Queen Anne: The Politics of Passion

by Anne Somerset

  Without waiting for a reply, Sarah ‘followed this letter to Kensington’, stationing herself in the gallery ‘like a Scotch lady with a petition’. She asked the page to inform the Queen she was outside, and a long interval elapsed while Anne evidently debated with herself whether to receive her. At length, however, the Duchess was ushered into the closet, but the meeting did not go as she wished. Sarah once noted, ‘It was the Queen’s usual way on any occasion where she was predetermined (and my Lord Marlborough has told me that it was her father’s) to repeat over and over some principal words she had resolved to use and to stick firmly to them’.33 In this final interview, Anne used this technique to devastating effect.

  As soon as Sarah started to speak, the Queen interrupted, telling her, ‘Whatever you have to say you may put it in writing’. After that, whenever Sarah paused, Anne uttered the same phrase. The Duchess nevertheless doggedly explained that she believed Anne had been told she had ‘said things of her which I was no more capable of saying than killing my own children’, quite ‘unlike my manner of talking of your Majesty, whom I seldom name in company and never without respect’. At one point Sarah complained, ‘There are a thousand lies told of me’, to which the Queen cryptically returned, ‘Without doubt there were many lies told’. Sarah pressed on, begging Anne to tell her ‘the particulars of which I had been accused’, whereupon the Queen adopted a new formula, greeting every remark of Sarah’s with the words, ‘You desired no answer and shall have none’. Since this failed to silence Sarah, the Queen at one point tried to leave the room, but the Duchess, by this time in tears and almost hysterical, barred the door. She went on trying to justify herself, demanding ‘whether I had ever … told her one lie or played the hypocrite once?’ but the Queen merely reiterated the same single grim sentence. These ‘harsh words … were still continued after all the moving things I said’ Sarah later recalled, and the Duchess was finally forced to realise there was nothing to be gained by prolonging the exchange. Viciously she told the Queen ‘I was confident her Majesty would suffer for such an instance of inhumanity’, but Anne merely said ‘That will be to myself’. Defeated, the Duchess withdrew, never to see the Queen again. ‘So ended … a royal friendship which once could not be contained within the common bounds of love’.34

  Around this time the Queen started to have secret meetings with Robert Harley. It is difficult to pinpoint exactly when this happened, as the only account we have comes from Swift, and his chronology is confused. However, Harley’s brother said that he only came up to London just before Sacheverell’s trial began, and one must assume that he did not have access to the Queen at that point. Even on 10 March it appears that he was not yet in direct contact with her, and Anne was still attempting to limit Abigail’s dealings with him. In a letter to Harley of that date, Abigail expressed frustration that the Queen was so resistant to her influence. Having been upset to hear that Anne intended to name two Whiggish bishops, she had ‘had a great deal of discourse’ with her about it, but had gained little satisfaction. Lamenting that ‘Nobody can serve her if she goes on privately doing these things every day, when she has had so much said to her … both from myself and other people’, she remarked crossly, ‘Because I am still with her, people think I am able to persuade her to anything I have a mind to have her do, but they will be convinced to the contrary one time or other’. Abigail then explained she had asked the Queen’s leave to see Harley but ‘she would not consent to that and charged me not to say anything to you of what passed between us. She is angry with me, and said I was in a passion; perhaps I might speak a little too warm, but who can help that when one sees plainly she is giving her best friends up to the rage of their enemies?’ Abigail ended defiantly, ‘I … will see you very soon to talk about that matter whether she will give me leave or no’.35

