[146]. Macpherson’s “Original Papers.”
[147]. “A French Ambassador at the Court of Charles II. (Comte de Cominges).” Jusserand.
Bishop Burnet, who evidently held her in great respect, and usually extols her, says: “She soon understood what belonged to a Princess, and took state upon her rather too much.”[[148]]
[148]. Burnet’s “History of My Own Time.”
We have to piece together these stray scraps of evidence in the best manner possible, and in so doing come to the conclusion that Anne, on finding herself publicly acknowledged Duchess of York, and wife of the heir presumptive to the Crown, also found that she had set her foot on the first steps of a difficult and stony road, and that possibly she conceived her only chance in such a position was to assume and maintain a defensive attitude. A perpetual uneasy consciousness of her hardly acquired rank made her afraid of stepping for one moment off the pedestal to which she had been raised, and this of itself would serve to make her unpopular. It must be remembered also that the society which surrounded her, reckless, wild, unscrupulous as it was, was yet one which guarded jealously the traditions of high rank and lofty descent, and in the fervour of the Restoration was inclined to resent hotly the intrusion of a parvenue into the narrow circle of the blood royal of England and was only too ready to find fault whenever a loophole could be given. Poor Anne, it is to be feared, afforded many such.
Perhaps it may be as well to discuss in this place the vexed question of her personal appearance. On 20th April of this year 1661, Pepys writes acidly: “Saw the King and Duke of York and his Duchess, which is a plain woman, and like her mother my Lady Chancellor.”
In fact, if nearly all the pictures of her which exist may be trusted, they certainly dispose of Anne’s pretensions to beauty. They represent for the most part a large, heavy looking woman, with an abnormally wide mouth; and we know from contemporary evidence that she became very fat early in life.
It is true that Sir John Reresby, who is never ill natured, generously calls her “a very handsome woman,”[[149]] but only one other chronicler, Granger, in his Biographical History, ventures on such an opinion. Bronconi, in his Journal, declares without circumlocution: “La Duchesse de York est fort laide, la bouche extraordinairement fendue, et les yeux fort craillez, mais très courtoise.” The famous Grammont, a professed critic of beauty, alluding to the marriage, says: “The bride was no perfect beauty,” and elsewhere sums up the case judicially:
[149]. “Memoirs of Sir John Reresby,” 1764.
“She had a majestic mien, a pretty good shape, not much beauty, a great deal of wit [this Reresby and others endorse] and so just a discernment of merit that whoever of either sex were possessed of it were sure to be distinguished by her, an air of grandeur in all her actions made her to be considered as if born to support the rank which placed her so near the throne.”[[150]]