Courting Her Highness_ The Story of Queen Anne - Jean Plaidy [179]
Was there no escaping from the Marlboroughs?
But in the meantime it would be amusing to join with Viscount Bolingbroke, for although he could never fit into her emotional life she needed his help in taking her revenge on the man who had failed her. In every way, she whispered to herself. Yes, in every way!
She smiled at Bolingbroke, as she evaded his proximity.
“We have much to discuss, my lord.”
He agreed. Business first, he thought. Pleasure later. At least there was one point on which they were in immediate agreement: the downfall of Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford.
Bolingbroke planned to create a new party and place himself at its head; he was following the path which Harley had set when he had formed his party to defeat Godolphin. The Queen’s brief return to health was over. Her little fling had resulted in a return of the gout and dropsy. Her hands were swollen—all trace of the beauty of which she had once been so proud, gone; her face was patchy with erysipelas; her legs and feet so distorted that she could not walk.
She needed Masham and her dear Duchess day and night and since Masham was expecting, it meant that the Duchess was in constant attendance. Dear Duchess! To whom Anne could talk so much more intimately of the past than she could to Masham, for the Duchess had been with her long before Masham had come.
One could not expect such a noble lady to do the menial tasks which Masham still performed but Anne often found it difficult to decide which was the more important to her. But when Abigail returned she was not really in any doubt, and she understood that she had imagined she might prefer the Duchess because a pregnant woman must think primarily of the child she was going to bear. No one could administer a poultice with the same care as Masham—so that the minimum of pain went hand in hand with the maximum of benefit.
“Dear Masham, when your child is born, you must be in constant attendance.”
“Nothing could delight me more than to obey Your Majesty’s command,” answered Abigail.
Abigail often talked to her of her half brother in France, for Abigail understood how worried she was at the part she had played in her father’s downfall. When she talked to Abigail she believed that the best thing possible would be for her half brother to come to the throne on her death.
“That, Madam, would make you happiest. I know full well,” Abigail told her; and when she was with Abigail it seemed that this was so.
Abigail brought Bolingbroke to her and he was of the same opinion.
But then the dear Duchess of Somerset would remind her of the perils of popery. Yes indeed, said the Duchess, she would be happy if she could bring back her half brother; but she must not forget her duty to the Church. Her father had been driven out of England because he was a Catholic; would she not, by bringing back her brother—also a Catholic—plunge England into trouble again?
“For Madam,” insisted the Duchess, “the people of this country would never accept a Catholic monarch.”
It was true and she must consider the Church. But when Masham and Bolingbroke talked to her, of keeping the crown to the Stuarts—her own family, her own brother to follow her—she could not help but sway towards their opinions.
Who were these Germans? The Electress Sophia—an overbearing woman—her son George Lewis who, it was said, could not speak a word of English and would not try to! His marriage was unfortunate. His wife was imprisoned on an accusation of adultery, and it was said that he had plenty of mistresses. Not quite the monarch to follow good Queen Anne!
How complicated it was; and there was Mr. Harley—Lord Oxford who had once been able to answer all her problems so satisfactorily—now it seemed at loggerheads with Bolingbroke who was next in importance in her Government—and worst of all with Masham, who had once thought so highly of him.
He was disturbing her too, for often his speech was so slurred that she could scarcely understand him; and his clothes were becoming more and more untidy. It was not the happiest manner in