tile, and divers other grandees of Spain would declare for the house of Austria. The elector of Hanover had resolved to concur in the same measures; the king of the Romans, and prince Lewis of Baden, undertook to invest Laudan, while the emperor promised to send a powerful reinforcement into Italy; but death put a period to his projects and ambition.

William was naturally of a very feeble constitution; and it was by this time almost exhausted,. by a series of continual disquietude and action. He had endeavoured to repair his constitution, or at least conceal its decays, by exercise and riding. On the twenty-first day of February, in riding to Hampton court from Kensington, his horse fell under him, and he was thrown with such violence, that his collar bone was fractured. His attendants conveyed him to the palace of Hampton Court, where the fracture was reduced, and in the evening he returned to Kensington in his coach. The jolting of the carriage disunited the fracture once more; and the bones were again replaced, under Bidloo his physician. This in a robust constitution would have been a trifling misfortune; but in him it was fatal. For some time he appeared in a fair way of recovery: but falling asleep on his couch, he was seized with a shivering which terminated in a fever and diarrhoea, which soon became dangerous and desperate. Perceiving his end approaching, the objects of his former care lay still next his heart; and the fate of Europe seemed to remove the sensations he might be supposed to feel for his own. The earl of Albemarle arriving from Holland, he conferred with him in private on the posture of affairs abroad. Two days after, having received the sacrament from archbishop Tenison, he expired in the fifty-second year of his age, after having reigned thirteen years. He was in his person

person of a middle stature, a thin body, and a delicate constitution. He had an aquiline nose, sparkling eyes, a large forehead, and a grave solemn aspect. He left behind him the character of a great politician, though he had never been popular; and a formidable general, though he was seldom victorious. His deportment was grave, phlegmatic, and sullen; nor did he ever shew any fire but in the day of battle. He despised tattery, vet loved dominion. Greater as the stadtholder of Holland than as the king of England; to the one he was a father, to the other a suspicious friend. His character and success serve to shew, that moderate abilities will atchieve the greatest purposes, if the object aimed at be pursued with perseverance, and planned without unnecessary or ostentatious refinement.

THE

CHAP. XXXIX.

ANNE.

HE nearer we approach to our own times, the more important every occurrence becomes; and those battles or treaties which in remoter times are deservedly forgotten, as we come down are necessary to be known, our own private interests being generally blended with every event; and the accounts of public welfare make often a transcript of private happiness. The loss of king William was thought at first irreparable; but the kingdom soon found that the happiness of any reign is to be estated as much from the general manners of the times, as the private virtues of the monarch. Queen Anne, his successor, with no very shining talents, and few exalted virtues, yet

governed

"

governed with glory, and left her people happy.

Anne, married to prince George of Denmark, ascended the throne in the thirty-eighth year of her age, to the general satisfaction of all parties. She was the second daughter of king James by his first wife, the daughter of chancellor Hyde, afterwards earl of Clarendon. As she had been taught in the preceding part of life to suffer many mortifications from the reigning king,she had thus learned to conceal her resentiments; and the natural tranquillity of her temper still more contributed to make her overlook and pardon every opposition. She either was insensible of any disrespect shewn. her, or had wisdom to dissemble her sensibility.

The late king, whose whole life had been spent in one continued opposition to the king of France, and all whose politics consisted in forming alliances against him, had left England at the eve of a war with that monarch. The present queen, who ge nerally took the advice of her ministry in every important transaction, was upon this occasion, urged by opposing counsels; a part of her ministry were for war, while another part as sincerely declared for peace.

At the head of those who opposed a war with France was the earl of Rochester, lord lieutenant of Ireland, first cousin to the queen, and the chief of the Tory faction. This minister proposed in council that the English should avoid a declaration of war with France, and at most act as auxiliaries only. He urged the impossibility of England's. reaping any advantage by the most distinguished success upon the continent, and exposed the folly of loading the nation with debts to increase the riches of its commercial rivals.

In the van of those who declared for prosecuting the late king's intentions of going to war with

France,

France, was the earl, since better known by the title of the duke of Marlborough. This nobleman had begun life as a court page, and was raised by king James to a peerage. Having deserted his old master, he attached himself in appearance to king William; but had still a secret partiality, in favour of the Tories, from whom he had received his first employments. Ever willing to thwart and undermine the measures of William.he became a favourite of Anne for that very reason; she loved a man who still possessed reverence and veneration for her father, and paid the utmost attention to herself. But Marlborough had still another hold upon the queen's affections and esteem. He was married to a lady who was the queen's peculiar confidante, and who governed her in every action of life with unbounded authority. By this canal Marlborough actually directed the queen in all her resolutions; and while his rivals strove to advance their reputation in the council, he was more effectually securing it in the closet.

It was not, therefore, without private reasons that Marlborough inclined for war. It first gave him an opportunity of taking a different side of the question from the earl of Rochester, whose influence he desired to lessen; but he had in the next place hopes of being appointed general of the forces that should be sent over to the continent, a. command that would gratify his ambition in all its varieties. He therefore observed in council, that the honour of the nation was concerned to fulfil the late king's engagements. He affirmed, that France could never be reduced within due bounds, unless England would enter as a principal in the quarrel. His opinion, therefore, preponderated; the queen resolved to declare war, and communicated her intentions to the house of commons, by whom

whom it was approved, and war was proclaimed accordingly.

Lewis XIV. once arrived at the summit of glory, but long since grown familiar with disappointment and disgrace, still kept spurring on an exhausted kingdom to second the views of his ambition. He now, therefore, upon the death of William, expected, to enter upon a field open for conquests and fame. The vigilance of his late rival had blasted all his laurels, and circumscribed his power; for even though defeated, William still was formidable. At the news of his death, therefore, the French monarch could not suppress his rapture; and his court at Versailles seemed to have forgotten their usual decency in the effusions of their satisfaction. The people of Paris openly rejoiced at the event; and the whole kingdom testified their rapture by every public demonstration of joy. But their pleasure was soon to have an end. A much more formidable enemy was now rising up to oppose them; a more refined politician, a more skilful general, backed by the confidence of an indulgent mistress, and the efforts of a willing nation.

The king of France was, in the queen's declaration of war, taxed with having taken possession of a great part of the Spanish dominions, with designing to invade the liberties of Europe, to obstruct the freedom of navigation and commerce; and with having offered an unpardonable insult to the queen and her throne, by acknowledging the title of the Pretender. He was accused of attempting to unite the crown of Spain to his own dominions by placing his grandson upon the throne of that kingdom, and thus of endeavouring to destroy the equality of power that subsisted among the states of Europe.