1684 TO 1687.
State of manners and morals—Of parties—Defence of Churchill—His share
in the Revolution—Progress of that event.
The new reign brought with it early demonstrations of royal confidence
towards Lord Churchill, and consequently to his wife. Almost the first
act of James was to despatch Churchill to Paris to notify his accession,
and to establish more firmly the good faith which already subsisted
between James and the French monarch.
Lady Churchill, meantime, continued to hold the same post near the
person of Anne, who resided at her palace in the Cockpit, Westminster.
The Duchess, in her “Conduct,” has given no insight into this period of
her life. We may suppose it to have been passed in the quiescent round
of duties more insipid than fatiguing, and in the still more irksome
society of the domestic, good-natured, but uninteresting Princess.
The court amusements in those days were of a description perfectly in
unison with the tastes and habits of the higher classes, to whom the
satire of St. Evremond, upon a similar order of persons in France, might
have been, without even a shadow of sarcasm, applied. “You live in a
country,” says St. Evremond, writing to Mademoiselle de l’Enclos, “where
people have wonderful opportunities of saving their souls: there, vice
is almost as opposite to the mode as virtue; sinning passes for
ill-breeding, and shocks decency and good manners, almost as _much_ as
religion.”[87] The sarcasm was just,—that not what is good or what is
bad, but what was considered fashionable, or agreeable, was the rule for
those who lived in the great world to observe. Gambling was the passion,
intrigue the amusement, of those days of fearful iniquity. The female
sex, in all ages responsible for the tone given to morals and manners,
were in a state of general depravity during the whole period of Lady
Churchill’s youth; and even those who were reputed most virtuous, and
held up as patterns to their sex, overlooked, if they did not
countenance, the open exhibition of vice within their very homes. The
Duchess of Buckingham, “a most virtuous and pious lady in a vicious age
and court,”—“lived lovingly and decently with” her husband, the
arch-profligate of the time; and though she knew his delinquencies,
never noticed them, and had complaisance enough even to entertain his
mistresses, and to lodge them in her own house.[88] Queen Katharine, the
neglected and insulted wife of Charles the Second, deemed it her
conjugal duty to fall down on her knees at his deathbed, and to entreat
pardon for her offences. Whereupon the King vouchsafed to answer her,
“that she had offended in nothing.”[89] So humbled, so degraded, were
the few virtuous female members of the debased English aristocracy; and
so slight was that virtue which could bear, in the closest tie, the
constant exhibition of vice! That a woman should forgive—that her best
interests, her only chance of happiness, consist in a dignified
endurance of the worst of evils, a vicious husband—no reasonable being
can doubt; but that as a Christian, as a female, she cannot be excused
in remaining within the contamination of vice, is not to be disputed.
Continental alliances, the exile of the restored Princes during the
greater portion of their youth, and the consequent introduction of
foreign amusements and foreign manners, to which we must add a yet
tottering and unsettled national faith, may account, in a great measure,
for this universal corruption. Nor can we suppose the lofty Lady
Churchill to have escaped wholly from the pernicious influence of what
she must have seen and heard. Masquerading was the rage; and not only in
private, or in gay halls or banquet-rooms, but in the streets and
alleys, the theatre, and other places of public resort, it was adopted
as a diversion, to pass away hours tedious to uneducated minds.
In the reign of Charles, Frances Jennings, the eider sister of the
Duchess, was flattered, rather than ashamed, at the publicity of her
adventure in the theatre, disguised as an orange-girl, in the sight of
the Duchess of York, her patroness, and of the whole court.[90] The
frolic was, indeed, fully borne out in its extravagance and assurance by
precedent. “At this time,” says Bishop Burnet, “the court fell into much
extravagance in masquerading; both the King and the Queen and all the
court went about masked, and came into houses unknown, and danced there
with wild frolic. In all this, people were so disguised, that, without
being in the secret, none could know them. They were carried about in
hackney chairs. Once the Queen’s chairmen, not knowing who she was, went
from her. So she was quite alone, and was much disturbed, and came to
Whitehall in a hackney coach, some say in a cart.”[91]
On another occasion, Queen Katharine thought it not unseemly to resort
to a fair at Audley, in company with the Duchesses of Buckingham and
Richmond, disguised like country lasses, all in red petticoats,
waistcoats, et cetera; Sir Bernard Gascoigne riding before the Queen on
“a cart jade,” and the two Duchesses also on double horses, one with a
stranger before her, the other with Mr. Roper. These ladies happened so
to have overdressed their parts, as to excite the attention of the
crowd; looking, as it is related, “more like antiques than country
volk.” The Queen, however, who made her way up to a booth, to buy “a
pair of yellow stockings for her sweethart,” was discovered, as well as
her attendant, Sir Bernard, “by their giberish,” to be strangers. The
result may easily be supposed; the assembled country people mounted
their horses, and, all amazement and curiosity, pursued the royal party
to the court gate.[92]
This adventure was, however, less remarkable in those days, from the
practice which Charles the Second maintained, of pursuing his diversions
almost continually in the midst of his people, walking about the town
without guards, and with a single friend. Hyde Park, described by a
contemporary as “a field near the town,” and used as a course, was
beginning to be fashionable, and was preferred to other places of resort
by Charles, on account of its fine air, and extent of prospect. It was
at this time the private property of a publican, and the entrance was
guarded by porters with staves, by whom a sum of money was levied upon
every horseman, coach, or cart that entered.[93] Here, to give a
specimen of the manners of the day, Charles exhibited one of the first
coaches made with glass windows, presented to him by the accomplished
Grammont, and the source of a bitter contention between Lady
Castlemaine, and Miss Stewart, afterwards Duchess of Richmond, as to
which of them should succeed the Queen, and the Duchess of York, in the
distinction of driving in the new-fashioned vehicle.
