Though to the last Monk could not quite believe that his disease had mastered him, yet he viewed the prospect of his approaching death with the same quiet resolution with which he had looked it in the face a hundred times before. He thought he still might live to staunch the bleeding wounds of his country and see its King a man again. But if he might not raise it, he at least could leave it with little regret now it was sunk so low. For years his own life had been a pattern of temperance and chastity, and the unblushing sin with which his great achievement had deluged the country was the source of real and poignant grief to him. But one desire really bound him to life, and that was to see his son married. Christopher was now a gallant of about eighteen years old, and ever since his father was first taken ill a marriage had been in course of arrangement between him and Lady Elizabeth Cavendish, granddaughter of the Duke of Newcastle. Now at the eleventh hour the business was completed, and on December 30th the young couple were brought to the general's chamber. There beside his chair, as he sat gasping for life, they were married, and the last faint effort of the arms that had lifted a king on to his throne was to take the silly girl he had chosen and place her feebly in the arms of the beloved son she was destined to ruin. It was a tragic wedding indeed, and with it the doom of the ancient house of Monk was sealed. No child blessed the ill-omened union, and the extravagance of the half-witted bride soon drove the young duke to those evil courses which dragged him to his untimely end. The last of his race, he brought his father's name and titles in dishonour to the ground. With the crown of the Stuarts fell the coronet of Albemarle. For by strange irony, as William of Orange was on the eve of sailing to dethrone the dynasty which the first duke had so triumphantly restored, the last duke was dying in Jamaica a broken gambler and a sot.