Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 4.djvu/265

A.D. 1708.] before the prince's death. As mistress of the robes, lady Marlborough had laid out the queen's jewels to be worn on this occasion, but as the royal procession passed up Ludgate Hill, the duchess, casting her eyes on the queen's dress, was astonished to perceive that she had not put on the jewels at all. Her indignant mind instantly attributed this omission to the contrary advice of the queen's Abigail, and, unable to restrain her rage to a private opportunity, she broke loose on Anne, without regard to the presence of the public. Poor Anne had not the necessary spirit of a queen to preserve her dignity, and retorted the scolding of the duchess with equally angry and more undignified freedom. The altercation continued not only to the door of the cathedral, but even till the queen had taken her seat, who spoke so loud that it began to excite the attention of the spectators, whereupon the duchess audaciously bade her sovereign "to hold her tongue," or, as she puts it herself, desired her not to answer her.

Anne had suffered far too much from this virago, but this command to hold her tongue astonished even her, and she never forgave it. But the duchess, far from seeking pardon for her conduct, followed up the tirade, as she always did, by letter, informing her majesty that the duke would be surprised to hear that when she had taken so much pains to put her jewels in readiness for her, she had allowed Mrs. Masham to persuade her to refuse to wear them in so unkind a manner, and that she thought she had chosen a very wrong day on which to mortify her, when they were on the way to return thanks for a victory obtained by my lord Marlborough. Anne should have returned no answer, but she did reply by a few lines that marked the memory of the insult. "After the command you gave me on the thanksgiving day, of not answering you, I should not have troubled you but to return the duke of Marlborough's letter safe into your hands, and for the same reason I do not say anything to that, or to yours which inclosed it."

The unsilenceable duchess wrote again, pretending to explain away the word command, but only adding insult to insult, by telling her royal mistress that since she had not answered her observations, she flattered herself that she had said several things that were unanswerable.

As this most foolish and indecent conduct of the haughty duchess was now first producing its natural results, and the queen ceased to notice her insolent notes, she roused up Godolphin to represent that nothing could go on well if her majesty continued to discourage her cabinet—this meant by following the mischievous secret counsels of Harley; and she got her husband to write the same from Flanders. As the queen preserved her offended silence, the fierce woman again forced herself into the royal presence to demand why she treated her so. The death of the prince and the grief of the queen had little effect in restraining the duchess's violence. She maintained a system of annoyance which now-a-days assumes a most incredible aspect as tolerated by even the most patient of queens from any subject, much less one whom she had raised from insignificance to greatness. When the queen at length put such a distance between them as served to promise her some defence against her tormentor, she still discovered new means of assailing her.

One of the most amusing of those was, finding that, in her outrageous attempts to reduce the queen again by audacity and assumption to the passive slavery she so long kept her in, she had overshot the mark and only made the queen more determined to have done with her, she intimated to her majesty that, before taking the sacrament at Christmas, as a sincere Christian she ought to dismiss from her mind all enmity and harsh feeling. She therefore presented her with a handsome Common Prayer Book, underlining such passages in the service as enjoined forgiveness of injuries; and to this she added a copy of Jeremy Taylor's "Holy Living and Dying," with the passages marked and the leaves turned down which recommended the necessary preparation of heart for taking the sacrament by casting out all resentments. The proceeding was all the more extraordinary, inasmuch as lady Marlborough was a professed disbeliever in Christianity. Her stratagem, however, was vain. She placed herself in the way at St. James's chapel when the queen went to communicate, and the queen observing her, gave her a gracious nod and smile, and passed on to the altar. No other notice of the matter followed, no interview was granted; and the chagrined duchess remarked bitterly "that the smile and nod were only meant for Jeremy Taylor and the Common Prayer."

We have dwelt on these petty squabbles of the palace longer than they would merit did they not now present a striking example of the daring insolence to which a spoiled favourite of royalty may arrive, and of the origin of some of the greatest events of history. This warfare still went on in distant skirmishes; but all the time Harley and St. John, through the medium of Abigail of the back stairs, were undermining the whigs with the queen. Their party, the tories, at this juncture greatly alarmed her by privately informing her that the whigs were intending to bring over prince George of Hanover whether she wished it or not. Lord Haversham was deputed to privately inform her of this, and it had the effect of greatly alarming and incensing poor Anne. Like most monarchs, she was utterly averse to her successor, and waved off all overtures on the part of the electress Sophia or her son, whom she termed "the German boor," to come to England. She had, in fact, no desire to see the whigs paying court to the heir-apparent during her lifetime, and she wrote to Marlborough to say that she should consider any persons or parties her enemies who promoted such a thing; that she herself never would invite the elector, and should regard it as a most disloyal act should any attempt be made in parliament to that end.

The new parliament assembled on the 16th of November. It proved to be much in favour of the whigs, and all appeals against undue elections were, without much pretence of impartiality, decided to their advantage. The queen did not open parliament in person, owing to the recent loss of her husband; but it was opened by a commission consisting of the archbishop of Canterbury, the chancellor, the lord treasurer, the lord steward, and master of the horse. The lord chancellor Cowper spoke in the name of the sovereign. He congratulated the two houses on the splendid successes of the last campaign, which he asserted were the strongest reasons for pursuing the war with additional vigour; that we might now, by proper activity, calculate on carrying the war into France, and thus compelling that country to