises; and he had measured with a cool and practical judgment the degree of oppression which his people were capable of enduring. {395} The popular saying did him injustice in affirming that "he never said a foolish thing, and never did a wise one." He was wise enough more than once to stop in the path of despotism. His brother, who had often impelled him in this direction, was now about to advance to the brink of the abyss. England wept for the loss of Charles II. Without being fully conscious of the feeling, she regarded James II. with presentiment and with dread. {396} Chapter XXXI. James II. And The Revolution (1685-1688).