Two marble-hearted fiends
Sarah Bradford
UNGRATEFUL DAUGHTERS by Maureen Waller
Hodder, 120, pp. 402, ISBN 0340794615
Ihad never thought of James II in the role of King Lear; in his complete lack of understanding of his kingly role, he had always seemed to me rather the Duke of Windsor of the Stuart dynasty. Indeed if I thought of him at all it was to wonder how he managed to pass down his ineptitude to his son and grandson, the Old and Young Pretenders. In this intriguing study Maureen Waller makes no attempt to gloss over his professional and personal failings but she does succeed in evoking some sympa thy for him by presenting — rightly in my view — his daughters Mary and Anne as Goneril and Regan.
Their behaviour towards their doting, foolish father was quite appalling, while they returned the kindness shown by their stepmother, the Catholic Mary of Modena (or Queen Mary Beatrice as Maureen Waller, no doubt correctly, refers to her) with equal cruelty. Anne. whom I had always thought of as a rather jolly fat woman who was keen on racing, turns out to have been quite the worst of the pair. The catalyst for their betrayal of their father was the unexpected pregnancy of Queen Mary Beatrice after 15 years of marriage; the birth on 9 June 1688 of a son, Prince James Francis Edward, threatened both their own royal futures and the Protestant succession.
Anne, the younger daughter of James's
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