CHAPTER IIYOUTH

Itwas at Cranborne Lodge in Windsor Park, the official home of Sir Thomas Aylesbury, that his grandchild, Edward Hyde’s eldest daughter, was born on the 12th March 1637, and baptized by the name of Anne, that of her father’s first wife. It may be mentioned that there is a tradition, though one altogether disproved, that her birthplace was the College Farm at Purton, which is said to have belonged to her paternal grandfather, Henry Hyde.[16]

16.“Life of Edward, Lord Clarendon,” by Sir Henry Craik.

Of her early childhood nothing has come down to us, but in May 1649 the mother with her five children set out for Antwerp. It was the dreary year when, immediately following the King’s execution, many of the broken and impoverished Cavaliers and their families saw no prospect for the future save in leaving their distracted country, and the Hydes did as their neighbours.

Hyde himself, as we have seen, had been despatched hither and thither in the service ofthe young King, and when at length he rejoined his family, it was at Breda.

The Princess of Orange was always as staunch a champion of her native country as she was a passionately loving sister to her exiled brothers, and she was ready at all times to extend a welcome to the forlorn and beggared English. Hyde, moreover, had been, as she knew, an absolutely trusted and faithful servant of the slaughtered father whose memory she cherished so fondly, and she lavished every possible attention on him and his family. She was upheld here by the good offices of Daniel O’Neill of the King’s bodyguard, a great friend of Hyde’s, who threw all his influence into the balance in his favour. Mary, we have seen, gave tangible proof of her attachment to the exiled Chancellor, as she generously provided a house at Breda, free of charge, for him and his family. Here then, Hyde, as we have said, set up his household gods. So many of the banished English were coming and going about the Princess Mary’s Court and the person of her brother during many years, that the Chancellor was by no means destitute of old friends.

Among these, not the least beloved and trusted was Morley, afterwards Bishop successivelyof Worcester and Winchester. He[17]had had a brilliant record as to learning. A king’s scholar of Westminster at fourteen, he had been elected to Christ Church at seventeen, and at Oxford had numbered among his friends Hammond, Sanderson, Sheldon, Chillingworth and also Falkland, who had often received him at Great Tew, where one can fancy the two musing together over books, and communing on all heaven and earth. He was, to some extent, tainted with Calvinism, but nevertheless, as a royal chaplain, gave his first year’s stipend for the help of the king in war, and later was deprived of his canonry and the rectory of Mildenhall by the Parliament. He was present with the chivalrous Arthur, Lord Capel, on the scaffold, aiding him with his prayers, and soon after went into exile, first in Paris, then at Breda where he took up his abode with the Hydes. We find his old friend the Chancellor, who called him “the best man alive,” recommending him as a spiritual adviser to Lady Morton, and much later we shall see how far his influence availed with his pupil, Hyde’s daughter.

17.Dictionary of National Biography.

Another of her father’s friends and advisers, destined to be in close contact with him in lateryears, was Gilbert Sheldon, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury.[18]Belonging as he did to the school of Laud and Andrewes, his views on certain points differed widely from those of Morley, yet both were alike in their unswerving loyalty to the King. Both, too, enjoyed the friendship of Falkland as of Hyde, who indeed made Sheldon one of the trustees of his papers during his exile. Like the bulk of his fellows, the latter suffered imprisonment, being ejected from his College of All Souls, for his “malignancy.” After the Restoration he was high in the King’s favour, nevertheless he did not hesitate to refuse to admit Charles to Holy Communion, on the score of the latter’s evil life.

18.Dictionary of National Biography.

In the house at Breda, sedulously cared for by her parents, Anne, the elder, and by her father at least the best beloved daughter, reached her seventeenth year. She was a clever, thoughtful girl, unusually well read for the period and circumstances of her life, a devout churchwoman under the guidance of Morley and her father, looking out on the life unfolding before her with a mind which then at least showed singular powers of balance and perception.

