On her accession to the throne, the succession (failing her issue) was unsettled, and most anxious was the whole nation that she should yet be the mother of their future sovereign. In 'The form of prayer with thanksgiving to Almighty God to be used in all churches and chapels within this realm, every year upon the eighth day of March (being the day upon which Her Majesty began her happy reign),' in the prayer at the Communion service, immediately before the reading of the epistle, 'for the Queen as supreme Governor of this Church,' was the following petition: 'And that these Blessings may be continued to after Ages, make the Queen, we pray thee, an happy Mother of Children, who being Educated in Thy true Faith and Fear may happily succeed Her in the Government of these Kingdoms.' Her husband, Prince George, died October 28, 1708; and it was not until January 13 of the next year, that the Council struck out this portion of the service, some one evidently remembering that the 8th of March was approaching. On January 28, 1709, both Houses of Parliament petitioned Her Majesty to marry again; but her wounds were too recent and too sore. She replied that the provision she had made for the Protestant succession would always be a proof of her hearty concern for the happiness of the nation; but that the subject of their address was of such a nature that she was persuaded they did not expect a particular answer.[2]
Ignorantly as the little Duke of Gloucester was treated, what was the condition of ordinary babies? Let a contemporary tell the tale. Steele,[3] writing as if his familiar Pacolet was speaking, and giving an experience of his sensations, says: 'The first thing that ever struck my senses was a noise over my head of one shrieking; after which, methought I took a full jump, and found myself in the hands of a sorceress, who seemed as if she had been long waking, and employed in some incantation. I was thoroughly frightened, and cried out; but she immediately seemed to go on in some magical operation, and anointed me from head to foot. What they meant I could not imagine: for there gathered a great crowd about me, crying, "An heir! an heir!" upon which I grew a little still, and believed this was a ceremony only to be used to great persons, and such as made them what they called heirs.
'I lay very quiet, but the witch, for no manner of reason or provocation in the world, takes me, and binds my head as hard as possibly she could; then ties up both my legs, and makes me swallow down an horrid mixture. I thought it an harsh entrance into life, to begin with taking physic; but I was forced to it, or else must have taken down a great instrument in which she gave it to me. When I was thus dressed, I was carried to a bedside, where a fine young lady (my mother, I wot) had liked to have hugged me to death. From her they faced me about, and there was a thing with quite another look from the rest of the company, to whom they talked about my nose. He seemed wonderfully pleased to see me; but I know since, my nose belonged to another family.
'That into which I was born is one of the most numerous among you; therefore crowds of relations came every day to congratulate my arrival; amongst others, my cousin Betty, the greatest romp in nature; she whisks me such a height over her head, that I cried out for fear of falling. She pinched me and called me squealing chit, and threw me into a girl's arms that was taken in to tend me. The girl was very proud of the womanly employment of a nurse, and took upon her to strip and dress me anew, because I made a noise, to see what ailed me; she did so, and stuck a pin in every joint about me. I still cried; upon which she lays me on my face in her lap; and to quiet me, fell to a-nailing in all the pins, by clapping me on the back, and screaming a lullaby. But my pain made me exalt my voice above hers, which brought up the nurse, the witch I first saw, and my grandmother. The girl is turned downstairs, and I stripped again, as well to find what ailed me as to satisfy my granam's farther curiosity. This good woman's visit was the cause of all my troubles. You are to understand that I was hitherto bred by hand, and anybody that stood next me gave me pap if I did but open my lips; insomuch, that I was grown so cunning as to pretend myself asleep when I was not, to prevent my being crammed.
'But my grandmother began a loud lecture upon the idleness of this age, who, for fear of their shapes, forbear suckling their own offspring; and ten nurses were immediately sent for; one was whispered to have a wanton eye, and would soon spoil her milk; another was in a consumption; the third had an ill voice, and would frighten me instead of lulling me to sleep. Such exceptions were made against all but one country milch-wench, to whom I was committed and put to the breast. This careless jade was perpetually romping with the footman, and downright starved me; insomuch that I daily pined away, and should never have been relieved had it not been that on the thirtieth day of my life a Fellow of the Royal Society,[4] who had writ upon "Cold Baths," came to visit me, and solemnly protested I was utterly lost for want of that method; upon which he soused me head and ears into a pail of water, where I had the good fortune to be drowned.'
