Lives of the last four princesses of the royal house of Stuart

1652.] FRIENDS AT THE HAGUE. 4JK
success ; " for," continues she, " he must first blind me to •
my own interest, and make me the ungratefullest creature
that ever was, to you." *
But the young widow had more friends in the Hague
and the States, than she imagined, and was able to retain
her dower, the palaces left in her husband's will to her,
and the person of the young heir of Orange. When
she and her mother-in-law met, it was only by accident,
but they were polite to each other.
In one of her lively letters to Sir Charles Cottrell, the
Queen of Bohemia informs him of a misadventure,
which occurred through the awkwardness of her officious
lady in waiting, when the rival dowager Princesses of
Orange, encountered each other, at her house at the Hague.
We must give it in the Queen's own words. " I had a -
great visit upon Saturday last — both my niece and the
Princess-dowager of Orange.f We talked, all three,
together very freely, and the countess would needs have
us drink lemonade, which she brought us, and as she
was giving it she threw it all upon my niece's muff.
Thus you see how adroit she is. She mends daily
the wrong way."
The Princess-royal, notwithstanding the great expense-
her brothers and their friends were to her, always lived
within her income, and conducted herself most prudently.
Indeed, surrounded as she was with spies, hired to report
her sayings and doings, it would have been impossible
for the slightest indiscretion on her part to have passed.
The Princess tells Lady Stanhope of her meeting with
Charles. " He was not," she says, " very well supplied witft
* Letters of King Charles's family, Bodleian Library, Oxford,
t Letter from Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia, to Sir Charles Cottrell,
Hague, this 19th of December, 1652. Bousham MSS., in possession.
of Charles Cottrell Dormers Esq.