Those who had to transact business with him were shocked to hear him gasping for breath, and coughing till the tears ran down his cheeks.[1] His mind, strong as it was, sympathized with his body. His judgment was indeed as clear as ever. But there was, during some months, a perceptible relaxation of that energy by which he had been distinguished. Even his Dutch friends whispered that he was not the man that he had been at the Hague.[2] It was absolutely necessary that he should quit London. He accordingly took up his residence in the purer air of Hampton Court. That mansion, begun by the magnificent Wolsey, was a fine specimen of the architecture which flourished in England under the first Tudors; but the apartments were not, according to the notions of the seventeenth century, well fitted for purposes of state. Our princes therefore had, since the Restoration, repaired thither seldom, and only when they wished to live for a time in retirement. As William purposed to make the deserted edifice his chief palace, it was necessary for him to build and to plant; nor was the necessity disagreeable to him. For he had, like most of his countrymen, a pleasure in decorating a country house; and next to hunting, though at a great interval, his favourite amusements were architecture and gardening. He had already created on a sandy heath in Guelders a paradise, which attracted multitudes of the curious from Holland and Westphalia. Mary had laid the first stone of the house. Bentinck had superintended the digging of the fishponds. There were cascades and grottoes, a spacious orangery, and an aviary which furnished Hondekoeter with numerous specimens of manycoloured plumage.[3] The King, in his splendid banishment, pined for this favourite seat,
- ↑ Burnet, ii. 2.; Burnet, MS. Harl. 6584. But Ronquillo's account is much more circumstantial. "Nada se ha visto mas desfigurado; y, quantas veces he estado con el, le he visto toser tanto que se le saltaban las lagrimas, y se ponia moxado y arrancando; y confiesan los medicos que es una asma incurable." Mar. 8/18, 1689. Avaux wrote to the same effect from Ireland. "La santé de l'usurpateur est fort mauvaise. L'on ne croit pas qu'il vive un an." April 8/18.
- ↑ "Hasta decir los mismos Hollandeses que lo desconozcan," says Ronquillo. "Il est absolument mal propre pour le rôle qu'il a à jouer à l'heure qu'il est," says Avaux. "Slothful and sickly," says Evelyn, March 29, 1689.
- ↑ See Harris's description of Loo, 1699.
