Queen Anne: The Politics of Passion Read online

  On 12 May 1686 Anne gave birth to another daughter at Windsor. Everyone was taken by surprise, for the baby – named Anne Sophia – had not been expected till mid June. The King and Queen at once went down to Windsor to see the new arrival. James reported cheerfully ‘I found both the mother and the girl very well, God be thanked, and though the child be not a big one yet most are of opinion it is not come before its time’. Unfortunately the sight of her father was far from agreeable to the Princess, for she feared he would consider this a propitious moment to raise the religious issue. It had indeed been rumoured that she had ‘agreed to [convert] after lying in’, and when, just before the baby’s christening, James appeared in his daughter’s chamber accompanied by a priest, Anne at once ‘fell a crying’. ‘The King seeing it, told her he came only on a fatherly visit and sent the priest away’. James dismissed his daughter’s tearfulness as being caused by ‘vapours, which sometimes trouble women in her condition’ and was relieved that Anne was once again ‘in a very good way’.23

  The delightful distractions of motherhood could not disguise the fact that the political situation was growing steadily more ominous. Events in France were providing a worrying example of what Protestants could expect from a Catholic monarch. In 1685 Louis XIV had revoked the Edict of Nantes, which had afforded a degree of freedom to his Huguenot subjects. They were now required to convert, and were not even permitted to leave the country in order to continue practising their religion. Thousands of Huguenot refugees did in fact manage to emigrate, ensuring that their sufferings were well documented, but those who could not escape were subjected to what one outraged Englishman called ‘unheard of cruelties … such as hardly any age has done the like’.24

  Just as the persecution in France was stoking up fears of Popery, James took steps to strengthen the position of Catholics in England. He was understandably determined to repeal the penal laws dating from Elizabethan times which, though rarely enforced, theoretically rendered all Catholics liable to heavy punishments. In addition, however, he wanted to overturn the Test Acts passed in his brother’s reign, which barred Catholics from holding military or administrative office. Protestant objections to the repeal of the acts were not irrational, for James himself believed that the consequences would be far reaching. In May 1686 he told the Pope’s representative at his court that once Romanists were freed from their legal disabilities, England would become Catholic in two years.25

  Only Parliament could repeal laws, but as a preliminary James set about ensuring that the Test Act’s provisions ceased to be enforced. Having purged the judiciary, in June 1686 he arranged for a test case to be brought before the Court of King’s Bench, hinging on whether he could issue dispensations freeing individuals from their legal obligation to swear an oath repudiating transubstantiation before accepting office. The Court pronounced in the King’s favour, and James was swift to take advantage of the decision, appointing four Catholics to the Privy Council in July 1686.

  As yet there were not many Catholics in the English army, but James caused alarm by enlarging it, arousing fears that he intended to enforce his will by military means. In August 1686 Anne was present ‘in tremendous dust and melting heat’ when James reviewed a sizeable body of troops encamped on Hounslow Heath. It was an alarming spectacle, for these forces were well placed to overawe the capital, and yet the King ‘had no enemies save the laws of the land’.26

  The King had also adopted a more aggressive stance towards Anne’s beloved Church of England. In March 1686 he had issued instructions forbidding clergymen from making controversial sermons. Soon afterwards he had been infuriated when John Sharp had attacked Catholics from his London pulpit. He became angrier still when his old adversary Henry Compton, Bishop of London, declined to suspend Sharp from preaching. Determined to bring the clergy under firmer control, in July 1686 James established an Ecclesiastical Commission, presided over by three bishops and three secular members. It was empowered to carry out James’s visitorial powers under the Act of Supremacy, but since prerogative courts had been abolished in 1641 it was at best of doubtful legality. Compton was summoned before the Commission and on 6 September was suspended from the function and execution of his ecclesiastical office.

