In 1694 the king and the nation mourned the death from small-pox, a
disease always working havoc, of Queen Mary. During her illness William
remained day and night at her bedside. The Dutch Envoy wrote that the
sight of his misery was enough to melt the hardest heart. When all hope
was over, he said to Bishop Burnet, "There is no hope. I was the
happiest man on earth; and I am the most miserable. She had no faults;
none; you knew her well; but you could not know, none but myself could
know, her goodness." The funeral was remembered as the saddest and most
august that Westminister had ever seen. While the queen's remains lay in
state at Whitehall, the neighbouring streets were filled every day, from
sunrise to sunset, by crowds that made all traffic impossible. The two
Houses with their maces followed the hearse, the Lords robed in scarlet
and ermine, the Commons in long black mantles. No preceding sovereign
had ever been attended to the grave by a Parliament: for till then the
Parliament had always expired with the sovereign. The gentle queen
sleeps among her illustrious kindred in the southern aisle of the Chapel
of Henry the Seventh.

The affection of her husband was soon attested by a monument the most
superb that was ever erected to any sovereign. No scheme had been so
much her own, and none so dear to her heart, as that of converting the
palace at Greenwich into a retreat for seamen. As soon as he had lost
her, her husband began to reproach himself for neglecting her wishes. No
time was lost. A plan was furnished by Wren; and soon an edifice,
surpassing that asylum which the magnificent Louis had provided for his
soldiers, rose on the margin of the Thames. The inscription on the
frieze ascribes praise to Mary alone. Few who now gaze on the noble
double edifice, crowned by twin domes, are aware that it is a memorial
of the virtues of the good Queen Mary, of the love and sorrow of
William, and of the greater victory of La Hogue.