When Anne left London for Tunbridge on 27 July the Prince was still clinging precariously to life. About a week later she received an urgent message there that the child was undergoing another crisis, and it was thought inevitable that he would die. However, once again the baby confounded all predictions. On next seeing him the doctors found him ‘strangely revived’, and some of them allegedly told Bishop Lloyd of St Asaph they could not believe it was the same child. This gave rise to new suspicions. Some people now propounded the idea that the child who had been smuggled into St James’s Palace on 10 June had died, and that another one had been substituted in its place. It was even suggested that this process had occurred more than once, and ‘a third imposter’ was currently masquerading as the Prince of Wales. Bishop Compton reportedly subscribed to the belief that several babies had been kept in readiness to be produced as needed, and he told Bishop Lloyd that he understood ‘a busy intriguing Papist woman’ had tried to buy the child of a London bricklayer for this purpose. A Jacobite sympathiser would later comment ‘To palm one child upon a nation is certainly a thing very difficult; but to palm three … next to impossible’. Nevertheless, when Bishop Lloyd subsequently discussed these stories with Anne, he received the impression that she gave them some credence.106
In truth, the explanation for the baby’s sudden recovery was perfectly straightforward. The doctors had finally relented and agreed that a wet nurse could feed the baby. ‘Upon sucking, he visibly mended’.107 Once it appeared that the succession issue would not be conveniently resolved by the baby’s death, it became clear that only drastic action could prevent James from implementing his plans. It was at this point that Churchill alerted Anne and George that William was planning to invade, and they gave the project their blessing.
Churchill had not been one of the seven men who signed the invitation to William, but during July the conspirators had approached him and two other leading army officers. Not only did all three give assurances that in the event of invasion the army would not stand by the King, but ‘Churchill did … undertake for Prince George and Princess Anne’, indicating that he could prevail on them to align themselves with William.108
On 28 July Edward Russell wrote William a letter in rudimentary code, referring to Churchill as ‘Mr Roberts’. He explained that the latter had now proffered ‘his utmost service’ to William, and that he was ready to use his influence to good effect. Russell went on, ‘When your Highness thinks the time proper for Mr Roberts’s mistress [the Princess] to know your thoughts, be pleased to let him tell it her; it will be better in my humble opinion than by letter’. Churchill himself wrote to William on 4 August, declaring his intention to conduct himself in accordance with ‘what I owe God and my country’. It cannot have been long after this that Churchill let Anne and George into the secret of what was contemplated. There is no way of knowing whether the couple proved eager or reluctant to pledge support for William, but certainly they now committed themselves to the venture. Presumably Churchill enlisted the aid of his wife in this delicate matter, although she drew a veil over what happened at this time. King James, however, would later contend that Churchill bore sole responsibility for persuading Anne to withdraw her allegiance from him, commenting bitterly, ‘He and he alone has done this. He has corrupted my army. He has corrupted my child’.109
Over the next few weeks all those privy to the conspiracy worked stealthily to bring in more adherents. Churchill and Bishop Compton, possibly assisted by Anne and George themselves, were able to attract the support of people in the Princess’s circle who were naturally of a conservative disposition, but whose patience with James was now exhausted. They included the Duke of Ormonde, Lord Scarsdale, and Anne’s Master of the Horse, Colonel John Berkeley. Clarendon’s son Lord Cornbury was also enlisted, as was another first cousin of the Princess, the Duke of Grafton. Anne and George’s involvement in the plot was reassuring to these individuals, who were instinctive supporters of monarchy. In September Bishop Compton travelled through England to Yorkshire, coordinating arrangements. Although all seven men who had invited William to England had promised to join him when he landed, it was agreed that Compton should be in London so that he could be on hand to take care of the Princess.110
On 17 September Anne returned to London, nursing the secret that the Prince of Orange would soon be invading. To justify leading a retired life she untruthfully gave out that she was pregnant, but she could not avoid all contact with her father and stepmother. After spending the day with them at Windsor on 18 September she travelled back to London that evening with James in his coach, managing not to arouse any suspicions regarding her loyalty.
Throughout August the King had been warned by the French that William of Orange was intending to invade, but he had remained in what the French Minister of the Marine described as ‘a surprising lethargy’. One reason for this was that James believed that William had left it too late in the year to mount such an operation. In addition, as he later acknowledged, ‘it was very long before I could believe that my nephew and son-in-law could be capable of so very ill an undertaking, and so began too late to provide against it’. Only towards the end of September, when despatches arrived from his ambassador in The Hague declaring categorically that the Prince would soon be on his way, did James wake up to the danger. On 23 September Anne told Clarendon that her father was ‘much disordered about the preparations which were making in Holland’, and by the following day James no longer had any doubt that an invasion was imminent.111
The week before, it had been announced that a new Parliament would meet in November, but on 28 September the writs for elections were recalled. On the same day James issued a proclamation warning his subjects of the impending arrival of an ‘armed force of foreigners and strangers’, intent on effecting ‘an absolute conquest of our kingdoms and the utter subduing and subjecting us … to a foreign power’. The proclamation noted sorrowfully that this enterprise was ‘promoted (as we understand, although it may seem almost incredible) by some of our subjects, being persons of … implacable malice and desperate designs’, who sought ‘to embroil this kingdom in blood and ruin’.112
As yet the King still clung to the illusion that his daughters remained loyal to him. Having persuaded himself that Mary had been ignorant of her husband’s intentions, he wrote to her on 28 September saying he hoped the news had surprised her as much as it had him. In Anne’s case, however, her father deemed such appeals superfluous. Although it was claimed in James’s authorised biography that James was aware she was disaffected because she had ‘altered her way of living with the King and Queen for some time’, this was written with the benefit of hindsight.113 During the crisis itself there is no indication that James had any idea she was contemplating treachery.
Everyone’s attention became fixated on the weather, for the Dutch fleet could not sail until the wind changed. In the meantime Clarendon urged Anne to prevail upon her father to bring back loyal Anglicans into government and to make concessions so that people no longer looked to William of Orange to remedy grievances. Both requests were rejected on the grounds that ‘she never spoke to the King on business’. Clarendon said her father would be touched ‘to see her Royal Highness so concerned for him; to which she replied he had no reason to doubt her concern’. The more her uncle ‘pressed her, the more reserved she was; and said she must dress herself, it was almost prayer time’.114 He raised the subject with her several more times prior to William’s landing, but always with the same lack of success.
On 22 October James made a new attempt to shore up his regime. A week earlier his son had been christened James Francis Edward at a Catholic ceremony, and the King now tried to dissipate all doubts about the child’s legitimacy. He summoned an extraordinary meeting of the Privy Council, and all those present at the birth of the Prince were called before it. The King explained that because he was aware that ‘very many do not think this son with which God hath blessed me to be mine’, he had decided to convene this tribunal. Numerous witnesses were then heard, many of whom gave the most explicit evidence. The Protestant Lady Bellasyse, for example, testified that