A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Hyde, Anne, Duchess of York
HYDE, ANNE, DUCHESS OF YORK,
The eldest daughter of Lord Clarendon, and mother of two of the queens of Great Britain, was born in 1638. During the exile of the royal family she attended her father abroad, and was appointed maid of honour to the Princess of Orange, the eldest sister of Charles the Second. Her intercourse with James, Duke of York, then a young and gallant soldier, commenced when Miss Hyde was in her twenty-first year. She had accompanied the Princess of Orange to Paris, on a visit .to her mother, Queen Henrietta, when James saw, and fell in love with her. They were betrothed at Breda, November 24th., 1659; but there were so many difficulties in obtaining the consent of the royal family to this alliance, that they were not married till September 3rd., 1660. The ceremony was performed at Worcester House, London. The Duchess of York was a handsome and sensible woman, and lived in harmony with her husband, notwithstanding his open infidelities. Before her death she became a Roman Catholic. She died at St. James' Palace, March 31st., 1671, in her thirty-fourth year.