The Princess Anne, unchecked by indifference to her amiable advances, by the advice of Lord Sunderland and others, wrote to the King, shortly after the Queen’s death, a letter expressive of her “sincere and hearty sorrow for his affliction,” and declaring herself “as sensibly touched by his misfortune,” as if she had not been so unhappy as to fall under her sister’s displeasure. Her letter found the King too dejected, and too much humbled by his calamity, to think of refusing her petition. During the Queen’s illness, his anguish had broken out into violent lamentations; after her death his spirits sank so low, that many persons feared that he was following her. In this depression of spirits and strength, he betook himself to those aids of religion which, with a due seriousness, and a respect for sacred subjects, he had never, during his busy intercourse with the great world, resorted to with heartfelt earnestness, as the only solace, the only cure for bereavements which leave us heart-broken, dependent, and wretched beings. Whilst William was in this state of mind, the great and good Lord Somers, who had long lamented the feuds which disturbed the royal family, visited him at Kensington, for the purpose of interceding with a view to reconciling these differences. He found the King sitting at the end of his closet in an agony of grief, little to be expected from one who rarely betrayed the passions by which his spirits were now overwhelmed. The King, lost in his own bitter reflections, paid no attention to the entrance of Lord Somers, until that nobleman, remarkable for his courtesy and prudence,[292] broke the silence by expressing a hope that now all disunion between his Majesty and the Princess Anne might cease. “My lord, do what you will; I can think of no business,” was the agonised reply of the King; and to all the observations which Somers made, he returned no other answer.[293] The Duchess of Marlborough, however, imputes the reconciliation to Lord Sunderland, who had, on all occasions, as she says, shown himself to be a man of sense and breeding, and had used his utmost endeavours, before the Queen’s death, to make up the breach between the two sisters, though, she thinks, he never could have succeeded during the lifetime of Mary. Although the reconciliation was opposed by the Earl of Portland, yet the quarrel was at last adjusted; and Anne visited the King, who received her with cordiality, and promised her that St. James’s palace should in future be her residence.[294]