Queen Anne: The Politics of Passion

by Anne Somerset

  The Earl of Marlborough was also invited back in from the cold, being allowed to kiss the King’s hand in March 1695. As yet William still distrusted him, and was not prepared to give him command of royal troops, but at least the Earl was no longer in disgrace. William even forced himself to be polite to Sarah, welcoming her warmly when she accompanied Anne to court. Never one to forget a grudge, she childishly rebuffed his advances, priding herself on having ‘stood at as much distance as I could’ from her host.111

  At one time it was assumed that Anne would be the chief mourner at the grand funeral held for Mary in March 1695, but because she was still supposedly in an advanced state of pregnancy she did not attend. It seemed that her elaborate precautions had staved off a miscarriage, and in early April her midwife Mrs Richardson moved into Berkeley House, ‘expecting the good hour’. At the end of the month, however, the baby had still not appeared. Apparently unruffled, Anne announced that she had obviously mistaken the date of conception, and that the birth would take place in four weeks. When Lady Yarborough paid a visit to Berkeley House the Princess told her confidently that she was ‘better than usually in that condition, and was not yet at her reckoning’.112

  For some time, however, there had been scepticism about Anne’s true condition. As early as February 1695 the Countess of Nottingham had confided to a friend, ‘I find it begins to be doubted whether the Princess be with child. A little time will resolve it’. By mid April it was reported ‘the town thinks the Princess not with child; she thinks she is, but gone much beyond her time’. Rumours were fuelled by her physician Dr Radcliffe, who went about declaring that her pregnancy was a ‘false gestation’. At one point, when summoned away from a convivial party to attend the Princess, he refused to go, swearing ‘that her highness’s distemper was nothing but the vapours’. Anne had long complained that Radcliffe was ‘very impertinent’ and when she learned he was giving out her ‘ailments … had no other existence than in the imagination’, she ‘conceived such an irreconcilable aversion to him’ that she dismissed him as her personal physician. Dr Gibbons replaced him, even though many people believed his medical knowledge was inferior to Radcliffe’s. Stubbornly refusing to admit that her condition was questionable, the Princess blamed Jacobite slurs for any doubts about her pregnancy.113

  When the baby had still not appeared by late May, Anne desperately said that she must have conceived three months later than originally thought, but that the baby’s arrival was imminent. A month later, prayers for her safe delivery were still being said in the church she attended, but by then almost no one believed the child would materialise. At the end of June the Princess announced that she was leaving for Windsor with her husband and son, and since she had earlier said that she would not go there until she had had her baby, this indicated that she too had finally recognised that her hopes were chimerical. She had been suffering from hysterical pregnancy, or pseudocyesis, which tends to occur in women who have an intense longing to have a baby. The condition convincingly mimics genuine pregnancy, manifesting all its symptoms, including morning sickness, absence of periods, abdominal distension and even lactation. It was all too understandable that the Princess should have been affected by the syndrome. Besides her purely personal desire to have more children, she had been brought up in the belief that the most important duty of female royalty was to reproduce. The fact that Anne’s sister Mary had also undergone an hysterical pregnancy in 1679 gives some indication of the pressure princesses were under at the time.114

  For Anne the episode entailed not just crushing disappointment but also deep humiliation. Her prestige, hitherto shaky enough, suffered a further blow. As Evelyn pointed out, the fact that the Princess already ‘made so little a figure, and now after great expectation not with child’ hardly boded well for her future status.115

  With Anne and William on better terms, Berkeley House was now thronged by courtiers who had previously kept their distance. One of Anne’s few former visitors, Lord Carnarvon, was so annoyed at being elbowed aside by strangers that he said indignantly ‘I hope your Highness will remember that I came to wait upon you, when none of this company did’. According to Sarah, however, Anne was still not treated with the deference that was her due, and when she visited the King at Kensington, ‘no ceremony was observed to her more than to any other lady’.116

