The next day I called on Batchelor (he was _valet de chambre_ to the Duke of York, afterwards to George IV.), who has an excellent apartment in the Lodge, which, he said, was once occupied by Nell Gwynne, though I did not know the lodge was built at that time. I was there a couple of hours, and heard all the details of the late King's illness and other things. For many months before his death those who were about him were aware of his danger, but nobody dared to say a word. The King liked to cheat people with making them think he was well, and when he had been at a Council he would return to his apartments and tell his _valets de chambre_ how he had deceived them. During his illness he was generally cheerful, but occasionally dejected, and constantly talked of his brother the Duke of York, and of the similarity of their symptoms, and was always comparing them. He had been latterly more civil to Knighton than he used to be, and Knighton's attentions to him were incessant; whenever he thought himself worse than usual, and in immediate danger, he always sent for Sir William. Lady Conyngham and her family went into his room once a day; till his illness he always used to go and sit in hers. It is true that last year, when she was so ill, she was very anxious to leave the Castle, and it was Sir William Knighton who with great difficulty induced her to stay there. At that time she was in wretched spirits, and did nothing but pray from morning till night. However, her conscience does not seem ever to have interfered with her ruling passion, avarice, and she went on accumulating. During the last illness waggons were loaded every night and sent away from the Castle, but what their contents were was not known, at least Batchelor did not say. All Windsor knew this. Those servants of the King who were about his person had opportunities of hearing a great deal, for he used to talk of everybody before them, and without reserve or measure. This man Batchelor had become a great favourite with the late King. The first of his pages, William Holmes, had for some time been prevented by ill health from attending him. Holmes had been with him from a boy, and was also a great favourite; by appointments and perquisites he had as much as L12,000 or L14,000 a year, but he had spent so much in all sorts of debauchery and living like a gentleman that he was nearly ruined. There seems to have been no end to the _tracasseries_ between these men; their anxiety to get what they could out of the King's wardrobe in the last weeks, and their dishonesty in the matter, were excessive, all which he told me in great detail. The King was more than anybody the slave of habit and open to impressions, and even when he did not like people he continued to keep them about him rather than change.