  Within a short time a remarkable transformation occurred, for Anne began approaching Harley herself. In a family memoir, Harley’s brother Edward referred to ‘messages and letters that were sent and written by the Queen’s direction to Mr Harley’, and Jonathan Swift recounted how one day a letter in Anne’s hand arrived for Harley ‘all dirty … delivered by an under gardener … blaming him for not speaking with more freedom and more particularly; and desiring his assistance’. Harley leapt at the opportunity, and ‘soon after the doctor’s trial this gentleman by the Queen’s command and the intervention of Mrs Masham was brought up the backstairs’. ‘From that time [he] began to have entire credit with the Queen’, declaring to her at secret meetings that the ambitions of the current ministry posed ‘dangers to her crown as well as to the Church and monarchy itself’, and ‘that she ought gradually to lessen the exorbitant power of the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough and the Earl of Godolphin’. He told her ‘that it did not become her to be a slave to a party’, and that instead she should introduce ‘a moderating scheme’ that would ‘reward those who may deserve by their duty and loyalty’. Anne of course had always held that government by party was an unmitigated evil, and was delighted that Harley appeared confident of freeing her from the yoke. Henceforth ‘he went more frequently … though still as private as possible’, successfully concealing his visits from prying eyes. How this was achieved is suggested by an undated letter from Mrs Masham to Harley telling him that the Queen wished to meet with him next morning after prayers. ‘She would have you come to my lodgings and she will send for you from thence’, Abigail explained.36

  Ever since his fall from power, Harley had worked hard to ensure that he was not politically isolated. After their disastrous performance in the election of 1708, Harley’s confident assurances that he could offer ‘an easy cure’ to the Tories’ current difficulties had made some amenable to his approaches. Harley had also cultivated moderate Whigs such as the Duke of Newcastle, and now he believed that it would be possible to exploit the disunion in the current ministry and attract some bigger Whig fish. He knew that Lord Somers was mistrustful of Godolphin and Marlborough, and that the Junto member Lord Halifax was resentful that Marlborough had prevented him being put in charge of the negotiations for peace. The Duke of Somerset was also on poor terms with the duumvirs, while the Duke of Argyll had been so angered by Marlborough’s attempt to become Captain-General for life that he showed himself eager to work with Harley. In these circumstances Harley believed it possible to split the Junto and ‘graft the Whigs on the bulk of the Church party’.37 Such a scheme held great appeal for Anne, who desired to retain the services of many of her current ministers, but wanted to make it impossible for them to gang up on her in a phalanx.

  Harley advised that the first step towards remodelling the ministry was to bring the Duke of Shrewsbury into office. In theory, this was not a very provocative step, as Shrewsbury had been one of the ‘immortal seven’ who had invited William of Orange to come to England in 1688. However, after Shrewsbury moved abroad in 1700 for his health, the Whigs grew suspicious of him, even putting it about he had converted to Catholicism. When he returned to England in late 1705, bringing with him a flighty Italian wife who Sarah claimed made him ‘the jest of all the town’, his Whig former colleagues shunned him.38 Marlborough and Godolphin were friendlier, but disappointed Shrewsbury by failing to bring him into government.

  Knowing how much the Queen liked the charming Duke of Shrewsbury, in 1708 Harley initiated polite dealings with him. By the autumn of that year Shrewsbury was having regular private talks with Anne. The following July, Godolphin was alarmed by reports that at one such meeting Shrewsbury had sought to fill her with so-called ‘right impressions’, derived from Harley, with whom the Duke was allegedly ‘very far engaged’.39

  Since Shrewsbury’s instinct, as one critic put it, was ‘to trim and shuffle’ between parties, ‘making his court all the while’ to the Queen, he was not yet truly committed to Harley. By early 1710, however, the position had changed, not least because, having come to understand the extent of Anne’s ‘averseness and dread’ towards Sarah, Shrewsbury became readier to
distance himself from Godolphin and Marlborough.40 He was also concerned by the failure of the 1709 negotiations with France, believing that Britain was in urgent need of peace.

  On Harley’s advice, the Queen decided to appoint Shrewsbury Lord Chamberlain in place of the Earl of Kent, who was made a Duke in compensation. Because Shrewsbury had voted against the ministry in the Sacheverell trial, it was obvious that the appointment would cause them concern, particularly since, unlike Kent, he was given a place in the Cabinet, ‘a province not belonging to his office’. The Queen acted without consulting Godolphin beforehand, writing to inform him on 13 April that she had decided to accept Shrewsbury’s offer to serve her, ‘having a very good opinion of him and believing he may be of great use in these troublesome times’. She concluded calmly ‘I hope that this change will meet with your approbation, which I wish I may have in all my actions’.41

