Besides slighting Anne and George, the King showed little warmth towards the Marlboroughs. From the start, his attitude towards the two of them was very guarded, and as early as December 1688 he had growled that the couple ‘could not govern him, nor … his wife as they did the Prince and Princess of Denmark’.9 Although Marlborough was made a Privy Councillor and Gentleman of the Bedchamber, William remained impervious to his charm. This did not ease relations between the court at Whitehall and the Cockpit.
Before long Anne took umbrage on another count. Immediately after William and Mary had been proclaimed King and Queen, Anne had requested that she be given the famously luxurious Whitehall apartment formerly occupied by Charles II’s mistress, the Duchess of Portsmouth. This was granted, but the Princess then asked for another set of adjoining rooms for her servants, offering in return to surrender her lodgings at the Cockpit. She was angered to be told that the Earl of Devonshire had first call on the rooms she coveted, and that only if he consented to exchange them for the Cockpit could her wishes be met. Furiously Anne snapped ‘She would then stay where she was, for she would not have my Lord Devonshire’s leavings’.10 She retained the Duchess of Portsmouth’s apartment for the use of her son and his household, remaining herself at the Cockpit. This meant she was one of the most lavishly accommodated persons at court, but the episode left her feeling resentful.
However, what really envenomed relations within the royal family were disagreements over Anne’s allowance. On James II’s departure, payment of this had ceased, and within months the Princess was in debt. Partly this was because of her heavy gambling losses to Sarah amounting, according to one report, to as much as £15,000. However, the Prince and Princess of Denmark’s financial situation was also worsened by a sacrifice that George made at King William’s request. George’s only assets were lands that had once belonged to the Duke of Holstein, but which had been seized by the Danish crown more than a hundred years earlier. In 1689 war looked likely between Denmark and Sweden, until William mediated a settlement. When Sweden demanded that George’s lands should be returned to their original owner, King William personally guaranteed the Prince that if he surrendered them, he would be compensated in full. In July 1689 George ‘immediately and generously signed the release’ of the property, declaring ‘he desired no better security than the assurances his majesty had given him’.11 Much to William’s relief, a Baltic war was thus averted, but the money owing to George would not be paid for years.
Although William was partly responsible for Anne and George’s shortage of cash, he showed little sympathy for their needs. William apparently ‘wondered very much how the Princess could spend £30,000 a year’.12 The Princess was counting on her allowance being vastly increased and may indeed have understood that this had been promised to her when she had agreed William could become King. Months passed without the King giving any indication of how he intended to provide for Anne, causing her grave disquiet. It was true that William’s own financial situation was currently uncertain, as Parliament had only granted the Crown a revenue for one year. Nevertheless, he should at least have discussed the situation with the Princess, and striven to convince her that he would obtain her the best settlement in his power.
As a result the Countess of Marlborough became convinced that the Princess must fight for her rights. Rather than waiting for the King to act, she persuaded her mistress to press for an independent revenue to be settled on her by Parliament. To ensure support in the House of Commons, Sarah formed contacts with Tory Members of Parliament who were disgruntled that William’s first government was composed mainly of Whigs. The King and Queen were shocked by Anne’s readiness to exploit political divisions for her own advantage. When the matter was first raised in Parliament Mary was outraged to see Anne ‘making parties to get a revenue settled’, and an ardent Whig later warned William that the Princess’s intention was to secure herself enough money to be ‘the head of a party against you’.13
Mary at once confronted Anne, asking her ‘What was the meaning of those proceedings?’ When the Princess mumbled that ‘she heard her friends had a mind to make her some settlement, the Queen hastily replied with a very imperious air, “Pray, what friends have you but the King and me?”’ Anne was left fuming and Sarah later recalled that when the Princess recounted what had happened, ‘I never saw her express so much resentment as she did at this usage’.14
Undeterred, Anne and Sarah pressed on with their plans, and in August 1689 the Princess’s supporters in the Commons proposed that she should be awarded an income of £70,000 a year. After a debate, the matter was adjourned and soon afterwards the King prorogued Parliament. He still avoided talking to Anne on the subject of money, and told Mary not to bring it up with her either. Subsequently attempts were made to ensure that the matter was not revived when Parliament reassembled. William and Mary employed Sarah’s great friend Lady Fitzharding (the former Mrs Barbara Berkeley, who had fled London with Anne and Sarah during the Revolution) to apply pressure on Sarah. Lady Fitzharding, who had been reappointed as royal governess upon the birth of the Duke of Gloucester, used a variety of arguments. Having told Sarah she would harm herself and her family if she angered the King and Queen, she then cautioned her that Anne’s interests would be jeopardised if, as was likely, the measure her friend favoured was rejected by Parliament. She warned that in those circumstances William and Mary would consider themselves under no obligation to give Anne anything, and so the Princess would find herself destitute. However, she could not prevail on Sarah to abandon the project, which she pursued with a tenacity that she herself acknowledged verged on the demented.
On 17 December 1689 the matter came before Parliament again, occasioning ‘great heats’ when it was debated in the House of Commons. Lord Eland was one of those who urged that the Princess should be awarded £70,000 a year, though some members willing to confer an independent income on her thought £50,000 a more appropriate figure. Their opponents, ‘being influenced by the King, were for leaving that matter wholly to his Majesty’s discretion’. To those who urged that it was undesirable to give Anne a lot of money at a time when wartime taxation was heavy, Sir Thomas Clarges retorted ‘Is it not seasonable that the Prince and Princess and the Duke of Gloucester should have meat, drink and clothes?’ In response to concerns that the Princess could pose a threat to the King if he had no control over her finances, one member commented that disturbances were usually caused by ‘persons not at their ease; let the Princess be at ease’. William would have done well to heed these words, but the Solicitor General, John Somers, came closer to his master’s views when he growled, ‘granting a revenue by act of Parliament to a subject is always dangerous’.15
The next morning the King sent the Earl of Shrewsbury to urge Sarah to abandon her campaign. Shrewsbury tried first to enlist the Earl of Marlborough on his side but he refused point blank, confiding that his wife ‘was like a mad woman’ in her determination to push the measure through. When Shrewsbury saw Sarah herself he informed her that William was prepared to settle Anne’s debts and to give her £50,000 a year, although as this would not have statutory authority, it could be withheld if the King saw fit. Shrewsbury promised to resign if William reneged on his word, but Sarah correctly observed that his doing so would scarcely help the Princess. He then spoke directly to Anne, but found her equally unaccommodating. Appearing somewhat flustered, she told him ‘she had met with so little encouragement from the King that she could expect no kindness from him and therefore would stick to her friends’ in Parliament.16
With another parliamentary debate on the issue scheduled for that afternoon, the King opted for a partial retreat. The Comptroller of the Royal Household announced in the Commons that the King was content for Anne to be voted an allowance by Parliament, and moved that