Courting Her Highness_ The Story of Queen Anne - Jean Plaidy [175]
“Dear Lord Oxford! But the boy would have to change his religion. We cannot have papists in England, Masham. The people would not accept it … and I should not wish it. We should have to communicate with my brother. We should have to impress upon him the need to change his religion. My father would not change … although he saw disaster all about him. I wonder if his son is as obstinate.”
“It may be that Your Majesty may wish to find out.”
The Queen was thoughtful; so was Abigail. The Hanoverian succession must be prevented if she were to remain at Court after the Queen’s death for it seemed that the Marlboroughs were taking their stand with the Germans.
It was not possible to live perpetually in the glory of a penknife wound and Lord Oxford was facing difficulties in the party. Among the Tories were many Jacobites and since the Queen’s half brother had intimated that he preferred his religion to the throne of England the plot to place him next in succession had foundered. Marlborough was still powerful and firmly set against peace; he had his adherents.
The Tory party lacked a majority in the Lords and the only way this could be remedied was by creating new peers. Here was where Abigail could be useful in persuading the Queen. She would do it, Oxford knew, for an adequate reward. It was time she ceased to be plain Mrs.
Samuel Masham was among the twelve peers created to swell the Tory Majority in the Lords. Abigail was secretly delighted.
Lady Masham now; she had come far from the backstairs quarters in Lady Rivers’ House! She would like to see any of the Churchills look down on her now as the poor relation!
For a short while she was friendly with Oxford, but that passed. He was only interested in his own affairs; she noticed that since his elevation to rank and position he was becoming more and more careless in his dress and manners.
Let him. She would not warn him. Meanwhile her friendship with Henry St. John was rapidly growing. Lightly they criticized their one-time friend; but there was a gleam of understanding in their eyes.
Oxford was a fool. He was growing careless.
Oxford sat with the Queen. She enjoyed these têtes-à-têtes with her new minister as she had the old ones with dear Mr. Montgomery and Mr. Freeman.
He talked to her frankly and intelligently and as he was what she called so right-thinking on matters of Church and State, she was well pleased with her minister.
When he pointed out that there would never be an effective peace while the Duke of Marlborough was such a power in the country and on the Continent, she believed him, for the Duke, being such a brilliant soldier, had naturally hoped for war.
One day Oxford came to her in a state of excitement which he hid under an expression of gravity.
He had ill news, he told her. He had heard from reliable sources that the Duke of Marlborough had amassed a great fortune through ill practices.
“What practices?” asked Anne in alarm.
“Peculation, Madam. He made a fortune of sixty thousand pounds on bread contracts alone during his service in the Army. I have been questioning Sir Solomon Medina who controls the bread supplies to the Army and he reluctantly admitted that he paid the Duke six thousand pounds a year as a bribe to obtain the army contracts. This is not his only sin, Madam. In fact the Duke of Marlborough must be one of the richest men in the kingdom. We might ask ourselves how he became rich. Both he and his Duchess had means of filling the family coffers and these means, although highly successful, could be put under the unpleasant name of peculation.”
“I will not have the Duchess charged,” said Anne quickly, remembering Sarah’s threat to publish her letters.
“The Duchess’s case is over,” said Oxford, “but not that of the Duke.”
In Windsor Lodge Lord Godolphin was dying. Sarah had nursed him, ruling the sick room as imperiously as she had once ruled the Queen’s Court.
Times had changed. They had too many enemies. And she knew that a Government intent in making peace was determined to disgrace one who would stand against