Lives of the last four princesses of the royal house of Stuart

1650.] PRETENDED NATIVITY OP HER CONSORT. 37
pretended nativity of her son, with details of many things
•which had befallen him in the course of his short life, and
a prediction that he would have a son by a widow, and die
of the small-pox in the twenty-fifth year of his age.*
This made a great impression on all the weak-minded
and superstitious persons in the court, and it was com-
monly said that the English princess, his consort, would
die, and he would marry the widow of some other prince.
It became, in consequence, a custom in the Court of the
Hague, on the decease of any prince, to ask what manner
of person his widow was.t Not the most enlivening thing
for the Princess-royal, his devoted consort, to hear re-
peated in her delicate health and dejected spirits ; but she
had no occasion to doubt her husband, for he never
swerved from her in thought, word, or deed.
William II., Prince of Orange, was the handsomest and
most accomplished of all the sovereigns of Europe. His
features were regularly beautiful, his form graceful, active,
and majestic, his manners lively and engaging. He under-
stood and spoke five languages, possessed a good knowledge
of mathematics, history, and the belles lettres, and his
powers of reflection were far beyond his years. He was
well versed in the art of war, but his valour was hot and
rash, and his ambition without restraint. He was born
with an irrepressible passion for glory ; his character was
violent and impetuous, and inactivity to him was painful ; X
but with all this he Avas generous to his consort's family
— unboundedly so — the warmest of friends, and the most
adoring of husbands. His brilliant talents, dauntless
courage, and indomitable resolution, together with his
partial affection for France, were so alarming to Spain, that
* ' Burnet's History of his own Time.'
t Samson's ' L'histoire de Guillaume III.'
% Eaynal'a ' History of the Stadtholdonite.'