he Elect Lady, who had retrenched from her own royal state in order to
furnish bread and shelter to the persecuted people of God. [557] In the
United Provinces, where she was well known and had always been
popular, she was tenderly lamented. Matthew Prior, whose parts and
accomplishments had obtained for him the patronage of the magnificent
Dorset, and who was now attached to the Embassy at the Hague, wrote
that the coldest and most passionless of nations was touched. The very
marble, he said, wept. [558] The lamentations of Cambridge and Oxford
were echoed by Leyden and Utrecht. The States General put on mourning.
The bells of all the steeples of Holland tolled dolefully day after
day. [559] James, meanwhile, strictly prohibited all mourning at Saint
Germains, and prevailed on Lewis to issue a similar prohibition at
Versailles. Some of the most illustrious nobles of France, and among
them the Dukes of Bouillon and of Duras, were related to the House of
Nassau, and had always, when death visited that House, punctiliously
observed the decent ceremonial of sorrow. They were now forbidden to
wear black; and they submitted; but it was beyond the power of the great
King to prevent his highbred and sharpwitted courtiers from whispering
to each other that there was something pitiful in this revenge taken by
the living on the dead, by a parent on a child. [560]

The hopes of James and of his companions in exile were now higher than
they had been since the day of La Hogue. Indeed the general opinion of
politicians, both here and on the Continent was that William would find
it impossible to sustain himself much longer on the throne. He would
not, it was said, have sustained himself so long but for the help of his
wife. Her affability had conciliated many who had been repelled by his
freezing looks and short answers. Her English tones, sentiments and
tastes had charmed many who were disgusted by his Dutch accent and Dutch
habits. Though she did not belong to the High Church party, she loved
that ritual to which she had been accustomed from infancy, and complied
willingly and reverently with some ceremonies which he considered, not
indeed as sinful, but as childish, 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