Royal Sisters: The Story of the Daughters of James II - Plaidy

When the boy announced that there was to be a grand field day in Kensington Gardens and invited the King and Queen to attend, William’s mouth turned up at the corners and he said to Mary: “It is an invitation we must accept.”

Mary was delighted. “Such a droll creature he is, William. He is most unusual. I never knew such a boy. If only his health would improve we should all be so much happier.”

“He certainly does not resemble his father or mother.”

“He is not in the least like them.”

“If he were, I for one would not wish to see him.”

“I think you must have been rather like him when you were a boy, William. He is so bright and so interested in his soldiers. To see him drilling them is better than a play.”

William grunted and they set out together for the gardens where Gloucester had his troops lined up in readiness.

Gloucester saluted the King and Queen and conducted them to the grand stand with their attendants.

“Such guards you have!” he commented. “Once my Mamma had Guards. Why does she not have them now?”

There was a brief silence. The boy certainly had a habit of firing awkward questions. Then the Queen said quickly. “I am always rather pleased to escape from guards and formality. Tell me are you going to fire the cannon?”

Gloucester was thoughtful for a second or so which Mary knew meant he was making a mental note of her answer. He would probably want to know later why she did not wish to discuss his mother’s lack of guards.

He turned to William. “Have I the King’s permission to fire the cannon?”

“It is readily granted,” answered William, and Mary was happy again.

“I hope the King will inspect my troops,” said Gloucester. “I have assured them that this would be a great honor.”

To Mary’s delight William expressed his willingness to inspect the troops and he carried out the performance as gravely as though it were a real military display.

Gloucester walked with the King through the ranks of boys who stood at attention, toy muskets on their shoulders, wooden swords at their sides. An incongruous sight, some might think—the boy with his enormous head and little legs which hardly seemed strong enough to carry him so that he gave the impression of tottering, and William stooping forward, his great periwig overbalancing his body. They might have been father and son, thought Mary; and how wonderful it would have been if they were.

The cannons were then fired; there were four of them but the fourth had gone wrong and only three of them worked. Gloucester was very downcast about this. “That this should happen on the field day when the King is inspecting my troops!” he moaned. “Oh, be doleful!”

William replied that he would send a cannon to replace that which had failed to work and Gloucester was mollified.

“My dear King,” he said, “you shall have both my companies with myself to serve you in Flanders.”

William gravely thanked him and watching them Mary almost wept with joy, for never would she have believed William capable of such make-believe.

She said to herself then: This is one of the happiest moments of my life.

In May William prepared to leave for Flanders and Mary decided to accompany him as far as Canterbury.

As the weather was impossible for William to cross the Channel they decided to stay for a while in Canterbury and Mary was glad of these few days’ respite.

She felt there was little to look forward to but these separations which meant long periods of anxiety for her when she must shoulder the burden of sovereignty alone. That she was admired and respected by her ministers was some comfort; and she had Shrewsbury to lean on. But her relationship with him was a little uneasy for she could not be unmoved in his presence and somewhere at the back of her mind was a thought which she refused to consider. There was a man whom she could have loved. It had been thus with Monmouth; and if she had loved one of them how different her life would have been from that which she shared with William.

She was thirty-three, which was not after all very old; yet she was weighed down with responsibilities; and it was disconcerting to remind herself that she had never had a lover.

These thoughts were suppressed before they had time to become complete. Fragments of disappointment and frustration were stifled by the ideals which demanded that she accept her union with William as the perfect marriage.

She fancied that he was turning to her more than he ever had before. Was he admiring the manner in which she ruled in his absence, and of which her ministers approved? In fact she believed they were glad to see William go, for they preferred to serve her. William was aware of this and it did not really please him. It was natural, she hastened to assure herself, for he was the man, he was the master; and he had always been afraid that he would be regarded merely as her consort.

But he was turning from Bentinck to Keppel; could it be that he was turning from Elizabeth Villiers to his wife?

