Historical Characters in the Reign of Queen Anne

But the king and queen did not see it in this light. “Friends! what friends have you but the king and me?” Queen Mary asked with indignation. It is not to be supposed that she meant any harm to her sister, but with also a sufficiently natural sentiment could not see what Anne’s objection was to dependence upon herself.

The position on both sides is so clearly comprehensible that the strength of party feeling which makes Lord Macaulay defend the somewhat petty attitude of his favorite monarch on the occasion is very extraordinary. It requires no very subtle penetration to see the difference between an allowance that comes from a father and that which depends upon the doubtful friendship of a brother-in-law. Anne had fully proved her capacity to consider the public weal above her own, and it was unworthy of William even to wish to keep in the position of a hanger-on a woman who had so greatly promoted the harmony of his own settlement.

Parliament finally voted her a revenue of fifty thousand pounds a year, as a sort of compromise between the thirty thousand pounds which King William grudged her and the unreasonably large sum which some of her supporters hoped to obtain; but the king and queen never forgave her, and still less her advisers, for what they chose to consider a want of confidence in themselves.

But William was always impatient of the incapable, and the permission was absolutely denied to him. In all these claims and refusals the position of Lady Marlborough as the princess’s right hand had been completely acknowledged by Queen Mary and her husband, who indeed attempted secret negotiations with her on more than one occasion to induce her to moderate Anne’s claims and to persuade her into compliance with their wishes. “She [the queen] sent a great lord to me to desire I would persuade the Princess to keep the Prince from going to sea; and this I was to compass without letting the Princess know it was the Queen’s desire … after this the Queen sent Lord Rochester to me to desire much the same thing. The Prince was not to go to sea, and this not going was to appear his own choice.”

Similar attempts were made in the matter of the allowance. And it is scarcely possible to believe that Mary, a queen who was not without some of the absolutism of the Stuart mind, should have failed to feel a certain exasperation with the bold woman who thus upheld her sister’s little separate court and interest, and was neither to be flattered nor frightened into subservience. And very likely this little separate court was a thorn in the side of the royal pair, keeping constant watch upon all their actions, maintaining a perpetual criticism, no doubt leveling many a jibe at the Dutch retainers, and still more at the Dutch master. Good-natured friends, even in the capacity of courtiers, were no doubt found to whisper in the presence-chamber the witticisms with which Sarah of Marlborough would entertain her mistress—utterances not very brilliant, perhaps, but sharp enough. It would not sweeten the temper of the queen if she found out, for instance, that her great William was known as Caliban in the correspondence of Mrs. Morley and Mrs. Freeman. A hundred petty irritations always come in in such circumstances to increase a breach. What the precise occurrence was which brought about the final explosion is not known, but one day after a stormy scene, in which the queen had in vain demanded from her sister the dismissal of Lady Marlborough, an event occurred which took away everybody’s breath.

This was the sudden dismissal, without reason assigned, at least so far as the public knew, of Lord Marlborough from all his offices. He was lieutenant-general of the army, and he was a gentleman of the king’s bedchamber. Up to this time there had been nothing to find fault with in his conduct. William was too good a soldier himself not to appreciate Marlborough’s military talents, and he had behaved, if not with any enthusiasm for the new order of affairs, with good taste at least in very difficult circumstances. His desertion of James and his powerful presence and influence on the opposite side had contributed much to the bloodless victory of the Prince of Orange; but except so far as this went, Marlborough had shown no hostility to his old master. In the convention he had voted for a regency, and when it became evident that William’s terms must be accepted unconditionally or not at all, he had refrained from voting altogether; so that his support might be considered lukewarm. But, on the other hand, he had served with great distinction abroad, acting with perfect loyalty to his new chief while in command of the English forces. In short, his public aspect up to this time would seem on the face of it to have been irreproachable.

