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godfather. To be godchild of the Pope was no longer possible in England.
A mere primate is but a poor sort of godfather. Anne had to put up with
one, however. It was her own fault. Why was she a Protestant?
Denmark had paid for her virginity (virginitas empta, as the old
charters expressed it) by a dowry of £6,250 a year, secured on the
bailiwick of Wardinburg and the island of Fehmarn. Anne followed,
without conviction, and by routine, the traditions of William. The
English under that royalty born of a revolution possessed as much
liberty as they could lay hands on between the Tower of London, into
which they put orators, and the pillory, into which they put writers.
Anne spoke a little Danish in her private chats with her husband, and a
little French in her private chats with Bolingbroke. Wretched gibberish;
but the height of English fashion, especially at court, was to talk
French. There was never a bon mot but in French. Anne paid a deal of
attention to her coins, especially to copper coins, which are the low
and popular ones; she wanted to cut a great figure on them. Six
farthings were struck during her reign. On the back of the first three
she had merely a throne struck, on the back of the fourth she ordered a
triumphal chariot, and on the back of the sixth a goddess holding a
sword in one hand and an olive branch in the other, with the scroll,
Bello et pace. Her father, James II., was candid and cruel; she was
brutal.
At the same time she was mild at bottom. A contradiction which only
appears such. A fit of anger metamorphosed her. Heat sugar and it will
boil.
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