The most fundamental problem was that Sarah and Anne were diametrically opposed in their political views, for Sarah prided herself on being a ‘true born Whig’. Few people were aware of her Whig allegiances at Anne’s accession including, it seems, the Queen herself. Marlborough’s chaplain later told Sarah that in view of her court background, he had assumed she was ‘bred in the Tory notions, that you had imbibed them as deeply as most others in the same education’. In fact, however, Sarah was a passionate supporter of Whig principles, praising them as ‘rational, entirely tending to the preservation of the liberties of the subject and no way to the prejudice of the Church’. Far from fearing that the Whigs would circumscribe the royal prerogative, Sarah approved of their desire ‘to keep the monarchy within its just bounds’. ‘I must confess I was born of a principle never to have any remorse for the deposing of any king that became unjust’, she wrote in 1704.76
Sarah was mystified by churchmen’s fear of nonconformists. In her opinion the Tories invoked ‘the word “Church” … like a spell to enchant’ the gullible, being motivated by nothing other than ‘a persecuting zeal against dissenters’. She dismissed their desire to legislate against Occasional Conformity as ‘High Church nonsense’, and deplored that Anne was so beguiled by their arguments. The Church, Sarah maintained, was just ‘a will o’ the wisp’, exploited by Tories ‘to bewilder her mind and entice her’.77
Sarah’s political beliefs did not make it inevitable that she and the Queen would become estranged. As she remarked herself, ‘the disputes at first were only about Whig and Tory … and those sort of differences can’t be irreconcilable’. Unfortunately, Sarah expressed her viewpoint with a total lack of moderation, refusing to acknowledge that Anne’s beliefs had any validity. She aggressively hectored the Queen, scarcely bothering to disguise that she regarded her as a fool, and dismissing her arguments as wholly irrational. Not doubting that Anne was incapable of forming her own ideas, she assumed they had been implanted in her by others. Furthermore, Sarah very soon came to believe that all Tories were Jacobites, a ridiculously simplistic notion, and her belief that they were scheming to bring in the Pretender convinced her that the most virulent attacks on them were excusable. Hardly surprisingly, the Queen soon began to dread discussing politics with Sarah. When alone with her, she did her best to stay off the subject, preferring, as Sarah wrathfully recalled, ‘to ask me common questions about the lining of mantoes and the weather’.78
The first evidence we have of tensions arising from the Queen and Sarah’s political differences comes from a letter of October 1702, when Anne wrote to her friend,
I cannot help being extremely concerned you are so partial to the Whigs because I would not have you and your poor unfortunate faithful Morley differ in opinion in the least thing. What I said when I writ last upon this subject does not proceed from any insinuations of the other party; but I know the principles of the Church of England and I know those of the Whigs and it is that and no other reason which makes me think as I do of the last. And upon my word, my dear Mrs Freeman, you are mightily mistaken in your notion of a true Whig; for the character you give of them does not in the least belong to them but to the Church. But I will say no more … only beg, for my poor sake, that you would not show more countenance to those you seem to have so much inclination for than to the Church party.
