Meeting with no opposition, he marched four miles into Devonshire, followed by his entire force. The prince knew what a risk he was taking, and waited with breathless anxiety to see how many of the west of England people would flock to his standard.
He published a declaration that the Prince of Wales was not the real child of James II.; but that a strange baby had been adopted to impose on the British nation, who was to rule them as a Roman Catholic. This was done to prevent the country from educating the prince according to the doctrines of the Church of England, which would probably have established his succession. Of course a child upon whose birth any doubt was cast could never rule as a Catholic, nor be educated by the state for any purpose; therefore the daughters of James II. pretended to believe the falsehood, knowing that in the event of the prince's accession they would stand no chance of ever wearing the crown.
News arrived in London that Lord Cornbury, eldest son of the Earl of Clarendon, had deserted the king's army with three regiments, and gone over to the enemy. Clarendon was overcome with grief and shame at such conduct on the part of one of his flesh and blood. When Princess Anne saw him she asked why he had not been to see her for several days. He replied, "that he was so much concerned for the villany his son had committed that he was ashamed of being seen anywhere."
"Oh," replied the princess, "people are so apprehensive of popery that you will find many more of the army will do the same."
And she was right; for desertions became of daily occurrence, and King James was surrounded by traitors on all sides. Anne knew of Lord Cornbury's intended desertion, and was anxiously awaiting news from her husband, who, with a display of affection and sincerity, had gone off with her father to assist in defending him against the Prince of Orange. Lord Churchill and Sir George Hewett were with the king also; and these two were concerned in a plot against the life of their sovereign, which the latter confessed on his deathbed some years later.
Every time the king heard that one of his officers had gone over to the enemy, Prince George of Denmark would raise his eyes and hands with affected surprise, and exclaim, "Is it possible!" At last, after supping with the king and speaking in terms of abhorrence of all deserters, the prince, Churchill, and Hewett, taking advantage of an attack of illness that had suddenly seized their sovereign, went off in the night to the hostile camp. When informed of it, James exclaimed: "How? Has 'Is It Possible' gone off, too?" Yet this departure was a cruel blow to the father, who said: "After all, I only mind his conduct as connected with my child; otherwise the loss of a stout trooper would have been greater."
In expectation of her husband's desertion, Anne had made arrangements for her own flight; and no sooner did the news reach her that he had gone than she followed. It was Sunday night, and the princess retired to her room at the usual hour. Mrs. Danvers, the lady-in-waiting, was not in the secret, and went to bed as usual in the ante-chamber. Ladies Fitzharding and Churchill had entered Princess Anne's room early in the evening, and hidden themselves by agreement in her dressing-room. At midnight, accompanied by these two women, the princess stole out of the palace, and met Lord Dorset in St. James's Park. A coach stood in waiting a little distance off; but the rain poured in torrents, and the mud was so deep that Anne lost one of her shoes in a puddle, from which there was neither time nor inclination to extricate it. This little accident was treated as a joke by the adventurers, who laughed heartily, while Lord Dorset gallantly stuck the princess's foot into one of the kid gauntlets he had pulled off; and assisted her to hop forward to the carriage. The party drove to the Bishop of London's house, where they were refreshed and the princess supplied with shoes, and started by daybreak for Lord Dorset's castle in Waltham Forest.
After a few hours' rest they proceeded to Nottingham, where the Earl of Northampton, attired in military uniform, raised a purple standard in the name of the laws and liberties of England, and invited the people to gather around the Protestant heiress to the throne. Afterwards Anne went on to Warwick, where there was a project on foot for the extermination of all the papists in England. Although the princess knew that her father's head would be the first to fall should such a plan be carried into effect, she was so unnatural as to favor it.
A tremendous uproar was raised when Anne's women-in-waiting entered her room the morning after her flight and found her bed undisturbed and the princess herself missing. Before many minutes the whole court was aroused with the lamentations of the people, who declared that the princess had been murdered by the queen's priests. The storm rose to such a height that a mob collected in the street and swore that the palace should be pulled down, and Mary Beatrice pulled to pieces if Anne were not forthcoming. No doubt the threat would have been put into execution had it not been for the discovery of a letter which the missing princess had left lying on her toilet-table, stating that she had gone off to avoid the king's displeasure on account of her husband's desertion; and that she should remain away until a reconciliation had been effected. "Never was any one," she wrote, "in such an unhappy condition, so divided between duty to a father and a husband; and therefore I know not what I must do but to follow one to preserve the other." This would be all very well if she had been dutiful to her father; but as she had only one week before informed Orange by letter that her husband would soon be with him, ready to serve his cause to the utmost, we can only feel intense disgust at such deception