Here is the perfect opportunity for Anne to prove, once and for all, that Lady Marlborough could have no greater friend. The dismissal of her husband has come as a great shock to Sarah, and Anne must comfort her, put heart into her, refuse her offers of resignation, lest she run away to St Albans for good, and never come to town again. Mrs Freeman has done nothing wrong; Mrs Freeman is indispensable to Anne’s happiness; Mrs Freeman should not on any account relinquish any of those duties which she performs so much more capably than any other lady Mrs Morley has ever employed; Mrs Freeman is Mrs Morley’s most faithful and trusted Lady, and esteemed friend, and as such she will accompany her mistress to Court.
As they make their progress through the Palace that evening, from the gate to the door of the drawing-room, the same scene plays out again and again: the Princess of Denmark is announced; the room bows and curtsies; then it sees Lady Marlborough; there is the briefest silence, and then a great wave breaks, of exclamations, laughter and, here and there, applause. At the final door, opened by an astonished Gentleman Usher, Anne feels Sarah hesitate: she has to take her hand and all but drag her in.
The drawing-room silence is instant and complete, and, save for the odd uneasy titter, does not seem likely to break. The Lord Chamberlain conducts them to the table where Mary has been playing basset. She sits with her gaze fixed on Anne, her face a perfect mask, while the eyes of the Court flit from one sister to the other and back again. Anne and Sarah make their curtsies, their compliments. Mary accepts these, allows them both to kiss her hand, but after that she turns away and takes her cards up, makes some inconsequential remark to the lady next to her, and carries on as if they were not there. The chatter starts up again. They stay long enough for Anne to exchange a few words with one or two ladies, just to show that she is not ashamed, but the Queen does not invite either of them to sit down, so it is no hardship to be leaving early.
From the Queen to the Princess of Denmark
Kensington, February 5, 1692
Having something to say to you which I know will not be very pleasing, I choose rather to write it first, being unwilling to surprise you, though I think what I am going to tell you should not, if you give yourself time to think, that never any body was suffered to live at Court in Lord Marlborough’s circumstances. I need not repeat the cause he has given the King to do what he has done, nor his unwillingness at all times to come to extremities, though people do deserve it.
I hope you do me the justice to believe it is much against my will that I now tell you that, after this, it is very unfit that Lady Marlborough should stay with you, since that gives her husband so just a pretence of being where he should not. I think I might have expected you should have spoke to me of it; and the King and I, both believing it, made us stay thus long. But seeing you so far from it that you brought Lady Marlborough hither last night, makes us resolve to put it off no longer, but tell you she must not stay, and that I have all the reason imaginable to look upon your bringing her as the strangest thing that ever was done. Nor could all my kindness for you (which is always ready to turn all you do the best way), at any other time, have hindered me from showing you so that moment, but I considered your condition, and that made me master myself so far as not to take notice of it then.
But now I must tell you, it was very unkind in a sister, would have been very uncivil in an equal; and I need not say I have more to claim, which, though my kindness would never make me exact, yet, when I see the use you would make of it, I must tell you I know what is due to me, and expect to have it from you. ’Tis upon that account I tell you plainly, Lady Marlborough must not continue with you, in the circumstances her Lord is.
I know this will be uneasy to you, and I am sorry for it, for I have all the real kindness imaginable for you; and as I ever have, so will always do my part to live with you as sisters ought; that is, not only like so near relations, but like friends, and as such I did think to write to you. For I would have made myself believe your kindness for her made you at first forget what you should have for the King and me, and resolved to put you in mind of it myself, neither of us being willing to come to harsher ways; but the sight of Lady Marlborough having changed my thoughts, does naturally alter my style. And since by that I see how little you seem to consider what, even in common civility, you owe us, I have told it you plainly, but, withal, assure you that, let me have never so much reason to take any thing ill of you, my kindness is so great that I can pass over most things, and live with you as becomes us. And I desire to do so merely from that motive, for I do love you as my sister, and nothing but yourself can make me do otherwise; and that is the reason I choose to write this rather than tell it to you, that you may overcome your first thoughts. And when you have well considered, you will find that, though the thing be hard (which I again assure you I am sorry for), yet it is not unreasonable, but what has ever been practised, and what yourself would do were you Queen in my place.
I will end this with once more desiring you to consider the matter impartially, and take time for it. I do not desire an answer presently, because I would not have you give a rash one. I shall come to your drawing-room tomorrow before you play, because you know why I cannot make one. At some other time we shall reason the business calmly, which I will willingly do, or any thing else that may show it shall never be my fault if we do not live kindly together. Nor will I ever be other, by choice, than Your truly loving and affectionate sister, M. R.
