“You think of everything,” said Marlborough fondly.
Shortly afterward Abigail Hill joined Anne’s household; and it was as Sarah had prophesied; so quiet was she, so humble, so retiring, it was hardly noticed that she was there.
* * *
A new century, thought Sarah. The century of the Churchills. She commanded the household of the Princess Anne. She was looked upon as the future power behind the throne for with every passing week William looked more and more frail.
Yet he clung to life with the obstinacy of a shriveled leaf in spite of autumn gales.
In the spring Anne was brought to bed once more and again miscarried. She was sad for a while to think of another child lost. But there was her boy to comfort her and she believed that as he grew older he was growing stronger.
She herself was feeling the strain of the last miscarriage; Dr. Radcliffe had told her that she must show more restraint at the table and she did try; but it was difficult; and when she had to pass by her favorite dishes she grew melancholy.
She often felt sick and faint and one evening on rising from the table she felt so ill that she sent for Dr. Radcliffe. Since William had banished him, Dr. Radcliffe had not lived at Court and had often been summoned to the Princess’s bedside and obliged to make a journey through the night from his house. Being certain that Anne was merely suffering from indigestion caused through overeating he declined to go.
He sent a message back: “Her Highness is not ill. I know her case well. Put her to bed at once and she will be better in the morning.”
He proved to be right; she was better the next day; but a week later she felt ill again at that same hour which Dr. Radcliffe found inconvenient.
This time Dr. Radcliffe was more blunt. “Go back to the Princess and tell her that there is nothing wrong with her but the vapors. Let her go to bed and rest and she’ll be better in the morning.”
Anne was angry and the next time she saw him she told him that on account of his unforgivable conduct his name was no longer on her list of physicians.
“Was I not right?” he demanded. “Did you not feel better in the morning? There was nothing wrong with you but the vapors.”
“Nothing would induce me to put you back on my list,” said Anne.
“Nothing would induce me to come,” retorted the doctor. “I have never hidden my feelings and like as not, on account of them, I’d be accused of poisoning you Whig Sovereigns. So ’tis better as it is.”
He left in his insolent way, as though having the reputation of being the best doctor in England meant that he could flout royalty without fear of retaliation.
He was now no longer a Court physician and glad of it.
* * *
Anne forgot her anger over Radcliffe, because her boy’s birthday was approaching. He was eleven years old; he still drilled his soldiers, and under Burnet was becoming very wise. It was fortunate for him that he had a natural aptitude for learning which grew out of his lively curiosity, for Burnet was determined to make him a scholar.
How delightful he looked on his birthday. He was wearing a special suit which had been made for the occasion. The coat was blue velvet—a color which suited him and made his eyes more vivid than ever; the buttons were diamonds and the Garter ribbon matched the coat; he wore a white periwig which made his head look bigger than ever; but he was a charming figure.
Anne could not take her eyes from him; she thought: He is the whole meaning of life to me.
There was flatttery among courtiers, of course, for the heir to the throne, but surely all who saw must admire him as much as they implied.
He had asked permission to fire his cannon in honor of his parents and when this was given and done he approached them and bowing to them he said in his high clear voice: “Papa and Mama, I wish you both unity, peace, and concord, not for a time but forever.”
They were both overcome with emotion; George pressed Anne’s hand to show he shared his wife’s pride and emotion in their son.
“It is a fine compliment,” George told the boy.
“No, Papa, it is not a compliment; it is sincere.”
There never was such a boy. Anne had been so often disappointed through the children she had hoped for; there were so many failures that she had to think hard to remember the number and then she was not sure; but, while she had this son, she was the proudest, happiest mother in the world.
Young Gloucester sat at the head of the banqueting table and welcomed his guests. All his soldiers were present and taking advantage of the good things to eat, for they needed refreshment after their exertions.
Dancing followed. Gloucester danced tolerably well although he told his mother he could not abide Old Dog—his name for Mr. Gorey who had been dancing master to Anne and her sister Mary when they were Gloucester’s age—and he felt that dancing was not for soldiers.
He was very tired when the banquet was over and not sorry to retire to his apartments where he told John Churchill that birthdays were better to be planned for, than to have, and he would rather one big battle any day.
In their apartments Anne and George sat together reminding each other of how he had danced, how he had reviewed his soldiers, what he had said.
“I can never thank you enough for giving me such a son,” said Anne.
“Nay my dear, it is I who should thank you.”
And they went on to talk of him. They laughed and rejoiced in him.
“We cannot say we have been unfortunate while we have our boy,” said Anne.
* * *
The next morning when Gloucester’s attendants went to awaken him they found him feeling sick. He said he had a sore throat and did not want to get up.
This news brought his mother to his bedside immediately, and when she saw his flushed face she was terrified.
“Send for the physicians!” she cried. They came; but they did not know what ailed the boy. They bled him, but his condition did not improve. Before the day was out he was in a high fever and delirious.
“Dr. Radcliffe must come,” said Anne. “Go and bring him.”
