Chapter IX: Mary Beatrice of Modena, Queen-Consort of James II (3)

The chapel had all been hung in black by the nuns as soon as the king's death was announced, and when the tolling of the bell warned them of Mary Beatrice's approach, they went in procession to receive her at the convent gate. She descended from her coach in silence, followed by four noble ladies who had accompanied her. The nuns gathered around her without speaking, the abbess kissed the hem of her robe, some of the sisters embraced her knees, and others respectfully pressed their lips to her hand, but no one ventured to offer a word of comfort.

The queen passed straight into the chapel; she was bowed down with grief, though she did not shed a tear. That time was passed, and she seemed stupefied. One of the nuns approached and asked in the words of the psalmist, "My soul, will you not be subject to God?" {312}"His will be done," replied the queen, in a tremulous voice. Prostrating herself before the altar, she remained long in prayer. At last the nuns begged her to eat, for she had partaken of no food since the night before, and they feared she would faint. She was led to her bedroom, but insisted on hearing more prayers, and complained that she could not weep, saying "that even that solace was denied her."

Her attendants were sent to bed, but two of the nuns passed the night with the queen, who moaned and sighed and prayed by turns with scarcely a moment's repose. The next night the king's heart was conveyed to Chaillot and placed near that of his mother; but by King Louis's order it was received so quietly that Mary Beatrice was not excited by it. However, a few hours later she assured the abbess that she felt it was near her, and spoke a great deal about her dead husband. Among other things, she said: "That he had felt his humiliation, and above all the injustice he had experienced, very keenly; but that the love of God had changed all his calamities into blessings."

Mary Beatrice would have liked to pass the rest of her days at Chaillot, but she had other duties to perform and many more years to live.

In his will King James had directed that he should be buried with his ancestors at Westminster Abbey; therefore the queen ordered that the funeral service should be performed in France, but that the body should remain unburied until the restoration of her son, which she fondly hoped would soon take place.

It was therefore at the chapel of the Benedictine Monks that the corpse of King James remained covered with the pall for many years, until all hope for the Stuart family had vanished forever.

The queen remained at Chaillot only four days, for her {313}children needed her at St. Germain, and she returned to them on the nineteenth of September.

The next day King Louis called on her, and she received him in a darkened room hung with black. He tried very hard to console the widowed queen by kind offers of protection to her and her son, and insisted upon her receiving the same courtesy from his ministers as though she had been queen regent really and not only in name.

[[A.D. 1702.]] However King James's will had given her that title, and her first steps was to publish a manifesto in the name of her son, setting forth his claim to the crown of Great Britain. It made little impression in England, but those who were opposed to King William in Scotland were anxious to bring the young king forward. So Lord Belhaven was sent to consult the queen as to what was best to do, and told her that if only her young son would declare himself a Protestant he should be proclaimed King of Scotland without waiting either for the death of William or the consent of parliament. Her majesty replied: "That she would never be the means of persuading her son to barter his hopes of Heaven for a crown." Then Lord Belhaven was willing to compromise, and said, "That if the prince would not change his religion, would he not agree that only a limited number of Romish priest, should enter his kingdom, and that he would make no attempt to alter the established religion?" This the queen freely promised in the name of her son, and then the lord declared that he and his party would do all in their power to establish King James's heir on the throne.

Mary Beatrice would have resigned herself to fate if she had not felt convinced that her son's rights were denied him so long as any Stuart claimed the crown. At the time of the prince's birth, parliament had decided that he should succeed his father, James II., and a new interest was {314}awakened in him on account of the sympathy felt in England for him and his widowed mother. Alarmed that such would be the state of affairs, William hired a notorious fellow to prove that the Prince of Wales was not the son of James II. and Mary Beatrice at all, but that one Mrs. Mary Grey was his real mother, who had been murdered in Paris shortly after his birth. A copy of the book containing a full account of this matter was presented to the lords, the ministers of state, and the lord mayor. Of course this statement was utterly false and absurd, and raised the indignation of the House of Commons to such a degree that Fuller, the man who got out the book, underwent the disgrace of the pillory. But as he had often been employed by William III. as a spy and had been punished more than once for perjury, he did not sink under the disgrace as an honest man would have done.

