Queen Anne: The Politics of Passion

by Anne Somerset

  Anne was understandably hurt, and while conceding ‘I am generally lazy’, she protested ‘I have never missed any opportunity of giving you all the intelligence I am able’. She decided the best way of proceeding was to approach the Queen’s dresser Mrs Dawson, a faithful old retainer who had been present at Anne’s birth and those of all her siblings. Anne calculated that the discreet Mrs Dawson was unlikely to mention their conversation, although she also took the precaution of asking questions ‘in such a manner that … in case she should betray me … the King and Queen might not be angry with me’.101

  Having waited until the King and Queen had left London for Windsor and the baby prince had been installed in his nursery at Richmond, Anne asked Mrs Dawson to come and see her at the Cockpit. When they were alone together the Princess explained she had ‘heard strange reports concerning the birth of her brother the Prince of Wales’, and asked her what happened on that day. Mrs Dawson asked sharply if Anne herself entertained any doubts about the child’s legitimacy, at which Anne, ‘putting her hands together and lifting them up’, disingenuously assured her, ‘No, not in the least’.102 Mrs Dawson then told her everything she could recall about the Prince’s arrival.

  Nothing that Mrs Dawson said supported the theory that a fraud had taken place. Anne reported to Mary that the Queen had not been screened from view, as her bed curtains had been open at the side. Twenty ladies had been present, as well as all the Privy Council, who ‘stood close at the bed’s feet’. Mrs Dawson not only remembered seeing milk run from the Queen’s breast but had also watched ‘the midwife cut the navel string’. Yet although Anne’s research had yielded such disappointing results, she would not modify her views on that account. ‘All that she says seems very clear, but one does not know what to think’ she told Mary, adding doggedly, ‘methinks it is wonderful if it is no cheat, that they never took no pains to convince me of it’.103

  There appeared to be quite a good chance that the baby Prince would resolve the crisis by dying. At birth he had been observed to be ‘a brave lusty boy and like to live’, but since then the doctors had nearly succeeded in killing him. They had decreed that he should not take milk from a wet nurse, and instead fed him ‘a sort of paste’ composed of ‘barley, flour, water and sugar, to which a few currants are sometimes added’. Hardly surprisingly, the baby was soon seriously ill, but the doctors insisted ‘they would not give him half an hour to live if he were suckled’. Instead they administered ‘violent remedies’ such as canary wine and Dr Goddard’s drops – ‘nothing less than liquid fire’ according to one despairing observer. With the child reduced to ‘a seeming dying condition’ they dosed him with an emetic. On 9 July Anne had reported hopefully, ‘the Prince of Wales has been ill these three or four days; and if he has been as bad as some people say, I believe it will not be long before he is an angel in heaven’.104

  At times Anne inclined to the view that the King and Queen were merely pretending the child was ill in order to keep him out of sight, but the few glimpses she had of the baby confirmed that he was truly very sickly. In her questionnaire Mary had wanted to know, ‘Is the Queen fond of it?’ and Anne did not scruple to imply that Mary Beatrice displayed a suspicious lack of maternal feeling. She noted that at one point when the child had been reported to be ‘very ill of a looseness, and it really looked so’, the Queen had appeared oddly unconcerned. ‘When she came from prayers she went to dinner without seeing it, and after that played at comet [a card game] and did not go to it till she was put out of the pool’. However, the Imperial ambassador reported that the Queen visited her ailing infant every day at Richmond, and only returned at one in the morning, ‘crying abundantly’.105

