Charles II returned from exile in 1660 and was liked by many of his subjects. At fifty-four he died in four days, and the cause has been argued over ever since.
The Horror
On the morning of Monday 2 February 1685 the king suffered a sudden fit, described as apoplexy. He died at 11:45 a.m. on Friday 6 February at the Palace of Whitehall. Many people, including one of the royal doctors, suspected poison, because the illness had been so sudden.
In those four days he was bled, purged and cupped. Modern medical commentary suggests these treatments may have made things worse by dehydrating a man whose kidneys were already failing. Physicians of the age would have said they were doing everything possible.
On the last evening he was received into the Catholic Church in the presence of Father John Huddleston. How fully conscious he was, and who first proposed it, is uncertain. He asked his brother James to look after his mistresses, saying that Nell Gwyn should not be left to starve, and said he was sorry for taking so long to die. He was buried in Westminster Abbey on 14 February “without any manner of pomp”.
What killed him
For centuries the answer was apoplexy. Charles had been experimenting with mercury in his laboratory, and mercury can cause irreversible kidney damage, so the theory that he poisoned himself became popular. The case that it killed him is unproven.
A more recent medical analysis links his symptoms to uraemia, the build-up in the blood when the kidneys stop working. In 2023 Sky HISTORY’s Royal Autopsy tested three possibilities (natural causes, mercury, or his doctors) through a staged post-mortem. A review of the programme reports hair analysis showing mercury at around ten times normal, with the pathologist unsure how large a part it played. Whether mercury got into the king’s body from his laboratory or reached his hair from the air is also unknown. A claim in some retellings that every individual remedy given to him is documented is unconfirmed here.
The Modern Relic
Whitehall’s royal apartments are gone. Charles lies in Westminster Abbey. The case itself survives as a record that is open to rereading, and as a documentary in which a pathologist works through the evidence.