As soon as the news of King James's death reached William III. he was prepared with a blow to aim at his orphan cousin that he was determined should not fail if he could help it. It was an accusation of high treason, in which Mary Beatrice was also included. The bill, as William presented it to his parliament, did not designate his uncle's widow as the queen dowager, because he had pocketed her dower, and he desired to deprive her even of the honors due a royal lady. So she is called "Mary, late wife of the late King James."

Without describing all the scenes enacted in parliament while this disgraceful bill was under consideration, it is only necessary for us to know that it passed the House of Lords; but when it was laid before the Commons, they pitched it under the table.

The very last act of William III. was to affix the royal seal to the bill that he had exerted every means to have executed against the young Prince of Wales. He was on {315}his death-bed when it was presented for his signature, but controlled his almost paralyzed fingers enough for the accomplishment of this last act of hatred.

He expired the next day.

Mary Beatrice was so ill when this event occurred that no one ventured to speak of it in her presence. Her life hung on a thread for many days and depended for its continuance on absolute repose. Therefore she could take no steps towards claiming the crown of England for her son at the proper moment; and by the time she was convalescent her step-daughter Anne was peacefully settled on the throne, and all hope for the young prince vanished forever. But Simon Fraser, generally called Lord Lovat, had proclaimed the prince King of Scotland, in the county of Inverness as soon as the death of William III. was known there. When Mary Beatrice was well enough to attend to business, this man presented himself at St. Germain as the representative of a large party in his native land, and urged the queen-mother to send her son to Scotland to fight for his rights. He said that an army of twelve thousand men could easily be raised in the Highlands, provided the King of France would assist with arms and money, and that the Scottish people would spare no efforts if they could only see the prince for whom they were to fight in their midst. But Mary Beatrice considered her boy too young to undertake such a perilous enterprise; and the very thought of the fate that awaited him, should he fall into the hands of his enemies, caused her to refuse to let him leave her. Ambition was not the leading trait of the fallen queen.

[[A.D. 1703.]] In the autumn Lord Lovat applied to Mary Beatrice again, and represented affairs in Scotland and Ireland as so favorable to the interest of the prince that she was thoroughly deceived, and without consulting any of her {316}friends, sold all the jewels she had left, and gave the money to this treacherous creature. It was afterwards proved that Lovat was the bribed instrument of Queen Anne's cabinet, by whom all his expenses had been paid, while he pretended to be serving the Prince of Wales. He did a great deal of mischief, but like many knaves, bribed and intrigued until he overstepped the mark, and was arrested the next time he appeared in France. He was shut up at the Castle of Angoulême, where he was kept a close prisoner for several years.

[[A.D. 1704.]] In August Mary Beatrice attended a grand fête at Marli, given by Louis XIV. to celebrate the birth of a great-grandson. The King and Princess Louisa were present also, and were given the places of honor after their mother, who always sat at the right hand of Louis XIV. Poor Mary Beatrice had little heart for festivities of any sort, for she was suffering from an incurable malady which often compelled her to keep her bed for several days at a time, and her son's health was so delicate as to render him a constant source of anxiety to her. He was just seventeen years of age, and the Princess Louisa was thirteen. The latter had inherited all her mother's grace and beauty, and was considered quite an ornament at the French court.

[[A.D. 1705.]] The young king opened a ball at Marli with his sister, and all the time they were dancing the King of France stood as a mark of respect. He would have done the same every time had not the queen-mother, who sat at his side, persuaded him to sit down.

At all the festivals Mary Beatrice was placed between Louis XIV. and her son, while Princess Louisa and the immediate members of the French royal family occupied seats at the same table. But King Louis was not willing to risk more money or men in an attempt to raise an insurrection {317}against Queen Anne's government in Scotland. Even had he consented to do so, his ministers would have opposed it. All this time Godolphin, who in former days had felt so proud at being permitted to hand the queen to her chair in the royal chapel, was in secret correspondence with Mary Beatrice, and constantly flattered her with false hopes. If he had possessed sufficient courage to make a demand of Queen Anne and her cabinet for the payment of the royal widow's dower and all the money due her that William III. had appropriated to his own use, no doubt the claim would have been allowed. But fear lest certain crooked acts of his life might be disclosed rendered him irresolute and anxious to publicly maintain a neutral ground.

