Anne Hyde, Duchess of York — Story, Setting & Ideas

awyer and the hot soldier, to confer on the state of Scotland and the prospects therein of the master whom they both served with whole-hearted and ungrudging devotion.

There they parted, and Montrose came back to his distracted country to raise anew the standard, to fight his last fight, to be betrayed by the basest of traitors, to die a dishonoured death, as his enemies called it, which was to earn for him, nevertheless, imperishable fame; and Hyde was to toil on steadfastly for long strenuous years, destined to bring him fame and place and wealth, and to bring him likewise fresh exile and bitter disillusion in his age.

After Hyde’s mission as ambassador to Spain with his friend Lord Cottington was accomplished, he was at last able to send for his wife and children to join him in the Low Countries, but before he met them at Antwerp he made a journey to Paris to see the widowed queen, for by this time the tragedy at Whitehall had been consummated, and Hyde’s young charge was king _de jure_ if not _de facto_. Henrietta seems to have been still possessed with the idea that the Chancellor’s influence with her son was adverse to her interests, but she received him civilly on this occasion.

After the disastrous defeat of Worcester in 1651, and his own romantic escape, Charles II. bethought him of Hyde, and sent for him to Paris, keeping him chiefly with him in Flanders on their return there, until his own departure for Germany.[14]

They were together for three years at this time. (“Life of the Earl of Clarendon,” by himself.)

During this time, Mary, Princess Royal of England, and Dowager of Orange, showed herself a firm friend to her father’s old servant, and evinced great kindness to his family, providing them with a house rent free at Breda some time during the autumn of 1653, Breda being then in Spanish territory, and not under the States General.[15]

“Lives of Princesses of England.” M. A. Everett-Green.

Here, then, he lived, surrounded by those dearest to him, as far as one can judge a fairly contented life for the next few years. If, as we are told, his three principles were “a passionate attachment to the religion and polity of the Church of England, a determination to maintain what he considered the true ideal of the English constitution, and a desire for personal advancement,” this last attribute—ambition—could have had little to feed on during those years at Breda.

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IT was at Cranborne Lodge in Windsor Park, the official home of Sir Thomas Aylesbury, that his grandchild, Edward Hyde’s eldest daughter, was born on the 12th March 1637, and baptized by the name of Anne, that of her father’s first wife. It may be mentioned that there is a tradition, though one altogether disproved, that her birthplace was the College Farm at Purton, which is said to have belonged to her paternal grandfather, Henry Hyde.[16]

“Life of Edward, Lord Clarendon,” by Sir Henry Craik.

Of her early childhood nothing has come down to us, but in May 1649 the mother with her five children set out for Antwerp. It was the dreary year when, immediately following the King’s execution, many of the broken and impoverished Cavaliers and their families saw no prospect for the future save in leaving their distracted country, and the Hydes did as their neighbours.

Hyde himself, as we have seen, had been despatched hither and thither in the service of the young King, and when at length he rejoined his family, it was at Breda.

The Princess of Orange was always as staunch a champion of her native country as she was a passionately loving sister to her exiled brothers, and she was ready at all times to extend a welcome to the forlorn and beggared English. Hyde, moreover, had been, as she knew, an absolutely trusted and faithful servant of the slaughtered father whose memory she cherished so fondly, and she lavished every possible attention on him and his family. She was upheld here by the good offices of Daniel O’Neill of the King’s bodyguard, a great friend of Hyde’s, who threw all his influence into the balance in his favour. Mary, we have seen, gave tangible proof of her attachment to the exiled Chancellor, as she generously provided a house at Breda, free of charge, for him and his family. Here then, Hyde, as we have said, set up his household gods. So many of the banished English were coming and going about the Princess Mary’s Court and the person of her brother during many years, that the Chancellor was by no means destitute of old friends.