Courting Her Highness

AT LANGLEY MARSH

In the Manor of Langley Marsh Lady Masham had become the gracious chatelaine. Samuel was an ideal lord of the manor; gentle, kindly, he quickly became popular with his tenants, who knew in the neighbourhood that they must not be deceived by the quiet manner of Lady Masham; she it was who ruled the household.

She entertained frequently, yet she appeared to enjoy the simpler pursuits of the country. Her still room occupied some part of her time, and there was also the governing of the servants, the planning of dinner parties and of course, the bringing up of her children. When her son George died she was stricken with grief but she still had her Samuel, named after his father, and there was another son Francis to replace the one she had lost. She had her daughter Anne and looked forward to having more children.

She was avidly interested in the news from Court but she saw it all from a long distance and with each passing month her nostalgia grew less, and there were days when she never thought for a moment of the intimacies of the green closet; she sometimes poured the bohea tea without hearing the echo of a beautiful voice murmuring: “Dear Hill … or dear Masham … you always make it just as I like it.”

Those days were over but they had led to the present, and she must never allow the glory of Court power to obscure the degrading beginning. Abigail, Lady Masham, had come a long way from poverty and indignity and she was not the sort to forget it.

Samuel understood, perhaps more than she had believed he could; he was gentle and unobtrusive.

There came a time when she was restless; this was when she heard that Robert Harley, Lord Oxford was to be impeached for high treason and other crimes and misdemeanours.

Unlike Bolingbroke he had not fled the country. He had stood firm and she was glad that he had. Yet she hoped that he would not be found guilty. What had he done?

She waited for news with trepidation. Samuel knew it. He was watchful of her during that time—watchful and full of tact.

“They cannot call him a criminal for pursuing a policy of which they don’t approve,” pointed out Samuel.

“They will have other charges to bring,” answered Abigail.

And so they had. They accused him of helping the Pretender to which he replied that everything he had done had been sanctioned by the Queen.

But with the fears of rebellion and so much political activity, the Harley affair seemed unimportant. It was shelved and he was left a prisoner in the Tower for two years.

Often Abigail in her comfortable bed would think of him in his prison in the Tower. Then she became pregnant again and his image grew faint.

“You need not think,” Samuel told her, “that you could be involved in his affairs.”

“I am not afraid,” she answered.

And strangely enough she believed Samuel understood that her preoccupation with Harley’s affairs was not due to a fear of being accused with him. It was some subtle connection, some vague relationship between them which she was striving to forget.