[[A.D. 1706.]] When the young king completed his eighteenth year he was treated by every one at the court of St. Germain as their sovereign, though the queen-mother was really the leader there as long as she lived. At this period young James began to take some share in state affairs, and showed no ordinary ability. He was a great favorite with King Louis, who made frequent visits, both public and private at St. Germain, and invited the exiles to every fête he gave at Marli, Versailles, and Trianon.

[[A.D. 1707.]] Notwithstanding all her cares, ill health, and disappointment, Mary Beatrice lived very pleasantly at St. Germain, where on fine summer afternoons she would walk with Louis XIV. in the park, attended by the whole court. It was on such occasions that the queen-mother would ask any favor that she might require at the hands of the monarch, and she was seldom refused. It gratified her to see the enjoyment her children derived from the parties of pleasure they frequently formed for the purpose of gathering flowers and wild strawberries in the neighboring forests, {318}or of rowing on the Seine to Pontalie. It was at that place that the Countess de Grammont lived in a rural château. She was a wealthy lady, who had once been one of the celebrated beauties at the court of Charles II., and now felt pleased to contribute to the happiness of the exiled Stuarts, instead of turning her back on them as many had done. She had known the young king and his sister from infancy, and when they made excursions with their court to her house nothing gave her greater pleasure than to provide banquets and entertainments of every description for them.

[[A.D. 1708.]] The Grande Monarque suddenly changed his mind in the spring, and determined to fit out a fleet, headed by the young king, for the purpose of making a descent on the coast of Scotland. Not a word was said about this matter until all the arrangements were completed; but as soon as the exiled king was informed of the project, he took hasty leave of his mother and sister and set out for Dunkirk, the place of embarkation, ordering his luggage to be sent after him. No sooner had he reached the coast than he was attacked by measles, which detained him several days. Becoming impatient of delay, he was at last carried on board one of the vessels of his fleet; but not before the English had been warned of his approach, and were on the lookout for him.

Sir George Byng commanded the English fleet, and it is said that he captured the "Salisbury," with the prince on board; but this is not positively known. If he did, he saved Queen Anne a great deal of perplexity by permitting his royal prisoner to sail out of the Frith of Forth, where he encountered the French fleet, and return to France, for her majesty certainly would not have known what to do with him.

The prince returned to St. Germain, but several persons

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{321}of high rank were captured and sent to the Tower to await their trial for treason. Mary Beatrice wrote to the French minister, begging him to do what he could for the prisoners, by representing them as officers in the service of King Louis. But meanwhile Queen Anne's cabinet set a price on the head of "the pretended Prince of Wales," as they designated the young man. Queen Anne herself went further, and gave him the title of "the Pretender" in her address to parliament, knowing that such a name would do more to injure his claim to the throne than anything else.

Shortly after his return from his unsuccessful attempt to invade Scotland, the young prince entered the French army, and served in the Low Countries as a volunteer, under the command of the Duke de Vendôme, who esteemed him very highly. As he had not the means to equip a camp in accordance with his rank, the prince called himself the Chevalier de St. George, that being the order with which his royal father had invested him when he was only four years old.

[[A.D. 1709.]] The French met with dreadful defeat at Malplaquet. The Chevalier de St. George fought manfully, and made twelve charges at the head of the French troops, under a continuous fire of six hours from the British. His right arm received a sabre cut, but he did not shrink from his duty; and when the general sent despatches containing an account of the battle, he added: "The Chevalier de St. George behaved himself during the whole action with the utmost valor and energy." Mary Beatrice felt very proud of her son, and returned to St. Germain with her daughter to meet him, after having passed several weeks in complete seclusion at Chaillot convent.

