ANNE HYDE
DUCHESS OF YORK

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ANNE HYDE

ANNE HYDE

DUCHESS OF YORK

BY

J. R. HENSLOWE

AUTHOR OF “DUKE’S WINTON—A CHRONICLE OF SEDGMOOR,” ETC.

LONDON

T. WERNER LAURIE LTD.

8 ESSEX STREET, STRAND

INTRODUCTION

Among the records, few at best, left by time of her who was destined to be the mother of two queens regnant of England, there is one which bears its own pathetic significance.

It is a very small book, only about four inches long by three wide, bound in stamped leather from which the gilding is half worn away, with a broken silver clasp, and thick, stiff pages.[^[1]]

[1]. Additional MSS., 15,900 B. M.

Was this little book a gift from Edward Hyde to the young daughter whom he dearly loved? Who is to tell us now?

It is a girl’s tiny notebook, a treasure perhaps to her, in which she writes down occasional memoranda as they occur to her, but as we turn the leaves it seems to bridge with a familiar touch the centuries which lie between us and that vanished time. There is a page of figures, a little poetry (“The Contented Marter”), a list of household matters, “3 bras candlesticks, 4 bras kittles, driping pans,” and so on. An allusion to a servant—“Betty came to my Mother”—is on another leaf.

One fancies, somehow, that Anne kept this book by her bedside, jealously clasped, along with her little store of devotional reading. She filled it full of writing in pencil, quite easy to decipher, save that time has made it pale and dim.

Some of the sentences are in the French she came to know very perfectly in later days, and speak of a long dead romance.

“Je n’en vey mourir d’amour, mais ce n’est pas pour un infidèle comme vous.—Anne Hyde.”

“Adieu pour jamais, mais n’oubliez pas la plus misérable personne du monde.—Anne Hyde.”

Was the “infidèle” meant for Spencer Compton or Harry Jermyn? Do the plaintive words point to the bitterness of supposed desertion by one higher than either? When were they written? There is no date to guide us.

Elsewhere there is a mention of one, her aunt Barbara Aylesbury, greatly beloved:

“Je l’aime plus que moy-mesne mille fois.—Anne Hyde.”

But on another page (it must have been much earlier), the girl, as girls will, sets down gravely the short story of her young life, here transcribed:

“If I live till the 22 of March 1653, I am 16 yeare old. My dear Aunt Bab was when she died 24 yeare old and as much as from Aprell to August.”[^[2]] (This is the Barbara Aylesbury of the other entry.) “I was borne the 12 day of March old stile in the yeare of our Lord 1637 at Cranbourne Lodge neer Windsor in Barkshire and lived in my owne country till I was 12 yeares old haveing in that time seen the ruin both of Church and State in the murtheringe of my Kinge. The first of May old stile 1649 I came out of England being then 12 yeares old 1 month and 15 days. I came to Antwerp 6 of May old stile the August following I went to Bruxells for 3 or 4 days and returned againe to Antwerp where I stayed 3 weekes being loged at the court of her Highness the Princess Royall. I returned to Antwerp in May where I have been ever since February 8 1653. I am now 15 years old.”

[2]. Barbara, daughter of Sir Thomas Aylesbury, died in September 1652. (Nicholas Papers.)

So abruptly the record ends. The writer has no more to say, for she is yet only on the threshold of life.

Turn the page. Over the leaf in another hand, large and straggling, someone has inscribed a final memorandum. The little book would never be wanted by its owner any more, but there was room for this.

“On the 3 day of March being fryday the Dutchess dyed at St James and was buried the wednesday following 1671.”

Between the two dates a little span of years, not a score; and yet how great a sum of the things which go to fill up life—of hope and love and splendour, of pain and grief and disappointment.

It is this story that we try now to construct out of the memorials of her time; the life story of the woman who, without any extraordinary beauty or charm, so far as we are able to judge, to balance the comparative obscurity from which she sprang, was fated in an age when the claims of high birth were jealously guarded to become the wife of a Prince of the Blood Royal of England.

Even in the seventeenth century, gilded as it was by the slowly dying radiance of romance, the “glory and the dream” of chivalry, the strange tale reads like a fable, and yet the life, short as it was, of Anne Hyde, had results for her age and country which even now can hardly be measured accurately and dispassionately, like the ever-widening circles on the surface of a pool into which a pebble has been cast.

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

ANNE HYDE, DUCHESS

OF YORK

CHAPTER I
PARENTAGE

There is, after all, something to be said for the birth of Anne Hyde.

Edward Hyde, the famous Chancellor and historian of the Great Rebellion, though the first peer of his name, could still, quite honestly, boast of long and honourable descent.

The Hydes of Norbury, in the county of Cheshire, celebrated by Camden in his “Britannia,” had handed down that possession from father to son since the far-back days before the Norman Conquest, but the first of the race with whom we need concern ourselves is the grandfather of the future Chancellor.[^[3]]

[3]. “Life of Edward, Earl of Clarendon, from his Birth to the Restoration of the Royal Family,” written by himself. (1759.)

Evelyn’s “Correspondence.” To Mr Sprat, Chaplain to the Duke of Buckingham, afterwards Bishop of Rochester.

Laurence, the seventh son of Robert Hyde of Norbury, could claim, naturally, but a small provision from the paternal resources, but his mother seems to have looked carefully to his education, as the best chance for his future, and he was placed as a clerk in one of the auditors’ offices of the Exchequer.

Thence he was employed in the affairs of Sir Thomas Thynne, who under Protector Somerset in a short time raised a great estate, and was the first of his name to possess Longleat.

Laurence Hyde, however, held the post little more than a year—and gained nothing by it—but soon afterwards he married Anne, widow of Matthew Colthurst of Claverton, near Bath, who brought him a fair fortune, and by this marriage he had four sons and four daughters, the sons being Robert, Laurence, Henry and Nicholas. He bought, at the time of his marriage, the manor of West Hatch in the county of Wilts, but at his death he left the greater part of his estate to his widow.

Of the four sons above mentioned, the second, named also Laurence, became eventually “a lawyer of great name and practice,” being attorney to Queen Anne of Denmark, and obtaining knighthood in due course. His next brother, by name Henry, was at the time of his father’s death already entered at the Middle Temple, being a good scholar and a Master of Arts of Oxford. He was supposed (probably by his brothers and sisters) to be his mother’s favourite, and perhaps it was because he was the “spoilt child,” that he stoutly announced that “he had no mind to the law” but wished to enlarge his mind by travel. Having with some difficulty, as may be conjectured, extracted his mother’s unwilling consent, he went joyfully off on the Grand Tour, going through Germany from Spa to Italy. There he visited Florence, Siena and Rome, which, by the way, was then inhibited to the subjects of Elizabeth, and he somehow managed to obtain the protection of Cardinal Allen, probably a very necessary precaution. However, in due time Henry Hyde came safely back from what was then, and for long afterwards, considered a perilous undertaking, and was of course on his return persuaded forthwith to marry.

The wife who was chosen was Mary, one of the daughters and heirs of Edward Longford of Trowbridge, and Henry Hyde appears from this time to have settled down peaceably in his native county. He served as burgess for some neighbouring boroughs in many parliaments, and moreover, like his father before him, had a numerous family of four sons and five daughters.

Of his sons, the third, Edward, lived to be the Lord Chancellor.

Edward Hyde was born at his father’s house of Dinton, Wilts, on 18th February 1609, and as a child was taught by a schoolmaster to whom his father presented the living.

After the fashion of those days, which peopled both the universities with mere children, the boy was sent at the age of thirteen to Magdalen Hall, Oxford, and thereafter entered at the Middle Temple by his uncle, Nicholas Hyde, afterwards Lord Chief Justice of the King’s Bench.[^[4]]

[4]. “Autobiography of Sir John Bramston.”

In his early youth there came to Edward Hyde an experience which seems to us to embody a brief and sad romance. He married in 1629 the daughter of Sir George Ayliffe of Gretenham in his own county of Wilts, but before six months were past, the poor young bride was smitten by smallpox, that scourge of the seventeenth century, and died. He says of himself that “he bore her Loss with so great Passion and Confusion of spirit that it shook all the frame of his Resolutions.”

However, in 1632, when he was but twenty-four, the young widower repaired his loss by a second marriage with Frances, daughter of Sir Thomas Aylesbury, a union which proved to be a very happy one. With reference to this marriage Sir Bernard Burke, in his “Romance of the Aristocracy,” gives a curious tradition respecting the descent of Frances Aylesbury.

Some time early in the seventeenth century, a barefooted and destitute girl arrived one day at a roadside tavern in the village of Chelsea, and being kindly welcomed there, told the landlord that she was tramping to London, hoping to take service there. As it happened, the situation of “pot-girl” was then vacant at the Blue Dragon, and “Anne” forthwith stepped into the place. A rich brewer was in the habit of coming every day for his evening draught, and being attracted by the girl’s manner and appearance, married her within three months. Before long he died, leaving “Anne” a wealthy widow, to whom came many suitors. From among these she chose Sir Thomas Aylesbury, Master of Requests and the Mint, who moreover possessed lands in Buckinghamshire.

After many years there arose a dispute as to the property of the late brewery, and Lady Aylesbury was recommended to employ a young barrister, by name Edward Hyde, who was destined thereafter to become her son-in-law.

