CHAPTER III.

1684 TO 1687.

State of manners and morals—Of parties—Defence of Churchill—His share in the Revolution—Progress of that event.

The new reign brought with it early demonstrations of royal confidence towards Lord Churchill, and consequently to his wife. Almost the first act of James was to despatch Churchill to Paris to notify his accession, and to establish more firmly the good faith which already subsisted between James and the French monarch.

Lady Churchill, meantime, continued to hold the same post near the person of Anne, who resided at her palace in the Cockpit, Westminster. The Duchess, in her “Conduct,” has given no insight into this period of her life. We may suppose it to have been passed in the quiescent round of duties more insipid than fatiguing, and in the still more irksome society of the domestic, good-natured, but uninteresting Princess.

The court amusements in those days were of a description perfectly in unison with the tastes and habits of the higher classes, to whom the satire of St. Evremond, upon a similar order of persons in France, might have been, without even a shadow of sarcasm, applied. “You live in a country,” says St. Evremond, writing to Mademoiselle de l’Enclos, “where people have wonderful opportunities of saving their souls: there, vice is almost as opposite to the mode as virtue; sinning passes for ill-breeding, and shocks decency and good manners, almost as _much_ as religion.”[87] The sarcasm was just,—that not what is good or what is bad, but what was considered fashionable, or agreeable, was the rule for those who lived in the great world to observe. Gambling was the passion, intrigue the amusement, of those days of fearful iniquity. The female sex, in all ages responsible for the tone given to morals and manners, were in a state of general depravity during the whole period of Lady Churchill’s youth; and even those who were reputed most virtuous, and held up as patterns to their sex, overlooked, if they did not countenance, the open exhibition of vice within their very homes. The Duchess of Buckingham, “a most virtuous and pious lady in a vicious age and court,”—“lived lovingly and decently with” her husband, the arch-profligate of the time; and though she knew his delinquencies, never noticed them, and had complaisance enough even to entertain his mistresses, and to lodge them in her own house.[88] Queen Katharine, the neglected and insulted wife of Charles the Second, deemed it her conjugal duty to fall down on her knees at his deathbed, and to entreat pardon for her offences. Whereupon the King vouchsafed to answer her, “that she had offended in nothing.”[89] So humbled, so degraded, were the few virtuous female members of the debased English aristocracy; and so slight was that virtue which could bear, in the closest tie, the constant exhibition of vice! That a woman should forgive—that her best interests, her only chance of happiness, consist in a dignified endurance of the worst of evils, a vicious husband—no reasonable being can doubt; but that as a Christian, as a female, she cannot be excused in remaining within the contamination of vice, is not to be disputed.

Continental alliances, the exile of the restored Princes during the greater portion of their youth, and the consequent introduction of foreign amusements and foreign manners, to which we must add a yet tottering and unsettled national faith, may account, in a great measure, for this universal corruption. Nor can we suppose the lofty Lady Churchill to have escaped wholly from the pernicious influence of what she must have seen and heard. Masquerading was the rage; and not only in private, or in gay halls or banquet-rooms, but in the streets and alleys, the theatre, and other places of public resort, it was adopted as a diversion, to pass away hours tedious to uneducated minds.

In the reign of Charles, Frances Jennings, the eider sister of the Duchess, was flattered, rather than ashamed, at the publicity of her adventure in the theatre, disguised as an orange-girl, in the sight of the Duchess of York, her patroness, and of the whole court.[90] The frolic was, indeed, fully borne out in its extravagance and assurance by precedent. “At this time,” says Bishop Burnet, “the court fell into much extravagance in masquerading; both the King and the Queen and all the court went about masked, and came into houses unknown, and danced there with wild frolic. In all this, people were so disguised, that, without being in the secret, none could know them. They were carried about in hackney chairs. Once the Queen’s chairmen, not knowing who she was, went from her. So she was quite alone, and was much disturbed, and came to Whitehall in a hackney coach, some say in a cart.”[91]

On another occasion, Queen Katharine thought it not unseemly to resort to a fair at Audley, in company with the Duchesses of Buckingham and Richmond, disguised like country lasses, all in red petticoats, waistcoats, et cetera; Sir Bernard Gascoigne riding before the Queen on “a cart jade,” and the two Duchesses also on double horses, one with a stranger before her, the other with Mr. Roper. These ladies happened so to have overdressed their parts, as to excite the attention of the crowd; looking, as it is related, “more like antiques than country volk.” The Queen, however, who made her way up to a booth, to buy “a pair of yellow stockings for her sweethart,” was discovered, as well as her attendant, Sir Bernard, “by their giberish,” to be strangers. The result may easily be supposed; the assembled country people mounted their horses, and, all amazement and curiosity, pursued the royal party to the court gate.[92]

