The Children of Westminster Abbey Part 13

Bonae Memoriae Et spei aeternae.

FOOTNOTES:

[94] "Fuller's Worthies." Vol. II. p. 108.

[95] "English Princesses." M. A. Greene, p. 395.

[96] Short view of the Life of Henry, Duke of Gloucester, 1661, p. 16.

[97] Life of Henry, Duke of Gloucester. p. 17.

[98] "Life of Henry, Duke of Gloucester." p. 19.

[99] "Life of Henry, Duke of Gloucester."

[100] "Life of Henry, Duke of Gloucester."

[101] "Life of Henry, Duke of Gloucester."

[102] "Life of Henry, Duke of Gloucester." p. 26.

[103] Ibid.

[104] Ibid.

[105] "Life of Henry, Duke of Gloucester." p. 39.

[106] "Somers' Civil Tract." p. 316.

[107] "Somer's Civil Notes."

[108] "Bishop Burnet's History of his own Time." Vol. I. p. 248.

CHAPTER XII.

WILLIAM HENRY, DUKE OF GLOUCESTER.

From our childhood up we have all heard of "Good Queen Anne." When we were small tots in the nursery we sang little rhymes about

Queen Anne, Queen Anne, she sat in the sun.

I send you three letters, you don't read one.

Then as we grew older we succ.u.mbed more or less to the rage for the eighteenth century which has laid hold on so large a section of English and Americans during the last few years. And we began to use Queen Anne's name in season and out of season--to talk glibly of Queen Anne architecture, Queen Anne furniture, and Queen Anne plate. The subject is doubtless an interesting one. And I for one am grateful to Queen Anne--or rather to the architects of her reign. Those stately red brick houses of her time, though they are far less graceful than Elizabethan mansions, and less romantic than the French chateaux of the same period with their high roofs, and charming tourelles with extinguisher tops, are among the most comfortable, homelike, lovable dwelling-places we can find in England.

The plate too of Queen Anne's reign is justly esteemed as the handsomest and richest that can be found. As I write a bit of veritable Queen Anne plate stands beside me on the table--a graceful little candlestick five inches high, of plain, solid silver. No need to look at its Hall-mark, or puzzle over its history; for the only ornament on its foot is an open-work pattern formed of roughly cut letters, "Queen Anne. 1702"; and on the rim above is engraved "His Highness Prince George. S.^{L}S. Anno Dom. 1702."

The candlestick was a present from Queen Anne on her coronation, to a certain old ancestress of ours, who had been one of the ladies in attendance on the Queen's young son, William Henry, Duke of Gloucester--the only one of her numerous children who lived beyond his babyhood.

This little boy, the last of our children of Westminster Abbey, was born on July 24, 1689. It was a memorable year in the history of England, for it had seen the great and bloodless revolution by which James the Second had been driven from Great Britain, and William the Third put on the throne. The misgovernment of James had become unbearable; and William, Prince of Orange, who had married the king's eldest daughter Mary, was invited "by a small party of ardent Whigs to a.s.sist in preserving the civil and religious liberties of the nation." William and Mary accepted the Declaration of Right, and were crowned as joint sovereigns on April 11, 1689. They had no children. So when Princess Anne, the Queen's sister, and wife of Prince George of Denmark, gave birth to her little boy in the following July, he was welcomed as the future King of England.

King William and the King of Denmark were the baby's G.o.dfathers. The marchioness of Halifax was his G.o.dmother. Queen Mary adopted him as her heir; and the king conferred upon him the t.i.tle of Duke of Gloucester: but he was not created Duke "because his mother considered that t.i.tle dreadfully unlucky."

But at first it seemed highly improbable that the poor child would live long. He was delicate from his birth--very small--and for two months his death was constantly expected. The doctors advised an incessant change of nurses; and the wretched baby, as was to be expected, grew weaker and weaker. At last, however, a fine-looking young Quakeress, a Mrs. Pack, with a month-old baby in her arms, came up from Kingston to tell the Princess Anne of a remedy which had done her children good. The Prince of Denmark besought her to become wet-nurse to the suffering little prince; and from that moment the unfortunate child began to thrive.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WESTMINSTER ABBEY, LOOKING TOWARD THE ALTAR. _From etching by H. Toussaint._]

Then came the question of the most healthy residence for the baby on whom so much depended. And Princess Anne at length chose Lord Craven's fine house at Kensington Gravelpits, which he offered to lend her for the little prince's nursery. He went out every day, no matter how cold it was, in a tiny carriage which the d.u.c.h.ess of Ormonde presented to him. The horses were in keeping with the size of the carriage; for they were a pair of Shetland ponies "scarcely larger than good-sized mastiffs," and were guided by d.i.c.k Drury, the Prince of Denmark's coachman.

The first two or three years of the little Duke of Gloucester's life were spent between Lord Craven's house at Kensington, and London. For in those days Kensington was a country village, out in the woods and fields. West of Mayfair there were no houses until Kensington was reached on the breezy slopes of Camden Hill. South Kensington, that vast quarter of handsome houses, has only come into existence in the last fifty years. The writer's grandfather was laughed at for going "out of town," when he and his old friend, Lord Ess.e.x, built themselves two of the first houses in Belgrave Square about 1830. And one of his sons-in-law, when a lad at Westminster School early in the century, remembers snipe-shooting in the marshes which separated Chelsea from London.

The Princess Anne and the queen were on exceedingly bad terms, the chief reason of their disagreement being Anne's pa.s.sionate devotion to the famous Sarah Jennings, wife of the yet more famous Duke of Marlborough.

