Trial of Dr. Sacheverell—His solemn protestation of innocence—Scene
behind the curtain where the Queen sat—Fresh offence given by the
Duchess to Anne.—1709–1710.
The year 1709, which witnessed the almost final alienation of the Queen
from her early favourite, was disgraced by the strange spectacle of Dr.
Henry Sacheverell’s trial, his punishment, and triumph.
A celebrated female historian has well observed, that it is difficult to
say “which is most worthy of ridicule,—the ministry, in arming all the
powers of government in their attack upon an obscure individual, or the
public, in supporting a culprit whose doctrine was more odious than his
insolence, and his principles yet more contemptible than his
parts.”[150]
This “trumpeter of sedition,” as Cunningham calls him, or, according to
the ladies and other zealous partisans of his day, this persecuted
saint, was a preacher of little merit, but of great pretensions; who, in
a discourse delivered on the fifth of November, 1709, at St. Paul’s
cathedral, attacked Queen Elizabeth, decried the authors of the
Revolution, abused the ministers of the reigning sovereign, and upheld
the doctrines of divine right, in one “incoherent jumble,” at once
passionate, ill constructed, and, one would have supposed, innocuous.
The subsequent trial and conviction of this agitator of the unsettled
times in which he lived, have been copiously detailed in history. There
has doubtless been many a more solemn, but there assuredly never was a
more singular scene than that which was exhibited in Westminster Hall on
the day of his trial. A court was prepared exactly in the form of a
tribunal in the House of Lords, and seats were placed for the peers. The
Queen herself attended, as a private individual, in a box placed near
the throne, with a curtain drawn between her and the assembly. The hero
of the piece, Dr. Sacheverell, came forward to the bar with Dr.
Atterbury and Dr. Smalridge, two Tory prelates, and made his obeisance
to the court, with all the effrontery and indifference which marked his
whole career.
The court was thronged without by an infuriated mob, ready to wreak, in
deeds of vengeance, the excitement which they called religious zeal, on
the opposing party, should Sacheverell suffer the penalties of the
misdemeanors with which he was charged. Within, the enclosure of the
stately pile was lined with ladies of rank, who dreaded, says
Cunningham, lest the “Observer” or the “Tatler” should satirise their
dress and conduct; yet none who could enter, absented themselves from a
scene so full of interest and diversion. The known inclination of the
Queen to favour the doctrines advanced by Sacheverell, however
preposterous and derogatory to her own right, induced many fair
politicians, who went to see and to be seen, to harass their minds with
discussions upon those knotty points, the fallaciousness of which it is
far better to leave to practical experience to prove, than to seek to
expose by arguments which only inflame the passions.
All listened with interest to the numerous charges, amongst which was
the grave accusation of having plainly called the Lord High Treasurer of
this kingdom “Volpone;” but, after the elaborate and learned speeches
made in this famous cause by the managers of the House of Commons; when
the lawyers and judges had been duly listened to,—after the doctor’s own
counsel had spoken, he himself replied to the charges in an able
oration, stated not to be his own. After expatiating upon the dignity of
the holy order to which he belonged, he called solemnly upon the
Searcher of hearts to witness that he entertained no seditious designs,
and was wholly innocent of the crimes alleged against him. When he had
concluded, a general sentiment of indignation pervaded the assembly. The
Countess of Sunderland, pious, sincere, young in the ways of a corrupt
court, was so affected by this appeal to God, that she could not help
shedding tears at what she believed to be falsehood and blasphemy.[151]
Sacheverell, however, returned in triumph to his lodgings in the Temple;
and his sentence, which was suspension from preaching for three years,
though not so severe as had been contemplated, was followed by riots,
both in London and in the country, similar in spirit and outrage to the
famous disturbances which Lord George Gordon, a fanatic less
reprehensible, and of less political importance, contrived many years
afterwards to excite.
