Diary, ii. 207). ‘Mrs.’ Berkeley had been governess to the princess's children. There is naturally enough considerable obscurity as to the events which preceded and led to the flight of the princess. Even Burnet describes Churchill, before the coming of William, to have undertaken ‘that Prince George and the Princess Anne would leave the court, and come to the prince, as soon as was possible.’ After the landing the princess had written to William, by the advice of the Churchills, approving his enterprise, and assuring him that she was entirely in the hands of her friends, by whose decision she would regulate her movements (Macaulay, referring to the letter in Dalrymple, dated 18 Nov.). And Lediard (i. 80) has a story that, about six weeks before her flight, the princess had a private staircase constructed in her apartments at Whitehall, obviously with a view to future contingencies. On the other hand, we have the narrative of the Duchess of Marlborough (Conduct, 16–19), who represents matters as if the princess had been taken by surprise by the news of her husband's flight, and as if all that she (the writer) did was to obey her mistress's orders. Acting on a hint previously received, Lady Churchill advised the princess to send her to the Bishop of London, who, having been suspended, was secretly lodged near by in Suffolk Street, and with him the nocturnal escape by the backstairs was arranged. In the company of the Earl of Dorset the bishop met the fugitives in the neighbourhood and carried them in a hackney-coach to his house in the city. Next day they went on to Lord Dorset's at Copt Hall, whence they journeyed to Lord Northampton's, and so to Leicester and by way of Harborough, where she first ‘discovered’ herself and was accompanied to Nottingham by Sir Charles Shuckborough with about fifty horsemen, in a cavalcade swelled by further accessions. Here, where she had arrived on 1 Dec., she was joined by others, including the Earls of Devonshire, Northampton, Chesterfield, and Scarsdale, and a guard was appointed for her person, with officers to attend her, and the valiant Bishop of London, whom King James had once told that ‘he talked more like a colonel than a bishop,’ for captain. According to Lord Chesterfield the princess appointed a council to settle the course of proceedings, and a project was discussed and approved by the princess to destroy all the papists in England should the Prince of Orange be killed by any of them. From Nottingham she returned to Leicester, where a very large concourse of nobility and gentry was now assembled, fourteen or fifteen troops of horse in all, and where the whole militia of the county had been summoned in a letter signed by all the principal gentlemen. The Northamptonshire militia was likewise called out, and a few days later, after progressing through Coventry and Warwick, the princess ‘made a splendid entry into Oxford … the Earl of Northampton with 500 horse leading the van. Her royal highness was preceded by the Bishop of London, at the head of a noble troop of gentlemen, his lordship riding in a purple cloak, martial habit, pistols before him, and his sword drawn, and his cornett had the inscription in golden letters on his standard, “Nolumus leges Angliæ mutari.” … The vice-chancellor with the heads of the university attended in their scarlet gowns, made to her a speech in English, and the prince [George] received her royal highness at Christ Church quadrangle with all possible demonstrations of love and affection’ (see Ellis, Original Letters, 2nd series, iv. 177–8. For other details of the progress, cf. Hatton Correspondence, ii. 118–21; Luttrell, Letters of the Second Earl of Chesterfield, 335–6; cf. Memoir, 48–51; and Colley Cibber's Apology, 57, where it is stated that on the princess's flight the country was alarmed with the news that ‘two thousand of the king's dragoons were in close pursuit to bring her back to London’).
It was reported that when the news of the king's first flight reached Anne on her progress, she ‘called for cards and was as merry as she used to be;’ and when Clarendon afterwards reproached her with this, her defence was that ‘she never loved to do anything that looked like an affected constraint.’ On 19 Dec. she returned in safety with her husband to Whitehall, where they were immediately visited by the Prince of Orange (Luttrell), a date which does not tally with the story that on the day (18 Dec.) when William arrived at St. James's, and James was making his way down the stormy Thames to Rochester, his daughter, accompanied by Lady Churchill, both covered with orange ribbons, went to the theatre in the king's coach. In the ensuing discussions as to the settlement of the throne, the Princess Anne of course took no direct part. If her agents exerted themselves in the matter, she disowned them. When at last the arrangement which was actually adopted was under discussion, she did not, if she told the truth to Clarendon, authorise Lord Churchill to signify her consent to it (Diary, ii. 255). It seems, however, that the influence of Tillotson and of Lady Russell was brought to bear upon her; and, as the Duchess of Marlborough represents it, no sooner had the princess's
