Decline of the Duchess’s influence—Her attempt in favour of Lord
Cowper—Singular Letter from Anne in explanation—Intrigues of the
Tories—Harley’s endeavours to stimulate the Queen to
independence.—1706.
Until the period on which we are now entering, the influence of the
Duchess of Marlborough over the mind of her sovereign was not visibly
impaired, by her own indiscretion, or by the arts of her opponents. Yet
those differences of opinion which disturbed the singular friendship of
Mrs. Freeman and Mrs. Morley, and of which advantage was finally taken
by the enemies of the Duchess to effect a total alienation between her
Majesty and her former favourite, continued, and were, according to her
fashion, stoutly contested by the Duchess.
On one important point the Duchess addressed her Majesty with
considerable earnestness. Lord Cowper, whose friendship was an honour
which the Duchess fully appreciated, was at this time Lord Keeper;[74]
and it was the endeavour of the Duchess to throw into his hands that
patronage in the church which, she rightly deemed, he would exercise
conscientiously and judiciously. But it was in vain that she urged the
Queen to allow Lord Cowper to fill up various livings belonging to the
crown, which had now for some time been vacant, and of which Anne
delayed to dispose. She addressed a remonstrance to her Majesty,
representing how safely she might place power in the hands of Lord
Cowper. The Queen returned a kind but unsatisfactory reply; and the tone
in which it was conveyed betrayed plainly the incipient coolness which
had commenced between Anne and her viceroy.
After apologising for the interval which had elapsed before she had
answered the Duchess’s letter,—a delay for which Anne accounted by the
frivolous reason, that not having time to answer it “before supper,” it
was not very “easy to her to do so after supper,”—the Queen, whilst
assuring Mrs. Freeman that she had a firm reliance on the equity and
judgment of Lord Cowper, observes, “that in her opinion the crown can
never have too many livings at its own disposal; and, therefore,” she
adds, “though there may be some trouble in it, it is a power I can never
think it reasonable to part with, and I hope those that come after me
will think the same.”
“You wrong me much,” continues Anne, “in thinking I am influenced by
some you mention in disposing of church preferments. Ask those whom I am
sure you will believe, though you won’t me, and they can tell you I
never disposed of any without advising with them, and that I have
preferred more people upon other recommendations than I have upon his
that you fancy to have so much power with me.” With the assurance that
there would soon be “more changes,” and with the further declaration, to
use the Queen’s own words, “that in a little time Mr. Morley and _me_
shall redeem our credit with Mrs. Freeman,” the Queen, under the humble
signature not yet abandoned, of “your poor, unfortunate, faithful
Morley,”[75] closes this explanation:—a singular reply, manifesting that
the royal composer of the letter was now weary of that subjection from
which she emancipated herself only to fall into other snares; but that
she wanted courage, though not inclination, to throw off the yoke.
The scheme projected by the Tories, of bringing over the Electress
Sophia into this country, had not only failed, as we have seen, but had
thrown the game entirely into the hands of their opponents. The Queen,
irritated beyond her usual custom, wrote, in the hurry of the moment, in
such terms to her favourite as to authorise the expectation that her
resentment against the Tories would not quickly subside.
The reasons for Anne’s displeasure continued in force until they were
superseded by others, equally feminine, arising in the royal mind of the
timid, prejudiced, and ill-judging Anne, which renewed her innate
dislike towards the opposite faction. The decline of the Whig party was
arrested this year by the victory of Ramilies, on which occasion the
Queen wrote to Marlborough, assuring him “that she wanted words to
express the true sense she had of the great service he had done his
country and her in that great and glorious victory, and hoped it would
be a means to confirm all good and honest people in their principles,
and frighten others from being troublesome;”—“and _then spoke_,” adds
the Duchess of Marlborough, “of the alloy it was to all her
satisfaction, to consider what hazards he was exposed to, and repeated
an obliging request she had often made, that he would be careful of
himself.”[76] “I cannot doubt,” adds the narrator of this gracious
message, “of the Queen’s kind disposition to my Lord Marlborough at this
time, or of her willingness to oblige him.”