This adventure was, however, less remarkable in those days, from the practice which Charles the Second maintained, of pursuing his diversions almost continually in the midst of his people, walking about the town without guards, and with a single friend. Hyde Park, described by a contemporary as “a field near the town,” and used as a course, was beginning to be fashionable, and was preferred to other places of resort by Charles, on account of its fine air, and extent of prospect. It was at this time the private property of a publican, and the entrance was guarded by porters with staves, by whom a sum of money was levied upon every horseman, coach, or cart that entered.[93] Here, to give a specimen of the manners of the day, Charles exhibited one of the first coaches made with glass windows, presented to him by the accomplished Grammont, and the source of a bitter contention between Lady Castlemaine, and Miss Stewart, afterwards Duchess of Richmond, as to which of them should succeed the Queen, and the Duchess of York, in the distinction of driving in the new-fashioned vehicle.

Spring Gardens, the resort of the fashionable world after driving in Hyde Park, and the scene in which many of the plots of our old comedies are laid, were also much in vogue at this period. “Here” says an old writer, “were groves and warbling birds, alleys and thickets,” and in the centre a place for selling refreshments, similar to the _cafés_ in the Parc at Brussels, or in the Bois de Boulogne at Paris. And here, the enclosure opening into the broad walks of St. James’s Park, were many idle hours wiled away by both sexes. These recreations, with water parties on the Thames, were the amusements in which the soberminded Anne, and her high-bred and haughty attendant, Lady Churchill, might indulge without loss of dignity, or danger to reputation.

The Princess regulated her household concerns with the utmost order, and maintained a decree of economy which could not have been carried on had she mixed generally in the amusements of the court, or dipped into the dangerous diversions of games of chance.[94] According to the Duchess of Marlborough, she had a much less allowance for her privy purse than any previous sovereign had before received;[95] but she managed with so much prudence, as to pay out of that, and from the civil list, many pensions and other matters, which had never previously been discharged from the same source.

“She bought no jewels,” says her friend, “nor made any foolish buildings during the whole of her reign;”—“and in the article of robes,” continues the Duchess, “she was saving; for it will appear by all the records in the Exchequer, where the accounts were passed, that in nine years she spent only 32,050_l._, including the Coronation expenses.”[96]

In the service of this staid Princess, Lady Churchill continued an inactive, but not an inattentive observer of all that was passing in the busy world, in which her turn to govern, and to shine with unrivalled splendour, had not yet arrived. Anne, meantime, was occupied with maternal cares. Her first living child, a daughter, died when a year old, in 1686;—another similar loss, nearly at the same age, succeeded. Some years afterwards, the birth of William, declared at his baptism to be Duke of Gloucester, an event which took place at Hampton Court in 1689, was regarded by the country, as well as by the royal parents of this cherished and promising child, as a boon which might completely establish the Protestant succession.

During the short but eventful reign of James, little is mentioned of Lord Churchill, or of his lady. Whatever were their sentiments, they engaged in no public discussion on the occurrences which agitated all men’s minds, until the revolution was ripe for execution. From the King’s first public attendance at mass, to his secret and hurried departure from his kingdom, all was confusion and mournful anticipation, and, by a succession of tragical events, the public mind was prepared for the last great result.

At length Queen Mary became the mother of a living son, and in the disputes to which the birth of the Prince of Wales gave rise, we find Lady Churchill’s name mentioned in some correspondence relative to that affair. Party differences ran high upon this subject, and Lord Chesterfield is of opinion that the shameful fable of the Prince’s supposititious birth effected more to secure the Protestant succession than any other event whatsoever. The concurring testimony of successive writers has now assigned to the unfortunate Pretender the legitimacy which, by the singular and audacious attempts of a faction, and the fabrication of a servant, was disputed. Happy would it have been for that individual if the calumnies of his enemies had had foundation, and the secure contentment of a private station had been his lot!