From this tale was drawn the obvious conclusion that the two queens of England, Mary and Anne, were great-granddaughters of a beggar maid.

Fortunately Burke merely gives the romantic story for what it is worth, and suggests that very probably it was coined after the Restoration by some one of Hyde’s numerous enemies, who were envious of his steady ascent to rank and distinction, and found a theory of obscure connections very comforting to their own souls.

In February 1634 we find young Hyde appointed one of the managers of a masque presented before the King by the Inns of Court, as a protest against Prynne’s furious attack on the drama.

Thither came King Charles, stately and gracious, forgetting perhaps for a brief moment the heavy clouds now gathering low on his horizon to cover the sky as with a pall: with dreaming, melancholy eyes intent for a little space on the scene which the masquers unfolded before him; where, a little before, Ben Jonson had brought many beautiful and dainty fancies to such rare perfection—but on this occasion it was “The Triumph of Peace,” by James Shirley.

Here, on that winter evening, in that great and splendid hall, shone all the glitter and pageantry and poetic thought so soon to be for long years eclipsed, leaving a pathetic memory to be cherished through many weary seasons of strife and disaster by those who had seen it.[^[5]]

[5]. Dictionary of National Biography, E. Hyde, 1609-1674.

Whether young Hyde at this time attracted the King’s special attention or not, we have no record, but his progress was a steady one.

As to what manner of man he was, we have his own words. In the curious sententious method of introspection and self-analysis employed by the thinkers of that age, Hyde speaks of himself as “in his nature inclined to Pride and Passion, and to a humour between Wrangling and Disputing very troublesome”[^[6]]; but he certainly possessed the art of attracting the friendship of some of the finest spirits of that stormy age, which, like all periods of stress, produced many such to shine like lamps in their time. There were the poets Carew and Cotton, the elder Godolphin, Evelyn, who extols Hyde’s “great and signal merits,” and greatest and noblest of all, Lucius Carey, Lord Falkland.

[6]. “Life of the Earl of Clarendon,” by himself.

If, as has been said, a man is known by his friends, then it may surely be counted to Edward Hyde for righteousness that he had eyes to discern the shining of that “steadfast star” too early extinguished. There is nothing more inspiring in English literature than the words in which he chronicles the going out of that light, the death of his hero on the red field which gave that pure spirit the peace it craved so earnestly. “Thus,” says the historian, “fell that incomparable young man in the four and thirtieth year of his age, having so much despatched the business of life that the oldest rarely attain to that immense knowledge, and the youngest enters not into the world with more innocence, and whosoever leads such a life need not care upon how short warning it be taken from him.”[^[7]]

[7]. “History of the Rebellion.” Clarendon.

Edward Hyde’s link with the great Villiers family procured for him powerful interest, and prompted him to vindicate the detested memory of the first Duke of Buckingham. This Villiers connection was due partly to Hyde’s first marriage, as there seems to have been a relationship with the Ayliffes of Gretenham, and partly to his father-in-law, Sir Thomas Aylesbury. He, being a distinguished mathematician, had been secretary first to the Earl of Nottingham, Lord High Admiral of England, and then to the latter’s successor, Buckingham. To the influence of the powerful favourite he owed his posts of Master of Requests and of the Mint. Anthony Wood says that Sir Thomas sat for a short time in Parliament in the former capacity, and as a matter of form at Oxford in 1643 after the beginning of the Rebellion.

His Cavalier sympathies procured for him the sentence of banishment from England, and he died at Breda at the age of eighty-one. His son, who at the instance of Charles I. had translated Davila’s “History of the Civil Wars in France,” was for a time tutor to the second Duke of Buckingham and his young brother Lord Francis Villiers, who in his turn merits one word at least. Nothing in the history of the great strife has been chronicled more heroic nor more pathetic than the fate of that boy—for he was no more—at Kingston-on-Thames. A true Villiers, “prodigal of his person,” he fiercely rejected quarter, and with his back against a tree fought valiantly till he went down under the swords of the Roundheads, “nine wounds in his beautiful face and body.”[^[8]] Yet it was better so—better to die in the flush of chivalrous, unstained youth, than to live out such a life as his brother’s, a life blackened by degrading vice, gasped out alone, in the “worst inn’s worst room,” as Pope declared (though this has been denied), the last male of his race.

[8]. Brian Fairfax.

To return to the Aylesbury tutor of the Villiers brothers; he lived abroad in exile for a time, and having been obliged to return to England in 1650, he again left the country, and died six years later in Jamaica, being then secretary to Major-General Sedgwick.

Another of Edward Hyde’s friends was Sir Edmund Verney, “of great courage and generally beloved,”[^[9]] that gallant standard-bearer who was destined to fall at Edgehill at the beginning of the war, but who as long as he lived, with Hyde and Falkland, might be considered to represent the moderate or constitutional loyalists. Having in 1634 been appointed keeper of writs and rolls of Common Pleas, we find Hyde later emerging into the arena of public life. In 1640 he organised the royal party in the Commons, and on the eve of the outbreak drew up the state papers for the Royalist press.[^[10]] With Colepepper, afterwards famous as a general, and his friend Falkland, Hyde joined the King at York. At this time he was member for Wotton Basset in his own county of Wilts, having been also called to serve for Shaftesbury, which however he declined. At the dissolution of the Short Parliament in 1640 he was again, in the constitution of the Long Parliament, returned for his own constituency. At some time he also seems to have represented Saltash. At any rate, from the date above referred to, he gave up his practice at the Bar, and devoted himself to “public business.”

[9]. “Life of the Earl of Clarendon,” by himself.

[10]. “Short History of the English People.” Green.

We have it under his hand that as late as 1639 the “three kingdoms” were “flourishing in entire Peace and universal Plenty,” yet we cannot but think that any one so far-seeing and sagacious as Edward Hyde must have detected the first low mutterings of the gathering storm by that time. His personal enmity to Cromwell began early, and at the beginning of the Long Parliament he was attacked by the bitter Puritan Fiennes for his steady attachment to the Church.[^[11]] It was then that he was first sent for by the King, who wished to thank him personally for his defence both of himself and of the Church, and from this date begins his close association with Charles. With Prince Rupert, loyal nephew and gallant soldier as he showed himself to be, Hyde was never on good terms, neither were his two colleagues,[^[12]] and the trio before mentioned, whether for good or evil, steadily opposed the sometimes headlong counsels of the brilliant Prince Palatine.

[11]. “Life of the Earl of Clarendon,” by himself.

[12]. “A Royal Cavalier: The Romance of Rupert, Prince Palatine,” by Mrs Steuart Erskine.

One of Hyde’s first actions after his election was to secure the suppression of the Earl Marshal’s Court, while soon after his dispute with Fiennes, the King wished to appoint him Solicitor-General, though Hyde declined the post. The triumvirate, Colepepper, Falkland and Hyde himself, steadfast, upright and loyal, constantly met to consult on the King’s affairs, in the hope—a vain one as it proved—of stemming the incoming tide of misfortune. At the beginning of 1643, Hyde was sworn of the Privy Council, and made Chancellor of the Exchequer, but in common with many other of the King’s most faithful and wisest servants, we find him deploring the Queen’s unbounded influence over her husband, who, since Buckingham’s untimely and tragic death from the dagger of Felton, had had no supreme adviser. Before Henrietta left for Holland on her expedition to procure supplies with the jewels she pledged there, she exacted from the King two utterly preposterous promises: first, to receive no one who had ever “disserved him” into favour, and secondly, not to make peace without her consent. After the fatal loss of Falkland at Newbury fight in this year, the King was anxious to make Hyde Secretary of State, but the latter declined this office also, and it was conferred on Digby.[^[13]] But early in the succeeding year the Chancellor received a proof of his master’s absolute confidence, as he was entrusted with the care of the Prince of Wales.

[13]. “Life of the Earl of Clarendon,” by himself.

On the 4th March 1644, though neither master nor servant was to know it, Edward Hyde parted from King Charles for the last time on earth, and set out for the west of England with the boy whose life for the next sixteen years was to be one of weary and ceaseless wandering.

From Pendennis in Cornwall they went to Scilly and on to Jersey. Here Hyde himself stayed for two years with Sir George Carteret, remaining after the Prince left the island for Paris in 1646, both Capel and Hopton having gone before him.

The Queen’s mischievous jealousy of Hyde, which had begun early, had not abated, and she still wrote to the harassed and almost despairing King letters calculated to prejudice him still further against the former. Charles, in this case, does not seem to have been really influenced by them, for he wrote to the Chancellor that he wished him to join his son as soon as he left France, and even Henrietta herself must have been seized with some compunction, for she sent for Hyde in 1648. As soon as he received the summons the latter went to Caen, then to Rouen, and hearing the Prince was to go to Holland he went to Dieppe to wait, glad probably of an excuse to avoid the unwelcome interview with the Queen. Thence he joined Lord Cottington in a frigate going to Dunkirk, but they were taken by pirates, who, however, did no worse than convey them to Ostend, whence the Chancellor was able to join the Prince of Wales at the Hague.

It was at this time that Hyde came into contact with one of the greatest and noblest of his king’s servants, but one who was yet the object of bitter jealousy at the hands of many of his own party, no less than at those of his enemies.