The recent introduction of Lord Sunderland to office soon gave rise,
however, to a division in the cabinet. Harley, who was offended at the
dismissal of Sir Charles Hedges, was practising upon the Queen’s weak
mind, and endeavouring to persuade her Majesty to “_go alone_,”—a notion
which had been sedulously kept down by the reigning influence, for many
years past; or, as the Duchess expresses it, “to instil into the Queen
notions of the high prerogative of acting without her ministers—(as she
expressed it,) of being Queen indeed.”[77]
The first proof that Anne gave of her profiting by these doctrines, was
her appointing certain high church divines to fill two bishoprics. This
led several of the Whigs to think themselves betrayed by the ministry;
whereas the truth was, that the Queen was secretly under the influence
of the Tories, and found it irksome to consult with her ministers on any
promotions. The Duke of Marlborough, who, it appears, never lost the
respect of his sovereign, represented to the Queen the impropriety of
thus acting, and “wrote a very moving letter to her, complaining of the
visible loss of his interest with her,” and recommending her Majesty,
“as the only way to make her government easy, to prefer none of those
that appeared to be against her service and the nation’s interest.”
Notwithstanding the great general’s services, it was, however, manifest
that his influence, and that of the Duchess, were now, from some cause
or other, deeply undermined. The Duke, as well as the Duchess, suffered
great vexation from this new and unforeseen apprehension; for it is easy
to be happy without tasting power, but difficult indeed to part with it
after long possession. It was in the answer to some communications from
the Duchess that Marlborough wrote these touching words, betraying all
the weariness of worldly anxieties.
“When I writ my last, I was very full of the spleen, and I think with
too much reason. My whole time, to the best of my understanding, has
been employed for the public good, as I do assure you I do in the
presence of God, neglecting no opportunity to let the Queen see what I
take to be her true interest. It is terrible to go through so much
uneasiness.”[78]
The state of parties was indeed such, that “every service done to the
sovereign, however just and reasonable in its own nature,” was, as an
author justly observed, “made a job by the minister and his tools.”[79]
The understream of faction was flowing unseen, but deep; and the Duchess
was for a time insensible to the sure course which it had taken. She was
intoxicated with power. Her enemies, indeed, alleged that she
“considered her vicegerency as well established as the royal
prerogative; that she might not only recommend a point or person, but
insist on either as understood in her grant—as a perquisite of her high
office; and that she was privileged to exclude everybody from the royal
presence, who had not the happiness of being in her good graces.”[80]
It is apparent, however, from the letters which passed between Queen
Anne and the Duchess, that it was not without continual arguments and
remonstrances that the favourite had raised her chosen party to royal
favour; and thus maintained, that it was accomplished only by earnest
endeavours, and with difficulty. The Duchess, it was more than probable,
expected, and sometimes extorted, too much for her friends and
adherents. Marlborough truly said, that “both parties were in the
wrong.”[81] To his sense of justice, his moderation, and calm
observation, the interested views of those who alike professed the
highest motives, only affixing different names to their boasted objects,
were laid bare by a long experience of courts, and by a deep insight
into the minds of men. “The Whigs,” it was said, and not without
justice, “acted on Swiss principles, and expected to be paid the top
price of the market, for coming plump into the measures of the court, at
the expense of their former professions.”[82]
The Queen, the nervous Queen, was considered as a mere property, “which
was to be engrossed, divided, or transferred, as suited best with the
mercenary views of those state-brokers who had the privilege of dividing
the spoil.”[83]
It was not, however, until Harley despaired of achieving the Duchess’s
favour, that he became her determined, though secret foe. Even after his
enmity was in operation, the Duchess might have retrieved her fortune by
prudent attention to her royal mistress. She came, however, seldom to
court, a line of conduct which was considered ill judged on her part;
and, when she attended on the Queen, performed her offices of duty, such
as holding her Majesty’s gloves, with a haughty and contemptuous air,
which Anne, who had sunk her own dignity in a degrading familiarity, was
constrained to endure, but could not be obliged to forgive.
The court suffered no diminution of gaiety on account of the haughty
favourite’s absence; for she is said to have long before ceased to look
upon any but her own family with respect. Lord Godolphin rejoiced at her
remissness on his own account; “for when she was at court, she was
always teasing him with womanish quarrels and altercations, or
continually troubling him with interruptions in the business of the
state; whereas, now the sole direction of the thing was in his own
hands.”[84]
Mr. Harley, on the other hand, lost no opportunity of ingratiating
himself into the favour of the Queen. Under pretence of business, he
obtained access to her Majesty in the evening, and, disclosing matters
which had been concealed from the royal ear, he discovered her real
sentiments, and, with infinite address, generally contrived to bring her
opinions round to his own views. But all his efforts would have been
unsuccessful without the aid of female ingenuity. Well did Harley know
the temper and peculiarities of the woman whom he desired to supplant.
