The candlestick was a present from Queen Anne on her coronation, to a certain old ancestress of ours, who had been one of the ladies in attendance on the Queen's young son, William Henry, Duke of Gloucester--the only one of her numerous children who lived beyond his babyhood.
This little boy, the last of our children of Westminster Abbey, was born on July 24, 1689. It was a memorable year in the history of England, for it had seen the great and bloodless revolution by which James the Second had been driven from Great Britain, and William the Third put on the throne. The misgovernment of James had become unbearable; and William, Prince of Orange, who had married the king's eldest daughter Mary, was invited "by a small party of ardent Whigs to assist in preserving the civil and religious liberties of the nation." William and Mary accepted the Declaration of Right, and were crowned as joint sovereigns on April 11, 1689. They had no children. So when Princess Anne, the Queen's sister, and wife of Prince George of Denmark, gave birth to her little boy in the following July, he was welcomed as the future King of England.
King William and the King of Denmark were the baby's godfathers. The marchioness of Halifax was his godmother. Queen Mary adopted him as her heir; and the king conferred upon him the title of Duke of Gloucester: but he was not created Duke "because his mother considered that title dreadfully unlucky."
But at first it seemed highly improbable that the poor child would live long. He was delicate from his birth--very small--and for two months his death was constantly expected. The doctors advised an incessant change of nurses; and the wretched baby, as was to be expected, grew weaker and weaker. At last, however, a fine-looking young Quakeress, a Mrs. Pack, with a month-old baby in her arms, came up from Kingston to tell the Princess Anne of a remedy which had done her children good. The Prince of Denmark besought her to become wet-nurse to the suffering little prince; and from that moment the unfortunate child began to thrive.
[Illustration: WESTMINSTER ABBEY, LOOKING TOWARD THE ALTAR. _From etching by H. Toussaint._]
Then came the question of the most healthy residence for the baby on whom so much depended. And Princess Anne at length chose Lord Craven's fine house at Kensington Gravelpits, which he offered to lend her for the little prince's nursery. He went out every day, no matter how cold it was, in a tiny carriage which the Duchess of Ormonde presented to him. The horses were in keeping with the size of the carriage; for they were a pair of Shetland ponies "scarcely larger than good-sized mastiffs," and were guided by Dick Drury, the Prince of Denmark's coachman.