Montrose was then in Holland, after the disaster of Philiphaugh, hoping, plotting, working, with the restless, passionate, indomitable energy which had achieved so much in the past, yet which was destined to fail so utterly in the future. At a village near The Hague the two met, the grave lawyer and the hot soldier, to confer on the state of Scotland and the prospects therein of the master whom they both served with whole-hearted and ungrudging devotion.

There they parted, and Montrose came back to his distracted country to raise anew the standard, to fight his last fight, to be betrayed by the basest of traitors, to die a dishonoured death, as his enemies called it, which was to earn for him, nevertheless, imperishable fame; and Hyde was to toil on steadfastly for long strenuous years, destined to bring him fame and place and wealth, and to bring him likewise fresh exile and bitter disillusion in his age.

After Hyde’s mission as ambassador to Spain with his friend Lord Cottington was accomplished, he was at last able to send for his wife and children to join him in the Low Countries, but before he met them at Antwerp he made a journey to Paris to see the widowed queen, for by this time the tragedy at Whitehall had been consummated, and Hyde’s young charge was king de jure if not de facto. Henrietta seems to have been still possessed with the idea that the Chancellor’s influence with her son was adverse to her interests, but she received him civilly on this occasion.

After the disastrous defeat of Worcester in 1651, and his own romantic escape, Charles II. bethought him of Hyde, and sent for him to Paris, keeping him chiefly with him in Flanders on their return there, until his own departure for Germany.[^[14]]

[14]. They were together for three years at this time. (“Life of the Earl of Clarendon,” by himself.)

During this time, Mary, Princess Royal of England, and Dowager of Orange, showed herself a firm friend to her father’s old servant, and evinced great kindness to his family, providing them with a house rent free at Breda some time during the autumn of 1653, Breda being then in Spanish territory, and not under the States General.[^[15]]

[15]. “Lives of Princesses of England.” M. A. Everett-Green.

Here, then, he lived, surrounded by those dearest to him, as far as one can judge a fairly contented life for the next few years. If, as we are told, his three principles were “a passionate attachment to the religion and polity of the Church of England, a determination to maintain what he considered the true ideal of the English constitution, and a desire for personal advancement,” this last attribute—ambition—could have had little to feed on during those years at Breda.

CHAPTER II
YOUTH

It was at Cranborne Lodge in Windsor Park, the official home of Sir Thomas Aylesbury, that his grandchild, Edward Hyde’s eldest daughter, was born on the 12th March 1637, and baptized by the name of Anne, that of her father’s first wife. It may be mentioned that there is a tradition, though one altogether disproved, that her birthplace was the College Farm at Purton, which is said to have belonged to her paternal grandfather, Henry Hyde.[^[16]]

[16]. “Life of Edward, Lord Clarendon,” by Sir Henry Craik.

Of her early childhood nothing has come down to us, but in May 1649 the mother with her five children set out for Antwerp. It was the dreary year when, immediately following the King’s execution, many of the broken and impoverished Cavaliers and their families saw no prospect for the future save in leaving their distracted country, and the Hydes did as their neighbours.

Hyde himself, as we have seen, had been despatched hither and thither in the service of the young King, and when at length he rejoined his family, it was at Breda.

The Princess of Orange was always as staunch a champion of her native country as she was a passionately loving sister to her exiled brothers, and she was ready at all times to extend a welcome to the forlorn and beggared English. Hyde, moreover, had been, as she knew, an absolutely trusted and faithful servant of the slaughtered father whose memory she cherished so fondly, and she lavished every possible attention on him and his family. She was upheld here by the good offices of Daniel O’Neill of the King’s bodyguard, a great friend of Hyde’s, who threw all his influence into the balance in his favour. Mary, we have seen, gave tangible proof of her attachment to the exiled Chancellor, as she generously provided a house at Breda, free of charge, for him and his family. Here then, Hyde, as we have said, set up his household gods. So many of the banished English were coming and going about the Princess Mary’s Court and the person of her brother during many years, that the Chancellor was by no means destitute of old friends.

Among these, not the least beloved and trusted was Morley, afterwards Bishop successively of Worcester and Winchester. He[^[17]] had had a brilliant record as to learning. A king’s scholar of Westminster at fourteen, he had been elected to Christ Church at seventeen, and at Oxford had numbered among his friends Hammond, Sanderson, Sheldon, Chillingworth and also Falkland, who had often received him at Great Tew, where one can fancy the two musing together over books, and communing on all heaven and earth. He was, to some extent, tainted with Calvinism, but nevertheless, as a royal chaplain, gave his first year’s stipend for the help of the king in war, and later was deprived of his canonry and the rectory of Mildenhall by the Parliament. He was present with the chivalrous Arthur, Lord Capel, on the scaffold, aiding him with his prayers, and soon after went into exile, first in Paris, then at Breda where he took up his abode with the Hydes. We find his old friend the Chancellor, who called him “the best man alive,” recommending him as a spiritual adviser to Lady Morton, and much later we shall see how far his influence availed with his pupil, Hyde’s daughter.

[17]. Dictionary of National Biography.

Another of her father’s friends and advisers, destined to be in close contact with him in later years, was Gilbert Sheldon, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury.[^[18]] Belonging as he did to the school of Laud and Andrewes, his views on certain points differed widely from those of Morley, yet both were alike in their unswerving loyalty to the King. Both, too, enjoyed the friendship of Falkland as of Hyde, who indeed made Sheldon one of the trustees of his papers during his exile. Like the bulk of his fellows, the latter suffered imprisonment, being ejected from his College of All Souls, for his “malignancy.” After the Restoration he was high in the King’s favour, nevertheless he did not hesitate to refuse to admit Charles to Holy Communion, on the score of the latter’s evil life.

[18]. Dictionary of National Biography.

In the house at Breda, sedulously cared for by her parents, Anne, the elder, and by her father at least the best beloved daughter, reached her seventeenth year. She was a clever, thoughtful girl, unusually well read for the period and circumstances of her life, a devout churchwoman under the guidance of Morley and her father, looking out on the life unfolding before her with a mind which then at least showed singular powers of balance and perception.

It may be stated in parenthesis, that the other daughter of the house was Frances, who subsequently married Sir Thomas Keighley of Hartingfordbury in Herts, but nothing beyond the bare fact is recorded of her, after childhood, though Evelyn mentions her as a guest at his house in 1673. The year 1654 was destined to bring about a change in the life of Anne which was to prove more momentous than anyone could foresee.

In the household of Mary, Princess of Orange, there was a maid of honour, one Mistress Kate Killigrew. An outbreak of smallpox at Spa drove the Court to take refuge at Aix-la-Chapelle, but Mistress Killigrew had already been smitten with the disease and died.

Without loss of time the Stuart princess nominated Chancellor Hyde’s young daughter to the vacant post. In this she was backed by her brother Charles, for whom she had hired a house in Aix, keeping also a table for him.

The proposed honour was, however, by no means so welcome as might be supposed.

For one thing, the queen-mother, always a woman of impulse and violent prejudice, had in no degree abated her dislike to Hyde, and everyone was aware of the fact. O’Neill, it seems, declaring that the Princess herself had so much kindness for the Chancellor’s daughter that she long resolved to have her upon the first vacancy, suggested to his friend to ask for the post for Anne, a proceeding to which Hyde strongly objected, no doubt smarting under the knowledge of Henrietta’s attitude towards him. He had, he said, “but one daughter, who was all the company and comfort her mother had in her melancholic retirement,”[^[19]] and therefore he was resolved not to separate them, nor to dispose his daughter to a “Court life,” “which he did in truth perfectly detest.”[^[20]]

[19]. It is possible that the younger daughter, then an infant, might have been left in England under the charge of friends there.

[20]. “Life of Edward, Earl of Clarendon,” by himself. 1827.

In the old days when the dwindling Court had sojourned at Oxford, he had seen enough and more than enough of the turmoil of intrigues and jealousy, the incessant petty warfare between the rival factions of Henrietta and her husband, which the latter at any rate had been powerless to control, and naturally Hyde was sickened of it all, and unwilling to venture his “Nan” into a like atmosphere. About the same time we find him writing to Secretary Nicholas on the matter: “I presume you think my wife a fool for being so indulgent to her girl as to send her abroad on such a gadding journey. I am very glad she hath had the good fortune to be graciously received by her Royal Highness, but I think it would be too much vanity in me to take any notice of it.”[^[21]]

[21]. “Life of Henrietta Maria.” J. A. Taylor.

As before said, the King put his oar in, saying to the Chancellor “his sister having seen his daughter several times, liked her so well that she desired to have her about her person, and had spoken to him herself, to move it so as to prevent displeasure from the Queen, therefore he knew not why Hyde should neglect such an opportunity of providing for his daughter in so honourable a way.”[^[22]]

[22]. “Tudor and Stuart Princesses.” Agnes Strickland.

To this Hyde answered: “He could not dispute the reasons with him, only that He could not give himself Leave to deprive his Wife of her Daughter’s Company, nor believe that She could be more advantageously bred than under her Mother”—another shaft aimed at the influence of a Court.[^[23]]

[23]. “Life of Edward, Earl of Clarendon,” by himself. Ed. 1759.

