The Protestant Lords assembled at the Privy Council held by James the Second imagined that the King was altered, and that his powers of mind had forsaken him. They asked each other “where were the looks, and where was the spirit, which had made three nations tremble?” “They perceived not,” says Dalrymple, “that the change was not in the King, but in themselves.”[[126]] In their consciousness of the monarch’s feebleness, contrasted with former power, consisted the change.
The Princess Anne was not, it is to be presumed, enabled to conquer her fears of encountering her humbled parent, since no mention is found of her return to the metropolis until after all storms were hushed and Mary, “possessing neither the authority of a queen, nor the influence of a wife,”[[127]] became the presiding power of the concerns of a remodelled court.
The personal character of Mary may be said to have had a considerable influence upon the conduct of Lady Churchill, and upon her position in that purified region, the British court; since, during the whole period of her short reign, the two royal sisters were scarcely ever on affectionate or even friendly terms; and it has been deemed necessary by Lady Churchill to justify herself as the supposed cause of these continual differences, not to say complete though disguised alienation, between those Princesses.
Bishop Burnet has described, in his character of Queen Mary, a perfect model of feminine excellence. “The queen,” he says, “gave an example to the nation, which shined in all the parts of it.”[[128]] Tall and majestic, of a form exquisitely proportioned, her countenance expressive and agreeable, notwithstanding a constitutional weakness in her eyes, Mary moved with dignity and grace, spoke with equal propriety and spirit, and acted, when occasion required, with masculine resolution. In all that duty and station exacted, she was admirable. She possessed, in its perfection, that quality, “not a science,” as Pope expresses it, “but worth all the seven, prudence.” Her intentions for the benefit of her subjects were excellent.[[129]] Her first and continual care was to promote reform in every department which she superintended. She began by attacking those habits of idleness which had tended to demoralise the court, and exposed its fair ornaments to many temptations. She set the fashion of industry, by employing herself in needlework, working many hours a day herself, with her ladies and her maids of honour similarly engaged around her, whilst one of the party read to the rest. She freed her court from all doubtful or censurable characters, so that there was not a colour of suspicion of any improprieties, such as had been the source of just censure in the preceding reigns. She expressed a deep sense of religion, and formed a standard of principle and duty in her mind, upon the sense of her obligations as a Christian. Industrious and pious, she was consequently cheerful and unconstrained. Every moment had its proper employment; her time being so apportioned out to business and diversion, to the devout exercises of the closet, and to the polite customs of the court, that the most scrupulous observer could not pronounce her to be too serious or too merry, too retiring or too busy, nor could find out the slightest cause of censure in her well-considered actions, nor in her prudent yet engaging deportment. Her capacity was great; her memory, and the clearness of her comprehension, were particularly remarkable; her attention to everything laid before her was that of a superior and reflective mind. Yet she was humility itself; her distrust of her own judgment was accompanied by an absolute reverence for the King’s opinions; and her perfections were crowned, in the sight of the English people, by her firm though unobtrusive adherence to the Protestant faith, of which she was regarded as the chief stay and support, after her merits and her opinions had been fully disclosed.
Such were the qualities assigned to Mary by her zealous panegyrist; but with all these attributes,—admirable in a private sphere, excellent in a queen,—like many persons of regular habits, patterns of virtue in a quiet way,—perfect when not put out of their habitual course,—prudent, submissive, and placid, Mary had one grand defect. She wanted heart. Gentle in her nature, whilst free from the passions of pride and anger, she was devoid also of the generosity which sometimes accompanies those defects in character. She rarely gave cause of offence, but she could not forgive. Too good a wife, she sacrificed filial to conjugal duty; forgetting that the Saviour, whose precepts she honoured, throughout all his high vocation, knew no obligation which could obliterate the duty to parents. But Mary may be held up to the degenerate wives of the present day, as one who would have been at once their model and their reproof, had she been placed under different circumstances. In anything less than the cruel alternative of ceasing to revere and to protect a parent at the command of a husband, or, for the sake of her consort’s political views, Mary would have risen pre-eminent in esteem, both immediate and posthumous.
