Маргарет Олифант - Historical Characters in the Reign of Queen Anne

Anne was but recovering from the illness that followed her confinement, and with which her sister’s angry visit was supposed to have something to do, when another blow fell upon the band of friends. Marlborough was suddenly arrested and sent to the Tower. There was reason enough perhaps for his previous disgrace in the secret relations with St.-Germain which he was known to have resumed; but the charge afterward made was a purely fictitious one, and he and the other great personages involved had little difficulty in proving this innocence. The correspondence which took place while Lady Marlborough was in town with her husband on this occasion reveals Anne very clearly in her affectionate simplicity.

I hear Lord Marlborough is sent to the Tower; and though I am certain they have nothing against him, and expected by your letter it would be so, yet I was struck when I was told it; for methinks it is a dismal thing to have one’s friends sent to that place. I have a thousand melancholy thoughts, and cannot help fearing they hinder you from coming to me; though how they can do that without making you a prisoner, I cannot imagine. I am just told by pretty good hands that as soon as the wind turns westerly there will be a guard set upon the prince and me. If you hear there is any such thing designed and that ’tis easy to you, pray let me see you before the wind changes: for afterward one does not know whether they will let one have opportunities of speaking to one another. But let them do what they please, nothing shall ever vex me, so I can have the satisfaction of seeing dear Mrs. Freeman; and I swear I would live on bread and water between four walls with her without repining; for so long as you continue kind, nothing can ever be a real mortification to your faithful Mrs. Morley, who wishes she may never enjoy a moment’s happiness in this world or the next if ever she proves false to you.

Whether the wind proving “westerly” was a phrase understood between the correspondents, or if it had anything to do with the event of the impending battle on which the fate of England was hanging, it is difficult to tell. If it was used in the latter sense, the victorious battle of La Hogue, by which all recent discomfitures were redeemed, soon restored the government to calm and the consciousness of triumph, and made conspiracy comparatively insignificant. Before this great deliverance was known, Anne had written a submissive letter to her sister, informing her that she had now recovered her strength “well enough to go abroad,” and asking leave to pay her respects to the queen. To which Mary returned a stern answer declaring that such civilities were unnecessary as long as her sister declined to do the thing required of her. Anne sent a copy of this letter to Lady Marlborough, announcing, as she was now “at liberty to go where I please by the queen refusing to see me,” her intention of coming to London to see her friend, but this intention does not seem to have been carried out. “I am very sensibly touched with the misfortune that my dear Mrs. Freeman has had in losing her son, knowing very well what it is to lose a child,” the princess writes, “but she, knowing my heart so well and how great a share I have in all her concerns, I will not say any more on this subject for fear of renewing her passion too much.” Throughout this separation these little billets were continually coming and going, and we cannot do better than transcribe for the reader some of those innocent letters, so natural and full of the writer’s heart.

Though I have nothing to say to my dear Mrs. Freeman I cannot help inquiring how she and her Lord does. If it be not convenient for you to write when you receive this, either keep the bearer till it is, or let me have a word from you by the next opportunity when it is easy to you, for I would not be a constraint to you at any time, much less now when you have so many things to do and think of. All I desire to hear from you at such a time is that you and yours are well, which next to having my Lord Marlborough out of his enemies’ power, is the best news that can come to her, who to the last moment of her life will be dear to Mrs. Freeman’s....

I give dear Mrs. Freeman a thousand thanks for her letter which gives me an account of her concerns; and that is what I desire more to know than other news. I shall reckon the days and hours and think it very long till the time is out, both for your sake and my Lord Marlborough’s, and that he may be at liberty and your mind at ease. And, dear Mrs. Freeman, don’t say when I can see you if I come to town, therefore I ask which day will be most convenient for you. I confess I long to see you, but am not so unreasonable to desire that satisfaction till it is easy to you. I wish with all my soul that you may not be a true prophetess, and that it may soon be in our power to enjoy one another’s company more than it has been of late, which is all I covet in this world....

I am sorry with all my heart Mrs. Freeman meets with so many delays, but it is a comfort they cannot keep my Lord Marlborough in the Tower longer than the end of the term, and I hope when the Parliament sits care will be taken that people may not be clapt up for nothing, or else there will be no living in quiet for anybody but insolent Dutch and sneaking mercenary Englishmen. Dear Mrs. Freeman, farewell—be assured your faithful Mrs. Morley can never change, and I hope you do not in the least doubt of her kindness, which, if it be possible, increases every day, and that can never have an end but with her life. Mrs. Morley hopes her dear Mrs. Freeman will let her have the satisfaction of hearing again from her to-morrow....

Dear Mrs. Freeman may easily imagine I cannot have much to say since I saw her. However, I must write two words, for though I believe she does not doubt of my constancy, feeling how base and false all the world is, I am of that temper I think I can never say enough to assure you of it. Therefore give me leave to assure you they can never change me. And there is no misery I cannot readily resolve to suffer rather than the thoughts of parting from you. And I do swear I would sooner be torn in pieces than alter this my resolution. My dear Mrs. Freeman, I long to hear from you.

This pretty correspondence changed a little, but only to grow more impassioned, when the princess had gone to Bath and the friends were less near each other.

Anne was, however, pursued by the royal displeasure even in her invalid journey to Bath, and no less a person than Lord Nottingham, the lord chamberlain, was employed to warn the mayor of that city that his civilities to the princess were ill-timed. Such a disclosure of the family quarrel evinced a determination and bitterness which perhaps frightened even Lady Marlborough, courageous as she was; and she seems to have offered and even pressed her resignation as a means of making peace. But nothing altered the devotion of her faithful princess.

I really long to know how my dear Mrs. Freeman got home, and now I have this opportunity of writing she must give me leave to tell her if she should ever be so cruel as to leave her faithful Mrs. Morley she will rob her of all the joy and quiet of her life; for if that day should come, I could never enjoy a happy minute, and I swear to you I would shut myself up and never see a creature. If you do but remember what the queen said to me the night before your lord was turned out of all; then she began to pick quarrels; and if they should take off twenty or thirty thousand pounds, have I not lived upon as little before? When I was first married we had but twenty (it is true indeed the king was so kind to pay my debts) and if it should come to that again what retrenchment is there in my family I would not willingly make and be glad of that pretence to do it? Never fancy, my dear Mrs. Freeman, if what you fear should happen, that you are the occasion; no, I am very well satisfied, and so is the prince, too, that it would have been so however, for Caliban is capable of doing nothing but injustice; therefore rest satisfied you are noways the cause, and let me beg once more for God’s sake that you would not mention parting more, no, not so much as think of it, and if you should ever leave me, be assured it would break your faithful Mrs. Morley’s heart.