  In truth, although expediency on both sides had dictated an accommodation, the two parties still cordially disliked each other. One observer noted that while there was ‘an appearance of good correspondence … it was little more than an appearance … The King did not bring her into any share in business; nor did he order his ministers to wait on her and give her any account of affairs’. When William went abroad in May 1695 he did not appoint Prince George one of the Lords Justices who governed the country in his absence, mortifying Anne, who had imagined that she herself would be invited to take charge of the council. Even when the King decreed that summer that she could take over the Duke of Leeds’s apartments in St James’s Palace, the low esteem in which the Princess was held was apparent: instead of vacating his lodgings promptly, the Duke ‘was very slow (and very unmannerly) in not removing’.117

  In view of the King’s dismissive attitude, Sarah was enraged when Anne wrote him a congratulatory note following his victory at the siege of Namur in the summer of 1695. The Princess had been advised to do so ‘by three Lords, whose judgements all the world valued’ – namely, Marlborough, Sunderland, and Godolphin – but Sarah believed passionately that William had not merited such an obsequious gesture. She felt vindicated when William did not bother to reply to his sister-in-law’s polite letter. Marlborough then forwarded him a second copy, saying that Anne was concerned the original had gone astray, but even then no response was forthcoming. As Sarah saw it, this letter ‘so unbecoming the Princess to write, served no other purpose but to give the King an opportunity of showing his brutal disregard for the writer’.118

  After the debacle of her phantom pregnancy it was a huge relief for the Princess when it became clear in the autumn of 1695 that she was expecting another child. Unfortunately, as so often before, her pregnancy ended in tragedy. On 18 February 1696 she suffered what was thought to be a slight indisposition. Having been let blood, she refused to go to bed, and that evening was well enough to receive a visit from the King. Then, two days later, she was delivered of a stillborn daughter.119

  Refusing to be broken by successive calamities, within weeks the Princess had conceived again. In August she had a fall, but was thought to have suffered no ill effects. On 20 September, however, her hopes were cruelly dashed for the second time that year when she ‘miscarried of a prince’. One letter dated more than a month later asserts that the event was even more traumatic, as the Princess had a double miscarriage, spread over twenty-four hours. According to this account the dead foetuses were at different stages of development, ‘the one of seven months growth, the other of two or three months, as her physicians and midwife judged’. The phenomenon whereby a twin who dies early in the pregnancy stays in the womb is known as a fetus papyraceous, but since the report is uncorroborated it is not certain whether that is what happened in this case.120

  Anne made a remarkably swift recovery and by early November was actually fit enough to dance at a birthday ball she gave for the King. Admittedly this did not make the party a success, as William was observed to be ‘extremely out of humour’ all evening. In December 1696 the Princess was described as being ‘ill of convulsion fits’, but the attack passed and soon afterwards she was known to be pregnant again. Two months later she appeared to be in good health at her birthday celebrations, enjoying a performance of her favourite play Love for Love, which the King put on at Whitehall in her honour. Yet once again, agonising disappointment lay in store, for on 25 March 1697 she suffered another miscarriage.121

  The cycle of raised hopes and wrenching sadness undoubtedly placed a terrible burden on the Princess, but through it all she could at least derive
happiness from her little boy. For years Anne and George had been hinting that they wanted Gloucester to be given an honorary knighthood. Even when he had gone to visit his aunt and uncle as a tiny child, ‘he had a blue bandolier over his shoulder to put the King and Queen in mind of the Garter’. At length in January 1696 William had gratified the Prince and Princess by conferring the honour on his six-year-old nephew. Convinced that now he would automatically ‘become braver and stouter than heretofore’, Gloucester himself was thrilled when his uncle personally tied on his insignia. That summer the young Duke was officially inaugurated into the order at a ceremony held at Windsor on his birthday. The King himself was absent, away on campaign, but a great feast was held at his expense. In all a hundred guests sat down to dinner, with Anne presiding over one of four tables where gentlemen and ladies were separately seated.122

