Note 152 — BOOK XVIII.
Reading edition
“August 25, 1682. Died the great minister of state, the Duke of Lauderdale, at the wells in England, near London. Before this time he was paraletic, and was disenabled from council and advice giving. The king’s council in Scotland advised the king to call in all his pensions he had given to any person, hereby to reach him, and to dispose of them of new, which was done; thus Lauderdale’s pension of £4000 sterling was taken from him, which he complains of to the king, and entreats his majesty to consider him, that his old and faithful servant might not die in poverty, yet was not granted. He disheartens at this, and being advised by some of the chief physicians in England to go to the wells (some of them going with him), after some days’ drinking, he swells; then being advised to take water with salt, it purges him, and so purged him as that he died of it.”—Law’s Memorials, p. 234.