Abigail's Cousin (24 page)

Sitting there
alone as Belle walked in the garden chaperoned by his future
brother-in-law, Masham reflected also upon other occasions when
Abigail brought contentment and forgetfulness to the queen. Her
playing of the harpsichord when her majesty sat, transported, as
they all were especially when she played, 'The Prince of Denmark's
March’ composed by Jeremiah Clarke for Anne’s husband, the prince
consort.

Another skill
of his intended had come to his knowledge. Unaware he was listening
to a woman whom he thought a hundred miles away, he had discovered
it was Mistress Hill mimicking the sonorous pronouncements of the
Duchess of Marlborough. When it was remembered the esteem in which
her former friend Sarah was held by the queen, it was a measure of
Sarah's loss of prestige, and Abigail's consequent rise in the
queen's favour.

Added to these
accomplishments was her skill as an apothecary to rival Thomas
Culpeper himself. Her intelligent conversation and grasp of affairs
persuaded him she was an extraordinary woman, and he was going to
marry her.

In modern parlance England plc was a
thriving concern; to cite the words of the great 20th century
historian Sir Arthur Bryant, 'Engl
and was the greatest manufacturing and trading
country in the world, and the industrial revolution was yet to get
under way. Many ships carrying silks, spices, tea and chinaware,
minerals, precious stones and metals were criss-crossing the sea
routes to India and as many plied between the colonies of the
American eastern seaboard and the home country carrying furs,
timber, fish and gold, the result of profitable trading. In the New
World the indigenous people, the mis-named Indians, were coming
round to the viewpoint that it would serve their interests better
to back the Yankee, the Indian mis-pronunciation of the epitaph
used by the contemptuous French for their English rivals,
'angli'.

While there
was a steady flow of profits into English coffers there was also an
outflow of funds to Holland, Austria, Savoy and several German
principalities. But it was yielding results which were demonstrated
in 1704 when Marlborough through judicious and diligent application
of funds not only provided his allied army of thousands of soldiers
with food, drink and new boots in the allied march from the North
Sea to the Danube, but also ensured the timely arrival of Prince
Eugene's forces marching from northern Italy to pincer-grip with
Marlborough's army the Franco-Bavarians at Blenheim.

This victory
together with English naval success in capturing Gibraltar and a
second land victory at Ramillies two years later would seem to have
cemented the Whigs' grip on power. Captain-General Marlborough and
lord treasurer Godolphin had also enlisted the services of the
greatest mover-and-shaker of the age in the person of Robert
Harley, former Speaker in the House of Commons, to initiate and
steer financial bills through Parliament. But as the war dragged on
and ever more money was needed to finance it, Robert Harley began,
in the war's sixth year to question the motives of the powerful men
he served, the so-called Duumvirs, a term borrowed from ancient
Rome, being the term used to describe the two consuls elected to
rule that city and empire for one year.

Soldiers from
the successful battles and other engagements were beginning to make
their presence felt on the streets of London. There were soldiers
with amputated limbs, victims of French canister and grape shot,
begging in the streets and thoroughfares where Londoners were apt
to walk and recreate in the course of their daily lives. Soldiers
loitered around coffee houses, in the middle of shopping arcades,
around taverns and public houses, outside Parliament, in the
vicinity of the houses of the good and great, including the palaces
reserved for bishops and royalty.

In short
despite the successes by land and sea, the English people were
beginning to feel a war malaise exacerbated by shortages of food
due to a combination of bad harvests and the depredations of French
privateers and pirates which had the effect of causing shortages
and thereby raising prices, especially of bread. In this general
atmosphere of discontent the opponents of the war, the Tories,
began to raise questions in Parliament especially when a finance
bill was being put through both Houses, and Robert Harley was
getting most of that criticism. He had been a non-party man but was
now widely seen as having taken the Duumvirs shilling. He did not
like it coming as he did from a long line of Dissenters who had
risked all to espouse neutrality in religion and politics.

He was
approached by leading Tories to support the cause of peace with the
promise that, in the event of elective success at the polls, he
would be recommended as lord treasurer, now filled by Lord
Godolphin. It was the highest political office at the time and
Harley knew that to win it he would have to change sides. It was
nominally in the gift of the monarch but she was expected, and it
was her inclination so to do, to appoint a Tory, as she perceived
that party as closer to the Church of England, that she
passionately supported, than the Whigs, whom she disdained as men
of business and trade notwithstanding Godolphin and Marlborough
were Whigs although also firm friends, and the queen set great
store by friendship, so scarce in her earlier life, as princess and
daughter of a Catholic father, the deposed James II. Such men and
women who had given her comfort in those times had been the
Churchills, Godolphin and others including Robert Harley.

Notwithstanding, Robert Harley had also
deduced the queen disliked non-conformists and dissenters though
she exercised a certain fairness by not supporting measures which
threatened more discrimination. His father, a royalist supporter of
Charles I, the executed monarch, had performed a small service to
the princess by allowing her to reside at one of his houses when
she was forced to leave London during the Great Revolution and they
had glimps
ed each other
on that occasion.

His chance for
office came in 1704 when Lord Nottingham, displeased over the
queen's lack of support for a bill discriminating against
dissenters, resigned. When the queen looked around for someone to
replace him, she remembered the royalist sympathiser who was a
country Whig as opposed to the court Whigs her predecessor, William
III, had preferred. In the days when she was an outcast, along with
others out-of-favour, such as her best friend Sarah Churchill and
her husband John Churchill and their friend, the earl Godolphin,
she remembered Robert Harley's visits to the Cockpit, her living
quarters at the time. He was unobtrusive and a man of few words
which she liked though she was judging him against Sarah her friend
who was the most talkative woman of her age.