This being the case, his sudden dismissal from court filled his friends with astonishment and dismay. Nobody understood its why or wherefore. “An incident happened which I unwillingly mention,” says Bishop Burnet, “because it cannot be told without some reflection on the memory of the queen, whom I always honored beyond all the persons whom I have ever known.” This regretful preface affords an excellent guarantee of the bishop’s sincerity; but Lord Macaulay omits his statement of the case altogether while quoting passages from the then unpublished manuscript which seemed to support his own views. “The Earl of Nottingham,” Burnet continues, “came to the Earl of Marlborough with a message from the King telling him that he had no more use for his services, and therefore he demanded all his commissions. What drew so sudden and hard a message was not known, for he had been with the King that morning and had parted with him in the ordinary manner. It seemed some letter was intercepted that gave suspicions: it is certain that he thought he was too little considered, and that he had upon many occasions censured the King’s conduct and reflected on the Dutch.” Lord Macaulay, on the other hand, ignoring this statement, assures his readers that the real ground of the dismissal had been communicated to Anne on the previous night (notwithstanding that the great general had been privileged to put on the king’s shirt next morning as if nothing had happened), and that it was in reality the discovery of a plot for James’s restoration, conceived by Marlborough, and in which the princess herself was implicated. It was reported to be Marlborough’s intention to move in the House of Lords an address to William, requesting him to dismiss the foreign servants who surrounded him, and of whom the English were bitterly jealous. Such a scheme of reprisals would have had a certain humor in its summary reversal of the position, and no doubt must Sarah herself have had some hand in its construction, if it ever existed. William was as little likely to give up Bentinck and Keppel as Anne was to sacrifice the friends whom she loved, and a breach between the Parliament and the king would have been, it was hoped, the natural result—to be followed by a coup d’état, in which James might be replaced under stringent conditions upon the throne. The sole evidence for this plot is King James himself, who describes it in his diary. Lord Macaulay adds that it is strongly confirmed by Burnet, but this, we take leave to think, is not the case. At the same time there seems no reason to doubt King James, who adds that the plan was defeated by the indiscreet zeal of some of his own fidèles, who feared that Marlborough, were he once master of the situation, would put Anne on the throne instead of her father.

Whether, however, this supposed proposal was, or was not, the reason of Marlborough’s dismissal, it is clear enough that he had resumed a secret correspondence with the banished king at St.-Germain, whom, not very long before, he had deserted. But so had most of the statesmen who surrounded William, even the admiral in whose hands the English reputation at sea was soon to be placed. The sins of the others were winked at while Maryborough was thus made an example of: perhaps because he was the most dangerous; perhaps because he had involved the princess in his treachery, persuading her to send a letter and make affectionate overtures to her father. Is it possible that it was this very letter which Burnet says was intercepted, inclosed most likely in one from Marlborough more distinct in its offers? Here is Anne’s simple performance, a thing not calculated to do either harm or good:

I have been very desirous of some safe opportunity to make you a sincere and humble offer of my duty and submission, and to beg you will be assured that I am both truly concerned for the misfortunes of your condition, and sensible as I ought to be of my own unhappiness: as to what you may think I have contributed to it, if wishes could recall what is past, I had long since redeemed my fault. I am sensible that it would have been a great relief to me if I could have found means to have acquainted you earlier with my repentant thoughts, but I hope they may find the advantage of coming late—of being less suspected of insincerity than perhaps they would have been at any time before. It will be a great addition to the ease I propose to my own mind by this plain confession, if I am so happy as to find that it brings any real satisfaction to yours, and that you are as indulgent and easy to receive my humble submissions as I am to make them in a free disinterested acknowledgment of my fault, for no other end but to deserve and receive your pardon.

These involved and halting sentences by themselves could afford but little satisfaction to the anxious banished court at St.-Germain. To say so much, yet to say so little, though easy to a confused intelligence, not knowing very well what it meant, is a thing which would have taxed the powers of the most astute conspirators. But there could be little doubt that a penitent princess thus ready to implore her father’s pardon, would be a powerful auxiliary, with the country just then in the stage of natural disappointment which is prone to follow a great crisis, and that Marlborough was doubly dangerous with such a card in his hands to play.

