THE DUCHESS
IT is hard to survey quite dispassionately, or even thoroughly to
understand, the attitude of Anne Hyde on safely attaining her new
dignity, the dizzy height to which she had climbed by such a thorny
path. She seems, unhappily, to have had enemies from the first, but
whether they were due to her father’s steadily increasing unpopularity,
to her own behaviour, or to envy of her success, easily comprehensible,
it is difficult to determine. Probably each of these conditions had
something to do with it.
As regards her conduct, James himself says of her: “Her want of birth
was made up by endowments, and her carriage afterwards became her
acquired dignity.”[146] Pepys, who, as has been already remarked, never
lost an opportunity of a fleer at her, says, as early as 13th April
1661, of “Edward Pickering his discourse most about the pride of the
Duchess of York.” This may or may not be true, for Pepys was nothing if
not prejudiced, and the man who could, with his eyes open, write with
foolish admiration of “my dear Lady Castlemaine,” cannot be considered
an authority to be altogether respected. It is however certain, from
other sources, that from the first, Duchess Anne was known unfavourably
for her arrogance. Even Lord Craven, as we have seen, had noticed it,
and he had no reason to be specially biassed. On this point also the
French ambassador, the Comte de Cominges, remarks with some covert
amusement: “She upholds with as much courage, cleverness and energy the
dignity to which she has been called, as if she were of the blood of the
kings or of Gusman at the least, or Mendoza.”[147]
Footnote 146:
Macpherson’s “Original Papers.”
Footnote 147:
“A French Ambassador at the Court of Charles II. (Comte de Cominges).”
Jusserand.
Bishop Burnet, who evidently held her in great respect, and usually
extols her, says: “She soon understood what belonged to a Princess, and
took state upon her rather too much.”[148]
Footnote 148:
Burnet’s “History of My Own Time.”
We have to piece together these stray scraps of evidence in the best
manner possible, and in so doing come to the conclusion that Anne, on
finding herself publicly acknowledged Duchess of York, and wife of the
heir presumptive to the Crown, also found that she had set her foot on
the first steps of a difficult and stony road, and that possibly she
conceived her only chance in such a position was to assume and maintain
a defensive attitude. A perpetual uneasy consciousness of her hardly
acquired rank made her afraid of stepping for one moment off the
pedestal to which she had been raised, and this of itself would serve to
make her unpopular. It must be remembered also that the society which
surrounded her, reckless, wild, unscrupulous as it was, was yet one
which guarded jealously the traditions of high rank and lofty descent,
and in the fervour of the Restoration was inclined to resent hotly the
intrusion of a parvenue into the narrow circle of the blood royal of
England and was only too ready to find fault whenever a loophole could
be given. Poor Anne, it is to be feared, afforded many such.
Perhaps it may be as well to discuss in this place the vexed question of
her personal appearance. On 20th April of this year 1661, Pepys writes
acidly: “Saw the King and Duke of York and his Duchess, which is a plain
woman, and like her mother my Lady Chancellor.”
In fact, if nearly all the pictures of her which exist may be trusted,
they certainly dispose of Anne’s pretensions to beauty. They represent
for the most part a large, heavy looking woman, with an abnormally wide
mouth; and we know from contemporary evidence that she became very fat
early in life.
It is true that Sir John Reresby, who is never ill natured, generously
calls her “a very handsome woman,”[149] but only one other chronicler,
Granger, in his Biographical History, ventures on such an opinion.
Bronconi, in his Journal, declares without circumlocution: “La Duchesse
de York est fort laide, la bouche extraordinairement fendue, et les yeux
fort craillez, mais très courtoise.” The famous Grammont, a professed
critic of beauty, alluding to the marriage, says: “The bride was no
perfect beauty,” and elsewhere sums up the case judicially:
Footnote 149:
“Memoirs of Sir John Reresby,” 1764.
“She had a majestic mien, a pretty good shape, not much beauty,
a great deal of wit [this Reresby and others endorse] and so
just a discernment of merit that whoever of either sex were
possessed of it were sure to be distinguished by her, an air of
grandeur in all her actions made her to be considered as if born
to support the rank which placed her so near the throne.”[150]
Footnote 150:
“Memoirs of the Court of Charles II.,” by Count Grammont, ed.
by Sir Walter Scott, revised ed. 1846.
Considering the passion which Anne had certainly inspired in several
men, and which in the Duke of York had now raised her to her lofty
position, one is forced to the conclusion that, in spite of her lack of
physical beauty, she must have been possessed of some conquering charm
of manner which, joined to undoubted wit and certain brilliant
endowments of mind, made up for the want of personal attractions in an
age which, perhaps of all others, most prized such an attribute.
This too would partly account for the steady friendship which her
brother-in-law the King always testified for her. He was, it is true, a
connoisseur of beauty of all types, but he also greatly valued wit, and
keenly appreciated any one who could and would amuse him. He had the
strong sense of humour which is often allied to a saturnine disposition,
and which we know never failed him to the end. His own wife, with all
her good qualities, which were quite definite, with her adoring and
pathetic devotion to himself, was nevertheless, we fear, not amusing,
and he probably found in his plebeian sister-in-law a quickness of
apprehension which appealed to his strain of cynicism and impatience of
dullness; and which was not always allied to the radiant and undoubted
beauty which he admired in other women.[151]
Footnote 151:
In the year 1661 we find evidence of the King’s kind feeling towards
his sister-in-law in a present made to her. The letter is to Sir
Stephen Fox:
“CHARLES R.
“Our will and pleasure is yt you forthwith pay to Sir John
Shaw ye sum of one thousand pounds in ys of a necklace of
Pearls given by us to ye Dutchesse of Yorke and for yr soe
doing this shal be yor warrt. Given at or Court at Whitehall
this 19th of July 1661” (Egerton MS.).
Duchess Anne had for her part “wit and agreeable manners, but without
personal charm,” and Jesse rather ponderously asserts: “In the character
of Anne Hyde there seems to have been more to admire than to love. She
was possessed rather of dignity than grace, rather of masculine sense
than feminine gentleness.”[152] And Burnet further testifies that she
was “a woman of great spirit,” “a very extraordinary woman,” who “had
great knowledge and a lively sense of things.”
Footnote 152:
“Memoirs of the Court of England during the Reign of the Stuarts.”
John Heneage Jesse.
Thus equipped by nature, by education, by experience, Nan Hyde, the maid
of honour in past years of the Mary who now slept hard by among her
kindred in the Abbey, began her career as a princess, fully aware, there
can be no doubt, of the many pitfalls which menaced her.
The arena into which she stepped was a brilliant one. The Court of
England, after the long stormy interval during which such a thing did
not exist, became “very magnificent,” and the fact is readily
comprehensible.
Charles II. had so long lived an out-at-elbows life, from hand to mouth,
as it were, that the inheritance to which he had at last succeeded and
the fifty thousand “gold pieces” voted by Parliament must have seemed
for the time being inexhaustible, and a character like his would set no
bounds to his careless extravagance.[153] His ideas were naturally
lavish and picturesque, and there were always plenty of people about him
quite willing—and more than willing—to minister to these; many hands in
his pockets, moreover, as well as his own.
