The cause of Branwell’s death was stated in the death certificate to be chronic bronchitis and marasmus (wasting of the body).
The effect which it had upon his family, and on Charlotte in particular, was expressed in the letter which she wrote to W. S. Williams, of Smith and Elder, on October 6th, 1848:
When I looked on the noble face and forehead of my dead brother (Nature had favoured him with a fairer outside, as well as a finer constitution than his sisters) and asked myself what had made him go ever wrong, tend ever downwards, when he had so many gifts to induce to, and aid in, an upward course, I seemed to receive an oppressive revelation of the feebleness of humanity; of the inadequacy of even genius to lead to true greatness if unaided by religion and principle. In the value, or even the reality of these two things he would never believe till within a few days of his end, and then all at once he seemed to open his heart to a conviction of their existence and worth. The remembrance of this strange change now comforts my poor Father greatly. I myself, with painful, mournful joy, heard him praying softly in his dying moments, and to the last prayer which my father offered up at his bedside, he added ‘amen’. How unusual that word appeared from his lips, of course you, who did not know him, cannot conceive. Akin to this alteration was that in his feelings towards his relatives, all bitterness seemed gone.
When the struggle was over and a marble calm began to succeed the last dread agony, I felt, as I had never felt before, that there was peace and forgiveness for him in Heaven. All his errors—to speak plainly, all his vices—seemed nothing to me in that moment; every wrong he had done, every pain he has caused, vanished; his sufferings only were remembered; the wrench to the natural affections only was felt. If Man can thus experience total oblivion of his fellow’s imperfections—how much more can the Eternal Being, who made man, forgive his creature?
Had his sins been scarlet in their dye, I believe now they are white as wool. He is at rest, and that comforts us all. Long before he quitted this world Life had no happiness for him…
F. A. Leyland, in his biography The Brontë Family, published in 1885, denied a certain assertion made by Mrs Gaskell, and spoke briefly of the deaths of Emily and Anne:
Amongst Mrs Gaskell’s other statements regarding him, there is one, relating even to his death, which cannot be passed over in silence… The statement was to the effect that, when Branwell died, his pockets were filled with the letters of the lady whom he had admired. To this bold statement Martha Brown gave to me a flat contradiction, declaring that she was employed in the sick-room at the time, and had personal knowledge that not one letter, nor a vestige of one, from the lady in question was so found. The letters were mostly from a gentleman of Branwell’s acquaintance, then living near the place of his former employment. Martha was indignant at the misrepresentation.
It may not be amiss here, in the briefest possible way, to give an outline of the subsequent history of the Brontë family. Emily’s health began rapidly to fail after Branwell’s death, which was a great shock to her, and she never left the house alive after the Sunday succeeding it. Her cough was very obstinate, and she was troubled with shortness of breath. Charlotte saw the danger, but could do nothing to ward it off, for Emily was silent and reserved, gave no answers to questions, and took no remedies that were prescribed. She grew weaker daily, and the end came on Tuesday, December 19th.
At the same time Anne was slowly failing, but she lingered longer… Unlike Emily, she looked for sympathy, took medicines, and did her best to get well. It was arranged at last that Charlotte and she should go to Scarborough, hoping the change of air might invigorate her, and they left the parsonage on May 24th, 1849. But the change had no beneficial effect, and Anne died on May 28th, at Scarborough, where she was buried.
Charlotte herself, writing once again to Mr Williams on June 25th, 1849, after the successive deaths of Emily and Anne, left a lasting impression of loneliness and grief, which Branwell’s undated sonnet, Peaceful Death and Happy Life, redrafted from the original Percy’s Last Sonnet of 1837, so poignantly foreshadowed:
I am now again at home, where I returned last Thursday. I call it home still—much as London would be called London if an earthquake should shake its streets to ruins. But let me not be ungrateful: Haworth parsonage is still a home for me, and not quite a ruined or desolate home either. Papa is there, and two most affectionate and faithful servants, and two old dogs, in their way as faithful and affectionate—Emily’s large house-dog, which lay at the foot of her dying bed, and followed her funeral to the vault, lying in the pew crouched at our feet while the burial service was being read, and Anne’s little spaniel. The ecstasy of these poor animals when I came in was something singular; at former returns from brief absence they always welcomed me, warmly, but not in that strange, heart-touching way. I am certain they thought that, as I was returned, my sisters were not far behind—but here my sisters will come no more. Keeper may visit Emily’s little bedroom as he still does day by day, and Flossy may look wistfully round for Anne; they will never see them again; nor shall I—at least the human part of me. I must not write so sadly, but how can I help thinking, and feeling, sadly? In the daytime effort and occupation aid me, but when evening darkens something within my heart revolts against the burden of solitude; the sense of loss and want grows almost too much for me. I am not good or amiable in such moments—I am rebellious—and it is only the thoughts of my dear Father in the next room, or of the kind servants in the kitchen, or some caress of the poor dogs, which restores me to softer sentiments and more rational views. As to the night—could I do without bed, I would never seek it. Waking I think, sleeping I dream of them—and I cannot recall them as they were in health; still they appear to me in sickness and suffering. Still my nights were worse after the first shock of Branwell’s death. They were terrible then, and the impressions experienced on waking were at that time such as we do not put into language…
Peaceful Death and Happy Life
Why dost thou sorrow for the happy dead
For if their life be lost, their toils are o’er
And woe and want shall trouble them no more,
Nor ever slept they in an earthly bed
So sound as now they sleep while dreamless, laid
In the dark chambers of that unknown shore
Where Night and Silence seal each guarded door:
So turn from such as these thy drooping head
And mourn the ‘dead alive’—whose spirit flies –
Whose life departs before his death has come –
Who finds no Heaven beyond Life’s gloomy skies,
Who sees no Hope to brighten up that gloom;
Tis HE who feels the worm that never dies –
The REAL death and darkness of the tomb.
‘Northangerland.’