It may be stated in parenthesis, that the otherdaughter of the house was Frances, who subsequently married Sir Thomas Keighley of Hartingfordbury in Herts, but nothing beyond the bare fact is recorded of her, after childhood, though Evelyn mentions her as a guest at his house in 1673. The year 1654 was destined to bring about a change in the life of Anne which was to prove more momentous than anyone could foresee.

In the household of Mary, Princess of Orange, there was a maid of honour, one Mistress Kate Killigrew. An outbreak of smallpox at Spa drove the Court to take refuge at Aix-la-Chapelle, but Mistress Killigrew had already been smitten with the disease and died.

Without loss of time the Stuart princess nominated Chancellor Hyde’s young daughter to the vacant post. In this she was backed by her brother Charles, for whom she had hired a house in Aix, keeping also a table for him.

The proposed honour was, however, by no means so welcome as might be supposed.

For one thing, the queen-mother, always a woman of impulse and violent prejudice, had in no degree abated her dislike to Hyde, and everyone was aware of the fact. O’Neill, it seems, declaring that the Princess herself hadso much kindness for the Chancellor’s daughter that she long resolved to have her upon the first vacancy, suggested to his friend to ask for the post for Anne, a proceeding to which Hyde strongly objected, no doubt smarting under the knowledge of Henrietta’s attitude towards him. He had, he said, “but one daughter, who was all the company and comfort her mother had in her melancholic retirement,”[19]and therefore he was resolved not to separate them, nor to dispose his daughter to a “Court life,” “which he did in truth perfectly detest.”[20]

19.It is possible that the younger daughter, then an infant, might have been left in England under the charge of friends there.

20.“Life of Edward, Earl of Clarendon,” by himself. 1827.

In the old days when the dwindling Court had sojourned at Oxford, he had seen enough and more than enough of the turmoil of intrigues and jealousy, the incessant petty warfare between the rival factions of Henrietta and her husband, which the latter at any rate had been powerless to control, and naturally Hyde was sickened of it all, and unwilling to venture his “Nan” into a like atmosphere. About the same time we find him writing to Secretary Nicholas on the matter: “I presume you thinkmy wife a fool for being so indulgent to her girl as to send her abroad on such a gadding journey. I am very glad she hath had the good fortune to be graciously received by her Royal Highness, but I think it would be too much vanity in me to take any notice of it.”[21]

21.“Life of Henrietta Maria.” J. A. Taylor.

As before said, the King put his oar in, saying to the Chancellor “his sister having seen his daughter several times, liked her so well that she desired to have her about her person, and had spoken to him herself, to move it so as to prevent displeasure from the Queen, therefore he knew not why Hyde should neglect such an opportunity of providing for his daughter in so honourable a way.”[22]

22.“Tudor and Stuart Princesses.” Agnes Strickland.

To this Hyde answered: “He could not dispute the reasons with him, only that He could not give himself Leave to deprive his Wife of her Daughter’s Company, nor believe that She could be more advantageously bred than under her Mother”—another shaft aimed at the influence of a Court.[23]

23.“Life of Edward, Earl of Clarendon,” by himself. Ed. 1759.

Finally Mary herself bore down all opposition.She had her full share of the family obstinacy, and was determined to carry her point. In the end, as might be supposed, she succeeded. Hyde himself went to her, and said candidly that “if it had not been for her bounty in assigning them a house where they might live rent free they could not have been able to subsist,” and he therefore “confessed it was not in his power to make his daughter such an allowance as would enable her to live in her Royal Highness’ Court conformably to the position that was offered to her.”[24]

24.“The Royal House of Stuart.” Cowan.

The Princess promptly answered that she did not mean him to maintain his daughter in her service, as she took that upon herself, so the father reluctantly withdrew his opposition, saying “he left his daughter to be disposed by her mother.” On this point Lady Hyde had consulted Morley, and, probably to her husband’s surprise, that adviser counselled the acceptance of the Princess’s offer, on which the latter, recognising her triumph, remarked cheerfully: “I warrant you my Lady and I will agree on the matter.”

