Assassination: The Royal Family's 1000-Year Curse (37 page)

In March 1689, James arrived in Ireland with a 20,000-strong army. He was joined by Tyrconnel’s ragged troops. However, there would be no Catholic soldiers deserting from William’s army. He had wisely sent them to Hungary to support the Emperor in his war against the Turks.

James was welcomed into Dublin. He marched with his forces to Protestant Londonderry and stood with senior officers outside the besieged town as a message was sent demanding its surrender. The reply was instant; a shot rang out as a soldier fired at James from the town’s walls. He escaped death yet again, as the shot killed the officer standing next to him. James returned to Dublin.

A few days later, James presided over a parliament that ordered the dispossession of 2,400 Protestant landowners. Over the sea in England, preparations for war commenced, and in June 1690, William landed in Ireland with his army. As soon as he learned of William’s landing, James advanced with his forces to the River Boyne north of Dublin. The English moved forward to confront him.

William, accompanied by several officers, rode out to reconnoitre the likely battlefield among sporadic fire from each side. He was spotted. William stopped to discuss the lie of the land, the stationary target was inviting. One of James’s soldiers, a marksman, came forward. He took careful aim, and fired. The ball pierced the gun holster of the Prince of Hesse, who was alongside William. Before William’s party could ride off, there was a second shot. William was hit, and he fell to the ground. A great cheer rang out from James’s army, but it was only William’s right shoulder that had been struck, and he was helped back to his camp.

The wound was not serious; it drew blood, but it was merely a graze. The attempt to kill William had failed. William rode along the line of his troops to show them that he was fine.

Now it was time for action. William ordered a third of his army upstream to attempt a crossing of the Boyne. Seeing the movement, James took fright, thinking that William was preparing to attack from the rear, perhaps intending to cut off James’s line of retreat. So James sent two-thirds of his army upstream to resist the crossing.

Next, William ordered the rest of his infantry to cross the river. William’s numbers were greater, but James had a strong defensive position. With William sending one-third upstream and James sending two-thirds upstream, the difference in numbers was accentuated. Despite facing withering fire, William’s infantry managed to cross the river, forcing the Irish to retreat. Then William led his cavalry across, and the Irish cavalry fled in disarray. James, who had kept a safe distance from the fighting, raced back to Paris. His angry Irish supporters remembered him as
Seamus an chaca
– James the shit.

For James it was all over, although it still took more than a year for the English forces to subdue the whole of Ireland. William wanted toleration and no revenge against Catholics. The result was quite the opposite. Confiscations, banishment of clergy and numerous anti-Catholic laws followed.

Mary had ruled alone while William was in Ireland, and she ruled alone again when he visited the Netherlands in 1691. She was in general a popular queen, but she had her enemies who condemned her for having broken the Fifth Commandment: Honour thy father. During William’s absence in the Netherlands, on the night of 10th April, Mary was asleep in Whitehall Palace when a fire suddenly broke out, spreading rapidly until it engulfed much of the building. Mary managed to escape in her nightclothes. An accident or the act of an enemy? The carelessness of a maid was blamed.

One matter that troubled Queen Mary was the strong influence on her not very clever sister, Princess Anne, of the scheming Sarah Churchill. Both William and Mary were annoyed when Sarah’s husband, John Churchill, now the Earl of Marlborough (his reward for changing sides after William invaded), used his influence to persuade Parliament to grant Anne £50,000 a year, out of which Anne gave Sarah £1,000 a year.

As usual, when any position or financial reward was obtained by the Marlboroughs, they set about finding the next opportunity for increased status and moneymaking. Marlborough demanded command of the English Army, complaining that there were too many foreign officers. William was not interested. First, Marlborough was of low birth. In the alliance between England, the Netherlands, the Holy Roman Empire, German states and Spain against France, most of the commanding officers were princes; they would not deign to speak to anyone so socially inferior. Second, William was disgusted at the way Marlborough had deserted his king and changed sides. As far as William was concerned, Marlborough was a traitor. Even worse, he was now in contact with James, seeking forgiveness for changing sides in case James was restored to the throne. So William terminated all Marlborough’s commands and offices.

Then Anne brazenly appeared at court with Sarah. Mary was furious with her sister. She ordered Anne to dismiss Sarah, but Anne refused. Anne was told to leave court. Apart from a brief visit after Anne gave birth, Mary never saw her sister again.

Having dealt with James, William could concentrate on his main interest: war against France, trying to halt Louis XIV, who was determined to create a Catholic French empire across Europe. William was happy to be with his army once more, commanding the Grand Alliance. Initially the French won several battles, but the tide turned, and after William won his great victory at Namur, Louis was forced to agree to a peace treaty.

In December 1694, Mary fell ill. It was smallpox. Within eight days she was dead, aged only 32. The whole country mourned. William was devastated, and he turned to religion. He made up with Anne, and Marlborough was restored.

With no wife and no war, William was constantly miserable; his only joys were riding and hunting. He never remarried. In fact, he became increasingly attached to one of his pages, a young Dutchman called Arnold van Keppel. The long-standing rumours of William’s homosexuality became louder. They were encouraged when William created Keppel the Earl of Albemarle. He is the 8 x great-grandfather of Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, the wife of Prince Charles.

William’s misery increased as Parliament became hostile. The Whigs were against the Catholics and gave some support to William, but he did not trust them; they were revolutionaries who had deserted their former king. William identified more with the Tories, the gentry; but for them William was a usurper.

In 1696, Sir George Barclay, a Scottish army officer, plotted with others to ambush William and kill him at Turnham Green (to the west of London) as he was returning from a hunt. They were betrayed, and nine of the conspirators were executed, although Barclay escaped to France.

