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Authors: Anne Somerset
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and the Duchess were there, a message arrived from Charles agreeing that James could now base himself in Scotland. On 8 October 1679 the Duke and Duchess of York left Holland with Anne and Isabella, fortunately unaware that they would never see William and Mary again. Having dropped off their two daughters in London, they travelled overland to Scotland, arriving in Edinburgh on 24 November. Three months later, they were permitted to return to England, but when Parliament met again in the autumn of 1680, the King decided that James must leave the country once more. On 20 October the Duke and Duchess were forced to set out for Scotland, this time by sea.
Parliament opened on 21 October and at once the Commons drafted a new Exclusion Bill, providing for James to be barred from the throne and perpetually banished. The implications were serious for Mary and Anne: as James put it, if the measure became law it ‘would not only affect himself, but his children too’ since those who had voted for it ‘would never think themselves secure under the government of those whose father they have excluded’. Some of the Whigs, possibly including their leader the Earl of Shaftesbury, would have liked Charles’s illegitimate son, the Duke of Monmouth, to become king after his father. Whereas the first Exclusion Bill had expressly stated that on Charles’s death the crown should devolve upon the ‘next lawful heir’ who was Protestant – meaning Mary – the bill now introduced left the matter vague. After being modified in committee it once again specified that after James hadbeen bypassed, the line of succession would carry on unaltered, but from Mary and Anne’s point of view the earlier ambiguity on this point was an ominous development. 99 As it was, the bill did not become law, for after passing the House of Commons without a division, it was thrown out by the Lords. In January the King dissolved Parliament and announced that a new one would meet in Oxford in the spring.
While the Duke of York was in Scotland, a suitor appeared on the scene for the Lady Anne. This was Prince George Ludwig of Hanover, who like Anne was a great grandchild of King James I. He was the son of the Duke of Hanover and his wife Sophia, the youngest daughter of Charles I’s sister, Elizabeth of Bohemia. By the spring of 1680 he was already being ‘much talked of for a husband for Lady Anne’, and in many ways he seemed an ideal choice, as he was ‘a Protestant, very young, gallant and handsome and indifferent rich’. One English diplomat described it as the ‘more fit match for her of any prince I know in Christendom’. 100
Sophia’s brother, Prince Rupert of the Rhine, lived in England, and in January 1680 he had set things in motion by writing to tell his sister that he had been approached about a marriage between George and Anne. ‘All the realm would like it, so think about it’, he urged her. Sophia and her husband were slightly sceptical that the ‘fine things’ her brother promised of the marriage would actually materialise, but they were ready to give it serious consideration. Later that year Prince George went on a European tour, and arrived in England on 6 December. The King was very welcoming, providing him with apartments at Whitehall. The next day Prince George was introduced to Anne, and ‘saluted her by kissing her with the consent of the King’. Since the Prince did not leave the country until 11 March 1681, he almost certainly saw Anne on other occasions, but with James absent and the monarchy in crisis there could be no question of concluding anything. Even after George Ludwig’s departure, however, the idea of a union was by no means abandoned, and an Italian diplomat stationed in England believed that Anne had fallen in love with the Prince. 101
On 21 March 1681 Parliament met at Oxford. To avoid a complete rupture, the King offered a series of ‘expedients’ designed to safeguard the kingdom if his brother
Parliament opened on 21 October and at once the Commons drafted a new Exclusion Bill, providing for James to be barred from the throne and perpetually banished. The implications were serious for Mary and Anne: as James put it, if the measure became law it ‘would not only affect himself, but his children too’ since those who had voted for it ‘would never think themselves secure under the government of those whose father they have excluded’. Some of the Whigs, possibly including their leader the Earl of Shaftesbury, would have liked Charles’s illegitimate son, the Duke of Monmouth, to become king after his father. Whereas the first Exclusion Bill had expressly stated that on Charles’s death the crown should devolve upon the ‘next lawful heir’ who was Protestant – meaning Mary – the bill now introduced left the matter vague. After being modified in committee it once again specified that after James hadbeen bypassed, the line of succession would carry on unaltered, but from Mary and Anne’s point of view the earlier ambiguity on this point was an ominous development. 99 As it was, the bill did not become law, for after passing the House of Commons without a division, it was thrown out by the Lords. In January the King dissolved Parliament and announced that a new one would meet in Oxford in the spring.
While the Duke of York was in Scotland, a suitor appeared on the scene for the Lady Anne. This was Prince George Ludwig of Hanover, who like Anne was a great grandchild of King James I. He was the son of the Duke of Hanover and his wife Sophia, the youngest daughter of Charles I’s sister, Elizabeth of Bohemia. By the spring of 1680 he was already being ‘much talked of for a husband for Lady Anne’, and in many ways he seemed an ideal choice, as he was ‘a Protestant, very young, gallant and handsome and indifferent rich’. One English diplomat described it as the ‘more fit match for her of any prince I know in Christendom’. 100
Sophia’s brother, Prince Rupert of the Rhine, lived in England, and in January 1680 he had set things in motion by writing to tell his sister that he had been approached about a marriage between George and Anne. ‘All the realm would like it, so think about it’, he urged her. Sophia and her husband were slightly sceptical that the ‘fine things’ her brother promised of the marriage would actually materialise, but they were ready to give it serious consideration. Later that year Prince George went on a European tour, and arrived in England on 6 December. The King was very welcoming, providing him with apartments at Whitehall. The next day Prince George was introduced to Anne, and ‘saluted her by kissing her with the consent of the King’. Since the Prince did not leave the country until 11 March 1681, he almost certainly saw Anne on other occasions, but with James absent and the monarchy in crisis there could be no question of concluding anything. Even after George Ludwig’s departure, however, the idea of a union was by no means abandoned, and an Italian diplomat stationed in England believed that Anne had fallen in love with the Prince. 101
On 21 March 1681 Parliament met at Oxford. To avoid a complete rupture, the King offered a series of ‘expedients’ designed to safeguard the kingdom if his brother
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