Finally Mary herself bore down all opposition. She had her full share of the family obstinacy, and was determined to carry her point. In the end, as might be supposed, she succeeded. Hyde himself went to her, and said candidly that “if it had not been for her bounty in assigning them a house where they might live rent free they could not have been able to subsist,” and he therefore “confessed it was not in his power to make his daughter such an allowance as would enable her to live in her Royal Highness’ Court conformably to the position that was offered to her.”[^[24]]

[24]. “The Royal House of Stuart.” Cowan.

The Princess promptly answered that she did not mean him to maintain his daughter in her service, as she took that upon herself, so the father reluctantly withdrew his opposition, saying “he left his daughter to be disposed by her mother.” On this point Lady Hyde had consulted Morley, and, probably to her husband’s surprise, that adviser counselled the acceptance of the Princess’s offer, on which the latter, recognising her triumph, remarked cheerfully: “I warrant you my Lady and I will agree on the matter.”

One cannot but wonder at Hyde’s backwardness, for he was then so poor that he was forced to borrow of Nicholas small sums to pay postage for King Charles. One member of the English royal family there was who heartily approved and upheld the appointment. The Queen of Bohemia, Elizabeth Stuart, that unlucky “Queen of Hearts” who attracted to herself through so many stormy years the chivalrous devotion, among others, of the gallant Lord Craven, was at all times accustomed to speak and write her mind. On 7th September 1654 she wrote to Sir Edward Nicholas: “I heare Mrs Hide is to come to my neece in Mrs Killigrew’s place which I am verie glad of. She is verie fitt for itt, and a great favorit of mine.”

One advantage Hyde himself reaped from his daughter’s advancement. He records that his wife, “when she had presented her Daughter to the Princess, came herself to reside with her Husband to his great Comfort and which he could not have enjoyed if the other Separation had not been made, and possibly that Consideration had the more easily disposed him to consent to the other.”[^[25]]

[25]. “Life of Edward, Earl of Clarendon,” by himself. Ed. 1759.

ELIZABETH, QUEEN OF BOHEMIA

The girl’s own feeling in the matter is expressed in a letter to her father, dated 19th October, which, under the ceremonious address then alone admissible, breathes a spirit of strong family affection.

“I have received yours of the 13th and shall euer make it soe much my business strickly to observe all your commands in it that when euer I transgress any of them in the least degree it shall be out of ignorance and not willfullness soe that I hope you shall neuer have cause to repent of the good opinion you are pleased to have of me and which I shall dayly endeuour to increase, and since you thinke it fitt for me, shall very cheerfully submit to a life which I have not much desired but now looke upon not onely as the will of my Father, but of Almighty God and therefore doubtles will prove a blessing; but S^r. you must not wonder if being happy in soe excelent a Father and Mother I cannot part with them without trouble, for though as you say I have been soe unfortunate as allways to live from you yet I looke upon myself now as still more unlikely to be with you or see you, and though I shall often heare from my Mother and I hope see her, yet that will be but little in respect of being continually with her. I say not this that I repine at goeing to the Princess for I am confident that God that has made her soe gracious in desiring me will make me happy in her service, but I should be the worst of chilldren if I were not very sensible of leaving soe good a Mother and leaving her so much alone; but I hope you will be together this winter, and in the meane time I beseech you to perswad her to stay as long as shee can w^th vs at the Hague, that shee may be as little as is possible alone heare; I humbly beg your blessing vpon

“S^r.

“Your most dutifull and obedient daughter,

“Anne Hyde.”[^[26]]

[26]. Clarendon MS., vol. xlix., folio 70 (Bodleian Library).

So she entered upon the duties of her new life, if with a certain shy reluctance, yet probably with a more or less eager curiosity and anticipation, feeling within herself a capacity to fulfil adequately the demands of this altered sphere.

As might be supposed, Queen Henrietta, on hearing of the appointment, flew into a passion and quarrelled hotly with her elder daughter, her constant appeals to whom to dismiss the obnoxious “Nan Hyde” almost seeming as though, if such a thing were possible, she had a sort of presentiment of the future.

Hyde himself had reminded Mary of her mother’s probable resentment, but the Princess answered simply: “I have always paid the duty to the Queen my Mother which was her due, but I am mistress of my own family, and can receive what servants I please, nay—I should wrong my Mother if I forebore to do a good and just action lest her Majesty should be offended at it. I know that some ill offices have been done you to my Mother, but I doubt not that in due time she will discern that she has been mistaken.”[^[27]]

[27]. “Lives of the Queens of England.” Agnes Strickland.

If the young maid of honour could write submissively to her father, she was not backward in admonishing her brothers, but in reading the following letter one must bear in mind that she was the eldest, and no doubt quite honestly believed that she was fulfilling a duty in giving a piece of advice.

“Breda, 6 Oct. 1654.

“Deare Brother,—This is to shew you that I will not allways be soe lasey as not to answer your letters, and indeed I will never be soe without a just cause for I am never better pleased than when I am walkeing with you as me thinks I am when I am writteing to you. I am sory to heare you doe not goe to Collogne with my Father for I wish you might see as much as is possible now you are abroad but our present condition will not permit us what we most desire but I doubt not of a happy change and then you will have all that is fitt for you which I most earnestly wish you and truely it is one of the things I beg dayly of Allmighty God to see you a very good and very happy man which I shall not doubt of if you make it your business (as I hope you ever will) to serve him and pleas my Father and Mother. My service to all my acquaintance with you. I will not send it to any of the Princesses Court becaus I belieue them all gone. My Brothers and all heare are your seruants and I am ever yours most affectionately,

“A. H.”[^[28]]

[28]. Clarendon State Papers (Bodleian).

Anne once established in her new post, the Queen of Bohemia did not forget her sentiments of friendship, for on the 16th November[^[29]] we find her again writing to Secretary Nicholas from the “Hagh” (Elizabeth’s spelling was at any rate no worse than her neighbours’): “I pray remember me to Mr Chancellor and tell him his Ladie and my favorit his daughter came hither upon Saterday and are gone this day to Teiling. I finde my favourit growen euerie way to her advantage.” A little later, too, that is, on 11th January 1654-1655, she tells the same correspondent: “We had a Royaltie though not vpon twelf night at Teiling where my neece was a gipsie and became her dress extream well.” “Mrs Hide was a shepherdesse and I assure you was verie handsome in it, none but her Mistress looked better than she did. I beleeve my Lady Hide and Mr Chancellor will not be sorie to heare it which I pray tell them from me.” It was a kind little message from one mother to another. Elizabeth Stuart’s roving life had perhaps taught her sympathy, grafted on to the traditional good nature of her family. It is all the more surprising that her own large flock of children “got on,” as one says, so badly with their mother, though she did care more for her sons than for her daughters.[^[30]] However, that she took a fancy to “Nan Hyde” was certain. Beauty, it is true, was lavishly distributed among those high-spirited, high-handed Princes and Princesses Palatine (among whom their cousin Charles II. so nearly found a bride), but it was probably Anne’s acute perception and strong intellect that appealed to their brilliant mother. Nevertheless she could, as we have seen, look with a keen and appreciative eye on the girl’s personal appearance. Anne at eighteen was at her best. The large frame had not yet thickened into the proportions which so early in life discounted her claims to beauty. She had the charm of expression, of good eyes, of vivacity, and then at least of exuberant spirits.

[29]. Evelyn’s “Correspondence.”

[30]. “A Royal Cavalier: The Romance of Rupert, Prince Palatine.” Mrs Steuart Erskine.

The “Royaltie” which the Queen describes was not unique. There were many such revels at the Court of The Hague. The Princess Mary, recovered from the shock of her early widowhood, and eager for enjoyment, loved these occasions, and shone at them with hereditary grace, while in every festive gathering her maids necessarily bore their part. The Queen writes to her nephew, Charles II., during the same January of another Royalty—she wrote to him very often, by the way:

“Though I believe you had more meat and drink at Hannibal Sestade’s, yet I am sure our fiddles were better and dancers; your sister was very well dressed like an amazon; the Princess Tarente like a shepherdess; Mademoiselle d’Orange, a nymph. They were all very well dressed, but I wished all the night your Majesty had seen Vanderdons. There never was seen the like; he was a gipsy, Nan Hyde was his wife; he had pantaloons close to him of red and yellow striped, with ruffled sleeves; he looked just like a Jock-a-lent. They were twenty-six in all, and came [not?] home till five o’clock in the morning.”[^[31]]

[31]. “Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia.” M. A. Green, revised by S. C. Lomas.

A little before this Elizabeth had written to the same correspondent of the amusements of his sister:

“My dear niece recovers her health and good looks extremely by her exercises, she twice dancing with the maskers; it has done her much good. We had it two nights, the first time it was deadly cold, but the last time the weather was a little better. The subject your Majesty will see was not extraordinary, but it was very well danced. Our Dutch minister said nothing against it, but a little French preacher, Carré, by his sermon set all the church a-laughing.”

An early allusion to the festivities in which Anne Hyde afterwards shared and shone.

In the year 1655, within a few months of her appointment in the Princess Mary’s service, Anne’s young charms of mind and body brought to her feet at least one lover worth the winning.