After its birth the babe was soon baptized, but there does not seem to have been a great social fuss made about the event. That most entertaining and observant traveller Henri Misson, who visited England at the very close of the seventeenth century, and whose book was translated into English in 1719,[5] says, 'The custom here is not to make great feasts at the birth of their children. They drink a glass of wine and eat a bit of a certain cake, which is seldom made but upon these occasions.'
Ward,[6] however, has left us a humorous description of a private christening. He was asked by a relation to stand Godfather to his newborn Child, and 'I, wanting ill-Nature enough to resist his Importunities, submitted to his Requests; and engag'd for once to stand as a Tom Doodle for an hour or two, to be banter'd by a Tittle-Tattle Assembly of Female Gossips. The time appointed for the Solemnisation of this Ancient piece of Formality being come, after I had put on a clean Band, and bestow'd Two Penniworth of Razorridge on the most Fertile part of my Face, whose Septuary Crop requir'd Mowing, away I Trotted towards the Joyful Habitation of my Friend and Kinsman, but with as aking a Heart as a Wise Man goes to be Married, or a Broken Merchant comes near the Counter.... As soon as we came into the Room, and had bow'd our Backs to the old Cluster of Harridans, and they in return had bent their knees to us, I sneak'd up to the Parson's Elbow, and my Partner after me ... whilst Old Mother Grope stood rocking of the Bantling in her Arms, wrap'd up in so Rich a Mantle as if both Indias had club'd their utmost Riches to furnish out a Noble covering for my little Kinsman, who came as callow into the world as a Bird out of an Eggshell.
'At last the Babe was put into my hands to deliver, tho' not as my Act and Deed, to the Parson, who having consecrated some New River water for his purpose, wash'd away Original Sin from my new Nephew, and brought him amongst us Christians into a state of Salvation. But when my froward Godson felt the Cold Water in his face, he threaten'd the Priest with such a parcel of Angry Looks, that if he had been strong enough I dare swear he would have serv'd him the same Sauce, and under the same Ignorance would have return'd him but little thanks for his Labour. After we had joined together in a Petition for the good of the infant Christian, the Religious part was concluded.... As soon as the Parson had refreshed his Spirits with a bumper of Canary, dedicated to the Mother; and the Clerk had said Amen to his Master's good Wishes, after the like manner, each of 'em accepted of a Paper of Sweetmeats for his Wife or his Children, and away they went, leaving the Company behind.' They then seem to have drunk a full quantity of wine, and the women having eaten, drank, and gossiped sufficiently, were each presented with 'a Service of Sweetmeats, which every Gossip carried away in her Handkerchief.... Having now struggled through every difficult part of these Accustomary Formalities, I had nothing to do but to Thank them for our Liberal Entertainment, Wish the Women well again, and both much Happiness in their Male Offspring, and so take my Leave, which I did accordingly; and was as greatly overjoyed when I got out of the House as ever Convict was that had broke Gaol or Detected Pick Pocket that had Escaped a Horse Pond.'
Having launched our baby thus far in life, we will see how he was treated when suffering from any of the numerous ailments which infancy is subject to. The marvel is that so many grew up. It was eminently 'the survival of the fittest.' Sanitary arrangements were extremely rudimentary; little care being taken either as to the purity of the water supply, or the efficiency of drainage. Fever was always in their midst, and, neither inoculation nor vaccination being known, or practised, smallpox was rampant, and spared no class, from the Queen (Mary) to the beggar. Was the child fretful, there was that cordial dear to old nurses of the Gamp school—Daffy's Elixir. This remedy, which has survived as a popular nostrum to our own time, was not new in Queen Anne's reign. It must even then have been a profitable property, for rivals could afford to quarrel over it, as the following advertisements show:—
'DAFFY'S FAMOUS ELIXIR SALUTIS,[7]
PREPARED BY KATHARINE DAFFY.