[259]. “Adventures of King James II.,” by the author of “Life of Sir Kenelm Digby.”
It was in other respects a momentous year for the whole royal house in England, and that in a way to be presently described. An unexpected and sinister development was to change in some degree the aspect of things.
CHAPTER VIII
THE END
As one writes these two simple words “The End” across the heading of this final chapter, one is reminded to pause and reflect upon them.
The end—of what? Of a brief but splendid pageant—of a heavy burden of sorrow—of a life of resolute, indomitable pride?
Respice finem—Consider the end. Surely, of all who have attained to high places, or have longed after them, Anne Hyde should have taken for her own this motto, should have read and marked and inwardly digested it.
And yet, would it have availed anything? Does it ever avail?
When our eyes are dazzled by the light that for the moment seems all-pervading, they cannot see the shadows that lie beyond, nor would they even if they could.
Here, then, we look on at the removal of a figure, concrete enough in her own time and to her own contemporaries, but to us curiously elusive, even visionary. It is strange, because for one occupying the position she did for ten years of English history, Anne, Duchess of York, had left personally a very slight impression on that position. The place that knew her was so soon content to know her no more, the gap she left was so quickly filled.