M. R.
THE PRINCESS ANNE’S ANSWER TO THE FOREGOING LETTER.
Your Majesty was in the right to think your letter would be very surprising to me. For you must needs be sensible of the kindness I have for my Lady Marlborough, to know that a command from you to part with her must be the greatest mortification in the world to me; and, indeed, of such a nature, that I might well have hoped your kindness to me would have always prevented. I am satisfied she cannot have been guilty of any fault to you; and it would be extremely to her advantage if I could here repeat every word that ever she had said to me of you in her whole life. I confess it is no small addition to my trouble to find the want of your Majesty’s kindness to me upon this occasion, since I am sure I have always endeavoured to deserve it by all the actions of my life.
Your care of my present condition is extremely obliging, and if you would be pleased to add to it so far as upon my account to recall your severe command, (as I must beg leave to call it, in a matter so tender to me, and so little reasonable, as I think, to be imposed upon me, that you would scarcely require it from the meanest of your subjects,) I should ever acknowledge it as a very agreeable mark of your kindness to me. And I must as freely own, that as I think this proceeding can be for no other intent than to give me a very sensible mortification, so there is no misery that I cannot readily resolve to suffer, rather than the thoughts of parting with her. If, after all this that I have said, I must still find myself so unhappy as to be farther pressed in this matter, yet your Majesty may be assured, that as my past actions have given the greatest testimony of my respect both for the King and you, so it shall always be my endeavour, wherever I am, to preserve it carefully for the time to come, as becomes
Your Majesty’s
Very affectionate Sister and Servant,
Anne.
From the Cockpit, Feb. 6th, 1692.
FROM THE PRINCESS ANNE TO THE QUEEN.
I am very sorry to find that all I have said myself, and my Lord Rochester for me, has not had effect enough to keep your Majesty from persisting in a resolution which you are satisfied must be so great a mortification to me, as, to avoid it, I shall be obliged to retire, and deprive myself of the satisfaction of living where I might have frequent opportunities of assuring you of that duty and respect which I always have been and shall be desirous to pay you on all occasions.