When the King was apprised of the treasonable intrigues which endangered his throne, he magnanimously pardoned Godolphin and the Duke of Shrewsbury, but sent Marlborough to the Tower, although he soon after released him, when it was found that several of the letters which compromised him had been forged.  For some time Marlborough lived in comparative retirement, while his wife devoted herself to politics and her duties about the person of the Princess Anne, who was treated very coldly by her sister the Queen, and was even deprived of her guards.  But the bickerings and quarrels of the royal sisters were suddenly ended by the death of Mary from the small-pox, which then fearfully raged in London.  The grief of the King was sincere and excessive, as well as that of the nation, and his affliction softened his character and mitigated his asperity against Marlborough, Shortly after the death of his queen, William made Marlborough governor of the Duke of Gloucester, then (1698) a very promising prince, in the tenth year of his age.  This prince, only surviving son of Anne, had a feeble body, and was unwisely crammed by Bishop Burnet, his preceptor, and overworked by Marlborough, who taught him military tactics.  Neither his body nor his mind could stand the strain made upon him, and he was carried off at the age of eleven by a fever.

The untimely death of the Prince was a great disappointment to the nation, and cast a gloom over the remaining years of the reign of William, who from this time declined in health and spirits.  One of his last acts was to appoint the Earl of Marlborough general of the troops in Flanders, knowing that he was the only man who could successfully oppose the marshals of France.  Only five days before his death the King sent a recommendation to Parliament for the union of Scotland and England, and the last act of Parliament to which he gave his consent was that which fixed the succession in the House of Hanover.  At the age of fifty-one, while planning the campaign which was to make Marlborough immortal, William received his death-stroke, which was accidental.  He was riding in the park of Hampton Court, when his horse stumbled and he was thrown, dislocating his collar-bone.  The bone was set, and might have united but for the imprudence of the King, who insisted on going to Kensington on important business.  Fever set in, and in a few days this noble and heroic king died (March 8, 1702),—­the greatest of the English kings since the Wars of the Roses, to whom the English nation owed the peaceful settlement of the kingdom in times of treason and rebellion.

The Princess Anne, at the age of thirty-seven, quietly ascended the throne, and all eyes were at once turned to Marlborough, on whom the weight of public affairs rested.  He was now fifty-three, active, wise, well poised, experienced, and generally popular in spite of his ambition and treason.  He had, as we have already remarked, been a moderate Tory, but as he was the advocate of war measures, he now became one of the leaders of the Whig party.  Indeed, he was at this time the foremost man in England, on account of his great talents as a statesman and diplomatist as well as general, and for the ascendency of his wife over the mind of the Queen.