Exit Lady Masham Read online

  I shook my head sadly. “What can have got into him, ma’am?”

  “How should I know? He’s always talking about honor. Does he think I don’t care about England’s honor?”

  “May I inquire, ma’am, where honor is in question?”

  “He maintains that the orders I have sent to the Duke of Ormonde in Flanders are a disgrace to the nation. You look mystified, Masham. Is it possible you haven’t heard of the orders?” There was a note of near-hostility in the Queen’s tone.

  “Your Majesty assumes that I am better informed than is the case.”

  “Really? I thought you to be more in Lord Oxford’s confidence. But anyway, Lord Bolingbroke and I have been disgusted at the endless delays of the peace negotiations. The diplomats talk while our soldiers die. So I finally told Lord Bolingbroke: ‘Let us take the bull by the horns. Let us put an end to the fighting.’ He agreed, and drew up the orders to be sent to the commander-in-chief. That he is immediately to cease engaging the enemy!”

  I clapped my hands. “Oh, ma’am, I knew it! You are the greatest of sovereigns!”

  “Well, Lord Oxford doesn’t think so. We had a stormy council. He maintained that the orders amounted to a betrayal of our allies. He became so shrill that I had to shake my fan at him three times! In the end, it was decided to send the orders over the Lord Treasurer’s protest, and today they have been sent.”

  “God be praised!” At that moment everything that I had suffered seemed repaid a hundredfold. Did Swift know? Well, he would, soon enough!

  “How is one to understand a man like Oxford?” the Queen continued petulantly. “He shouts for peace, and I give him peace! What does it cost him? Does he have to stand up and bear the insult of the Prince of Savoy? No, I, his sovereign, must do that. That is what I do for England while my Lord Oxford sobs about honor into his jug of wine!”

  I decided after I had seen the Queen that friendship required that I pay one more visit to Oxford and see if it was not too late to warn him of the reckless course on which he seemed embarked.

  20

  You are content then, Lady Masham, to see your country become a symbol of perfidy in the eyes of the civilized world!”

  Lord Oxford was standing before his fireplace, his lips apart, speaking as clearly and coolly as in his best days in the House of Commons. Two hours had had the effect of completely restoring his sobriety, and I reflected that he was perhaps one of those who become inebriated on very little.

  “I do not see that disengagement need be perfidy.”

  “When our soldiers stand by and see their former allies cut to ribbons?”

  “I am a woman, like the Queen, milord. I see things more simply. I see men killing each other long after we have gained everything we sought to gain. The statesmen seem unable to put a stop to it. Very well. Like the Queen, I would simply say ‘Halt!’”

  Harley’s lips closed in a bleak, tight line. “You have been well coached by St. John.”

  “Why do you attribute to him what I say? Do you assume I have no mind of my own?”

  “You had a mind of your own, Abbie. But I very much fear you have disposed of it.”

  “Disposed of it?”

  “Sold it!” Harley made his verb hiss, and I wondered for a moment if he were drunk after all. But then I remembered that in a court of vile tongues he might have heard something vile.

  “To whom have I sold my mind? And for what price?”

  “You have sold your mind to Henry St. John! And your soul. In return for a share of the Assiento!”

  “And what, pray, is the Assiento?”

  “Oh, Abbie, don’t pretend to me!”

  “I’m sorry, Harley. I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

  Harley looked at first surprised and then curious. “Do you really mean to tell me that you have never heard of the Assiento, or contract?”

  “Has it something to do with the peace talks?”

  “It has. It’s one of our conditions, though not one that we care to talk too much about. The Queen is to receive twenty-two per cent of the South Sea Company’s monopoly of the slave trade between Africa and South America.”

  “Surely she knows nothing about that!”

  “You are quite correct there,” he said, with some surprise. “Or she knows very little about it. She thinks it a mere formality. Our frustrated viscount, who believes he should have been an earl, has represented to Her Majesty that the clause is essential for the commercial interests, but that she should dispose of her share to avoid scandal. And who do you suppose will be the real recipient of the Queen’s share when she disposes of it?”

