“I have been thinking,” said the Duchess, “whilst I sat there, that if your Majesty came to the Castle at Windsor, where I heard you were soon expected, it would not be easy to see me in public now, I am afraid. I will therefore take care to avoid being at the Lodge at the same time, to prevent any unreasonable clamour or stories that might originate in my being so near your Majesty without waiting on you.”
“Oh,” said the Queen, promptly, “you may come to me at the Castle: it will not make me uneasy.”
The Duchess, however, still persevered. “I then appealed to her Majesty again, if she did not herself know, &c. And whether she did not know me to be of a temper incapable of, &c.”
“You desired no answer, and you shall have none.”
Finding Anne thus inflexible, the Duchess rose up in a towering rage at having vainly humiliated herself, and gave vent to her passion in a storm of recrimination.
“This usage,” concludes the Duchess, “was so severe, and these words, so often repeated, were so shocking, &c., that I could not conquer myself, but said the most disrespectful thing I ever spoke to the Queen in my life; and that was, that I was confident her Majesty would suffer for such an instance of inhumanity.”
She quitted the presence, in fact, exclaiming, “God will punish you, Madam, for your inhumanity.”
“That only concerns myself,” drily answered the Queen.
“And thus ended,” says the Duchess, “this remarkable conversation, the last I ever had with her Majesty.” (April 6th, 1710.)
Such, too, was the end of a thirty years’ friendship, and the last interview between Anne and her once-cherished favourite.[49] The Duchess remained in the household for a short time afterwards, but never saw her royal mistress save on public occasions; and from that day the Queen never spoke to her again.