fully ingrained itself there, as well as the power of

integrating, as it parties, the principles of one of which outraged her most cherished were, the whole of our past experience ; and the former seems to feelings, and the designs of the most efficient members of the us to be demanded at least as much as the latter for the constitu- other of which menaced the very existence of her royal authority.

tion of the higher kind of common sense. The aggregation of As in the case of William III., no doubt, the anomalous position innumerable experiences not only fails to explain the " necessary" of Anne from her early years had a good deal to do with this character of some of our mental conceptions, but fails still more strange paralysis of personal character ; but, as in his case, completely, we think, to :explain the power of imagination, and the character itself had still more direct influence. Anne lost of all that part of human life which appeals to the imagination. at an early age the support and guidance of a mother, and If all things were built up out of the crust of aggregated ex- although we have no reason to suppose that the influence of Anne periences, we should become more and more subject to the mental Hyde would have tended much to the elevation of her daughter's dominion of those influences of which we have most experience, character, yet it might have absorbed in a more wholesome manner and the real would gradually expel the ideal from human life. some of that excessive craving for sympathetic and reassuring Does not the higher common sense virtually teach us, on the friendship which the timid and helpless nature of Anne always other hand, that the balance is in the long run always preserved ? exhibited, and which made her the slave of Sarah of Marl- Not the less, however, do we owe much to Dr. Carpenter for his borough. The care and superintendence of an energetic step- subtle and valuable contribution to the theory of Common Sense. mother might have prevented this ascendancy, but Mary of

Modena, in addition to the disadvantages inseparable from this difficult position, was a Roman Catholic of a very ex-

ESTIMATES OF THE ENGLISH KINGS. treme and bigoted type, while the only influence which shared

with friendship the sway over the mind of Anne was a strong XX.X.—ANNE. religious conviction. Fortunately for her ultimate chances of TT is scarcely possible to conceive of a greater contrast in respect succession to the throne of England, Anne was educated by divines the claims of friendship. Charles H.'s witty saying as to the hopeless dulness of Prince George of Denmark is well known, and although Anne herself had no very fine intellectual susceptibilities to be outraged by this prosaic associate, she must have been devoid of all imagination and all youthful sentiment if she had not experienced some want of a familiar interchange of ideas with a rather more interesting companion than her husband. Thus the hopeless stolidity of Prince George was an invaluable auxiliary to the ambition of Sarah Churchill. That lady's brilliant and audacious qualities had indeed for Anne all the attractive piquancy -of contrast to her husband's, as well as to her own, and until they assumed the form of exacting insolence and incessant jealous up- braiding, they supplied to Anne's anxious and timid nature all the pleasurable support and excitement of a stimulating drink.

Notwithstanding, however, what to some women would have been the intolerable companionship of such a husband as the one she was mated to, Anne was a happy as well as an affectionate wife, and a devoted, though most unfortunate mother. Child after child was born only to die in infancy or -childhood. Here the character of Anne displayed itself to best advantage. Her naturally kind and affectionate heart made her feel keenly what her deep and unaffected piety enabled her to bear with touching resignation. On one occasion the deaths of two children came in the closest succession, and at a time when she was attending the sick-bed of her husband, and Lady Russell gives us a picture of the two parents which deserves a place by the side of the less respectful portraits which history has handed clown to us of both in their more public capacities. "The good Prin- cess," she writes, "has taken her chastisement heavily ; the first relief of that sorrow proceeded from calming of a greater, the Prince being so ill of a fever. I never saw any relation more moving than that of seeing them together. Sometimes they wept, sometimes they mourned in words, and hand-in-hand,—he sick in bed, she the carefullest nurse to him that can be imagined."