Footnote 153:
“Royalty Restored.” J. F. Molloy.
This state of things was, too, for a time at any rate, not unacceptable
to the people at large. Through the grim years of the Civil War, and
during the severe rule of the Commonwealth, they had been condemned to a
lack of beauty in life, to sad-coloured raiment, to stern repression, to
an absence of all the amusement and colour which had pervaded England in
the joyous, if strenuous, Elizabethan age and the first years of the
succeeding century.
It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that the commonalty, wearied and
fretted by their Puritan taskmasters, should be dazzled by the vision of
a gracious young king, easy of access, genial of speech, surrounded
moreover by splendour, beauty and gaiety.
We know now what underlay the vision. We know what was destined to
become a headlong race of folly—and worse, but it was all at first, at
least, very seductive.
And in the midst of it all now moved the new Duchess of York, for a few
months, at least, the first lady in the kingdom, until the King should
find himself a bride.
We have seen that Anne’s father participated in some of the state which
surrounded her; the dignities conferred on him, fully as his long-tried
service had merited them, being as much for his daughter’s honour as for
his own.
Pepys gives us a glimpse, now and then, of the doings at Court during
the spring of 1661. Early in April he is in St James’s Park to watch the
Duke of York play at “Pele-mele, the first time that ever I saw the
sport.”[154] James, like all his family, was very active in body, loving
sport and games of every kind. He was passionately devoted to hunting,
and this continued to the end. Long afterwards, along the grassy rides
of the forests of Saint Germain or Marly, the banished King of England
would sweep down with his train, forgetting for a few exhilarating
moments the pain of loss and exile and the green glades of Windsor which
he would never see again. It may be remembered, moreover, that when
Prince George of Denmark testified some alarm at his own tendency to
fat, Charles II. gave him promptly the advice: “Walk with me, and hunt
with my brother.”
Footnote 154:
“Diary.” 1st April 1661.
The Duke was also very fond of tennis, but here he was excelled by his
cousin Prince Rupert, the best player in England. The Prince Palatine
had not accompanied the King at the time of the Restoration, but had
arrived in England in September of the same year, after the death of the
Duke of Gloucester, when he came armed with a commission to ask for the
hand of the Princess Henrietta on behalf of the Emperor Leopold. We have
seen that this overture was useless, the queen-mother being unwilling to
consider anything which could clash with the claims of her nephew the
Duke of Orleans.[155]
Footnote 155:
“A Royal Cavalier: The Romance of Rupert, Prince Palatine.” Mrs
Steuart Erskine.
The coronation of Charles II. took place on St George’s Day, 23rd April,
the culmination of the Restoration rejoicings, but the month of May was
to see the withering of the first flower of the royal stem.
[Illustration:
PRINCE RUPERT
]
The little Duke of Cambridge, round whose cradle such a storm of passion
had raged, died on the 5th. Pepys spitefully volunteers the opinion that
the poor baby’s death, he believes, “will please everybody, and I hear
that the Duke and his lady themselves are not much troubled at it”[156];
a conclusion which seems, on every ground, very unlikely. James was to
prove himself a deeply affectionate father, and Anne’s strength and
tenacity of feeling were not likely to fail in this direction, though it
is quite possible that she made little demonstration outwardly of grief.
Footnote 156:
“Diary of Samuel Pepys,” notes by Lord Braybrooke, 1906.
Worthington’s “Diary and Correspondence.” 14th May 1661.—S. Hartlieb
to Dr Worthington: “I know not whether I told you before that the Duke
of York’s only child is dead and buried.”
During this year the King’s aunt Elizabeth, the “Winter Queen,” was at
last suffered to revisit her native country after so many stormy years.
She had been passionately desirous to do so, though England could have
been little more than a memory. But at one time she had been enshrined
in the hearts and imaginations of the English, some of whom would have
willingly set aside her brother’s children and accepted her son, Charles
Louis, as king. No doubt the knowledge of this lingered in the Queen’s
mind when she set sail once more for her early home, but as happens to
many in like circumstances, it meant disillusion. The radiant Queen of
Hearts, whom Christian of Anhalt and many another chivalrous warrior had
adored, was no more the same, and she came back, we fear, to find
herself forgotten.[157] Only Craven was left, to whom she had been the
one and only star, a few—very few—faithful friends, and her gallant son
Rupert. At first she stayed at Drury House, the guest of Lord Craven,
but later she removed to a house of her own in Leicester Field. Here,
only a few months after, she died, in February 1662.[158]
Footnote 157:
Sir Henry Wotton’s famous lyric, “Ye Meaner Beauties of the Night,”
was addressed to Elizabeth.
Footnote 158:
“A Royal Cavalier: The Romance of Rupert, Prince Palatine.” Mrs
Steuart Erskine.
In the old days at The Hague and Breda, as we have seen, Elizabeth had
been good to Chancellor Hyde’s young daughter, and had strenuously
backed the Princess Mary’s choice of the girl as maid of honour, little
dreaming how nearly they were destined to be related.
Did the Duchess of York remember the many kindnesses shown to Nan Hyde,
now when it had become possible to repay them? One must hope so, for
there is no record to tell us.
The day of the Queen of Bohemia’s funeral, on 20th February, there was a
terrible storm, a type indeed of the unquiet life now closed.[159]
Footnote 159:
“Merry Monarch: England under Charles II.” Davenport Adams.
That spring of 1662 saw the expected change in the position and
prospects of the Duchess of York, for the negotiations for the King’s
marriage were now completed. One of the basest of the many slanders
current against Clarendon was that he pushed on the match with Catherine
of Bragança by every means in his power, knowing that she would never
bear children, in order to ensure the succession to the Crown to his
daughter’s offspring.
As a matter of fact, though the Queen was destined never to become the
mother of a living child, it is yet certain that more than once she had
the hope of maternity.
However, scandal of every sort and kind was never more rife than in the
reckless, pleasure-loving, unscrupulous Court of Charles II. Every one
seems to have said whatever he or she chose, without the slightest
reference to truth, if that was likely to spoil a piquant story, and no
one was more victimised in this respect than the Lord Chancellor, who
thus paid the penalty of success. His friend Evelyn was among the few
who never wavered in their loyal attachment, and who never said a bitter
or ill-natured thing. This friendship, by the way, brought the diarist
into closer relation with the Duke of York, for in January we find the
latter announcing that he intended to visit the garden at Sayes Court,
already famous for its rare and lovely plants, the care bestowed on it,
and the culture of its gifted owner.[160] The next month, too, Evelyn
records that he is present at a comedy acted before the Duchess at the
Cockpit.
Footnote 160:
Evelyn’s “Diary.” Wm. Bray. 1850. “1662, 16th January.—Having heard of
the Duke of York’s intention to visit my poor habitation and garden
this day I returned.”
But the new queen was soon to be expected. On the 23rd April, the
anniversary of the coronation, she set sail for England, arriving at
Portsmouth on 14th May.
