Looking back, even Sarah would admit, ‘it may perhaps seem not so prudent of me to insist so much on my lodgings at Kensington since I never made use of them’. Nevertheless, at the time, the Queen’s refusal to acknowledge she had been wronged struck her as intolerable. On 31 March, just after Marlborough had left England to resume the fight against France, the Duchess informed her by letter that she presumed Anne would ‘neither be surprised nor displeased to hear’ that, as a result of the ‘very hard and uncommon usage’ she had received, she had decided to resign. She then demanded that the Queen must ‘dispose of my employments according to the solemn assurances you have been pleased to give me’, assuring Anne that, providing she met her obligations, ‘you shall meet with all the submission and acknowledgements imaginable’.14
The Queen still shied away from severing relations completely. Writing back to express sorrow at the Duchess’s ‘unjust expressions’, she declared that accepting Sarah’s resignation was out of the question, for ‘I can never hearken to that as long as you live’. However, she insisted she still regarded herself as bound by her commitment regarding Sarah’s daughters and that, ‘if I should outlive you, your faithful Morley will remember her promise’.15
This failed to appease the Duchess. On 4 April she wrote Anne a letter that ‘touched upon the tender point’ of the Queen’s relationship with Abigail Masham. The letter is now missing, but Maynwaring fully approved of what Sarah had written, noting that she had ‘said in the rightest manner and the best expressions all that could be thought of, either to do good or to move shame’. The Queen replied the next day, obviously trying not to give further offence, for Maynwaring acknowledged to Sarah that Anne had evinced a ‘great unwillingness to say anything that may shock you, and some of the protestations in it are very humble and condescending’. However at one point the Queen declared, ‘You wrong Masham and me’, and this was enough to make Maynwaring and Sarah condemn her missive as a ‘dark letter’. Maynwaring told the Duchess he was not surprised this expression ‘made you sick, for it is very nauseous’, and he compared the phrase to James I’s avowals of affection for his favourite, the Duke of Buckingham, which were ‘always laughed at very justly’.16
Maynwaring was not in favour of Sarah resigning, believing rather it was her duty to remain in office and exert influence on behalf of the Whigs. He even argued that it would not be beyond Sarah to regain her sovereign’s affections, for he took the view that Anne would not have reaffirmed her promise to appoint Sarah’s daughters ‘if there had not been an unalterable kindness’. When Sarah objected that she could not stoop to using ‘art and address’ to revive the Queen’s fond feelings, Maynwaring assured her that one so ‘agreeable and engaging’ would not have to resort to artifice. Even if the Duchess did not manage to win back Anne, her presence near the Queen would neutralise Abigail, who would ‘hardly venture to peep abroad’ while the Duchess was in the vicinity.17
By this time the Duke of Marlborough was starting to think that it might be wiser for Sarah to keep away from her mistress, though he told his wife that he merely wanted to spare her the distress of having rows with the Queen. Despite his misgivings, by 18 April Sarah was back at court, glowering at Abigail. Soon after the Duchess’s return Mrs Masham wrote to Harley that she had just encountered Sarah, ‘and if I have any skill in physiognomy my old mistress is not pleased with me’.18
On 19 February the Earl of Mar had reported on the state of English politics, ‘There’s a strange jumble here just now, for though Harley be out, yet the court is not yet entirely well with the Junto … and they are not yet well pleased … Indeed, things look odd’. The Junto had hoped that the attempted Jacobite invasion would make the Queen better disposed towards them, and there appeared some sign of this when she declared to Parliament on 12 March, ‘I must always place my chief dependence upon those who have given such repeated proofs of the greatest warmth and concern for the support of the Revolution’. However, in the Duchess of Marlborough’s words, ‘as the danger presently blew over … her fears ceased’ and the Queen set herself as firmly as ever against making further concessions to the Junto.19
The Queen had agreed that Harley and St John should be replaced by the moderate Whigs Henry Boyle and Robert Walpole, but when Godolphin proposed that James Montagu should be made Attorney General, she demurred. She was even more appalled at the idea that Lord Pembroke, who currently combined the offices of Lord President of the Council and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, should step down and be replaced by Lord Somers and Lord Wharton respectively. Her reaction was understandable, for Somers was not only ‘the life, the soul and the spirit of his party’, but had taken a leading role in the attacks on the Admiralty in the last session of Parliament. Accordingly the Queen had developed ‘an aversion … that was personal to that lord upon account of his having disobliged the Prince’.20
The Queen blocked the suggestion that Wharton and Somers should be promoted by saying it was unfair to remove Pembroke from office. Unfortunately she found herself in a quandary when on 19 April 1708 the moderate Whig Dukes of Newcastle and Devonshire came to her and proposed that Somers could be given a place in the Cabinet without an official ministerial portfolio, the very arrangement that Anne had put forward for Sunderland two years earlier. This ‘being new to her and unexpected, she was much at a loss what to say’, and could only mutter lamely that the motion was ‘very unusual’ and that she thought the Cabinet full enough already. When she saw Godolphin the next day she told him resentfully ‘she saw there was to be no end of her troubles’, but he enthusiastically embraced the idea.21 The Queen should have listened to his warning that if she spurned this offer, it would make the political situation much worse, for certainly once this opportunity for compromise passed, the Junto grew still more imperious.
