Agnes Strickland's Queens of England (40 page)

two whole weeks. But he was not permitted to be quiet, for his small soldiers were constantly at his bedside blowing their trumpets, beating drums, building toy fortifications, and making a great deal more noise most of the time than was good for the invalid. The old nurse of Princess Anne sent the sick boy a large doll dressed as a warrior by one of his attendants named Wetherby. This present occasioned much indignation among the young soldiers, because it was full six months since any of them had condescended to play with toys of so effeminate a nature, and sentence of destruction was immediately pronounced on the doll. No sooner was it carried into effect than it was decided that the inessenger ought to receive punishment, too.

[A.D. 1695.] But Wetherby knew what a rough lot of boys surrounded the prince, and, taking warning by the treatment the doll had received at their hands, hastened down Campden-Hill and hid himself. In the afternoon the unfortunate fellow was discovered and captured, —four grown men having been pressed into the service, — and locked up all night. The next morning he was brought before the Duke of Gloucester, who pronounced his sentence. Wetherby was forthwith bound, hand and foot, mounted on a large hobby-horse and soused all over with water from large syringes. This was all done for the amusement of the duke; and as Wetherby had taken part on various occasions in playing similar jokes on the men who assisted the boys, they showed him no mercy now. When the poor prisoner was half-drowned, he was drawti into the presence of the invalid, who enjoyed immensely his woeful plight.

The following summer change of air was strongly recommended for the royal boy by Dr. Radcliffe, and, after seeking accommodation at several watering-places, the Princess

Anne decided to take him to Twickenham. There she was offered three adjoining houses which belonged to Mrs. Davies, a gentlewoman more than eighty years of age, who had belonged to the court of Charles I. This lady was bright, cheerful, healthy, and excessively pious. She was simple in her habits, and had lived on fruit and herbs nearly all her life. She was well-born and rich, and owned a large estate, on which were planted a number of fine fruit trees. Her cherries, which were just ripe when the princess went to Twickenham, were the finest in all the country around; and the old lady gave the people of the royal household full permission to gather as many as they chose, providing that they would not injure her trees, of which she was very proud.

At the end of a month Princess Anne ordered her treasurer to hand Mrs. Davies a hundred guineas for rent and the trouble her people had given ; but the aged hostess positively refused to accept a farthing, and when pressed to receive the money, she indignantly arose, and, letting the gold-pieces that had been placed in her lap, roll all over the floor, quietly walked out of the room. The princess was astonished at such generosity, and declared that, although it would have been a pleasure to her to reward the old lady to the utmost of her power, her feelings must not be hurt by a further offer of money.

The little Duke of Gloucester formed such a warm attachment for Mrs. Davies that he loved to nestle in her lap and confide to her all his secret woes. His younger and fairer associates, who lavished flattery and attention on him, w-ere not half so attractive as the honest dame, who, having nothing to gain or lose, always told him the truth. The royal boy's religious education had not been neglected ; prayers had been read to him twice every day by his chaplain; but he never knew what they meant,

nobody had taken the trouble to explain them; and he had naturally paid little attention to what he had failed to understand. Mrs. Davies soon comprehended where the difficulty lay; and it was from her lips that the duke learned the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, the Ten Commandments, and several hymns, all of which were carefully and patiently explained until they were made clear to his infant mind.

One Sunday, when the princess was preparing to go to church, her son asked if he might accompany her. She was surprised, because he had never made such a request before, but gave permission. Then the little Duke of Gloucester ran to inform his governess, Lady Fitzharding, who asked him if he would say the psalms, — a performance to which he had always objected.

" I will sing them," proudly replied the boy; thus showing the effect of his aged friend's instruction.

One day, while the princess was making her toilet, the boy looked up into her face and asked: " Mamma, why have you two chaplains, and I but one ? "

"Pray," returned the mother, with an amused smile, " what do you give your one chaplain ?" She merely asked this question to hear what sort of a reply her son would make, and to find out whether he knew that the chaplains of the royal household received no pay.

The little duke looked at her earnestly for a moment, and then said: " Mamma, I give him his liberty! "

The princess laughed heartily at the little boy's unconscious repartee.

On his return to Campden House the Duke of Gloucester found his soldier company posted as sentinels on guard, and they received their commander with presented arms and all the honors of war. After that the daily drill took place regularly on an open plain, called Wormwood Com-

mon. One morning the duke fell with a pistol in his hand, and hurt his forehead against it. The wound was still bleeding when he reached Campden House, and the ladies began to pity him; but he put on a bold air and told them " that a bullet had grazed his forehead , but that as a soldier he could not cry when wounded."

There was so much ceremony observed among the royal attendants all the time that Mr. "Pratt, the tutor, considered it an infringement of his rights when Jenkins, the Welsh usher, undertook to give the Duke of Gloucester his first lessons in fencing and mathematics.

The child ran to his mother every time he learned anything new to make a display of his knowledge ; but Jenkins was told to " mind his own business " by those who considered that he ought to be otherwise employed. Lady Fitz-harding, in particular, found great fault with his filling the duke's head with such " stuff " as mathematics, and seemed to regard the figures dfawn in geometry some sort of magic-signs that savored of witchcraft. But her husband eased her mind by assuring her that Lewis Jenkins " was a good youth, who had read much, but meant no harm." The princess ordered Lord Fitzharding to hinder Jenkins from teaching her son anything, because he might get wrong ideas, that it would be hard to correct when he began to study according to the regular method.