But the Whigs, unhappily, had failed in this trial of their power, and
had foolishly betrayed their weakness. The Duke of Marlborough, who had
recommended the prosecution of Sacheverell, “lest he should preach him
and his party out of the kingdom,” must have repented, when it was too
late, the adoption of counsels which hastened on the crisis that
approached. Happily for the common sense of the nation, Sacheverell,
intoxicated by the applause of the multitude, soon showed his motives
and character in their true light. He paraded the country, intermeddling
with the affairs of others, and assuming a sort of spiritual authority
wherever he went. He performed a tour to congratulate his party on his
and their common safety; and, as is usual, alas for womankind! his
proselytes, his confidantes, the compassionate consolers for the
contumacy which he received from men worthy of the name, were all
misled, devoted, prejudiced women.
The Duke of Argyll, who had opposed his sentence, hearing that
Sacheverell was going to call upon him to return him thanks, refused to
receive him or his acknowledgments. “Tell him,” said the Duke, “that
what I did in parliament was not done for his sake.”[152]
The Duchess of Marlborough, constrained by the duties of her office to
wait upon the Queen, was present during the whole of the trial of
Sacheverell; and whilst the assembled throng in court were intent upon
the scene below the bar, small intrigues for favour and secret
heart-burnings were carried on behind that curtain, screened by which,
her Majesty sat to hear the singular proceedings in court. The Duchess
has given the following account of the new causes of offence which she
was so unfortunate as to give to her Majesty.[153]
“This was at Dr. Sacheverell’s trial, where I waited upon the Queen the
first time she went thither, and having stood above two hours, said to
the vice-chamberlain, that when the Queen went to any place incognito
(as she came to the trial, and only looked from behind a curtain) it was
always the custom for the ladies to sit down before her; but her Majesty
had forgot to speak to us now; and that since the trial was like to
continue very long every day, I wished he would put the Queen in mind of
it: to which he replied very naturally, ‘Why, madam, should you not
speak to the Queen yourself, who are always in waiting?’
“This I knew was right, and therefore I went up to the Queen, and
stooping down to her as she was sitting, to whisper to her, said, ‘I
believed her Majesty had forgot to order us to sit, as was customary in
such cases.’ Upon this, she looked indeed as if she had forgot, and was
sorry for it, and answered in a very kind easy way, ‘By all means, pray
sit;’ and, before I could go a step from her chair, she called to Mr.
Mordaunt; the page of honour, to bring stools, and desire the ladies to
sit down, which accordingly we did—Lady Scarborough, Lady Burlington,
and myself. But as I was to sit nearest to the Queen, I took care to
place myself at a good distance from her, though it was usual in such
cases to sit close to her, and sometimes at the basset table, where she
does not appear incognito; but, in a place of ceremony, the company has
sat so near her as scarce to leave her room to put her hand to her
pocket. Besides this, I used a further caution, of showing her all the
respect I could in this matter, by drawing a curtain behind me in such a
manner, betwixt her and me, as to appear to be as it were in a different
room from her Majesty. But my Lady Hyde,[154] who stood behind the Queen
when I went to speak to her, (and who I observed, with an air of
boldness more than good breeding, came up then nearer to hear what I
said,) continued to stand still in the same manner, and never came to
sit with the rest of us that day, which I then took for nothing else but
the making show of more than ordinary favour with the Queen.
“The next day the Duchess of Somerset came to the trial, and before I
sat down I turned to her, having always used to show her a great deal of
respect,[155] and asked her if her grace would not be pleased to sit; at
which she gave a sort of start back, with the appearance of being
surprised, as if she thought I had asked a very strange thing, and
refused sitting. Upon this I said it was always the custom to sit before
the Queen in such cases, and that her Majesty had ordered us to do so
the day before, but that her refusing it now looked as if she thought we
had done something that was not proper. To which she only answered, that
she did not care to sit; and then she went and stood behind the Queen,
as Lady Hyde had done the day before, which I took no farther notice of
then, but sat down with my Lady Burlington as we did before. But when I
came to reflect upon what these two ladies had done, I plainly perceived
that, in the Duchess of Somerset especially, this conduct could not be
thought to be the effect of humility, but that it must be a stratagem
that they had formed in their cabal, to flatter the Queen by paying her
more respect, and to make some public noise of this matter that might be
to my disadvantage, or disagreeable to me.
