On the evening of the fourth day after the defeat at Beachy Head, the Queen, who would abate none of her state during this time of anxiety, but rather kept it more splendidly, as a besieged general will hang out all his flags when his garrison becomes scant, so as to defy and deceive the enemy, held court in the most sumptuous gallery of Whitehall. The land was full of panic, of terror, of mistrust, but the spirit of the people had risen to the need. The city of London had responded finely to the Queen’s appeal; a hundred thousand pounds had been paid into the treasury, she had to-day reviewed the train-bands in Hyde Park and received an address assuring her of the loyalty of the capital. The spirit she showed made her suddenly popular. The distant King and the Dutch were viewed with more favour. Hatred of the French was an emotion powerful enough to overcome all lesser dislikes, and the whole nation, Whig and Tory, Protestant and Catholic, shook with rage at the part Lord Torrington had made the British navy play. It was apparent to all the world that he, irritated by orders he conceived were devised by his rival Russell, had sacrificed the Dutch, whom he believed were so unpopular that no outcry would be raised at their destruction, to the English. Admiral Evertgen, the admiral of the States, had, with heroic valour, fought his ships all day long against the overwhelming armament of France, while the English fleet looked on, and only came forward at nightfall to tow the disabled Dutch hulks away and destroy them at Plymouth. Popular fury rose high. The London crowd would gladly have torn Torrington limb from limb. Mary sent him to the Tower and dispatched a special envoy to the States with the best and most flattering apology she could devise; her very blood burnt with shame that her husband’s people should be thus sacrificed and her own behave so basely; she ordered the wounded Dutch seamen to be tended in the English hospitals, and wrote a letter of compliment to the gallant Evertgen. She had, in every direction, done what she could, and the spirit of England had responded; but the situation was still acute, might yet turn to utter disaster, and though people might shout for her in the street, there was little but enmity, jealousy, and opposition among those by whom she was personally surrounded. Even her own sister was under the influence of the Marlboroughs, her enemy, and the Catholic Queen Dowager had no love for her; it was these two women she was watching as she sat in her lonely weariness beneath a candelabra of fifty coloured candles. Anne, beautiful, but stout and sullen, lacking all vivacity and charm, was making knots near the gilt chair of the little dark Portuguese lady who had been the wife of the second Charles. Catherine very seldom came to court, and would not have been there now, as Mary reflected with a swelling heart, had the last news been of victory instead of defeat.