One cannot but wonder at Hyde’s backwardness, for he was then so poor that he was forcedto borrow of Nicholas small sums to pay postage for King Charles. One member of the English royal family there was who heartily approved and upheld the appointment. The Queen of Bohemia, Elizabeth Stuart, that unlucky “Queen of Hearts” who attracted to herself through so many stormy years the chivalrous devotion, among others, of the gallant Lord Craven, was at all times accustomed to speak and write her mind. On 7th September 1654 she wrote to Sir Edward Nicholas: “I heare Mrs Hide is to come to my neece in Mrs Killigrew’s place which I am verie glad of. She is verie fitt for itt, and a great favorit of mine.”

One advantage Hyde himself reaped from his daughter’s advancement. He records that his wife, “when she had presented her Daughter to the Princess, came herself to reside with her Husband to his great Comfort and which he could not have enjoyed if the other Separation had not been made, and possibly that Consideration had the more easily disposed him to consent to the other.”[25]

25.“Life of Edward, Earl of Clarendon,” by himself. Ed. 1759.

ELIZABETH, QUEEN OF BOHEMIA

The girl’s own feeling in the matter is expressed in a letter to her father, dated 19thOctober, which, under the ceremonious address then alone admissible, breathes a spirit of strong family affection.

“I have received yours of the 13th and shall euer make it soe much my business strickly to observe all your commands in it that when euer I transgress any of them in the least degree it shall be out of ignorance and not willfullness soe that I hope you shall neuer have cause to repent of the good opinion you are pleased to have of me and which I shall dayly endeuour to increase, and since you thinke it fitt for me, shall very cheerfully submit to a life which I have not much desired but now looke upon not onely as the will of my Father, but of Almighty God and therefore doubtles will prove a blessing; but Sr. you must not wonder if being happy in soe excelent a Father and Mother I cannot part with them without trouble, for though as you say I have been soe unfortunate as allways to live from you yet I looke upon myself now as still more unlikely to be with you or see you, and though I shall often heare from my Mother and I hope see her, yet that will be but little in respect of being continually with her. I say not this that I repine at goeing to the Princess forI am confident that God that has made her soe gracious in desiring me will make me happy in her service, but I should be the worst of chilldren if I were not very sensible of leaving soe good a Mother and leaving her so much alone; but I hope you will be together this winter, and in the meane time I beseech you to perswad her to stay as long as shee can wthvs at the Hague, that shee may be as little as is possible alone heare; I humbly beg your blessing vpon

“Sr.

“Your most dutifull and obedient daughter,

“Anne Hyde.”[26]

26.Clarendon MS., vol. xlix., folio 70 (Bodleian Library).

So she entered upon the duties of her new life, if with a certain shy reluctance, yet probably with a more or less eager curiosity and anticipation, feeling within herself a capacity to fulfil adequately the demands of this altered sphere.

As might be supposed, Queen Henrietta, on hearing of the appointment, flew into a passion and quarrelled hotly with her elder daughter, her constant appeals to whom to dismiss the obnoxious “Nan Hyde” almost seeming as though, if such a thing were possible, she had a sort of presentiment of the future.

Hyde himself had reminded Mary of her mother’s probable resentment, but the Princess answered simply: “I have always paid the duty to the Queen my Mother which was her due, but I am mistress of my own family, and can receive what servants I please, nay—I should wrong my Mother if I forebore to do a good and just action lest her Majesty should be offended at it. I know that some ill offices have been done you to my Mother, but I doubt not that in due time she will discern that she has been mistaken.”[27]

27.“Lives of the Queens of England.” Agnes Strickland.

If the young maid of honour could write submissively to her father, she was not backward in admonishing her brothers, but in reading the following letter one must bear in mind that she was the eldest, and no doubt quite honestly believed that she was fulfilling a duty in giving a piece of advice.

“Breda,6 Oct. 1654.

