“I received last night a letter from you without date, by which I see there is another scurrilous pamphlet come out. The best way of putting an end to that villany is not to appear concerned. The best of men and women, in all ages, have been ill used. If we can be so happy as to behave ourselves so as to have no reason to reproach ourselves, we may then despise what rage and faction do.”
This wise and dignified mode of receiving attacks to which eminent individuals have in every age been exposed, was succeeded by the exposure and punishment of the scurrilous writer.
Of that event, with its painful circumstances, a detailed account has already been given in the preceding volume.
CHAPTER IV.
Decline of the Duchess’s influence—Her attempt in favour of Lord Cowper—Singular Letter from Anne in explanation—Intrigues of the Tories—Harley’s endeavours to stimulate the Queen to independence.—1706.
Until the period on which we are now entering, the influence of the Duchess of Marlborough over the mind of her sovereign was not visibly impaired, by her own indiscretion, or by the arts of her opponents. Yet those differences of opinion which disturbed the singular friendship of Mrs. Freeman and Mrs. Morley, and of which advantage was finally taken by the enemies of the Duchess to effect a total alienation between her Majesty and her former favourite, continued, and were, according to her fashion, stoutly contested by the Duchess.
On one important point the Duchess addressed her Majesty with considerable earnestness. Lord Cowper, whose friendship was an honour which the Duchess fully appreciated, was at this time Lord Keeper;[[74]] and it was the endeavour of the Duchess to throw into his hands that patronage in the church which, she rightly deemed, he would exercise conscientiously and judiciously. But it was in vain that she urged the Queen to allow Lord Cowper to fill up various livings belonging to the crown, which had now for some time been vacant, and of which Anne delayed to dispose. She addressed a remonstrance to her Majesty, representing how safely she might place power in the hands of Lord Cowper. The Queen returned a kind but unsatisfactory reply; and the tone in which it was conveyed betrayed plainly the incipient coolness which had commenced between Anne and her viceroy.
After apologising for the interval which had elapsed before she had answered the Duchess’s letter,—a delay for which Anne accounted by the frivolous reason, that not having time to answer it “before supper,” it was not very “easy to her to do so after supper,”—the Queen, whilst assuring Mrs. Freeman that she had a firm reliance on the equity and judgment of Lord Cowper, observes, “that in her opinion the crown can never have too many livings at its own disposal; and, therefore,” she adds, “though there may be some trouble in it, it is a power I can never think it reasonable to part with, and I hope those that come after me will think the same.”
“You wrong me much,” continues Anne, “in thinking I am influenced by some you mention in disposing of church preferments. Ask those whom I am sure you will believe, though you won’t me, and they can tell you I never disposed of any without advising with them, and that I have preferred more people upon other recommendations than I have upon his that you fancy to have so much power with me.” With the assurance that there would soon be “more changes,” and with the further declaration, to use the Queen’s own words, “that in a little time Mr. Morley and me shall redeem our credit with Mrs. Freeman,” the Queen, under the humble signature not yet abandoned, of “your poor, unfortunate, faithful Morley,”[[75]] closes this explanation:—a singular reply, manifesting that the royal composer of the letter was now weary of that subjection from which she emancipated herself only to fall into other snares; but that she wanted courage, though not inclination, to throw off the yoke.
The scheme projected by the Tories, of bringing over the Electress Sophia into this country, had not only failed, as we have seen, but had thrown the game entirely into the hands of their opponents. The Queen, irritated beyond her usual custom, wrote, in the hurry of the moment, in such terms to her favourite as to authorise the expectation that her resentment against the Tories would not quickly subside.