Agnes Strickland's Queens of England (38 page)

James's only reply was, " That his good intentions must be proved by deeds rather than words."

The result was a very dutiful letter written by Anne to her father; but as Lady Fitzharding acted as a spy for the king, both he and Queen Mary knew all about the letter long before it reached its destination. It was written near the end of the year, and shortly after William's return from Flanders, where some bloody battles had been fought, and a great number of lives had been lost among the English troops; so his majesty's temper was not sweetened in the least.

When it was Marlborough's turn to act as gentleman of the bed-chamber he began his duties, but was soon dismissed, and afterwards received a message, "that the king and queen desired Lord Marlborough to absent himself from their presence for the future."

This made Princess Anne very angry ; but her anger was changed to alarm, when she was informed by an anonymous letter that the next step of the government would be to imprison Lord Marlborough, and added a warning as to the treachery of Lady Fitzharding. The king and queen brought no charge ; because, if they had dared openly to accuse Marlborough of trying to effect a reconciliation between Anne and her father, many of their subjects would have followed his example.

[A.D. 1692.] Shortly after her husband's dismissal, Lady Marlborough attended Princess Anne to a court reception. The next day Queen Mary wrote her sister that not only must the lady not appear again at court, but she must be at once dismissed from her service, because her presence at the Cockpit gave Lord Marlborough an excuse for appearing where he was forbidden to come.

Anne wrote her sister a letter full of remonstrance, praising the virtues of Lady Marlborough, and refusing to part with her. The only reply she got was an official message from Queen Mary, warning Lord and Lady Marlborough to remain no longer at the palace.

But Anne was determined not to part with her favorite, so politely informed the queen rather than do so she herself would depart. She then applied to the Duchess of Somerset for the loan of her Sion house for the summer, and received the reply, " that Sion house was entirely at her service."

King William had requested the Duke of Somerset not to grant the demand of Princess Anne ; and finding that he had not been obeyed, he determined on a petty revenge, rather unusual with him. He ordered that Anne should be deprived of the guards that had attended her ever since her father had allowed her to set up an establishment of her own. This was a serious matter, because highwaymen infested all the roads in the vicinity of London, and the princess was really stopped once when driving out, and robbed of all the jewels and money she had with her. The king and queen were very much censured for allowing their sister to go about in such an unprotected state. This was done by means of placards and circulars; for there were no daily papers in those days for the expression of public opinion, and, as a rule, they were made out in rhyme. Sometimes they were set to music and sung about the streets or in the various coffee-houses.

William returned to his Flemish campaign again in March, and left his wife to govern alone for the third time. Previous to his departure he had signed the warrant which authorized the massacre of Glencove. A hundred men, women, and children were slaughtered in cold blood in this Highland glen ; but William was probably ignorant of the details of this atrocious crime, which cast a dark shadow over his glory. He may have thought that the intention of his agents in Scotland was merely to extirpate a band of thieves, but such was not the case ; theirs was an act of outrageous cruelty prompted by revenge, and William was too much interested in his campaign to pay much attention to it.

One of Mary's first public acts after her husband's departure was to review a band of ten thousand men in Hyde Park, who were destined to defend the capital in case of an invasion from France. Next she sent Russell, an arrogant, dishonest politician, in charge of the English navy, to combine with the Dutch fleet in opposition to the French. It was necessity that compelled the queen to choose Russell for her admiral: she would have preferred the more able Marlborough ; but as he was now an open enemy, ready at a moment's notice to fly to the side of King James, that could not be.

Princess Anne was seriously ill a short time after, and the queen went to see her as soon as she heard of it; but instead of talking kindly to her sister, and expressing sympathy, she merely sat by her bedside for a few moments, and then said : " I have made the first step towards reconciliation by coming to you, and I now hope that you will make the next by dismissing Lady Marlborough." The remark was certainly ill-timed, and no doubt the queen regretted it later ; but she never told her sister so, and they remained enemies to the end. Anne's reply, which

was made in a weak, trembling voice on account of her illness, was : " I have never in my life disobeyed your majesty but in this one particular, and I hope at some time or other it will appear as unreasonable to your majesty as it does now to me." Queen Mary immediately arose and took her departure, but repeated to Prince George, as he was leading her to her carriage, precisely what she had said to his wife. An attack of fever followed her sister's visit, and for several days Anne's life was despaired of, but she recovered at last. No sooner was her convalescence established, however, than she was thrown into a dreadful state of distress, because the queen had ordered Marlborough to be arrested and hurried off to the Tower. The charge brought against him was that he was in correspondence with the court at St. Germain; and while the French invasion threatened Mary thought best to secure herself against his treachery by putting him safely out of the way.

Princess Anne considered herself a very ill-used sister, and never lost an opportunity of appearing in the attitude of injured innocence, so she wrote to Stillingfleet, Bishop of Worcester, and requested him to come to her. He obeyed, and she showed him a letter she had written her sister, the queen, in which she requested permission to wait upon her majesty, but dared not do so without it, because of the displeasure she had incurred. At the conclusion of the letter the princess added, that she would not think of returning to the Cockpit to live unless it was agreeable to her majesty. Anne's reason for sending this submissive document through the Bishop of Worcester, was that she wanted ever}'body to know she had tried to act in a friendly manner towards her sister.

After reading the letter the bishop consented to be the bearer of it, and the reply he brought back was decided and formal.

DUKE AND DUCHESS OK MARLBOROUGH.

The queen stated that she had done all towards a reconciliation that she meant to do, and that if Princess Anne would not consent to the dismissal of Lady Marlborough she need not trouble herself to come to court; for she would not be received.