A little pause occurred after his dismissal. The court by this time had gone to Kensington, out of sight and hearing of the Cockpit, Whitehall having been burned in the previous year. The princess continued, no doubt in no very friendly mood, to take her way to the suburban palace in the evenings and make one at her sister’s game of basset, showing by her abstraction, and the traces of tears about her eyes, her state of depression yet revolt. But about three weeks after that great event, something suggested to Lady Marlborough the idea of accompanying her princess to the royal presence. It was strictly within her right to do so, in attendance on her mistress, and perhaps it was considered in the family council at the Cockpit that the existing state of affairs could not go on, and that it was best to end it one way or another. One can imagine the stir in the ante-chambers, the suppressed excitement in the drawing-room, when the princess, less subdued than for some weeks past, her eyes no longer red, nor the corners of her mouth drooping, came suddenly in out of the night, with the well-known buoyant figure after her, proud head erect and eyes aflame, her mistress’s train upon her arm, but the air of a triumphant queen on her countenance. There would be a pause of consternation—and for a moment it would seem as if Mary, thus defied, must burst forth in wrath upon the culprit. What glances must have passed between the court ladies behind their fans! What whispers in the

corners! The queen, in the midst, pale with anger, restraining herself with difficulty; the princess, perhaps beginning to quake; but Sarah, undaunted, knowing no reason why she should not be there—“since to attend the princess was only paying her duty where it was owing.”

But next morning brought, as they must have foreseen it would bring, a royal missive, meant to carry dismay and terror, in which Mary commanded her sister to dismiss her friend and make instant submission. “I tell you plainly Lady Marlborough must not continue with you in the circumstances in which her lord is,” the queen wrote; “never anybody was suffered to live at court in my Lord Marlborough’s circumstances.” There is nothing undignified in Mary’s letter. She was in all respects more capable of expressing herself than her sister, and she had so far right on her side that Lady Marlborough’s appearance at court was little less than a deliberate insult to her. “I have all the reason imaginable to look upon you bringing her here as the strangest thing that ever was done, nor could all my kindness for you have hindered me showing you that moment, but I considered your condition, and that made me master of myself so far as not to take notice of it there,” the queen said. The princess’s condition had often to be taken into consideration, and perhaps she was not unwilling that her superiority in this respect to her childless sister should be fully evident. She was then within a few weeks of her confinement—not a moment when an affectionate and very dependent woman could lightly be parted from her bosom friend.

Thus the situation was brought to a climax. It was not to be expected, however, that Anne could have submitted to a mandate which in reality would have taken from her all power to choose her own friends; and her affections were so firmly fixed upon her beloved companion that it is evident life without Sarah would have been a blank to her. She answered in a letter studiously compiled in defense both of herself and her retainer. “I am satisfied she cannot have been guilty of any fault to you, and it would be extremely to her advantage if I could here repeat every word that ever she had said to me of you in her whole life,” says the princess; and she ends entreating her sister to “recall your severe command,” and declaring that there is no misery “that I cannot readily resolve to suffer rather than the thought of parting with her.” But things had gone too far to be stopped by any such appeal. The letter was answered by the lord chamberlain in person with a message forbidding Lady Marlborough to continue at the Cockpit. This was arbitrary in the highest degree, for the house was Anne’s private property, bought for and settled upon her by Charles III.; and it was unreasonable, for Whitehall was lying in ruins, and Queen Mary’s sight at Kensington could not be offended by the spectacle of the couple who had so annoyed her. The princess’s spirit was roused. She wrote to her sister that she herself would be “obliged to retire,” since such were the terms of her continuance, and sent immediately to the Duke of Somerset to ask for a lease of Sion House. It is said that William so far interfered in the squabble—in which indeed he had been influential all along—as to ask the duke to refuse this trifling favor. But of all English noble houses the proud Somersets were the last to be dictated to; and Anne established herself triumphantly in her banishment on the banks of the Thames with her favorite at her side.

A child was born a little later, and the queen paid Anne an angry visit of ceremony a day or two after the event, saying nothing to her but on the vexed subject. “I have made the first step by coming to you,” Mary said, approaching the bed where the poor princess lay, sad and suffering, for her baby had died soon after its birth, “and I now expect you should make the next by removing Lady Marlborough.” The princess, “trembling, and as white as her sheet,” stammered forth her plaintive protest that this was the only thing in which she had disobliged her sister, and that “it was unreasonable to ask it of her,” whereupon Mary, without another word, left the room and the house. It was the last time they ever met, unlikely as such a thing seemed. Anne made various overtures of reconciliation, but as unconditional obedience was promised in none, Mary’s heart was not softened.

