As soon as Mary had reason to think herself stricken by the scourge which desolated households every year, she had ordered that all persons of her retinue who had not yet had the disease should leave Kensington; then, shutting herself up in her study, she had put her papers in order, burning a portion of them herself. "I have not waited for this day to prepare myself for death," she said, when the disease left her no more hope. The grief of her husband exceeded all anticipations, astonishing even those who had been constant witnesses of the absolute devotion of the queen. {58} He did not leave her for a single instant, sleeping beside her bed and rendering her the tenderest cares. Mary had triumphed over that stern heart which neither victories nor defeats had ever been able to disturb. He could not keep in his tears, when he looked at her. When Tenison, the new Archbishop of Canterbury, had undertaken to announce her approaching end to the queen, William drew Burnet into a corner of the room. "There is no more hope," he said; "I was the happiest of men--I am the most miserable. She had no faults, not one; you knew her well, but you do not know, no one can know, her worth." Twice the dying woman wished to bid good-bye to him whom she had loved alone, and twice her voice failed her: she now thought only of eternity. Several times William had been seized with convulsions: when they bore him from the queen's chamber just before she breathed her last sigh, he had almost lost consciousness.