CHAPTER XVI

NEWS FROM ENGLAND

The weeks that followed, so full of great events, passions, movements, and suspenses in Britain, passed with an almost uneventful calm in The Hague, where the Princess, round whose rights half the turmoil had arisen, and the wives of many eminent men engaged in, or affected by, the rapid changing of events, waited for the packets that brought the English letters, and lived in between their coming in a kind of retired anxiety supported by prayers and saddened by tears.

The Elector of Brandenburg and his wife came on a visit to Mary, and she entertained them as best she might with her heart aching with other thoughts. They went, and she was alone again and free to go to and from her chapel and wait for her letters and wonder and dread the future through the cold winter days in the quiet town, which seemed, as she was, to be waiting with suspended breath.

The progress of affairs in England came brokenly and from various sources, letters arrived slowly, at irregular intervals, delayed by ice-blocked rivers, storms at sea, detained messengers. At first the news was of the Prince's progress to Exeter and the cold reception of that city, the long delay of his friends to join him, the mere wondering apathy of the country-people, who made no movement one way or another, save to make a spectacle of the passing of this foreign army and to petition the Prince that he would, when he could, remove the hearth tax.

The next news was that when the Prince was near resolved to return home the spirited English gentry began to rise in his favour, the Lord Wharton and the Lord Colchester marched from Oxford to join him, and my Lord Lovelace broke through the militia, and though arrested once and taken to Gloucester, yet forced out of prison, and with the help of some young gentlemen who had taken up arms for the Prince, drove all the Papists out of that city, and so joined His Highness at Exeter; soon after the Lord Delamere came from Nottingham and took Chester, which, under a Papist, Lord Molineux, held out for the King, and my Lord Danby rose up in the North, and with other persons of quality seized on the city of York and turned out the Papists and clapt up the Mayor, while Colonel Copley, with the aid of some seamen, seized Hull and the powder magazine, and the Earl of Bath took Plymouth from the Earl of Huntingdon and declared for the Prince, as did all the seaport towns in Cornwall.

At which, the news ran, the King went to join his army at Salisbury, having sent the Prince of Wales to Portsmouth, but afterwards returned to Windsor upon an alarm of the approach of M. de Schomberg, and so to London, where he found his favourite, Lord Churchill, his son-in-law, Prince George, and his daughter, Anne, had fled to the Prince of Orange, attended by the suspended Bishop of London, who had signed the invitation to His Highness. Then followed news of the skirmish at Wincanton, where some of the Prince's guards under Lieutenant Campbell were put to the rout by the King's men, commanded by that gallant Irishman, Patrick Sarsfield; soon the fleet, growing cold in the service of His Majesty, sent up an address for a free parliament and the army deserted by the regiment.

Now the King took out of the Tower Sir Bevil Skelton, late ambassador to Versailles, cast there for the move he had concerted with M. D'Avaux, which if truly followed had saved the King, as he now came to say, and so made Sir Bevil governor of the Tower and Master of the Keys of the Kingdom.

After which he went to Hungerford in great despair of mind, where, advised by the Queen and the Jesuits, he sent overtures to the Prince, offering to defer all grievances to the calling of a free parliament, the writs for which the Lord Chancellor Jefferies had already been bid to issue.

The Lords Halifax, Nottingham, and Godolphin, having taken this message, brought back an answer which was the best the King could have hoped for, since it made only those demands which were reasonable, such as that the Papists should be removed from office and that Tilbury Fort and the Tower of London should be put into the hands of the Capital.

But when they returned with these terms to Whitehall, the commissioners found that the King, either through fearfulness or weakness, or wrought on by the advices of M. Barillon, had taken the extraordinary resolutions--first, of sending his wife and son to France, and secondly, of flying London himself, leaving the government in chaos. Upon which these three lords, perceiving they had been sent on a mock embassy, became for ever incensed against His Majesty. He left a letter for the commander of the army, a Frenchman, Lord Feversham, which that general took to be an order for the disbanding of the forces, which finally put everything into the greatest disorder.

