House (on the site of the present Devonshire House, and at that time the ‘last house’ in London), further humiliations were inflicted on her. At St. James's Chapel the rector ceased to bow to her from the pulpit, or to send his text to be laid upon her cushion; and it was said that the very bellman of Piccadilly was forbidden to sing her praises under her windows. When in the autumn she visited Bath, the mayor and aldermen were ordered to desist from their daily ceremonious attendance on her person (Conduct, 100; Luttrell, ii. 564; Macaulay).
Before this journey, however, further events had happened that seemed to justify the royal severity which was the source of all these hardships. On 5 May Marlborough was committed to the Tower on a charge of high treason, several other persons being likewise taken into custody. Fortunately the particular evidence against him proved a forgery [see Churchill, John]; but for the moment, though the princess showed absolute confidence in his innocence, there was panic in Berkeley House. Mrs. Morley wrote to her dear Mrs. Freeman, from whom at last she had been obliged to part, that she was ‘told by pretty good hands that as soon as the wind turns easterly, there will be a guard set upon the prince and me’ (Coxe, i. 51). She soon withdrew to Sion House, where, in June, she fell ill of a fever; and in July she was again indisposed. Before she went to Bath with her husband in August she had dined at St. Albans with Marlborough (who had been released on bail in June) and the countess, which Luttrell says was ‘taken notice of.’ Bishop Compton was of the party; and it may have been due to the mixed inspirations here received or refreshed that the princess was at Bath heard to declare that ‘no papist or Jacobite should come into her presence’ (Luttrell, ii. 556). After her return to Berkeley House she still reserved apartments there for her faithful Mrs. Freeman, in which Marlborough occasionally resided; and so closely did she connect his disgrace with her service that she was only prevented by the unselfishness or prudence of his wife from creating a new place for him in her household (Conduct, 285). Under such circumstances the rumours of a reconciliation between the queen and the princess, which from time to time flew about the town, could hardly prove correct. The childless queen indeed continued to show many kindnesses to the Duke of Gloucester; but there was no open return of goodwill between the sisters, and about January 1693 Grubstreet accordingly abused the princess in a scandalous pamphlet, and then ‘vindicated’ her in a half-treasonable one (Luttrell, iii. 15, 16). Rochester in vain sought to bring about a reconciliation on the basis of a temporary removal of Lady Marlborough; and after, by somebody's fault (see The Other Side, 127, versus Conduct, 100–2), this attempt had fallen through, the princess continued at Berkeley House ‘in a quiet way;’ two further disappointments of the kind to which the poor lady was by this time accustomed happening to her in March 1693 and in the January following.
A change came over the English court in 1694 by the sudden decease, on 28 Dec., of Queen Mary. Macaulay tells us that ‘Mary died in peace with Anne.’ At all events, natural courtesies passed. On the first news of the queen's being taken with the smallpox Anne had affectionately offered to ‘run any hazard for the satisfaction’ of seeing her; but it had been thought better to keep the patient quiet for the present. The princess continued her inquiries without, as Lady Marlborough asserts, receiving any answer except on one occasion ‘a cold thanks.’ After her sister's death nothing was wanting in the princess's conduct. Her husband, indeed, when he called to offer his condolences, was told that the king was asleep; but she wrote to William a becoming though brief letter, in which she assured him of her being ‘as sensibly touched with this sad misfortune as if she had never been so unhappy as to fall into the queen's displeasure,’ and asked leave to wait upon him as speedily as he wished. Very soon he received her at Kensington, treating her ‘with extraordinary civility’ (Conduct, 107–10; cf. Luttrell, iii. 418–19).
Even had William been otherwise disposed, he must have perceived the necessity of being on good terms with his sister-in-law. Some of the Jacobites, cherishing the notion that in the event of a contest between them the English people would prefer the Princess of Denmark to the Prince of Orange, urged that the opportunity should be used for a rising. There was little immediate fear that the Princess Anne would enter into a combination with her father, even he at the time could hardly have expected it (cf. Original Papers, i. 246). But she had dangerous advisers. Hence William left nothing undone that it was in his power, or in his nature, to do to bring about a complete reconciliation. The Archbishop of Canterbury was sent by the king to wait upon the princess; her guard of honour was restored, and she was invited to keep a court of her own at Whitehall, ‘as if,’ says Luttrell, ‘she were a crowned head,’ 5,000l. a quarter being assigned to her for the maintenance of divers servants of the