  Anne was concerned by these developments, but blamed her father’s priests and advisers for encouraging him to act in this undesirable fashion. She was not, however, prepared to make similar allowances for her stepmother, believing rather that Mary Beatrice’s fanatical Catholicism was responsible for James’s worst excesses. Anne was not alone in thinking this. Gilbert Burnet noted that Mary Beatrice had become ‘so bigoted and fierce in matters of religion that she is as much hated since she was Queen as she was beloved whilst she was Duchess’. Furthermore, although the King had refrained from tackling Anne about their religious differences, in September 1687 Barrillon reported that Mary Beatrice had raised the matter with her stepdaughter. Far from persuading the Princess to contemplate conversion, her stepmother’s intervention ‘only served to embitter her spirit’.27

  Anne’s dislike for Mary Beatrice had manifested itself long before this point. In July 1685 she told Sarah that the Queen had recently presented her with a watch adorned by a picture of herself set with diamonds, an offering that her stepdaughter found insultingly meagre. Anne wrote sarcastically that she would ‘return her most thankful acknowledgements, but among friends I think one may say without being vain that the goddess might have showered down her favours on her poor vassals with more liberality’. By May 1686 Anne’s antipathy towards her stepmother had attracted the attention of the French envoy Bonrepos, who reported in a despatch home that the Princess ‘hates the Queen of England and denigrates her when with her confidantes’.28

  If Anne was now estranged from Mary Beatrice, she was drawing ever closer to Sarah. To the Princess’s ‘sensible joy’, Lady Clarendon had retired from her service in September 1685. As a result Anne was able to install Sarah as her Groom of the Stole and First Lady of the Bedchamber, doubling her salary to £400. In May 1686 she signalled her affection by making Sarah a godmother to the baby Anne Sophia, and within a few months the strength of her devotion for her friend began attracting comment. In early March 1687 Barrillon alluded to Sarah being Anne’s ‘favourite’, and two months later his colleague, Bonrepos, wrote of the Princess’s ‘inordinate passion’ for Lady Churchill. An English observer described Sarah as Anne’s ‘special friend’, asserting in late 1687 that this ‘very great confidante of the Princess of Denmark … hath a greater influence upon her than any persons whatsoever’. Others too shared Barrillon’s belief that Anne was ‘governed by Madame Churchill’. Burnet declared ‘There never was a more absolute favourite in a court; [Lady Churchill] is indeed become the mistress of [Princess Anne’s] thoughts and affections and does with her, both in her court and in all her affairs what she pleases’.29

  It was assumed that Sarah and her husband bore a significant responsibility for Anne’s gradual estrangement from the court, but their letters provide little evidence of this. The only letter from Anne to Sarah that touches on politics during this period relates to the appointment of the four Catholic Privy Councillors in July 1686, which Anne said gave affairs ‘a very dismal prospect’. As yet, however, such concerns were of secondary importance to her. She blithely concluded, ‘Whatever changes there are in the world I hope you will never forsake me and I shall be happy’.30

  It is very clear that Sarah had a great influence when it came to ordering the Princess’s household. Sarah was given final say on the choice of a new Lady of the Bedchamber. Initially, the Queen suggested the Countess of Huntingdon, but the Princess rejected her because the Countess’s frequent pregnancies would interfere with her duties. When Lady Thanet’s name was mentioned, Anne scoffed to Sarah ‘I hope you know me too well to believe I would be so great a fool to accept of her’. The King then proposed some other candidates, whereupon Anne asked Sarah to choose between Lady Arabella Mercarty and Lady Frescheville:
‘I should be glad to know which you like best … for I desire in all things to please you’. It then emerged that Sarah favoured Lady Westmorland, and Anne at once concurred, enthusing, ‘I really believe her to be a pretty kind of a woman and, besides, my dear Lady Churchill desires it’.31

  Just when the matter looked settled, things shifted again, and in October Lady Anne Spencer, daughter of the Earl and Countess of Sunderland, was given the place. It caused some surprise, for it was unusual for unmarried girls to become Ladies of the Bedchamber. The French ambassador interpreted the appointment purely as ‘a mark of favour for Milord Sunderland’, who was the King’s Secretary of State. Burnet assumed that the King and Queen had imposed Anne Spencer on the Princess, claiming that throughout her father’s reign Anne was ‘beset with spies’ in her household.32 In fact, the main reason for taking on Lady Anne Spencer had been to please Sarah.

