Page:The Queens of England.djvu/541

 MARY THE SECOND. 491 called William, her husband, to Ireland; and on this occasion; and also in those of his numerous visits to Holland in prosecu- tion of his perpetual wars. Mary was left in full care and dis- charge of the government — a trust which she executed with a wisdom and ability which have found the amplest acknowledg- ments even from the most zealous detractors, and the most bit- ter enemies of this queen. She reigned alone the chief part of the six years she was Queen of Great Britain. William the Third, with the exception of the first year of his election to the throne of the British Empire, was seldom resident more than four months together in England. Of the want of affection in Queen Mary towards her father and her sister Anne, her peculiar position furnished only too easy a charge. She was called on by the British people to super- sede an infatuated father, who was resolved to sacrifice all the rights and liberties of English subjects to his fanatic devotion to popery. For such supersedence there was no alternative. Her duty to the British people as well as her attachment to protest- antism called upon her to perform the ungracious act of ascend- ing the throne which had been, but was, by the fiat of the nation, no longer her father's. Whether Mary did all that it was pos- sible for her to do to lessen the charge of filial ingratitude, we will not undertake to determine. But it must be recollected that she had a difficult part to act. The nation and the very throne were surrounded by the partisans and emissaries of the old dynasty. The claims of James and of arbitrary power were supported by France : Ireland and the highlands of Scotland were wholly devoted to the banished king : and a great amount of English subjects were equally ready to embrace the cause of his son, though averse to himself. The very ministers of the crown, with whom Mary was left for the greater portion of her time to govern alone, were confessedly, by the very historians who blame her, secretly traitors at heart. Added to this, Wil- liam was excessively jealous of his prerogative, and Mary was a most devoted wife, willingly sacrificing her own rights to the will and assumptions of her husband. When these circum- stances are thrown into the account, and the well-known fact is borne in mind that in matters of such real and intense interest as the succession to thrones, private and domestic feelings are universally sacrificed, we may safely regard much of the charge of unfilial feeling as the only too pleasing allegation of her enemies. It is clear that she was by no means destitute of affec- tion, for her whole life as well as existing documents bear proof