He had been less irritable; he had treated her with more respect; he was forced to discuss state affairs with her; and he did like to walk, leaning on her arm, through the gardens of Kensington, talking of the plans for rebuilding which never seemed to be completed.

He seemed to have made up his mind that he could not win the affection of these alien people, and he made no attempt to do so.

When he had ridden through Canterbury only that day he had had an opportunity of pleasing the people. Knowing that he would be riding that way they had gathered the flowers from their gardens to dress up the High Street and some of the boys of the neighborhood had called “Long Live King William!” as his coach drove along; they had run beside it shouting loyal greetings.

And William, instead of bowing, smiling, and showing his pleasure, had scowled at them. “It is enough,” he said dryly.

They had fallen away from the coach, crestfallen then, but they would be sullen and resentful later.

What a King! Those boys could remember tales of royal progress. Good King Charles had always known how to please the people. What William did not seem to understand was that whenever his name was mentioned those boys would remember a sour face against a coach window grumbling: “It is enough!”

Soon afterward they went on to Margate and there she took yet another farewell of her husband.

A few weeks after William had left came news of the disastrous expedition against Brest when many lives were lost.

Sarah heard the news in silence. Another failure for William! She believed that she had had a hand in this for she had heard from John that the expedition was to take place and she had written of it to her sister Frances, Lady Tyrconnel, who was in France with James and his exiled Court. If the element of surprise had been removed, then it was hardly likely that the expedition should succeed.

Well, thought Sarah, I have no reason to be grateful to this King or Queen.

She felt an immense sense of power—which had deserted her lately—when she could convince herself that she had had a hand in this disaster.

Anne was becoming more and more boring; she was completely wrapped up in her son and this brought her and George closer together. As for Old Est-il possible? he was even more of a bore than his wife.

I shall go mad if something does not happen soon, thought Sarah.

William returned in November. The English received him sullenly. What sort of a King was this whose heart was clearly on the Continent. He had suffered many defeats, but he had inflicted great losses on the French and it was believed that they might be pleased to make peace.

William did not want peace. He was a soldier and his military skill had won him adulation abroad—if not in England. He had a greater interest in Holland than in England and chose Dutchmen for his friends.

He was more morose than ever on his return, having no time to be with Mary, nor to visit young Gloucester. He was brusque and showed no respect for his wife’s wishes. When her devoted friend John Tillotson, the Archbishop of Canterbury, died she had wanted to give the office to Dr. Stillingfleet who was most suited for it, but William had given it to Thomas Tenison, although previously it had been understood that she was to bestow such offices where she thought fit.

It was impossible to discuss anything with William. He became aloof and cold, or even sarcastic, when she tried to. So Mary shrugged the matter aside and accepted his rule.

But with the coming of the winter she was feeling depressed. Often she heard news of her sister’s household and she knew that slanderous stories about herself and William had their beginnings there; and although Sarah Churchill was her enemy, Anne was to blame for keeping her.

Information had reached William that the failure at Brest was partly due to betrayal on the part of the Marlboroughs, and he was furious, yet afraid; for the people chose to see in Anne a martyr and while she supported the Marlboroughs it was dangerous to attack them.

He summoned Marlborough and told him that he was deeply disturbed by what he believed had happened.

“Upon my honor,” cried Marlborough, “I never mentioned it but in confidence to my wife.”

“I never mention anything in confidence to mine,” murmured William.

“My wife must have mentioned it to her sister.”

William looked at him through narrowed eyes and thought of how he would have this man’s head … if he dared.

What a country! What was this crown worth? The men whom he would have chosen to have on his side, and Marlborough was one of them, were all against him. He was feeling weary and wished that he had allowed this ungrateful land to turn papist, to keep its King.

There were continual pinpricks, such as when the new coins were issued. The heads of William and Mary were to be engraved on these coins, and there had, in fact, been difficulty in getting them made because Philip Rotier, the artist who had worked for the crown, refused to do so for William and Mary, boldly stating that he did not consider them the true King and Queen. His son, Norbert, however, was less scrupulous and undertook the work.