“Deare Brother,—This is to shew you that I will not allways be soe lasey as not to answer your letters, and indeed I will never be soe without a just cause for I am never better pleased than when I am walkeing with you asme thinks I am when I am writteing to you. I am sory to heare you doe not goe to Collogne with my Father for I wish you might see as much as is possible now you are abroad but our present condition will not permit us what we most desire but I doubt not of a happy change and then you will have all that is fitt for you which I most earnestly wish you and truely it is one of the things I beg dayly of Allmighty God to see you a very good and very happy man which I shall not doubt of if you make it your business (as I hope you ever will) to serve him and pleas my Father and Mother. My service to all my acquaintance with you. I will not send it to any of the Princesses Court becaus I belieue them all gone. My Brothers and all heare are your seruants and I am ever yours most affectionately,

“A. H.”[28]

28.Clarendon State Papers (Bodleian).

Anne once established in her new post, the Queen of Bohemia did not forget her sentiments of friendship, for on the 16th November[29]we find her again writing to Secretary Nicholas from the “Hagh” (Elizabeth’s spelling was atany rate no worse than her neighbours’): “I pray remember me to Mr Chancellor and tell him his Ladie and my favorit his daughter came hither upon Saterday and are gone this day to Teiling. I finde my favourit growen euerie way to her advantage.” A little later, too, that is, on 11th January 1654-1655, she tells the same correspondent: “We had a Royaltie though not vpon twelf night at Teiling where my neece was a gipsie and became her dress extream well.” “Mrs Hide was a shepherdesse and I assure you was verie handsome in it, none but her Mistress looked better than she did. I beleeve my Lady Hide and Mr Chancellor will not be sorie to heare it which I pray tell them from me.” It was a kind little message from one mother to another. Elizabeth Stuart’s roving life had perhaps taught her sympathy, grafted on to the traditional good nature of her family. It is all the more surprising that her own large flock of children “got on,” as one says, so badly with their mother, though she did care more for her sons than for her daughters.[30]However, that she took a fancy to “Nan Hyde” was certain. Beauty, it is true, was lavishlydistributed among those high-spirited, high-handed Princes and Princesses Palatine (among whom their cousin Charles II. so nearly found a bride), but it was probably Anne’s acute perception and strong intellect that appealed to their brilliant mother. Nevertheless she could, as we have seen, look with a keen and appreciative eye on the girl’s personal appearance. Anne at eighteen was at her best. The large frame had not yet thickened into the proportions which so early in life discounted her claims to beauty. She had the charm of expression, of good eyes, of vivacity, and then at least of exuberant spirits.

29.Evelyn’s “Correspondence.”

30.“A Royal Cavalier: The Romance of Rupert, Prince Palatine.” Mrs Steuart Erskine.

The “Royaltie” which the Queen describes was not unique. There were many such revels at the Court of The Hague. The Princess Mary, recovered from the shock of her early widowhood, and eager for enjoyment, loved these occasions, and shone at them with hereditary grace, while in every festive gathering her maids necessarily bore their part. The Queen writes to her nephew, Charles II., during the same January of another Royalty—she wrote to him very often, by the way:

“Though I believe you had more meat anddrink at Hannibal Sestade’s, yet I am sure our fiddles were better and dancers; your sister was very well dressed like an amazon; the Princess Tarente like a shepherdess; Mademoiselle d’Orange, a nymph. They were all very well dressed, but I wished all the night your Majesty had seen Vanderdons. There never was seen the like; he was a gipsy, Nan Hyde was his wife; he had pantaloons close to him of red and yellow striped, with ruffled sleeves; he looked just like a Jock-a-lent. They were twenty-six in all, and came [not?] home till five o’clock in the morning.”[31]

31.“Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia.” M. A. Green, revised by S. C. Lomas.

