And my grandmother replied: “Not of her own free will, Priscilla, but sometimes disaster strikes from unexpected quarters.”

“You are in a strange mood today, mother.”

“Yes,” said my grandmother, “I think it’s because we’re all riding to London. It makes me think of the time when Carlotta eloped.”

“Oh, how thankful I am that is all over.”

“Yes, she is safe with Benjie.”

“And now this child. A baby will sober even Carlotta.”

They lapsed into a comfortable silence and in due course the grey walls of the Tower of London came into sight. We were almost at the end of our journey.

It was always exciting to arrive in London. The streets were teeming with life; there was noise and bustle everywhere; I had never seen so many people as I saw in London—all sorts of people, all different, all, I imagined, leading the sort of lives we of the country could only guess at. There were gentlemen in exaggeratedly elegant garments flashing with what could have been real jewels but might well have been imitation; ladies patched and powdered; vendors of all kinds of objects and apprentices standing at the doors of the shops calling out to passersby to buy their wares. There was the excitement of the river, which was always crowded with craft of all kinds. I could never tire of watching the watermen shouting for customers with the cry of “Next oars” and piloting their passengers from bank to bank and taking them for pleasure trips past the splendours of Westminster to beyond the Tower. I liked the songs they sang; and when they were not singing they were shouting abuse at each other. My mother had never wanted me to use the river. I had heard her say that people forgot their manners and breeding when they stepped into a boat, and even members of the nobility assumed a coarseness which would not have been acceptable to polite company ashore.

Although Carlotta would have called me rather slightingly a country girl, I could not help but be fascinated by the London scene. There was so much to see which we never saw in the country. The coaches which rattled through the streets containing imperious ladies and gentlemen so sumptuously attired fascinated me as did the street shows. One could see Punch and Judy in a booth at Charing Cross; and along Cheapside there were knife swallowers and conjurors and their tricks for the delight of passersby. There were giants and dwarfs performing all sorts of wonders; and the ballad sellers would sing their wares in raucous voices while some pie man would shout to you to come and test his mutton.

The greatest attraction was a hanging at Tyburn, but that was something I had no wish to see—nor should I have been allowed to if I had wanted to. Carlotta had seen a hanging once and she had described it to me—not that she had enjoyed it, I believed, but she could become exasperated with me at times and liked to shock me.

Her lover had taken her to see it because, he had said, she must learn what the world was about. She said it was terrible to see the men to be hanged arriving in a cart, and although she had pretended to look she had her eyes shut. She said there were men and women selling gingerbread, pies, fairings and the dying speeches and confessions of others who had recently met their death in this way.

I had said: “Don’t tell me. I don’t want to hear.”

But she had gone on telling me and, I believed, making it even more gruesome than it actually was.

On other visits to London I had walked with my parents in the Mall, which was delightful, and this fashionable thoroughfare was very much used by members of the respectable nobility. There one paraded and bowed to one’s friends and acquaintances and sometimes stopped and talked and made arrangements to meet at some place. I loved the Mall. My grandfather told me how he had played Pell Mell there several times with King Charles. Nowadays there were flower girls there with their blooms, girls with baskets of oranges, which they proferred to passersby; and one could come face to face with a milkmaid driving her cow and stopping now and then to take milk from the cow so that buyers could be sure of its freshness. Strolling by watching the people was a great excitement to me. I had always enjoyed it.

“You should see it at night,” Carlotta had said to me; and she had described the gallants who went out prowling through the crowds searching for young girls who took their fancy. At night one could see the ladies patched and beribboned and sometimes masked. That was the time to stroll down Pall Mall. “Poor little Damaris! They’ll never allow you to do that.” And when I had said they wouldn’t allow her either she had just laughed at me.

I could never stop thinking of Carlotta for long and here in this city of adventure she seemed closer than ever.

We were all installed in the Eversleigh town house which was not far from St. James’s Palace, and my mother said I should have a good night’s rest for we would be out early the next day to see the beginnings of the coronation ceremonies.

I woke early the next morning, excited to find myself in a strange bed. I went to my window and looked down on the street where people were already gathering. They would come in today from the surrounding country. It was the twenty-third of April, St. George’s Day. The people were very excited. I wondered how the Queen felt. What would one’s reaction be if one were taking a crown which did not by right belong to one. Of course the English would never have a Catholic on the throne. I had heard my grandfather expound at length on that subject. And King James could have retained his crown if he had given up his faith. He refused and lost it, and then we had had Protestant William and Mary, now both dead, and Mary’s sister Anne was our Queen.

The Jacobites would be angry but the mood of the people seemed to indicate that they wanted Anne. Or perhaps they just wanted a coronation.

At eleven o’clock we rode into the streets and saw the Queen on her way from St. James’s Palace to Westminster Hall. She was carried in a sedan chair because she was so troubled with dropsy and swollen feet that she could not walk. She was about thirty-seven years of age, which seemed young to be afflicted with such an infirmity, but she had given birth to so many children and not one of them had survived—the young Duke of Gloucester, on whom all her hopes were set, having died recently—that this had had its effect on her.

