Royal Sisters: The Story of the Daughters of James II

by Jean Plaidy

  “It is a warm morning.”

  “But in that state a woman can feel anything. She is so wrought up that I fear the shock will be too much for her—be it boy or girl.”

  “Much depends on this child,” agreed Lady Sunderland. “She has asked that just at first none should say whether it is a boy or girl for she feels that the pleasure or the disappointment would be unbearable. This should be made known.”

  Margaret nodded.

  The King came into the apartment accompanied by Dr. Walgrave and the midwife.

  James was clearly anxious. He was talking earnestly to the doctor, making anxious inquiries as to the state of the Queen’s health. The doctor thought that all should go well, but he was a little perturbed by the Queen’s anxiety.

  Seeing Lady Sunderland James came to her and expressed his pleasure to see her there.

  “We are all anxious about Her Majesty,” said Lady Sunderland. “She is more excited than she has been at previous confinements.”

  “She longs so much for a boy,” replied James.

  “I have asked the midwife to pull at my dress, Your Majesty, if the child should be a boy, so that no word shall be spoken to excite Her Majesty.”

  “You must give me a sign,” said James. “I shall be watching you eagerly. Touch your forehead like this … if it is a boy. If there is no sign I shall know it is a girl. Then I trust the Queen will be able to rest and recover a little before she hears what is the sex of her child.”

  It was agreed that that should be the sign and the group broke up as the Queen, accompanied by some of her ladies, came into the apartment.

  She got into the bed and it was clear that her pains had started.

  Now the room began to fill. The doctors, nurses, midwife, the Queen’s ladies and officers of the household with eighteen members of the privy council came into the room.

  Mary Beatrice lay back on her pillows groaning.

  By half past nine the atmosphere was stifling because of the crowd assembled there. At the foot of the bed the Privy councillors stood watching.

  “Margaret,” called Mary Beatrice.

  Margaret came to her mistress and took her hand.

  “I cannot endure this,” cried the Queen. “These men staring. Draw the bed curtains.”

  Margaret firmly did so.

  “Pray stand back,” she said to the men. “It is unseemly that you should crowd about the bed at such a time.”

  Shortly afterward the child was born. James was watching Lady Sunderland.

  The midwife was bending over the bed. She turned and quickly pulled Lady Sunderland’s dress, and when Lady Sunderland touched her forehead the King gave a cry of joy. But he could not restrain himself, and must have the joyous information confirmed.

  “What is it?” he demanded in a loud voice.

  The nurse had taken the baby from the midwife. She said in a clear voice which could be heard throughout the apartment: “What Your Majesty desires.”

  James seized the arm of the nurse who held the child and said to the privy councillors: “You have witnessed that my son is born.” Then he turned to the nurse and cried: “Make way. Make way for the Prince of Wales.”

  Mary Beatrice was exhausted but triumphant; the King could not withhold his joy and knighted Dr. Walgrave in the lying-in chamber. The guns of the Tower were firing salutes, and all over London the bells were ringing. There should be a feast for the poor, and wine with which they could drink the health of the Prince of Wales.

  But while the people feasted and drank, they asked themselves what this birth would mean. Were they asked to accept a slice of roasted ox, a flagon of wine—for popery?

  This would be the end of Protestant England. Was it what the people wanted? Those might who had forgotten the Smithfield fires, the threat of Spain; but there were many who remembered. They said the Court was full of those who were flirting with Rome, not seriously, but only for the sake of commandeering the high posts because the best way of advancement at Court was through the Catholic Faith. But many were false Catholics; and when the time came they would turn.

  It was unfortunate that there should be a son at this stage. But was there truly a son?

  On a June morning the Queen’s bed had been warmed by a warming-pan which had been taken into her bed just before she entered it. A warming-pan! A simple homely implement! But it could be significant, for why should not a child be concealed in a warming-pan and put into the bed before the Queen entered it?

  A wild idea? But all knew how wily these Catholics were. They would stop at nothing to do what they wanted.

  The rumor grew. The boy whom they called the Prince of Wales was not the Queen’s child at all. She had not been pregnant. It had all been a pretence. There were stories which had come from the Cockpit and surely the Princess Anne who lived close to the Queen must know; the Queen would let no one see her without her shift, she would let no one feel her body. Why not? Because she was not pregnant. It was a plot, a wicked plot to bring Catholicism back to England.

  And then the confinement. A baby in a warming-pan!

  It was a tale that appealed to the people who wanted to believe that the baby who was called the Prince of Wales was not the son of the King and Queen, but a spurious child whom they hoped to foist on the nation for the sake of the Catholic Faith.

  When Anne returned to London the air was full of rumors which delighted her.

  She was particularly entranced by that of the warming-pan.

  She referred to her half brother as the warming-pan baby, and did her best to keep that story alive.

