Though William assigned to the public no reason for exercising his undoubted prerogative by dismissing his servant, Anne had been informed of the truth; and it had been left to her to judge whether an officer who had been guilty of a foul treason was a fit inmate of the palace.  Three weeks passed.  Lady Marlborough still retained her post and her apartments at Whitehall.  Her husband still resided with her; and still the King and Queen gave no sign of displeasure.  At length the haughty and vindictive Countess, emboldened by their patience, determined to brave them face to face, and accompanied her mistress one evening to the drawingroom at Kensington.  This was too much even for the gentle Mary.  She would indeed have expressed her indignation before the crowd which surrounded the card tables, had she not remembered that her sister was in a state which entitles women to peculiar indulgence.  Nothing was said that night; but on the following day a letter from the Queen was delivered to the Princess.  Mary declared that she was unwilling to give pain to a sister whom she loved, and in whom she could easily pass over any ordinary fault; but this was a serious matter.  Lady Marlborough must be dismissed.  While she lived at Whitehall her lord would live there.  Was it proper that a man in his situation should be suffered to make the palace of his injured master his home?  Yet so unwilling was His Majesty to deal severely with the worst offenders, that even this had been borne, and might have been borne longer, had not Anne brought the Countess to defy the King and Queen in their own presence chamber.  “It was unkind,” Mary wrote, “in a sister; it would have been uncivil in an equal; and I need not say that I have more to claim.”  The Princess, in her answer, did not attempt to exculpate or excuse Marlborough, but expressed a firm conviction that his wife was innocent, and implored the Queen not to insist on so heartrending a separation.  “There is no misery,” Anne wrote, “that I cannot resolve to suffer rather than the thoughts of parting from her.”

The Princess sent for her uncle Rochester, and implored him to carry her letter to Kensington, and to be her advocate there.  Rochester declined the office of messenger, and, though he tried to restore harmony between his kinswomen, was by no means disposed to plead the cause of the Churchills.  He had indeed long seen with extreme uneasiness the absolute dominion exercised over his younger niece by that unprincipled pair.  Anne’s expostulation was sent to the Queen by a servant.  The only reply was a message from the Lord Chamberlain, Dorset, commanding Lady Marlborough to leave the palace.  Mrs. Morley would not be separated from Mrs. Freeman.  As to Mr. Morley, all places where he could have his three courses and his three bottles were alike to him.  The Princess and her whole family therefore retired to Sion House, a villa belonging to the Duke of Somerset, and situated on the margin of the Thames.  In