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 pointment, alone safeguarded the succession as by law established. But even the Jacobites could not look in a very grim humour on such a scene as that of the little duke on his mother's birthday heading his company of small soldiers in Hyde Park (Hatton Correspondence, ii. 200; cf., iii. 265–266). The unsentimental king—partly perhaps for his wife's sake—took a kindly interest in the child, and as early as November 1695 bestowed on him a vacant garter. The installation was held with great splendour at Windsor in July 1696. Yet all this pomp could not conceal the fact that the health of the little prince was the reverse of good; he escaped the small-pox in May 1695; but in these years the despatches of the foreign ministers from time to time mention how little reliance was to be placed on the child's vital powers (, vii. 129). In 1698, however, the Duke of Gloucester was nine years old, and in settling a revenue for life on the king after the peace of Ryswick, parliament took into account among other things the expediency of a distinct household being established for his nephew. The king accordingly before going abroad in that year appointed Marlborough governor of the prince, and the Bishop of Salisbury preceptor—as he states, much against his own wish, and as his annotator, Lord Dartmouth, states, much against the princess's. At the same time King William appointed the little prince to the command of his own cherished Dutch regiment of footguards. Lady Marlborough's censures on the king's settlement of the expenses of the young duke's household, and her account of his passing quarrel with the princess as to its composition (Conduct, 116–120), may be passed by. Marlborough was at the same time restored to his place in the council and to his military rank and employments, and not long afterwards was made one of the lords justices for conducting the government during the king's absence. As late as November 1699 we hear of the Duke of Gloucester on the anniversary of Queen Elizabeth's birthday (a festival boisterously kept by all true English protestants, even under Queen Anne) ‘firing all his guns and making great rejoicings’. But on 26 July of the following year he was taken sick at Windsor—it was again erroneously thought of the small-pox—and on the 29th he died.

Burnet relates that the princess attended on her son ‘during his sickness with great tenderness, but with a grave composedness that amazed all who saw it; she bore his death with a resignation and piety that were very singular.’ The description of her overwhelming grief is quite reconcileable with this; and there is something pathetic as well as grotesque in the fact that from this time forth she always called herself, in correspondence with her friend, ‘your poor, unfortunate, faithful Morley’ (, i. 162). The sympathy was very general, and even the French court, after receiving a formal announcement from King William, went into mourning (, Court and Society from Elizabeth to Anne, ii. 147–50). At St. Germains, of course, hopes ran higher than ever, and an agent from the Jacobites in England speedily found his way thither. It seems not improbable that the sympathies of the Princess Anne herself now began to flow in this direction, though it may be questioned whether Lord Stanhope is right in assigning to this point of time her letter to her father already noticed (Reign of Queen Anne, 9). At all events there was no personal reason for her favouring the claims of the Electress Sophia of Hanover, more especially as the wishes of the latter seem now and for some time afterwards to have been for the family at St. Germains rather than for herself (, vii. 15 et passim; and cf., i. 7). In the country there seems at first to have been an expectation or wish that the king should marry again (, iv. 673); but when he opened the new parliament of 1701 he recommended a provision for the succession in the protestant line. On 12 June the Act of Settlement, which placed the Electress Sophia and her heirs in the succession, received the royal assent. It may be mentioned here that almost immediately after William's death, a charge was bruited about against him of his having intended to exclude Princess Anne from the succession; according to Burnet there was a further rumour that she was to be imprisoned. An inquiry ordered by the lords ended in a resolution of their house declaring the report groundless and scandalous, and requesting Anne to prosecute its authors (, 8–9;, vii. 9).

James II died at St. Germains on 17 Sept. 1701, and Louis XIV recognised his son as King of England. Under the influence of these events a parliament, in which the tories no longer commanded a majority, was elected. ‘James III’ was attainted, and the men and money needed were voted for the war with France.

There is no reason to suppose that affection for her father had ever been altogether dead in Anne's heart. When, towards the end of her reign, the Jacobites wished to persuade themselves that she favoured their