Well could he judge the more common-place character of the homely Anne,
whose gentle nature could dispense with respect, but could not exist
without a friend; and a friend to supply the void in the Queen’s heart
was soon discovered.
Before the schemes of Harley were ripened, the Duke of Marlborough had
returned from the victory of Ramillies, laden with honours. He had
received addresses from both Houses of Parliament, who also petitioned
the Queen to allow a bill to be brought in to settle the Duke’s honours
on the male and female issue of his daughters. This favour was obtained;
and the manor of Woodstock and Blenheim-house were, after the decease of
the Duchess, upon whom they were settled in jointure, entailed in the
same manner with the honours. The annuity of five thousand a year from
the Post-office, formerly proposed by the Queen, was now granted; and
the palace of Blenheim was ordered to be built at the public charge.
Harley and St. John, to a profusion of flattery and of good offices,
added their advice to the Duke that he would erect this great monument
of his glory in a style of transcendent magnificence; but with what
motives these counsels were given, afterwards appeared.[85]
The Queen had not only received Marlborough graciously, and ordered a
triumphal procession for his trophies, but, to please her successful
general, or his wife, had appointed a Whig professor, Dr. Potter, to the
chair of divinity at Oxford. But this was an expedient, by yielding one
small point, to cover a much greater design.[86]
To aid his schemes, Harley acquired an associate, humble, pliant, needy,
and in every way adapted to perform that small work to which an
intriguing politician is constrained sometimes to devote a mind
professedly and solely embued with the spirit of patriotism, and racked
with anxiety for his country’s welfare.[87]
Abigail Hill, a name rendered famous from the momentous changes which
succeeded its introduction to the political world, was the appropriate
designation of the lowly, supple, and artful being on whose secret
offices Harley relied for the accomplishment of his plans. Mistress Hill
at this time held the post of dresser and chamber-woman to her Majesty,
an appointment which had been procured for her by the influence of the
Duchess of Marlborough, to whom she was related. The world assigned
certain causes for the pains which that proud favourite had manifested,
to place her kinswoman in a post where she might have easy access to the
Queen’s ear, and obtain her confidence. The Duchess, it was said, was
weary of her arduous attendance upon a mistress whom she secretly
despised. She had become too proud to perform the subordinate duties of
her office, and proposed to relieve herself of some of her cares, by
placing one on whom she could entirely depend, as an occasional
substitute in the performance of those duties which even habit had not
taught her to endure with patience. Since, after the elevation of the
Duke, in consequence of the battle of Blenheim, she had become a
princess of the empire,[88] she was supposed to consider herself too
elevated to continue those services to which she had been enured, first
in the court of the amiable Anne Hyde, then in that of the unhappy Mary
of Modena, and since, near her too gracious sovereign, the meek, but
dissembling Anne.
According to the Duchess herself, her inauspicious patronage of Mistress
Abigail Hill, afterwards the noted Lady Masham, had a more amiable
source than that which was ascribed to it by the writers of the day.
Lord Bolingbroke says truly, that there are no materials for history
that require to be more scrupulously and severely examined, “than those
of the time when the events to be spoken of were in transaction.” “In
matters of history,” he remarks, “we prefer very justly cotemporary
authority; and yet cotemporary authors are the most liable to be warped
from the straight line of truth, in writing on subjects which have
affected them strongly.” “Criticism,” as he admirably observes,
“separates the ore from the dross, and extracts from various authors a
series of true history, which could not have been found entire in any
one of them, and will command our assent, when it is formed with
judgment, and represented with candour.”[89]
In following this rule, we must not only take into account the rumours
of the day, but give due weight to those reasons which were assigned by
the Duchess, for her endeavours to promote the interests of the humbled
and unfortunate Abigail Hill.
The ungrateful kinswoman had been early acquainted with adversity, which
was the remote cause of her ultimate greatness. She was the daughter of
an eminent Turkey merchant, who became a bankrupt, with the encumbrance
of a numerous and unprovided family. Abigail was at one time so reduced,
as to enter into the service of Lady Rivers, wife of Sir John Rivers,
Bart., of Chafford; and was rescued from her lowly situation by the
charitable offices of the Duchess of Marlborough, to whom she had the
good fortune to be related.
