Queen Anne: The Politics of Passion Read online

  The Duke and Duchess of York had a suite of lodgings in the King’s principal London palace, Whitehall, and they were also allocated St James’s Palace for summer use. With great forbearance the Duchess resisted taking revenge on those courtiers who had defamed her, astonishing everybody by accepting that they had acted ‘out of pure devotion’ to James. Yet while her graciousness in this instance could not be faulted, some people felt that she sought to compensate for her humble origins by taking ‘state on her rather too much’. ‘Her haughtiness … raised her many enemies’ and an Italian diplomat reported complaints of her ‘scorn … ingratitude and her arrogance’.13

  The King, however, was not among her critics. He enjoyed her company, for the Duchess was a lively conversationalist, an asset her daughter Anne did not inherit. Samuel Pepys was much impressed by the clever answers the Duchess gave when playing a parlour game, and she was certainly a good deal more amusing than her husband, whose sense of humour was non-existent. She had a forceful personality, but the Duke did not seem to mind her assertiveness: contemporaries were surprised that he appeared ‘more in awe of the Duchess than considering the inequality of their rank could have been imagined’.14

  Unfortunately, there were limits to the Duchess’s power over him, for James was constantly unfaithful, despite her being ‘very troublesome to him by her jealousy’. It was said that ‘having laid his conscience to rest by the declaration of his marriage he thought that this generous effort entitled him to give his inconstancy a little scope’. He was renowned for being ‘the most reckless ogler of his day’ and was ‘perpetually in one amour or other without being very nice in his choice’. He had affairs with, among others, Lady Carnegie, Goditha Price, Lady Denham, and Arabella Churchill. In 1662, the Duke’s affair with Lady Carnegie led to a disagreeable rumour that her husband had deliberately infected himself with venereal disease, and thereby ensured his wife passed it on to her lover. The Duchess of York was supposed to have contracted the illness in her turn, and this was blamed for so many of her children proving ‘sickly and infirm’. Even the pains that afflicted her daughter Anne as an adult were sometimes attributed to her having inherited ‘the dregs of a tainted original’.15 In fact, as James had healthy children by his mistress Arabella Churchill, it seems unlikely that he was syphilitic, and that this caused his daughters’ ailments.

  The pleasures of the table helped console the Duchess for her husband’s infidelities. One observer recalled that she ‘had a heartier appetite than any other woman in the kingdom … It was an edifying spectacle to watch her Highness eat’. Whereas with every year the Duke of York grew progressively thinner, ‘his poor consort … waxed so fat that it was a marvel to see’. By 1668 an Italian diplomat reported that she was almost unrecognisable because ‘superfluous fat … has so altered the proportions of a very fine figure and a most lovely face’.16 The Duchess’s daughters would both inherit her tendency to plumpness, with Anne in her later years being clinically obese.

  The Duke and Duchess of York’s eldest son, whom the King had created Duke of Cambridge, only lived a few months. When he died in May 1661 the Venetian ambassador reported he was ‘lamented by his parents and all the court’, but Pepys commented heartlessly that his death ‘will please everybody; and I hear that the Duke and his lady themselves are not much troubled at it’. The reason for this was that owing to the controversial circumstances of his birth, the child’s legitimacy would always be open to question. It was true that in February 1661, Hyde, the child’s grandfather, had taken the precaution of establishing a formal record both of his daughter’s betrothal to James while in Holland (which, if properly attested, was as binding in law as a church wedding) and their subsequent marriage at Worcester House.17 Nevertheless, problems might still have arisen in future.

  Though convenient in some ways, the death of the little Duke of Cambridge did mean that the succession to the crown was not secured beyond the current generation. There was therefore relief when the Duchess of York became pregnant again. However, after she gave birth on 30 April 1662 to a daughter, christened Mary, Pepys reported ‘I find nobody pleased’. Women were not formally barred from inheriting the throne by Salic law, as in France, but it was agreed that a male monarch was infinitely preferable, and even the memory of the glorious reign of Elizabeth I, who had become Queen a century earlier, could not eradicate the idea that women were not really fitted to rule kingdoms. It was not until July 1663, when the Duchess of York produced a boy ‘to the great joy of the court’, that the outlook appeared better.18 The child was named James after his father and in 1664 the King conferred on him the same title as his ill-fated brother.

