The Girls' Book of Famous Queens

by Lydia Hoyt Farmer

James II. having been deposed, William and Mary of Orange ascended the throne of England, and William is to be commended for several wise measures, and England was much the gainer by her change of masters; but his usurpation, which is called in history the “Revolution,” is somewhat to be questioned upon the grounds of justice. That it was highly beneficial no Protestant can for a moment doubt; that the change of government caused by the celebrated act of Parliament called the “Bill of Rights,” which raised William and Mary to the throne, to be succeeded by the Princess Anne, and in case Anne died without heirs, that the right should then descend to the Electress of Hanover, which succession afterwards brought in the Protestant Georges of Hanover in place of the Catholic House of Stuarts,—that a revolution which caused this change of government was beneficial to England and the world, is not to be underestimated. This extraordinary but bloodless revolution occurred in 1688, just one hundred years before the bloody and terrible French Revolution of 1789. But leaving political questions and turning to the personal history of the Princess Anne, we find her engaged in an ignoble squabble with her sister, the Queen Mary, over the allowance which shall be allotted to the maintenance of the household of the Princess Anne. The princess had schemed with her sister Mary and the Prince of Orange to dethrone their father; and now that Mary is queen, Anne finds her allowance given by her indulgent father cut off, and in being treacherous to her father she has only worsted her own condition. So disgraceful was this sisterly quarrel, augmented by the haughty Lady Churchill (now the Countess of Marlborough), who fomented the disputes between the sisters, that at last the king and queen were forced to make a compromise with Anne, and allow the princess £50,000 a year. As Lord and Lady Marlborough were known to be enthusiastic partisans of Anne, they fell under the displeasure of King William and Queen Mary, who demanded that Anne should banish them from her household, and the Earl of Marlborough was deprived of his offices. But this opposition only increased the power of Lord and Lady Marlborough over the princess, and she strenuously refused to part with her overbearing favorite.

The lord chamberlain having been sent to Lady Marlborough with the royal order to remove from Whitehall, Anne immediately left Whitehall herself, declaring that she “would live on bread and water, between four walls, with her dear Mrs. Freeman, rather than that her friend should ever be separated from her faithful Mrs. Morley.” These assumed names of Freeman and Morley had been chosen by the Princess Anne and Lady Marlborough that they might converse and write to each other with greater freedom from conventional restraints; and their respective husbands were also called by them, the Lord Marlborough, Mr. Freeman, and the Duke of Denmark, Mr. Morley; and many were the political intrigues, as well as friendly secrets, which they disclosed to each other under these false names. These confidential letters became a powerful weapon in the hands of the proud Lady Marlborough in after-years, for when she found her influence over Queen Anne was waning, and another was usurping her place as royal favorite, the arrogant Lady Marlborough threatened to publish these secret epistles, which would reveal all of Anne’s treachery against her father and various other political intrigues. The fear of this exposure made Anne a puppet in the hands of the self-willed but brilliant duchess long after Anne’s intense liking had turned to intense detestation.

The death of Queen Mary in 1694 somewhat changed Anne’s position. When Anne heard of her sister’s dangerous illness, she sent a request that she might be allowed to come and see her; but their quarrels had never been forgotten, and though Mary refused to see Anne, she sent a message of forgiveness.

Anne now succeeded in becoming reconciled to King William, and she received the greater part of her sister’s jewels, in token of his friendliness.

Of many children Anne had only one son remaining. He was a very bright and interesting boy of eleven years of age. He had been treated with great kindness by King William and Queen Mary, even throughout the disgraceful family quarrels. But this beautiful boy, around whom so many fond hopes clustered, died suddenly with scarlet fever in 1700, having just celebrated his eleventh birthday. The loss of this only child, the last of six, was a terrible blow to the fond heart of the Princess Anne. But she was soon called from private griefs to public duties.

In 1702 King William died, and Anne was immediately proclaimed queen.

“In the commencement of the reign of Anne, the Earl of Marlborough was a Tory; but his wife became a Whig, and, as a natural consequence, Marlborough was soon drawn over to that party. Admiral Churchill, his brother, was a violent Tory; Lord Sunderland, his son-in-law, was a violent Whig; Lady Tyrconnel, the sister of Lady Marlborough, was an enthusiastic Jacobite, and was at this time one of the court of the exiled king. This one instance will give some idea of the manner in which not only the nation but private families were divided by the spirit of faction.

“A continued series of disputes and intrigues agitated the country; and among several minor events was the trial of Dr. Sacheverel for preaching a seditious sermon, a circumstance unimportant in itself, but which was made to serve the purposes of a faction, and to inflame the populace almost to frenzy. Never, perhaps, did party spirit rage in a manner at once so disgraceful, so vicious, and so ludicrous. It was not the strife of principles; it was not, like the civil wars of the preceding century, a grand struggle between liberty and despotism,—it was a vile spirit of faction, which had filled the nation with spleen and rancor, and extinguished the seeds of good-nature, compassion, and humanity; which had affected at once the morals and the common sense of the people; and even interfered with the administration of justice.

“The women, instead of tempering the animosities of the time, blew up the flame of discord. Addison, in some of the most elegant papers of the ‘Spectator,’ attempted to mitigate this evil spirit. He attacked the men with grave humor and graver argument; he endeavored to bring back the women to the decorum and reserve of their sex by the most exquisite raillery, that delicate mixture of satire and compliment in which he excelled; he reminded these petticoat politicians and viragoes of the tea-table that party spirit was in its nature a male vice, made up of many angry passions, which were altogether repugnant to the softness, modesty, and other endearing qualities proper to their sex.

“He assured them there was nothing so injurious to a pretty face as party zeal; that he had never known a party woman who kept her beauty for a twelve-month; and he conjured them, as they valued their complexions, to abstain from all disputes of this nature. Every one will recollect the admirable description of the Whig ladies and the Tory ladies drawn up in battle array at the opera, and patched, by way of distinction, on opposite sides of the face; the perplexity of the Whig beauty, who had a mole on the Tory side of her forehead, which exposed her to the imputation of having gone over to the enemy; and the despair of the Tory partisan, whom an unlucky pimple had reduced to the necessity of applying a patch to the wrong side of her face.