Lady Churchill appears, from some expressions of the Princess Anne, to have been a witness of the singular intrigues which, in behalf of Anne’s interests, as well as to further those of the Protestant cause, were carried on, to throw discredit on the birth of the Prince. Various were the accounts of the part taken by Anne on this occasion. It is said, that upon some quarrel on the subject between her Highness and the Queen, touching the approaching confinement of the latter, her Majesty, sitting at her toilet, threw her glove at the face of the Princess; upon which Anne, indignant, withdrew from court; and upon the pretext of her health, or perhaps in consequence of the command of the King, she repaired to Bath, in order to drink the waters at that fashionable place of resort.[97] From this circumstance, the Princess was absent at the time of the birth of the infant Prince; but her letters upon the subject, and the inferences which she draws from details gathered from hearsay, afford a curious specimen of the coarseness of court gossip, and the peculiar vulgarity and common-place character of Anne’s mind.[98]

It is a proof of the consistent firmness of Lord Churchill in adhering to the mode of faith which he venerated, that no employment, nor any distinction but a colonelcy of a troop of horse-guards upon the quelling of Monmouth’s insurrection, was assigned to him during the short reign of James, for he was not of that material which James wanted to turn to active purposes.

Whilst the King’s designs were not developed, and the liberties of his country were not openly threatened, Lord Churchill remained inactive, if not neutral: but, after the declaration of Indulgences in 1686, he was roused into exertion by apprehensions from past events, perfectly justifiable. That he had also private intelligence of James’s endeavours to gain the Princess over to his religious persuasion, appears from the statement given by the Duchess, in her concise account of affairs at this period.

“What were the designs of that unhappy Prince (James) everybody knows. They came soon to show themselves undisguised, and attempts were made to draw his daughter into them. The King, indeed, used no harshness with her; he only discovered his wishes, by putting into her hands some books and papers, which he hoped might induce her to a change of religion; and had she had any inclination that way, the chaplains were such divines as could have said but little in defence of their own religion, or to secure her against the pretences of popery, recommended to her by a father, and a King.”[99]

Anne had been the object, since her father’s accession, of the jealousy of the court, on account of her having borne children. In her heart a true Protestant, she had expressed herself to Lady Churchill, two years previously, in a manner which showed evidently that she was not disposed to be a convert, and which proved also her dependence upon her strong-minded friend. Her expressions relate to the introduction of four peers of the Roman Catholic persuasion into the privy council.

“I was very much surprised,” she writes, “when I heard of the four new privy counsellors, and am very sorry for it; for it will give great countenance to those sort of people, and methinks it has a very dismal prospect. Whatever changes there are in the world, I hope you will never forsake me, and I shall be happy.”[100]

These sentiments, consistent with the character of a Princess who is said, by one who knew her best, “to have had no ambition,”[101] were participated by the Prince of Denmark, who, although a privy counsellor during the reign of his father-in-law, had always been treated with coldness by that sovereign. Upon the declaration of Indulgences by James in his own person, without the consent of parliament, Lord Churchill began overtures to the Prince of Orange, through Dykefelt his agent, and Russell and Sidney, the great instruments of the revolution. The resolution of the Princess Anne to “suffer all extremities, even to death itself, rather than be brought to change her religion,” was transmitted through the same channel. The terms in which these assurances were conveyed, were worthy of the great mind from which they proceeded.

“In all things but this,” writes Lord Churchill to the Prince of Orange, “the King may command me; and I call God to witness that, even with joy I should expose my life for his service, so sensible am I of his favours. I know the troubling you, sir, with this much of myself, I being of so little use, is very impertinent; but I think it may be a great ease to your Highness and the Princess to be satisfied that the Princess of Denmark is safe in the trusting of me; I being resolved, though I cannot live the life of a saint, if there be ever occasion for it, to show the resolution of a martyr.”[102]

Happily, however, there proved to be no necessity for the performance of this brave determination; “the projects of that reign,” as the Duchess well observes, “being effectually disappointed as soon as they were openly avowed.”[103]

The birth of a son, and the ceremony which declared him to be Prince of Wales, accelerated, in a marked manner, the course of the infatuated King’s destruction. Nonconformists, and the High Church party, Whigs and Tories, now plainly foresaw a total subversion of government in Church and State, all hopes of a Protestant succession to the throne being annihilated. Those who had upheld the doctrine of passive obedience, perceived that they were authorised, by the measures which James adopted, to form schemes for the prevention of his further designs: otherwise there would be no difference between the constitution of Great Britain and that of an absolute monarchy. The doctrines of passive obedience had, it was well understood, been so industriously spread throughout the laity, as well as among the clergy, from a dread of those excesses which the Presbyterians and Conformists had permitted and extenuated in the last revolution, that many conscientious persons for some time doubted whether they ought to refuse an unlimited obedience to the sovereign. But the dangers of a sinking state, and of a tottering church, opened the eyes even of the most scrupulous, and convinced them that much ought to be sacrificed, in order to restrain the royal prerogative, and to save their best interests, and the objects of their veneration, from destruction.[104]

