To these observations may be added the rumours, stated by Lediard as facts, that six weeks before she left Whitehall, Anne had ordered a private staircase to be made, under pretext of a more convenient access to Lady Churchill’s apartments, but, in fact, to secure a mode of escape whenever her person or her liberty were in danger. The night before her Royal Highness withdrew, the Lord Chamberlain had orders to arrest the Ladies Churchill and Berkley, but, on the request of the Princess that he would defer executing those orders until after she had spoken to the Queen, he complied with her wishes. The Princess’s women, on entering her chamber the morning after her flight, were surprised to find their mistress fled; and the excitement of the people, on the suspicion of outrage to her, was so great, that they threatened to pull down Whitehall, unless the place of her retirement was instantly discovered.[[123]]

It cannot be disputed but that the Princess acted with a degree of pusillanimity which was a feature in her character, and throughout her subsequent life made her the victim of daring minds, of whose intrigues she was the slave, and at the same time, from her exalted station, the active principle. Anne knew her father too well to suppose, that whilst he retained the power to defend his daughter, he would suffer her to be treated with indignity, or allow violence to be done to her feelings as a wife, or to her opinions as a Protestant. The pretext that it was unsafe for her to remain, on account of the schemes which might be formed against her by the priests, was a needless alarm, and an ungenerous insinuation. If we are to conclude that Princes may discard natural feeling, and ties of duty, from their consideration, in times of difficulty, we may commend the prudence of Anne in absenting herself from a scene of distress wherein her father was the chief actor; we may excuse her from remaining to receive the deserted and degraded king, justly expiating grave offences by the bitterest mortifications, but stung most by the utter alienation of one daughter, and the heartless discretion of the other. But had Anne continued in London, had she waited to receive the dishonoured King, and, by kindly sympathy and filial affection which is of no party, endeavoured to soothe the pangs of his return to his gloomy capital—had she thus solaced the most painful hours of a father whom she was to see no more, she would have compromised no party, nor entailed upon herself any responsibility. She was a passive neutral being; unambitious, and, in those days, whilst her brother and sister lived, comparatively unimportant: any breach of what is called consistency, that fatal word which seems, in a public sense, to be invented to banish sincerity and to smother nature, would, in her, have been attributed to the most amiable source; except, perhaps, by her stern formal brother-in-law, or by her virtuous, wise sister,—a pattern of wives, but an undutiful and heartless daughter, and a cold and ungracious sister.

Anne wanted soul—wanted resolution and character more than heart; and at a critical period, when she might have acted so as to avoid subsequent self-reproach, and might have reaped the satisfaction to her own mind that she had not added to the sharpness of the “serpent’s tooth,” she absconded—for the flight had much of that character—under the auspices of Lady Churchill, and guarded by the Bishop of London. It is natural to suppose that the yearnings which in her latter days she felt towards her brother, the Pretender, and her manifest distaste to the Hanoverian succession, proceeded, in a degree, from a too late regret for the part which on this occasion she had been induced to take, and which was quickly followed by her surrender of her right to William the Third.

There is something in the very style of Lady Churchill’s exposition of the whole matter, that marks a sense of shame and regret, as she slides rapidly over the particulars of the event.

Fearless herself, one may almost picture to the mind her contempt, when the Princess expressed, in childish terms, her fear of her father. Upon that point, the alleged excuse of her nocturnal flight, Lady Churchill endeavours guardedly to excuse her royal mistress. She dwells with far less minuteness and distinctness on her own motives than on the subsequent explanations of other matters, in which she avows and defends her unequivocal counsels to the Princess, and brings conviction that she acted a sincere and upright part on those occasions.

Her known character for resolutely maintaining her own will, in opposition even to that of Anne, fixed upon her all the ephemeral obloquy with which the Jacobite party assailed the proceeding. It was supposed, and not without reason, that the Princess was even at this time much more under her control, than was the first lady of the bedchamber under that of her mistress, whom she scorned to cajole, but contrived to command.

“Flattery, madam,” says her bitterest assailant, “is what you never happened to be accused of, nor of temporising with the humours of your royal patroness. The peccadillos you have been supposed answerable for, are of a quite contrary class—of playing the tyrant with your sovereign, of insisting on your own will in opposition to hers, and of carrying your own points with a high hand, almost whether she would or not.”[[124]]

Yet, with the inconsistency which often accompanies invective, this foe of the Duchess adds: “Flattery does not always imply fulsome praises and slavish compliances; none but the grossest appetites can swallow such coarse food. There is a species, of a much more refined and dangerous nature, which never appears in its own shape, but makes its approaches in so happy a disguise, as to be mistaken for truth, simplicity, and plain dealing. Your Grace had discernment enough to find that the Princess had an aversion to the first; so you, very adroitly, made use of the last; and, as you confess yourself, found your account in it.”[[125]]

CHAPTER IV.

Change of manner in James—Character of Queen Mary—Her submission to her husband—Surrender of the crown to William—The indecision and reluctance of Anne—Her stipulation for a settlement—The part which Lady Churchill is said to have taken in the affair—She asks advice from Lady Russell and Archbishop Tillotson—The different qualities of these two advisers—1688.