Historical Characters in the Reign of Queen Anne. Маргарет Олифант
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either then or now, and it has been considered rather an evidence of the discretion of the Churchills than of the generosity and patriotism of the princess. These, perhaps, are rather large words to use in speaking of Anne, but it must be remembered that a narrow mind is usually not less, but more, tenacious of personal honor and advantage than a great one, and that the dimmer an understanding may be, the less it is accessible to high reason and noble motive. This sacrifice accomplished, however, there commenced a petty war between Whitehall and the Cockpit, in which perhaps Mary and Lady Churchill (now Marlborough) were the chief combatants, but which from henceforward until her sister’s death became the principal feature in Anne’s life. Continued squabbling is never lovely even when it is between queens and princesses, but in this case the injured person has had no little injustice, and the offender so many partizans that it may not be amiss to make Anne’s side of the question a little more apparent.
If her friend was to blame for embroiling Anne with the queen, it can scarcely be believed that the princess’s case would have been more satisfactory had she been left in her helplessness to the tender mercies of William, and entirely dependent upon his kindness, which must have happened had there been no bold and strong adviser in the matter. There was no generosity in the treatment which Anne received from the royal pair. She had made a sacrifice to the security of their throne which deserved some grace in return. But her innocent fancy for the palace at Richmond, where the sisters had been brought up together, was not indulged, nor would there be much excuse even if she were in the wrong for the squabblings about her lodging at Whitehall. But she cannot be said to have been in the wrong in the next question which occurred, which was the settlement of her own income. This she had previously drawn from her father, according to the existing custom in the royal family, and James had been always liberal and kind to her. But it was a different thing to depend upon the somewhat grudging hand of an economical brother-in-law, who had a number of foreign dependents to provide for, and a great deal to do with the money granted to him. He alarmed her friends on this point at once by a remark made to Clarendon as to what the princess could want with so large an income as thirty thousand a year; and he does not seem at any time or in any particular to have shown consideration for her. Perhaps the Churchills were afraid that their mistress would be less able than usual to help and further their own fortunes, as is universally alleged against them; but, had they been the most disinterested couple in the world, it would still have been their duty to do what they could to secure her against any caprice of the new king, who had no right to be the arbiter of her fate. Lady Marlborough’s strenuous action to bring the question to the decision of Parliament was nothing less than her mistress’s interests demanded. And the sense of the country was so far with them that the princess’s income was settled with very little difficulty upon a more liberal basis than her father’s allowance; which, considering that she, and the children of whom she was every year becoming the mother, were the only acknowledged heirs of the throne, was a perfectly natural and just arrangement.
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