The Marlboroughs, a clever, able, ambitious, unscrupulous pair, encouraged the jealousy between the sisters to secure their own ends, and at length formed a "Princess's party," which gave William the Third considerable trouble during his reign. The Queen insisted that Lady Marlborough, as she then was, should be dismissed from the Princess's service. Anne was equally determined to keep her beloved friend about her at all risks. This led to endless disputes and quarrels between the royal ladies; and the little Duke of Gloucester became a fresh subject of contention. When she was in town,

the Princess, who was a tender mother, pa.s.sed much of her time in the nursery of her heir.... Whenever the Queen heard her sister was there she forebore to enter the room, but would send an inquiry or a message to her royal nephew--"a compliment," as it was called in the phraseology of the day.

The set speech used to be delivered by the queen's official in formal terms to the unconscious infant, as he sat on his nurse's knee; and then the courtly messenger would depart, without taking the slightest notice of the Princess Anne, although she was in the room with her child. Sometimes Queen Mary sent her nephew rattles or b.a.l.l.s, or other toys, all which were chronicled in the _Gazette_ with great solemnity; but every attention to the little Gloucester was attended with some signal impertinence to his mother.[109]

For two years the little boy throve well in the good air of Kensington, without any illness. But in the third year he was attacked by ague.

Fifty years before he would probably have been bled and reduced in every way, and would speedily have died. But medical science was improving; and a wonderful discovery had been made in far-off Peru. The ague was cured by Doctor Radcliffe and Sir Charles Scarborough, "who prescribed the Jesuit's Powder, of which the Duke took large quant.i.ties early in the spring of 1694, for the same complaint most manfully."[110]

This Jesuit's Powder was none other than the famous Peruvian Bark, made as we all know from the bark of the Chinchona trees, so-called by Linnaeus after the Countess of Chincon, wife of the Viceroy of Peru. This lady's cure in 1638 from a desperate fever, brought the quinine--the "bark-of-barks" as its Indian name signifies--into notice, and gave the world one of the most precious remedies we possess against disease.

This ague was the first, but by no means the last illness our poor little boy had to endure; for all through his short life he was delicate.

His faithful attendant, Jenkin Lewis, a young man who was tenderly attached to him, has left us a most interesting memoir of the young prince. And from this we get charming details of his daily life, his many illnesses, and his character.

When first he began to walk about and speak plain, he fancied he must be of all trades; one day a carpenter, another day a smith, and so on; which the queen observing sent him a box of ivory tools, said to cost twenty-five pounds, which he used till he learnt the names of them, and also the terms of those mechanical arts.[111]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE OLD DORMITORY AT WESTMINSTER SCHOOL.]

But from his infancy the little duke began to show his pa.s.sion for horses, drums, and anything to do with soldiers. In 1693, when he was only four years old, he threw away childish toys, saying he was a man and a soldier. And he had up from Kensington village a little company of twenty-two boys, wearing paper caps and armed with wooden swords, who enlisted themselves as his guard. The duke was enchanted; and appointed a very pretty boy, Sir Thomas Lawrence's son, to be lieutenant. This little army was his constant delight. In a short time the child gained a real knowledge of military matters; and before long he began to use his bodyguard to some purpose. In 1694, seeing how active he was, and that "his stiff-bodied coats were very troublesome to him in his military amus.e.m.e.nts," the Prince and Princess put him into breeches on Easter Day.

His suit was a white camblet, with silver loops, and b.u.t.tons of silver thread. He wore stiff stays under his waistcoat, which hurt him; whereupon, Mr. Hughes, his taylor, was sent for; when he came the duke bade his boys (whom he stiled his Horse Guards) put the taylor on the wooden horse, which stood in the presence-room for the punishment of offenders, as is usual in martial law: who presently were for hoisting him on, if they had had strength enough.[112]

It must have been an absurd scene. The little duke, not five years old, in his first pair of breeches, long waistcoat of white and silver, and coat with wide skirts and handsome, deep-cuffed sleeves--the bodyguard of small rogues setting on their victim--and the hapless tailor, who was so genuinely alarmed at these violent proceedings, that good-natured Jenkin had to beg him off.

A year or two later we find the duke going down to Kensington Palace, where he ordered his boys--now two companies numbering ninety in all, armed with wooden swords and muskets, and in red grenadiers' caps--to exercise in the garden before the king and queen. The king was delighted; and gave the young soldiers twenty guineas, besides two gold pieces which he presented to one of them, William Gardner, who beat the drum "equal to the ablest drummer." The next day, Sunday, the king sent word he was coming to visit his nephew. This was a great occasion, as the king very seldom came to see him. The duke prepared a pasteboard fortification, and got his four little bra.s.s cannon ready; and when the king arrived the boy was so engrossed in shewing him that he could salute him like a soldier and afterwards "compliment him," that he could not be persuaded to thank His Majesty first for coming. He fired his cannon, and he

then talked to the king of horses and arms, and thanked him of his own accord for the honor he did him in coming to see him. He told the king that one of his cannon was broke; the king promised to send him some cannon, but never did; the duke thanked him and complimented him in these words--"My dear king, you shall have both my companies with you to Flanders," where the king was to go soon after.[113]

All his talk was of wars, soldiers, and fortifications.

He was scarce seven years old when he understood the terms of fortification and navigation, knew all the different parts of a strong place, and a ship of war, and could marshall a company of boys, who had voluntarily listed themselves to attend him.... He had a particular aversion to dancing and all womanish exercises, his whole delight being in martial sports and hunting.[114]