The Duchess has left a succinct account of the degree of kindred in
which her rival stood to her, and of the manner in which she became
acquainted with her destitute condition. It would be impossible to alter
the Duchess’s narrative into any better language than her own. The
unvarnished and uncontradicted statement which she put forth, years
after the clamour against her had subsided, is prefaced with the
following observations.[90]
“The story of this lady, as well as of _that gentleman_ who was her
great adviser and director, is worth the knowledge of posterity, as it
will lead them into a sense of the instability of court favour, and of
the incurable baseness which some minds are capable of contracting.
“Mrs. Masham,” she continues, “was the daughter of one Hill, a merchant
in the city, by a sister of my father. Our grandfather, Sir John Jenyns,
had two-and-twenty children, by which means the estate of the family,
which was reputed to be about four thousand pounds a year, came to be
divided into small parcels. Mrs. Hill had only five hundred pounds to
her fortune.[91] Her husband lived very well for many years, as I have
been told, until, turning projector, he brought ruin upon himself and
family. But as this was long before I was born, I never knew there were
such people in the world till after the Princess Anne was married, and
when she lived at the Cockpit; at which time an acquaintance of mine
came to me and said, _she believed I did not know that I had relations
who were in want_, and she gave me an account of them. When she had
finished her story, I answered, _that indeed I had never heard before of
any such relations_, and immediately gave her out of my purse ten
guineas for their present relief, saying, I would do what I could for
them. Afterwards I sent Mrs. Hill more money, and saw her. She told me
that her husband was the same relation to Mr. Harley as she was to me,
but that he had never done anything for her. I think Mrs. Masham’s
father and mother did not live long after this. They left four children,
two sons and two daughters. The elder daughter (afterwards Mrs. Masham)
was a grown woman. I took her to St. Albans, where she lived with me and
my children, and I treated her with as great kindness as if she had been
my sister.”
It appears from this statement, that Mrs. Hill must have enjoyed
considerable opportunities of studying the character of her patroness;
nor were her means of learning Anne’s peculiarities and defects less
frequent and advantageous.
“After some time,” adds the Duchess, “a bedchamber woman of the Princess
of Denmark’s died; and as in that reign (after the Princesses were grown
up) rockers, though not gentlewomen, had been advanced to be bedchamber
women, I thought I might ask the Princess to give the vacant place to
Mrs. Hill. At first, indeed, I had some scruple about it; but this being
removed by persons I thought wiser, with whom I consulted, I made the
request to the Princess, and it was granted.
“As for the younger daughter, (who is still living,) I engaged my Lord
Marlborough, when the Duke of Gloucester’s family was settled, to make
her laundress to him, which was a good provision for her; and when the
Duke of Gloucester died, I obtained for her a pension of 200_l._ a year,
which I paid her out of the privy purse. And some time after I asked the
Queen’s leave to buy her an annuity out of some of the funds;
representing to her Majesty, that as the privy purse money produced no
interest, it would be the same thing to her if, instead of the pension
to Mrs. Hill, she gave her at once a sum sufficient to produce an
annuity, and that by this means, her Majesty would make a certain
provision for one who had served the Duke of Gloucester. The Queen was
pleased to allow the money for that purchase, and it is very probable
that Mrs. Hill has the annuity to this day, and perhaps nothing else,
unless she saved money after her sister had made her deputy to the privy
purse, which she did, as soon as she had supplanted me.”
Not contented with conferring these important benefits, the Duchess, it
appears, resolved to provide for the whole family.
“The elder son was,” she says, “at my request, put by my Lord Godolphin
into a place in the Custom-house; and when, in order to his advancement
to a better, it was necessary to give security for his good behaviour, I
got a relation of the Duke of Marlborough’s to be bound for him in two
thousand pounds. His brother (whom the bottle-men afterwards called
_honest_ Jack Hill) was a tall boy, whom I clothed (for he was all in
rags) and put to school at St. Albans to one Mr. James, who had been an
usher under Dr. Busby of Westminster; and whenever I went to St. Alban’s
I sent for him, and was as kind to him as if he had been my own child.
