[[A.D. 1671.]] When the Duchess of York died she left four children, two of whom were sons; but they followed her to the grave within the year. By that time the succession of the Princess Mary to the throne of England began to assume an air of probability, because, as we have said, no children were born to Charles II. The duchess had become a convert to Catholicism, and not very long after her death the duke was suspected of having likewise joined that faith. This made him so unpopular that the services he had performed for his country were all forgotten, and his marriage, rather more than two years afterwards, with the Catholic Princess of Modena, only served to increase the censure he had drawn down on his own head. {336}Fearing that his nieces might be influenced by their father's faith, King Charles undertook the supervision of their education himself, and engaged Henry Compton, Bishop of London, for their preceptor. This man had been a soldier until he was thirty years old, when he became a clergyman, and was rapidly promoted on account of the loyalty of his family. Compton was good enough as a man, but by no means a well-informed one, consequently the princesses were not taught as they ought to have been. People who have not had advantages of education themselves often know its importance; but this does not seem to have been the case with Compton, for his pupils were allowed to study or not, just as their fancy dictated. The consequence was that the elder sister, having inherited the literary tastes of her parents, studied because it pleased her to do so; while Lady Anne grew up an ignoramus because she did not so please. If the governess, Lady Frances Villiers, had done her duty faithfully, this would not have been the case; but her tastes lay in a different direction. Peter de Laine was the French professor of the princesses, and made Lady Mary so perfect a mistress of that language that she wrote it better than her native tongue. Mr. and Mrs. Gibson gave instruction in drawing. They were a pair of dwarfs, neither being more than three feet six inches in height, and were considered among the best English artists of the day. This little couple had nine full-grown children, and lived to a good old age. The ladies Mary and Anne continued to live at Richmond with Lady Villiers and her daughters after their mother's death, and were very religiously trained according to the requirements of the Church of England. One day in the year the Duke of York's entire family always observed as one of deep sorrow, fasting, and prayer; it was {337}the thirtieth of January, memorable as having been the date of Charles I.'s execution. Each year all matters of business or pleasure were laid aside on that day, and the family appeared in deep mourning garments.