[[A.D. 1710.]] The chevalier made a third campaign with the French army, but returned in bad health and spirits, {322}and spent the following winter with his mother and sister, keeping up their separate courts at St. Germain, as well as their poverty would admit. In the spring he made a tour of France; and during his absence Mary Beatrice retired to Chaillot again, where she was really happier than when compelled to observe court ceremonies. While there the royal family of France did not desert her, for they made her frequent visits, which she returned with her daughter, though it cost her a struggle each time she went to court. She always appeared in her widow's weeds; but the princess went in full court costume.

[[A.D. 1711.]] Shortly after her son's return, Mary Beatrice received a letter from her old friend, de Lauzun, informing her that peace between France and England would probably soon be established, and, if so, Louis XIV. could no longer acknowledge the title or cause of her son. This was sad news indeed, but the poor queen bore it calmly; and upon the heels of this report came assurance from Marlborough that the recall of the prince seemed certain to take place soon. Thus between hope and despair Mary Beatrice was kept in a constant state of excitement.

When we recall the vicissitudes of the queen-mother's life, our admiration of her courage and resignation is changed to surprise that her strength did not succumb, when in her advanced years she was called upon to bear a cruel blow, caused by the death of the darling and pride of her heart, the Princess Louisa.

[[A.D. 1712.]] This beautiful, affectionate, devoted daughter died of small-pox in April, and her brother was ill of the same disease when she was taken. The English at St. Germain were not more disconsolate than were the French at Versailles on account of the death of this young girl, whose charming qualities had rendered her a general favorite. But what must have been the agony of the poor {323}mother, who, after being deprived of the chief solace of her old age, saw her son recover only to be separated from her by the stern decree of circumstances? The negotiations of peace between France and England required the prince to withdraw entirely from the French dominions, and this had only been delayed on account of his illness.

Well, the time came at last when the Chevalier de St. George was compelled to leave St. Germain, and his poor mother was so unhappy at parting with him that she went to Chaillot, where, in company of the nuns, she hoped to find comfort and resignation. She arrived at the convent at seven o'clock in the evening, and burst into tears as she passed through the gate, saying: "This is the first time that I feel no joy in coming to this holy spot; but, my God, I ask not consolation, but the accomplishment of thy divine will!"

She sat down to supper, but ate nothing; and when she retired to her chamber, attended by the three nuns who waited on her, she exclaimed: "At last I may give liberty to my heart and weep for my poor girl." The nuns could not speak, their tears flowed in sympathy with their royal visitor, who said several times between her sobs, "My God, thy will be done," and then added: "Thou hast not waited for my death to despoil me: thou hast done it during my life; but thy will be done."

The next day Mary Beatrice was so ill that her physicians had to be summoned; and as she continued to grow worse, it was feared that she would die at the convent; however, after a few days she recovered.

On the very day that the truce with England was proclaimed in Paris the Chevalier de St. George went over from Livry to bid farewell to his mother. He met her at the church door as she came out; and as he had just been bled in the foot,--a form of medical treatment very popular {324}in those days,--he was lame and leaned on his cane for support. Mary Beatrice was suffering from an attack of gout, which obliged her also to make use of a cane; and the mother and son laughed heartily at the coincidence. The abbess said to the chevalier, "Sire, we hope your majesty will do us the honor to dine with us, as your royal uncle, King Charles, breakfasted when setting out for England."

"That journey will not be yet for me," he replied, drily.

September 7 was fixed for the chevalier's departure from Paris, and he went again to the convent on the previous day to bid a long farewell to his mother, whom he commended to the care of the nuns and her confessor, Father Ruga. Three days later he arrived at the French border, where he was to stop until his future residence should be decided upon.

Mary Beatrice remained at the convent, where she was visited from time to time by the most distinguished people of France; and the king sent her presents of game, fruit, and flowers.

[[A.D 1713.]] A letter from the chevalier, written at the beginning of the following year, informed his mother that he had been most affectionately received at Bar-le-duc by the Duke and Duchess of Lorraine. The latter was a relation, being descended from James I., so it was very pleasing to the queen to hear that any one in whose veins ran Stuart blood should be kind to her son.