A little before this Elizabeth had written to the same correspondent of the amusements of his sister:

“My dear niece recovers her health and good looks extremely by her exercises, she twice dancing with the maskers; it has done her much good. We had it two nights, the first time it was deadly cold, but the last time the weather was a little better. The subject your Majesty will see was not extraordinary, but it was verywell danced. Our Dutch minister said nothing against it, but a little French preacher, Carré, by his sermon set all the church a-laughing.”

An early allusion to the festivities in which Anne Hyde afterwards shared and shone.

In the year 1655, within a few months of her appointment in the Princess Mary’s service, Anne’s young charms of mind and body brought to her feet at least one lover worth the winning.

At The Hague, in those days, among the many exiled Cavaliers who were generally made welcome at the Court of their young King’s elder sister, was Sir Spencer Compton, not the least distinguished of his gallant race. He was the youngest son of the loyal Earl of Northampton, and when but a child wept bitterly because he could not go forth to battle with his chivalrous brothers, seeing his small fingers could not grasp one of the great wheel-lock pistols of that day.[32]With characteristic contempt of concealment, he made no secret of his passion for Mistress Anne. Charles II. himself with his usual love of mischief wrote to Henry Bennet, afterwards Lord Arlington: “I will try whether Sir Spencer Compton be so much in love as you say, for Iwill name Mrs Hyde before him so by chance except that he be very much smitten it shall not at all move him.”[33]We are not told how young Compton stood the test, but it was pretty enough, that love-idyll of youth presented among the sylvan shades of the wooded Hague, though whether from interference or the coldness of the young maid of honour it was destined to fade quickly and pass into the limbo of things forgotten. One would like to know the story, but nothing more remains to us. Another suitor was Lord Newburgh, of whom Sir George Radcliffe wrote from Paris in the spring: “Onely one tould me yesterday a pretty story of him ythe must marry Mr Chancellor’s daughter (who waites of yePrincesse Royale) and so by ye Chanc: meanes be engaged in all the Scots affaires. The Chanc: has much talke of him at yePallais Royale where he is thought to be a powerfull man at yeCourt at Cologne. A person of honour would needs persuade me that yePrincesse Royall had provided for 3 of his children (which was 2 more than I had heard on).” Here there is a touch of the jealousy of Hyde’s influence and prosperity which was afterwards so widely spread.

32.Sir Philip Warwick.

33.Evelyn’s “Correspondence.”

We hear also of some sentimental passages with the conquering Harry Jermyn, who was said, on what authority it is now difficult to decide, to have been afterwards privately married to the Princess Mary. The same story, by the way, was told of his uncle, the elder Jermyn, and Queen Henrietta.

How far, however, the heart of the maid of honour was really concerned in these fleeting love affairs it is useless to conjecture. She was probably ready enough to be amused, and, conscious that she was not a beauty, to be flattered at such homage.

She was not idle, either; she was always fond of writing and ready with the pen, and at some time during her service—there is no date attached—Anne bethought her to set down in writing the character of her royal mistress. The manuscript is not in the girl’s own hand, but it is endorsed: “Pourtrait of ye Princess Royall drawne by Mrs Anne Hyde.”