Under these threatening clouds, an union of all parties began to be considered as the only safe, the only practicable, the only honourable project to guard the country from anarchy, by protecting the laws. Nor can those be censured, who from considerations of such importance, and from general views, divest themselves, in such an extremity, of private interests, even of private obligations, for the sake of ensuring peace, by obtaining justice, and with it, the protection of a moderate and constitutional ruler. It requires infinite moral courage to give up the long-maintained and often-repeated dogmas of a party; and we are bound to hope, and to believe, that when great evils require so great a sacrifice, the motive which impels the change must proceed from some source higher than mere personal advancement. But unhappily, the world generally judges otherwise.

Lord Churchill, and the gifted woman who probably in a great degree participated his irresolution, and influenced his counsels, have shared largely in the condemnation bestowed upon others who adopted the same course which they, on this great occasion, thought it wise and right to pursue. Those who accuse them of ingratitude, must, however, recollect that there is a higher degree of gratitude than any which can be due to an earthly power; and that there are duties which no obligations can annul; a disregard of which becomes treachery in its most extended sense.

The conduct of Lord Churchill, throughout the reign of James the Second, was a consistent endeavour to withdraw from all participation in honours which he could not receive from the King without degradation, and from schemes which he must have viewed with disgust. Even when James sent to require his presence at the birth of the Prince of Wales, he declined to attend, assigning some slight reason. His desertion of James, as it was called, was the work of some years, not the sudden impulse of a day; it was wrung from Churchill unwillingly, and by painful degrees, and not till after his reflective mind had been saddened by an unparalleled succession of injuries inflicted upon his unhappy country, until mournful presage knew not where to stop. Brought up in notions of devoted loyalty to the Stuarts, his own family, that of his wife, his intimate friends, and his brothers, being all wedded to the same opinions and devoted to the same cause, the conduct of Churchill on this occasion astounded the King more, it is said, than that of any of the other men of character and influence of the time. It was easy for the enemies of Churchill, or of his party—for personal enemies he could scarcely have—to account for the measures taken with caution, but pursued with vigour and firmness, by this great man. Dean Swift, whose aspersions, unlike most ephemeral writings, ate into the heart of his victims like caustic, and when once engrafted on the memory even of the indifferent, can scarcely be erased, has thus in his own charitable way explained the matter.

In describing the character of Churchill he says:—“He was bred up in the height of what is called the Tory principle, and continued with a strong bias that way till the other party had bid higher for him than his friends could afford to give.”[105] In another singular production of the day, entitled “Oliver’s Pocket Looking Glass,” he was compared to Judas, and even reproached for ingratitude towards James, on the score of his lavish generosity to the degraded Arabella Churchill, the sister of the Duke.[106] But Churchill adopted not the measures which he prudently but resolutely adhered to, without a respectful but manly remonstrance with James, which proved his real attachment to the royal person, and his desire to warn him, if possible, from continuing his infatuated course.[107]

The recapitulation of those events by which the liberties of the people, and the stability of the Church of England, were secured, belong to history. The fatal blow given to the King’s power was struck by the union of the Tories and the Whigs. Whilst the majority of the laity and clergy laboured in conjunction to effect the important end in question, some there were who deemed that determined but calm resistance rebellion, and who formed the new party under the name of Jacobites.

After this explanation, it is obvious what path the subject of this Memoir was henceforth called to pursue; although in a secure and peaceful course, even in that popular career, she and Lord Churchill were not, from the difficulties of the times, enabled to continue.

1688. At length, after a delay of a month within his own territories, the Prince of Orange hastened to the sea-coast, in order to set sail for England. But he was prevented from embarking by continued south-west winds, which lasted for nearly three weeks, during which time the anxiety of the English, and of the inhabitants of London in particular, could only be equalled by the panic of James, and the miserable uncertainties of all who were connected with the royal family.

Meantime all ordinary occupations in the city of London were suspended; the usually busy citizens were employed in inquiring the news, and in looking at the steeples and weathercocks to ascertain which way the wind blew. The general eagerness for the arrival of William was only exceeded by the general apathy respecting James. Even prayers were offered for that usually unwelcome visitant, an east wind, or, as it was now christened, “the Protestant wind.”[108] Many individuals were known to rise in the night, to gratify their curiosity on this point.