The Duke of York, in virtue of his office of Lord High Admiral, was
despatched to receive her as his brother’s representative, and she
welcomed him in her cabin, sitting under a canopy on a chair of state,
but displaying frank, if shy cordiality.[161] Charles himself was in no
violent hurry to see his richly-dowered bride, for he did not leave
London till the 19th, travelling in Lord Northumberland’s coach.
However, when he did arrive, no further time was lost, for the pair were
married by Sheldon on the 22nd, in the great hall or presence-chamber in
the governor’s lodging (now swept away) at Portsmouth. The register is
in the Parish Church of St Thomas. They finally reached Hampton Court,
where the honeymoon was to be spent, on the 29th, the King professing
himself perfectly satisfied with his new wife.
Footnote 161:
“Royalty Restored.” J. F. Molloy.
On the same evening the Duchess of York arrived to pay her duty to the
Queen. It must have cost her an effort, for her second child, Mary,
destined in after days to be queen, had been born barely a month
previously, on the 30th of April—Prince Rupert, by the way, being her
godfather. The Duchess came by water, in her own beautiful barge, and as
she landed at the steps the King was waiting at the garden gate near by,
and taking her by the hand, he led her along the straight, smooth alleys
into the ancient palace, and so into the new Queen’s bedroom. Anne would
have knelt to kiss her hand, but Catherine prevented the act of homage,
and raising her, kissed her affectionately.[162]
Footnote 162:
“Life of Catherine of Bragança.” L. C. Davidson.
The poor little lonely bride, fresh from her convent and narrow
upbringing, much younger than her actual years, bewildered by the racket
in which she found herself, was perhaps already hungering for some one
of her own sex to whom she could venture to unbend, and saw an augury
for future friendship and confidence in the assured carriage, the fresh
face, the steady, resolute eyes of English Nan. If so, she was not
likely under present circumstances to be disappointed; even the King was
perfectly willing to sanction such advances.
On the 15th August Evelyn mentions a visit paid to him by the Lord
Chancellor. Hyde, as we know, had a year before received the earldom of
Clarendon,[163] and though this occasion seemed to have been simply a
friendly one, yet his purse and mace were borne before him when he came
to Sayes Court. The diarist further notes: “They were likewise
collationed with us, and were very merry. They had all been our old
acquaintances in exile.”[164]
Footnote 163:
He was created Lord Hindon in November 1660, and Viscount Cornbury and
Earl of Clarendon in April 1661. (Kennet’s “Chronicle.”)
Footnote 164:
Evelyn’s “Diary.” Wm. Bray. 1850.
Before the year was out the queen-mother came to pay her second visit,
after the Restoration, to England. This time it was to welcome the new
daughter-in-law who, besides her royal blood and rank, had brought such
a splendid dower to the needy crown of England. The first meeting took
place at the ancient palace of Greenwich, which had been little used for
many years, its day having almost passed. Here Henrietta made the gentle
Portuguese bride sit on one arm-chair on her right hand, while she
herself occupied another. The King, waiving his precedence, of which,
indeed, he was never very tenacious in such matters, took a stool, while
the Duchess of York sat on one also, and the Duke stood by them.[165] It
sounds very much as if they grouped themselves with an eye to
portraiture, but it was really a matter of some importance, and thus
Anne was, we see, accorded what in France was called the right of the
“tabouret” by the dreaded queen, who less than two years back had
declared that if the hated interloper were to enter the room by one
door, she herself would leave by another. But time has its revenges, and
on the return visit, which was paid at Hampton Court, which to the
queen-mother must indeed have been full of bitter-sweet memories, when
she, naturally, was placed on Catherine’s right hand, the Duchess of
York was even provided with a chair a little to the left.[166]
Footnote 165:
“Life of Catherine of Bragança.” L. C. Davidson.
Footnote 166:
_Ibid._
As far as the young Queen was concerned, the auspicious beginning with
regard to Anne was justified. She always remained on friendly terms with
her sister-in-law. Her yielding, placable nature deferred readily to one
whose qualities provided the complement of her own, and later events
knitted a closer bond of union between them.
Meanwhile the Duke and Duchess of York took up their quarters in St
James’s Palace, the traditional residence of the heir presumptive—the
ancient manor of Henry VIII.—of whose building little remains now but
the brick gate-way.[167] It seems to have been furnished with great
splendour, and under Anne’s resolute sway her Court was more stately and
ceremonious than that at Whitehall, where the motto might have been that
of Medmenham in later days: “Fais ce que voudras.” In an idle age,
moreover, the Duchess was not idle. “She writ well,” says Burnet, “and
had begun the Duke’s life, of which she showed me a volume. It was all
drawn from his journal, and he intended to have employed me in carrying
it on.”[168]
Footnote 167:
“Old and New London.” Thornbury.
Footnote 168:
Burnet’s “History of My Own Time,” ed. 1766. “She writ very correctly”
(Appendix).
It was on account of this piece of literary work that Horace Walpole
gave the writer a place in his catalogue of noble authors, although, it
is true, he never saw the work in question. Anne also took a more or
less intelligent interest in the art of her time and country, for it was
she who projected the Series of Beauties to be painted by Lely, whose
genius was employed for many years of this reign.[169] She could at
least appreciate beauty in others, if she had but little herself, and
for this scheme we certainly owe her a debt of gratitude.
Footnote 169:
“Some Beauties of the Seventeenth Century.” Allan Fea.
The Christmas after the King’s marriage was marked by more than the
usual festivities. Secretary Pepys, always on the watch to see and
retail all that was to be seen, went eagerly to watch the royal party
dancing at Whitehall. The Queen, it seems, did not dance, but the King,
who “danced rarely,” took out the Duchess of York, and the Duke the
Duchess of Buckingham, to dance the bransle, where hands were taken in
turn. After this the King led a lady through a lively coranto, in which
dance it appears he excelled; and another of the best performers was the
little Duchess of Monmouth, Anne Scott, the greatest heiress of her day,
who in her childhood had been given to the unlucky pretender who was to
suffer so grim a fate in after days.
But happy and triumphant as one may picture her, the personal troubles
of the Duchess had already begun. In the autumn just past there occurred
the Duke’s ephemeral passion for Elizabeth Butler, Lady Chesterfield,
the daughter of Ormonde, who on her part by no means reciprocated it,
but to put an end to the situation, which she probably found
embarrassing, promptly retired into the country from London.[170]
Footnote 170:
“James II. and his Wives.” Allan Fea.
“January 19, 1663.—This day by Dr Clarke I was told the occasion of my
Lord Chesterfield’s going and taking his lady (my Lord Ormond’s
daughter) from Court. It seems he not only hath been long jealous of
the Duke of York, but did find them two talking together, though there
were others in the room, and the lady by all opinions a most good,
virtuous woman. He the next day (of which the Duke was warned by
somebody that saw the passion my Lord Chesterfield was in the night
before) went and told the Duke how much he did apprehend himself
wronged in his picking out his lady of the whole Court to be the
subject of his dishonour, which the Duke did answer with great
calmness not seeming to understand the reason of complaint; and that
was all that passed, but my Lord did presently pack his lady into the
country in Derbyshire near the Peake” (Samuel Pepys’ “Diary”).
