ght secure a remote
posterity against evils such as the indiscreet liberality of former
Parliaments had produced. "From those evils Your Majesty has delivered
this generation. By accepting the gift of the Commons on the terms on
which it is offered Your Majesty will be also a deliverer of future
generations." William was not convinced; but he had too much wisdom and
selfcommand to give way to his ill humour; and he accepted graciously
what he could not but consider as ungraciously given, [599]

The Civil List was charged with an annuity of twenty thousand pounds to
the Princess of Denmark, in addition to an annuity of thirty thousand
pounds which had been settled on her at the time of her marriage. This
arrangement was the result of a compromise which had been effected with
much difficulty and after many irritating disputes. The King and Queen
had never, since the commencement of their reign, been on very good
terms with their sister. That William should have been disliked by a
woman who had just sense enough to perceive that his temper was sour and
his manners repulsive, and who was utterly incapable of appreciating his
higher qualities, is not extraordinary. But Mary was made to be loved.
So lively and intelligent a woman could not indeed derive much pleasure
from the society of Anne, who, when in good humour, was meekly stupid,
and, when in bad humour, was sulkily stupid. Yet the Queen, whose
kindness had endeared her to her humblest attendants, would hardly have
made an enemy of one whom it was her duty and her interest to make a
friend, had not an influence strangely potent and strangely malignant
been incessantly at work to divide the Royal House against itself.
The fondness of the Princess for Lady Marlborough was such as, in a
superstitious age, would have been ascribed to some talisman or potion.
Not only had the friends, in their confidential intercourse with each
other, dropped all ceremony and all titles, and become plain Mrs. Morley
and plain Mrs. Freeman; but even Prince George, who cared as much for
the dignity of his birth as he was capable of caring for any thing but
claret and calvered salmon, submitted to be Mr. Morley. The Countess
boasted that she had selected the name of Freeman because it was
peculiarly suited to the frankness and boldness of her character; and,
to do her justice, it was not by the ordinary arts of courtiers that she
established and long maintained her despotic empire over the feeb