In justification of the narrow principle adopted by William and his Queen on this occasion, Mr. Hampden, junior, spoke in the House of Commons, representing the impolicy of settling a revenue on a Princess who had so near a claim to the crown, and who might be supported by a number of malcontents. He adduced in favour of his argument the withdrawal of a motion for settling a separate allowance of a hundred thousand pounds a year upon the Queen;[[164]] but his arguments did not prevail, and the debate was adjourned to the next day. Some of the Princess’s friends, encouraged by the general feeling in her favour, even proposed to allow her seventy thousand pounds yearly;—and the King, annoyed at the course which the debate took, and fearful of its issue, prorogued parliament.
Whilst the subject was thus warmly discussed, the Queen, although conversing every day with her sister, observed a cautious silence on the subject of her settlement: and the most strenuous exertions were made, to prevail on the Countess of Marlborough to persuade the Princess to give up the point in dispute. The most intimate friend of the dauntless Sarah was the Viscountess Fitzharding, third sister of Edward Villiers, who was successively created, by William, Baron Villiers and Earl of Jersey.
The family of Lady Fitzharding, though of Jacobite tendencies, exercised over William a prodigious ascendency, through the influence of two of its members; the Earl of Jersey, who was himself in high favour with the King; and the Countess of Jersey, though a Catholic, was much esteemed by the Queen: whilst Elizabeth Villiers, sister of the Earl, was the acknowledged mistress of the monarch.[[165]] Partialities so unaccountable and incongruous are not surprising to the reader who has gone through the private history of courts and kings.
Through this channel Mary now sought to influence Lady Marlborough, the oracle to whom her sister Anne implicitly deferred. Every art was used, either “through flattery or fear,”[[166]] to dissuade the Princess from the pursuit of a settlement. The Duchess thus describes these ineffectual efforts:—
“My Lady Fitzharding, who was more than anybody in the Queen’s favour, and for whom it was well known I had a singular affection, was the person chiefly employed in this undertaking. Sometimes she attacked me on the side of my own interest, telling me, ‘that if I would not put an end to measures so disagreeable to the King and Queen, it would certainly be the ruin of my lord, and consequently of all our family.’ When she found that this had no effect, she endeavoured to alarm my fears for the Princess by saying, ‘that those measures would in all probability ruin her; for nobody, but such as flattered me, believed the Princess would carry her point, and in case she did not, the King would not think himself obliged to do anything for her. That it was perfect madness in me to persist, and I had better ten thousand times to let the thing fall, and to make all easy to the King and Queen.’”
Little could Lady Fitzharding understand the character of her gifted friend, when she attempted to dissuade her from any undertaking in which she had resolutely engaged. On the contrary, the Duchess, persisting the more strenuously in her determination the more it was opposed, with a true feminine spirit writes:
“All this, and a great deal more that was said, was so far from inclining me to do what was desired of me, that it only made me more anxious about the success of the Princess’s affair, and more earnest, if possible, in the prosecuting of it.” For, as she further declares, she would rather have died than have sacrificed the interests of the Princess, or have had it thought that she had herself been bribed or intimidated into compliance with the wishes of the court.
Lady Marlborough, therefore, employed all the powers which she possessed, to forward the settlement. She justly reflected, as the Princess’s friend, that anything was better than dependence upon William’s generosity, of which she had no opinion. For Lord Godolphin told her that the King, speaking of the civil list, “wondered very much how the Princess could spend thirty thousand pounds a year, although it was less,” adds the shrewd Duchess, “than some of his majesty’s favourites had.”[[167]]
Meantime King William and his Queen were perfectly aware, as it appears, with whom the resistance to their plans originated, and they took measures, accordingly, to appease and to satisfy her who already held “that good sort of woman,”[[168]] their royal sister, in a kind of subjection to her will and opinion. Accordingly, a few days before the question was put to the vote, a message was despatched to Lady Marlborough, offering, on the part of the King, to give the Princess fifty thousand pounds a year, if she would not appeal to parliament.
The person employed on this delicate embassy was Charles Talbot, Duke of Shrewsbury, whom the King had taken into his favour, although once a Catholic, and the godson of Charles the Second. This nobleman, according to William, “the only man of whom both Whigs and Tories spoke well,” was an enemy to those party distinctions by which even great and good men were betrayed into the violence of faction. Easy, graceful in his deportment, and accomplished, he was peculiarly adapted, from his charms of manner, and even of countenance, notwithstanding the loss of an eye,[[169]] to act the part of mediator between the irritating and the irritated, especially when of the gentler sex.