“I do not promise,” I said. “I shall try to sleep without it.”

It has been a good day. I have worked a little, prayed a good deal and conversed with my friends.

At supper we were quite merry and Henry amused us all with some scandalous stories he had gleaned about people at Court.

I had had a good meal and could not help laughing at him. I am so tired. If I could only sleep, but however tired I am when I am in bed thoughts come between me and sleep.

I was prepared for bed as usual and the nearer the time came to say goodnight to my friends the more wide awake I became.

I am very thoughtful tonight. More than ever the past comes back—haunting me, robbing me of peace. I can see everything in especial clarity tonight—my coming to England, my quarrels with Charles. Oh what a foolish girl I was then! And then our great joy in each other…but the troubles came too quickly. I am very uneasy tonight. Something is telling me that everything might have been so different and I cannot stop myself wondering what would have happened to Charles if he had had a different Queen. How much had I contributed to that murder in Whitehall?

What has happened to me in the last years? I have become more myself than I ever was before. Had I in the past been living other people’s lives? I had constantly told them what they should do. I had been estranged from my son Henry and he had died without a reconciliation. Mary and I had not been good friends. I had quarreled with James and should have done so with Charles if he had been of a nature to quarrel.

I cannot endure this feeling of doubt which envelops me. I had always felt before that I knew, that I was right in everything I did.

Now I am haunted by fears. Perhaps I was not right. Perhaps I was tragically wrong.

These thoughts are tormenting me. They have completely chased away sleep. I am frightened. In the last years I have seen events more clearly than I did when they were happening and a fearful sense of guilt is settling on me. I had been so sure of my place in Heaven. I had loved my husband deeply; I had loved my children. But what had I done to them?

I must sleep. I will call in one of my attendants and tell her that I give in. I will take M. Valot’s grains for I must sleep. I cannot endure this burden of guilt. I will take the grains…and sleep.

Now I will lay down my pen and call the attendant.

EPILOGUE

On that August night of the year 1669 Henriette Maria sent one of her ladies to M. d’Aquin to tell him that as she could not sleep she would take the medicine which the doctors had prescribed and it was brought to her in the white of an egg.

After she had drunk it she was soon fast asleep.

When her lady-in-waiting came to her bedside the next morning to ask how she had slept, there was no answer.

Henriette Maria was dead.

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