Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 36.djvu/364

Mary II 'Nobody,' she wrote, 'has ever been railed into conviction,' Furthermore, she sent an account of the whole transaction to Anne and Compton and (through her chaplain, Dr. Stanley) to Sancroft. A few months later, after again taking the sacrament, she read the papers left behind her by her mother on her conversion [see Hyde, Anne], and informed her father of the fact (ib. pp. 57-64 ; Clarendon Correspondence ', ii. 484 seqq. ; cf. Burnet, iii. 195-204).

In the transactions which followed the Princess of Orange completely identified herself with her husband. Pensionary Fagel's letter, printed early in 1688, was intended as a kind of joint manifesto by William and Mary on the English question (, ii. 261-2; cf., iii. 215-17). She was much agitated by the attempted recall of the English regiments from Holland, and wrote on the subject to James, who thereupon angrily broke off his attempts for her conversion (Memoirs ap., p. 65; cf. , ii. bk. v. p. 10). At Honslardyke, whither she had accompanied William after the discovery of a plot against his life (Memoirs, u.s., p. 72), they heard of the imprisonment of the seven bishops (8 June) —a proceeding which specially shocked Mary — and of the birth of the Prince of W r ales (10 June), at which neither the ladies designated by Mary to represent her nor the ambassador of the States-General had been present (, iii. 41). Mary's autobiographical memoirs make it clear that she viewed this event with no feeling of personal disappointment (u.s. p. 73; cf., iii. 260); but it is noticeable that not long before the birth she had felt herself, as she describes it, awaking from a kind of fool's paradise, and coming to perceive how much it behoved her for the sake of the protestant religion to wish that she might attain to the crown (Memoirs, u.s., p. 62). It is also clear that though on the arrival of the news the prince and the princess sent Zulestein to England with their congratulations, while she ordered that the Prince of Wales should be prayed for in her chapel, she at least cherished suspicions from the first (ib. p. 74). She engaged in an active correspondence on the subject with Anne (, i. 364-5; cf. Account of Conduct, pp. 23-4). Anne's excessive vehemence at first failed to convince Mary ; when, however, the spuriousness of the birth was with increasing persistency asserted in England, and much dissatisfaction was there expressed with the offering of prayers at the IIa$rue, William and Mary absented themselves from D'Albeville's fete in honour of the birth, and ordered the prayers to cease. They were onlyresumed (against Mary's wish) when the indignation of James threatened an immediate rupture, and were once more stopped by her orders, so soon as William had started on his expedition (Memoirs ap., pp. 61-76 ; , ii. 259-60 and note ; Life of James II, p. 161 ; , x. 364-o ; , iii. 4 1 , 55 seqq.; , vol. ii. ; , Original Letters, 1st ser. iii. 348-9). Mary's conduct on this occasion was never forgiven by her father, but she was sincerely convinced that fraud had been practised, and thenceforth regarded her father's dethronement by her husband as inevitable (Memoirs, u.s., pp. 75-6).

As the time for William's expedition to England drew near, he and Mary were kept informed of James's secret proceedings by Lord and Lady Sunderland, of whom the latter appears to have corresponded with Mary. A former chamberlain of the princess, a Genevan named Verace, who had resigned his office under rather suspicious circumstances, and had been superseded by a nobleman much disliked by James, Lord Coote, nearly succeeded in bringing these communications to the knowledge of the king through Skelton ; but the revelation was averted by Sunderland (cf. as to Verace, Memoirs ap. pp.65 seqq.) During William's absence at Minden Mary remained at the Loo, able to give more time to devotion, and, according to her wont in the great crises of her life, ' opening her heart to nobody' (ib. pp. 77-8). In September her father was still professing to her his hope that she was ignorant of her husband's designs; but though she was well aware of them, she had not altogether abandoned the hope of a different solution. As late as the beginning of October she suggested to D'Albeville, according to the Danish minister at the Hague, that James should break off his alliance with Louis XIV, and place a large military and naval force at the disposal of the States-General for the purpose of offensive operations against France. The project, which D'Albeville circulated with a lijjrht heart, was of course strangled in the birth (see Mazure, iii. 201-3; cf. Klopp, iv. 147). Burnet, who saw the princess at the Hague a day or two before the sailing of the expedition, describes her as very solemn and serious. She was, he says, praying for the divine blessing on the enterprise, and declared she would spare no efforts to prevent ' any disjointing between her interests and those of her consort' (Chen Time, iii. 311). About the same time Wil-