Courting Her Highness_ The Story of Queen Anne - Jean Plaidy [70]
“That was when your ministers needed a little prodding and they got it. Now here is another occasion.”
“But, dear Mrs. Freeman, I declare you have become a Whig. I do not share your affection for those gentlemen—and I can tell you that it is a great sorrow not to be able to share everything with my dear Mrs. Freeman.”
“Let us get back to this matter of the peers.”
“Dear Mrs. Freeman, it really is a matter for our ministers.”
Sarah thought: I shall scream at her if she says that again. There she sits, the old parrot, not listening, not paying attention once she has found her parrot phrase, “It is a matter for our ministers.” We shall see, Mrs. Morley, we shall see.
“I suppose Godolphin is partly responsible for this,” said Sarah.
Anne did not answer and Sarah thought: And I have allowed his son to marry my daughter! I have brought him into our circle and this is how he repays me!
“He is our minister,” Anne reminded her.
Anything, thought Sarah, rather than send the fat creature off on to that minister refrain.
“I will speak to him,” said Sarah.
“One cannot be held responsible for one’s relatives,” Anne reminded her. “I know how grieved you were when Sunderland voted against the Prince’s Bill. I believe he was one of its greatest opponents. And my poor George suffering so with his asthma … fighting for his breath, and Sunderland working up feelings about him in the Lords. I remember thinking at the time: And this Sunderland is my dear Mrs. Freeman’s son-in-law. I shall never like that man again … but it does not make me any less fond of my dearest Mrs. Freeman. Nothing could change my affection for her.”
“I shall speak to Godolphin; I shall write to Mr. Freeman. If these Tory peers are going to take their places in the Lords then there must be at least one new Whig peer.”
“It is really a matter for the ministers.”
Infuriating old fool! thought Sarah. It is time I was back.
She had bullied Godolphin who could never stand up to her; she had written to Marlborough. They both advised caution. But when had Sarah ever been cautious? She was beginning to realize that she had been foolish to shut herself away from affairs. Marl was a genius, but he was not so perceptive as she was, and Godolphin was too timid. Neither of them—Tories that they were—had grasped the fact that they needed the support of the Whigs if they were going to carry on the war because the Whigs represented the commerce and finance of the country.
Sarah was fiercely on the side of those who wanted to throw out the Occasional Conformity Bill and although Anne supported it she was determined to bring the Queen to her way of thinking.
In this she would have Prince George on her side for he, when he had been appointed Lord High Admiral of England, had been obliged to take the Sacrament according to the rites of the Church of England and afterwards continued to worship at the Lutheran Chapel which he had attended all his life. It was therefore absurd for George to have voted for the Bill; nor would he have done so had not Anne insisted that he did.
The old fool, thought Sarah. Too good-natured so say no, too anxious to please his dear angel, and too fat and lazy to discuss the matter with her.
Anne had to see Sarah’s point of view and Sarah was going to bring all her powers of persuasion to making her.
But first she intended to have her Whig peer and she had selected a certain John Hervey for the honour.
The Queen bleated that it was a matter for the ministers until Sarah’s fury could no longer be controlled.
“Unless Mr. Hervey is elevated to the peerage I shall leave Court and never set foot in it again!”
The Queen was distressed; Godolphin was shocked; Marlborough, deeply engaged in military operations, was horrified.
Thre was only one outcome. John Hervey became Lord Hervey and Sarah bowed her head in acknowledgment of victory.
Sarah was delighted when the Bill went through the Lords and emerged with an amendment which the