  Anne’s readiness to do this was curious in view of the fact that she had already expressed jealousy of Sarah’s relationship with the girl’s mother, the Countess of Sunderland. In September 1685, Anne had observed petulantly that whereas she had not received prompt replies to her recent letters, ‘I can’t help saying that you were not too hot to write to Lady Sunderland’. Anne acknowledged she was perhaps ‘too apt to complain’ about such things, particularly since Sarah had assured her she ‘had no reason to be jealous’, but stressed ‘I have been a little troubled at it’. Within a few days she was irked to hear that Sarah had met with the Countess while she was still bereft of her company. ‘I cannot help envying Lady Sunderland’, Anne wrote plaintively, ‘I am sure she cannot love you half so well as I do, though I know she has the art of saying a great deal’.33

  Anne would hardly have been reassured if she had known that Lady Sunderland had been working on Sarah, in the hope that her daughter could be appointed the Princess’s Lady of the Bedchamber. Anne’s welfare was not uppermost in Lady Sunderland’s mind; rather she wanted this because it would enable her to see more of Sarah. ‘Whenever the Princess went [on] any journeys, I would go too, by which I should be almost always where you were’ Lady Sunderland explained.34 Not long afterwards, Lady Anne Spencer’s appointment was announced.

  Ironically, within a few months Anne Spencer’s role in the Princess’s household had caused a coolness between Lady Churchill and the Countess of Sunderland. Sarah was not fitted by nature to be a lady-in-waiting. Royal service could be exceptionally arduous, entailing ‘more toil and trouble than content’. By the standards of the time, Sarah had good cause to be grateful to Anne, who was on the whole a considerate employer. She was mindful of Sarah’s obligations to her husband, telling her on one occasion ‘My dear Lady Churchill cannot think me so unreasonable as to be uneasy at anything you do on your Lord’s account. All I desire is to have as much of your company as I can without any inconvenience to your self’. Anne was also aware that Sarah would want to be with her young children as much as possible, making such generous allowances for this that Sarah was able to spend a good part of James II’s reign at her house at St Albans. Yet Sarah still found the demands of her position irksome. One reason why she had been so keen on appointing Anne Spencer was because her mother had assured Sarah that the girl ‘would gladly wait whenever you would have her’, enabling Sarah to ‘live easily’. Unfortunately the young lady then fell ill, and when Sarah had to take over her duties, she became ‘extremely out of humour’ to find herself ‘a slave’. Blaming Lady Sunderland for her daughter’s delinquency, she complained to her about being required ‘sick or well to wait, and be weary of my life’.35

  Sarah’s belief that she was overworked also gave rise to friction between her and Anne, and after a sharp exchange the Princess apologised for being too demanding. ‘I now see my error and don’t expect anything from you but what one friend may from another’, she wrote contritely. To solve the problem in April 1686 she undertook to go to the expense of having a Third Lady of the Bedchamber, ‘that you may have more ease and have no just cause to grow weary of me’.36 True to her word, the Princess subsequently took Lady Frescheville of Staveley into her household.

  Anne was able to justify her resentment of Lady Sunderland on political grounds, as her husband was the King’s Secretary of State, and was doing everything possible to help James achieve objectives damaging to the Church of England. She believed, wrongly, that everything Sunderland did had his wife’s approval.

  The Princess vented her hatred of the whole Sunderland family when corresponding with her sister Mary. In August 1686 Mary had written to enquire whether she found it ‘troublesome’ to have Anne Spencer in her household. Anne replied that so far the young woman had given her no cause for complaint but, ‘knowing from whence she comes’, she was always very guarded about what she said in her presence. She continued, ‘To give everybody their due, I must needs say she has not been very impertinent nor I ever heard she has yet done anybody any injury; but I am very much of opinion that she will not degenerate from her noble parents’.37

