Plaidy, Jean - Royal Sisters - The Story of the Daughters of James II

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1966 by Jean Plaidy, copyright renewed 1994 by Mark Hamilton

Excerpt from Courting Her Highness copyright © 1966 by Jean Plaidy, copyright renewed 1994 by Mark Hamilton

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Broadway Paperbacks, an imprint of the

Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

www.crownpublishing.com

Broadway Paperbacks and its logo, a letter B bisected on the diagonal, are trademarks of

Random House, Inc.

Originally published in hardcover in slightly different form as The Haunted Sisters in Great Britain by Robert Hale Limited, London, in 1966, and in hardcover in the United States by G. P. Putnam’s Sons, New York, in 1977.

This book contains an excerpt from the forthcoming Broadway Paperbacks reprint of Courting Her Highness by Jean Plaidy, which was originally published as The Queen’s Favourites by Robert Hale Limited, London, in 1966. This excerpt has been set for this edition only and may not reflect the final content of the forthcoming edition.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Plaidy, Jean, 1906–1993.

[Haunted sisters]

Royal sisters : a novel of the Stuarts / Jean Plaidy.

p. cm.

1. Mary II, Queen of England, 1662–1694—Fiction. 2. Anne, Queen of Great

Britain, 1665–1714—Fiction. 3. Queens—Great Britain—Fiction. I. Title.

PR6015.I3H3 2011

823′.914—dc22

2011000643

eISBN: 978-0-307-72084-9

Cover design by Laura Duffy

Cover photography by Richard Jenkins

v3.1

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

A Husband for Anne

Mrs. Morley and Mrs. Freeman

The King is Dead

Long Live the King

The Princess Bereaved

The Warming-Pan Scandal

The Flight of the Princess

The Uneasy Coronation

A Dish of Green Peas

At the Playhouse

The Arrival of Mrs. Pack and Departure of William

Beachy Head and the Boyne

Marlborough’s Defeat

The Flowerpot Plot

His Highness’s Soldiers and Stays

The End of a Life

To Be Delivered After Death

The Twickenham Interlude

Garter and Governor for Gloucester

The Great Tragedy

The Little Gentleman in Black Velvet

Bibliography

Excerpt from Courting Her Highness

A HUSBAND FOR ANNE

he Princess Anne, walking slowly through the tapestry room in St. James’s Palace—for it was a lifetime’s habit never to hurry—smiled dreamily at the silken pictures representing the love of Venus and Mars which had been recently made for her uncle, the King. Tucked inside the bodice of her gown was a note; she had read it several times; and now she was taking it to her private apartments to read it again.

Venus and Mars! she thought, Goddess and God, and great lovers. But she was certain that there had never been lovers like Anne of York and John Sheffield, Earl of Mulgrave, Princess and Poet.

Her lips moved as she repeated the words he had written.

Of all mankind I loved the best

A nymph so far above the rest

That we outshine the Blest above

In beauty she, as I in love .

No one could have written more beautifully of Venus than John Sheffield had written of her.

What had happened to Venus and Mars? she wondered idly. She had never paid attention to her lessons; it had been so easy to complain that her eyes hurt or she had a headache when she was expected to study. Mary—dear Mary!—had warned her that she would be sorry she was so lazy, but she had not been sorry yet, always preferring ignorance to effort; everyone had indulged her, far more than they had poor Mary who had been forced to marry that hateful Prince of Orange. Anne felt miserable remembering Mary’s face swollen from so many tears. Dear sister Mary, who had always learned her lessons and been the good girl; and what had been her reward? Banishment from her own country, sent away from her family, and married to that horrid little man, the Orange, as they called him—or more often Caliban, the Dutch Monster.

The exquisitely sculptured Tudor arch over the fireplace commemorated two more lovers whose entwined initials were H and A. Henry the VIII and Anne Boleyn had not remained constant lovers. That was indeed a gloomy thought and the Princess Anne made a habit of shrugging aside what was not pleasant.

She turned from the tapestry room and went to her own apartments. Delighted to find none of her women there, she sat in the window seat and took out the paper.

Soon, the whole Court would be reading the poem, but they would not know that those words were written for her. They would say: “Mulgrave writes a pretty verse.” And only she would know.

But it was not always going to be so. Why should they hide their passion?

Her father had always been indulgent, and she preferred to believe he would continue so. Her uncle too, but state policy could come into this—as it had with Mary.

Anne was suddenly frightened, remembering that terrifying day when Mary had come to her, bewildered, like a sleepwalker. “Anne, they are forcing me to marry our cousin Orange.”

Matters of state! A Princess’s duty! Those words which meant that the free and easy life was over. An indulgent father and a kind uncle were yet Duke of York and King of England; and matters of state must take precedence over family feeling.

Anne refused to consider failure. It was a trait in her character which had often exasperated Mary. Anne believed what she wanted to believe, so now she believed she would be allowed to marry Mulgrave.

Reaching her apartment she went at once to the window and, as she had expected, she saw him in the courtyard below, where he had been walking backward and forward hoping for a glimpse of her.

They smiled at each other. He was not only the most handsome man in her uncle’s Court, thought Anne, but in the world.

“Wait!” Her lips formed the words; he could not hear, of course, but with the extra sense of a lover, he understood.

She turned from the window, picked up a cloak, wrapped it round her and pulled the hood over her head. It would help to conceal her identity. Unhurriedly she went down to the courtyard.

He ran to her and took both her hands.

“We must not stay here,” she said.

“But we must talk.”

She nodded and drew him to an alcove in the stone wall; here they could remain hidden from anyone crossing the courtyard.

“My poem …” he began.

“It was beautiful.”

“Did you understand what the lines meant?”

“I think I understand,” she said.

He quoted:

“And therefore They who could not bear

To be outdone by mortals here ,

Among themselves have placed her now .

And left me wretched here below.”

“It sounds as though she’s dead,” said Anne.

“It is symbolic. I daren’t tell the truth. You are so far above me … a Princess. What hope have I …”