Meantime the privy council assembled at the Cockpit were apprized, through the Duchess of Ormond, of her Majesty’s condition. The memorable scene which ensued has been often told. The ministers immediately adjourned to Kensington, and the physicians being consulted, and having declared that their sovereign was still sensible, she was recommended by the unanimous voice of the council to appoint the Duke of Shrewsbury Lord Treasurer. Anne, expiring, could summon strength to approve this choice, and to place the Treasurer’s staff in the hands of the Duke, begging him to use it for the good of her people. After this effort she sank unmolested into her last slumber. The heralds-at-arms, and a troop of the life guards, were in readiness to mount twenty-four hours before the Queen’s death, to proclaim the Elector of Brunswick King of England; so great was the apprehension of the Pretender. After this, even, and when despatches had been sent to the Elector of Brunswick, the Queen’s pulse became stronger, she began to take nourishment, and many around her entertained hopes. “But this,” says her historian, “was but the flash of a dying light.” The Bishop of London in vain stood by, ready to administer the eucharist, which she never revived sufficiently to receive. She died without signing the draught of her will, in which bequests were made to her servants. By this informality, Lady Masham, Dr. Arbuthnot her physician, and others, were deprived of legacies. Thus, though long expiring, Anne’s last offices of religion were incomplete, her wishes unfulfilled.[218] Her subjects, expectant of her death, were, for the most part, frightened to the last lest she should recover. She had erred in rendering herself the head of a faction, rather than the impartial ruler of a free people. Yet such was her peculiar position on coming to the throne; so important a barrier did she constitute against the dreaded restoration of her brother and his line; so unoffending was her personal deportment, so sincere her love for the church, and, according to the extent of her capacity, so excellent were her intentions, that Anne reigned in the hearts of the people. Her faults as a governor were viewed with a forbearing and extenuating spirit. Her errors were attributed to her advisers. Her simplicity of character, her ignorance of the world, and her credulity, the consequence of these two negative qualities, were well understood. She was easily intimidated by the notion, diligently infused into her mind, that she should one day experience from the Whigs the same sort of conduct as had cost her grandfather, Charles the First, his crown and life.[219] Her capacity was slow in receiving, and equally slow in parting with impressions. She had a great diffidence in any person placed in an office of responsibility, an unfortunate one of her own judgment, which rendered her too yielding to the persuasions of those whom she called her friends. The bitter pen of the Duchess of