After he had learned what he could there, a vacancy happening of page of
honour to the Prince of Denmark, his highness was pleased, at my
request, to take him. I afterwards got my Lord Marlborough to make him
groom of the bedchamber to the Duke of Gloucester. And though my lord
always said that Jack Hill _was good for nothing_, yet, to oblige me, he
made him his aide-de-camp, and afterwards gave him a regiment. But it
was his sister’s interest that raised him to be a _general_, and to
command in that ever-memorable expedition to Quebec; I had no share in
doing him the honours. To finish what I have to say on this subject;
when Mr. Harley thought it useful to attack the Duke of Marlborough in
parliament, this Quebec _general_, this _honest_ Jack Hill, this _once
ragged boy, whom I clothed_, happening to be sick in bed, was
nevertheless persuaded by his _sister_ to get up, wrap himself in warmer
clothes than those I had given him, and go to the House to vote against
the Duke. I may here add, that even the _husband_ of Mrs. Masham had
several obligations to me: it was at my instance that he was first made
a page, then an equerry, and afterwards groom of the bedchamber to the
Prince; for all which he himself thanked me, as for favours procured by
my means. As for Mrs. Masham herself, I had so much kindness for her,
and had done so much to oblige her, without having ever done anything to
offend her, that it was too long before I could bring myself to think
her other than a true friend, or forbear rejoicing at any instance of
favour shown her by the Queen. I observed, indeed, at length, that she
was grown more shy of coming to me, and more reserved than usual when
she was with me; but I imputed this to her peculiar moroseness of
temper, and for some time made no other reflection upon it.”[92]
The moroseness of temper, which might be a constitutional infirmity
incident to the family stock, was accompanied, however, with a
suppleness of deportment, a servility, and a talent for artifice, which
are not incompatible with a deep-seated pride, and with a contumacious
turn of mind, subdued to superiors, but venting itself with redoubled
virulence on those on whom it can with impunity be spent. Towards the
Queen, Mrs. Hill displayed, as might be expected, a humility and
sweetness of manner which proved, doubtless, highly acceptable to one
accustomed to receive only a lofty condescension, not to speak of
frequent exhibitions of passion, in her earlier and haughtier friend.
Mrs. Hill’s real sentiments on religion and politics happened to be,
fortunately for herself, in accordance with those of the Queen. Anne,
accustomed to opposition and remonstrance, nay, sometimes, rebukes, upon
certain points which she had at heart, delighted in the enthusiasm of
her lowly attendant concerning matters hitherto forbidden her to dwell
upon. Mrs. Hill was an enemy to the Hanoverian succession, if not a
partisan of the exiled Stuarts,—subjects on which the Queen and the
Duchess were known to have frequent controversies, which sometimes
degenerated into angry disputes.
These bickerings had, in the sedate and guarded Abigail, a watchful and
subtle observer. It may easily be credited that she turned them
skilfully to account. Not that she was so imprudent as to hoist a banner
on the side of Anne whilst the redoubtable Sarah was present; but her
sympathy, her acquiescence, her responsive condolences, when, after the
storm subsided, the Queen poured forth into her friendly ear
confidential complaints of the absent Duchess, were ever ready, and
effected their purpose. The flattering gratitude and humility with which
she listened and soothed the Queen; their cordial concurrence on topics
which then divided the female world, whilst they employed masculine
minds; gradually worked a way for the lady-dresser into the affections
of the Queen, and gradually, also, ejected, by a subterranean process,
the only obstacle to her undivided ascendency which Mrs. Hill, in her
powerful kinswoman, might have to encounter.
The Duchess was the last of all the court to perceive the dangerous
influence of Abigail, and to acknowledge the extent of the new
favourite’s power. She depended on Mrs. Hill’s fidelity to her; she
depended on that weakest of all bonds, a sense of obligation; she
considered her cousin as, for her sake, a vigilant observer of the
Queen’s actions, and as a lowly partisan, an attached and useful friend.
From the time that she had known of the distress of her humble
relatives, she had, as she alleges in her letter to Bishop Burnet,
“helped them in every way, without any motive but charity and relation,
having never known their father:”[93] nor did the peculiar manner of the
humble bedchamber woman rouse the pride or the suspicions of the
mistress of the robes. “She had,” writes the Duchess, recalling
circumstances, possibly, at the moment unobserved, “a shy, reserved
behaviour towards me, always avoided entering into free conversation
with me, and made excuses when I wanted her to go abroad with me. And
what I thought ill-breeding, or surly honesty, has since proved to be a
design deeply laid, as she had always the artifice to hide very
carefully the power which she had over the Queen.”[94]
Affairs were in this state when a rumour reached the Duchess, of her
cousin’s marriage with a gentleman named Masham, whom the Duchess had
likewise promoted to a place in the Queen’s household. This took place
in the summer of 1707, when the battle of Ramillies had propped up the
declining favour of Marlborough, and consequently repaired, in some
degree, the breaches of confidence between the Queen and the Duchess.
