Anne Hyde, Duchess of York

 

Anne Hyde (1637-71) had two daughters who would become Queens and would have been a Queen Consort herself had she not died before her husband became King.

She was the eldest daughter of Edward Hyde, first Earl of Clarendon, who was a prominent royalist during the reign of King Charles I and an active player in the restoration of King Charles II in 1660.

She originally attracted the attention of James, Duke of York, in 1656 when she was a maid of honour to Mary of Orange (the eldest daughter of King Charles I and the mother of the future King William III). James was Mary’s younger brother and next in line to the throne after his elder brother Charles. It was in honour of James that the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam was renamed New York when it was acquired by the English government in 1664.

James and Anne became more closely acquainted in 1659, although James wanted to end the relationship after Charles was restored to the throne in May 1660. Charles ordered James to marry Anne, who was heavily pregnant, and the wedding took place in September, with Anne’s first child being born in October. Had Anne not been pregnant, it is unlikely that they would have married at all, given that James was now heir presumptive and, as such, would not have been expected to marry a commoner.

Anne took to her new role with dignity and not a little pride, even winning over her mother-in-law Henrietta Maria. As a wife, she was clearly the dominant party and, according to Samuel Pepys, “the Duke of York, in all things but in his amours, is led by the nose by his wife”. He also observed that “the Duchess is not only the proudest woman in the world, but the most expenseful”.

James, like his brother Charles, had dalliances with a number of mistresses, Anne’s response being to have an affair with Henry Sydney, a courtier who would later find a niche in history as the man most responsible for inviting James’s nephew William to succeed him as King when James was exiled in 1688.

Anne was a high-Church Anglican who gradually turned to Catholicism as her preferred religion. It was her influence that led her husband to follow the same course, one which would eventually lead to his unpopularity and being forced to yield the throne after a reign of only three years (1685-88).

However, Anne did not live to see this happen, dying from breast cancer in 1671 at the age of 34. During her marriage she gave birth to eight children, but only two of them lived into adulthood. These were Mary, who married William III and reigned jointly with him as Queen Mary II, and Anne who succeeded her as Queen when William died in 1702.

© John Welford