Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 36.djvu/362

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Mary II
356
Mary II


Plumptre, i. 137 n.) After a tempestuous journey they arrived at Ter-Heyde, whence they immediately repaired to Honslardyke, the favourite country seat of the Princes of Orange (Lake, p. 12). Their formal entry at the Hague was delayed till 14 Dec.

Mary was accompanied to Holland by two of the daughters of Lady Frances Villiers, Elizabeth and Anne, and by her favourite, Anne Trelawney, afterwards dismissed from her service by "William. Another of her maids of honour was Jane Wroth, whom Zulestein first seduced and then married. Surrounded by these giddy girls, and at times, as appears from her correspondence, herself not disinclined to take part in their merriment, Mary appears from the first to have maintained perfect sobriety of conduct in her new home. Dr. Hooper (derisively called 'Papa' or 'Pater' Hooper, subsequently bishop of Bath and Wells), who succeeded Dr. Lloyd (afterwards bishop of Worcester) as one of her chaplains, left a detailed account of her way of life, in which he avers that during the eighteen months of his attendance upon her he never saw her do, or heard her say, a thing that he could have wished she would not. The solitary rumour to her discredit which reached the anxious ears of Dr. Lake in England was that she had resumed a habit, from which he had formerly advised her to desist, of sometimes playing cards on Sundays. He was hardly less perturbed, however, on learning that she occasionally worshipped at the English nonconformist church maintained by the States-General at the Hague (Lake, Diary, pp. 22, 26; cf. Plumptre, i. ' 146).

Her usual residence was the well-known 'House in the Wood,' near the Hasrue. In the capital itself, wtiere her uncle Clarendon resided for a short time as English ambassador, she only took up her residence on state occasions. The palace at the Loo, near Apeldoorn, of which she laid the foundation-stone, was not erected till 1680. The loneliness of the earlier years of her married life is illustrated by the statement that she felt at liberty to fit up her chapel in her dining-room, as her husband never dined with her (ib. i. 141 ). Doubtless her character was only gradually forming, and she had not as yet found in religion a panacea for her troubles. The Prince of Orange, though he received her stepmother and sister with much courtesy on their visit to the Hague in the autumn of 1678, continued to show his wife the utmost coldness. The marriage remained childless, Mary's expectations having been disappointed early in 1678, and again in 1670; in the latter year the Dutch climate subjected her to an attack of the ague, and she was sent, under the care of the younger Dr. Drelincourt, to Aix-la-Chapelle (Clarendon Correspondence, i. 42 ; cf. Krämer, p. 109). Her ailment may have contributed to William's indifference, to which he gave publicity by establishing Elizabeth Villiers as his mistress. The prince was preoccupied by politics, for which Mary confessed she had no taste. By no fault of her own, moreover, she was much pinched for money ; of her marriage portion of 40,000l. only half seems to have been paid to her, and her father neither made her an allowance nor gave her the customary presents of jewellery (Burnet, iii. 1 33). thus her whole annual income amounted to less than 4,000l'., a tithe of the sum afterwards allowed by James II to the Princess Anne (Kramer, pp. 107-8; Clarendon Correspondence, i. 20; cf. Macaulay, ii. 408. In 1686 an annual income of 25,000l. seems to have been settled upon Mary by the States-General in return for a loan from William III ; see Ellis Correspondence, i. 188).

The Duke of York early in 1679 paid a visit to his daughter at the Hague, and after a sojourn in Aix-la-Chapelle she received visits from Monmouth (27 Sept.) and from the Duke and Duchess of York with Princess Anne (6 Oct.) It was Mary's last meeting with her father. With her stepmother she seems to have been on terms of playful familiarity (the duchess addressed her as her 'dear Lemon;' see Miss Strickland, x. 298). Princess Anne was on this occasion accompanied by Lady Churchill, between whom and Mary it is possible that the seeds of an enduring antipathy were now sown (ib. p. 301).

In March and April 1680 Mary suffered from a severe illness, and was at one time thought unlikely to recover (H. Sidney, ii. 3). Ken, who was now her chaplain, and who, notwithstanding her latitudinarian tendencies, took a warm interest in her, was so much grieved by her husband's unkindness to her that he resolved at any risk to remonstrate with him on the subject. Both Ken and Sir Gabriel Sylvius would have liked her to pay a visit to England (ib. pp. 19-20, 26-7, 53; cf. Plumptre, i. 125, 146, 150). D'Avaux, too, who was French ambassador at the Hague about 1682-4, has left a minute account of the dreary way in which she ordinarily spent her days (Miss Strickland, x. 323-6). But in the midst of these trials the noblest elements in her nature were beginning to assert themselves ; and by her cheerful submissiveness, the product of a natural sweetness of disposition and of a sense of duty matured by the habit of