From the Princess of Denmark to the Queen
The Cockpit, February 6, 1692
Your Majesty was in the right to think your letter would be very surprising to me. For you must needs be sensible enough of the kindness I have for my Lady Marlborough to know that a command from you to part with her must be the greatest mortification in the world to me, and indeed of such a nature as I might well have hoped your kindness to me would have always prevented. I am satisfied she cannot have been guilty of any fault to you. And it would be extremely to her advantage if I could repeat every word that ever she said to me of you in her whole life. I confess it is no small addition to my trouble to find the want of Your Majesty’s kindness to me upon this occasion, since I am sure I have always endeavoured to deserve it by all the actions of my life.
Your care of my present condition is extremely obliging. And if you would be pleased to add to it so far as upon my account to recall your severe command (as I must beg leave to call it so in a matter so tender to me and so little reasonable, as I think, to be imposed upon me, that you would scarce require it from the meanest of your subjects) I should ever acknowledge it as a very agreeable mark of your kindness to me. And I must as freely own that as I think this proceeding can be for no other intent than to give me a very sensible mortification, so there is no misery that I cannot readily resolve to suffer rather than the thoughts of parting with her. If after all this that I have said, I must still find myself so unhappy as to be farther pressed in this matter, yet Your Majesty may be assured that as my past actions have given the greatest testimony of my respect both for the King and you, so it shall always be my endeavour, wherever I am, to preserve it carefully for the time to come, as becomes
Your Majesty’s very affectionate sister and servant.
Syon House
Lord, I wish it were in my power to understand why you have seen fit to harden my sister’s heart against me in this way. There is ever the suspicion in my heart, especially when I wake at night, or am lame for some days together, or fear to lose another child, that my sins must weigh heavily indeed, for why else would you afflict me so? For certainly whatever the King and Queen do to me is only what you have suffered them to do; but, for the life of me, with my mean understanding, all I can ever think is that she is jealous of the great jewel you have given me in Lady Marlborough’s friendship, and that he – he is still angry that he was bested over the matter of my revenue and, knave that he is, he means out of revenge to make the Prince and me uncomforta
ble in any way he can.
But I shall not be parted from my friend, for I could no more part with my own soul. It is a great sorrow to me that the Queen will not understand this: she has refused to listen to my entreaties; she has refused to listen to my Uncle Rochester – not that he would ever plead my case in any manner sincere enough to damage his own interest with the King and Queen. Indeed it is every day clearer to me that it is not to my own kin that I can look for true friendship in this world. My loyalty must, in all conscience, lie with those who have proved most loyal to me, however prejudicial it might be to my own interests, so if the King sees fit to banish Lady Marlborough from Whitehall, then I sincerely believe I have no choice but to leave with her – and might not the kindness the Duke of Somerset has shown in leasing us Syon House be taken as a sign of your blessing?
It is indeed a mercy to have such a place of refuge in these times. Isleworth promises to be very pretty come spring, and there is that about the Park that puts me in mind of Richmond, where we were all of us once so content . . . I do believe Mary was content then, and though she might have reproached me for this or that offence she was never unkind. I cannot help but suppose it is the King’s influence that makes her so unkind to me now. I visited her before I left, in some hopes she might relent a little, but I might just as well have made my compliment to a statue. When the Lord Chamberlain did not show me out, it was the sign of what was to come, for these days the Prince and I are treated like the meanest nobodies. Our guard has been taken away, so I was forced to travel here by chair without any proper attendance; when the Prince went to London, the guard at St James’s did not present arms to him as they were supposed to – and I cannot doubt but that they showed such Dutch breeding on Dutch orders, especially since last week, when the Prince took leave of the King before he went abroad again – as was only proper – and came back to Syon to tell me he had barely been taken notice of.
All these humiliations, these petty slights are what the King and Queen hope to vex us with, but they shall be confounded, for they only strengthen my resolve, and are proof to me that to deny such a pair of monsters the satisfaction they seek is no sin, be they King and Queen of all the world. And moreover, when I see how they conduct themselves in this matter, and note how little I am daunted by it, it comes to me that what I suffer at their hands may not after all be chastisement at yours, but rather a trial of my heart and my faith, that they might both be proven in the fire, and pray I might be found unto praise and honour when my time comes.
And I pray also that you will not suffer Lady Marlborough to have any more of the cruel thoughts she has of abandoning me. Every day she offers to resign, every other day she begs me to let her go, and then I weep, for I do swear I had rather live in a cottage with her than reign empress of all the world without her.
17th April 1692
Anne is on the rack again and this time it is worse. The pangs are fierce and so irregular that she cannot prepare herself as she has grown used to doing; worse than that, is the way they spread themselves into burning girdles all the way around her middle and then go crawling up and down her spine. If she is to die in travail, then surely it will be this time. She sends Sir Benjamin Bathurst to present her humble duty to the Queen, and to tell her how much worse she is than usual, but when he comes back it is only to tell her that the Queen would not see him, and had no answer to give.
