late queen, whom she was requested to take into her ‘family.’ After she and the prince had given up Berkeley House, they for a time lived at Camden House; and the king then made over St. James's Palace to them, of which they took possession in the spring of 1696. In the summer of the same year they resided at Windsor; in 1694 and 1695 the princess had rusticated at Twickenham (Luttrell; Evelyn; and see Miss Strickland, xi. 391, 368). In return the princess endeavoured to show her loyalty to the king's interests. She instructed her servants to vote at the Westminster election in 1694 for the candidates agreeable to the king (Luttrell, iii. 537); and it was said that when her uncle Clarendon, who had never taken the oaths, presented himself at her door, she sent word to him that she received nobody but the friends of the king (O. Klopp, vii. 24, from a despatch of Hoffman, the imperial resident; Coke, Detection, 127, places this occurrence after the death of James II). Whatever there may have been wanting now as of old in the personal demeanour of the king, no doubt whatever existed as to his desire to be on terms of amity with the princess and her husband; it was universally felt that her star was at last in the ascendant, and her audience-chamber was now as crowded as it had formerly been deserted (Shrewsbury Correspondence, 220; cf. Luttrell, iii. 437). One important point, however, remained in the relations between the king and his sister-in-law, which neither of them was likely to overlook. ‘Our friend,’ writes the Duke of Shrewsbury to Admiral Russell (Orford), ‘who has no small credit with her, seems very resolved to contribute to the continuance of this union, as the only thing that can support her, or both. I do not see he is likely at present to get much by it, not having yet kissed the king's hand; but his reversion is very fair and great.’ After contradictory reports had for some time circulated as to the treatment which awaited Lord and Lady Marlborough (see O. Klopp, vii. 24, note; and Hatton Correspondence, ii. 210), all doubts were set at rest by the earl being introduced into the king's presence, and kissing hands, on 29 March 1695. After this crowning favour it is not wonderful that when in the following May arrangements were being made for the government of the country during the king's absence in Flanders, he should have been expected by many to appoint the princess regent. But, in point of fact, though he had made his peace with her, he did not, as Burnet puts it, ‘bring her into any share in business;’ and shortly after this time we find Evelyn recording a conversation at Lambeth Palace, where, in a large company, ‘we discoursed of several matters, particularly of the Princess of Denmark, who made so little figure’ (Diary, 5 July). The next year, 1696, was one of the darkest of William's reign. At St. Germains a corresponding hopefulness prevailed; and King James states that about this time he received a letter from his surviving daughter, asking whether he would permit her to accept the crown should William die, expressing her readiness to make restitution when opportunity should serve, and arguing that a refusal of the crown by her would only remove him the further from the hope of recovering his rights. But James declined to enter into any such bargain (see Clarke, James II, ii. 559–60; and Original Papers, i. 257–8. The letter is unusually full of lacunæ, with salient words inserted afterwards).
Few notices remain of the life of the princess in this and the three following years (1697–1699). Her health continued uncertain: she miscarried in February 1696 and again in December 1697, September 1698, and January 1700; in December 1696 she is reported ill of convulsion fits, and in April 1699 of the gout. A visit to Tunbridge Wells in the summer of 1697 can have conferred no lasting benefit, though in the winter following she took a more decided lead in the amusements of the court, for a time giving a ball every Monday at St. James's, while the prince followed the fashion and his own inclination by periodical sojourns at Newmarket (for all these details see Luttrell). Lady Marlborough continued her chosen friend, and when in 1698 Mrs. Freeman's daughters began to be married, it was Mrs. Morley who doubled the dowry of 5,000l. given to the eldest by her father, the larger offer of 10,000l. having been refused by the countess. Lady Harriet Churchill married the only son of Lord Godolphin, for whom, according to an unauthenticated tradition, the Princess Anne had in her younger days entertained a tender sentiment (Mrs. Thomson, i. 163). In January 1701, when her god-daughter, Lady Anne Churchill, married the Earl of Sunderland's heir, Lord Spencer, she repeated her munificence. Corresponding gifts were made to the younger daughters of the duchess, who married after Anne came to the throne. In 1698 an arrangement under the king's orders had closely connected the Earl of Marlborough himself with the domestic affairs of the prince and princess. The frail life of the little Duke of Gloucester, who to his mother before he died must have represented a hope seventeen times cherished and but once permitted to survive more or less speedy disap-