Spring Gardens, the resort of the fashionable world after driving in
Hyde Park, and the scene in which many of the plots of our old comedies
are laid, were also much in vogue at this period. “Here” says an old
writer, “were groves and warbling birds, alleys and thickets,” and in
the centre a place for selling refreshments, similar to the _cafés_ in
the Parc at Brussels, or in the Bois de Boulogne at Paris. And here, the
enclosure opening into the broad walks of St. James’s Park, were many
idle hours wiled away by both sexes. These recreations, with water
parties on the Thames, were the amusements in which the soberminded
Anne, and her high-bred and haughty attendant, Lady Churchill, might
indulge without loss of dignity, or danger to reputation.
The Princess regulated her household concerns with the utmost order, and
maintained a decree of economy which could not have been carried on had
she mixed generally in the amusements of the court, or dipped into the
dangerous diversions of games of chance.[94] According to the Duchess of
Marlborough, she had a much less allowance for her privy purse than any
previous sovereign had before received;[95] but she managed with so much
prudence, as to pay out of that, and from the civil list, many pensions
and other matters, which had never previously been discharged from the
same source.
“She bought no jewels,” says her friend, “nor made any foolish buildings
during the whole of her reign;”—“and in the article of robes,” continues
the Duchess, “she was saving; for it will appear by all the records in
the Exchequer, where the accounts were passed, that in nine years she
spent only 32,050_l._, including the Coronation expenses.”[96]
In the service of this staid Princess, Lady Churchill continued an
inactive, but not an inattentive observer of all that was passing in the
busy world, in which her turn to govern, and to shine with unrivalled
splendour, had not yet arrived. Anne, meantime, was occupied with
maternal cares. Her first living child, a daughter, died when a year
old, in 1686;—another similar loss, nearly at the same age, succeeded.
Some years afterwards, the birth of William, declared at his baptism to
be Duke of Gloucester, an event which took place at Hampton Court in
1689, was regarded by the country, as well as by the royal parents of
this cherished and promising child, as a boon which might completely
establish the Protestant succession.
During the short but eventful reign of James, little is mentioned of
Lord Churchill, or of his lady. Whatever were their sentiments, they
engaged in no public discussion on the occurrences which agitated all
men’s minds, until the revolution was ripe for execution. From the
King’s first public attendance at mass, to his secret and hurried
departure from his kingdom, all was confusion and mournful anticipation,
and, by a succession of tragical events, the public mind was prepared
for the last great result.
At length Queen Mary became the mother of a living son, and in the
disputes to which the birth of the Prince of Wales gave rise, we find
Lady Churchill’s name mentioned in some correspondence relative to that
affair. Party differences ran high upon this subject, and Lord
Chesterfield is of opinion that the shameful fable of the Prince’s
supposititious birth effected more to secure the Protestant succession
than any other event whatsoever. The concurring testimony of successive
writers has now assigned to the unfortunate Pretender the legitimacy
which, by the singular and audacious attempts of a faction, and the
fabrication of a servant, was disputed. Happy would it have been for
that individual if the calumnies of his enemies had had foundation, and
the secure contentment of a private station had been his lot!