At The Hague, in those days, among the many exiled Cavaliers who were generally made welcome at the Court of their young King’s elder sister, was Sir Spencer Compton, not the least distinguished of his gallant race. He was the youngest son of the loyal Earl of Northampton, and when but a child wept bitterly because he could not go forth to battle with his chivalrous brothers, seeing his small fingers could not grasp one of the great wheel-lock pistols of that day.[^[32]] With characteristic contempt of concealment, he made no secret of his passion for Mistress Anne. Charles II. himself with his usual love of mischief wrote to Henry Bennet, afterwards Lord Arlington: “I will try whether Sir Spencer Compton be so much in love as you say, for I will name Mrs Hyde before him so by chance except that he be very much smitten it shall not at all move him.”[^[33]] We are not told how young Compton stood the test, but it was pretty enough, that love-idyll of youth presented among the sylvan shades of the wooded Hague, though whether from interference or the coldness of the young maid of honour it was destined to fade quickly and pass into the limbo of things forgotten. One would like to know the story, but nothing more remains to us. Another suitor was Lord Newburgh, of whom Sir George Radcliffe wrote from Paris in the spring: “Onely one tould me yesterday a pretty story of him y^t he must marry Mr Chancellor’s daughter (who waites of y^e Princesse Royale) and so by ye Chanc: meanes be engaged in all the Scots affaires. The Chanc: has much talke of him at y^e Pallais Royale where he is thought to be a powerfull man at y^e Court at Cologne. A person of honour would needs persuade me that y^e Princesse Royall had provided for 3 of his children (which was 2 more than I had heard on).” Here there is a touch of the jealousy of Hyde’s influence and prosperity which was afterwards so widely spread.

[32]. Sir Philip Warwick.

[33]. Evelyn’s “Correspondence.”

We hear also of some sentimental passages with the conquering Harry Jermyn, who was said, on what authority it is now difficult to decide, to have been afterwards privately married to the Princess Mary. The same story, by the way, was told of his uncle, the elder Jermyn, and Queen Henrietta.

How far, however, the heart of the maid of honour was really concerned in these fleeting love affairs it is useless to conjecture. She was probably ready enough to be amused, and, conscious that she was not a beauty, to be flattered at such homage.

She was not idle, either; she was always fond of writing and ready with the pen, and at some time during her service—there is no date attached—Anne bethought her to set down in writing the character of her royal mistress. The manuscript is not in the girl’s own hand, but it is endorsed: “Pourtrait of ye Princess Royall drawne by Mrs Anne Hyde.”

“Ceux qui connoissent l’admirable Princesse dont j’entreprend le portrait trouveront bien étrange qu’une personne si peu capable que moy, de la bien representer oze l’hazarder a un si grand ouvrage et on m’accusera assurement de vanité ou de folie. Mais comme j’y suis toute preparée cela ne m’exonnera pas ni ne m’empêchera de commencer comme je ‘avois resolue, en vous disant qu’elle a la taille la plus belle et la plus libre du monde et qu’oy qu’Elle n’est pas des plus grandes il s’en voy beaucoup plus au dessous qu’au dessus de la Sienne elle a les cheveux d’un fort beau brun fort lustre et en grande quantité, les yeux grands et si beaux et brillans qu’on a de la peine a en supporter l’esclar. Son nes est un peu grand mais si bien fait que cela n’otte rien de la beauté de son visage. Sa bouche est fort belle, et les lèvres des plus vermeilles que l’on puisse voir, les dens belles, le tour du visage parfaitement beau, et le teint se uniet si beau qu’il ne se puisse rien voir au monde qui l’égalle, la gorge belle, les bras et les mains de mesme. Enfin on vois en toute sa personne quelque chose de si grande et de si relevée que sans la connoistre on verroit combien elle est au dessus du reste du monds. Elle a meilleure mine que personne, et quoy qu’Elle a asses de douceur pour luy gaigner le cœur de tous ceux qui la voyent. Elle a aussi une certaine fierte qui luy fait craindre et respecter de tous le monde et qui sied fort bien a une personne de sa condition. Pour son intérieur il est tellement impossible de la connoistre, qu’il est bien difficile pour moy d’y bien reussir; pour de l’esprit, Elle en a infiniment mais de l’esprit vif et penetrant et qui la rend de la meilleure humeur du monde, quand Elle veut obliger ceux avec qui Elle se trouve; mais quand Elle ne se plait pas, Elle est tout a fait retirée, ne pouvant se contraindre pour qui que se soit quoy qu’Elle est generallement civile, mais Elle regarde la contrainte comme une chose peu necessaire aux personnes de sa qualité, les croyans plus faits pour eux mesmes, que pour les autres; Et c’est ce qui est cause qu’Elle parle moins que personne quand Elle est dans des Compagnies ou Elle ne veut pas estre tout a fait familière; cela fait a croire a ceux qui ne la connoissent pas qu’Elle est plus glorieuse qu’Elle n’est en effet, il est vray qu’Elle l’est un peu mais il ne luy mésied point, car il y a asseurement une espèce de gloire qui est necessaire à toutes les femmes et sur toutes a celles de sa naissance: Elle est tout a fait genereuse, et oblige de bonne grace ceux pour qui Elle a de l’amitié, il est vray qu’Elle n’en a pas pour beaucoup, mais Elle est parfaitement bonne amie où elle en fait profession et ne change jamais, à moins que de luy donner grand sujet, mais quand Elle a une fois mauvaise opinion d’une personne pour qui Elle a eue de l’amitié, on ne se remet jamais bien avec Elle, quoy qu’en apparence Elle vit fort bien avec eux; ce qui marque qu’Elle est plus dissimulée qu’Elle ne croit. Elle est asses colere qu’oy qu’Elle ne le temoigne guere car en ses humeurs la Elle se renferme des apres diners entieres sans voir qui que se soit; Elle parait plus indifferente que personne, mais ceux qui ont l’honneur de la voir souvent, peuvent remarquer qu’Elle n’est pas incapable des sentimens de l’amitié et de la haine: Elle ne se mocque jamais de qui que se soit, ni ne rompe jamais en visière, mais Elle n’est pas faschée de faire de petites malices, qui peuvent mettre ses gens en peine mais c’est tousjours a ceux dont Elle connoit tout a fois les humeurs. Elle est fort constante en ses resolutions, un peu trop quelque fois, car il y a des temps on cela va jusques à l’opiniotreté; Elle ne se mele jamais des affaires d’autruy, si ce ne’est qu’on luy en parle le premier, et alors Elle est tout a fait secrete, et donne ses avis avec toute la franchise imaginable. En fin Elle a toutes les qualites requises pour rendre une personne parfaite; car outre ce que j’ay deja dit, Elle danse mieux que qui se soit, mais Elle est un peu paresseuse, ce qui est cause qu’Elle songe moins à se diverter que personne, et qu’Elle aime mieux passer son temps toute seule dans sa Chambre que de prendre la peine de s’ajuster pour une assemblée, quoy qu’Elle y reusset mieux que personne n’a jamais fait. Je n’aurois jamais fait si je voulois entreprendre à depeindre toutes les admirables qualités de cette grande Princesse. Je me contenteray donc de finir en la supliant tres humblement de pardonner toutes les fautes d’une Portrait, qu’il est impossible de rendre aussi parfait que son original, set qu’Elle aura la bonté de se souvenir, que celle qui l’a fait est tellement dediée à son service qu’Elle se croit seulement heureuse parcequ’Elle est sienne, et qu’elle ne plaint son faut d’esprit et de jugement que parcequ’ils l’empeschent de representer comme elle doit les admirables qualites de sa maitresse.”[^[34]]

[34]. MS. 276, Egerton, 2542.

If the flattery contained in this portrait may be termed excessive, yet something is due to the customs of the period, which almost enjoined language of the kind. At the same time, Mary’s pride of demeanour is insisted on in a way that betrays some sense of injury, though this is carefully veiled. Later we know Anne was to suffer from the wrath and indignation of her mistress, but there is no reason to suppose that when she wrote these words she did not feel a very real affection for the Princess, who had braved her own mother’s anger and surmounted various difficulties for the sake of the writer. And moreover Mary, Princess of Orange, was a Stuart. If she was haughty, imperious, at times wayward, yet she had her share of the haunting, ineffable charm of her doomed race, the charm which attracted the homage of heart and life of those round her, and bound them to her with an imperishable chain. On the same theme the maid of honour also ventured into poetry, at any rate into rhyme. The effusion may possibly be ascribed to the same date.

“Heroic nymph! in tempests the support,

In peace the glory of the British Court,

Into whose arms the Church, the State, and all

That precious is or sacred, here did fall.

Ages to come that shall your bounty hear

Shall think you mistress of the Indies were,

Though straiter bounds your fortune did confine

In your large heart was found a wealthy mine.

Like the blest oil, the widow’s lasting feast,

Your treasure as you poured it out increased.

While some your beauty, some your bounty sing

Your native isles does with your praises ring,

But above all, a nymph of your own train

Gives us your character in such a strain

As none but she who in that Court did dwell

Could know such world, or worth describe so well.”[^[35]]

[35]. “Tudor and Stuart Princesses.” Agnes Strickland.

Meanwhile Anne’s fate, all unsuspected, was advancing towards her with swift and unfaltering steps.

Queen Henrietta had never been able to reconcile to herself Princess Mary’s appointment of Hyde’s daughter about her person, and since its accomplishment had constantly appealed to her to dismiss Anne from her service.[^[36]] Lord Hatton, in fact, writes: “The Queen’s last sickness was by the chamber confident said to be expressed by the Queen by reason of some late letters from the young P^rsse Orange wherein she still contests for retaining with her Sir E. H. daughter which the Queen will not cease till she out her there. This I assure you comes from eare witnesses.”

