Queen Anne: The Politics of Passion (46 page)

The Queen usually wore tall lace headdresses, which were washed and starched for her by her laundress Mrs Abrahal. Her shoes were mostly made of satin, though she did own a few pairs of corked sabots. In 1705–6 she bought a total of sixty-one pairs of shoes at a cost of £45 18
s
. She also went through large numbers of gloves, ordering ninety-two chamois pairs in March 1702. Not surprisingly, considering Anne’s size, corsetry also featured in the accounts, with Mr Cousein the stay-maker charging £63 in 1702 for eleven pairs of stays. Fans were the most important female accessory in those days, and Anne had a fine collection, to which she added annually. In 1703–4 she bought seventeen fans, among which were ‘a fine ivory sticked Indian painted fan’ costing £1 5
s
. and a ‘green papered Indian fan with fine gilt sticks’. Anne’s milliner supplied her with ‘papers of patches’ to adorn her face, and she regularly purchased ‘amber powder’ from her perfumer Mr Cobwell.
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Sarah was in charge of settling Anne’s clothing accounts, and she knew very well that some people felt she was ‘too hard upon the trades-men I dealt with’. She denied this, pointing out they were always paid promptly, and that she let them charge the Queen double the prices offered to other aristocratic customers. Unlike in previous reigns, they did not have to pay for the privilege of being royal suppliers, and Sarah emphasised that she took no percentage for herself. Nevertheless, she acquired such a reputation for haggling that one satirical work of 1705 depicted shopkeepers trembling at Sarah’s approach because of ‘her cunning way of purchasing velvets’.
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‘I did constantly write abundance of letters in answers to the petitions and applications that were made, by which her Majesty was pleased to say I saved her a great deal of trouble’, Sarah recalled proudly. But while undoubtedly she did the Queen a service in this way, she often handled such matters tactlessly. The Queen employed six maids of honour, whose function was largely decorative. Although the salary of £300 barely covered the expenses these girls incurred, the post was highly coveted, as the maids were assumed to have a good chance of acquiring eligible husbands, and were provided with a portion of £3,000 on their marriage. Accordingly Anne could be choosy, taking on none but ‘reigning toasts’, but Sarah spelt this out to one applicant in a somewhat brutal fashion. In April 1703 she informed Lady Oglethorp, ‘Her Majesty resolves to take no maid of honour but [such as] has had good education and beauty. The first may be reported, but the other is sometimes fancy, and the Queen will see all that are offered and judge of it herself. Her Majesty
has had so melancholy a prospect for many years in her drawing room, I don’t wonder that she desires to mend it’.
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Sarah noted that following the Queen’s accession, ‘I began to be looked upon as a person of consequence without whose approbation … neither places nor pensions nor honours were bestowed by the Crown’. To her mind, however, her power was too limited. She remarked irritably, ‘Though I was a favourite, without the help of the Duke of Marlborough and Lord Godolphin I should not have been able to do any thing of any consequence’. In some ways she did exert considerable influence through these two men. Godolphin was deeply attached to her, so much so that some people wrongly assumed they were lovers. He not only kept up a constant correspondence with her when she was away from court but also showed her, without Anne’s knowledge, many of his letters from the Queen. He valued her advice, and frequently deferred to her views. In 1704 Godolphin apologised to Sarah for having pushed through the appointment of the Tory Lord Stawell to Prince George’s Bedchamber, promising never to ‘speak to the Queen again for anybody as long as I live … without telling you first’. Four years later Godolphin became despondent when Sarah left court during a political crisis ‘without leaving behind … one line only of direction and comfort to poor me, who can grieve myself to a shadow for every least mark of your indifference’. The following month he told her ‘I would not willingly take any step but what is first approved by you’.
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Ultimately, indeed, it was the realisation that Godolphin would always rely on Sarah’s guidance that persuaded the Queen she must dismiss him in 1710.

Yet Sarah was disappointed that she only wielded influence in this indirect manner, for she had assumed that the Queen herself would constantly turn to her for advice. In fact, when she urged her views upon Anne, she met with resistance, and her attempts ‘to get honest men into the service’ were rebuffed. As she later resentfully recorded, ‘I never or very rarely succeeded in any endeavour of this kind till the ministers themselves came into it at last’.
