Royal Sisters: The Story of the Daughters of James II (14 page)

This worthy lord [went on Anne], does not go publicly to Mass but hears it privately in a priest’s chamber. His lady is as extraordinary in her kind, for she is a flattering, dissembling, false woman; but she has so fawning and endearing a way that she will deceive anybody at first and it is not possible to find out all her ways in a little time.…

The friends smiled at each other.

“That,” said Sarah, “will give them a good idea of Rogers and Rogers’ wife.” Rogers was the name they had given the Sunderlands.

Anne and Sarah had no idea that certain members of their household were sending information about the happenings in the Cockpit to The Hague; and that the Princess of Orange was learning how very much her sister was under the influence of Lady Churchill.

The venomous attacks on various personalities of the Court could not, Mary guessed, have been written by Anne alone. Mary wrote a personal letter to her sister warning her that the reports she received of Lady Churchill did not altogether please her and she begged her sister to be a little more discreet with her woman.

Sarah was with Anne when this letter arrived and as she read it, her face was flooded with angry color.

“There are people who wish you ill, Mrs. Morley,” she declared. “That is the reason why they wish to separate us. They know how I carry your welfare in my heart; they know that I would serve you with my life. Oh, it is clear to me that ill-wishers have done this.”

“It is folly, Sarah. But I will put this right. I will tell my sister immediately how good you are.”

Sarah angrily took the pen from Anne’s hand and wrote:

Sorry people have taken such pains to give so ill a character of Lady Churchill. I believe there is nobody in the world has better notions of religion than she has. It is true she is not so strict as some are, nor does she keep such a bustle with religion; which I confess I think is never the worse, for one sees so many saints mere devils, that if one be a good Christian, the less show one makes the better in my opinion. Then, as for moral principles, it is impossible to have better, and without all that, lifting up of the hands and eyes, and often going to church will prove but a lame devotion. One thing more I must say for her which is that she has a true sense of the doctrine of our Church, and abhors all the principles of the church of Rome. As to this particular, I assure you she will never change. The same thing I will venture, now I am on this subject, to say for her lord, for though he is a very faithful servant to King James, and the King is very kind to him, and I believe he will always obey the King in all things that are consistent with religion, yet rather than change
that
, I daresay he will lose all his places and everything he has.…

Sarah looked up. She had written some of the fury out of herself.

“This is the sort of letter,” she said, “I suggest you write to the Princess of Orange. It is monstrous that one who has done nothing but good should be so slandered. But I know that my dear Mrs. Morley will not allow this injustice to pass. I know she will write this letter to her sister.”

“You may trust me, my dear Mrs. Freeman,” Anne promised her.

Sarah left Anne
to write her letters and went to her own apartments to cool off her temper.

The Princess of Orange had never liked her. A pretty state of affairs if she should return and take the throne. Who knew what influence she would try to exert over Anne—she, and her Caliban of a husband.

Anne could be a sentimental fool. Like her father she was often brooding on the old days of childhood. It was “Dear Mary this” and “Dear Mary that.”

Well, thought Sarah, not even the Queen of England shall insult Sarah Churchill.

Sarah came running
into her mistress’s apartments. She was flushed and breathless and before she spoke Anne saw that something had happened to upset her.

“You have not yet heard the rumors,” said Sarah. “I can see that.”

“Tell me, Sarah, what is it?”

“The Queen believes that she may be pregnant.”

Anne started at Sarah; not until this moment had the Princess realized how deep were her desires, how ambitious she had become.

The Queen pregnant! What if she should be brought to bed of a son. That would be the end of all Anne’s dreams. If she had a half brother, neither she nor Mary could come to the throne.

THE WARMING-PAN SCANDAL

s soon as the news was made public the Court
and country was alive with speculation. “This is the end of hope,” said some. Others retorted: “On the contrary, this is the beginning. This is the chance.”

There were some who said that if James had a son who was Prince of Wales and rightful heir to the throne, the people would have no one but him to be King.

A boy brought up to be a Catholic? And did they think his father and mother would allow him to be brought up otherwise? Then there would be no doubt whatever of the old religion coming back. And were the people going to endure that?

James and his Queen were overjoyed. Neither of them seemed conscious of the trouble all about them. James went on bringing in unpopular measures which favored Catholics; and in the streets the people cried: “No popery.”

Anne spent her days in discussion with Sarah. It must not happen, they said; and because it would be the end of all their hopes they believed it never would.

No one was sure who started the rumor that the Queen was not really pregnant but was pretending to be. The theme of these rumors was that the King was so desirous of bringing back the Catholic faith to England that he would foist a spurious baby on the country if necessary. The child would be brought up as a Catholic; he would have only Catholics about him; and how easy it would be when all the important positions were in the hands of papists, and the King was a papist, to turn the whole country back to Rome!

Anne liked this rumor; it appealed to her love of intrigue as well as to her ambition; with Sarah’s help she sought to keep it alive.

She wrote to Mary:

Mansell’s wife looks better than she ever did which is not usual. I believe that her great belly is a false one. She is positive that the child will be a son, and the principle of that religion being such that they will stick at nothing, be it never so wicked if it will promote their interest, indicates that some foul play is intended.

In Holland Mary read her sister’s letters and showed them to her husband, whom she obeyed in all things. It was very comforting to them that the rumors were being spread in England.

James, having heard
nothing of the rumors, continued delighted, while he deluded himself that his dear daughters were as pleased at the prospect of a birth in the family as he was.

Mary Beatrice, the Queen, was better informed, although she knew that it was quite impossible to make James face the fact that Anne was not the devoted daughter he believed her to be. She herself was bewildered because she had always been on good terms with both her stepdaughters and at first believed that others were poisoning Anne’s mind against her.

But Anne’s behavior at the Queen’s toilet—at which it was the Princess’s duty to attend—began to worry Mary Beatrice. Anne was continually spying on her, attempting to feel her body, to catch glimpses of her naked, and Mary Beatrice, who had a great sense of her own dignity, became very resentful.

The more obvious this became, the more Anne turned against her stepmother; she was now doing everything possible to convince her sister Mary that the Queen was posing as a pregnant woman when she was not so at all.

On one occasion Anne, leaning forward to help her stepmother with her chemise, attempted to touch her body. Mary Beatrice was suddenly so angry that she lifted a glove which lay on a table and struck Anne across the face with it.

Anne drew back in astonishment.

“Your Majesty …” she stammered.

But the Queen threw the glove back on to the table and stared straight in front of her.

Anne returned to her own apartments and it was not long before Sarah came hurrying to her, for the story of the slap in the face had been quickly spread.

“The insolence!” cried Sarah.

“She would reply to that, that she is the Queen.”

“For the moment,” said Sarah darkly. “Oh, it’s clear to me that she is a guilty woman. Why, if she were not, should she fly into such a passion? I think you should write to your sister. This is a terrible thing which is about to burst on our country.”

So under Sarah’s guidance Anne wrote once more to Mary.

She should, to convince the world, make either me or some of my friends feel her belly. But whenever one talks with her being with child she looks as if she is afraid one should touch her. I believe when she is brought to bed nobody will be convinced it is her child, except it prove a daughter.

This letter brought
an unexpected and alarming response. Mary wrote to Anne telling her that in view of all these doubts as to whether or not the Queen was pregnant, she and the Prince had decided that it was desirable that they should come to England to see for themselves whether in fact the Queen was about to bear a child.