  When Anne left London for Tunbridge on 27 July the Prince was still clinging precariously to life. About a week later she received an urgent message there that the child was undergoing another crisis, and it was thought inevitable that he would die. However, once again the baby confounded all predictions. On next seeing him the doctors found him ‘strangely revived’, and some of them allegedly told Bishop Lloyd of St Asaph they could not believe it was the same child. This gave rise to new suspicions. Some people now propounded the idea that the child who had been smuggled into St James’s Palace on 10 June had died, and that another one had been substituted in its place. It was even suggested that this process had occurred more than once, and ‘a third imposter’ was currently masquerading as the Prince of Wales. Bishop Compton reportedly subscribed to the belief that several babies had been kept in readiness to be produced as needed, and he told Bishop Lloyd that he understood ‘a busy intriguing Papist woman’ had tried to buy the child of a London bricklayer for this purpose. A Jacobite sympathiser would later comment ‘To palm one child upon a nation is certainly a thing very difficult; but to palm three … next to impossible’. Nevertheless, when Bishop Lloyd subsequently discussed these stories with Anne, he received the impression that she gave them some credence.106

  In truth, the explanation for the baby’s sudden recovery was perfectly straightforward. The doctors had finally relented and agreed that a wet nurse could feed the baby. ‘Upon sucking, he visibly mended’.107 Once it appeared that the succession issue would not be conveniently resolved by the baby’s death, it became clear that only drastic action could prevent James from implementing his plans. It was at this point that Churchill alerted Anne and George that William was planning to invade, and they gave the project their blessing.

  Churchill had not been one of the seven men who signed the invitation to William, but during July the conspirators had approached him and two other leading army officers. Not only did all three give assurances that in the event of invasion the army would not stand by the King, but ‘Churchill did … undertake for Prince George and Princess Anne’, indicating that he could prevail on them to align themselves with William.108

  On 28 July Edward Russell wrote William a letter in rudimentary code, referring to Churchill as ‘Mr Roberts’. He explained that the latter had now proffered ‘his utmost service’ to William, and that he was ready to use his influence to good effect. Russell went on, ‘When your Highness thinks the time proper for Mr Roberts’s mistress [the Princess] to know your thoughts, be pleased to let him tell it her; it will be better in my humble opinion than by letter’. Churchill himself wrote to William on 4 August, declaring his intention to conduct himself in accordance with ‘what I owe God and my country’. It cannot have been long after this that Churchill let Anne and George into the secret of what was contemplated. There is no way of knowing whether the couple proved eager or reluctant to pledge support for William, but certainly they now committed themselves to the venture. Presumably Churchill enlisted the aid of his wife in this delicate matter, although she drew a veil over what happened at this time. King James, however, would later contend that Churchill bore sole responsibility for persuading Anne to withdraw her allegiance from him, commenting bitterly, ‘He and he alone has done this. He has corrupted my army. He has corrupted my child’.109

  Over the next few weeks all those privy to the conspiracy worked stealthily to bring in more adherents. Churchill and Bishop Compton, possibly assisted by Anne and George themselves, were able to attract the support of people in the Princess’s circle who were naturally of a conservative disposition, but whose patience with James was now exhausted. They included the Duke of Ormonde, Lord Scarsdale, and Anne’s Master of the Horse, Colonel John Berkeley. Clarendon’s son Lord Cornbury was also enlisted, as was another first cousin of the Princess, the Duke of Grafton. Anne and George’s involvement in the plot was reassuring to these individuals, who were instinctive supporters of monarchy. In September Bishop Compton travelled through England to Yorkshire, coordinating arrangements. Although all seven men who had invited William to England had promised to join him when he landed, it was agreed that Compton should be in London so that he could be on hand to take care of the Princess.110

  On 17 September Anne returned to London, nursing the secr
et that the Prince of Orange would soon be invading. To justify leading a retired life she untruthfully gave out that she was pregnant, but she could not avoid all contact with her father and stepmother. After spending the day with them at Windsor on 18 September she travelled back to London that evening with James in his coach, managing not to arouse any suspicions regarding her loyalty.

