Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 36.djvu/368

Mary II ness of both queen and primate, they were unable to check the increase of factiousness among the clergy (Burnet, iv. 211).

After William's departure to the continent, on 1 May 1691, Mary was thoroughly alarmed by the intrigues which had for their object the supplanting of the king and herself by Anne, and of which the moving spirit was Marlborough. The emptiness of the exchequer, which seriously affected the progress of the war in Ireland, weighed upon her, as did the necessity of assenting to sentences of death when she could not, as in Preston's case, approve of their commutation (Memoirs ap. Doebner, pp. 40-1). It was about this date that she burnt most of her meditations, putting her journals into a bag tied by her side, to be in readiness if necessary for the same fate. About the same time she removed to Whitehall, where she fancied herself in more security than out of town (ib. pp. 38-9). To her apprehensions for the king's safety were added regrets for the death of Lady Dorset, whose place in her household was filled by the Countess of Nottingham. On the return of William (19 Oct.), this time without laurels, the court went back to Kensington, where, 9 Nov., a fire again caused Mary much inconvenience (ib. p. 43).

Early in 1692 it became impossible for the king and queen any longer to ignore Marlborough's complicity in the conspiracy against them, and after an explanation between the queen and the princess he was deprived of his appointments on 10 Jan. Three weeks later, on Anne's venturing to bring the duchess to court, Mary wrote to her sister a decisive letter (printed in Account of Conduct, pp. 43-47, where an utterly perverted account is given of the transaction). Hereupon Anne, who refused to part from her favourite, removed to Sion House, and the rupture between the sisters was manifest. Although in April the queen visited Anne on the premature birth of another child, in October, when Anne had returned to town, Mary passed her without notice in the park, nor do they seem to have ever met again. It is highly probable that the intrigues now carried on by Anne with her father were known to Mary (Klopp, vi. 55 seqq.) By a curious irony of fate Mary, who deeply regretted the alienation from her sister (see Memoirs ap. Doebner, p. 43, and cf. her letters to the Duchess Sophia, ib. pp. 93, 97), incurred the reproach of cruelty, while Anne received the pity due to injured innocence ; nor can it be doubted that the queen's popularity was diminished by the transaction (see, however, Klopp, vi. 32). Rochester, who in the dispute had judiciously taken the queen's side, was not long afterwards sworn of the privy council.

During William's absence on the campaign of 1692 (5 March to 18 Oct.) the burden of the administration once more fell on Mary's shoulders. She was again resident at Whitehall, where in April she was seriously ill (' it was the first time in 12 year I had missed going to Church on the Lord's day,' Memoirs ap. Doebner, p. 47). On her recovery she was beset by fears of a French invasion, as well as of conspiracies, directed in part against her own person, which, much against her wont, she appears to have sought to counteract by gaining information through double-dealers with her father's court (Ralph ap. Dalrtmple, i. 564). In April a private letter from her father reached her. through one of the ladies ostentatiously invited to be present at the birth of a royal infant at St. Germains (Klopp, vi. 53-4). Though King William had promised to return, in the event of the actual landing of an invading force (Memoirs ap. Doebner, p. 48), Mary felt obliged to hold back several regiments destined for Flanders (Klopp, vi. 56). In May James was at La Hogue, after issuing a declaration which, as self-condemnatory, Mary had the courage to allow to be circulated in England (Dalrymple, iii. 239; Macattlay, iv. 230). Fears were rife of treason on the part of many officers of the navy, and the queen showed great spirit in addressing to the admiral, Russell, a letter expressive, of her confidence in the loyalty of the service (ib. pp. 234-5 ; Dalrymple, uls. ; Life of James 12 li. 490). ' God alone,' she exclaims (Memoir' ap. Doebner, p. 49), ' delivered us,' by the winds which contributed to the decisive victory of La Hogue (19 May). Though she sanctioned a large gratuity to the sailors, opened St. Thomas's and St. Bartholomew's Hospitals to the wounded from the fleet, and declared her design of establishing a permanent hospital for disabled seamen at Greenwich (Macattlay, iv. 243), Mary delayed a public thanksgiving for the victory, in order to await the news from Flanders. When it came it was disappointing. Namur had fallen, and the defeat of Steinkirk soon followed; a projected naval attempt upon the French coast likewise came to grief, and Mary's troubles were brought to a height by the discovery in Flanders of Grandvaal's design against William's life, in which she found her father to be involved (Memoirs ap. Doebner, pp. 51-4; cf. Burnet, iv. 170-4; Macaulay, iv. 285-6). It is therefore not surprising that the queen and her advisers should have attached credence to Young's revelations of a pretended plot, in conse-