“The moment I saw her Majesty, I plainly perceived she was uneasy. She stood all the while I was with her, and looked as coldly on me as if her intention was that I should no longer doubt of my loss of her affections. Upon observing what reception I had, I said ‘I was sorry I had happened to come so unseasonably.’ I was making my courtesy to go away, when the Queen, with a great deal of disorder in her face, and without speaking one word, took me by the hand. And when, thereupon, I stooped to kiss hers, she took me up with a very cold embrace, and then, without one kind word, let me go. So strange a treatment of me, after my long and faithful services, and after such repeated assurances from her Majesty of an unalterable affection, made me think that I ought, in justice to myself, as well as in regard to my mistress’s interest, to write to her in the plainest and sincerest manner possible, and expostulate with her upon her change to me, and upon the new counsels by which she seemed to be wholly governed.” The letter addressed on this occasion by the Duchess to the Queen was truly characteristic of the honest mind by which it was framed. There is neither flattery nor violence, in the simple declaration of wounded feeling, expressed in the Duchess’s forcible language; and Queen Anne appears to have been touched by the direct appeal to her best dispositions, which it contains.[121] For some days, indeed, no notice was taken of this remarkable epistle; but after a short time had elapsed, an answer was presented to the Duchess, who found in it symptoms of a relenting spirit in her altered sovereign; and, anxious on account of others, as well as for her own comfort, to avoid an open rupture, “she endeavoured once more to put on as easy an appearance as she could.”[122] Upon a review of the circumstances which attended this notable quarrel, the character of the Duchess appears in a much more favourable light than, from the many defects of her ill-governed mind, could reasonably have been expected. In the first instance, she was generous to her kinswoman, confiding, and lenient. Slow in being aroused to suspicion, her conduct was straightforward and judicious when the truth was forced upon her unwilling conviction. She acted with sincerity, but not with address; and feelings too natural for a courtier to indulge were betrayed in the course of those altercations in which the character of Abigail is displayed in the worst colours. Artful and plausible, yet daring and insolent, according to circumstances—shameless in her ingratitude, the mean and despicable tool of others, with few advantages of education,—that abject but able woman acquired an ascendency over the mind of Anne that was truly astonishing.