  Throughout August the King had been warned by the French that William of Orange was intending to invade, but he had remained in what the French Minister of the Marine described as ‘a surprising lethargy’. One reason for this was that James believed that William had left it too late in the year to mount such an operation. In addition, as he later acknowledged, ‘it was very long before I could believe that my nephew and son-in-law could be capable of so very ill an undertaking, and so began too late to provide against it’. Only towards the end of September, when despatches arrived from his ambassador in The Hague declaring categorically that the Prince would soon be on his way, did James wake up to the danger. On 23 September Anne told Clarendon that her father was ‘much disordered about the preparations which were making in Holland’, and by the following day James no longer had any doubt that an invasion was imminent.111

  The week before, it had been announced that a new Parliament would meet in November, but on 28 September the writs for elections were recalled. On the same day James issued a proclamation warning his subjects of the impending arrival of an ‘armed force of foreigners and strangers’, intent on effecting ‘an absolute conquest of our kingdoms and the utter subduing and subjecting us … to a foreign power’. The proclamation noted sorrowfully that this enterprise was ‘promoted (as we understand, although it may seem almost incredible) by some of our subjects, being persons of … implacable malice and desperate designs’, who sought ‘to embroil this kingdom in blood and ruin’.112

  As yet the King still clung to the illusion that his daughters remained loyal to him. Having persuaded himself that Mary had been ignorant of her husband’s intentions, he wrote to her on 28 September saying he hoped the news had surprised her as much as it had him. In Anne’s case, however, her father deemed such appeals superfluous. Although it was claimed in James’s authorised biography that James was aware she was disaffected because she had ‘altered her way of living with the King and Queen for some time’, this was written with the benefit of hindsight.113 During the crisis itself there is no indication that James had any idea she was contemplating treachery.

  Everyone’s attention became fixated on the weather, for the Dutch fleet could not sail until the wind changed. In the meantime Clarendon urged Anne to prevail upon her father to bring back loyal Anglicans into government and to make concessions so that people no longer looked to William of Orange to remedy grievances. Both requests were rejected on the grounds that ‘she never spoke to the King on business’. Clarendon said her father would be touched ‘to see her Royal Highness so concerned for him; to which she replied he had no reason to doubt her concern’. The more her uncle ‘pressed her, the more reserved she was; and said she must dress herself, it was almost prayer time’.114 He raised the subject with her several more times prior to William’s landing, but always with the same lack of success.

  On 22 October James made a new attempt to shore up his regime. A week earlier his son had been christened James Francis Edward at a Catholic ceremony, and the King now tried to dissipate all doubts about the child’s legitimacy. He summoned an extraordinary meeting of the Privy Council, and all those present at the birth of the Prince were called before it. The King explained that because he was aware that ‘very many do not think this son with which God hath blessed me to be mine’, he had decided to convene this tribunal. Numerous witnesses were then heard, many of whom gave the most explicit evidence. The Protestant Lady Bellasyse, for example, testified that she ‘saw the child taken out of the bed with the navel string hanging to its belly’, while Dame Isabella Waldegrave ‘took the afterburthen and put it into a basin of water’. Anne was not to be present to hear any of this. Exploiting her father’s concern for her well-being, she told him that she feared miscarrying if she ventured out of her chamber, and accordingly the King excused her from attending. He told the council that his daughter would have been there but her health did not permit it, and he was ‘loth to hazard one child for the preservation of another’.115

  When Clarendon visited his niece a day later, he found her treating the hearing as a cause for ribaldry. She teased her uncle for having ‘heard a great deal of fine discourse at council, and made herself very merry with that whole affair. She was dressing and all her women about her; many of whom put in their jests’. ‘Amazed at this’, Clarendon resolved to remonstrate with her in private, but over the next few days Anne avoided being on her own with him. When at last he taxed her about it, he was scarcely reassured by Anne’s remark that, ‘She must needs say the Queen’s behaviour during her being with child was very odd’. In public, however, she pretended that she had no worries on this score. When an official deputation presented her on 1 November with copies of the statements sworn before the council, she assured them, ‘My Lords, this was not necessary; for I have so much duty for the King that his word must be more to me than these depositions’.116