The Duchess, although naturally startled at the intelligence, acted in
the direct and candid manner which strong minds can alone adopt on such
occasions. She went to her cousin, and asked if the report were true.
Mrs. Masham acknowledged the fact, and begged to be forgiven for having
concealed it.[95]
It was not in the power of her artful relative, nor of her tool, the
Queen, much longer to blind the woman whom they had, with true vulgarity
of mind, gloried in deceiving.[96] The Duchess, in an unpublished
manuscript explanation of her conduct, addressed to Mr. Hutchinson,
describes her incredulity upon the subject of the baseness of one, to
whom she had acted in “the capacity of a mother;” whom she had preserved
from starving; and who repaid her bounty by seizing every opportunity of
undermining her benefactress.[97]
Mrs. Masham could not assign any adequate reason for the concealment of
the marriage, for it was at once suitable in point of rank, and prudent
in respect to circumstances. Mr. Samuel Masham was the eighth son of Sir
Francis Masham, a Baronet, and was reputed to be a gentleman of honour,
and of worth. Already had he risen from the post of page to that of
equerry in Prince George’s household, and from the office of equerry had
been promoted to that of groom of the bedchamber. The Duchess had
herself, as it has been stated, assisted in his elevation; for it was at
that time understood that no person who was not agreeable to the
Marlborough family, or supposed to be, in particular, acceptable to the
Duchess, could be raised to any office of importance.[98] Hence Mr.
Masham could not be objectionable to the Duchess as a match for her
cousin, except on one ground—he was a relation of Mr. Harley.
The Duchess, notwithstanding that she felt she had reason to be offended
with Mrs. Masham’s conduct, was willing to impute it to “want of
breeding and bashfulness,” rather than to that deceptive and petty
spirit which rejoices in mystery. She forgave and embraced her cousin,
and wished her joy; and then, entering into conversation with her on
other subjects, began in the most friendly manner to contrive how the
bride might be accommodated with lodgings, by removing her sister into
some apartments occupied by the Duchess. After this point was arranged,
the Duchess, still deceived, inquired whether the Queen were informed of
the marriage, and “very innocently” offered her services to acquaint her
Majesty with the affair. Mrs. Masham, who had, says the Duchess, by this
time learned the art of dissimulation pretty well, answered, with an
untroubled mien, that the bedchamber women had already apprised the
Queen of it,—hoping by that reply to prevent any further examination of
the matter. The Duchess, all astonishment, and probably, though she does
not acknowledge it, all fury, went directly to the Queen, and inquired
why her Majesty had not been so kind as to tell her of her cousin’s
marriage; putting her in mind of a favourite quotation from Montaigne,
adopted by Anne, namely, that it was no breach of secrecy “to tell an
intimate friend anything, because it was only like telling it to
oneself.”[99]
“This,” to speak in the Duchess’s own words, “I said, I thought she
herself ought to have told me of; but the only thing I was concerned at
was, that this plainly showed a change in her Majesty towards me, as I
had once before observed to her; when she was pleased to say, that it
was not she that was changed, but me; and that if I was the same to her,
she was sure she was so to me.” Upon this the Queen answered, with a
great deal of earnestness, and without thinking to be upon her guard, “I
believe I have spoken to her a hundred times to tell you of it, and she
would not.”
This answer startled the Duchess very much; and she began to reflect on
the incongruity of her Majesty’s two answers; the first asserting that
she believed the bedchamber women had told her of Mrs. Masham’s
marriage; the second, implying that Mrs. Masham and her Majesty had
repeatedly held consultations upon the subject.
This reserve, and the evident collusion between the parties, roused the
suspicions of the Duchess, and she instantly resolved to commence a
strict examination into the relative position, and the ultimate end and
object of the parties thus implicated in what she deemed a conspiracy
against her power and peace. Fortunately for her biographers, she has
left ample explanations, carefully preserved, of all those passages of
her life which relate to her ultimate dismissal from the Queen’s
service. In a letter which many years afterwards she is said to have
addressed to Bishop Burnet, she gives a clear statement, which she
corroborates by copies of all the correspondence which passed between
herself and the Queen relative to the great affair of her life.
It was not long before the Duchess, on instituting an inquiry among her
friends, discovered that the Queen had even gone herself secretly to her
new favourite’s marriage in the “Scotch doctor’s chamber,” a
circumstance which was discovered by a boy, who belonged to one of the
under servants, and who saw her Majesty go thither alone.[100] The
marriage had also been confided to several persons of distinction.