“Ceux qui connoissent l’admirable Princesse dont j’entreprend le portrait trouveront bien étrange qu’une personne si peu capable que moy, de la bien representer oze l’hazarder a un si grand ouvrage et on m’accusera assurement de vanitéou de folie. Mais comme j’y suis toute preparée cela ne m’exonnera pas ni ne m’empêchera de commencer comme je ‘avois resolue, en vous disant qu’elle a la taille la plus belle et la plus libre du monde et qu’oy qu’Elle n’est pas des plus grandes il s’en voy beaucoup plus au dessous qu’au dessus de la Sienne elle a les cheveux d’un fort beau brun fort lustre et en grande quantité, les yeux grands et si beaux et brillans qu’on a de la peine a en supporter l’esclar. Son nes est un peu grand mais si bien fait que cela n’otte rien de la beauté de son visage. Sa bouche est fort belle, et les lèvres des plus vermeilles que l’on puisse voir, les dens belles, le tour du visage parfaitement beau, et le teint se uniet si beau qu’il ne se puisse rien voir au monde qui l’égalle, la gorge belle, les bras et les mains de mesme. Enfin on vois en toute sa personne quelque chose de si grande et de si relevée que sans la connoistre on verroit combien elle est au dessus du reste du monds. Elle a meilleure mine que personne, et quoy qu’Elle a asses de douceur pour luy gaigner le cœur de tous ceux qui la voyent. Elle a aussi une certaine fierte qui luy fait craindre et respecter de tous le monde et qui sied fort bien a une personne de sa condition. Pour son intérieur il est tellement impossiblede la connoistre, qu’il est bien difficile pour moy d’y bien reussir; pour de l’esprit, Elle en a infiniment mais de l’esprit vif et penetrant et qui la rend de la meilleure humeur du monde, quand Elle veut obliger ceux avec qui Elle se trouve; mais quand Elle ne se plait pas, Elle est tout a fait retirée, ne pouvant se contraindre pour qui que se soit quoy qu’Elle est generallement civile, mais Elle regarde la contrainte comme une chose peu necessaire aux personnes de sa qualité, les croyans plus faits pour eux mesmes, que pour les autres; Et c’est ce qui est cause qu’Elle parle moins que personne quand Elle est dans des Compagnies ou Elle ne veut pas estre tout a fait familière; cela fait a croire a ceux qui ne la connoissent pas qu’Elle est plus glorieuse qu’Elle n’est en effet, il est vray qu’Elle l’est un peu mais il ne luy mésied point, car il y a asseurement une espèce de gloire qui est necessaire à toutes les femmes et sur toutes a celles de sa naissance: Elle est tout a fait genereuse, et oblige de bonne grace ceux pour qui Elle a de l’amitié, il est vray qu’Elle n’en a pas pour beaucoup, mais Elle est parfaitement bonne amie où elle en fait profession et ne change jamais, à moins que de luy donner grand sujet, mais quand Elle a une fois mauvaise opinion d’unepersonne pour qui Elle a eue de l’amitié, on ne se remet jamais bien avec Elle, quoy qu’en apparence Elle vit fort bien avec eux; ce qui marque qu’Elle est plus dissimulée qu’Elle ne croit. Elle est asses colere qu’oy qu’Elle ne le temoigne guere car en ses humeurs la Elle se renferme des apres diners entieres sans voir qui que se soit; Elle parait plus indifferente que personne, mais ceux qui ont l’honneur de la voir souvent, peuvent remarquer qu’Elle n’est pas incapable des sentimens de l’amitié et de la haine: Elle ne se mocque jamais de qui que se soit, ni ne rompe jamais en visière, mais Elle n’est pas faschée de faire de petites malices, qui peuvent mettre ses gens en peine mais c’est tousjours a ceux dont Elle connoit tout a fois les humeurs. Elle est fort constante en ses resolutions, un peu trop quelque fois, car il y a des temps on cela va jusques à l’opiniotreté; Elle ne se mele jamais des affaires d’autruy, si ce ne’est qu’on luy en parle le premier, et alors Elle est tout a fait secrete, et donne ses avis avec toute la franchise imaginable. En fin Elle a toutes les qualites requises pour rendre une personne parfaite; car outre ce que j’ay deja dit, Elle danse mieux que qui se soit, mais Elle est un peu paresseuse, ce qui est causequ’Elle songe moins à se diverter que personne, et qu’Elle aime mieux passer son temps toute seule dans sa Chambre que de prendre la peine de s’ajuster pour une assemblée, quoy qu’Elle y reusset mieux que personne n’a jamais fait. Je n’aurois jamais fait si je voulois entreprendre à depeindre toutes les admirables qualités de cette grande Princesse. Je me contenteray donc de finir en la supliant tres humblement de pardonner toutes les fautes d’une Portrait, qu’il est impossible de rendre aussi parfait que son original, set qu’Elle aura la bonté de se souvenir, que celle qui l’a fait est tellement dediée à son service qu’Elle se croit seulement heureuse parcequ’Elle est sienne, et qu’elle ne plaint son faut d’esprit et de jugement que parcequ’ils l’empeschent de representer comme elle doit les admirables qualites de sa maitresse.”[34]

34.MS. 276, Egerton, 2542.

