“My imagination presented before me all the pomp, power and greatness that attend a crown; and I was so perplexed I knew not what to answer, but remained as silent as if I had lost the use of my speech. My father, who guessed what it was that made me in this condition, proceeded to bring all the arguments he thought most likely to bend me to his will; at last I recovered from this dream of grandeur, and begged him, by all the most endearing names I could think of, not to urge me dishonorably to forsake the man who I was convinced would raise me to an empire if in his power, and who had enough in his power to give me all I desired. But he was deaf to all I could say, and insisted that by next week I should prepare myself to go to court: he bid me consider of it, and not prefer a ridiculous notion of honor to the real interest of my whole family; but, above all things, not to disclose what he had trusted me with. On which he left me to my own thoughts. When I was alone I reflected how little real tenderness this behavior showed to me, whose happiness he did not at all consult, but only looked on me as a ladder, on which he could climb to the height of his own ambitious desires: and when I thought on his fondness for me in my infancy I could impute it to nothing but either the liking me as a plaything or the gratification of his vanity in my beauty. But I was too much divided between a crown and my engagement to lord Percy to spend much time in thinking of anything else; and, although my father had positively forbid me, yet, when he came next, I could not help acquainting him with all that had passed, with the reserve only of the struggle in my own mind on the first mention of being a queen. I expected he would have received the news with the greatest agonies; but he showed no vast emotion: however, he could not help turning pale, and, taking me by the hand, looked at me with an air of tenderness, and said, ‘If being a queen would make you happy, and it is in your power to be so, I would not for the world prevent it, let me suffer what I will.’ This amazing greatness of mind had on me quite the contrary effect from what it ought to have had; for, instead of increasing my love for him it almost put an end to it, and I began to think, if he could part with me, the matter was not much. And I am convinced, when any man gives up the possession of a woman whose consent he has once obtained, let his motive be ever so generous, he will disoblige her. I could not help showing my dissatisfaction, and told him I was very glad this affair sat so easily on him. He had not power to answer, but was so suddenly struck with this unexpected ill-natured turn I gave his behavior, that he stood amazed for some time, and then bowed and left me. Now I was again left to my own reflections; but to make anything intelligible out of them is quite impossible: I wished to be a queen, and wished I might not be one: I would have my lord Percy happy without me; and yet I would not have the power of my charms be so weak that he could bear the thought of life after being disappointed in my love. But the result of all these confused thoughts was a resolution to obey my father. I am afraid there was not much duty in the case, though at that time I was glad to take hold of that small shadow to save me from looking on my own actions in the true light. When my lover came again I looked on him with that coldness that he could not bear, on purpose to rid myself of all importunity: for since I had resolved to use him ill I regarded him as the monument of my shame, and his every look appeared to me to upbraid me. My father soon carried me to court; there I had no very hard part to act; for, with the experience I had had of mankind, I could find no great difficulty in managing a man who liked me, and for whom I not only did not care but had an utter aversion to: but this aversion he believed to be virtue; for how credulous is a man who has an inclination to believe! And I took care sometimes to drop words of cottages and love, and how happy the woman was who fixed her affections on a man in such a station of life that she might show her love without being suspected of hypocrisy or mercenary views. All this was swallowed very easily by the amorous king, who pushed on the divorce with the utmost impetuosity, although the affair lasted a good while, and I remained most part of the time behind the curtain. Whenever the king mentioned it to me I used such arguments against it as I thought the most likely to make him the more eager for it; begging that, unless his conscience was really touched, he would not on my account give any grief to his virtuous queen; for in being her handmaid I thought myself highly honored; and that I would not only forego a crown, but even give up the pleasure of ever seeing him more, rather than wrong my royal mistress. This way of talking, joined to his eager desire to possess my person, convinced the king so strongly of my exalted merit, that he thought it a meritorious act to displace the woman (whom he could not have so good an opinion of, because he was tired of her), and to put me in her place. After about a year’s stay at court, as the king’s love to me began to be talked of, it was thought proper to remove me, that there might be no umbrage given to the queen’s party. I was forced