“Your Highness, you have dismissed him.”
“Go and bring him. Tell him I order him to come.”
Dr. Radcliffe arrived at Windsor in due course but he clearly came reluctantly.
“Your Highness,” he said, “I am no longer one of your physicians, and I cannot understand why you should summon me here.”
Anne’s face was pale with fear; he had never seen her so frightened for herself as she was for her son.
“My boy is ill,” she said. “If anyone can save him, it is you.”
Radcliffe went and examined the boy.
“He has scarlet fever,” he said. “Good God, who bled him?”
The doctor who had done so admitted that he had.
“Then,” said Radcliffe, “you may well have finished him. I can do nothing. You have destroyed him.”
Anne listened as though in a trance. She let Radcliffe go and made no attempt to detain him.
She only muttered: “He is the best doctor in England and he says my boy is destroyed.”
A future without this boy was something she could not face. She was numb with terror, yet bemused. Only a day or so ago he had stood before her bowing in his beautiful blue suit. It was not possible that he could be so ill.
She would nurse him. Dr. Radcliffe might say that they had destroyed him with the wrong treatment, but she would give him all that a mother could—perhaps what only a mother could.
She forgot her own maladies; there was only one thing that mattered to her. Her boy must live. She herself waited on him, nursed him, prepared the food which he could not eat. As she moved about the sick room, her lips moved in prayer.
“Oh, God, leave me my boy. You have taken all the others and this I accept. But this one is my own, my joy, my life. For eleven years I have cherished him, loved him, feared for him. You have taken the others; leave me this one.”
He must improv
e. Such loving care must make him well.
“My boy … my boy …” she whispered as she looked at the hot little face that seemed so vulnerable without that white periwig, so childish and yet at times like that of an old man. “Do not leave me. I will give anything … anything in the world to keep you. My hopes of the crown … anything.…”
A fearful thought had struck her. Why did she suffer constant miscarriages? Why was she in danger of losing her best beloved boy?
Had her father once loved her and Mary as she loved this boy? Had he suffered through his children as she had been made to suffer through hers? Death and treachery … which was the harder to bear?
She shut out such thoughts. She called to her boy and to her God.
“Have pity on me. Have pity on this suffering mother.”
But there was to be no pity. Five days after his birthday, William, Duke of Gloucester was dead.
THE LITTLE GENTLEMAN IN BLACK VELVET
The Princess Anne remained in her apartments. She spoke to no one and no one could comfort her. She did not wish to see Mrs. Freeman, not that Sarah cared. She herself had suffered the loss of a son and she did not want to be reminded of that tragic time.
As Sarah said to Marlborough: “The death of Gloucester changes the position of Anne. That poor lump of woman … how long will she last? And without an heir she is scarcely of any importance. You see how wise I was to link us with Godolphin, and it will be Sunderland before long.”
Anne had not thought of her changed status. There was only her loss.
George came to her; they held hands and tried to speak of their lost child and then could not bear to.
They sat in silence crying quietly.
Anne said at length: “I keep seeing him, George, reviewing his soldiers, regarding us in his grave way. Do you remember his greeting to us? He wished us peace, unity, and concord. Peace … how shall we ever know that again without him? I cannot believe it, George. Our little one. Never to see him again.”
“Est-il possible?” murmured George brokenheartedly.
* * *
Anne wrote to her father. She wanted him to forgive her. She had been a wicked daughter to him and now she suffered a bitter penitence. Her great sorrow, she believed, was a punishment from heaven. Her heart was broken, but if he would forgive her she believed she could go on living.
When she had sent off that letter she felt a little happier; and when James replied forgiving her, asking her to use her utmost power to restore her brother to the throne if ever she came to it, and to accept it only in trust for him; she wept and said that her father’s letter had comforted her as nothing else would.
* * *
William was growing weaker and Anne was the heir to the throne who could not shut herself away forever.
Sarah had become a little more insolent than before. She was determined to stress Anne’s less powerful position even if Anne was unaware of it. She had succeeded in marrying her daughter Anne to Charles, Lord Spencer, and that little project had been carried through victoriously.
Sunderland, Godolphin, Marlborough. What a combination! In certain circumstances unbeatable. All that would be necessary for them to rule would be for Sarah to keep the flaccid Queen in leading strings; and that she could adequately do.
The death of one small boy had turned thousands of eyes toward the throne. The Whigs and the Tories were drawn closer together. The Tories wanted the old regime—a King such as they had been accustomed to; the Whigs preferred the Sovereigns they had made of William and Mary, whose power was governed by the Parliament. But they stood together on one point and passed the Act of Settlement which stipulated that the sovereign must be a member of the Anglican Church, must not leave the country without the consent of Parliament and must be advised by the entire Privy Council and not by counsellors who were secret.
This meant two things; there should be no return to that old Stuart love: The Divine Right of Kings; and James’s son by his Catholic wife should be kept from the throne as long as he adhered to the Catholic faith. A constitutional Monarchy and a Protestant King.
