So things were, but before the year had ended death was to lay once more effacing fingers on discord and bitterness.
The Princess Royal, who had come, as we have seen, to rejoice with one brother on his long delayed Restoration, to resent hotly the other’s unwelcome marriage, was seized like Henry of Gloucester with smallpox on the 18th December.
It has been hinted that she was a party to Berkeley’s plot, though, in view of her character, this is very unlikely; and it is also said that on her uneasy deathbed in the grip of that ghastly and relentless pestilence, she declared herself repentant of the part she had taken against her brother’s wife and her own quondam maid of honour.[[136]]
[136]. “Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia.” M. A. Green, revised by S. C. Lomas.
Be that as it may, Mary Stuart passed away at Somerset House on Christmas Eve 1660, just three months after her youngest brother.[[137]]
[137]. Madame—Julia Cartwright (Mrs Ady).
On the 29th December her body was brought by torchlight to Westminster Abbey, and laid in the Stuart vault by that of Gloucester, her brother James again officiating as chief mourner. On this occasion one can only contemplate with amazement what appears the entire callousness of the queen-mother. Whether her anger at the marriage of the Duke of York occupied her mind to the exclusion of all natural affection, it is hard to say, but there is no record of any great grief on her part for poor young Gloucester’s untimely end, and she certainly showed extraordinary indifference with regard to her elder daughter, according to most chroniclers; though one account certainly does credit her with the wish to remain with her till forbidden by the doctors. In terror for her youngest, the mother fled from Somerset House when the sickness declared itself, and betook herself with the Princess Henrietta to St James’s, leaving Mary to her fate. But it is to be remarked, that from the time her youngest child was restored to her by Lady Dalkeith after their escape, the Queen concentrated all the force of her affection on her. Possibly the fact of her being allowed to bring her up in her own religion undisturbed may have had something to do with it, but the fact remains that for the last few years of her life she showed comparatively little affection for her other children.
One of Mary’s oldest attendants was destined to make her home in England. The minister Van der Kirckhove Heenvliet died in March of this year, and his widow, Lady Stanhope, to whom Charles II. allowed the title of Lady Chesterfield, to which her first husband would have succeeded, married as her third husband the adventurous Daniel O’Neill of whom mention has already been made.[[138]]
[138]. Lady Chesterfield was with the Princess at her death. (“Lives of the Princesses of England,” M. A. Everett-Green.)
“The Tower of London,” Richard Davey. Daniel O’Neill had been imprisoned in the Tower in 1643, but escaped and reached Holland in safety.