the sufferings of the people. Such hideous carnage seemed at last to
cry aloud to Heaven for cessation. Pity and conscience, so long stifled
and tyrannised over, claimed at length to be heard. Weighing well also a
consideration no less potent over the Queen's heart, they represented
that the Whigs were her brother's most implacable enemies--that they
had set a price upon his head--that they (the Whigs) would never
recognise, as her successor, any other king than the Elector of Hanover;
that they (the Tories), on the contrary, felt neither repulsion nor
hatred for the Pretender, and that if the good of the country demanded
it, they would willingly favour his return. Finally they dwelt upon the
odious tyranny of the Duchess of Marlborough,[48] especially in the
scenes enacted at St. Paul's and Windsor, and promised the Queen to
deliver her from a woman whom she had ceased to love, and who had begun
to terrify her.

[48] Bolingbroke says so in express terms: "The true cause (of the
change of Ministry) was her discontent," &c.--Secret Memoirs of Lord
Bolingbroke, p. 18.

Lending a willing ear to such arguments, Anne gave herself up entirely
to Mrs. Masham, and the misunderstanding between the Queen and the
Duchess had become public, when a fresh outbreak of violence on the part
of the latter precipitated her disgrace.

On the occasion of a christening, at which Marlborough was to stand
godfather, the Duchess vowed that she would never consent to it if the
child were to bear the name of Anne, and she made use of an epithet
which neither a queen nor a woman could ever pardon. The word was duly
reported at St. James's. Anne heard it with the deepest indignation, and
so gross an outrage extinguished any latent spark of tenderness left in
her heart. The downfall of the Duchess and the Whigs was resolved upon.

Recognising her error when too late, the Duchess requested an audience
of the Queen, in the hope of exculpating herself. Anne, who dreaded her
furious violence, replied that she could justify herself by letter, and
to avoid the chance of an interview, left London for Kensington Palace.

Explicit, however, as was this step, it did not stop the Duchess. She
despatched a letter to the Queen, in which she excused herself, on the
score of the impossibility of writing such a justification, and
requested an interview--a proposition the most alarming conceivable to
the poor Queen, on account of the advantage which