“And this I was still the more confirmed in, because it had been known
before that the Duchess of Somerset, who was there with her lord, was to
act a cunning part between the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough. The
Whigs and Tories did not intend to come to the trial.
“As, therefore, it was my business to keep all things as quiet as
possible till the campaign was over, and preserve myself in the mean
while, if I could, from any public affront, I resolved to do what I
could to disappoint these ladies in their little design; and in order to
this, I waited upon the Queen the next morning, before she went to the
trial, and told her that I had observed, the day before, that the
Duchess of Somerset had refused to sit at the trial, which I did not
know the meaning of, since her Majesty was pleased to order it, and it
was nothing more than what was agreeable to the constant practice of the
court in all such cases; but however, if it would be in any respects
more pleasing to her Majesty that we should stand for the future, I
begged she would let me know her mind about it, because I should be very
sorry to do anything that could give her the least dissatisfaction. To
this she answered, with more peevishness than was natural to her, in
these words: ‘_If I had not liked you should sit, why should I have
ordered it?_’
“This plainly showed that the cabal had been blowing her up, but that
she could not, however, contradict her own order. What she had now said
was still a further confirmation of it, and made it more difficult for
the cabal to proceed any farther in this matter, and therefore the next
day the Duchess of Ormond and Lady Fretchwell came to the trial, and, to
my great surprise, sat down amongst the rest of us. And thus this matter
ended; only that the Duchess of Somerset used some little arts
afterwards, which are not worth mentioning, to sweeten me again, and
cover her design, which I suppose now she was ashamed of.”[156]
Whilst proceedings were pending against Sacheverell, the Queen’s design,
to disgust her ministers and to induce them to resign, became apparent.
Notwithstanding the open warfare between “poor Masham” and the Duchess,
Anne, upon a vacancy occurring, wrote to the Duke of Marlborough to
obtain the colonelcy of a regiment for Mr. Hill, the brother of that
Abigail who had undermined all the Duke’s greatness, and put to flight
the small portion of the Duchess’s forbearance.
Of this scion of the notable family to whom he belonged, the Duchess has
given an account in her Vindication. Jack Hill, as she calls him, was a
younger brother of Mrs. Masham, and, like the rest of the family, was
provided for by the Duchess. The occupations which these dependent
relations held were suitable to their lowly conditions, and, as the
Duchess seemed to think, to the inferiority of their condition to her
own. It has been already specified how she had provided for them. The
younger sister had, as we have seen, been appointed by the Duke of
Marlborough laundress to the Duke of Gloucester, and, when that prince
died, had received a pension of two hundred a year out of the privy
purse, coming directly from the Duchess’s hands. The elder brother
obtained, through the Duke’s interest, a place in the Custom-house; and
upon security being required, previously to his being promoted to a more
responsible situation, the Duchess persuaded a relation of the Duke’s to
be guarantee for that sum.
Thus had she laboured successfully to provide for these indigent
relations, who afterwards proved briers in her path of life. Mrs.
Masham, the elder sister, whom she had treated as her sister, and to
whom she had given an asylum in her house, availed herself of
opportunities to supplant her. It was the fortune of “honest Jack Hill,”
as his boon companions called him, to bring a second humiliation upon
the Duke his patron.
Years had passed away since these favours had been shown to Mr. Hill,
and he was now a partisan of those who were foes to his benefactors,
having long since forgotten by whose means he was raised from abject
poverty to respectability.
It was concerning the promotion of Mr. Hill to the command of a
regiment, vacant by the death of the Earl of Essex, that the first open
rupture between the Queen and the Duke of Marlborough occurred. The plot
which Harley and the Masham party had woven, appeared now, according to
the opinions of the Duchess, in undisguised colours. Already had they
induced the Queen to prefer bishops who were not acceptable to the
ministry; and it was now their successful aim to lead her Majesty into
another snare. They therefore persuaded her to make military
appointments without the consent of her general; and the choice of Mr.