  The Princess’s dynastic hopes were centred squarely on her son, but she had to face up to the fact that he was unlikely to become King if her father was restored or the Prince of Wales reinstated in the succession. To guard against this, Anne adopted a devious course. In recent years her contacts with the Jacobite court in exile had tailed off, but she now tried to implant in her father’s mind the idea that her accession was in his interests. At some point in 1696 she wrote to James, asking him to give his blessing to her mounting the throne on William’s death, for then she could make things right for him. Evincing ‘a seeming … readiness to make restitution when opportunities should serve’, she implied that the likely outcome of her refusing the crown was that England would become a republic, which ‘would only remove his Majesty the further from the hopes of recovering his right by putting the government in worse hands’. It was an ingenious argument, but obviously flawed, for it was apparent to James that while Anne had a son she was hardly likely to cast her child aside and hand the throne to her father or the Prince of Wales. Consequently her proposal ‘suited no ways with the King’s [James’s] temper … so his Majesty excused himself from that’.123

  Having tried and failed to neutralise James, Anne also had to bear in mind the possibility that King William would betray her by making a peace agreement with Louis XIV, binding him to adopt the Prince of Wales as his heir. Both sides were suffering from war weariness, and a peace conference opened in early 1697. Private Anglo–French talks were also conducted between the Maréchal de Boufflers and William’s confidant the Earl of Portland, and there was much speculation that Portland had been authorised to offer an agreement on these terms. Although William’s own occupation of the throne for life was assumed to be non-negotiable, ‘A great many people and even some of his Majesty’s best friends began to suspect that his Majesty had entered into a private agreement with the King of France in favour either of King James or his issue’.124

  Even if William did contemplate such an arrangement, James sabotaged its chances, for nothing could induce him to collude in William’s continued possession of the crown. Instead of being pragmatic, he demanded that any peace agreement should provide for his immediate restoration. In early 1697 he issued a manifesto to the Catholic Princes of Europe, referring indignantly to ‘expedients’ that reportedly were currently under discussion, and insisting that he would never endorse something ‘so low and degenerate’. According to his authorised biography, he adhered to this line even when Louis XIV informed him that he had ‘underhand prevailed’ on William to accept that the Prince of Wales could succeed him.125 James indignantly rejected the idea, leaving Louis with no alternative but to reach an agreement that took no account of the fallen King’s wishes.

  As a result of her father’s intransigence, the treaty that was eventually signed at Ryswick was not at all inimical to Anne’s interests. Having previously condemned William as a usurper, Louis now recognised him as King. Although he refused to expel James and his family from his dominions, Louis engaged himself ‘upon the faith and word of a king’ never to give assistance to any enemy of William’s.126 This ruled out further attempts on his part to bring about James’s restoration. When Anne was informed on 14 September that peace had been signed, she had good reason to be delighted. She and George ‘showed their joy … by giving a substantial present to the courier who brought them the news’. There was widespread relief that a gruelling, bloody and expensive war was over, and happiness was visible on all faces. Only known Jacobites ‘appeared vexed and gloomy about it’.127

  The Princess had another cause for optimism, for she was pregnant for the fifteenth time. She appeared to be bearing up well: in September a foreign ambassador had been impressed when he had visited her at Windsor and found her out stag hunting in her chaise. Anne told Sarah that the exercise had ‘done me more good than can be imagined’ and that she was thinking of buying another horse so she could go out whenever she wanted. The only ailment bothering her at this time was the ‘vapours’ – a vague, all-purpose term that could mean headaches, but also depression, nerves, or general malaise. Anne took this philosophically, remarking without rancour, ‘I am not quite rid of my vapours nor I believe must never expect that happiness’. At the end of the month, however, her health took a marked turn for the worse. By mid October she was ‘so mightily tormented with the gout’ that she became ‘a perfect cripple’. She confessed, ‘My spirits … are indeed mightily sunk with this bad pain … Let people say what they will, it is impossible to help having the spleen when one is in such misery’.128

  By 22 October the worst was over, although the Princess reported the attack had ‘left so great a weakness in my foot and knee’ that she was postponing her journey to London. She now dreaded that the party which she was giving for the King’s birthday on 4 November would prove too exhausting for ‘one who is a cripple and inclined so much to vapours’.129 Fortunately for Anne, the King did not return from the Continent until 15 November.