The next letters that came to The Hague were full of the Prince's success against the Irish Guards at Twyford Bridge, outside the town of Reading, and the behaviour of the multitude in London, who, as soon as they heard of the departure of the King and the Jesuits, and the near approach of the Prince of Orange, got together and demolished all the new mass chapels and convents; among which was the great monastery of St. John, which had been two years building at a great expense, but was now burnt down and the goods seized as the monks were hurriedly removing, besides all the timber stored in Smithfield for the finishing, which was stacked into a bonfire and burnt at Holborn by the river fleet.

Likewise the chapels in Lime Street and Lincoln's Inn Fields, the lodgings of the resident of the Duke of Florence, and Nild House, which was the mansion of the Spanish Ambassador, were spoiled and defaced; yet to the great credit of the English people, in all this heat and excitement, there was not one slain or even hurt.

To put a stop to these mischiefs, the lords who were then in London went to the Guildhall and, having demanded the keys of the Tower from Sir Bevil Skelton and delivered them to the Lord Lucas, they took upon themselves the governance of the kingdom for the maintenance of order and the prevention of bloodshed. At first they associated with themselves the magistrates of the city, but on finding that those who are born traders cannot contest with gentlemen in great affairs, they used them not as their colleagues but as their servants, and gave their orders as the King had done.

Soon after they invited the Prince, who was now at Windsor, to London, and the same day that he received their address he was presented with another to the same effect from the city of London, which he accepted with more pleasure, and let it be seen that he did; for his titles and encouragements had always come from the people, and his enemies from the nobles, both in his own country and England.

To the anxious hearts at The Hague all seemed now clear for a peaceful conclusion, when the news came that the King, having by foul weather been cast upon the coast of Kent, was there stopped and roughly handled by several of the common people who knew him not.

When the governing lords heard of this they sent an express begging His Majesty to return to London, which he did after some difficulty, and on Sunday, being the 16th of December, entered the capital, attended by some troops of the Life Guards and Grenadiers; and a set of boys following him with cheers put up his spirits so that he thought he had the people with him again.

At this juncture he sent the Lord Feversham to His Highness at Windsor, asking him to come to St. James's and settle matters; but His Highness had by now perceived that no settlement of any difficulty could be arrived at while this obstinate, foolish, and fearful King remained in London, and, having discovered that His Majesty had no courage to resist authority, he took a high hand, arrested the Lord Feversham for travelling without a passport, and sent three lords to Whitehall with a message desiring the King to retire to Ham, having first secured all the posts and avenues about Whitehall by replacing the English guards by Dutch. On receipt of the message the King instantly agreed, only asking that it might be Rochester and not Ham, which desire being communicated to the Prince by messenger (His Highness being then at Zion House), who sent an answer by M. Bentinck that he gave his consent, only adding that he wished His Majesty to leave early that he might not meet him on the road.

So the King, having with him the Earl of Arran and a few other gentlemen, went by barge to Gravesend and so overland to Rochester, where he lay in the house of Sir Richard Head.

The afternoon of this day on which the King left London for ever, the Prince and his retinue came to St. James's, the whole city shouting and blazing in his honour. But having always hated these displays, and despising the levity that prompted them, he drove by a back way to the Palace, and the people got no sight of him. All the persons of quality in town now flocked to offer their congratulations, and the city sent up a most obliging address which His Highness very cordially received; soon the lords and the city requested the Prince to take the government on himself, which he did, his first act being one which gave him peculiar satisfaction--he ordered M. Barillon to leave the kingdom in twenty-four hours, and had him escorted to the coast by Dutch guards, which was a severe knock to the pride of France.

As to the affairs of the kingdom, he ordered writs to be issued for the calling of a Convention, which was to consist of all persons who had sat in parliament during the reign of His Majesty Charles II.