This reproof in no way deterred Sarah. Instead, she continued to ‘speak very freely and frequently to her Majesty upon the subject of Whig and Tory’.79
The painful attack of lameness that had troubled Anne at her accession eased after a few weeks, enabling her to enjoy walks in the gardens at Kensington. By the summer Lady Gardiner was declaring she believed the Queen to be ‘healthfuller than ever’, but unfortunately the same could not be said of George. In early August he suffered a particularly severe asthma attack, and it was even rumoured he had died. The Queen wrote to Sarah, ‘I must own to you I am very much in the spleen to see these complaints return so often upon him and with more violence this time than … before’. She added, ‘The doctors have ordered the Prince to go into a method which if he will be prevailed with to pursue I hope by the blessing of God will prevent these frequent returns’ but, knowing her husband’s stubbornness about taking medical advice, she did not feel confident.80
In mid August it was agreed that Anne and George should go on a recuperative visit to Bath, although the Queen decided against taking the waters herself. They set off towards the end of the month, making a stately progress westwards and being ‘received with all possible demonstrations of joy’ at the places through which they passed. Such large crowds thronged their route that at times the carriage had difficulty making its way through. A Dutch diplomat reported ‘Her Majesty was obliged to have her hand constantly at the window so she could give it to be kissed by this multitude of persons’. Having stayed overnight at Oxford, the next day Anne and George were ‘magnificently entertained’ by the Duke of Beaufort at Badminton. After dinner there they undertook the final leg of their journey, arriving in Bath on the evening of 28 August. Their reception formed a pleasant contrast to their last visit, when Anne had been shunned and humiliated on William and Mary’s orders. Now she and her husband were welcomed ‘by the mayor and corporation in their formalities’. Since Bath became a ‘stinking place’ at the height of summer, the Queen and her entourage stayed in a house about three miles outside the city. Godolphin and Secretary Hedges were on hand to ensure she did not fall behind with government business and Cabinet meetings were held there.81
By 13 October, Anne and George were back at St James’s, having seemingly both benefited from their spa visit. But though initially the Prince was thought to be ‘much recovered of his asthma’, towards the end of the month he again became unwell. Blooding appeared to bring about an improvement, and on 29 October Anne felt she could leave him to attend the Lord Mayor’s banquet on her own, even though she had earlier written to Sarah ‘one would be glad of any [excuse] to avoid so troublesome a business’. Then, within a few days George became ‘dangerously ill’, suffering not only his usual difficulties in breathing but also ‘a kind of lethargy’ and ‘drowsiness’ that many thought would prove fatal. ‘He could not be kept awake’ by any means, ‘so that everyone expected death each minute’. The Queen nursed him devotedly, never leaving his side and insisting on sharing his bed at night, even though this meant she had little rest herself. Even as he drifted in and out of consciousness, George still retained his horror of medical remedies, refusing to have treatment other than blisters applied to his back, nape of the neck and both temples. For a time this produced no response, but then he suddenly had ‘a decisive outbreak of sweating’ which diminished his symptoms. Within a week he had made such a full recovery that one diplomat considered him in better health than for many years. Not everyone, however, felt so optimistic. The best that one observer hoped for was that George ‘may last for some while, though I think not long’.82
On 21 October 1702 the Queen had opened the newly elected Parliament. It had a much stronger Tory element than its predecessor and with encouragement from the Earls of Rochester and Nottingham the House of Commons promptly drew up a bill outlawing Occasional Conformity. Punitive fines and permanent disqualification from office were proposed for those who normally attended nonconformist meeting-houses, but took Anglican communion once a year so as not to be debarred from official employment. The bill passed the Commons with a large majority, but when it was sent up to the Lords, the outcome was uncertain. The Whig peers were passionately against the measure, while Marlborough and Godolphin certainly did not welcome it, believing that when the nation was ‘engaged in a great war’ it was ‘unreasonable to raise animosities at home’. The two men were nevertheless aware that if they opposed the bill they would permanently antagonise their Tory colleagues.83
The Queen, in contrast, strongly supported penalising Occasional Conformity, even telling the Duke of Leeds that the Church could not be safe un
less such an Act was passed. The Whigs blamed the Archbishop of York for ‘causing her Majesty … to appear so zealous for it’. ‘When this bill was first framed her Majesty sent for him and asked him if he thought in his conscience that this bill did interfere with or did undermine the Act for Toleration’, and he replied that he genuinely believed it did not. Others thought this questionable, but Anne gratefully accepted his assurance. She felt so strongly that it was desirable to proceed against Occasional Conformity that she forced Prince George to vote for the measure in the Lords, despite the fact he had only just recovered from his illness. He was most unwilling to comply for, as a Lutheran, he was himself an Occasional Conformist. There were offers to exempt him from the new legislation but he declined, saying he would either resign or cease taking communion at the hands of his Lutheran chaplain. Reluctantly George did his wife’s bidding, but as he went into the division lobby he told the Whig Lord Wharton in his execrable English, ‘My heart is vid you’.84
Despite the fact that Prince George and Godolphin both voted for the measure, it was mauled by the House of Lords. Numerous amendments were added to it, which the Commons refused to accept, and in consequence the bill foundered. Nevertheless the Tories remained committed to introducing a similar measure in a subsequent session, so the issue looked set to cause further trouble.
