Gloucester listened to the war news and immediately planned a capture of Namur between his own men. During the fight he fell and grazed his forehead with his own pistol and although it was bleeding insisted on carrying on with the mock battle.
Every little ailment or accident must be reported to his mother and she came immediately to his apartments to see the damage for herself.
“A bullet grazed my forehead,” he told her. “If I had been a boy I should have cried, but as a soldier, of course, I cannot.”
Anne commanded that the wound be dressed; and wished that she could put an end to these rough games.
She did order that no one was to fence with the Duke of Gloucester. “For,” she declared to Lady Fitzharding, “I have heard of many accidents coming about through fencing.”
But almost immediately she saw Gloucester practicing with the sword, though alone, and she demanded to know why he did this.
“Have you forgotten that I have forbidden anyone to fence with you?”
“I hope, Mama,” replied the Duke gravely, “that you will give them leave to defend themselves when I attack them.”
She marveled at his wit and intelligence. Was there ever such a boy. He was the delight and terror of her life.
At the beginning of autumn, William returned from Flanders.
William, returning as a conqueror, had begun to think that he was firm enough on the throne not to have to bother to placate the Princess Anne. He had promised her St. James’s Palace but had not yet given it to her. Why should he give the foolish woman anything, particularly as Sarah Churchill was at her elbow, pressing her to demand this and that.
But when he went to visit Campden House he could not help being charmed by young Gloucester, who had his army drawn up to form a guard of honor for him. The boy was bright and amusing, a born soldier, for he would not have had this little army otherwise.
He walked beside William inspecting the “troops” and asking his advice about them. William gave it seriously, enjoying the occasion, feeling more at ease with the boy than he did with his mother, or any of his English ministers.
“It will not be long,” Gloucester assured William, “before my men are serving you in Flanders. I shall be with them to command them, of course, and willingly I offer you my services.”
“I am sure you and your men will serve me and their country well.”
Gloucester saluted with the utmost seriousness and the King gravely acknowledged this.
“What horses have you?” asked William.
“I have one live and two dead,” answered Gloucester.
“Dead horses? Soldiers do not keep dead horses.”
“What do they do with them then?”
“They bury the dead horses.”
“Mine shall be buried at once.”
William watched with amusement while the boy gave orders that his two wooden horses be buried.
“I shall need replacements,” he said.
“What of the one live one?”
“I ride on him in the park. He is not very big, but later I shall have hundreds of big ones.”
“I see,” said the King.
And all those who watched them marveled at the boy’s power to charm even William. Anne was delighted. This was a clear indication that William happily accepted the boy as his heir.
That was a brief interlude in the King’s day. He was feeling wretchedly ill and was forced to face the fact that he was growing more and more feeble.
He had never been a happy man, but since the death of Mary he had become even more morose than before. He had lost her adulation, and the comfort of Elizabeth’s companionship, for having given his promise to Tenison not to continue his liaison with her, he could not do so … in England. There was little left to him but his Dutch friends. Keppel was his first favorite, a handsome charming gay young man, who had not the worth of Bentinck, but somehow he craved for his company. He did not want Bentinck’s frank advice; he was impatient with his friendship and Bentinck knew this and kept away. He had even left Court—a matter which often gave William deep misgivings. Mary, Elizabeth, and Bentinck—all lost to him—and in their place young Keppel.
There were times when he wanted Bentinck back—yet such was his pride that he would not command or request. Bentinck must come back on his own desire—and Bentinck stayed away.
William had improved the Banqueting House which stood close to the Palace of Hampton Court on the banks of the river and there, with his Dutch friends, he spent most of his evenings. He was drinking heavily—mostly Holland’s gin—and although he never showed signs of intoxication, after a night’s drinking he would awake next morning in such a mood of irritability that he was approached only by those servants who found it impossible to keep away. Then at the slightest misdemeanor William would lift the cane, which he kept for the purpose, and slash it across the offender’s shoulders.
The English who preferred to see a man merry in his drink, disliked Dutch William more than ever and jocularly referred to those poor servants who suffered through their master’s irrascibility as “the Knights of the Cane.”
Moods of melancholy beset the King; he shut himself into his cabinet and brooded on the wretched turn his life had taken. He mourned for Mary; he had not believed it would be possible to miss anyone as he missed her; he wanted Elizabeth; and he wanted Bentinck.
To Bentinck he had given the vested rights of the Prince of Wales—a move which he soon began to see was a stupid one. He had meant to imply by it that he cared nothing for Anne and believed he could hold the throne without any help from her; also that he would do what he wished with affairs under his control. The people disapproved of this act; and it did not bring Bentinck back to him. Only his morbid and melancholy mood could have made him do such a foolish thing.
He sent for Lord George Hamilton, a soldier who had done good service at the Battle of the Boyne and who had been wounded at Namur.
“I wish to reward you for your services,” said William. “I trust you are recovering from your wounds.”
“Your Majesty, I trust soon to be back in your army.”
“Let me see,” said William. “You were made Brigadier General after Namur were you not?”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“And you are unmarried. You should have a wife.”
“Sir I …”
William said: “I am going to honor you. I will give you an earldom. What do you say to that of Orkney?”
Hamilton was stammering his thanks, wondering whether Holland’s gin was having a new effect on the King; but William silenced him.
“Your cousin, the daughter of Sir Edward Villiers, is a very marriageable young woman. I wish to see a union between you two.”
Hamilton was astounded. So he was being offered the King’s mistress! This could mean one of two things: Either he and an earldom were being offered to Elizabeth as a reward for past services or he was being given the role of complacent husband.
Time only would show which, for William was not a man to make himself clear on such a delicate matter.
An earldom! Promotion in the army, doubtless! And it was not as though he had marriage plans elsewhere. His cousin Elizabeth? She intrigued him. Not a beauty, but she must be fascinating to have held a strange cold man like the King all these years. She was a clever woman; and they would be partners. It was a good bargain he was being offered.