The Queen's Devotion: The Story of Queen Mary II (27 page)

Anne questioned Mrs. Pack, who responded with that dignity which had already surprised me, and she talked with a lack of self-consciousness, showing that she was not in the least overawed.

Mrs. Pack said that the baby was not getting the milk he needed and that was the reason for his weakness. Her milk was good and wholesome and she had enough for two. She had come on the Lord's business and she believed she could transform the Duke into a healthy child.

Anne immediately asked Mrs. Pack if she could stay and feed the Duke with her own baby, a proposition which was accepted.

It was extraordinary, but from that day William began to grow stronger. It was a fact that the lower classes seemed to rear their children more easily than royalty. It must be something in the milk. Mrs. Pack's child was as healthy as any child could be and the Lord or nature had endowed her with enough milk to feed two. It seemed a miracle.

So Mrs. Pack became a member of the household—not always an easy one. I heard she was no respecter of persons. I am sure she had many a tussle with Sarah Churchill, but even that lady's imperious ways could have little effect on the Quaker, who saw all men and women as equal, and was allowed to act as she pleased since she had saved little William's life and continued to keep him healthy.

I was as grateful to her as Anne was, and we would allow no one to upset her. I loved my little nephew and greatly regretted that he was not my son. He was growing into a very bright child. Anne adored him and she and George gloated over him together. I was continually sending toys. I was glad he was at Hampton Court because that gave me many opportunities of seeing him. Mrs. Pack continued her reign in the nursery with her child and under her care young William grew stronger every day.

Unfortunately, my relationship with my sister was deteriorating. Anne irritated me more and more. I liked lively conversation and I wanted to be with people who could share in it. In Holland, I had lived in such seclusion that I had been starved of it, but I was not going to allow that to happen here. I was the Queen and I would not be shut away as I had been when I was Princess of Orange. Occasionally I reminded myself that it was I who had allowed William to become the King and not merely my consort as many people thought he should be. I wanted Anne to remember who I was—not too formally, of course, but on occasions, and I thought she should make some effort when I was present.

It was not only her slothfulness. I fancied she sometimes annoyed me deliberately. I suspected that Sarah Churchill encouraged her in this. Sarah was my enemy but I was not going to allow her to poison my sister's mind against me. I tried to find out what Sarah said to her in secrecy about people, including myself. But Anne, careless as she was about most things, could be sly and secretive if anything was said about Sarah.

I was sure the matter of Richmond Palace had been suggested by Sarah.

Richmond Palace was enshrined in our memories as the home of our childhood—a time when we were ignorant of the misfortunes of life and had believed we were to go on living blissfully forever.

Anne needed a place to live, for she could not stay indefinitely at Hampton. As a princess in line to the throne, and moreover mother of an heir, she needed a home of her own, and Sarah had persuaded her to set her heart on Richmond.

It would be wonderful to go back there, she insisted.

“So healthy for dear little William,” and she was sure her dear sister would put no obstacles in the way of her having it.

As soon as I looked into the matter I knew why Sarah had chosen Richmond.

Sarah had always disliked William. It was she who had given him the name of Caliban all those years ago, and her feelings toward him had not softened. William had commented on Marlborough with typical candor. “A good soldier—one of the best—which is why he holds his position in the army; but a vile man, not to be trusted, not entirely honest. But, for his military skill, he shall retain his position.” And, presumably, be given an earldom, I thought.

I could imagine Sarah's comments to Anne. William might not have a good opinion of John Churchill, and what sort of opinion did Sarah have of William? Morose, graceless, without courtesy, an oaf . . . Caliban. True, Churchill had deserted James to support William. That would have been because he saw James's cause as hopeless. John Churchill was no fool—nor was Sarah. They knew whose side they had to be on—and that was the winning one. But that did not prevent them from criticizing those who did not appreciate the Churchills as they should be.

I soon realized that Sarah had persuaded Anne that Richmond would be an ideal home, because she knew that by asking for it she would be creating an awkward situation.

Madame Puisars, Elizabeth Villiers's sister, already owned a lease on the palace which had belonged to her mother, Lady Frances Villiers, who had been our governess. When Lady Frances died, she left the lease to her family. Therefore, to allow Anne to take possession would mean evicting Madame Puisars.

I could see that Sarah wanted to call attention to the favors shown to the Villiers family, and so discountenance William, and, though his liaison with Elizabeth was not exactly a secret, to bring it into prominence.

I was sure William had other matters with which to concern himself at this time. The news from Ireland was becoming more dis-quietening. My father was rallying men to his side and there were skirmishes between his supporters and those soldiers whom William had stationed there. And now Anne must come along with this trivial matter of Richmond Palace when there were plenty of other places which she could have taken.

“No,” said William, irritated that he should have to give a moment's thought to such a matter. “The Princess Anne cannot have Richmond Palace. Madame Puisars already has the lease and there is nothing to be done about it.”

Anne was sulky. Nobody cared for her, she said. She was thrust aside . . . of no importance. Other people . . . the Villiers family . . . came before her.

“I wonder
you
allow this,” she said to me.

There was a faint smile about her lips. What did Sarah Churchill say to her during their cozy chats? They would talk of the meek Queen who submitted to her husband's tyranny and even accepted his infidelity without complaint. They knew full well how many other queens had done this. Anne had the example of our own father and uncle. I could imagine Sarah saying, that was different. Their husbands had at least treated them with courtesy. They did not behave like Dutch boors; and those queens were not queens regnant married to a king who was so only because of his wife's good graces toward him.

And so the rift between myself and my sister widened, and there was a new cause for it. This time it was money.