to comply with this, though greatly against my will; for I was very jealous that absence might change the king’s mind. I retired again with my father to his country-seat, but it had no longer those charms for me which I once enjoyed there; for my mind was now too much taken up with ambition to make room for any other thoughts. During my stay here, my royal lover often sent gentlemen to me with messages and letters, which I always answered in the manner I thought would best bring about my designs, which were to come back again to court. In all the letters that passed between us there was something so kingly and commanding in his, and so deceitful and submissive in mine, that I sometimes could not help reflecting on the difference betwixt this correspondence and that with lord Percy; yet I was so pressed forward by the desire of a crown, I could not think of turning back. In all I wrote I continually praised his resolution of letting me be at a distance from him, since at this time it conduced indeed to my honor; but, what was of ten times more weight with me, I thought it was necessary for his; and I would sooner suffer anything in the world than be any means of hurt to him, either in his interest or reputation. I always gave some hints of ill health, with some reflections how necessary the peace of the mind was to that of the body. By these means I brought him to recall me again by the most absolute command, which I, for a little time, artfully delayed (for I knew the impatience of his temper would not bear any contradictions), till he made my father in a manner force me to what I most wished, with the utmost appearance of reluctance on my side. When I had gained this point I began to think which way I could separate the king from the queen, for hitherto they lived in the same house. The lady Mary, the queen’s daughter, being then about sixteen, I sought for emissaries of her own age that I could confide in, to instill into her mind disrespectful thoughts of her father, and make a jest of the tenderness of his conscience about the divorce. I knew she had naturally strong passions, and that young people of that age are apt to think those that pretend to be their friends are really so, and only speak their minds freely. I afterwards contrived to have every word she spoke of him carried to the king, who took it all as I could wish, and fancied those things did not come at first from the young lady, but from her mother. He would often talk of it to me, and I agreed with him in his sentiments; but then, as a great proof of my goodness, I always endeavored to excuse her, by saying a lady so long time used to be a royal queen might naturally be a little exasperated with those she fancied would throw her from that station she so justly deserved. By these sort of plots I found the way to make the king angry with the queen; for nothing is easier than to make a man angry with a woman he wants to be rid of, and who stands in the way between him and his pleasure; so that now the king, on the pretense of the queen’s obstinacy in a point where his conscience was so tenderly concerned, parted with her. Everything was now plain before me; I had nothing farther to do but to let the king alone to his own desires; and I had no reason to fear, since they had carried him so far, but that they would urge him on to do everything I aimed at. I was created marchioness of Pembroke. This dignity sat very easy on me; for the thoughts of a much higher title took from me all feeling of this; and I looked upon being a marchioness as a trifle, not that I saw the b
auble in its true light, but because it fell short of what I had figured to myself I should soon obtain. The king’s desires grew very impatient, and it was not long before I was privately married to him. I was no sooner his wife than I found all the queen come upon me; I felt myself conscious of royalty, and even the faces of my most intimate acquaintance seemed to me to be quite strange. I hardly knew them: height had turned my head, and I was like a man placed on a monument, to whose sight all creatures at a great distance below him appear like so many little pigmies crawling about on the earth; and the prospect so greatly delighted me, that I did not presently consider that in both cases descending a few steps erected by human hands would place us in the number of those very pigmies who appeared so despicable. Our marriage was kept private for some time, for it was not thought proper to make it public (the affair of the divorce not being finished) till the birth of my daughter Elizabeth made it necessary. But all who saw me knew it; for my manner of speaking and acting was so much changed with my station, that all around me plainly perceived I was sure I was a queen. While it was a secret I had yet something to wish for; I could not be perfectly satisfied till all the world was acquainted with my fortune: but when my coronation was over, and I was raised to the height of my ambition, instead of finding myself happy, I was in reality more miserable than ever; for, besides that the aversion I had naturally to the king was much more difficult to dissemble after marriage than before, and grew into a perfect detestation, my imagination, which had thus warmly pursued a crown, grew cool when I was in the possession of it, and gave me