  Prior to setting sail, William of Orange issued a manifesto, explaining why he had decided to invade. Entitled the Declaration of Reasons for Appearing in Arms in the Kingdom of England, this document recapitulated the ways in which James had ‘openly transgressed and annulled’ ‘the laws, liberties and customs’ of his realm. ‘To crown all’, there was ‘just and visible grounds of suspicion’ that ‘the pretended Prince of Wales was not born by the Queen’, and therefore William felt compelled to intervene. However, the Declaration insisted that William aimed at ‘nothing … but the preservation of the Protestant religion … and the securing the whole nation … their laws, rights and liberties’. He desired ‘to have a free and lawful Parliament assembled as soon as possible’, with authority not only to debate grievances but to mount an enquiry into the Prince of Wales’s birth.117

  James at once rushed out a proclamation declaring that it was not only illegal to distribute this text but even to possess it. Anne, however, was exempted from the prohibition, for the King lent her his own copy. She may have been comforted to find that it contained nothing to suggest that her father would lose his throne as a result of the invasion, but there is no way of knowing this.

  When the wind at last turned favourable, William and his army set sail on 1 November, landing at Torbay in Devon four days later. He then moved on to Exeter, where he stayed for nearly a fortnight. James promptly ordered his army to go to Salisbury. John Churchill was promoted to be a Lieutenant General, in charge of a brigade, and it was rumoured that Prince George would be named the King’s ‘generalissimo’, though in fact he had decided to turn down any command. After James’s nephew Lord Cornbury defected to William on 14 November, the King’s general Lord Feversham entreated James to come to Salisbury ‘to keep the infection amongst his army from spreading’. Anne, however, was confident that Cornbury would soon be followed by other officers. When Clarendon talked to her of his distress at his son’s disloyalty, she told him that ‘people were so apprehensive of Popery that she believed many more of the army would do the same’.118 Evidently she was counting on James’s forces being so reduced by mass defections that he would have to seek a settlement, rather than deciding the issue on the battlefield.

  At this stage, however, the King appeared determined to fight. Just before he left to join his army on 17 November he was petitioned by eighteen lords and bishops to summon a free Parliament to ‘prevent the effusion of blood’, but James said that this was impossible while a foreign army was in the country. ‘Having taken his adieu of the Queen and of the Princess Anne of Denmark’ he left London in warlike mood, proclaiming his intention ‘to go on directly to the enemy and to give him no quarter’.119 This was the last time Anne saw her father. George accompanied
his father-in-law, though Anne knew, as James did not, that he was planning to go over to William when an opportunity presented itself. Anne stayed behind at the Cockpit, uncomfortably close to the Queen at Whitehall. Bishop Compton was also in London, and it had been arranged that he would provide the Princess with a refuge in the capital if the need arose.

  The day after her father’s departure, Anne wrote to William, assuring him she desired ‘your good success in this so just an undertaking’. She explained that her husband was accompanying the King to Salisbury but intended ‘to go from there to you as soon as his friends thought it proper. I am not yet certain if I shall continue here or remove into the city: that shall depend on the advice my friends will give me, but wherever I am I shall be ready to show you how much I am your humble servant’.120

  Within days, however, Anne had been thrown into disarray by an unforeseen turn of events. After arriving at Salisbury the King had been afflicted by debilitating nosebleeds, and his spirits had sunk further on hearing that much of the north of England had risen up against him. On 22 November James decided to return to London with his army. He started on his journey the following day, but on the night of 23 November John Churchill defected, taking with him the Duke of Grafton and Colonel John Berkeley – although they were not accompanied by as many common soldiers as they had hoped. If James’s nerve had held, he still had a reasonable chance of beating William in the field, but he was dreadfully shaken by the desertion of key officers. He was particularly shocked by Churchill’s behaviour, having ‘raised him from the mud’.121