NEWS FROM ENGLAND
The weeks that followed, so full of great events, passions, movements,
and suspenses in Britain, passed with an almost uneventful calm in The
Hague, where the Princess, round whose rights half the turmoil had
arisen, and the wives of many eminent men engaged in, or affected by,
the rapid changing of events, waited for the packets that brought the
English letters, and lived in between their coming in a kind of retired
anxiety supported by prayers and saddened by tears.
The Elector of Brandenburg and his wife came on a visit to Mary, and she
entertained them as best she might with her heart aching with other
thoughts. They went, and she was alone again and free to go to and from
her chapel and wait for her letters and wonder and dread the future
through the cold winter days in the quiet town, which seemed, as she
was, to be waiting with suspended breath.
The progress of affairs in England came brokenly and from various
sources, letters arrived slowly, at irregular intervals, delayed by
ice-blocked rivers, storms at sea, detained messengers. At first the
news was of the Prince's progress to Exeter and the cold reception of
that city, the long delay of his friends to join him, the mere wondering
apathy of the country-people, who made no movement one way or another,
save to make a spectacle of the passing of this foreign army and to
petition the Prince that he would, when he could, remove the hearth tax.
The next news was that when the Prince was near resolved to return home
the spirited English gentry began to rise in his favour, the Lord
Wharton and the Lord Colchester marched from Oxford to join him, and my
Lord Lovelace broke through the militia, and though arrested once and
taken to Gloucester, yet forced out of prison, and with the help of some
young gentlemen who had taken up arms for the Prince, drove all the
Papists out of that city, and so joined His Highness at Exeter; soon
after the Lord Delamere came from Nottingham and took Chester, which,
under a Papist, Lord Molineux, held out for the King, and my Lord Danby
rose up in the North, and with other persons of quality seized on the
city of York and turned out the Papists and clapt up the Mayor, while
Colonel Copley, with the aid of some seamen, seized Hull and the powder
magazine, and the Earl of Bath took Plymouth from the Earl of Huntingdon
and declared for the Prince, as did all the seaport towns in Cornwall.
At which, the news ran, the King went to join his army at Salisbury,
having sent the Prince of Wales to Portsmouth, but afterwards returned
to Windsor upon an alarm of the approach of M. de Schomberg, and so to
London, where he found his favourite, Lord Churchill, his son-in-law,
Prince George, and his daughter, Anne, had fled to the Prince of Orange,
attended by the suspended Bishop of London, who had signed the
invitation to His Highness. Then followed news of the skirmish at
Wincanton, where some of the Prince's guards under Lieutenant Campbell
were put to the rout by the King's men, commanded by that gallant
Irishman, Patrick Sarsfield; soon the fleet, growing cold in the service
of His Majesty, sent up an address for a free parliament and the army
deserted by the regiment.
Now the King took out of the Tower Sir Bevil Skelton, late ambassador to
Versailles, cast there for the move he had concerted with M. D'Avaux,
which if truly followed had saved the King, as he now came to say, and
so made Sir Bevil governor of the Tower and Master of the Keys of the
Kingdom.
After which he went to Hungerford in great despair of mind, where,
advised by the Queen and the Jesuits, he sent overtures to the Prince,
offering to defer all grievances to the calling of a free parliament,
the writs for which the Lord Chancellor Jefferies had already been bid
to issue.
The Lords Halifax, Nottingham, and Godolphin, having taken this message,
brought back an answer which was the best the King could have hoped for,
since it made only those demands which were reasonable, such as that the
Papists should be removed from office and that Tilbury Fort and the
Tower of London should be put into the hands of the Capital.
But when they returned with these terms to Whitehall, the commissioners
found that the King, either through fearfulness or weakness, or wrought
on by the advices of M. Barillon, had taken the extraordinary
resolutions--first, of sending his wife and son to France, and secondly,
of flying London himself, leaving the government in chaos. Upon which
these three lords, perceiving they had been sent on a mock embassy,
became for ever incensed against His Majesty. He left a letter for the
commander of the army, a Frenchman, Lord Feversham, which that general
took to be an order for the disbanding of the forces, which finally put
everything into the greatest disorder.