  Godolphin, who was spending a few days in Newmarket, replied in apocalyptic terms. He fulminated that not only had Shrewsbury just voted with the Tories, but he was known to be ‘in a private constant correspondence and caballing with Mr Harley in everything’. He warned that although the Queen might not intend this, the appointment would bring about a perilous set of consequences, including the dissolution of Parliament and a betrayal of Britain’s allies, with an inevitable loss of honour for the Queen. Yet although Godolphin felt so strongly, neither he nor any of his colleagues dared resign in protest. If they did so it would mean there would have to be a general election, and in the current state of public opinion the outcome would be disastrous for the Whigs. Godolphin told a colleague they had no alternative but to ‘rub on in this disagreeable way as well as they could’ and the ministers agreed, feigning unconcern to such an extent that when Godolphin returned from Newmarket the Queen told him ‘none of [the Whigs] had been so uneasy at this change’ as he. The Queen later told her personal physician, Sir David Hamilton, that Shrewsbury’s appointment had caused her ‘less trouble than she expected’.42

  Marlborough now made a fresh attempt to clip the Hill family’s wings. On 13/24 April he sent over from Holland a schedule of officers who were due for promotion, arranging things so that Jack Hill and Samuel Masham were pointedly excluded. When the Secretary at War, Robert Walpole, showed the list to the Queen, she at once picked up on this and made it clear that Masham must be promoted. For the moment she appeared not to press the point about Jack Hill, and Walpole therefore wrote to Marlborough advising him to grant the Queen’s wish regarding Masham. Marlborough duly did this, but within days the Queen decided that it was unacceptable for Jack Hill to be denied promotion. Having probably been worked upon by Abigail and Harley, on 28 April she told Walpole that she expected Jack Hill to be made a brigadier. Walpole passed this on to Marlborough, who was so angry that he tore the letter in pieces. Although initially Anne had appeared anxious to avoid a major confrontration with Marlborough, in the ensuing days her mood became fiercer. She announced that she had decided to give Jack Hill a pension of £1,000 a year to compensate him for losing Lord Essex’s regiment, and said he must definitely be promoted. Protesting that he was still waiting to hear from Marlborough, Walpole reminded her she had said that if her general strongly opposed promoting Hill, she would not insist on it. ‘Yes, I remember something of it now’, the Queen agreed, ‘but I am very well assured there can be no ill consequence from it any further than people have a mind to make them; and I will have it done’. What was more, she told Walpole she would not sign any commissions until Marlborough had obeyed her.43

  Anne had calmed down a bit by 11 May. She told Walpole that while she still wished Jack Hill to be promoted, she wanted it done ‘in the softest manner possible’, promising to write personally to assure Marlborough she had no desire to mortify him. The upshot was that Marlborough capitulated and agreed that Jack Hill would be made a brigadier at the end of the campaign.44

  It suited Harley’s purposes that Marlborough had sought to defy the Queen, and once again been worsted. He, meanwhile, was working behind the scenes to form a viable political alliance. By May, he had attracted enough disaffected Whigs for them to be termed ‘the new Junctilio’. Perhaps his most notable gain was the Duke of Somerset, whom Shrewsbury had put in touch with him. Sarah had long mockingly called Somerset ‘the Sovereign’ on account of his arrogance and pretensions to govern, and now he fancied himself as a power-broker. In June he started coming to Harley’s house in a sedan chair with the curtains drawn, hoping to keep secret his conferences with ‘Robin the trickster’.45

  Almost certainly Harley had always intended to prevail upon Anne to dismiss Godolphin, but the Queen had other ideas. Although her relations with her Lord Treasurer over the past eight years had often been tense, she knew he never wilfully caused her distress. She had been touched when her Whig physician, David Hamilton, told her he had warned Godolphin that disquiet was bad for her health, and the Lord Treasurer had promised to ‘do his utmost’ to avoid agitating her. Anne was also grateful to Godolphin for the role he had played in the crisis of January 1710, when he had refrained from taking Marlborough’s side, and had discouraged an address against Abigail. She also still valued Godolphin’s financial management, fearing that ‘the City would be in an uproar if he was turned out’. She did not accept that her drawing closer to Harley inevitably meant that Godolphin would leave office. When Godolphin told her on 5 May that all the foreign ministers in London were saying that the Treasury would soon be put in commission, ‘She gave a sort of scornful smile’, but made no other comment. However, Godolphin felt far from confident about the future, remarking, ‘Perhaps it is not yet in her intentions or thoughts, but what she may be brought to in time by a perpetual course of ill offices and lies from [Harley]’.46