The Queen then appealed to Marlborough by letter, saying that, however much Godolphin disagreed, she looked ‘upon it to be utter destruction to me to bring Lord Somers into my service’. No sympathy was forthcoming from her general, however, for since it had appeared that she had been ready to throw him over for Harley, his attitude towards her noticeably hardened. Remarkably, he seems also to have been won over to the view that most Tories were Jacobite sympathisers, and he told Anne bluntly that if she wanted the war to continue, concessions to the Junto were essential. If the Queen resisted these, it would prove ‘to everybody that Lord Treasurer and I have no credit with your Majesty, but that you are guided by the insinuation of Mr Harley’.22
In reply, the Queen insisted she was not in favour of ‘making steps towards a peace … thinking it neither for my honour nor interest’, begging him to accept that ‘no insinuations nor persuasions’ were behind her objections to Somers. During long interviews with Godolphin she likewise emphatically denied that she was in direct or indirect contact with Harley, being adamant that ‘she never speaks with anybody but [Prince George] upon anything of that kind’. She was, however, immovable on the subject of Somers, remaining utterly ‘inflexible on that point’ and resisting ‘all the plainest reasons and arguments’. Godolphin lamented that he found her ‘so perverse and so obstinate … that nothing in the world is … so unaccountable nor more dreadful in the consequences of it’. The Lord Treasurer ascribed her tenacity to the influence of Prince George and his crony George Churchill, who could not forgive the Junto for their attacks upon the navy. Like his wife, however, Marlborough suspected that it was Abigail who was ‘doing all the mischief that is possible’ by enabling the Queen to maintain a ‘fatal correspondence’ with Harley.23 The Queen’s refusal to let the Junto tighten their hold on power was the more remarkable (or, as some would say, unreasonable) because a general election had been held in April and May 1708, and the Tories had done very badly, losing their majority in the Commons. Anne confessed to Marlborough that the results had put her in a ‘desponding temper’, but she still would not hear of taking on Montagu, let alone Somers and Wharton. On 1 June Godolphin informed Marlborough that
he had ‘had of late a great many contests’ with Anne on the matter, of which the most recent had ‘ended with the greatest dissatisfaction possible to both’ himself and her. He added that ‘the battle might have lasted till [evening] if, after the clock had struck three [Prince George] had not thought fit to come and look as if he thought it were dinner time’.24
A diplomat reported in mid May, ‘The Duchess of Marlborough continues to pay her court, but one can see she does so with great repugnance’. Things were indeed so bad that Sarah notified the Queen later that month that she would stop seeing her in private. Somewhat unexpectedly Anne was disturbed by this, which Sarah attributed to her being ‘frightened out of her wits that people should discover the passion she had for Abigail’, but in reality her motive was creditable. She had already done her best to give the impression that all was well between them, for Sarah jeered that despite acting in a reserved and unfriendly manner when they were alone together, before company Anne ‘affected to look upon me as if she had been a lover’.25 The Duchess found this ‘extremely ridiculous’, but she should have been grateful, as the Queen was trying to avoid embarrassing Marlborough, whose prestige on the Continent was bolstered by the belief that his wife was close to her.
