n among Protestants. This slowness and obstinacy
made her important. It was a great thing to be the only member of the
Royal Family who regarded Papists and Presbyterians with an impartial
aversion. While a large party was disposed to make her an idol, she was
regarded by her two artful servants merely as a puppet. They knew that
she had it in her power to give serious annoyance to the government; and
they determined to use this power in order to extort money, nominally
for her, but really for themselves. While Marlborough was commanding
the English forces in the Low Countries, the execution of the plan was
necessarily left to his wife; and she acted, not as he would doubtless
have acted, with prudence and temper, but, as is plain even from her own
narrative, with odious violence and insolence. Indeed she had passions
to gratify from which he was altogether free. He, though one of the most
covetous, was one of the least acrimonious of mankind; but malignity
was in her a stronger passion than avarice. She hated easily; she hated
heartily; and she hated implacably. Among the objects of her hatred were
all who were related to her mistress either on the paternal or on the
maternal side. No person who had a natural interest in the Princess
could observe without uneasiness the strange infatuation which made her
the slave of an imperious and reckless termagant. This the Countess well
knew. In her view the Royal Family and the family of Hyde, however they
might differ as to other matters, were leagued against her; and she
detested them all, James, William and Mary, Clarendon and Rochester. Now
was the time to wreak the accumulated spite of years. It was not enough
to obtain a great, a regal, revenue for Anne. That revenue must be
obtained by means which would wound and humble those whom the favourite
abhorred. It must not be asked, it must not be accepted, as a mark of
fraternal kindness, but demanded in hostile tones, and wrung by force
from reluctant hands. No application was made to the King and Queen. But
they learned with astonishment that Lady Marlborough was indefatigable
in canvassing the Tory members of Parliament, that a Princess's party
was forming, that the House of Commons would be moved to settle on Her
Royal Highness a vast income independent of the Crown. Mary asked her
sister what these proceedings meant. "I hear," said Anne, "that my
friends have a mind to make me some settlement." It is said that the
Queen, gre