  Anne wrote to Mary:

  My dear sister can’t imagine the concern and vexation I have been in, that I should be so unfortunate as to be out of town when the Queen was brought to bed, for I shall never more be satisfied whether the child be true or false. It may be that he is our brother, but God knows.…

  Each day she waited for news from Holland; she knew that something would have to be done now, for she did not believe William would allow the scandals concerning the Prince of Wales to die down. If the people accepted him as Prince of Wales, what hope would there be of Mary’s coming to the throne, what hope for Anne?

  While she waited for news from Holland, she must keep the rumors alive. The Mansell boy must never be accepted as her brother.

  Her father was still unpopular in spite of free feasting and drinking. The bishops were still in the Tower. The foolish man, thought Anne, did he not see that by releasing them he would have won more favor than by roasting a few oxen for the poor?

  His enemies made certain that the warming-pan story was the great topic of conversation at all the feasting; and one of the foremost of his enemies was his daughter Anne.

  There was a great activity at St. James’s as the nursery ceremonies took place. The Prince of Wales must have a governess and the Marchioness of Powis was appointed to this post. His two nurses, Mrs. Royere and Madame Labadie, were already installed; he must have an assistant governess to help the Marchioness and Lady Strickland was chosen for this office. In addition he must have his own laundress and seamstress, four rockers and two pages.

  All those who visited him in his cradle declared him to be a bonny child, although in the first hours following his birth there had been a fear that he might succumb to convulsions as other royal children had before him.

  There was such anxiety to keep him alive that too many physicians were appointed to look after him and this almost resulted in a fatal accident, for it was decided to give a drug which was believed to be good for babies and this was done; but the physician who had given it did not inform all the other physicians and one of them, not knowing that the child had already had one dose, gave him another.

  Mary Beatrice awoke with a start to find no one in her bedchamber. Lady Sunderland, who was lady of the bed for that night, should have been present.

  “What has happened?” cried the Queen, while a terrible foreboding came to her.

  Ther
e was no answer; and as she was about to get out of bed, Lady Sunderland came hurrying in. Mary Beatrice knew at once that something had happened to her son; and when Lady Sunderland told her, she fell fainting back on her pillows.

  The news went rapidly round the Court: The Prince is dying.

  The King remained on his knees for hours praying for his son; and Mary Beatrice lay without speaking in her bed. Meanwhile the doctors were bleeding the baby and giving him more physic.

  For several days the little boy’s life was in danger and Anne wrote gleefully to The Hague:

  The Prince of Wales has been ill these three or four days; and if he has been so bad as people say, I believe it will not be long before he is an angel in Heaven.

  It would be the best thing, thought Anne. Then it would be as it was in the days before they had heard Mary Beatrice was pregnant.

  In a few days time however the little Prince was well again, and this gave rise to a new rumor. The Prince was now a bonny blooming boy; it was strange, was it not, that a few days ago he had been nigh to death? What if the boy who had been brought in to the Queen’s bed by means of a warming-pan was dead—and this healthy boy had been substituted for him?

  The twists and turns of the story were becoming farcical, but those who were determined to be rid of James were delighted to accept the rumors as truth.

  Now there was a further rumor more important than any that had gone before.

  In Holland William of Orange was planning an invasion of England, his object being to depose James and set his wife Mary—James’s eldest daughter—on the throne.

  The King could not believe it; he shut his eyes to it. It was impossible, he said. He had always detested William of Orange, but he could not believe that his daughter Mary would ever stand against him.

  He did not take the threat seriously. He did not—or would not—face the fact that there were many Englishmen, even those close to him who, even though professing an inclination toward Catholicism, were determined never to have a Catholic monarch on the throne.

  While James and his Queen had been rejoicing in the birth of the Prince of Wales, these men had seen in the event the sign for action.

  Seven of the most influential men had gone so far as to invite William to come to England. These were Danby and Devonshire, Shrewsbury, Russell, Lumley, the Bishop of London, and Henry Sidney.

  The bells which James had caused to ring with joy for the birth of his Prince were in truth tolling for his own defeat.

  In the Cockpit Sarah and Anne talked in breathless whispers. It was more than a subject for spiteful gossip now. Revolution was in the air. Caliban was coming.

  Anne wondered vaguely whether Caliban would be as kind to her as her father had been; but she looked to Sarah who was slyly pleased. Mary, who suffers from the ague, Sarah was thinking. And William, who will be of no account without her, and then … Anne.

  THE FLIGHT OF THE PRINCESS

  ord Clarendon called at the Cockpit to see his niece. She kept him waiting a while before receiving him—this was on Sarah’s advice—and when he was brought in, Sarah was sure that she was in position to hear everything.

  “My lord,” said Anne, “to what do I owe the honor of this visit. It is rare that you call on me.”

  “Your Highness has been out of town lately. I shall be ready to call on you at any time should you have commands for me.”

  “You have been with my father?” she asked.

  “Yes, Your Highness, and it is of him I would speak. Your Highness knows that preparations are being made in Holland.”

  “Everyone is talking of it.”

  “The King does not take it seriously enough.”

  “Is that so? I had thought him much agitated by the reports.”

