It is half ludicrous, half pathetic, in the midst of all the tumult and confusion of the time, to note the constant allusions to the princess’s condition, which recurs whenever she is mentioned. There were always reasons why it should be especially cruel to disturb her, and her state had constantly to be taken into account. It was very natural in such circumstances that she should more and more cling to her stronger friend, and find no comfort out of her presence. “Whatever changes there are in the world, I hope you will never forsake me, and I shall be happy,” she writes during this period of excitement and distress. She herself was weak and not very wise. In a sudden emergency neither she nor her husband were good for much. They could carry on the routine of life well enough, but when unforeseen necessities came they stood helpless and bewildered; but Lady Churchill was quick of wit and full of inexhaustible resource. To her it was always given to know what to do.
It is unnecessary here to enter into the history of what is called the Great Revolution. It is the great modern turning-point of English history, and no doubt it is one of the reasons why we have been exempted in later days from the agitations of desperate and bloody revolutions which have shaken all neighboring nations. Glorious and happy, however, scarcely seem to be fit words to describe this extraordinary event. A more painful era does not exist in history. There is scarcely an individual in the front of affairs who was not guilty of treachery at one time or another. They betrayed one another on every hand; they were perplexed, uncertain, full of continual alarms. The king who went away was a gloomy bigot; the king who came was a cold and melancholy alien. Enthusiasm there was none, nor even conviction, except of the necessity of doing something of a wide-reaching and undeniable change. The part which the ladies at the Cockpit played brings the hurry and excitement of the movement to its crisis. Both in their way were anxious for their respective husbands, absent in the suite of James, and still in his power. When the report came that Lord Feversham had begged of James “on his knees two hours” to order the arrest of Churchill, Mrs. Freeman must have needed all her courage; while the faithful Morley wept, yet tried to emulate the braver woman, wondering in her excitement what her own heavy prince was doing, and eager for William’s advance, which, somehow or other, was to bring peace and quiet. That heavy prince meanwhile was mooning about with the perplexed and unhappy king, uttering out of his blond mustache with an atrocious accent his dull wonder, “Est il possible?” as every new desertion was announced, till mounting heavily one evening after dinner, warmed and encouraged by a good deal of King James’s wine, and riding through the cold and dark, in his turn he deserted too. When this event happened, the excitement at the Cockpit was overwhelming. The princess was “in a great fright.” “She sent for me,” says Lady Churchill, “told me her distress, and declared that rather than see her father, she would jump out of window.” King James was coming back to London, sad and wroth, and perhaps the rumor that he would have her arrested lent additional terrors to the idea of encountering his angry countenance. Lady Churchill went immediately to Bishop Compton, the princess’s early tutor and confidential adviser, and instant means were taken to secure her flight. That very night, after her attendants were in bed, Anne rose in the dark, and with her beloved Sarah’s arm and support stole down the back stairs to where the bishop, in a hackney coach, was waiting for her. Other princesses in similar situations have owned to a thrill of pleasure in such an adventure. No doubt at least she breathed the freer when she was out of the palace where King James with his dark countenance might have come any day to demand from her an account of her husband’s behavior, or to upbraid her with her own want of affection. Anyhow, the sweep of the current had now reached her tremulous feet, and she had no power any more than stronger persons of resisting it.