When William III., "a great man in a little crazy body" as Leigh Hunt calls him, found that he could not stand the smoky atmosphere of Whitehall, he looked about for a place sufficiently near London for him to be near his Ministers, and yet should be rural enough to have clear fresh air. He found this spot in the village of Kensington, where he bought a suburban mansion, formerly the residence of the Earls of Nottingham. Here he at once began building, and laying out gardens in the formal Dutch fashion, employing Sir Christopher Wren to make the alterations to the house. While the King was in Ireland fighting against his father-in-law, James II., Queen Mary superintended the work, writing to her absent husband of the slow progress the builders were making, and how "the place made me think how happy I was there when I had your dear company." A road was specially constructed through Hyde Park, gravelled and lighted with lamps, for the convenience of the officers of State, who were obliged to visit the monarch in his country retreat. Queen Mary did not long enjoy the pleasures of Kensington Palace, for in the winter of 1694, an epidemic of smallpox, which was raging in the neighbourhood, crept through the palace gates, and attacked the young Queen. Immediately she knew the terrible nature of her fate, the Queen, with her usual kind consideration, directed that all her ladies and servants who had not had smallpox should hurry from the palace, while she herself, having put everything in order, calmly prepared for death. King William could scarcely be persuaded to leave his beloved wife, even to lie down at night upon the camp bed arranged for him in the ante-chamber. Tears ran down the stern face which was seldom allowed to betray any emotion, and in the end, just before Queen Mary died, he was carried away from her bedside fainting. As he said to Bishop Burnet, "I was the happiest man on earth; and I am the most miserable. She had no fault; none: you knew her well: but you could not know, nobody but myself could know her goodness."