She cannot complain of lack of assistance: she has Lady Marlborough with her, Danvers, Farthing, two good midwives of the Parish of Isleworth, and, of less value but still present, a pair of vapid Lady Charlottes – Frescheville and Beverwaert – but for all their combined skill, experience, willingness, duty, love and prayers, there is nothing, nothing they can do to help their mistress. She is lost to the pain. She rocks on all fours and cries out to God. When the chief midwife has examined her for the fourth time in an hour, she calls her deputy over. Anne hears their voices conferring together; then Lady Marlborough joins them. She kneels in front of Anne, takes her face gently in her hands, and tells her that she must be patient a little longer yet, for it is clear that the child is not offering itself in such a posture as that it may find a passage forth without assistance, and they need a man-wife to come. They are sending for Sir Hugh Chamberlen.
‘No! None of him! He will bring a crochet! He will bring a hook! He will kill my child!’
In her agitation, Anne has shaken the last few pins from her hair; it hangs in her face, heavy with sweat and tears. Sarah, the Good Mother, smoothes it back.
‘No, he has an instrument of his own, that God willing might save the child. Dear Mrs Morley, you will need to trust him.’
Anne closes her eyes and submits, to Sarah, to the midwives, to God and to the pain. Soon there is a great noise at the chamber door. It is Sir Hugh. He has come like a fiend in a nightmare, with quite inhuman speed. He is an unimpressive-looking man, old and crooked, but he has a great air about him, of majesty almost. His assistant walks in behind him, carrying a gilded box, which he sets down, with some ceremony, upon the table. Then Sir Hugh issues his orders: Her Highness is to be moved on to the bed, and then the other women are to clear the room – all of them. Anne hopes that Sarah might disobey, but even she does not dare. Anne is left alone on the bed, with her pain and her trapped child and these two alarming men. Sir Hugh tells her that it is best that she does not see what he does, and then his assistant blindfolds her.
There are first the most extraordinary, unexpected noises – rattling and the ringing of bells – and almost straight after the most extraordinary, unexpected pain, the most violent pulling and tearing, as if she has been turned into a hart, and Sir Hugh is the huntsman, dividing flesh from flesh, even as she breathes. She offers her soul to God, but in the next instant the torture stops. The blindfold comes off, and Sir Hugh tells her that she has had a boy. The women may come back into the room, and then she must send for her chaplain.
Unkindness
Mary stands at the foot of Anne’s bed. She is righteously, majestically tall, her headdress pointing up to heaven. She has brought a sweet, clean fragrance into the chamber, rose and frangipani. Anne is on her back, brought down to the earth again, where the smells are very different.
‘Your Majesty,’ she says. The headdress tilts in acknowledgement, then its wearer sits down. Anne holds a hand out. Mary does not take it. She has a speech ready.
‘Sister, I have made the first step, by coming to you, and I now expect you should make the next by removing my Lady Marlborough.’
Anne cannot look at Mary and speak at the same time. She redirects her eyes onto the comfortably blurred faces of the Queen’s Ladies, Scarborough and Derby, who are standing behind her, and now she can make her answer. There can only ever be one answer.
‘Your Majesty, I have never in my life disobeyed you, except in this, and if it is all you have come to speak about then I think you’d better have spared yourself the trouble.’
Before she has even finished, Mary has risen up without another word, and gone away. Lady Derby turns and follows her. Only Lady Scarborough has kindness enough to inquire after Anne’s health and offer her condolences on the loss of the child, before she too has to leave.
Mary is all out of patience with Anne, all out of charity. A little less than a fortnight after her visit, an order is put out forbidding anyone at Court from waiting on Anne, and the last of her guards are taken away.
Lady Marlborough’s Misfortunes
May arrives. A Jacobite fleet is poised for invasion, and Anne is running a fever, which is caused by the Queen’s unkindness. She does not have Sarah with her, because the Earl of Marlborough has been arrested on suspicion of High Treason and sent to the Tower, and so his wife must spend all the time she has in London, waiting at Whitehall to be granted permission to see him, and working for his release. Since they have arrested him on the word of some scoundrel who claims to have found a compromising lette
r in a flower-pot at the home of the Bishop of Rochester, and have no other evidence, they will have to grant him bail before too long, but Anne cannot help but fear that, in the meantime, her dear Mrs Freeman will wear herself out. When she sees her, all too briefly, she is in a most dismal way; she is tearful and will not take any food or any physic that Anne can offer; she will talk of nothing but her husband’s case. Most painful to Anne is that little sliver of spleen she detects in her friend’s manner towards her, that might suggest she considers her to blame for this misfortune.
Of course Anne would do anything in her power to help her friend, but what might that be now, when she is forbidden the Court, when the Queen rejects her attempts to send her compliments, when she cannot even climb the stairs unaided? She cannot eat her dinner without her face flushing afterwards, so that she can barely put her head down to write her letters. She cannot see well enough to do her needlework and her hands are too stiff to play her instruments. The laudanum she takes for her pains fogs her mind and then she cannot remember the simplest things: the rules of whist or ombre, the words of her evening prayers. Her sleep is broken by melancholy dreams of her lost infants, seven – or is it eight of them? – piled up in their tiny coffins in the Abbey, her own growing race of ninnies.
A Want of Kindness Page 27