I should be inclined to suspect that by some of this double treachery the secret of Princess Anne's repentant letter to her father reached William's ears. She had come readily, or at least without opposition, into that part of the settlement which postponed her succession after the death of Mary, for the remainder of the king's life. It would indeed have been absurd to expect that William was to descend from his throne in her favour; and her opposition could not have been of much avail. But, when the civil list and revenue came to be settled, the tories made a violent effort to secure an income of £70,000 a year to her and her husband. _Parl. Hist._ 492. As this on one hand seemed beyond all fair proportion to the income of the Crown, so the whigs were hardly less unreasonable in contending that she should depend altogether on the king's generosity; especially as by letters patent in the late reign, which they affected to call in question, she had a revenue of about £30,000. In the end, the house resolved to address the king, that he would make the princess's income £50,000 in the whole. This, however, left an irreconcilable enmity, which the artifices of Marlborough and his wife were employed to aggravate. They were accustomed, in the younger sister's little court, to speak of the queen with severity, and of the king with rude and odious epithets. Marlborough, however, went much farther. He brought that narrow and foolish woman into his own dark intrigues with St. Germain's. She wrote to her father, whom she had grossly, and almost openly, charged with imposing a spurious child as Prince of Wales, supplicating his forgiveness, and professing repentance for the part she had taken. _Life of James_, 476; Macpherson's _Papers_, i. 241. If this letter, as cannot seem improbable, became known to William, we shall have a more satisfactory explanation of the queen's invincible resentment toward her sister than can be found in any other part of their history. Mary refused to see the princess on her death-bed; which shows more bitterness than suited her mild and religious temper, if we look only to the public squabbles about the Churchills as its motive. Burnet, 90; _Conduct of Duchess of Marlborough_, 41. But the queen must have deeply felt the unhappy, though necessary, state of enmity in which she was placed towards her father. She had borne a part in a great and glorious enterprise, obedient to a woman's highest duty; and had admirably performed those of the station to which she was called; but still with some violation of natural sentiments, and some liability to the reproach of those who do not fairly estimate the circumstances of her situation: Infelix! utcunque ferant ea facta minores.