By the end of his life, Newton was one of the most famous men in England, his pre eminence in matters scientific unchallenged. He had also become a wealthy man, he invested his substantial income wisely, and had enough to make sizable gifts to charity and leave a small fortune behind in his will. Whether he was happy is another question. He had never made friends easily, and in his later years his peculiar combination of pride, insecurity, and distraction seems to have interfered with his relationships. He never married, and lived as the monk of science, having channeled all his sexual energy into his work. His only close relationships with women were familial. with his niece, with whom he lived for some years, and much earlier, with his mother, who had died in 1679. Around 1700 he had briefly courted a wealthy widow, but nothing came of it.