Her relations with her father and step-mother are a less pleasing subject. James was one of those fathers who are profoundly con- vinced that an excessive indulgence to their children (especially when young) should command throughout life not only a gratitude corresponding in kind, but an absolute devotion in the most important matters. He seemed to expect that his eldest daughter, in the unbroken correspondence which he -exacted from her until the Revolution severed them for ever, should write always with a sense of the paramount claims of a father over those of a husband. So with Anne, although he was himself sacrificing his family interests to his mistaken idea of his Religious duty, and his theory of the absolute authority of the Crown, he could not for a moment recognize the right of his daughter to -obey the dictates of her religious convictions, which identified the success of his cause with the destruction of her own cherished Church. He could never see in her the duty-obeying woman, but only the ungrateful and unfilial child. Anne's motives in joining with her sister and brother-in-law against her father were, no doubt, mixed ones, in which duty only formed one ingredient. She had never been -on pleasant terms of intimacy with her step-mother, and towards her father her feelings had, in consequence, even from a domestic point of view, become much diminished in warmth. The difficult problem of the duties of a father between the children of a former marriage and the wife of his subsequent choice was scarcely likely to receive a satisfactory solution in the case of persons with the peculiarities -and intellectual inferiority of James and Anne. James, like other fathers in a similar position, seems to have thought it the impera- tive duty of his children to fall in love with any woman he might himself prefer, and to continue undiminished towards him- self that affection which, in the eyes of his children, he now bestowed on them in only a secondary degree. Mary of Modena, so far as we can trace her action, does not seem to have been a harsh or wilfully unjust step-mother, and appears, at any rate, to have sought to conciliate the affections of her step-daughter. But Anne, previously disposed to anticipate ill-treatment, and under the influence of a nature especially sensitive on small points of ceremonial and observance, was only too ready to misconstrue the acts of the Queen, who, whether a judicious, was in this respect certainly not a successful diplomatist. Anne revenged herself for supposed slights and ill-will by pouring out her complaints and innuendoes against her step-mother in letters to her sister Mary ; and in these letters her father and his second wife figure under the unceremonious names of " Mansel " and " Maned's wife." Mary, however, as we learn from Anne's own complaint, would take no notice of these insinuations against the unwelcome relative, though she was almost as little inclined towards her as her sister, and had a keener sense of her dangerous

I influence over James as an ardent Roman Catholic. Anne had ! evidently a certain pleasure in fancying herself a victim of domestic injustice, and it is ludicrous to read her expressions of surprise that she had not yet been persecuted for her religious belief, and her confident anticipations of the coming trial to her faith and constancy. The announcement of the probable birth of a child, which, should it prove a boy, would shut out both her sister and herself from the succession to the Crown, provoked the jealous sus- picions of Anne to the utmost, and she had evidently made up her mind under any circumstances, to disbelieve in a boy. The excessive jubilation of the Roman Catholic party at the event and the great importance to their cause of such an occur- rence at this crisis were facts quite sufficient to carry convic- tion for the time to such a mind as that of Anne. Indeed, joined to other circumstances, they did the same to those whose intellects were better capable of estimating evidence, as well as to the great mass of the nation. At a subsequent period, indeed, these suspicions gave way before other and stronger feelings, and before she was called upon to ascend the throne herself, Anne had recognized in mind and in words the unlucky Roman Catholic heir as her true brother. At the crisis of the Revolution, however, Anne acted under the com- bined influence of a deep sense of her religious duty, of a strong prejudice against her step-mother, and of an angry belief that the rights of her sister and herself had been outraged by an iniquitous Popish conspiracy.

There can be but little doubt that the influence of Sarah Churchill had been exerted to increase the bias of Anne against her step-mother, and to inflame her suspicions respecting her sup- posed brother. The same influence was from that time directed to the fosteting of ill-will between the Princess and her sister and brother-in-law. The favourite thought her influence insecure if it were shared in any degree with another person, and demanded and long enforced a perfect monopoly not only of intimate friendship, but of ordinary friendly intercourse. She probably knew that Mary of Orange had endeavoured to warn Anne against her growing influence, and this she would never have forgiven, even had the intellectual capacity of Mary herself not rendered her a dangerous rival in the guidance of Anne. The unavowed but natural rivalry between William HI. and Marlborough added largely to the growth of an ill- will between their wives, each of whom was a most devout admirer of her husband's abilities, and equally jealous for his interests and reputation, though their conjugal devotion manifested itself in the one ease in passive obedience, in the other in a shrewish tyranny. The baseness and treachery which were so strangely blended in Marlborough with such noble qualities brought on his public dis- grace. Mary insisted on Anne abandoning the society of the wife of a man thus situated. The best as well as the weakest parts of Anne's character were roused in opposition to such a demand, and the natural obstinacy of both sisters on certain points increased perhaps by the knowledge of Anne's penitential communications with her father, rendered the breach almost if not quite irreparable. It is still a disputed point whether a reconcilia- tion was effected when Queen Mary lay on her death-bed. The death of Mary, however, seems to have softened the heart of Anne towards her brother-in-law, and at the death of William she was on fairly good terms with him, and Marlborough had been pardoned his offences and restored to outward favour.

