“Things were now come to that pass, and the King, by
assuming to himself a power to make laws void, had so broken the government and
legal administration of it, that it was high time for the nation to look to its
preservation. Admiral Russell had a sister in Holland, and under pretence of
coming to see her, he was desired by some men of great power and interest in
England to wait on the Prince, to acquaint him with the disposition of the
nation, and to know his resolutions what he proposed to do. And the thing was
pressed with greater earnestness at that time, because the Queen’s confinement
of a son, which was generally thought to be an imposture, had dissatisfied
people’s minds more and more.

 The Queen had been for six or seven years in such an ill
state of health, and had long relinquished all prospect of such an increase,
that those who were about her were very well assured she would have no more children. She was at Bath when the King went his progress, and at his
return he called upon her in September, and stayed some few days with her. On
the 6th of October, she came to the King at Windsor, and it was at that lime
that her mother, the Duchess of Modena, made a vow to the Lady of Loretto, that
her daughter, by her means, might have a son ; and the daughter, it was said,
believed in the vitality of the child the very moment her mother made that vow.
After she had expressed this belief, all things about her person were managed
with a mysterious secrecy, into which none were admitted but a few Papists. The
Princess of Orange was not acquainted with it; the Princess of Denmark, with
all her inquisitiveness, could get no certain knowledge of it; and, when it
came to be suspected and bantered in some libels as a cheat and imposture, the
turn the Queen gave it was, that she scorned to satisfy those who suspected her
capable of so black a contrivance.

On Monday in Easter week the Queen, being apprehensive of a
miscarriage, sent for the King, who was then at Rochester viewing some naval
preparations. The Countess of Clarendon was in the bedchamber that same day,
and both heard the Queen often bemoan herself, saying, “Undone, undone,” and
saw some signs of a miscarriage (as Dr. Walgrave testified the same), when the
Countess of Powis ordered her to withdraw, and a woman of the bedchamber
charged her to speak nothing of what she had seen that day. The King at this
time pressed the Princess of Denmark, with a more than usual importunity, and
contrary to the opinion of her friends and physicians, to go to Bath. But she
had not long been there before, pretending that the waters did not agree with
her, she sent word of her intentions to return within a few days.

The Queen had no sooner notice of this, but she was for
going the very next day to be confined at St. James’s (for those about her had
now altered her reckoning to the time the King was with her at Bath), and was
accordingly carried at night from Whitehall, not through the park, as usual,
but by Charing Cross and along the Mall, with a sort of affectation; her train
giving it out that she was going to be confined some saying it would be next
morning, and others affirming it would be of a boy. There was no mistake in the
conjecture, if it was one, for next morning, about nine o’clock, she sent word
to the King that she was in labour. The Queen’ Dowager, the Countess of
Sunderland, and the lady Belasyse came in time; but, it being Trinity Sunday, all the Protestant
ladies about Court were gone to church before the news was let go abroad. The
King brought with him a great many peers and Privy Councillors; and, while they
stood at the further end of the room, the ladies within the alcove, and the
Queen, with the curtains close drawn, and none within them but the mid. wife
and an under-dresser, lay in bed. A warming-pan was brought in, which, not
being looked into, was thought a matter of suspicion afterwards, and, in a very
short time (a little before ten), the Queen cried out as in a strong pain, and
the midwife said aloud she was happily delivered, and gave some indication to
Lady Sunderland, who touched her forehead, a sign previously agreed upon by
which the King was assured that it was a son.

The child was not heard to cry, nor was he shown to any in
the room; but the under-dresser huddled away something in her arms, pretending
more air was necessary, into a dressing room hard by, that had communication
with other apartments; and the King, delaying some minutes to follow her, made it
seem as if he had been minded to give time for some clandestine management. No
satisfaction, in the meantime, was given to the ladies who came in that the
birth was real: the Princess, when she returned from Bath, had no sure conviction
of it; and Chamberlain, the man-midwife, not having been called in to the
labour, as usual, heightened the probability of an imposture. If there was no
imposture the matter, in short, was so unaccountably managed as to give
sufficient grounds of suspicion, and might therefore
an
excuse the nation for
being so cold in their expressions of joy and so formal in their congratulatory
addresses upon this occasion.

But if a child was born, there are further presumptions that
it soon died, and another was put in his room. The Queen’s children were all
naturally very weak, and died young. That very night a man*  of credit overheard it said in an eminent Papist’s house (Brown,
brother to the Viscount Montacute), that “the Prince of \‘ales is dead.” Next
morning all access was denied to the young Prince, and the Countess of
Clarendon herself was not admitted. However, two days after this, a child was
produced, that looked too strong, as most thought, for one so newly born. And
that child, again, fell into such fits, some weeks after, that four physicians
were sent for, and all looked upon him as dead; but when, after dinner, they
were called in again, they were shown a sound lusty child, that had no kind of
illness on him, whom they could not think the same, though they durst not speak
their minds

.”

 *Hemings, an eminent apothecary in St. Martin’s Lane.

This
allegation
rather
undermines
the
arguement
for
the
subsequent
Jacobean
claims
to
the
throne
and
the
attempts
in
the
1715
and
1745
rebellions
to
return
a
Catholic
Stuart
King
to
the
throne.
The
constitutions
of
both
England
and
Scotland
as
well
as
that
for
the
newly
created
United
Kingdom
specifically
precluded
a
Catholic
king.
Yet
seldom
if
ever,
is
the
fact
brought
out
in
the
emotive
and
sentimental
blather
about
Bonnie
Prince
Charlie.
Had
either
of
the
Stuart
pretenders
got
as
far
as
London
the
probability
was
that
a
new
religious
war
would
have
broken
out.
The
certainty
is
that
they
would
not
have
been
able
to
hold
onto
the
throne(s)
without
the
exertion
of
long
term
military
might
to
control
the
masses.
It
is
highly
improbable
that
they
would
ever
have
had
the
support
of
the
majority
of
the
people,
nor
the
finances
(even
with
the
help
of
France
and
Spain)
necessary
for
prolonged
subjugation
of
the
nation.