Виктория Холт - Royal Sisters - The Story of the Daughters of James II

Mary Beatrice lay back on her pillows groaning.

By half past nine the atmosphere was stifling because of the crowd assembled there. At the foot of the bed the Privy councillors stood watching.

“Margaret,” called Mary Beatrice.

Margaret came to her mistress and took her hand.

“I cannot endure this,” cried the Queen. “These men staring. Draw the bed curtains.”

Margaret firmly did so.

“Pray stand back,” she said to the men. “It is unseemly that you should crowd about the bed at such a time.”

Shortly afterward the child was born. James was watching Lady Sunderland.

The midwife was bending over the bed. She turned and quickly pulled Lady Sunderland’s dress, and when Lady Sunderland touched her forehead the King gave a cry of joy. But he could not restrain himself, and must have the joyous information confirmed.

“What is it?” he demanded in a loud voice.

The nurse had taken the baby from the midwife. She said in a clear voice which could be heard throughout the apartment: “What Your Majesty desires.”

James seized the arm of the nurse who held the child and said to the privy councillors: “You have witnessed that my son is born.” Then he turned to the nurse and cried: “Make way. Make way for the Prince of Wales.”

Mary Beatrice was exhausted but triumphant; the King could not withhold his joy and knighted Dr. Walgrave in the lying-in chamber. The guns of the Tower were firing salutes, and all over London the bells were ringing. There should be a feast for the poor, and wine with which they could drink the health of the Prince of Wales.

But while the people feasted and drank, they asked themselves what this birth would mean. Were they asked to accept a slice of roasted ox, a flagon of wine—for popery?

This would be the end of Protestant England. Was it what the people wanted? Those might who had forgotten the Smithfield fires, the threat of Spain; but there were many who remembered. They said the Court was full of those who were flirting with Rome, not seriously, but only for the sake of commandeering the high posts because the best way of advancement at Court was through the Catholic Faith. But many were false Catholics; and when the time came they would turn.

It was unfortunate that there should be a son at this stage. But was there truly a son?

On a June morning the Queen’s bed had been warmed by a warming-pan which had been taken into her bed just before she entered it. A warming-pan! A simple homely implement! But it could be significant, for why should not a child be concealed in a warming-pan and put into the bed before the Queen entered it?

A wild idea? But all knew how wily these Catholics were. They would stop at nothing to do what they wanted.

The rumor grew. The boy whom they called the Prince of Wales was not the Queen’s child at all. She had not been pregnant. It had all been a pretence. There were stories which had come from the Cockpit and surely the Princess Anne who lived close to the Queen must know; the Queen would let no one see her without her shift, she would let no one feel her body. Why not? Because she was not pregnant. It was a plot, a wicked plot to bring Catholicism back to England.

And then the confinement. A baby in a warming-pan!

It was a tale that appealed to the people who wanted to believe that the baby who was called the Prince of Wales was not the son of the King and Queen, but a spurious child whom they hoped to foist on the nation for the sake of the Catholic Faith.

When Anne returned to London the air was full of rumors which delighted her.

She was particularly entranced by that of the warming-pan.

She referred to her half brother as the warming-pan baby, and did her best to keep that story alive.

Anne wrote to Mary:

My dear sister can’t imagine the concern and vexation I have been in, that I should be so unfortunate as to be out of town when the Queen was brought to bed, for I shall never more be satisfied whether the child be true or false. It may be that he is our brother, but God knows.…

Each day she waited for news from Holland; she knew that something would have to be done now, for she did not believe William would allow the scandals concerning the Prince of Wales to die down. If the people accepted him as Prince of Wales, what hope would there be of Mary’s coming to the throne, what hope for Anne?

While she waited for news from Holland, she must keep the rumors alive. The Mansell boy must never be accepted as her brother.

Her father was still unpopular in spite of free feasting and drinking. The bishops were still in the Tower. The foolish man, thought Anne, did he not see that by releasing them he would have won more favor than by roasting a few oxen for the poor?

His enemies made certain that the warming-pan story was the great topic of conversation at all the feasting; and one of the foremost of his enemies was his daughter Anne.

There was a great activity at St. James’s as the nursery ceremonies took place. The Prince of Wales must have a governess and the Marchioness of Powis was appointed to this post. His two nurses, Mrs. Royere and Madame Labadie, were already installed; he must have an assistant governess to help the Marchioness and Lady Strickland was chosen for this office. In addition he must have his own laundress and seamstress, four rockers and two pages.

All those who visited him in his cradle declared him to be a bonny child, although in the first hours following his birth there had been a fear that he might succumb to convulsions as other royal children had before him.

There was such anxiety to keep him alive that too many physicians were appointed to look after him and this almost resulted in a fatal accident, for it was decided to give a drug which was believed to be good for babies and this was done; but the physician who had given it did not inform all the other physicians and one of them, not knowing that the child had already had one dose, gave him another.

Mary Beatrice awoke with a start to find no one in her bedchamber. Lady Sunderland, who was lady of the bed for that night, should have been present.

“What has happened?” cried the Queen, while a terrible foreboding came to her.

There was no answer; and as she was about to get out of bed, Lady Sunderland came hurrying in. Mary Beatrice knew at once that something had happened to her son; and when Lady Sunderland told her, she fell fainting back on her pillows.

The news went rapidly round the Court: The Prince is dying.

The King remained on his knees for hours praying for his son; and Mary Beatrice lay without speaking in her bed. Meanwhile the doctors were bleeding the baby and giving him more physic.

For several days the little boy’s life was in danger and Anne wrote gleefully to The Hague:

The Prince of Wales has been ill these three or four days; and if he has been so bad as people say, I believe it will not be long before he is an angel in Heaven.

It would be the best thing, thought Anne. Then it would be as it was in the days before they had heard Mary Beatrice was pregnant.

In a few days time however the little Prince was well again, and this gave rise to a new rumor. The Prince was now a bonny blooming boy; it was strange, was it not, that a few days ago he had been nigh to death? What if the boy who had been brought in to the Queen’s bed by means of a warming-pan was dead—and this healthy boy had been substituted for him?

The twists and turns of the story were becoming farcical, but those who were determined to be rid of James were delighted to accept the rumors as truth.