Sarah heard that, on her way back from Sion, Mary showed some remorse for having been so unbending, but soon afterwards news arrived that convinced the Queen that her tough approach was the right one. Towards the end of April intelligence reports revealed that a Jacobite invasion was about to be launched. A French fleet had been fitted out, with orders to clear the way for James II to cross over from Normandy, where he was waiting with a large army. Having decided that leniency to Anne would be interpreted as weakness, on 27 April the Queen issued an official announcement prohibiting anyone in the royal household from visiting Anne at Sion, and making it plain that anyone who did so could not attend court.
Anne declared herself unmoved by this tightening of the screw. Nevertheless, the ruling left her effectively isolated. One person heard ‘Her highness has but a melancholy court at Sion’, and a foreign diplomat reported that ‘at present there is almost no one who does not condemn her behaviour, apart from declared Jacobites’. Even her own servants were disgruntled at finding themselves stranded at Sion, and some were suspected of passing information back to court. Others did their best to bring about Sarah’s dismissal. In particular, a Mr Maul, who despite having gained a place in Prince George’s household with the Countess’s aid, now tried to persuade his master that Sarah must be sacrificed. George answered ‘he had so much tenderness for the Princess that he could not desire to make her so uneasy as he knew the parting … would do’. Having failed to get his way, Mr Maul went into a sulk. Anne described to Sarah ‘in what ill humour he waited on the Prince and her at dinner, how he used to hurry the meat off the table and never speak one word to ’em’. In revenge Anne ‘took a sort of pleasure to sit at dinner the longer’, which Sarah noted was ‘a thing very unusual with her, who generally the first thing she thinks of is to send her servants to dinner and to make ’em easy’.67
Anne remained adamant that though so many people had shown themselves ‘base and false’, she would ever be constant. She would not hear of Sarah resigning, begging her not to ‘deprive me of one of the greatest comforts of my life’. Insisting that she did not mind living out of London, she told Sarah, ‘Mrs Morley … is so mightily at her ease here that should the [here, a word has been deleted: possibly ‘monsters’] grow good natured and indulge her in everything she could desire, I believe she would be hardly persuaded to leave her retirement – but of these great changes I think there is no great danger’.68
At this juncture, however, with the invasion scare at its height, the outlook dramatically worsened. On 4 May 1692 the Earl of Marlborough was sent to the Tower on suspicion of treason, after an unscrupulous informant concocted evidence that he had been plotting to seize the Queen. Anne was appalled, not just because ‘it is a dismal thing to have one’s friends sent to that place’, but also because she feared that Sarah would be restrained from seeing her by some kind of legal injunction. Before long there were even reports that the Princess herself faced confinement. Anne heard ‘by pretty good hands’ that as soon as the wind turned westerly, enabling the French fleet to sail for England, she and George would be placed under guard.69
Marlborough urged his wife to stay with Anne at Sion, but instead she came to London to work for his release. Having not yet recovered from the illness that had followed her traumatic childbirth, the Princess was left fretting that she could not be on hand to provide comfort. Haunted by the memory of her friend being ‘in so dismal a way when she went from hence’, Anne begged her to look after herself. ‘I fancy asses’ milk would do you good’, she fussed, saying that ‘next to hearing Lord Marlborough were out of his enemies’ power’, the best news she could hope for was that Sarah was bearing up under the strain.70
As tension mounted on account of the expected invasion, the Jacobite Lord Ailesbury sent his wife to Sion in a bid to persuade Anne that she should repeat her flight of 1688 and go over to the enemy. Anne was already in bed when Lady Ailesbury arrived about ten at night, but she agreed to receive her and sent her other ladies out of the room. Suspecting that some were listening at the door, Lady Ailesbury ‘begged of her highness to speak with a low voice’, and then delivered her sensitive message. She explained that in the belief that ‘the King your father, if wind permit, might very well be in twenty-four hours in the kingdom’, her husband had arranged for ‘upwards of 5000 men’ to be on hand to escort the Princess if she made a dash to join the invading forces. Lady Ailesbury reminded Anne that she had ‘exerted herself’ in the same manner in 1688; ‘Why may not you as well get on horseback … for to restore him to what you assisted in taking away from him?’ In his memoirs Lord Ailesbury stated that though Anne ‘seemed melancholy and pensive’, she heard this in a ‘very attentive’ manner. Then, ‘fetching a sigh’ she allegedly declared, ‘Well Madam, tell your Lord that I am ready to do what he can advise me to’. It seems unthinkable, however, that Anne genuinely contemplated taking up Ailesbury’s offer. After giving birth the previous month, she had been severely weakened by a fever, and it was not until 22 May that she described herself as being ‘able to go up and down stairs’. In the circumstances a gruelling cross-country ride would have been quite out of the question.71
On 20 May Anne took an entirely different initiative by asking the Bishop of Worcester to deliver a message to the Queen, requesting permission to pay her respects now that she was strong enough to leave her house. Mary sent back a coruscating reply. ‘’Tis none of my fault we live at this distance’, she spat, ‘and I have endeavoured to show my willingness to do otherwise. And I will do no more. Don’t give yourself any unnecessary trouble, for be assured it is not words can make us live together as we ought. You know what I required of you, and I now tell you, if you doubted it before, that I cannot change my mind but expect to be complied with … You can give me no other marks that will satisfy me’.72
Anne was meditating her next step when she learned that Sarah’s youngest child, a boy of two, had died. Hot on the heels of this came news on 21 May that English warships had defeated the French fleet at the Battle of La Hogue two days earlier, forcing James to abandon his projected invasion. Distracted by her quarrel with the Queen, Anne could barely break off to offer her friend her sympathy. She assured Sarah that she was ‘very sensibly touched’ by her misfortune, ‘knowing very well what it is to lose a child’, but observed that in cases like theirs, when ‘both know one another’s hearts so well … to say any more on this sad subject is but impertinent’. Then, ‘for fear of renewing [Sarah’s] passion too much’, she changed the subject.73
Doubtless hoping that Sarah would find the latest details of her feud with Mary a welcome distraction, Anne informed her of the letter she had just received. ‘I confess I think the more it is told about that I would have waited on the Queen, but that she refused seeing me, it is the best, and therefore I will not scruple saying it to anybody when it comes my way’, she confided to Sarah. ‘Sure never anybody was used so by a sister!’74
The Princess also reported that when news arrived that Jacobite hopes had been dashed by the Battle of La Hogue, Lady Fitzharding and Mr Maul had urged her to congratulate Mary on the victory. Anne wrote that from the first she had been disinclined to do so, ‘and much less since I received this arbitrary letter’. She was pleased to take this dig at Lady Fitzharding, whose relationship with Sarah had already suffered because she had avoided her after Marlborough’s arrest. In October 1692 Anne would note happily, ‘God be thanked ’tis not now in her power to make me so uneasy as she has formerly done’.75
The informer who