again, on the 30th of July, 1729, George the Second and his Queen appear to have been partakers of her hospitality. On the latter occasion, the clumsiness of her servants and her own over-zeal, seem to have rendered the entertainment a failure, and it is evidently in "the anguish of her mind," to use her own expression, that she writes Mrs. Howard an account of the terrible mismanagements and mistakes of her domestics. 66 They kept back the dinner," she says, "too long for her Majesty, after it was dished, and was set before the fire, and made it look not well dressed; the Duke of Grafton saying there wanted a maître d'hotel. All this vexed my Lord Orkney so, he tells me he hopes I will never meddle more, if he could ever hope for the same honour; which I own I did too much, as I see by the success."*

It would be unfair to close our memoir of Lady Orkney without inserting another brief specimen of her correspondence, which appears to do credit to her heart. The letter in question is addressed to Mrs. Howard, afterwards Countess of Suffolk, and the well known mistress of George the Second.

66

Madam,

"Clifton (Clifden), July 22 [1725].

"The unhappy find time long. I am truly concerned for my poor Lady Lovat. She

*Letters to and from Henrietta Countess of Suffolk, vol. i. p. 351.

248 ELIZABETH VILLIERS, COUNTESS OF ORKNEY.

stays in London for no other end but in hopes to get something to carry her to Scotland; and every day she is detained she is less able to live or to go. I did do as you desired; but I fear the petition has not been read, or not spoken of, as you expected. Your humanity has drawn this great trouble upon you; but what is life worth without it? I shall be at Court some day next week, where I shall wait on you; and I hope then to have a successful answer to this. This, and a thousand other things I have heard of you, engages me to be with truth your ladyship's

"Faithful humble servant,

"E. ORKNEY."*

Lady Orkney died, apparently at an advanced age, in 1733. By her husband she was the mother of three daughters, of whom the eldest, Lady Mary, married William O'Brian, Earl of Inchiquin, in Ireland.

* Letters to and from Henrietta Countess of Suffolk, vol. i. p. 189.

249

QUEEN ANNE.

CHAPTER I.

Anne, second daughter of James the Second, by Anne Hyde, daughter of the celebrated Lord Clarendon.-Her birth in 1665.-Is attached early in life to the son of Ernest, Duke of Brunswick, afterwards George the First.-Announcement of her marriage in 1683 to Prince George of Denmark.-Her desertion of her father.-His anguish in consequence.-Extracts from Clarendon's Diary, and Duchess of Marlborough's Memoirs.-Lord Dartmouth's account of Anne's flight. Her entry into Oxford.-And strong bias in favour of Protestantism. Her letter to Mary of Modena.-And to the Prince of Orange.-Anecdotes of Anne.-Origin of her misunderstanding with her sister, Queen Mary.-Grant made to her by Parliament.-King William's neglect of her. Her endeavours to effect a reconciliation with King James.-Her letter to him. He pardons her on his death-bed.-Anne's favourable disposition towards the claims of her exiled brother. The Pretender writes her an affecting letter.Anecdote of the Duke of Ormond.-And of the Bishop of London.-Interesting letter of the Earl of Oxford respecting the Hanoverian succession.-Death of Anne's son, the young Duke of Gloucester.-His promising character.-Anne's grief for the loss of her son.-Shippen's verses on the subject.

ANNE, the last of the House of Stuart who held the sceptre of these realms, was the second daughter of James the Second by Anne Hyde, Duchess of York, daughter of the celebrated Lord Clarendon. She was born in St. James's

Palace on the 6th of February, 1665. Little is known of her early history but that her nature was gentle, and her health delicate. The latter circumstance led to her being sent, when a child, to France, where she continued till the disorder with which she was afflicted took a favourable turn.

The first lover of the Princess Anne was George, son of Ernest Duke of Brunswick, who afterwards ascended the throne of this country as King George the First. He arrived in England, as the professed suitor of the Princess, in 1681, but had proceeded to no great lengths in the negotiation, when he received orders to return to his own country; his father having changed his intentions respecting him, and determined on his marriage with the unfortunate Sophia Dorothea, daughter of the Duke of Zell. Whether Anne suffered any disappointment at the defection of her German lover cannot now be ascertained: however, two years afterwards, she accepted the offer of Prince George of Denmark, younger brother of Christian the Fifth, King of Denmark, to whom she was married, in the Chapel Royal at St. James's, on the 28th of July, 1683. The event was thus announced to the public" by authority:"

66

Whitehall, July 28:- His Majesty having been pleased, upon instance made unto him, in the name of the King of Denmark, to consent

that his brother, Prince George, should come hither to make his addresses to the Lady Anne, his Majesty's niece, in order to marriage. The same was accordingly celebrated this evening at St. James's, by the Bishop of London, in the presence of their Majesties, their Royal Highnesses, and the choicest of the Nobility. And since, their Majesties and their Royal Highnesses, as likewise the Prince and Princess, have upon this occasion received the compliments and congratulations of the foreign ministers residing at this Court."*

As Anne was the favourite daughter of the unfortunate James, and as even Burnet admits he had ever been to her a "kind and indulgent father," her unnatural defection to the Prince of Orange, in 1688, was a blow to the bereaved parent as severe as it was unlooked-for. At the previous desertion of Prince George of Denmark, James had shown but little concern; indeed, he not only jested publicly on the subject, but remarks in his Memoirs that "the loss of a good trooper had been of greater consequence." But when his favourite daughter affected to regard him as a state criminal; when she fled from his hearth to league herself with his most deadly foes, his grief knew no bounds, and he burst into tears :-"Good God!" he said, "am I then deserted by my own children?" On a subsequent

* Kennet's Complete History, vol. iii. p. 407.