If the flattery contained in this portrait may be termed excessive, yet something is due to the customs of the period, which almost enjoined language of the kind. At the same time, Mary’s pride of demeanour is insisted on in a way that betrays some sense of injury, though this is carefully veiled. Later we know Anne was tosuffer from the wrath and indignation of her mistress, but there is no reason to suppose that when she wrote these words she did not feel a very real affection for the Princess, who had braved her own mother’s anger and surmounted various difficulties for the sake of the writer. And moreover Mary, Princess of Orange, was a Stuart. If she was haughty, imperious, at times wayward, yet she had her share of the haunting, ineffable charm of her doomed race, the charm which attracted the homage of heart and life of those round her, and bound them to her with an imperishable chain. On the same theme the maid of honour also ventured into poetry, at any rate into rhyme. The effusion may possibly be ascribed to the same date.

“Heroic nymph! in tempests the support,In peace the glory of the British Court,Into whose arms the Church, the State, and allThat precious is or sacred, here did fall.Ages to come that shall your bounty hearShall think you mistress of the Indies were,Though straiter bounds your fortune did confineIn your large heart was found a wealthy mine.Like the blest oil, the widow’s lasting feast,Your treasure as you poured it out increased.While some your beauty, some your bounty singYour native isles does with your praises ring,But above all, a nymph of your own trainGives us your character in such a strainAs none but she who in that Court did dwellCould know such world, or worth describe so well.”[35]

“Heroic nymph! in tempests the support,

In peace the glory of the British Court,

Into whose arms the Church, the State, and all

That precious is or sacred, here did fall.

Ages to come that shall your bounty hear

Shall think you mistress of the Indies were,

Though straiter bounds your fortune did confine

In your large heart was found a wealthy mine.

Like the blest oil, the widow’s lasting feast,

Your treasure as you poured it out increased.

While some your beauty, some your bounty sing

Your native isles does with your praises ring,

But above all, a nymph of your own train

Gives us your character in such a strain

As none but she who in that Court did dwell

Could know such world, or worth describe so well.”[35]

35.“Tudor and Stuart Princesses.” Agnes Strickland.

Meanwhile Anne’s fate, all unsuspected, was advancing towards her with swift and unfaltering steps.

Queen Henrietta had never been able to reconcile to herself Princess Mary’s appointment of Hyde’s daughter about her person, and since its accomplishment had constantly appealed to her to dismiss Anne from her service.[36]Lord Hatton, in fact, writes: “The Queen’s last sickness was by the chamber confident said to be expressed by the Queen by reason of some late letters from the young PrsseOrange wherein she still contests for retaining with her Sir E. H. daughter which the Queen will not cease till she out her there. This I assure you comes from eare witnesses.”

36.“Lives of Princesses of England.” M. A. Everett-Green.

Mary was, however, quite as resolute as her mother, and when in 1655 she formed the project of a visit to Paris, it was with the intention of taking her favourite in her train.

Hyde, who as we have seen was fully conscious of the queen-mother’s disapproval, wished to take this opportunity of withdrawing hisdaughter, but the Princess peremptorily refused, declaring that it would be only necessary for her mother to see Anne in order to abate her unreasonable prejudice. The Chancellor’s unwillingness in the matter can be gleaned from a letter he wrote at the time to Lady Stanhope, who had become the wife of John van der Kirckhove Heenvliet, the Dutch Ambassador despatched to England in 1641 to arrange the marriage of Mary with the late Prince of Orange.

