cabals about the throne, the quarrels of her counsellors and ladies of the bedchamber, and the passionate reproaches of the strongest and most indomitable of female tyrants, ’twas small wonder a dull, ease-loving woman, feeling the burden of her royalty all too wearisome and heavy, should turn with almost pathetic insistence to a man young enough to be her son, attractive enough to be a favourite, high enough to be impeccable, and of such clear wit, strength of will and resource, and power over herself and others as seemed to set him apart from all the rest of those who gathered to clamour about her.  In truth, my lord Duke’s value to her Majesty was founded greatly upon that which had drawn his Grace of Marlborough to him.  He wanted nothing; all the others had some desire to gain, secret or avowed.  The woman who had so longed for unregal feminine intimacy and companionship that with her favoured attendant she had played a comedy of private life—­doffing her queenship and becoming simple “Mrs. Morley,” that with “Mrs. Freeman,” at least, she might forget she was a Queen—­was not formed by Nature to combat with State intrigues and Court duplicities.

“I am given no quiet,” the poor august lady said.  “These people who resign places and demand them, who call meetings and create a ferment, these ladies who vituperate and clamour like deserted lovers, weary me.  Your Grace’s strength brings me repose!”

And as the father had felt sympathy and pity for poor Catherine of Braganza in Charles the Second’s day, so the son felt pity and gave what support he could to poor bullied and bewildered Queen Anne.  To him her queenship was truly the lesser thing, her helpless, somewhat heavy-witted and easily wavering womanhood the greater; and there were those who feared him, for such reasons as few men in his position had been feared before.

His Grace had been but two days in town, and on the morning of the second had driven in his chariot to Kensington, and had an audience upon the private matter already spoken of, and which would in all likelihood take him, despite his wishes, across the Channel and to the French Court.  He might be commanded away at the very moment that he wished most to be on English soil, in London itself.  For howsoever ardent and long hidden a man’s passion, he must, if he be delicate of feeling, await that moment which is ripe for him to speak.  And this he pondered on as his chariot rolled through the streets to bear him to make his first visit to her ladyship of Dunstanwolde.

“I have known and dreamed of her almost all her life,” he thought.  “’Tis but three years since she first saw my face; through the first year she was another man’s wife, and these two last his mourning widow.  When I behold her to day I shall learn much.”