Queen Anne: The Politics of Passion

by Anne Somerset

  Such incidents occurred all too frequently, for Gloucester’s health gave constant cause for concern. To try and minimise the symptoms of hydrocephalus which had afflicted him from an early age he had an ‘issue in his poll [head] that had been kept running ever since his sickness at Hampton Court’. It was hoped that by permanently keeping open a small incision in the scalp, harmful humours would have an outlet through which they could escape, but hardly surprisingly the treatment proved ineffectual. Fluid continued to accumulate within the child’s cranium, with the result that his head became abnormally large. By 1694 ‘his hat was big enough for most men’ and when the time came to measure him for a wig, it was difficult to find one that fitted him. Consequently he had a strange appearance, as even Anne acknowledged. Writing to tell Sarah in 1692 that her son currently looked ‘better I think than ever he did in his life’, she qualified this, ‘I mean more healthy, for though I love him very well, I can’t brag of his beauty’.91

  Although Gloucester was ‘active and lively’, the hydrocephalus affected his balance. ‘He tottered as he walked and could not go up or down stairs without holding the rails’. When he fell over, as often happened, he could not raise himself unaided. Instead of being recognised as a symptom of his illness, his debility was attributed to ‘the overcare of the ladies’ in charge of him. An attendant recalled, ‘the Prince of Denmark, who was a very good-natured pleasant man, would often rally them about it’.92

  Presumably because he was worried about toppling over, when aged four or five Gloucester refused to move unless adults held his hand on either side. Until then, most unusually for a child of his age, he had never been whipped, for ‘the Princess, who was the tenderest of mothers, would not let him be roughly handled’. However, this refusal to walk on his own was considered a dangerous whim which could not be indulged. First Prince George took the child to task for it, showing him the birch as Anne looked on. As this had no effect, Gloucester was beaten, with the punishment being repeated when he persisted in his ‘very unaccountable fancy’. After that his will was broken.93

  To modern sensibilities this is a horrific story, an almost unbearable tale of brutish treatment meted out to a child who was struggling with a challenging physical disability. Before condemning Anne and George, one should, however, place it in context, for corporal punishment for the young was virtually universal at the time. It must be borne in mind that even John Locke, the very embodiment of the early English enlightenment, argued that small children were animals controllable only by pain and that it was appropriate to inflict physical punishment in moderation before they had developed powers of reasoning.94

  In other ways Anne was the most solicitous parent. Such was her concern for her son’s welfare that she admitted ‘’tis impossible to help being alarmed at every little thing’. One of Gloucester’s servants recorded, ‘If he tottered whenever he walked in her presence, it threw her into a violent perspiration through fear’, and this was far from being her only worry, as the child was delicate in other ways. He suffered from severe fevers in 1693, 1694, and 1695, and on each occasion was subjected to a variety of unpleasant medical treatments. In 1693 his back was blistered by doctors who believed this would lower his temperature, causing the poor child such pain that he begged his servants to rescue him from his tormentors. He was also dosed with ‘Jesuits’ powder’, made from cinchona bark, an effective treatment for fever but potentially dangerous in large quantities. When Gloucester had a recurring bout of fever the following spring, despite being desperate for a cure – for ‘methinks ’tis an ugly thing for such a distemper to hang so long upon one of his age’ – Anne hoped that Dr Radcliffe would be able to prescribe a different remedy. After initially taking his medicine ‘most manfully’, the little boy had grown ‘so very averse to the powder … it would be almost impossible to force it down’. It also constipated him severely, so instead he was given a mixture of brandy, saffron, and other ingredients, reputed to cure every kind of ague. At first the only result was to make the child vomit, but after that he began to recover.95