When these were completed the head of William looked as though it belonged to a satyr. It was deliberate, and of the same pattern as the lampoons which were circulated daily. The people did not like Dutch William. They had not wanted papist James but they did not want William either. It was only Mary, he knew, who kept them on the throne. What he had always feared was, in a way, happening. It had been one of his nightmares that Mary would become Queen of England and he merely her consort. That had not happened; but again and again he was reminded that he was only accepted on her account.

The political situation was dangerous, and William was constantly at Whitehall. Mary who was suffering from a cold which she could not throw off, remained at Kensington to take advantage of the purer air. Occasionally William would come there; but when he did he would be working all the time and rarely stayed long before he was called back to business in Whitehall.

Mary was melancholy; she worried about William’s health for the spitting of blood had started again and his asthma was worse. She heard through the gossip of his pages that he drank a great deal—always Holland’s gin—when he was with his Dutch friends, and although he never showed signs of intoxication he became irritable. He was working too hard, planning new campaigns, and was never at rest.

One day when she was at her toilet the ruby fell out of the ring which he had put on her finger when he married her. Of all the splendid jewelry she possessed this ruby ring was the most precious to her. Often she would remember the occasion when he had placed it on her finger, the horror in her heart, the ready tears; and all because she was marrying William whom, she assured herself, she had come to love more than she had believed it was possible to love anyone.

“The ruby!” she cried as it dropped to the floor.

Her women were on their hands and knees searching for it, and one of them, finding it, held it up.

“Your Majesty will have it reset.”

She was trembling. “I do not like that,” she said.

“Your Majesty has had it for many years. Stones do drop out now and then.”

“I am afraid,” she said, “that it is an omen.”

“Your Majesty is tired,” soothed Lady Derby. “Will you allow me to take the ring and have the stone put in?”

Mary handed it to her, but she could not shake off her melancholy, and when the ring was returned to her she did not wear it. She wrote an account of how William had slipped it on her finger, how she had always treasured it beyond all other jewelry, and then how frightened she had been when the stone had fallen out.

She put it on her finger while she wrote. Then she thought: I shall never feel it is safe. I shall always be afraid of losing it now.

So she put it into a box with what she had written about it and locked the box.

That gave her a feeling of security; as though she had taken precaution against fate.

Mary had felt ill throughout the day; she had slept badly and in the morning was filled with such a sense of foreboding that she did not wait for her women to come to her. Instead she got up and examined her arms and shoulders. It was almost as though she had been expecting what she saw there. They were covered in a rash.

She went back to bed and lay there waiting.

There was one disease which all feared, for although some took it and survived, mostly it was fatal. If she were suffering from small pox she would have very little chance of recovery. She was only thirty-three, but she loved rich foods; her habit of drinking chocolate every night had made her put on a great deal of weight and she had heard that those whose blood was rich with a surfeit of food fared badly in the sickness.

When her women came to her she said: “Do not come too near me, but call Dr. Radcliffe.”

When Dr. Radcliffe came, he said she was suffering from the measles.

The news was quickly circulated that the Queen was sick.

At Berkeley House Sarah felt as though new life was being pumped into her. The Queen sick. Measles, they said. But was it? Doctors who wanted to cheer the patient and not spread alarm sometimes said “Measles” when they meant “Small pox.”

If it were small pox, she couldn’t survive. She was not strong enough. She was too fat; and moreover she had suffered recently from the ague. She hadn’t a chance.

The great moment might be at hand, for if she died, would the people keep William? And if they would not, it was Anne’s turn.

Sarah went to her mistress who was lying on her couch. She frowned at her. Anne herself was in a poor state; She had suffered in the last year so badly from gout and dropsy that she could scarcely walk and had to be carried everywhere. She was enormous, and the fact that she was once more pregnant made her look larger than ever and feel more indisposed.