Agnes Strickland's Queens of England (46 page)

This confession convinced the angrj' duchess that she had been a subject of discussion, and she became more in-

dignant than ever to think that so humble a person as her cousin Abigail should presume to speak with her majesty about so high and mighty a creature as herself. She determined to give the young woman a sound rating, but changed her mind, and wrote her an angry, undignified letter instead. But Sarah of Marlborough was not particularly well educated, and made as grave blunders as did her majesty in her attempts at letter-writing. Mrs. Masham, on the other hand, was a woman of talent, and wrote so well in reply as not only to astonish her correspondent, but to convince her that with the pen, at least, she was far her superior, and a person who could ably defend herself against any attack made on paper. Perhaps it would have been well had she explained the accident that caused the queen to overhear the duchess express her loathing and hatred of herself the day when she had put on the gloves by mistake. Abigail Masham might have written, " It was your shameful ingratitude, your offensive remarks, that changed her majesty's heart towards you;" but the secret was not hers, and there is no evidence of her having betrayed her royal mistress all the while she served her.

The queen's unwise consent to witness the secret marriage between Abigail Hill and Samuel Masham was all the proof the Duchess of Marlborough needed that she had been supplanted in the royal favor, and from that moment whatever change she obser\'ed she laid at the door of her successor. Some one has very wisely said of Mrs. Masham's turning her back on the duchess : " She was her near relative, and the defect of base ingratitude seems to run in her family. The duchess should have chosen her watch-dog on the queen, when she became too grand or too indolent to perform that needful office, from a better breed."

Previous to her majesty's removal to Windsor for the summer, a very odd circumstance occurred, which we will leave the duchess and her wrangling for awhile to relate. It is about Prince Matveof, ambassador of Peter the Great of Russia. Having been recalled to Russia, the prince attended the queen's levee for the purpose of taking formal leave of her. No sooner had he left the palace than he was arrested for debt on a writ of Mr. Morton, lace dealer of Covent Garden, and locked up in the bailiff's house. The noble Russian had fought desperately, without seeming to understand why he was seized, and wounded several of the bailifif's men quite seriously. The next day the bill of fifty pounds was paid, and the matter explained; but, as the prince had not had the slightest intention of defrauding the tradesman, he was justly indignant, and left England thoroughly disgusted. When he got home the czar resented the indignity offered to his ambassador by putting a stop to intercourse of trade, adding a threat of" declaration of war. Queen Anne entered into an elaborate explanation, and assured the czar that the insult did not originate from any wrong intended by her or her ministers, but arose from the rudeness of a tradesman. But his Russian highness was by no means satisfied, so he wrote a very formidable document requesting " the high and mighty Princess Anne, Queen of Great Britain and Ireland, to return him, by bearer, the head of Morton, the lace dealer of Covent Garden, together with the heads and hands of any of his aids and abettors in the assault upon Prince Matveof that her majesty might have incarcerated in her dungeons and prisons."

The queen was perfectly amazed at this demand for the heads and hands of her subjects, and requested her secretary " to assure the czar that she had not the disposal 01

any heads in her kingdom excepting those forfeited by the infraction of certain laws, which Mr. Morton and his assistants had not trespassed." The czar either could not, or would not, understand that Englishmen did not have their heads and hands chopped off at the caprice of the crown, and an angry correspondence was continued between the Russian and English governments for two years. At last a happy idea struck the queen, and she sent Mr. Whitworth, a gentleman who understood Russian customs, to say, " that although nothing had been acted against Prince Matveof but what the English law allowed, yet those laws were very bad and inhospitable ones, and that her majesty had had them repealed, so that his imperial highness's ambassadors could never again be subjected to such an injury."

This was no compliment, but a fact; for from that incident laws were caused to be made that protected ambassadors and their suites from arrest, which are in force to the present day. Such laws were sadly needed during Queen Anne's reign to prevent scenes of violence; for ambassadors took precedence according to the supposed rank of the sovereigns they represented. This being the case, the representatives of France and Spain, the two countries that were always at war, had a regular fight, aided by their retinues, at all public processions ; they even went so far as to cut the traces of each other's .coaches, lest the line should be broken and one dash in before the other. It is needless to say that the London populace immensely enjoyed such contests, and the "roughs " invariably gathered where the " mounseers," as they called them, were most likely to begin the fight. Sometimes they were quite serious, and more than one man lost his life while combating for position.

CHAPTER XIV.

When her majesty opened parliament in the autumn she made the usual speech containing entreaties that goodwill and friendship might continue among all ranks of her subjects, but particularly with regard to the newly-made union. King William III. had said, "That he did not desire the experiment of a union with Scotland to be made in his reign, because he had not the good fortune to know what would satisfy a Scotchman," This would seem to apply equally to Queen Anne, for the Scotch were excessively dissatisfied and were already getting up petitions for dissolving the newly-made union, while the English turned up their noses at their northern neighbors, with whom they had no desire to be associated in parliament.

Public affairs did not seem to occupy Queen Anne's attention more than private ones, for the duchess kept her in a constant state of worry with her threats and her ill-temper ; and there was scarely a day when she did not feel the necessity for sending a letter of explanation and apology to the tyrant for some imaginary offence, or some omitted honor, either on her own part or that of Mrs. Masham. There was at this time a matter of private interest under consideration between her majesty and the duchess. The latter had long before asked for a part of St. James Park, on which to build a palace for herself, but as the demand was an unreasonable one, the queen was 466

*7o8. Anm of England. ^^j

less generous and compliant than she had been on previous occasions. But the duchess had set her heart on the very spot she had designated, and get it she would at any cost. So she importuned the poor queen, month after month, and made her displeasure so seriously felt on account of the refusal, that at last she gained her point, and the present Marlborough House marks the spot.