The Queen took up the matter with Godolphin at the end of May. She explained in a letter, ‘You know I have often had the misfortune of falling under the Duchess of Marlborough’s displeasure, and now, after several reconciliations, she is again relapsed into her cold, unkind way’. The Queen pointed out that while Sarah appeared to think that no one at court would notice her distant behaviour, the fact that ‘she never comes near me nor looks on me as she used to do’ was unlikely to escape such perceptive observers as the Duchess of Somerset, Lady Fitzharding, or the gossipy Vice Chamberlain, Peregrine Bertie. Anne prophesied that as news of their rift spread everywhere, she and Sarah would find themselves ‘in a little time … the jest of the town. Some people will blame her, others me, and a great many both’. She therefore entreated the Lord Treasurer to persuade Sarah to abandon ‘this strange unreasonable resolution’, declining to do so herself on the grounds that while Sarah was in ‘this violent humour … all I can say, though never so reasonable, will but inflame her more’. As a final favour, she asked Godolphin not to mention anything of this to Prince George, ‘because I have not told him how unkind Mrs Freeman is to me, nor he shall never know if I can help it’.26
The Queen begged that, whatever Sarah chose to do, ‘I hope you will never forsake Mrs Morley who … can never say enough to express the true sense she has of the true friendship you have showed to her on all occasions, nor how much she values it, yet to her last moment will continue as she is now, with all truth and faithfulness as your humble servant’. By June, however, Godolphin was ‘so tired out of his life’ that he requested Anne ‘either to follow his notions or to dismiss him, and not let him bear the burthen and load of other people’s follies’. To his frustration, his words seemed ‘to make no manner of impression’ on the Queen.27
Indeed, far from being ready to increase Junto representation in government, Anne wanted to dismiss the only member of it who currently held Cabinet office. Just as she had expected, Anne had not found it congenial having Lord Sunderland as her Secretary. Sunderland had what Swift described as a ‘rough way of treating his sovereign’, who found his ‘violent temper and sour carriage’ deeply trying. While Sarah maintained that her son-in-law said ‘nothing disrespectful or uneasy’ to the Queen, another source alleged that he ‘always treated her with great rudeness and neglect and chose to reflect in a very injurious manner upon all princes before her’. Marlborough was sufficiently concerned about Sunderland’s confrontational manner with the Queen that in July 1708 he cautioned him that, rather than deliberately saying things to her that she was bound to ‘take ill’, he should ‘endeavour to please as much as is consistent with his opinion’.28
What finally provoked the Queen beyond endurance was the discovery that Sunderland had been intriguing to strengthen the Whigs in Parliament, regardless of the fact that this was likely to cause difficulties for the ministry. When elections were held in Scotland, the government set out to manage them so as to ensure the return of MPs and representative peers whose support could be relied on, but Sunderland exerted himself in favour of candidates who would vote with the Whigs in Parliament, even in opposition to the ministry. He let it be understood that the Queen had authorised him to do this, although he knew full well that the last thing she wanted was a Parliament filled with Scots who took directions from the Junto. Just before the elections the Queen was alerted to his activities, and at once took measures to counter them, but these were only partially successful. Where once the Queen could count on all sixteen of the Scots representative peers being men ‘such as would have voted as I would have them’, thanks to Sunderland now only ten of those elected could be depended upon to do the ministry’s bidding.29
As soon as she had discovered what Sunderland was doing, the Queen had written to Marlborough in fury. She fumed, ‘It is such a behaviour … as never was known, and what I really cannot bear’, though she claimed she was not entirely surprised, on account of ‘all Lord Sunderland’s own actions having shown so much of the same spirit’. Declaring it ‘impossible to bear such usage’, she wrote to tell Marlborough on 22 June that she intended to deprive Sunderland of the seals.30 As was his custom, Marlborough forwarded this letter to his wife, despite being aware that the Queen would have looked on it as betrayal had she known that he habitually showed Sarah her confidential communications. Now, while taking care to conceal the extent to which her husband shared secrets with her, Sarah decided in early July to tackle the Queen herself.
