7, may be said to have had
two serious consequences at least--it made the Duke of Clarence the
next heir to the crown, and it brought on Canning the severe cold from
which he never recovered. It may be mentioned here, although the fact
is of little political importance, that Canning when he became Prime
Minister made the Duke of Clarence Lord High Admiral. The office was
probably bestowed as a token of Canning's gratitude to the King who had
stood by him, not indeed to the last, but at the last. It certainly
could not have been given because of any conviction in Canning's mind
that the Duke of Clarence was likely to render signal benefit to the
royal navy, to the State, or to the country by his services in such an
office.

Canning seemed for a while to rally from the cold which he had caught
at the Duke of York's funeral, but the months of incessant anxiety
which followed cast too heavy a burden on his shattered nerves and
feeble physical frame. It was hoped by his friends that the
adjournment of the Houses of Parliament, which took place after the
Ministry had been formed, might give him rest enough from official work
to allow him to repair his strength. But Canning's was not a nature
which admitted of rest. The happy faculty which he had once possessed
of getting easily to sleep when the day's work was done had long since
deserted him, and of late he took his official cares to bed with him,
and they kept him long awake. The early {61} summer of 1827 brought
him no improvement, and his friends already began to fear for the
worst. He suffered from intense agonies of nervous pain, and the
agonies seemed to grow worse and worse with each return. The Duke of
Devonshire offered him the use of a summer residence which he had at
Chiswick, and Canning gladly accepted the offer. It was remarked at
the time by some of his friends that an evil omen hung over this summer
retreat. The former Duke of Devonshire, father of Canning's friend,
had offered the same villa as a temporary retreat to Charles James Fox;
the offer was accepted by him, and Fox actually died in the bedroom
which was now occupied by Canning.

The omen soon made good its warning. Canning gradually sank under the
influence of his fatal illness. He said to a friend that during three
days he had suffered more pain than all that had been compressed into
his life up to that time, and we know that his was a frame which was
always liable to acute pain. He