VIEW IN THE HAGUE: CHAMBERS OF THE STATES-GENERAL IN THE BINNENHOF.

[[See larger version]]

But the accident alluded to was of a more serious nature than was suspected, and, falling on a weak and exhausted frame, was about to bring his reign to an abrupt close. In riding towards Hampton Court on the 20th of February, on his accustomed Saturday's excursion to hunt there, his horse fell with him and fractured his collar-bone, besides doing him other serious injury. He was carried to Hampton Court, where the bone was set; and though the surgeon remarked that his pulse was feverish, he was deemed in too feeble a condition to admit of benefit by bleeding. Contrary, moreover, to the advice of his medical attendants, he would insist on returning that same evening to Kensington, and was, accordingly, conveyed thither in a carriage; but on arriving, it was found that the collar-bone, by the jolting of the carriage, was again displaced. It was again set, and the king slept well the night through after it. For several days no bad consequences appeared; but on the 1st of March great pain and weakness were felt in his knee. Ronjat, his surgeon, a Frenchman, who had re-set the bone, had contended that he ought to have been bled; Bidloo, his Dutch physician, had opposed it as injurious in his debilitated state. He was now attended by Sir Thomas Millington, Sir Richard Blackmore, Sir Theodore Colledon, Dr. Bidloo, and other eminent physicians. Again he appeared to rally, and on the 4th of March he took several turns in the gallery at Kensington; but, sitting down on a couch, he fell asleep, and awoke shivering and in high fever. On this there was a hurry to pass several Bills through the Lords that they might receive his signature, in case of fatal termination of his illness. These were the Malt-tax Bill, the Bill for the Prince of Wales's Attainder, and one in favour of the Quakers, making their affirmation valid instead of an oath. These being prepared, and the king not being able to use his hand, the royal signature was affixed by a stamp made for the purpose.

This took place on the 7th of March, and was not a moment too soon, for the king's symptoms rapidly gained strength, and he died the next day. The Earl of Albemarle, his great favourite, arrived from Holland on the day preceding his death, and it was thought the good news which he brought would cheer him, but William appeared to receive his information with indifference, and merely replied, "Je tire vers ma fin" ("I approach my end"). The news of the king's danger filled the antechamber with such a throng of courtiers as is generally witnessed at the expected moment of a monarch's decease; not prompted by affection, but on the watch to seize the earliest moment to make their court to his successor. Physicians, statesmen, and emissaries of interested parties were there mingled, eagerly listening for the reports of his state, and ready to fly with the news of his decease. Amongst these were the messengers of the Princess Anne and of Lady Marlborough, who, with her husband, now absent with the army in Holland, had scarcely less to expect from the event. Yet even Lady Marlborough, assuredly by no means sensitive where her ambition was concerned, expresses her disgust at the scene. "When the king came to die, I felt nothing of the satisfaction which I once thought I should have had on this occasion; and my Lord and Lady Jersey's writing and sending perpetually to give an account [to the Princess Anne] as his breath grew shorter and shorter, filled me with horror." These Jerseys, who were thus courting the favour of the heiress to the Crown by these incessant messages of the advancing death of the king, had been amongst those on whom he had heaped favours and benefits pre-eminently. Such is the end of princes. The closing scene is thus detailed by Bishop Burnet, who to the last showed himself one of the steadiest and most grateful of his courtiers:—"The king's strength and pulse were still sinking as the difficulty of breathing increased, so that no hope was left. The Archbishop of Canterbury and I went to him on Saturday morning, and did not stir from him till he died. The Archbishop prayed on Saturday some time with him, but he was then so weak that he could scarce speak, but gave him his hand, as a sign that he firmly believed the truth of the Christian religion, and said he intended to receive the Sacrament. His reason and all his senses were entire to the last minute. About five in the morning he desired the Sacrament, and went through the Office with great appearance of seriousness, but could not express himself; when this was done, he called for the Earl of Albemarle, and gave him a charge to take care of his papers. He thanked M. Auverquerque for his long and faithful services. He took leave of the Duke of Ormond, and called for the Earl of Portland, but before he came his voice quite failed; so he took him by the hand and carried it to his heart with great tenderness. He was often looking up to heaven in many short ejaculations. Between seven and eight o'clock the rattle began; the commendatory prayer was said to him, and as it ended he died, on Sunday, the 8th of March, in the fifty-second year of his age, having reigned thirteen years and a few days."

It was found on opening the body that he had had an adhesion of the lungs, which being torn from the side to which it had adhered by the fall from his horse, was the cause of his death. His head and heart were sound, but he had scarcely any blood in his body.

In person William was of a spare frame, middle stature, and delicate constitution, being subject to an asthma and cough from his childhood, supposed to be the consequences of small-pox. He had an aquiline nose, clear bright eyes, a finely-developed forehead, a grave aspect, and was very taciturn, except amongst his immediate friends, who were almost all his own countrymen. His reserved and repellent manner gave great offence to his English courtiers and nobles, and the lavish wealth which he heaped on his favourite Dutchmen heightened this feeling. He never liked Englishmen, and they never liked him. For his neglect to attach himself to the English there is, however, much excuse. The men about his Court, and the very party who brought him in, were a most selfish, rapacious, and unprincipled set. It is difficult to point to a truly noble and genuinely patriotic man amongst them. Perhaps the most unexceptionable were the Earl of Devonshire and Lord Somers; but the greater part of them were men whose chief object was self-aggrandisement; and the party fight which the two factions kept up around the Throne made it anything but an enviable seat. The peculation and jobbery in every department of the State were wholesale and unblushing, and the greater part of those who were ostensibly serving him and receiving his pay, were secretly engaged to his enemies, spies upon all his actions and intentions, and traitors, in a perpetual transmission of his projects to the Court of his deadly foes. The forbearance which he constantly manifested towards those despicable men was something admirable and almost superhuman. Though he was well aware of their treason, he still employed and endeavoured to conciliate them. With a cold exterior, William was far from destitute of affection. This he showed in the confidence with which he entrusted the government to his wife in his absence, and in his passionate grief for her death. It was also manifested in his warm and unshaken attachment to the friends who had shared his fortunes, who spoke his tongue, who knew his whole mind and nature, and who served him with a fidelity, amid an age of treachery and a Court of deep corruption, than which there is nothing more beautiful in history.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE REIGN OF ANNE.