[Original]
But so secretly were his preparations and departure made that he was supposed to be shut up in his own room until late on the following clay. It was the prince who furnished him with money for the rash invasion of England which resulted in his execution. The details of his bold exploit are given in the last reign.
After James was firmly seated on the throne, it would never do tor the Prince of Orange to appear in the light of an enemy, so he had to change his tactics forthwith. He pretended that the affectionate letters to his wife from her father were addressed to himself, and read them aloud to the ambassadors. To the king he wrote in the most humble terms, promising fidelity till death, and explaining that Monmouth had received only common hospitality at his hands, and been sent away-from the Hague as soon as possible.
Certainly James II. regretted the necessity which compelled him to put Monmouth to death, but Princess Mary had formed such an attachment for him that she never forgave her father for causing that execution.
A.D. 1686. During the following spring a plot against the life of Prince William was revealed to the princess, and she became so alarmed that she obtained for him a bodyguard, which had not previously been considered at all necessary.
Then William Penn was sent by James II. to convince the prince that all laws tending to religious persecutions ought to be abolished; but his errand was a failure, because the prince declared "that he would lose all the revenues and prospects of the kingdom of Great Britain, to which his wife was heiress, before one should be abolished." And the princess indorsed this decision, adding: "That if ever she were Queen of England she should do more for the Protestants than even Queen Elizabeth had done."
Penn spoke so plainly to the princess, and expressed his opinion so freely, that she disliked him forever after.
A.D. 1688. The Prince and Princess of Orange had their spies in England, who kept them daily informed of every change in the political drama. Of these Lord and Lady Sunderland were the principal agents, and as this lord was prime minister he had special facilities for gaining knowledge. Another was the Princess Anne whose letters were remarkable for coarseness, vulgarity, and bad spelling. As she did not know of the bond existing between Lady Sunderland and her sister Mary, she sometimes filled her letters with abuse of that person, on whom she did not hesitate to bestow some very hard epithets. Her remarks must often have amused both William and Mary, who were better aware of what was going on in Great Britain than she was, although they were not on the spot. One of Anne's letters closes with this sentence: "One thing I forgot to tell you about Lord Sunderland, which is that it is thought if everything does not go here as he would have it, that he will pick a quarrel with the court and so retire, and possibly make his court to you."
This shows that the princess little suspected Lord Sunderland of already being in the service of William. She had reasons of her own for trying to create ill-feeling between Mary and her father; and once when the princess had hinted at the possibility of her visiting England, Anne warned her in rather vague terms that her life might be in danger were she to present herself at her father's court.
If Mary had considered how kind and indulgent that father had always been to his children, she would have insisted on an explanation; but the correspondence between these two sisters was interrupted for awhile by Anne's illness. The king watched by her bedside until she was past danger, and nursed her with the most tender care. What would have been his feelings, could he have known the treachery of the invalid at whose side he sat hour after hour, anxiously awaiting the result of her disease?