Lady Churchill appears, from some expressions of the Princess Anne, to
have been a witness of the singular intrigues which, in behalf of Anne’s
interests, as well as to further those of the Protestant cause, were
carried on, to throw discredit on the birth of the Prince. Various were
the accounts of the part taken by Anne on this occasion. It is said,
that upon some quarrel on the subject between her Highness and the
Queen, touching the approaching confinement of the latter, her Majesty,
sitting at her toilet, threw her glove at the face of the Princess; upon
which Anne, indignant, withdrew from court; and upon the pretext of her
health, or perhaps in consequence of the command of the King, she
repaired to Bath, in order to drink the waters at that fashionable place
of resort.[97] From this circumstance, the Princess was absent at the
time of the birth of the infant Prince; but her letters upon the
subject, and the inferences which she draws from details gathered from
hearsay, afford a curious specimen of the coarseness of court gossip,
and the peculiar vulgarity and common-place character of Anne’s
mind.[98]
It is a proof of the consistent firmness of Lord Churchill in adhering
to the mode of faith which he venerated, that no employment, nor any
distinction but a colonelcy of a troop of horse-guards upon the quelling
of Monmouth’s insurrection, was assigned to him during the short reign
of James, for he was not of that material which James wanted to turn to
active purposes.
Whilst the King’s designs were not developed, and the liberties of his
country were not openly threatened, Lord Churchill remained inactive, if
not neutral: but, after the declaration of Indulgences in 1686, he was
roused into exertion by apprehensions from past events, perfectly
justifiable. That he had also private intelligence of James’s endeavours
to gain the Princess over to his religious persuasion, appears from the
statement given by the Duchess, in her concise account of affairs at
this period.
“What were the designs of that unhappy Prince (James) everybody knows.
They came soon to show themselves undisguised, and attempts were made to
draw his daughter into them. The King, indeed, used no harshness with
her; he only discovered his wishes, by putting into her hands some books
and papers, which he hoped might induce her to a change of religion; and
had she had any inclination that way, the chaplains were such divines as
could have said but little in defence of their own religion, or to
secure her against the pretences of popery, recommended to her by a
father, and a King.”[99]
Anne had been the object, since her father’s accession, of the jealousy
of the court, on account of her having borne children. In her heart a
true Protestant, she had expressed herself to Lady Churchill, two years
previously, in a manner which showed evidently that she was not disposed
to be a convert, and which proved also her dependence upon her
strong-minded friend. Her expressions relate to the introduction of four
peers of the Roman Catholic persuasion into the privy council.
“I was very much surprised,” she writes, “when I heard of the four new
privy counsellors, and am very sorry for it; for it will give great
countenance to those sort of people, and methinks it has a very dismal
prospect. Whatever changes there are in the world, I hope you will never
forsake me, and I shall be happy.”[100]
These sentiments, consistent with the character of a Princess who is
said, by one who knew her best, “to have had no ambition,”[101] were
participated by the Prince of Denmark, who, although a privy counsellor
during the reign of his father-in-law, had always been treated with
coldness by that sovereign. Upon the declaration of Indulgences by James
in his own person, without the consent of parliament, Lord Churchill
began overtures to the Prince of Orange, through Dykefelt his agent, and
Russell and Sidney, the great instruments of the revolution. The
resolution of the Princess Anne to “suffer all extremities, even to
death itself, rather than be brought to change her religion,” was
transmitted through the same channel. The terms in which these
assurances were conveyed, were worthy of the great mind from which they
proceeded.
“In all things but this,” writes Lord Churchill to the Prince of Orange,
“the King may command me; and I call God to witness that, even with joy
I should expose my life for his service, so sensible am I of his
favours. I know the troubling you, sir, with this much of myself, I
being of so little use, is very impertinent; but I think it may be a
great ease to your Highness and the Princess to be satisfied that the
Princess of Denmark is safe in the trusting of me; I being resolved,
though I cannot live the life of a saint, if there be ever occasion for
it, to show the resolution of a martyr.”[102]
Happily, however, there proved to be no necessity for the performance of
this brave determination; “the projects of that reign,” as the Duchess
well observes, “being effectually disappointed as soon as they were
openly avowed.”[103]
The birth of a son, and the ceremony which declared him to be Prince of
Wales, accelerated, in a marked manner, the course of the infatuated
King’s destruction. Nonconformists, and the High Church party, Whigs and
Tories, now plainly foresaw a total subversion of government in Church
and State, all hopes of a Protestant succession to the throne being
annihilated. Those who had upheld the doctrine of passive obedience,
perceived that they were authorised, by the measures which James
adopted, to form schemes for the prevention of his further designs:
otherwise there would be no difference between the constitution of Great
Britain and that of an absolute monarchy. The doctrines of passive
obedience had, it was well understood, been so industriously spread
throughout the laity, as well as among the clergy, from a dread of those
excesses which the Presbyterians and Conformists had permitted and
extenuated in the last revolution, that many conscientious persons for
some time doubted whether they ought to refuse an unlimited obedience to
the sovereign. But the dangers of a sinking state, and of a tottering
church, opened the eyes even of the most scrupulous, and convinced them
that much ought to be sacrificed, in order to restrain the royal
prerogative, and to save their best interests, and the objects of their
veneration, from destruction.[104]
Under these threatening clouds, an union of all parties began to be
considered as the only safe, the only practicable, the only honourable
project to guard the country from anarchy, by protecting the laws. Nor
can those be censured, who from considerations of such importance, and
from general views, divest themselves, in such an extremity, of private
interests, even of private obligations, for the sake of ensuring peace,
by obtaining justice, and with it, the protection of a moderate and
constitutional ruler. It requires infinite moral courage to give up the
long-maintained and often-repeated dogmas of a party; and we are bound
to hope, and to believe, that when great evils require so great a
sacrifice, the motive which impels the change must proceed from some
source higher than mere personal advancement. But unhappily, the world
generally judges otherwise.