  Anne had long felt aggrieved that the Irish estates granted to her father when Duke of York had devolved upon William at his accession. Since then, William had surreptitiously bestowed Irish estates on his principal Dutch favourites and his former mistress, Elizabeth Villiers, Countess of Orkney. This had angered Anne, who regarded the lands as rightfully hers, being mindful that James had made a will years before, naming her and Mary as the heirs to his Irish estates. While dwelling on this point, she cheerfully overlooked the fact that James had two other children with claims on the property, for Mary Beatrice had given birth to a daughter in June 1692.

  In the autumn of 1697 William was seeking to have his grants confirmed by Parliament, and Anne seized the opportunity to stake her own claim. Having secretly obtained documentation to support her case, she wrote to William in December, saying she was ‘apt to believe’ that William was unaware that James had bequeathed his Irish possessions to his daughters. Having now clarified the position for him, she asked him to abandon the projected parliamentary proceedings, assuring him she did this ‘with the greatest respect and duty imaginable’. In no way mollified by such expressions, William simply ignored her letter, which consequently ‘had no effect’ whatever.130

  This was annoying for Anne, but such concerns were insignificant in comparison to her heartrending experiences as a mother. On 2 December, a day or two after attending a firework display to celebrate the Peace of Ryswick, the Princess had yet another miscarriage. This time she lost ‘two male children, at least as far as could be recognised’. It was reported that ‘Her highness is as well as she possibly can be in such a state’131 but however admirably she coped physically, the emotional toll was horrendous.

  In January 1698 Whitehall Palace burnt down. The fire lit up the sky for five miles and though the Cockpit and Inigo Jones’s Banqueting House escaped the flames, most of the building was reduced to ashes. It had never been entirely satisfactory, being rambling but architecturally undistinguished, but St James’s Palace, which now became the principal royal residence in the capital, had less room for entertaining. Consequently, even though peace had been restored, the royal court could
no longer operate as London’s principal social centre.

  The King was nonetheless aware that he could not neglect his social obligations. In February Anne announced that she would give a ball every Monday night at St James’s. Eighteen months later, she agreed to act as William’s hostess at weekly receptions at Kensington Palace. This was done at the behest of the Earl of Albemarle, the King’s youthful new Dutch favourite, who had persuaded his master that if the ladies of the court were entertained with gambling parties and suchlike excitements, they and their husbands would grow more attached to his regime. Unfortunately Anne was not well fitted by nature to perform her new role. When she presided at the first of these soirées in November 1699, cards were played at a central table, but no alcohol was provided. Clearly the evening was judged a failure, as thenceforward wine was always served.132

  In December 1697 William had informed Anne that it was now time for the Duke of Gloucester to be ‘put into men’s hands’ by being given his own household. William had originally wanted to make the Duke of Shrewsbury the little boy’s governor, but when he turned down the post Anne asked if Marlborough could be appointed. To her great pleasure, the King agreed, having decided that he must now overlook Marlborough’s shortcomings and avail himself of his talents. After being named as Gloucester’s governor, Marlborough was also made a Privy Councillor in June 1698, prompting a foreign observer to comment ‘There’s a major change!’ A month later he was appointed one of the Lords Justices who exercised executive power during William’s travels abroad. Such was Anne’s delight at the Duke of Gloucester being entrusted to Marlborough’s charge that she assured Sarah, ‘Whatever may happen to me now I shall be very easy about my son; if I should live long, it will be a great pleasure to see him in such good hands, and if I were to die never so soon it would be an unexpressible satisfaction to leave him in them’.133