of William's plans, that his sister-in-law, who, in the order of succession to the English throne, stood between his wife and himself, should act in cordial union with him. All his difficulties would have been greatly augmented if Anne had declared herself favorable to the Indulgence. Which side she might take depended on the will of others; for her understanding was sluggish; and, though there was latent in her character an hereditary willfulness and stubbornness which, many years later, great power and great provocations developed, she was, as yet, a willing slave to a nature far more vivacious and imperious than her own. The person by whom she was absolutely governed was the wife of Churchill, a woman who afterward exercised a great influence on the fate of England and of Europe.

The name of this celebrated favorite was Sarah Jennings. Her elder sister, Frances, had been distinguished by beauty and levity even among the crowd of beautiful faces and light characters which adorned and disgraced Whitehall during the wild carnival of the Restoration. On one occasion Frances dressed herself like an orange girl, and cried fruit about the streets.* Sober people predicted that a girl of so little discretion and delicacy would not easily find a husband. She was, however, twice married, and was now the wife of Tyrconnel. Sarah, less regularly beautiful, was perhaps more attractive. Her face was expressive; her form wanted no feminine charm; and the profusion of her fine hair, not yet disguised by powder, according to that barbarous fashion which she lived to see introduced, was the delight of numerous admirers. Among the gallants who sued for her favor, Churchill, young, handsome, graceful, insinuating, eloquent, and brave, obtained the preference. He must have been enamoured indeed; for he had little property except the annuity which he had bought with the infamous wages bestowed on him by the Duchess of Cleveland: he was insatiable of riches; Sarah was poor; and a plain * Grammont's Memoirs; Pepys's Diary, Feb. 21, 168.

girl with a large fortune was proposed to him. His love, after a struggle, prevailed over his avarice; marriage only strengthened his passion; and, to the last hour of his life, Sarah enjoyed the pleasure and distinction of being the one human being who was able to mislead that far-sighted and sure-footed judgment, who was fervently loved by that cold heart, and who was servilely feared by that intrepid spirit.

In a worldly sense, the fidelity of Churchill's love was amply rewarded. His bride, though slenderly portioned, brought with her a dowry which, judiciously employed, made him at length a duke of England, a sovereign prince of the empire, the captain general of a great coalition, the arbiter between mighty princes, and, what he valued more, the wealthiest subject in Europe. She had been brought up from childhood with the Princess Anne, and a close friendship had arisen between the girls. In character they resembled each other very little. Anne was slow and taciturn. To those whom she loved she was meek. The form which her anger assumed was sullenness. She had a strong sense of religion, and was attached even with bigotry to the rites and government of the Church of England. Sarah was lively and voluble, domineered over those whom she regarded with most kindness, and, when she was offended, vented her rage in tears and tempestuous reproaches. To sanctity she made no pretense, and, indeed, narrowly escaped the imputation of irreligion. She was not yet what she became when one class of vices had been fully developed in her by prosperity, and another by adversity, when her brain had been turned by success and flattery, when her heart had been ulcerated by disasters and mortifications. She lived to be that most odious and miserable of human beings, an ancient crone at war with her whole kind, at war with her own children and grandchildren, great indeed and rich, but valuing greatness and riches chiefly because they enabled her to brave public opinion, and to indulge without restraint her hatred to the living and the dead. In the

reign of James she was regarded as nothing worse than a fine, high-spirited young woman, who could now and then be cross and arbitrary, but whose flaws of temper might well be pardoned in consideration of her charms.