A few months afterwards, another plot to assassinate William was discovered. The leading conspirator was Sir John Fenwick, the assassin was to be Robert Charnock. Several of the conspirators were captured and executed. Fenwick, a longtime Jacobite, hated William for having publicly reprimanded him when Fenwick was serving with the English forces in the Netherlands. Fenwick was executed for treason. As a traitor, his property was confiscated by the Crown. One item seized was his favourite horse, called White Sorrel. William took the horse for his own use.

It was now clear that Anne would succeed William. Then, in 1700, Anne’s last surviving child, the Duke of Gloucester, died. Who would follow Anne? James, her father, was still alive, and so were his children by Mary of Modena. But they and the children of Charles II’s and James II’s sister Minette (that is, all Charles I’s surviving descendants other than William and Anne) were Catholics.

In June 1701, Parliament passed the Act of Settlement. It enacted that Anne would be succeeded by Sophia the daughter of Elizabeth Stuart, sister of Charles I, who had married Frederick the Elector Palatine of the Rhine. Although Frederick and Elizabeth had thirteen children, by 1701, nine of them, all Protestants, had died without leaving issue. A tenth, Edward had died leaving issue, but he had converted to Catholicism. Another son, Charles, had died leaving a daughter, but she had converted to Catholicism on marriage. That left two daughters who were still alive; Louise who had converted to Catholicism, and the twelfth child, Sophia. She was the only living Protestant child and the only child with Protestant children. Sophia had married the Prince-Elector of Hanover. The House of Hanover would be the succession.

Later in the year, James II died in France. He left not just the son born in 1688 (James Francis Edward Stuart), but also a daughter, Lousia Mary, born in 1692 in France. So Mary of Modena giving birth in 1688 was credible after all.

On 21st February 1702, William went riding in Richmond Park. It was now the nearest he could get to his beloved military campaigning. As he rode along, there were no dangers in view. There were no dangers in view for his horse either. However, there was a tiny mammal making its own progress under the surface, an animal to be found throughout Europe, except in Ireland. It was a mole. William’s horse stumbled on the molehill. The horse staggered forward, and William was thrown. He fell to the ground, breaking his collarbone.

William was carried to his bed. He seemed to be recovering, but there must have been some other damage because his condition suddenly deteriorated. William stopped eating, he developed a fever, and on 8th March 1702, he died.

Buried privately without any ceremony, William’s death caused no sorrow. In fact, many Jacobites drank a toast to the little gentleman in the velvet coat who had killed the King. But another animal was involved: the horse that had thrown William was White Sorrel, taken from Sir John Fenwick. So Fenwick had his revenge after all.

Born the younger daughter of the King’s brother, Anne had little realistic chance of becoming queen. Yet as time went by and Charles II died without legitimate issue, then James fled the country, and then William and Mary produced no children, Anne’s succession to the throne became more and more likely. Finally, it was decreed by Act of Parliament.

That Act was significant, because it meant that for the future the monarch would be monarch solely because of Parliament; the doctrine of divine right, and consequently absolute power, disappeared for ever.

While still a child, Anne became infatuated with, and was later dominated by, the younger sister of one of Anne’s mother’s ladies-in-waiting. SarahJenningswasfiveyearsolderthanAnne, and she quickly took advantage of the relationship, which would last long into Anne’s reign. Anne was quiet and self-conscious; Sarah was vivacious and domineering. The friendship was barely affected when Sarah married John Churchill.

In 1680, it was time for Anne to find a husband. Her second cousin, Prince George of Hanover, was invited to court, but Anne did not interest him, and anyway his family had other plans. Offended by the snub, Anne would always hate George and the Hanoverians. The next visitor was more favourably inclined, and in 1683 Anne married another Prince George. This one was Prince JØrgen, the brother of the King of Denmark.

Despite marriage, first place in Anne’s affections continued to belong to Sarah, the two women writing to each other for years using the names Mrs Freeman (for Sarah) and Mrs Morley (for Anne). Nevertheless, Anne and George became very close, with George never interfering in politics and only wanting a quiet life. The marriage produced seventeen pregnancies; but just one child, William Duke of Gloucester, lived to be over two years old.

After William and Mary became joint monarchs, Anne’s relationship with her sister started off well. Later, the bitter argument about Anne’s parliamentary allowance and issues caused by Anne’s bond with the Churchills led to increasing friction. When Anne refused to be separated from Sarah, she was forced to leave court, going to live in Syon House to the west of London.

Then Mary died, and William was obliged to recognise that Anne was his heir (and really with a greater right to the throne than he had), so Anne was recalled to court. Her priority was the care of her only surviving child, William, who had been sickly from birth. In 1700 he died at the age of eleven. As a result, the Act of Settlement was passed, decreeing that after Anne the throne would pass to her nearest Protestant relation, the widowed Sophia of Hanover.

On King William’s death in February 1702, the nation rejoiced at the accession of the Protestant and English Queen Anne. Her first step was to appoint Marlborough the Commander-in-Chief of the English army stationed in the Netherlands. Marlborough was also given the lucrative post of Master-General of the Ordnance. Sarah was not left out; she was appointed Groom of the Stole, Keeper of the Privy Purse and Mistress of the Wardrobe (administering Anne’s finances). These were the highest offices available for a woman; all well paid.

Sarah took control, forbidding Anne new clothes and arranging for her to hire rather than buy jewellery. An exception was made for the coronation, when Anne, considerably overweight and suffering from gout, was so heavily dressed and jewelled that she had to be carried to the throne on a chair.