Hill for the purpose of mortifying the Duke was, it must be allowed,
eminently successful, if they wished to lower the authority of that
great commander. A double design was thus intended. If the Duke
permitted his relative’s promotion, the whole army would feel the
injustice done to their profession; if he resisted it, it would lend new
force to the arguments by which the weak and credulous mind of Anne was
perpetually assailed, namely, that she was but a cipher in the hands of
the Marlborough family; and thus, the Duke and his wife were by the same
dexterous arrangement equally injured, or at any rate insulted.
The wary but high-minded Duke resented this measure loftily and stoutly.
He waited at first on her Majesty, and endeavoured respectfully to
change her resolution, by representing the injustice which the promotion
of a young and untried officer would be deemed by the army. He argued
earnestly upon the encouragement which would be given to the party
adverse to the ministry, by promoting Mrs. Masham’s brother. But he
could extract from the sullen Queen no kind expression, and only the
cautious reply, “That the Duke would do well to consult with his
friends.”[157] Godolphin, at this time writhing under the agonies of a
mortal disorder, which his cares and vexations must have aggravated,
went also to the Queen, and sought by persuasion to change her
obstinate, Stuart-like determination; but without success.
Marlborough, indignant, left London, on the fifteenth of January, on a
council day. Her Majesty took no notice of his absence; but the world
spoke resentfully of an injustice done to their great and once popular
general; and the House of Commons testified by some votes their sense of
the impropriety of Anne’s conduct. Eventually she was obliged to yield;
for her new counsellors perceived that they had gone too far, and her
Majesty was obliged to write word to the Duke that he might dispose of
the regiment as he thought fit, and also to order his return to court,
and to “assure him that he had no ground for suspicion of change in her
Majesty’s good intentions.”[158]
This seeming disposition to relent in favour of the Marlborough family
was, however, the effect of a deep policy. Anne, naturally obstinate,
and close in her expressions, had been taught lessons of duplicity, and
rendered more than ever the tool of a faction. Mrs. Masham’s influence
was, indeed, becoming too notorious to be endured, not only by the
Whigs, but by men of influence and popularity, who were not especially
attached to either party. The sway of the lofty and arbitrary Duchess
had been, for many reasons, endured with a degree of patience which the
world could not extend to her rival. The great associations with the
name of Churchill, the extensive patronage which the Duke and his
Duchess possessed, the intermarriages of their beautiful and admired
daughters into families of influence; and perhaps, not least of all, the
habit into which society had grown of considering the rule of the
Marlborough family as indestructible, had lessened the disgust which men
evince towards female domination, and had reconciled the public mind to
that of which all could complain, but of which none could anticipate the
decline. Besides, there was something imposing in the ascendency which
the high-bred and intellectual Duchess haughtily assumed—something
almost magnificent in the unfair, yet lofty habit of rule which suited
her so well, and to which she seemed born. The Duke, by common
acclamation the first of subjects, seemed to merit such a companion,
such an ornament of his greatness, a star always conspicuous in its
steady brilliancy on the political horizon.
But when the artful, humble, prudent Mrs. Masham crept into royal
favour, and planted herself behind that throne near which the Duchess
had proudly stood, the odious features of intrigue appeared despicable
in comparison with the fearless demeanour, and open defiance of her
enemies, which the Duchess had exhibited. Anne, that automaton moved
successively by secret springs of different construction and power,
seemed to the world to have degenerated in her greatness when she fell
into the meaner hands of the lowliest of her waiting women, one who had
been a “rocker” in the royal household, scarcely of gentle blood, and
whose ready subserviency spoke so plainly of her early initiation into
those prying, petty ways which a long apprenticeship in the services,
still menial, of the royal bedchamber, was likely to produce.