  It was in fact to avoid provoking Godolphin into resignation that the Queen held back from dismissing the Duchess of Marlborough. She knew he was deeply attached to Sarah, and that there was a risk he would not accept the Duchess being deprived of her offices. For a time Anne toyed with the notion that Godolphin could persuade Sarah to apologise for past misconduct, but then dismissed this as unrealistic. Her next plan was to detach Godolphin from the Duchess, for she had no doubt that Sarah pushed him into opposing the royal will. Anne told Sir David Hamilton, ‘the Duchess made my Lord Marlborough and my Lord Godolphin do anything, and that when my Lord Godolphin was ever so finally resolved when with her Majesty, yet when he went to her, she impressed him to the contrary’. The Queen had grounds for hoping that Godolphin might break with the Duchess, for his loyalty to her had recently been strained to the limit. Sarah had been outraged by his failure to back Marlborough during the January crisis, and Godolphin had written to her with bitter sarcasm that he was ‘extremely much obliged … to find all the blame laid upon me’. After her final interview with the Queen, Sarah had expected him to take up her cause, and had felt betrayed on learning he ‘never had a thought … of speaking to [Anne] upon [her] subject’. In revenge, she would not let him visit her at Windsor, accusing him on 29 April of making ‘ill returns’ for her friendship.47

  The Queen employed as her emissary Sir David Hamilton. A Whig sympathiser and a dissenter, he was a doctor who, as well as having a high reputation as a skilled accoucheur, specialised in the treatment of female diseases such as hysteria. He had become one of Anne’s personal physicians in late 1708, and since then had established himself as one of her confidants. In his diary Hamilton noted that on 15 May 1710, Anne ‘desired me to see if it was possible to bring my Lord Godolphin off from the Duchess; for that would be one of the happiest things imaginable’. If this could be achieved, not only would she be able to dismiss Sarah without losing Godolphin, but she would be freed from the fear that even out of office the Duchess’s control over Marlborough and Godolphin would keep her ‘at the helm of all her affairs’. However, on 16 May Hamilton had to inform the Queen ‘that my Lord Godolphin said it was impossible, their relation being so near and their circumstances so united, fo
r him to break off from the Duchess’.48 Bound to Sarah not just by the marriage of their children but by a devotion that, however much she tried him, was indestructible, Godolphin would not forsake her.

  Accepting that the Duchess must keep her job a while longer, Anne instead set her sights on dismissing another uncongenial member of Sarah’s family, Lord Sunderland. Her dislike of her Secretary had only been intensified by his attempts to stir up Parliament against Abigail, and she believed that neither Marlborough nor his colleagues in the ministry would resign if she ejected him from being Secretary of State. The only thing that delayed her was the difficulty of finding a replacement. She knew Lord Anglesey would be objectionable to the Whigs, and Lord Paulet turned the post down, on the grounds that ‘a porter’s life is a better thing’. The Queen was nevertheless intent on following the matter through. When Godolphin warned her on 2 June that Marlborough would be shattered by the sacking of his son-in-law, she answered smoothly that her commander was ‘too reasonable to let a thing of this kind do so much prejudice to himself and to the whole world … and that nobody knew better … the repeated provocations’ she had received from Sunderland.49

  The Queen promised she would write to Marlborough to ease matters, but before she heard back from him, Sarah sent her a long rambling letter of protest. She warned Anne she was giving the Duke ‘a blow of which … I dread the consequence … by putting out a man that has married his beloved daughter’. ‘Before you proceed further … for God’s sake and for your own sake, think very well’, she cautioned, adding that if Prince George was alive he would have counselled against a course likely to ‘set the nation in a flame’. Sarah continued ‘I have been told … that the reason of all these strange things is for fear Mrs Masham should be disturbed’, but the Queen need have no fear of that, because there were ‘few things I should be more ashamed of than to endeavour to put her by violence out of the court …’. ‘My mind is much above anything of that nature’, Sarah loftily proclaimed, though she could not resist adding that if Abigail was attacked in Parliament for ‘bringing the kingdom into misfortunes, everybody that loves their country will be glad of it’.50