The next letters that came to The Hague were full of the Prince's
success against the Irish Guards at Twyford Bridge, outside the town of
Reading, and the behaviour of the multitude in London, who, as soon as
they heard of the departure of the King and the Jesuits, and the near
approach of the Prince of Orange, got together and demolished all the
new mass chapels and convents; among which was the great monastery of
St. John, which had been two years building at a great expense, but was
now burnt down and the goods seized as the monks were hurriedly
removing, besides all the timber stored in Smithfield for the finishing,
which was stacked into a bonfire and burnt at Holborn by the river
fleet.
Likewise the chapels in Lime Street and Lincoln's Inn Fields, the
lodgings of the resident of the Duke of Florence, and Nild House, which
was the mansion of the Spanish Ambassador, were spoiled and defaced; yet
to the great credit of the English people, in all this heat and
excitement, there was not one slain or even hurt.
To put a stop to these mischiefs, the lords who were then in London went
to the Guildhall and, having demanded the keys of the Tower from Sir
Bevil Skelton and delivered them to the Lord Lucas, they took upon
themselves the governance of the kingdom for the maintenance of order
and the prevention of bloodshed. At first they associated with
themselves the magistrates of the city, but on finding that those who
are born traders cannot contest with gentlemen in great affairs, they
used them not as their colleagues but as their servants, and gave their
orders as the King had done.
Soon after they invited the Prince, who was now at Windsor, to London,
and the same day that he received their address he was presented with
another to the same effect from the city of London, which he accepted
with more pleasure, and let it be seen that he did; for his titles and
encouragements had always come from the people, and his enemies from the
nobles, both in his own country and England.
To the anxious hearts at The Hague all seemed now clear for a peaceful
conclusion, when the news came that the King, having by foul weather
been cast upon the coast of Kent, was there stopped and roughly handled
by several of the common people who knew him not.
When the governing lords heard of this they sent an express begging His
Majesty to return to London, which he did after some difficulty, and on
Sunday, being the 16th of December, entered the capital, attended by
some troops of the Life Guards and Grenadiers; and a set of boys
following him with cheers put up his spirits so that he thought he had
the people with him again.
At this juncture he sent the Lord Feversham to His Highness at Windsor,
asking him to come to St. James's and settle matters; but His Highness
had by now perceived that no settlement of any difficulty could be
arrived at while this obstinate, foolish, and fearful King remained in
London, and, having discovered that His Majesty had no courage to resist
authority, he took a high hand, arrested the Lord Feversham for
travelling without a passport, and sent three lords to Whitehall with a
message desiring the King to retire to Ham, having first secured all the
posts and avenues about Whitehall by replacing the English guards by
Dutch. On receipt of the message the King instantly agreed, only asking
that it might be Rochester and not Ham, which desire being communicated
to the Prince by messenger (His Highness being then at Zion House), who
sent an answer by M. Bentinck that he gave his consent, only adding that
he wished His Majesty to leave early that he might not meet him on the
road.
So the King, having with him the Earl of Arran and a few other
gentlemen, went by barge to Gravesend and so overland to Rochester,
where he lay in the house of Sir Richard Head.
The afternoon of this day on which the King left London for ever, the
Prince and his retinue came to St. James's, the whole city shouting and
blazing in his honour. But having always hated these displays, and
despising the levity that prompted them, he drove by a back way to the
Palace, and the people got no sight of him. All the persons of quality
in town now flocked to offer their congratulations, and the city sent up
a most obliging address which His Highness very cordially received; soon
the lords and the city requested the Prince to take the government on
himself, which he did, his first act being one which gave him peculiar
satisfaction--he ordered M. Barillon to leave the kingdom in twenty-four
hours, and had him escorted to the coast by Dutch guards, which was a
severe knock to the pride of France.
As to the affairs of the kingdom, he ordered writs to be issued for the
calling of a Convention, which was to consist of all persons who had sat
in parliament during the reign of His Majesty Charles II.
All this was great and triumphant news to the States and the Princess.