Prince George of Denmark, her husband, who was as devoted to her as she was to him, walked before her and he was preceded by the Archbishop of Canterbury.

It was a glittering sight with garter-king-at-arms and the lord mayor and black rod with the high steward of England all in attendance.

The Queen looked calm and surprisingly beautiful in spite of the fact that she was very fat, a condition induced by a lack of exercise and a love of food; on her head was a circle of gold set with diamonds and its simple elegance became her.

We had places in the Abbey and we followed the procession treading our way through the sweet herbs which had been sprinkled on the ground and taking the places allotted to us.

It was an uneasy moment when Thomas Tennison, the Archbishop of Canterbury, presented the Queen to the assembly and asked the question: “Sirs, I here present unto you Queen Anne, undoubted Queen of this realm. Whereas all you that are come this day to do your homages and service, are you willing to do the same?”

It seemed to me that the pause following those words went on for a long time, but that was merely my imagination because I had heard so much talk about the Jacobites.

Then the shout was deafening: “God save Queen Anne.”

The Archbishop had to repeat the question three times after that—for he had to face the east, west, north and south each time he said it.

It was a thrilling moment when the choir began to sing the anthem. “The Queen shall rejoice in Thy strength, oh Lord. Exceeding glad shall she be in Thy salvation. Thou shalt present her with the blessings of goodness and shalt set a crown of pure gold on her head.”

When I heard all those voices singing in unison I felt sure that Anne really was the chosen sovereign and the King Across the Water presented no threat to the peace of the land.

It was sad, though, to see the Queen having to be helped to the altar; but when she made the declaration her voice was loud and clear.

“Will you to the utmost of your power maintain the laws of God, the true profession of the gospel, and the protestant reformed religion established by law …?”

“I promise to do this,” declared Anne firmly.

This was what the people wanted. After all, it was because her father had not been an upholder of the Protestant faith that he had lost his throne.

After that there was the ceremony of the anointing, which was carried out in accordance with the ancient customs. Anne must stand while she was girt with the sword of St. Edward and then she must walk to the altar to offer it there. The spurs were presented to her and she placed them beside the sword on the altar and then she was invested with the ring and the staff.

The ring, my father had told me, was called the wedding ring of England and was engraved with the Cross of St. George. When it was placed on the finger it symbolized that the sovereign was pledged to honour his or her country and offer all the service and devotion of which that sovereign was capable. It is like a marriage, added my father.

I was deeply moved by the ceremony, as one must be, and when the Queen was seated on her chair and the Dean of Westminster brought the crown for the Archbishop of Canterbury to place on her head I joined with fervour in the loyal shout of “God save the Queen.” It was wonderfully inspiring to hear the guns booming out from the turrets of the Abbey and being answered by those of the Tower of London.

I watched the peers led by the Queen’s Consort, the Prince of Denmark, pay their homage to the new Queen by kneeling before her and then kissing her cheek.

We had places at the coronation banquet. My parents had been wondering whether the Queen would attend, for her disability must have made her quite exhausted, but my grandfather immediately replied that she must be there, tired or not. Otherwise those sly Jacobites would be saying she dared not face the traditional challenge of the champion Dymoke.

I enjoyed every moment. I was delighted to be able to gaze on the Queen. I thought she looked very regal and hid her tiredness very well. I liked her husband, who seemed mild and kind and was clearly anxious on her account.

It was after eight before the banquet was over and as the ceremonies had been going on for most of the day, the Queen was clearly relieved to leave for the palace of St. James’s. The crowds cheered wildly as she passed along in her sedan chair.

The banquet in Westminster Hall might be over but the people were going on carousing throughout the night.

My grandfather said we should get home before the streets became too rowdy, as they would later. “If you want to,” he said, “you can watch from the windows.”

This we did.

It was afternoon of the following day. My mother, my grandmother and I had shopped in the morning in the Piazza at Covent Garden, which was crowded with revellers still celebrating the coronation. My mother had admired some violets, one of her favorite flowers, and had meant to buy some, but we turned away, our interest caught by something else, and forgot about them.

As we sat there a young woman went by. She was young and very flamboyantly dressed; but something about her reminded me of Carlotta. It was only a fleeting resemblance of course. She was not to be compared with Carlotta. At that moment a young man walked past and stopped. I realised that he had been following her, that she was aware of it and was now waiting for him to make some proposition.

Of course I knew this sort of behavior was commonplace and that women came out, usually at dusk and at night, with the very object of finding companions, but I had never before seen it so blatantly undertaken.

The two went off together.

The incident had had an effect on me. Chiefly I think because the woman bore a slight resemblance to Carlotta and had brought memories of her. I thought, if she were with us she would not be sitting here looking out. What had she said to me once: “Damaris, you’re a looker-on. Things won’t happen to you. You’ll just watch them happen to other people. Do you know why? It’s because you’re afraid. You always want to be safe, that’s why you’re so dull.”