It is a common observation that differences of taste, understanding, and disposition are no impediments to friendship, and that the closest intimacies often exist between minds each of which supplies what is wanting to the other. Lady Churchill was loved and even worshiped by Anne. The princess could not live apart from the object of her romantic fondness. She married, and was a faithful and even an affectionate wife; but Prince George, a dull man whose chief pleasures were derived from his dinner and his bottle, acquired over her no influence comparable to that exercised by her female friend, and soon gave himself up with stupid patience to the dominion of that vehement and commanding spirit by which his wife was governed. Children were born to the royal pair, and Anne was by no means without the feelings of a mother; but the tenderness which she felt for her offspring was languid when compared with her devotion to the companion of her early years. At length the princess became impatient of the restraint which etiquette imposed on her. She could not bear to hear the words Madam and Royal Highness from the lips of one who was more to her than a sister. Such words were indeed necessary in the gallery or the drawing-room, but they were disused in the closet. Anne was Mrs. Morley; Lady Churchill was Mrs. Freeman; and under these childish names was carried on, during twenty years, a correspondence on which at last the fate of administrations and dynasties depended. But as yet Anne had no political power and little patronHer friend attended her as first lady of the bedchamber, with a salary of only four hundred pounds a year. There is reason, however, to believe that, even at this time, Churchill was able to gratify his ruling passion by means of his wife's influence. The princess, though her income was large and her tastes simple, contracted

age.

debts which her father, not without some murmurs, discharged; and it was rumored that her embarrassments had been caused by her prodigal bounty to her favorite.*

At length the time had arrived when this singular friendship was to exercise a great influence on public affairs. What part Anne would take in the contest which distracted England was matter of deep anxiety. Filial duty was on one side. The interests of the religion to which she was sincerely attached were on the other. A less inert nature might well have remained long in suspense when drawn in opposite directions by motives so strong and so respectable. But the influence of the Churchills decided the question, and their patroness became an important member of that extensive league of which the Prince of Orange was the head.

In June, 1687, Dykvelt returned to the Hague. He presented to the States-General a royal epistle filled with eulogies of his conduct during his residence in London. These eulogies, however, were merely formal. James, in private communications written with his own hand, bitterly complained that the envoy had lived in close intimacy with the most factious men in the realm, and had encouraged them in all their evil purposes. Dykvelt carried with him also a packet of letters from the most eminent of those with whom he had conferred during his stay in England. The writers generally expressed unbounded reverence and affection for William, and referred him to the bearer for fuller information as to their views. Halifax discussed the state and prospects of the country with his usual subtlety and vivacity, but took care not to pledge himself to any perilous line of conduct. Danby wrote in a bolder and more determined tone, and could not refrain from slyly sneering at the fears and scruples of his accomplished rival. But the most remarkable letter was from Churchill. It was written with that natu

* It would be endless to recount all the books from which I have formed my estimate of the duchess's character. Her own letters, her own vindication, and the replies which it called forth, have been my chief materials.

ral eloquence which, illiterate as he was, he never wanted on great occasions, and with an air of magnanimity which, perfidious as he was, he could with singular dexterity assume. The Princess Anne, he said, had commanded him to assure her illustrious relatives at the Hague that she was fully resolved, by God's help, rather to lose her life than to be guilty of apostasy. As for himself, his places and the royal favor were as nothing to him in comparison with his religion. He concluded by declaring, in lofty language, that, though he could not pretend to have lived the life of a saint, he should be found ready, on occasion, to die the death of a martyr.*

Dykvelt's mission had succeeded so well that a pretense was soon found for sending another agent to continue the work which had been so auspiciously commenced. The new envoy, afterward the founder of a noble English house which became extinct in our own time, was an illegitimate cousin-german of William, and bore a title taken from the lordship of Zulestein. Zulestein's relationship to the house of Orange gave him importance in the public eye. His bearing was that of a gallant soldier. He was, indeed, in diplomatic talents and knowledge, far inferior to Dykvelt; but even this inferiority had its advantages. A military man, who had never appeared to trouble himself about political affairs, could, without exciting any suspicion, hold with the English aristocracy an intercourse which, if he had been a noted master of state craft, would have been jealously watched. Zulestein, after a short absence, returned to his country charged with letters and verbal messages not less important than those which had been intrusted to his predecessor. A regular correspondence was from this time established between the prince and the Opposition. Agents of various ranks passed and repassed between the Thames and the Hague. Among these, a Scotchman, of some parts and great activity,

The formal epistle which Dykvelt carried back to the States is in the Archives at the Hague. The other letters mentioned in this paragraph are given by Dalrymple. App. to Book V.