The indignation of the London populace was justly aroused, because, when digging the foundation for her palace, the duchess had caused the removal of a fine oak tree which had sprung from an acorn that Charles II. had brought from Boscobel, and planted with his own hands in this pleasure garden of his queen, Catharine of Braganza,

The Marlborough family were jealous of Robert Har-ley, ex-speaker of the house of commons; and when his secretary, William Gregg, was arrested because he was discovered in traitorous correspondence with the French, they tried very hard to implicate Harley, too, but did not succeed. The secretary was hanged, and there was a hue and cry, because it was said that Queen Anne had sent the prisoner some comforts by her physician, Arbuthnot; but when the matter came to be sifted, it was found that such was her majesty's custom, because she was always unwilling to sentence any one to death; and when obliged to do so tried to alleviate their sufferings while they were in prison as much as possible.

[A.D. 1708.] Angry debates in the queen's cabinet council were of daily occurrence, and her presence was never a check on the coarseness and brutality of the officers. A scene of this sort took place one day when her majesty made an attempt to free herself from the chains of Marlborough and Lord Godolphin. She told her resolution to Mr. St. John, and sent a letter through him to the Duke of Marlborough, having first read it to him, and re-

quested him to tell what she had done about town. This was obeyed without reserve ; and at the next council meeting, when Harley delivered a paper to her majesty containing some accounts of the war, the duke and lord-treasurer, Godolphin, abruptly left the room, whereupon the Duke of Somerset rose and told the queen in a rude tone, "That if she suffered that fellow to treat of affairs of the war, without the advice of the general, he could not serve her."

Of course her majesty was obliged to succumb to the storm she had brought about her head, and forthwith dismissed Harley. Then she was requested to get rid of Mrs. Masham, though the councillors did not make a direct attack on the bed-chamber woman for fear of ridicule. The Duchess of Marlborough demanded a private interview; but did not succeed in having her cousin dismissed, because her aid in nursing the prince-consort was so valuable that the queen strenuously refused to part with her. But the duchess was so friendly in her manners at this interview that she succeeded in exacting a solemn promise from "her dear Mrs. Morley " that if at any time it should become necessary for her to quit her service her places should be transferred to her daughters.

Another singular scene was enacted in the council when the " Pretender " invaded Scotland, and Sir George Byng was sent to intercept his progress. It was urged that if the young prince should be taken, he should forfeit his life; thereupon the queen wept, and the council broke up in confusion.

Although the "Pretender" was really captured, her majesty was spared the embarrassment of deciding as to his fate, for he was landed on French soil. Not so the Jaco^ bites who were taken at the same time, for they were charged with high treason ; and old Lord Griffin was con-

demned to execution. But he pined away, and at the expiration of eighteen months died in prison of old age; for the queen regularly respited him, until she was thus relieved of the pain of putting an end to the existence of one of her father's most faithful servants.

During the summer the queen quarrelled with the Duke of Marlborough, because she desired to appoint colonels in the army, and he justly believed that he was more capable than she could possibly be of judging what, men had deserved promotion. The prime reason for this dispute was that Prince George had some favorites for whom he desired places, and the queen was anxious to gratify him; but the Duke of Marlborough was so angry that he wrote a very severe letter of reproof to his brother, George Churchill, who forthwith showed it to her majesty, and excited a great deal of displeasure.

Meanwhile the duchess kept hammering at Abigail Ma-sham, until at last she got hold of a subject for attack. One of the court spies had taken pains to inform her that her cousin had grand apartments at Kensington Palace, where she received her friends in style whenever they called. After duly turning this piece of news over in her mind, the duchess came to the conclusion that the apartments referred to must be those that King William had fitted up for his favorite, Keppel, and that Queen Anne had subsequently allotted to her. To be sure, she had never occupied them, and probably never would do so; but she was determined that no one else should enjoy them, least of all Abigail Masham. So, in high dudgeon, she posted off to Kensington to inquire into the matter.

Prince George was so ill from gout and asthma, and had grown so excessively fat, that he could not get up or down stairs without a great deal of suffering; therefore he was lodged on the ground-floor of the palace, whence he could

The Queens of England.

walk out in the grounds and enjoy the air whenever he felt able. The queen shared his apartments, and as he often required care at night to prevent his suffocating during his paroxysms of coughing, the bed-chamber women were placed in the adjoining rooms, so they could be summoned in case of need.

WINDSOR FOREST.

On arriving at the palace, the duchess ordered the housemaid to open her suite of apartments, and moved towards those on the ground-floor, although part of them were situated on the one above. The maid replied tliat she could not do so, because they were divided between Mrs. Masham and the bed-chamber women in waiting. That was just what the irate duchess had come to find out; so she imme-

diately made an indignant complaint to the queen, which resulted, after too much absurd wrangling to be worthy of recital, in the removal of the royal household to a house in Windsor Forest, which her majesty had purchased in the days when she was forbidden by Queen Mary to appear at court. In this quiet retreat she watched over her sick husband and sought to relieve his sufferings ; but the duchess declared that the reason Queen Anne spent the summer in that place, " which was as hot as an oven," was to enable Mrs. Masham to admit such persons as desired secret interviews with her majesty, and they could be let in from the park without anybody being the wiser.