It was easy to be informed of that which every body but herself knew;
and, in less than a week, the indignant Duchess discovered that her
cousin was an “absolute favourite,” and that when the marriage was
solemnised at Dr. Arbuthnott’s lodging, her Majesty had called for a
round sum out of the privy purse. To this intelligence was added the
still more startling information, that hours of confidential
communication were daily passed by Mrs. Masham in the Queen’s
apartments, whilst Prince George, who was now a confirmed invalid, was
asleep; but who, in spite of the advantage taken of his slumbers, had
been one of the illustrious confidants on this occasion.
The Duchess could now trace the whole system of deception which had been
carried on to her injury for a considerable time; her relative and
former dependent being the chief agent—her sovereign the accomplice. She
could account for the interest which Harley had now acquired at court by
means of this new instrument. She could explain to her astonished and
irritated mind certain incidents, which had seemed of little moment when
they occurred, but which afforded a mortifying confirmation of all that
she had learned. “My reflection,” she says, “brought to my mind many
passages, which had seemed odd and unaccountable, but had left no
impression of suspicion or jealousy.[101] Particularly I remembered that
a long while before this, being with the Queen, (to whom I had gone very
privately from my lodgings to the bedchamber,) on a sudden this woman,
not knowing I was there, came in with the boldest and gayest air
possible; but upon sight of me stopped, and immediately changing her
manner, and making a most solemn courtesy, ‘_Did_ your Majesty ring?’
and then went out again.”
This behaviour needed now no further explanation. The Duchess perceived
too late that she was supplanted; and she was resolved that Mrs. Masham
should quickly know that her injured benefactress was undeceived. She
wrote, therefore, with her usual promptitude and sincerity, the
following candid, but at the same time moderate letter to her rival.
Godolphin, whom she consulted upon all occasions, probably pruned it
into the following careful form.
“Since the conversation I had with you at your lodgings, several things
have happened to confirm me in what I was hard to believe—that you have
made me returns very unsuitable to what I might have expected. I always
speak my mind so plainly, that I should have told you so myself, if I
had had the opportunity which I wished for; but being now so near
parting, think this way of letting you know it, is like to be the least
uneasy to you, as well as to
“Your humble servant,
“S. MARLBOROUGH.”
To this letter no immediate reply was returned; for, doubtless, Mrs.
Masham had, on the other hand, her advisers. The Duchess in vain waited
all the day at Windsor, after sending her letter, in expectation of a
reply. Mrs. Masham was, however, obliged to consult with her great
director, before she could frame an answer on so “nice a matter.” It
was, indeed, no easy point to explain, that a poor relation, only a
dresser, as the Duchess remarked, and she a groom of the stole, should
conceal from a relation to whom she owed everything, that affair which
most concerned her; whilst the Queen, who, for thirty years had never
disguised one circumstance from her faithful Freeman, should be led into
the plot.
The primary origin of her disgrace she imputed, when time had cooled her
resentments, to her efforts to establish the Whigs in the Queen’s
favour. The immediate source of the quarrel was the successful endeavour
of Mrs. Hill to supplant the cousin, to whom she professed to owe great
obligations. For, as the Duchess affirms, even when every word she spoke
had become distasteful to Anne, and when every step she took was
canvassed in the Queen’s closet, still the Queen declared she was not in
the least altered, whilst Mrs. Masham professed the deepest
gratitude.[102]
At length an answer was sent, the whole construction and style of which
proved it, in the opinion of the Duchess, to be the production of an
artful man, who knew perfectly well how to manage the affair. To Harley
she imputed a deceptive and plotting character of mind, which by others
was termed prudence. “His practices,” as the Duchess called them, “which
were deemed fair in a politician,” were now fully understood by the two
great men, Marlborough and Godolphin, who were their object. To him,
therefore, the Duchess attributed the cautious, polite, and submissive
letter, in which, expressing her grief at her Grace’s displeasure, and
her unconsciousness of its precise cause, the careful Abigail sought to
draw forth an explicit declaration of the cause of the Duchess’s
chagrin, by inquiring who had been her enemy upon this occasion. But she
addressed one whose prudence was, in this instance, stronger than her
passions. The Duchess assured her cousin that her resentment did not
proceed from any representations of others, but from her own
observation, which made the impression the stronger; and she declined
entering further into the subject by letter.[103]
The Duchess of Marlborough was now, therefore, at open variance with her
cousin. Towards her Majesty she stood in a predicament the most curious
and unprecedented that perhaps ever existed between sovereign and
subject. The amused and astonished court beheld Anne cautiously creeping
out of that subjection in which the Duchess had, according to her
enemies, long held the timid sovereign.
