look appeared to me to upbraid me. My father soon carried me to

court; there I had no very hard part to act; for, with the
experience I had had of mankind, I could find no great difficulty

in managing a man who liked me, and for whom I not only did not
care but had an utter aversion to: but this aversion he believed

to be virtue; for how credulous is a man who has an inclination
to believe! And I took care sometimes to drop words of cottages

and love, and how happy the woman was who fixed her affections on
a man in such a station of life that she might show her love

without being suspected of hypocrisy or mercenary views. All
this was swallowed very easily by the amorous king, who pushed on

the divorce with the utmost impetuosity, although the affair
lasted a good while, and I remained most part of the time behind

the curtain. Whenever the king mentioned it to me I used such
arguments against it as I thought the most likely to make him the

more eager for it; begging that, unless his conscience was really
touched, he would not on my account give any grief to his

virtuous queen; for in being her handmaid I thought myself highly
honored; and that I would not only forego a crown, but even give

up the pleasure of ever seeing him more, rather than wrong my
royal mistress. This way of talking, joined to his eager desire

to possess my person, convinced the king so strongly of my
exalted merit, that he thought it a meritorious act to displace

the woman (whom he could not have so good an opinion of, because
he was tired of her), and to put me in her place. After about a

year's stay at court, as the king's love to me began to be talked
of, it was thought proper to remove me, that there might be no

umbrage given to the queen's party. I was forced to comply with
this, though greatly against my will; for I was very jealous that

absence might change the king's mind. I retired again with my
father to his country-seat, but it had no longer those charms for

me which I once enjoyed there; for my mind was now too much taken
up with ambition to make room for any other thoughts. During my

stay here, my royal lover often sent gentlemen to me with
messages and letters, which I always answered in the manner I

thought would best bring about my designs, which were to come
back again to court. In all the letters that passed between us

there was something so kingly and commanding in his, and so
deceitful and submissive in mine, that I sometimes could not help

reflecting on the difference betwixt this correspondence and that
with lord Percy; yet I was so pressed forward by the desire of a

crown, I could not think of turning back. In all I wrote I
continually praised his resolution of letting me be at a distance

from him, since at this time it conduced indeed to my honor; but,
what was of ten times more weight with me, I thought it was

necessary for his; and I would sooner suffer anything in the
world than be any means of hurt to him, either in his interest or

reputation. I always gave some hints of ill health, with some
reflections how necessary the peace of the mind was to that of

the body. By these means I brought him to recall me again by the
most absolute command, which I, for a little time, artfully

delayed (for I knew the impatience of his temper would not bear
any contradictions), till he made my father in a manner force me

to what I most wished, with the utmost appearance of reluctance
on my side. When I had gained this point I began to think which

way I could separate the king from the queen, for hitherto they
lived in the same house. The lady Mary, the queen's daughter,

being then about sixteen, I sought for emissaries of her own age
that I could confide in, to instill into her mind disrespectful

thoughts of her father, and make a jest of the tenderness of his
conscience about the divorce. I knew she had naturally strong

passions, and that young people of that age are apt to think
those that pretend to be their friends are really so, and only

speak their minds freely. I afterwards contrived to have every
word she spoke of him carried to the king, who took it all as I

could wish, and fancied those things did not come at first from
the young lady, but from her mother. He would often talk of it

to me, and I agreed with him in his sentiments; but then, as a
great proof of my goodness, I always endeavored to excuse her, by

saying a lady so long time used to be a royal queen might
naturally be a little exasperated with those she fancied would

throw her from that station she so justly deserved. By these
sort of plots I found the way to make the king angry with the

queen; for nothing is easier than to make a man angry with a
woman he wants to be rid of, and who stands in the way between

him and his pleasure; so that now the king, on the pretense of
the queen's obstinacy in a point where his conscience was so

tenderly concerned, parted with her. Everything was now plain
before me; I had nothing farther to do but to let the king alone

to his own desires; and I had no reason to fear, since they had
carried him so far, but that they would urge him on to do

everything I aimed at. I was created marchioness of Pembroke.
This dignity sat very easy on me; for the thoughts of a much

higher title took from me all feeling of this; and I looked upon
being a marchioness as a trifle, not that I saw the bauble in its

true light, but because it fell short of what I had figured to
myself I should soon obtain. The king's desires grew very

impatient, and it was not long before I was privately married to
him. I was no sooner his wife than I found all the queen come

upon me; I felt myself conscious of royalty, and even the faces
of my most intimateacquaintance seemed to me to be quite

strange. I hardly knew them: height had turned my head, and I
was like a man placed on a monument, to whose sight all creatures

at a great distance below him appear like so many little pigmies
crawling about on the earth; and the prospect so greatly

delighted me, that I did not presently consider that in both
cases descending a few steps erected by human hands would place

us in the number of those very pigmies who appeared so
despicable. Our marriage was kept private for some time, for it

was not thought proper to make it public (the affair of the
divorce not being finished) till the birth of my daughter

Elizabeth made it necessary. But all who saw me knew it; for my
manner of speaking and acting was so much changed with my

station, that all around me plainly perceived I was sure I was a
queen. While it was a secret I had yet something to wish for; I

could not be perfectly satisfied till all the world was
acquainted with my fortune: but when my coronation was over, and

I was raised to the height of my ambition, instead of finding
myself happy, I was in reality more miserable than ever; for,

besides that the aversion I had naturally to the king was much
more difficult to dissemble after marriage than before, and grew

into a perfect detestation, my imagination, which had thus warmly
pursued a crown, grew cool when I was in the possession of it,

and gave me time to reflect what mighty matter I had gained by
all this bustle; and I often used to think myself in the case of

the fox-hunter, who, when he has toiled and sweated all day in
the chase as if some unheard-of blessing was to crown his

success, finds at last all he has got by his labor is a stinking
nauseous animal. But my condition was yet worse than his; for he

leaves the loathsomewretch to be torn by his hounds, whilst I
was obliged to fondle mine, and meanly pretend him to be the

object of my love. For the whole time I was in this envied, this
exalted state, I led a continual life of hypocrisy, which I now

know nothing on earth can compensate. I had no companion but the
man I hated. I dared not disclose my sentiments to any person

about me, nor did any one presume to enter into any freedom of
conversation with me; but all who spoke to me talked to the

queen, and not to me; for they would have said just the same
things to a dressed-up puppet, if the king had taken a fancy to

call it his wife. And as I knew every woman in the court was my
enemy, from thinking she had much more right than I had to the

place I filled, I thought myself as unhappy as if I had been
placed in a wild wood, where there was no human creature for me

to speak to, in a continual fear of leaving any traces of my
footsteps, lest I should be found by some dreadfulmonster, or