Sarah wrote that Marlborough had complained of having lost all his influence with the Queen, and rebuked Anne for preferring to take advice from Prince George and ‘the object of his favour’. This last phrase was a reference to Sarah’s brother-in-law, George Churchill, but the Queen misread the possessive pronoun and thought she was alluding to Abigail. On 6 July, Anne wrote back pointing out that, as ‘all impartial people’ would acknowledge, she had consistently demonstrated that she had the highest regard for Marlborough. She then sharply requested Sarah not to ‘mention that person any more who you are pleased to call the object of my favour, for whatever character the malicious world may give her, I do assure you it will never have any weight with me … nor I can never change the good impressions you once gave me of her, unless she should give me cause, which I am very sure she never will’.31
This letter provoked Sarah into scaling new heights of rudeness. Having corrected the Queen’s misunderstanding about George Churchill, she wrote snidely she did not want Anne ‘to think I am making my court to Abigail’, whom she regarded as ‘low and inconsiderable in all things’. Then, seizing on the Queen’s reminder that the Duchess herself had once thought highly of Abigail, Sarah said she had been careful never to overrate her cousin’s merits. ‘My commendation went no further than being handy and a faithful servant … but I never thought her education was such as to make her fit company for a great queen. Many people have liked the humour of their chambermaids and have been very kind to them, but ’tis very uncommon to hold a private correspondence with them and put them upon the foot of a friend’. Sarah should have recognised it as a dangerous sign when, in reply, the Queen adopted a tone of mock humility. She wrote sarcastically that being ‘very sorry whenever I happen to make any mistakes in what dear Mrs Freeman says to me, as I find I have done’, she had decided to defer answering Sarah’s last letter until she had ‘read it over and over again … for fear of making any more mistakes’.32
Furious that her staggeringly insolent comments had not met with a fuller response, Sarah decided to go to Windsor and confront the Queen in person. During July, Anne received her in private on several occasions, and their exchanges grew increasingly acrimonious. At one of these encounters, when Sarah warned her of the dire consequences of standing
by Abigail, Anne blurted out, ‘Sure I may love whom I please’, which only confirmed the Duchess in the view that Anne’s attachment to Mrs Masham was now all-consuming. After Sarah taunted her that there was no one other than Marlborough and Godolphin to whom she could turn, the Queen made another unguarded comment, firing back that ‘she had friends’ who could ease her current political difficulties. Sarah passed this on to Marlborough, who believed this proved that Anne was intriguing with his and Godolphin’s Tory opponents.33
Looking back upon this period, Sarah was sure that the Queen was having meetings with Harley during these weeks. She recalled that Anne spent much of that summer at her little house at Windsor, on the pretext that it suited George because it was cooler than the Castle, ‘though it was really hot as a melon glass’. In fact, Sarah believed, the Queen had found it convenient because, while there, she could see ‘anybody … that Mrs Masham pleased without being observed’, and in this way ‘kept up a constant correspondence with Mr Harley’. The Duchess confidently asserted that Harley ‘came a private way out of the park into the garden … but sometimes there was blunders made about the keys … which made some take notice of it’.34
In reality the Queen had not had any personal encounters with Harley since his fall in February. On the other hand, by late summer, she was no longer cut off from him completely. Although Harley himself would state in a letter he sent Abigail in October that he had ‘had no sort of communication’ with the Queen during the past eight months, this was somewhat disingenuous and misleading. While Anne had been telling the truth when she had assured Godolphin the previous May that she no longer had ‘the least commerce with Mr Harley at first or second hand’, towards the end of July, the situation changed.35 As Sarah’s behaviour became ever more offensive, and Marlborough and Godolphin intensified their attempts to force the Queen to take into government men whom she disliked, Harley started to edge his way back into Anne’s life, courtesy of Abigail.
Queen Anne: The Politics of Passion Page 49
