Royal Sisters: The Story of the Daughters of James II

little anxious on account of his daughter’s health, for he was convinced her miscarriages must have enfeebled her, told her that she must postpone all thoughts of the visit for a while.

Anne pretended to be more angry than she was, for secretly she was not anxious to undergo the discomforts of the journey; but, nevertheless, with Sarah’s help she wrote a venomous letter to her sister.

I am denied the satisfaction of seeing you, my dearest sister, this spring though the King gave me leave when I first asked it. I impute this to Lord Sunderland, for the King trusts him with everything, and, he, going on so fiercely in the interests of the papists, is afraid you should be told a true character of him.…

Sarah sat beside her and nodded her approval.

“You should elaborate a little on that, Mrs. Morley, for I am of the opinion that the Princess of Orange should be warned of this man.”

Anne took up her pen and continued:

You may remember I have once before ventured to tell you that I thought my Lord Sunderland a very ill man, and I am more confirmed every day in that opinion. Everyone knows how often this man turned backward and forward in the late King’s time, and now to complete all his virtues he is working with all his might to bring in popery. He is perpetually with the priests, and stirs up the King to do things faster than I believe he would himself.

“That,” said Sarah, with a chuckle, “should warn them. Caliban will be in no mood to tolerate the fellow when he hears of that. But you should tell them of how he hears mass, for instance.”

This worthy lord [went on Anne], does not go publicly to Mass but hears it privately in a priest’s chamber. His lady is as extraordinary in her kind, for she is a flattering, dissembling, false woman; but she has so fawning and endearing a way that she will deceive anybody at first and it is not possible to find out all her ways in a little time. …

The friends smiled at each other.

“That,” said Sarah, “will give them a good idea of Rogers and Rogers’ wife.” Rogers was the name they had given the Sunderlands.

Anne and Sarah had no idea that certain members of their household were sending information about the happenings in the Cockpit to The Hague; and that the Princess of Orange was learning how very much her sister was under the influence of Lady Churchill.

The venomous attacks on various personalities of the Court could not, Mary guessed, have been written by Anne alone. Mary wrote a personal letter to her sister warning her that the reports she received of Lady Churchill did not altogether please her and she begged her sister to be a little more discreet with her woman.

Sarah was with Anne when this letter arrived and as she read it, her face was flooded with angry color.

“There are people who wish you ill, Mrs. Morley,” she declared. “That is the reason why they wish to separate us. They know how I carry your welfare in my heart; they know that I would serve you with my life. Oh, it is clear to me that ill-wishers have done this.”

“It is folly, Sarah. But I will put this right. I will tell my sister immediately how good you are.”

Sarah angrily took the pen from Anne’s hand and wrote:

Sorry people have taken such pains to give so ill a character of Lady Churchill. I believe there is nobody in the world has better notions of religion than she has. It is true she is not so strict as some are, nor does she keep such a bustle with religion; which I confess I think is never the worse, for one sees so many saints mere devils, that if one be a good Christian, the less show one makes the better in my opinion. Then, as for moral principles, it is impossible to have better, and without all that, lifting up of the hands and eyes, and often going to church will prove but a lame devotion. One thing more I must say for her which is that she has a true sense of the doctrine of our Church, and abhors all the principles of the church of Rome. As to this particular, I assure you she will never change. The same thing I will venture, now I am on this subject, to say for her lord, for though he is a very faithful servant to King James, and the King is very kind to him, and I believe he will always obey the King in all things that are consistent with religion, yet rather than change

that

, I daresay he will lose all his places and everything he has.…

Sarah looked up. She had written some of the fury out of herself.

“This is the sort of letter,” she said, “I suggest you write to the Princess of Orange. It is monstrous that one who has done nothing but good should be so slandered. But I know that my dear Mrs. Morley will not allow this injustice to pass. I know she will write this letter to her sister.”

“You may trust me, my dear Mrs. Freeman,” Anne promised her.

Sarah left Anne to write her letters and went to her own apartments to cool off her temper.

The Princess of Orange had never liked her. A pretty state of affairs if she should return and take the throne. Who knew what influence she would try to exert over Anne—she, and her Caliban of a husband.

Anne could be a sentimental fool. Like her father she was often brooding on the old days of childhood. It was “Dear Mary this” and “Dear Mary that.”

Well, thought Sarah, not even the Queen of England shall insult Sarah Churchill.

Sarah came running into her mistress’s apartments. She was flushed and breathless and before she spoke Anne saw that something had happened to upset her.

“You have not yet heard the rumors,” said Sarah. “I can see that.”

“Tell me, Sarah, what is it?”