  “Lord Bolingbroke?”

  “Right again. But he will not get it all. Greedy as St. John is, even he cannot arrange to get it all. A sizable slice will be peeled off for the benefit of another recently created peer. Not a viscount, to be sure, but…”

  “A baron?”

  “Your husband, my dear. Did you really not know?”

  I shook my head sadly. So that was why Masham had not been pestering me recently to ask favors of the Queen. He had figured out his own method of maneuvering for royal largesse!

  “Oh, Abbie, I am sorry. Is it possible you’re as much a victim as I? And I thought you were hand in glove with those rascals!”

  “I swear to God I have had no talks with my husband or with Bolingbroke on this subject or on anything concerning the peace. Since Swift went to Ireland and you took to the bottle, my friend, I have been nothing at court but a bedchamberwoman. And I intend to keep it that way.”

  “You mean now that you know, you won’t do anything about it?”

  “Well, what can I do?” I cried in exasperation. “Everyone is always expecting me to do something.”

  “Do you know what happens to those poor black wretches when they are torn from their tribes, betrayed by their own people and stuffed into stinking hatches below deck? The fortunate ones die on the voyage and are fed to the sharks, while the others…”

  “Stop!” I almost shrieked at him, putting my hands to my ears. “I cannot be responsible for all the woes of the world. First you expect me to end a war, and now I must abolish the slave trade!”

  Harley, who had been blandly serious until now, allowed himself a first chuckle. “I had simply thought you might not wish to be the beneficiary of such horrors!”

  “Very well. I’ll tell you what I’ll do. Every time Masham and I buy anything, I shall ask him to figure out what part of it has been purchased with profits from the slave trade. And I shall have nothing to do with that part.”

  “I see it’s all a joke to you,” Harley said in a sterner tone. “But I wonder if you will be so much amused by what I have next to tell you.”

  “Are you absolutely determined, milord, to say disagreeable things to me?”

  “Listen to me, Abbie!”

  “Why should I listen to you? You want me to do this and do that. You want me to be always going to the Queen to obtain things for you. Why don’t you go yourself? I’ll tell you why you don’t! Because you’ve allowed your influence to decay to nothing. You go to her half-drunk and bore her to tears when you don’t drive her into a tantrum. You give up everything for your sloth and your bottle and then turn to me to pick up the pieces of your ministry!”

  But Harley’s patience seemed limitless now. “You are right once more. My influence is utterly decayed. The Queen will ask for my ivory staff any day now. But you and I know that she herself is not going to last much longer. Getting rid of me may well be her final act. Which is why I am talking to you now. I owe you something, Abigail. I never forget that.”

  “And is this how you propose to pay me back? By saying disagreeable things?”

  “It is,” he replied imperturbably. “St. John has decided that he has no future but under the Stuarts.”

  “You mean he’s for the Pretender? Well, so is half the nation.”

  “I mean he’s for treason, you silly woman! And your husband
is with him!”

  “Not everyone thinks it treason. I doubt that even Her Majesty thinks so.”

  “Abigail, you’ve got to be serious!” he exclaimed. “It’s one thing to have romantic dreams about the restoration of James III. But it’s quite another to enter into correspondence with the Pretender and plot an uprising to subvert the Act of Settlement! It is my considered opinion, my friend, after more than thirty years in politics, that this nation wants the Elector of Hanover to succeed the Queen. And when that happens, Milords Bolingbroke and Masham are going to pay for their folly with their heads!”

  How could both Swift and Harley be wrong? It was there and then that I made myself face the fact that my romantic espousal of the Stuart cause had been the merest sentimentality. George of Hanover and all things German were too flat and odious not to be true. James Stuart and the Highland legends were so many dreams. Why could I not go back to my chamberwoman days of cleaning and back-rubbing? Had I ever really wanted or aspired to a larger role? If my husband wished to act without me, and to make money out of slaves and pretenders, well let him take the risks that went with the trade. Why should I do anything about it? But when I spoke at last to answer Harley, it was as Swift’s pupil.