[36]. “Lives of Princesses of England.” M. A. Everett-Green.

Mary was, however, quite as resolute as her mother, and when in 1655 she formed the project of a visit to Paris, it was with the intention of taking her favourite in her train.

Hyde, who as we have seen was fully conscious of the queen-mother’s disapproval, wished to take this opportunity of withdrawing his daughter, but the Princess peremptorily refused, declaring that it would be only necessary for her mother to see Anne in order to abate her unreasonable prejudice. The Chancellor’s unwillingness in the matter can be gleaned from a letter he wrote at the time to Lady Stanhope, who had become the wife of John van der Kirckhove Heenvliet, the Dutch Ambassador despatched to England in 1641 to arrange the marriage of Mary with the late Prince of Orange.

“My very good Lady”—so wrote Hyde[^[37]]—“Though the considerations and objections I presumed to offer this last year against the high grace and favour which your Royal Mistress was then inclined to vouchsafe to my poor Girl, were not thought reasonable or probable, yet you now see that I had too much ground for these apprehensions, and they who came last from Paris are not reserved in declaring that the Princess Royal’s receiving my Daughter into her service is almost the only cause of the Queen’s late reservation towards her Royal Highness which I hope you believe is a very great affliction to me. I most humbly beg your Ladyship if you find any disposition in her Royal Highness out of her goodness to me to give the girl leave to attend her in this journey, when it seems others who have more title to that honour must be left behind, that you will consider whether the preferring her to this new favour may not be an unhappy occasion of improving her Majesty’s old dislike, and if there be the least fear of that or appearance of any domestic inconvenience by leaving others unsatisfied I do beg you with all my heart, to use your credit in diverting that Gracious purpose in your Royal Mistress towards her, and let her instead of waiting this journey, have leave to spend a little time in the visitation of her friends at Breda, and upon my credit, whatsoever in your wisdom shall appear fittest in this particular shall be abundantly obliging to

“Madam, your Ladyship’s, etc.

“Cologne, this 16th March 1655.”

[37]. Clarendon State Papers.

Whether this letter was laid before the Princess or not, the journey was undertaken, and she and her attendants began the long projected expedition which was to be fraught with such far-reaching results.

Mary set out in high spirits at the prospect of the change, of seeing her mother (in spite of their differences, which she probably considered to be trivial) and of making the acquaintance of the little sister who was yet a stranger to her, Henrietta Anne, the child born at Exeter during the siege, and brought to France through many dangers, with real heroism and devotion, by Lady Dalkeith.

According to our ideas, the journey from The Hague must have been a very long and tedious one, but it was no doubt full of interest to the Princess and her train. Each day furnished incidents to engross and be discussed as the long cavalcade of maids and men, of heavy baggage waggons, of lumbering coaches, of numerous pack-horses, of guards armed with dag and musket, accoutred in back and breast plate—for there was a body of sixty horse—flaunted along the heavy, muddy roads. Here a wheel would sink into the deep ruts, and the vehicle be released with immense noise and bustle; there an axle-tree would break and must be mended at the cost of an hour or two’s delay, while the shoeing smiths reaped a goodly harvest by their task of replacing cast shoes. The minister Heenvliet accompanied the Princess to Antwerp and Brussels, at which place he left her. At Mons ordnance was fired, torches were lighted, and the magistrates paid her the compliment, customary in the case of royalty, of asking from her the watchword for the night.[^[38]]

[38]. “Lives of the Princesses of England.” M. A. Everett-Green.

So the procession passed on through the level, dyke-protected tracts of Flanders, and came at last to the frontier and the fair land of France.

In the splendid days of Charles the Bold, he who had been Count of Flanders and the Netherlands had been also Duke of Burgundy, a most unwilling vassal to the French crown. Since his time, that province of his great inheritance had become part and parcel of the dominion of King Louis, and when the Princess of Orange halted at the ancient city of Peronne she was well within French territory.

Here, at the capital of the old Burgundian Duchy, she was met by her second brother, James, Duke of York, at this time—through no fault of his own—reduced to a life of inaction at Paris, and here possibly began the prologue of the romance which was to affect not only his own life, but the future of the far-off country of his birth. Of this more later. With the Duke, and attached to his person, were the Lord Gerard and Sir Charles Berkeley, besides M. Sanguin, maître d’hôtel to the French king.

So accompanied Mary pursued her journey, to be met by her mother and sister at Bourgel, six miles from Paris.

Of her stay in the French capital, though it extended over a period of some months, there are but scanty records, but that she entered fully into all the gaiety which surrounded the boy King is certain.

Anne Hyde appears to have caught smallpox during the visit, but it was a slight attack and she probably escaped without disfigurement.[^[39]] She had not been well early in the year, as appears from Sir Alexander Hume’s letter from Teyling on 22nd February.

[39]. Rawlinson MS. (Bodleian).

“I have acquainted your neece Mrs Hide with the tendernesse you expresse for her, who returns her humble service to you with many thanks for your care of her. But shee hath not been in any such euill disposition of health as it seemes you have been informed, only one day shee took a little physick since when shee hath euer been a great deal healthfuller and handsomer than before, and shee is indeed a very excellent person both for body and minde as any young gentlewoman that I know.”[^[40]]

[40]. Nicholas Papers.

Whether she won such golden opinions at Paris does not appear, but probably she held her own there as well as in Holland. She had always plenty of self-possession, which carried her through many anxious moments, and if any special admirers manifested themselves there, it must have been only to be flouted.

If the image of one too high in place to be acknowledged had already been imprinted on her mind, she at least made no sign, but it is evident that the young maid of honour was in no apparent haste to change her condition, and was capable of determination in the management of her affairs. She did not succeed in overcoming the prejudice of the English queen-mother, and this was no doubt a cause of keen disappointment and vexation to her own mistress. Mary had also other reasons for annoyance on her own account. Besides the fact of Frances Stanhope’s conversion to Rome, which was made as public as possible, she had to withstand her mother’s pertinacity in this direction. Henrietta, who never left a stone unturned to bring her children over to her own faith, insisted on taking her elder daughter with her to her beloved convent at Chaillot, in the hope of working on her feelings to the extent of securing her for the fold of Rome. These efforts were useless, but they made matters more or less uncomfortable for the Princess, who moreover strongly resented anything in the shape of coercion. Keenly, therefore, as she appreciated and admired the splendour and gaiety of the French Court, her visit was not altogether free from drawbacks. Nevertheless, she might have prolonged her stay but for the intelligence of her little son’s alarming illness. It turned out to be only measles, and the child made a good recovery, but his mother lost no time in starting on her journey, and it was not long before she and her train found themselves once more at home. It is certain that the Princess had at this time no suspicion of any understanding between her brother and Anne Hyde, for the latter remained in her service and high in her favour till the year before the Restoration. One glimpse we have of the English girl at this time from the facile and often extremely amusing pen of the Princess Palatine, Elizabeth Charlotte, afterwards Duchesse d’Orléans, but at that time a child. Her grandmother, the Queen of Bohemia, brought her to Mary’s Court, a wild, unruly little person, but she records gratefully the fact that Mistress Hyde was kind and good-natured.

“My aunt [Sophia, Electress of Hanover] did not visit the Princess Royal, but the Queen of Bohemia did, and took me with her. Before I set out, my aunt said to me: ‘Lisette, take care not to behave as you generally do. Follow the Queen step by step, that she may not have to wait for you.’ ‘Oh, aunt,’ I replied, ‘you shall hear how well I behave.’

“When we arrived at the Princess Royal’s, whom I did not know, I saw her son, whom I had often played with. After gazing for a long time at his mother, without knowing who she was, I went back to see if I could find any one who could tell me her name. Seeing only the Prince of Orange, I said: ‘Pray can you tell me who is that woman with so tremendous a nose?’ He laughed and answered: ‘That is my Mother, the Princess Royal.’

“I was quite stupefied at the blunder I had committed. Mdlle Hyde, perceiving my confusion, took me with the Prince into the Princess’s bed chamber, where we played at all sorts of games. I had told them to call me when the Queen was ready to go. We were both rolling on a Turkey carpet when I was summoned. I arose in great haste, and ran into the hall, but the Queen was already in the ante-chamber. Without losing a moment I seized the robe of the Princess Royal and, making her a courtesy at the same time, placed myself directly before her, and followed the Queen step by step into her coach. Every one was laughing at me, but I had no idea what it was for.

“When we came home, the Queen sought out my aunt, and seating herself on the bed, burst into a loud laugh. ‘Lisette,’ said she, ‘has made a delightful visit,’ and related all I had done, which made the Electress laugh more than her mother. ‘Lisette,’ said she, ‘you have done right, and revenged us well on the haughtiness of the Princess.’”

This episode throws another side-light on Mary’s reputation for pride, and her steady determination in exacting all the respect due to her rank—a determination which we see to be more or less resented among her German relations.[^[41]]

[41]. “Tudor and Stuart Princesses.” Agnes Strickland.

During the years that were yet to intervene before the Restoration, Hyde himself was to know little of peace. He was constantly on the move, now with the King at Bruges, now obeying a summons from the Princess Royal. His wife was writing in 1657 and 1658 to John Nicholas, on various domestic questions, yet always betraying her disappointment at her husband’s long absences and the uncertainty that attended his return to her. The long and steady friendship with the family of the Secretary extended over a long term of years, and never failed until death stepped in to close it.

