BOOKS OF THE DAY

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2675, 22 January 1916, Page 9

BOOKS OF THE DAY

A STUDY IN STUART ROYALTY; Of the many handsome and clever women who,exercised a more or less' potent influence, upoil the later Stuart Kings, Anne Hyde, the first wife of the; Duke of York, who afterwards became the first wife of King James tho Second, has been curiously neglected by writers who have dealt with the Stuart period. And yet- by roason alone of her being the mother' of two English Queens, Mary and Anne, the Duchess of York, who died when only thirty-four years of age, might wellhave been deemed,; .one would have thought, worthy sf : ! more attention > than that mainly indirect, which is accorded her in' the often-quoted, but, nowadays, I fear, but little read pages of Clarendon, Burnett Evelyn, Pepys, and other contemporary ; chroniclers. It has 'been left to Mr. . J. R. Henslowe' toi write a detailed biography," Anne Hyde, Duchess of York" (London, Werner Laurie), which not only gives us a very striking full-length portrait of the Duke of York's/ first wife, but throws many interesting sidelights upon the court life and political history of the later Stuart period. Anne's father, James Hyde, a comparatively .unknown barrister, who, nevertheless, rose to be Lord Chancellor of England, was oonnected by mar. ' riage with the powerful Villiers family. He first sprang into prominence in 1640, when, as a_ representative of what might be .called the moderate or constitutional he organised the Royal Party in the House of Commons, and on the eve of the outbreak of the 'Revolution, drew - up,' the ' State papers for the Royalist press. Hyde was then representing Wotton . Bassett in his native county, . Wiltshire, and -was .'a • member for this constituency in the Long Parliament, later on also; representing Saltash. Had Charles I paid ; more heed to the wise counsels of such, men as Hyde and Falkland, it had not, perhaps, gope so ill with the second of the Stuart monarchs.. Hyde went into exile ' —at Antwerp and, Breda, at Aix and Paris—with' other prominent Royalists, and returning with Charles II at the Restoration, at once became a great personage at court, having been created Lord Chancellor two years previously, what was at that time a barren honour becoming a reality when the King "came into his own again," as the Cavalier party put it. 4 Mr. Henslowe tells the story of the attachment and secret, marriage between the Duke of/York and the Chancellor's eldest daughter at great length, and a very fascmating, story, it is, a story of.roir.antio love and; court and political intriguas. The lady had first met 1 the Duke at Breda, where she was maid of honour to Maxy, Princess of Orange, who seems to have suspected the attachment, and, in. her wounded pride, for to tlie mother of William IH the very idea .of such an attachment wasanathema, ;to/have'/dismissed the yonng lady from that position./ After the., Restoration, -to be exact, on the nightiof September/3, 1660, the pair were'VseS'etly-married, the Duke's deposition on that occasion recording the , fact, not in tho least astonishing 'in;;.'/a r Stuart pnnco.'s love story, that he had "lived; with Ann. for, many months' (though wi-fcH all;; possible secrecy) as my wife, and after-my coming into , this kingdom." Tho Queen-mother was terribly, angered when the news gradually got out, for Henrietta : Maria came "of Bourbon and Habsourg: blood, and both Pepys and Evelyn seem to have set down their opinions that the whole business spelt disaster to..the great -Chancellor. Mary, Princess/of Orange,;had also come to, England,. and was adding. her. voice . to. the chorus'' of/ indignant ■/reprobation. She could- not • for ono. moment think, so she said, "of yielding/precedence to one whom she had; honoured over much by admitting her into her service as maid of honour." - Mr.-Henslowe, tells also of the-base and "devilish .effrontery" of one of Clarendon's enemies, Sir • Charles Berkeley,:--who, - '"a -rejected suitor of- Mistress Hyde," ' 'cain'e '.forward and declared • the. unhappy' girlshe was: still but twenty-three—had been his mistress. From'the sea of intrigue which . surrounded , her, • the young duchess was fortunate enough to escape; for Berkeley, whether touched by the Duke's evident misery, 'or whether he saw his own ends were not likely to be served by his slanders, came forward with, a, full confession that his 'jtory had no foundation in fact,-and "a powerful auxiliary also was found in the- person of. the King, already henceforth a. kind and steady; friend to his-sister-in-law." ' ;

The marriage "was formally acknowledged) and eventually even.the proud Queen-mother 'seems to have' been- reconciled; to Nan Hyde beginning her career as a princess. Bishop Burnett, in his famous "History of (My Own Time," testifies that the Ductless was "a woman.'of great spirit," "a very extraordinary'woman," who "had great knowledge and a lively sense ofotMugs, and there can be little doubt that- she was, for the most , past, a very wiso. counsellor to a husband, who was not given, either in politics or in love, to any extravagant display of prudence. She had no great pretensions to good looks, Lely's portrait shows her as a. fullBlown beauty, and in. all existing pictures of her the abnormally, wide mouth is an unpleasant feature. As she grew older she became very fat, but ; she is credited by contemporary writers with an undoubted wit and "a certain conquering charm, of manner," which, as Mr._ Henslowe says, "joined' to certain brilliant "endowments of mind, made up for the want of personal attractions in an age which, perhaps of all others, most prized such an attribute." She was always a favourite with the Merry Monarch. TJpon the great Chancellor's career and downfall Mr. Henslowe dis-, courses at some length, and ho, also makes ' a special feature" of : 'the much-discussed • conversion of: -the Duchess of York • to' /. the Roman Catholic faith, an event- which drew from her father, the exiled Chancellor, a long and very interesting lettor of- expostulation. She died in 1671 from cancer, that same disease to which, curiously enough, her successor, Mary of Modena, was doomed to succumb. It was a 6ad end, for apparently-she was greatly pestered by the clerics. Bishop Blandford, despite the dying woman's request that no bishops "should disturb her with controversy," came to the bedside, and said, "gently but distinctly": "I hope you continue still in truth."- "Possibly," writes Mr. Henslowe, "only the one word reached her failing senses, but she answered brokenly with Pilate's question: 'What is truth?'" "ibid then," so the chronicle continues, "her agony increasing, she repeated the word, 'Truth, truth, truth.' " As to the husband, who had once loved her very dearly, but whoso "early, imperious, passionate love" had been, alas, succeeded by so many infidelities, he stooped over her and spoke in hushed, unsteady accents: "Dame, doe ye knowe me?" After great striving, came the answer: "Aye," and then the last pathetic words, . "Duke, duke, death is terrible—very terrible." A/wvcdiaa to_

Burnett she "died little beloved"— "haughtiness gained her many enemies, and her change of religion made her friends think her death a blessing at that time." But Burnett was a prejudiced critic, and despite her haughtiness she was a general favourite at Court. Mr. Henslowe's biography of this very remarkable woman, who gave England two Queens, and whose bones lie undisturbed in Westminster Abbey to this day, whilst those of her royal husband were destined to bo buried in Paris, to be east out in dishonour, li.ke those, of the great louses of Valois and Bourbon, during the French Revolution, is a most interesting contribution to the history of the Stuart period. The volume contains several well-produced portraits. , '