AN EARLIER QUEEN

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27094, 18 July 1953, Page 3

AN EARLIER QUEEN

POPULAR BIOGRAPHY OF MARY II [Reviewed by A.R.] Mary 11. Queen of England. By Hester ‘ W. Chapman. Jonathan Cape. 279 pp. The year which has witnessed the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II was almost certain to see some attention paid to the earlier queens of England. Of course, it may be sheer coincidence that this biography of Queen Mary II should have appeared in 1953. In aD y case, the occasion of its publication should not be allowed to detract from its own merits, which are considerable. Hester W. Chapman has already been responsible for half a dozen works of fiction, some of which have an historical background, and one biography. Her biography of Queen Mary, the Mary who is, perhaps, best known as the Mary of “William and Mary,” may be best described as a literary portrait painted for the general public. Naturally and necessarily it contains much concerning the history of the seventeenth a student of this period would not be wasting his time in reading this biography—but it is primarily a personal portrait based on wide researches and also owing something to the imagination of the author. “I know very well,” said one of Mary’s enemies, “how unsearchable the Secrets of Princes are, in what an Abyss they lie. and how much too deep to be sounded by our Discourses.” , But Hester Chapman claims in her ' foreword: "Some of her secrets —those of a girl who did not want to be married, of a woman who dreaded being a queen, of a wife who worshipped but never quite understood her husband —have been disclosed in her letters and diaries; others may yet be revealed: one she carried with her to the grave. It is not the purpose of this biography to sound the abyss, but to arrange, if possible in an orderly and pleasing manner, the material that already exists and to insinuate such discourses as seem necessary. Conjecture, hypothesis and theory may then be left to the reader.”

Certainly, the extensive collections of private letters, papers and memoirs which have come down to us from the late seventeenth century and the various biographies of other historical studies relevant to her work have been carefully combed by Miss Chapman, and the story she tells is well told, but it is going too far to claim that conjecture ana hypothesis have been left entirely to the reader. Such a full account of Mary’s life with its vividly sketched vignettes of the young queen in so many roles must owe something to the deductions, if not the airy conjectures, of the writer. Indeed, there is good reason to believe that Hester Chapman lays too much stress on certain letters written by Mary before she married at the age of fifteen, and uses them too fully in creating her portrait of the queen of a later decade.

As Mary II has always remained, a somewhat shadowy figure, largely neglected by the historians in favour of her politically more important husband, William 111, it may not be out of place in this short review to outline the main facts of her life. She was born in 1662, the eldest daughter of the Duke of York, afterwards James 11, and his first wife, Anne Hyde, daughter of Edward Hyde, Ist Earl of Clarendon. The King, Charles 11, had at least twelve children, but, i as none of them were legitimate, he took the keenest interest in the young Mary, whom he ordered to be brought' up as a Protestant. The King’s decision was of the greatest importance in determining the future course of Mary’s life. Not only did it partly determine her marriage to her first cousin, William 111 of Orange-Nassau, but it also meant that she was to resist her father’s attempts when he was king of England, to convert her to Roman Catholicism, and, what was more important, she was to succeed him when the revolution of 1688 came. In April, 1689, four months after James Il’s flight to France, William and Mary were crowned King and Queen Regnant of Great Britain. The arrangement was an unusual one, but it arose out of William’s unwillingness to act as a mere regent or even as prince-consort to his wife, whose title to the throne was so much stronger than his own. He -would not be his wife’s “gentleman’s lacquey,” as he expressed it. It also arose out of Mary’s reluctance to accept responsibilities, and her pleasure in seeing the government of the kingdom “put wholly in the Prince’s hand.” When this subject was being discussed, she said to Danby, “Make me what you please so long as you support the Protestant religion and the liberties of England.” They made her Queen, an office in which she later, during the absences of William in Ireland and Holland, proved herself to be a competent if not great ruler. Certainly she was above the average standard of the House of Stuart, to which she belonged. In December, 1694, she died of the smallpox. This biography touches on the main events of the political history of Mary H’s times, but is much more concerned with the day-to-day doings of Mary herself, from childhood to her death. Her early years were lonely, despite the variety supplied by ecclesiastical and other tutors, as well as by masques and other revels. In her eleventh year Mary developed a passionate attachment for Frances Apsley, a beautiful girl some nine years older than herself. With her, for some 17 years, she conducted an extraordinary correspondence in which she usually addressed Frances as “dear husband” and signed herself “your loving wife.” It was this attachment, together with the state. of mind out of which it sprang, which, made Mary so unhappy about her marriage when, at the age of 15, she was wedded to William of Orange and token to Holland. Once she had tfrown accustomed to her new status and surroundings, she lived 11 happy years in Holland.

At this time Mary was considered to be one of the most beautiful women in Europe. Although very tall—she was 5 feet 11| inches and nearly six inches taller than her rather frail husband—she blossomed with marriage “into a lovely and voluptuous woman.” “Her delicate complexion, long neck, masses of black hair and large dark eyes contrasted pleasantly with the blond comeliness of the Dutch ladies.” Life, too, was pleasantly occupied with painting and music, cards and dancing, needlework and more music. Mary also found time to collect china and rare plants. In most of her palaces she had a poultrygarden and a model dairy. Her interests were varied, but her greatest hone was disappointed; she was unable to secure the Protestant succession by producing a living heir —she miscarried twice and suffered seriously from ill-health. She was not helped by her knowledge that her husband had a mistress in Elizabeth Villiers. Probably Hester Chapman uses her imagination in describing the relationship between husband and wife and between William and Elizabeth but, naturally enough, in this type of biography, this is one of the more interesting sides of the story. In the chapters on Mary II as Queen of England, one does get some useful explanation of the early Jacobite intrigues, of how Mary quarrelled with her sister Anne, and how the Duchess of Marlborough, Sarah Churchill, and tu- r busband were the main cause of mis unfortunate quarrel. But. although it is made clear that the Queen ac♦j herself well when she convicted business of state in the Privy anc l elsewhere during Wiluams absences, the student of history maj regret the emphasis placed on J-omparatively unimportant details to ne neglect of constitutional and politiissues. This biography is, however, intended for the general Public and not for the specialist. It is a readable account of the life of fnrH* 1 - and attractive woman whose KnV? I !® .’t was to be given strange reghJJsibihties and to be cursed by a temperament and physical rn^T 11688 ’ The interest of the reader, ftedi r °u s ed, will rarely flag when this life, which only a woman

could have written so well, of an earlier Queen of England. There is a useful six page bibliography and an equally useful index, but it Is the illustrations which most warrant commendation —there are eight reproductions of paintings by Sir Peter Lely, Kneller and Vandervart. They are in black and white, but they are extremely good.