Death of the Duke of Gloucester—Its effects on the Succession—Illness and Deathbed of William—His last actions—1700. The death of the Duke of Gloucester cast a gloom over the last year of King William’s life, whilst it caused not only maternal grief, but scruples of serious import, in the mind of the young Prince’s mother, the conscientious but weak-minded Anne. The Earl and Countess of Marlborough were at Althorp when they were apprised of the dangerous illness which had attacked the young Prince.[337] The Duke was of delicate frame, and for some years had been languishing. It was not to be supposed that a child could live in health or enjoyment whose premature intellect was, before the age of eleven, stocked with “Greek and Roman histories,” “the gothick constitution, and the beneficiary and feudal laws,” added to various other acquirements, equally obnoxious to the natural tastes of children, and therefore to be gradually and slowly introduced into their progressive capacities. Neither could the visits of five cabinet ministers, once a quarter, to inquire, by the King’s orders, into his progress, have been otherwise than stimulating and fatiguing to the unhappy child.[338] On the 24th of July, 1700, he attained his eleventh year. On the ensuing day he was taken ill; “but that,” says his Episcopal tutor, “was imputed to the fatigues of a birthday, so that he was too much neglected.” On the following day he grew much worse, and at the end of the fourth day he was carried off, his complaint proving to be a malignant fever. His mother, the Princess, attended him throughout his illness “with great tenderness,” according to Burnet, “but with a grave composedness that amazed all who saw it: she bore his death with a resignation and piety that were indeed very singular.”[339] The Earl of Marlborough hastened to Windsor upon the first intelligence of the fatal disease, but arrived only in time to receive the last sigh of his young and interesting charge. Thus died the last of seventeen children that the Princess Anne had borne, dead and living, and thus William expressed his feelings on the event, in reply to the letter sent him upon this occasion by the Earl of Marlborough. “I do not think it necessary to employ many words in expressing my surprise and grief at the death of the Duke of Gloucester. It is so great a loss to me, as well as to England, that it pierces my heart with affliction.”[340]