Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 36.djvu/369

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Mary II
363
Mary II


quence of which Marlborough was for some weeks lodged in the Tower.

During William's sojourn in England in the winter of 1692-3 she took great comfort from his unaccustomed kindness. He approved the orders she had during his absence given to the magistrates all over England for enforcing the law against vice and immorality, including what to her was specially abominable, the desecration of the Sunday (Burnet, iv. 181-2). She had also issued on 13 Sept. 1692 a much-censured proclamation, offering 40l. a head for the apprehension and conviction of any burglar or highwayman (Miss Strickland, xi. 256-8). She could now hardly repress her indignation at the treachery and disloyalty surrounding the throne, and her dislike of the necessity to which William found himself reduced of courting the tories (Memoirs ap. Doebner, pp. 58-9). After he had again quitted Engand (24 March 1693), and she had to resume the regency, everything seemed to go wrong, nor had she when he came back (29 Oct.) the satisfaction of finding him approve her administration (ib.) Yet whether or not she acted judiciously in getting rid of Lord Bellamont, she was responsible neither for the loss of the Smyrna fleet, which caused an alarm she sought to allay by the prompt appointment of a committee of the council on the grievances of the Turkey merchants (Macaulay, iv. 416, 469), nor for William's defeat at Landen. The anarchy in the council which she had been unable to stay obliged him after all to fall back on the whigs, out of whom he gradually formed a more solid ministry. Things began to improve, and, as she says, every one was resolving to try one year more at least (Memoirs ap. Doebner, p.61).

During William's absence on the campaign of 1694 (6 May-9 Nov.), the queen's popularity in the city was proved Dy the ready response to her courageous request for a loan of 300,000l. (Klopp, vi. 217 ; see Shrewsbury Correspondence, pp. 69 seqq. ; Klopp, vi. 340-341). The death of Tillotson (22 Nov.) greatly grieved her. Burnet (iv. 243) says that for many days she spoke of the archbishop ' in the tenderest manner, and not without tears;' she pressed the king and Shrewsbury to name Stillingfleet as his successor, but Tenison was preferred as less 'high' in 'his notions and temper.' Soon afterwards the queen was herself taken ill. Already in the previous spring she had described herself as increasingly subject to the infirmities accompanying age— but she was only thirty-two — or the troubles and anxieties which every returning summer I brought to her (ap. Countess Bentinck, p. 146). On 20 Dec. she felt unwell, but the indisposition seemed unimportant, and on the 22nd she felt stronger, though by way of precaution she put her papers in order. It must have been on this occasion that she wrote to her husband a letter dwelling on his conjugal infidelities, and exhorting him to mend his ways, which she afterwards gave to Tenison to be transmitted after her death (Plumptre, ii. 79 note). On the 23rd an eruption ensued, which the nurse and Dr. John Radcliffe [q. v.] thought to be measles. By Christmas day the king and court were much alarmed; deep emotion was manifested at the services in the Chapel Royal, and already political speculations were rife on the consequences of her death. In the evening the physicians agreed that she was suffering from a virulent attack of small-pox. On 26 Dec. Tenison was commissioned to inform her of her danger, when she expressed her perfect submission to the divine will. The king's grief, which he freely imparted to Burnet, was most vehement; sympathetic crowds blocked all the approaches to Kensington Palace. The Princess Anne's request to be allowed to visit her sister was by medical advice declined by the king. On 2,' Dec. Mary, who had been almost continuously in prayer, received the sacrament, and bade an affectionate farewell to the king. Half an hour later, at one a.m. on 28 Dec, she died (Klopp, vii. 6-10 ; Lexington Papers, pp. 31-6; Burnet, iv. 245-8 ; cf. Macau lax, iv. 350-2). The queen's body, after being opened and embalmed, was removed from Kensington to Whitehall on the night of 29 Dec. The king, who had at first wished her funeral to be private, deferred it, and it was ultimately celebrated on 5 March with great pomp in Westminster Abbey, where Queen Mary rests in Henry VI Fs Chapel. Tenison preached the funeral sermon, an answer to which, reproaching the primate for not having exhorted the queen to a deathbed repentance on her fathers account, is thought to have been written by Ken (Plumptre, ii. 86-94 ; as to the replies which followed, see State Papers during the Reign of William III, 1706, ii. 522 seqq.) Both houses of parliament, which contrary to usage had not been dissolved, attended the service (Macaulay, iv. 534-5). Public funeral solemnities were also held in the United Provinces ; at Utrecht Grsevius preached before the Provincial Estates. Other notable sermons were delivered in England by Burnet, Sherlock, Wake, and many other divines; and the queen was mourned in verse by Prior, Swift, Congreve, the Duke of Devonshire, and Lord Cutts, who had already in 1687 dedicated his