CHAPTER XV
WIDOWHOOD
THE Duke of York was immediately proclaimed King when he had retired to his own apartments after his brother's death, and was acknowledged without demur as Charles's successor. The Privy Council, as soon as the necessary business for the proclamation was over, waited on Catherine with an address of condolence. She received them on a bed of mourning, the walls, the floor, the ceiling being swathed in black, and daylight shut out, while candles dimly showed her grief-stricken face. King James followed, and offered her every mark of sympathy and respect; but it is not probable that Catherine was open to other consolation than that her religion gave her. The light of her eyes had gone out, the sun in the heavens was darkened, and the stars were extinguished. Though she could not comfort herself with the knowledge that Charles's reconciliation to the Church of Rome was her doing, as the Portuguese firmly believed, it was some happiness to her to know he died a Catholic. But he was her life and her heart, and she was bereft of him.
Of course popular report attributed Charles's death to poison. There were whispers that Tessier, the King's embroiderer, had received orders, before Charles was taken ill, to prepare tapestries with J. R. superseding the C. R. C. J. Fox's mother, great-grand-
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