She was a very pregnant lady above her years, and died in her infancy, when not fully four years old. Being minded by those about her to call upon God even when the pangs of death were upon her, "I am not able," saith she, "to say my long prayer" (meaning the Lord's Prayer), "but I will say my short one, 'Lighten mine eyes, O Lord, lest I sleep the sleep of death.'" This done, the little lamb gave up the ghost.
Because of passages like these, Thomas Fuller will always be numbered among those writers who, irrespective of their rank in the world of letters, awaken a deep and lasting affection in the hearts of their readers.
THE KING'S CHILDREN
From 'The Worthies of England'
Katherine, fourth daughter to Charles the First and Queen Mary, was born at Whitehall (the Queen mother then being at St. James), and survived not above half an hour after her baptizing; so that it is charity to mention her, whose memory is likely to be lost, so short her continuance in this life,—the rather because her name is not entered, as it ought, into the register of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields; as indeed none of the King's children, save Prince Charles, though they were born in that parish. And hereupon a story depends.
I am credibly informed that at the birth of every child of kings born at Whitehall or St. James's, full five pounds were ever faithfully paid to some unfaithful receivers thereof, to record the names of such children in the register of St. Martin's. But the money being embezzled (we know by some, God knows by whom), no memorial is entered of them. Sad that bounty should betray any to baseness, and that which was intended to make them the more solemnly remembered should occasion that they should be more silently forgotten! Say not, "Let the children of mean persons be written down in registers: kings' children are registers to themselves;" or, "All England is a register to them;" for sure I am, this common confidence hath been the cause that we have been so often at a loss about the nativities and other properties of those of royal extraction.