An affecting bereavement now occurred in the Royal family. William, Duke of Gloucester, a son of Princess Anne and Prince George of Denmark, was heir to the throne, and therefore in him centred the hopes of the nation. He seems to have been a lively child, for in 1695, when only six years old, he ran to meet his uncle with a little musket on his shoulder, and presented arms. “I am learning my drill,” he cried, “that I may help you to beat the French.” Nothing could have better pleased the veteran, who soon afterwards actually created the boy Knight of the Garter. Military tastes continued to guide his childish amusements, and he formed a regiment of lads, chiefly from Kensington, who attended him at Campden House, the residence of his mother, a quaint mansion burnt down a few years ago. The education of the Prince early occupied the thoughts of William, who offered the post of Governor to the Duke of Shrewsbury, now restored to the Royal confidence.[308] Shrewsbury declined, and the office fell into the hands of Marlborough. A story is told to the effect, that the King said to the future hero of Blenheim, “Teach him to be what you are, and my nephew cannot want accomplishments.” The still more important duties of preceptor to the youth were entrusted to Burnet, as already indicated. Windsor then being within the diocese of Salisbury, the Prince was to live there during the summer months, when the Bishop reckoned he would be in his diocese, and therefore in the way of his proper episcopal duties; he satisfied himself with thinking, that all would be right if the King allowed him ten weeks in the year for the other parts of his diocese,--a circumstance which shows how in those days notions of a Bishop’s office were different from what, happily, they are now. “I took to my own province,” says the right reverend preceptor, “the reading and explaining the Scriptures to him, the instructing him in the principles of religion, and the rules of virtue, and the giving him a view of history, geography, politics, and government. I resolved also to look very exactly to all the masters that were appointed to teach him other things.”[309] [Sidenote: DUKE OF GLOUCESTER.] [Sidenote: 1700.] But a sad fatality brooded over all the offspring of poor Anne. After a few days’ attack of fever, the young Duke died on the 30th of July.