and in which he could hardly bring himself to take part.  While the war lasted, it would be necessary that he should pass nearly half the year out of England.  Hitherto she had, when he was absent, supplied his place, and had supplied it well.  Who was to supply it now?  In what vicegerent could he place equal confidence?  To what vicegerent would the nation look up with equal respect?  All the statesmen of Europe therefore agreed in thinking that his position, difficult and dangerous at best, had been made far more difficult and more dangerous by the death of the Queen.  But all the statesmen of Europe were deceived; and, strange to say, his reign was decidedly more prosperous and more tranquil after the decease of Mary than during her life.

A few hours after he had lost the most tender and beloved of all his friends, he was delivered from the most formidable of all his enemies.  Death had been busy at Paris as well as in London.  While Tenison was praying by the bed of Mary, Bourdaloue was administering the last unction to Luxemburg.  The great French general had never been a favourite at the French Court; but when it was known that his feeble frame, exhausted by war and pleasure, was sinking under a dangerous disease, the value of his services was, for the first time, fully appreciated; the royal physicians were sent to prescribe for him; the sisters of Saint Cyr were ordered to pray for him; but prayers and prescriptions were vain.  “How glad the Prince of Orange will be,” said Lewis, “when the news of our loss reaches him.”  He was mistaken.  That news found William unable to think of any loss but his own.561

During the month which followed the death of Mary the King was incapable of exertion.  Even to the addresses of the two Houses of Parliament he replied only by a few inarticulate sounds.  The answers which appear in the journals were not uttered by him, but were delivered in writing.  Such business as could not be deferred was transacted by the intervention of Portland, who was himself oppressed with sorrow.  During some weeks the important and confidential correspondence between the King and Heinsius was suspended.  At length William forced himself to resume that correspondence:  but his first letter was the letter of a heartbroken man.  Even his martial ardour had been tamed by misery.  “I tell you in confidence,” he wrote, “that I feel myself to be no longer fit for military command.  Yet I will try to do my duty; and I hope that God will strengthen me.”  So despondingly did he look forward to the most brilliant and successful of his many campaigns.562