But this intense expectation pervaded the metropolis only. In the country there was an indifference more fatal to James than the utmost turbulence could have proved: “A state of apathy,” says Dalrymple, “which to the wise appeared more dangerous to the King than all the zeal of those in London against him; for opposition leads to opposition of sentiment; but that Prince approaches to his ruin whose subjects are unconcerned about his fate.” Meantime James, blinded by his danger, gave orders for the host to be elevated forty days for his protection: thus rashly offending the opinions of that people whom he vainly attempted to enslave.[109]

At length the Prince of Orange, after many interruptions and dangers, landed at Torbay, whilst the King, still confiding in the protection of those spiritual weapons upon which he placed reliance, remained inert. When a report that the armament of the Prince of Orange was shipwrecked was brought to him one day at dinner, he was heard with great devotion to say, “It is not to be wondered at, for the host has been exposed these several days.” Even his adversary was not without some superstitious feelings; his great desire being to land on the fourth of November, because it was his birthday and his marriage-day, and it might therefore prove fortunate. But his English adherents were rejoiced that the landing could not be made effectual until the day after, which was the anniversary of the discovery of the gunpowder plot.

Notwithstanding a conditional promise from James, “upon the faith of a King,” to call a free Parliament, disaffection to his cause grew rapidly, spreading among those upon whom the unhappy monarch had most fondly relied. He placed himself, however, at the head of his assembled troops, consisting of twenty-four thousand men, at Salisbury, resolving, as he declared, to show himself King of England.[110] He entrusted the command of a brigade to Lord Churchill, whom he appointed lieutenant-general. The memorable letter addressed by Churchill to his sovereign, relinquishing the command, did not guard him from certain strictures upon this passage of his life; with what measure of justice, it has been left to the biographers of that illustrious general to declare.[111]

Meantime the Princess Anne and Prince George were acting in concert with the popular party, whom they had long secretly favoured, although the exact mode and time of their proceedings appears not to have been fixed. During the six days that James remained at Salisbury, the unhappy monarch’s mind was every hour fretted and depressed by the news of some fresh defection. The first sea-officer that went over to the Prince of Orange was the brother of Lord Churchill, Captain Churchill, who joined the Dutch fleet with his ship. Humbled and alarmed lest he should be delivered up even by his own troops, James retreated towards London. The night before he commenced his march, Prince George of Denmark and the young Duke of Ormond, who had lately received the order of the garter, supped with him. The King was in deep dejection; the Prince and the Duke were also lost in thought, meditating their own private schemes. On the following morning intelligence was brought to James, that his two guests of the preceding evening had gone over in the night to the Prince of Orange. Prince George thought it his duty to leave a letter of excuses. This royal personage, long a cipher in the court, which he could be said neither to disturb nor to adorn, had been accustomed to say, when he heard of the desertion of any of James’s friends, “_Est-il possible?_” an ingenious mode of avoiding any expected opinion on so awkward a subject. On being acquainted with the Prince’s flight, James recalled to his attendants the notable phrase, by the sarcastic observation, “So _est-il possible_ is gone too!” And with this sole exclamation he allowed his relative to pass from his remembrance.

Having left his troops quartered at different places, deserted indeed as he went along by most of his officers, but retaining the common soldiers, whose simple reasoning taught them to follow their sovereign, James re-entered his capital.

But here a severer blow than any which he had hitherto experienced, fell upon him: the Princess Anne had fled. At first, to aggravate the distress of James, a mystery was made of her flight, and it was insinuated that the King, by encouraging the Papists, had been instrumental in the death of his child. The Earl of Clarendon, her maternal uncle, and her nurse, ran up and down like distracted persons, declaring that the Papists had murdered the Princess. James, who had fondly loved his daughter, and who had always shown her the utmost tenderness,[112] burst into tears, and in the agonies of parental feeling exclaimed—“God help me, my own children have forsaken me!”

He had trusted, as it seemed, to the kindly and womanly nature of Anne; but her affection was considerably less than her prudence. Yet public opinion, adjudging to the Princess those softer qualities which become a wife and a daughter, were willing to exculpate her, at the expense of her advisers, for a feature in her character and conduct which offended the natural feelings. It was soon perceived that an ill-timed caution, not excusable fear, dictated her flight. By all good minds Anne has been, and she remains, condemned for this act.

It was doubtless the duty of the Princess to remain, to have received and consoled her father. However others might judge or counsel, she was still his child; and the heart which could be cold towards a parent in such an extremity as that in which the degraded and unhappy monarch now found himself, must have been deficient in all that is high and generous, even if it could boast some amiable dispositions in the sunshine of life.