The first year of the war had gone well for the allies. Admittedly a naval expedition sent to capture Cadiz had ended in failure. On its way home, however, the fleet had entered Vigo Bay and sunk and captured a number of galleons, securing a haul of booty. Marlborough had also had a successful campaign in the Netherlands. Despite the fact that the Dutch had prevented him from confronting the enemy in battle, he had captured a number of important towns along the River Meuse, significantly improving allied communications.
In the view of the elderly diarist John Evelyn, ‘Such a concurrence of blessings and hope of God’s future favour has not been known in a hundred years’. The House of Commons passed an address stating that Marlborough had ‘retrieved the ancient honour and glory of the English nation’ and a thanksgiving service was held in St Paul’s. As she made her way by coach to the cathedral which, though not completed till 1711, provided such a magnificent setting for these occasions, Anne was ‘wonderfully huzzaaed’.85
Wanting to show her appreciation for Marlborough’s achievements, the Queen decided to raise him to the highest level of the peerage. On 22 October she wrote to Sarah, ‘It is very uneasy to your poor unfortunate faithful Morley to think she has so very little in her power to show you how truly sensible I am of all my Lord Marlborough’s kindness … but since there is nothing else at this time I hope you will give me leave as soon as he comes to make him a duke’. The Queen continued apologetically, ‘I know my dear Mrs Freeman does not care for anything of that kind, nor I am not satisfied with it’, but she nevertheless hoped that Sarah would agree to her suggestion.86
Sarah claimed that ‘when I read the letter I let it drop out of my hand and was for some minutes like one that had received the news of the death of one of their dear friends’. Godolphin did his best to overcome her aversion to the proposed honour, telling her, ‘I think it must be endured’. He argued that it would not give rise to unpleasant accusations of favouritism, because ‘it’s visible to the whole world that it is not done upon your own account’.87 Marlborough himself was keen to accept the grander title, pointing out to his wife that it would raise his standing abroad. When Sarah objected they were not wealthy enough to sustain such a lofty position he reassured her that the Queen was already planning to remedy that.
Prior to Marlborough’s return on 27 November, Anne did indeed seek to strengthen the Marlboroughs’ financial situation. Not content with awarding her general a pension of £5,000 for her life out of the Post Office revenues, she attempted to make the grant permanent. Unfortunately, when a message was sent from Anne to the Commons on 10 November, asking that the payment be awarded in perpetuity to Marlborough and his heirs, it met with great hostility. Dumbfounded by what was ‘thought a bold and unadvised request’, the House ‘in amaze kept so long silent’ that Speaker Harley had to stand up to encourage comments from the floor. ‘Then they went to it helter-skelter and the debate ran very high’.88
Tory members were most vocal in making their displeasure felt. Marlborough was already believed to enjoy annual emoluments of £54,835, so Sir Christopher Musgrave had a point when he observed that the general was ‘very well paid’ and that his wife also had ‘profitable employments’. The upshot was that the Commons presented the Queen with an address saying that they did not want to set a precedent permitting the irreversible alienation of Crown revenues, which had already been ‘so much reduced by the exorbitant grants of the last reign’. Anne duly dropped her demand but ‘was not pleased with this baulk’.89
With ‘the Queen and her two favourites … nettled to the quick at their disappointment’, Anne wrote to Sarah saying she wanted to do something ‘towards making up what has been so maliciously hindered in Parliament, and therefore I desire my dear Mrs Freeman and Mr Freeman would be so kind as to accept’ £2,000 a year out of her Privy Purse for the remainder of her life. ‘This can draw no envy’, the Queen urged, ‘for nobody need know’. Sarah was understandably tempted. By this time the unofficial pension of £1,000 a year that Anne had volunteered when her revenue as Princess had been settled in 1689 had long since lapsed. Sarah claimed that it had only ever been paid intermittently, and that over the years she had received no more than £4,000 in all, but ‘I never was such a wretch as to mention it either before or since she came to the crown’.90 On reflection, however, she and Marlborough decided it would not be proper to accept the Queen’s generous offer. Later, Sarah would regret such scruples. When she resigned her posts at court in 1711 she would claw back the money she had renounced in 1702, despite the fact that in the meantime Marlborough’s pension from the Post Office had been made permanent, obviating the reason why the Queen had offered them restitution from her Privy Purse in the first place.
