Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 36.djvu/360

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
Mary II
354
Mary II
of Queen Jane and Queen Mary (Camden Soc.) the long report of Giacomo Soranzo, dated 18 Aug. 1554 (in Venetian Cal. 1534–54, pp. 532–64), and Tytler's History of Edward VI and Queen Mary are useful for the period before and immediately after her accession. Lingard's History supplies on the whole the best account of her reign; Froude's History is less judicial and supplies a very imperfect biography. Foxe, a biassed witness, supplies many documents, and Strype's Memorials and Ecclesiastical Annals are valuable on church matters; but the best account of the religious changes in the reign is in Dixon's Church History, vol. iv. Girolamo Pollini's Historia Ecclesiastica della Rivoluzion d'Inghilterra, Rome, 1594, is of doubtful value. Forneron's Histoire de Philippe II (4 vols.) is the latest biography of Mary's husband. It is fuller than Prescott, and corrects, often with too much bitterness, the elaborate eulogy of Cabrera. A useful bibliography, by Forneron, of the authorities for his reign is in Appendix A to vol. i. For other Spanish original authorities see the index (1891) to the 100 vols, of Documentos Ineditos para la Historia de Espana, ed. Ferdinand Navarette and others, 1842 sq. In vol. i. 561 sq. is the Viaje de Felipe II, which was re-edited by Señor Gayangos in 1877, with a full bibliography of the numerous works published in Europe in all languages on the subject of Philip's arrival in England; Major Martin A. S. Hume has given a summary of the chief Spanish tracts in Engl. Hist. Rev. vii. (1892) pp. 253 sq. Archdeacon Churton's Spanish Account of the Marian Persecution is in Brit. Mag. 1839–40. The Accession of Queen Mary, being the Contemporary Narrative of Antonio de Guaras, a Spanish Merchant, Resident in London, ed. R. Garnett, LL.D., 1892, is very useful. The published Acts of the Privy Council (ed. J. R. Dasent) reach the year 1558, but do not by any means cover all the subjects dealt with by the council. See also Mrs. Green's Letters of Illustrious Ladies; the Parliamentary History of England; the Chronicles of Hall, Fabyan, Holinshed, and Stow; Machyn's Diary; Wriothesley's Chronicle (Camden Society); Hawkins's Medallic Illustrations of the History of Great Britain, ed. Grueber and Franks, i. 69 sq.; Wiesener's Early Years of Elizabeth (transl. by Yonge); Clifford's Jane Dormer, Duchess of Feria, ed. Stevenson, 1887. Aubrey de Vere and Tennyson have both made Mary the heroine of a tragedy called after her. Philip II is a leading character in both Otway's and Schiller's Don Carlos.]

MARY II (1662–1694), queen of England, Scotland, and Ireland, eldest child of James, duke of York [q. v.], and his first duchess, Anne Hyde [q. v.], was born at St. James's Palace 30 April 1662. Her birth, by reason of her sex, 'pleased nobody ' (Pepys, Diary, i. 442), and lost such significance as it possessed by the birth, fifteen months later,of her eldest brother. When she was two years of age, Pepys (ib. ill. 44) saw the Duke of York playing with her 'like an ordinary private father;' and he saw her again, when close upon six, 'a little child in hanging sleeves, dance most finely, so as almost to ravish one; her ears were so good' (ib. vi. 43). Her early days were partly spent in the house of her grandfather Clarendon at Twickenham; but she and the duke's other children were afterwards established at Richmond Palace, under the care of their governess, Lady Frances Villiers, whose daughters, together with Anne Trelawney and Sarah Jennings, were among the play-fellows of the young princesses. The Duke of York was constrained to have his daughters brought up as protestants by the fear of their being taken away from him altogether (Life of James II, i. 503). A kind of general superintendence seems to have been exercised over their education by Morley, bishop of Winchester, who had enjoyed the chancellor Clarendon's confidence, and had considerable influence over the appointments in the Duke of York's household (Plumptre, Life of Ken, i. 128). The religious training of Mary and Anne was, however, mainly in the hands of Compton, bishop of London, who laid the foundation of Mary's sturdy protestant sentiment, and to whom she always remained warmly attached (Burnet, iii. 111–12). In the later years of her childhood Dr. Lake, afterwards archdeacon and prebendary of Exeter, and Dr. Doughty were among her chaplains (Lake, pp. 8, 24; cf. Krämer, p. 74). Her French tutor was Peter de Laine, who highly commends her abilities (Miss Strickland, x. 247); in drawing she was instructed by the dwarfs, Richard Gibson [q. v.] and his wife. Gibson afterwards accompanied her to Holland. From a French dancing-master (Pepys) she learnt an accomplishment which in 1688 she described as formerly 'one of her prettiest pleasures' (ap. Doebner, p. 5), and which in December 1674 she exhibited before the court, when she with much applause took the part of Calisto in Crowne's masque of that name. Dryden complimented the princesses in an epilogue; the masque was printed in 1675, and was dedicated to her.

The disposal of Mary's hand soon became an interesting political question. After the death of her youngest brother Edgar, duke of Cambridge (1671), she had once more become heiress-presumptive to the crown, and her father had no children by his second marriage till the birth of a daughter in 1675. It was obvious that the choice of a husband for her must prove either another link in the policy of subservience to France or a check