Queen Anne: The Politics of Passion - Anne Somerset

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be a little comforted, for it may displease God Almighty to see you not submit to his will, and who knows but that he may lay some greater affliction on you. Death is a debt we must all pay when God is pleased to take us out of this wicked world’. Yet though inconsolable sorrow could be condemned as impious or even sinful, it proved difficult for Anne to endure her tribulations with fortitude. More than one source describes her as becoming ‘ill by reason of grief’ after the deaths of her two daughters, and George’s slow recovery was partly attributed to his profound distress. Having been described as ‘much indisposed, as well as much afflicted’ immediately following the event, Anne was still reportedly ‘in a very weak and declining state’ in May 1687.48

      There was little comfort to be derived from political events. In January 1687 Anne’s two uncles lost their jobs, and although they had done ‘a thousand little things’ to displease her, it was disturbing that the King rejected such loyal Anglicans. With the Hyde brothers out of the way, the power of Lord Sunderland was much increased. Anne already believed him to be ‘a great knave’, and as she saw him ‘working with all his might to bring in Popery’, her detestation of him grew apace.49

      It was becoming evident that James was not content simply to exempt individuals from observing the Test Acts; he was determined that the measures must be repealed by Parliament. For Anne this was a terrifying prospect, for she did not doubt the King’s ‘desire to take off the Test and all other laws against [the Catholics] is only a pretence to bring in Popery’. In early 1687 James started to summon Members of Parliament and peers for individual talks, asking them to pledge themselves to support the repeal of the Test Acts when Parliament next met. Many of those approached refused to commit themselves, whereupon they were dismissed from positions held at court, or in the administration and army. To one observer it appeared that ‘every post brought fresh news of gentlemen’s losing their employments both civil and military’, and another fervent Anglican pronounced ‘This was a time of great trial’.50

      Disappointed by the many rebuffs he had received, James announced that Parliament would not reassemble until November. In the meantime, however, he continued to do all he could to ensure that when it did meet, it would be an amenable body. As yet Lord Churchill had not been called upon to indicate where he stood with regard to the Test Acts, but in his wife’s view it was obvious that ‘everybody sooner or later must be ruined, who would not become a Roman Catholic’. Anne too was despondent, telling her sister in March, ‘I believe in a little while no Protestant will be able to live here’.51

      In early March 1687 Anne went to her father to ask permission to visit her sister in Holland in the summer, while George would be in Denmark seeing his family. At first James had no objection, but subsequently the King’s advisers told him that a meeting between the two sisters ‘could only serve to bring them closer together and to strengthen them in their attachment to the Protestant religion’.52 Accordingly James withdrew permission for Anne to go overseas.

      Furious at being denied her wish, the Princess tried hard to change her father’s mind, but he refused to lift his veto. However, he could not prevent Anne from communicating secretly with her sister. Her correspondence with Mary became increasingly controversial and indiscreet, and was transmitted through unofficial channels. ‘Since I am not to see my dear sister I think myself obliged to tell you the truth of everything this way’, she told Mary. She blamed Sunderland – ‘the subtillest workingest villain that is on the face of the earth’ – not just for the King’s reversal of his initial decision, but for ‘going on so fiercely for the interests of the Papists’. Though Anne had taken the precaution of entrusting her letter to a reliable messenger, she begged Mary not to disclose a word of its contents to anyone apart from her husband. Quite apart from the fact that the King had explicitly instructed her not to reveal that he had forbidden her to visit Mary, the Princess was guiltily conscious that ‘it is all treason I have spoke’.53

      Anne took care to be present when Anglican divines made sermons intended to emphasise the danger of Popish encroachments, ‘openly bearing witness to her zeal for the Protestant religion’ by going ‘incognito to individual churches to listen to the most popular and fashionable preachers’.54 Having demonstrated her solidarity for her embattled faith, she withdrew to Richmond. George’s need to convalesce was used as a pretext for her spending several weeks there, but really she was signalling her estrangement from the court.

      Although apparently living a quiet life at Richmond, the Princess was not cut off from the opposition movement that was gradually forming against the King. In February 1687 William of Orange had sent a diplomat named Dykvelt to England as his ‘ambassador extraordinary’, with orders to form links with those who opposed the repeal of the Test Acts. He brought with him a letter to Anne from William and Mary, but even after receiving this, the Princess thought it imprudent to meet with Dykvelt. On 13 March she explained to Mary that she had been fearful Lord Sunderland would hear about the meeting and besides, ‘I am not used to speak to people about business’. Instead she sent Lord Churchill to see the envoy. Two months later Churchill gave Dykvelt a letter to take back to Holland, stating that the Princess of Denmark ‘was resolved, by the assistance of God, to suffer all extremities, even to death itself, rather than be brought to change her religion’.55

      On 12 February 1687 King James had issued a Declaration of Indulgence to Tender Consciences in Scotland, suspending operation of the Test Act there. On 4 April he issued a similar Declaration for England. In this he stated that since he believed that ‘conscience ought not to be constrained’ he had decided to grant ‘free exercise of their religion’ not just to Catholics but also to Protestant nonconformists. The measure nullified the requirement that anyone employed in a court or government office, or other place of trust, should have to take an oath disavowing transubstantiation. For the moment this was done solely on the King’s authority, although the Declaration blandly concluded that James had ‘no doubt of the concurrence of our two houses of Parliament when we shall think it convenient for them to meet’.56

      The Declaration of Indulgence marked a change of direction on the King’s part. Until now he had hoped that he could abolish laws harmful to Catholics with the cooperation of Anglican Members of Parliament, but the disappointing outcome to James’s private interviews had indicated that this was unrealistic. Accordingly the King’s strategy was to form an alliance with the dissenters, who were far more numerous than Catholics. In the first eighteen months of the reign, the laws against Protestant nonconformists had been rigorously enforced, but James now set out to enlist their support. Recognising this as an astute change of tactics on his father-in-law’s part, William sought to convince the dissenters to be patient until Mary ascended the throne, for then they would be treated equitably without incurring the odium of coupling themselves with Catholics.

      As a member of the Calvinist Dutch Reformed Church, sympathy for English dissenters came naturally to William, and since her marriage Mary too had come to believe that the Anglican clergy were unnecessarily harsh to dissenters. Anne’s viewpoint was different. It is true that the Declaration of Indulgence appalled her primarily because she believed that it would enable Catholics to become dominant within the state. She told Mary, ‘In taking away the Test and Penal laws, they take away our religion; and if that be done, farewell to all happiness: for when once the Papists have everything in their hands, all we poor Protestants have but dismal times to hope for’. In addition, however, she considered the Declaration pernicious because of its concessions to nonconformists. Unaware that her sister was not wholly of her mind on this issue, she told her, ‘It is a melancholy prospect that all we of the Church of England have; all the sectaries may now do what they please. Every one has the free exercise of their religion, on purpose no doubt to ruin us’.57

      The King’s treatment of the universities of Oxford and Cambridge exacerbated fears that he was not merely trying to secure toleration for Catholics, but wanted all power to be concentrated in Catholic hands. The two universities were the principal educational establishments for Anglican clergymen and hence any attack on their rights ‘struck at the root of the Protestant Church’. The richest college in Oxford, Magdalen, was ordered to install a crypto-Catholic as its President. When the College Fellows declined, they were called

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