Lady Marlborough’s Misfortunes

May arrives. A Jacobite fleet is poised for invasion, and Anne is running a fever, which is caused by the Queen’s unkindness. She does not have Sarah with her, because the Earl of Marlborough has been arrested on suspicion of High Treason and sent to the Tower, and so his wife must spend all the time she has in London, waiting at Whitehall to be granted permission to see him, and working for his release. Since they have arrested him on the word of some scoundrel who claims to have found a compromising letter in a flower-pot at the home of the Bishop of Rochester, and have no other evidence, they will have to grant him bail before too long, but Anne cannot help but fear that, in the meantime, her dear Mrs Freeman will wear herself out. When she sees her, all too briefly, she is in a most dismal way; she is tearful and will not take any food or any physic that Anne can offer; she will talk of nothing but her husband’s case. Most painful to Anne is that little sliver of spleen she detects in her friend’s manner towards her, that might suggest she considers her to blame for this misfortune.

Of course Anne would do anything in her power to help her friend, but what might that be now, when she is forbidden the Court, when the Queen rejects her attempts to send her compliments, when she cannot even climb the stairs unaided? She cannot eat her dinner without her face flushing afterwards, so that she can barely put her head down to write her letters. She cannot see well enough to do her needlework and her hands are too stiff to play her instruments. The laudanum she takes for her pains fogs her mind and then she cannot remember the simplest things: the rules of whist or ombre, the words of her evening prayers. Her sleep is broken by melancholy dreams of her lost infants, seven – or is it eight of them? – piled up in their tiny coffins in the Abbey, her own growing race of ninnies.

Sometimes she feels she must be the most contemptible creature alive; at other times, when she reads over the unreasonable letters Mary has sent her, or looks into Lady Marlborough’s unjustly stricken face, she feels only outrage. They are neither of them being treated as they deserve. In her own household she is greeted with insolence and ingratitude. Lady Fitzharding is avoiding Lady Marlborough, which much increases her distress, and with it her mistress’s. One of the Prince’s servants, a Mr Maul, who only gained his place in the household because Lady Marlborough helped him to it, tries to prevail upon the Prince to dismiss that lady, then shows his resentment at his failure by waiting upon them at table in as unpleasant a manner as he can, slamming the meat in front of them and hurrying it away again, without a glance or a word. Anne, to vex him, lingers that bit longer over dinner. And yet it is not at all like her to make work hard for her servants: formerly her first thought was always to send them to dinner as soon as possible, so that they might be easy. She would always prefer to be kind; she does not know herself.

News comes that the Jacobite fleet has been defeated. Anne does not bother to send her sister any compliment on her victory; neither does George trouble to pay his in person. They could not offer them with much sincerity; neither do they suppose that the Queen would accept them. Never mind: if Mary will not relent towards them, they can at least hope, now the immediate threat is passed, that the Marlboroughs’ condition will improve.

It does, but not before it pleases God to worsen it. Their youngest child, their son Charles, is taken gravely ill. Sarah rushes from London to St Albans, in hopes that he might be saved, but nothing can be done. Knowing well what Sarah suffers, and not wishing to inflame further the grief she must already feel, Anne forbears from saying too much on the subject, but makes an offer to visit whenever Sarah will have her. She is now able to go up and down stairs so if dear Mrs Freeman will only give her leave she can come any time . . . but Sarah does not ask for her, and when the Earl is released in June they retire to St Albans, there to grieve in private.