Lord Churchill, and the gifted woman who probably in a great degree
participated his irresolution, and influenced his counsels, have shared
largely in the condemnation bestowed upon others who adopted the same
course which they, on this great occasion, thought it wise and right to
pursue. Those who accuse them of ingratitude, must, however, recollect
that there is a higher degree of gratitude than any which can be due to
an earthly power; and that there are duties which no obligations can
annul; a disregard of which becomes treachery in its most extended
sense.
The conduct of Lord Churchill, throughout the reign of James the Second,
was a consistent endeavour to withdraw from all participation in honours
which he could not receive from the King without degradation, and from
schemes which he must have viewed with disgust. Even when James sent to
require his presence at the birth of the Prince of Wales, he declined to
attend, assigning some slight reason. His desertion of James, as it was
called, was the work of some years, not the sudden impulse of a day; it
was wrung from Churchill unwillingly, and by painful degrees, and not
till after his reflective mind had been saddened by an unparalleled
succession of injuries inflicted upon his unhappy country, until
mournful presage knew not where to stop. Brought up in notions of
devoted loyalty to the Stuarts, his own family, that of his wife, his
intimate friends, and his brothers, being all wedded to the same
opinions and devoted to the same cause, the conduct of Churchill on this
occasion astounded the King more, it is said, than that of any of the
other men of character and influence of the time. It was easy for the
enemies of Churchill, or of his party—for personal enemies he could
scarcely have—to account for the measures taken with caution, but
pursued with vigour and firmness, by this great man. Dean Swift, whose
aspersions, unlike most ephemeral writings, ate into the heart of his
victims like caustic, and when once engrafted on the memory even of the
indifferent, can scarcely be erased, has thus in his own charitable way
explained the matter.
In describing the character of Churchill he says:—“He was bred up in the
height of what is called the Tory principle, and continued with a strong
bias that way till the other party had bid higher for him than his
friends could afford to give.”[105] In another singular production of
the day, entitled “Oliver’s Pocket Looking Glass,” he was compared to
Judas, and even reproached for ingratitude towards James, on the score
of his lavish generosity to the degraded Arabella Churchill, the sister
of the Duke.[106] But Churchill adopted not the measures which he
prudently but resolutely adhered to, without a respectful but manly
remonstrance with James, which proved his real attachment to the royal
person, and his desire to warn him, if possible, from continuing his
infatuated course.[107]
The recapitulation of those events by which the liberties of the people,
and the stability of the Church of England, were secured, belong to
history. The fatal blow given to the King’s power was struck by the
union of the Tories and the Whigs. Whilst the majority of the laity and
clergy laboured in conjunction to effect the important end in question,
some there were who deemed that determined but calm resistance
rebellion, and who formed the new party under the name of Jacobites.
After this explanation, it is obvious what path the subject of this
Memoir was henceforth called to pursue; although in a secure and
peaceful course, even in that popular career, she and Lord Churchill
were not, from the difficulties of the times, enabled to continue.
1688. At length, after a delay of a month within his own territories,
the Prince of Orange hastened to the sea-coast, in order to set sail for
England. But he was prevented from embarking by continued south-west
winds, which lasted for nearly three weeks, during which time the
anxiety of the English, and of the inhabitants of London in particular,
could only be equalled by the panic of James, and the miserable
uncertainties of all who were connected with the royal family.
Meantime all ordinary occupations in the city of London were suspended;
the usually busy citizens were employed in inquiring the news, and in
looking at the steeples and weathercocks to ascertain which way the wind
blew. The general eagerness for the arrival of William was only exceeded
by the general apathy respecting James. Even prayers were offered for
that usually unwelcome visitant, an east wind, or, as it was now
christened, “the Protestant wind.”[108] Many individuals were known to
rise in the night, to gratify their curiosity on this point.
