Courting Her Highness_ The Story of Queen Anne - Jean Plaidy [62]
Her beautiful complexion was blotched with tears; her blue eyes once so bold and flashing were red and swollen with so much crying.
The servants said: “She will lose her reason if she goes on giving way to grief in this way.”
The Queen who had heard the news immediately wrote to express the sympathy of Mrs. Freeman’s poor unfortunate faithful Morley. “Christ Jesus comfort and support you under this terrible affliction, and it is His Mercy alone that can do it.”
When Sarah read the letter she threw it from her.
“Poor unfortunate Morley!” she cried. “Now I suppose we must sit together mingling our maudlin memories. Does she compare that big-headed boy of hers with my Blandford.”
The Duke suppressed the impulse to restrain her. Let her rant against the Queen. At least it had turned her thoughts from her son’s death.
She hated her relationship with the Queen; she hated the cloying affection, the protestations of fidelity and devotion. Yet, it was due to the Queen’s love for Sarah that they had come so far.
When Sarah was calmer he must warn her of her attitude towards the Queen. He could understand how she found Anne a bore, how she disliked making a show of affection she could not feel, but the Queen’s approval was necessary to any ambitious man or woman.
But at the moment let her rage against the Queen. It was an outlet for her grief.
And from that moment it seemed that Sarah grew a little more resigned.
KING’S EVIL
he Court was peaceful without Sarah; and peace was what Anne really enjoyed. She had never greatly cared for balls and banquets. She was too infirm to dance; so was George; and as for banquets—one enjoyed food, but more so when it was eaten comfortably in one’s own apartments. Of course it was not always possible to eat in comfort. There must be state occasions; one must eat in public. But when she remembered the Court of her uncle Charles II she realized how different was her own. William had set the mode in Courts which could hardly be called by the name. He had spent as much time as was possible in more or less retirement at Hampton or Kensington, making gardens and superintending building; and had only come up to London for council meetings when absolutely necessary. But the people had not liked William; and whenever he had appeared he had never added to the gaiety of the occasion. They had never cheered him and even now drank toasts to The Little Gentleman in Black Velvet. It was different with herself. They knew that she was a martyr to the gout and the dropsy; they knew that she had had to be carried to her coronation; but they had never heard scandal about her private life. They saw her with the Prince and to see them together was to know how devoted they were to each other. The Prince took no mistresses; the Queen took no lovers. Even William had had one mistress and there had been a mild scandal about Mary and Shrewsbury. But Queen Anne and her consort remained the perfect example of conjugal bliss.
Sovereigns set manners. There had never been a more profligate period than that of Charles II. Why? Because he made no secret of the mistresses, of whom he kept many at a time; he would saunter through St. James’s Park with them and his dogs and acknowledge the greetings of the passers-by as he did so. The whole of London speculated as to which was most important to his comfort; and the names of Cleveland, Portsmouth, Mancini, Moll Davies and Nell Gwyn were on every tongue.
The people had so loved the scandal their King provided that they forgave him everything else, but it had been so because they had lived through the dreary years of puritanism and needed a violent change. Now that was over; and they wanted to settle down with a good and virtuous woman as their figurehead.
Anne often thought of this as she sat fondling her little dogs.
I want to be a good ruler, she assured herself. I want to be remembered as Good Queen Anne.
She must rouse herself. She was not going to be persuaded to what she did not want to do by anyone