It was during the heat of Sacheverell’s business, and before that
notable comedy had been brought to a close, that several of the privy
counsellors, disgusted by Mrs. Masham’s influence, consulted privately
as to the expediency of moving an address for her dismissal from the
royal confidence.[159] These conferences, which were held late at night,
were kept profoundly secret. They were attended by Lords Somers,
Wharton, Halifax, and Sunderland, the Chancellor Cowper, and the Lord
Treasurer. Halifax and Wharton, the most violent of the party, with all
duty to the Queen, are said to have insisted modestly, that evil
counsellors of one sex might be as well removed from the royal councils
as those of another, by the advice of parliament. Somers, Godolphin, and
Cowper were of a different opinion, and judged that such a remonstrance
could not be made, consistently with the laws of the land. Sunderland
was violent and impatient, and bitterly inveighed against the moderation
of Somers, formerly his oracle, but now no longer able to control the
rash spirit of his once enthusiastic votary. Marlborough, also, resisted
the impetuosity of his son-in-law; and whilst he had proved himself
capable of frustrating, by manly determination, the arch-enemy’s plans,
resolved, with Somers, to wait until a favourable opportunity of
annihilating her influence should occur; not, unconstitutionally, to
force the Queen to abandon her favourite, as Sunderland required. Even
in his chariot, when setting off for Holland, Marlborough is reported to
have refused the importunities of his son-in-law.[160]
The Queen, meantime, fearing, lest some motion relative to Mrs. Masham
should be made in parliament, rallied her friends around her, and
occupied herself in sundry closetings, which included many avowed
enemies to the Revolution, and gave, says the Duchess, “encouragement to
the Jacobites, who were now observed running to court, with faces as
full of business as if they were going to get the government into their
hands.”
The Queen, elated with the notion infused into her, that she was by
these preferences gaining a victory over the Marlborough family, became
more and more estranged from one to whom she had, in her ignorance of
the meaning of the word, professed true friendship. It was reported,
that as the peers returned out of her closet, she said to them
severally, “If ever any recommendation of mine was of weight among you,
as I know many of them have been, I hope this one may be specially
regarded.”[161] It is difficult to say whether, at this time, the Duke
and Duchess of Marlborough were most injured by their professed friends,
or by avowed enemies. It is, perhaps, a problem which we may often
vainly endeavour, in our progress through life, to solve, whether
injudicious zeal or open enmity should most inspire us with
apprehension. Enthusiasm in friendship is the parent of indiscretion;
and what is termed devotion, in a human sense, has so often as its
source a fund of selfishness, that we are apt to consider ourselves
safer when encountering indifference, than when constrained to bend to
the persuasions of ardent attachment.
Godolphin was, undoubtedly, amongst all the band of adherents, the only
true friend whom the Duke and Duchess possessed. His attachment to them
was genuine; their confidence in him was entire. No variations of
temper—no differences of opinion, seem to have disturbed that perfect
accordance in sentiment, that respectful admiration on one side, and
that reposing of every thought or wish on the other, which is the true
elysium of affectionate hearts. Godolphin now experienced, in the
decline of his fortunes, the mutability of all other friendships, the
hollowness and selfishness of public men. It is easy to the interested
to persuade themselves that they really contemn those who are not only
no longer useful to them, but whose friendship might even be
prejudicial. The Duke of Somerset, once the friend of Marlborough, as
his Duchess had been of the Duchess—a man of great pride, and of
considerable influence—now seceded from his once intimate associates,
piqued by the Duke’s refusing a regiment to his son. The Duke of Argyll
and the Earl of Rivers had already made a friendly compact to divide
between them the offices which they expected soon to be vacant, on the
disgrace or resignation of Marlborough. Other noblemen were drawn in by
their necessities to desert to the opposite party. But the most
remarkable defection from the Whig party was that of the Duke of
Shrewsbury, the early friend of Lord Somers, but now the partisan of
Harley, the associate of Swift, and the husband of a Roman Catholic
wife, an Italian lady, who had followed him to Augsburg from Rome, and
whose ardent passion for the accomplished Shrewsbury had induced him to
make her Duchess of Shrewsbury.