But this intense expectation pervaded the metropolis only. In the
country there was an indifference more fatal to James than the utmost
turbulence could have proved: “A state of apathy,” says Dalrymple,
“which to the wise appeared more dangerous to the King than all the zeal
of those in London against him; for opposition leads to opposition of
sentiment; but that Prince approaches to his ruin whose subjects are
unconcerned about his fate.” Meantime James, blinded by his danger, gave
orders for the host to be elevated forty days for his protection: thus
rashly offending the opinions of that people whom he vainly attempted to
enslave.[109]
At length the Prince of Orange, after many interruptions and dangers,
landed at Torbay, whilst the King, still confiding in the protection of
those spiritual weapons upon which he placed reliance, remained inert.
When a report that the armament of the Prince of Orange was shipwrecked
was brought to him one day at dinner, he was heard with great devotion
to say, “It is not to be wondered at, for the host has been exposed
these several days.” Even his adversary was not without some
superstitious feelings; his great desire being to land on the fourth of
November, because it was his birthday and his marriage-day, and it might
therefore prove fortunate. But his English adherents were rejoiced that
the landing could not be made effectual until the day after, which was
the anniversary of the discovery of the gunpowder plot.
Notwithstanding a conditional promise from James, “upon the faith of a
King,” to call a free Parliament, disaffection to his cause grew
rapidly, spreading among those upon whom the unhappy monarch had most
fondly relied. He placed himself, however, at the head of his assembled
troops, consisting of twenty-four thousand men, at Salisbury, resolving,
as he declared, to show himself King of England.[110] He entrusted the
command of a brigade to Lord Churchill, whom he appointed
lieutenant-general. The memorable letter addressed by Churchill to his
sovereign, relinquishing the command, did not guard him from certain
strictures upon this passage of his life; with what measure of justice,
it has been left to the biographers of that illustrious general to
declare.[111]
Meantime the Princess Anne and Prince George were acting in concert with
the popular party, whom they had long secretly favoured, although the
exact mode and time of their proceedings appears not to have been fixed.
During the six days that James remained at Salisbury, the unhappy
monarch’s mind was every hour fretted and depressed by the news of some
fresh defection. The first sea-officer that went over to the Prince of
Orange was the brother of Lord Churchill, Captain Churchill, who joined
the Dutch fleet with his ship. Humbled and alarmed lest he should be
delivered up even by his own troops, James retreated towards London. The
night before he commenced his march, Prince George of Denmark and the
young Duke of Ormond, who had lately received the order of the garter,
supped with him. The King was in deep dejection; the Prince and the Duke
were also lost in thought, meditating their own private schemes. On the
following morning intelligence was brought to James, that his two guests
of the preceding evening had gone over in the night to the Prince of
Orange. Prince George thought it his duty to leave a letter of excuses.
This royal personage, long a cipher in the court, which he could be said
neither to disturb nor to adorn, had been accustomed to say, when he
heard of the desertion of any of James’s friends, “_Est-il possible?_”
an ingenious mode of avoiding any expected opinion on so awkward a
subject. On being acquainted with the Prince’s flight, James recalled to
his attendants the notable phrase, by the sarcastic observation, “So
_est-il possible_ is gone too!” And with this sole exclamation he
allowed his relative to pass from his remembrance.
Having left his troops quartered at different places, deserted indeed as
he went along by most of his officers, but retaining the common
soldiers, whose simple reasoning taught them to follow their sovereign,
James re-entered his capital.
But here a severer blow than any which he had hitherto experienced, fell
upon him: the Princess Anne had fled. At first, to aggravate the
distress of James, a mystery was made of her flight, and it was
insinuated that the King, by encouraging the Papists, had been
instrumental in the death of his child. The Earl of Clarendon, her
maternal uncle, and her nurse, ran up and down like distracted persons,
declaring that the Papists had murdered the Princess. James, who had
fondly loved his daughter, and who had always shown her the utmost
tenderness,[112] burst into tears, and in the agonies of parental
feeling exclaimed—“God help me, my own children have forsaken me!”
He had trusted, as it seemed, to the kindly and womanly nature of Anne;
but her affection was considerably less than her prudence. Yet public
opinion, adjudging to the Princess those softer qualities which become a
wife and a daughter, were willing to exculpate her, at the expense of
her advisers, for a feature in her character and conduct which offended
the natural feelings. It was soon perceived that an ill-timed caution,
not excusable fear, dictated her flight. By all good minds Anne has
been, and she remains, condemned for this act.
It was doubtless the duty of the Princess to remain, to have received
and consoled her father. However others might judge or counsel, she was
still his child; and the heart which could be cold towards a parent in
such an extremity as that in which the degraded and unhappy monarch now
found himself, must have been deficient in all that is high and
generous, even if it could boast some amiable dispositions in the
sunshine of life.