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Early in the reign the Queen did have political discussions with Sarah. In one letter to her of August 1703, Anne employed a cipher, substituting code numbers for people’s names, a precaution she adopted when writing of sensitive matters. As Sarah rather pathetically noted, ‘this letter shows the Queen talked and writ to me of her business’. Before long, however, the Queen grew irritated by Sarah’s patronising advice. Sarah boasted that she ‘watched perpetually to make her do everything that
was good for herself or her kingdom’, but Anne was understandably wearied by Sarah’s belief that without her intervention the Queen would do nothing right.
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The most fundamental problem was that Sarah and Anne were diametrically opposed in their political views, for Sarah prided herself on being a ‘true born Whig’. Few people were aware of her Whig allegiances at Anne’s accession including, it seems, the Queen herself. Marlborough’s chaplain later told Sarah that in view of her court background, he had assumed she was ‘bred in the Tory notions, that you had imbibed them as deeply as most others in the same education’. In fact, however, Sarah was a passionate supporter of Whig principles, praising them as ‘rational, entirely tending to the preservation of the liberties of the subject and no way to the prejudice of the Church’. Far from fearing that the Whigs would circumscribe the royal prerogative, Sarah approved of their desire ‘to keep the monarchy within its just bounds’. ‘I must confess I was born of a principle never to have any remorse for the deposing of any king that became unjust’, she wrote in 1704.
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Sarah was mystified by churchmen’s fear of nonconformists. In her opinion the Tories invoked ‘the word “Church” … like a spell to enchant’ the gullible, being motivated by nothing other than ‘a persecuting zeal against dissenters’. She dismissed their desire to legislate against Occasional Conformity as ‘High Church nonsense’, and deplored that Anne was so beguiled by their arguments. The Church, Sarah maintained, was just ‘a will o’ the wisp’, exploited by Tories ‘to bewilder her mind and entice her’.
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Sarah’s political beliefs did not make it inevitable that she and the Queen would become estranged. As she remarked herself, ‘the disputes at first were only about Whig and Tory … and those sort of differences can’t be irreconcilable’. Unfortunately, Sarah expressed her viewpoint with a total lack of moderation, refusing to acknowledge that Anne’s beliefs had any validity. She aggressively hectored the Queen, scarcely bothering to disguise that she regarded her as a fool, and dismissing her arguments as wholly irrational. Not doubting that Anne was incapable of forming her own ideas, she assumed they had been implanted in her by others. Furthermore, Sarah very soon came to believe that all Tories were Jacobites, a ridiculously simplistic notion, and her belief that they were scheming to bring in the Pretender convinced her that the most virulent attacks on them were excusable. Hardly surprisingly, the Queen soon began to dread discussing politics with Sarah. When alone with her, she did her best to stay off the subject, preferring, as Sarah wrathfully
recalled, ‘to ask me common questions about the lining of mantoes and the weather’.
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The first evidence we have of tensions arising from the Queen and Sarah’s political differences comes from a letter of October 1702, when Anne wrote to her friend,

I cannot help being extremely concerned you are so partial to the Whigs because I would not have you and your poor unfortunate faithful Morley differ in opinion in the least thing. What I said when I writ last upon this subject does not proceed from any insinuations of the other party; but I know the principles of the Church of England and I know those of the Whigs and it is that and no other reason which makes me think as I do of the last. And upon my word, my dear Mrs Freeman, you are mightily mistaken in your notion of a true Whig; for the character you give of them does not in the least belong to them but to the Church. But I will say no more … only beg, for my poor sake, that you would not show more countenance to those you seem to have so much inclination for than to the Church party.

This reproof in no way deterred Sarah. Instead, she continued to ‘speak very freely and frequently to her Majesty upon the subject of Whig and Tory’.
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The painful attack of lameness that had troubled Anne at her accession eased after a few weeks, enabling her to enjoy walks in the gardens at Kensington. By the summer Lady Gardiner was declaring she believed the Queen to be ‘healthfuller than ever’, but unfortunately the same could not be said of George. In early August he suffered a particularly severe asthma attack, and it was even rumoured he had died. The Queen wrote to Sarah, ‘I must own to you I am very much in the spleen to see these complaints return so often upon him and with more violence this time than … before’. She added, ‘The doctors have ordered the Prince to go into a method which if he will be prevailed with to pursue I hope by the blessing of God will prevent these frequent returns’ but, knowing her husband’s stubbornness about taking medical advice, she did not feel confident.