  Her worries about Gloucester’s health meant that by 1693 the Princess invariably referred to her son as ‘my poor boy’, rather than just ‘my boy’, as in the past. However, although his hydrocephalus affected his physical stability, in other ways he developed well. He hated dancing, condemning it as girlish, but was reportedly ‘very quick in learning any manly exercise’. Soldiering obsessed him and he had his own troop of boys that he drilled in Kensington gardens, glowing with pride when the King and Queen came to see them. As he grew older he rode twice daily and during summer holidays at Windsor developed ‘a passion for the chase’. Despite doing lessons on his own, he was not cut off from other children, and hero-worshipped Sarah’s son, John Churchill, who was a year or so older. He also liked playing with the male children of other members of the household, calling them his Horse Guards. One of his servants recalled ‘He was apt in finding excuses for his boys or for us, when we were blamed for letting him do what he should not do, or for speaking words that did not become him’. Being affectionate by nature, the only person of whom he was not particularly fond was his former wet nurse, Mrs Pack. When she died unexpectedly in 1694, Queen Mary asked if he was sad, to which he answered firmly ‘No, Madam’.96

  Though in some cases hydrocephalus causes mental impairment, Gloucester was a promising schoolboy. His tutor was his mother’s chaplain, Samuel Pratt, who taught him his letters and the ‘use of globes, mathematics and Latin’. In addition he was taught French from an early age. He was an unusual, observant child, who would stay quiet for long periods and then suddenly delight people with his ‘shrewd comical expressions’. When he was only three, Anne reported how ‘he sometimes comes out with things that make one laugh’, but unfortunately she considered them the kind of thing ‘what is not worth repeating in a letter’. He never lost this gift, for in later years he would sometimes break a long silence with ‘lively and witty sallies’ that convinced a foreign observer that ‘there was more to this prince than first appeared’.97

  Gloucester probably saw more of his parents than most upper-class children of the time. They came to him most mornings, and after he had had his own midday meal he often went to watch them eating their dinner. His aunt and uncle also loved it when he visited, for he ‘pleased the King and Queen much with his pretty jocular sayings’. On one occasion Mary was very amused when she offered him a beautiful bird that belonged to her and he gravely declined it, saying, ‘Madam, I will not rob you of it’. ‘He remembered everything that was talked of, though he did not seem to pay attention at the time’, a manservant of his recalled. ‘He never was told anything of King James, nor of the pretended Prince of Wales’, but somehow acquired an understanding of the troubled family history. When he was five, King William came to Campden House before going abroad on campaign, and the child solemnly offered to let him take his company of boy soldiers to Flanders. He then added that though he would be happy for them to see action against the Turk or the King of France, he did not want them fighting his grandfather. On another occasion he disconcerted Queen Mary by observing ‘his mamma once had guards but now had none’.98

  By the end of 1692 Anne was pregnant again. In hopes of bringing her pregnancy to a successful conclusion she began dosing herself with a patent medicine that she had obtained without consulting the doctor. Only George and Sarah were aware that she was taking it, but Anne insisted that since ‘I am no further gone I fancy it can do me no harm’. She explained to Sarah that ‘Being so desirous of children, I would do anything to go on’, and suggested that if the child she was carrying was weak, this course of treatment would ‘comfort and strengthen it’. Sarah evidently expressed concern, but Anne would not listen. ‘I have no manner of apprehensions that the medicine I take will do me any harm, but quite contrary, I am the most pleased with it in the world’, she informed her friend. She added that ‘but that I have had so many misfortunes’, she would feel confident
that this time all would be well.99

  Whether or not the medicine was in any way responsible, before long Anne was experiencing worrying symptoms. She wrote to Sarah on 19 March 1693 ‘I have been on the rack again this morning’. Although ‘the violence of it has not lasted so long as it did yesterday’, she asked Sarah to summon Dr Radcliffe, for in addition to enduring pain she had had an attack ‘that has frighted me a little’. In some discomfort she had got out of bed that morning and gone to sleep in a chair, only to be woken by a ‘starting and a catching in my limbs. This is a thing which I would not speak of to Sir Charles [Scarborough] nor before my women but only to D[octor] R[adcliffe] … for malicious people will be apt to say I have got fits’. She was right in thinking that something was seriously wrong, for on 24 March she ‘miscarried of a dead daughter’ at Berkeley House.100