It was soon ascertained with whom, and where, Anne had fled; and the
public, commonly right in matters of feeling, could not readily forgive
her whom they fixed upon as the prime adviser of the Princess.
Upon learning that the Prince of Denmark had deserted the King, and that
James was returning to London, the Princess, as Lady Churchill in her
own Vindication declared, was “put into a great fright. She sent for
me,” continues the same writer, “told me her distress, and declared that
rather than see her father she would jump out of the window. This was
her very expression.”[113]
Such was Anne’s first outbreak of emotion, not for her father, but for
herself; it was probable she was more afraid of her quick-tempered
stepmother than of her subdued and unhappy father. A rumour had indeed
prevailed that the Queen had treated the Princess ill, and had even gone
so far as to strike her.[114] Be that as it might, Anne addressed a
letter to her stepmother, announcing that having heard of her husband’s
desertion of James, she felt too much afraid of the King’s displeasure
to remain, and to risk an interview. She stated her intention not to
remove far away, in order that she might return in case of a happy
reconciliation. She declared herself in a distressing condition, divided
between duty to a husband, and affection to a father; and, after
commenting upon the state of public affairs, she ended her epistle in
these terms:—“God grant a happy end to all these troubles, that the
King’s reign may be prosperous, and that I may shortly meet you again in
peace and safety. Till then, let me beg of you to continue the same
favourable opinion that you hitherto had of
“Yours, &c.
“ANNE.”
The following account of the caution with which Anne concerted her
flight, and the mode in which she put it into execution, is given by her
who acted so conspicuous a part in the tragicomic transaction.
“A little before,[115] a note had been left with me, to tell me where I
might find the Bishop of London, (who in that critical time absconded,)
if her Royal Highness should have occasion for a friend. The Princess,
on this alarm, sent me immediately for the Bishop. I acquainted him with
her resolution to leave the court, and to put herself under his care. It
was hereupon agreed that, when he had advised with his friends in the
city, he should come about midnight in a hackney coach to the
neighbourhood of the Cockpit, in order to convey the Princess to some
place where she might be private and safe.
“The Princess went to bed at the usual time, to avoid suspicion. I came
to her soon after; and by the back-stairs which went down from her
closet, her Royal Highness, my Lady Fitzharding, and I, with one
servant, walked to the coach, where we found the Bishop and the Earl of
Dorset. They conducted us that night to the Bishop’s house in the city,
and the next day to my Lord Dorset’s, at Copt Hall. From thence we went
to the Earl of Northampton’s, and from thence to Nottingham, where the
country gathered round the Princess; nor did she think herself safe
until she saw herself surrounded by the Prince of Orange’s
friends.”[116]
Inoffensive, and even popular from her strict adherence to
Protestantism, Anne immediately met with defenders. A small body of
volunteers mustered round her, and formed a guard, commanded by no less
a person than Dr. Compton, Bishop of London, the resolute prelate who
had opposed the court on various occasions, and especially in his
refusal to suspend a Protestant clergyman for exposing papistical
errors.[117] This zealous man, who had been a cornet of dragoons in his
youth, now rode before the Princess and her suite, including Lady
Churchill, carrying a drawn sword in his hand, and pistols on his
saddle-bow.[118] In this chivalric guise the fugitive party reached
Northampton, and travelled on to Nottingham; where the gallant Earl of
Devonshire, the friend of Russell, had raised a band of volunteers to
assist the cause of the revolution.
It happened that the famous Caius Gabriel Cibber, the sculptor, or, as
it was called in those days, statuary, was at this time at Chatsworth,
engaged by Lord Devonshire in the embellishment of that sumptuous place,
and, in the words of Colley Cibber, in altering “from a Gothic to a
Grecian magnificence.” Colley Cibber himself was visiting at Chatsworth,
in order to be under the restraint of his father’s eye, until the period
of his going to college should arrive; no unnecessary precaution, as it
appeared by his after life. Colley Cibber, in pursuance of his father’s
commands, travelled from London to Nottingham, and found the country in
a state, if it may be so expressed, of peaceful commotion. When he
arrived at Nottingham, he found his father in arms there, among the
Earl’s volunteer company. Caius, the sculptor, whose undying fame is
preserved in the exquisite figures on Bethlehem Hospital, was aged, and
averse to the thoughts of a winter campaign; and he persuaded his patron
to allow him to retire to Chatsworth to finish his works, and to
substitute his young son, more fit for the business of war, into his
honours and regimentals.
The Earl consented, and Colley Cibber “jumped,” as he expressed it,
“into his father’s saddle.”
