Tangled Love
By
Rosemary Morris
I have written three
books set in the reign of Queen Anne Stuart. Each one is firmly set in past
times.
Tangled Love set
in England in 1706, during Queen Anne Stuart’s reign, is the story of a
daughter’s sacred oath to her father, a Jacobite, two great estates, duty,
betrayal and passionate love. PG
The inspiration
for Tangled Love came when I read non-fiction about the Stuart Kings and
Queens.
The Future Queen Anne Stuart
More often than not, when I mention Queen Anne people
assume I refer to Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII’s ill-fated queen. In fact, I am
referring to Queen Anne Stuart, who reigned from 1702 to 1714. During her
reign, the Duke of Marlborough, an ancestor of Winston Churchill, led the
country to victory against the French in the war of Spanish succession. During
her reign the Act of Union with Scotland, which has repercussions today, was
passed
The Cinderella Princess
When the future Queen Anne
Stuart was born on the 6th February, 1665, neither her uncle, King
Charles II, nor her father, James, Charles’ brother, heir to the throne,
imagined she would become the last of the Stuart monarchs. Charles’ seven
bastards had proved his virility, so it seemed certain he would have legitimate
heirs to the throne, but his queen was barren. However, his brother and
sister-in-law, James and Anne, the Duke and Duchess of York, had produced
heirs, an older brother and sister for the latest addition to their nursery,
Baby Anne.
Princess Anne
and her older sister, Princess Mary, grew up in their nursery but their four
siblings died. One can imagine the effect of these deaths on a small girl with
poor health, whose weak eyes watered constantly.
With the
king’s consent, in the hope that her eyesight could be improved, her parents
sent the four-year old to her grandmother, widow of the executed first Charles,
who now lived in France.
In a portrait
of Anne as a small girl her eyes, set in an oval face with a mouth shaped in a
perfect cupid’s bow, are wary.
In
1699, Anne’s grandmother died, and the child passed into the care of her father’s
sister, Henrietta Maria. In 1670 Anne’s aunt died. Her eyesight only slightly
improved, Anne returned to England.
By
then her mother was unpopular because she had converted to the Church of Rome. James
also converted, but the politics demanded the king’s heirs, Anne and her elder
sister, Mary, be raised in the Protestant faith.
The
princesses were sent to Richmond-on-Thames, where they benefited from country
air. Their indulgent father visited them regularly, showered them with gifts
and often stayed for several nights at Richmond Palace. Yet all was not well
with the family. In 1673, due to the Test Act, which excluded anyone who did
not take communion in the Anglican Church from public office, James was forced
to resign as Lord High Admiral and to give up all his other official positions.
In that age of fervent religious allegiances, what effect did religious
controversy have on Anne, a stubborn child?
At
that time, motherless Anne’s history had all the ingredients of a fictional
heroine, but what would she make of her life?
After all, she belonged to the tragic Stuart family. It is not surprising
that the princess living in the shadow of her older, cleverer sister, Mary,
became deeply attached to twelve-year old Sarah Jennings, the daughter of a landed
gentleman, and future wife of The Duke of Marlborough, with whom her friendship
would last into middle age.
Years
later Sara wrote: We had used to play together when she was a child and she
even then expressed a particular fondness for me. This inclination increased
with our years. I was often at Court and the Princess always distinguished me
by the pleasure she took to honour me, preferably to others, with her
conversation and confidence. In all her parties for amusement, I was sure by
her choice to be one.
Anne
was pretty with plump features, red-brown hair and her mother’s elegant hands
of which she was very proud. However, she was shy, easily ignored and all too
aware of her short-comings – her poor education did nothing to boost her
confidence. As Sarah said years later: Your Majesty has had the misfortune
to be misinformed in general things even from twelve years old.
Undoubtedly,
there was no reason to provide Anne and her sister with a better education
because it was probable that the Queen would provide an heir to the throne. In
Anne’s day few women could read and write – perhaps only one in a hundred were
literate. For Anne it is likely that little more than dancing, drawing, French
and music were required to prepare her for life at court. Her general education
was neglected but not her religious education, which was rigorous and founded
her life-long belief in the teachings of the Anglican faith.
Anne and Mary
continued to live apart from the court and their indulgent Roman Catholic father
and fifteen-year old step-mother, whom James adored and who would bear a son.
Expected to be virtuous, the sisters could not have been totally unaware of the
licentiousness of the court, and that their uncle, the king, and their father
had illegitimate children, whom they had acknowledged
Lax though the
second Charles’s morals were, he took some interest in Anne, who would be one
of the best guitar players at court. She also had a pleasing voice, so he
ordered the actress, Mrs Barry, to give Anne and Mary elocution lessons. These
stood Anne in good stead when, as Queen, she addressed Parliament, and no doubt
when she and Mary took part in some of the masques and plays popular at Court.
