The last days of Charles II / by Raymond Crawfurd.

  • Raymond Crawfurd
Date:
1909
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The last days of Charles II / by Raymond Crawfurd. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    death effaces almost beyond detection such traces of paralysis as may have been present in life. The portraits of King Charles (see frontispiece) all show well-defined naso-labial ridges, symmetrically placed. The mask shows the same well-defined folds, but they are asymmetrical: the left is on a plane below the level of the right. There is no obliteration of the one, no exaggeration of the other, merely displacement of the left: this displacement is part and parcel of a deep conical fosse in the centre of the left cheek. It is difficult to resist the conclusion that this was produced by the pressure used in taking the cast from the face after death. In all likelihood the cast was taken after the autopsy had been performed. As the brain was examined the scalp must have been reflected, and this may afford a further explanation of the displace¬ ment of the tissues of the face. The fosse may indicate the loss of the underlying teeth in the upper jaw. Further, it is unreasonable to assume that obvious paralysis of the face was present in life, and yet was not mentioned by any of the onlookers, who have so minutely described what they saw. So much for the theory of apoplexy. We have already seen that the grounds for suspicion of poison were even more slender. There was no suspicion of poison before death, and none at the time of the autopsy. It must be remembered that the deaths of those in high places were at this time not infrequently ascribed to poison, especially if the actual cause were not apparent. James I had been accused of poisoning Prince Henry, though he really died of typhoid fever. Charles I had been accused of poisoning James I, Cromwell of poisoning Princess Elizabeth. It needed only the comparative obscurity of the funeral to set the rumour going. It lay with James to decide the character of the
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