[[A.D. 1684.]] Year by year William of Orange imposed so many acts of cruelty on his wife that at last she was {356}almost afraid to express her opinion on any subject, and by the grossest misrepresentations he turned her heart from her own family, and in every possible way encouraged an intimacy between her and the Duke of Monmouth while he was an exile from England. This was before the Duke of York had ascended the throne. Charles II. had banished Monmouth from his realm; and William's object in being so friendly with him was, that in this enemy of the Duke of York he knew he should find a powerful ally who would further any plan of his, no matter how unscrupulous, by which he meant to prevent James from assuming the crown and usurp his place. The banished duke must have exerted a powerful influence over the mind of the princess in some mysterious way, otherwise it is hard to understand how she could consent to show marks of favor to a man who calumniated her own father. But she was sadly changed by this time, and all the affection she had once entertained for her parents had vanished. She went constantly to hear political sermons preached against her father, who was accused of dreadful crimes, that, whether true or false, should never have been pronounced within the hearing of his daughter. Her life that had been so monotonous became gay in the extreme after the appearance of Monmouth at the Hague; and she danced, flirted, and promenaded with him in a most undignified manner. Her father heard of this conduct, and remonstrated with the princess. She shed tears over his letter, but said, "that the prince was her master and would be obeyed." This was partly true, no doubt; but after being shut up as she had been for several years, she went to the other extreme, and enjoyed the gayety that her husband permitted her to indulge in while he was using her as a tool to further his intrigues with Monmouth. She is certainly to blame for her undignified behavior, but still more for the disrespect {357}she showed her father, who had always been most kind and indulgent to her. In one of his fault-finding letters he wrote his daughter to warn her husband against Monmouth, who, in the event of King Charles's death and his own, would, he assured her, give them a struggle before they could get possession of the throne of Great Britain. Thus we see that James knew Monmouth was not to be trusted, though suspicion with regard to his son-in-law had not yet entered his head.