[Illustration:
ELIZABETH, COUNTESS OF CHESTERFIELD
]
Poor Duchess Anne, however, took it passionately to heart, and
complained vehemently not only to the King, who was scarcely likely to
give her much sympathy—though he did remove Lord Chesterfield from his
office of Groom of the Stole to the Queen—but to Ormonde himself, who,
it must be remembered, was her father’s old friend. It is also probable
that she and Lady Chesterfield must have had some degree of intimacy.
Pepys, of all people, took it on himself to moralise on the subject. “At
all which I am sorry,” he writes, “but it is the effect of idleness and
having nothing else to employ their great spirits upon,” which seems an
insufficient reason. Lady Chesterfield, who never returned to London,
died two years later at Bretby, leaving a daughter who eventually
married Lord Strathmore.[171]
Footnote 171:
“Royalty Restored,” J. F. Molloy. Lord Chesterfield himself is said to
have been in love with Lady Castlemaine, a fact which did not
interfere with his jealousy of his wife.
By the month of January 1663 the Duke and Duchess appear to have made up
their differences, for they appeared together at the Cockpit to see
_Claracilla_ done by the King’s players, and there scandalised the
ubiquitous Secretary by “dalliance there before the whole world, such as
kissing and leaning upon one another,” a very curious picture of the
manners of the time.[172]
Footnote 172:
“Diary.” 5th January 1662-1663.
In the autumn of the same year Charles II., wishing perhaps to
familiarise the Queen with her new country, as well as to procure for
himself the change and variety for which he was always restlessly
seeking, set out on the first of his royal progresses, on which he was
accompanied by his brother and the Duchess, with a brilliant train.[173]
The party first visited Bath, which was recovering from the paralysing
effect of the Civil War, and about to enter on the era of its fame,
though its best period was not reached till the succeeding century; but
its waters had been long known and valued, and had been sought by Queen
Anne of Denmark fifty years earlier.
Footnote 173:
“Calendar of Domestic State Papers.” _News Letter_, 21st September
1663: “The Duke and Duchess are leaving Portsmouth, and the Duke’s
guards are to meet him on the way.” 17th September, Portsmouth.—Thomas
Lancaster and Hugh Salisbury to the same (Navy Commissioners):
“Arrived of the Foresight at Spithead, the Duke and Duchess of York
being in Portsmouth on their way to Winchester, boats have been sent
by Mr Coventry’s order to bring the Duke down to see the Dock,” etc.
On the 22nd September the King and his train left Bath and proceeded
first to Badminton, where they dined, their host being Lord Herbert.
They went thence to Cirencester, where they were received by Lord
Newburgh, and remained for that night. The next day they went on to
Oxford, and were met on the border of the county by Lord Cornbury
(Duchess Anne’s elder brother) with the high sheriff and two troops of
horse militia, besides volunteers. Further on they were met by Clarendon
himself as Lord-Lieutenant of Oxfordshire, and he entertained them with
great splendour and hospitality at his house of Cornbury. Then on the
28th the expedition passed on to Oxford itself, near to which they were
received by the heads of houses, the vice-chancellor in a short speech
giving the usual presents to the King and Queen.
Oxford, who had seen within her grey walls the dwindling Court of the
martyred king, who had vindicated her loyalty so stoutly, who had
suffered with such constancy, received now the recognition of her
fealty. None could express gratitude with more consummate grace than
Charles II., nor clothe appropriate sentiments with more fitting words,
and if the hearers were forced to the conviction that they were words
and nothing more, still they left their own impress behind them.
The King and Queen, the Duke and Duchess of York, and most of the train
were on horseback, and the cavalcade as it swept up the High Street,
past University, and Queen’s and St Mary’s Church made a very goodly
show by means of colour and movement, waving plumes and fluttering
ribbons, glitter of jewels and sheen of satin and velvet. Just so had
the Cavaliers who had rallied to the royal standard twenty years back
adorned the same streets with life and colour. For them, too, the bells
had pealed out and the citizens stood to watch, and they were gone—and
some of them forgotten.[174]
Footnote 174:
_News Letter_, 28th September: “Entering the town, the Recorder made a
speech, and the Mayor gave a present. The City militia guarded them to
the North gate, the gownsmen to Christ Church, and the scholars of
Christ Church made them a guard in the great quadrangle to their
lodgings, where Dr Fell the Dean and the Canons received them with a
short speech. On the 24th the University went in procession to Christ
Church to know when they would visit the University, and the 28th was
fixed upon. On the 25th the King and Duke went to Cornbury to see
Woodstock Park and the places near, returning to Oxford to dinner. On
the Sunday they all attended service at Christ Church, when Dean Fell
preached a seasonable and excellent sermon” (“Calendar of Domestic
State Papers”).
In 1665 there seems to have been another combined excursion westward.
The ambassador Van Gogh, writing to the States General from Chelsea, on
24th July records:
“The King and Duke of York go on Thursday from Hampton Court for
three or four days and then to Salisbury, whither the Queen and
Duchess are already gone.”[175]
Footnote 175:
“Calendar of Domestic State Papers.”
Somewhere about this time an idea seems to have got about that the Duke
of York was completely ruled by his wife, submissive to her will in all
things.
An opinion to this effect was openly expressed by the King, whose tongue
was never too scrupulous, and who nicknamed his brother “Tom Otter”
after the henpecked husband in Ben Jonson’s “Epicene, or Silent Woman,”
and elsewhere we are told that James “seemed in awe of his wife.”[176]
If so, this state of things did not long continue, and in any case it is
altogether foreign to the character of the Duke of York, as we know it.
He was at no time a person to be easily overawed, whether by his wife or
another. That she influenced him up to a certain point is very probable,
but there were distinct limits to that. Even the amount of influence
which Anne exercised in the early days of their marriage was destined to
decrease before long, and that for a reason which must now be given. The
grounds for this reason cannot be satisfactorily examined nor the
evidence sifted, for that is no longer possible. There are, as almost
always occurs, conflicting and contrary accounts; that is in the nature
of things.
Footnote 176:
“Charles II. and his Court,” A. G. A. Brett; “History of My Own Time,”
Burnet, ed. 1766.
It is no happy nor welcome task to trace the progress of
disillusionment, estrangement, coldness, following the ill-assorted
union of the King’s brother and the Chancellor’s daughter. One can so
easily picture the eager bystanders murmuring with unctuous satisfaction
the time-honoured conclusion: “I told you so!” And yet—“The pity of it,
Iago, the pity of it!” One would gladly omit from the record of that
marriage the chapter which must now perforce be set down, if only for
the sake of all that went before, of all that was to follow.
In the year 1640, when the Earl of Leicester—who was afterwards to be
half guardian, half jailer, of Princess Elizabeth and her youngest
brother at Penshurst—was ambassador at Paris, the youngest of his famous
sons, Henry, was born there. When he was eighteen his mother, whose
favourite he is said to have been, died, and in 1665 he was attached to
the household of the Duke of York as Groom of the Bedchamber.[177]
Footnote 177:
“Memoirs of the Court of England during the Reign of the Stuarts,”
John Heneage Jesse. “She is said to have proposed the Duke’s journey
to York in 1665 to be more with Sidney.”