So Robert Harley became Secretary of State
for European affairs and, at the same time, was also able to
persuade the queen to appoint his
protégé, Henry St John, as Minister for War. The
two men came to the realisation that in the wake of the war's
increasing unpopularity it would also do them no harm to lean
towards the anti-war party, the Tories, who also were strong
supporters of the Church of England.

In his
dealings with the queen Harley had discovered that the servant
closest to her and upon whom the queen increasingly relied was his
cousin, Abigail Hill, who, by reason of a brother in the army was
also anti-war. This brother Jack Hill complained of Marlborough's
treatment denying him promotion and generally giving him a bad
name.

News had
reached the War Office of a terrible defeat for the allied soldiers
in Spain at the hands of a Franco-Spanish army led by the Duke of
Berwick, a Jacobite supporter. Worse still was the information
reaching the minister that the allies had lost owing to a shortage
of English soldiers, the funding for the despatch of reinforcements
being in the hands of the lord treasurer, Lord Godolphin. Robert
Harley sensed his time had come to lay before the queen the
evidence and call for Godolphin's dismissal.

Just at that
time a brother of Godolphin was very ill and he spent much time
away from court and even when present was very morose. The queen
felt her long time friend and advisor was in need of a rest and
when Harley laid his evidence before her, Anne placated her
conscience by convincing herself she would be acting in his best
interests. Harley's triumphalism however seemed to blind him to the
serious consequences of his action.

Queen Anne
wanted to see the results of the extensive alterations to
Kensington House that now earned the name of Palace so chose it as
the next meeting place for the customary Council of War. In the
enormous new stateroom designated for the meeting a newly designed
Queen Anne table had been installed surrounded by brand new Queen
Anne chairs which would carry their labels engraved in gold. At the
top of the table, one label read, HER MAJESTY while the adjacent
one read, SECY TO HER MAJESTY, and so the labels each denoted the
office of the man seated around the table.

The room was well illuminated being
overlooked by new, high windows of the new sash type with glass
provided by a new glass manufactory funded by Parliament but
staffed and managed by
Huguenot craftsmen and artisans recently expelled from
France by Louis XIV. Robert Harley and Henry St John were visiting
the chamber designated for the council of war at the instigation of
the latter whose newness to government now manifested itself in an
undiplomatic suggestion:

"I wonder Robert whether you should take
your place at the chair labelled Secretary of State, or, that of
Lord Treasurer." But Harley looked gravely at St John coldly
commenting: "Would it not be presumpt
uous of anyone to sit without the direction of her
majesty? I'm quite content where my seat shall be, but I do look
forward to the countenance of the duke after she has made her
wishes known."

St John still overlooking Harley's
demeanour was full of the moment and himself as he walked to stand
behind the seat MINISTER FOR WAR saying blithely: "Perhaps when you
move
up I could exchange
my seat." Harley humoured his companion: "All we need Henry is a
company of your pipers and we can have musical chairs."

Then St John was serious taking in
Harley's earlier comment: "You know," he confided, "I should be
sor
ry to see the duke
humiliated."

But Harley
dismissed his friend's comment: "A sudden outbreak of conscience,
Henry. You should have thought of that before bringing me your
evidence. A good omelette needs broken eggs."

St John
misheard eggs as heads as he launched into a panegyric of the duke:
"Marlborough has seen a good few broken heads but it is the saving
of the many that I remember him by both at Blenheim and Ramillies.
He's likely the finest general England has ever had and I can tell
you that had he been at Alamanza, he would have thrashed his nephew
or not fought at all. There is another explanation of our defeat
that you should know."

Harley was
alive to the bitterness in his friend as he replied: "And what may
that be?"

"Why that spy
William Gregg you had arrested last December. He might have
forewarned the French who forced a battle to their advantage."

Harley walked
round the table and stood next to St John, whispering: "I have
another explanation, Henry. It is this. John Churchill's sister's
liaison with our late lamented Stuart king James producing James
Fitzjames, now Duke of Berwick. He is therefore Marlborough's
nephew and I happen to know they meet regularly, incredible as it
may sound."

St John was
aghast: "A marechal of France, our enemy, meeting up with our
captain-general. It's not just incredible, it's bizarre."

But Harley
pressed the point: "Don't you think the French would more likely
get their information from this liaison rather than my clerk. And
remember, his interlocutors tortured him for incriminating evidence
and failed."

When Harley
had finished St John put two fingers to his lips and gestured
beyond the room and St John opened the door and both listened to a
murmur of voices without intelligibility and construing wrongly an
argument to their advantage, St John muttered:

"Let us go to the new refectory Robert! We
are serving no purpose here. A footman is bound to let us know when
the mee
ting will start,
if ever it does." Harley murmured assent already smelling the
aromas of roasting meat making his nose wrinkle in anticipation of
culinary delights and pointing invited his friend: "Lead the way,
McDuff. I'm close behind you."

---------------------------------------

Before the
meeting of senior ministers chaired by her majesty, the queen,
before this council of war could begin on this occasion there was a
specific alteration in its membership to be contemplated. Henry St
John foresaw these changes to his advantage but the dashing
ex-cavalry officer, veteran of Blenheim and Ramillies was about to
learn a harsh lesson of collective responsibility with a pronounced
emphasis upon its collective aspect. He was to learn that facts
learned in the course of his duties were confidential, which he had
learned as an officer of Marlborough's army. He would never have,
on his life, divulged intelligence to his former enemy, the French,
yet he was to learn that in government your enemy was your
political opposition. He was to learn that to use such confidential
facts to bolster your own career to the detriment of the government
was perceived as treacherous and double dealing as spying for the
enemy.