These letters were all written from Breda, at the house where the Princess Dowager had established the Hyde family, and the first which now follows was addressed to Bruges.

“Sep. 20, 1657.

“I take it for a very perticuler favour to finde myselfe preserved in Master Secretaries and my Ladys remembrance, and you will very much oblige your servant in returning my most humble and most affectionat serv’ces to them, please to assure my Lady that I will be very carefull in obeying her commands, but I am afrade I shall not performe them, as I desire, lining Cloth being much deerer than ever I knew it, but Roberts and I will doe our best; the goode Company you speake of will not make me stay much the longer here, for as soone as my Husband hath performed his duty to the Princesse we shall make hast to you, my Husbands business not alowing him many play days, besids he is impatient, w^ch I am in my winter matter, though wee are now like to stay a little Longer then wee once intended. I hope our frinds will not conclude w^th the rest that wee will come no more, but looke upon the trew cause w^ch depends upon our Master, thay say heare that the Princesse will be heare the later end of the weake, and my Husband in his last gives me hops that he shall be heare Saturday next, and he thretens me that he will stay but very few days at Breda; to tell you I wish to be at Bruges I know you will say is a compliment but I doe assure you from the munite I leave the place, I shall wish myselfe w^th your excelent familey to every of which I am a most reall servant and very perticulerly

“S^r

“most affectionatly your

“faithfull servant

“Fran: Hyde.

“Pray my serv’ces to your Brother and if it will not importune you to much, lett the rest of my friends know I am there servant.”[^[42]]

[42]. 2536, Nicholas Papers. Egerton MS.

The next letter is addressed to Brussels, to which place the Nicholas family had transferred itself. Lady Hyde here makes allusion to one of her children, Laurence, afterwards Earl of Rochester, who seems to have become on his own account a correspondent of John Nicholas.

“16 May 1658.

“I have many thankes to give you for your care to me, and though it be longe, doe not forgitt the civilitie of your letter to me w^ch the many indisposisons I have had sence my Lyeing in hath kepte me from. Lory hath given you many a scrouble of from me of w^ch I hope you will excuse w^th the rest. I am sure I must relye one your goodnesse for it. Your last to Lory hath given me great sattisfactione in Mr Secretaries perfecte recoverey. I pray God continew his health to him, and make you and your hole familey as happy as I wishe you. I was in hopes to have bin w^th you longe before this time but the unsertainty of the Kings being, keepes me still here, and now my Lord sends me word that he will come hether, so that I am not like to see you a great while, unlesse Mr Secretarey please to make his way to Bruges whether I here he intends to goe as soon as the Kinge is gon, pray tell him from me w^th my humble serv’ces that it is but a Summers [day?] Journey and I know my Lady will dispense w^h his absence for a few days more. If my Lady your Mother still want a waiteing woman, I can helpe her to a prety younge maid, I beleave you may know her mother, it is Mrs Gandye; now if my Lady will doe an acte of Charity, I beleave she will in a short time make her fitt for her serv’ces but she is holy to be tought. I can only commend her for a prety civil maid, and truly I beleave her capable to learne. She is about my haight and 16 yeares of age. I would not write to my Lady about it, because even you can tell better then I can, whether this is fit proposition, all w^ch I refere to you and desire only this from you, that you would not move it to my Lady, unlesse you like it very well, for I tell you againe she is to be maid a servant by those that take her. Excuse this trouble with the rest.”

Lady Hyde seems to have been as eager to supply her friends with servants as some of her sisters in modern life, but laudably anxious to be quite discreet in her recommendations.

In the next letter, dated 27th May 1658, there is an allusion to her eldest son Henry, who was to succeed his father as second Earl of Clarendon and who was at this time at Brussels under the care of the Nicholas family. There is also mention of little Frances, the younger daughter, who seems to have come back to her mother’s keeping recently from England (if she had been left there). The remark as to her English speaking points to this conclusion. But the chief anxiety in the writer’s mind is the condition of her father, Sir Thomas Aylesbury, who was an inmate of her house, and then in rapidly failing health.

“You are very much in the wright, I am not yet so raidy, and if I were, should not use it to my friends and perticulerly where I owe so much as to your familey, and w^th our acomplement the blush would returne upon myselfe, if I should forgitt to returne my thankes to you. I am againe to thanke you for delivering my message to Mr Secretarey, and upon my word both he and you s^hd be very welcome if you make Breda your way to Bruges. M^rs Frances will be able to make you speaches in English, w^h I am sure you will say is Language enough for a woman, and if this will not bringe you, I can say no more. I am glad my Husband hath refused to lend his House at Bruges, it Lookes, as you say, as if it shou’d returne, but of this I know nothing, but I assure you I should have great sattisfactione if it bringe me to my Lady. I beleave indeed it is not possible for you to guise at my Lord’s coming; I thinke from the first weeke of my being brought to bed, he hath promised to come to me, but now I will not so much as thinke of it till I see him, though he still says it will not be long before he come. I wish I could tell you that my Father were well but his sore mouth makes me much afraide of him and yett to-day at present I thinke him better than he was a week agoe; haveing latly hard from Monsieur Charles I cannot but tell you that he is well, and his dry Nurse assures me he grows apace. Pray present my afectionat and humble serve’s to M^r Secretarie, and when you write to Bruges lett my Lady know I am her most faithfull servant; though I am to make no complaints, you may tell my Hary I have not hard from his Father sence the 20. I wish it may prove a signe of your removing towards Breda.”

The succeeding letter, which is dated 3rd June 1658, contains an allusion to the siege of Dunkirk, which had been invested on the 25th May by the English and French forces under Turenne. The Spanish army marched from Brussels to relieve the town, and in this host were the Dukes of York and Gloucester and the famous Condé, who, however, was not allowed a free hand, for it was against his advice that the Spanish Ambassador, Don John of Austria, persisted in giving battle. It was then that the Prince said to the Duke of Gloucester: “Did you ever see a battle fought?” and on the boy answering that he had not, Condé[^[43]] rejoined grimly, “Well, you will soon see a battle lost.”

[43]. Knight’s “Popular History of England.”

“This is to acknowledge yours of the 27. of the last Month and to intreate you to returne my humble serv’es to my Lady w^h my thankes for her willingness to receive a servant from me. Pray assure her La^sp I am very well sattisfied with her reason in not taking another servant at this time, and when I have the happiness to see my Lady shall speake w^th her more at large of the person I would recomend to her. I am very sorry the plague is feared at Bruges, and much troubled for Dunquerque. I pray God preserve them from the French. I hope you will not be angry if I wish my Lady’s house at Breda this sumer, upon my word I should looke upon it as a great blessing to me. What the people w^th you intend, God knows, and though I must submitt to my Lords businesse, I confesse I am troubled that he is not now heare, my Father being not like to recover, and wishing every day to see my Husband, this will I hope excuse my sad impatience. Pray my humble serv’es to M^r Secretary and tell him I doe still hope to see him here as I do our souter.”

The letter of 6th June makes another reference to Dunkirk.

“You are so great a courter that I could quarrell w^th you for useing me so like a strainger, and you have forgotten my humor if you thinke I expect it from my freinds. I am very glad that you have some hopes of Mr Secretaries cominge hether, pray present my humble serv’es to him and be sure you doe all good offeces that may bringe him to Breda. If my Lady Steephens can helpe my Lady your Mother to a good waiteing woman and it be not inconvenent to my Lady to take her I hope nothing I have said shall hender her from it, for the Person I proposed is to be maid usefull to my Lady by her owne trouble in scatching and making her fitt for her La^ps serv’es, and therefore is not to keepe her from a better. I only named this in case there were not a better to be had and so beseech you to lett my Lady know w^th my most affectionat and humble serv’es to her. Thay say Dunquerque is releeved, but being but Breda’s news I feare it, how ever I wish my Lady a neerer neighbor and that it were in my power to doe anything towards it that I might inioye her La^ps company. Sence I tould you that I thought my Father was better, I have bin in a great fright for him but I thanke God he is now better and was this week tooke to take the Ayre w^ch I thinke hath don him goode, but God knows he is brought very low, w^ch keepes me in continual fear for him though I am very confident my Lord will come to Breda, and beleave you thinke he will surprise me, yett the people he hath to Leave w^th are so unsertane that it is imposible for me to beleave anything of his coming tell I see him: my Father’s illnesse makes me more impatient of his stay then otherways I should be but I must submitt to all.”

The next letter of 13th June lays further stress on Sir Thomas Aylesbury’s failing condition, and there is an allusion which looks as if little Frances Hyde were a special pet of the Secretary’s.

“You see how kind I am to myself in desiring so good a family as yours neere me and I wish w^th all my heart it might be in my power to serve my Lady if she should be put to a remove I assure you none could w^th greater alacrety serve her then myselfe in the meane time, so if my Lady have a mind to change the ayre I will make her as good a conveniency w^th me as I can. I thanke you for the share you are pleased to beare with us in our afflictions for my Father. I am daly in great aprehensions of him yett at present wee thinke him somthing better then he was, pray give me your prayers for him; my Lord hath againe given me hopes of seeing him this weeke and by w^t you say I should be confident of it, but the King’s irresolution makes me still in doubt. The sweete meate box w^th out asking any questions, is most freely at your dispose. I will still hope to see Mr Secretarie here, and so pray tell him with my most humble serv’es and that his servant little Franke shall eate cold puding with him for a wager, my humble serv’es to my Lady your Mother when you write, if you will excuse the hast of this scribled paper. I shall not doubt of your charity to

“S^r your most faithfull servant.”