“Diary of the Times of Charles II.,” by Henry Sidney, Earl of Romney.
Edit. R. W. Blencowe (Introduction).
“History of My Own Time,” Burnet. “A very graceful young man of
quality that belonged to her Court.” “The Duke took up a jealousy, put
the person out of his Court.”
He had his full share of the hereditary beauty of his family, the beauty
which distinguished his sister Dorothy, married three years after his
birth to the gallant young Sunderland who fell at Newbury, and his
brother Robert, believed by many of his contemporaries to be the father
of Monmouth, and who was known in his day as the “handsome Sidney.”
Conscious or not of his personal advantages, Henry Sidney fell
passionately in love with the Duchess, but that wild adoration was no
secret. Such things never were at that time, and the Court speedily rang
with the tale. Pepys licks his eager lips over the matter. “Pimm tells
me,” he writes, “how great a difference hath been between the Duke and
Duchess, he suspecting her to be naught with Mr Sidney. But some way or
other the matter is made up, but he was banished the Court, and the Duke
for many days did not speak to the Duchess at all.” Anthony Hamilton
pronounced her guilty, but Reresby, always kind and never scandalous,
says stoutly the Duchess “was kind to him and no more.” One thing is
certain, James was hotly jealous of his servant. If there really was any
truth in the aspersion on her, if Anne, in her lonely splendour,
conscious of her husband’s waning affection, resenting his infidelity,
turned to the love laid humbly and adoringly at her feet, then we can
but say: God pity her! for she was destined to drink deep of sorrow.
But it is quite as easy and fully as reasonable to give her the benefit
of the doubt. From what we have already seen, from what we have still to
see, it can be argued that she was too resolute, too self-contained, too
guarded, to succumb at this period of her life to mere personal
attraction. She had risked too much, had won her honours too hardly, to
venture them easily. That she was accused goes for nothing. Almost every
one was accused sooner or later, and the particular accusation may very
well have been an ill-natured tale invented to blacken an unpopular
princess. The hero of the romance, Henry Sidney, “the handsomest youth
of his time,” was destined to a brilliant career in after days.[178] The
short-lived disgrace which was the immediate consequence of his passion
for the Duchess, did him no harm. Much later, it is true, he was
dismissed from office, but he was made envoy to the States of Holland,
and remained there two years, having declined the embassy in Paris. It
is said that he voted for the exclusion of the Duke of York from the
succession, in the Parliament which met in 1680, when member for
Bramber, and perhaps the recollection of that early, ill-starred love
had more than a little to do with his action then. At the coronation of
James, so the story goes, the crown nearly fell from its wearer’s head,
a sinister omen, as many people considered it. Henry Sidney standing by,
promptly averted the accident, and adjusted the diadem, remarking with
happy audacity “it was not the first time that a Sidney had supported
the crown.” He became, however, one of the stanchest upholders of the
Revolution, and took with him to The Hague, in the fateful year of 1688,
the invitation of the plotters to William of Orange. On the coronation
of the latter, Sidney received the reward of a peerage, being created
Viscount Sidney and Baron Milton, and a few years later, in 1693, he was
made Earl of Romney and also became Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland and
Warden of the Cinque Ports. Henry Sidney died in 1704, unmarried. It
was, possibly, a tribute to the memory of a long dead romance—at least,
one is free to think so.
Footnote 178:
“Memoirs of Sir John Reresby.” “His Royal Highness and his duchess
came down to York (Aug. 5) where it was observed that Mr Sydney, the
handsomest youth of his time and of the Duke’s bedchamber was greatly
in love with the duchess, and he might well be excused, for the
Duchess, daughter to Chancellor Hyde, was a very handsome personage
and a woman of Fine Wit. The Duchess on her part seemed kind to him,
but very innocently.”
There was at one time a rumour coupling the name of the Duchess of York
with Henry Savile, another of the Duke’s grooms of the bedchamber, and
in reference to this report, Pepys piously ejaculates: “God knows what
will be the end of it!” However, as in the case of Sidney, there is no
positive evidence beyond rumour, and rumour was not likely to spare
anyone who had so many enemies as Anne Hyde. Therefore here, too, a plea
of innocence may be admitted on her behalf.
During the ten years from 1661 to 1671 the Duke and Duchess moved, it
seems, little from London. Besides the progress already described, made
in company with the King and Queen from Bath to Oxford, the pair were
once at York in 1665, and this, according to Reresby, seems to have
marked the beginning of Henry Sidney’s passion for the Duchess.[179]
Another time they were at Oxford, and when, like the Court, they fled
from the Plague, they took refuge at Rufford in Nottinghamshire, being
there entertained by Sir George Savile.[180] In return for this piece of
hospitality his uncle, William Coventry, begged the Duke to procure a
peerage for the host. James referred the matter to his father-in-law,
the Lord Chancellor Clarendon, backing, however, the appeal by saying
that “Sir George had one of the best fortunes in England, and lived the
most like a great man, that he had been very civil to him and his wife
in the North, and treated them at his house in a very splendid manner.”
Savile afterwards became Marquess of Halifax, having married Dorothy,
eldest daughter of Henry, Earl of Sunderland (as already mentioned), who
fell at Newbury, and also, of course, of “Sacharissa.” The Duke and
Duchess were back at St James’s at the time of the Fire, when the former
did yeoman’s service in the endeavour to check the ravages of the
terrible conflagration, when old St Paul’s, with its splendid if ruined
nave, its beautiful chantries and tombs, and its lofty spire, thundered
down in a whirlwind of devouring flame, in company of eighty-nine City
churches. No one worked harder in the face of this calamity than the
King and his brother, nor showed greater contempt of danger and
readiness of resource, and to the Duke we owe the preservation of the
Temple Church by his order to blow up the neighbouring houses. To this
Evelyn bears testimony, for he says: “It is not indeed imaginable how
extraordinary the vigilance of the King and Duke was, even labouring in
person, and being present to command, order, reward or encourage
workmen.”
Footnote 179:
“Calendar of Domestic Papers.” 7th August 1665, York.—Sir William
Coventry to Lord Arlington: “The Lord Mayor and Aldermen on horseback,
in their habits, who besides the speeches presented the Duke with 100
pieces, and the Duchess with 50.”
Footnote 180:
“Court of William III.” E. and M. S. Grew.
A little before this we find Mrs Kate Philips, known in her own day as
the “Matchless Orinda,” writing to Lady Temple (whom we know and love as
Dorothy Osborne): “I am glad of the news of the Duchess’ recovery, and
the other victory you mention at Court.” The recovery is probably from
measles, from which Anne suffered about this time.[181] The victory is
that of Frances Stewart, afterwards Duchess of Richmond, whom Charles
II. loved so madly—for a time—over her unpopular rival, Lady
Castlemaine. It was a very well known piece of gossip with which the
Court was ringing at the moment, but one can hardly fancy it to be
particularly welcome nor interesting to Dorothy Temple, being the manner
of woman she was. A month later poor Orinda was dead of smallpox, and
her poetry, “matchless” as it was thought, was very soon forgotten.[182]
Footnote 181:
“Diary.” Samuel Pepys. 28th December 1663.