The nobility then at The Hague came to compliment Her Highness, and
three deputies were sent from the States-General to congratulate the
Prince, and were magnificently received by the English.
The Prince then commanded all Papists to depart out of London and
Westminster within three days, and to engage the city in his interest he
asked them for a loan, and though the security was but his bare word and
the sum he asked but a hundred thousand, they subscribed three hundred
thousand and paid it in, in so many days.
His Majesty being gone to Windsor so as not to prejudice the meeting of
the Convention, that body came together on the 22nd of January, and
after having humbly thanked His Highness for their deliverance, prayed
him to continue to administer the government, and appointed a day of
thanksgiving, fell to considering what course they should take.
With comparative ease they declared the throne vacant by the flight of
the King, but were not so quick in deciding who should fill it. The
Prince meanwhile kept silence, observing the same composure that he had
maintained during the whole progress of the Revolution, even hunting,
staying at private houses, and keeping out of the capital; only sending
one brief letter to the Convention, in which he prayed them to come
quickly to a decision, as there was the safety of Europe to consider.
Despite this withdrawal of himself, this calm that he displayed in the
midst of the turmoil, he was the pivot round which all circled, the one
authority respected by all, the one defence against anarchy and
mischievous confusion.
The English, who knew in their hearts that they could not do without
him, could by no means make up their minds what to do with him, and
soon, after their custom, split into very decided parties, which were
most violent against each other and got every day farther from a
settlement.
At this time the news that reached The Hague was of the most astonishing
and unwelcome to the Princess, and this was the manner of her receiving
it, one day, very cold, in late January. She was riding in her chariot
in the Voorhout, reflecting on this extraordinary revolution in her
native country, and thinking of her father (who was now fled to France),
when she was accosted by M. D'Avaux, who still remained at The Hague.
The Princess was much surprised by this, and was giving a mere formal
salute, when M. D'Avaux, with his hat clasped to his bosom, galloped up
to her open chariot in such a manner that she could do nothing but
desire it to stop.
"Ah, Madam," said he, smiling, and very courteous, "am I to condole with
the daughter of King James or congratulate the wife of the Prince of
Orange?"
She looked at him, very pale, but with a great majesty.
"You are to respect a woman in an extraordinary and sad situation,
Monsieur," she answered gravely.
"Extraordinary indeed, Your Highness," said M. D'Avaux. "But scarcely
sad to you, I think, who are like to be Queen."
It flashed through Mary's mind how near to war they must be with France
before he could venture to speak so.
She answered instantly--
"I take no public reprimand from the Ambassador of France, Monsieur."
M. D'Avaux bowed.
"More a congratulation, Highness, to the future sovereign of England."
Her look of amaze was not to be concealed. His keen eyes, that never
left her face, remarked it.
"Ah, Your Highness hath not heard the last news from England?" he asked
quietly.
"News from England!" repeated Mary, "I hear nothing else----"
"Then you will have heard that the Convention is for making you Queen,
Madam," he answered, "which perhaps is not quite the consummation His
Highness desired."
Mary gazed at him a second, then made a motion with her gloved hand to
the coachman.
"It is cold to keep the horses waiting," she said, and so drove on.
Cold indeed, and the snow beginning to fall in heavy flakes across the
straight fronts of the noble houses in the Voorhout; the people of
quality gathered there on horseback and on foot began to scatter before
the chilly wind and slow darkness. The Princess shuddered inside her
fur coat, and drove back to the 'huis ten bosch.'
As she passed down the gaunt avenues of bare trees overshadowing frozen
water and frozen ground, showing between their dark trunks glimpses of a
pale February sunset fast being blotted out by the thick snow clouds,
she felt to her very heart the awful desolation of approaching change,
the wild regret for a happy period closed, the unnameable loneliness
which assailed her when she considered how she was being caught up and
hurried into a whirl of events foreign and distasteful.
When she reached home she asked for her letters; but evidently the
packet that had brought M. D'Avaux his had none for her. She made no
comment, but played basset awhile with Lady Sunderland, went early to
her prayers, then wept herself to sleep.