Chapter 13

178.“Memoirs of Sir John Reresby.” “His Royal Highness and his duchess came down to York (Aug. 5) where it was observed that Mr Sydney, the handsomest youth of his time and of the Duke’s bedchamber was greatly in love with the duchess, and he might well be excused, for the Duchess, daughter to Chancellor Hyde, was a very handsome personage and a woman of Fine Wit. The Duchess on her part seemed kind to him, but very innocently.”

There was at one time a rumour coupling the name of the Duchess of York with Henry Savile, another of the Duke’s grooms of the bedchamber, and in reference to this report, Pepys piously ejaculates: “God knows what will be the end of it!” However, as in the case of Sidney, there is no positive evidence beyond rumour, and rumour was not likely to spare anyone whohad so many enemies as Anne Hyde. Therefore here, too, a plea of innocence may be admitted on her behalf.

During the ten years from 1661 to 1671 the Duke and Duchess moved, it seems, little from London. Besides the progress already described, made in company with the King and Queen from Bath to Oxford, the pair were once at York in 1665, and this, according to Reresby, seems to have marked the beginning of Henry Sidney’s passion for the Duchess.[179]Another time they were at Oxford, and when, like the Court, they fled from the Plague, they took refuge at Rufford in Nottinghamshire, being there entertained by Sir George Savile.[180]In return for this piece of hospitality his uncle, William Coventry, begged the Duke to procure a peerage for the host. James referred the matter to his father-in-law, the Lord Chancellor Clarendon, backing, however, the appeal by saying that “Sir George had one of the best fortunes in England, and lived the most like a great man, that he had beenvery civil to him and his wife in the North, and treated them at his house in a very splendid manner.” Savile afterwards became Marquess of Halifax, having married Dorothy, eldest daughter of Henry, Earl of Sunderland (as already mentioned), who fell at Newbury, and also, of course, of “Sacharissa.” The Duke and Duchess were back at St James’s at the time of the Fire, when the former did yeoman’s service in the endeavour to check the ravages of the terrible conflagration, when old St Paul’s, with its splendid if ruined nave, its beautiful chantries and tombs, and its lofty spire, thundered down in a whirlwind of devouring flame, in company of eighty-nine City churches. No one worked harder in the face of this calamity than the King and his brother, nor showed greater contempt of danger and readiness of resource, and to the Duke we owe the preservation of the Temple Church by his order to blow up the neighbouring houses. To this Evelyn bears testimony, for he says: “It is not indeed imaginable how extraordinary the vigilance of the King and Duke was, even labouring in person, and being present to command, order, reward or encourage workmen.”

179.“Calendar of Domestic Papers.” 7th August 1665, York.—Sir William Coventry to Lord Arlington: “The Lord Mayor and Aldermen on horseback, in their habits, who besides the speeches presented the Duke with 100 pieces, and the Duchess with 50.”

180.“Court of William III.” E. and M. S. Grew.

A little before this we find Mrs Kate Philips,known in her own day as the “Matchless Orinda,” writing to Lady Temple (whom we know and love as Dorothy Osborne): “I am glad of the news of the Duchess’ recovery, and the other victory you mention at Court.” The recovery is probably from measles, from which Anne suffered about this time.[181]The victory is that of Frances Stewart, afterwards Duchess of Richmond, whom Charles II. loved so madly—for a time—over her unpopular rival, Lady Castlemaine. It was a very well known piece of gossip with which the Court was ringing at the moment, but one can hardly fancy it to be particularly welcome nor interesting to Dorothy Temple, being the manner of woman she was. A month later poor Orinda was dead of smallpox, and her poetry, “matchless” as it was thought, was very soon forgotten.[182]

181.“Diary.” Samuel Pepys. 28th December 1663.

182.“Martha, Lady Gifford: Life and Letters, 1664-1722,” edit. by Miss J. E. Longe. “Letter from Mrs Kate Philips under the name of Orinda to Sir Wm. Temple’s lady (Dorothy Osborne), 22nd January, 1664.”

