Royal Sisters

After finishing up Becoming Queen, about the last of the Hanoverians, I was eager to start Ungrateful Daughters: The Stuart Princesses Who Stole Their Father's Crown by Maureen Waller, about the last of the Stuarts (the dynasty immediately prior to the Hanovers). While it was an interesting book about a turbulent time period, it sadly could not hold a candle to the amazing storytelling present in Becoming Queen.

Ungrateful Daughters is nominally about Mary and Anne Stuart (Queen Mary II [1689-1694] and Queen Anne [1702-1714], respectively), the Stuart princesses who claimed the throne in the "Glorious Revolution" after their Catholic father, James II, was forced to flee the country. England was rabidly anti-Catholic, and feared a return to Catholicism and interference from the Pope. James II's desertion of the country helped bring in the Act of Settlement of 1701, forbidding an English monarch to be Catholic or to marry a Catholic. This act applies to the Royal family to this day.

I thought the book would be mostly about the relationship between Mary and Anne and their respective reigns, as well as their involvement in the plot forcing their father to flee the country. However, when I began the book I was confused. The author seemed to be going over the same history again and again. After a quick look at the table of contents, I realized why. Instead of presenting a chronological view of events leading up to James II's desertion, the author was going through the histories of each of the major players of the Glorious Revolution. While this makes sense, I would have preferred a chronological set-up. This would have avoided confusion and the re-telling of the same event from different perspectives with different facts added to the event in each telling.

The opening chapters indicated too that the title of the book was somewhat misleading. Instead of being purely about Mary and Anne, the book was also about the other major players of the time: James II, his Catholic Queen Mary Beatrice, and Mary's cousin and husband William III. While I understand that all of these people are major players in the events surrounding the Glorious Revolution, the incorporation of these people as "main characters" (so to speak) lessened the opportunity to explore fully the relationship between Mary and Anne, which seemed to have been promised in the title. And, while Mary Beatrice had a whole chapter to herself with the beginning of the book, she faded in importance throughout the rest of the story - her role as Catholic figurehead and mother of a Catholic heir may have provoked the Glorious Revolution, but she appeared to not have played a major part in any further events. At any rate, I think I will have to check out a book solely devoted to Mary Beatrice. She comes across as warm and sympathetic, successfully making friends with her young step-daughter Mary while making no headway with Anne.

In fact, Anne does not cut a very nice figure in this book. Her spite and pique and willingness to believe the farcical story of the warming-pan baby appear to be the chief reason why James II was forced to leave the throne. She hated her stepmother and father, refused to acknowledge her half-brother and half-sister, and alienated her sister Mary once Mary was on the throne and in need of comfort and assistance while William was away fighting wars. Anne's reign is even given short shrift: the book ends with a brief discussion of her accession to power after William's death and then closes with her death. Her reign is limited to a discussion of her problems with the imperious Sarah Duchess of Marlborough, which, while interesting, surely cannot be the defining moments of her reign!

Mary comes across as a better figure in the book; warm, kind-hearted, in love with her dour and shy husband William and very fond of her adopted homeland of Holland. (William was Prince of Orange - basically from what would become the Netherlands. He was also Mary's cousin; his mother and her father were siblings.) Mary made a kind and effective ruler but, sadly, left no heirs. The book indicates that she had one miscarriage and then possibly had some sort of infection, rendering her incapable of any further pregnancies. However, Alison Weir's Britain's Royal Families indicates that Mary had 3 miscarriages. I think Weir's work is the definitive work on the British Royal Family and so I defer to it here. Whatever the problem, neither Stuart princess had much luck with pregnancy: Anne had a total of 18 pregnancies, most ending in stillbirths with only 5 children living for any length of time. Her longest-lived son, William Henry Duke of Gloucester, seemed to be developmentally delayed, and died at the age of 11. The fertility problems also affected the previous generation: Anne and Mary's mother, Anne Hyde had 8 children, with only Mary and Anne living past infancy. Mary Beatrice had a total of 12 children: only her two youngest survived into adulthood.

William also makes a good showing in this book - he comes across as intelligent and determined, an excellent battle commander and a man who was truly in love with his wife. He was also shy and taciturn and much preferred the company of his Dutch soldiers than of the English peers. The women at the court, used to Charles II's philandering ways, were especially piqued.

For those intrigued by the "warming-pan" baby mentioned above, I will give you a quick history lesson. James II succeeded to the throne in 1685. At that time, he had been married to his second wife, Mary Beatrice, since 1673. The couple had no living children and their longest-lived child had only lived until she was 5. Mary Beatrice's last pregnancy was in 1684. The heir to the throne was James's eldest daughter by his first marriage, Mary (then married to William the Prince of Orange). James had angered the English by becoming Catholic and marrying a Catholic wife. The English people were worried that James would try to make the country Catholic again. However, Mary, the heir, was staunchly Protestant, so as long as James and Mary Beatrice did not produce an heir (and it seemed unlikely), the Protestant succession was secure. However, Mary Beatrice became pregnant again in 1687 and the Protestant plotters set out to discredit the Queen and her pregnancy. Princess Anne was especially vehement about denying the pregnancy. The Protestant plotters were helped in that the Queen or her physicians erred on the calculation of the Queen's due date, so that she gave birth somewhat unexpectedly and without all of the usual witnesses. (However, there still were plenty of witnesses of both the Catholic and Protestant persuasion.) The resulting child was a boy, named James, the Catholic heir so desperately wanted by both James II and Mary Beatrice. This did not suit the Protestant plotters at all, and the malicious and scurrilous story of the baby in the warming-pan was invented. The theory was that Mary Beatrice's child had died at birth and that a live baby had been smuggled in to the room and was being passed off as young James, the Catholic heir. However, testimony of numerous witnesses showed that this story was patently false. However, it was fervently believed in by both Anne and Mary, as justification to take the throne and secure the Protestant succession away from the Catholics.

James II and Mary Beatrice had a further child in their exile in France, Louisa Maria Theresa, born in 1692. And what of young James, the Catholic heir? After an abortive attempt to reclaim his throne, he settled down to exile in France and Italy. Known as the Old Pretender, he married Maria Casimire Clementina, a Polish Princess, and became the father of The Young Pretender, the lad better known as Bonnie Prince Charlie.

This is a good history book for those who want to learn about the general events of the Glorious Revolution. However, for those seeking to learn more about Mary and Anne as persons and not just princesses, I would suggest that further research is necessary.