When we had arrived in England, Anne had been receiving an annuity of £30,000 a year as a marriage settlement; and when the Duke of Gloucester had been born Anne had asked for this sum to be raised to £70,000. Nothing had come of that.

Now, to our amazement, the question had been raised in Parliament. This could only have happened if Anne and her friends—whom I suspected were the Marlboroughs—had instigated this.

When I saw Anne, I could not help showing my disapproval.

“How could you do such a thing?” I demanded. “To go behind our backs and have this matter raised in Parliament. Do you know what demands are made on state funds? Do you know that there is a war threatening in Ireland? And you can behave in this underhand way . . . bringing the matter to Parliament!”

Anne blinked at me, looking helpless and maltreated.

“I am in debt,” she said. “I must be able to live. If I cannot have some money I shall have to retire into private life. I cannot go on.”

“Anne,” I cried. “You are being foolish. You have been persuaded to this and I know by whom. It is Sarah Churchill, is it not? Trust that woman to make mischief!”

“It is my own need which forces me. I am treated with unkindness, as though I am of no importance.”

“Tell me when the King or I have ever been unkind to you.”

She muttered that she could think of one occasion. It was just before the birth of little William and she had had a great fancy for green peas. It was early in the season and there was only a small dish on the table. Oh, how she had wanted those green peas! It was due to her pregnancy, of course. Women had such fancies at these times. And what had William done? He had taken the dish of peas to himself and eaten them all under her eyes!

I could have shaken her. She was so foolish at times. All the same, there was a certain cupidity in her eyes and when she remembered that she was the Princess and in line to the throne, she could play the autocrat.

Now she repeated that she could not afford to live in her present state if she did not have more money.

I looked at her steadily. I had more than once been reminded of that obstinate streak in her nature. I shall never forget an incident in our youth when we were walking together in Richmond Park and she saw an object in the distance and said: “There is a man over there.”

She was shortsighted, as we all knew, and sometimes mistook one object for another. I said to her: “No, sister, that is not a man. It is a tree.”

In her stubborn way she insisted that it was a man and when we were so close that even she could see clearly that it was a tree, she insisted, “It is a man. I still say it is a man.”

I thought of that now as I saw the same obstinacy in her face.

She said: “My friends are determined to make me a settlement.”

Anger rose in me. “Pray tell me, what friends you have but the King and me.”

I was so annoyed with her that I walked out of the room and left her.

It was the biggest rift that there had been between us and I knew we should never be the same to each other again.

The outcome was a compromise about the money. She was to have £50,000 a year, and William would pay her debts.

I was very unhappy at this time. My father was constantly in my thoughts. I was upset by the rift with Anne; William was very occupied and I saw little of him. Nothing seemed as we had hoped.

We had come to England at the invitation of the people—or some of them who wanted to be rid of my father—and although they welcomed me with affection, they did not like William. It was impossible to stop certain Dutch customs creeping in and the English did not like them. There was also resentment against Dutch in high places. William was never affable in company, although it was said that he could be talkative with his Dutch friends, with whom he sat sometimes in the evenings drinking their native schnapps.

On one occasion William said to me: “I do not understand these people. I would as leif be back in Holland. Perhaps I should return and leave you to govern.”

I was horrified at the thought and would have been more so had I believed that he meant it. He would never leave. Now he was disillusioned and weary. Possession of the three crowns was not what he had thought it would be. But what in life ever is?

I was very unsettled during that time. Constant anxiety about my father, eagerness to please William, being aware of his restlessness and dissatisfaction, made me reckless for a while.

The years of seclusion in Holland had had a deep effect on me. I wanted to be with people all the time. I needed lively conversation; I wanted to share in everything that was going on. I was like a person who had been abstemious too long and suddenly becomes intoxicated.

I needed gaiety as I never had before; I had publicly turned from my father while, inwardly, I yearned to be as we had been before; I wanted to be back in those days when the court had been merry and the King sauntered in the park with his friends about him and people watched him and laughed and felt that life was good.

They watched us now. They saw ladies in the Dutch costume, prim enough to make the onlookers smirk. They called the avenue at Hampton Court the Frow Walk. How the passing of a king could change the ways of a nation!

Perhaps I acted foolishly. I wanted life around me. I went to the theater. The King and Queen cannot go to the theater and no one know. I chose to see Dryden's
Spanish Friar.
It had been a favorite of my uncle Charles, but too late I remembered that my father had banned it because it was not complimentary to the Church of Rome. It was a most unfortunate choice, for it was easy to compare what was happening in the play with our own story.

Everyone knew I was anxious about events in Ireland, that some of our soldiers were there and being harried by my father's supporters. There was a tense silence when the Queen of Aragon, who had usurped the throne, was on her way to church to ask God's blessing for the army which was marching against the King.

All eyes were turned on me and I was very uncomfortable, being watched throughout the performance.

Before I went to the theater again, I would read the play which was to be performed.

It hurt me that some people thought I rejoiced in my father's downfall. How I wished I could explain how I really felt!

In my search for excitement, I visited the Indian Houses which were fashionable shops and which had recently come into being. They were full of unusual and amusing merchandise and the ladies of the court often visited them. I did not know at this time that they were also used for arranging assignations—a practice which had grown up during my uncle's reign.

The women who managed them were worldly wise and the best known among them was a Mrs. Graden, who, in addition to her other business, sold some fine ribands and all sorts of fascinating items for a lady's wardrobe.

I went with some of my ladies and had a most amusing time. Mrs. Graden was so overcome by the honor of a visit from the Queen that she insisted on giving us refreshment.

Others in the same profession were a little piqued by the attention given to Mrs. Graden and perforce I must visit the other shops and buy goods from them. I remembered how Mary Beatrice had been attracted by the Indian shops and had visited them several times.