  When Anne was born in February 1665, few would have predicted that she would one day wear the crown. King Charles II had married the Portuguese princess Catherine of Braganza in May 1662, and though as yet she had borne him no children, there were still hopes she would do so. Any legitimate child of the King would of course take precedence in the line of succession to those of the Duke of York. Anne’s two older siblings also had a better claim to the throne than she, while any legitimate son of James born after her would inherit the crown before his sisters. She could only become Queen if she had no surviving brothers, and if her elder sister Mary predeceased her without leaving children. Only a pessimist would have considered this a likely eventuality, so Anne appeared destined to be no more than an insignificant princess belonging to a cadet branch of the royal family.

  The royal nursery was supervised by the Duke of Cambridge’s governess, Lady Frances Villiers, but from the first Anne was allocated her own servants. On her accession in 1702 Anne’s former wet nurse, Margery Farthing, called attention to the fact ‘that she did give suck to her present majesty … for the space of fifteen months’ and successfully asked for financial recognition. In 1669 Anne was listed as having a dresser, three rockers, a sempstress, a page of the backstairs, and a necessary woman, whose board wages amounted to £260.19

  Anne’s parents cannot have seen much of their daughter during the first few months of her life. Following a period of active service at sea, the Duke of York went on a northern tour with his wife, leaving their children in the care of Lady Frances. Contemporaries would not have considered the Duke and Duchess to be negligent for absenting themselves. It was standard practice for aristocratic infants to be boarded out with wet nurses until weaned, so lengthy separations were considered the norm.

  As an adult Anne would give the impression that she had almost no memory of her mother, who died when her daughter was only six. In 1693 she was shown a picture of her and commented ‘I … believe ’tis a very good one, though I do not remember enough of her to know whether it is like her or no; but it is very like one the King [Charles II] had, which everybody said was so’. Since Anne went abroad for two years when she was three and a half years old, and only returned when her mother’s health was in terminal decline, it is understandable that her recollection of her was very hazy.20

  In September 1664 Pepys had been delighted to see the Duke of York playing with Lady Mary, then aged two, ‘like an ordinary private father of a child’. The compiler of James’s authorised Life proclaimed him ‘the most affectionate father on earth’, and other sources concurred that he was ‘most indulgent’ towards his daughters. Even in 1688 Anne herself did not deny that James had always ‘been very kind and tender towards her’.21

  On the whole James was justified in priding himself on being a conscientious and benevolent parent. As will be seen, he was upset when circumstances forced him to live apart from his adolescent daughter Anne, and made strenuous efforts to ensure that their separation was as short as possible. When they were reunited he reported her activities with paternal pride in his letters, and he always showed a touching concern for her health. After she married he was generous to her financially, and was compassionate when she was distressed by the loss of her children. However, James did expect deference and compliance from his daughters, and Anne was alw
ays slightly scared of him. While there is no known instance when he lost his temper with her, she was cautious of what she said to him. By temperament ‘as stiff as a mule’, James was apt to flare up when anyone disagreed with him, and though a time would come when outspokenness on Anne’s part might have been construed as a virtue, by then the habit of circumspection was too deeply ingrained to be abandoned. When urged to give James the benefit of her advice, she answered that she had always deliberately avoided discussing weighty topics with him, protesting ‘if she had said anything … he would have been angry; and then God knows what might have happened’.22

  It is true that Anne would ultimately flagrantly defy James both as a father and a sovereign. It was to be an astonishing act for a woman who was by nature utterly conventional, and who was so politically conservative that her instinctive affinities lay with those who considered ‘obedience to kings, as to parents, a moral, nay a divine law’.23 Even then, however, she eschewed a direct confrontation with James, who remained under the illusion that she was a dutiful daughter until the very moment of rupture.