Knowing that in the circumstances a residence at the Cockpit would be anything but agreeable, Anne retained it only for those of her attendants who were not obnoxious to the government, and leased Berkeley House for herself. Then she wrote to Lady Marlborough, who was with her husband, and related all that had happened, closing her letter with assurances of undying devotion and a desire soon to be reunited.

The battle of La Hogue was so decided a success for the English navy that it restored some of its lost credit. Queen Mary was well pleased with the valor of her sailors, and sent thirty thousand pounds in gold to be distributed among them, and a gold medal to each of the officers. But she deserves credit for a still worthier deed; she ordered the unfinished palace of Greenwich to be fitted up for the wounded seamen, and every possible care to be taken of them.

After the victory of La Hogue the queen made an effort to keep alive the popular enthusiasm by receiving addresses of congratulation, dressed in her regal robes, and by reviewing the militia and artillery companies in person. But she was at the same time guilty of several acts of tyranny in causing the death of those whom the jury had failed to convict.

She kept Lord Marlborough shut up in the Tower as long as possible, and only released him at last on bail. >Iean-while, Princess Anne was deprived of the society of her favorites, but she frequently wrote to Lady Marlborough, and referred to the king as "Caliban," or "that Dutch

monster"; she sometimes mentioned her little son, the Duke of Gloucester, and said that she patiently awaited the bright day when he should arrive at man's estate, so that England might flourish again.

In order to rid the metropolis of burglars, and the neighboring roads of highwaymen, Queen Mary issued a proclamation offering forty pounds a head for such offenders. This led to the execution of an enormous number of people without remedying the evil, and the reward thus obtained was called " blood-money." Queen Mary's order was meant to benefit her subjects, but it proved a serious evil, for the prisons were soon filled to overflowing, and the jailers and thief-catchers played into each other's hands, and often punished innocent people for the sake of the " blood-money." They managed in this way : One of the villains would pretend to be a professional robber, and entice a couple of youths or. dishonestly inclined men to join him in waylaying and robbing a certain party. That party would of course be a confederate, who would follow up the dupes, trace the stolen property with the assistance of the originator of the crime, and by that means cause two arrests and executions, for which the human fiends would receive eighty pounds. Then the chiefs engaged in the plot would meet and divide the spoils at an entertainment to which they gave the name of " the blood-feast."

The executions under this system amounted to as many as forty a month in the city of London alone. Another evil which exists to this very day is to be traced to William and Mary's reign ; it is the establishment of gin-shops. William gave encouragement to the manufactories of spirituous liquors, the imbibing of which is the source of most of the crime and sorrow of the world, and any one who has noticed the number of gin-shops in London, and the drinking saloons in other cities, can scarcely be blind to the evil they tend to promote.

Before King William returned to England again much blood had been shed, and the wealth of both France and Great Britain was nearly exhausted. When Louis XJV, was discussing the probable termination of the war he said : ** Ah, the last guinea will carry the victory." He was right, for the people of both countries were heavily taxed, and it was only a question who should hold out longer with their guineas.

Whenever the king was with her, Mary abandoned all government cares, and took to needlework, in which she was imitated by her ladies. Her favorite occupation in this line was the making of knotted fringe of white flax-thread, that no doubt closely resembled the macrame lace of the present day. The Dutch ladies knitted, and even took their work to church, and kept their fingers employed while listening to a sermon.

[A.D. 1693.] King William's return from Flanders was celebrated by a grand thank^iving dinner at Guildhall, and another at the armory of the Tower, where their majesties dined in state, and were waited on by the master architects and workmen in masonic aprons and regalia. It was the king's policy to gain favor with his English subjects, because he had only come among them for more supplies, and was off again within four months, to remain until towards the end of the year.

During that interval Queen Mary's navy met with two disastrous defeats, and the king had lost the hard-fought, bloody battle of Landen in Flanders. The people of England were groaning under the weight of heavy taxation, and general dissatisfaction with the government was openly expressed. There had been several dishonest prime ministers; but previous to his departure the king appointed Charles Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, to that important position.

We have not said anything about the little Duke of

Gloucester for a long time; but it must not, therefore, be supposed that he was forgotten either by his mother or his royal aunt. He lived at Campden House, and was taken daily to visit the queen whenever she was at Kensington.

[A.D. 1694.] Princess Anne was very desirous that her son should be made a Knight of the Garter; but her relations with the queen were such that she dared not ask it. However, she sent the prince to visit her majesty one day with a broad blue ribbon passed over his shoulder and fastened down on the left side as a reminder. No notice was taken of it; but the child had evidently been taught that something was to be accorded him in connection with the ribbon, for when the queen offered him a brilliantly-colored bird, he looked very sober, and said, " He would not rob her majesty of it."

When he had attained his fifth year, the prince's mother thought it high time that he should be put into masculine attire, and consulted her husband about it, saying that the clothing he was wearing interfered with his military amusements. An order was accordingly given to Lady Fitzhard-ing, who procured for the child a suit of white cloth with silver loops and buttons, and a periwig. Under his waistcoat he wore a stiff corset that hurt him dreadfully. His tailor, Mr. Hughes, was sent for to remedy the trouble, and when he appeared at Campden House he was surprised to find himself surrounded by a score of mimic soldiers,— the Utde prince having summoned his regiment to punish the man who had caused him pain. There is no telling how far the little urchins would have gone, for they were beating and mauling Mr. Hughes at a great rate, when Lewis Jenkins, the usher, appeared to inquire into the cause of the racket. An explanation followed, and, upon the tailor's giving a faithful promise that he would alter the stays to fit his little highness, he was released.