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In mid August it was agreed that Anne and George should go on a recuperative visit to Bath, although the Queen decided against taking the waters herself. They set off towards the end of the month, making a stately progress westwards and being ‘received with all possible
demonstrations of joy’ at the places through which they passed. Such large crowds thronged their route that at times the carriage had difficulty making its way through. A Dutch diplomat reported ‘Her Majesty was obliged to have her hand constantly at the window so she could give it to be kissed by this multitude of persons’. Having stayed overnight at Oxford, the next day Anne and George were ‘magnificently entertained’ by the Duke of Beaufort at Badminton. After dinner there they undertook the final leg of their journey, arriving in Bath on the evening of 28 August. Their reception formed a pleasant contrast to their last visit, when Anne had been shunned and humiliated on William and Mary’s orders. Now she and her husband were welcomed ‘by the mayor and corporation in their formalities’. Since Bath became a ‘stinking place’ at the height of summer, the Queen and her entourage stayed in a house about three miles outside the city. Godolphin and Secretary Hedges were on hand to ensure she did not fall behind with government business and Cabinet meetings were held there.
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By 13 October, Anne and George were back at St James’s, having seemingly both benefited from their spa visit. But though initially the Prince was thought to be ‘much recovered of his asthma’, towards the end of the month he again became unwell. Blooding appeared to bring about an improvement, and on 29 October Anne felt she could leave him to attend the Lord Mayor’s banquet on her own, even though she had earlier written to Sarah ‘one would be glad of any [excuse] to avoid so troublesome a business’. Then, within a few days George became ‘dangerously ill’, suffering not only his usual difficulties in breathing but also ‘a kind of lethargy’ and ‘drowsiness’ that many thought would prove fatal. ‘He could not be kept awake’ by any means, ‘so that everyone expected death each minute’. The Queen nursed him devotedly, never leaving his side and insisting on sharing his bed at night, even though this meant she had little rest herself. Even as he drifted in and out of consciousness, George still retained his horror of medical remedies, refusing to have treatment other than blisters applied to his back, nape of the neck and both temples. For a time this produced no response, but then he suddenly had ‘a decisive outbreak of sweating’ which diminished his symptoms. Within a week he had made such a full recovery that one diplomat considered him in better health than for many years. Not everyone, however, felt so optimistic. The best that one observer hoped for was that George ‘may last for some while, though I think not long’.
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On 21 October 1702 the Queen had opened the newly elected Parliament. It had a much stronger Tory element than its predecessor and with encouragement from the Earls of Rochester and Nottingham the House of Commons promptly drew up a bill outlawing Occasional Conformity. Punitive fines and permanent disqualification from office were proposed for those who normally attended nonconformist meeting-houses, but took Anglican communion once a year so as not to be debarred from official employment. The bill passed the Commons with a large majority, but when it was sent up to the Lords, the outcome was uncertain. The Whig peers were passionately against the measure, while Marlborough and Godolphin certainly did not welcome it, believing that when the nation was ‘engaged in a great war’ it was ‘unreasonable to raise animosities at home’. The two men were nevertheless aware that if they opposed the bill they would permanently antagonise their Tory colleagues.
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The Queen, in contrast, strongly supported penalising Occasional Conformity, even telling the Duke of Leeds that the Church could not be safe unless such an Act was passed. The Whigs blamed the Archbishop of York for ‘causing her Majesty … to appear so zealous for it’. ‘When this bill was first framed her Majesty sent for him and asked him if he thought in his conscience that this bill did interfere with or did undermine the Act for Toleration’, and he replied that he genuinely believed it did not. Others thought this questionable, but Anne gratefully accepted his assurance. She felt so strongly that it was desirable to proceed against Occasional Conformity that she forced Prince George to vote for the measure in the Lords, despite the fact he had only just recovered from his illness. He was most unwilling to comply for, as a Lutheran, he was himself an Occasional Conformist. There were offers to exempt him from the new legislation but he declined, saying he would either resign or cease taking communion at the hands of his Lutheran chaplain. Reluctantly George did his wife’s bidding, but as he went into the division lobby he told the Whig Lord Wharton in his execrable English, ‘My heart is vid you’.
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