Маргарет Олифант - Historical Characters in the Reign of Queen Anne

And no doubt it added greatly to the attractions which the bright and animated girl exercised over her playmates and companions, that she had already a romantic love-story, and, at a period when matches were everywhere arranged, as at present in continental countries, by the parents, made a secret marriage, under the most romantic circumstances, with a young hero already a soldier of distinction. He was not an irreproachable hero. Court scandal had not spared him. He was said to have founded his fortune upon the bounty of one of the shameless women of Charles’s court. But the imagination of the period was not over-delicate, and probably had he not become so great a man, and acquired so many enemies, we should have heard little of John Churchill’s early vices. About his sister, Arabella Churchill, unfortunately there could not be any doubt; and it is a curious instance of the sudden efflorescence now and then of a race which neither before nor after is of particular note, that Marlborough’s sister should have been the mother of that one illustrious Stuart who might, had he been legitimate, have changed the fortunes of the house—the Duke of Berwick. Had she, instead of Anne Hyde, been James’s duchess, what a difference might have been made in history! Nobody had heard of the Churchills before—they have not been a distinguished race since. It is curious that they should have produced, all unawares, without preparation or warning, the two greatest soldiers of the age.

Young Churchill was attached to the Duke of York’s service, as Sarah Jennings was to that of the duchess. He had served abroad with distinction. In 1672, when France and England for once, in a way, were allies against Holland, he had served under the great Turenne, who called him “my handsome Englishman,” and vaunted his gallantry. He was but twenty-two when he thus gave proofs of his future greatness. When he returned, after various other exploits, and resumed his court service, the brilliant maid of honor, whom the little princess adored, attained a complete dominion over the spirit of the young soldier. There were difficulties about the marriage, for he had no fortune, and his provident parents had secured an heiress for him. But it was at length accomplished so secretly that even the bride was never quite certain of the date, in the presence and with the favor of Mary of Modena herself. Sarah, if the dates are correct, must have been eighteen at this period, and her little princess fourteen. What a delightful interruption to the dullness of Richmond to hear all about it when the Duchess of York came with her train and the two girls could wander away together in some green avenue till Lady Frances sent a page or an usher after them!

Mary of Modena must have been a lover of romances, and true love also, though her youth had fallen to such a gruesome bridegroom as James Stuart; for not only Sarah Jennings and her great general, who were to have so great a hand in keeping that poor lady’s son from his kingdom, but Mary Blogge and her statesman, who was to rule England so wisely in the interest of the opposing side, were both secretly married under the young duchess’s wing, she helping, planning, and sanctioning the secret. How many additional bitternesses must this have put into her cup when she was sitting, a shadow queen, at St.-Germain, and all those people whom she had loved and caressed were swaying the fortunes of England! And who can tell what tender recollections of his secret wedding and the sweet and saintly prude whom King James’s young wife gave him, may have touched the soul of Godolphin in those hankerings after his old master—if it were not, as scandal said, to his old mistress—which moved him from time to time, great minister as he was, almost to the verge of treachery! The Churchills, it must be owned, showed little gratitude to their royal patrons.

When the Princess Mary married and went to Holland with her husband, the position of her sister at home became a more important one. Anne was not without some experience of travel and those educational advantages which the sight of foreign countries are said to bring. She went to The Hague to visit her sister. She accompanied her father, sturdy little Protestant as she was, when he was in disgrace for his religious views, and spent some time in Brussels, from which place she wrote to one of the ladies about the court a letter which has been preserved,—with just as much and as little reason as any other letter of a fifteen-year-old girl with her eyes about her, at a distance of two hundred years,—in which the young lady describes a ball she had seen, herself incognita , at which some gentlemen “danced extremely well—as well if not better than the Duke of Monmouth or Sir E. Villiers, which I think is very extraordinary,” says the girl, no doubt sincerely believing that the best of all things was to be found at home. She had little difficulties about her spelling, but that was common enough. “As for the town,” says the Princess Anne, “methinks tho’ the streets are not so clean as in Holland, yet they are not so dirty as ours; they are very well paved and very easy—they only have od smells.” This is a peculiarity which has outlived her day, and it would seem to imply that England, even before the invention of sanitary science, was superior in this respect at least to the towns of the Continent.

After these unusual dissipations Anne remained in the shade until she married, in 1683, George, Prince of Denmark, a perfectly inoffensive and insignificant person, to whom she gave, during the rest of her life, a faithful, humdrum, but unbroken attachment, such as shows to little advantage in print, but makes the happiness of many a home. This marriage was another sacrifice to the Protestantism of England, and in that point of view pleased the people much. King Charles, glad to satisfy the country by any act which cost him nothing, thought it “very convenient and suitable.” James, unwilling, but powerless, grumbled to himself that “he had little encouragement in the conduct of the Prince of Orange to marry another daughter in the same interest,” but made no effort against it. The prince himself produced no very great impression, one way or another, as indeed he was little fitted to do. “He has the Danish countenance, blonde,” says Evelyn, in his diary; “of few words; spoke French but ill; seemed somewhat heavy, but is reported to be valiant.” He had never any occasion to show his valor during his long residence in England, but many to prove the former quality,—the heaviness,—which was only too evident; but Anne herself was not brilliant, and she was made for friendship, not for passion in the ordinary sense of the word. She never seems to have been in the smallest way dissatisfied with her heavy, honest goodman. He was fond of eating and

drinking, but of no more dangerous pleasures. Her peace of mind was fluttered by no rival, nor her feminine pride touched. Her attendants might be as seductive as they pleased, this steady, stolid husband was immovable, and there is no doubt that the princess appreciated the advantages of this immunity from one of the thorns which were planted in every other royal pillow.

Her marriage had another advantage of giving her a household and court of her own, and enabled her at once to secure for herself the companionship of her always beloved friend. “So desirous was she,” says Duchess Sarah, “of having me always near her, that upon her marriage with the Prince of Denmark, in 1683, it was at her own earnest request to her father I was made one of the ladies of her bedchamber. What conduced to make me the more agreeable to her in this station was, doubtless,” she adds with candor, “the dislike she conceived to most of the other persons about her, and particularly for her first lady of the bedchamber—the Countess of Clarendon, a lady whose discourse and manner could not possibly recommend her to so young a mistress; for she looked like a mad-woman and talked like a scholar. Indeed, her highness’s court was so oddly composed that I think it would be making myself no great compliment if I should say her choosing to spend more of her time with me than with any of her other servants did no discredit to her taste.”