The accession of Anne herself to the throne placed her, as we have already said, in a most painful dilemma between conflicting views of duty. On the one hand, stood the rights of her now acknowledged brother, and her own theory of indefeasible heredi- tary right ; on the other, her sense of duty to the Church of England, strengthened by her own antipathy to Roman Catholi- cism. The scale was turned against an abdication by the active opposition of Marlborough and his wife, and the persistent though passive resistance of George of Denmark, added to the Queen's own natural timidity. This last feature in her character had really great influence over the course of

politics during her reign. It precipitated her first estrange- ment from the Tory chiefs whom she had summoned to her counsels at her accession, but whose violent course with respect to

the Nonconformists alarmed her as to a possible renewal of civil convulsions. The somewhat violent conduct of the Whigs, when in their turn they possessed the power, added to the distrust which the Queen entertained of their attachment to the Established Church, in some degree nerved her to the effort to shake off the yoke of the Duchess of Marlborough. The conduct of the favourite since the accession of her mistress to the throne had been almost incredibly foolish. She had always ruled over Anne by open dictation, but this had hitherto been blended with affectionate acknowledgment of favours, had respected outward appearances, and had not humiliated the Princess in the eyes of the public. But Sarah Churchill had indulged her own insolence of spirit so much that she no longer had it in her own control, and in- stead of recognizing in the change from Princess to Queen a rea- son for softening the tone of her dictation and relaxing her claim to a monopoly of confidence and favour, she sought to secure her power by increased and less guarded imperiousness, by additional exorbitancy of demands, and by a string of jealous and bitter reproaches, which made her society and her letters a con- :glint source of vexation and discomfort to the Queen, instead of a pleasure and a support. She fell a victim at last to her own jealous selfishness. Fearing the influence of a woman at all resembling herself in character, she placed near the Queen only those whose inferiority of intellect and seeming humility appeared to afford a guarantee against their becoming her rivals ; but she never anticipated that to one who, like Anne, was thoroughly dis- gusted with the opposite qualities as exemplified in the Duchess herself, these signs of a gentler and less powerful character would have an especial attraction. For a long time, however, Anne dared only intrigue secretly against her haughty tyrant, and even when the breach was a declared one, she encountered the remonstrances of the fallen favourite with the defensive attitude of dogged sullenness. The following description of a scene between the Queen and the Duchess, though it may have been somewhat embellished by the witty malignity of the latter, is probably substantially a faithful picture, and is too characteristic to be omitted :—

" Upon the 6th of April, 1710, I followed my letter to Kensington, so soon that Her Majesty could not write another harsh letter, which I found she intended. I sent a page of the back stairs to acquaint Her Majesty that I was there. She was alone ; however, the man stayed longer than was usual upon such occasions, and then told me the Queen would have me come in. As soon as I opened the door, she said she was going to write to me. 'Upon what, Madam r said I.

The Queen= I did not open your letter till just now, and I was going to write to you.'

Lady Marlborough= Was there anything in it, Madam, that you had a mind to answer ? '

The Queen= I think there is nothing you can have to say, but you can write it.'

Lady Marlborough= Would your Majesty give me leave to tell it you?'

The Queen—' Whatever you have to say you may write it.'

Lady Marlborough= Indeed, I can't tell how to put such sort of things into writing.'

The Queen= You may put it into writing.'

Lady Marlborough= Won't your Majesty allow me to tell it you, now I am here ?'

The Queen—' You may put it into writing.'

Lady Marlborough= I believe your Majesty never did so hard thing to anybody as to refuse to hear them speak, even the meanest person that ever desired it.'

The Queen—' Yes / do bid people: put what they have to say in writing when I have a mind to it.'

Lady Marlborough= I have nothing to say, Madam, upon the subject that is so uneasy to you ; that person is not, that I know of, at all con- cerned in the account that I would give you, while I can't be quiet till I have told you.'

The Queen—' You may put it into writing.'"

After a long expostulatory monologue from the Duchess, the Queen retires towards the door, returning no answers to the impassioned appeals of the Duchess, but the following :— " You said you desire no answer, and I shall give you nose.' 'I will go out of the room." You said you desire no answer, and I shall give you none." And so the interview comes to an end.

