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An Account of the Conduct of the Dowager Duchess of Marlborough

Sarah Jennings Churchill Marlborough

Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough

Kathleen Campbell

Duchess Sarah: The Social History of the Times of Sarah Jennings

Mrs. Arthur Colville

John and Sarah: Duke and Duchess of Marlborough

Stuart J. Reid with introduction by the Duke of Marlborough

Sarah Churchill

Frank Chancellor

Marlborough’s Duchess

Louis Kronenberger

Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford: A Study of Politics and Letters in the Reign of Queen Anne E. S. Roscoe Lives of the Queens of England Agnes Strickland Anne of England

M. R. Hopkinson

That Enchantress

Doris Leslie

Notes on British History

William Edwards

Journal to Stella

Jonathan Swift, edited by Harold Williams

Three Eighteenth Century Figures

Bonamy Dobrée

Letters of Two Queens

Lt.-Col. The Hon. Benjamin Bathurst

British History

John Wade

Dictionary of National Biography

Edited by Sir Leslie Stephen and Sir Sidney Lee

The National and Domestic History of England

William Hickman Smith Aubrey

Bishop Burnet’s History of His Own Time

Gilbert Burnet

England Under the Stuarts

G. M. Trevelyan

History of England

G. M. Trevelyan

English Social History

G. M. Trevelyan

England Under Queen Anne

G. M. Trevelyan

Marlborough, His Life and Times

Winston S. Churchill

TURN THE PAGE TO READ AN EXCERPT

FROM JEAN PLAIDY’S SIXTH BOOK IN THE

NOVELS OF THE STUARTS SERIES:

ROYAL

SISTERS

978-0-307-71952-2

$15.00

A HUSBAND FOR ANNE

he Princess Anne, walking slowly through the tapestry room in St. James’s Palace—for it was a lifetime’s habit never to hurry—smiled dreamily at the silken pictures representing the love of Venus and Mars which had been recently made for her uncle, the King. Tucked inside the bodice of her gown was a note; she had read it several times; and now she was taking it to her private apartments to read it again.

Venus and Mars! she thought, Goddess and God, and great lovers. But she was certain that there had never been lovers like Anne of York and John Sheffield, Earl of Mulgrave, Princess and Poet.

Her lips moved as she repeated the words he had written.

“Of all mankind I loved the best

A nymph so far above the rest

That we outshine the Blest above

In beauty she, as I in love.”

No one could have written more beautifully of Venus than John Sheffield had written of her.

What had happened to Venus and Mars? she wondered idly. She had never paid attention to her lessons; it had been so easy to complain that her eyes hurt or she had a headache when she was expected to study. Mary—dear Mary!—had warned her that she would be sorry she was so lazy, but she had not been sorry yet, always preferring ignorance to effort; everyone had indulged her, far more than they had poor Mary who had been forced to marry that hateful Prince of Orange. Anne felt miserable remembering Mary’s face swollen from so many tears. Dear sister Mary, who had always learned her lessons and been the good girl; and what had been her reward? Banishment from her own country, sent away from her family, and married to that horrid little man, the Orange, as they called him—or more often Caliban, the Dutch Monster.

The exquisitely sculptured Tudor arch over the fireplace commemorated two more lovers whose entwined initials were H and A. Henry the VIII and Anne Boleyn had not remained constant lovers. That was indeed a gloomy thought and the Princess Anne made a habit of shrugging aside what was not pleasant.

She turned from the tapestry room and went to her own apartments. Delighted to find none of her women there, she sat in the window seat and took out the paper.

Soon, the whole Court would be reading the poem, but they would not know that those words were written for her. They would say: “Mulgrave writes a pretty verse.” And only she would know.

But it was not always going to be so. Why should they hide their passion?

Her father had