Courting Her Highness_ The Story of Queen Anne - Jean Plaidy [68]
Four new Tory peers in order to get a Bill passed through the Lords! Sarah was not going to stand aside and see that happen. She was going to demand that there be at least one new Whig peer.
This was the best tonic to grief. Sarah left St. Albans at once for St. James’s.
Storming into the Queen’s apartments she found Abigail Hill seated at the harpsichord, and Anne dozing pleasantly in her chair.
Abigail stopped playing as she entered and turning saw the look of delight on the Queen’s face.
“My dearest, dearest Mrs. Freeman!”
“Yes, Mrs. Morley I am here!”
“So welcome! So welcome!”
Abigail watched the fond embrace. Anne was almost in tears.
“Do not think that my thoughts have not been with you all through this long and trying time. Do not think that I would not have been at St. Albans had you allowed me to come.”
“I was so filled with grief that I thought I should lose my reason—and so did those about me. Mr. Freeman even thought of giving up everything … everything to be with me.”
“Dear, dear Mr. Freeman! What a comfort. I understand your loss and your great solace. How alike our lives are, dear Mrs. Freeman.”
Sarah grunted with something of the old freedom of expression. If there was one thing she found hard to tolerate it was comparing her handsome brilliant genius of a Marl with that lazy witless Danish Prince.
“Well, now I am here,” she said, “and I wonder how Mrs. Morley has been faring in my absence.”
“Each day longing for our reunion.”
“When I heard the disturbing news I thought I could no longer stay away.”
“The disturbing news, my dear Mrs. Freeman?”
“This matter of new Tory peers being created to get the Conformity Bill through.”
“Oh, I am sure my ministers know what is right, Mrs. Freeman.”
“But I, Mrs. Morley, am far from sure.”
Anne gave a little gasp. Being absent from Sarah for so long she had not heard anyone contradict her so forcibly during that time, and when it happened it was a shock.
Sarah was aware of Abigail Hill still seated at the harpsichord.
“You may go,” she said.
Abigail’s eyes were on the Queen and Anne knew that she was thinking: Is it your wish that I should obey the Duchess?
Anne nodded dismissal and Abigail went away. What was the use of thinking she had a firm place in the Queen’s affections when Sarah only had to appear to make her understand how insecure that place was. Sarah could say this very day: Dismiss Hill. And Anne would meekly obey. Would she? She might put up a small resistance but it would soon be overridden.
Now this matter of the Occasional Conformity Bill. What would be the outcome? As far as Abigail could see, the greatest controversies in the country were concerned with religion; and the trouble over the Conformity Bill was an example of this. The Test Act had demanded that all public servants partake in communion in accordance with the rites of the Church of England when appointed to their posts; after that they might attend at intervals or not at all, but go to the services they preferred. This Act passed in the time of Charles II was typical of that monarch’s desire to placate two schools of thought at the same time. Occasional Conformity was all that was needed. The Tories had wanted to abolish this act and in its place set up another which was far less tolerant. This was the Occasional Conformity Act and would impose large fines on any person who took office and performed an act of conformity and afterwards attended a dissenting service. A second visit would make the offender liable to even heavier fines and banned from his office for three years.
Anne was a High Tory, a fervent churchwoman; and she had been convinced by her Tory Government that the Act of Conformity was necessary