The influence of these noblemen, joined to the enmity of others, amply sufficed, with the Queen’s aid, to level the fortunes of the Marlborough family. Before the trial of Sacheverell, it was even expected that the Duke would resign all the offices which he held, except the command of the army, which could not, without injury to the cause of the continental confederates, be surrendered to his political foes. But the Duke could not, without a struggle, relinquish the cherished honours which had been long the aim of his arduous life, to which he had looked as the reward of a career of exertion wholly unexampled. His feelings at this crisis may be readily conceived. Stung to the heart, sick of courts, of princes, and of politicians, it is said that he contemplated the resignation of all his civil offices, yet not without a compromise; but that he could not bring himself to give up that military command, which, says an historian, “no good man envied him.”[[162]]
Harley, meantime, was sedulously availing himself of an opportunity to work up his way to the ephemeral and precarious power which he afterwards enjoyed so little, and with so much personal risk. During the ferment which the trial of Sacheverell produced, he courted familiarity with persons of all persuasions. He fasted with the prime zealots of the different sects, or he invited the more convivial believer. He promised all that was asked of him; he dispersed hopes and expectations around him; yet kept his own designs secret, except to those whom he could confidently trust.
The Duchess, meantime, before resigning her offices, made one effort more to win back the Queen’s lost regard, or at any rate to efface from her Majesty’s mind every impression unfavourable to her. She had heard that Anne was given to understand that she spoke disrespectfully of her in company; and as she knew herself to be innocent of this charge, she waited on her Majesty on the third of April, 1710, and entreated to be favoured with a private interview. Three several hours were named by the Duchess, when she knew her Majesty to be usually alone; but the Queen appointed six o’clock in the afternoon, the time for prayers, when there was little probability of finding her Majesty at home for any private conversation. But even this appointment was broken, and a note was sent from the Queen, to command that whatever the Duchess should have to say, should be put into writing, “and to beg her to gratify herself by going into the country as soon as she could.” The Duchess waited on the Queen, and used all the arguments she could to obtain a private hearing, adding, “that she was now going out of town for a long time, and should perhaps never have occasion to trouble her Majesty again as long as she lived.” The Queen still refused her request several times, “in a manner hard to be described,” but yielded, so far as to appoint the next day after dinner: yet, on the following morning, this appointment was broken also, and another note from her Majesty arrived, telling the Duchess that she was going to Kensington to dinner, and desiring her to put her thoughts in writing.
These weak pretexts either prove that Harley and Mrs. Masham still dreaded a revival of the long-asserted influence which they had successfully combated, and that Anne was the undignified tool of their manœuvres—or they betray the Queen’s dread of again encountering the earnest, and, doubtless, violent disputant, whose “commands” in the chapel royal were still fresh in the royal memory. Stouter nerves than those of the weak and harassed Queen may have been shaken by the lofty, and at times not very courteous demeanour of the Duchess.
Persevering in her attempt, the Duchess again wrote to the Queen, and again pressed an interview, assuring her Majesty that she would give her no uneasiness, but only clear herself from charges which had been wrongfully made against her; adding, that if the afternoon were not inconvenient, she would come every day and wait until her Majesty would allow her an interview. The particulars of this remarkable scene would lose much of the diversion which they must necessarily produce, if given in any other language than in that of the chief actor in the comedy.[[163]]
“Upon the sixth of April,” says the Duchess, “I followed this letter to Kensington, and by that means prevented the Queen’s writing again to me, as she was preparing to do. The page who went in to acquaint the Queen that I was come to wait upon her, stayed longer than usual; long enough, it is to be supposed, to give time to deliberate whether the favour of admission should be granted, and to settle the measures of behaviour if I were admitted. But at last he came out, and told me I might go in. As I was entering, the Queen said, she was just going to write to me; and when I began to speak, she interrupted me four or five times with these repeated words, ‘whatever you have to say, you may put in writing.’ I said, her Majesty never did so hard a thing to any as to refuse to hear them speak, and assured her that I was not going to trouble her upon the subject which I knew to be so ungrateful to her, but that I could not possibly rest until I had cleared myself from some particular calumnies with which I had been loaded. I then went on to speak, (though the Queen turned away her face from me,) and to represent my hard case; that there were those about her Majesty who had made her believe that I had said things about her, which I was no more capable of saying than of killing my own children; that I seldom named her Majesty in company, and never without respect, and the like. The Queen said, without doubt there were many lies told. I then begged, in order to make this trouble the shorter, and my own innocence the plainer, that I might know the particulars of which I had been accused; because if I were made to appear guilty, and if I were innocent, this method only could clear me. The Queen replied that she would give me no answer, laying hold on a word in my letter, that what I had to say in my own vindication would have no consequence in obliging her Majesty to answer, &c.; which surely did not at all imply that I did not desire to know the particular things laid to my charge, without which it was impossible for me to clear myself. This I assured her Majesty was all I desired, and that I did not ask the names of the authors or relators of those calumnies; saying all that I could reasonable to enforce my just request. But the Queen repeated again and again the words she had used, without ever receding; and it is probable that this conversation would never have been consented to, but that her Majesty had been carefully provided with those words, as a shield to defend her against every reason I could offer. I protested to her Majesty, that I had no design, in giving her this trouble, to solicit the return of her favour, but that my sole view was to clear myself, which was too just a design to be wholly disappointed by her Majesty. Upon this the Queen offered to go out of the room, I following her, begging leave to clear myself; and the Queen repeating over and over again, ‘You desired no answer, and shall have none.’ When she came to the door, I fell into great disorder; streams of tears flowed down against my will, and prevented my speaking for some time. At length I recovered myself, and appealed to the Queen, in the vehemence of my concern, whether I might not still have been happy in her Majesty’s favour, if I could have contradicted or dissembled my real opinion of men or things? whether I had ever, in the whole course of our long friendship, told her one lie, or played the hypocrite once? whether I had offended in anything, except in a very zealous pressing upon her that which I thought necessary for her service or security? I then said I was informed by a very reasonable and credible person about the court, that things were laid to my charge of which I was wholly incapable; that the person knew that such stories were perpetually told to her Majesty to incense her, and had begged of me to come and vindicate myself; the same person had thought me of late guilty of some omissions towards her Majesty, being entirely ignorant how uneasy to her my frequent attendance must be, after what had happened between us. I explained some things which I had heard her Majesty had taken amiss of me; and then with a fresh flood of tears, and a concern sufficient to move compassion, even where all love was absent, I begged to know what other particulars she had heard of me, that I might not be denied all power of justifying myself. But still the only return was, ‘You desired no answer, and you shall have none.’ I then begged to know if her Majesty would tell me some other time? ‘You desired no answer, and you shall have none.’ I then appealed to her Majesty again, if she did not herself know that I had often despised interest, in comparison of serving her faithfully and doing right? and whether she did not know me to be of a temper incapable of disowning anything which I knew to be true? ‘You desired no answer, and you shall have none.’ This usage was severe, and these words so often repeated were so shocking, (being an utter denial of common justice to me, who had been a most faithful servant, and now asked nothing more,) that I could not conquer myself, but said the most disrespectful thing I ever spoke to the Queen in my life, and yet, what such an occasion and such circumstances might well excuse, if not justify: and that was, that I was confident her Majesty would suffer for such an instance of inhumanity. The Queen answered, ‘That will be to myself.’”[[164]]
“Thus,” observes the Duchess, “ended this remarkable conversation, the last that I ever had with her Majesty. I shall make no comment on it. Yet,” she adds, with her inherent magnanimity, “the Queen always meant well, however much soever she may be blinded or misguided.” And she adds to this temperate observation a passage from a letter of her husband’s, the Duke, written about eight months before, in which she says, “There is something so pertinent to the present occasion, that I cannot forbear transcribing the passage.”[[165]]
“It has always been my observation in disputes, especially in that of kindness and friendship, that all reproaches, though ever so just, serve to no end but making the breach wider. I cannot help being of opinion that, however insignificant we may be, there is a Power above that puts a period to our happiness or unhappiness. If anybody had told me eight years ago, that after such great success, and after you had been a faithful servant for twenty-seven years, that even in the Queen’s lifetime we should be obliged to seek happiness in a retired life, I could not have believed that possible.”
CHAPTER IX.
Final separation between the Queen and the Duchess—Some anecdotes of Dr. and Mrs. Burnet—Dr. Burnet remonstrates with the Queen—The Queen’s obstinacy—Dismissal of Lord Godolphin—Letter from the Duchess to the Queen—1710.