The only justification that can be offered for the queen’s behavior was that they had been long separated and had little but the formal tie of relationship to bind them to each other. Anne had been but a child when Mary left England. They were both married and surrounded by other affections when they met again. They had so much resemblance of nature that each seems to have been capable of but one passion. It was Mary’s good fortune to love her husband with all her heart—but to all appearance no one else. She had not a friend among all the ladies who had shared her life for years—no intimate or companion who could give her any solace when he was absent. Natural affection was not strong in their family. They had no mother, nor bond of common relationship except the father whom they both superseded. All this explains to a certain extent her coldness to Anne, and it is very likely she thought she was doing the best thing possible for her sister in endeavoring to separate her from an evil influence, an inferior who was her mistress. But this does not excuse the paltry and cruel persecution to which the younger sister was henceforward exposed. Every honor that belonged to her rank was taken from her, from the sentry at her door to the text upon her cushion at church. She was allowed no guard; when she went into the country the rural mayors were forbidden to present addresses to her and pay the usual honors which mayors delight to pay. The great court ladies were given to understand that whoever visited her would not be received by the queen. A more irritating and miserable persecution could not be, nor one more lowering to the character of the chief performer in it.

Anne was but recovering from the illness that followed her confinement, and with which her sister’s angry visit was supposed to have something to do, when another blow fell upon the band of friends. Marlborough was suddenly arrested and sent to the Tower. There was reason enough perhaps for his previous disgrace in the secret relations with St.-Germain which he was known to have resumed; but the charge afterward made was a purely fictitious one, and he and the other great personages involved had little difficulty in proving this innocence. The correspondence which took place while Lady Marlborough was in town with her husband on this occasion reveals Anne very clearly in her affectionate simplicity.

I hear Lord Marlborough is sent to the Tower; and though I am certain they have nothing against him, and expected by your letter it would be so, yet I was struck when I was told it; for methinks it is a dismal thing to have one’s friends sent to that place. I have a thousand melancholy thoughts, and cannot help fearing they hinder you from coming to me; though how they can do that without making you a prisoner, I cannot imagine. I am just told by pretty good hands that as soon as the wind turns westerly there will be a guard set upon the prince and me. If you hear there is any such thing designed and that ’tis easy to you, pray let me see you before the wind changes: for afterward one does not know whether they will let one have opportunities of speaking to one another. But let them do what they please, nothing shall ever vex me, so I can have the satisfaction of seeing dear Mrs. Freeman; and I swear I would live on bread and water between four walls with her without repining; for so long as you continue kind, nothing can ever be a real mortification to your faithful Mrs. Morley, who wishes she may never enjoy a moment’s happiness in this world or the next if ever she proves false to you.

Whether the wind proving “westerly” was a phrase understood between the correspondents, or if it had anything to do with the event of the impending battle on which the fate of England was hanging, it is difficult to tell. If it was used in the latter sense, the victorious battle of La Hogue, by which all recent discomfitures were redeemed, soon restored the government to calm and the consciousness of triumph, and made conspiracy comparatively insignificant. Before this great deliverance was known, Anne had written a submissive letter to her sister, informing her that she had now recovered her strength “well enough to go abroad,” and asking leave to pay her respects to the queen. To which Mary returned a stern answer declaring that such civilities were unnecessary as long as her sister declined to do the thing required of her. Anne sent a copy of this letter to Lady Marlborough, announcing, as she was now “at liberty to go where I please by the queen refusing to see me,” her intention of coming to London to see her friend, but this intention does not seem to have been carried out. “I am very sensibly touched with the misfortune that my dear Mrs. Freeman has had in losing her son, knowing very well what it is to lose a child,” the princess writes, “but she, knowing my heart so well and how great a share I have in all her concerns, I will not say any more on this subject for fear of renewing her passion too much.” Throughout this separation these little billets were continually coming and going, and we cannot do better than transcribe for the reader some of those innocent letters, so natural and full of the writer’s heart.