  “How can we avoid such a catastrophe?”

  “Good girl. That is why I asked you earlier what Masham and St. John were up to. I wanted to know whether they were plotting to bring the Prince over. But now I see that you know nothing about it, let us concentrate on saving your neck. Let me put you in touch with the Elector. He doesn’t trust me, and he may not trust you, but he will certainly use you. You will assure him that you will expend your influence with the Queen to keep her from entering into any sort of scheme in favor of her half brother. And you will put your price in black and white. If you want, I’ll draft the letter for you myself.”

  Farewell to my silly dreams of curtsying before a romantic young sovereign! Farewell to my image of his gracious smile as he should hear me murmur: “Sire, as I faithfully served your sister, so may I faithfully serve you!”

  “What awaits us all, Harley? What can we expect of the House of Hanover?”

  “Our heads on our shoulders, if we are lucky. But that should be enough for me. If I can only retire to my beautiful library, Abbie, that is all I ask. You see before you a disillusioned man. Disillusioned? The word is hardly adequate to describe a defeat as great as any that Marlborough inflicted on King Louis. For it was my dream to reconcile the Whigs and the Tories and bring an honorable peace to England. I talked to both sides—oh, yes, I talked to everybody—I had eyes in Versailles and ears in St. Germain—I had informants all over England and Europe. I fell into the ancient trap of convincing myself that the end could justify the means. And what do I now find? What any platitude-loving fool could have told me: that the opportunist goes down before the greater opportunist, the wily before the wilier. Henry St. John is handsomer and sharper and more unscrupulous than I. How could I dare believe that if I handed him a knife he would not place it squarely between my shoulder blades? Oh, how I deserve it, Abbie! How richly I deserve it!”

  “So what do you deduce from it all?” I asked bitterly. “Should we have let it alone? Would we be better off if Marlborough was still butchering soldiers and peasants on his way to Versailles?”

  “Perhaps! Perhaps, indeed!”

  “Oh, my friend, you’re tired. And old before your time. I’m not going to stand here and listen while you toss my life and yours into the rubbish heap. Good day, Lord Oxford!”

  My Lord Treasurer was good to his word, and it was not many weeks before the Duke of Shrewsbury, a principal endorser of the Hanoverian succession, promised me, in strictest confidence, that His Royal Highness, the Elector, was personally grateful to be assured of the loyalty of Lady Masham. If the great Sarah could have seen me then, she would no doubt have felt that she was sufficiently avenged!

  21

  The Queen was very bad now; she hardly left her bed. Her breathing was heavy, her complexion red, and sometimes her mind seemed to wander. The doctors gave her no more than a few weeks. But when I talked to her alone, she seemed rational enough.

  “Masham,” she murmured one night as I sat with her when she could not sleep, “there is something very much on my mind.”

  “Would it help Your Majesty to tell me?”

  “If you are still as devoted as you said. Is it not time that I should send for my brother?”

  My heart seemed to turn over. “But surely, ma’am, the Prince has been outlawed. Would they not cast him in the Tower?”

  “I mean secretly, Masham. Bolingbroke said it might just be managed. If you would help, he could be smuggled into the castle. Only a handful of people would have to know. You see, if the Prince were here, actually in Windsor, when I die, it could make all the difference. Thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, might declare for him. The Elector would not dare to cross the Channel. There would not have to be any bloodshed, Masham!”

  “One can never be sure of that, ma’am.”

  “Should we not take the chance? For my soul’s safety, Masham! Think of the hundreds of ministers who refused to swear fealty to King William, although they had sided with him against my father! Because they believed that even if King James could be rightfully deposed, the succession could never be altered. It was divinely constituted! Mary and William and I could be naught but custodians of the crown until it could be returned to the rightful and reformed Prince!”