The influence of these noblemen, joined to the enmity of others, amply
sufficed, with the Queen’s aid, to level the fortunes of the Marlborough
family. Before the trial of Sacheverell, it was even expected that the
Duke would resign all the offices which he held, except the command of
the army, which could not, without injury to the cause of the
continental confederates, be surrendered to his political foes. But the
Duke could not, without a struggle, relinquish the cherished honours
which had been long the aim of his arduous life, to which he had looked
as the reward of a career of exertion wholly unexampled. His feelings at
this crisis may be readily conceived. Stung to the heart, sick of
courts, of princes, and of politicians, it is said that he contemplated
the resignation of all his civil offices, yet not without a compromise;
but that he could not bring himself to give up that military command,
which, says an historian, “no good man envied him.”[162]
Harley, meantime, was sedulously availing himself of an opportunity to
work up his way to the ephemeral and precarious power which he
afterwards enjoyed so little, and with so much personal risk. During the
ferment which the trial of Sacheverell produced, he courted familiarity
with persons of all persuasions. He fasted with the prime zealots of the
different sects, or he invited the more convivial believer. He promised
all that was asked of him; he dispersed hopes and expectations around
him; yet kept his own designs secret, except to those whom he could
confidently trust.
The Duchess, meantime, before resigning her offices, made one effort
more to win back the Queen’s lost regard, or at any rate to efface from
her Majesty’s mind every impression unfavourable to her. She had heard
that Anne was given to understand that she spoke disrespectfully of her
in company; and as she knew herself to be innocent of this charge, she
waited on her Majesty on the third of April, 1710, and entreated to be
favoured with a private interview. Three several hours were named by the
Duchess, when she knew her Majesty to be usually alone; but the Queen
appointed six o’clock in the afternoon, the time for prayers, when there
was little probability of finding her Majesty at home for any private
conversation. But even this appointment was broken, and a note was sent
from the Queen, to command that whatever the Duchess should have to say,
should be put into writing, “and to beg her to gratify herself by going
into the country as soon as she could.” The Duchess waited on the Queen,
and used all the arguments she could to obtain a private hearing,
adding, “that she was now going out of town for a long time, and should
perhaps never have occasion to trouble her Majesty again as long as she
lived.” The Queen still refused her request several times, “in a manner
hard to be described,” but yielded, so far as to appoint the next day
after dinner: yet, on the following morning, this appointment was broken
also, and another note from her Majesty arrived, telling the Duchess
that she was going to Kensington to dinner, and desiring her to put her
thoughts in writing.
These weak pretexts either prove that Harley and Mrs. Masham still
dreaded a revival of the long-asserted influence which they had
successfully combated, and that Anne was the undignified tool of their
manœuvres—or they betray the Queen’s dread of again encountering the
earnest, and, doubtless, violent disputant, whose “commands” in the
chapel royal were still fresh in the royal memory. Stouter nerves than
those of the weak and harassed Queen may have been shaken by the lofty,
and at times not very courteous demeanour of the Duchess.
Persevering in her attempt, the Duchess again wrote to the Queen, and
again pressed an interview, assuring her Majesty that she would give her
no uneasiness, but only clear herself from charges which had been
wrongfully made against her; adding, that if the afternoon were not
inconvenient, she would come every day and wait until her Majesty would
allow her an interview. The particulars of this remarkable scene would
lose much of the diversion which they must necessarily produce, if given
in any other language than in that of the chief actor in the
comedy.[163]
“Upon the sixth of April,” says the Duchess, “I followed this letter to
Kensington, and by that means prevented the Queen’s writing again to me,
as she was preparing to do. The page who went in to acquaint the Queen
that I was come to wait upon her, stayed longer than usual; long enough,
it is to be supposed, to give time to deliberate whether the favour of
admission should be granted, and to settle the measures of behaviour if
I were admitted. But at last he came out, and told me I might go in. As
I was entering, the Queen said, she was just going to write to me; and
when I began to speak, she interrupted me four or five times with these
repeated words, ‘_whatever you have to say, you may put in writing_.’ I
said, her Majesty never did so hard a thing to any as to refuse to hear
them speak, and assured her that I was not going to trouble her upon the
subject which I knew to be so ungrateful to her, but that I could not
possibly rest until I had cleared myself from some particular calumnies
with which I had been loaded. I then went on to speak, (though the Queen
turned away her face from me,) and to represent my hard case; that there
were those about her Majesty who had made her believe that I had said
things about her, which I was no more capable of saying than of killing
my own children; that I seldom named her Majesty in company, and never
without respect, and the like. The Queen said, _without doubt there were
many lies told_. I then begged, in order to make this trouble the
shorter, and my own innocence the plainer, that I might know the
particulars of which I had been accused; because if I were made to
appear guilty, and if I were innocent, this method only could clear me.