All this was great and triumphant news to the States and the Princess. The nobility then at The Hague came to compliment Her Highness, and three deputies were sent from the States-General to congratulate the Prince, and were magnificently received by the English.

The Prince then commanded all Papists to depart out of London and Westminster within three days, and to engage the city in his interest he asked them for a loan, and though the security was but his bare word and the sum he asked but a hundred thousand, they subscribed three hundred thousand and paid it in, in so many days.

His Majesty being gone to Windsor so as not to prejudice the meeting of the Convention, that body came together on the 22nd of January, and after having humbly thanked His Highness for their deliverance, prayed him to continue to administer the government, and appointed a day of thanksgiving, fell to considering what course they should take.

With comparative ease they declared the throne vacant by the flight of the King, but were not so quick in deciding who should fill it. The Prince meanwhile kept silence, observing the same composure that he had maintained during the whole progress of the Revolution, even hunting, staying at private houses, and keeping out of the capital; only sending one brief letter to the Convention, in which he prayed them to come quickly to a decision, as there was the safety of Europe to consider.

Despite this withdrawal of himself, this calm that he displayed in the midst of the turmoil, he was the pivot round which all circled, the one authority respected by all, the one defence against anarchy and mischievous confusion.

The English, who knew in their hearts that they could not do without him, could by no means make up their minds what to do with him, and soon, after their custom, split into very decided parties, which were most violent against each other and got every day farther from a settlement.

At this time the news that reached The Hague was of the most astonishing and unwelcome to the Princess, and this was the manner of her receiving it, one day, very cold, in late January. She was riding in her chariot in the Voorhout, reflecting on this extraordinary revolution in her native country, and thinking of her father (who was now fled to France), when she was accosted by M. D'Avaux, who still remained at The Hague.

The Princess was much surprised by this, and was giving a mere formal salute, when M. D'Avaux, with his hat clasped to his bosom, galloped up to her open chariot in such a manner that she could do nothing but desire it to stop.

"Ah, Madam," said he, smiling, and very courteous, "am I to condole with the daughter of King James or congratulate the wife of the Prince of Orange?"

She looked at him, very pale, but with a great majesty.

"You are to respect a woman in an extraordinary and sad situation, Monsieur," she answered gravely.

"Extraordinary indeed, Your Highness," said M. D'Avaux. "But scarcely sad to you, I think, who are like to be Queen."

It flashed through Mary's mind how near to war they must be with France before he could venture to speak so.

She answered instantly--

"I take no public reprimand from the Ambassador of France, Monsieur."

M. D'Avaux bowed.

"More a congratulation, Highness, to the future sovereign of England."

Her look of amaze was not to be concealed. His keen eyes, that never left her face, remarked it.

"Ah, Your Highness hath not heard the last news from England?" he asked quietly.

"News from England!" repeated Mary, "I hear nothing else----"

"Then you will have heard that the Convention is for making you Queen, Madam," he answered, "which perhaps is not quite the consummation His Highness desired."

Mary gazed at him a second, then made a motion with her gloved hand to the coachman.

"It is cold to keep the horses waiting," she said, and so drove on.

Cold indeed, and the snow beginning to fall in heavy flakes across the straight fronts of the noble houses in the Voorhout; the people of quality gathered there on horseback and on foot began to scatter before the chilly wind and slow darkness. The Princess shuddered inside her fur coat, and drove back to the 'huis ten bosch.'

As she passed down the gaunt avenues of bare trees overshadowing frozen water and frozen ground, showing between their dark trunks glimpses of a pale February sunset fast being blotted out by the thick snow clouds, she felt to her very heart the awful desolation of approaching change, the wild regret for a happy period closed, the unnameable loneliness which assailed her when she considered how she was being caught up and hurried into a whirl of events foreign and distasteful.

When she reached home she asked for her letters; but evidently the packet that had brought M. D'Avaux his had none for her. She made no comment, but played basset awhile with Lady Sunderland, went early to her prayers, then wept herself to sleep.