  The summer of 1667 was a ghastly time for the Duke and Duchess of York. The couple had had another son a year before, but in May 1667 both he and his elder brother fell seriously ill. On 22 May the little Duke of Kendal died of convulsion fits and a month later ‘some general disease’ carried off his brother the Duke of Cambridge. As far as most people were concerned, this once again plunged the Stuart dynasty into crisis. The Venetian ambassador’s report did not even mention that the Duke of York still had two daughters who could ascend the throne in due course, instead stating baldly, ‘The royal house of England is without posterity’.24

  On 8 August the Duchess of York’s mother died. Three weeks later, still reeling from the blow, the widowed Lord Chancellor – who had been created Earl of Clarendon six years earlier – fell from power; in late November he fled abroad to escape trumped-up charges of treason. The Duke of York had done his best to support his father-in-law, but the latter had long been unpopular, not least because it was falsely claimed that he had deliberately arranged for the King to marry a barren bride so that his own descendants would inherit the crown. Once Hyde had antagonised the King himself, his ruin was inevitable. Pepys noted the Duke of York’s prestige had been ‘wounded by it’, and that he was ‘much a less man than he was’.25

  Edward Hyde was never permitted to return from foreign exile. His departure to France and the death of her grandmother narrowed Anne’s family circle. Hyde and his wife had enjoyed seeing their grandchildren and had shown a keen interest in their welfare, but henceforth his two sons Henry (who became Earl of Clarendon on his father’s death in 1674) and Laurence (created Earl of Rochester in 1681) were the only relations on Anne’s maternal side who would feature in her life. Even they were not wholly on a family footing, for the disparity in rank between them and their niece acted as a barrier, and the Earl of Ailesbury observed that Anne never addressed either of them as ‘Uncle’. It was not only etiquette that created a distance, for on reaching maturity Anne would complain that they were not as attentive to her wishes as they should have been. At times she appeared to welcome the advice that her elder uncle proffered her, once telling him she valued the way that she ‘could talk freely’ with him. In general, however, she was guarded about consulting him and his brother.26

  Some consolation for the Duke and Duchess of York’s recent run of bad luck came on 14 September 1667 when the Duchess had another son, Edgar, who was soon created Duke of Cambridge. Pepys thought it a development that would ‘settle men’s minds mightily’ but unfortunately the child proved a frail bulwark for shoring up the dynasty. He was the ‘least and leanest child’ the Duchess had ever produced, and his ‘very delicate constitution and frequent attacks of deadly sickness’ did not augur well for the future.27

  Anne too was not a strong child, for she suffered from ‘a kind of defluxion in her eyes’. The medical term was used frequently in the seventeenth century, and could just describe a localised pain, supposedly caused by a ‘flow of humours’ to that area. Alternatively it is possible that her eyes constantly watered, or emitted a discharge. Whatever the cause, this ‘serious eye disorder’ was so worrying that Anne was sent abroad for treatment while still a toddler. The Duke of York believed that French doctors would offer the best chance of curing his daughter, an idea that probably came from his mother, now based in France. Accordingly Anne was entrusted to her grandmother’s care and would spend over a year at her country house at Colombes on the Seine. In July 1668 she was taken across the Channel ‘with her retinue’, and on landing was met at Dieppe by coaches sent by the Queen Mother. According to Anne’s early biographer, Abel Boyer, when it became known at home that she was in France, the ‘surmise that she was gone thither to be bred a Roman Catholic’ caused ‘no small alarm’. Since her grandmother was a known proselytiser, such fears were understandable, if unfounded.28

  By August 1669 the Queen Mother’s own health was causing concern, but her death on 10 September came as a surprise. Anne was taken in by her aunt Henrietta, who was married to King Louis XIV’s younger brother, Philippe Duc d’Orléans. When Anne joined the nursery at Saint Cloud, its other occupants were her seven-year-old first cousin Marie Louise – who grew up to become Queen of Spain and died young – and a baby girl, born a few weeks earlier, who would later marry the Duke of Savoy.