As to Anne’s own household, it is significant that she was said to rule it with decision and vigilance. One of her ladies was lovely Frances Jennings, the elder sister of the famous Sarah,afterwards Duchess of Marlborough, and she, having married first one of the wild Hamiltons,[183]became Duchess of Tyrconnel, and was destined in her old age to suffer the stings of poverty and neglect. But early in her career there were love passages with the Marquis de Berni, son of Hugues de Lionne, Foreign Secretary to Louis XIV., and her mistress encouraged the affair, for it seems that “the Duchess, who is generally severe on such things, finds the two so well suited that she is the first to favour them.”[184]

183.Brother of Anthony, Count Hamilton, the chronicler.

184.“A French Ambassador at the Court of Charles II. (Comte de Cominges).” Jusserand.

Another of the ladies was Miss Temple, afterwards Lady Lyttelton, and yet another Lady Denham, whose story is a sad and dark one. She had been a Brooke, and had already attracted the Duke of York when she married Sir John Denham, who discovering the liaison, poisoned his wife, at least, so it was suspected.[185]

185.Mary Kirke was another of Anne’s maids, according to Grammont.

FRANCES JENNINGS, DUCHESS OF TYRCONNEL

But attached likewise to the Duchess’ person was one who, one cannot but think, must have been to some extent a support and comfort in a life that became more and more lonely anddifficult as time went on. Margaret, daughter of Colonel Thomas Blagge of Horningsheath in Suffolk, a loyal Cavalier through the Civil War, during which he was governor of Landguard Fort, became maid of honour to Anne, when a little girl, probably not more than twelve years of age. The story of her short life has been told by Evelyn, who watched over her with the care of a father, and to whom she seems to have been almost an inspiration.[186]As a little child she had been sent to France with the Duchess of Richmond (that wayward, beautiful Mary Villiers, so long and deeply beloved by Prince Rupert, and whose chivalrous lord had died broken-hearted for the loss of his master, Charles I.). The child was then confided to the care of Lady Guildford, Groom of the Stole to the queen-mother Henrietta, yet even then we are told that little Margaret resisted being taken to Mass. After her return to England she was confirmed by Gunning, Bishop of Ely, at the age of eleven, and admitted to Holy Communion at that early period. It was not long after this that the Duchess of York asked for her, and from that time she lived, outwardly,the beautiful, admired, lively maid of honour; inwardly, a life “hid with Christ.” Evelyn himself was long unwilling to know much of her, fancying her “some airy thing that had more wit than discretion”; and Pepys with much relish relates that he, in company with Sir John Smith, dined with her, Mrs Ogle and Mrs Anne Howard (another maid of honour, afterwards Lady Sylvius), and that it “did me good to have the honour to dine with them and look upon them.” In the whirl of the Court life Margaret Blagge moves like the “Lady” inComus, with spotless garments unsmirched by the mire through which she treads, and leaving behind her the ineffable perfume of the “white flower of a blameless life.”[187]She was destined to die young, in the twenty-sixth year of her age, the passionately beloved wife of Sidney Godolphin, the best part of whose life and character was buried in that early grave. It is hard to think that he who was to know such a consecration could write verses to Moll Davis!

186.“Life of Mrs Godolphin,” by John Evelyn, ed. by E. W. Harcourt.

187.“Diary of John Evelyn,” introduction by Austin Dobson. “1667. June 30th.—My wife went a journey of pleasure down the river as far as the sea with Mrs Howard and her daughter the maid of honour (after Lady Sylvius) and others, amongst whom that excellent creature Mrs Blagge.” This is his first mention of her.

To Anne Hyde, whose almost stern character could appreciate honesty, the straightforward mind and transparent truth of Margaret Blagge must have appealed, in spite of the divergence of faith which came before the end. For we hear of the Duchess, that “her frankness was such that she could as little conceal her antipathies as she could disguise her affections.”[188]This candour was, it may very easily be seen, dangerous in her position and must have made for unpopularity.