Once emancipated from her bondage to the Duchess of Marl- borough, the Queen was determined never again to be the passive tool of any of her servants, and her mode of asserting her in- dependence illustrates well the inferiority of her intellect. Incapable, really, of judging on the most serious matters, and self- distrustful on nearly all matters, she could not or did not venture to discuss them with her advisers on the basis of a rational argument, but met them all alike with uniform objection and delay. Swift tells us that "the Queen grew so jealous upon the change of her servants, that often, from the fear of being imposed on and over- caution, she would impose upon herself. She took a delight in refusing those who were thought to have had the greatest power with her, even in the most reasonable things, nor would she let them be done until she fell into the humour of it herself." "When a person happened to be recommended to her as useful for her service or proper to be obliged, perhaps, after a long delay, she would consent ; but if the treasurer offered at the same time a warrant or other instrument to her, already prepared, in order to be signed, because he presumed on her consent beforehand, she would not ; and thus the affair

would sometimes be for several weeks together, although, the thing were ever 80 reasonable, or that even the public suffered'

by the delay." The same writer intimates that this curious mode of self-assertion on the part of the Queen had the important result of baffling the plans of those among her ministers who were anxious to pave the way by preparatory measures for the succes- sion of the "Chevalier St. George," as the legitimate Stuart Prince was styled. The hesitation and delays of Anne left them- at her death unorganized and helpless spectators of the rapid and determined measures of their political opponents for the peaceful proclamation and acknowledgment of George of Hanover. ID this particular case, the Queen's humour was strengthened by her natural timidity, which led her to shrink from committing her- self to any decided step in favour of her brother, added to the dislike entertained by herself, in common with many sovereigns, to- the presence and public recognition of a successor. Both the- Protestant Tory party and the Whigs had in turn experienced her grave displeasure at a proposal that the Electoral family should be invited to England ; and, in the case of the Chevalier, Anne could not free her mind from the additional terror that his presence in the United Kingdom might be speedily followed by her own deposition in his favour. She could not be blind to the fact that a recognition of his claims to the throne in any form, however contingent, implied a con- fession of usurpation on her part which must seriously undermine- her authority.

The portrait which we have endeavoured to draw, as must be evi- dent, is rather that of a somewhat common-place private individual than of a sovereign. Yet Anne had in public, at any rate, the external bearing of a queen, and she possessed one or two truly queenly- qualities, which raise her memory above entire contempt. She had a high idea of the dignity of the royal position, and an eves exaggerated sense of the importance of State ceremonial and the- stage effects of Royalty. Her countenance, though heavy and devoid of the charm of intelligence, was comely, and even impres- sive from its repose. Her expression, as well as her demeanour, in public was generally pleasing and gracious. But she had ideas of Royalty which went beyond mere ceremonial demeanour. Her- sense of duty, though narrow, was strong ; and she had a real affec- tion for her subjects as such, and an unselfish desire to promote their- happiness, which could not fail to call forth a corresponding

feeling of attachment and love on their part ; and this feeling was well expressed, as in the case of Wordsworth's "Shepherd Lord,"- by the title of "good Queen Anne," by which she was popu- larly known. In the reigns of her successors her memory retained its hold over the popular sympathies, and her kindly and charitable disposition was looked back to with fond regret. Anne was selfish only in trifles, in great matters she was generous and' self-sacrificing. Her munificence and her private as well as her public charities were truly Royal. Her attachment to the Church of England was with her more than a mere article of faith, and' received strong practical exemplification in her sacrifice of the First- fruits, and in the Fund for the endowment of the poorer clergy which is still known as "Queen Anne's Bounty." If she was occasionally petulant and acrimonious, this want of amiability pro- ceeded from inferiority of mind rather than from natural dis- position.

Her true nature, if dull and incapable of the higher moods of feeling, was gentle and inoffensive. Her judgment was often dis- torted by prejudice, under the influence of which she became- anxiously suspicious, while in some instances she showed an unforgiving temper and an implacable resentment. But she was- in general long-suffering and considerate, and her bitterest resent- ments were free from vindictiveness. She could be generous even in her hatred, as her undeserved bounty to the Duchess of Marl- borough after the disgrace of that favourite sufficiently testifies.

Perhaps, if we consider the beneficial influence of a really good though weak character in the prominent situation of sovereign over the mind

of a nation, we may feel that we have undervalued the significance- of Anne's personal qualities, and assigned her a lower place among. our Sovereigns than is warranted in fact. But however we may congratulate ourselves on the fortunate manner in which events actually developed them, notwithstanding her feebleness of mind and her peculiar prejudices, it is impossible to shut our eyes to what might have been the consequences of this dangerous weak- ness; and while we are willing to acquiesce in the contemporary verdict which affirmed her essential goodness, we are compelled to. deny altogether the claim in her case to the rank of a great sovereign.