London has a certain skittishness about it, in the way that fairs do just before the brawling starts. On one side are the Papists of the King’s Court, all puffed up by the supposed birth or a supposed heir, and growing every day more insolent; on the other side, and far more numerous, are all the people who cannot or will not believe, muttering, publishing, preaching, versifying, swapping tales of changelings and warming-pans, passing about maps of St James’s Palace to show how easily the trick was done, sharing pictures of the Queen pinning a cushion to her shift or doing unspeakable things with priests – because the King and Queen between them, as everyone must know by now, are fit only to produce a race of ninnies. There are far more bonfires lit for the bishops’ acquittal than there were for the birth of the Prince.
Anne does her best to steer a course through all this, dissembling where she must, but letting her opinions be known where she can. On 8th July she joins a large congregation at the Chapel Royal to hear a sermon preached on Exodus 14:13:
And Moses said to the people, Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will shew to you to day: for the Egyptians whom ye have seen to day, ye shall see them again no more for ever.
It is very plain to everybody who are the people, and who the Egyptians. Did God not harden Pharaoh’s heart, in order to destroy him? Anne fears not: she stands still, and sees salvation coming: the people are all of a mind, which is heartening; the King has accepted her physicians’ latest recommendation, that she leave for Tunbridge Wells; Lord Churchill has told her that a letter of invitation has been sent to the Prince of Orange, that the army is packed already with his supporters, and that when the time and the weather are right, he will come. Salvation is coming.
And when it comes, Anne will be ready. Before she leaves, she gives instructions for extensive refurbishments to the Chapel Royal and orders a back staircase to be built at the Cockpit – for how can anyone plot without backstairs? She also has a little work to do for Mary, so she summons Mrs Dawson.