It was a sad day for the exiled queen when the peace of Utrecht was signed, for one of the articles stated: "That, to insure forever the peace and repose of Europe and of England, the King of France recognized for himself and his successors the Protestant line of Hanover, and agreed that he who had taken the title of King of Great Britain should remain no longer in France."

Mary Beatrice knew that it grieved King Louis to banish {325}her son, but he was forced by the turn political affairs had taken to do it.

The Jacobites, as the opponents of William and Mary were called in England, never gave up the hope of seeing "the king over the water"--a name they had given to the Chevalier de St. George--restored to the throne, and many of them went to France from time to time on purpose to pay their respects to the queen-mother.

At the close of the year a report reached Mary Beatrice that her son was about to renounce the Catholic faith and become a member of the Church of England; but a letter from him reassured her on that score, for he wrote: "I doubt not that the reports which are in circulation of my having changed my religion have reached you, but you know me too well to be alarmed; and I can assure you that, with the grace of God, you will sooner see me dead than out of the church."

There was a great deal of distress at St. Germain on account of poverty; and as it was the loyal and faithful followers of Mary Beatrice who actually suffered the pangs of hunger at times, she was sorely afflicted on their account.

[[A.D. 1714.]] At last a small part of the money due her in England was ordered to be paid by Queen Anne, which relieved the wants of many for the time; but it was all Mary Beatrice ever received from that quarter, and by no means freed her from debt.

Shortly after this beneficent act Queen Anne died, and the moment the Chevalier de St. George heard it he travelled post-haste, incognito, to Paris to consult with his mother and other friends, having made up his mind to proceed at once to England to assert his claim to the throne. The Duke de Lauzun had hired a small house at Chaillot in his own name for the reception of the royal adventurer, {326}and thither Mary Beatrice went to meet him. He did not dare to venture near St. Germain, because he was too well known there, and preferred to keep his presence in France secret until he could ascertain what Louis XIV. would decide to do. That monarch had already paid dearly for the sympathy he had shown the royal widow and her son; besides, France was in no condition to maintain another war, so his majesty sent his minister, De Torcy, to persuade the Chevalier de St. George to return at once to Lorraine, and ordered at the same time that in case of refusal the young claimant of the British crown was to be compelled to leave France immediately.

Utterly destitute of money, ships, or men, the prince was powerless to take any stand, and meanwhile George I. was proclaimed King of England.

Louis XIV. had yielded to the urgent entreaties of Mary Beatrice in behalf of her son in so far as to command arms to be furnished for ten thousand men, and ships to transport them to Scotland, but before these arrangements were completed his majesty died.

[[A.D. 1715.]] Then a formidable insurrection broke out in Scotland, and King James III., as well as Mary, the queen-mother, were prayed for in the churches. When Mary Beatrice heard this she was in an agony of suspense, because she had had no news of her son for nearly three weeks. She knew that he had left Lorraine, and vague reports had reached her of his being in different parts of France in disguise, when suddenly one day he appeared before her at Chaillot in the habit of a monk. The chevalier spent only twenty-four hours with his mother, and then bade her farewell to set out on a journey fraught with danger. Spies were everywhere, and the identity of the strange monk was soon made known to his enemies. He started from Chaillot in one of the post carriages belonging to the Baron de {327}Breteul, a warm partisan of the Stuarts. The chevalier was still disguised as a monk, and travelled attended by some horsemen who wore the livery of his friend, the baron. At the village of Nonancourt a shabbily dressed old woman stopped the carriage, and going close up to the door said to the disguised occupant: "If you are the King of England go not to the post-house or you are lost, for several villains are waiting there to murder you."

Knowing that a bribe of a hundred thousand pounds had been set on his head by the British government, the chevalier dared not disregard such a piece of intelligence, but he questioned the woman further. She told him that her name was L'Hopital, and added: "I am a lone woman, mistress of the post-house of Nonancourt; I warn you not to approach, because I overheard three Englishmen discussing with some desperate characters of this neighborhood a design to kill a traveller who was to change horses with me to-night on his way to Château Thierry. I drugged their wine, and now they are so intoxicated that I locked them in the house, and came to conduct you to the cottage of our curate, where you will be safe."