William could not live long; Anne was not a healthy woman; in view of the Act of Settlement eyes were turned to the House of Hanover in which James I’s granddaughter Sophia was Electress.
But William still lived and there was Anne, who was a young woman still. She was almost certain to become pregnant again soon and who knew what would happen? She had produced one child. Why should she not produce another?
It was hoped she would. What a lot of trouble that would save!
* * *
Death did not come singly to the royal family.
It had not been generally known that, early that year, James had had a stroke which left him partially paralysed. He lived on for a while but by September his condition had weakened and after a short illness he died at St. Germains.
In his last hours he reiterated that he forgave all his enemies and he mentioned specially his daughter Anne. He lovingly took farewell of Mary Beatrice, but he was not sorry to go; sickness and defeat had darkened his life, but what had hurt him most was the treachery of the daughters he had loved so dearly; that was something he would never forget. But the letter of Anne’s, who herself was suffering through a beloved child, had given him some comfort. He was glad that she had asked forgiveness and he had given it before leaving the world.
Louis came to his deathbed and James made a dying request of him.
“Here is my son,” he said. “In a few hours’ time he will be King of England. Will you, my good friend, promise me that you will recognize him as such.”
“I promise,” answered Louis.
* * *
William knew that war was inevitable. Louis of France had proclaimed the son of James II and Mary Beatrice, King James III of England.
There was a new King over the Water for the Catholics to drink to.
Only such an act could rouse William from the physical disabilities which were overwhelming him. His body might be failing him, but his mind was as alert as ever. The proclamation of James’ son as King of England was a minor issue. The question of the Spanish succession was involved; Charles II of Spain had named Louis’ grandson Philip of Anjou as his successor. This could only mean that Louis would have a big control over Spain and the balance of power in Europe would be upset. A European war was brewing fast and Holland and England would have to stand together against France and Spain if they were to survive.
Such a project was such to put new life into a great war leader.
William rarely spent an evening drinking Holland’s gin nowadays. He was in consultation with his most able ministers. Marlborough was a good soldier; William had seen enough of him in action to know that. There were Marlborough, Godolphin, and Sunderland … among others.
This was a time for unity. They would all see that.
And at such a time William ceased to be an irritable invalid.
* * *
The gateway of greatness was opening to Marlborough; Sarah knew it. And he would always remember whose had been the hand to unlock those gates. He would always remember what he owed to his wife.
She sat at her table in the anteroom to Anne’s bedchamber drawing on her gloves, but she did not see the room; she saw Marlborough crowned with the laurels of success; her lovely daughters queens of their world; and young John, best beloved of all her children, who should have the grandest future of them all.
The door opened so silently that she was not aware that anyone had entered until a soft voice said: “Excuse me, my lady.”
She looked up into the meek plain face of Abigail Hill.
“Good gracious, you startled me. I didn’t hear you come.”
“I am sorry, my lady. But you are wearing the Princess’s gloves.”
Sarah looked down at her hands. She thought they had seemed tight. Anne’s hands were small, her fingers tapering; the only beauty she possessed.
Abigail was regarding her with such aw
e that she was first amused and then delighted. She supposed these women about Anne realized that she, Sarah Churchill, was of far more importance than their mistress.
She could not resist confirming this opinion or making sure that it existed in case it did not already.
She peeled them off turning up her nose as she did so. “Take them away at once. I do not care to wear something that has touched the odious hands of that disagreeable woman.”
Abigail looked startled as Sarah had expected; Sarah flung the gloves at her; they fell to the floor and the woman meekly picked them up.
“Leave me, please. I am busy.”
Sarah sat smiling as Abigail left. What she did not know was that Abigail had left the door open and that Anne in the adjoining room had heard Sarah’s words, for Sarah had a loud penetrating voice.
She had said that to a serving woman! thought Anne. Mrs. Freeman had called her hands odious and her a disagreeable woman. Sarah was handsome, of course, and however disagreeable Sarah was, Anne could not help being fascinated by her. But to say such a thing to a serving woman! She would not have believed it if she had not heard it herself.
Sarah gave herself great airs since her daughters’ marriages and since Marlborough was back in favor.
She didn’t mean it perhaps. It was a joke. Yes, that was it. It was meant to be amusing. Sarah would never call her hands odious, herself disagreeable.
Abigail Hill brought the gloves to Anne.
“Can I help put them on, Your Highness.”
Such a nice quiet voice, such a nice quiet woman! And she gave no sign of what must have been astonishing to her.
It couldn’t be true. I imagined it, thought Anne. It was more comfortable that way; for in truth, although Mrs. Freeman was overbearing, although she was growing more and more inclined to bully, she was Mrs. Morley’s dear, dear friend and Mrs. Morley could not do without her, particularly now she was suffering so deeply from the loss of her beloved boy.
Royal Sisters: The Story of the Daughters of James II Page 37
