said; he was just dying. It is quite a common incident with the dying, and is supposed to account for the known phenomenon that rationalists, when they feel their brain is beginning to betray them, have embraced Christianity. Then he commended the Duchess to the care of his brother, the Duke of York, afterwards James II, “and,” he said, “let not poor Nelly starve.” Again he was thinking of the past, this time the recent past, for “pretty witty Nell” (as Pepys calls her), “the most indiscreet and the wildest creature that ever was in a court” (as Burnet calls her), had been his mistress for many years—since about 1670—and was the most popular of all, “a true child of the London streets.” She, it is said, was the only woman who was really faithful to him at heart except his wife. At half-past ten on the Friday, Charles again became speechless; before twelve he was dead, probably of a uræmic coma due to chronic Bright’s disease. Then came the inevitable accusations of poisoning which attended every sudden death in that suspicious age. We can, I believe, even explain some of the symptoms that were considered so suspicious. It was quite natural that Louise de Querouaille, Duchess of Portsmouth, should be accused of poisoning him, for it was well known at that time that Frenchwomen and Roman Catholics invariably worked by poison, and unhappily for Louise she was both. But what kind of poison could cause blue spots to form upon a man’s chest? And what kind of poison could make his tongue swell up? I must try to explain in popular language what chronic Bright’s disease really is. It is not merely a disease of the kidneys. The kidneys indeed become sclerosed, or hardened, and in time become shrivelled; but with this the arteries and heart also become diseased; the heart becomes enlarged, and the blood-vessels thickened and hardened; rather than a disease of the kidneys alone it is almost a thickening of the arteries all over the body, including those in the kidneys. And with this thickening goes a loss of elasticity, so that blood-vessels are apt to rupture at the slightest provocation. So that in the struggles of his uræmic convulsions it is quite possible that tiny capillaries of the king’s chest may have ruptured and caused blue spots on the neighbouring skin. If he had not died it is quite probable that the whites of his eyes might have become bloodshot, from the rupture of some tiny arteriole. It often happens to-day in Bright’s disease. And the tongue? Quite frequently the tongue and larynx suddenly swell up in chronic Bright’s disease, and the patient suffocates before he can obtain relief. King Charles was indeed poisoned, though not by human agency. He was poisoned by the toxins which should have been excreted by his own kidneys, but could not be got rid of by any human aid; that is to say, he probably died of uræmia from chronic Bright’s disease.