time to reflect what mighty matter I had gained by all this bustle; and I often used to think myself in the case of the fox-hunter, who, when he has toiled and sweated all day in the chase as if some unheard-of blessing was to crown his success, finds at last all he has got by his labor is a stinking nauseous animal. But my condition was yet worse than his; for he leaves the loathsome wretch to be torn by his hounds, whilst I was obliged to fondle mine, and meanly pretend him to be the object of my love. For the whole time I was in this envied, this exalted state, I led a continual life of hypocrisy, which I now know nothing on earth can compensate. I had no companion but the man I hated. I dared not disclose my sentiments to any person about me, nor did any one presume to enter into any freedom of conversation with me; but all who spoke to me talked to the queen, and not to me; for they would have said just the same things to a dressed-up puppet, if the king had taken a fancy to call it his wife. And as I knew every woman in the court was my enemy, from thinking she had much more right than I had to the place I filled, I thought myself as unhappy as if I had been placed in a wild wood, where there was no human creature for me to speak to, in a continual fear of leaving any traces of my footsteps, lest I should be found by some dreadful monster, or stung by snakes and adders; for such are spiteful women to the objects of their envy. In this worst of all situations I was obliged to hide my melancholy and appear cheerful. This threw me into an error the other way, and I sometimes fell into a levity in my behavior that was afterwards made use of to my disadvantage. I had a son deadborn, which I perceived abated something of the king’s ardor; for his temper could not brook the least disappointment. This gave me no uneasiness; for, not considering the consequences, I could not help being best pleased when I had least of his company. Afterwards I found he had cast his eyes on one of my maids of honor; and, whether it was owing to any art of hers, or only to the king’s violent passions, I was in the end used even worse than my former mistress had been by my means. The decay of the king’s affection was presently seen by all those court-sycophants who continually watch the motions of royal eyes; and the moment they found they could be heard against me they turned my most innocent actions and words, nay, even my very looks, into proofs of the blackest crimes. The king, who was impatient to enjoy his new love, lent a willing ear to all my accusers, who found ways of making him jealous that I was false to his bed. He would not so easily have believed anything against me before, but he was now glad to flatter himself that he had found a reason to do just what he had resolved upon without a reason; and on some slight pretenses and hearsay evidence I was sent to the Tower, where the lady who was my greatest enemy was appointed to watch me and lie in the same chamber with me. This was really as bad a punishment as my death, for she insulted me with those keen reproaches and spiteful witticisms, which threw me into such vapors and violent fits that I knew not what I uttered in this condition. She pretended I had confessed talking ridiculous stuff with a set of low fellows whom I had hardly ever taken notice of, as could have imposed on none but such as were resolved to believe. I was brought to my trial, and, to blacken me the more, accused of conversing criminally with my own brother, whom indeed I loved extremely well, but never looked on him in any other light than as my friend. However, I was condemned to be beheaded, or burnt, as the king pleased; and he was graciously pleased, from the great remains of his love, to choose the mildest sentence. I was much less shocked at this manner of ending my life than I should have been in any other station: but I had had so little enjoyment from the time I had been a queen, that death was the less dreadful to me. The chief things that lay on my conscience were the arts I made use of to induce the king to part with the queen, my ill usage of lady Mary, and my jilting lord Percy. However, I endeavored to calm my mind as well as I could, and hoped these crimes would be forgiven me; for in other respects I had led a very innocent life, and always did all the good-natured actions I found any opportunity of doing. From the time I had it in my power, I gave a great deal of money amongst the poor; I prayed very devoutly, and went to my execution very composedly. Thus I lost my life at the age of twenty-nine, in which short time I believe I went through more variety of scenes than many people who live to be very old. I had lived in a court, where I spent my time in coquetry and gayety; I had experienced what it was to have one of those violent passions which makes the mind all turbulence and anxiety; I had had a lover whom I esteemed and valued, and at the latter part of my life I was raised to a station as high as the vainest woman could wish. But in all these various changes I never enjoyed any real satisfaction, unless in the little time I lived retired in the country free from all noise and hurry, and while I was conscious I was the object of the love and esteem of a man of sense and honor.”
Complete Fictional Works of Henry Fielding Page 406