However, Anne
and Mary grew up in the company of clerics and women, secluded from Whitehall
with little to entertain them. One can imagine the boring conversations,
stifling closets (small rooms) and endless card games. Later Sarah wrote: I
wished myself out of Court as much as I had desired to come into it before I
knew what it was.
In spite of the
boredom, and storms that lay ahead, the Anne dearly loved her sister. So much
so that when Mary married her Dutch cousin, William of Orange, in 1677 while
Anne lay sick of smallpox, her father, who visited her every day, ordered that
she should not be told her sister had departed for the Continent. The charade
went as far as messages purported to be from Mary asking about her health being
delivered to Anne.
As soon as |Anne
recovered, she had to cope with separation from her sister. Fortunately, she
still had Sarah’s companionship, and enjoyed the vast grounds of Richmond
Palace. However, this tranquillity would soon be disturbed by the so called
‘Popish Plot’, in which, according to a criminal called Titus Oates, Catholic
families planned to murder Protestants in London, overthrow the government and,
amongst other things, kill the king.
After the
subsequent hysteria Anne’s father and stepmother were sent to Brussels in March
1679. She visited them in August accompanied by her chaplains. However, she was
never allowed to enter any one of the many Roman Catholic Churches. When her father and stepmother went to
Scotland, Anne visited them between July
1681 and May 1682. Never again would she leave England.
An Eligible Princess
The king did not
have a legitimate heir, so Anne was third in the line of succession.
Anne’s sister, Mary,
her stepmother Mary of Modena and Sarah Churchill married when they were
fifteen. It was time to find a bridegroom for Anne. In December, 1680, Anne’s
cousin, Prince George of Hanover, the future King George 1, had visited the
English court, which was still recovering from the Popish plot. It is possible
George came to view Anne but not ‘taking’ to her, he quit the realm without approaching
her father or the king for her hand in marriage. Subsequently, perhaps it was
the case of a woman spurned for, to the end of her life, Anne disliked George
so much that the succession to the throne was endangered.
Even if George
unjustly found his cousin unattractive others did not, and a scandal ensued
when John, Lord Mulgrave, a womaniser, made what was described as ‘a brisk
attempt’ on the Lady Anne. Mulgrave denied it. He claimed he merely ogled her.
The king and Anne’s father were alarmed. Mulgrave forfeited his offices at
Court before being despatched on a leaky frigate to Tangiers. It seems Anne was
not indifferent to Mulgrave. He remained one of her personal favourites. When
she succeeded to the throne in 1702, he was appointed Lord Privy Seal and Lord
Lieutenant of the North Riding of Yorkshire. In 1703 he was created Duke of
Buckingham and Normanby.
Early in May
1683, the king was closeted with the Danish envoy to his court at Whitehall.
Not long afterwards, Anne was told she would wed the younger brother of the
king of Denmark, thirty-year old Prince George, who would arrive in England to
marry her within three months.
Anne’s large,
fair-haired husband-to-be had fought by land and sea against the Swedes. The
rumour that he had saved his brother’s life in battle made him seem glamorous,
and might have intrigued the Lady Anne. When he arrived at court an eye-witness
described him as: “a comely person… with few pockmarks on his visage, but of
very decent and graceful behaviour.
Ten days after
Prince George arrived in England he married the Lady Anne, appropriately on
Saint Anne’s day, the 28th July, 1683. Throughout their marriage
Anne and George were close to each other, and she loved him very much.
Unfortunately, Anne suffered 12 miscarriages and each of her five children died
when they were young.
The
Queen (in brief)
Anne’s uncle
died in 1685, leaving a country torn by religious controversy. The throne
passed to Anne’s Catholic father. He became so unpopular that he was forced
into exile in 1688, after which Anne’s sister Mary and her husband, William of
Orange became the new king and queen of England. Some English Protestants, who
had sworn allegiance to Mary and Anne’s father, refused to take a new oath of
allegiance to William and Mary, and joined James II in France. When Anne
inherited the throne after her father’s death in 1702 many Protestant exiles
returned to England. Others declared themselves Jacobites and supporters of
James II son, who could not inherit the throne because he was a Roman Catholic.
https;//www.amazon.co.uk/Tangled – Love
- ebook/dp/B01LZRP7AE
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Love/ebook/dp/B01LZRP7AE
Published by Books We Love.
Available as e-publications and
paperbacks.
Early 18th century novels by
Rosemary Morris
Tangled Love
Far Beyond Rubies
The Captain and The Countess
Regency novels
False Pretences
Sunday’s Child Heroines born on different days of the week.
Book 1.
Monday’s Child Heroines born on different days of the week.
Book 2
Tuesday’s Child Heroines born on different days of the
week Book 3
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