He had not been many days at Nottingham, before news of the Princess
Anne’s flight reached that city, accompanied by the report that two
thousand of the king’s dragoons were in pursuit to bring her back to
London. On this alarm, the volunteers scrambled to arms, and advanced
some miles on the London road, in order to meet the Princess and her
cavalcade, Anne being attended only by the Lady Churchill and by the
Lady Fitzharding. The party, thus guarded, entered Nottingham in safety,
and were lodged and provided for by the care and at the charge of the
Earl of Devonshire; and the same night all the noblemen and other
persons of distinction in arms had the honour to sup at her Highness’s
table. There being more guests in number than attendants out of liveries
to be found, Cibber, being well known in the Earl of Devonshire’s
family, was desired by the _maître d’hotel_ to assist at the table. It
fell to the lot of the young officer of volunteers to attend upon Lady
Churchill, and he has left the following interesting memorandum of that
occasion.
“Being so near the table, you may naturally ask me what I might have
heard to have passed in conversation at it, which I certainly should
tell you, had I attended to above two words that were uttered there, and
those were, ‘_some wine and water_.’ These, as I remember, came
distinguished to my ear, because they came from the fair guest whom I
took such pleasure to wait on. Except at that single sound, all my
senses were collected into my eyes, which, during the whole
entertainment, wanted no better amusement than that of stealing now and
then the delight of gazing on the fair object so near me. If so clear an
emanation of beauty, such a commanding grace of aspect, struck me into a
regard that had something softer than the most profound respect in it, I
cannot see why I may not, without offence, remember it, since beauty,
like the sun, must sometimes lose its power to choose, and shine into
equal warmth the peasant and the courtier.”[119]
Such was the impression which Lady Churchill, most likely unconsciously,
produced upon the imaginative Cibber, who, fifty years after this
memorable scene, describes it in the foregoing glowing terms.
The Duchess, in more homely phrase, thus describes the share which she
took in this event, in the narrative which her enemies feared would be
posthumous;[120] so late in life was it before she could resolve to
enter upon a review of those events of her youth, in which sweet and
bitter recollections were mingled.
“As the flight of the Princess to Nottingham has been by some
ignorantly, not to say maliciously, imputed to my policy and
premeditated contrivance, I thought it necessary to give this short but
exact relation of it. It was a thing sudden and unconcerted; nor had I
any share in it, further than obeying my mistress’s orders in the
particulars I have mentioned, though indeed I had reason enough on my
own account to get out of the way, Lord Churchill having likewise, at
that time, left the King, and gone over to the other party.”[121]
The assistance which Lady Churchill afforded the Princess on this
occasion, was the first action of her life in which she directly took a
share in public affairs, and evinced the effects of that influence upon
her gracious patroness, which afterwards became so conspicuous and
remarkable. Her conduct was severely criticised, and “a deluge of
scurrility, falsehood, and defamation,”[122] was drawn down upon her by
this first manifestation of her importance in the political world.
In analysing her conduct in this transaction, we have first to consider
the truth of her statements, and afterwards the cogency of those reasons
which swayed her actions at so critical a period.
It is scarcely possible, in the first place, to suppose that no plan had
been concerted by the Princess and her friends, for her security in a
storm which they must have beheld lowering for some considerable period
of time. Lord Churchill had chalked out his own course, and with that
decision and prudence which characterized his whole career, had avowed
his intentions, and carried them promptly into effect. Prince George, a
weaker vessel, had coqueted with the winds, and hovered about the shore,
before putting out his barque of small resolution to sea, trusting to
the only gale that ever blew him any importance in the course of his
royal existence. These two, for the time, influential men, the one
borrowing all his small lustre from the Princess his wife, the other
passionately attached to a woman of rising influence and of strong
discernment, could never have desired to conceal their projects, nor
even the slightest particulars of their daily movements, from those on
whose affections they placed dependence, and whose sentiments were in
unison with their own. There can be but little doubt that the plans for
the demeanour of the Princess were fully matured before it was necessary
to have recourse to action; with the Bishop of London, an avowed enemy
to court measures, for her spiritual adviser, Lady Churchill for her
friend, and Cavendish, the friend of Russell, for her host. Whether on
this, and on all other occasions of minor politics, Lord Churchill
controlled his wife, or his wife controlled him, it is of little purpose
to inquire. On this occasion they doubtless were wholly agreed; nor can
we view the actions of the Princess Anne from this period until the
memorable year 1710, otherwise than with a reference to the opinions and
wishes of her presiding genius.
