and by Lewis
the Great on the other, and when every year would add another hundred
thousand pounds to the largest fortune that had ever been accumulated
by any English subject. All this might be if Mrs. Morley were Queen. But
that Mr. Freeman should ever see Mrs. Morley Queen had till lately been
not very probable. Mary's life was a much better life than his, and
quite as good a life as her sister's. That William would have issue
seemed unlikely. But it was generally expected that he would soon die.
His widow might marry again, and might leave children who would succeed
her. In these circumstances Marlborough might well think that he had
very little interest in maintaining that settlement of the Crown which
had been made by the Convention. Nothing was so likely to serve his
purpose as confusion, civil war, another revolution, another abdication,
another vacancy of the throne. Perhaps the nation, incensed against
William, yet not reconciled to James, and distracted between hatred of
foreigners and hatred of Jesuits, might prefer both to the Dutch King
and to the Popish King one who was at once a native of our country and
a member of our Church. That this was the real explanation of
Marlborough's dark and complicated plots was, as we have seen, firmly
believed by some of the most zealous Jacobites, and is in the highest
degree probable. It is certain that during several years he had spared
no efforts to inflame the army and the nation against the government.
But all was now changed. Mary was gone. By the Bill of Rights the Crown
was entailed on Anne after the death of William. The death of William
could not be far distant. Indeed all the physicians who attended him
wondered that he was still alive; and, when the risks of war were added
to the risks of disease, the probability seemed to be that in a few
months he would be in his grave. Marlborough saw that it would now be
madness to throw every thing into disorder and to put every thing
to hazard. He had done his best to shake the throne while it seemed
unlikely that Anne would ever mount it except by violent means. But he
did his best to fix it firmly, as soon as it became highly probably that
she would soon be called to fill it in the regular course of nature and
of law.

The Princess was easily induced by the Churchills to write to the King
a submissive and affectionate letter of condolence. The King, who was
never much inclined to engage in a commerce of insincere comp