  After Anne’s earlier optimism this latest setback was particularly shattering. To make matters worse, for much of that summer she was plagued by ill health. Sarah was away at St Albans caring for her sick mother, and Anne begged Sarah not to ‘make yourself sick with sitting up and grieving’, fearful that she was denying herself time to eat and sleep. Anne’s hopes of visiting St Albans were frustrated by what was diagnosed as an attack of gout. It is in fact improbable that this was the real problem, as gout is very unusual in pre-menopausal women. Furthermore, gout only affects one joint at a time, but Anne suffered simultaneous pain in more than one place. It is far more likely that she was really suffering from migratory polyarthritis, a key symptom of lupus. For the moment it rendered her incapable of walking and tormented by pain in the hip, but the Princess declared she would ‘with pleasure endure ten thousand fits of the gout’ in order to provide ‘relief to my dear Mrs Freeman’.101

  Sarah’s mother died on 27 July, and Anne wrote to reassure her that she had cared for the old lady in an exemplary fashion throughout her final illness. By this time Anne’s so-called gout was getting better. ‘I have been led about my chamber today and was carried into the garden for a little air’ she reported, ‘and the uneasiness that stirring gives me now is very inconsiderable’. Unfortunately she was then assailed by an attack of piles, but she said she was willing to endure this provided she was spared the far worse pain that had afflicted her earlier.102

  At the end of August Anne had grounds for hoping that she was pregnant but she told Sarah rather fatalistically that ‘I do not intend to mind myself any more than when I am sure I am not with child’. True to this resolve she went on a hunting expedition soon after, driving herself in her own chaise, as she was no longer fit enough to ride. She reported that in Sarah’s absence the outing had not been much of a success, but she resolved to do it again ‘for my health’s sake, for besides taking the air one has some exercise, and I intend to use as much as I can’.103 Once accustomed to it, she came to enjoy this way of hunting, the only form of outdoor recreation she was capable of pursuing.

  In the late summer of 1693 there were reports that Anne’s former bête noire, the Earl of Sunderland, was on the point of brokering a reconciliation between the Princess and the King and Queen. He had now returned from exile and was acting as minister ‘behind the curtain’ to William III. Bells were rung in celebration after it was rumoured that Anne had gone to see her sister, but the claims proved unfounded. Sunderland only managed to persuade the Earl of Marlborough to stop voting against the government in the House of Lords. Prince George followed Marlborough’s lead, but in other respects the royal feud continued unabated.

  The rift in the royal family weakened the monarchy at a time when it was already far from popular. The war with France was going badly, with the English sustaining heavy losses at land and sea in the summer of 1693. In the circumstances it would have been understandable if William had seized on an opportunity to make peace by offering to make the Prince of Wales his successor. However, when the French made a proposal along these lines at informal peace talks conducted that autumn through a Dutch intermediary, William declared himself offended by the mere suggestion. Soon afterwards negotiations were abandoned.104

  On 21 January Anne once again ‘miscarried of a dead child’, the fourth such disaster to have occurred since Gloucester’s birth. Bereft at her loss, within a few weeks she became so seriously ‘indisposed of an ague’ that ‘her Majesty, notwithstanding the present unhappy misunderstanding, out of her great affection and kindness sent to enquire how her royal Highness did’. Then the four-year-old Duke of Gloucester went down with an intermittent fever that proved difficult to shake off. In some ways the child manifested an extraordinary resilience, appearing ‘mighty merry and … as well as ever he was in his life’ only an hour after emerging from a prolonged bout of sickness, but Anne still worried that a recurrence would prove fatal. ‘I shall not be at ease till ’tis quite gone’, she wrote to Sarah, and was greatly touched when the Countess offered to come to her side if Gloucester relapsed. ‘Sure there cannot be a greater comfort in one’s misfortunes than to have such a friend!’ the Princess exclaimed gratefully.105