  In the summer of 1686 Anne went back to Tunbridge Wells for another course of waters, but to her sorrow Sarah did not accompany her. George stayed there with her for some of the time but after his departure Anne wrote dejectedly she was leading ‘a very melancholy life’. Once again she begged Sarah to keep her informed about how her children were faring; when Sarah suggested that the Queen and Mrs Berkeley were better placed to keep the Princess up to date, Anne was adamant that only Sarah’s reports would suffice.38

  A few days later the Queen sent word to Anne that her eldest daughter had recently been ‘peevish’, and this worried the Princess. ‘I wish it may be her teeth, but I can’t help being in some pain for her since she has relapsed so often’, she told Sarah in distress. The Princess then began to contemplate bringing little Mary to join her in Tunbridge, wondering if Sarah agreed that ‘change of air might not do her good’. She had conceived the idea after seeing Lady Poultney’s sickly grandson develop into a ‘lusty child’ on spending a short time at the spa. However, the Princess was diffident about the proposal, begging Sarah to ‘tell me what you think and not speak of this to anybody, for ’tis a fancy that came into my head today, and maybe others that have not so much kindness for me as you have will laugh at me’.39 Whether or not Sarah gave her approval, in the end the scheme came to nothing.

  The baby Anne Sophia was healthier than her sister, and Anne was delighted to learn she ‘thrives so well’. However, after a time worrying reports arrived about her as well. As a result of some unspecified problem, Mrs Berkeley suggested the child should be weaned, despite the fact that she was barely seven weeks old. Although it was surely a disastrous idea, the royal physician Dr Waldegrave agreed with her. In great concern the Princess entreated Sarah to ‘ask some skilful people about it and tell me what you think of it too, for I do not understand these matters and would not willingly depend on her judgement only’. Sarah sensibly advised against weaning the child and Anne was grateful, begging her to ‘continue … hindering anything to be done that you think is not well’. In the end the infant did not escape being dosed with ‘physic’ (usually meaning purgatives) by Dr Waldegrave but surprisingly this did her no harm, and Sarah assured the Princess that on her return she would find that her baby daughter had developed into a great beauty.40

  It was not just her children’s health that worried Anne over the summer of 1686, for Sarah herself was less robust than usual, suffering from a nasty cold and ‘dismal thoughts’. Having extracted a promise that she would write to her daily, Anne became greatly alarmed when twenty-four hours went by without her receiving a letter. ‘For God’s sake if anything does ail you, find some way to let me know’, she begged her urgently, ‘for ’tis very uneasy to me to be from you and not to hear something of you every day’. It soon emerged that one reason why Sarah was feeling so unwell was that she was expecting another child. After excusing Sarah from waiting on her so frequently during her pregnancy, Anne was annoyed when she acc
epted an invitation to visit Lady Sunderland in Northamptonshire. She condemned Lady Sunderland’s thoughtlessness in suggesting this ‘great journey … which I must needs say according to my small understanding was a very strange undertaking for one in your condition’.41 In January 1687 Sarah gave birth to a much-desired son, but within six months another pregnancy again prevented her from being in attendance as often as the Princess would have liked.

  In view of Anne’s unconditional devotion to Sarah, it was unfortunate that her sister Mary had a less enthusiastic attitude towards her. The Princess was decidedly ruffled when in late 1686 Mary suggested not just that Sarah was worryingly irreligious, but that it was impossible to trust her husband, on account of his being in such high favour with the King.

  Anne herself had earlier felt bothered by the perfunctory way that Sarah practised her faith. Her friend’s hostility to Catholicism could not be faulted, for she professed herself disgusted by what she termed its ‘cheats and nonsense’, but her attachment to the Anglican Church was not stronger on that account. She was apt to mock individuals such as Lady Clarendon who ‘made a great rout with prayers’, and derided the hypocrisy of those who were ostentatious in their religious observance but struck her as deficient in the Christian virtues. Sarah’s irregular attendance at divine service had so perturbed Anne that when her friend apologised for cutting a letter short in order to go to church, the Princess wrote back that while she would have welcomed a longer letter, on this occasion ‘I can’t complain, for indeed I think you do not go to that place so often as you should do’. However, while she believed herself entitled to make such comments, she reacted fiercely to Mary’s strictures on the Churchills.42