  “But is the Prince reformed, ma’am?”

  “No. But he may yet be persuaded.”

  “Has he not sworn to the contrary?”

  “So we are told, but he is still young.”

  I buried my face in my hands. Certainly, had this appeal come to me before the advent of Swift in my life, I would have hurried to do as I was bid. But now I knew that the Prince would never become an apostate to Rome; everyone knew it but the weakening Queen. My husband’s life was only one of thousands that the conflict would cost.

  “I am sorry, ma’am. It will be your eternal glory that you have ended a great war. One who loves you more than life would rather die than aid you in starting another.”

  “And I thought you were a Jacobite!”

  “I am a lover of peace, ma’am.”

  “Somebody’s been at you, Masham! Somebody has bought you for the abominable House of Hanover!”

  “How can Your Majesty say anything so terrible?”

  “Because it’s true!”

  I sobbed aloud in my sudden agony. “I have lived for you, ma’am!”

  “That’s what they all say. But they’re all out for themselves. I was used by my father. I was used by my sister. I was used by the Duchess. I have been used by every human being that ever professed loyalty or affection for me. Except my dear husband. Well, I am glad I shall be joining him soon. And I hope and pray that my German cousin will use you all as you deserve!”

  I fell on my knees and reached desperately for the royal hand, but it was snatched away. “Ma’am, you are killing me!”

  “You, who dared to tell me that you lived for me alone! You’re the worst of the lot! Go now, and send Mrs. Danvers to me.”

  “Ma’am, I implore you! Hear me!”

  “Go!”

  And that was the last time that I talked to the Queen alone. I continued to attend in her bedchamber; indeed, I was there when she died, but there were always others present.

  The day after this terrible interview, when I had somewhat collected my shattered spirits, I sent for Monsieur Le Ménager, the French attaché who was known to be the “secret” agent of the Pretender. I handed him a miniature of the Queen that she had given me years before.

  “It is impossible for Her Majesty to do anything more for the Prince,” I said in a hurried half-whisper. “The Act of Settlement must stand. But she sends this to her brother with her blessing.”

  “But Lady Masham, may I ask what cause…”

  “No, monsieur, you m
ay not!”

  “But what shall I tell the Prince?”

  “That this interview is terminated.”

  All he could do was look black, bow and take his leave. That afternoon the Queen rallied and dismissed Lord Oxford as Treasurer. But to the surprise and consternation of many, she did not appoint Lord Bolingbroke to his place. She named the Duke of Shrewsbury, and the Hanoverian succession was assured.

  22

  It has been often said that I behaved discreditably, even dishonestly, at the Queen’s deathbed. People will have it that I neglected my dying mistress and busied myself seizing and packing up as many valuables as I could lay my grasping hands on. Nothing could be further from the truth. I stayed with the Queen as long as there was breath in her body, and afterward I proceeded, quietly and deliberately, to pack only my own things. It is true that I did not waste my time weeping or pulling a long face. I knew that my future would contain plenty of dark days in which to mourn my unkind but misguided mistress. I owed it now to my unendowed children to gather together all the objects of value that she had given me and get them out of the castle before some Hanoverian chamberlain should turn up to challenge my title. I had not learned about court life for nothing.

  King George I succeeded to the throne as promptly and decisively as Swift and Harley had predicted, and Bolingbroke, hopelessly compromised by his treasonable correspondence, fled the kingdom to join the Pretender in France. My husband, pale and shaking with fright, was preparing to follow him, when I astounded and relieved him at once by showing him a letter from the Duke of Shrewsbury, instructing Lord and Lady Masham that if they would proceed to their manor in Buckinghamshire and remain there, a benevolent eye might be cast on any actions in the previous reign that could put in question their loyalty to the House of Hanover. We were also advised that any interest we might have in trade contracts arising out of the late treaty negotiations had been vested in the crown.

  Masham’s second reaction was characteristic. He threw off his panic as rapidly as he donned his resentment.