Shortly after she saw the duke fencing with a wooden sword, and defending himself against the attack of an imaginary foe. " I thought 1 forbade your people to fence with you," observed her royal highness.

"Oh yes, mamma," replied the child; "but I hope you will give them leave to defend themselves when I attack them."

He never tired of hearing tales from ancient history, and could recite many exploits of the heroes, much to the dis-

gust of the tutor, who knew that the knowledge had not been imparted by him.

On the return of her brother-in-law in the autumn, Princess Anne wrote him a letter of congratulation on his conquest of Namur. The one she wrote after the death of the queen had resulted so favorably to herself that she expected equally pleasant effects from the present one; but she soon found her mistake, for the king had come home in a bad humor, and treated her letter with silent contempt. Perhaps congratulations seemed out of place when he remembered that the lives of twelve thousand men had paid the cost of his victory, besides an enormous sum of money.

A few weeks later he made a state visit to Campden House, when the duke received him with military honors. The king was very much amused, and asked the child " whether he had any horses yet."

" Oh yes," replied he, " I have one live horse and two dead ones."

" You keep dead horses', do you ?" asked his majesty. " That is not the way with soldiers, for they always bury their dead horses"

The little duke was impressed by what his uncle had said, and determined to be as much like a real soldier as possible; so he summoned his regiment as soon as the king had departed, and buried his two hobby horses that he had designated as dead ones. A Shetland pony, no larger than a Newfoundland dog, was his riding animal.

During the icing's absence Princess Anne had received all due honors, as first royal lady of the realm, and this gratified her ambition entirely; but when his majesty thought fit to confer upon his favorite, Bentinck, and his heirs forever, all the rights of the Princess of Wales, not only was Anne justly indignant at seeing her son de-

prived of his privileges, but the whole country viewed the action with extreme disfavor, and the House of Commons contested it with great warmth. William III. was compelled to revoke the grant; but the hard feeling it had aroused in the mind of Princess Anne remained, and his majesty took no pains to conciliate her. On the contrary, as soon as he was convinced that the removal of his wife had not affected his position, he began to regret the alliance he had formed with his sister-in-law, and treated her with marked disrespect. He even forbade the members of the clergy to bow before her previous to beginning their sermons, according to the custom in the Church of England at that time. To be sure, the Dean of Canterbury and the rector of St. James's Church did not pay the slightest attention to the prohibition, and the princess always returned their salute with marked civility.

King William had become dreadfully irritable since the death of his wife. We know that he was naturally surly and ill-natured; but his fondness for Holland gin excited him to such a degree that he would cane his inferior servants if they chanced to neglect even the most trifling duty. The way they tried to dodge his majesty when he was in an unusually fractious mood was amusing, and the members of the royal household called those who were obliged to submit to the blows " King William's Knights of the Cane."

A French servant, who had charge of his majesty's guns, and who attended him in his shooting excursions in the Hampden Court park, forgot one day to provide himself with shot, although it was his duty to load the fowling-piece. He did not dare to acknowledge his neglect, but kept charging the gun with powder only, and every time the king fired would exclaim, " I did never, — no, never, see his majesty miss before." Thus are petty tyrants invariably deceived.

The Queens of England.

[A,D. 1696.] As the anniversary of King William's birthday approached there was a flutter of excitement at court, and all the beaux and belles of the English nobility flocked to town to attend the grand reception that was to take place. This was no pleasure to William, for he had been aided in such matters by his wife, who had known better how to conduct herself on such occasions than he did ; and now that he had to undertake a ceremony which he disliked, with no one one to guide him, he felt his bereav-

HUNTING LODGE.

ment more deeply than ever. If he had been friendly towards Anne he might have enlisted her ser\'ices, and escaped from some of the etiquette that was so irksome to him. But instead of that, he actually treated her with no more consideration than he showed to the wives of the aldermen and common councilmen, and kept her waiting with them for nearly two hours in the ante-chamber. This insult was repeated on several similar occasions, until the

public began to murmur, and the English officials who had access to the king took the liberty of reminding him that her royal highness was his superior by birth, and that the nation would not submit to his showing contempt towards their princess. Then his majesty deemed it prudent to alter his arrangements, and at the future receptions the lord chamberlain was instructed to usher her royal highness into the presence chamber immediately on her arrival. After that, all her attendants were treated with respect, and the king showed himself enough of a diplomatist to extend favors that would redound to his own credit. He called at Campden House and requested Princess Anne and her husband to take possession of St. James's Palace as soon as they pleased, and further surprised them with the announcement that as a garter had fallen into his possession by the death of Lord Strafford, he intended to bestow it upon his nephew, the Duke of Gloucester. This visit was succeeded by one from Burnet, the Bishop of Salisbury, who came with the information that a meeting of the Order of the Garter would be held on the sixth of January, and asked the duke if the thought of becoming a knight did not please him. f I am more pleased at the king's favor," was the discreet reply.

It was King William himself who buckled on the little duke's garter and presented the star, both of which he was to wear daily forever afte/, — though that office was usually performed by one of the knights.

After resting for awhile in his mother's room on his return to Campden House, the duke went to his play-room, where he met Harry Scull, his favorite drummer. " Your dream has come true, Harry," gladly announced the royal boy, displaying his star and garter to his companion, who had dreamed that he saw his commander so adorned.