“The story of this lady, as well as of that gentleman who was her great adviser and director, is worth the knowledge of posterity, as it will lead them into a sense of the instability of court favour, and of the incurable baseness which some minds are capable of contracting.
“Mrs. Masham,” she continues, “was the daughter of one Hill, a merchant in the city, by a sister of my father. Our grandfather, Sir John Jenyns, had two-and-twenty children, by which means the estate of the family, which was reputed to be about four thousand pounds a year, came to be divided into small parcels. Mrs. Hill had only five hundred pounds to her fortune.[[91]] Her husband lived very well for many years, as I have been told, until, turning projector, he brought ruin upon himself and family. But as this was long before I was born, I never knew there were such people in the world till after the Princess Anne was married, and when she lived at the Cockpit; at which time an acquaintance of mine came to me and said, she believed I did not know that I had relations who were in want, and she gave me an account of them. When she had finished her story, I answered, that indeed I had never heard before of any such relations, and immediately gave her out of my purse ten guineas for their present relief, saying, I would do what I could for them. Afterwards I sent Mrs. Hill more money, and saw her. She told me that her husband was the same relation to Mr. Harley as she was to me, but that he had never done anything for her. I think Mrs. Masham’s father and mother did not live long after this. They left four children, two sons and two daughters. The elder daughter (afterwards Mrs. Masham) was a grown woman. I took her to St. Albans, where she lived with me and my children, and I treated her with as great kindness as if she had been my sister.”
It appears from this statement, that Mrs. Hill must have enjoyed considerable opportunities of studying the character of her patroness; nor were her means of learning Anne’s peculiarities and defects less frequent and advantageous.
“After some time,” adds the Duchess, “a bedchamber woman of the Princess of Denmark’s died; and as in that reign (after the Princesses were grown up) rockers, though not gentlewomen, had been advanced to be bedchamber women, I thought I might ask the Princess to give the vacant place to Mrs. Hill. At first, indeed, I had some scruple about it; but this being removed by persons I thought wiser, with whom I consulted, I made the request to the Princess, and it was granted.
“As for the younger daughter, (who is still living,) I engaged my Lord Marlborough, when the Duke of Gloucester’s family was settled, to make her laundress to him, which was a good provision for her; and when the Duke of Gloucester died, I obtained for her a pension of 200l. a year, which I paid her out of the privy purse. And some time after I asked the Queen’s leave to buy her an annuity out of some of the funds; representing to her Majesty, that as the privy purse money produced no interest, it would be the same thing to her if, instead of the pension to Mrs. Hill, she gave her at once a sum sufficient to produce an annuity, and that by this means, her Majesty would make a certain provision for one who had served the Duke of Gloucester. The Queen was pleased to allow the money for that purchase, and it is very probable that Mrs. Hill has the annuity to this day, and perhaps nothing else, unless she saved money after her sister had made her deputy to the privy purse, which she did, as soon as she had supplanted me.”
Not contented with conferring these important benefits, the Duchess, it appears, resolved to provide for the whole family.
“The elder son was,” she says, “at my request, put by my Lord Godolphin into a place in the Custom-house; and when, in order to his advancement to a better, it was necessary to give security for his good behaviour, I got a relation of the Duke of Marlborough’s to be bound for him in two thousand pounds. His brother (whom the bottle-men afterwards called honest Jack Hill) was a tall boy, whom I clothed (for he was all in rags) and put to school at St. Albans to one Mr. James, who had been an usher under Dr. Busby of Westminster; and whenever I went to St. Alban’s I sent for him, and was as kind to him as if he had been my own child. After he had learned what he could there, a vacancy happening of page of honour to the Prince of Denmark, his highness was pleased, at my request, to take him. I afterwards got my Lord Marlborough to make him groom of the bedchamber to the Duke of Gloucester. And though my lord always said that Jack Hill was good for nothing, yet, to oblige me, he made him his aide-de-camp, and afterwards gave him a regiment. But it was his sister’s interest that raised him to be a general, and to command in that ever-memorable expedition to Quebec; I had no share in doing him the honours. To finish what I have to say on this subject; when Mr. Harley thought it useful to attack the Duke of Marlborough in parliament, this Quebec general, this honest Jack Hill, this once ragged boy, whom I clothed, happening to be sick in bed, was nevertheless persuaded by his sister to get up, wrap himself in warmer clothes than those I had given him, and go to the House to vote against the Duke. I may here add, that even the husband of Mrs. Masham had several obligations to me: it was at my instance that he was first made a page, then an equerry, and afterwards groom of the bedchamber to the Prince; for all which he himself thanked me, as for favours procured by my means. As for Mrs. Masham herself, I had so much kindness for her, and had done so much to oblige her, without having ever done anything to offend her, that it was too long before I could bring myself to think her other than a true friend, or forbear rejoicing at any instance of favour shown her by the Queen. I observed, indeed, at length, that she was grown more shy of coming to me, and more reserved than usual when she was with me; but I imputed this to her peculiar moroseness of temper, and for some time made no other reflection upon it.”[[92]]
The moroseness of temper, which might be a constitutional infirmity incident to the family stock, was accompanied, however, with a suppleness of deportment, a servility, and a talent for artifice, which are not incompatible with a deep-seated pride, and with a contumacious turn of mind, subdued to superiors, but venting itself with redoubled virulence on those on whom it can with impunity be spent. Towards the Queen, Mrs. Hill displayed, as might be expected, a humility and sweetness of manner which proved, doubtless, highly acceptable to one accustomed to receive only a lofty condescension, not to speak of frequent exhibitions of passion, in her earlier and haughtier friend. Mrs. Hill’s real sentiments on religion and politics happened to be, fortunately for herself, in accordance with those of the Queen. Anne, accustomed to opposition and remonstrance, nay, sometimes, rebukes, upon certain points which she had at heart, delighted in the enthusiasm of her lowly attendant concerning matters hitherto forbidden her to dwell upon. Mrs. Hill was an enemy to the Hanoverian succession, if not a partisan of the exiled Stuarts,—subjects on which the Queen and the Duchess were known to have frequent controversies, which sometimes degenerated into angry disputes.
These bickerings had, in the sedate and guarded Abigail, a watchful and subtle observer. It may easily be credited that she turned them skilfully to account. Not that she was so imprudent as to hoist a banner on the side of Anne whilst the redoubtable Sarah was present; but her sympathy, her acquiescence, her responsive condolences, when, after the storm subsided, the Queen poured forth into her friendly ear confidential complaints of the absent Duchess, were ever ready, and effected their purpose. The flattering gratitude and humility with which she listened and soothed the Queen; their cordial concurrence on topics which then divided the female world, whilst they employed masculine minds; gradually worked a way for the lady-dresser into the affections of the Queen, and gradually, also, ejected, by a subterranean process, the only obstacle to her undivided ascendency which Mrs. Hill, in her powerful kinswoman, might have to encounter.
The Duchess was the last of all the court to perceive the dangerous influence of Abigail, and to acknowledge the extent of the new favourite’s power. She depended on Mrs. Hill’s fidelity to her; she depended on that weakest of all bonds, a sense of obligation; she considered her cousin as, for her sake, a vigilant observer of the Queen’s actions, and as a lowly partisan, an attached and useful friend.