To these observations may be added the rumours, stated by Lediard as
facts, that six weeks before she left Whitehall, Anne had ordered a
private staircase to be made, under pretext of a more convenient access
to Lady Churchill’s apartments, but, in fact, to secure a mode of escape
whenever her person or her liberty were in danger. The night before her
Royal Highness withdrew, the Lord Chamberlain had orders to arrest the
Ladies Churchill and Berkley, but, on the request of the Princess that
he would defer executing those orders until after she had spoken to the
Queen, he complied with her wishes. The Princess’s women, on entering
her chamber the morning after her flight, were surprised to find their
mistress fled; and the excitement of the people, on the suspicion of
outrage to her, was so great, that they threatened to pull down
Whitehall, unless the place of her retirement was instantly
discovered.[123]
It cannot be disputed but that the Princess acted with a degree of
pusillanimity which was a feature in her character, and throughout her
subsequent life made her the victim of daring minds, of whose intrigues
she was the slave, and at the same time, from her exalted station, the
active principle. Anne knew her father too well to suppose, that whilst
he retained the power to defend his daughter, he would suffer her to be
treated with indignity, or allow violence to be done to her feelings as
a wife, or to her opinions as a Protestant. The pretext that it was
unsafe for her to remain, on account of the schemes which might be
formed against her by the priests, was a needless alarm, and an
ungenerous insinuation. If we are to conclude that Princes may discard
natural feeling, and ties of duty, from their consideration, in times of
difficulty, we may commend the prudence of Anne in absenting herself
from a scene of distress wherein her father was the chief actor; we may
excuse her from remaining to receive the deserted and degraded king,
justly expiating grave offences by the bitterest mortifications, but
stung most by the utter alienation of one daughter, and the heartless
discretion of the other. But had Anne continued in London, had she
waited to receive the dishonoured King, and, by kindly sympathy and
filial affection which is of no party, endeavoured to soothe the pangs
of his return to his gloomy capital—had she thus solaced the most
painful hours of a father whom she was to see no more, she would have
compromised no party, nor entailed upon herself any responsibility. She
was a passive neutral being; unambitious, and, in those days, whilst her
brother and sister lived, comparatively unimportant: any breach of what
is called consistency, that fatal word which seems, in a public sense,
to be invented to banish sincerity and to smother nature, would, in her,
have been attributed to the most amiable source; except, perhaps, by her
stern formal brother-in-law, or by her virtuous, wise sister,—a pattern
of wives, but an undutiful and heartless daughter, and a cold and
ungracious sister.
Anne wanted soul—wanted resolution and character more than heart; and at
a critical period, when she might have acted so as to avoid subsequent
self-reproach, and might have reaped the satisfaction to her own mind
that she had not added to the sharpness of the “serpent’s tooth,” she
absconded—for the flight had much of that character—under the auspices
of Lady Churchill, and guarded by the Bishop of London. It is natural to
suppose that the yearnings which in her latter days she felt towards her
brother, the Pretender, and her manifest distaste to the Hanoverian
succession, proceeded, in a degree, from a too late regret for the part
which on this occasion she had been induced to take, and which was
quickly followed by her surrender of her right to William the Third.
There is something in the very style of Lady Churchill’s exposition of
the whole matter, that marks a sense of shame and regret, as she slides
rapidly over the particulars of the event.
Fearless herself, one may almost picture to the mind her contempt, when
the Princess expressed, in childish terms, her fear of her father. Upon
that point, the alleged excuse of her nocturnal flight, Lady Churchill
endeavours guardedly to excuse her royal mistress. She dwells with far
less minuteness and distinctness on her own motives than on the
subsequent explanations of other matters, in which she avows and defends
her unequivocal counsels to the Princess, and brings conviction that she
acted a sincere and upright part on those occasions.
Her known character for resolutely maintaining her own will, in
opposition even to that of Anne, fixed upon her all the ephemeral
obloquy with which the Jacobite party assailed the proceeding. It was
supposed, and not without reason, that the Princess was even at this
time much more under her control, than was the first lady of the
bedchamber under that of her mistress, whom she scorned to cajole, but
contrived to command.
“Flattery, madam,” says her bitterest assailant, “is what you never
happened to be accused of, nor of temporising with the humours of your
royal patroness. The peccadillos you have been supposed answerable for,
are of a quite contrary class—of playing the tyrant with your sovereign,
of insisting on your own will in opposition to hers, and of carrying
your own points with a high hand, almost whether she would or not.”[124]
Yet, with the inconsistency which often accompanies invective, this foe
of the Duchess adds: “Flattery does not always imply fulsome praises and
slavish compliances; none but the grossest appetites can swallow such
coarse food. There is a species, of a much more refined and dangerous
nature, which never appears in its own shape, but makes its approaches
in so happy a disguise, as to be mistaken for truth, simplicity, and
plain dealing. Your Grace had discernment enough to find that the
Princess had an aversion to the first; so you, very adroitly, made use
of the last; and, as you confess yourself, found your account in
it.”[125]