Though I have nothing to say to my dear Mrs. Freeman I cannot help inquiring how she and her Lord does. If it be not convenient for you to write when you receive this, either keep the bearer till it is, or let me have a word from you by the next opportunity when it is easy to you, for I would not be a constraint to you at any time, much less now when you have so many things to do and think of. All I desire to hear from you at such a time is that you and yours are well, which next to having my Lord Marlborough out of his enemies’ power, is the best news that can come to her, who to the last moment of her life will be dear to Mrs. Freeman’s....

I give dear Mrs. Freeman a thousand thanks for her letter which gives me an account of her concerns; and that is what I desire more to know than other news. I shall reckon the days and hours and think it very long till the time is out, both for your sake and my Lord Marlborough’s, and that he may be at liberty and your mind at ease. And, dear Mrs. Freeman, don’t say when I can see you if I come to town, therefore I ask which day will be most convenient for you. I confess I long to see you, but am not so unreasonable to desire that satisfaction till it is easy to you. I wish with all my soul that you may not be a true prophetess, and that it may soon be in our power to enjoy one another’s company more than it has been of late, which is all I covet in this world....

I am sorry with all my heart Mrs. Freeman meets with so many delays, but it is a comfort they cannot keep my Lord Marlborough in the Tower longer than the end of the term, and I hope when the Parliament sits care will be taken that people may not be clapt up for nothing, or else there will be no living in quiet for anybody but insolent Dutch and sneaking mercenary Englishmen. Dear Mrs. Freeman, farewell—be assured your faithful Mrs. Morley can never change, and I hope you do not in the least doubt of her kindness, which, if it be possible, increases every day, and that can never have an end but with her life. Mrs. Morley hopes her dear Mrs. Freeman will let her have the satisfaction of hearing again from her to-morrow....

Dear Mrs. Freeman may easily imagine I cannot have much to say since I saw her. However, I must write two words, for though I believe she does not doubt of my constancy, feeling how base and false all the world is, I am of that temper I think I can never say enough to assure you of it. Therefore give me leave to assure you they can never change me. And there is no misery I cannot readily resolve to suffer rather than the thoughts of parting from you. And I do swear I would sooner be torn in pieces than alter this my resolution. My dear Mrs. Freeman, I long to hear from you.

This pretty correspondence changed a little, but only to grow more impassioned, when the princess had gone to Bath and the friends were less near each other.

Anne was, however, pursued by the royal displeasure even in her invalid journey to Bath, and no less a person than Lord Nottingham, the lord chamberlain, was employed to warn the mayor of that city that his civilities to the princess were ill-timed. Such a disclosure of the family quarrel evinced a determination and bitterness which perhaps frightened even Lady Marlborough, courageous as she was; and she seems to have offered and even pressed her resignation as a means of making peace. But nothing altered the devotion of her faithful princess.

I really long to know how my dear Mrs. Freeman got home, and now I have this opportunity of writing she must give me leave to tell her if she should ever be so cruel as to leave her faithful Mrs. Morley she will rob her of all the joy and quiet of her life; for if that day should come, I could never enjoy a happy minute, and I swear to you I would shut myself up and never see a creature. If you do but remember what the queen said to me the night before your lord was turned out of all; then she began to pick quarrels; and if they should take off twenty or thirty thousand pounds, have I not lived upon as little before? When I was first married we had but twenty (it is true indeed the king was so kind to pay my debts) and if it should come to that again what retrenchment is there in my family I would not willingly make and be glad of that pretence to do it? Never fancy, my dear Mrs. Freeman, if what you fear should happen, that you are the occasion; no, I am very well satisfied, and so is the prince, too, that it would have been so however, for Caliban is capable of doing nothing but injustice; therefore rest satisfied you are noways the cause, and let me beg once more for God’s sake that you would not mention parting more, no, not so much as think of it, and if you should ever leave me, be assured it would break your faithful Mrs. Morley’s heart.