  The Duchesse d’Orléans was far from robust, and on 20/30 June 1670 she died after a sudden collapse. There were dark rumours that she had been poisoned by her husband, although there can be little doubt that natural causes were to blame. Certainly the Duc was not greatly grieved by his loss, but he did take a meticulous interest in ensuring that his wife was mourned in accordance with court etiquette. When the Duchesse de Montpensier came to offer her condolences she was surprised to see that the Duc had fitted out not only his eldest daughter but also five-year-old Anne in miniature court mourning costumes, complete with long trains of purple velvet. The Duchesse found this absurd, but quite apart from the fact that children love dressing up, it is unlikely that Anne minded. As an adult she too would take such matters seriously. Jonathan Swift declared that she was ‘so exact an observer of forms that she seemed to have made it her study, and would often descend so low as to observe in her domestics of either sex who came into her presence whether a ruffle, a periwig or the lining of a coat were unsuitable at certain times’. Mourning rituals were important to her, and so was protocol, leading the Duchess of Marlborough to complain that Anne’s mind was so taken up with ‘ceremonies and customs of courts and such like insignificant trifles’ that her conversation turned chiefly ‘upon fashions and rules of precedence’.29

  The English officially accepted the French autopsy findings stating that the Duchesse had not been a victim of foul play, but it was judged best to bring Anne home without delay. Accordingly, Lady Frances Villiers was sent with her husband to escort Anne to England. Before she left France the child was presented with a pair of diamond and pearl bracelets from Louis XIV, the monarch who would later become her greatest adversary.30

  Following her return to England on 23 July 1670, Anne was judged ‘very much improved both in her constitution and personal accomplishments’. For a time she ‘appeared to acquire a healthful constitution of body’, but she did suffer occasional relapses, and in 1677 was reported to be ‘ill of her eyes again’. Her vision remained defective and as an adult she would try to remedy it by consulting oculists such as William Read, an itinerant tailor who recommended drinking beer in the morning to hydrate the brain, and who concocted an eyewash of sulphur, turpentine, vivum, and honey of roses. She suffered less than her sister Mary, whose letters abound with complaints of being plagued by ‘sore eyes’ which became particularly bad if she read or wrote by candlelight.31

  Anne’s ailment had left her slightly disfigured. Abel Boyer noted that she had acquired ‘a contraction in the upper lids that gave a cloudy air to her countenance�
�, indicating she had a slight squint. This made her look ill-tempered, creating an unfortunate impression. The Duchess of Marlborough declared that Anne’s features appeared set in a ‘sullen and constant frown’, and Anne herself was conscious that her face had a naturally grim expression. In 1683 she told a friend who thought she was displeased with her, ‘I have sometimes when I do not know it, a very grave look, which has made others as well as you, ask me if I was angry with them, … Therefore do not mind my looks for I really look grave and angry when I am not so’.32

  Meanwhile Anne’s mother was in poor physical condition with an ‘illness, under which she languished long’. This was probably cancer of the breast, for the fact that upon her death ‘one of her breasts burst, being a mass of corruption’ suggests that she had a tumour there.33

  The Duchess of York’s spiritual condition afforded equal grounds for concern. By this time, both of Anne’s parents had ceased to be firm believers in the Anglican faith. James had experienced a crisis of conscience in early 1669 and had begun secret discussions with a Catholic priest, but continued to attend Anglican services. Later that year the Duchess also began to gravitate towards Rome. She later recalled that until this point she had been ‘one of the greatest enemies’ the Catholic Church had, but reading The History of the Reformation by the Protestant divine, Peter Heylyn, had the unexpected effect of forcing her to re-examine her beliefs. After enduring ‘the most terrible agonies in the world’, she was ‘fully convinced and reconciled’ to the Catholic Church in August 1670. James felt inspired by the manner in which his wife’s hostility to the Roman faith had unexpectedly crumbled, and this memory would later encourage him to believe that the most unlikely candidates were ripe for conversion. In particular he clung to the hope that his younger daughter Anne’s ostensibly unshakeable commitment to the Anglican Church would prove as fragile as her mother’s.34