All the letters show how much the movements of the exiled King and his sister affected the Hyde household at Breda, and Lady Hyde’s comments betray a certain impatience and irritation at the fact. It is evident that to some extent she resented her husband’s constant periods of absence, and scarcely considered them necessary, though she saw nothing for it but submission.

“June 27.

“I am now doeing a thing I doe not love to doe w^h is to acknowledge three of yours in owne and if I had bin alone at Breda would not have forgiven my selfe the neclicing it so long, my Lord’s coming alone would not have kepte me from it but in ernest sence the Kinge and Princesse came so neere Breda, I can safely say I have not had an houre in the day to my selfe, and this minit I have now gott in is by stealing out of a croude w^ch will not alow me tim enough to ensware every particular of yours. I hope I am wrightly understud by you that I would not impose anything upon my Lady your Mother in w^ch I writ about the waiteing-woman, it being meerely my owne thoughts, for the person knows nothing of it, and my businesse was only to serve my Lady, if she were willing to undertake the trouble of her. Sence my husband hath found out so easy a way for my Lady I hope she will alow us some time here where I can assure her a reall and harty welcome w^ch I wish might make up for w^t will be wanting in the entertaine her according to my desire to a person I so truly love and honoure. Hary tells me of a third designe to borow our House at Bruges w^ch w^th your timely notes I thinke I shall prevent. I thank you for your prayres w^ch I still aske from you, though I doubt my Father will not long inioye the benefitte of them here, he weareing every day a way, I may calle it like a lampe. I pray God it may be of no more paine to him then yett it hath bin; now I have tould you this I know you will pitty my conditione that must whether I will or now entertaine and put on a cheere looke. I would say more but Hary calles a waye w^ch must w^th all other faults excuse this hast.”

Her eldest son had returned, and his mother in a letter of 5th August speaks as if his health had been a matter of some anxiety.

“By your last I was in hope you would have bin at Hoochstraet in a very short time but Mr Secretary’s last illnesse makes me doubt all thoughts of that journey are Laid aside and consequently that you will not come to Breda w^ch in ernest I am sory for. I hope I shall not faile in my next my Husband haveing promised me that I shall come to Bruxelles this winter where I promise my selfe great sattisfactione in your excelant family. I give you many thankes for your great care and kindnesse to Hary of home I will have all the care I can and doe not doubt but he will have much better health now he is like to have more liberty in order to w^ch his Father hath taken a Secretary w^h I beleeve Hary hath allredy tould you, as I am confident he did that he and Lory were to goe into Holand for a weeke w^th Mr Bealing. I would not have given you the trouble of this account, but that I know you are Hary’s friend.”

Three days later, on 8th August, Lady Hyde alludes to the great sorrow which has befallen her in the death of her father, Sir Thomas Aylesbury, who died as previously mentioned at the age of eighty-one, surrounded by all the care and affection his daughter could lavish on him.

“I doe acknowledge I am two Letters in your dett the former of w^h I had answered longe before this but you know the sad conditione I was in at this time w^ch is so inst: an excuse and to tell you the truth I am yett unfit for anything else. I had sent you a chalinge while you were at Antwerp for not gitting one day to come to Miss Francesse, who is now al the merth of our house, but in ernest I was in hope then to have seene you, for I knew you were to returne to my Lady when the Kinge did, she being so newly come to a strange place which I have sent Mr Secretary word hath maid his pease for the present. From Hochstraet now is the place I looke for to see you, by w^ch time I hope my Lady will thinke it fitt to take the Ayre, I can say no more but assure you a harty wellcome.”

The last letter to be transcribed, written on 29th September, is a short one.

“I am a gaine two Letters in your dett but Downings’ disturbance was the cause w^ch hath kept me from acknowlideing my Lady’s favour and reioycing w^th you for Mr Secretary’s recovery, for all w^ch I hope to make my peace when I come, my husband tells me that shall be so quickely there, that I will say no more tell I come, but intreate you to favour me w^th my humble serv’es to Mr Secretarey and my Lady and your brother.”

These letters give a fairly close impression of the exiled Hyde household at the time when that expatriation was drawing to its close. The picture of Frances Hyde, the dutiful daughter, the devoted wife, the affectionate mother, the loyal friend, is a pleasant one, but one singular point must be noted. There is no allusion to the eldest daughter. And yet Anne, in attendance on the Princess, must have been in constant communication with her parents, both in person and by letter.

Indeed there are four letters from Anne to her father which, though undated as to the year, may probably be placed in 1658 or 1659, towards the end of her period of service.

“Hounslerdyke,

“July 24.

“My Lord,—I received yours of the 19 but yesterday, and am very glad you weare not displeased with me. I am sure I shall never willingly give you cause to be soe, and it would be the greatest trouble to me in the world if euer you are it, for the business of the play I assure you I shall never doe any such thing without her Highness command and when that is I am confident your Lord^p will not be displeased with me for it and in that and all things els neuer have nor neuer will give anybody any just cause to say anything of me. Miss Culpeper is this day gone to her Brother’s wedding when shee returnes I hope your Lord^sp will give me leave to see you somewheire in the meane time I humbly beg yours and my Mothers blessing upon

“My Lord, your Lord^sps

“Most dutiful and obedient daughter

“Anne Hyde.”[^[44]]

[44]. Clarendon State Papers, MS. (Bodleian).

This seems to refer to some acting in which she was concerned, and which her father did not altogether approve. The following allusion in a letter from the Queen of Bohemia to Charles may refer to something of the sort:

“We have now gotten a new divertisement of little plays after supper. It was here the last week end, and now this week at your sister’s. I hope the godly will preach against it also.”[^[45]]

[45]. “Tudor and Stuart Princesses.” Agnes Strickland.

Anne’s next letter to Hyde contains a covert complaint of poverty. In the light of subsequent events it is easy to see how such a condition must have been irritating to the writer.

“Hage,

“August 22.

“My Lord,—I received yours of the 20 this minit when I cam hither with her Highness in our way to Hounslerdyke from Tyling wheire wee left my Lady Stanhope, it is true that her Highness went incognito, but for business shee had none at least that I could see, but to buy some thinges, it is a very fine place but very troublesome to see when one has noe more money to lay out then I had, but however I am very well satified to have been theire. I pray God you may quickely heare some good news from England, we are heare in great paine not hearing anything at all, the Princess euery post askes me what I heare therefore when theire is anything may be known, I shall be glad to have it to tell her, my humble duty I beseech you to my Mother and be pleased to give both your blessings to, my Lord, your Lord^sps most dutifull and obedient daughter,

“Anne Hyde.”

The next two letters indicate that the maid of honour’s empty purse is replenished or to be so shortly.

“Hage,

“October 21.

“My Lord,—Though I heard noething from Bruxells this last post I hope you are by this time perfectly recouered of your cold which I heard troubled you soe much that I was afraid my letter then would but have been troublesome to your Lord^sps which was the cause I have been soe long without writeing, but I can now give you some account of what you spoke to Monsieur D’Heenvliet, he told me that he has spoke to her Highness and that shee had promised I should very quickly have some money I am sure if he does what he can in it it may eassily be done, wee goe next weeke to Breda but the day is not yet named, but I suppose it will be the latter end of the weeke because her Highness is first to carry the Prince to Leyden. My humble duty I beseech you to my Mother, and be pleased to give both your blessings upon my Lord your Lord^sps most dutifull and obedient daughter,

“Anne Hyde.”[^[46]]

[46]. Clarendon State Papers, MS. (Bodleian).

“Hage,

“November 3.

“My Lord,—I have received yours of the 13th and am very glad the King is at the Frontiers. I pray God this change in England may worke a good one for his Majesty, and give him cause quickly to come backe that wee might once againe hope to meett in England; her Highness carries the Prince to-morrow to Leyden which is the cause I write this to-day and by the Grace of God wee shall without faile goe sometime the next weeke to Breda where I shall expect your Lord^sps and my Mother’s commands since you will have it soe, I will believe I am obliged to Monsieur d’Heenvliet though I confess I cannot see how he could avoyd speakeing after you desired him and the proffession he makes and I am sure he deed but barely speake and I must beleeve that more is in his power. I humbly beg my Mother’s and your blessing upon my Lord your Lord^sps most dutifull and obedient daughter,

“Anne Hyde.”[^[47]]

[47]. Clarendon State Papers, MS. (Bodleian).

The prince mentioned in these two letters is of course Mary’s only son William, destined afterwards to be King of England, but at this time a little boy.

And through these years from 1656 to 1659 Anne was keeping her secret well. Whether the Duke of York had arranged any means of communication or not, enough had been said at Paris. Love can live on a very small modicum of hope, and Anne’s nature may well have been of the stuff which is “wax to receive and marble to retain.”[^[48]]

[48]. It is possible that her mother had some inkling of the state of affairs, and the uneasy consciousness of this may have prompted her silence as to her daughter in her own correspondence.