188.“Anecdotal Memoirs of English Princes.” Davenport Adams.

Meanwhile the Duke of York, whatever else he was, was by no means reconciled to a life of idleness. Pepys, in his character of Naval Secretary, affirms early in 1664: “The Duke of York do give himself up to business, and is likely to prove a noble prince, and so indeed I do from my heart think he will.”[189]The former had, indeed, every opportunity of judging, as his post brought him necessarily into constantcommunication with the Lord High Admiral, communication of the most intimate kind, for another time he remarks: “Up and carrying my wife to Whitehall to the Duke where he first put on a periwigg to-day, but methought his hair cut short in order did look very prettily of itself before he put on his periwigg.”[190]This is the last we see of James’ fair curls. King Charles was turning grey—it was said from anxiety on account of the Queen’s dangerous illness—and so assumed a black peruke; therefore his brother, no less than his whole Court, must needs do likewise. Another of the honest secretary’s remarks conveys a certain pathos: “To St James’s, and there did our business as usual with the Duke and saw him with great pleasure play with his little girle like an ordinary private father of a childe.”[191]If Pepys was what Thackeray calls a snob, he was at any rate a very candid one, and perhaps there was, besides, lurking in that commonplace mind a little envious pang at the sight, for he, we know, was childless. Yet could he have foreseen the future he had no need to envy James that pretty plaything, for twenty-four years later “Marythe daughter,”[192]as the bitter Jacobite rhyme calls her, was destined to grasp the crown torn from the head of the father who so loved her, the father driven into exile by his children.

189.“Calendar of Domestic State Papers.” Ambassador Van Gogh to the States General. 1664-1665.—March: “The Duke of York is recovered, and will soon go to Deal, it is believed he will go out with the Fleet. The Duchess goes with him, and has taken a country house near so as to be at hand to receive news of him during the expedition.”

190.“Diary.” 15th February 1664.

191.Ibid.12th September 1664.

192.There’s Geordie the drinker,There’s Annie the eater,There’s Mary the “daughter,”There’s Willie the cheater.

192.

There’s Geordie the drinker,There’s Annie the eater,There’s Mary the “daughter,”There’s Willie the cheater.

There’s Geordie the drinker,

There’s Annie the eater,

There’s Mary the “daughter,”

There’s Willie the cheater.

The Duke of York’s work on behalf of the navy did not begin and end in St James’s or in the Admiralty buildings near the Tower. Later we shall see him on board his flagship at grips with the Dutch, but meanwhile he took care to visit many ships, and Anne was often with him on these expeditions. On 19th May 1665, Lord Peterborough, writing from Harwich, mentions that he is “going on board to compliment the Duchess.”[193]The ship on this occasion was theRoyal Charles, and a few days later Sir William Coventry seems to be suffering acutely, for, addressing Arlington, he says: “The Duchess and her beautiful Maids are departing, therefore long letters must not be expected from me under such a calamity, would visit their desperationon the Dutch were not the victuallers as cruel as the ladies.”[194]

193.“Calendar of Domestic State Papers,” ed. by M. A. Everett-Green. Earl of Peterboro’ to Williams.

194.“Calendar of Domestic State Papers,” ed. by M. A. Everett-Green. Earl of Peterboro’ to Williams.

James was not the only prince of his house to supplement the laurels won on land by achievements on the high seas. His cousins, the Princes Palatine, Rupert and Maurice, had long ago made their names known as valiant mariners. A mystery always hung over the fate of Prince Maurice, who with his ship, theDefiance, vanished in a great storm.[195]Rupert himself barely escaped with his life in a small boat when theConstant Reformationwas lost with three hundred and thirty-three men, and this year, 1665, he set out to attack the Dutch on the coast of Guinea. He was accompanied down the river by the King and the Duke of York, the latter longing to go with his cousin on this adventure, which, however, came to nothing, for in spite of the Prince’s efforts the fleet did not sail. The next year, however, the long smouldering rivalry with the States General came to a head, and war was declared. A fleet to proceed against the Dutch was assembled atGunfleet, the Duke, as Lord High Admiral, being in supreme command, and Prince Rupert, Admiral Lawson and Lord Sandwich admirals under him. Charles, by the way, had given the settlement of New Amsterdam to his brother, and it was henceforth known as New York, the Dutch land settlement having been originally taken by James I.

