The latter days of the once apathetic Anne were overshadowed by the gloom of mental uneasiness, and of corporeal suffering. Her frame was racked by the gout, her mind by the contending counsels of interested advisers, and by the dread of being governed by those to whom she gave the fair-sounding name of friends. She was harassed with repeated applications to strengthen the Act of Settlement by naming her successor. Her former professions of zeal for the Protestant religion, and the heartfelt conviction that her brother ought, by right of inheritance, to succeed her, created a struggle in her weak but conscientious mind. “Every new application to the Queen concerning her successor was,” says an eminent historian, “a knell to her heart, confirming, by the voice of a nation, those fearful apprehensions which arose from a sense of her increasing infirmities;” whilst the motion of the Earl of Wharton, that a premium should be offered for apprehending the Pretender, whether _dead_ or _alive_, excited an indignation in the unhappy Queen, which caused, in her reply, a departure from that official dignity to which she was so much attached.[206] The Duchess of Somerset had first succeeded the Duchess of Marlborough in the Queen’s regard and confidence. This lady appears to have been much more worthy of the trust, either than her predecessor, or the intriguing Lady Masham, who succeeded her. A Whig at heart, the Duchess of Somerset acted, secretly, as a counterpoise to the too violent tendencies of the ministry from which her husband was dismissed. She probably tended to preserve Anne from an avowed predilection, that secret desire, which lay at the Queen’s heart—the succession of her brother; and she had the great merit of preventing Swift from being made a bishop.[207] But even the Duchess exercised not that ascendency over the mind of Anne which had been attained by her earliest companion, the Duchess of Marlborough. The Queen, like many persons who have been disappointed in the objects of their regard, became suspicious, and extremely tenacious of her free-will. She even took pleasure in refusing those who were dearest to her, favours which they required, lest she should be suspected of again being governed. She became slow and cautious in conferring obligations; differing from her former practice, when she had been wont to thrust benefits upon the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough, and to command them to receive, “and make no more words about it.”[208] The attention, and, as it was probably with justice called, obsequious service of the Duchess of Somerset, soothed the pride which had been irritated by previous neglect. Mrs. Masham often offended her Majesty by what the Queen called too much party spirit; but eventually her influence prevailed.