Extensive alterations and improvements were also in progress at the same time in the gardens, which at this period were confined to the ground east and south of the Palace, as to which we shall refer again.
RE the work, however, was completed, Queen Mary was taken ill at Kensington with small pox in December, 1694. On learning the nature of her illness she locked herself in her closet, burned some papers, and calmly awaited her fate, which quickly came a few days after, the 28th of December.
Evelyn visited Kensington again in 1696, and speaks of it then as “noble but not greate,” commending especially the King’s Gallery, which was then filled with the finest pictures in the royal collection, “a greate collection of Porcelain, and a pretty private library. The gardens about it very delicious.” Peter the Great’s visit to William III. in this same gallery is referred to in our description of it below.
The next event of moment is William III.’s own death at Kensington Palace, after his accident in Hampton Court Park. “Je tirs vers ma fin,” said he to Albemarle, who had hurried from Holland to his master’s bedside; and to his physician: “I know that you have done all that skill and learning could do for me; but the case is beyond your art, I must submit.” “Can this,” he said soon after, “last long?” He was told that the end was approaching. He swallowed a cordial, and asked for Bentinck. Those were his last articulate words. “Bentinck instantly came to the bedside, bent down, and placed his ear close to the King’s mouth. The lips of the dying man moved, but nothing could be heard. The King took the hand of his earliest friend and pressed it tenderly to his heart. In that moment, no doubt, all that had cast a slight passing cloud over their long pure friendship was forgotten. It was now between seven and eight in the morning. He closed his eyes, and gasped for breath. The bishops knelt down and read the commendatory prayer. When it ended William was no more. When his remains were laid out, it was found that he wore next to his skin a small piece of black silk ribbon. The lords in waiting ordered it to be taken off. It contained a gold ring and a lock of the hair of Mary.”
OND as William and Mary had been of Kensington, Queen Anne was even more attached to it still;—and it became her usual residence whenever it was necessary for her to be near the great offices of state. She seems to have remained satisfied with the palace as it had been finished by her predecessors, except for the addition of one or two small rooms “in the little court behind the gallery,” perhaps because King William bequeathed to her a debt of upwards of £4,000 for his buildings at Kensington.
She devoted, however, a great deal of care and expense to the improving and enlarging of the Palace gardens—as to which we shall have more to say when we come to describe them. Queen Anne, indeed, was, in this respect, thoroughly English. She loved her plants and flowers, and would spend hours pottering about her gardens at Kensington. The appearance of her gardens will best be seen from our reduced facsimile of Kip’s large engraving, published about 1714 in his “Britannia Illustrata.” In the right distance is seen that most beautiful building called the “Orangery” or green-house, erected by her orders—which we shall fully describe on a subsequent page.