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

In April the fleet aforesaid began the blockade of the Zuyder Zee, but after a fortnight it was forced to return for provisions, though it had been supposed to be victualled for five months. Prince Rupert, who came to be known as the seaman’s friend, was highly indignant with Pepys and other Admiralty officials on this occasion, but the debts on the fleet had really begun under the Commonwealth and had mounted to such an extent that it was impossible to pay the pursers.[196]Finally, after the loss of Hamburg to the Dutch, the English fleet again set sail and headed for Southwold Bay, meeting the enemy on 1st June. For two more days they pursued them, till they succeeded in getting their wind-gauge, fourteen miles from Lowestoft, and the battle actually began athalf-past three on the afternoon of 3rd June, Prince Rupert leading the van, the Duke of York the centre, and Sandwich the rear. To James it was probably as keen a satisfaction as it was to his cousin, to vindicate on the sea the reckless valour which in his early youth had distinguished him on land, and it was with the knowledge of his contempt for personal danger, that the Duchess contrived to convey a strict injunction to all his servants to do whatever lay in their power to restrain him on this occasion. It was during the action that the Dutch copied the English tactics of turning, but they found the latter ready for them, their rear and van changing positions. However, the English sustained some disaster by means of a mistake in the new signalling orders, and a false move on the part of Sandwich, who allowed his squadron to become mixed with the enemy. Nevertheless the victory remained with the English, for by seven o’clock the Dutch were in full flight, fourteen of their ships being taken and four thousand men slain. It was even said that they might have been annihilated but for conflicting counsels on the part of the English, and a mistake for which, guilty or innocent, the Duke had to suffer. A council had been heldon board his flagship, when some of the captains asked him to discontinue the pursuit. This, however, James refused, giving, on the contrary, the order to press on all sail, and bidding his servants to call him when the Dutch should be sighted. He then went below, and during the night, Brouncker, who was Gentleman of his Bedchamber, going to the admiral, Sir William Penn, bade him shorten sail. Penn, believing this order to come from the Duke, obeyed it, but in the morning James came on deck, and at once questioned the admiral, who promptly accused Brouncker. The latter held his tongue, but his master, declaring he had given no such order, dismissed him from his service. It was at the time considered significant that the Duke did not further punish him, but on the other hand, it may be noticed that James’ own account of the matter is that he intended to punish Brouncker by martial law, but that the House of Commons took up the question, and by impeaching the culprit made any further action on his own part impossible. Lord Montague seems to have believed that the Duke did give the order, but Brouncker when before the House did not even pretend that his master had done so. Whatever were James’ faults, his characterfor courage and candour make his own account the more probable. In any case he was the ultimate victim, for he was withdrawn from the command of the navy on the ground that it exposedhim, the heir presumptive, to too much danger.[197]The service thereby lost a valuable head, for he had worked hard to establish it on a permanent footing, and had already evolved some order out of chaos. Yet this department of duty was not, at least at this period of his life, what he most desired, or was most congenial to him. Again on this subject Pepys writes: “He [Mr Coventry] tells me above all of the Duke of York that he is more himself and more of judgment is at hand in him in the middle of a desperate service than at other times, as appeared in the business of Dunkirke, wherein no man ever did braver things or was in hotter service at the close of that day, being surrounded with enemies. And though he is a man naturally martial to the highest degree, yet a man that never in his life talks one word of himself or service of his own, but only that he saw such and such a thing and lays it downfor a maxim that a Hector can have no courage.”[198]

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

197.“Anecdotal Memoirs of English Princes.” Davenport Adams.

