Courting Her Highness_ The Story of Queen Anne - Jean Plaidy [183]
“Our only hope is her passion for the Church,” declared Sarah. “She will think very hard before she lets a papist in.”
In the meantime she and John must be content with moving from one place to another. They had stayed too long in Frankfurt and were growing restive, so they moved on to Antwerp. “Like sick people,” grumbled Sarah, “glad of any change.”
It was while they were in Antwerp that a terrible blow struck them.
Elizabeth, their third daughter, had died of the smallpox. When Sarah read the news she was stunned. Elizabeth had been well when they left England; and this blow, in addition to all their frustration and despair, was almost too great to be born. Marlborough was even more deeply affected than Sarah. He had always been more devoted to his family than she had been and when he received the news he collapsed with grief. Sarah found some solace in nursing him for in her hectoring way she was an efficient nurse, providing the patient obeyed her absolutely and John was too wretched to do anything else.
Sarah sat by his bed and they talked of her—their little Elizabeth—who now seemed to have been the most beautiful and accomplished of all their children.
“I remember,” said Sarah, “how she would marry … and she only fifteen. I thought she was too young but she would have her way. She adored Scroop and he her … and no wonder. And of course it was a good marriage. That was only eleven years ago, Marl. Twenty-six … it is too young … too young.…”
Sarah covered her face with her hands and sobbed. John tried to comfort her; he felt ill and, like Sarah, he longed for home. To be with his family … to continue with his career … to wield power … to accumulate wealth. There was so much he desired, so much that could have helped to comfort him. These were indeed dark hours.
Seeing him so distraught Sarah cried angrily: “She is happier, I doubt not, than in a world like this!”
But they continued to mourn their beautiful Elizabeth; and there was no news from home to comfort them.
In London a crisis was threatening. There was an open rupture between Oxford and Bolingbroke. The Queen’s health deteriorated every day, and the Court was in a ferment of excitement. Letters were passing between Hanover and London on one hand and between St. Germains and London on the other.
The Queen swayed between her two beloved women—Lady Masham and the Duchess of Somerset; but there were days when she was too ill to think of much but her own relief.
Oxford, who had always hated to make decisions and whose greatest weakness was his vacillation, was now uncertain how to act. He had gone over to the Whigs but still tried to placate the Tories. In view of the strength of his enemies he was doomed, and Bolingbroke was ready to destroy him. Oxford searched for the solution to his problems in the bottle, and it was not difficult to turn the Queen against a man who reeled in her presence, who now and then gave way to ribald and disrespectful comment and at the best mumbled so that she could not understand what he said.
“Our drunken dragon will soon be slain,” Abigail told Bolingbroke.
He agreed with her. They were allies, though not lovers, as Bolingbroke had expected. But that was a small matter to be shrugged aside. There were plenty of women ready to share his bed; there was only one Lady Masham to smooth his way to the Queen.
Oh, what a fool was Oxford! He had used Abigail to climb to favour, for what he owed to those têtes-à-têtes in the green closet he should have been in no doubt. And just as Abigail had given him a helping hand in the beginning now she was barring his way—more than that, she was forcing him down to disaster.
He understood; but it was too late to change. Bolingbroke had the support which had once been his. He was angry with himself … too late; and because his brain was so often fuddled by wine, he was unable to control his temper.
His good friend Jonathan Swift, appalled at what was