Anne Hyde (Duchess of York)

Wikipedia

Lady Anne Hyde, Duchess of York (22 March 1638 – 31 March 1671) was the first wife of James, Duke of York (the future King James II of England and VII of Scotland), and the mother of two monarchs, Mary II of England and Scotland and Anne of Great Britain.[1]

[edit] Early years

She was born on 12 March 1637 (Old Style) or 22 March 1638 (New Style)[2], at Windsor, Berkshire, to Frances, daughter of Sir Thomas Aylesbury, and to Sir Edward Hyde (later 1st Earl of Clarendon) of the Hyde of Norbury family.

In 1659, at Breda in the Netherlands, she allegedly married James, then Duke of York, in a secret ceremony. The royal family at this time remained in exile following the English Civil War, and Anne's father served as the loyal Royalist chief adviser to the prospective King Charles II of England, James's elder brother. Anne was Maid of Honour to Mary, Princess Royal and Princess of Orange, sister of Charles and James. It was during this time that James seduced Anne while she was in his sister's service and Charles forced the reluctant James to marry Anne, saying that her strong character would be a positive influence on his weak-willed brother.[3]

[edit] Duchess of York

The couple went through an official marriage ceremony on 3 September 1660, in London, following the English Restoration of the monarchy. Anne was not a beautiful woman; in fact, Samuel Pepys slights her as being downright plain; however the French Ambassador described her as having "courage, cleverness, and energy almost worthy of a King's blood".[4]

Anne and James' first child, Charles, was born less than two months after their marriage, but died in infancy, as did five further sons and daughters. Only two daughters survived: Mary (born 30 April 1662) and Anne (born 6 February 1665). According to the Dictionary of National Biography, she gave birth to "her eighth child, a daughter, on 9 February 1671, but by now her fatal illness, probably breast cancer, was in an advanced stage".[5] A few weeks after the birth of their youngest child, Anne died, aged 33, at St. James's Palace and was buried in Westminster Abbey.

[edit] Catholicism

Anne Hyde, portrait after Sir Peter Lely, circa 1670

Anne Hyde's arms[6]

Late in her life, the Duchess of York secretly converted to Catholicism, much to the horror of her staunchly Anglican family. After her death, sometime about 1672, her widower also converted to the Roman Catholic faith. At the order of James's older brother King Charles, however, James's and Anne's daughters received a Protestant education.

King James suffered deposition in a revolution against his Catholic rule in 1688, and Anne Hyde's daughter Mary and her son-in-law, William of Orange, jointly assumed the throne. After James, no British King or Queen has affirmed belief in the Catholic faith.

After Anne Hyde, no other English woman would marry an heir presumptive or heir apparent to the British throne until the marriage of Lady Diana Spencer to Charles, Prince of Wales in 1981.

[edit] In Film & Television

• In the 2003 mini-series, Charles II: The Power & The Passion, Anne is portrayed by Tabitha Wady

[edit] Sources

This text was last fetched from this Wikipedia page (where you can edit it) on
18 Mar 2010, 6:03pm under the terms of the GFDL.

1893 text

This text was written as a footnote in the 1893 Wheatley transcription of the diary, the same one that is used for the diary entries on this site.

Annotations

• N Vicente on Fri 23 Apr 2004, 07:45pm. Flag this

  duchess of York * portraits to peek at.
  my pick of the day

  http://www.npg.org.uk/live/search/portrait.asp?LinkID=mp04972&rNo=4&role=sit
  or
  8 to choose from
  http://www.npg.org.uk/live/search/person.asp?LinkID=mp04972

  a little history from
  http://www.berkshirehistory.com/bios/ahyde.html

  She was known
  “…Duchess of York better than anyone had dared hope, she was domineering and James II was described as “in all things but his cod-piece is led by the nose by his wife”. …”
  http://worldroots.com/brigitte/royal/bio/james2ofenglandbio.html

• N jeannine on Sun 8 Jan 2006, 06:44pm. Flag this

  From Grammont’s footnotes
  Miss Anne Hyde, eldest daughter of Lord Chancellor Clarendon. King James mentions this marriage in these terms. — “The king at first refused the Duke of York’s marriage with Miss Hyde. Many of the duke’s friends and servants opposed it. The king at last consented, and the Duke of York privately married her, and soon after owned the marriage. Her want of birth was made up by endowments; and her carriage afterwards became her acquired dignity.” Again. “When his sister, the princess royal, came to Paris to see the queen-mother, the Duke of York fell in love with Mrs. Anne Hyde, one of her maids of honour. Besides her person, she had all the qualities proper to inflame a heart less apt to take fire than his, which she managed so well as to bring his passion to such an height, that, between the time he first saw her and the winter before the king’s restoration, he resolved to marry none but her; and promised her to do it: and though, at first, when the duke asked the king his brother for his leave, he refused, and dissuaded him from it, yet at last he opposed it no more, and the duke married her privately, owned it some time after, and was ever after a true friend to the chancellor for several years.” — Macpherson’s State Papers, vol. i.
  http://www.pseudopodium.org/repress/grammont/notes02.html see note 42

References in the diary

1660

Oct: 7, 24, 26
Dec: 10, 16, 21

1661

Jan: 1
Feb: 23
Apr: 20
May: 6
Aug: 15, 27
Nov: 13

1662

Mar: 7
Apr: 13
May: 1
Jun: 18
Sep: 1, 7
Nov: 3
Dec: 31

1663

Jan: 1, 5, 25
Feb: 23
May: 15
Jul: 10, 13, 15
Sep: 30
Oct: 17
Dec: 7, 28, 31

1664

Jan: 4
Jul: 20
Oct: 18

1665

Jan: 23
May: 17
Jul: 27
Aug: 19

1666

Jan: 9
Jul: 11, 12
Aug: 26
Oct: 29
Nov: 4, 15

1667

Jan: 27
Feb: 17