Note 822 — Chapter XII · (continued 2)

It is mentioned by Mr. Fox, as a tradition in the Duke of Richmond's family, that the Duchess of Portsmouth believed Charles II. to have been poisoned. This I find confirmed in a letter read on the trial of Francis Francia, indicted for treason in 1715. "The Duchess of Portsmouth, who is at present here, gives a great deal of offence, as I am informed, by pretending to prove that the late King James had poisoned his brother Charles; it was not expected, that after so many years' retirement in France, she should come hither to revive that vulgar report, which at so critical a time cannot be for any good purpose." State Trials, xv. 948. It is almost needless to say that the suspicion was wholly unwarrantable.

I have since been informed, on the best authority, that Mr. Fox did not derive his authority from a tradition in the Duke of Richmond's family, that of his own mother, as his editor had very naturally conjectured, but from his father, the first Lord Holland, who, while a young man travelling in France, had become acquainted with the Duchess of Portsmouth.