It was soon ascertained with whom, and where, Anne had fled; and the public, commonly right in matters of feeling, could not readily forgive her whom they fixed upon as the prime adviser of the Princess.

Upon learning that the Prince of Denmark had deserted the King, and that James was returning to London, the Princess, as Lady Churchill in her own Vindication declared, was “put into a great fright. She sent for me,” continues the same writer, “told me her distress, and declared that rather than see her father she would jump out of the window. This was her very expression.”[113]

Such was Anne’s first outbreak of emotion, not for her father, but for herself; it was probable she was more afraid of her quick-tempered stepmother than of her subdued and unhappy father. A rumour had indeed prevailed that the Queen had treated the Princess ill, and had even gone so far as to strike her.[114] Be that as it might, Anne addressed a letter to her stepmother, announcing that having heard of her husband’s desertion of James, she felt too much afraid of the King’s displeasure to remain, and to risk an interview. She stated her intention not to remove far away, in order that she might return in case of a happy reconciliation. She declared herself in a distressing condition, divided between duty to a husband, and affection to a father; and, after commenting upon the state of public affairs, she ended her epistle in these terms:—“God grant a happy end to all these troubles, that the King’s reign may be prosperous, and that I may shortly meet you again in peace and safety. Till then, let me beg of you to continue the same favourable opinion that you hitherto had of

“Yours, &c. “ANNE.”

The following account of the caution with which Anne concerted her flight, and the mode in which she put it into execution, is given by her who acted so conspicuous a part in the tragicomic transaction.

“A little before,[115] a note had been left with me, to tell me where I might find the Bishop of London, (who in that critical time absconded,) if her Royal Highness should have occasion for a friend. The Princess, on this alarm, sent me immediately for the Bishop. I acquainted him with her resolution to leave the court, and to put herself under his care. It was hereupon agreed that, when he had advised with his friends in the city, he should come about midnight in a hackney coach to the neighbourhood of the Cockpit, in order to convey the Princess to some place where she might be private and safe.

“The Princess went to bed at the usual time, to avoid suspicion. I came to her soon after; and by the back-stairs which went down from her closet, her Royal Highness, my Lady Fitzharding, and I, with one servant, walked to the coach, where we found the Bishop and the Earl of Dorset. They conducted us that night to the Bishop’s house in the city, and the next day to my Lord Dorset’s, at Copt Hall. From thence we went to the Earl of Northampton’s, and from thence to Nottingham, where the country gathered round the Princess; nor did she think herself safe until she saw herself surrounded by the Prince of Orange’s friends.”[116]

Inoffensive, and even popular from her strict adherence to Protestantism, Anne immediately met with defenders. A small body of volunteers mustered round her, and formed a guard, commanded by no less a person than Dr. Compton, Bishop of London, the resolute prelate who had opposed the court on various occasions, and especially in his refusal to suspend a Protestant clergyman for exposing papistical errors.[117] This zealous man, who had been a cornet of dragoons in his youth, now rode before the Princess and her suite, including Lady Churchill, carrying a drawn sword in his hand, and pistols on his saddle-bow.[118] In this chivalric guise the fugitive party reached Northampton, and travelled on to Nottingham; where the gallant Earl of Devonshire, the friend of Russell, had raised a band of volunteers to assist the cause of the revolution.

It happened that the famous Caius Gabriel Cibber, the sculptor, or, as it was called in those days, statuary, was at this time at Chatsworth, engaged by Lord Devonshire in the embellishment of that sumptuous place, and, in the words of Colley Cibber, in altering “from a Gothic to a Grecian magnificence.” Colley Cibber himself was visiting at Chatsworth, in order to be under the restraint of his father’s eye, until the period of his going to college should arrive; no unnecessary precaution, as it appeared by his after life. Colley Cibber, in pursuance of his father’s commands, travelled from London to Nottingham, and found the country in a state, if it may be so expressed, of peaceful commotion. When he arrived at Nottingham, he found his father in arms there, among the Earl’s volunteer company. Caius, the sculptor, whose undying fame is preserved in the exquisite figures on Bethlehem Hospital, was aged, and averse to the thoughts of a winter campaign; and he persuaded his patron to allow him to retire to Chatsworth to finish his works, and to substitute his young son, more fit for the business of war, into his honours and regimentals.

The Earl consented, and Colley Cibber “jumped,” as he expressed it, “into his father’s saddle.”

