the cause of death was "a malignant fever". An autopsy revealed severe swelling of the lymph nodes in the neck and an abnormal amount of fluid in the ventricles of his brain: "four and a half ounces of a limpid humour were taken out." Gloucester may have died from smallpox or, according to modern medical diagnosis, an acute bacterial pharyngitis, with associated pneumonia. Had he lived, though, it is almost certain the prince would have succumbed to complications of his hydrocephalus. King William, who was in the Netherlands, wrote to Marlborough, "It is so great a loss to me as well as to all England, that it pierces my heart." Anne was prostrate with grief, taking to her chamber. In the evenings, she was carried into the garden "to divert her melancholy thoughts". Gloucester's body was moved from Windsor to Westminster on the night of 1 August, and he lay in state in the Palace of Westminster before being entombed in the Royal Vault of the Henry VII Chapel in Westminster Abbey on 9 August. As was usual for royalty in mourning, his parents did not attend the funeral service, instead remaining in seclusion at Windsor. In an allusion to Prince William's death, Tory politician William Shippen wrote: So by the course of the revolving spheres, Whene'er a new-discovered star appears, Astronomers, with pleasure and amaze, Upon the infant luminary gaze. They find their heaven's enlarged, and wait from thence Some blest, some more than common influence, But suddenly, alas! The fleeting light, Retiring, leaves their hopes involv'd in endless night. Gloucester's death destabilised the succession, as his mother was the only person remaining in the Protestant line to the throne established by the Bill of Rights 1689. Although Anne had ten other pregnancies after the birth of Gloucester, none of them resulted in a child who survived more than briefly after birth. The English parliament did not want the throne to revert to a Catholic, so it passed the Act of Settlement 1701, which settled the throne of England on a cousin of King James, Sophia, Electress of Hanover, and her Protestant heirs. Anne succeeded King William in 1702, and reigned until her death on 1 August 1714. Sophia predeceased her by a few weeks, and so Sophia's son George ascended the throne as the first British monarch of the House of Hanover. Titles, styles, honours and arms William