The Queen had been displeased that the Tories had opposed her efforts to enrich the Marlboroughs, but soon afterwards it was the Whigs who infuriated her by attempting to block financial provision for Prince George. By the terms of his marriage settlement, Prince George would be left virtually penniless if his wife predeceased him. Anne wanted to remedy this by arranging that in that event he would enjoy a revenue of £100,000 a year and be allowed the palaces of Kensington and Winchester as his residences. Besides being anxious that her husband would not face financial difficulties as a widower, the Queen felt strongly that he was owed a generous settlement because he had renounced any claim to the Crown Matrimonial. ‘The Queen pressed it with the greatest earnestness she had yet showed in anything whatsoever; she thought it became her as a good wife to have the act passed; in which she might be the more earnest because it was not thought advisable’ to make George King. Nevertheless, no Queen Dowager had ever been given more than £50,000 a year, and with the sum proposed for George ‘being beyond any of our Queens’ dowries, some thinks so much will not be granted’.91
The bill providing for Prince George passed the Commons, though not without some adverse comment.92 However, it met with much greater opposition in the House of Lords, where the Whigs had more power. Ostensibly the difficulties centred around the fact that the Act specifically exempted Prince George from the clause in the 1701 Act of Settlement stating that after the Hanoverians succeeded to the throne, no foreigner would be permitted to sit in the House of Lords. The Whig peers objected that if they agreed to this, by implication the Dutchmen who had been given titles in William’s reign, but who had no such exemption, would find themselves expelled from the Lords on Anne’s demise. The Queen, however, believed that the Whigs were merely seizing on this technicality to spite her and the Prince for their support of the Occasional Conformity Act.
‘All the malcontents’ in the Lords who opposed the measure prefaced
their speeches ‘with high professions of honour for the Prince’, but the Queen was not appeased by this. She was so ‘set upon having that bill pass’ that she declared ‘she had rather an affront were given to herself than the Prince’. During debates on 19 January 1703, Marlborough expressed himself with ‘some heats’ in favour of the Prince, only to find himself defied by his son-in-law, a vehement Whig who had become third Earl of Sunderland following his father’s recent death. In the end the bill passed as Anne wished, but its Whig opponents registered their disapproval in a formal protest.93
Aware that Sarah had been furious at the stance Sunderland had adopted, Anne wrote to her on 19 January, ‘I am sure the Prince’s bill passing after so much struggle is wholly owing to the pains you and Mr Freeman have taken … Neither words nor actions can ever express the true sense Mr Morley and I have of your sincere kindness on this and all other occasions; and therefore I will not say any more … but that to my last moment your dear, unfortunate, faithful Morley will be most passionately and tenderly yours’. A little later she again alluded to her relief at having provided for her husband, telling Sarah, ‘Whenever it please God to take me out of this world I shall die in quiet, which I should not have done if I had left him unsettled’.94
While Sarah’s anger with her son-in-law gave Anne room for hope that the Duchess would not always blindly support the Whigs, the Queen now delighted the Marlboroughs by taking action against her uncle the Earl of Rochester. She suspected that it was he who had encouraged Tories in the Commons to resist the permanent grant to Marlborough, and also had come to accept that he was ‘endeavouring to embroil affairs’ in other ways. She therefore ordered him to go to Ireland, ‘which greatly needed his presence’ as Lord Lieutenant. When Rochester declared ‘with great insolence that he would not go into Ireland, though she would give the country to him and his son’, the Queen relieved him of his post. On 4 February she announced his resignation to the Cabinet, manifesting little regret at having cut herself off from every member of her family.95 Despite the likelihood that Rochester would become a figurehead for discontented Tories, she believed that his departure would strengthen the ministry and make it better equipped to face the challenges to come.
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