But of all the infamous persons thus plotting against the sovereign they had sworn to serve, and from whom they had many of them just received the highest honours that the Government could bestow, none equalled in infamy the detestable Marlborough. This man, who was professing allegiance at the same time to both William and James, and who would have betrayed either of them for his own purposes, was indefatigable in hunting out the king's secrets, and dispatching them with all haste, enforcing the disgrace of his own country and the massacre of his own countrymen with all his eloquence—the sole object being his own aggrandisement. Talmash was the only general who could be compared with him in military talent. Talmash betrayed and disgraced, Marlborough, who was suspected and rejected by William for his treason, felt sure he himself must be employed. Accordingly, he importuned Russell for a knowledge of the destination of the fleet; but Russell, who probably by this time had found it his interest to be true to his sovereign, refused to enlighten him. But Marlborough was not to be thus defeated in his traitorous designs. He was on most intimate terms with Godolphin, and most likely obtained the real facts from him. Godolphin, indeed, had already warned the French through James of the intended blow, and Marlborough followed up the intelligence by a letter dated the 2nd of May, in which he informed James that twelve regiments of infantry and two regiments of marines were about to embark under command of Talmash, in order to destroy Brest.
This diabolical treason had its full effect. Tourville had already sailed. He left Brest on the 25th of April, and was at this moment in the Straits of Gibraltar, which he passed on the 4th of May. Brest was defenceless; but Louis, thus apprised of his danger, instantly sent the great engineer of the age, Vauban, to put the port into the best possible state of defence, and dispatched after him a powerful body of troops. The weather favoured the traitors and the French. The English fleet was detained by contrary winds; it did not quit St. Helens till the 29th of May. On the 5th of June the fleet was off Cape Finisterre, where a council of war was held, and the next day Russell sailed for the Mediterranean with the greater part of the fleet. Lord Berkeley with the remainder, having on board General Talmash and his six thousand troops, turned his prows towards Brest. But by this time the town was in full occupation by a great body of soldiers, and Vauban had planted batteries commanding the port in every direction, in addition to eight large rafts in the harbour well supplied with mortars. In fact, there were no less than ninety mortars and three hundred cannons; all the passages under the castle were made bomb-proof, and there were at least five thousand infantry and a regiment of dragoons in the place. The English had no friendly traitors amongst the French to act the Marlborough and apprise them of all these preparations; and they rushed blindly on the destruction which their own perfidious countrymen had organised for them. The greater part of the unhappy men were slaughtered, and Talmash was shot through the thigh, and borne off to the ships. Talmash died in a few days, exclaiming that he had been betrayed by his own countrymen. He was so, more absolutely than he or even most of his contemporaries were aware of. The object of Marlborough was accomplished more completely than he could have anticipated. His rival was not disgraced, but destroyed—taken out of his way; and the hypocritical monster went to Whitehall to condole with the queen over this national dishonour and calamity, and to offer what he truly called "his own unworthy sword." When the offer was forwarded to William in Holland, he bluntly rejected it; but Marlborough ultimately achieved his end, and we ought never to forget, when we remember Ramillies, Blenheim, and Malplaquet, that amongst the acts by which he rose to a dukedom was the massacre of Camaret Bay.
On the 9th of November William landed at Margate, where the queen met him, and their journey to the capital was like an ovation. On the 12th the king met his Parliament, and congratulated it on having decidedly given a check to the arms of the French. This was true, though it had not been done by any battle during the campaign. Russell by relieving Barcelona, which had been blockaded by two French fleets, had effaced the defeat of Camaret Bay, and in the Netherlands, if there had been no battle, there had been no repulse, as in every former campaign. He had now no Mons, no Fleurus, no Namur, no Landen to deplore; on the contrary, he had driven the French to their own frontiers without the loss of a man. But he still deemed it necessary to continue their exertions, and completely to reduce the French arrogance, and he called for supplies as liberal as in the preceding year. The Customs Act was about to expire, and he desired its renewal.
The Commons adjourned for a week, and before they met again Archbishop Tillotson was taken suddenly ill whilst performing service in the chapel at Whitehall, and died on the 22nd of November. With the exception of the most violent Jacobites, who could not forgive him taking the primacy whilst Sancroft was living, the archbishop was universally and justly beloved and venerated. In the City especially, where he had preached at St. Lawrence in the Jewry for nearly thirty years, and where, as we have seen, his friend Firmin took care to have his pulpit supplied with the most distinguished preachers during his absence at Canterbury, he was enthusiastically admired as a preacher and beloved as a man. The king and queen were greatly attached to him, and William pronounced him, at his death, the best friend he ever had, and the best man he ever knew.
Tillotson was succeeded by Dr. Tenison, Bishop of Lincoln. Mary was very earnest for Stillingfleet; but even Stillingfleet was too High Church for William. Could he, however, have foreseen that it was the last request that the queen would ever make, he would, no doubt, have complied with it. In a few weeks Mary herself was seized with illness. She had been worn down by the anxieties of governing amid the feuds of parties and the plottings of traitors during the King's absence, and had now not strength to combat with a strong disease. The disease was, moreover, the most fatal which then attacked the human frame—the small-pox. No means had yet been discovered to arrest its ravages, and in her case the physicians were for a time divided in opinion as to its real character. One thought it measles, one scarlet fever, another spotted fever, a fourth erysipelas. The famous Radcliffe at once pronounced it small-pox. It was soon perceived that it would prove fatal, and Dr. Tenison was selected to break the intelligence to her. She received the solemn announcement with great fortitude and composure. She instantly issued orders that no person, not even the ladies of her bedchamber, should approach her if they had not already had the complaint. She shut herself up for several hours in her closet, during which she was busy burning papers and arranging others. Her sister Anne, on being apprised of her danger, sent a message, offering to come and see her; but she thanked her, and replied that she thought she had better not. But Mary sent her a friendly message, expressing her forgiveness of whatever she might have thought unkindness in Anne.
In everything else the very enemies of Mary were compelled to praise her. She was tall, handsome, and dignified in person, yet of the most mild and amiable manners; strong in her judgment, quick in perceiving the right, anxious to do it, warm in her attachment to her friends, and most lenient towards her enemies. To her husband she was devotedly attached; had the most profound confidence in his abilities, and was more happy in regarding herself as his faithful wife than as joint sovereign of the realm. William, on his part, had not avoided giving her the mortification of seeing a mistress in his Court in the person of Mrs. Villiers, yet she had borne it with a quiet dignity which did her much credit; and now William showed that, cold as he was outwardly, he was passionately attached to her. His grief was so excessive that, when he knew that he must lose her, he fainted many times in succession, and his own life even began to be despaired of. He would not quit her bedside for a moment day or night till he was borne away in a sinking state a short time before she expired. After her death he shut himself up for some weeks, and scarcely saw any one, and attended to no business, till it was feared that he would lose his reason. During his illness he had called Burnet into his closet, and, bursting into a passion of tears, he said, "he had been the happiest, and now he was going to be the most miserable of men; that during the whole course of their marriage he had never known a single fault in her. There was a worth in her that no one knew beside himself."
Mary died on the 28th of December in the utmost peace after taking the Sacrament, and William, deprived of his unselfish wife's support, was left to carry on his great work alone. But apart from the loss of popularity entailed by the death of so able and beloved a consort, it cannot be said that William's position was altered by the death of his wife; so completely was he the master-spirit.