198.“Diary.” 4th June 1664.

It is no indifferent testimony, even in an age which produced many brilliant soldiers who left an inheritance of great names. It may be noted that Anne’s cruel enemy, Lord Falmouth, once Sir Charles Berkeley, fell at Southwold Bay.

There are two letters from the Duke of York to the Prince Palatine, which, although they are undated except as to the month, probably refer to this year’s campaign.

“For my deare Cousin,

Prince Rupert.

“July 17.

“I no sooner received yours of the 12 but that I sent for SrG. Downing and gave him order about River so that I hope he will become exchanged, and in the meane tyme the Dutch Capneis put in chanes and told why he is so used. I hope that and your giving them a sound bange will teach them better manners; this bearer will tell them all the newes so that I have no more to say but to thank you for the scrole you sent me and to wish you a faire wind andgood successe, and that God will preserve you in the midst of those dangers you are likly shortly to be in.

“James.”

“For my deare Cousin,

Prince Rupert.

“Nov. 7.

“I received yours by this bearer by the which I am very glad to find that things are in so good a readinesse where you are. I intend God willing to be at Portsmouth on Wensday, and to-morrow all the ships in the hope are to fall down except theCharleswhose mainemast must be changed, which will be sone done. I shall ad no more hoping to see you so sone but that I am entirely yours

“James.”[199]

199.Forster Collection MSS. V. and A. Museum.

It was in the succeeding year that Prince Rupert and the Duke of Albemarle achieved their great victory over the Dutch off the North Foreland on St James’s Day, 25th July.[200]In that terrible and stubborn fight the English hadeighty-one ships of the line and eighteen fireships, while the enemy, under the command of the famous De Ruyter, had eighty-eight ships, ten yachts, and twenty fireships. After this engagement the Prince Palatine carried fire and sword from Scheveningen along the coast of Holland, but he was compelled to return for want of provisions, of which neglect he complained bitterly. Secretary Pepys, however, a second time the scapegoat, retorted that the fleet had been brought back in bad condition, the Prince protesting that he could have continued the campaign six months longer if his ships had been properly provisioned. The Dutch fleet was enabled by his evasion to refit, and were joined by the French in the Channel.

200.“A Royal Cavalier: Romance of Rupert, Prince Palatine”; Green’s “Short History of the English People.”

All this while the Duke of York, detained at home, was chafing with impatience and trying to fill up his time with such matters as came to hand, and giving his attention to each. Once Pepys writes: “I to Whitehall to a Committee for Tangiers where the Duke of York was, and I acquitted myself well in what I had to do” (the worthy Samuel, in spite of occasional fits of self-accusation, had always an excellent opinion of himself). “After the Committee up I had occasion to follow the Duke intohis lodgings into a chamber where the Duchess was sitting to have her picture drawn by Lilly, who was there at work. But I was well pleased to see that there was nothing near so much resemblance of her face in his work which is now the second if not the third time as there was of my wife’s at the very first time. Nor do I think at last it can be like, the lines not being in proportion to those of her face.” To the end, ill as he behaved to and by her, Pepys was proud of his wife’s beauty and really fond of her, and this naïve expression of his satisfaction is almost pathetic.[201]

201.“Diary.” 24th March 1666.

Somewhere about this time Lady Fanshawe was returning from Spain, on the death of her chivalrous and deeply mourned husband, to make at last her home in England, and she was, as his merits entitled her, graciously received by the King, whom he had served so long and faithfully. On this occasion she presented two dozen “amber skins” and six dozen pairs of gloves to the King, the Queen, the Duke and his little son the Duke of Cambridge, who was, alas! destined soon to follow his brother.[202]The Duke of York lent Lady Fanshawe theVictoryfrigate to bring the rest of her goods and people from Bilbao at the end of March 1667.

202.“Notes to the Memoirs of Anne, Lady Fanshawe.”