Footnote 182:
“Martha, Lady Gifford: Life and Letters, 1664-1722,” edit. by Miss J.
E. Longe. “Letter from Mrs Kate Philips under the name of Orinda to
Sir Wm. Temple’s lady (Dorothy Osborne), 22nd January, 1664.”
As to Anne’s own household, it is significant that she was said to rule
it with decision and vigilance. One of her ladies was lovely Frances
Jennings, the elder sister of the famous Sarah, afterwards Duchess of
Marlborough, and she, having married first one of the wild
Hamiltons,[183] became Duchess of Tyrconnel, and was destined in her old
age to suffer the stings of poverty and neglect. But early in her career
there were love passages with the Marquis de Berni, son of Hugues de
Lionne, Foreign Secretary to Louis XIV., and her mistress encouraged the
affair, for it seems that “the Duchess, who is generally severe on such
things, finds the two so well suited that she is the first to favour
them.”[184]
Footnote 183:
Brother of Anthony, Count Hamilton, the chronicler.
Footnote 184:
“A French Ambassador at the Court of Charles II. (Comte de Cominges).”
Jusserand.
Another of the ladies was Miss Temple, afterwards Lady Lyttelton, and
yet another Lady Denham, whose story is a sad and dark one. She had been
a Brooke, and had already attracted the Duke of York when she married
Sir John Denham, who discovering the liaison, poisoned his wife, at
least, so it was suspected.[185]
Footnote 185:
Mary Kirke was another of Anne’s maids, according to Grammont.
[Illustration:
FRANCES JENNINGS, DUCHESS OF TYRCONNEL
]
But attached likewise to the Duchess’ person was one who, one cannot but
think, must have been to some extent a support and comfort in a life
that became more and more lonely and difficult as time went on.
Margaret, daughter of Colonel Thomas Blagge of Horningsheath in Suffolk,
a loyal Cavalier through the Civil War, during which he was governor of
Landguard Fort, became maid of honour to Anne, when a little girl,
probably not more than twelve years of age. The story of her short life
has been told by Evelyn, who watched over her with the care of a father,
and to whom she seems to have been almost an inspiration.[186] As a
little child she had been sent to France with the Duchess of Richmond
(that wayward, beautiful Mary Villiers, so long and deeply beloved by
Prince Rupert, and whose chivalrous lord had died broken-hearted for the
loss of his master, Charles I.). The child was then confided to the care
of Lady Guildford, Groom of the Stole to the queen-mother Henrietta, yet
even then we are told that little Margaret resisted being taken to Mass.
After her return to England she was confirmed by Gunning, Bishop of Ely,
at the age of eleven, and admitted to Holy Communion at that early
period. It was not long after this that the Duchess of York asked for
her, and from that time she lived, outwardly, the beautiful, admired,
lively maid of honour; inwardly, a life “hid with Christ.” Evelyn
himself was long unwilling to know much of her, fancying her “some airy
thing that had more wit than discretion”; and Pepys with much relish
relates that he, in company with Sir John Smith, dined with her, Mrs
Ogle and Mrs Anne Howard (another maid of honour, afterwards Lady
Sylvius), and that it “did me good to have the honour to dine with them
and look upon them.” In the whirl of the Court life Margaret Blagge
moves like the “Lady” in _Comus_, with spotless garments unsmirched by
the mire through which she treads, and leaving behind her the ineffable
perfume of the “white flower of a blameless life.”[187] She was destined
to die young, in the twenty-sixth year of her age, the passionately
beloved wife of Sidney Godolphin, the best part of whose life and
character was buried in that early grave. It is hard to think that he
who was to know such a consecration could write verses to Moll Davis!
Footnote 186:
“Life of Mrs Godolphin,” by John Evelyn, ed. by E. W. Harcourt.
Footnote 187:
“Diary of John Evelyn,” introduction by Austin Dobson. “1667. June
30th.—My wife went a journey of pleasure down the river as far as the
sea with Mrs Howard and her daughter the maid of honour (after Lady
Sylvius) and others, amongst whom that excellent creature Mrs Blagge.”
This is his first mention of her.
To Anne Hyde, whose almost stern character could appreciate honesty, the
straightforward mind and transparent truth of Margaret Blagge must have
appealed, in spite of the divergence of faith which came before the end.
For we hear of the Duchess, that “her frankness was such that she could
as little conceal her antipathies as she could disguise her
affections.”[188] This candour was, it may very easily be seen,
dangerous in her position and must have made for unpopularity.
Footnote 188:
“Anecdotal Memoirs of English Princes.” Davenport Adams.
Meanwhile the Duke of York, whatever else he was, was by no means
reconciled to a life of idleness. Pepys, in his character of Naval
Secretary, affirms early in 1664: “The Duke of York do give himself up
to business, and is likely to prove a noble prince, and so indeed I do
from my heart think he will.”[189] The former had, indeed, every
opportunity of judging, as his post brought him necessarily into
constant communication with the Lord High Admiral, communication of the
most intimate kind, for another time he remarks: “Up and carrying my
wife to Whitehall to the Duke where he first put on a periwigg to-day,
but methought his hair cut short in order did look very prettily of
itself before he put on his periwigg.”[190] This is the last we see of
James’ fair curls. King Charles was turning grey—it was said from
anxiety on account of the Queen’s dangerous illness—and so assumed a
black peruke; therefore his brother, no less than his whole Court, must
needs do likewise. Another of the honest secretary’s remarks conveys a
certain pathos: “To St James’s, and there did our business as usual with
the Duke and saw him with great pleasure play with his little girle like
an ordinary private father of a childe.”[191] If Pepys was what
Thackeray calls a snob, he was at any rate a very candid one, and
perhaps there was, besides, lurking in that commonplace mind a little
envious pang at the sight, for he, we know, was childless. Yet could he
have foreseen the future he had no need to envy James that pretty
plaything, for twenty-four years later “Mary the daughter,”[192] as the
bitter Jacobite rhyme calls her, was destined to grasp the crown torn
from the head of the father who so loved her, the father driven into
exile by his children.
Footnote 189:
“Calendar of Domestic State Papers.” Ambassador Van Gogh to the States
General. 1664-1665.—March: “The Duke of York is recovered, and will
soon go to Deal, it is believed he will go out with the Fleet. The
Duchess goes with him, and has taken a country house near so as to be
at hand to receive news of him during the expedition.”
Footnote 190:
“Diary.” 15th February 1664.
Footnote 191:
_Ibid._ 12th September 1664.
Footnote 192:
There’s Geordie the drinker,
There’s Annie the eater,
There’s Mary the “daughter,”
There’s Willie the cheater.
