Read My Heart

by Jane Dunn

  It seems likely that Dorothy and William began to collect paintings seriously during this time in the Netherlands where they were surrounded by so many working artists and so much available art. When their descendants sold part of their extensive collection in the early nineteenth century* there were many paintings by Dutch and Flemish artists in the sale. Apart from the important van Dycks (portraits of Charles II and his mother Henrietta Maria among them, and almost certainly bought in England), there was also a study by Rubens, three paintings by Breughel the Elder and family portraits by Gaspar Netscher. William had already given a Holbein portrait to the king: he owned at least two more along with an impressive collection of Italian Renaissance paintings by Leonardo da Vinci, Fra Angelico, Giorgione, Veronese, Paris Bordone, and his master, Titian.

  Although he hated the cold foggy weather and longed for the beautiful English landscapes of home, William was impressed by so many aspects of daily life in the United Provinces and noted approvingly the frugality, efficiency and lack of ostentation of its people in all walks of life. He published in 1672, to acclaim, his survey entitled Observations upon the United Provinces of the Netherlands and in it devoted some space to his thoughts on the Dutch people themselves. This is a piece that Dorothy would have been sure to have seen and commented on. First he commended Dutch frugality: ‘Their common riches lie in every man’s having more than he spends; or, to say it more properly, in every man’s spending less than he has coming in, be that what it will: nor does it enter into men’s heads among them, that the common port or course of expence should equal the revenue; and, when this happens, they think at least they have lived that year to no purpose; and the train of it discredits a man among them, as much as any vicious or prodigal extravagance does in other countries.’

  This remarkable resistance to living on credit must have made William feel all the more uneasy at how his government expected him to live way above his means in financing an expensive embassy out of his own meagre fortune. He pointed out, however, the interesting fact that such general frugality meant the Dutch did not mind paying their heavy taxes, because they always had extra money in hand. These taxes helped provide a kind of welfare state where indigent people like old sailors would be cared for in special ‘hospitals’, residential institutions for those in need,* and also contributed to the civic efficiency and charm of the general environment: ‘This makes the beauty and strength of their towns, the commodiousness of travelling in their country by their canals, bridges, and cawseys; the pleasantness of their walks, and their grafts [streets on either side of the canal] in and near all their cities: and, in short, the beauty, convenience, and sometimes magnificence, of all public works, to which every man pays as willingly, and takes as much pleasure and vanity in them as those of other countries do in the same circumstances, among the possessions of their families, or private inheritance.’

  Despite all these admirable qualities, William found the disposition of the Dutch rather stolid and uninspired, business and trade being a major preoccupation. He was also taken aback by the obsession with cleanliness in most Dutch households, where everyone lived to a much more fastidious standard than was the case in England. On one occasion, dining with the chief burgomaster Hoeft* in Amsterdam, William was suffering from a bad cold. As a well-brought-up, socially sophisticated ambassador, he was a man who had dined with earls and dukes and hobnobbed with the king, but he thought nothing of clearing his throat during the meal and spitting on the floor. This was absolutely acceptable behaviour in the most urbane company in England at the time. It never occurred to William that he was transgressing Dutch etiquette and his only surprise, and indeed some regret, was that he was giving extra work to a kindly serving girl who sprang forward each time with a white cloth to clean up his gobbet of phlegm from the spotless floor.

  The cheerful and good-humoured burgomaster pointed out with a laugh how William had had a lucky escape: ‘that if his wife had been at home, though I were an Ambassador, she would have turned me out of doors for fouling her house’. This incident prompted more stories ‘of the strange and curious cleanliness so general in that city; and some so extravagant that my sister took them for a jest’. The best story told that afternoon was of a magistrate visiting a lady in her town house while wearing shoes that were less than spotlessly clean. Her maid, ‘a strapping North-Holland lass’,55 on catching sight of the offending shoes, took his arms and, without a word, threw the visitor on to her back like a sack and carried him over the threshold and across two rooms before depositing him at the bottom of the stairs. Here she removed his shoes and proffered a pair of slippers: only then was he deemed fit to walk on the carpets and pay his respects to the mistress of the house.

  William was intrigued by theories of cause and effect and had worked out his own ideas on how the dampness and cold of the weather possibly affected Dutch national psychology:

  In general, all appetites and passions seem to run lower and cooler here, than in other countries where I have conversed. Avarice may be excepted. And yet that shall not be so violent, where it feeds only upon industry and parsimony, as where it breaks out into fraud, rapine and oppression. But quarrels are seldom seen among them, unless in their drink, revenge rarely heard of, or jealousy known. Their tempers are not airy enough for joy, or any unusual strains of pleasant humour, nor warm enough for love. This is talked of sometimes among the younger men, but as a thing they have heard of, rather than felt; and as a discourse that becomes them, rather than affects them.56

