CHAPTER XVIII

BY THE GRACE OF GOD

The Princess's boat, with her escort of Dutch warships, rode in the Thames at last. The frost had broken, and she arrived not long after her letter to Lord Danby had scattered that statesman's party, and frustrated his hopes of placing her on the throne. The Prince having soon after declared his mind to the lords in council, that he would accept no position dependent on his wife's pleasure or the life of another (for there had been talk of a regency, leaving the King the nominal title), made it clear that if his services were to be retained, if he was not to abandon them to the confusion, strife, and disaster from which his presence alone saved them, he must be King. All parties uniting, then, on what was now proved to be the winning side, the Convention voted the offer of the crown to the Prince and Princess jointly--the sole administration to rest with him.

The succession, after naming the direct line, was left vague to please the Prince, who was free to flatter himself that he could choose his own heir.

This news had come to Mary before she left The Hague, and she knew that the day after her landing there would be a formal offering and acceptance of the crown of Great Britain. She beheld the prospect with extraordinary sensations as, passing Gravesend, and leaving her vessel and escort at Greenwich, she proceeded in a state barge to the more familiar reaches of the river, Rotherhithe, Wapping, and presently the Tower, rising golden grey in the chill spring sunshine, by the bridge with the deep crazy arches through which the water poured in dangerous rapids. Crowded with houses was this old bridge, and in the centre a little chapel with a bell, now ringing joyfully.

Mary remembered it all--the long busy wharves, now taking holiday; the barges, boats, and compact shipping now hung with flags; Galley Key, where the slaves in chains unlade the oranges, silks, and spices from the East; the houses, on the side of Surrey, among which rose the spire of the great church at Southwark; the merchants' houses built down to the water's edge, with pleasant gardens filled with poplar trees and set with the figureheads of ships in which some adventurer had sailed his early travels long ago in the time of Elizabeth Tudor; and the distant prospect of the city itself shimmering now under an early haze of sunshine.

All was utterly strange, yet nothing was altered; it looked the same as when, weeping to leave England, she had come down these waters in a barge with her silent husband, ten years ago, and waited at Gravesend for the wind.

One difference attracted Mary's eyes. Behind and beyond the Tower a mass of scaffolding rose that dominated the whole city, and through the crossed poles, boards, and ropes, she could discern the majestic outline of the dome of that vast church which had been slowly rising out of the ashes of the old St. Paul's since she was a child.

At the Tower Wharf she landed, laughing hysterically, and hardly knowing what she did. They gave her a royal salute of cannon, and she saw all the guards drawn up in squares, with their spears in the midst, and a red way of brocade carpet laid down for her, and a coach with white horses and running footmen, and beyond, a press of noblemen and officers, and the sheriffs and aldermen of the city with the Lord Mayor.

She hesitated on the gangway, amidst her ladies, her spirit completely overwhelmed. She looked round desperately for some one to whom to say--"I cannot do it--I cannot put it through. I must die, but I cannot be Queen."

The complete incomprehension on the excited faces of these ladies, the strangeness of many of them, recalled her with a shock to herself; she felt as if she had been on the point of betraying her husband. She recalled his last letter, in which he had asked her to show no grief or hesitation in her manner, and, biting her lips fiercely, she stepped firmly on to English soil, and managed somehow to respond to the lowly salutations of the crowd pressing to receive her. The Prince was by the coach door; she noticed that he wore his George and garter, which he had not done perhaps twice before. There were a great many gentlemen behind him, many of them those whom she had already met at The Hague, others strange to her, several of the Dutch officers, and M. Bentinck in mourning for his wife.

Mary, still English enough to think her country the finest in the world, was thrilled with pleasure to see how respectfully all these great nobles held themselves to the Prince. She was used to see him receive this homage in his own country and from the magnates of the Empire, but these Englishmen were to her more than any German princes.

The Prince took her hand and kissed it, and said very quickly in Dutch--

"I would that this had been in Holland."

The English gentlemen bowed till their long perukes touched their knees, Mary entered the coach with Lady Argyll and a Dutch lady, the Prince mounted his white horse, and the cavalcade started through the expectant city with all that pomp which the people would not forgo and the Prince to-day could not avoid.

All London was eager for a sight of the Princess. The last Queen, foreign, proud Romanist, and hard, had never been a favourite, the Queen Dowager had never counted for anything, and was now a forgotten figure in Somerset House; but Mary was English, Protestant, and her image had long been faithfully cherished in England as that of a native Princess who would some day restore the old faith. Therefore her greeting was such as made her turn pale; she had never before heard such thunders of acclamation, popular as she was in the United Provinces.

Every road, every housetop, all the windows, alleys, and turnings were filled with well-dressed, orderly people, who cheered her and cheered the Prince till Mary felt dizzy. She saw in this their true title to the crown; the lords were but obeying the people in setting it on their heads, and she recalled how these same Londoners had besieged the doors of Westminster Hall, while the Convention was sitting, and threatened to use violence if the Prince was not elected King.