  “But he does nothing?”

  “What should he do?”

  “He should gather about him those friends whom he can trust.”

  “Ah, uncle, whom can one trust?”

  “Those who have never proved themselves false,” retorted Clarendon hotly.

  “My father is melancholy. He has heard that the Prince of Orange is soon to embark and that Shrewsbury, Wiltshire, and Sidney are with him. It is disturbing news.”

  “The King your father needs advice and he would listen to you.”

  “I never speak to the King on state matters,” replied Anne.

  “If you showed concern for your father now it would give him great pleasure to know that you were anxious on his account.”

  “But I have told you it is not my place to discuss business.”

  “Does your Highness realize the danger the King is in?”

  “It is not for me to say.”

  Clarendon flushed. “As the King’s daughter does Your Highness not consider it is your place to help him?”

  “I have never discussed such things with the King,” Anne reiterated coolly. She lifted the watch—which was as large as a clock and which hung at her side. “Why I do declare,” she went on, “it is time to prepare for worship and I must not be late for that.”

  Lord Clarendon saw that he was dismissed. He could see, too, that Anne would not help her father; in fact he was not at all sure that she was not secretly pleased that the King’s difficulties were becoming more acute.

  Then, thought Clarendon, the rumors I have heard about the treachery in the Cockpit are true.

  Clarendon discussed that interview with his brother Laurence.

  “The terrible part of it all was that she did not seem to care!” he complained.

  “But, brother, have you not heard that many of the evil rumors about the Prince’s birth actually started at the Cockpit?”

  “I cannot believe it.”

  “Our niece may not possess a brilliant mind but she has a flaming ambition.”

  “You think that she wants him … deposed. Oh, I can’t believe that any daughter would be so ungrateful; and he has been good to her.”

  “He wears a crown, brother. She covets a crown.”

  “But it will not come to her.”

  “After Mary it will.”

  “I won’t believe it. I won’t. I shall call on her again. I shall try to make her see that she must help her father, because he seems incapable of helping himself.”

  “It is what King Charles always feared.”

  “But who would have believed it would ever have come to this! He should be rallying the country. He should reform his ways.”

  “He has released the bishops.”

  “It is not enough. He must let the people know that he will not attempt to foist Catholicism on them. He must gather his faithful friends and prepare for battle. Anne could persuade him I am sure. He would listen to her. You know how he dotes on her since Mary has been under the thumb of Orange. I shall go to her.”

  He did; and found her with Sarah, Lady Fitzharding, and others of her ladies.

  She received him somewhat insolently and would not dismiss her women, who were dressing her. She smiled at him rather maliciously in the mirror and he thought that she took courage from these women about her. “I know what you have come to speak of, my lord,” she said. “This baby whose entrance into the world … or should I say the Queen’s bed … is causing such a stir.”

  “They are saying warming-pans are very commodious these days.” That was Sarah Churchill. An odious woman and an evil influence on the Princess, thought Clarendon.

  “Yet it does not need a great deal of space to carry hot coals,” added Lady Fitzharding.

  Spy! thought Clarendon. Sister of the woman whom everyone knew was the mistress of Orange. What a strange pair these sisters were! There was Mary, heiress to the throne of England, meekly adoring a husband who treated her harshly; and, Anne her sister, surrounding herself with women for whom she seemed to have more regard than for her own father!

  “I do not think, my lord,” retorted Anne, “that you are aware of what the people are saying. It was most unhelpful that those who should have been presen
t at the birth were not there.”

  “All those who wished to attend were invited to do so, Your Highness.”

  “I was saying that it was unfortunate it should happen when those who should have been present were prevented from being there … and I know that before the birth at Her Majesty’s toilet she would go into her private closet and put on her chemise … so that those whose duty it was to look on her belly were unable to do so.”

  The women were tittering; Sarah Churchill laughed out loud.

  It was a scene from which Lord Clarendon felt he must escape at once.

  He took his leave and went to the King. He could not tell him exactly what had happened for James would not believe him and would be furious, not with Anne, but with him; so he said that he believed that people were endeavoring to poison the Princess Anne’s mind and attempting to make her accept this absurd story of the baby in the warming-pan.

  James sent the entire Privy Council to his daughter with an account of what happened at the birth of the Prince.

  “This is not necessary,” said Anne, “for I have so much duty to the King that his word is more to me than these depositions.”

  Clarendon heard this and was glad of the reply for the King’s sake.

  But he was very uneasy and he did not trust his niece.

  James was truly alarmed now. He sought to modify his policies but it was too late, for the whole of Protestant England was looking to Holland. Then James made another of his mistakes when he attempted to strengthen his army by bringing in Catholics from Ireland.

  The English soldiers sullenly discussed those Irish who had been brought in to fight beside them—the Irish who some forty years before in Cromwell’s day had cried Lilliburlero while they slaughtered the Protestants.

  To Purcell’s music words were written and the army began to sing a new song to the old tune and the words inflamed not only the soldiers but the people.