“The grand inference,” says the authoress of the ‘Other Side of the
Question,’ addressing the Duchess in her days of almost bed-ridden
sickness, after the publication of the ‘Conduct,’ “that your grace draws
from all this is, that you are betrayed. But those of the world are
rather such as these,—that the Queen was captive, and you her gaoler;
that she was neither mistress of her power, nor free to express her own
inclinations; that she was so far overawed by a length of oppression, as
to dread the very approach of her tormentress; that she was forced to
unbosom herself by stealth; and that she durst not venture upon a
contest with your grace, even to set herself free from your
insupportable tyranny.”[104]
There was, doubtless, considerable justice in these bitter and insulting
reproaches, heaped upon the Duchess when, by a late vindication of her
life, she had drawn her enemies from their long repose. That all the
real affection which the friendship of Morley and Freeman could boast,
existed on the side of the Queen, is probable. Such was the opinion of
their contemporaries. It was in the decline of her influence that the
Duchess began to be querulous upon the subject of those little omissions
of attention which pride and habit, not real, hearty attachment,
rendered necessary to her happiness. It sounds strange to find a monarch
excusing herself to a subject for not inquiring after her health
directly upon the arrival of that lady from a sea-bathing place; yet
such apologies as it neither became Anne to make, nor the Duchess to
exact, are to be found in their published correspondence.[105]
The Duchess, according to the opinion of one of her confidential
friends, Mr. Mainwaring, was totally deficient in that “part of craft
which Mr. Hobbes very prettily calls crooked wisdom.”[106] “Apt,” as she
herself expresses it, “to tumble out her mind,”[107] her openness and
honesty were appreciated, when at an advanced age, and after she had run
the career of five courts,—by that experienced judge, the Lady Mary
Wortley Montague, who often presumed upon the venerable Duchess’s
candour in telling her unpalatable truths, which none but the honest
could have borne to hear.[108] It was this uprightness and singleness of
mind which rendered the Duchess unwilling to believe in the duplicity
and the influence of her cousin. Warned of it by Mr. Mainwaring, it was
not until she found in the Queen a defender of Mrs. Masham’s secret
marriage, that the Duchess was roused into suspicion. It was then that
she communicated her conviction to Lord Godolphin and to Marlborough,
and besought their assistance and advice.
Marlborough, acquainted as he had for years been with every cabal in
every court in Europe, was singularly ignorant, in this instance, of
that which was passing at home. Godolphin, better informed, had bestowed
but little attention to it, and had placed but little importance on its
consequences. Towards the middle of this year he received, whilst at
Meldert, complaints from the Duchess, which drew from him this laconic
and stern reply:—
“The wisest thing is to have to do with as few people as possible. If
you are sure that Mrs. Masham speaks of business to the Queen, I should
think you might, with some caution, tell her of it, which would do good;
for she certainly must be grateful, and mind what you say.”[109]
To soothe irritations was, on other occasions besides this, the arduous
office of the Duke; and he was induced, from prior impressions, to write
in a conciliatory strain to his often offended Duchess. When, in March,
he had prepared measures for carrying on the war, and had completed
every arrangement for his voyage into Holland, the only thing which
detained him in England was, says Cunningham, “the quarrel among the
women about the court.” He desired his Duchess “to put an end to those
controversies, and to avoid all occasions of suspicion and disgust; and
not to suffer herself to grow insolent upon the favour of fortune;
otherwise,” said he, “I shall hardly be able hereafter to excuse your
fault, or to justify my own actions, however meritorious.” To which the
Duchess replied, “I will take care of those things, so that you need not
be in any fear about me; but whoever shall think to remove me out of the
Queen’s favour, let them take care lest they remove themselves.”
“Such things as these,” remarks Cunningham, “must be borne with among
women; for few persons have drawn such rash conclusions concerning
uncertain events but fortune has deceived them.”[110] It was not long,
however, before Marlborough perceived that the Duchess was not mistaken
in her apprehensions; nor before he became painfully aware of the fact,
that services of the greatest magnitude are often not to be weighed
against slights, and petty provocations.