It was for that period, an age which set such store by signs and portents, a strange defiance of omens that impelled the parents to give what would seem a fatal title to three successive children, none of whom were fated to survive infancy. Through the ten years which succeeded her marriage, Anne’s nursery at St James’s Palace was filling only to be emptied. One after another of the sons so eagerly and fondly welcomed was destined to fade quickly out of this life, “to find the taste bitter and decline the rest”; the ducal coronets were to fall from the small heads too weak to bear so heavy a burden. Of the eight children born to James, Duke of York, and Anne his wife, only two daughters survived to play their parts thereafter on the great stage of history for good or for evil. The mother, however her heart was wrung, as it must have been, carried an undaunted front through those years of loss and bereavement, and held her place resolutely in the very forefront of Court and festival, a conspicuous and dominating figure always.

Her home throughout her married life, as before said, was St James’s Palace, a house whichmust have enshrined many memories for James himself. There he had been brought up as a child, there he had been in his boyhood a State prisoner with the brother and sister, now both passed away, there his father the martyr-king had spent the last night of his life before the winter morning walk across the Park to Whitehall and the block before the Banqueting House, and there his body had lain that night, watched by a little band of faithful servants, before the burial at Windsor. There also James and his wife always kept the anniversary of that day, the 30th January, year by year, as it came round, in sorrowful remembrance.

It was a goodly habitation, and indeed rivalled the great rambling palace near the river in splendour of furniture and decoration and the treasures it contained.[203]

203.Knight’s “London.” It was long known as St James’s Manor-House.

Yet another picture from Secretary Pepys’ busy pen is shown us here.[204]One spring day, he tells us, he came thither to dine “with some of the maids of honour at the Treasurer’s House,” and thereafter he found “the Duke of York and the Dutchess with all the great ladies sittingupon a carpet on the ground, there being no chairs, playing at ‘I love my love with an A because he is so and so, and I hate him with an A because of this and that,’ and some of them but particularly the Dutchess herself and my Lady Castlemaine were very witty.” A childish game, it seems to us, yet the scene has a certain charm and grace, invested too with piquancy by the ladies’ readiness. In other days at The Hague and Breda, under the approving eyes of the “Winter Queen” and her own Princess Mary, with Spencer Compton and Harry Jermyn to applaud, Nan Hyde had learnt to hold her own in jest and repartee, and now that she too was a princess, she had not forgotten the trick, but still shone in swift retort and happy invention.

204.“Diary.” 4th March 1668.

There, too, in the ancient palace, when night came the tables would be set for basset, the favourite game; and at them Duchess Anne, eager in her imperious way, would set down broad pieces on the hazard, staking on the cast now a thousand pounds, now fifteen hundred. One night she even lost twenty-five thousand pounds, and it became to her an absorbing passion, to be inherited by her second daughter.[205]Over and over again in later days did James II. paythe debts of the Princess Anne, himself the reverse of extravagant, being in this the antithesis of his elder brother.

205.“Memorials of St James’s Palace.” E. Sheppard, D.D.

It is an unlovely side of Anne Hyde’s perplexing character, and one displays it with reluctance. Certainly it was a strange outcome of her narrow upbringing in her father’s careful household. Of her thirst for gain Pepys has a word to say: “Mr Povy do tell me how he is like to lose his £400 a year pension of the Duke of York which he took in consideration of his place that was taken from him. He tells me that the Duchess is a divil against him and do now come like Queen Elizabeth and sits with the Duke of York’s council and sees what they do, and she crosses out this man’s wages and prices as she sees fit for saving money, but yet he tells me she reserves £5000 a year for her own spending and my Lady Peterborough by and by tells me that the Duchess do lay up, mightily, jewels.”[206]This was written in 1668, and it may or may not be true. In a succeeding chapter a different and totally contrasting aspect of Anne Hyde must be unfolded, one to be dwelt upon, in one direction, with far greater satisfaction.

206.“Diary.” 27th January 1667-1668.

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