Free Queen Anne: The Politics of Passion by Anne Somerset Page A

King’s mistresses. How far matters had gone between him and Anne was a matter for speculation. There was fanciful talk of a secret marriage, but Mulgrave himself insisted that his crime was ‘only ogling’. Others were sure he ‘had often presented her with songs and letters under hand’, and that the King had confiscated onecompromising document. It was whispered too that Mulgrave had made ‘brisk attempts’ on Anne’s virtue and some thought he had gone ‘so far as to spoil her marrying to anybody else’. 112
    The French ambassador reported that Mulgrave’s disgrace was ‘as complete as it ever can be in this country’. It turned out not to be permanent, for having been awarded another regiment in 1684 he was made Lord Chamberlain a few months after James II’s accession. At the time, however, the episode not only exposed Anne to humiliation but was potentially very damaging. ‘Extraordinary rumours are current about this affair’ Louis XIV was told by his ambassador, and unflattering verses mocking Anne and Mulgrave were soon in circulation. One anonymous rhyme sneered that
‘Naughty Nan
Is mad to marry Haughty’. 113
    For young women and girls the Restoration court was ‘a perilous climate … to breathe in’. In some ways it was a place of astonishingly lax morals. The sexual habits of the King and the Duke of York were widely emulated by rakes and libertines who looked ‘on the maids of honour as playthings’. One young lady in the Duchess of York’s household complained of ‘the impunity with which they attack our innocence’, but the same latitude was not extended to women. Even minor transgressions could result in disgrace and ruin, and their virtue was compromised by the merest hint of scandal. The Marquis of Halifax warned his daughter ‘It will not be enough for you to keep yourself free from any criminal engagements; for if you do that which either raises hopes or createth discourse, there is a spot thrown upon your good name … Your reputation … may be deeply wounded, though your conscience is unconcerned’. 114 Judged by these criteria, Anne had opened herself to censure.
    Halifax cautioned his daughter that other women would be the first to criticise if she found herself in trouble, and certainly Anne’s sister Mary made a meal of her tribulations. When Frances Apsley (by this time a married woman herself) wrote to Holland to inform her of the scandal, Mary professed herself aghast. ‘For my part I never knew what it was to be so vexed and troubled’ she declared, adding, ‘Not but that I believe my sister very innocent; however, I am so nice upon the point of reputation that it makes me mad she should be exposed to such reports, and now what will not this insolent man say, being provoked?’ 115

    Another ramification of the affair was that Mrs Mary Cornwallis, of the Duchess of York’s Bedchamber – who was said to be ‘in great favour with the Princess Anne’ – was dismissed from her post and ‘ordered never to come into her presence more’. The French ambassador assumed that Mrs Cornwallis had acted as Anne’s confidante, and that ‘there had been a secret correspondence between her and Milord Mulgrave’. However, there might have been other reasons behind her dismissal. Mrs Cornwallis was a Catholic, and Bishop Compton reportedly voiced fears at the Council table ‘of the dangerous consequence such a woman’s being about the princess might have’. Much later the Duchess of Marlborough insinuated that there had been additional grounds for concern. She described Mrs Cornwallis as Anne’s ‘first favourite’ and noted that ‘the fondness of the young lady to her was very great and passionate’. The Duchess recounted that over the past three or four years ‘Lady Anne had written … above a thousand letters full of the most violent professions of everlasting kindness’, to this favoured companion, adding that King Charles ‘used to say “No man ever