  The suggested lack of passion in the Dutch character may well have explained the religious toleration that appealed so much to William after religious passions, prejudices and discrimination had had such a destructive effect on the lives of his own countrymen and women over the previous century and a half. Certainly his libertarian approach to faith and individual conscience found a happy resonance in the phlegmatic and non-judgemental Dutch: ‘They argue without interest or anger; they differ without enmity or scorn; and they agree without confederacy. Men live together, like citizens of the world, associated by the common ties of humanity, and by the bonds of peace, under the impartial protection of indifferent laws, with equal encouragement of all art and industry, and equal freedom of speculation and inquiry … The power of religion among them, where it is, lies in every man’s heart.’57

  Dorothy, William and Martha entertained both de Witt and the Prince of Orange socially and both Dutchmen grew increasingly at ease in their dealings with the intelligent and sympathetic Temples. There were also friends from England who came to visit and explore the East India Company warehouses and the unique townscape of canals and handsome buildings, with water and boats everywhere.

  Diplomatically, William’s task in this embassy to The Hague was a frustrating and melancholy one. He believed implicitly in all the principles of his Triple Alliance, wary always of France’s power and certain that it needed to be checked. But quite soon after taking up his new post he began to wonder if Arlington and the king were equally committed. In April 1669 de Witt came to him, as a friend rather than in any official capacity, with news of a troubling conversation he had had with a Swedish agent, Esaias Puffendorff,* who was on his way home having spent some time in the French court, where his brother was Swedish resident. He reported that Louis XIV’s ministers had told him ‘at length (but as a secret only for the service and information of the court of Sweden), that England would certainly fail them, and was already changed in the course of all those counsels they had taken with Holland and Sweden, though they did not think fit to let any thing of it appear’.58

  William was as puzzled by this story as was de Witt and sought to reassure him that he had heard nothing that made him suspicious and ‘that it was hard to think I could be deceived. That, however, I could answer for no man but myself [but] if ever these measures were broken, it should not be by me.’59

  Deceived was precisely what he was. Worse still for this most honourable of men, he was implicated in
the deceptions of others. Charles II had possibly already secretly converted to Catholicism and was working on a plan with Arlington to restore his country to that faith with the help of French financial aid. Breaking the treaty with the Dutch was an integral part of these new ambitions and in the centre of negotiations was the king’s beautiful, beguiling youngest sister Henriette-Anne, Duchess of Orléans, popularly known as Madame. Her eventual journey in April 1670 across the English Channel to visit her doting brother Charles produced the Treaty of Dover, signed the following June and kept secret from William and the Dutch. Martha noted succinctly in her memoir: ‘in this time happen’d Madames Journey into England wch is so well knowne to have changed them all [in their attitude to William]’.60 In this, Charles II agreed to turn against his ally and unite with England’s old enemy. He accepted a massive bribe from Louis XIV of 3 million francs a year to wage war on the United Provinces, and another 2 million to restore the Catholic faith in England.

  This meant the end of everything William believed in diplomatically and had carried to fruition with such speed and flair. Despondent at Charles’s ministers’ carping complaints about the Dutch and already suspicious at an evasiveness in Arlington, William had written earlier that year to him, a man he had long trusted as a friend, revealing a dawning unease: ‘My wings are cut, and that frankness of my heart which made me think everybody meant as well as I did, is much allayed.’61 Unease would turn to humiliation when he was summoned back to London in September: his sister characterised the order, ‘as soon as you receive this you must put yr foot in the stirrup’ which William duly did even though he was suffering from a very painful swelling in his face and aching teeth, possibly due to an abscess. The wind was bitterly cold and Martha wrote that this and the difficult and exhausting journey exacerbated his infection so badly he was plagued periodically by the effects of it throughout the rest of his life.

  His reception when he finally arrived at court was unforeseen by him, shocking and demeaning. Used to Arlington stopping whatever he was doing to greet him with warmth and enthusiasm, William this time was treated as if he were of little consequence and his presence an inconvenience. He was shown into a side room and expected to wait for an hour and a half while Arlington continued with non-pressing business. Eventually given an audience, he was hurt by his mentor’s coldness to him and disappointed not to be told why he had been summoned with such urgency. Instead Arlington called in his small daughter who had been playing in the next room and left William to entertain her and Lord Crofts, who had dropped by informally.

  William returned the next day, hopeful of being allowed to pay his respects to the king as he had always done in the past. Arlington took him to meet Charles as he walked in the Mall but William was asked only a few cursory questions about his time in The Hague and then the king walked on. William hung about court, not something that suited his temperament even when he was well and in good spirits, kept waiting for the interview that would explain the peremptoriness of his recall. Eventually Arlington organised a meeting with his ambassador and began his preamble full of compliments as to William’s embassy and his exemplary work on behalf of his country and king. Soon, however, the discussion turned heated when Arlington suggested William was too sympathetic to the Dutch point of view in the conflict over the East India Company’s activities and the Dutch retention of Surinam. William explained the progress of this conversation in a letter to his father. Having enumerated all his efforts to Arlington on behalf of his government, he asked him in exasperation:

  In the name of God what he thought a man could do more? Upon this, in a great rage, [Arlington] answered me, Yes; he would tell me what a man might do more, and what I ought to do more, which was, to let the King and all the world know how basely and unworthily the [Dutch] States had used him; and to declare publicly how their Ministers were a company of rogues and rascals, and not fit for his Majesty or any other Prince to have anything to do with: and this was a part that nobody could do as well as I. My answer was very calm: that I was not a man fit to make declarations: that whenever I did, upon any occasion, I should speak of all men what I thought of them; and so I should do of the [Dutch] State, and the Ministers I had dealt with there, which was all I could say of this business. And so our conversation ended.