Her appearance of beautiful youth, her sparkling excitement, her gracious smiles made a favourable impression, and further roused the enthusiasm which the very stiff demeanour of the Prince, to whom this display was hateful, was apt to damp.

By the time they reached Whitehall she was more popular than he, and the nobles who rode in the procession thought to themselves that the English wife would serve to keep the foreign husband in the affections of the people.

Whitehall was filled with English, Dutch, and Scotch waiting to kiss her hand: Mr. Sidney was there, Mr. Herbert, Mr. Russell, Lord Shrewsbury, Lord Devonshire, Lord Halifax, Lord Godolphin, Lord Danby, and others whom she did not know or had forgotten; their background was that splendid palace, seeming vast and magnificent indeed after her houses in Holland, which she had left so sadly ten years ago. Then she had wept, now she laughed and was very gracious, but in her heart she was as reluctant to enter Whitehall as she had ever been to leave it; the memories the place aroused were poignant, not sweet.

It was three hours before she found herself alone with the Prince in that gorgeous little chamber that had once been her father's, and still contained his pictures, statues, his monogram and arms on chairs and carvings.

The instant he had closed the door the Prince kissed her in silence, and she burst into speech.

"Are you satisfied? Are you pleased? Is this another step in your task--they--these people--will they help? How long the time hath seemed!"

"To me also," said the Prince unsteadily.

She stepped back to look at him anxiously: he was extravagantly vestured in embroidered scarlet, lace, jewels, the George and garter conspicuous, and a great star of diamonds on his breast. A close scrutiny showed that he looked more ill and weary than she had ever known him.

"You are changed," she said quickly. "Oh, my dear, the climate doth not suit you----"

He smiled languidly.

"I would we had met in Holland," he answered. "I am sick for Holland, Marie."

"Already?"

He seated himself in the deep window-seat that overlooked the privy garden and she took the low stool beside, studying him wistfully for one hint of that enthusiasm and elation which she hoped would be called forth by his splendid success.

"We could not have asked God for a more happy ending," she said in a trembling voice.

"They--the English--will declare against France," he answered, but without spirit, and as if it was an effort to speak at all. "If I could get them into the field this spring----" He was interrupted by his cough, which was violent and frequent, and he flung the window open impatiently. "There is no air in this place," he continued, in a gasping voice; "their smoky chimneys and their smells are killing me; I cannot endure London."

"We need not live here," said Mary quickly.

"They think so," he returned; "'tis our post, where we are paid to be----"

The scarcely concealed bitterness with which he spoke of England was a matter of amaze and terror to Mary, in whose ears still rang the enthusiastic shouts of the people and the flatteries of the courtiers.

"But you are popular----" she began.

"Hosanna to-day, and to-morrow crucify!" he answered. "I shall not long be popular--the great lords have not loved me from the first. They offer me the throne because there is no other to serve their turn, and I take it because it is the only way to secure them against France. But I undertake hard service, Marie."

"You mean--the difficulties?"

"The difficulties! I confess I am overwhelmed by them; everything is confusion--everything! To get the bare Government on a business footing would take a year's hard work, saying every one was honest--and every one is corrupt. I can trust none of them. There is Ireland in a ferment and the Scottish affairs in a tangle; there are a hundred different parties, with indecipherable politics, waiting to fly at each other's throats; the Church is hydra-headed with factions--and a cow might as well be set to catch a hare as I set to put this straight, and I have had the business of Europe to conduct already."

Mary's pride and pleasure were utterly dashed. Troubles and difficulties she had been prepared for, but they had been vague and distant; she had not thought to find the Prince already whelmed in them. She reflected swiftly on the anxiety, labour, and anguish that had gone to this expedition, the odium they had both incurred, the violence she had done her own feelings, and she wondered desperately if it had been worth the price.

The Prince took her hand, having noticed the paling of her face and the distress in her eyes.

"We will talk of other things," he said, with an effort over his tired voice. "I am weak to burden you at once with this; you at least will be beloved here----"

Mary broke in passionately--

"I do not love England--nor want to be Queen. I doubt I can do it--I was made for little things and peace--I hate this palace," she glanced desperately round her father's splendour; "our own homes--where we were so happy--are they not better?"

The Prince went very pale.

"I should not have repined," he said; "it is my task, which I must put through ... the part you have been made to take is the worst for me--the part you may have to take----"

"If it serveth you I am very content," she answered; "if I can do anything to help I shall be happy----"

The tears sprang into the Prince's eyes. He looked away out of the window.

"Marie--about His late Majesty--I could not help--that he was stopped in Kent ... I would not have had it happen----"

"Do not fear," she answered wildly, "that I do not in everything hold you justified?"

Her voice broke, and she began to weep.

The Prince rose and helped her to her feet.

"We must not show tears here," he said gently, "for we are not at home--but among many enemies----"

She dried her eyes and smiled bravely.

"Do we feel constraint so soon?"

"We pay something," he said sadly, "that we are, by the grace of God, Monarchs of England."