His Majesty Bleeds at the Nose
One day in early November, Lady Churchill comes into Anne’s closet to tell her that their prayers have been answered: an obliging Protestant wind has blown the Prince of Orange and his troops all the way to Torbay; they are camped at Exeter. The King has responded by raising Lord Churchill to the position of Lieutenant General and has sent him and the rest of the army to Salisbury. Sarah talks calmly enough about this, but when she helps Anne on with her clothes, her hands are shaking. Anne is privately glad that her own husband is at Whitehall still, though she wishes that the King would go, and take her uncle Clarendon with him: he is at the Cockpit again, trying to persuade her to remonstrate with the King, even though it is too late, and would never have done any good, and even if it would have done – and this is what of all things she cannot say – she never wished to. She never knows what to say to him on the subject, and he never changes it—
—at least until Lord Cornbury becomes the first officer to defect to the Prince of Orange, and then Anne can comfort him with the notion that there is at least nothing exceptional in his child’s disloyalty: as people in general are so apprehensive of Popery, it will surely not be too long before many more of the army do the same. She does not tell him that the Prince of Orange has said as much to her in a letter, and that is why she is so sure.
A few days later, the King takes leave of her. He begs her have a care of herself, and to try and comfort the Queen, if she can, if her condition will allow it; he seems exhausted, anxious, grey-faced, old. She feels a kind of revulsion for him, half-fearful, half-contemptuous. Now poor George will have to bear him company all the way to Salisbury – she can only hope that he will find wine enough to help him tolerate it.
As soon as they are safely gone, she replies to the Prince of Orange:
Having on all occasions given you and my sister all imaginable assurances of the great friendship and kindness I have for you both, I hope it is not necessary for me to repeat anything of that kind, and on the subject you have now written to me I shall not trouble you with many compliments, only in short assure you that you have my wishes for your good success in this so just an undertaking, and I hope the Prince will soon be with you to let you see his readiness to join with you, who I am sure will do you all the service that lies in his power. He went yesterday with the King towards Salisbury, intending to go from there to you as soon as his friends thought it proper. I am not yet certain if I shall continue here or remove into the City; that shall depend on the advice my friends will give me, but wherever I am I shall be ready to show you how much I am your humble servant.
It is the King’s nose that decides the matter. Salisbury does not at all agree with it: it bleeds after he arrives; when he receives news of the risings in the North of England, it bleeds again. He loses heart, and starts back for London with his army. The next day Lord Churchill defects, and the Duke of Grafton, and Colonel Berkeley. Orders arrive for guards to be placed at Lady Churchill’s lodgings, but they are none too strict in their work, thank God, and make no attempt to stop her visiting Anne, or Mrs Berkeley, or anyone else. When further orders come, for Lady Churchill and Mrs Berkeley to be taken into custody, Anne appeals to the Lord Chamberlain, who, for her sake, agrees to do nothing about it yet. By the time the news of George’s defection arrives, along with an order for the Queen to have Anne secured in her lodgings, Sarah has already contrived to visit Bishop Compton and they have made the necessary plans. There are guards waiting outside the Cockpit, and it is time for Anne to make use of the new backstairs.
Lady Churchill, has, with great patience and kindness, helped her compose a letter to the Queen, to be found after she is gone:
Madam.
I beg your pardon if I am so deeply affected with the surprising news of the Prince’s being gone, as not to be able to see you, but to leave this paper to express my humble duty to the King and yourself; and to let you know that I am gone to absent myself to avoid the King’s displeasures which I am not able to bear, either against the Prince or myself. And I shall stay at so great a distance as not to return before I hear the happy news of a reconcilement: and, as I am confident the Prince did not leave the King with any other design than to use all possible means for his preservation, so I hope you will do me the justice to believe that I am uncapable of following him for any other end. Never was anyone in such an unhappy condition, so divided between duty and affection to a father and a husband; and therefore I know not what I must do, but to follow one and preserve the other. I see the general feeling of the nobility and gentry who avow to have no other end than to prevail with the King to secure their religion, which they saw so much in danger by the violent counsels of the priests; who to promote their own religion, did not care to what dangers they exposed the King. I am fully persuaded that the Prince of Orange designs the King’s safety and preservation, and hope all things may be composed without more bloodshed, by the calling a Parliament.
God grant a happy end to these troubles, that the King’s reign may be prosperous, and that I may shortly meet you in perfect peace and safety; till when, let me beg of you to continue the same favourable opinion that you have hitherto had of your most obedient daughter and servant.
That night, when the clock strikes one, unhappy Anne, divided between duty and affection, in pursuit of the King’s safety and preservation, the security of the English religion, the avoidance of bloodshed, reconcilement and a happy end to present troubles, and carrying her best pair of shoes so as not to wake Danvers – sleeping all unawares in the ante-room – tiptoes from her chamber into the little room where she has her close-stool, and from there steps onto the backstairs.