  That summer Anne rented a house at Twickenham in hopes that the air there would restore both her and her son to full health. She also took a ‘course of steel by Dr Radcliffe’s order’, and this seemed to yield beneficial results, for by August she believed that another baby was on its way. Perhaps suspecting that she had lost her last child by being too active, she went to the other extreme, remaining indoors and taking no exercise at all. She ‘stayed constantly on one floor by her physicians’ advice, lying very much upon a couch to prevent the misfortune of miscarrying’. These precautions failed to prevent her from developing troubling ailments, for towards the end of year she was again limping from pain in her hip.106

  Anne had been living this quiet existence for four months when the Queen fell ill on 22 December 1694. An epidemic of smallpox was currently raging, and within a few days it became evident that Mary had caught the disease. Anne sought permission to visit her, and though William sent word that an interview might upset Mary and put the Princess at risk of miscarrying, Anne was undeterred. Accordingly Lady Fitzharding went to Kensington Palace on her behalf, and forced her way in to the Queen’s bedchamber to present her mistress’s request directly. According to Sarah the ‘Queen returned no answer but a cold thanks’, but William took the trouble to write to the Princess assuring her that as soon as the Queen was well enough to see her, she would be welcome. The Countess of Marlborough, however, was sure that ‘the deferring the Princess’s coming was only to leave room to continue the quarrel if the Queen lived’.107

  On 28 December Mary died. At the end she declared ‘that she had nothing in her heart against her sister and that she greatly loved the Duke of Gloucester’, but the chance of a personal reunion had now vanished forever. It is charitable to accept that Anne was genuinely distressed at losing her sister, but her letter of condolence sent to William that same day might appear calculated. Having expressed her ‘sincere and hearty sorrow’ for Mary’s loss, she assured him ‘I am as sensibly touched with this sad misfortune as if I had never been so unhappy as to have fallen into her displeasure’, asking permission to commiserate with him in person. In doing so she took the statesmanlike advice of her male advisers, who in their turn were guided by the Earl of Sunderland. He had convinced Marlborough and Godolphin that prolonging the estrangement further would damage both parties, and had undertaken that the King would be receptive. The Countess of Marlborough was infuriated by this conciliatory approach, and later grumbled that the Princess’s letter was ‘full of expressions that the politicians made nothing of, but it was a great trouble to me to have her write’. She continued resentfully that ‘After such usage … nobody upon earth could have made me have done it, but I was never the councillor upon such great occasions’.108

  Although so distraught at the loss of his wife that his own life was feared for, William was quick to realise that he could not afford to remain at loggerheads with his sister-in-law. Opponents of his reg
ime reacted to Mary’s death by suggesting that Anne was now the rightful Queen, and the King knew he must not give them the chance of exploiting continued divisions between them. Dropping the demand that Sarah must be dismissed, on 31 December he sent the Archbishop of Canterbury to tell the Princess that he was ready to receive her. A meeting scheduled for a week later had to be postponed because Anne was unwell, but on 13 January 1695 she came to see him at Kensington. She was now very large, having ‘much the appearance’ of being heavily pregnant, and this, coupled with her disabled hip, meant that she had to be carried up the stairs in her sedan chair. The King received her courteously, and Anne was gracious in return. ‘She told his Majesty in faltering accents that she was truly sorry for his loss, who replied he was much concerned for hers; both were equally affected and could scarcely refrain from tears or speak distinctly’.109 After three quarters of an hour William conducted her to her chair, and the bearers struggled downstairs with their heavy load.

  Soon afterwards the grieving widower presented Anne with his late wife’s jewels, and her guards were restored. Doubtless this gave pleasure to the little Duke of Gloucester who, in his oddly formal way, had remarked ‘Oh, be doleful!’ when informed of Mary’s death. English Jacobites, however, were less happy that Anne and William were no longer at odds. They had regarded the Queen’s demise as cause for celebration but were ‘soon down when the King and Princess’s reconcilement was known’.110