Lord, I wish it were in my power to understand why you have seen fit to harden my sister’s heart against me in this way. There is ever the suspicion in my heart, especially when I wake at night, or am lame for some days together, or fear to lose another child, that my sins must weigh heavily indeed, for why else would you afflict me so? For certainly whatever the King and Queen do to me is only what you have suffered them to do; but, for the life of me, with my mean understanding, all I can ever think is that she is jealous of the great jewel you have given me in Lady Marlborough’s friendship, and that he – he is still angry that he was bested over the matter of my revenue and, knave that he is, he means out of revenge to make the Prince and me uncomfortable in any way he can.
But I shall not be parted from my friend, for I could no more part with my own soul. It is a great sorrow to me that the Queen will not understand this: she has refused to listen to my entreaties; she has refused to listen to my Uncle Rochester – not that he would ever plead my case in any manner sincere enough to damage his own interest with the King and Queen. Indeed it is every day clearer to me that it is not to my own kin that I can look for true friendship in this world. My loyalty must, in all conscience, lie with those who have proved most loyal to me, however prejudicial it might be to my own interests, so if the King sees fit to banish Lady Marlborough from Whitehall, then I sincerely believe I have no choice but to leave with her – and might not the kindness the Duke of Somerset has shown in leasing us Syon House be taken as a sign of your blessing?
It is indeed a mercy to have such a place of refuge in these times. Isleworth promises to be very pretty come spring, and there is that about the Park that puts me in mind of Richmond, where we were all of us once so content . . . I do believe Mary was content then, and though she might have reproached me for this or that offence she was never unkind. I cannot help but suppose it is the King’s influence that makes her so unkind to me now. I visited her before I left, in some hopes she might relent a little, but I might just as well have made my compliment to a statue. When the Lord Chamberlain did not show me out, it was the sign of what was to come, for these days the Prince and I are treated like the meanest nobodies. Our guard has been taken away, so I was forced to travel here by chair without any proper attendance; when the Prince went to London, the guard at St James’s did not present arms to him as they were supposed to – and I cannot doubt but that they showed such Dutch breeding on Dutch orders, especially since last week, when the Prince took leave of the King before he went abroad again – as was only proper – and came back to Syon to tell me he had barely been taken notice of.
All these humiliations, these petty slights are what the King and Queen hope to vex us with, but they shall be confounded, for they only strengthen my resolve, and are proof to me that to deny such a pair of monsters the satisfaction they seek is no sin, be they King and Queen of all the world. And moreover, when I see how they conduct themselves in this matter, and note how little I am daunted by it, it comes to me that what I suffer at their hands may not after all be chastisement at yours, but rather a trial of my heart and my faith, that they might both be proven in the fire, and pray I might be found unto praise and honour when my time comes.
And I pray also that you will not suffer Lady Marlborough to have any more of the cruel thoughts she has of abandoning me. Every day she offers to resign, every other day she begs me to let her go, and then I weep, for I do swear I had rather live in a cottage with her than reign empress of all the world without her.