He had not been many days at Nottingham, before news of the Princess Anne’s flight reached that city, accompanied by the report that two thousand of the king’s dragoons were in pursuit to bring her back to London. On this alarm, the volunteers scrambled to arms, and advanced some miles on the London road, in order to meet the Princess and her cavalcade, Anne being attended only by the Lady Churchill and by the Lady Fitzharding. The party, thus guarded, entered Nottingham in safety, and were lodged and provided for by the care and at the charge of the Earl of Devonshire; and the same night all the noblemen and other persons of distinction in arms had the honour to sup at her Highness’s table. There being more guests in number than attendants out of liveries to be found, Cibber, being well known in the Earl of Devonshire’s family, was desired by the _maître d’hotel_ to assist at the table. It fell to the lot of the young officer of volunteers to attend upon Lady Churchill, and he has left the following interesting memorandum of that occasion.

“Being so near the table, you may naturally ask me what I might have heard to have passed in conversation at it, which I certainly should tell you, had I attended to above two words that were uttered there, and those were, ‘_some wine and water_.’ These, as I remember, came distinguished to my ear, because they came from the fair guest whom I took such pleasure to wait on. Except at that single sound, all my senses were collected into my eyes, which, during the whole entertainment, wanted no better amusement than that of stealing now and then the delight of gazing on the fair object so near me. If so clear an emanation of beauty, such a commanding grace of aspect, struck me into a regard that had something softer than the most profound respect in it, I cannot see why I may not, without offence, remember it, since beauty, like the sun, must sometimes lose its power to choose, and shine into equal warmth the peasant and the courtier.”[119]

Such was the impression which Lady Churchill, most likely unconsciously, produced upon the imaginative Cibber, who, fifty years after this memorable scene, describes it in the foregoing glowing terms.

The Duchess, in more homely phrase, thus describes the share which she took in this event, in the narrative which her enemies feared would be posthumous;[120] so late in life was it before she could resolve to enter upon a review of those events of her youth, in which sweet and bitter recollections were mingled.

“As the flight of the Princess to Nottingham has been by some ignorantly, not to say maliciously, imputed to my policy and premeditated contrivance, I thought it necessary to give this short but exact relation of it. It was a thing sudden and unconcerted; nor had I any share in it, further than obeying my mistress’s orders in the particulars I have mentioned, though indeed I had reason enough on my own account to get out of the way, Lord Churchill having likewise, at that time, left the King, and gone over to the other party.”[121]

The assistance which Lady Churchill afforded the Princess on this occasion, was the first action of her life in which she directly took a share in public affairs, and evinced the effects of that influence upon her gracious patroness, which afterwards became so conspicuous and remarkable. Her conduct was severely criticised, and “a deluge of scurrility, falsehood, and defamation,”[122] was drawn down upon her by this first manifestation of her importance in the political world.

In analysing her conduct in this transaction, we have first to consider the truth of her statements, and afterwards the cogency of those reasons which swayed her actions at so critical a period.

It is scarcely possible, in the first place, to suppose that no plan had been concerted by the Princess and her friends, for her security in a storm which they must have beheld lowering for some considerable period of time. Lord Churchill had chalked out his own course, and with that decision and prudence which characterized his whole career, had avowed his intentions, and carried them promptly into effect. Prince George, a weaker vessel, had coqueted with the winds, and hovered about the shore, before putting out his barque of small resolution to sea, trusting to the only gale that ever blew him any importance in the course of his royal existence. These two, for the time, influential men, the one borrowing all his small lustre from the Princess his wife, the other passionately attached to a woman of rising influence and of strong discernment, could never have desired to conceal their projects, nor even the slightest particulars of their daily movements, from those on whose affections they placed dependence, and whose sentiments were in unison with their own. There can be but little doubt that the plans for the demeanour of the Princess were fully matured before it was necessary to have recourse to action; with the Bishop of London, an avowed enemy to court measures, for her spiritual adviser, Lady Churchill for her friend, and Cavendish, the friend of Russell, for her host. Whether on this, and on all other occasions of minor politics, Lord Churchill controlled his wife, or his wife controlled him, it is of little purpose to inquire. On this occasion they doubtless were wholly agreed; nor can we view the actions of the Princess Anne from this period until the memorable year 1710, otherwise than with a reference to the opinions and wishes of her presiding genius.

