The bereaved mother watched beside her dying boy to the end, hoping against hope; and when nothing remained but his lifeless body, she arose, and with an expression of sad resignation on her countenance, quietly left the room. Then her thoughts were directed towards the father she had wronged, and she wrote him a letter filled with the most penitent expressions, and telling him that she looked upon her cruel loss as a blow from Heaven in punishment of her cruelty towards him. Retribution had come at last! At that moment, when the object in whom all her hopes were centered lay cold in death, Princess Anne yearned for the sympathy of the parent who had ever been most kind and indulgent to her, and she immediately sent her letter to St. Germain by express.
Lord Marlborough forwarded the sad news to King William, but his majesty made no reply for three whole months. The reason for this neglect was because Anne had written to her father, and the king found it out, although it was managed, as she thought, very secretly. William had always shown so much affection for his nephew that his failing to send any message of condolence or sorrow was the more remarkable.
The little duke's remains lay in state in the suite of apartments he had occupied, and afterwards they were removed to Westminster, to be interred in Henry VII.'s Chapel. The English ambassador at the court of France was placed in a very embarrassing position, because his sovereign did not order him how to proceed with regard to the Duke of Gloucester's death. The fact is William was in a fit of temper, possibly caused by the sad event, and so cared not how he perplexed others. Besides, although he had loved the dead boy, he despised the parents, and paid no more respect to their feelings than if they had lost a favorite dog. At last, after the expiration of two months, he ordered a fortnight's mourning, which was very little. Three months after the death of the little duke, King William condescended to write, not to the afflicted parents, but to Lord Marlborough, and this is a copy of the remarkable missive:—
"I do not think it necessary to employ many words in expressing my surprise and grief at the death of the Duke of Gloucester. It is so great a loss to me, as well as to all England, that it pierces my heart with affliction."
[Original]
The same post carried a peremptory order that all the salaries of the duke's servants should be cut off from the day of his death.
A.D. 1701. Thus we see that the king's heart was not so pierced with affliction as to prevent his having an eye to economy. It was even suspected that it was the approach of pay-day that prompted him to write at all; but the Princess Anne was so shocked at the king's meanness that she resolved to pay the salaries of her dead boy's servants out of her own purse rather than send them off at a moment's notice. She returned to St. James's Palace towards the end of the year, bowed down with desolation and sorrow.