As she emerges onto them, everything strikes her at once: the stairs are shabby and need painting; it is raining heavily; two ladies in hoods are waiting at the foot. They do not dare speak, of course, but as she reaches them, they put their hoods back for a moment and she sees that they are indeed, thank God, Lady Churchill and Mrs Berkeley. Anne puts her shoes on, her silk-lined slippers with the red heels.
Lady Churchill whispers that, with all due respect, they were a bad choice and the mud will ruin them, Mrs Berkeley covers Anne up in a heavy cloak and hood, and the three of them set off together into the sodden dark.
When they have taken their first few squelching steps, a gentleman comes forward to meet them: Lord Dorset, First Lord of the Bedchamber to the late King, here to assist at the ruin of the present one. He makes a practised bow, and whispers that there is a Hackney coach waiting; he will escort them to it. The rain falls harder; the mud grows stickier. Anne’s feet sink in deeper with every step, and the squelching noises grow louder and more ridiculous. Anne cannot hold her laughter in anymore: it whoops out of her, at a dangerous volume, so that her companions gather round her sssshhhing. It is too late, though: now she has lost a shoe – her beautiful shoe! – in the mud. Lady Churchill retrieves it, tutting, while Lord Dorset whips off one of his long gloves and gently pulls it over her stockinged royal foot. Then she takes hold of his arm and hops, whoops, hops the rest of the way to the coach.
They are taken to Bishop Compton’s lodgings, where they eat. Sarah holds up half the muddy shoe in one hand and the snapped-off muddy heel in the other, so that Anne can laugh even more at it. Then the ladies change into the travelling clothes that Lady Churchill has had discreetly delivered there. The Bishop dresses himself up as a soldier, complete with jackboots and broadsword, and looks more comfortable in that than he ever has in his episcopal robes; Anne is lifted onto his horse behind him, and then for the rest of the night and part of the morning, she rides pillion behind her old tutor, until they reach Waltham Forest, and Lord Dorset’s house. From there they travel, in stages, to Nottingham.
Finally, Anne can give up the role of Dutiful Daughter, the one it has oppressed her so much to have to play, and she is giddy with relief. Her spirits are so high that by the time they reach Nottingham they have made her feverish, and she has to take to her bed for a few days. She has Dr Radcliffe sent for, but he will not come: instead, he sends a message to say that he will not come to attend a rebel Princess. It sobers Anne up a little, to be rebuked like that – as Lady Churchill says, Radcliffe is a man so fitted by nature for medicine, that he has given his patient physick without even meaning to.
When she leaves her chamber, she finds a house filled with noblemen, gentlemen, yeomen and militia. They are, for the most part, gallant, excitable, and intoxicatingly at her service. They are greatly moved to hear of her sufferings, her courage, her daring escape; she is, for once in her life, almost eloquent, and very comely with it. They are more than delighted to follow her to Leicester, gathering more troops as they go. The good, common, Protestant people line the roads and cheer her. She is almost Good Queen Bess.
Almost. She is taken to task again in Leicester, in front of Bishop Compton and the Earl of Devonshire and everyone. She has had such a good notion: Queen Elizabeth, she is sure, in her time, had given her blessing to a league for defending the monarch against malicious Papists – why not form one to defend the Prince of Orange? Her new followers are very keen. Bishop Compton is prepared to consider it, and to draw up the articles of association. A meeting is called at an inn. It is very well attended, and Anne’s hopes are high – but then the Earl of Chesterfield stands up to speak. He has known Anne since childhood, and has already reminded her several times that he has served her father, and hinted that, under such circumstances, and in his opinion, it might well become Her Highness to look a little less pleased with herself.
He is here, he says, to protect the Princess, but he does not care to be summoned to public conferences without having first been consulted privately – regarding the matter in hand, if he had been so consulted, he would have refused to have anything to do with it. He is for the Prince of Orange, but he will not join any murder, and he is sure that the Prince – whom he has known for many years – would never approve of one. And that is that. Anne suffers through a few tetric days, but then the extraordinary messages start to come: the Prince of Orange has entered London; the Queen and her baby have fled to France; her father has fled, and his army have been disbanded. When she is told of this, the whole room hushes about her, and she knows they are all watching her now, waiting to see how she deports herself, if it is fitting – but in this moment, though she suspects she ought not, she finds she can do nothing at all but smile. Feeling utterly at a loss, and having eaten already, she calls for cards.
There’s Mary the daughter,
There’s Willy the cheater,
There’s Geordie the drinker,
There’s Annie the eater.
– Jacobite rhyme