“My very good Lady”—so wrote Hyde[37]—“Though the considerations and objections I presumed to offer this last year against the high grace and favour which your Royal Mistress was then inclined to vouchsafe to my poor Girl, were not thought reasonable or probable, yet you now see that I had too much ground for these apprehensions, and they who came last from Paris are not reserved in declaring that the Princess Royal’s receiving my Daughter into her service is almost the only cause of the Queen’s late reservation towards her Royal Highness which I hope you believe is a very great affliction to me. I most humbly beg your Ladyship if you find any disposition in herRoyal Highness out of her goodness to me to give the girl leave to attend her in this journey, when it seems others who have more title to that honour must be left behind, that you will consider whether the preferring her to this new favour may not be an unhappy occasion of improving her Majesty’s old dislike, and if there be the least fear of that or appearance of any domestic inconvenience by leaving others unsatisfied I do beg you with all my heart, to use your credit in diverting that Gracious purpose in your Royal Mistress towards her, and let her instead of waiting this journey, have leave to spend a little time in the visitation of her friends at Breda, and upon my credit, whatsoever in your wisdom shall appear fittest in this particular shall be abundantly obliging to

“Madam, your Ladyship’s, etc.

“Cologne, this 16th March 1655.”

37.Clarendon State Papers.

Whether this letter was laid before the Princess or not, the journey was undertaken, and she and her attendants began the long projected expedition which was to be fraught with such far-reaching results.

Mary set out in high spirits at the prospect of the change, of seeing her mother (in spite oftheir differences, which she probably considered to be trivial) and of making the acquaintance of the little sister who was yet a stranger to her, Henrietta Anne, the child born at Exeter during the siege, and brought to France through many dangers, with real heroism and devotion, by Lady Dalkeith.

According to our ideas, the journey from The Hague must have been a very long and tedious one, but it was no doubt full of interest to the Princess and her train. Each day furnished incidents to engross and be discussed as the long cavalcade of maids and men, of heavy baggage waggons, of lumbering coaches, of numerous pack-horses, of guards armed with dag and musket, accoutred in back and breast plate—for there was a body of sixty horse—flaunted along the heavy, muddy roads. Here a wheel would sink into the deep ruts, and the vehicle be released with immense noise and bustle; there an axle-tree would break and must be mended at the cost of an hour or two’s delay, while the shoeing smiths reaped a goodly harvest by their task of replacing cast shoes. The minister Heenvliet accompanied the Princess to Antwerp and Brussels, at which place he left her. At Mons ordnance was fired, torches werelighted, and the magistrates paid her the compliment, customary in the case of royalty, of asking from her the watchword for the night.[38]

38.“Lives of the Princesses of England.” M. A. Everett-Green.

So the procession passed on through the level, dyke-protected tracts of Flanders, and came at last to the frontier and the fair land of France.

In the splendid days of Charles the Bold, he who had been Count of Flanders and the Netherlands had been also Duke of Burgundy, a most unwilling vassal to the French crown. Since his time, that province of his great inheritance had become part and parcel of the dominion of King Louis, and when the Princess of Orange halted at the ancient city of Peronne she was well within French territory.

Here, at the capital of the old Burgundian Duchy, she was met by her second brother, James, Duke of York, at this time—through no fault of his own—reduced to a life of inaction at Paris, and here possibly began the prologue of the romance which was to affect not only his own life, but the future of the far-off country of his birth. Of this more later. With the Duke, and attached to his person, were the LordGerard and Sir Charles Berkeley, besides M. Sanguin,maître d’hôtelto the French king.

So accompanied Mary pursued her journey, to be met by her mother and sister at Bourgel, six miles from Paris.

Of her stay in the French capital, though it extended over a period of some months, there are but scanty records, but that she entered fully into all the gaiety which surrounded the boy King is certain.

Anne Hyde appears to have caught smallpox during the visit, but it was a slight attack and she probably escaped without disfigurement.[39]She had not been well early in the year, as appears from Sir Alexander Hume’s letter from Teyling on 22nd February.

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