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

1660.] CHIEF FOR THE DEATH OF HER BKOTHER. 115
welcome her. But when she, on noticing the absence of
her beloved brother, Henry Duke of Gloucester, learned the
melancholy tidings that he had died of the small-pox on the
13th day of the month, and was buried on the 21st, in the
twentieth year of his age, her grief was passionate and
unspeakable. Not all the acclamations of the people, nor
the royal salutes of cannon, from the Tower and the
ships in the river, could rouse her from her grief, and
it was observed how sad she was at her arrival at White-
hall.*
The marriage of the Duke of York with Anne Hyde,
for several years maid of honour to the Princess of
Orange, at the Hague, was the next trouble that disturbed
her royal highness, on her return to England.
Nothing could exceed her mortification and anger, at the
idea "of yielding precedence to one, whom she had
honoured over much," she said, "by admitting her into
her service as maid of honour, "f
It is to be feared, that, in her anger, she encouraged
Charles Berkeley, of the Duke's household, in his unprinci-
pled attempt to set the Duke against his wife, by asserting
that her conduct was so light she was unworthy of being
Duchess of York, for that he, and not the Duke, was the
father of the child whose birth was hourly expected, as
heir presumptive of England.^
The Duke, on this painful calumny gave himself up to
despair, refused to eat, and was ready to dissolve his
marriage with the traitress, who had been accused of
deceiving him.
The following lines were addressed to the Princess-royal,
on " her portrait, written by Anne Hyde, Duchess of
York," while her maid of honour.
* Pepys' ' Diary.' Rugge's ditto. f ' Memoires de Montpensier.
t Clarendon. Stannier Clarke's ' Life of James II.'