  This was sorry proof at last to William that Charles and his ministers were not only intent on dismantling everything he had worked for but also expected him to be a cynical part of their warmongering, a role he categorically refused. He had in fact been sent to lie abroad for his country but had refused to do so and instead upheld his own personal code of honour. This would not be countenanced. To his father he admitted: ‘I apprehend weather coming, that I shall have no mind to be abroad in: and therefore resolved to get a warm house over my head as soon as I could: and neither apprehend any uneasiness of mind or fortune in the private life I propose to myself.’62

  But his government had other ideas. They continued their deceit with the Dutch ministers at court, encouraging them to believe that Charles’s policy towards their country was unchanged. To keep up the charade, William was not allowed to resign his embassy immediately and forbidden to recall Dorothy and his family. They had to remain in The Hague until war was imminent. But as Dorothy’s letter to him soon after his arrival in England showed, elements of Dutch opinion already feared the worst. This letter revealed how closely Dorothy was involved with his diplomatic work, how much in her husband’s confidence, and how readily she was treated as an equal by the agents and diplomats they mixed with at The Hague.

  My dearest Heart [she wrote on the last day of October 1670], I have a letter from P., who says in character that you may take it from him that the Duke of Buckingham has begun a negotiation there, but what success he may have in England he knows not, that it were to be wished our politicians at home would consider well that there is no trust to be put in alliances with ambitious kings, especially such as make it their fundamental maxim to be base [Louis XIV]. These are bold words, but they are his own. Besides this, there is nothing but that the French king grows very thrifty, that all his buildings, except fortifications, are ceased, and that his payments are not so regular as they used to be. The people here are of another mind; they will not spare their money, but they are resolved – at least the States of Holland, if the rest will consent – to raise fourteen new regiments of foot and six troops of horse; that all the companies, both old and new, shall be of 120 men that used to be 50, and every troop 80 that used to be 45. Nothing is talked of but the new levies, and the young men are much pleased. Downter [William’s secretary] says they have strong suspicions here you will come back no more, and that they will be left in the lurch; that something is striking up with France and that you are sent away because you are too well inclined to these countries [the United Provinces].

  Dorothy reinforced the point to her husband by relating that Downter had also told her that leading ministers in Charles’s government were talking openly, saying ‘you were not to stay long here [The Hague], because you were too great a friend of the people’. She signed off with the characteristically affectionate, ‘I am my best dear’s most affectionate D.T.’63

  Out of favour, his political principles out of fashion, deprived temporarily of his family and impoverished by the deliberate withholding of money owed him for his embassy – amounting to £2,000,* so his sister claimed – William retired to his house and garden at Sheen, certain that his diplomatic achievements were negated and his career over. Once more his friends and his father encouraged him to cultivate his connections at court and trade on his reputation in the hopes of getting a peerage, to no avail. William explained to his father that the tide in his affairs was ebbing:

  I shall think myself enough rewarded, considering how different a value is now like to be put upon my services in Holland, from what there was when they were performed. It is very likely at that time, as you believe, there were few reasonable things the King would have denied me, whil
e the triple alliance and our league with Holland had so great a vogue; and my friends were not wanting in their advices to me to make use of it. But I have resolved never to ask him any thing, otherways than by serving him well.64

  With this he showed how morally and temperamentally he was out of step with the age. Instead William busied himself beautifying his house and grounds at Sheen where he intended to spend £1,000,† he said, to improve the facilities in the house and lay out the garden. His father had given him a gift of £500 with a strong suggestion that he improve and regularise the front aspect of his house. In a letter to the old man he was duly grateful and promised that his generous gift ‘may be laid out rather for ornament than use’,65 possibly on a series of classical statues, as William loved using them in a garden as a way of harmoniously punctuating the visual sweep of a parterre or to draw the eye to a particularly pleasing vista. While William worked at improving the comfort and pleasure of his small estate in Surrey, his redoubtable and much loved wife lived out her exile on Charles II’s orders.

  Against her own high principles of honesty, Dorothy had to continue to live at The Hague with her children, conducting what social activities she could to try to keep the pretence alive that relations between her country and the Dutch remained as good as when William had negotiated the Triple Alliance. William, organising his building works and gardens at Sheen, was meanwhile grateful to be free of the gossip and jockeying for advancement at an increasingly jaded court where the French were in the ascendancy, not least the pretty Louise de Kéroualle* who had become Charles II’s latest mistress.