The Duke of York’s work on behalf of the navy did not begin and end in
St James’s or in the Admiralty buildings near the Tower. Later we shall
see him on board his flagship at grips with the Dutch, but meanwhile he
took care to visit many ships, and Anne was often with him on these
expeditions. On 19th May 1665, Lord Peterborough, writing from Harwich,
mentions that he is “going on board to compliment the Duchess.”[193] The
ship on this occasion was the _Royal Charles_, and a few days later Sir
William Coventry seems to be suffering acutely, for, addressing
Arlington, he says: “The Duchess and her beautiful Maids are departing,
therefore long letters must not be expected from me under such a
calamity, would visit their desperation on the Dutch were not the
victuallers as cruel as the ladies.”[194]
Footnote 193:
“Calendar of Domestic State Papers,” ed. by M. A. Everett-Green. Earl
of Peterboro’ to Williams.
Footnote 194:
“Calendar of Domestic State Papers,” ed. by M. A. Everett-Green. Earl
of Peterboro’ to Williams.
James was not the only prince of his house to supplement the laurels won
on land by achievements on the high seas. His cousins, the Princes
Palatine, Rupert and Maurice, had long ago made their names known as
valiant mariners. A mystery always hung over the fate of Prince Maurice,
who with his ship, the _Defiance_, vanished in a great storm.[195]
Rupert himself barely escaped with his life in a small boat when the
_Constant Reformation_ was lost with three hundred and thirty-three men,
and this year, 1665, he set out to attack the Dutch on the coast of
Guinea. He was accompanied down the river by the King and the Duke of
York, the latter longing to go with his cousin on this adventure, which,
however, came to nothing, for in spite of the Prince’s efforts the fleet
did not sail. The next year, however, the long smouldering rivalry with
the States General came to a head, and war was declared. A fleet to
proceed against the Dutch was assembled at Gunfleet, the Duke, as Lord
High Admiral, being in supreme command, and Prince Rupert, Admiral
Lawson and Lord Sandwich admirals under him. Charles, by the way, had
given the settlement of New Amsterdam to his brother, and it was
henceforth known as New York, the Dutch land settlement having been
originally taken by James I.
Footnote 195:
“A Royal Cavalier: The Romance of Rupert, Prince Palatine.” Mrs
Steuart Erskine.
In April the fleet aforesaid began the blockade of the Zuyder Zee, but
after a fortnight it was forced to return for provisions, though it had
been supposed to be victualled for five months. Prince Rupert, who came
to be known as the seaman’s friend, was highly indignant with Pepys and
other Admiralty officials on this occasion, but the debts on the fleet
had really begun under the Commonwealth and had mounted to such an
extent that it was impossible to pay the pursers.[196] Finally, after
the loss of Hamburg to the Dutch, the English fleet again set sail and
headed for Southwold Bay, meeting the enemy on 1st June. For two more
days they pursued them, till they succeeded in getting their wind-gauge,
fourteen miles from Lowestoft, and the battle actually began at
half-past three on the afternoon of 3rd June, Prince Rupert leading the
van, the Duke of York the centre, and Sandwich the rear. To James it was
probably as keen a satisfaction as it was to his cousin, to vindicate on
the sea the reckless valour which in his early youth had distinguished
him on land, and it was with the knowledge of his contempt for personal
danger, that the Duchess contrived to convey a strict injunction to all
his servants to do whatever lay in their power to restrain him on this
occasion. It was during the action that the Dutch copied the English
tactics of turning, but they found the latter ready for them, their rear
and van changing positions. However, the English sustained some disaster
by means of a mistake in the new signalling orders, and a false move on
the part of Sandwich, who allowed his squadron to become mixed with the
enemy. Nevertheless the victory remained with the English, for by seven
o’clock the Dutch were in full flight, fourteen of their ships being
taken and four thousand men slain. It was even said that they might have
been annihilated but for conflicting counsels on the part of the
English, and a mistake for which, guilty or innocent, the Duke had to
suffer. A council had been held on board his flagship, when some of the
captains asked him to discontinue the pursuit. This, however, James
refused, giving, on the contrary, the order to press on all sail, and
bidding his servants to call him when the Dutch should be sighted. He
then went below, and during the night, Brouncker, who was Gentleman of
his Bedchamber, going to the admiral, Sir William Penn, bade him shorten
sail. Penn, believing this order to come from the Duke, obeyed it, but
in the morning James came on deck, and at once questioned the admiral,
who promptly accused Brouncker. The latter held his tongue, but his
master, declaring he had given no such order, dismissed him from his
service. It was at the time considered significant that the Duke did not
further punish him, but on the other hand, it may be noticed that James’
own account of the matter is that he intended to punish Brouncker by
martial law, but that the House of Commons took up the question, and by
impeaching the culprit made any further action on his own part
impossible. Lord Montague seems to have believed that the Duke did give
the order, but Brouncker when before the House did not even pretend that
his master had done so. Whatever were James’ faults, his character for
courage and candour make his own account the more probable. In any case
he was the ultimate victim, for he was withdrawn from the command of the
navy on the ground that it exposed _him_, the heir presumptive, to too
much danger.[197] The service thereby lost a valuable head, for he had
worked hard to establish it on a permanent footing, and had already
evolved some order out of chaos. Yet this department of duty was not, at
least at this period of his life, what he most desired, or was most
congenial to him. Again on this subject Pepys writes: “He [Mr Coventry]
tells me above all of the Duke of York that he is more himself and more
of judgment is at hand in him in the middle of a desperate service than
at other times, as appeared in the business of Dunkirke, wherein no man
ever did braver things or was in hotter service at the close of that
day, being surrounded with enemies. And though he is a man naturally
martial to the highest degree, yet a man that never in his life talks
one word of himself or service of his own, but only that he saw such and
such a thing and lays it down for a maxim that a Hector can have no
courage.”[198]
Footnote 196:
“A Royal Cavalier: The Romance of Rupert, Prince Palatine.” Mrs
Steuart Erskine.
Footnote 197:
“Anecdotal Memoirs of English Princes.” Davenport Adams.
Footnote 198:
“Diary.” 4th June 1664.
It is no indifferent testimony, even in an age which produced many
brilliant soldiers who left an inheritance of great names. It may be
noted that Anne’s cruel enemy, Lord Falmouth, once Sir Charles Berkeley,
fell at Southwold Bay.
There are two letters from the Duke of York to the Prince Palatine,
which, although they are undated except as to the month, probably refer
to this year’s campaign.
“For my deare Cousin,
Prince Rupert.
“_July 17._
“I no sooner received yours of the 12 but that I sent for S^r G.
Downing and gave him order about River so that I hope he will
become exchanged, and in the meane tyme the Dutch Cap^{ne} is
put in chanes and told why he is so used. I hope that and your
giving them a sound bange will teach them better manners; this
bearer will tell them all the newes so that I have no more to
say but to thank you for the scrole you sent me and to wish you
a faire wind and good successe, and that God will preserve you
in the midst of those dangers you are likly shortly to be in.
“JAMES.”
“For my deare Cousin,
Prince Rupert.