Transplanted early to a foreign soil, she devoted herself with ready submission to the wishes, the pursuits, the very prejudices of a husband whom she could not have loved, had she not possessed feelings different from those of her sex in general. At his command she became sedate and obedient; her naturally good spirits were subdued into the tone which her reserved but not unimpassioned husband deemed becoming in woman, and essential in her who had the honour of sharing his damp climate and cold heart.
This, indeed, became her second nature; yet, at the king’s command, the staid, domestic Mary roused herself from her simple habits and matronly reserve, and was converted into a patroness of mirth and folly; for she was enjoined to use every art to entertain, and charm the fascinating Duke of Monmouth, in order to annoy and endanger her father and his throne. William, jealous to a degree, and concealing under his dry exterior a temper of a furious violence,[[130]] ordered his exemplary wife to attract and to be attractive, and she obeyed. She received visits in private from the Duke; she danced, she skated, because Monmouth loved those amusements. “It was diverting,” says a contemporary writer, “to behold a princess of Mary’s decency and virtue, with her petticoats tucked half-way to her waist, with iron pattens on her feet, sometimes on one foot, sometimes on the other.” No less extraordinary was it to hear that Mary was permitted to receive the Duke alone every day after dinner, to teach her country dances in her own apartment.[[131]] So accommodating was this pattern of conjugal obedience, that she could not only lay aside natural feelings, but, what is perhaps more difficult, dispense with long-cherished habits, and reassume the part of girlhood, after a long period of matronly dignity, which somewhat resembled the precision, without the liberty, of a single life.
In matters of weightier import than learning country dances, or skating on Dutch canals, Mary was equally subservient. The flight of James from London; the arrival of the Prince of Orange at St. James’s; the subsequent withdrawal of James entirely from the British dominions; the acknowledgment of the convention summoned by William, that the tranquillity of the country was owing to his administration, and the petition of that body that he would continue to exercise regal power,—were events which would have been regarded by an ambitious woman with the utmost intensity of interest.
The declaration of the Houses of Parliament, five days afterwards, that the crown had become vacant by the desertion or abdication of James disclosed fully to Mary the realization of those dreams of greatness, which an aspiring or even busy female would have cherished in her heart, in the absence of those natural feelings with which Mary was but little troubled. But the gentle Queen was here again all duty and obedience; her mind was but a reflection of her husband’s will and pleasure. Instead of hurrying to occupy the throne to which she might with scarcely an effort have been raised, she remained, at the desire of her consort, patiently in Holland, in order to prevent any intrigues which might be formed in favour of her ruling alone,—a proposal[[132]] which gnawed into the very heart of the proud, reserved William.[[133]] Upon her being detained still longer in Holland by contrary winds, or perhaps by a secret gale in the form of a conjugal command, the Earl of Danby was despatched for the purpose of detailing to her the debate in Parliament respecting the successor to the vacant throne; and at the same time to intimate that if she desired to reign alone, he doubted not but that he should be able to insure the accomplishment of her wishes. The Princess, with a firmness which had something of magnanimity in it, replied, “that she was the wife of William Prince of Orange, and would never be any other thing than what she could share in conjunction with him;” adding, “that she should take it very ill if, under pretext of a concern for her, any faction should set up a divided interest between her and her husband.” To confirm this answer, and to prevent misunderstanding, she sent the letter brought to her by Lord Danby, and her answer, to the Prince; and thus prevented any jealousy, on the score of her hereditary right from interfering with her domestic comfort and the confidence of her husband.[[134]]
Such was Mary, unlike the rest of her imprudent race;—unlike them, perhaps, from the early tuition[[135]] of her stern husband, a very Utilitarian of the seventeenth century. That she will be fully proved deficient in tenderness—that her feelings were even too much under control—(for we may control our feelings until they cease to exist—extinguished by the constant pressure of a dense and foggy mental atmosphere)—that the good principle within her displayed itself rather in the absence of wrong than in active zeal—that she was amiable without being beloved, and commendable without attaining popularity, was fully shown during her short possession of regal power.