The Queen replied that _she would give me no answer_, laying hold on a
word in my letter, that what I had to say in my own vindication _would
have no consequence in obliging her Majesty to answer, &c._; which
surely did not at all imply that I did not desire to know the particular
things laid to my charge, without which it was impossible for me to
clear myself. This I assured her Majesty was all I desired, and _that I
did not ask the names of the authors or relators of those calumnies_;
saying all that I could reasonable to enforce my just request. But the
Queen repeated again and again the words she had used, without ever
receding; and it is probable that this conversation would never have
been consented to, but that her Majesty had been carefully provided with
those words, as a shield to defend her against every reason I could
offer. I protested to her Majesty, that I had no design, in giving her
this trouble, to solicit the return of her favour, but that my sole view
was to clear myself, which was too just a design to be wholly
disappointed by her Majesty. Upon this the Queen offered to go out of
the room, I following her, begging leave to clear myself; and the Queen
repeating over and over again, ‘_You desired no answer, and shall have
none_.’ When she came to the door, I fell into great disorder; streams
of tears flowed down against my will, and prevented my speaking for some
time. At length I recovered myself, and appealed to the Queen, in the
vehemence of my concern, whether I might not still have been happy in
her Majesty’s favour, if I could have contradicted or dissembled my real
opinion of men or things? whether I had ever, in the whole course of our
long friendship, told her one lie, or played the hypocrite once? whether
I had offended in anything, except in a very zealous pressing upon her
that which I thought necessary for her service or security? I then said
I was informed by a very reasonable and credible person about the court,
that things were laid to my charge of which I was wholly incapable; that
the person knew that such stories were perpetually told to her Majesty
to incense her, and had begged of me to come and vindicate myself; the
same person had thought me of late guilty of some omissions towards her
Majesty, being entirely ignorant how uneasy to her my frequent
attendance must be, after what had happened between us. I explained some
things which I had heard her Majesty had taken amiss of me; and then
with a fresh flood of tears, and a concern sufficient to move
compassion, even where all love was absent, I begged to know what other
particulars she had heard of me, that I might not be denied all power of
justifying myself. But still the only return was, ‘_You desired no
answer, and you shall have none_.’ I then begged to know if her Majesty
would tell me some other time? ‘_You desired no answer, and you shall
have none_.’ I then appealed to her Majesty again, if she did not
herself know that I had often despised interest, in comparison of
serving her faithfully and doing right? and whether she did not know me
to be of a temper incapable of disowning anything which I knew to be
true? ‘_You desired no answer, and you shall have none_.’ This usage was
severe, and these words so often repeated were so shocking, (being an
utter denial of common justice to me, who had been a most faithful
servant, and now asked nothing more,) that I could not conquer myself,
but said the most disrespectful thing I ever spoke to the Queen in my
life, and yet, what such an occasion and such circumstances might well
excuse, if not justify: and that was, that I was confident her Majesty
would suffer for such an instance of inhumanity. The Queen answered,
‘_That will be to myself_.’”[164]
“Thus,” observes the Duchess, “ended this remarkable conversation, the
last that I ever had with her Majesty. I shall make no comment on it.
Yet,” she adds, with her inherent magnanimity, “the Queen always meant
well, however much soever she may be blinded or misguided.” And she adds
to this temperate observation a passage from a letter of her husband’s,
the Duke, written about eight months before, in which she says, “There
is something so pertinent to the present occasion, that I cannot forbear
transcribing the passage.”[165]
“It has always been my observation in disputes, especially in that of
kindness and friendship, that all reproaches, though ever so just, serve
to no end but making the breach wider. I cannot help being of opinion
that, however insignificant we may be, there is a Power above that puts
a period to our happiness or unhappiness. If anybody had told me eight
years ago, that after such great success, and after you had been a
faithful servant for twenty-seven years, that even in the Queen’s
lifetime we should be obliged to seek happiness in a retired life, I
could not have believed that possible.”