“_Nov. 7._
“I received yours by this bearer by the which I am very glad to
find that things are in so good a readinesse where you are. I
intend God willing to be at Portsmouth on Wensday, and to-morrow
all the ships in the hope are to fall down except the _Charles_
whose mainemast must be changed, which will be sone done. I
shall ad no more hoping to see you so sone but that I am
entirely yours
“JAMES.”[199]
Footnote 199:
Forster Collection MSS. V. and A. Museum.
It was in the succeeding year that Prince Rupert and the Duke of
Albemarle achieved their great victory over the Dutch off the North
Foreland on St James’s Day, 25th July.[200] In that terrible and
stubborn fight the English had eighty-one ships of the line and eighteen
fireships, while the enemy, under the command of the famous De Ruyter,
had eighty-eight ships, ten yachts, and twenty fireships. After this
engagement the Prince Palatine carried fire and sword from Scheveningen
along the coast of Holland, but he was compelled to return for want of
provisions, of which neglect he complained bitterly. Secretary Pepys,
however, a second time the scapegoat, retorted that the fleet had been
brought back in bad condition, the Prince protesting that he could have
continued the campaign six months longer if his ships had been properly
provisioned. The Dutch fleet was enabled by his evasion to refit, and
were joined by the French in the Channel.
Footnote 200:
“A Royal Cavalier: Romance of Rupert, Prince Palatine”; Green’s “Short
History of the English People.”
All this while the Duke of York, detained at home, was chafing with
impatience and trying to fill up his time with such matters as came to
hand, and giving his attention to each. Once Pepys writes: “I to
Whitehall to a Committee for Tangiers where the Duke of York was, and I
acquitted myself well in what I had to do” (the worthy Samuel, in spite
of occasional fits of self-accusation, had always an excellent opinion
of himself). “After the Committee up I had occasion to follow the Duke
into his lodgings into a chamber where the Duchess was sitting to have
her picture drawn by Lilly, who was there at work. But I was well
pleased to see that there was nothing near so much resemblance of her
face in his work which is now the second if not the third time as there
was of my wife’s at the very first time. Nor do I think at last it can
be like, the lines not being in proportion to those of her face.” To the
end, ill as he behaved to and by her, Pepys was proud of his wife’s
beauty and really fond of her, and this naïve expression of his
satisfaction is almost pathetic.[201]
Footnote 201:
“Diary.” 24th March 1666.
Somewhere about this time Lady Fanshawe was returning from Spain, on the
death of her chivalrous and deeply mourned husband, to make at last her
home in England, and she was, as his merits entitled her, graciously
received by the King, whom he had served so long and faithfully. On this
occasion she presented two dozen “amber skins” and six dozen pairs of
gloves to the King, the Queen, the Duke and his little son the Duke of
Cambridge, who was, alas! destined soon to follow his brother.[202] The
Duke of York lent Lady Fanshawe the _Victory_ frigate to bring the rest
of her goods and people from Bilbao at the end of March 1667.
Footnote 202:
“Notes to the Memoirs of Anne, Lady Fanshawe.”
It was for that period, an age which set such store by signs and
portents, a strange defiance of omens that impelled the parents to give
what would seem a fatal title to three successive children, none of whom
were fated to survive infancy. Through the ten years which succeeded her
marriage, Anne’s nursery at St James’s Palace was filling only to be
emptied. One after another of the sons so eagerly and fondly welcomed
was destined to fade quickly out of this life, “to find the taste bitter
and decline the rest”; the ducal coronets were to fall from the small
heads too weak to bear so heavy a burden. Of the eight children born to
James, Duke of York, and Anne his wife, only two daughters survived to
play their parts thereafter on the great stage of history for good or
for evil. The mother, however her heart was wrung, as it must have been,
carried an undaunted front through those years of loss and bereavement,
and held her place resolutely in the very forefront of Court and
festival, a conspicuous and dominating figure always.
Her home throughout her married life, as before said, was St James’s
Palace, a house which must have enshrined many memories for James
himself. There he had been brought up as a child, there he had been in
his boyhood a State prisoner with the brother and sister, now both
passed away, there his father the martyr-king had spent the last night
of his life before the winter morning walk across the Park to Whitehall
and the block before the Banqueting House, and there his body had lain
that night, watched by a little band of faithful servants, before the
burial at Windsor. There also James and his wife always kept the
anniversary of that day, the 30th January, year by year, as it came
round, in sorrowful remembrance.
It was a goodly habitation, and indeed rivalled the great rambling
palace near the river in splendour of furniture and decoration and the
treasures it contained.[203]
Footnote 203:
Knight’s “London.” It was long known as St James’s Manor-House.
Yet another picture from Secretary Pepys’ busy pen is shown us
here.[204] One spring day, he tells us, he came thither to dine “with
some of the maids of honour at the Treasurer’s House,” and thereafter he
found “the Duke of York and the Dutchess with all the great ladies
sitting upon a carpet on the ground, there being no chairs, playing at
‘I love my love with an A because he is so and so, and I hate him with
an A because of this and that,’ and some of them but particularly the
Dutchess herself and my Lady Castlemaine were very witty.” A childish
game, it seems to us, yet the scene has a certain charm and grace,
invested too with piquancy by the ladies’ readiness. In other days at
The Hague and Breda, under the approving eyes of the “Winter Queen” and
her own Princess Mary, with Spencer Compton and Harry Jermyn to applaud,
Nan Hyde had learnt to hold her own in jest and repartee, and now that
she too was a princess, she had not forgotten the trick, but still shone
in swift retort and happy invention.
Footnote 204:
“Diary.” 4th March 1668.
There, too, in the ancient palace, when night came the tables would be
set for basset, the favourite game; and at them Duchess Anne, eager in
her imperious way, would set down broad pieces on the hazard, staking on
the cast now a thousand pounds, now fifteen hundred. One night she even
lost twenty-five thousand pounds, and it became to her an absorbing
passion, to be inherited by her second daughter.[205] Over and over
again in later days did James II. pay the debts of the Princess Anne,
himself the reverse of extravagant, being in this the antithesis of his
elder brother.
Footnote 205:
“Memorials of St James’s Palace.” E. Sheppard, D.D.
It is an unlovely side of Anne Hyde’s perplexing character, and one
displays it with reluctance. Certainly it was a strange outcome of her
narrow upbringing in her father’s careful household. Of her thirst for
gain Pepys has a word to say: “Mr Povy do tell me how he is like to lose
his £400 a year pension of the Duke of York which he took in
consideration of his place that was taken from him. He tells me that the
Duchess is a divil against him and do now come like Queen Elizabeth and
sits with the Duke of York’s council and sees what they do, and she
crosses out this man’s wages and prices as she sees fit for saving
money, but yet he tells me she reserves £5000 a year for her own
spending and my Lady Peterborough by and by tells me that the Duchess do
lay up, mightily, jewels.”[206] This was written in 1668, and it may or
may not be true. In a succeeding chapter a different and totally
contrasting aspect of Anne Hyde must be unfolded, one to be dwelt upon,
in one direction, with far greater satisfaction.
Footnote 206:
“Diary.” 27th January 1667-1668.
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