The Queen's Devotion: The Story of Queen Mary II Read Online Free PDF Page A

parents’ religious inclinations, it was very important that we should not be contaminated by them.
    That was exactly what he had been ordered to do and I realized later that it was a perfectly reasonable arrangement. My father was, at that time, heir to the throne, for it seemed that Queen Catherine was barren; my mother had died in the Catholic faith and my father leaned strongly toward it; and the English were determined never to accept a Catholic king.
    I learned too how the King was exasperated by my father’s attitude toward religion. But my father was a good man, an honest man; he could not deny his faith; he was like one of the martyrs who suffered so much during their lifetimes and were so revered after their deaths. He would have died for his faith—or lose a crown for it. People might say he was a fool. That may have been from their point of view, but he was a good fool.
    He had been told that, if he tried to bring his children up in the Catholic faith, they would be taken from him; and that was why Bishop Compton had been sent to teach us.
    I was quite pleased that a more serious attitude was being taken about our education. It was true enough that we were never overworked, and if we did not wish to attend lessons there was no compulsion to do so. Anne hardly ever sat for them; that was why in later years she had to exert herself just to write a letter. I was different. I liked to learn, and I was happy to work with my French tutor who was delighted with my response.
    Both Anne and I learned to paint and our drawing master caused a certain amount of amusement when he arrived, for he was a dwarf, only three feet ten inches high, and he had a wife who was more or less the same size as he was. He was an excellent miniature painter, very dignified and always behaved with very special decorum.
    I liked Richard Gibson and enjoyed the lessons with him. He was well known throughout the court and he and Mrs. Gibson were a most unusual pair. They were by no means young, having lived through the reign of my murdered grandfather and the days of Oliver Cromwell to the restoration of my uncle Charles. They were great favorites at court.
    They had had a wedding in my grandfather’s court, which had been celebrated in verse by the poet Waller. There had been a banquet in honor of them which the King and my grandmother Queen Henrietta Maria had attended. People marvelled at them, for they must have been nearly sixty years old at this time and they had had nine children, all of whom were of normal size.
    Even Anne enjoyed drawing under Richard Gibson’s tuition.
    And eventually my father became reconciled to the fact that the King had undertaken the education of his daughters.

    THE YEAR AFTER MY MOTHER’S DEATH , baby Catherine and my little brother Edgar, who had been ailing all his brief life, both died. My father was very sad. He had suffered so many misfortunes.
    He took a special delight in being with Anne and me, and our continued good health was a great comfort to him.
    Edgar’s death had made a difference and, growing up as I was, I sensed it. Something had changed. Anne and I were more important, especially myself. It was clear why.
    Queen Catherine, poor lady, continued to be barren. My father, next in line, had lost his wife and there were no remaining sons of the marriage; and after him came his daughters.
    There was a certain amount of whispering about my father’s preoccupation with the Catholic faith, which grew stronger rather than diminished.
    I once heard someone say: “If he must be so, why let the whole world know it?”
    Because he was an honest man, was the answer. There was no deceit in him.
    The people were uneasy and that made them forget his glorious naval victories which at the time had made him so popular. They wanted my father to understand that they would never accept a Catholic king on the throne of England.
    It was for this reason that Anne and I must not only