cing one
foolish woman, who was often unmanageable, to manage another woman who
was more foolish still.

In one point the Earl and the Countess were perfectly agreed. They were
equally bent on getting money; though, when it was got, he loved to
hoard it, and she was not unwilling to spend it, [600] The favour of the
Princess they both regarded as a valuable estate. In her father's reign,
they had begun to grow rich by means of her bounty. She was naturally
inclined to parsimony; and, even when she was on the throne, her
equipages and tables were by no means sumptuous, [601] It might have
been thought, therefore, that, while she was a subject, thirty thousand
a year, with a residence in the palace, would have been more than
sufficient for all her wants. There were probably not in the kingdom two
noblemen possessed of such an income. But no income would satisfy the
greediness of those who governed her. She repeatedly contracted debts
which James repeatedly discharged, not without expressing much surprise
and displeasure.

The Revolution opened to the Churchills a new and boundless prospect of
gain. The whole conduct of their mistress at the great crisis had proved
that she had no will, no judgment, no conscience, but theirs. To
them she had sacrificed affections, prejudices, habits, interests. In
obedience to them, she had joined in the conspiracy against her father;
she had fled from Whitehall in the depth of winter, through ice and
mire, to a hackney coach; she had taken refuge in the rebel camp; she
had consented to yield her place in the order of succession to the
Prince of Orange. They saw with pleasure that she, over whom they
possessed such boundless influence, possessed no common influence over
others. Scarcely had the Revolution been accomplished when many Tories,
disliking both the King who had been driven out and the King who had
come in, and doubting whether their religion had more to fear from
Jesuits or from Latitudinarians, showed a strong disposition to rally
round Anne. Nature had made her a bigot. Such was the constitution of
her mind that to the religion of her nursery she could not but adhere,
without examination and without doubt, till she was laid in her coffin.
In the court of her father she had been deaf to all that could be urged
in favour of transubstantiation and auricular confession. In the court
of her brother in law she was equally deaf to all that could be urged in
favour of a general unio