To these observations may be added the rumours, stated by Lediard as facts, that six weeks before she left Whitehall, Anne had ordered a private staircase to be made, under pretext of a more convenient access to Lady Churchill’s apartments, but, in fact, to secure a mode of escape whenever her person or her liberty were in danger. The night before her Royal Highness withdrew, the Lord Chamberlain had orders to arrest the Ladies Churchill and Berkley, but, on the request of the Princess that he would defer executing those orders until after she had spoken to the Queen, he complied with her wishes. The Princess’s women, on entering her chamber the morning after her flight, were surprised to find their mistress fled; and the excitement of the people, on the suspicion of outrage to her, was so great, that they threatened to pull down Whitehall, unless the place of her retirement was instantly discovered.[123]

It cannot be disputed but that the Princess acted with a degree of pusillanimity which was a feature in her character, and throughout her subsequent life made her the victim of daring minds, of whose intrigues she was the slave, and at the same time, from her exalted station, the active principle. Anne knew her father too well to suppose, that whilst he retained the power to defend his daughter, he would suffer her to be treated with indignity, or allow violence to be done to her feelings as a wife, or to her opinions as a Protestant. The pretext that it was unsafe for her to remain, on account of the schemes which might be formed against her by the priests, was a needless alarm, and an ungenerous insinuation. If we are to conclude that Princes may discard natural feeling, and ties of duty, from their consideration, in times of difficulty, we may commend the prudence of Anne in absenting herself from a scene of distress wherein her father was the chief actor; we may excuse her from remaining to receive the deserted and degraded king, justly expiating grave offences by the bitterest mortifications, but stung most by the utter alienation of one daughter, and the heartless discretion of the other. But had Anne continued in London, had she waited to receive the dishonoured King, and, by kindly sympathy and filial affection which is of no party, endeavoured to soothe the pangs of his return to his gloomy capital—had she thus solaced the most painful hours of a father whom she was to see no more, she would have compromised no party, nor entailed upon herself any responsibility. She was a passive neutral being; unambitious, and, in those days, whilst her brother and sister lived, comparatively unimportant: any breach of what is called consistency, that fatal word which seems, in a public sense, to be invented to banish sincerity and to smother nature, would, in her, have been attributed to the most amiable source; except, perhaps, by her stern formal brother-in-law, or by her virtuous, wise sister,—a pattern of wives, but an undutiful and heartless daughter, and a cold and ungracious sister.

Anne wanted soul—wanted resolution and character more than heart; and at a critical period, when she might have acted so as to avoid subsequent self-reproach, and might have reaped the satisfaction to her own mind that she had not added to the sharpness of the “serpent’s tooth,” she absconded—for the flight had much of that character—under the auspices of Lady Churchill, and guarded by the Bishop of London. It is natural to suppose that the yearnings which in her latter days she felt towards her brother, the Pretender, and her manifest distaste to the Hanoverian succession, proceeded, in a degree, from a too late regret for the part which on this occasion she had been induced to take, and which was quickly followed by her surrender of her right to William the Third.

There is something in the very style of Lady Churchill’s exposition of the whole matter, that marks a sense of shame and regret, as she slides rapidly over the particulars of the event.

Fearless herself, one may almost picture to the mind her contempt, when the Princess expressed, in childish terms, her fear of her father. Upon that point, the alleged excuse of her nocturnal flight, Lady Churchill endeavours guardedly to excuse her royal mistress. She dwells with far less minuteness and distinctness on her own motives than on the subsequent explanations of other matters, in which she avows and defends her unequivocal counsels to the Princess, and brings conviction that she acted a sincere and upright part on those occasions.

Her known character for resolutely maintaining her own will, in opposition even to that of Anne, fixed upon her all the ephemeral obloquy with which the Jacobite party assailed the proceeding. It was supposed, and not without reason, that the Princess was even at this time much more under her control, than was the first lady of the bedchamber under that of her mistress, whom she scorned to cajole, but contrived to command.

“Flattery, madam,” says her bitterest assailant, “is what you never happened to be accused of, nor of temporising with the humours of your royal patroness. The peccadillos you have been supposed answerable for, are of a quite contrary class—of playing the tyrant with your sovereign, of insisting on your own will in opposition to hers, and of carrying your own points with a high hand, almost whether she would or not.”[124]

Yet, with the inconsistency which often accompanies invective, this foe of the Duchess adds: “Flattery does not always imply fulsome praises and slavish compliances; none but the grossest appetites can swallow such coarse food. There is a species, of a much more refined and dangerous nature, which never appears in its own shape, but makes its approaches in so happy a disguise, as to be mistaken for truth, simplicity, and plain dealing. Your Grace had discernment enough to find that the Princess had an aversion to the first; so you, very adroitly, made use of the last; and, as you confess yourself, found your account in it.”[125]