Very confused and contradictory accounts are given of the circumstances connected with this event; but there is enough of what is perfectly credible, to show that Charles died in a state of reconciliation with the Church of Rome. The Duke of York, his brother, who watched him to the last moment, states that two Protestant Bishops read by his bedside the service of the Visitation of the Sick, and that one of them, Ken, Bishop of Bath and Wells, after receiving from the sick man a faint acknowledgment of sorrow for his sins, pronounced absolution, and offered him the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, which was declined. But the Duke makes no mention of the pathetic strain in which that prelate addressed the King, or of the faithful exhortation addressed by the Archbishop of Canterbury. The Duke further relates that he arranged for the clandestine introduction to the chamber, of a Benedictine Monk, who had aided Charles’ escape after the battle of Worcester; that when the room had been cleared of all, except the Earl of Bath and Lord Feversham, the priest, brought up into a private closet by a back pair of stairs, was taken to the bedside; and that, after confession, he administered the last rites of the Popish Communion--that the expiring man uttered pious ejaculations, lifting up his hands and crying, “Mercy, sweet Jesus, mercy,” till the priest gave him extreme unction--that as the host was presented, he raised himself up, and said “Let me meet my Heavenly Lord in a better posture than lying on my bed.” But the Duke says not a word of Charles’ blessing his natural children, and the rest of the persons present; nor of any one begging the Royal benediction, calling the King the father of them all. [Sidenote: 1685.] Yet these circumstances are related by others, as well as the utterance of the words, “Do not let poor Nelly starve;” and Charles’ reply to the Queen’s message asking forgiveness. “She ask my pardon, poor woman?--I ask hers with all my heart.” James, in his _Memoirs_, is evidently intent upon one thing, to show that Charles died a sincere Papist, which we can well believe from what we know of his previous history.[133] CHAPTER VII. [Sidenote: 1685.]