Page:Daughters of Genius.djvu/362

 XXVIII. TWO QUEENS. THE DAUGHTERS OF JAMES II OF ENGLAND. IT is interesting to turn over a chestful of old family . letters stored away in a garret which has been closed, perhaps, for a century. There is a lady living in Holland called the Countess of Bentinct, who has long possessed a rare treasure of this kind, a box of old letters written by James II of England and his two daughters, Mary and Anne, both of whom reigned after their father lost his crown by turning Catholic. Recently, the Countess of Bentinct has published these letters in Holland, and now all the world can read what these royal personages thought in the crisis of their fate, in the very years (1687 and 1688) when James was estranging all his Protestant subjects, and when his daughters, Mary of Orange and the Princess Anne, were looking on and watching the events which were to call them to the throne of Great Britain. The Princess Mary, a beautiful woman twenty-six years of age, was then living in Holland in the palace of her husband, William, Prince of Orange, whom she devot- edly loved. The Princess Anne, married to a son of the King of Denmark, lived in England. Both sisters, if we ma} r judge by their letters, were warmly attached to the Church of England. Nevertheless, upon reading Mary's letters, some uncharitable persons might use the language of Shakespeare and say, " The lady doth protest too much." As to the King, her father, he gave proof of his sincerity by sacrificing his throne to his convictions. The first letter of importance in this collection is one (354)