The power vested in the Crown of nominating Bishops and other dignitaries had been exercised during the life of Queen Mary very much according to her discretion. William,—perhaps because he was a foreigner, and also destitute of entire sympathy with Episcopalianism, or because he was so engrossed with foreign affairs,—seems to have been reluctant to take part in the bestowment of ecclesiastical patronage. In the year 1700 he devolved its responsibilities, to a large extent, upon the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, and the Bishops of Salisbury, Worcester, Ely, and Norwich. Whilst he was in the realm they were to signify to him their recommendation of such persons as they thought fit for vacant preferments, which recommendation they were to present through the Secretaries of State. If whilst he was beyond the seas, any Bishoprics, Deaneries, or other specified clerical offices in his gift, above the annual value of £140, should need filling up, the Commissioners were to transmit the names of suitable persons, respecting whom his pleasure would be made known under his sign-manual. At the same time he delegated to them full power at once to appoint to other preferments. Also, he declared, that neither when he was abroad nor when he was at home, should either of his Secretaries address him in reference to any benefices left to the recommendation or disposal of the Commissioners, without first communicating with them, also that no warrant should be presented for the Royal signature until their recommendation had been obtained.[307]
1700.
An affecting bereavement now occurred in the Royal family. William, Duke of Gloucester, a son of Princess Anne and Prince George of Denmark, was heir to the throne, and therefore in him centred the hopes of the nation. He seems to have been a lively child, for in 1695, when only six years old, he ran to meet his uncle with a little musket on his shoulder, and presented arms. “I am learning my drill,” he cried, “that I may help you to beat the French.” Nothing could have better pleased the veteran, who soon afterwards actually created the boy Knight of the Garter. Military tastes continued to guide his childish amusements, and he formed a regiment of lads, chiefly from Kensington, who attended him at Campden House, the residence of his mother, a quaint mansion burnt down a few years ago. The education of the Prince early occupied the thoughts of William, who offered the post of Governor to the Duke of Shrewsbury, now restored to the Royal confidence.[308] Shrewsbury declined, and the office fell into the hands of Marlborough. A story is told to the effect, that the King said to the future hero of Blenheim, “Teach him to be what you are, and my nephew cannot want accomplishments.” The still more important duties of preceptor to the youth were entrusted to Burnet, as already indicated. Windsor then being within the diocese of Salisbury, the Prince was to live there during the summer months, when the Bishop reckoned he would be in his diocese, and therefore in the way of his proper episcopal duties; he satisfied himself with thinking, that all would be right if the King allowed him ten weeks in the year for the other parts of his diocese,—a circumstance which shows how in those days notions of a Bishop’s office were different from what, happily, they are now. “I took to my own province,” says the right reverend preceptor, “the reading and explaining the Scriptures to him, the instructing him in the principles of religion, and the rules of virtue, and the giving him a view of history, geography, politics, and government. I resolved also to look very exactly to all the masters that were appointed to teach him other things.”[309]
DUKE OF GLOUCESTER.
1700.
But a sad fatality brooded over all the offspring of poor Anne. After a few days’ attack of fever, the young Duke died on the 30th of July.
He was buried in Westminster Abbey, and recently, upon the family vault being opened, amongst the ten small coffins of the children of James II., and the eighteen small coffins of the children of his daughter Anne, lay the coffin of the youthful William, resting in remarkable juxtaposition upon that of Elizabeth of Bohemia.[310] Thus one of an unfortunate race, who never attained the crown he inherited, mingled his dust with that of a great aunt, who soon lost the crown she had prompted her husband too eagerly to seize. As the nation unaffectedly mourned the death of the youthful Duke, a gentleman,[311] living at Holland House, a friend of Atterbury’s, lamented the removal of his Royal neighbour in the following lines, which afford a specimen of the affected elegiac strains popular at the period:—
“So by the course of the revolving spheres,
When’er a new discover’d star appears,
Astronomers with pleasure and amaze,