The chevalier was struck by the woman's earnestness and simplicity, and resigned himself to her guidance. Having conducted him and his attendants to the house of the village pastor, L'Hopital summoned the magistrate, who, after hearing her story, arrested the three men and shut them up in prison. Two of them proved to be Englishmen and the third a well known French spy.

The next morning the worthy post-mistress sent the chevalier forward in another disguise, with fresh horses that soon carried him to Nantes, where a vessel awaited him, in which he descended the Loire to St. Malo. Finding an English squadron on the watch for him, the royal adventurer, attended by six gentlemen, all dressed as French {328}naval officers, rode on horseback to Dunkirk, where they embarked on a small vessel and arrived at Perth, in Scotland, on the seventh of December.

Meanwhile Mary Beatrice had a severe attack of illness, occasioned by anxiety on her son's account, for she never heard of his arrival on British soil until he had been gone nearly two months.

Without entering into all the painful details of this expedition, it is only necessary for us to say that, although the Scotch rejoiced at the idea of having "the auld Stuarts back again," it resulted, as usual, in defeat.

[[A.D. 1716.]] The Chevalier de St. George returned to France in disguise as before, and spent several days with his mother, although his presence on French soil was interdicted, as we know. To have her son under the same roof with her once more was a satisfaction for which Mary Beatrice had scarcely dared to hope; but her pleasure was short-lived, for the very morning after she had embraced him Lord Bolingbroke, his private secretary, waited on the chevalier to advise his immediate return to Bar. Etiquette required him to ask permission of the Duke of Lorraine, and as it would require several days to receive an answer from that kinsman, the chevalier repaired to Châlons rather than risk a longer stay on forbidden ground. His unsuccessful enterprise in Scotland had rendered his position much worse than it had been before with regard to the European powers, for they dared not offer him an asylum. Even his former friend, the Duke of Lorraine, refused to receive him, and he was advised to go to Sweden, but the spot he fixed upon was the beautiful town of Avignon.

Although the Regent Orleans would neither grant assistance to the Chevalier de St. George nor permit him to remain in France, he treated the widowed queen with every mark of veneration. The British ambassador had remonstrated {329}against her being allowed to remain at St. Germain, but she was too much loved and pitied by all classes of people for the regent to consent to her removal, even had he desired it. Therefore, to her dying day Mary Beatrice maintained the state and title of queen dowager of England, and lived undisturbed at the royal château that King Louis XIV. had placed at her disposal when, as a fugitive, she had sought his protection many years ago.

[[A.D. 1718.]] But the weary pilgrimage of poor Mary Beatrice was drawing to a close. Her last illness attacked her in April, and by the beginning of the following month she knew that her end was near. She desired to receive the last sacraments of the church, and afterwards took leave of all her faithful friends and attendants, thanking them for their services, and desiring all present "to pray for her and for the king, her son, that he might serve God faithfully all his life." This she repeated in a louder tone, fearing that every one in the room, which was full of people, might not have heard.

The dying queen asked to see Marshal Villeroi, the governor of the young King of France, and when he appeared at her bedside sent an earnest appeal to the Regent Orleans and Louis XV., in behalf of her son, whom she was to see no more. She also recommended her dependants to their care, and begged that the regent would not let them perish for want in a foreign land when she was gone.

The next day the good queen expired, in the sixtieth year of her age and the thirtieth of her exile. She had borne her sorrows and misfortunes with true heroism to the last, and her death was worthy of her life.

When the mother of the Regent Orleans announced to her German relatives that Mary Beatrice was dead, she added: "She never in her life did wrong to any one; if {330}you were about to tell her a story about a person, she always said: 'If it be any ill, I beg you not to relate it to me; I do not like histories which attack the reputation.'" It would be well for us who live in a more civilized age to lay this lesson to heart, and emulate the pious example of Mary Beatrice.

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