Read it through once

There is some reason for believing that the court of Versailles had either wholly discontinued, or, at least, had become very remiss in, the payments of Charles's pension; and it is not unlikely that this consideration induced him either really to think of calling a parliament, or at least to threaten Louis with such a measure, in order to make that prince more punctual in performing his part of their secret treaty. But whether or not any secret change was really intended, or if it were to what extent, and to what objects directed, are points which cannot now be ascertained, no public steps having ever been taken in this affair, and his majesty's intentions, if in truth he had any such, becoming abortive by the sudden illness which seized him on the 1st of February, 1685, and which, in a few days afterwards, put an end to his reign and life. His death was by many supposed to have been the effect of poison; but although there is reason to believe that this suspicion was harboured by persons very near to him, and, among others, as I have heard, by the Duchess of Portsmouth, it appears, upon the whole, to rest upon very slender foundations.